On interval fuzzy S-implications This paper presents an analysis of interval-valued S-implications and interval-valued automorphisms, showing a way to obtain an interval-valued S-implication from two S-implications, such that the resulting interval-valued S-implication is said to be obtainable. Some consequences of that are: (1) the resulting interval-valued S-implication satisfies the correctness property, and (2) some important properties of usual S-implications are preserved by such interval representations. A relation between S-implications and interval-valued S-implications is outlined, showing that the action of an interval-valued automorphism on an interval-valued S-implication produces another interval-valued S-implication.

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

fuzzy logic
interval mathematics
interval representation
interval fuzzy implication
interval s-implication
interval automorphism


Oscillations of higher-order linear difference equations Consider the higher-order linear difference equation Delta (m+1)x(n-1) + p(n)x(n) = 0, n = 0, 1, 2,..., (*) where m greater than or equal to 1 is an odd integer, and {p(n)} is a sequence of nonnegative real numbers. We obtain several new sufficient conditions for the oscillation of all solutions of equation (*). Examples which dwell upon the importance of our results are also included. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


A self-adaptive local search algorithm for the classical vehicle routing problem The purpose of this study is introduction of a local search heuristic free from parameter tuning to solve classical vehicle routing problem (VRP). The VRP can be described as the problem of designing optimal delivery of routes from one depot to a number of customers under the limitations of side constraints to minimize the total traveling cost. The importance of this problem comes from practical as well as theoretical point of view. The proposed heuristic, self-adaptive local search (SALS), has one generic parameter which is learnt throughout the search process. Computational experiments confirm that SALS gives high qualified solutions to the VRP and ensures at least an average performance, in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, on the problem when compared with the recent and sophisticated approaches from the literature. The most important advantage of the proposed heuristic is the application convenience for the end-users. SALS also is flexible that can be easily applied to variations of VRP. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Efficient temporal counting with bounded error This paper studies aggregate search in transaction time databases. Specifically, each object in such a database can be modeled as a horizontal segment, whose y-projection is its search key, and its x-projection represents the period when the key was valid in history. Given a query timestamp q(t) and a key range (q) over right arrow (k), a count-query retrieves the number of objects that are alive at qt, and their keys fall in (q) over right arrow (k). We provide a method that accurately answers such queries, with error less than 1/epsilon + epsilon . N(alive)(q(t)), where Nalive(qt) is the number of objects alive at time qt, and e is any constant in (0, 1]. Denoting the disk page size as B, and n = N/B, our technique requires O(n) space, processes any query in O(log(B) n) time, and supports each update in O(log(B) n) amortized I/Os. As demonstrated by extensive experiments, the proposed solutions guarantee query results with extremely high precision (median relative error below 5%), while consuming only a fraction of the space occupied by the existing approaches that promise precise results.

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

temporal database
approximate query processing


Consequence of Two-handed Manipulation on Speed, Precision and Perception on Spatial Input Task in 3D Modelling Applications We developed a free form deformation application for an immersive environment in which users can interact freely using data gloves. To ensure better comfort and performances, we added the possibility of bi-manual interaction in our environment. To investigate the actual gain obtained by this interaction technique we designed an experimental protocol based on spatial input tasks. In our experiment, we asked our subjects to use only the dominant hand to achieve the different tasks or, on the contrary, to use both hands. Comparison of users' performances - i-e, time and precision - shows that, without proper training, executing a task using two hands can be more time consuming than using one hand. In fact, the degree of symmetry of the tasks performed with each hand seem to have a significant impact on whether or not users take advantage of bi-manual possibilities. Our results also show that bi-manual interaction can introduce proprioceptive cues that can be of help to achieve more precision in the placement or selection only when proper visual information are missing. In this study, we also wanted to investigate if bi-manual interaction can help users in their perception of the task. Even if there aren't statistically significant, our results shows that using symmetric bi-manual interaction, proprioception cues can improve user's perception.

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

user interfaces
virtual reality
bi-manual interaction


A new framework for urban sustainability assessments: Linking complexity, information and policy Urban systems emerge as distinct entities from the complex interactions among social, economic and cultural attributes, and information, energy and material stocks and flows that operate on different temporal and spatial scales. Such complexity poses a challenge to identify the causes of urban environmental problems and how to address them without causing greater deterioration. Planning has traditionally focused on regulating the location and intensity of urban activities to avoid environmental degradation, often based on assumptions that are rarely revisited and producing ambiguous effects. The key intellectual challenge for urban policy-makers is a fuller understanding of the complexity of urban systems and their environment. We address this challenge by developing an assessment framework with two main components: (1) a simple agent-based model of a hypothetical urbanizing area that integrates data on spatial economic and policy decisions, energy and fuel use, air pollution emissions and assimilation, to test how residential and policy decisions affect urban form, consumption and pollution; (2) an information index to define the degree of order and sustainability of the hypothetical urban system in the different scenarios, to determine whether specific policy and individual decisions contribute to the sustainability of the entire urban system or to its collapse.

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

agent-based modelling
fisher information index
environmental assessment


Transparent Parallelization of Constraint Programming The availability of commodity multicore and multiprocessor machines and the inherent parallelism in constraint programming search offer significant opportunities for constraint programming. These opportunities also present a fundamental challenge: how to exploit parallelism transparently to speed up constraint programs. This paper shows how to parallelize constraint programs transparently without changes to the sequential code. The main technical idea consists of automatically lifting a sequential exploration strategy into its parallel counterpart, allowing workers to share and steal subproblems. Experimental results show that the parallel implementation may produce significant speedups on multicore machines.

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

parallel computing
distributed computing
programming languages


Interval feature extraction for classification of event-related potentials (ERP) in EEG data analysis Event-related potential data can be used to index perceptual and cognitive operations. However, they are typically high-dimensional and noisy. This study examines the original raw data and six feature-extraction methods as a pre-processing step before classification. Four traditionally used feature-extraction methods were considered: principal component analysis, independent component analysis, auto-regression, and wavelets. We add to these a less well-known method called interval feature extraction. It overproduces features from the ERP signal and then eliminates irrelevant and redundant features by the fast correlation-based filter. To make the comparisons fair, the other feature-extraction methods were also run with the filter. An experiment on two EEG datasets (four classification scenarios) was carried out to examine the classification accuracy of four classifiers on the extracted features: support vector machines with linear and perceptron kernel, the nearest neighbour classifier and the random forest ensemble method. The interval features led to the best classification accuracy in most of the configurations, specifically when used with the Random Forest classifier ensemble.

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

eeg
feature extraction
interval features

pattern recognition
event-related potentials (erp)
fast correlation-based filter (fcbf)


Development of a rescheduling system for the optimal operation of pipeless plants This paper focuses on the development of a rescheduling system to cope with unexpected process events in pipeless plants. Since the pipeless batch plant relies on mobile vessels for the transfer of material from one stage of processing to another, the process variations may be more often than any other batch processes. The process deviations from original schedule are mainly process time variations. This rescheduling system for the pipeless batch plant overcomes the processing time variations by adjusting the starting time of reactions and determining the sequence of equipment to be processed. So it treats the earliness of operations as well as tardiness of reactions efficiently. In this study, the rescheduling system is implemented and two main approaches for the solution of various cases are proposed.

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

rescheduling system
pipeless batch plant
mobile vessels


Finite-time H? control for a class of nonlinear system with time-varying delay This paper is concerned with the finite-time H? H ? control for a class of nonlinear system with time-varying delay, which can be represented by TakagiSugeno (TS) fuzzy system. First, a new integral inequality, which is less conservative than other existing ones, is established by introducing some free fuzzy weighting matrices. Based on a new fuzzy LyapunovKrasovskii function, delay-dependent finite-time boundedness (FTB) criterion and H? H ? finite-time boundedness (H? H ? FTB) criterion are derived for the open-loop fuzzy time-delay system. Then, some delay-dependent finite-time stabilization conditions are given by designing a memory state feedback controller, which is based on the so-called parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme. Finally, an example is provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed design approach.

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

time-delay system
finite-time boundedness
h? h ? fuzzy control h? h ? h? h ? h ?


Building intelligent collaborative interface agents with the ICAGENT development framework This paper describes the implementation of intelligent collaborative interface agents using the intelligent collaborative agent (ICAGENT) development framework. In particular, the paper presents the implementation of a collaborative interface agent that acts as a tutor in the context of an educational software application. The agent deliberates socially with users following the SharedPlans model of collaborative activity. Social deliberation requires interface agents to make their desires and intentions clear to the application users, being in constant communication with them, to understand the context of their activity and to reconcile their own and users' desires in the overall context of action. Reconciliation of users' desires allows agents to recognize the situations where users need help. The paper briefly presents the ICAGENT development framework, describes the implementation of the interface agent, and discusses an example of the behavior of the agent during a collaboration session.

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

collaboration
social deliberation
sharedplans


A novel GPS-based Quorum Hybrid Routing Algorithm (GPS-QHRA) for cellular-based ad hoc wireless networks This work presents a novel GPS-based Quorum Hybrid Routing Algorithm (GPS-QHRA), which is a cluster-based approach protocol for cellular-based ad hoc wireless networks. Each node equipped with GPS knows in which zones they are located. Based on the results reported in [12], cellular-based management can achieve better behavior in reducing the number of flooding messages, better bandwidth management and a smaller hops. A table-driven routing protocol is used for intra-cluster routing, and an on-demand routing protocol is used for inter-cluster routing. The node with the highest connectivity is selected as a cluster head in each zone to simulate the function of the Home Location Register (HLR) in a GSM system. It is called the Location Database Node (LDN). In the GPS-QHRA, LDNs are formed as part of a Uniform Quorum] System (UQS), and they are disjoint and distinguishable from each other. This algorithm is divided into three parts: (i) a GPS-based routing algorithm, (ii) a mobility management scheme searching for a new Substitute node while maintaining the LDNs, and (iii) a fault tolerance strategy that is initiated under specific circumstances. Simulation results show that the GPS-QHRA better optimizes the flooding overhead and the mean paths in highly mobility environments compared with Zone Hierarchical Link State (ZHLS) algorithm, which partitions each zone into a square and does not adopt the cluster head concept.

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


Computer-mediated persuasion in online reviews: Statistical versus narrative evidence The current study examined the effects of online product reviews on individuals credibility perceptions of the reviews and their attitudes about the product targeted in the reviews. Study 1 used a 2 (review type: statistical and narrative)2 (review valence: negative and positive) design, and study 2 used a 2 (statistical review valence: positive and negative)2 (narrative review valence: positive and negative) design. The findings of study 1 were consistent with those of study 2 and indicated that negative statistical reviews were perceived as more credible than negative narrative reviews, while the credibility of positive statistical reviews did not differ from that of positive narrative reviews. On the other hand, statistical reviews and narrative reviews did not differ in terms of affecting individuals attitudes about the product. The current study also found that the vividness and valence of each review type had varying effects on review credibility and attitudes about the product. The implications of these and other findings are discussed in detail in the paper.

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

narrative evidence
review valence
credibility
attitudes


Non-linear multivariate and multiscale monitoring and signal denoising strategy using Kernel Principal Component Analysis combined with Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition method The article presents a novel non-linear multivariate and multiscale statistical process monitoring and signal denoising method which combines the strengths of the Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA) non-linear multivariate monitoring approach with the benefits of Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) to handle multiscale system dynamics. The proposed method which enables us to cope with complex even severe non-linear systems with a wide dynamic range was named the EEMD-based multiscale KPCA (EEMD-MSKPCA). The method is quite general in nature and could be used in different areas for various tasks even without any really deep understanding of the nature of the system under consideration. Its efficiency was first demonstrated by an illustrative example, after which the applicability for the task of bearing fault detection, diagnosis and signal denosing was tested on simulated as well as actual vibration and acoustic emission (AE) signals measured on purpose-built large-size low-speed bearing test stand. The positive results obtained indicate that the proposed EEMD-MSKPCA method provides a promising tool for tackling non-linear multiscale data which present a convolved picture of many events occupying different regions in the timefrequency plane.

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

vibration
acoustic emission
kernel principal component analysis
ensemble empirical mode decomposition


A Generalized Finite Element Method for hydro-mechanically coupled analysis of hydraulic fracturing problems using space-time variant enrichment functions A novel Generalized Finite Element Method (GFEM) for hydraulic fracturing problems is proposed. Physically motivated enrichment functions are used to approximate the liquid pressure near cracks. The enrichment functions are adopted from the analytical solution of 1D consolidation type problems. The enrichment functions are space and time variant. A considerable reduction of the approximation error compared to existing FEM and XFEM models is obtained.

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

generalized finite element method (gfem)


minimum-link paths among obstacles in the plane Given a set of nonintersecting polygonal obstacles in the plane, the link distance between two points s and t is the minimum number of edges required to form a polygonal path connecting s to t that avoids all obstacles. We present an algorithm that computes the link distance (and a corresponding minimum-link path) between two points in time &Ogr; ( E&agr; ( n ) log 2 n ) (and space &Ogr; ( E )), where n is the total number of edges of the obstacles, E is the size of the visibility graph, and &agr; ( n ) denotes the extremely slowly growing inverse of Ackermann's function.

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

distance graph algorithm space visibility size


On a homogeneous algorithm for the monotone complementarity problem We present a generalization of a homogeneous self-dual linear programming (LP) algorithm to solving the monotone complementarity problem (MCP). The algorithm does not need to use any "big-M" parameter or two-phase method, and it generates either a solution converging towards feasibility and complementarity simultaneously or a certificate proving infeasibility. Moreover, if the MCP is polynomially solvable with an interior feasible starting point, then it can be polynomially solved without using or knowing such information at all. To our knowledge, this is the first interior-point and infeasible-starting algorithm for solving the MCP that possesses these desired features. Preliminary computational results are presented.

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

homogeneous and self-dual
infeasible-starting algorithm


spatial pyramid based histogram representation for visual tracking with partial occlusion We propose a pyramid based representation together with a partial weighted similarity measure to address the partial occlusion problem in visual tracking. In current histogram based tracking methods, due to the lost of spatial information, occlusion cannot be handled very well. In this paper, the spatial pyramid based histogram representation is introduced into the Bayesian inference framework, in which approximate global spatial information is retained and multi-scale information is explored. Correspondingly, considering that the visible parts of a occluded target with the high resolution should have more contribution to the similarity judgment, a partial weighted similarity measure is proposed, in which more confidence is assigned to the better matched parts under the finer scale. The Bayesian inference framework i.e. particle filter then leads the sample distributions to propagate over time. Experiments in different challenging sequences show that our algorithm is superior to the state of art histogram based methods, especially when occlusion happens and a little appearance change exists.

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


A comparative methodology for the reconstruction of digital events using windows restore points This paper describes a methodology for the reconstruction of digital events by comparing states captured in time. Microsoft Windows Restore Point data is used to illustrate how to organize captured state information into a useful timeline of user and system events. It is shown that by comparing consecutive states, events can be uncovered that would otherwise be unknown by analysis of the current system state alone. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

event reconstruction
event timeline
digital forensics
comparative analysis
registry


canonical processes of media production Creating compelling multimedia presentations is a complex task. It involves the capture of media assets, then editing and authoring these into one or more final presentations. Tools tend to concentrate on a single aspect to reduce the complexity of the interface. While these tools are tailored to support a specific task, very often there is no consideration for input requirements for the next tool down the line. Each tool has the potential for adding semantic annotations to the media asset, describing relevant aspects of the asset and why it is being used for a particular purpose. These annotations need to be included in the information handed on to the next tool.We specify inputs and outputs to a number of canonical processes we identify in multimedia production. We do not specify the intricate workings of the processes, but concentrate on the information flow between them. Our claim is that by specifying the inputs and outputs required for processes that occur in widely differing uses of media we can identify a small set of building blocks that can be supported in semantically aware media production tools.

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


Permutation based design of orthogonal block transforms and filter banks In this work, a new efficient design technique for orthogonal block transforms, lapped orthogonal transforms and 4-channel perfect reconstruction subband filter banks is developed. The technique consists of permutation and sign change operations on a reference vector. This approach can be thought of as a generalization of the Hadamard transform in the sense that the reference vector h(0) (which will be a prototype low-pass filter also forming one of the basis functions of the transform) will in general have components that are not identically 1's. The design technique, a constructive method based on Hadamard arrays, provides a convenient means to explore new transforms. The merit of our method is that the number of unknowns and equality constraints are both reduced significantly which render the design procedure much more feasible while guaranteeing at the same time linear phase.

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

block transform
lapped transform
subband filter bank
paraunitary
hadamard array
coding gain


Tool use in computer-based learning environments: towards a research framework Computer-based learning environments often confront learners with a number of tools, i.e. non-embedded support devices. Such environments assume learners to be good judges of their own learning needs. However, research indicates that students do not always make adequate choices for their learning process. This especially becomes an issue with the use of open learning environments, which are assumed to foster the acquisition of complex problem solving skills. Such open learning environments offer students tools to support their learning. Consequently, it is needed to understand factors that influence tool use and acquire insight in learning effects of tool use. Both issues are addressed in this contribution. A review of the existing literature has been undertaken by performing a search on the Web of Science and the PsycInfo database. Results indicate that there is some evidence for learner, tool and task characteristics to influence tool use. No clear indication was found for a learning effect of tool use. The conclusion proposes a research framework for the systematic study of tools.

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

computer-based learning environments
literature review


In Vivo Expression of B:9-23 Peptide/I-Ag7 Complex May Abrogate the Inhibition of Diabetes Induced by RGD-Fiber-Mutant Adenovirus in NOD Mice Insulin B chain peptide B

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

b:9-23 peptide
rgd-fiber-mutant adenovirus


Equivalence classes, symmetries and solutions of linear third-order differential equations The subject of this article are third-order differential equations that may be linearized by a variable change. To this end, at first the equivalence classes of linear equations are completely described. Thereafter it is shown how they combine into symmetry classes that are determined by the various symmetry types. An algorithm is presented allowing it to transform linearizable equations by hyperexponential transformations into linear form from which solutions may be obtained more easily. Several examples are worked out in detail.

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

lie symmetries
equivalence problems
computer algebra


Spatiotemporal patterns of current source density in the prefrontal cortex of a behaving monkey One of the fundamental missions of neuroscience is to explore the input and output properties of neuronal networks to reveal their functional significance. However, it is technically difficult to examine synaptic inputs into neuronal circuits in behaving animals. Here, we conducted current source density (CSD) analysis on local field potentials (LFPs) recorded simultaneously using a multi-contact electrode in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of a behaving monkey. We observed current sink task-dependent spatiotemporal patterns considered to reflect the synaptic input to neurons adjacent to the recording site. Specifically, the inferior convex current sink in the PFC was dominant during the delay period, whereas the current sink was prominent in the principal sulcus during the sample cue and test cue periods. Surprisingly, sulcus current sink patterns were spatially periodic, which corresponds to the columnar structure suggested by previous anatomical studies. The approaches used in the current study will help to elucidate how the PFC network performs executive functions according to its synaptic input.

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

local field potential
current source density analysis


Remote access virtual private network architecture for high-speed wireless internet users The new emerging, broadband wireless network (BWN) technologies with high-speed wireless internet access promotes corporations to provide their roaming employees with high-speed wireless access to the computing resources on their corporate networks. Thus, a value added service to broadband wireless network is the remote access virtual private network (VPN), where the corporate legitimate users can connect to their offices wirelessly from different locations and get secure services as if they were connected to the corporate local area network (LAN). One of the most important challenges is to block out illegitimate user requests, which are wirelessly received. to protect corporate privacy. Registration (adding new users) and authentication (accepting current users) functions should be implemented with highly secured wireless connection. These functions are accomplished by encapsulating (i.e. tunneling) the user information in a secured form to the corporate authentication server through the internet traffic. The corporate authentication server then grants or denies the user access. In this paper, we propose a new operational design algorithm for remote access wireless VPN authentication and registration protocols that depends on modifying tunnel establishment as compared to existing dial-in VPN mechanisms. The modifications proposed in this paper are made to support successful deployment of the remote access VPN services over high-speed wireless network. The paper presents an overview of two tunneling approaches using Layer 3 and Layer 2 separately for implementing these functions. Then we propose how we establish the tunnel in both approaches, and compare it to similar operation steps previously reported for the dial-in VPN protocols. The proposed algorithms are distinguished from previously developed dial-in VPN protocols by using L2TP and IPSEC instead of mobile IP. It is also shown that the steps involved in the establishment of the tunnel are functionally different and more appropriate to our applications using communication environment of the BWN. Finally, a qualitative analysis of the added functions, and a comparison between L2TP-based and IPSec-based approaches are established. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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

high-speed wireless
tunneling protocols
portability


Optimal algorithms for online single machine scheduling with deteriorating jobs In many realistic scenarios of job processing, one job consumes a longer time to be satisfied with a later start time of processing. This phenomenon is known as job's deterioration effect. Such effect is unexplored in the context of online environment. In this paper we study online single machine scheduling for deteriorating jobs, where jobs arrive over time and become known to any online algorithm on their arrivals. The processing time of each job is a linearly increasing function of its start time. We mainly investigate three online models that minimize makespan, total completion time and maximum delivery time, respectively. For each model we present an optimal online algorithm in competitiveness. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Topological model for machining of parts with complex shapes Complex shapes are widely used to design products in several industries such as aeronautics, automotive and domestic appliances. Several variations of their curvatures and orientations generate difficulties during their manufacturing or the machining of dies used in moulding, injection and forging. Analysis of several parts highlights two levels of difficulties between three types of shapes: prismatic parts with simple geometrical shapes, aeronautic structure parts composed of several shallow pockets and forging dies composed of several deep cavities which often contain protrusions. This paper mainly concerns High Speed Machining (HSM) of these dies which represent the highest complexity level because of the shapes' geometry and their topology. Five axes HSM is generally required for such complex shaped parts but 3 axes machining can be sufficient for dies. Evolutions in HSM CAM software and machine tools lead to an important increase in time for machining preparation. Analysis stages of the CAD model particularly induce this time increase which is required for a wise choice of cutting tools and machining strategies. Assistance modules for prismatic parts machining features identification in CAD models are widely implemented in CAM software. In spite of the last CAM evolutions, these kinds of CAM modules are undeveloped for aeronautical structure parts and forging dies. Development of new CAM modules for the extraction of relevant machining areas as well as the definition of the topological relations between these areas must make it possible for the machining assistant to reduce the machining preparation time. In this paper, a model developed for the description of complex shape parts topology is presented. It is based on machining areas extracted for the construction of geometrical features starting from CAD models of the parts. As topology is described in order to assist machining assistant during machining process generation, the difficulties associated with tasks he carried out are analyzed at first. The topological model presented after is based on the basic geometrical features extracted. Topological relations which represent the framework of the model are defined between the basic geometrical features which are gathered afterwards in macro-features. Approach used for the identification of these macro-features is also presented in this paper. Detailed application on the construction of the topological model of forging dies is presented in the last part of the paper. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

machining features
complex shape parts
forging dies


Algorithms for computing with nilpotent matrix groups over infinite domains We develop methods for computing with matrix groups defined over a range of infinite domains, and apply those methods to the design of algorithms for nilpotent groups. In particular, we provide a practical nilpotency testing algorithm for matrix groups over an infinite field. We also provide algorithms to answer a number of structural questions for a nilpotent matrix group. The main algorithms have been implemented in GAP, for groups over the rational number field. (c) 2007 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 B I O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

matrix group
nilpotency testing
infinite field


security concept for peer-to-peer systems Peer-to-peer systems have the ability to connect network nodes in a convenient and simple manner. Thus, they are used in a broad range of applications to connect nodes with different capabilities in terms of computational power, memory and energy. For all these peer-to-peer systems there doesn't exist a coherent and dynamic security concept which allows application designers to simply specify their security requirements and are thereafter offered security features to protect applications against threats. In this paper we outline a general peer-to-peer model offering a dynamic security concept which allows for simple selection of an appropriate security level.

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

distributed systems
peer-to-peer
peer-to-peer systems


Cliques, computation, and computational tractability We describe a class of computations that is motivated by a model of line and edge detection in primary visual cortex, although the computations here are expressed in general, abstract terms. The model consists of a collection of processing units (artificial neurons) that are organized into cliques of tightly inter-connected units. Our analysis is based on a dynamic analog model of computation, a model that is classically used to motivate gradient descent algorithms that seek extrema of energy functionals. We introduce a new view of these equations, however, and explicitly use discrete techniques from game theory to show that such cliques can achieve equilibrium in a computationally efficient manner. Furthermore, we are able to prove that the equilibrium is the same as that which would have been found by a gradient descent algorithm. The result is a new class of computations that. while related to traditional gradient-following computations such as relaxation labeling and Hopfield artificial neural networks, enjoys a different and provably efficient dynamics. The implications of the model extend beyond efficient artificial neural networks to (i) timing considerations in iological neural networks; (ii) to building reliable networks from less-reliable elements; (iii) to building accurate representations from less-accurate components; and, most generally, to (iv) demonstrating an interplay between continuous "dynamical systems" and discrete "pivoting" algorithms. (C) 2000 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

energy minimization
linear complementarity problem
early vision
polymatrix games
complexity
dynamical system


user reputation in a comment rating environment Reputable users are valuable assets of a web site. We focus on user reputation in a comment rating environment, where users make comments about content items and rate the comments of one another. Intuitively, a reputable user posts high quality comments and is highly rated by the user community. To our surprise, we find that the quality of a comment judged editorially is almost uncorrelated with the ratings that it receives, but can be predicted using standard text features, achieving accuracy as high as the agreement between two editors! However, extracting a pure reputation signal from ratings is difficult because of data sparseness and several confounding factors in users' voting behavior. To address these issues, we propose a novel bias-smoothed tensor model and empirically show that our model significantly outperforms a number of alternatives based on Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Buzz and Epinions datasets.

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

latent factor model
tensor factorization
bias removal
hierarchical smoothing
text quality


Distributed interactive communication in simulated space-dwelling groups This report describes the development and preliminary application of an experimental test bed for modeling human behavior in the context of a computer generated environment to analyze the effects of variations in communication modalities, incentives and stressful conditions. In addition to detailing the methodological development of a simulated task environment that provides for electronic monitoring and recording of individual and group behavior, the initial substantive findings from an experimental analysis of distributed interactive communication in simulated space dwelling groups are described. Crews of three members each (male and female) participated in simulated planetary missions based upon a synthetic scenario task that required identification, collection, and analysis of geologic specimens with a range of grade values. The results of these preliminary studies showed clearly that cooperative and productive interactions were maintained between individually isolated and distributed individuals communicating and problem-solving effectively in a computer-generated planetary environment over extended time intervals without benefit of one another's physical presence. Studies on communication channel constraints confirmed the functional interchangeability between available modalities with the highest degree of interchangeability occurring between Audio and Text modes of communication. The effects of task-related incentives were determined by the conditions under which they were available with Positive Incentives effectively attenuating decrements in performance under stressful time pressure.

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

distributed interactive simulation
synthetic task environment


Stability issues on Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model - Parametric approach The main objective of this research is to provide a systematic stability analysis technique for fuzzy systems using well-established results from robust stability of a family of polynomials. The model-based Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy control system is considered and shown to have a dependent coefficient structure involving firing strengths. Two Kharitonov regions via overbounding are established to facilitate the extreme results for stability test in the space of polynomials as well as the complex plane. The criterion obtained is a sufficient condition for a fuzzy logic controller, Three nonlinear examples are demonstrated to show that the systematic approach proposed here can be used to solve fuzzy stability problems. Fuzzy users concerned over stability issues may find these analytic tools useful.

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

hurwitz/schur stability
robustnes
uncertainty
value set
vertex polynomial


An open source tool for heart rate variability spectral analysis In this paper we describe a software package for developing heart rate variability analysis. This package, called RHRV, is a third party extension for the open source statistical environment R, and can be freely downloaded from the R-CRAN repository. We review the state of the art of software related to the analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). Based upon this review, we motivate the development of an open source software platform which can be used for developing new algorithms for studying HRV or for performing clinical experiments. In particular, we show how the RHRV package greatly simplifies and accelerates the work of the computer scientist or medical specialist in the HRV field. We illustrate the utility of our package with practical examples.

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


Energy-Efficient Distributed Multi-Sensor Scheduling Based on Energy Balance in Wireless Sensor Networks An energy-efficient distributed multi-sensor scheduling (EDMS) scheme is proposed for target tracking in wireless sensor networks. To increase tracking accuracy, a distributed unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is developed to estimate the trajectory of the target and predict error covariance matrix for next time step. To maximize the lifetime of the whole network, a novel energy balance model is constructed. In the EDMS scheme, multiple sensors are dynamically scheduled as tasking nodes to form a dynamic cluster based on the minimal trace of error covariance matrix and a cluster head is selected based on the energy balance model. In addition, adaptive sampling intervals are adopted to save energy consumption under the satisfactory tracking accuracy. The simulation results indicate that the tracking accuracy of the proposed EDMS using distributed UKF is significantly improved compared with extended Kalman filter (EKF). Under the satisfactory tracking accuracy, the EDMS scheme considering energy balance has better energy balance distribution than that not considering energy balance.

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

target tracking
wireless sensor networks
energy balance

unscented kalman filtering
multi-sensor collaborative scheduling
energy efficiency


A speculative approach to parallelization in particle swarm optimization Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has previously been parallelized primarily by distributing the computation corresponding to particles across multiple processors. In these approaches, the only benefit of additional processors is an increased swarm size. However, in many cases this is not efficient when scaled to very large swarm sizes (on very large clusters). Current methods cannot answer well the question: "How can 1000 processors be fully utilized when 50 or 100 particles is the most efficient swarm size?" In this paper we attempt to answer that question with a speculative approach to the parallelization of PSO that we refer to as SEPSO. In our approach, we refactor PSO such that the computation needed for iteration +1 can be done concurrently with the computation needed for iteration . Thus we can perform two iterations of PSO at once. Even with some amount of wasted computation, we show that this approach to parallelization in PSO often outperforms the standard parallelization of simply adding particles to the swarm. SEPSO produces results that are exactly equivalent to PSO; that is, SEPSO is a new method of parallelization and not a new PSO algorithm or variant. However, given this new parallelization model, we can relax the requirement of exactly reproducing PSO in an attempt to produce better results. We present several such relaxations, including keeping the best speculative position evaluated instead of the one corresponding to the standard behavior of PSO, and speculating several iterations ahead instead of just one. We show that these methods dramatically improve the performance of parallel PSO in many cases, giving speed ups of up to six compared to previous parallelization techniques.

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

parallel algorithms
optimization methods
speculative decomposition


A hybrid recommendation technique based on product category attributes Recommender systems are powerful tools that allow companies to present personalized offers to their customers and defined as a system which recommends an appropriate product or service after learning the customers preferences and desires. Extracting users preferences through their buying behavior and history of purchased products is the most important element of such systems. Due to users unlimited and unpredictable desires, identifying their preferences is very complicated process. In most researches, less attention has been paid to users preferences varieties in different product categories. This may decrease quality of recommended items. In this paper, we introduced a technique of recommendation in the context of online retail store which extracts user preferences in each product category separately and provides more personalized recommendations through employing product taxonomy, attributes of product categories, web usage mining and combination of two well-known filtering methods: collaborative and content-based filtering. Experimental results show that proposed technique improves quality, as compared to similar approaches.

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

recommender system
product category attribute
customer preferences


A standards-based model of system maintainability requirements The nonfunctional requirements (NFR) are often captured only generically at a fairly high level, and they do not include the levels of detail necessary at this stage for the system engineers to allocate them as specific functionalities to be handled either by the software or the hardware, or a specific combination of the two. The European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) series of standards for the aerospace industry includes maintainability requirements as one of 16 types of NFR for embedded and real-time software. A number of maintainability-related concepts are dispersed throughout the ECSS, ISO 9126, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standards to describe, at varying levels of detail, the various types of candidate maintainability requirements at the system, software, and hardware levels. This paper organizes these dispersed maintainability concepts into a standards-based reference model of system maintainability requirements. The availability of this reference model can facilitate the early identification of the system maintainability-NFR and their detailed allocation as specific maintainability functions to be handled by the specified allocation to hardware or software, or a specific combination of the two. In the absence of such a reference model, these NFR are typically handled in practice much later on in the software development life cycle, when at system testing time, users and developers find out that a number of maintainability requirements have been overlooked and additional effort has to be expended to implement them. The approach adopted in this research for the structure of this reference NFR model is based on the generic model of software functional requirements proposed in the COSMIC ISO 19761 model, thereby allowing the functional size of such maintainability requirements allocated to software to be measured. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

nonfunctional requirements
maintainability requirements
functional size

software engineering
ecss international standards
maintainability measurement
cosmic - iso 19761


A guidance method for the motion of mechanisms with flexible parts A new method is introduced for guiding the motion of mechanisms with flexible parts. Compared to closed-loop control methods, it enables simplicity in the design of the mechanism and thus reduced cost and complexity. The method can be easily implemented even on existing mechanisms, requiring minimal computational cost and knowledge of their dynamic parameters and it is easily adjustable, leading to guidance functions properly adapted to the specific flexible part requirements. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

guidance function
dynamic systems
flexible arm
finite elements


stochastic matching and collaborative filtering to recommend people to people The bias towards popular items is not necessarily an undesired outcome of recommender algorithms since a large amount of revenue on e-commerce websites is drawn from these popular items. On the other hand, in domains such as online dating and employment websites, where users and items of the recommendation are both people, a strong bias towards popular users may cause these users to feel overwhelmed and unpopular users to feel neglected. In this paper, we use collaborative filtering (CF) to generate recommendations for all users, and by using stochastic matching we select a number of reciprocal recommendations for each user that maximizes the matches among all users. In this way, all users, regardless of their popularity, will receive the same number of recommendations the number of times they will be recommended to others. This study is the first to apply a stochastic matching solution to balance the number of recommendations given to users in a CF setting. Using historical data, we demonstrate that the proposed recommender improves the chance of finding a successful relationship in comparison to CF recommendations.

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


SMCA: A general model for mining asynchronous periodic patterns in temporal databases Mining periodic patterns in time series databases is an important data mining problem with many applications. Previous studies have considered synchronous periodic patterns where misaligned occurrences are not allowed. However, asynchronous periodic pattern mining has received less attention and only been discussed for a sequence of symbols where each time point contains one event. In this paper, we propose a more general model of asynchronous periodic patterns from a sequence of symbol sets where a time slot can contain multiple events. Three parameters min_rep, max_dis, and global_rep are employed to specify the minimum number of repetitions required for a valid segment of nondisrupted pattern occurrences, the maximum allowed disturbance between two successive valid segments, and the total repetitions required for a valid sequence. A 4-phase algorithm is devised to discover periodic patterns from a time series database presented in vertical format. The experiments demonstrate good performance and scalability with large frequent patterns.

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

asynchronous sequence
partial periodicity
temporal database


A general approach to dynamic packet routing with bounded buffers We prove a sufficient condition for the stability of dynamic packet routing algorithms. Our approach reduces the problem of steady state analysis to the easier and better understood question of static routing. We show that certain high probability and worst case bounds on the quasi-static (finite past) performance of a routing algorithm imply bounds on the performance of the dynamic version of that algorithm. Our technique is particularly useful in analyzing routing on networks with bounded buffers where complicated dependencies make standard queuing techniques inapplicable. We present several applications of our approach. In all cases we start from a known static algorithm, and modify it to fit our framework. In particular we give the first dynamic algorithms for routing on a butterfly or two-dimensional mesh with bounded buffers. Both the injection rate for which the algorithm is stable, and the expected time a packet spends in the system are optimal up to constant factors. Our approach is also applicable to the recently introduced adversarial input model.

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


System- and circuit-level optimization of PLL designs for DVB-T/H receivers This article proposes a framework for the optimization of voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) designs in frequency synthesizers for digital video broadcasting - terrestrial/handheld (DVB-T/H) receivers. Linear time-invariant phase-domain model of a charge-pump phase-locked loop (PLL) is devised and includes both flicker (1/f) and thermal noise contributions from the loop oscillators. By modeling the entire receiver, it is shown that there are combinations of flicker and thermal noise contributions that result in a constant sum of inter-carrier interference (ICI) and adjacent channel interference, and constant symbol error rate as well. Consequently, optimization of the VCO phase noise spectrum is defined while maintaining the standard-specified symbol-error rate. Link-level performance evaluation is carried out to validate the stipulated trade-off. The effect of ICI mitigation schemes is discussed. Circuit-level VCO design approaches utilizing the derived trade-off are finally presented. The proposed optimization procedure is generic and is also applicable to other systems based on Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing.

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

phase noise
pll
vco
adjacent channel interference


A tag-based solution for data sensing conflicts in multiple sensing agent systems Multiple sensing agent system is generally used to represent practical distributed multiple sensor systems at an abstract level without worrying about the particulars of sensors, where agents represent the autonomous sensors. There are many multiagent coordination models which require relatively high memory and computation capacities of agents; thus those models are impractical for multiple sensing agent systems where agents have very limited memories and capacities. To fully relax agents from observing and memorizing other agents actions, this paper proposes the concept of tag vector in multiagent coordination and proposes a novel tag-based solution for data sensing conflicts in multiple sensing agent systems; in the presented tag-based solution, agents can coordinate their sensed data according to their tags. The theoretical proofs and case study prove that the proposed tag-based solution can effectively solve the data sensing conflicts by making the sensed data more consistent and reducing the coordination expense.

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

multiple sensing agent systems
coordination
data sensing
tag


Compact representation of knowledge bases in inductive logic programming In many applications of Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), learning occurs from a knowledge base that contains a large number of examples. Storing such a knowledge base may consume a lot of memory. Often, there is a substantial overlap of information between different examples. To reduce memory consumption, we propose a method to represent a knowledge base more compactly. We achieve this by introducing a meta-theory able to build new theories out of other ( smaller) theories. In this way, the information associated with an example can be built from the information associated with one or more other examples and redundant storage of shared information is avoided. We also discuss algorithms to construct the information associated with example theories and report on a number of experiments evaluating our method in different problem domains.

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

inductive logic programming
knowledge bases
compact representation


Characterization of a total power radiometer The performance parameters of a total power radiometer designed as a noise measurement system for the frequency range of 12-18 GHz were investigated. The total power radiometer included a low-noise radio frequency section, a narrow-band intermediate frequency section, an average power detector, and a symmetric microwave switch. The radiometer's stability versus time was 0.343 x 10(-5) mW/h and its stability against temperature fluctuation was 0.0035 mW/K. The temperature fluctuation of the radiometer was less than 4 mK. We proved that there was no need for active temperature control to obtain stable radiometer gain.

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

noise measurement
total power radiometer


Tradeoff study among traffic egression schemes and member allocation optimization for link aggregation groups in integrated switching systems An integrated switching system (ISS) is an integration of individual switching devices with newly developed control and management protocols, in an integration topology that interconnects the switching devices. It scales the capacity of individual switching devices while functions still as a single switching facility to the outside network. In an ISS, a link aggregation group (LAG) has flexibility to allocate its member links across different switching devices, often as an attempt to spread risk of failure to individual switching devices. Due to existence of the integration topology, traffic admitted into the ISS and destined to egress out of the LAG interface may need to travel a number of hops before leaving the ISS. This lays a bandwidth burden on the integration links of the ISS. Local biasing and designated forwarding have been proposed as LAG egression options to relieve the bandwidth pressure on integration links. They bias traffic egression to be from the neighborhood of the switching device where the traffic ingresses, if the traffic is destined to the LAG interface and a LAG member link is present in the neighborhood. Those enhanced LAG egression schemes are in contrast to the regular LAG egression scheme, in which the traffic will be split and evenly distributed across all LAG members, regardless of their topological distance to the switching device where it ingresses. Although the enhanced egression schemes help to reduce the bandwidth demand on the integration links, there comes a price that load balance across LAG members may be sacrificed and eventually stable LAG capacity could be compromised. In this paper, we study such performance tradeoff and investigate impact factors on LAG performance. In the end, we formulate an optimization problem that optimizes LAG member allocation via pursuing the best tradeoff between integration bandwidth utilization and stable LAG capacity. The solution can be treated as a guideline to deploy LAGs in an ISS. The results show, with optimized LAG member allocation, the potential of integration bandwidth saving and stable LAG capacity maintenance can be maximally explored.

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

designated forwarding
integrated switching system
load balance
local biasing


Regularized minimum variance distortionless response-based cepstral features for robust continuous speech recognition We study the low-variance and robust features for speech recognition system on the AURORA-4 corpus. We propose to compute cepstral features from a regularized MVDR (RMVDR) spectral estimates, denoted as RMVDR-based Cepstral Coefficient (RMCC) features. A sigmoid-shape auditory domain weighting rule is proposed for speech spectrum enhancement and incorporated in to the RMCC framework. We incorporate the medium duration power bias subtraction (MDPBS) method in to the RMCC framework. Two robust front-ends are proposed, robust RMCC (RRMCC) and Normalized RMCC (NRMCC) for speech recognition.

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

robust feature extraction
ase
feature normalization
multi-condition training


Self-adaptive genetic algorithm for clustering Clustering is a hard combinatorial problem which has many applications in science and practice. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have turned out to be very effective in solving the clustering problem. However, GAs have many parameters, the optimal selection of which depends on the problem instance. We introduce a new self-adaptive GA that finds the parameter setup on-line during the execution of the algorithm. In this way, the algorithm is able to find the most suitable combination of the available components. The method is robust and achieves results comparable to or better than a carefully fine-tuned non-adaptive GA.

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


An explanation for the logarithmic connection between linear and morphological system theory Dorst/van den Boomgaard and Maragos introduced the slope transform as the morphological equivalent of the Fourier transform. Generalising the conjugacy operation from convex analysis it formed the basis of a morphological system theory that bears an almost logarithmic relation to linear system theory; a connection that has not been fully understood so far. Our article provides an explanation by disclosing that morphology in essence is linear system theory in specific algebras. While linear system theory uses the standard plus-prod algebra, morphological system theory is based on the max-plus algebra and the min-plus algebra. We identify the nonlinear operations of erosion and dilation as linear convolutions in the latter algebras. The logarithmic Laplace transform makes a natural appearance as it corresponds to the conjugacy operation in the max-plus algebra. Its conjugate is given by the so-called Cramer transform. Originating from stochastics, the Cramer transform maps Gaussians to quadratic functions and relates standard convolution to erosion. This fundamental transform relies on the logarithm and constitutes the direct link between linear and morphological system theory. Many numerical examples are presented that illustrate the convexifying and smoothing properties of the Cramer transform.

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

linear system theory
morphology
convex analysis
slope transform
cramer transform


On the optimality of conditional expectation as a Bregman predictor We consider the problem of predicting a random variable X from observations, denoted by a random variable Z. It is well known that the conditional expectation E[X vertical bar Z] is the optimal L(2) predictor (also known as "the least-mean-square error" predictor) of X, among all (Borel measurable) functions of Z. In this correspondence, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the general loss functions under which the conditional expectation is the unique optimal predictor. We show that E[X vertical bar Z] is the optimal predictor for all Bregman loss functions (BLFs), of which the L(2) loss function is a special case. Moreover, under mild conditions, we show that the BLFs are exhaustive, i.e., if for every random variable X, the infimum of E[F(X, y) over all constants y is attained by the expectation E[X], then F is a BL.

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

bregman loss functions (blfs)
prediction


Development of the Berry Impact Recording Device sensing system: Hardware design and calibration Bruising caused by the impact damage occurs frequently during mechanical harvest process for highbush blueberries. The overall goal of this study was to develop a miniature and low-cost sensor prototype to quantitatively measure the impact forces endured by blueberries during the mechanical harvest process, which could be used to reduce blueberry bruising through improved harvester design. The sensing system developed in this study had three essential components: the sensor, the interface box, and the computer software program. The round circuit board of sensor is less than one inch (19.4mm), including three accelerometers with 500g sensing range in each orthogonal axis, one eight-bit microcontroller, one 128KB memory chip, and other electronic components with low power consumption. The sensor board and rechargeable battery were cast into a one inch (25.4mm) sphere using silicone rubber. The interface box serves as the intermediate communication platform to connect the sensor and the computer. The PC-software retrieves data from the sensor via the I2C communication and downloads data to a computer for further analysis via the RS232 communication. The sensor was calibrated using a centrifuge. The accuracy of the sensor output was 0.53% (2.60g maximum deviation) and ?0.33% (?1.26g maximum deviation), with precision error of 0.63% (3.21g) in the output span. This miniature and low-cost sensor prototype provides the opportunity to understand how the berry (or other small fruits) interacts with different machine parts within the harvester and to identify critical control points that cause the most mechanical impacts, which was not achievable in the past.

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

microcontroller
sensor
blueberry
mechanical harvest


Interactive critiquing for catalog navigation in E-commerce E-commerce sites can have large, essentially unbounded, catalogs. With large catalogs comes increasing difficulty for buyers in making use of standard search and browsing facilities. Particularly in the case of casual or occasional buyers and in the case of complex products, the gap between a product's specifications and the buyer's understanding of need can be hard to bridge. An effective e-commerce catalog must map user needs to products that can fulfill them. This paper describes an interactive, incremental, case-based, critiquing approach to solving this problem. The approach is interactive and incremental, so it does not require that the user have a completely specified need at the start. The system is case-based in that it emphasizes products over features or constraints, and uses case-based reasoning techniques for its product retrieval. Finally, the approach is based on the critiquing of presented examples, each critique redirecting the search to home in on appropriate products.

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

case-based reasoning
electronic commerce
information retrieval
recommender systems


Recursive Frequency Offset Estimation for MIMO System in Flat-Fading Channels This letter presents recursive frequency offset estimation for MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) system in flat-fading channels. With the recursive estimation, the frequency offset range in MIMO system can be extended compared with normal estimation. Simulation results show that the recursive frequency offset estimation is valid for large frequency offset.

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

mimo
frequency offset
recursive estimation


Convergence acceleration using the residual shape technique when solving structure-acoustic coupling with the Patch Transfer Functions method The forced response of the structure water-filled cavity system is investigated from the Patch Transfer Functions method. In such a case, a poor convergence of the PTF method is observed when using standard mode expansion to build the cavity-PTF. To improve its convergence and maintain the advantages of sub-structuring, residual shapes are introduced in the cavity-PTF computation, which is the new material of this article. This technique is successfully applied on numerical examples, highlighting the interest of such an approach, especially in heavy fluid. (C) 2010 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 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


internal vs. external information in visual perception One of the more compelling beliefs about vision is that it is based on representations that are coherent and complete, with everything in the visual field described in great detail. However, changes made during a visual disturbance are found to be difficult to see, arguing against the idea that our brains contain a detailed, picture-like representation of the scene. Instead, it is argued here that a more dynamic, just-in-time representation is involved, one with deep similarities to the way that users interact with external displays. It is further argued that these similarities can provide a basis for the design of intelligent display systems that can interact with humans in highly effective and novel ways.

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

attention
visual memory
change blindness


Non-myopic information theoretic sensor management of a single pantiltzoom camera for multiple object detection and tracking Detailed derivation of an information theoretic framework for real PTZ management. Introduction and implementation of a non-myopic strategy. Large experimental validation, with synthetic and realistic datasets. Working demonstration of myopic strategy on an off-the-shelf PTZ camera.

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

multiple object tracking
markov decision process


first query term extraction from current webpage for mobile applications Inputting query terms on a mobile terminal is frustrating because of device limitations though mobile web search is becoming popular. Query prediction is a promising approach for mobile search. In the literature, however, little attention has been paid to the first query term, though there are many reports on query expansion or second query recommendation. In this paper, we propose a first query prediction method that enables users to search related information for the current browsed webpage with an easier interface such as touch operation without any background search processes. The proposed method consists of body-text extraction, candidate query term extraction, and a scoring process. We also implemented a one-touch search application that works for Japanese webpages at a practical speed on a smartphone. According to our closed evaluation with 299 webpages and open evaluation with 14 users, our method achieved practical quality.

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


Polynomial Time Inductive Inference of TTSP Graph Languages from Positive Data Two-Terminal Series Parallel (TTSP, for short) graphs are used as data models in applications for electric networks and scheduling problems. We propose a TTSP term graph which is a TTSP graph having structured variables, that is, a graph pattern over a TTSP graph. Let TG(TTSP) be the set of all TTSP term graphs whose variable labels are mutually distinct. For a TTSP term graph g in TG(TTSP), the TTSP graph language of g, denoted by L(g), is the set of all TTSP graphs obtained from g by substituting arbitrary TTSP graphs for all variables in g. Firstly, when a TTSP graph G and a TTSP term graph g are given as inputs, we present a polynomial time matching algorithm which decides whether or not L(g) contains G. The minimal language problem for the class L(TTSP) = {L(g) vertical bar g is an element of TG(TTSP)} is, given a set S of TTSP graphs, to find a TTSP term graph g in TG(TTSP) such that L(g) is minimal among all TTSP graph languages which contain all TTSP graphs in S. Secondly, we give a polynomial time algorithm for solving the minimal language problem for L(TTSP). Finally, we show that L(TTSP) is polynomial time inductively inferable from positive data.

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

computational learning theory
graph languages


MT2DInvMatlab-A program in MATLAB and FORTRAN for two-dimensional magnetotelluric inversion MT2DInvMatlab is an open-source MATLAB (R) software package for two-dimensional (2D) inversion of magnetotelluric (MT) data; it is written in mixed languages of MATLAB and FORTRAN. MT2DInvMatlab uses the finite element method (FEM) to compute 2D MT model responses, and smoothness-constrained least-squares inversion with a spatially variable regularization parameter algorithm to stabilize the inversion process and provide a high-resolution optimal earth model. It is also able to include terrain effects in inversion by incorporating topography into a forward model. This program runs under the MATLAB environment so that users can utilize the existing general interface of MATLAB, while some specific functions are written in FORTRAN 90 to speed up computation and reuse pre-existing FORTRAN code in the MATLAB environment with minimal modification. This program has been tested using synthetic models, including one with variable topography, and on field data. The results were assessed by comparing inverse models obtained with MT2DInvMatlab and with a non-linear conjugate gradient (NLCG) algorithm. in both tests the new inversion software reconstructs the subsurface resistivity structure very closely and provides an improvement in both resolution and stability. (C) 2009 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 B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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


Ion beam imprinting system for nanofabrication An ion beam imprinting system has been developed in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In order to push ion beam imprinting technology to nanometer regime, it is very important to fabricate membranes with arrays of apertures only a few nanometers in diameter. In this article, we describe a simple method of forming nanopore arrays by simultaneously shrinking apertures of micrometer dimensions using plasma-assisted thin-film deposition. Nanopores of 13nm in diameter and nanoslits of 20nm in width have been fabricated.

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

nanofabrication
ion beam imprinting
nanopores


Comparative analysis of cubic spline and kernel estimation of a probit function The least-squares cubic spline and the kernel estimators produce comparable mean squared errors, although the kernel produces smaller mean squared errors when the variable increases away from 0. Mean squared error increases with an increase in the number of knots (for the cubic spline) or reduced band width (for the kernel estimator). The cubic spline produces smaller mean squared errors when all observations are made at knots than when they are spaced out between knots. Irrespective of the exact form of the probit function g(x), the cubic spline estimator is asymptotically unbiased, while the kernel estimator only converges to g(x) under certain conditions. Moreover, the cubic spline is a smooth function, which is twice differentiable on the interval [0,1].

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

cubic spline
mean squared error
kernel
probit function


a picosecond tdc architecture for multiphase plls This paper presented a time-to-digital converter (TDC) embedded PLL in 3D silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process. The difficulty of tier-to-tier interconnection modeling in 3D process is very critical. The proposed TDC effectively eliminates the phase mismatches introduced by interconnection between different tiers among multiphase clocks in the 3D process. The large process variation presented in the 3D integrated circuits requires digital compensation techniques to accurately control the timing. The TDC structure presented in this paper replaced the traditional long Vernier delay line and achieved a 2ps timing resolution. A feedback structure is implemented into the TDC to eliminate the influence of the PVT variations on the timing resolution. The multiphase PLL frequency is 3.8GHz in this paper. Simulation results show that the clock jitter was decreased from 5.98ps to 3.58ps with the proposed TDC phase calibration circuit which presents a significant decrease of phase mismatches.

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


Fuzzy multi attribute group decision making method to achieve consensus under the consideration of degrees of confidence of experts' opinions The aim of this paper is to introduce a fuzzy multi attribute group decision making technique considering the degrees of confidence of experts' opinions. In the process of decision making, each expert provides his/her evaluation over the alternatives depending on a finite set of attributes and constructs an individual fuzzy decision matrix. The proposed technique establishes an iterative process to aggregate the fuzzy information, given by individual expert, into group consensus opinion by using the fuzzy similarity measure. Then, based on group consensus opinion, the proposed approach utilizes the fuzzy similarity measure to find out the most desirable alternative through approximate reasoning. The proposed decision making technique is more flexible due to the fact that it considers the degrees of confidence of experts' opinions. Finally an example has been shown to highlight the proposed methodology. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Quantitative structure-property relationship for surface tension of some common alcohols Several types of descriptors were used to derive quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) for prediction of surface tension of 142 alcohols at 298.15 K. Genetic function approximation (GFA) was employed to select optimal subset of descriptors that have significant contribution to the surface tension of the training set. By using GFA, a statistically significant QSPR model with the squared correlation coefficient values of 0.9784 for training set and 0.9802 for testing set was developed. On the same data set, another QSPR model was developed based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) with the squared correlation coefficient values of 0.9882 for training set and 0.985 for testing set. The obtained results in this paper suggest that with the proposed methods, it is possible to obtain a good estimation of surface tension of alcohol compounds. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (anfis)


Classification with guaranteed probability of error We introduce a general-purpose classifier that we call the Guaranteed Error Machine, or GEM, and two learning algorithms that are used for the training of GEM, a real GEM algorithm and an ideal GEM algorithm. The real GEM algorithm is for use in real applications, while the ideal GEM algorithm is introduced as a theoretical tool. Differently from most learning machines, GEM has a ternary-valued output, that is besides 0 and 1 it can return an unknown label, expressing doubt. Our central result is that, under general conditions, the statistics of the generalization error of the GEM machine obtained with the ideal GEM algorithm is universal, in the sense that it remains the same, independently of the (unknown) mechanism that generates the data. As a consequence, the user can select a desired level of generalization error and the learning machine is automatically adjusted so as to meet this desired level, and no knowledge of the data generation mechanism is required in this process; the adjustment is achieved by modulating the size of the region where the machine returns the unknown label. The key-point is that no conservatism is present in this process because the statistics of the generalization error is known. We further show that the generalization error of the machine obtained with the real algorithm is always no larger than the generalization error of the machine obtained with the ideal algorithm. Thus, the generalization error computed for the latter can be rigorously used as a bound for the former, and, moreover, it provably provides tight evaluations in typical cases.

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

computational learning theory
guaranteed generalization error
convex optimization
invariant statistics
ternary-valued classifiers