Joint source-channel coding as an element of a QoS framework for '4G' wireless multimedia The development of 'Beyond 3G'-B3G-or '4G' networks and applications, with all-IP based ubiquitous and seamless service provisioning across heterogeneous infrastructures, presents a number of challenges beyond existing capabilities conceived so far by the IETF for Mobile IP and by the ITU for Third Generation networks. Management, signaling and transport functions must evolve from different link layer technologies, uniformly and end-to-end, to the packet switched IP-network layer. Global mobility throughout all network types requires capability for seamless handover between different administrative and technology domains, extending at the same time the present edge mobility concept to ad-hoc networks and to mobile networks. Having at least identified, if not solved, these important problems, the technical key challenge for this B3G or '4G' world remains to provide IP-based audio and video communications at the same or at least comparable 'carrier class' and bandwidth efficiency as the corresponding circuit-switched subsystems of 3G and 2G. In the IETF, some elements to achieve this goal have been identified and are under discussion: situated between link and IP layers, the Robust Header Compression (ROHC) framework addresses the problems of spectrum and bandwidth scarcity and of bit errors characterizing wireless links. The fact that, for some applications, erroneous packet payloads can be valuable and better to cope with than lost ones, has inspired the introduction of the UDP-lite transport protocol. Assuming ROHC, UDP-lite and an appropriate inter- or cross-layer signaling mechanism in action, this paper is going to elaborate and incorporate the joint source and channel coding-JSCC-paradigm into a complete QoS framework for 4G mobile wireless multimedia communications. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

wireless communication
internet communications
source coding
source-channel coding
robust header compression


Is grey relational analysis superior to the conventional techniques in predicting financial crisis? This study proposes a new approach for analyzing the credit risks of banking industry based on the modeling of grey relational analysis (GRA). In order to construct a financial crisis warning system for banking industry, a GRA approach is developed and applied to the real data set with 111 samples. The results of the current model are compared to those of traditional ones, logistic regression and back-propagation neural network. The results illustrate that in the prediction of financially crisis as well as financially sound banks, the proposed GRA model demonstrates better prediction accuracy than the conventional ones. The results also imply that the financial data set one year before the crisis leads to the best accuracy. It is helpful for the establishment of early warning models of financial crisis for banks. The current results show that the proposed GRA provides a novel approach in handling financial crisis warning tasks.

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

grey relational analysis (gra)
credit risk
grey system


what matters most when teaching cs1 The objective of research and proposals related to the domain of computer science and education is to offer resources and contexts that help teachers and students to increase learning effectiveness. Algorithms and Programming courses present an obstacle to an increasing number of first year students worldwide, and has become the object of study of many researchers and faculty members worried with the consequences this difficulty entails, such as high dropout and failure rates, and lack of motivation [1]. Several proposals have been made, using different programming languages and paradigms, as well as different methodologies, including the development of tools and environments that help students to develop their programming abilities. Most of these proposals are concerned with the motivational aspect of the course, and try to involve the students in the discipline, leading them to persist and not give up in spite of its natural difficulty [2]. In many cases there have been reports of success. Often the credits of success are given to the new approaches, methodologies and environments adopted in the experiment. However, an important variable is often disregarded: the teacher's quality and motivation. It should be observed that most of these experiments are undertaken by high quality teachers that are also motivated researchers in the domain of Computer Science education. Their enthusiasm and dedication to the course is undeniable. The question is: to what extent does the teacher's motivation and enthusiasm contribute to the success of the experiment? Most reports do not discuss this issue and often they are limited to the application of the new approach to groups taught by the researcher himself or by members of the research team, equally motivated. Many reports have established that the human factor is key to the success of an educational system [3]. In all educational levels, from kindergarten to the university, there are examples of brilliant pedagogical proposals that fail. Some of them, apparently due to how they were executed [4]. More, some government and specialists are rethinking the essential factors that may influence the schooling outcome and produce more effective results in educational reforms, specially since despite the massive increases in spending, the performance of many school systems has barely improved in decades [5,6]. Experiences of top school systems suggest that three things matter most to good quality schooling: 1) getting the right people to become teachers, 2) developing them into effective instructors and, 3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every student [6]. If this is true for schools, can't we suppose that this is also true in teaching CS1? If so, can we deduce that the teacher is determinant in the outcome of the teaching experience? And that the new methodologies, tools and environments are efficient support for these teachers?

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

programming learning
teacher motivation
human factors


Fuzzy differential equation with nonlocal condition We shall prove the existence and uniqueness theorem of a solution to the nonlocal fuzzy differential equation using the Contraction mapping principle. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. AMS classification: 03B52;04A72; 34A12.

O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 map
hausdorff metric
contraction map
cauchy problem


The Meaning(s) of Information, Code and Meaning Meaning is a central concept of (bio)semiotics. At the same time, it is also a word of everyday language. Here, on the example of the world information, we discuss the reduction-inflation model of evolution of a common word into a scientific concept, to return subsequently into everyday circulation with new connotations. Such may be, in the near future, also the fate of the word meaning if, flexed through objectified semantics, will become considered an objective concept usable in semiotics. We argue that reducing meaning to a technical term essentially synonymous to code and stripped of most of the original semantic field is not a necessary prerequisite for a meaningful application of the concept in semiotics and in biology.

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


gaze-orchestrated dynamic windows Consider a large-format display before the user, bearing a multiplicity of windows, like little movies, the majority dynamic and in color. There are upwards of 20 windows, say, more than a person can ordinarily absorb at once. Some of the windows come and go, reflecting their nature as direct TV linkages into real-time, real-world events. Others are non-real-time, some dynamic, others static but capable of jumping into motion. Such an ensemble of information inputs reflects the managerial world of the top-level executive of the not too distant electronic future: a world of brevity, fragmentation, variety, above all one of an overwhelming onslaught of events. The multiplicity and simultaneity of such a display situation ordinarily would make coping with it untenable. The intent of the reported research is to introduce order and control, through the creation of a dynamic, gaze-interactive interface. Making the behavior and reactivity of the windows contingent upon measured eyemovements - the point-of-regard of the observer - aims both to help the observer to cope with the onslaught of events on the one hand, yet enable on the other hand continuing close contact with that everchanging ensemble. A simulation of such a world is described and demonstrated in the composite medium of computer, videodisc, and video special effects. Eye-tracking technology, integrated with speech and manual inputs, controls the display's visual dynamics, and orchestrates its sound accompaniments. All elements are combined to form a testbed for the conception generally, and to explore the associated human factors and stagecraft.

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

speech
help
order
video
color
simulation
direct
intent
videodisc
motion
control
user
fragmentation
sound
research
dynamic
behavior
testbed
human factors
windows
future
ensemble

point
man-machine interfaces
association
event
computation
concept
interfaces
graphical interface
real-time
informal
compositing
exploration
situated
observability
eye-tracking
visualization
technologies
gaze
effect
integrability


FoXtrot: Distributed Structural and Value XML Filtering Publish/subscribe systems have emerged in recent years as a promising paradigm for offering various popular notification services. In this context, many XML filtering systems have been proposed to efficiently identify XML data that matches user interests expressed as queries in an XML query language like XPath. However, in order to offer XML filtering functionality on an Internet-scale, we need to deploy such a service in a distributed environment, avoiding bottlenecks that can deteriorate performance. In this work, we design and implement FoXtrot, a system for filtering XML data that combines the strengths of automata for efficient filtering and distributed hash tables for building a fully distributed system. Apart from structural-matching, performed using automata, we also discuss different methods for evaluating value-based predicates. We perform an extensive experimental evaluation of our system, FoXtrot, on a local cluster and on the PlanetLab network and demonstrate that it can index millions of user queries, achieving a high indexing and filtering throughput. At the same time, FoXtrot exhibits very good load-balancing properties and improves its performance as we increase the size of the network.

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

design
xml filtering
automata
distributed hash tables


Development of Lanthanide-Labeled Human INSL3 as an Alternative Probe to Radioactively Labeled INSL3 for Use in Bioassays The use of radioisotope-labeled peptides and proteins in bioassays is diminishing as a consequence of the emergence of fluorescent lanthanide-labeled probes. We describe a simple, single-step labeling of synthetic human insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3) with a commercially available activated europium chelator. The labeled peptide was then used for the development of a robust and highly reproducible receptor-binding assay which is amenable to automated high-throughput screening of ligands. Europium-labeled INSL3 showed a similar binding profile to radioactively labeled INSL3.

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


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

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

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


Optimal location and pricing of Web services intermediary The Web services technology allows for the distribution and integration of loosely coupled software components over the Internet. This paper studies the optimal pricing and location strategy of a Web service intermediary (WSI), which offers a time-sensitive composite Web service. We first derive the optimal solution in a linear city model and then extend the analyses to the more general unit circle model. Our analyses show that that the optimal strategy is determined by delay cost, integration cost, and prices of the constituent Web services. We find that the WSI is optimally located between the Web service providers and charges a penetration price if the delay cost is low. In addition, there could be multiple optimal locations for the WSI if the Web service providers are far away from each other.

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


Statistically robust resource allocation for distributed multi-carrier cooperative networks In this paper, we investigate joint subcarrier and power allocation scheme for distributed multi-carrier cooperative networks with imperfect channel state information. Using practical channel estimation algorithms, the statistic model of the channel estimation error is first derived. Then based on the channel error model, the resource allocation scheme aims at maximizing the sum rate of the overall network. Specifically, both subcarrier allocation and power allocation are taken into account. In the subcarrier allocation, a realistic problem of the power leakage between neighboring subcarriers is also addressed. Furthermore, based on Lagrange dual-decomposition algorithm, a practical power allocation algorithm is proposed. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the performance advantages of the proposed robust design.

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

orthogonal frequency division multiple access


The role of external and internal influences on information systems security a neo-institutional perspective ? This research is an attempt to better understand how external and internal organizational influences shape organizational actions for improving information systems security. A case study of a multi-national company is presented and then analyzed from the perspective of neo-institutional theory. The analysis indicates that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic processes were evident, although it was difficult to distinguish normative from mimetic influences. Two internal forces related to work practices were identified representing resistance to initiatives to improve security: the institutionalization of work mobility and the institutionalization of efficiency outcomes expected with the adoption of company initiatives, especially those involving information technology. The interweaving of topdown and bottomup influences resulted in an effort to reinforce, and perhaps reinstitutionalize the systems component of information security. The success of this effort appeared to hinge on top management championing information system security initiatives and propagating an awareness of the importance of information security among employees at all levels of the company. The case shows that while regulatory forces, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are powerful drivers for change, other institutional influences play significant roles in shaping the synthesis of organizational change.

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

institutional theory
neo-institutionalism
sarbanes-oxley act
institutional isomorphism


Factorization in large-scale many-body calculations ? One approach for solving interacting many-fermion systems is the configuration-interaction method, also sometimes called the interacting shell model, where one finds eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian in a many-body basis of Slater determinants (antisymmetrized products of single-particle wavefunctions). The resulting Hamiltonian matrix is typically very sparse, but for large systems the nonzero matrix elements can nonetheless require terabytes or more of storage. An alternate algorithm, applicable to a broad class of systems with symmetry, in our case rotational invariance, is to exactly factorize both the basis and the interaction using additive/multiplicative quantum numbers; such an algorithm recreates the many-body matrix elements on the fly and can reduce the storage requirements by an order of magnitude or more. We discuss factorization in general and introduce a novel, generalized factorization method, essentially a double-factorization which speeds up basis generation and set-up of required arrays. Although we emphasize techniques, we also place factorization in the context of a specific (unpublished) configuration-interaction code, BIGSTICK, which runs both on serial and parallel machines, and discuss the savings in memory due to factorization.

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


a storytelling support system using robots and handheld projectors In this paper, a system called GENTORO that supports children's storytelling activities is proposed. By using GENTORO, children can make a robot play their story in the real world augmented with mobile projected graphical images. Preliminary user studies have been conducted in collaboration with elementary school children and university students, in order to investigate the acceptance level of GENTORO and clarify its design requirements, respectively. The development of GENTORO is in progress. The future plans of the GENTORO project are discussed.

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

handheld projector
embodied participation
augmented reality


Fine-computable Functions on the Unit Square and their Integral We discuss the integral and Fubini's Theorem for a Fine-computable function F(x,y) on the upper-right open unit square [0,1) x [x,1). The core objective is Fine-computability of F(x) = integral([0,1)) F(x,y)dy as a function of x is an element of [0.1).

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

fine-computable function
fubini's theorem
integral operator


Improved Binary Space Partition merging ? This paper presents a new method for evaluating boolean set operations between Binary Space Partition (BSP) trees. Our algorithm has many desirable features, including both numerical robustness and O(n) O ( n ) output sensitive time complexity, while simultaneously admitting a straightforward implementation. To achieve these properties, we present two key algorithmic improvements. The first is a method for eliminating null regions within a BSP tree using linear programming. This replaces previous techniques based on polygon cutting and tree splitting. The second is an improved method for compressing BSP trees based on a similar approach within binary decision diagrams. The performance of the new method is analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. Given the importance of boolean set operations, our algorithms can be directly applied to many problems in graphics, CAD and computational geometry.

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

binary space partition
linear programming

constructive solid geometry
tree merging


Multifactor dimensionality reduction reveals a three-locus epistatic interaction associated with susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis Identifying high-order genetics associations with non-additive (i.e. epistatic) effects in population-based studies of common human diseases is a computational challenge. Multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) is a machine learning method that was designed specifically for this problem. The goal of the present study was to apply MDR to mining high-order epistatic interactions in a population-based genetic study of tuberculosis (TB).

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


An integrated model for water management in a rapidly urbanizing catchment Existing water and environmental management models usually separately simulate socio-economic, water infrastructure and natural receiving water systems and thus cannot effectively capture the interactions among economic and population growth, water resource supply and depletion as well as environmental changes, especially in analyzing long-term scenarios of urbanization. In this paper, a system dynamics and water environmental model (SyDWEM) was developed to improve the understanding of the integrated socio-economic and water management system in a rapidly urbanizing catchment. The integrative character of SyDWEM is featured by putting the socio-economic component as an internal sub module of the whole system. It also contains water consumption and pollution load module, water supply module, wastewater treatment module as well as receiving water module. The Shenzhen River catchment was used as a case study to demonstrate usage of the functionality and purpose of the integrated model. The results indicate that SyDWEM has the capacity to predict the socio-economic and environment changes at a catchment scale under proposed socio-economic policies and water infrastructure planning. Therefore, it can help support the integration of decision making in socio-economic development and environment management.

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

water management
environmental model
system dynamics
urbanization


The ITIS98 forums On 22nd April 1998, the second day of the ITIS98 Conference in Amsterdam, three discussion forums were organized in order to get people talking and plans laid down on how a telemedical information society for the future should be implemented. The forum members covered a variety and diverse spectrum of technologies, and expressed their opinions on national projects. The overall aim of the forums consisted in tackling and identifying some of the major obstacles that could prevent an advanced society for health care from being realized. The ITIS98 forums form a serious attempt to promote a consensus towards useful answers.

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

telemedicine
standardization
world wide web
security
cyber-doctor


Weak-order extensions of an order In this paper, at first we describe a digraph representing all the weak-order extensions of a partially ordered set and algorithms for generating them. Then we present a digraph representing all of the minimal weak-order extensions of a partially. ordered set. This digraph also implies generation algorithms. Finally, we prove that the number of weak-order extensions of a partially ordered set is a comparability invariant, whereas. the number of minimal weak-order extensions of a partially ordered set is not a comparability invariant. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

partial order
algorithm
weak-order
extension of an order
graph
complexity


5th workshop on enhanced web service technologies (wewst 2010) The 5th Workshop on Enhanced Web Service Technologies (WEWST 2010), collocated with the 8th IEEE European Conference on Web Services (ECOWS 2010), addresses innovative aspects of Web services. It features 5 regular papers, selected from 13 submission. Each submission has been reviewed by 4 members of the international program committee.

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

service-oriented architectures
business processes


A Transformation From the Fibonacci to the Galois NLFSRs Conventional nonlinear feedback shift registers (NLFSRs) use the Fibonacci configuration in which the feedback is applied to the last bit only. In this paper, we show how to transform a Fibonacci NLFSR into an equivalent NLFSR in the Galois configuration, in which the feedback can be applied to every bit. Such a transformation can potentially reduce the depth of the circuits implementing feedback functions, thus decreasing the propagation time and increasing the throughput.

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

galois nlfsr
keystream
pseudorandom sequence
stream cipher


An investigation of software engineering curricula We adapted a survey instrument developed by Timothy Lethbridge to assess the extent to which the education delivered by four UK universities matches the requirements of the software industry. We propose a survey methodology that we believe addresses the research question more appropriately than the one used by Lethbridge. In particular, we suggest that restricting the scope of the survey to address the question of whether the curricula for a specific university addressed the needs of its own students, allowed us to identify an appropriate target population. However, our own survey suffered from several problems. In particular the questions used in the survey are not ideal, and the response rate was poor. Although the poor response rate reduces the value of our results, our survey appears to confirm several of Lethbridge's observations with respect to the over-emphasis of mathematical topics and the under-emphasis on business topics. We also have a close agreement with respect to the relative importance of different software engineering topics. However the set of topics, that we found were taught far less than their importance would suggest, were quite different from the topics identified by Lethbridge.

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


Quasi-Oppositional Swine Influenza Model Based Optimization with Quarantine for optimal allocation of DG in radial distribution network The paper aims to find the optimal location and size of DG in distribution system. Quasi-Oppositional SIMBO-Q (QOSIMBO-Q) is applied for solution. Results show improved power loss, voltage stability and voltage profile. Performance of QOSIMBO-Q has been compared with other soft computing techniques. Performance of QOSIMBO-Q revealed to be more encouraging to solve the problem.

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

quasi-oppositional swine influenza model based optimization with quarantine (qosimbo-q)


Involvement of node attributes in the link formation process into a telecommunication network Traditional network generation models aim to replicate global structural properties observed on various real-world networks through synthetic link formation mechanisms such as triadic closure or preferential attachment. Nowadays, the large amount of data available allow to study more precisely the link formation processes and to compare models with real situations. In this work, we analyze the network formed by the communication activities of the users of a telephony operator for studying the link formation process. Our goal is to identify the underlying formation mechanisms and checking if they match those proposed in traditional models. Indeed, the communications emitted and received by users are strong indicators for understanding the underlying patterns of the link formation process and highlighting how some individual properties induce the formation process in such a network. In a first study conducted at a global level, we show that the traditional mechanisms commonly used in network generation models cannot reproduce alone the link formation in this network. In a second study, we adopt a new point of view and analyze locally the link formation process by searching for correlations between some user attributes and the formation of the new links. The results obtained show that a very strong percentage of new links are formed between individuals with strong similarity.

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

telecommunication network
link formation

complex network
evolution pattern
network dynamics
evolution model


The influence of node sequence and extraneous load induced by graphical overviews on hypertext learning The effects of four hypertext learning environments with a hierarchical graphical overview were studied on the coherence of the node sequence, extraneous load and comprehension. Navigation patterns were influenced by the type of overview provided (i.e., dynamic, static) and whether navigation was restricted (i.e., restricted, non-restricted). It was hypothesised that redundant use of the overview for inducing a high-coherence reading sequence would result in high extraneous load and low comprehension. Coherence was higher in the dynamic than in the static conditions. Coherence was also higher in the restricted than in the non-restricted conditions. Mental effort as a measure of extraneous load was higher at the end than at the beginning of the learning phase, especially in the dynamic restricted and the static non-restricted conditions, although there was no significant interaction. Comprehension was lowest in the dynamic restricted condition and highest in the dynamic non-restricted and static restricted conditions. Low comprehension in the dynamic restricted condition indicates that overviews can become redundant for reading sequence coherence, negatively impacting comprehension. The evidence suggests that severe restriction of navigation paths should be avoided and that continuous use of overviews such as in dynamic overviews may be detrimental to learning.

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

hypertext
graphical overview
coherence
node sequence
extraneous load


search GenBank: interactive orchestration and ad-hoc choreography of Web services in the exploration of the biomedical resources of the National Center For Biotechnology Information Due to the growing number of biomedical entries in data repositories of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), it is difficult to collect, manage and process all of these entries in one place by third-party software developers without significant investment in hardware and software infrastructure, its maintenance and administration. Web services allow development of software applications that integrate in one place the functionality and processing logic of distributed software components, without integrating the components themselves and without integrating the resources to which they have access. This is achieved by appropriate orchestration or choreography of available Web services and their shared functions. After the successful application of Web services in the business sector, this technology can now be used to build composite software tools that are oriented towards biomedical data processing.

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

ncbi entrez
entrez databases
entrez search engine
entrez programming utilities
data exploration
data searching
data querying


Hi4D-ADSIP 3-D dynamic facial articulation database ? The face is an important medium used by humans to communicate, and facial articulation also reflects a person's emotional and awareness states, cognitive activity, personality or wellbeing. With the advances in 3-D imaging technology and ever increasing computing power, automatic analysis of facial articulation using 3-D sequences is becoming viable. This paper describes Hi4D-ADSIP a comprehensive 3-D dynamic facial articulation database, containing scans with high spatial and temporal resolution. The database is designed not only to facilitate studies on facial expression analysis, but also to aid research into clinical diagnosis of facial dysfunctions. The database currently contains 3360 facial sequences captured from 80 healthy volunteers (control subjects) of various age, gender and ethnicity. The database has been validated using psychophysical experiments used to formally evaluate the accuracy of the recorded expressions. The results of baseline automatic facial expression recognition methods using Eigen- and Fisher-faces are also presented alongside some initial results obtained for clinical cases. This database is believed to be one of the most comprehensive repositories of facial 3-D dynamic articulations to date. The extension of this database is currently under construction aiming at building a comprehensive repository of representative facial dysfunctions exhibited by patients with stroke, Bell's palsy and Parkinson's disease.

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

facial articulation database
expression recognition
facial
dysfunctions


RESEARCH FRONTIERS OF MEMBRANE COMPUTING: OPEN PROBLEMS AND RESEARCH TOPICS This paper discusses research frontiers of membrane computing by presenting current open problems and research topics, together with the relevant background and motivation.

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

natural computing
cell membranes
spiking neurons
p system
complexity classes
finite automata
formal languages
semantics and formal verification
simulation frameworks
applications of membrane computing


Building Development Monitoring in Multitemporal Remotely Sensed Image Pairs with Stochastic Birth-Death Dynamics In this paper, we introduce a new probabilistic method which integrates building extraction with change detection in remotely sensed image pairs. A global optimization process attempts to find the optimal configuration of buildings, considering the observed data, prior knowledge, and interactions between the neighboring building parts. We present methodological contributions in three key issues: 1) We implement a novel object-change modeling approach based on Multitemporal Marked Point Processes, which simultaneously exploits low-level change information between the time layers and object-level building description to recognize and separate changed and unaltered buildings. 2) To answer the challenges of data heterogeneity in aerial and satellite image repositories, we construct a flexible hierarchical framework which can create various building appearance models from different elementary feature-based modules. 3) To simultaneously ensure the convergence, optimality, and computation complexity constraints raised by the increased data quantity, we adopt the quick Multiple Birth and Death optimization technique for change detection purposes, and propose a novel nonuniform stochastic object birth process which generates relevant objects with higher probability based on low-level image features.

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

building extraction
change detection
marked point processes


If engineering function is a family resemblance concept: Assessing three formalization strategies In this paper we argue that the challenge of the formalization of functions not merely consists of analyzing and formalizing yet another concept; the challenge may also consist of formalizing a concept that is to be taken as a family resemblance concept in the Wittgensteinian sense. We focus on engineering for giving this argument and indicate briefly how the argument can also be given for biological functions. We demonstrate that in engineering there are a number of different meanings attached to the term "function", and observe that engineers moreover seem to hold that having all these meanings is useful in their field. This observation make plausible that function indeed is to be taken as a family resemblance concept. Then we describe three strategies for the formalization of functions - the revisionary, the overarching and the descriptive strategies - and relate them to a number of the current proposals for this formalization. Assessing the strategies with the meta-ontological goals for formalizations of adequacy and minimality, we argue that if function indeed is to be taken as a family resemblance concept, then the descriptive strategy is to be preferred.

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

functions in engineering
family resemblance concepts
minimality for ontologies
adequacy for ontologies


Pairwise protein expression classifier for candidate biomarker discovery for early detection of human disease prognosis An approach to molecular classification based on the comparative expression of protein pairs is presented. The method overcomes some of the present limitations in using peptide intensity data for class prediction for problems such as the detection of a disease, disease prognosis, or for predicting treatment response. Data analysis is particularly challenging in these situations due to sample size (typically tens) being much smaller than the large number of peptides (typically thousands). Methods based upon high dimensional statistical models, machine learning or other complex classifiers generate decisions which may be very accurate but can be complex and difficult to interpret in simple or biologically meaningful terms. A classification scheme, called ProtPair, is presented that generates simple decision rules leading to accurate classification which is based on measurement of very few proteins and requires only relative expression values, providing specific targeted hypotheses suitable for straightforward validation.

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 O O O O O O O O O O O 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

idiopathic pneumonia syndrome
protpair classifier.


Fine-tuning the search for microsatellites The design and implementation is discussed of Fire?Sat2, an algorithm to detect microsatellites (short approximate tandem repeats) in DNA. The algorithm relies on deterministic finite automata. The parameters are designed to support requirements expressed by molecular biologists in data exploration. By setting the parameters of Fire?Sat2 as liberally as possible, Fire?Sat2 is able to detect more microsatellites than all other software algorithms that we have encountered. Furthermore Fire?Sat2 was found to be faster than all the other algorithms that were investigated for approximate tandem repeat detection. In addition to being fast and accurate, the Fire?Sat2 algorithm that is described is robust and easily useable.

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

microsatellite detection
pattern matching
detection algorithm


a modal foundation for meta-variables We report on work in progress regarding a foundation for the notion of meta-variable in logical frameworks and type theories. Our proposal is to treat meta-variables as modal variables in a modal type theory, which is logically clean and justifies several low-level implementation techniques for meta-variables. We also speculate on other logical extensions of our modal type theory, at present without clear applications.

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


Gradient flows and variational principles for cardiac electrophysiology: Toward efficient and robust numerical simulations of the electrical activity of the heart The computer simulation of the electrical activity of the heart has experienced tremendous advances in the last decade. However, the acceptance of computational methods in the medical community will largely depend on their reliability, efficiency and robustness. In this work, we present a gradient-flow reformulation of the cardiac electrophysiology equations, and propose a minimax variational principle for the time-discretized electrophysiology problem. Based on results from variational analysis, we derive bounds on the time-step size that guarantee the existence and uniqueness of the saddle point, and in turn of the weak solution of the electrophysiology incremental problem. We also show conditions under which the minimax problem is equivalent to an effective minimization principle, which is amenable to a RayleighRitz finite-element analysis. The derived time-step bounds guarantee the strict convexity of the objective function resulting from spatial discretization, thus ensuring the convergence of gradient-descent methods. The proposed theory is applied to the widely employed FitzHughNagumo model, which is shown to conform to the variational framework proposed in this work. The applicability of the method and its implications on the robustness of time integration are demonstrated by way of numerical simulations of the electrical behavior in a single-cell and 3D wedge and biventricular geometries. We envision that the proposed framework will open the door to the development of robust and efficient electrophysiology models and simulations.

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

cardiac electrophysiology
variational principles
fitzhughnagumo

gradient flow
saddle-point variational problems


Generalized oblivious transfer by secret sharing The notion of Generalized Oblivious Transfer (GOT) was introduced by Ishai and Kushilevitz (Proceeding of ISTCS97, IEEE Computer Society, pp 174-184, 1997). In a GOT protocol, Alice holds a set U of messages. A decreasing monotone collection of subsets of U defines the retrieval restrictions. Bob is allowed to learn any permissable subset of messages from that collection, but nothing else, while Alice must remain oblivious regarding the selection that Bob made. We propose a simple and efficient GOT protocol that employs secret sharing. We compare it to another secret sharing based solution for that problem that was recently proposed in Shankar et al. (Proceeding of ICDCN08, LNCS 4904, pp 304-309, 2008). In particular, we show that the access structures that are realized by the two solutions are related through a duality-type relation that we introduce here. We show that there are examples which favor our solution over the second one, while in other examples the contrary holds. Two applications of GOT are considered-priced oblivious transfer, and oblivious evaluation of multivariate polynomials.

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

oblivious transfer
secret sharing
access structures

generalized oblivious transfer
multiparty computation


Combining belief networks and neural networks for scene segmentation We are concerned with the problem of image segmentation, in which each pixel is assigned to one of a predefined finite number of labels. In Bayesian image analysis, this requires fusing together local predictions for the class labels with a prior model of label images. Following the work of [5], we consider the use of tree-structured belief networks (TSBNs) as prior models. The parameters in the TSBN are trained using a maximum-likelihood objective function with the EM algorithm and the resulting model is evaluated by calculating how efficiently it codes label images. A number of authors have used Gaussian mixture models to connect the label field to the image data. In this paper, we compare this approach to the scaled-likelihood method of [42], [31], where local predictions of pixel classification from neural networks are fused with the TSBN prior. Our results show a higher performance is obtained with the neural networks. We evaluate the classification results obtained and emphasize not only the maximum a posteriori segmentation, but also the uncertainty, as evidenced e.g., by the pixelwise posterior marginal entropies. We also investigate the use of conditional maximum-likelihood training for the TSBN and find that this gives rise to improved classification performance over the ML-trained TSBN.

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

tree-structured belief network (tsbn)
hierarchical modeling
markov random field (mrf)
neural network
scaled-likelihood method
conditional maximum-liklihood training
gaussian mixture model
expectation-maximization (em)


Sequencing in telecommunications reform: A review of the Turkish case This paper reviews the Turkish case of telecommunications reform with reference to the evidence from the sequencing literature. Turkeys progress is in line with the proper sequencing of reform suggested by the literature. Accordingly, Turkey has pursued a gradualist approach by restructuring its public utility, the Posts, Telegraph and Telephone Company, and creating Turk Telecom in 1994; establishing the sector regulator, the Turkish Telecommunications Authority, in 2000; and liberalising the sector in 2003 before selling 55% of Turk Telecom to Oger Telecom, a private company, in 2005. Although the proper sequencing of reform was implemented, the Turkish telecommunications sector has not been functioning satisfactorily as yet, as indicated in the recent progress report of the European Union about Turkeys accession and as revealed by the performance indicators analysed in this paper. The prevailing information, incentive and commitment problems require a close cooperation by the government with the regulators so as to ensure and reinforce the autonomy of the Telecommunications Authority and to establish a more transparent decision-making process.

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

privatisation
regulation
industrial policy


Overlay architectures for file distribution: Fundamental performance analysis for homogeneous and heterogeneous cases ? Peer-to-peer networks have been commonly used for tasks such as file sharing or file distribution. We study a class of cooperative file distribution systems where a file is broken up into many chunks that can be downloaded independently. The different peers cooperate by mutually exchanging the different chunks of the file, each peer being client and server at the same time. While such systems are already in widespread use, little is known about their performance and scaling behavior. We develop analytic models that provide insights into how long it takes to deliver a file to N clients given a distribution architecture. Our results indicate that even for the case of heterogeneous client populations it is possible to achieve download times that are almost independent of the number of clients and very close to optimal.

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

overlay architectures
performance analysis

p2p systems
heterogeneous bandwidths
content distribution


Oscillation criteria for second order forced elliptic differential equations with mixed nonlinearities In the case of oscillatory potentials, we establish some oscillation criteria for the second order forced elliptic differential equation with mixed nonlinearities

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

oscillation
forced elliptic differential equations
second order
mixed nonlinearities


Integrating feedback from a clinical data warehouse into practice organisation A patient oriented hospital information system (ARIANE) was inaugurated at the Sherbrooke University hospital (CHUS) in 1990 and a clinical data warehouse (CDW) completed 2004. The CDW is updated from ARIANE every 24h and includes ICD discharge diagnosis data, visit DRG and SNOMED encoding. The data is encrypted on storage. Data is accessed according to institutional approval. To facilitate data access two levels of tool have been made accessible using a web-browser. The first level consists of a dashboard that has a defined design and enables a set of pre-determined dynamic queries about a patient population. This level can be operated with minimal training. The second level uses a convivial database query tool, which requires some prior training. Two prototype dashboards have been designed and evaluated for acceptability. The first for the emergency department enables analysis of patient occupancy. The second for the biochemistry department enables quality assurance evaluation. In most cases worldwide the clinical data warehouse is only beginning to be exploited, often impeded by lack of connection between different enterprise databases. Our CDW is expected rapidly to create a culture change so that clinical practice can be continuously evaluated using compiled data readily available from the electronic health record/hospital information system.

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

hospital information systems
quality indicators
patient care team


A reduced-complexity image coding scheme using decision-directed wavelet-based contourlet transform Recently the wavelet-based contourlet transform (WBCT) is adopted for image coding because it matches better image textures of different orientations. However, its computational complexity is very high. In this paper, we propose three tools to enhance the WBCT coding scheme, in particular, on reducing its computational complexity. First, we propose short-length 2-D filters for directional transform. Second, the directional transform is applied to only a few selected subbands and the selection is done by a mean-shift-based decision procedure. Third, we fine-tune the context tables used by the arithmetic coder in WBCT coding to improve coding efficiency and to reduce computation. Simulations show that, at comparable coded image quality, the proposed scheme saves over 92% computing time of the original WBCT scheme. Comparing to the conventional 2-D wavelet coding schemes, it produces clearly better subjective image quality.

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

contourlet transform
directional transform
image coding

wavelet-based contourlet transform
bit-plane coding
directional filter bank
wavelet transform
computational complexity reduction
adaptive directional transform


Co-location decision tree for enhancing decision-making of pavement maintenance and rehabilitation This paper presents a new decision tree induction method, called co-location-based decision tree (CL-DT), to enhance the decision-making of pavement maintenance and rehabilitation strategies. The proposed algorithm utilizes the co-location characteristics of spatial attribute data in the pavement database. The paper first presented the co-location mining algorithm, including spatial attribute data selection, determination of rough candidate co-locations, determination of candidate co-locations, pruning the non-prevalent co-locations, and induction of co-location rules, and then focused on the development of the co-location decision tree (CL-DT) algorithm, which includes the non-spatial attribute data selection, co-location algorithm modeling, node merging criteria, and co-location decision tree induction. A pavement database covering four counties, which are provided by North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), is used to verify the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrated that (1) the proposed CL-DT algorithm can make a better decision, and has higher accuracy than the existing decision tree methods do; (2) the training data can be fully played roles in contribution to decision tree induction and the computational time taken for the tree growing, tree drawing and rule generation is largely decreased; (3) quantity and locations of six treatment strategies proposed by the ITRC and by CL-DT is much close for each treatment strategy.

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

decision tree
pavement maintenance and rehabilitation


Isolated WDDL: A Hiding Countermeasure for Differential Power Analysis on FPGAs Security protocols are frequently accelerated by implementing the underlying cryptographic functions in reconfigurable hardware. However, unprotected hardware implementations are susceptible to side-channel attacks, and Differential Power Analysis (DPA) has been shown to be especially powerful. In this work, we evaluate and compare the effectiveness of common hiding countermeasures against DPA in FPGA-based designs, using the Whirlpool hash function as a case study. In particular, we develop a new design flow called Isolated WDDL (IWDDL). In contrast with previous works, IWDDL isolates the direct and complementary circuit paths, and also provides DPA resistance in the Hamming distance power model. The analysis is supported using actual implementation results.

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


On the stability and dissipation of wall boundary conditions for compressible flows Characteristic formulations for boundary conditions have demonstrated their effectiveness to handle inlets and outlets, especially to avoid acoustic wave reflections. At walls, however, most authors use simple Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, where the normal velocity (or pressure gradient) is set to zero. This paper demonstrates that there are significant differences between characteristic and Dirichlet methods at a wall and that simulations are more stable when using walls modelled with a characteristic wave decomposition. The derivation of characteristic methods yields an additional boundary term in the continuity equation, which explains their increased stability. This term also allows to handle the two acoustic waves going towards and away from the wall in a consistent manner. Those observations are confirmed by stability matrix analysis and one- and two-dimensional simulations of acoustic modes in cavities. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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 B I O O O O O 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

increased stability
matrix analysis
compressible flows

dirichlet and characteristic boundary conditions


Can belief structures improve our understanding of safety climate survey data? The data collected with a safety climate survey were modeled as belief structures. A number of combination rules are investigated for the purpose of data aggregation. Illustrative examples are used to demonstrate the limitations and suitability of the different combinations rules.

O B I O O O O B I 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


computing the largest empty convex subset of a set of points A largest empty convex subset of a finite set of points, S, is a maximum cardinality subset of S, that (1) are the vertices of a convex polygon, and (2) contain no other points of S interior to their convex hull. An &Ogr;( n 3 ) time and &Ogr;( n 2 ) space algorithm is introduced to find such subsets, where n represents the cardinality of S. Empirical results are obtained and presented. In particular, a configuration of 20 points is obtained with no empty convex hexagon, giving a partial answer to a question of Paul Erds.

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

configurability point timing computation


Combining algebraic effects with continuations We consider the natural combinations of algebraic computational effects such as side-effects, exceptions, interactive input/output, and nondeterminism with continuations. Continuations are not an algebraic effect, but previously developed combinations of algebraic effects given by sum and tensor extend, with effort, to include commonly used combinations of the various algebraic effects with continuations. Continuations also give rise to a third sort of combination, that given by applying the continuations monad transformer to an algebraic effect. We investigate the extent to which sum and tensor extend from algebraic effects to arbitrary monads, and the extent to which Felleisen et al.'s C operator extends from continuations to its combination with algebraic effects. To do all this, we use Dubuc's characterisation of strong monads in terms of enriched large Lawvere theories. (c) 2007 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 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

computational effect
lawvere theory
modularity


reaction-diffusion textures We present a method for texture synthesis based on the simulation of a process of local nonlinear interaction, called reaction-diffusion, which has been proposed as a model of biological pattern formation. We extend traditional reaction-diffusion systems by allowing anisotropic and spatially non-uniform diffusion, as well as multiple competing directions of diffusion. We adapt reaction-diffusion system to the needs of computer graphics by presenting a method to synthesize patterns which compensate for the effects of non-uniform surface parameterization. Finally, we develop efficient algorithms for simulating reaction-diffusion systems and display a collection of resulting textures using standard texture- and displacement-mapping techniques.

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

interaction
present
method
texture
simulation
systems
parameterization
process
model
computer graphics
surface
pattern

efficiency
diffuse
collect
standardization
direct
map
algorithm
effect
natural phenomena
locality
texture synthesis


dynamic ipc/clock rate optimization Current microprocessor designs set the functionality and clock rate of the chip at design time based on the configuration that achieves the best overall performance over a range of target applications. The result may be poor performance when running applications whose requirements are not well-matched to the particular hardware organization chosen. We present a new approach called Complexity-Adaptive Processors (CAPs) in which the IPC/clock rate tradeoff can be altered at runtime to dynamically match the changing requirements of the instruction stream. By exploiting repeater methodologies used increasingly in deep sub-micron designs, CAPs achieve this flexibility with potentially no cycle time impact compared to a fixed architecture. Our preliminary results in applying this approach to on-chip caches and instruction queues indicate that CAPs have the potential to significantly outperform conventional approaches on workloads containing both general-purpose and scientific applications.

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

requirements applications performance design flexibility runtime organization microprocessor dynamic architecture clock instruction hardware caches

streams general queue timing processor adapt methodology optimality functional repeatability matching configurability complexity


Topical perspective on massive threading and parallelism Unquestionably computer architectures have undergone a recent and noteworthy paradigm shift that now delivers multi- and many-core systems with tens to many thousands of concurrent hardware processing elements per workstation or supercomputer node. GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processor Unit) technology in particular has attracted significant attention as new software development capabilities, namely CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) and OpenCL, have made it possible for students as well as small and large research organizations to achieve excellent speedup for many applications over more conventional computing architectures. The current scientific literature reflects this shift with numerous examples of GPGPU applications that have achieved one, two, and in some special cases, three-orders of magnitude increased computational performance through the use of massive threading to exploit parallelism. Multi-core architectures are also evolving quickly to exploit both massive-threading and massive-parallelism such as the 1.3 million threads Blue Waters supercomputer. The challenge confronting scientists in planning future experimental and theoretical research efforts be they individual efforts with one computer or collaborative efforts proposing to use the largest supercomputers in the world is how to capitalize on these new massively threaded computational architectures especially as not all computational problems will scale to massive parallelism. In particular, the costs associated with restructuring software (and potentially redesigning algorithms) to exploit the parallelism of these multi- and many-threaded machines must be considered along with application scalability and lifespan. This perspective is an overview of the current state of threading and parallelize with some insight into the future.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
gpu
computer architecture


Verifying and enumerating parameterized border arrays The parameterized pattern matching problem is to check if there exists a renaming bijection on the alphabet with which a given pattern can be transformed into a substring of a given text. A parameterized border array (p-border array) is a parameterized version of a standard border array, and we can efficiently solve the parameterized pattern matching problem using p-border arrays. In this paper, we present a linear time algorithm to verify if a given integer array is a valid p-border array for a binary alphabet. We also show a linear time algorithm to compute all binary parameterized strings sharing a given p-border array. In addition, we give an algorithm which computes all p-border arrays of length at most n, where n is a given threshold. This algorithm runs in O(B-2(n)) time, where B-2(n) is the number of all p-border arrays of length n for a binary parameter alphabet. The problems with a larger alphabet are much more difficult. Still, we present an O(n(1.5)) - time O(n) - space algorithm to verify if a given integer array of length n is a valid p-border array for an unbounded alphabet. The best previously known solution to this task takes time proportional to the n-th Bell number 1/e Sigma(infinity)(k=0) k(n)/k(l), and hence our algorithm is much more efficient. Also, we show that it is possible to enumerate all p-border arrays of length at most n for an unbounded alphabet in O(B(n)n(2.5)) time, where B-n denotes the number of p-border arrays of length n. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

string matching
reverse engineering
enumeration algorithms


SC-FDMA-based resource allocation and power control scheme for D2D communication using LTE-A uplink resource Device-to-device (D2D) communication-enabled cellular networks allow cellular devices to directly communicate with each other without any evolved NodeB (eNB). D2D communication aims to improve the spectral efficiency and increases the overall system capacity. For future mobile networks, intelligent radio resource allocation and power control schemes are required to accommodate the increasing number of cellular devices and their growing demand of data traffic. In this paper, a combined resource allocation and power control scheme for D2D communication is proposed. In the proposed scheme, D2D communication reuses the uplink (UL) resources of conventional cellular user equipments (CUEs); therefore, we have adopted single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) as UL transmission scheme. The proposed scheme uses fractional frequency reuse (FFR)-based architecture to efficiently allocate the resources and mitigate the interference between CUEs and D2D user equipments (DUEs). In order to guarantee the user fairness, the proposed scheme uses the well-known proportional fair (PF) scheduling algorithm for resource allocation. We have also proposed an intelligent power control scheme which provides equal opportunity to both CUEs and DUEs to achieve a certain minimum signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR) value. The performance evaluation results show that the proposed scheme significantly improves the overall cell capacity and achieves low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR).

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

d2d communication
resource allocation
power control
pf scheduling


design and comparison of acceleration methods for touchpad As the resolution of a notebook display increases, the efficiency of a touchpad is becoming a more important issue. In particular, it is often observed that users scrape the pad repeatedly to reach the close button of a window. In this paper, we propose two new cursor control methods utilizing the contact-area information that is provided by most touchpads. We compared the new methods with the mouse acceleration that is the most common cursor control method. An evaluation study showed that the new methods required smaller number of scrapings and shorter distance of scraping on the touchpad while their efficiency is similar to that of the mouse acceleration. All participants preferred the new methods to the mouse acceleration.

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


Threat evaluation method for distributed network environment The approach proposed in this paper involves the creation of a new algorithm for analyzing correlation alerts and providing the correct information regarding the detection of various types of security attacks, such as DDoS. It also enables the evaluation of the attack status, the degree of danger from the viewpoint of a managed network environment and the assets protected by the security devices. This paper proposes an advanced ESM system (referred to as the "SIA System"), which is capable of grouping a large amount of alert messages, analyzing mixed attacks using correlation alert messages from each sensor and responding to security threats quickly, after classifying them into one of four different statuses. It was confirmed that this system implementation could identify and analyze all types of intrusion by attackers in a managed network. Therefore, it provides a very effective means for security experts to cope with security threats in real time.

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

esm (enterprise security management)
meta-ids
sim (security information management)
sia (security information alert)
status evaluation logic


Semantic heterogeneity in multidatabase systems: A review and a proposed meta-data structure This article reviews current research on the issue of semantic conflict resolution in multidatabase system design. It is observed that in multidatabase systems, semantic conflicts need to be resolved at both schema level and instance level. Based on the literature review, a new taxonomy for differentiating semantic conflicts and a meta-data representation incorporating the taxonomy are proposed. It is argued that the new meta-data representation is effective for summarizing local schemata, and hence it can serve as a common protocol for multidatabase systems that require instance level conflict resolution.

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

multidatabase
semantic conflict resolution
semantic heterogeneity


Artificial neural network approach to data matrix laser direct part marking Certain applications have recently appeared in industry where a traditional bar code printed on a label will not survive because the item to be tracked has to be exposed to harsh environments. Laser direct-part marking is a manufacturing process used to create permanent marks on a substrate that could help to alleviate this problem. In this research, artificial neural networks were employed to model the laser direct-part marking process of Data Matrix symbols on carbon steel substrates. Several experiments were conducted to study the laser direct-part marking process and to generate data to serve as training, validation and testing data sets in the artificial neural networks modeling process. Two performance measures, mean squared error and correlation coefficient, were utilized to assess the performance of the artificial neural network models. Single-output artificial neural network models corresponding to four performance measures specific to the Data Matrix bar code symbology were found to have good learning and predicting capabilities. The single-output artificial neural network models were compared to equivalent multiple linear regression models for validation purposes. The prediction capability of the single-output artificial neural network models with respect to laser direct-part marking of Data Matrix symbols on carbon steel substrates was superior to that of the multiple linear regression models.

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

automatic identification and data capture


Tool selection for five-axis curvature matched machining This paper presents an automatic cutting tool selection methodology for five-axis finish surface machining based on the techniques of curvature matched machining. The criterion for cutter selection is to minimize the machine errors and to maximize material removal rate using an optimal filleted end mill selected from a standard cutting tool library. Tool parameters investigated include cutter radius, cutter corner radius and cutter length. The maximum swept silhouette of the inclined tool is proposed and implemented as tool radii selection protocols for matching the change in surface curvature. Algorithms for detection and correction of local tool gouging and global tool interference are presented. The local distance between the cutter bottom and the surface is used to detect and correct local tool gouging. Global tool interference detection and correction is solved by studying the shortest distance between the part surface and the cutter body axis. A faceted approach is used to accelerate the distance calculations. The solution to the local and global gouging problems leads to the shortest, most rigid, tool in the library. These methods of automatic tool selection have been implemented in ROBLINE using the C-language on the system. ROBLINE is a precursor to CODE (Cimetrix Open Development Environment) which is a complete commercial off-line/on-line machine modeling, development and control package. Machined examples confirm the effectiveness of these methods.

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


Contrasting IT Capability and Organizational Types: Implications for Firm Performance The Resource-Based View (RBV) has become one of the most popular ways to examine the impact of IT on firm performance. An increasing number of researchers are using the theoretical underpinning of the RBV to ground their research in investigating this relationship. This paper follows in this tradition by developing multidimensional measures for two dimensions of IT capability, inside-out IT capability and spanning IT capability In this regard the authors relate these dimensions to firm performance as profit ratios and cost ratios. Inside-out capability is the IT resources deployed from inside the firm in response to market requirements and opportunities. However; spanning IT capability involves both internal and external analysis and is needed to integrate the firm inside-out and outside-in IT competences. This study also makes an exploratory comparative assessment of the relative impact of inside-out IT capability and spanning IT capability, while analyzing the differences on the impact of IT capability in diverse types of organizations. Finally, the authors give evidence that different dimensions of IT capability may have different effects on performance measures.

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

cost ratios
firm performance
it capability
it resources
profit ratios


Constraint-based termination analysis of logic programs Current norm-based automatic termination analysis techniques for logic programs can be split up into different components: inference of mode or type information, derivation of models, generation of well-founded orders, and verification of the termination conditions themselves. Although providing high-precision results, these techniques suffer from an efficiency point of view, as several of these analyses are often performed through abstract interpretation. We present a new termination analysis which integrates the various components and produces a set of constraints that, when solvable, identifies successful termination proofs. The proposed method is both efficient and precise. The use of constraint sets enables the propagation of information over all different phases while the need for multiple analyses is considerably reduced.

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

languages verification
constraint solving
logic programming


Maximum renamable Horn sub-CNFs The NP-hard problem of finding the largest renamable Horn sub-CNF of a given CNF is considered, and a polynomial time approximation algorithm is presented for this problem. It is shown that for cubic CNFs this algorithm has a guaranteed performance ratio of .

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

horn cnf
satisfiability
approximation algorithms


Some recent results on Ramsey-type numbers In this paper we survey the authors recent results on quantitative extensions of Ramsey theory. In particular, we discuss our recent results on Folkman numbers, induced bipartite Ramsey graphs, and explicit constructions of Ramsey graphs.

O O O O O O O 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


An improved, free surface, topographic technique Current techniques of water wave visualization such as shadowgraphy and stereo photography are widely used but are deficient in many aspects. Refraction based visualization observes the bending of light as it traverses across a liquid-air interface. This work describes the continued development of techniques to measure the surface height of a liquid free surface. The method, Reference Image Topography, utilizes refraction of light at the free surface as a function of the local angle of that surface. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) software is used to evaluate apparent dislocations of the target image viewed through the free surface, which are approximately proportional to the surface angle. High-resolution images are presented of the dynamic surface topography for a point source and the shallow water flow around a vertical cylinder.

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

visualization
free surface
topography
piv


An adaptive two-sample location-scale test of Lepage type for symetric distributions For the two-sample location and scale problem we propose an adaptive test which is based on so called Lepage type tests. The well known test of Lepage (1971) is a confirmation of the Wilcoxon test for location alternatives and the Ansari-Bradley test for scale alternatives and it behaves well for symmetric and medium-tailed distributions. For the case of short-, medium- and long-tailed distributions we replace the Wilcoxon test and the Ansari-Bradley test by suitable other two-sample tests for location and scale, respectively, in order to get higher power than the classical Lepage test for such distributions. These tests here are called Lepage type tests. In practice, however, we generally have no clear idea about the distribution having generated our data. Thus, an adaptive test should be applied which takes the given data set into consideration. The proposed adaptive test is based on the concept of Hogg (1974), i.e., first, to classify the unknown symmetric distribution function with respect to a measure for tailweight and second, to apply an appropriate Lepage type test for this classified type of distribution. We compare the adaptive test with the three Lepage type tests in the adaptive scheme and with the classical Lepage test as well as with other parametric and nonparametric tests. The power comparison is carried out via Monte Carlo simulation. It is shown that the adaptive test is the best one for the broad class of distributions considered.

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

nonparametric tests
monte carlo simulation
power comparison

parametric tests
location-scale alternatives
nonnormality
measure of tailweight


A meshless polyharmonic-type boundary interpolation method for solving boundary integral equations A boundary interpolation technique is introduced based on multi-elliptic partial differential equations. The interpolation problem is converted to a special higher order partial differential equation which is completely independent of the geometry of the original problem. Based on this interpolation method, meshless methods are constructed for the 2D LaplacePoisson equation. The presented approach makes it possible to avoid solving large and dense interpolation equations. The auxiliary higher order partial differential equation is solved by robust, quadtree-based multi-level methods. The results can be easily generalized to 3D problems as well.

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

scattered data interpolation
biharmonic interpolation
polyharmonic interpolation
quadtree


Tracheal and central bronchial aerodynamics using virtual bronchoscopy and computational fluid dynamics Virtual bronchoscopy reconstructions of the airway noninvasively provide useful morphologic information of structural abnormalities such as stenoses and masses. In this paper, we show how virtual bronchoscopy can be used to perform aerodynamic calculations in anatomically realistic models. Pressure and flow patterns in a human airway were computed noninvasively. These showed decreased pressure and increased shear stress in the region of a stenosis.

O O O O O O B I O B I I B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 fluid dynamics
virtual bronchoscopy

bronchus
trachea
visualization
wegener's granulomatosis


Distributed Random Walks Performing random walks in networks is a fundamental primitive that has found applications in many areas of computer science, including distributed computing. In this article, we focus on the problem of sampling random walks efficiently in a distributed network and its applications. Given bandwidth constraints, the goal is to minimize the number of rounds required to obtain random walk samples. All previous algorithms that compute a random walk sample of length l as a subroutine always do so naively, that is, in O(l) rounds. The main contribution of this article is a fast distributed algorithm for performing random walks. We present a sublinear time distributed algorithm for performing random walks whose time complexity is sublinear in the length of the walk. Our algorithm performs a random walk of length l in (O) over tilde(root lD) rounds ((O) over tilde hides polylog n factors where n is the number of nodes in the network) with high probability on an undirected network, where D is the diameter of the network. For small diameter graphs, this is a significant improvement over the naive O(l) bound. Furthermore, our algorithm is optimal within a poly-logarithmic factor as there exists a matching lower bound [Nanongkai et al. 2011]. We further extend our algorithms to efficiently perform k independent random walks in (O) over tilde(root klD + k) rounds. We also show that our algorithm can be applied to speedup the more general Metropolis-Hastings sampling. Our random-walk algorithms can be used to speed up distributed algorithms in applications that use random walks as a subroutine. We present two main applications. First, we give a fast distributed algorithm for computing a random spanning tree (RST) in an arbitrary (undirected unweighted) network which runs in (O) over tilde(root mD) rounds with high probability (m is the number of edges). Our second application is a fast decentralized algorithm for estimating mixing time and related parameters of the underlying network. Our algorithm is fully decentralized and can serve as a building block in the design of topologically-aware networks.

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

algorithms
random walks
random spanning tree
mixing time

theory
random sampling
decentralized computation
distributed algorithms


Towards Unbiased End-to-End Network Diagnosis Internet fault diagnosis is extremely important for end-users, overlay network service providers (like Akamai [1]), and even Internet service providers (ISPs). However, because link-level properties cannot be uniquely determined from end-to-end measurements, the accuracy of existing statistical diagnosis approaches is subject to uncertainty from statistical assumptions about the network. In this paper, we propose a novel least-biased end-to-end network diagnosis (in short, LEND) system for inferring link-level properties like loss rate. We define a minimal identifiable link sequence (MILS) as a link sequence of minimal length whose properties can be uniquely identified from end-to-end measurements. We also design efficient algorithms to find all the MILSs and infer their loss rates for diagnosis. Our LEND system works for any network topology and for both directed and undirected properties and incrementally adapts to network topology and property changes. It gives highly accurate estimates of the loss rates of MILSs, as indicated by both extensive simulations and Internet experiments. Furthermore, we demonstrate that such diagnosis can be achieved with fine granularity and in near real-time even for reasonably large overlay networks. Finally, LEND can supplement existing statistical inference approaches and provide smooth tradeoff between diagnosis accuracy and granularity.

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

internet diagnosis
linear algebra
network measurement


efficient broadcast disks program construction in asymmetric communication environments A well-known technique for broadcast program construction is the Broadcast Disks. However, it has important disadvantages, as for example that the broadcast program construction procedure leaves some parts of the broadcast program empty. This paper proposes a new approach for the construction of the broadcast program. Specifically, it presents three new algorithms, which face the problems of the Broadcast Disk Technique. According to our approach, the broadcast program is constructed with the minimum possible length, respecting the selected disk relative frequencies and keeps the average delays of retrieving data-items low. The constructed broadcast programs have no empty parts and retain their desired properties in any combination of disk relative frequencies. Experimental results show that this approach is more efficient than Broadcast Disks in all cases.

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

asymmetric communication environments
broadcast disks