Fractal image compression: a randomized approach The fractal image compression is inherently time intensive and thus there is a growing need to increase its speedup. This paper presents a fast encoding scheme where the domain blocks are searched randomly for every range block. An analysis of the basic fractal image compression method has been carried out and on the basis of the analysis a method for image characterization has been proposed. Then a detailed theoretical analysis of this randomized fractal compression scheme has been presented and the results are validated with the experimental ones. The random approach has been found to be quite efficient giving considerable increase in speed-up compared to several other approaches.

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

iterated function system (ifs)
fractal image compression (fic)


SUTIL - Network selection based on utility function and integer linear programming This work presents SUTIL, a mechanism for network selection in the context of next generation networks (NGN). SUTIL selection mechanism prioritizes networks with higher relevance to the application and lower energy consumption and it enables full and seamless connectivity to mobile user devices and applications. Consequently, SUTIL contributes to realize the vision of ubiquitous computing, in which services, devices, and sensor-enriched environments interact anytime, anywhere to accomplish human designed tasks. The provided solution is based on utility function and integer linear programming and it aims at: (i) maximizing the user satisfaction while meeting application QoS and (ii) minimizing the energy consumption of devices when connecting to a target network. The solution is global since it considers for a given base station all devices that are simultaneously candidate for handoff. Simulation results showed the benefits of SUTIL usage in NGN environments. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

network selection
seamless connectivity
utility function
integer linear programming


Dynamic flexible constraint satisfaction Existing techniques for solving constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are largely concerned with a static set of imperative, inflexible constraints. Recently, work has addressed these shortcomings of classical constraint satisfaction in the form of two separate extensions known as flexible and dynamic CSP. Little, however, has been done to combine these two approaches in order to bring to bear the benefits of both in solving more complex problems. This paper presents a new integrated algorithm, Flexible Local Changes, for dynamic flexible problems. It is further shown how the use of flexible consistency-enforcing techniques can improve solution re-use and hence the efficiency of the core algorithm. Empirical evidence is provided to support the success of the present approach.

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 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 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

constraint satisfaction
dynamic csp
flexible local changes


Network externalities, layered protection and IT security risk management This paper considers two important issues related to security risk management. First, the presence of network externalities in security risks. Second, the distinction of general (network) and system-specific protection measures. We found the optimal allocation of security resources (investments) in protecting every system in an organization. The results show that the consideration of network externalities and layered protection changes the risk mitigation decisions significantly. In addition, accurate estimation of system risk plays a critical role in the success of risk management. Otherwise, the use of a uniform baseline protection approach may be more desirable when the misjudgment of relative system risks is likely to occur.

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

it risk management
it risk analysis
it risk mitigation
security investments
security resource planning


The Application of Proteomic Techniques to Fungal Protein Identification and Quantification The number of sequenced genomes has increased rapidly in the last few years, supporting a revolution in bioinformatics that has been leveraged by scientists seeking to analyze the proteomes of numerous biological systems. The primary technique employed for the identification of peptides and proteins from biological sources is mass spectrometry (MS). This analytical process is usually in the form of whole-protein analysis (termed top-down proteomics) or analysis of enzymatically produced peptides (known as the bottom-up approach). This article will focus primarily on the more common bottom-up proteomics to include topics such as sample preparation, separation strategies, MS instrumentation, data analysis, and techniques for protein quantification. Strategies for preparation of samples for proteomic analysis, as well as tools for protein and peptide separation will be discussed. A general description of common MS instruments along with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) will be given. Different methodologies of sample ionization including matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) will be discussed. Data analysis methods including database search algorithms and tools for protein sequence analysis will be introduced. We will also discuss experimental strategies for MS protein quantification using stable isotope labeling techniques and fluorescent labeling. We will introduce several fungal proteomic studies to illustrate the use of these methods. This article will allow investigators to gain a working knowledge of proteomics along with some strengths and weaknesses associated with the techniques presented

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

proteomics
mass spectrometry
protein identification


Relationship between guaranteed rate server and latency rate server To analyze scheduling algorithms in computer networks, two models have been proposed and widely used in the literature, namely the Guaranteed Rate (GR) server model and the Latency Rate (LR) server model. While a lot scheduling algorithms have been proved to belong to GR or LR or both, it is not clear what is the relationship between them. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this relationship. We prove that if a scheduling algorithm belongs to GR, it also belongs to LR and vice versa. In addition, we review several other models that are also used for analysis of scheduling algorithms and discuss their relationship with LR model and GR model.

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

guaranteed rate server
latency rate server


A Maturity Model for Management Control Systems Five Evolutionary Steps to Guide Development Corporate management in today's international companies has become increasingly complex. To cope with the growing challenges, information technology (IT)-based management control systems (MCSs) covering reporting, planning, and consolidation have been deployed. Despite their tradition in management research, the 'right' setup of MCSs is still challenging. Maturity models (MMs) are an established instrument to identify strengths and weaknesses of certain domains. As existing MMs rather focus on single MCS domains, neglect an IT perspective and miss a sound methodical foundation, this paper outlines an empirically and algorithmically constructed MCS MM. The model consists of three partial MMs for reporting, planning, and consolidation, which are integrated into one holistic MCS MM. The five levels of the MCS MM guide MCS evolution from a basic, mandatory/external-driven MCS (level 1) to a balanced MCS (level 2), and a comprehensive MCS (level 3). Ultimately, MCSs show a strong strategic focus (level 4) and leverage the potentials of modern IT (level 5).

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

corporate management
management control systems
maturity models

management accounting
business intelligence
design science


To compete or cooperate? This is the question in communities of autonomous services We formalize the question of competing or cooperating for communities of agent-based services. We use the game-theoretic best response technique to analyze competitive/cooperative behaviors of autonomous services within communities. We analyze the computational complexity of the proposed decision mechanism and prove its efficiency. We confirm the theoretical results through extensive simulation using real dataset of services on the web.

O O O O O O O O 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

agent-based services
decision making
game theory
strategies


Euclidean upgrading from segment lengths: DLT-like algorithm and its variants ? A DLT-like algorithm for Euclidean upgrading from segment lengths is proposed. The constraint equation is parameterized in a simple way. The plane at infinity is directly extracted from the intermediate results. This algorithm has higher accuracy than the existing linear algorithms. Weighting and nonlinear refinement further improve the accuracy.

B I O B I 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

dlt-like algorithm
multi-camera calibration
weighted dlt-like algorithm


Influence of local and regional publications in the production of public health research papers in Latin America The study seeks to identify the influence of local and regional publications in the production of public health research papers in the Latin American region. A citation analysis of the papers published in the following three leading journals in the field of public health was conducted: Revista Mdica de Chile (Chile) (RMCh); Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutricin (Venezuela) (ALAN); and Salud Pblica de Mxico (Mxico) (SPM). Papers were analyzed for the period 20032007. SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and the printed version of the journals were used in the analysis. Overall, 1,273 papers from 122 journal issues were analyzed. References accounted for a total of 38,459. Over 90% of the production was published through the collaboration of two or more authors. Author affiliation corresponded in most cases to the country of origin of the journal. References to Portuguese papers accounted for nearly 5% in ALAN and less than 1% each in SPM and RMCh. Citations among the three journals were not significant. Only ALAN cited RMCh and SPM over 3% each, of total citations. SPM and RMCh cited each other less than 1% of total citations. With the exception of ALAN, most public health papers published in RMCh and SPM derived from the national collaboration of researchers in the field. A small amount of public health knowledge communication was being transferred from Brazil to the region through RMCh and SPM. A vertical and individual (per journal/country) model of knowledge communication in public health was identified.

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

public health research
citation analysis
latin america

knowledge management
bibliometric analysis
health journals


A consistent and stabilized continuous/discontinuous Galerkin method for fourth-order incompressible flow problems This paper presents a new consistent and stabilized finite-element formulation for fourth-order incompressible flow problems. The formulation is based on the C0-interior penalty method, the Galerkin least-square (GLS) scheme, which assures that the formulation is weakly coercive for spaces that fail to satisfy the inf-sup condition, and considers discontinuous pressure interpolations. A stability analysis through a lemma establishes that the proposed formulation satisfies the inf-sup condition, thus confirming the robustness of the method. This lemma indicates that, at the element level, there exists an optimal or quasi-optimal GLS stability parameter that depends on the polynomial degree used to interpolate the velocity and pressure fields, the geometry of the finite element, and the fluid viscosity term. Numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the ability of the formulation to deal with arbitrary interpolations for velocity and pressure, and to stabilize large pressure gradients.

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

discontinuous galerkin methods
fourth-order problems
second gradient


Diagnosis of constant faults in read-once contact networks over finite bases We study the depth of decision trees for diagnosis of constant 0 and 1 faults in read-once contact networks over finite bases containing only indecomposable networks. For each basis, we obtain a linear upper bound on the minimum depth of decision trees depending on the number of edges in the networks. For bases containing networks with at most 10 edges we find coefficients for linear bounds which are close to sharp.

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


Automata theory based on complete residuated lattice-valued logic: Reduction and minimization Automata theory based on complete residuated lattice-valued logic, called L-valued finite automata (L-VFAs), has been established by Qiu recently. In this paper, we define a kind of Mealy type of L-VFAs (MLFAs), a generalization of L-VEAs. Two kinds of statewise equivalence relations are introduced, and a minimal form is defined. We study the existence of the minimal form of an MLFA. Then, we show that any two states can be distinguished by some word with finite length. Also, a minimization algorithm of the MLFAs is presented. In addition, we obtain a minimization algorithm for L-VFAs as well. Finally, we define L-valued languages (L-VLs) and L-valued regular languages (L-VRLs) recognized by L-VFAs, and provide some properties of L-VRLs. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

finite automata
reduction and minimization

non-classical logic
residuated lattices
fuzzy regular languages


symbolic pointer analysis for detecting memory leaks It is well accepted that pointers are a common source of memory anomalies such as loosing references to dynamic records without deallocating them (also known as memory leaks). This paper presents a novel pointer analysis framework that detects memory leaks by statically analyzing the behavior of programs. Our approach is based on symbolic evaluation of programs. Symbolic evaluation is an advanced static symbolic analysis that is centered around symbolic variable values, assumptions about and constraints between variable values, and control flow information (path conditions). As part of symbolic evaluation we introduce a new symbolic heap algebra for modeling heap operations. Predicates defined over the program's input are derived which allow to detect memory leaks. Our approach goes beyond previous work in the field of statically detecting memory leaks by considering also path conditions which increases the accuracy of our results, symbolically modeling heap data structures and heap operations. Examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach.

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

framework
examples
input
analysis
data structures
control flow
paper
pointers
evaluation
records
accuracy
values
behavior
dynamic
algebra

memory leak
pointer analysis
model
constraint
informal
program
variability
memorialized
operability
effect


Investigation on Amaris dynamical neural field with global constant inhibition ? In this paper, the properties of Amaris dynamical neural field with global constant inhibition induced by its kernel are investigated. Amaris dynamical neural field illustrates many neurophysiological phenomena successfully and has been applied to unsupervised learning like data clustering in recent years. In its applications, the stationary solution to Amaris dynamical neural field plays an important role that the underlying patterns being perceived are usually presented as the excited region in it. However, the type of stationary solution to dynamical neural field with typical kernel is often sensitive to parameters of its kernel that limits its range of application. Different from dynamical neural field with typical kernel that have been discussed a lot, there are few theoretical results on dynamical neural field with global constant inhibitory kernel that has already shown better performance in practice. In this paper, some important results on existence and stability of stationary solution to dynamical neural field with global constant inhibitory kernel are obtained. All of these results show that such kind of dynamical neural field has better potential for missions like data clustering than those with typical kernels, which provide a theoretical basis of its further extensive application.

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

dynamical neural field
stationary solution


A control system for a single-spin LEO satellite employing supervisory control with fuzzy logic and adaptive control under uncertainty We present an algorithm of supervisory control with fuzzy logic and adaptive control of a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite with single-spin stabilization. The error generated by an adaptive control signal can be computed with only the reference dynamics of the model and the damping. A fuzzy logic algorithm is presented that acts as a supervisory control and estimates the changes of the parameters and applies the necessary signals to avoid any unsuitability in the system. The results of simulation have shown that position control is performed within an acceptable tolerance by using the suggested algorithm, which includes three closed-loop systems and unknown parameters of the system [1-3].

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

parameter estimation
fuzzy control
reference model
covariance matrix
low earth orbit (leo)


Barriers to the adoption of computerised decision support systems in general practice consultations: a qualitative study of GPs' perspectives Introduction: Computerised decision support systems are increasingly important in primary care for the practice of evidence-based medicine and the development of shared GP-patient decision making. However, despite their emergence, such systems have not been entirely embraced by GPs. There is little qualitative research exploring practical barriers to the adoption of decision support systems in this setting. Method: Qualitative interviews with 15 GPs in the West Midlands. Results: Several practical barriers were identified to the use of computerised support systems in primary care consultations. These included limitations of practitioners' IT skills, problems for GPs in understanding the risk output of systems and GP concerns about communicating risk sufficiently well to patients. Concerns over the time implications of using a system in a consultation was also identified as a barrier. Conclusion: Designers of decision support systems for use in primary care consultations must account for the practical needs of users when developing computerised support systems. Systems must be acceptable to the format of a consultation, include definitions of what output means, and help facilitate dialogue between the GP and the patient. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

barriers
primary care
computerised
qualitative


An evolutionary algorithm to discover quantitative association rules in multidimensional time series An evolutionary approach for finding existing relationships among several variables of a multidimensional time series is presented in this work. The proposed model to discover these relationships is based on quantitative association rules. This algorithm, called QARGA (Quantitative Association Rules by Genetic Algorithm), uses a particular codification of the individuals that allows solving two basic problems. First, it does not perform a previous attribute discretization and, second, it is not necessary to set which variables belong to the antecedent or consequent. Therefore, it may discover all underlying dependencies among different variables. To evaluate the proposed algorithm three experiments have been carried out. As initial step, several public datasets have been analyzed with the purpose of comparing with other existing evolutionary approaches. Also, the algorithm has been applied to synthetic time series (where the relationships are known) to analyze its potential for discovering rules in time series. Finally, a real-world multidimensional time series composed by several climatological variables has been considered. All the results show a remarkable performance of QARGA.

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

time series
quantitative association rules


Integration and GenerificationAgile Software Development in the Healthcare Market The aim of this paper is to contribute to strategies applicable to vendors who want to move their locally designed and highly integrated systems to a larger market. A further aim is to explore how such systems developed for a local practice, and tightly integrated with the existing infrastructure, can be adapted to a larger market. We analyse the socio-technical mechanisms in play, the roles that the vendor and the users have in order to facilitate this, and the delicate interplay in relation to the other vendors. The analysis draws on the CSCW field, notions of generification of packaged software products, and boundary work. We argue that this process involves boundary work in relation to the installed base, as well as to other vendors and users. We also argue that the roles of the actors involved change during this process. The case described in this paper is the evolution of a system in which general practitioners can order laboratory services from the hospital electronically. The system integrates the general practitioners information systems with the laboratory information system in the hospital. The development of the system started out in close cooperation with one customer, but as it evolved more customers bought the system. The system has been designed in an iterative and evolutionary way using agile development methods.

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

boundary work
cscw
generification
integration


Flow-insensitive type qualifiers We describe flow-insensitive type qualifiers, a lightweight, practical mechanism for specifying and checking properties not captured by traditional type systems. We present a framework for adding new, user-specified type qualifiers to programming languages with static type systems, such as C and Java. In our system, programmers add a few type qualifier annotations to their program, and automatic type qualifier inference determines the remaining qualifiers and checks the annotations for consistency. We describe a tool CQUAL for adding type qualifiers to the C programming language. Our tool CQUAL includes a visualization component for displaying browsable inference results to the programmer. Finally, we present several experiments using our tool, including inferring const qualifiers, finding security vulnerabilities in several popular C programs, and checking initialization data usage in the Linux kernel. Our results suggest that inference and visualization make type qualifiers lightweight, that type qualifier inference scales to large programs, and that type qualifiers are applicable to a wide variety of problems. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.2.1 [Software Engineering]: Requirements/Specifications; D.2.4 [Software Engineering]: Software/Program Verification; D.3.3 [Programming Languages]: Language Constructs and Features; F.3.1 [Logics and Meanings of Programs]: Specifying and Verifying and Reasoning about Programs.

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

languages
verification
type qualifiers
security
const

algorithms
design
reliability
experimentation
theory
types
constraints
taint
static analysis


Experimental evaluation of lesion prediction modelling in the presence of cavitation bubbles: intended for high-intensity focused ultrasound prostate treatment The accuracy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) lesion prediction modelling was evaluated for a truncated spherical transducer designed for prostate cancer treatment. The modelling adapted the bio heat transfer equation (BHTE) to take into account the activity of cavitation bubbles generated during HIFU exposure. This modelling was used to predict the lesions produced by three different transducer geometries: fixed-focus, concentric-ring and 1.5D phased-array. Lesions were predicted for different ultrasound exposure conditions close to those used in prostate cancer treatment. Twenty-one in vitro and nine in vitro experiments were performed on pig liver to validate the accuracy of the predictions. A good match was found between the predicted and experimental lesion shapes. Lesion dimensions (maximum depth and length, area at the centre of the lesion or central surface area) were measured on experimental and predicted lesions. The central surface area was predicted by the model with a range of error of 0.15-6.5% for in vitro tests and 0.97-9% in vivo. For comparison, BHTE without bubbles had a range of error of 0.4-55.5% (in vitro) and 9-25.5% (in vivo). The model should be accurate enough to predict HIFU lesions under ultrasound exposure conditions used in prostate cancer treatment.

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

ultrasound surgery
high-intensity focused ultrasound
lesion modelling


FFT and convolution performance in image filtering on GPU Many contemporary visualization tools comprise some image-filtering approach. Since imagefiltering approaches are very computationally demanding, the acceleration using graphics-hardware (GPU) is very desirable to preserve interactivity of the main visualization tool itself. In this article we take a close look on GPU implementation of two basic approaches to image filtering - Fast Fourier Transform (frequency domain) and convolution (spatial domain). We evaluate these methods in terms of the performance in real time applications and suitability for GPU implementation. Convolution yields better performance than Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) in many cases; however this observation cannot be generalized. In this article we identify conditions under which the FFT gives better performance than the corresponding convolution and we assess the different kernel sizes and issues of application of multiple filters on one image.

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

fast fourier transformation (fft)
graphics processing unit (gpu)


Two-phased composite I-distance indicator approach for evaluation of countries information development This paper makes a review of the ICT Development Index-IDI, pointing to its drawbacks. The disadvantages of the IDI are mostly related to its bias and uncertainty. Paper presents the Composite I-distance Indicator-CIDI for measuring ICT development. CIDI is unbiased and more stable than the official IDI ranking methodology. CIDI can be used as an appropriate framework for information society evaluation.

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

information and communication technologies (ict)


semantic annotation and linking of competitive intelligence reports for business clusters Competitive intelligence (CI) is a sub-discipline of business intelligence that supports the decision makers in understanding the competitive environment by means of textual reports prepared based on public resources. CI is particularly demanding in the context of larger business clusters. We report on a long-term project featuring large-scale manual semantic annotation of CI reports wrt. business clusters in several industries. The underlying ontologies are the result of collaborative editing by multiple student teams. The results of annotation are finally merged into CI maps that allow easy access to both the original documents and the knowledge structures.

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

collaborative annotation
shared ontology population
ontology engineering
document annotation


Robust Audio Data Hiding Using Correlated Quantization With Histogram-Based Detector In this paper, two blind audio watermarking methods using correlated quantization for data embedding with histogram-based detector have been proposed. First, a novel mapping called the point-to-point graph (PPG) is introduced. In this mapping, the value of samples is important as well as the correlation among them. As this mapping increases the dimension of the signal, the data embedding procedure (quantization) will be diversified more securely than that of the 1-D domains such as the time or frequency domains. Hence, two watermarking techniques coined as hard and soft quantization methods based on the quantization of the PPG point radii are suggested. The performance of both techniques is analyzed by obtaining the radii distribution of PPG points after watermarking. Experimental results against AWGN attack confirm the validity of theoretical analysis. Moreover, the robustness of the proposed methods against other common attacks such as echo, low pass, resampling, and MP3 are investigated through extensive simulations.

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

hard quantization
point-to-point graph (ppg)


Random low-degree polynomials are hard to approximate We study the problem of how well a typical multivariate polynomial can be approximated by lower-degree polynomials over F-2 . We prove that almost all degree d polynomials have only an exponentially small correlation with all polynomials of degree at most d - 1, for all degrees d up to Theta(n). That is, a random degree d polynomial does not admit a good approximation of lower degree. In order to prove this, we prove far tail estimates on the distribution of the bias of a random low-degree polynomial. Recently, several results regarding the weight distribution of Reed-Muller codes were obtained. Our results can be interpreted as a new large deviation bound on the weight distribution of Reed-Muller codes.

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


Applying two-level reinforcement ranking in query-oriented multidocument summarization Sentence ranking is the issue of most concern in document summarization today. While traditional feature-based approaches evaluate sentence significance and rank the sentences relying on the features that are particularly designed to characterize the different aspects of the individual sentences, the newly emerging graph-based ranking algorithms (such as the PageRank-like algorithms) recursively compute sentence significance using the global information in a text graph that links sentences together. In general, the existing PageRank-like algorithms can model well the phenomena that a sentence is important if it is linked by many other important sentences. Or they are capable of modeling the mutual reinforcement among the sentences in the text graph. However, when dealing with multidocument summarization these algorithms often assemble a set of documents into one large file. The document dimension is totally ignored. In this article we present a framework to model the two-level mutual reinforcement among sentences as well as documents. Under this framework we design and develop a novel ranking algorithm such that the document reinforcement is taken into account in the process of sentence ranking. The convergence issue is examined. We also explore an interesting and important property of the proposed algorithm. When evaluated on the DUC 2005 and 2006 query-oriented multidocument summarization datasets, significant results are achieved.

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


Reducing Reversible Circuit Cost by Adding Lines The synthesis of reversible logic has recently become an active research area due to its applications e.g. in low power design and quantum computation. Thereby, additional lines are required to implement an irreversible function as a reversible circuit. The emphasis, particularly in automated synthesis methods, has been on using the minimal number of additional lines. In this paper, we show that circuit cost reductions can be achieved by adding extra lines. We present an algorithm for line addition that can be targeted to reducing the quantum cost of a quantum circuit or the transistor cost for a CMOS implementation. Experimental results show that the cost reduction can be significant even if (1) only a small number of lines (even one) is added and (2) other circuit optimizations have already been applied.

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


Efficient Tree Structures for High Utility Pattern Mining in Incremental Databases Recently, high utility pattern (HUP) mining is one of the most important research issues in data mining due to its ability to consider the nonbinary frequency values of items in transactions and different profit values for every item. On the other hand, incremental and interactive data mining provide the ability to use previous data structures and mining results in order to reduce unnecessary calculations when a database is updated, or when the minimum threshold is changed. In this paper, we propose three novel tree structures to efficiently perform incremental and interactive HUP mining. The first tree structure, Incremental HUP Lexicographic Tree (IHUP(L)-Tree), is arranged according to an item's lexicographic order. It can capture the incremental data without any restructuring operation. The second tree structure is the IHUP Transaction Frequency Tree (IHUP(TF)-Tree), which obtains a compact size by arranging items according to their transaction frequency (descending order). To reduce the mining time, the third tree, IHUP-Transaction-Weighted Utilization Tree (IHUP(TWU)-Tree) is designed based on the TWU value of items in descending order. Extensive performance analyses show that our tree structures are very efficient and scalable for incremental and interactive HUP mining.

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 B I O O O O O O 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

frequent pattern mining
incremental mining
interactive mining


Physical topology design for all-optical networks ? When designing an all-optical network, the designers face a choice of laying down more fibers or increasing the number of wavelengths. Although either choice could be used to support new connections, one increases the link cost and the other increases the node (wavelength equipments) cost. The tradeoffs between link and node cost are not well understood. Using the efficient physical topology design algorithm that we propose, we study this tradeoff. We use the asymptotic growth rate of the provisioned capacity as a metric to compare various design alternatives. A higher asymptotic growth rate translates directly into a higher deployment cost for large networks. Our study shows that taking fiber length into consideration can lead to lower capacity requirement. We also find that a sufficiently large fiber-to-node ratio is necessary in order to minimize the asymptotic growth in the provisioned capacity, increase capacity utilization and minimize the need for wavelength conversion. We study a real network and find that its fiber-to-node ratio is too low. As a result, large provisioned capacity is required and less than 55% of the capacity is usable. By increasing the ratio, we can reduce the provisioned capacity and achieve close to 80% utilization.

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 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


The Systems Development Dilemma - A Programming Perspective Information Systems (IS) is facing a dilemma: software is absorbing an ever-increasing proportion of the total IS budget while maintenance is absorbing an ever-increasing proportion of the software budget. In the not too distant future, unless this trend is arrested, or reversed, nearly all software resources may be required for maintenance. There are certain projected developments which give hope for the future though not in the short term. In the meantime IS management must use other approaches, approaches that are available today, but that have been adopted very slowly. This article discusses one viable approach the use of automated programmer productivity tools. It presents a classification of programmer productivity tools presently on the market and outlines the ways in which each class addresses productivity. It also discusses the important considerations IS management must make when evaluating the adoption of such tools.

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

mis management
mis software
programming productivity
software development tools


Some global bifurcations related to the appearance of closed invariant curves In this paper, we consider a two-dimensional map (a duopoly game) in which the fixed point is destabilized via a subcritical Neimark-Hopf (N-H) bifurcation. Our aim is to investigate, via numerical examples, some global bifurcations associated with the appearance of repelling closed invariant curves involved in the Neimark-Hopf bifurcations. We shall see that the mechanism is not unique, and that it may be related to homoclinic connections of a saddle cycle, that is to a closed invariant curve formed by the merging of a branch of the stable set of the saddle with a branch of the unstable set of the same saddle. This will be shown by analyzing the bifurcations arising inside a periodicity tongue, i.e., a region of the parameter space in which an attracting cycle exists. © 2004 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

discrete dynamical systems
duopoly models
subcritical neimark-hopf bifurcation
homoclinic connection


Ethnicity- and Gender-based Subject Retrieval Using 3-D Face-Recognition Techniques While the retrieval of datasets from human subjects based on demographic characteristics such as gender or race is an ability with wide-ranging application, it remains poorly-studied. In contrast, a large body of work exists in the field of biometrics which has a different goal: the recognition of human subjects. Due to this disparity of interest, existing methods for retrieval based on demographic attributes tend to lag behind the more well-studied algorithms designed purely for face matching. The question this raises is whether a face recognition system could be leveraged to solve these other problems and, if so, how effective it could be. In the current work, we explore the limits of such a system for gender and ethnicity identification given (1) a ground truth of demographically-labeled, textureless 3-D models of human faces and (2) a state-of-the-art face-recognition algorithm. Once trained, our system is capable of classifying the gender and ethnicity of any such model of interest. Experiments are conducted on 4007 facial meshes from the benchmark Face Recognition Grand Challenge v2 dataset.

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

ethnicity face gender identification race recognition retrieval


Robust Semi-Automatic Depth Map Generation in Unconstrained Images and Video Sequences for 2D to Stereoscopic 3D Conversion We describe a system for robustly estimating synthetic depth maps in unconstrained images and videos, for semi-automatic conversion into stereoscopic 3D. Currently, this process is automatic or done manually by rotoscopers. Automatic is the least labor intensive, but makes user intervention or error correction difficult. Manual is the most accurate, but time consuming and costly. Noting the merits of both, a semi-automatic method blends them together, allowing for faster and accurate conversion. This requires user-defined strokes on the image, or over several keyframes for video, corresponding to a rough estimate of the depths. After, the rest of the depths are determined, creating depth maps to generate stereoscopic 3D content, with Depth Image Based Rendering to generate the artificial views. Depth map estimation can be considered as a multi-label segmentation problem: each class is a depth. For video, we allow the user to label only the first frame, and we propagate the strokes using computer vision techniques. We combine the merits of two well-respected segmentation algorithms: Graph Cuts and Random Walks. The diffusion from Random Walks, with the edge preserving of Graph Cuts should give good results. We generate good quality content, more suitable for perception, compared to a similar framework.

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

computer vision
depth maps
graph cuts
random walks

image segmentation
motion estimation
object tracking
semi-automatic
2d to 3d image conversion
2d to 3d video conversion


Model optimization of SVM for a fermentation soft sensor Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a novel machine learning method of soft sensor modeling in fermentation process, which has the ability to approximate nonlinear process with arbitrary accuracy. Learning results and generalization ability are key performance indicators of a soft sensor model. Parameters settings and input variable selection are crucial for SVM learning results and generalization ability. In this paper, input variable selection and parameter setting are regarded as a combinatorial optimization problem, and a combinatorial optimal objective function is constructed based on the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Genetic simulated annealing algorithm (GSAA) is used to search the an optimal model with the function extremum. Simulations show that the proposed soft sensor modeling method based on SVM has good performance in fermentation process.

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

soft sensor
support vector machine
genetic simulated annealing algorithm
akaike information criterion


A Central Limit Theorem for the Number of Degree-k Vertices in Random Maps We prove that the number of vertices of given degree in (general or 2-connected) random planar maps satisfies a central limit theorem with mean and variance that are asymptotically linear in the number of edges. The proof relies on an analytic version of the quadratic method and singularity analysis of multivariate generating functions.

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 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


MULTI-ATTRIBUTE DECISION MAKING METHOD BASED ON POSSIBILITY VARIANCE COEFFICIENT OF TRIANGULAR INTUITIONISTIC FUZZY NUMBERS Triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TIFNs) are a special case of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new decision making method based on possibility variance coefficient to solve the multi-attribute decision making (MADM) problems, in which the attribute values are in the form of TIFNs and the weight preference information is incomplete. The possibility mean, variance and standard deviation for a TIFN are introduced as well as the possibility variance coefficient. Hereby, a new method to rank TIFNs is given on the basis of the possibility variance coefficients. The bi-objective mathematical programming, which minimizes the possibility variance coefficients of membership and non-membership functions for alternative's overall attribute values, is constructed. Using the max-min method, two non-linear fractional programming models are transformed into the linear programming models through the Charnes and Cooper transformation. Thus, the Pareto optimal solution to the bi-objective mathematical programming can be derived by solving the single-objective programming model. The ranking order of alternatives is obtained according to the minimum possibility variance coefficients. A personal selection example is given to verify the developed method and to demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness. The analysis of comparison with other method is also conducted.

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

multi-attribute decision making
triangular intuitionistic fuzzy number
possibility variance coefficient


On the Distinctness of Binary Sequences Derived From Primitive Sequences Modulo Square-Free Odd Integers Let be a square-free odd integer and Z/(M) the integer residue ring modulo M. This paper studies the distinctness of primitive sequences over Z/(M) modulo 2. Recently, for the case of M = pq, a product of two distinct prime numbers and, the problem has been almost completely solved. As for the case that is a product of more prime numbers, the problem has been quite resistant to proof. In this paper, a partial proof is given by showing that a class of primitive sequences of order 2n' + 1 over Z/(M) is distinct modulo 2, where n' is a positive integer. Besides as an independent interest, this paper also involves two distribution properties of primitive sequences over Z/(M), which are related closely to our main results.

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

integer residue rings
linear recurring sequences
modular reductions
primitive polynomials


What do successful computer science students know? An integrative analysis using card sort measures and content analysis to evaluate graduating students' knowledge of programming concepts This paper describes a multi-institutional study that used a repeated single-criterion card sort to investigate graduating computer science students' knowledge of programming concepts. The study seeks to improve computer science instruction by gaining insight into how graduating students retain and assimilate introductory programming knowledge into their broader understanding of the discipline. A total of 291 card sorts was elicited from 65 undergraduate students in their final year of study at eight colleges and universities throughout the USA. To fully exploit the rich qualitative and quantitative aspects of the card sort data, an integrative analysis process was used that combined content analysis with two measures, normalized minimum spanning tree and edit distance, both developed specifically to analyze card sort data.

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

card sorts
content analysis
programming concepts

knowledge acquisition
computer science education


a fixed-program machine for combinator expression evaluation It is our purpose here to present an alternative evaluation mechanism for combinator expressions, namely a relatively straightforward compilation algorithm which translates combinators to fixed-program code for a stack machine. The resulting code is faithful to Turner's use of non-strict functions, in that it performs normal order evaluation. We show how this code can be made more efficient by performing call-by-need evaluation (without changing the semantics of the language) and consider some flow-analysis-based optimizations, as well. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: We first review (briefly) Turner's arguments in favor of using combinators and how to translate function definitions to combinator expressions in Section 2. Next, in Section 3, we present our translation of combinator expressions to call-by-name stack machine code and the evaluation of a simple program in our model. In Section 4 we show how to eliminate repeated evaluation of argument expressions (or, equivalently, optimize evaluation of S combinator expressions) by using call by need. In Section 5 we consider flow-analysis-based optimizations which can significantly improve the code generated by the naive algorithms of Sections 3 and 4. Finally, Section 6 presents conclusions and suggestions for further work in this area.

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

translation review order use code language compilation model paper algorithm argument evaluation

flow analysis
efficiency
optimality
semantic
definition
functional
express
normalization
combinational


Weil Aufwand wichtig ist! Anfallender Projektaufwand ist kritisch fr den Erfolg von Softwareentwicklungsprojekten. Er hat wesentlich Einfluss darauf, ob Zeit- und Budgetbeschrnkungen eingehalten werden knnen. Aber obwohl Anforderungen den Projektaufwand beeinflussen, knnen ihn Methoden des Requirements Engineering (RE) nicht berechnen.

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

kaos
funktionspunktanalyse
project effort
function point analysis


On fast generation of fractional Gaussian noise A fast method of generating fractional Gaussian noise processes based on a power spectrum function is presented. Algorithms based on the fast Fourier transform reveal low computational complexity and good performance when compared to other methods of generating self-similar processes. These methods have good accuracy in that the results of estimation of Hurst exponent do not differ significantly from expected values. The aim is to improve the efficiency of Paxson's and other recent methods while keeping a high level of accuracy. The results of numerical simulations are presented and compared from the point of view of accuracy and running time. Furthermore, a new way of exact approximation of power spectrum based on the generalized Riemann zeta function is introduced. Subsequently, this method is used for accuracy evaluation of aforementioned generators.

O O O O B I I 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


Hop chains: Secure routing and the establishment of distinct identities We present a secure routing protocol that is immune to Sybil attacks and that can tolerate collusion of Byzantine routers. It can tolerate either initial Collusion of Byzantine routers or runtime collusion of non-adjacent Byzantine routers, both in the absence of runtime collusion between adjacent routers. For these settings, the calculated distance from a destination to a node is not smaller than the actual shortest distance from the destination to the node. The protocol can also simultaneously tolerate initial collusion of Byzantine routers and runtime collusion of adjacent Byzantine routers but in the absence of runtime collusion between non-adjacent routers. For this setting, it guarantees a bound on the difference between the calculated distance and the actual shortest distance. The bound depends on the number of Byzantine routers on a path. The protocol makes very weak timing assumptions and requires synchronization only between neighbors or second neighbors. We propose to use this protocol for Secure localization of routers using hop-count distances, which can be then used as a proof of identity of nodes. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


On the relation between Viterbi decoding with labels and the SOVA Both Viterbi decoding with labels (i.e., the Yamamoto-Itoh scheme) and the soft-output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) evaluate the metric difference between the maximum-likelihood (ML) path and the discarded path at each level in the trellis. Noting this fact, we shaw that the former scheme also provides information about the reliability values for decoded information bits.

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

symbol reliability
list viterbi decoding algorithm


RANDOMIZED COMPETITIVE ALGORITHMS FOR GENERALIZED CACHING We consider online algorithms for the generalized caching problem. Here we are given a cache of size k and pages with arbitrary sizes and fetching costs. Given a request sequence of pages, the goal is to minimize the total cost of fetching the pages into the cache. Our main result is an online algorithm with competitive ratio O(log(2) k), which gives the first o(k) competitive algorithm for the problem. We also give improved O(log k)-competitive algorithms for the special cases of the bit model and fault model, improving upon the previous O(log(2) k) guarantees due to Irani [Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1997, pp. 701-710]. Our algorithms are based on an extension of the online primal-dual framework introduced by Buchbinder and Naor [Math. Oper. Res., 34 (2009), pp. 270-286] and involve two steps. First, we obtain an O(log k)-competitive fractional algorithm based on solving online an LP formulation strengthened with exponentially many knapsack cover constraints. Second, we design a suitable online rounding procedure to convert this online fractional algorithm into a randomized algorithm. Our techniques provide a unified framework for caching algorithms and are substantially simpler than those previously used.

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

paging
competitive analysis
randomization


Demand-based schedulability analysis for real-time multi-core scheduling We propose the first demand-based schedulability analysis for two dynamic job-priority scheduling algorithms. We derive demand bound functions of EDZL (Earliest Deadline first until Zero-Laxity) and LLF (Least Laxity First). We combine the demand-based analysis framework with additional deadline-miss conditions specialized for EDZL and LLF. We demonstrate through simulation that the proposed schedulability analyses outperform the existing schedulability analyses.

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

demand-based schedulability analysis
real-time systems
multi-core systems


A visual language for the evolution of spatial relationships and its translation into a spatio-temporal calculus Queries about objects that change their spatial attributes over time become particularly interesting when they ask for changes in the spatial relationships between different objects. We propose a visual notation that is able to describe scenarios of changing object relationships. The visual language is based on the idea to analyze two-dimensional traces of moving objects to infer a temporal development of their mutual spatial relationships. We motivate the language design by successively simplifying object traces to their intrinsic properties. The notation can be effectively translated into a calculus of spatio-temporal predicates that formally characterizes the evolution of spatial relationships. We also outline a user interface that supports specifications by menus and a drawing editor. The visual notation can be used directly as a visual query interface to spatio-temporal databases, or it can provide predicate specifications that can be integrated into textual query languages leading to heterogeneous languages.

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

visual predicate specification
visual database interface
spatio-temporal queries


Quantum computation and cryptography: an overview The new Quantum Information Theory augurs powerful machines that obey the entangled logic of the subatomic world. Parallelism, entanglement, teleportation, no-cloning and quantum cryptography are typical peculiarities of this novel way of understanding computation. In this article, we highlight and explain these fundamental ingredients that make Quantum Computing potentially powerful and Quantum Communications reliable.

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

quantum computing
cryptography
entanglement
parallelism
teleportation


Comparison of design concepts in multi-criteria decision-making using level diagrams In this work, we address the evaluation of design concepts and the analysis of multiple Pareto fronts in multi-criteria decision-making using level diagrams. Such analysis is relevant when two (or more) design concepts with different design alternatives lie in the same objective space, but describe different Pareto fronts. Therefore, the problem can be stated as a Pareto front comparison between two (or more) design concepts that only differ in their relative complexity, implementation issues, or the theory applied to solve the problem at hand. Such analysis will help the decision maker obtain a better insight of a conceptual solution and be able to decide if the use of a complex concept is justified instead of a simple concept. The approach is validated in a set of multi-criteria decision making benchmark problems.

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

m-dimensional pareto front visualization


Fuzzy Decomposition Method by Mapping Analysis The max-min composition of fuzzy relation equation takes the extreme value as the solution; such a characteristic induces the solution of decomposition to be a possible region. The solution region has just one maximum and probably more than one minimum. The maximum solution has the 'possibility' characteristic, and the minimum has the 'necessity' trait. For the needs of greater efficiency and more effectiveness in regard to performance, this paper proposes a new analytical method for the use of decomposition. The algorithm of logical mapping analysis is used for the new method. Mapping status, such as Unique Mapping, Overlapped Mapping, Redundant mapping, and Together Mapping, is introduced to construct the algorithm of logical mapping analysis. Then, by the principle of just one single freedom for every maximum and minimum solution, the status of overlapped and redundant mappings will be eliminated and the together mapping status will be separated as an individual presentation. This proposed method not only discovers all of the real solutions, but is also easily programmed for computer analysis.

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

decomposition
fuzzy relation equation
mapping analysis


exploiting idle register classes for fast spill destination On today's microprocessors, there often exist several different types of registers, e.g. general purpose registers and floating point registers. A given program may use one type of registers much more frequently than other types. This creates an opportunity to employ the infrequently used registers as spill destinations for the more frequently used register types. In this paper, we present a code optimization method named idle register exploitation (IRE) to exploit such opportunities. We developed a model, called the IRE model, or IREM, to determine the static performance gains of IRE versus spilling to the stack. On a microprocessor with fast data paths between different types of registers, we find that IRE method speeds up the execution of the SPECint benchmark suite from 1.7\% to 10\%. In contrast, on microprocessors with less efficient data transfer paths, the performance gain is limited. In some cases, performance may even suffer degradation. This result argues strongly for the adoption of fast data paths between different types of registers for the purpose of reducing register spills, which is important in view of the increased significance of memory bottlenecks on future microprocessors.

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


Fast Identification of Undetectable Transition Faults under Functional Broadside Tests This paper describes a fast procedure for identifying undetectable transition faults under functional broadside tests. By using reachable states as scan-in states, functional broadside tests avoid overtesting that may occur when scan-based tests are used for detecting delay faults. The proposed procedure is based only on logic simulation, and does not perform test generation of any type. In one of its variations, the procedure uses logic simulation of fully unspecified primary input vectors starting from a known initial state in order to identify a superset of broadside tests that covers all the functional broadside tests. It then uses this superset to identify undetectable transition faults. The procedure identifies large numbers of undetectable transition faults in certain benchmark circuits.

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

functional broadside tests
overtesting
transition faults


Principles of combinatorial optimization applied to container-ship stowage planning In this paper, a methodology for generating automated solutions to the container stowage problem is shown. The methodology was derived by applying principles of combinatorial optimization and, in particular, the Tabu Search metaheuristic. The methodology progressively refines the placement of containers, using the Tabu search concept of neighbourhoods, within the cargo-space of a container ship until each container is specifically allocated to a stowage location. Heuristic rules are built into objective functions for each stage that enable the combinatorial tree to be explored in an intelligent way, resulting in good, if not optimal, solutions for the problem in a reasonable processing time.

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 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 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

container stowage
heuristic
planning
search


Design of a fuzzy controller for active queue management As an effective mechanism acting on the intermediate nodes to support end-to-end congestion control, active queue management (AQM) takes a trade-off between link utilization and delay experienced by data packets. From the point of view of the control theory, it is rational to regard AQM as a typical regulating system. Although proportional integral (PI) controller for AQM outperforms traditional RED algorithm, the mismatches in simplified TCP flow model inevitably degrades the performance because the design of PI controller is heavily dependent of the accuracy of the plant, such as, for small buffer the system tends to perform poorly. In this paper, the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) for AQM is designed based on the fuzzy logical control. Its superiority is independent of the model of the plant, which is very suitable to the high variability and uncertainty networks. We present the guidelines and highlights to design the parameters of the FLC. We then compare its performance with the PI controller through simulations, and investigate the impact of the network configuration and operating parameters on the stability and responsibility. The results show that the FLC is rather robust against the noise and disturbance caused by the round-trip time, the link capacity, the number of the active flows and the non-responsive UDP flows, etc., which badly degrade the performance of the PI controller. The transient response and tracking capability of the FLC is superior to that of the PI controller, which is beneficial to achieve the goals of AQM scheme. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

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

active queue management (aqm)
flow control
fuzzy logic control


Ground reducibility is EXPTIME-complete We prove that ground reducibility is EXPTIME-complete in the general case. EXPTIME-hardness is proved by encoding the emptiness problem for the intersection of recognisable tree languages. It is more difficult to show that ground reducibility belongs to DEXPTIME. We associate first an automaton with disequality constraints A(R,t) to a rewrite system R and a term t. This automaton is deterministic and accepts at least one term iff t is not ground reducible by R. The number of states of A(R,t) is O(2(parallel toRparallel toxparallel totparallel to)) and the size of its constraints is polynomial in the size of R, t. Then we prove some new pumping lemmas, using a total ordering on the computations of the automaton. Thanks to these lemmas, we can show that emptiness for an automaton with disequality constraints can be decided in a time which is polynomial in the number of states and exponential in the size of the constraints. Altogether, we get a simply exponential time deterministic algorithm for ground reducibility decision. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

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

computer theorem-proving
rewriting systems
tree automata
computational complexity


Variability-Tolerant Workload Allocation for MPSoC Energy Minimization under Real-Time Constraints Sub-50nm CMOS technologies are affected by significant variability, which causes power and performance variations among nominally similar cores in MPSoC platforms. This undesired heterogeneity threatens execution predictability and energy efficiency. We propose two techniques to allocate sets of barrier-synchronized tasks. The first technique models allocation as an ILP and achieves optimal results, but requires an offline solver. The second technique adopts a two-stage heuristic approach, and it can be adapted to work online. We tested our approach on the virtual prototype of a next-generation industrial multicore platform. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach minimizes deadline violations while increasing energy efficiency.

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


Test sizes and the importance of finding global maxima of the likelihood function This paper demonstrates the importance of taking care to find a global maximum when estimating nuisance parameters required for hypothesis tests. We find that sizes can be badly inflated when this is not done for a test of the general linear regression model.

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

local maxima
ma(1) errors
marginal likelihood
t test


Unsupervised characterization of research institutions with task-force estimation The relevant task-force is established from bibliographic information. Different types of authors in articles are defined. The most relevant sets of authors (effective core members and collaborators) included in the task-force of an institution are identified. Time evolution of the task-force involved in scientific production is easily established. New indicators based on task-force estimation are defined.

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

task-force
scientific productivity
scientific collaboration
scientific leadership
research indicators


Hyperbole, abstract motion and spatial knowledge: sequential versus simultaneous scanning Hyperbole is an interesting trope in the perspective of Space Grammar, since it is related to the displacing of a limit (Lausberg in Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. M.H. Verlag, Munchen 1967; see the Ancient Greek meaning to throw over > exaggerate). Hyperbole semantic mechanisms are related to virtual scanning (Holmqvist and P?uciennik in Imagery in language. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, pp 777785, 2004). Basic concepts of SIZE and QUANTITY, related image-schemas (IS) and conceptual metaphors (UP IS MORE; IMPORTANT IS BIG: Lakoff 1987, Johnson 1987) are implied in hyperbole processing. The virtual scanning is the simulation of a perceptual domain (here, the vertically oriented space). The virtual limit is defined by expected values on the relevant scale. Since hyperbole is a form of intensification, its linguistic interest lies in cases involving the extremes of a scale, for which a limit can be determined (Schemann 1994). In this experimental study, we analyze the concept of limit in terms of abstract motion and oriented space domains (Langacker 1990) with respect to hyperboles expressed by Italian Verbs of movement. The IS considered are PATH and SOURCE-PATH-GOAL. The latter corresponds to a virtual scale whose limit is arrived at, or overcome, in hyperboles.

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

semantics-pragmatics
idiom
metaphor
image schema


State of the Art 3GPP M2M Communications toward Smart Grid Recent advances in wireless communications and electronics has enabled the development of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. This communication paradigm has been expected as an automated control and report solution for smart grid. The smart grid enables customers and operators to utilize the collected usage information from a large number of meters with transceivers for efficiency and safety. In this paper, we introduce architecture, requirements and challenges of M2M communications for smart grid. We extract technical issues that should be resolved in M2M communications to support the smart grid via third-generation partnership project (3GPP) cellular networks. We then present the current state of the art of research results to deal with such issues. Finally, we outline the open research issues.

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

3gpp cellular network
features of m2m applications
research trend


Development of a 4 kbit/s hybrid sinusoidal/CELP speech coder A comprehensive performance analysis of sinusoidal and code excited linear prediction (CELP) speech coding is given around 4 kbit/s, using both subjective and objective measurements. Based on the observations made, justification for the multi-modal hybrid coding approach employing both sinusoidal and CELP coding is given, and an implementation of such a coder is described. This 4 kbit/s sinusoidal/CELP speech coder utilizes four modes to classify the input speech segment: voiced, jittery-voiced, plosive and unvoiced. For voiced segments sinusoidal coding is used whereas different CELP versions are employed for the other modes. The quality of the implemented 4 kbit/s sinusoidal/CELP speech coder in clean speech conditions is finally verified by a listening test. In the test, the 4 kbit/s coder performed almost as well as the high-quality references used, but it still needs improvements to be classified as a high-quality 4 kbit/s speech coder.

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

speech coding
hybrid coding
sinusoidal coding
celp coding


Using the ResearchEHR platform to facilitate the practical application of the EHR standards Possibly the most important requirement to support co-operative work among health professionals and institutions is the ability of sharing EHRs in a meaningful way, and it is widely acknowledged that standardization of data and concepts is a prerequisite to achieve semantic interoperability in any domain. Different international organizations are working on the definition of EHR architectures but the lack of tools that implement them hinders their broad adoption. In this paper we present ResearchEHR, a software platform whose objective is to facilitate the practical application of EHR standards as a way of reaching the desired semantic interoperability. This platform is not only suitable for developing new systems but also for increasing the standardization of existing ones. The work reported here describes how the platform allows for the edition, validation, and search of archetypes, converts legacy data into normalized, archetypes extracts, is able to generate applications from archetypes and finally, transforms archetypes and data extracts into other EHR standards. We also include in this paper how ResearchEHR has made possible the application of the CEN/ISO 13606 standard in a real environment and the lessons learnt with this experience.

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

electronic healthcare records
cen/iso 13606
archetype
ontology


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

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


A multi-agent based system for e-procurement exception management ? E-procurement has become an important function of enterprise information systems. The process of e-procurement includes the automatic definition of product requirements, search and selection for suppliers, negotiation and contracting with suppliers. However, the adoption of e-procurement encounters various uncertainties from internal and external environments, such as inventory failure, sharp increased demand, and delivery delay. In this paper, we propose a novel agent-based architecture for an e-procurement system in which agent technology is applied to deal with the internal and external uncertainties. Through the collaboration and interaction between different agents, the architecture that we propose can enhance the flexibility to handle unexpected exceptions, thus leading to agile procurement management. To valid the feasibility of our approach, a case study has been conducted to investigate how our agents collaborate to manage the inventory failure exception which occurs in restaurant e-procurement.

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

e-procurement
uncertainty
intelligent agents


Stability estimates of generalized geometric sums and their applications The upper bounds of the uniform distance rho(Sigma(k=1)(nu) X-k, Sigma(k=1)(nu) (X) over tilde (k)) between two sums of a random number v of independent random variables are given. The application of these bounds is illustrated by stability (continuity) estimating in models in queueing and risk theory.

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

geometric sum
upper bound for the uniform distance
risk process
ruin probability


A minimal-invasive approach to configuration management supporting collaborative factory configuration scenarios Collaboration is not only an issue for geographically or temporally dispersed engineering teams jointly working on the development of products or manufacturing facilities. It is also an important issue for the operation of production lines. One task that requires close collaboration is the setup of the configuration data for the production line-the manufacturing specification data. They lay the foundations for automation scenarios on all levels of the automation hierarchy, starting from the single production equipment up to the complete production line. Even complex business rules and logistics strategies are supported by corresponding configuration data. Typically, these data are distributed over a large number of IT systems. Groups of people from different departments account for the correctness and completeness of these data. A complete, correct and consistent set of manufacturing specification data is an important precondition for production lines to run in the optimal working point. This is especially true in highly automated environments that provide a high level of flexibility. Within this paper a new, minimal-invasive approach to configuration management is presented that helps to overcome the collaboration issues.

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

control system
manufacturing execution system
system integration
distributed information management


A neural network based estimation method for magnetic shielding at extremely low frequencies The attenuation of extremely low-frequency magnetic fields is important in reducing electromagnetic interference on electric and electronic equipment. In this paper, an innovative method is presented for shielded magnetic field level estimation at power frequencies by a neural network (NN) technique which uses experimental data. The utilized NN is applied to cylindrical shields (transformer-grade iron, copper, and aluminum) in various shield arrangements. Using the developed NN model, the mitigated magnetic field of multilayered shields is measured and evaluated to predict the magnetic field at any distance apart from the magnetic source. The NN, which is based on a feed-forward neural network (FNN), is trained with scaled conjugate gradient, gradient descent with momentum and adaptive learning back propagation, and LevenbergMarquardt algorithms to compute the shielded magnetic field. Results have shown that the developed FNN trained with the LevenbergMarquardt algorithm is better than the other training algorithms in predicting the shielded magnetic field value accurately even in the presence of various shield arrangements.

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


Global Robust Exponential Stability of Uncertain Neutral High-Order Stochastic Hopfield Neural Networks with Time-Varying Delays In this paper, a class of uncertain neutral high-order stochastic Hopfield neural networks with time-varying delays is investigated. By using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and stochastic analysis approaches, new and less conservative delay-dependent stability criteria is presented in terms of linear matrix inequalities to guarantee the neural networks to be globally robustly exponentially stable in the mean square for all admissible parameter uncertainties and stochastic perturbations. Numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate the main results.

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

hopfield neural network
time-varying delay
linear matrix inequalities (lmis)


Oregon's experience with aid in dying: findings from the death with dignity laboratory With passage of the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, Oregon became the first jurisdiction to authorize and regulate aid in dying. Data from that experience are comprehensive and bountiful, and answer a multitude of questions and concerns about whether the benefits of recognizing the medical practice of aid in dying justify the risks. An exhaustive description of findings from Oregon's aid-in-dying experience is beyond the scope of this or any single article on the subject. This article provides a summary of data highlights, gleaned from scientific investigations and governmental reporting. It organizes highlighted reports along subjects so that readers may see what various sources have to teach on a number of questions important to policy makers.

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


Hierarchical Cross-Entropy Optimization for Fast On-Chip Decap Budgeting Decoupling capacitor (decap) has been widely used to effectively reduce dynamic power supply noise. Traditional decap budgeting algorithms usually explore the sensitivity-based nonlinear optimizations or conjugate gradient (CG) methods, which can be prohibitively expensive for large-scale decap budgeting problems and cannot be easily parallelized. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical cross-entropy based optimization technique which is more efficient and parallel-friendly. Cross-entropy (CE) is an advanced optimization framework which explores the power of rare event probability theory and importance sampling. To achieve the high efficiency, a sensitivity-guided cross-entropy (SCE) algorithm is introduced which integrates CE with a partitioning-based sampling strategy to effectively reduce the solution space in solving the large-scale decap budgeting problems. Compared to improved CG method and conventional CE method, SCE with Latin hypercube sampling method (SCE-LHS) can provide 2x speedups, while achieving up to 25% improvement on power supply noise. To further improve decap optimization solution quality, SCE with sequential importance sampling (SCE-SIS) method is also studied and implemented. Compared to SCE-LHS, in similar runtime, SCE-SIS can lead to 16.8% further reduction on the total power supply noise.

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 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 B I I

adjoint sensitivity analysis
cross-entropy optimization
decoupling capacitor budgeting
power grid design


Generalized iterative RELIEF for supervised distance metric learning The RELIEF algorithm is a popular approach for feature weighting. Many extensions of the RELIEF algorithm are developed, and I-RELIEF is one of the famous extensions. In this paper, I-RELIEF is generalized for supervised distance metric learning to yield a Mahananobis distance function. The proposed approach is justified by showing that the objective function of the generalized I-RELIEF is closely related to the expected leave-one-out nearest-neighbor classification rate. In addition, the relationships among the generalized I-RELIEF, the neighbourhood components analysis, and graph embedding are also pointed out. Experimental results on various data sets all demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

distance metric learning
iterative relief
feature weighting


GENLIB: an R package for the analysis of genealogical data Founder populations have an important role in the study of genetic diseases. Access to detailed genealogical records is often one of their advantages. These genealogical data provide unique information for researchers in evolutionary and population genetics, demography and genetic epidemiology. However, analyzing large genealogical datasets requires specialized methods and software. The GENLIB software was developed to study the large genealogies of the French Canadian population of Quebec, Canada. These genealogies are accessible through the BALSAC database, which contains over 3 million records covering the whole province of Quebec over four centuries. Using this resource, extended pedigrees of up to 17 generations can be constructed from a sample of present-day individuals.

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

genealogical data
founder populations
software
genetics

historical demography
kinship
inbreeding
gene-dropping simulations