monochromatic and bichromatic reverse skyline search over uncertain databases Reverse skyline queries over uncertain databases have many important applications such as sensor data monitoring and business planning. Due to the existence of uncertainty in many real-world data, answering reverse skyline queries accurately and efficiently over uncertain data has become increasingly important. In this paper, we model the probabilistic reverse skyline query on uncertain data, in both monochromatic and bichromatic cases, and propose effective pruning methods to reduce the search space of query processing. Moreover, efficient query procedures have been presented seamlessly integrating the proposed pruning methods. Extensive experiments have demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed approach with various experimental settings.

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

monochromatic reverse skyline
uncertain database


Ranking of feeder sections of distribution systems for maintenance prioritization accounting distributed generations and loads using diagnostic importance factor (DIF) Paper ranks feeder sections of distribution system for maintenance prioritization. A new factor called weighted diagnostic importance factor has been framed. Methodology includes effect of DG and load on ranking. Ranking has been done on sample radial and meshed distribution systems.

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

distribution system
diagnostic importance factor
maintenance

unavailability
component importance measure


A Comparison of Gradient Estimation Methods for Volume Rendering on Unstructured Meshes This paper presents a study of gradient estimation methods for rendering unstructured-mesh volume data. Gradient estimation is necessary for rendering shaded isosurfaces and specular highlights, which provide important cues for shape and depth. Gradient estimation has been widely studied and deployed for regular-grid volume data to achieve local illumination effects, but has been, otherwise, for unstructured-mesh data. As a result, most of the unstructured-mesh volume visualizations made so far were unlit. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of gradient estimation methods for unstructured meshes with respect to their cost and performance. Through a number of benchmarks, we discuss the effects of mesh quality and scalar function complexity in the accuracy of the reconstruction, and their impact in lighting-enabled volume rendering. Based on our study, we also propose two heuristic improvements to the gradient reconstruction process. The first heuristic improves the rendering quality with a hybrid algorithm that combines the results of the multiple reconstruction methods, based on the properties of a given mesh. The second heuristic improves the efficiency of its GPU implementation, by restricting the computation of the gradient on a fixed-size local neighborhood.

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

volume rendering
gradient estimation
local illumination
unstructured meshes


Sojourn time distributions in the queue defined by a general QBD process We consider a general QBD process as defining a FIFO queue and obtain the stationary distribution of the sojourn time of a customer in that queue as a matrix exponential distribution, which is identical to a phase-type distribution under a certain condition. Since QBD processes include many queueing models where the arrival and service process are dependent, these results form a substantial generalization of analogous results reported in the literature for queues such as the PH/PH/c queue. We also discuss asymptotic properties of the sojourn time distribution through its matrix exponential form.

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

quasi-birth-and-death process
queueing model
matrix-exponential distribution


Human gesture recognition using a simplified dynamic Bayesian network In video-based human gesture recognition, it is very important to combine useful features and analyze the dynamic structure thereof as efficiently as possible. In this paper, we proposed a dynamic Bayesian network model that is a simplified model of dynamics at the level of hidden variables and employs observation windows of observation time slices for robust modeling and handling of noise and other variabilities. The proposed Simplified dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) was tested on a gesture database and an American sign language database. According to the experiments, the proposed DBN outperformed other methods: Conditional Random Fields (CRFs), conventional Bayesian Networks (BNs), DBNs, and Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). The proposed DBN achieved 98% recognition accuracy in gesture recognition and 94.6% in ASL recognition whereas the HMM and the CRF did 80 and 86% in gesture recognition and 75.4 and 85.4% in ASL (American Sign Language) recognition, respectively.

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

dynamic bayesian network
gesture recognition
sign language recognition


Portfolio Selection with Multiple Time Horizons: A Mean Variance - Stochastic Goal Programming Approach Standard approaches to portfolio selection from classical Markowitz mean-variance model require using a time horizon of historical returns over a period that the investor defines in a conventional way. To avoid arbitrary choice of the time horizon, this paper proposes a satisfying compromise solution relying on mean variance - stochastic goal programming (EV-SGP), where the goals are defined from the different time horizons under consideration. As the information on returns provided by each horizon is of different quality and reliability, critical parameters in this method are Arrow's absolute risk aversion (ARA) coefficients and the investor's preferences for each horizon. After formulating the proposed method, a suitable technique to determine the ARA coefficients in our context is given in a strict way according to Arrow's risk theory. An actual numerical example is developed throughout the paper leading to consistent results. The sensitivity analysis shows robust solutions. A generalization of results requires further examples.

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

portfolio selection
time horizon
risk aversion

mean variance-stochastic goal programming (ev-sgp)


Sharp interface Cartesian grid method I: An easily implemented technique for 3D moving boundary computations A Cartesian grid method is developed for the simulation of incompressible flows around stationary and moving three-dimensional immersed boundaries. The embedded boundaries are represented using level-sets and treated in a sharp manner without the use of source terms to represent boundary effects. The narrow-band distance function field in the level-set boundary representation facilitates implementation of the finite-difference flow solver. The resulting algorithm is implemented in a straightforward manner in three-dimensions and retains global second-order accuracy. The accuracy of the finite-difference scheme is established and shown to be comparable to finite-volume schemes that are considerably more difficult to implement. Moving boundaries are handled naturally. The pressure solver is accelerated using an algebraic multigrid technique adapted to be effective in the presence of moving embedded boundaries. Benchmarking of the method is performed against available numerical as well as experimental results.

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 3d data intensive tele-immersive grid Networked virtual environments like Second Life enable distant people to meet for leisure as well as work. But users are represented through avatars controlled by keyboards and mouses, leading to a low sense of presence especially regarding body language. Multi-camera real-time 3D modeling offers a way to ensure a significantly higher sense of presence. But producing quality geometries, well textured, and to enable distant user tele-presence in non trivial virtual environments is still a challenge today. In this paper we present a tele-immersive system based on multi-camera 3D modeling. Users from distant sites are immersed in a rich virtual environment served by a parallel terrain rendering engine. Distant users, present through their 3D model, can perform some local interactions while having a strong visual presence. We experimented our system between three large cities a few hundreds kilometers apart from each other. This work demonstrate the feasibility of a rich 3D multimedia environment ensuring users a strong sense of presence.

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


hierarchical aggregate classification with limited supervision for data reduction in wireless sensor networks The main challenge of designing classification algorithms for sensor networks is the lack of labeled sensory data, due to the high cost of manual labeling in the harsh locales where a sensor network is normally deployed. Moreover, delivering all the sensory data to the sink would cost enormous energy. Therefore, although some classification techniques can deal with limited label information, they cannot be directly applied to sensor networks since they are designed for centralized databases. To address these challenges, we propose a hierarchical aggregate classification (HAC) protocol which can reduce the amount of data sent by each node while achieving accurate classification in the face of insufficient label information. In this protocol, each sensor node locally makes cluster analysis and forwards only its decision to the parent node. The decisions are aggregated along the tree, and eventually the global agreement is achieved at the sink node. In addition, to control the tradeoff between the communication energy and the classification accuracy, we design an extended version of HAC, called the constrained hierarchical aggregate classification (cHAC) protocol. cHAC can achieve more accurate classification results compared with HAC, at the cost of more energy consumption. The advantages of our schemes are demonstrated through the experiments on not only synthetic data but also a real testbed.

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

sensor networks
classification
data reduction


Spatiotemporal realization of an artificial retina model and performance evaluation through ISI- and spike count-based image reconstruction methods Development of an artificial retina model that can mimic the biologic retina is a highly challenging task and this task is an important step in the development of a visual prosthesis. The receptive field structure of the retina layer is usually modeled as a 2D difference of Gaussian (DOG) filter profile. In the present study, as a different approach, a retina model including a 3D 2-stage DOG filter (3D-ADOG) that has an adaptively changing bandwidth with respect to the local image statistic is developed. Using this modeling, the adaptive image processing of the retina can be realized. The contribution of the developed model in terms of the image quality is evaluated via simulation studies using test images. The first simulation results, including only the spike count-based reconstruction for a test video sequence, were previously published. In this study, in addition to the spike count-based reconstruction, the interspike interval measure is also used in the simulation study. The reconstruction results are compared using the statistical parameters of the mean squared error (MSE), universal quality index (UQI), and histogram similarity ratio (HSR), which characterize the image likelihood. To evaluate the performance of the model versus time, time-dependent changes in the MSE, HSR, and UQI parameters are obtained and compared to the standard model. From these results, it is concluded that the 3D-ADOG filter-based retina model preserves the spatial details of the image and produces a larger number of different gray tone levels, which are important for the visual perception of an image, in comparison with the well-known classical DOG filter-based retina model. The retina implant systems based on this model can provide better visual perception for implant recipients.

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

retina modeling
artificial sight systems


On-line analysis of the TCP acknowledgment delay problem We study an on-line problem that is motivated by the networking problem of dynamically adjusting delays of acknowledgments in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). We provide a theoretical model for this problem in which the goal is to send acks at times that minimize a linear combination of the cost for the number of acknowledgments sent and the cost for the additional latency introduced by delaying acknowledgments. To study the usefulness of applying packet arrival time prediction to this problem, we assume there is an oracle that provides the algorithm with the times of the next L arrivals, for some L greater than or equal to 0. We give two different objective functions for measuring the cost of a solution, each with its own measure of latency cost. For each objective function we first give an 0(n(2))-time dynamic programming algorithm for optimally solving the off-line problem. Then we describe an on-line algorithm that greedily acknowledges exactly when the cost for an acknowledgment is less than the latency cost incurred by not acknowledging. We show that for this algorithm there is a sequence of n packet arrivals for which it is Omega (rootn)-competitive for the first objective function, 2-competitive for the second function for L = 0, and 1-competitive for the second function for L = 1. Next we present a second on-line algorithm which is a slight modification of the first, and we prove that it is 2-competitive for both objective functions for all L. We also give lower bounds on the competitive ratio for any deterministic on-line algorithm. These results show that for each objective function, at least one of our algorithms is optimal. Finally, we give some initial empirical results using arrival sequences from real network traffic where we compare the two methods used in TCP for acknowledgment delay with our two on-line algorithms. In all cases we examine performance with L = 0 and L = 1.

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

competitive analysis
internet traffic simulations
lookahead
transmission control protocol (tcp)


symbolic computation of multidimensional fenchel conjugates Convex optimization is a branch of mathematics dealing with non-linear optimization problems with additional geometric structure. This area has been the focus of considerable recent research due to the fact that convex optimization problems are scalable and can be efficiently solved by interior-point methods. Over the last ten years or so, convex optimization has found new applications in many areas including control theory, signal processing, communications and networks, circuit design, data analysis and finance.Of key importance in convex optimization is the notion of duality, and in particular that of Fenchel duality. This work explores algorithms for calculating symbolic Fenchel conjugates of a class of real-valued functions defined on R n , extending earlier work to the non-separable multi-dimensional case. It also explores the potential application of the developed algorithms to automatic inequality proving.

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

legendre-fenchel transform
computer proofs
fenchel conjugate
subgradient
inequalities
subdifferential


Theoretical study on novel nitrogen-rich energetic compounds of bis(amino)-azobis(azoles) with tetrazene unit Six stereoisomers of 5,5'-bis(amino)-1,1'-azobis(tetrazoles) and 30 other structures, including all possible bis(amino)-azobis(azoles) with an N-N=N-N unit, were designed. The molecular geometries were fully optimized at the DFT-B3LYP level with the 6-31++g (d, p) basis set. From the absence of any imaginary frequency in the infrared vibration frequency spectrum, it is predicted that all these studied structures may exist in stable forms. The results of the total energies of the stereoisomers of 5,5'-bis(amino)-1,1'-azobis(tetrazoles) indicate that the two symmetric trans-form structures are more likely to exist than the other four. The pyrolysis process, chemical stability and molecular electrostatic potential were studied via the investigation of their electronic structure. Heats of formation (HOFs) were calculated using the atomization energy method based on the results of the harmonic vibration frequencies, and a linear relationship was found between the HOF and nitrogen chain or nitrogen content. Densities of the title compounds were predicted with the Monte Carlo method. Finally, according to the results of the calculated HOFs and densities, the explosive parameters of these compounds were calculated using the Kamlet-Jacobs formula. 5,5'-Bis(amino)-1,1'-azobis(tetrazoles) and its isomer 5,5'-bis(amino)-2,2'-azobis(tetrazoles) may have potential for use as energetic compounds.

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

density function theory
electronic structures
energetic properties


Improving customer complaint management by automatic email classification using linguistic style features as predictors Customer complaint management is becoming a critical key success factor in today's business environment. This study introduces a methodology to improve complaint-handling strategies through an automatic email-classification system that distinguishes complaints from non-complaints. As such, complaint handling becomes less time-consuming and more successful. The classification system combines traditional text information with new information about the linguistic style of an email. The empirical results show that adding linguistic style information into a classification model with conventional text-classification variables results in a significant increase in predictive performance. In addition, this study reveals linguistic style differences between complaint emails and others.

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

customer complaint handling
call-center email
voice of customers (voc)
singular value decomposition (svd)
latent semantic indexing (lsi)


middleware to expand context and preview in hypertext Movement, or mobility, is key to the accessibility, design, and usability of many hypermedia resources (websites); and key to good mobility is context and preview by probing. This is especially the case for visually impaired users when a hypertext anchor is inaccurately described or is described out of context. This means confusion and disorientation. Mobility is similarly reduced when the link target of the anchor has no relationship to the expected information present on the hypertext node (web-page). We suggest that confident movement with purpose, ease, and accuracy can only be achieved when complete contextual information and an accurate description of the proposed destination (preview) are available. Our past work (1) deriving mobility heuristics from mobility models, (2) transforming web-pages based on these heuristics, and(3) building tools to analyse and access these transformed pages; has shown us that a tool to expand context and preview would be useful. In this paper we describe the development of such a middleware tool to automatically and dynamically annotate web-pages with additional context information present within the page, and preview information present within hypertext link destinations found on the page.

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

hypertext
hypermedia
movement
usability
design
middleware
context
tool
case
visually impaired
paper
access
accuracy
users
mobility
contextual information
heuristics
tools

paging
probe
website
developer
informal
linking
relationships
web
travel
mobility model
web page
practical implementation
resource
completeness


Multiple objectives decompositioncoordination methods for hierarchical organizations In this paper, the integration of goal programming models and hierarchical programming models is analyzed. The systems under study are assumed to consist of interconnected subsystems with multiple goals in each. Three possible cases regarding the number of decision makers will be considered: (1) one decision maker for the overall goals and one decision maker for each subsystem, (2) conflicting decision makers who are interested in their subsystems, and (3) just one decision maker for the overall system. Next, conditions are stated under which the problem of obtaining satisfying solutions for problems (1) and (3) can be reduced to the problem of obtaining satisfying solutions for the case (2). In order to determine such solutions, hierarchical techniques which exploit the structure of a decomposable system are analyzed. The empirical implementation of the two algorithms proposed shows their efficiency in terms of processing time.

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

goal programming
decompositioncoordination methods


using evolutionary annotations from change logs to enhance program comprehension Evolutionary annotations are descriptions of how source code evolves over time. Typical source comments, given their static nature, are usually inadequate for describing how a program has evolved over time; instead, source code comments are typically a description of what a program currently does. We propose the use of evolutionary annotations as a way of describing the rationale behind changes applied to a given program (for example "These lines were added to ..."). Evolutionary annotations can assist a software developer in the understanding of how a given portion of source code works by showing him how the source has evolved into its current form.In this paper we describe a method to automatically create evolutionary annotations from change logs, defect tracking systems and mailing lists. We describe the design of a prototype for Eclipse that can filter and present these annotations alongside their corresponding source code and in workbench views. We use Apache as a test case to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.

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

version control
software evolution
mining software repositories


On the hardness of approximating Max-Satisfy Max-Satisfy is the problem of finding an assignment that satisfies the maximum number of equations in a system of linear equations over Q. We prove that unless NP subset of BPP Max-Satisfy cannot be efficiently approximated within an approximation ratio of 1/1n(1-epsilon), if we consider systems of n linear equations with at most n variables and epsilon > 0 is an arbitrarily small constant. Previously, it was known that the problem is NP-hard to approximate within a ratio of 1/n(alpha), but 0 < alpha < 1 was some specific constant that could not be taken to be arbitrarily close to 1. (c) 2005 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

approximation algorithms
computational complexity


FPGA-based architecture for real time segmentation and denoising of HD video The identification of moving objects is a basic step in computer vision. The identification begins with the segmentation and is followed by a denoising phase. This paper proposes the FPGA hardware implementation of segmentation and denoising unit. The segmentation is conducted using the Gaussian mixture model (GMM), a probabilistic method for the segmentation of the background. The denoising is conducted implementing the morphological operators of erosion, dilation, opening and closing. The proposed circuit is optimized to perform real time processing of HD video sequences (1,9201,080 @ 20fps) when implemented on FPGA devices. The circuit uses an optimized fixed width representation of the data and implements high performance arithmetic circuits. The circuit is implemented on Xilinx and Altera FPGA. Implemented on xc5vlx50 Virtex5 FPGA, it can process 24fps of an HD video using 1,179 Slice LUTs and 291 Slice Registers; the dynamic power dissipation is 0.46mW/MHz. Implemented on EP2S15F484C3 StratixII, it provides a maximum working frequency of 44.03MHz employing 5038 Logic Elements and 7,957 flip flop with a dynamic power dissipation of 4.03mW/MHz.

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

image motion analysis
image segmentation
morphological operations
high definition video
field programmable gate arrays


understanding social interaction in world of warcraft Research has argued that social interaction is a primary driving force for gamers to continue to play Massive Multiple Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). However, one recent study argues that gamers don't really socialize with other players but play alone. Part of the confusion over whether players socialize much and/or enjoy socializing while playing MMORPGs may be due to the lack of a conceptual framework that adequately articulates what is meant by 'social interaction in MMORPGs to understand how users experience interactions within the game. This study utilized ethnography to map out social interaction within the game World of Warcraft. It provides a broad framework of the factors affecting social interaction. The framework developed can be further verified and modified for future research.

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


a paradigm for distributed debugging Three critical problems associated with distributed debugging are controlling the debugging process in the absence of a global clock; maintaining transparency so that the debugger does not change the order or timing of events, and reproducing an execution sequence to be able to verify that a fault has been corrected. A paradigm is put forward that successfully addresses these three problems. To demonstrate the feasibility of this paradigm, an instantiation has been constructed. A description is given of the resulting debugger for a dataflow language.

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

order transparency language forward process demonstrate fault timing distributed dataflow sequence debugging global change


Inapproximability results related to monophonic convexity In 2010, it was proved that the interval number and the convexity number on the monophonic convexity are NP-hard on general graphs (Dourado etal., 2010). In this paper, we extend this results on the monophonic convexity. We prove that deciding if the interval number is at most 2 and deciding if the percolation time is at most 1 are NP-complete problems even in bipartite graphs. We also prove that the convexity number is as hard to approximate as the maximum clique problem. Finally, we obtain polynomial time algorithms to determine the convexity number on hereditary graph classes such that the computation of the clique number is polynomial time solvable (as perfect graphs and planar graphs).

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

monophonic convexity
bipartite graphs
inapproximability
convexity number
percolation time


Implicitization of parametric curves via Lagrange interpolation A simple algorithm for finding the implicit equation of a parametric plane curve given by its parametric equations is presented. The algorithm is based on an efficient computation of the Bezout resultant and Lagrange interpolation. One of main features of our approach is the fact that it considerably reduces the problem of computing intermediate expressions.

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

implicitization
curve
bezout resultant
lagrange interpolation


analysis of globally gated markovian limited cyclic polling model and its application to ieee 802.16 network In this paper we introduce the globally gated Markovian limited service discipline in the cyclic polling model. Under this policy at most K customers are served during the server visit to a station among the customers that are present at the start of the actual polling cycle. Here the random limit K is the actual value of a finite state Markov chain assigned to the actual station. At each station customers arrive with Poisson process and the customer service time is constant. Moreover the cycle time is a fixed integer multiple of the customer service time. The model enables asymmetric arrival flows and each station has an individual Markov chain. This model is analyzed and the numerical solution for the mean of the stationary waiting time is provided. This model is motivated by the problem of dynamic capacity allocation in Media Access Control of wireless communication networks with Time-Division Multiple Access mechanism. The "globally gated" character of the model is the consequence of the applied reservation mechanisms. In a fixed length frame after allocating the required capacity for the delay sensitive real-time traffic the random remaining capacity is shared among the subscriber stations for the non real-time traffic. The Markovian character of the random limits enables to model the inter frame dependencies of the required real-time capacity at each station individually. In the second part of the paper the application of this model to the uplink traffic in the IEEE 802.16 network is demonstrated.

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

capacity allocation
waiting time
polling model


Analysis of heart rate variability to predict patient age in a healthy population Objectives: To estimate age of healthy subjects by means of the heart rate variability (HRV) parameters thus assessing the potentiality of HRV indexes as a biomarker of age. Methods: Long-term indexes of HRV in time domain, frequency domain and non-linear parameters were computed on 24-hour recordings in a dataset of 63 healthy subjects (age range 20-76 years old). Then, as interbeat dynamics markedly change with age, showing a reduced HRV in older subjects, we tried to capture age-related influence on HRV by principal component analysis and to predict the subject age by means of a feedforward neural network. Results: The network provides good prediction of patient age, even if a slight overestimation in the younger subjects and a slight underestimation in the older ones were observed. In addition, the important contribution of non-linear indexes to prediction is underlined. Conclusions: HRV as a predictor of age may lead to the definition of a new biomarker of aging.

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


Iris-Based Medical Analysis by Geometric Deformation Features Iris analysis studies the relationship between human health and changes in the anatomy of the iris. Apart from the fact that iris recognition focuses on modeling the overall structure of the iris, iris diagnosis emphasizes the detecting and analyzing of local variations in the characteristics of irises. This paper focuses on studying the geometrical structure changes in irises that are caused by gastrointestinal diseases, and on measuring the observable deformations in the geometrical structures of irises that are related to roundness, diameter, and other geometric forms of the pupil and the collarette. Pupil-and collarette-based features are defined and extracted. A series of experiments are implemented on our experimental pathological iris database, including manual clustering of both normal and pathological iris images, manual classification by nonspecialists, manual classification by individuals with a medical background, classification ability verification for the proposed features, and disease recognition by applying the proposed features. The results prove the effectiveness and clinical diagnostic significance of the proposed features and a reliable recognition performance for automatic disease diagnosis. Our research results offer a novel systematic perspective for iridology studies and promote the progress of both theoretical and practical work in iris diagnosis.

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

collarette-based feature
iris geometric deformation feature
pupil-based feature


A numeral character recognition using the PCA mixture model This paper proposes a method for recognizing the numeral characters based on the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) mixture model. The proposed method is motivated by the idea that the classification accuracy is improved by modeling each class into a mixture of several components and by performing the classification in the compact and decorrelated feature space. For realizing the idea, each numeral class is partitioned into several clusters and each cluster's density is estimated by a Gaussian distribution function in the PCA transformed space. The parameter estimation is performed by an iterative EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm, and model order is selected by a fast sub-optimal validation scheme. The proposed method is also computation-effective because the optimal feature components for a cluster are determined by a sequential elimination of insignificant feature due to the ordering property of the significance among the feature components in the PCA transformed space. Simulation results shows that the proposed recognition method outperforms other methods such as the k-NN (Nearest Neighbor) method, a single PCA model, or the ICA (Independent Component Analysis) mixture model in terms of recognition accuracy. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

mixture model
principal component analysis
numeral character recognition


Sensitivity analysis of tree scheduling on two machines with communication delays This paper presents a sensitivity analysis for the problem of scheduling trees with communication delays on two identical processors, to minimize the makespan. Tasks are supposed to have unit execution time (uet), and the values associated to communication delays are supposed unknown before the execution. The paper compares the optimal makespans with and without communication delays. The results are used to obtain sensitivity bounds for algorithms providing optimal schedules for graphs with unit execution and communication times (uect). The notion of processor-ordered schedules, for two-processor systems, is introduced. It describes schedules in which all communications are oriented from one processor to the other. It is shown that these schedules are dominant for unit delays, for zero delays, but not for delays of less than or equal to one. We establish that algorithms building optimal processor-ordered schedules for uect graphs admit an absolute sensitivity bound equal to the difference between the maximum and the minimum actual communication delays: . This bound is tight.

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

trees
unit execution and communication times
sensitivity analysis

uncertain communication delays
two-processor scheduling


Quantum versus deterministic counter automata This paper focuses on quantum analogues of various models of counter automata, and almost completely proves the relation between the classes of languages recognizable by bounded error quantum ones and classical deterministic ones in every model of counter automata. It is proved that (i) there are languages that can be recognized by two-way quantum one-counter automata with bounded error, but cannot be recognized by two-way deterministic one-counter automata, (ii) under some reasonable restriction, every language that can be recognized by two-way deterministic one-counter automata can also be recognized by two-way reversible one-counter automata (and hence by bounded error two-way quantum one-counter automata), and (iii) for any fixed k, quantum ones and deterministic ones are incomparable in one-way k-counter automata. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Generating cubical complexes from image data and computation of the Euler number ? A number of tasks in image processing and computer vision require the computation of certain topological characteristics of objects in a given image. In this paper, we introduce a new method based on the notion of the algebraic topology complex to compute the Euler number of a given object. First, we attach a cubical complex to the object of interest, then we associate an algebraic structure on which a number of simplifying operations preserving the topology but not necessarily the geometric nature of the complex are possible. This is a unifying dimension independent approach. We show that the Euler number can be obtained directly from the cubical structure or one can perform a collapsing operation that allows to reduce the given image to a lower dimension structure with equivalent topological properties. This reduced structure can be used in a further process, in particular, for the computation of the Euler number.

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

algebraic topology
cubical complex
collapsing
euler number


Interactive Histology of Large-Scale Biomedical Image Stacks Histology is the study of the structure of biological tissue using microscopy techniques. As digital imaging technology advances, high resolution microscopy of large tissue volumes is becoming feasible; however, new interactive tools are needed to explore and analyze the enormous datasets. In this paper we present a visualization framework that specifically targets interactive examination of arbitrarily large image stacks. Our framework is built upon two core techniques: display-aware processing and GPU-accelerated texture compression. With display-aware processing, only the currently visible image tiles are fetched and aligned on-the-fly, reducing memory bandwidth and minimizing the need for time-consuming global pre-processing. Our novel texture compression scheme for GPUs is tailored for quick browsing of image stacks. We evaluate the usability of our viewer for two histology applications: digital pathology and visualization of neural structure at nanoscale-resolution in serial electron micrographs.

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

gigapixel viewer
biomedical image processing
gpu


Towards universal text retrieval: Tipster text retrieval research at New Mexico State University New Mexico Stale University's Computing Research Lab has participated in research in ail three phases of the US Government's Tipster program. Our work on information retrieval has focused on research and development of multilingual and cross-language approaches to automatic retrieval. The work on automatic systems has been supplemented by additional research into the role of the IR system user in interactive retrieval scenarios: monolingual, multilingual and cross-language. The combined efforts suggest that "universal" text retrieval. in which a user can find, access and use documents in the face of language differences and information overload, may be possible.

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

multilingual retrieval
cross-language retrieval
user studies
unicode


GPAX: GENETIC PARABOLIC ADAPTIVE CROSSOVER OPERATOR In this paper we propose a new crossover operator for real coded evolutionary algorithms that is based on a parabolic probability density function. This density function depends on two real parameters a and p which have the capacity to achieve exploration and exploitation dynamically during the evolutionary process in relation to the best individuals. In other words, the proposed crossover operator is able to handle the generational diversity of the population in such a way that it can either generate additional population diversity, therefore allowing exploration to take effect, or use the diversity previously generated to exploit the better solutions. In order to test the performance of this crossover, we have used a set of test functions and have made a comparative study of the proposed crossover against other classic crossover operators. The analysis of the results allows us to affirm that the proposed operator displays a very suitable behavior, although, it should be noted that it offers a better behavior applied to complex search spaces than simple ones.

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

real-coded genetic algorithms
adaptive operators


Joint transmit power and physical carrier sensing adaptation based on loss differentiation for high density IEEE 802.11 WLAN ? In high density (HD) IEEE 802.11 WLAN, packet loss can occur due to co-channel interference (asynchronous interference) or collisions (synchronous interference). In order to effectively mitigate the interference for spatial reuse, the causes of packet loss should be differentiated and corresponding network parameters (physical carrier sensing (PCS) threshold, transmit power (TXPW) and contention windows size) tuned accordingly. Such loss differentiation ability is not supported by current IEEE 802.11 networks; we devised a novel, zero over-the-air overhead, robust yet accurate method of estimating the probability of collision and interference, respectively. In this work, we investigate how to use differentiated packet error rate (PER) to mitigate asynchronous interference for increasing spatial reuse. Motivated by analysis, a joint transmit power and PCS threshold self-adaptation algorithm based on loss differentiation is proposed. Heuristics that address node starvation and fairness are also incorporated within the above (aggregate throughput maximization) framework to allow a flexible suite of approaches to network tuning. Elaborate simulations show that such joint adaptation algorithm can increase both total throughput and worst link throughput in HD WLAN greatly compared with PCS only adaptation without loss differentiation.

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

physical carrier sensing
loss differentiation
adaptation

ieee 802.11
transmit power control
high density wlan
contention window size


Self-reproducible DEVS formalism System reproduction model to the growing system structure can be used to design modeling formalisms for variable system architectures having historical characteristics. We introduce a discrete event system specifications (DEVS)-based extended formalism that a system structure gradually grows through self-reproductions of system components. The proposed formalism is applied to atomic DEVS modeling and coupled DEVS modeling. As extended-atomic DEVS model, atomic self-reproduction (SR) DEVS modeling to a system component makes virtual-child atomic DEVS models. By SR DEVS modeling, a child coupled model can be also reproduced from a parent coupled model. When a system component model reproduces its system component, a child component model can receive its parent model characteristics including determined role or behavior, and include different structure model characteristics. A virtual-child model that has its parent characteristics can also reproduce next child model which may show similar attributes of the grand-parent model. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc.

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


highly flexible multi-mode system synthesis Multi-mode systems have emerged as an area- and power-efficient approach to implementing multiple time-wise mutually exclusive algorithms and applications in a single hardware space. These systems have limited flexibility and temporal separation between modes is achieved by changing only the dataflow between components. This paper presents a synthesis methodology for integrating flexible components and controllers into primarily fixed logic multi-mode systems thereby increasing their overall flexibility and efficiency. The components are built using a technique called small-scale reconfigurability that provides the necessary flexibility without the penalties associated with general-purpose reconfigurable logic. The reconfiguration latency is small enabling both inter-mode and intra-mode reconfiguration of components. Datapath and controller area and power consumption are reduced beyond what is provided in current multi-mode systems using this methodology, without sacrificing performance. The results show an average 7\% reduction in datapath component area, 26\% reduction in register area, 36\% reduction in interconnect MUX cost, and a 68\% reduction in the number of controller signals for a set of benchmark 32-bit signal processing applications. There is also an average 38\% increase in component utilization.

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


Hybrid neural network/finite element modelling of wave propagation in infinite domains The paper presents the method of formulation of a transmitting boundary using artificial neural network (ANN). The back-propagation neural networks (BPNN) [Comput. Struct. 79 (2001) 2261; S. Haykin, A Comprehensive Foundation, second ed., Prentice-Hall, 1999; Z. Waszczyszyn, in B.H.V. Topping (Ed.), Computational Mechanics for the Twenty-First Century, Civil-Comp Ltd., 2000, p. 479] are used for simulation of dynamic reactions on artificial boundary from an outside region. Neural networks are applied to all nodes on artificial boundary. The input vector for ANN is composed of (1) displacement, velocity and acceleration at time t?1 in node on the boundary, (2) displacements at time t?1 in three consecutive nodes on line perpendicular to the artificial boundary. The output vector determines the dynamic reactions at time t. Besides the displacements, velocities and accelerations at time t are computed. Three problems are discussed: (1) wave propagation in semi-infinite strip, (2) wave propagation in semi-infinite strip with notch, (3) acoustic radiation from nonconcentric radiator. Neural networks with one or two hidden layers were tested. Computations proved that BPNNs can be efficiently applied to the implementation of the approximate boundary condition on the artificial surface.

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

neural networks
artificial boundary
wave propagation


An application of the modified Leverrier-Faddeev algorithm to the spectral decomposition of symmetric block-circulant matrices The Leverrier-Faddeev algorithm is little-known but, in a modified form, is useful for deriving the algebraic, rather than numerical, spectral structure of matrices occurring in statistical methodology. An example is given of deriving the spectral decomposition of any symmetric block-circulant matrix, which in turn provides the singular value decomposition of any block-circulant matrix. Such problems arise as short-cuts to certain computations that arise in special forms of principal components analysis and correspondence analysis. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

spectral decomposition
singular value decomposition

algebraic algorithms
leverrier
faddeev
block-circulants


systematically combining process simulation and empirical data in support of decision analysis in software development Decision-making is a complex and important task in software engineering. The current state-of-the-practice is rather non-systematic as it typically relies upon personal experience without using explicit models. Empirical studies can help but are to some extent context dependent and costly to conduct. Typically it is not efficient or even possible to conduct empirical studies for a large number of context parameter variations. We propose to build on a set of systematic empirical studies to fill gaps in context variable space with simulation: (a) Simulation can use the empirical results from different contexts and apply them to a planning situation as appropriate. (b) The analysis of simulation results can point out situations and factors for which conducting empirical studies would be most worthwhile. This paper presents a general decision model, a simulation framework, and examples for different decisions to use V&V activities in software development (e.g., under which conditions is a V&V activity, such as a re-inspection, worthwhile) to demonstrate practical applications of the general 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 B 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

decision support systems
re-inspections
inspections
discrete event modeling
process modeling and simulation


A regularization framework in polar coordinates for transductive learning in networked data In networked data, linked objects tend to belong to the same class, and densely linked subgraphs are often available. Based on these facts, this paper presents a regularization framework that consists of fitting and regularization terms for transductive learning in networked data. The desirable value of the fitting term is related to the number of labeled data, whereas that of the regularization term is dependent on the structure of the graph. The ratio of these two desirable values is essential for the estimation of the optimal regularization parameters, such as that proposed in our paper. Under the proposed regularization framework, an effective classification algorithm is developed. Two methods are also introduced to incorporate contents of objects into the proposed framework to ultimately improve classification accuracy. Promising experimental results are reported on a toy problem and a paper classification task.

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

regularization framework
networked data
transductive learning


Characterization of interfacial reaction and chemical bonding features of LaOx/HfO2 stack structure formed on thermally-grown SiO2/Si(100) A stack structure consisting of ?1.5nm-thick LaOx and ?4.0nm-thick HfO2 was formed on thermally grown SiO2 on Si(100) by MOCVD using dipivaloymethanato precursors, and the influence of N2 annealing on interfacial reaction for this stack structure was examined by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflection. We found that compositional mixing between LaOx and HfO2 becomes significant from 600C upwards and that interfacial reaction between HfLayOz and SiO2 proceeds consistently at 1000C in N2 ambience.

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

high-k dielectric
x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy


A Formal Model of Communication and Context Awareness in Multiagent Systems Awareness is a concept that has been frequently studied in the context of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. However, other fields of computer science can benefit from this concept. Recent research in the multi-agent systems field has highlighted the relevance of complex interaction models such as multi-party communication and context awareness for simulation and adaptive systems. In this article, we present a generic interaction model that enables to use these different models in a standardized way. Emerging as a first-order abstraction, the environment, in the sense of a common medium for the agents, is a suitable paradigm to support the agents awareness. We present an operational model, called Environment as Active Support of Interaction, to take into account all the agents that can be interested in a communication. This model is then extended for the regulation of multiagent systems interactions. Priority policies are given to manage the rules governing the context (un-)awareness of the agents. We also present a new AUML connector to create protocols that take into account the agent awareness to implement proactive behaviour, and several communication scenarios are proposed to show practical applications of this model.

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

awareness
environment
multiagent systems


A stochastic programming approach for planning horizons of infinite horizon capacity planning problems Planning horizon is a key issue in production planning. Different from previous approaches based on Markov Decision Processes, we study the planning horizon of capacity planning problems within the framework of stochastic programming. We first consider an infinite horizon stochastic capacity planning model involving a single resource, linear cost structure, and discrete distributions for general stochastic cost and demand data (non-Markovian and non-stationary). We give sufficient conditions for the existence of an optimal solution. Furthermore, we study the monotonicity property of the finite horizon approximation of the original problem. We show that, the optimal objective value and solution of the finite horizon approximation problem will converge to the optimal objective value and solution of the infinite horizon problem, when the time horizon goes to infinity. These convergence results, together with the integrality of decision variables, imply the existence of a planning horizon. We also develop a useful formula to calculate an upper bound on the planning horizon. Then by decomposition, we show the existence of a planning horizon for a class of very general stochastic capacity planning problems, which have complicated decision structure.

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

stochastic programming
infinite horizon
capacity planning
approximation
planning horizon


design and power optimization of cmos rf blocks operating in the moderate inversion region In this work the design of radiofrequency CMOS circuit blocks in the 910MHz ISM band, while biasing the MOS transistor in the moderate inversion region, is analyzed. An amplifier design tool is presented. This tool shows that it exists an optimum in the power consumption for a given gain. Different technologies are compared, using the proposed tool, regarding its performance in terms of gain and power consumption in the design space ID-gm/ID. The frequency limit of the applied transistor model is discussed and comparisons with simulations using BSIM3v3 are presented. Implementation of a power amplifier and a VCO at 910 MHz in 0.35?m CMOS technology and experimental results are also shown.

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

radio frequency integrated circuits
cmos integrated circuits


A novel parallel adaptive Monte Carlo method for nonlinear Poisson equation in semiconductor devices We present a parallel adaptive Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm for the numerical solution of the nonlinear Poisson equation in semiconductor devices. Based on a fixed random walk MC method, 1-irregular unstructured mesh technique, monotone iterative method, a posterior error estimation method, and dynamic domain decomposition algorithm, this approach is developed and successfully implemented on a 16-processors (16-PCs) Linux-cluster with message-passing interface (MPI) library. To solve the nonlinear problem with MC method, monotone iterative method is applied in each adaptive loop to obtain the final convergent solution. This approach fully exploits the inherent parallelism of the monotone iterative as well as MC methods. Numerical results for p-n diode and MOSFET devices are demonstrated to show the robustness of the method. Furthermore, achieved parallel speedup and related parallel performances are also reported in this work. (C) 2002 IMACS. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

monte carlo method
nonlinear poisson equation
unstructured mesh


a multi-platform co-array fortran compiler Co-array Fortran (CAF)-a small set of extensions to Fotran 90-is an emerging model for scalable, global address space parallel programming.CAF's global address space programming model simplifies the development of single-program-multiple-data parallel programs by shifting the burden for managing the details of communication from developers to compilers.This paper describes cafc-a prototype implementation of an open-source, multiplication CAF compiler that generates code well-suited for today's commodity clusters.The cafc compiler translates CAF into Fortran 90 plus calls to one-sided communication primitives.The paper describes key details of cafc's approach to generating efficient code for multiple platforms.Experiments compare the performance of CAF and MPI versions of several NAS parallel benchmarks on an Alpha cluster with a Quadrics interconnect, an Itanium 2 cluster with a Myrinet 2000 interconnect and an Itanium 2 cluster with a Quadrics interconnect. These experiments show that cafc compiles CAF programs into code that delivers performance roughly equal to that of hand-optimized MPI programs.

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

communication performance model paper space parallel prototype code implementation interconnect global cluster

open-source
platform
efficiency
scalability
benchmark
developer
arrays
addressing
extensibility
experience
program modelling
management
program
parallel programming
compilation
version
data parallelism


About the relationship between ROC curves and Cohen's kappa Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are very powerful tools for measuring classifiers accuracy in binary-class problems. However, their usefulness in real-world multi-class problems has not been demonstrated yet. In these frequently occurring multi-class cases, simple accuracy meters that do compensate for random successes, such as the kappa statistic, are needed. ROC curves are two-dimensional graphs. Kappa is a scalar. Each comes from an entirely different discipline. This research investigates whether they do have anything in common. A mathematical formulation that links ROC spaces with the kappa statistic is derived here for the first time. The understanding of how these two accuracy meters relate to each other can assist in a better understanding of their respective pros and cons.

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

classification accuracy
area under roc curve (auc)
cohen's kappa
machine learning


Reconstruction of the equilibrium of the plasma in a Tokamak and identification of the current density profile in real time The reconstruction of the equilibrium of a plasma in a Tokamak is a free boundary problem described by the GradShafranov equation in axisymmetric configuration. The right-hand side of this equation is a nonlinear source, which represents the toroidal component of the plasma current density. This paper deals with the identification of this nonlinearity source from experimental measurements in real time. The proposed method is based on a fixed point algorithm, a finite element resolution, a reduced basis method and a least-square optimization formulation. This is implemented in a software called Equinox with which several numerical experiments are conducted to explore the identification problem. It is shown that the identification of the profile of the averaged current density and of the safety factor as a function of the poloidal flux is very robust.

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

inverse problem
finite elements method
real-time
fusion plasma


Neurogenesis in the Subependymal Layer of the Adult Rat The subependymal layer (SEL) of the adult mammalian brain provides a continuous supply of newborn cells that migrate to the olfactory bulb (OB) where they differentiate into interneurons. These newly generated cells migrate tangentially to the OB within a dense meshwork of astrocytic cells, organized to form tangentially oriented channels (glial tubes). The central nervous system is able to synthesize a variety of steroids. Among these, we analyzed the effects of progesterone (P) and its neuroactive metabolites dihydroprogesterone (DHP) and tetrahydroprogesterone (THP), administered by intraventricular injection, on the SEL of the adult rat. We found that THP and DHP, but not their precursor P, modify glial tubes organization and decrease immunoreactivity for glial associated proteins in SEL astrocytes. Moreover P metabolites reduce the proliferative activity within the SEL.

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

neuroactive steroids
progesterone metabolites
adult neurogenesis
neurogenetic niche


ATRIPPI: AN ATOM-RESIDUE PREFERENCE SCORING FUNCTION FOR PROTEIN-PROTEIN INTERACTIONS We present an ATRIPPI model for analyzing protein-protein interactions. This model is a 167-atom-type and residue-specific interaction preferences with distance bins derived from 641 co-crystallized protein-protein interfaces. The ATRIPPI model is able to yield physical meanings of hydrogen bonding, disulfide bonding, electrostatic interactions, van der Waals and aromatic-aromatic interactions. We applied this model to identify the native states and near-native complex structures on 17 bound and 17 unbound complexes from thousands of decoy structures. On average, 77.5% structures (155 structures) of top rank 200 structures are closed to the native structure. These results suggest that the ATRIPPI model is able to keep the advantages of both atom-atom and residue-residue interactions and is a potential knowledge-based scoring function for protein-protein docking methods. We believe that our model is robust and provides biological meanings to support protein-protein interactions.

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

protein-protein interaction
atom-atom interacting preference
knowledge-based scoring matrix
residue-residue interaction preference


Digital libraries: what do users want? Purpose - The purpose of this study is to determine user suggestions for digital libraries, functionality and features. Design/methodology/approach - A survey was conducted as part of this study, in which users' suggestions for digital libraries were solicited, as well as their ranking opinions on a range of suggested digital library features. Findings - The study revealed that, regardless of users' information technology (IT) backgrounds, their expectations of digital libraries' functionality are the same. However, based on users' previous experiences with digital libraries, their requirements with respect to specific features may change. Practical implications - Involving users in digital library design should be an integral step in the process of building a digital library - in addition to the classic roles of evaluation and testing. Originality/value - In previous digital library user studies, users were involved implicitly (e.g. observed) or explicitly (e.g. diary notes). However, they were never asked to suggest digital library features or functionalities, as this was left to usability and domain experts. This study approached digital library design from a new perspective, giving users an opportunity to express their suggestions on future functionality and features of digital libraries. Moreover, in contrast to previous work, this study has explicitly taken into account the IT abilities of those interacting with a digital library.

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


On the rate of convergence of local averaging plug-in classification rules under a margin condition The rates of convergence of plug-in kernel, partitioning, and nearest neighbors classification rules are analyzed. A margin condition, which measures how quickly the a posteriori probabilities cross the decision boundary, smoothness conditions on the a posteriori probabilities, and boundedness of the feature vector are imposed. The rates of convergence of the plug-in classifiers shown in this paper are faster than previously known.

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

plug-in classifiers
statistical learning


Package routability- and IR-drop-aware finger/pad planning for single chip and stacking IC designs Due to the increasing complexity of the design interactions between the chip and package, it is necessary to consider them at the same time. In order to simultaneously handle chip and package performances, co-design of chip and package is a widely adopted solution, particularly because the finger/pad locations significantly affect IR-drop of the core and the package routing. In this paper, we develop chip-package co-design techniques to determine the locations of the fingers/pads for package routability and signal integrity concerns in IC designs, this method can be used in the 2-D and stacking IC design. Our finger/pad assignment is a two-step method: we first solve the wire congestion problem in package routing, and then try to minimize the IR-drop violation and the length of the bonding wires under a compact IR-drop model. The experimental results are encouraging. Compared with the randomly optimized method, on average, our approaches reduce the maximum package density by 42% and 68% for both technologies, IR-drop by 10.61% and 4.58%; and the bonding wires is reduced by 15.66% if we use stacking chips.

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


An Accurate Scene Segmentation Method Based on Graph Analysis Using Object Matching and Audio Feature A method for accurate scene segmentation using two kinds of directed graph obtained by object matching and audio features is proposed. Generally, in audiovisual materials, such as broadcast programs and movies, there are repeated appearances of similar shots that include frames of the same background, object or place, and such shots are included in a single scene. Many scene segmentation methods based on this idea have been proposed; however, since they use color information as visual features, they cannot provide accurate scene segmentation results if the color features change in different shots for which frames include the same object due to camera operations such as zooming and panning. In order to solve this problem, scene segmentation by the proposed method is realized by using two novel approaches. In the first approach, object matching is performed between two frames that are each included in different shots. By using these matching. results, repeated appearances of shots for which frames include the same object can be successfully found and represented as a directed graph. The proposed method also generates another directed graph that represents the repeated appearances of shots with similar audio features in the second approach. By combined use of these two directed graphs, degradation of scene segmentation accuracy, which results from using only one kind of graph, can be avoided in the proposed method and thereby accurate scene segmentation can be realized. Experimental results performed by applying the proposed method to actual broadcast programs are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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

scene segmentation
graph analysis
object matching
audio feature


Explicit Formulae for Mastrovito Matrix and its Corresponding Toeplitz Matrix for All Irreducible Pentanomials Using Shifted Polynomial Basis We propose explicit formulae of the Mastrovito matrix for a pentanomial. We propose explicit formulae of the Toeplitz matrix for a pentanomial. We give the complexity of the Toeplitz matrix for a pentanomial. We give the complexity of a multiplier based on TMVP for a pentanomial. We give conditions on pentanomials for an e?cient multiplier based on the TMVP.

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

mastrovito matrix
toeplitz matrix
pentanomial
shifted polynomial basis

subquadratic space complexity multiplier


multi-objective optimization of dynamic memory managers using grammatical evolution The dynamic memory manager (DMM) is a key element whose customization for a target application reports great benefits in terms of execution time, memory usage and energy consumption. Previous works presented algorithms to automatically obtain custom DMMs for a given application. Nevertheless, those approaches are based on grammatical evolution where the fitness is built as an aggregate objective function, which does not completely exploit the search space, returning the designer the DMM solution with best fitness. However, this approach may not find solutions that could fit in a concrete hardware platform due to a very low value of one of the objectives while the others remain high, which may represent a high fitness. In this work we present the first multi-objective optimization methodology applied to DMM optimization where the Pareto dominance is considered, thus providing the designer with a set of non-dominated DMM implementations on each optimization run. Our results show that the multi-objective optimization provides Pareto-optimal alternatives due to a better exploitation of the search space obtaining better hypervolume values than the aggregate objective function approach.

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

evolutionary computation
embedded systems design
genetic programming


Multiplicity results for some elliptic problems with nonlinear boundary conditions involving variable exponents In this paper we analyze an elliptic partial differential equation involving variable exponent growth conditions coupled with a nonlinear boundary condition. We show the existence of infinitely many bounded weak solutions provided there is a suitable oscillatory behavior of the nonlinearity either at infinity or at zero. Our proofs rely on a method due to Saint Raymond.

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


OoOJava: Software Out-of-Order Execution Developing parallel software using current tools can be challenging. Even experts find it difficult to reason about the use of locks and often accidentally introduce race conditions and deadlocks into parallel software. OoOJava is a compiler-assisted approach that leverages developer annotations along with static analysis to provide an easy-to-use deterministic parallel programming model. OoOJava extends Java with a task annotation that instructs the compiler to consider a code block for out-of-order execution. OoOJava executes tasks as soon as their data dependences are resolved and guarantees that the execution of an annotated program preserves the exact semantics of the original sequential program. We have implemented OoOJava and achieved an average speedup of 16.6 x on our ten benchmarks.

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


verification condition generation for conditional information flow We formulate an intraprocedural information flow analysis algorithm for sequential, heap manipulating programs. We prove correctness of the algorithm, and argue that it can be used to verify some naturally occurring examples in which information flow is conditional on some Hoare-like state predicates being satisfied. Because the correctness of information flow analysis is typically formulated in terms of noninterference of pairs of computations, the algorithm takes as input a program together with two-state assertions as postcondition, and generates two-state preconditions together with verification conditions. To process heap manipulations and while loops, the algorithm must additionally be supplied "object flow invariants" as well as "loop flow invariants" which are themselves two-state, and possibly conditional.

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

object invariants
conditional information flow analysis


Uncertainty principle guarantees genuine source of intrinsic randomness The Borns rule introduces intrinsic randomness to the outcomes of a measurement performed on a quantum mechanical system. But, if the system is prepared in the eigenstate of an observable, then the measurement outcome of that observable is completely predictable, and hence, there is no intrinsic randomness. On the other hand, if two incompatible observables are measured (either sequentially on a particle or simultaneously on two identical copies of the particle), then uncertainty principle guarantees intrinsic randomness in the subsequent outcomes independent of the preparation state of the system. In this article, we show that this is true not only in quantum mechanics but for any no-signaling probabilistic theory. Also the minimum amount of intrinsic randomness that can be guaranteed for arbitrarily prepared state of the system is quantified by the amount of (un)certainty.

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


A simulation study of scalable broadcast in high-performance regular networks Broadcast is an important communication operation required by many real-world applications encountered in parallel, cluster, and grid computing environments. Broadcasting on regular networks has been widely investigated in the past. However, most of the existing algorithms handle broadcast in a sequential manner and do not scale well; as a consequence, many applications cannot be efficiently supported using existing algorithms. In an effort to avoid this limitation, this article presents a new broadcast algorithm based on coded path routing. In addition to its simplicity, the proposed algorithm has shown to be capable of performing the broadcast operation in a fixed number of message-passing steps, irrespective of the network size. An extensive simulation study has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm under different traffic working conditions. The analysis reveals that the new algorithm exhibits superior performance characteristics over those of the well-known recursive-doubling and extended-dominating node algorithms.

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

collective communication
grid and cluster computing
performance analysis
multicast latency


Awareness and reaction strategies for critical infrastructure protection ? We study IDPRS solutions for CIP, considering their components and constraints. We design a methodological framework for IDPRS solutions within critical scenarios. ICS need automated intelligent solutions for early detection and protection. Current IDPRS solutions for CIP lack automatic active reaction mechanisms. We give recommendations for adaptation or development of IDPRS solutions for CIP.

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

intrusion detection and response systems


On the convergence condition of generalized root iterations for the inclusion of polynomial zeros Using a fixed point relation based on the logarithmic derivative of the k-th order of an algebraic polynomial and the definition of the k-th root of a disk, a family of interval methods for the simultaneous inclusion of complex zeros in circular complex arithmetic was established by Petkovic [M.S. Petkovic, On a generalization of the root iterations for polynomial complex zeros in circular interval arithmetic, Computing 27 (1981) 37-55]. In this paper we give computationally verifiable initial conditions that guarantee the convergence of this parallel family of inclusion methods. These conditions are significantly relaxed compared to the previously stated initial conditions presented in literature. (C) 2007 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

polynomial zeros
inclusion methods
circular interval arithmetic

simultaneous methods
convergence conditions


optimal task placement to improve cache performance Most recent embedded systems use caches to improve their average performance. Current timing analyses are able to compute safe timing guarantees for these systems, if tasks are running to completion. If preemptive scheduling is enabled, the previously computed timing guarantees no longer hold. At each program point, a preempting task might completely change the cache content. This observation has to be considered by timing analyses, which inevitably increases their complexity. Additionally, these cache-interferences influence the overall performance of such systems. The position of a task's data determines the portion of the cache the task will occupy, and by this, the cache-interferences of the different tasks. In this paper, we present a novel method that computes an optimal taskset placement with respect to the above criteria. This means, our method modifies the starting addresses of the tasks such that the number of persistent task sets is maximized for each task. We show that the problem of finding an optimal placement is NP-hard and present a heuristic to approximate an optimal solution. Finally, we demonstrate by means of simulations that our method is able to improve the overall performance especially of heterogeneous and complex tasksets.

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


programming language optimizations for modular router configurations Networking systems such as Ensemble, the x -kernel, Scout, and Click achieve flexibility by building routers and other packet processors from modular components. Unfortunately, component designs are often slower than purpose-built code, and routers in particular have stringent efficiency requirements. This paper addresses the efficiency problems of one component-based router, Click, through optimization tools inspired in part by compiler optimization passes. This pragmatic approach can result in significant performance improvements; for example, the combination of three optimizations reduces the amount of CPU time Click requires to process a packet in a simple IP router by 34\%. We present several optimization tools, describe how those tools affected the design of Click itself, and present detailed evaluations of Click's performance with and without optimization.

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

requirements
efficiency
design
performance
router
flexibility
modular
paper
component
systems
code
process
ensemble
tools
programming language

network
pragmatics
examples
timing
evaluation
- compiler optimization
combinational
processor
optimality
configurability


Genetic code optimality studied by means of simulated evolution and within the coevolution theory of the canonical code organization We have studied the canonical genetic code optimality by means of simulated evolution. A genetic algorithm is used to search for better adapted hypothetical codes and as a method to guess the difficulty in finding such alternative codes. Such analysis is performed within the coevolution theory of the genetic code organization. We have studied the progression of the canonical genetic code optimality within such theory, considering a possible scenario of a previous code with two-letter codons as well as the current organization of the canonical code. Moreover, we have analysed the particular optimality and progression of adaptability of the individual nucleotide bases.

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

genetic code theories
error-minimization hypothesis
genetic algorithms


Positive recurrence for reflecting Brownian motion in higher dimensions Semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions (SRBMs) are diffusion processes with state space the d-dimensional nonnegative orthant, in the interior of which the processes evolve according to a Brownian motion, and that reflect against the boundary in a specified manner. A standard problem is to determine under what conditions the process is positive recurrent. Necessary and sufficient conditions for positive recurrence are easy to formulate in d = 2, but not in d >= 3. Fluid paths are solutions of deterministic equations that correspond to the random equations of the SRBM. A standard result of Dupuis and Williams (in Ann. Probab. 22:680-702, 1994) states that when every fluid path associated with the SRBM is attracted to the origin, the SRBM is positive recurrent. Employing this result, El Kharroubi et al. (in Stoch. Stoch. Rep. 68:229-253, 2000; Math. Methods Oper. Res. 56:243-258, 2002) gave sufficient conditions involving fluid paths for positive recurrence of SRBM in d = 3. Here, we discuss two recent results regarding necessary conditions for positive recurrence of SRBM in d >= 3. Bramson et al. (in Ann. Appl. Probab. 20:753-783, 2010) showed that the conditions in El Kharroubi et al. (Math. Methods Oper. Res. 56:243-258, 2002) are, in fact, necessary in d = 3. On the other hand, Bramson (in Ann. Appl. Probab., to appear, 2011) provided a family of positive recurrent SRBMs, in d >= 6, with linear fluid paths that diverge to infinity. The latter result shows in particular that the converse of the Dupuis-Williams result does not hold.

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

fluid model
queueing networks
heavy traffic limits


Techniques for analysing nanotopography on polished silicon wafers Nanotopography is a part of the overall silicon wafer surface topography and may affect yield in present chip manufacturing processes (like CMP). Techniques combining laser triangulation and high precision scanning stages are now capable to detect flatness deviations in the nanometer range on the entire wafer surface. In addition spectral analysis of the raw height data (e.g., power spectral density calculation) is applied to quantify the nanotopography of state of the art polished wafers over a wide range of the spatial wavelengths.

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

waviness
surface inspection
surface roughness
geometry measurements
psd