Foveated mean squared errora novel video quality metric Efficiency of a video coding process, as well as accuracy of an objective video quality evaluation can be significantly improved by introduction of the human visual system (HVS) characteristics. In this paper we analyze one of these characteristics; namely, visual acuity reduction due to the foveated vision and object movements in a video sequence. We propose a new video quality metric called Foveated Mean Squared Error (FMSE) that takes into account a variable resolution of the HVS across the visual field. The highest visual acuity is at the point of fixation that falls into fovea, an area at retina with the highest density of photoreceptors. Visual acuity decreases rapidly for image regions which are further with respect to the fixation point. FMSE also utilizes the effect of additional spatial acuity reduction due to motion in a video sequence. The quality measures calculated by FMSE have shown a high correlation with experimental results obtained by subjective video quality assessment.

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 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

retinal image velocity
spatio-temporal activity
subjective quality assessment


Copper stress migration at narrow metal finger with wide lead Copper stress migration (SM) at narrow metal finger connected with wide lead is investigated in this work. Voiding phenomenon is explored with respect to specific failure site. Metal geometric factors including lead width, lead length and finger length are also discussed in terms of SM failure rates. Meanwhile, in order to study the failure mechanism, a finite element analysis (FEA) is conducted to evaluate the influences from vacancy migration path, hydrostatic stress gradient and different metal geometries. As a result, a characterization regarding SM at narrow metal finger with wide lead is obtained for the reference of reliability assessment and process improvement.

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

stress migration (sm)
finite element analysis (fea)
backend-of-line (beol)


Short term hydro scheduling using two-phase neural network This paper presents a solution technique based on two-phase neural network for short term scheduling of hydropower generations. The proposed method is based on solution of a set of differential equations realized from transformation of an augmented lagrangian energy function. Here the objective function is to minimize the nonhydraulic power production expenses over the scheduling period. A multi-reservoir cascaded hydroelectric system with a nonlinear power generation function of water discharge rate and storage volume is taken into account for implementation. The water transportation delay between cascaded reservoirs is considered. Results concerning this method are compared with those achieved from successive solution of augmented lagrangian function utilizing familiar conjugate gradient method. It is shown that proposed solution approach with suitable selection of control parameters is capable of generating a good optimal solution.

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

nonlinear generation function
two-phase neural network


Tripod gaits for fault tolerance of hexapod walking machines with a locked joint failure Fault tolerance is an important design criterion for robotic systems operating in hazardous or remote environments. This paper addresses the issue of tolerating a locked joint failure in gait planning for hexapod walking machines which have symmetric structures and legs in the form of an articulated arm with three revolute joints. A locked joint failure is one for which a joint cannot move and is locked in place. If a failed joint is locked, the workspace of the resulting leg is constrained, but hexapod walking machines have the ability to continue static walking. A strategy of fault tolerant tripod gait is proposed and, as a specific form, a periodic gait is presented in which hexapod walking machines have the maximum stride length after a locked failure. The adjustment procedure from a normal gait to the proposed fault tolerant gait is shown to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed scheme.

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

hexapod walking machine
gait study
locked joint failures


Enhanced Cut Generation Methods for Decomposition-Based Branch and Cut for Two-Stage Stochastic Mixed-Integer Programs This paper is devoted to a study of computational speed-ups that may be possible in cut generation associated with decomposition-based branch-and-cut methods (e. g., D(2)-BAC) for stochastic mixed-integer programs (SMIPs). We discuss some bottlenecks in the cut generation process and suggest several enhancements to speed up this process. Our computational results show that significant improvements (approximately 50% reduction in computation times) may be possible by streamlining the computations associated with the cut generation process. This paper establishes new benchmarks for serial processing of two-stage SMIPs.

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

stochastic mixed-integer programming
disjunctive decomposition
stochastic server location


Hierarchical fuzzy clustering decision tree for classifying recipes of ion implanter In this paper, we propose a hierarchical fuzzy clustering decision tree (HFCDT) for the classification problem with large number of classes and continuous attributes. The HFCDT combines a division-degree matrix based hierarchal clustering technique with the entropy-based C4.5 decision tree algorithm. A hierarchical clustering concept is introduced to achieve a finer fuzzy partition. The hierarchical clustering technique splits the data set into leaf clusters using splitting attributes based on a division-degree matrix and fuzzy rules. The leaf clusters consisting of the data of more than one class will be further classified using the C4.5 algorithm. We have successfully applied the HFCDT for classifying recipes of the working wafers in an ion implanter, and compared the classification results and the training time with the existing software See5 and CART. The comparison results show that the HFCDT not only performs better than See5 and CART in the aspect of 10-fold cross validation for the average of total classification error rates but also consumes less training time. Thus, HFCDT obtains a very successful classification result. This also demonstrates why the hierarchical clustering technique helps reduce the computational complexity of the C4.5 algorithm. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

classification
fuzzy clustering
decision tree
ion implanter


CloudSim: a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environments and evaluation of resource provisioning algorithms Cloud computing is a recent advancement wherein IT infrastructure and applications are provided as services to end-users under a usage-based payment model. It can leverage virtualized services even on the fly based on requirements (workload patterns and QoS) varying with time. The application services hosted under Cloud computing model have complex provisioning, composition, configuration, and deployment requirements. Evaluating the performance of Cloud provisioning policies, application workload models, and resources performance models in a repeatable manner under varying system and user configurations and requirements is difficult to achieve. To overcome this challenge, we propose CloudSim: an extensible simulation toolkit that enables modeling and simulation of Cloud computing systems and application provisioning environments. The CloudSim toolkit supports both system and behavior modeling of Cloud system components such as data centers, virtual machines (VMs) and resource provisioning policies. It implements generic application provisioning techniques that can be extended with ease and limited effort. Currently, it supports modeling and simulation of Cloud computing environments consisting of both single and inter-networked clouds (federation of clouds). Moreover, it exposes custom interfaces for implementing policies and provisioning techniques for allocation of VMs under inter-networked Cloud computing scenarios. Several researchers from organizations, such as HP Labs in U.S.A., are using CloudSim in their investigation on Cloud resource provisioning and energy-efficient management of data center resources. The usefulness of CloudSim is demonstrated by a case study involving dynamic provisioning of application services in the hybrid federated clouds environment. The result of this case study proves that the federated Cloud computing model significantly improves the application QoS requirements under fluctuating resource and service demand patterns. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

modelling and simulation
performance evaluation
resource management
application scheduling


Inference about the mean difference of two non-normal populations based on independent samples: a comparative study Inference about the mean difference of two non- normal populations is considered. The usual procedures based on the large sample distribution of the t - test and various modifications of it as well as the approach based on the empirical likelihood are studied. The various procedures are compared using simulation techniques. The comparison was made in terms of the attainment of the nominal confidence levels, test sizes and powers. The results show that the bootstrapped empirical likelihood inference procedures are superior with accurate test sizes and confidence levels even for very small samples from considerably skewed, heavy- tailed or differently shaped parent populations.

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

bootstrap
non-normal populations
t-test
the two-sample problem


a compact factored representation of heterogeneous subsurface scattering Many translucent materials exhibit heterogeneous subsurface scattering, which arises from complex internal structures. The acquisition and representation of these scattering functions is a complex problem that has been only partially addressed in previous techniques. Unlike homogeneous materials, the spatial component of heterogeneous subsurface scattering can vary arbitrarily over surface locations. Storing the spatial component without compression leads to impractically large datasets. In this paper, we address the problem of acquiring and compactly representing the spatial component of heterogeneous subsurface scattering functions. We propose a material model based on matrix factorization that can be mapped onto arbitrary geometry, and, due to its compact form, can be incorporated into most visualization systems with little overhead. We present results of several real-world datasets that are acquired using a projector and a digital camera.

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

spatial
geometry
compact
matrix factorization
projector
subsurface scattering
camera
material
visualization systems
model
paper
representation
compression
component
surface

digitize
locatability
intern
addressing
image-based acquisition
complexity
heterogeneity
non-negative matrix factorization


Human Motion Tracking by Registering an Articulated Surface to 3D Points and Normals We address the problem of human motion tracking by registering a surface to 3D data. We propose a method that iteratively computes two things: maximum likelihood estimates for both the kinematic and free-motion parameters of a kinematic human-body representation, as well as probabilities that the data are assigned either to a body part or to an outlier class. We introduce a new metric between observed points and normals on one side and a parameterized surface on the other side, the latter being defined as a blending over a set of ellipsoids. We claim that this metric is well suited when one deals with either visual-hull or visual-shape observations. We illustrate the method by tracking human motions using sparse visual-shape data (3D surface points and normals) gathered from imperfect silhouettes.

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

model-based tracking
human motion capture
articulated implicit surface
shape from silhouettes
robust surface registration
expectation-maximization


BALANCE PROPERTIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF SQUARES IN CIRCULAR WORDS We study balance properties of circular words over alphabets of size greater than two. We give some new characterizations of balanced words connected to the Kawasaki-Ising model and to the notion of derivative of a word. Moreover we consider two different generalizations of the notion of balance, and we find some relations between them. Some of our results can be generalized to non periodic infinite words as well.

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

combinatorics on words
sturmian condition
computer theory
algorithm
routing
scheduling
computer network


Simultaneous design and scheduling of a semicontinuous/batch plant for ethanol and derivatives production The interest on renewable fuels has greatly increased in the last years. Particularly, ethanol production arises as a good solution to many current economic-environmental problems. Yeast production from the ethanol residuals constitutes a sustainable alternative. Usually, this kind of plants is designed using single product campaigns. However, since yeast degradation is fast and a continuous supply must be assured, the mixed product campaign policy is the most appropriate. Besides, a stable context can be assumed to justify this approach that takes advantage of the special structure of the plant. Therefore, in this paper, a mixed integer linear programming model is formulated for simultaneous design and scheduling of a semicontinuous/batch plant for ethanol and derivatives production. The optimal plant configuration, unit sizes, number of batches of each product in the campaign and its sequencing is obtained in order to fulfill the ethanol and yeast demands minimizing the investment cost. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

scheduling
mixed integer linear programming

batch/semicontinuous plant design
ethanol and yeast productions


the price of selfish behavior in bilateral network formation Given a collection of selfish agents who wish to establish links to route traffic among themselves, the set of equilibrium network topologies may appear quite different from the centrally enforced optimum. We study the quality (price of anarchy) of equilibrium networks in a game where links require the consent of both participants and are negotiated bilaterally and compare these networks to those generated by an earlier model due to Fabrikant et al. [6] in which links are formed unilaterally. We provide a characterization of stable and efficient networks in the bilateral network formation game, show that the set of stable networks is richer than those in the unilateral game, and that all stable networks of the unilateral game are also stable in the bilateral game. We also provide an upper and lower bound on the price of anarchy (tight in the size of the network n but not the link cost ? ) of the bilateral game and show that the worst-case price of anarchy of the bilateral model is worse than for the unilateral model. A careful empirical analysis demonstrates that the average price of anarchy is better in the bilateral connection game than in the unilateral game for small link costs but worse as links become more expensive. In the process, a powerful equivalence between link-based graph stability and two game-theoretic equilibrium notions is also discussed. The equivalence establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for an equilibrium in the bilateral game that helps provide a partial geometric characterization of equilibrium graphs.

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

network
price of anarchy
quality
characterization
game
price
equilibrium
links
model
traffic
stability
lower bound
behavior
size
process
graph
empirical analysis
connection
cost

agent
efficiency
collect
nash equilibrium
game-theoretic models
linking
participant
distributed network design
network topologies
pairwise stability


A simplified model of wound healing III - The critical size defect in three dimensions A critical size defect (CSD) is the diameter of a bone wound such that beyond that amount, complete calcification of the wound will not occur during the lifetime of the animal. Adam [1] recently developed a one-dimensional model of this phenomenon, and Arnold and Adam [2] addressed the CSD in a two-dimensional model. This paper extends the study of the CSD phenomenon to three dimensions. A model is introduced in which a spherical gouge or wound has removed the entire bone and tissue within the wound area. It transpires that the range of CSD sizes for a reasonable estimate of the critical size defect is from 0.4cm up to 1.5cm for the parameter values considered. More realistic estimates await the appropriate experimental data. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

bone regeneration
growth factors
calvaria
diffusion equation


A fuzzy logic-controlled thermal process for simultaneous pasteurization and cooking of soft-boiled eggs A fuzzy logic-based design of control for a unique thermal process in the food industry is presented. Products of the thermal process are pasteurized soft-boiled eggs. The function of temperature vs. time is unique in its shape and in its required precision, since the constraints of pasteurization and cooking of soft-boiled eggs are technically contradictory. Both processes can coexist only in a quite narrow temperature range, which is a nonlinear function of egg processing time. Precision in temperature control is essential. The thermal process is implemented in an apparatus that presents a novelty on the market of industrial kitchen appliances. A precondition for the present work was simulation of thermal energy propagation in hens' eggs of different sizes and ages. A function of temperature vs. time for the media in which eggs are immersed was defined. The function is piecewise linear in time, with horizontal and near vertical sections and abrupt transitions between them. The process is patented and the quality of pasteurization is certified by the corresponding institutes. The result is pasteurized soft-boiled eggs for consumption in hospitals, schools and hotels. The presented fuzzy control implementation of the thermal process meets the requirements, and thus the implication is that the design and implementation of temperature control based on fuzzy logic is suitable for processes where precision is required. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy algorithm
pasteurized soft-boiled eggs
precise temperature control


Semantic world modeling using probabilistic multiple hypothesis anchoring In order to successfully perform typical household tasks such as manipulation or navigation, domestic robots need an accurate description of the world they are operating in. Creating and maintaining such a description, in this work referred to as world model, is a non-trivial task in a domestic environment that typically has a high number of objects, and is unstructured and dynamically changing. This work introduces probabilistic multiple hypothesis anchoring to create and maintain a semantically rich world model using probabilistic anchoring. Multiple hypothesis tracking-based data association is included to be able to deal with ambiguous scenarios. Multiple model tracking is included to be able to easily incorporate different kinds of prior knowledge.

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

data association
anchoring
world modeling
multiple model tracking


Graphs of plural cuts Plural (or multiple-conclusion) cuts are inferences made by applying a structural rule introduced by Gentzen for his sequent formulation of classical logic. As singular (single-conclusion) cuts yield trees, which underlie ordinary natural deduction derivations, so plural cuts yield graphs of a more complicated kind, related to trees, which this paper defines. Besides the inductive definition of these oriented graphs, which is based on sequent systems, a non-inductive, graph-theoretical, combinatorial, definition is given, and to reach that other definition is the main goal of the paper. As trees underlie multicategories, so the graphs of plural cuts underlie polycategories. The graphs of plural cuts are interesting in particular when the plural cuts are appropriate for sequent systems without the structural rule of permutation, and the main body of the paper deals with that matter. It gives a combinatorial characterization of the planarity of the graphs involved. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

plural sequent
multiple-conclusion sequent
plural cut
oriented graph
polycategory


A new kind of hybrid filter based on the intersecting cortical model and the improved Extremum-and-Median filter Intersecting cortical model (ICM) has gained widely research as a new artificial neural network. It derives directly from the studies of the small mammals visual cortex. The improved extremumand median algorithms can only process the extremum area of image sufficiently. For the non-extremum area of the image, the effect of the improved Extremum-and-Median filter is inadequate. To overcome this shortage, this paper suggests a kind of designing project of the hybrid filter that applied the ideas of the ICM and the improved Extremum-and-Median filter. The theory analysis and the simulation experiments of the image processing indicate that this kind of filter can not only remove noise effectively but also keep the details of the image sufficiently. Moreover, the performance of salt-and-pepper outlier elimination (in super-resolution reconstruction area) based on our hybrid filter also supported our method.

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

nonlinear filter
median filter
cubic spline interpolation


On maximum mutual information speaker-adapted training In this work, we combine maximum mutual information parameter estimation with speaker-adapted training (SAT). As will be shown, this can be achieved by performing unsupervised estimation of speaker adaptation parameters on the test data, a distinct advantage for many recognition tasks involving conversational speech. We derive re-estimation formulae for the basic speaker-independent means and variances, the optimal regression class for each Gaussian component when multiple speaker-dependent linear transforms are used for adaptation, as well as the optimal feature-space transformation matrix for use with semi-tied covariance matrices. We also propose an approximation to the maximum likelihood and maximum mutual information SAT re-estimation formulae that greatly reduces the amount of disk space required to conduct training on corpora which contain speech from hundreds or thousands of speakers. We also present empirical evidence of the importance of combination speaker adaptation with discriminative training. In particular, on a subset of the data used for the NIST RT05 evaluation, we show that including maximum likelihood linear regression transformations in the MMI re-estimation formulae provides a WER of 35.2% compared with 39.1% obtained when speaker adaptation is ignored during discriminative training.

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

speech recognition
speaker-adapted training


New instrumental set for the assessment of the hand functionality Hand motor deficits have been widely investigated, and several devices have been proposed for the selective and accurate study of specific hand motor tasks. Most studies have focused on the four, long fingers. The thumb function, although extremely important for the performance of most daily activities involving the hand, has scarcely been documented. A set of general-purpose, instrumental measuring devices has been designed and constructed at the authors' laboratory to measure and monitor the force each finger exerts separately, under isometric conditions, during pressing tasks. More generally, it is meant for the functional evaluation of the normal hand in different postures, but it also provides reliable measurements of the injured or deformed hand. The instrumental set is suitable for both biomechanical research and clinical applications. Effectively integrated with a visual feedback tool, it could be exploited in delivering and monitoring custom-designed rehabilitation programmes. The characteristics of the force transducers (range 0-100 N) were: inter-axis crosstalk <4%; non-linearity <+/-0.4% f.s.; hysteresis <0.3% f.s.; overall accuracy +/-1% f.s. The overall measurement system resolution was better than 0.1 N, and the keys response to the mechanical shock (acquired at 10 kHz) showed a resonance frequency of about 1 kHz. It was observed that the thumb contributed more than 30% of the overall pressing force.

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

hand functionality
force measurement device


evaluating the usability of usage controls in electronic collaboration Currently, collaborations often require non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). NDAs can be time-consuming and expensive to negotiate and enforce. Usage controls could be an atractive alternative or adjunct to NDAs. Usage controls enable the distributor of a file to limit how recipients of that file may use it. However, existing usage controls (e.g., PDF's) often are software-based and easy to break. They may not interoperate, and their impact on collaborative workflows is typically unknown. We designed and implemented operating system and Web server and browser modifications that allow hardware-based usage controls to be easily added to existing software-based ones. This paper describes and evaluates our system's user interfaces. In a user study, untrained users role-played design engineers in two similar collaborative scenarios with or without usage controls. Users found the interfaces easy to use, and usage controls had insignificant impact on the completion times and accuracy of the assigned tasks. These results suggest that our usage control approach can add security to collaborative workflows with minimal training and performance penalties.

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

trusted platform module (tpm)
digital rights management


A study of dynamic finite size scaling behavior of the scaling functions - calculation of dynamic critical index of Wolff algorithm In this work we have studied the dynamic scaling behavior of two scaling functions and we have shown that scaling functions obey the dynamic finite size scaling rules. Dynamic finite size scaling of scaling functions opens possibilities for a wide range of applications. As an application we have calculated the dynamic critical exponent (z) of Wolff's cluster algorithm for 2-, 3- and 4-dimensional Ising models. Configurations with vanishing initial magnetization are chosen in order to avoid complications due to initial magnetization. The observed dynamic finite size scaling behavior during early stages of the Monte Carlo simulation yields z for Wolff's cluster algorithm for 2-, 3- and 4-dimensional Ising models with vanishing values which are consistent with the values obtained from the autocorrelations. Especially, the vanishing dynamic critical exponent we obtained for d = 3 implies that the Wolff algorithm is more efficient in eliminating critical slowing down in Monte Carlo simulations than previously reported. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

O O O O 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 B I 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 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 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

scaling functions
dynamic scaling
dynamic critical exponent

time evolution of the magnetization and the scaling functions


Optimal control of nonlinear dynamic econometric models: An algorithm and an application ? OPTCON is an algorithm for the optimal control of nonlinear stochastic systems which is particularly applicable to econometric models. It delivers approximate numerical solutions to optimum control problems with a quadratic objective function for nonlinear econometric models with additive and multiplicative (parameter) uncertainties. The algorithm was programmed in C# C # and allows for deterministic and stochastic control, the latter with open-loop and passive learning (open-loop feedback) information patterns. The applicability of the algorithm is demonstrated by experiments with a small quarterly macroeconometric model for Slovenia. This illustrates the convergence and the practical usefulness of the algorithm and (in most cases) the superiority of open-loop feedback over open-loop controls.

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

algorithms
econometric modeling
policy applications


On the cohomology of 3D digital images ? We propose a method for computing the cohomology ring of three-dimensional (3D) digital binary-valued pictures. We obtain the cohomology ring of a 3D digital binary-valued picture I , via a simplicial complex K(I) K ( I ) topologically representing (up to isomorphisms of pictures) the picture I. The usefulness of a simplicial description of the digital cohomology ring of 3D digital binary-valued pictures is tested by means of a small program visualizing the different steps of the method. Some examples concerning topological thinning, the visualization of representative (co)cycles of (co)homology generators and the computation of the cup product on the cohomology of simple pictures are showed.

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


Lamina2Shape-An image processing tool for an explicit description of lamina shape tested on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Measurement of dimensions, area and shape of individual laminae is required in many agronomic studies, especially in spite of the increasing use of 3D crop models. To assess variation in lamina shape quantitatively, usually a large number of samples are required and methods to analyze leaf shape are often laborious and time-consuming. We propose Lamina2Shape, an algorithm that allows an efficient processing of lamina images to analyze their shape and tested it on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Soissons). There, images of laminae were obtained using a flat-bed scanner. Using these images, laminae were discriminated from a unicolored background based on thresholds for the ratio of pixel values (0 <= I <= 255) in the red, green and blue channels (I(blue)/I(red) <= 1.23 and I(blue)/I(green)/ <= 1.10). Following, a numerical lamina width function w(l) is computed for each lamina in the image as an explicit description of their dimensions (length, width, and area) and shape. The accuracy of the algorithm was assessed by tests performed for the two main steps of the procedure: background discrimination and computation of w(l). The accuracy of background discrimination was tested by comparing values for area measured by manual cropping of laminae to the corresponding values computed with Lamina2Shape. Both yielded almost the same results. The accuracy of computation of w(l) was tested using images of predefined shape simulated with a lamina shape model. The algorithm was able to re-compute the predefined shape with high accuracy. We applied Lamina2Shape to quantify dimensions and shape of cereal laminae. Examples presented were from an experiment with winter wheat grown at different plant population densities. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

image processing
lamina
leaf
shape
triticum aestivum
wheat


Songbird Genomics: Methods, Mechanisms, Opportunities, and Pitfalls The biology of songbirds poses fundamental questions about the interplay between gene, brain, and behavior. New tools of genomic analysis will be invaluable in pursuing answers to these questions. This review begins with a summary of the broad properties of the songbird genome and how songbird brain gene expression has been measured in past studies. Four key problems in songbird biology are then considered from a genomics perspective

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

birdsong
zebra finch
expressed sequence tag (est)
microarray
mrna


EM algorithms for nonlinear mixed effects models Implementing the Monte Carlo EM algorithm (MCEM) algorithm for finding maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) in the nonlinear mixed effects model (NLMM) has encountered a great deal of difficulty in obtaining samples used for estimating the E step due to the intractability of the target distribution. Sampling methods such as Markov chain techniques and importance sampling have been used to alleviate such difficulty. The advantage of Markov chains is that they are applicable to a wider range of distributions than the approaches based on independent samples. However, in many cases the computational cost of Markov chains is significantly greater than that of independent samplers. The MCEM algorithms based on independent samples allow for straightforward assessment of Monte Carlo error and can be considerably more efficient than those based on Markov chains when an efficient candidate distribution is chosen, which forms the motivation of this paper. The proposed MCEM algorithm in this paper uses samples obtained from an easy-to-simulate and efficient importance distribution so that the computational intensity and complexity is much reduced. Moreover, the proposed MCEM algorithm preserves the flexibility introduced by independent samples in gauging Monte Carlo error and thus allows the Monte Carlo sample size to increase with the number of EM iterations. We also introduce an EM algorithm using Gaussian quadrature approximations (GQEM) for the E step. In low-dimensional cases, the GQEM algorithm is more efficient than the proposed MCEM algorithm and thus can be used as an alternative. The performances of the proposed EM methods are compared to the existing ML estimators using real data examples and simulations.

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

nonlinear mixed effects model
em
monte carlo
markov chain
importance sampling

laplace
linearization
gausshermite quadrature


Logical characterizations of simulation and bisimulation for fuzzy transition systems Simulations and bisimulations are known to be useful for abstracting and comparing formal systems, and they have recently been introduced into fuzzy systems. In this study, we provide sound and complete logical characterizations for simulation and bisimulation, which are defined over fuzzy labeled transition systems via two variants of the HennessyMilner Logic. The logic for characterizing fuzzy simulation has neither negation nor disjunction, which is very different from the well-known logical characterizations of probabilistic simulations, although the completeness proofs of our characterization results are inspired by relevant research in probabilistic concurrency theory. The logic for characterizing fuzzy bisimulation also deviates from that for probabilistic bisimulations.

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

fuzzy labeled transition system
logical characterization
soundness


Optimal Home Energy Management Under Dynamic Electrical and Thermal Constraints The optimization of energy consumption, with consequent costs reduction, is one of the main challenges in present and future smart grids. Of course, this has to occur keeping the living comfort for the end-user unchanged. In this work, an approach based on the mixed-integer linear programming paradigm, which is able to provide an optimal solution in terms of tasks power consumption and management of renewable resources, is developed. The proposed algorithm yields an optimal task scheduling under dynamic electrical constraints, while simultaneously ensuring the thermal comfort according to the user needs. On purpose, a suitable thermal model based on heat-pump usage has been considered in the framework. Some computer simulations using real data have been performed, and obtained results confirm the efficiency and robustness of the algorithm, also in terms of achievable cost savings.

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

optimal home energy management
thermal comfort

dynamic residential scenarios
energy and task scheduling
mixed-integer linear programming (milp)
smart grid


Social Bookmarking Induced Active Page Ranking Social bookmarking services have recently made it possible for us to register and share our own bookmarks on the web and are attracting attention. The services let us get structured data: (URL, Username, Timestamp, Tag Set). And these data represent user interest in web pages. The number of bookmarks is a barometer of web page value. Some web pages have many bookmarks, but most of those bookmarks may have been posted far in the past. Therefore, even if a web page has many bookmarks, their value is not guaranteed. If most of the bookmarks are very old, the page may be obsolete. In this paper, by focusing on the timestamp sequence of social bookmarkings on web pages, we model their activation levels representing current values. Further, we improve our previously proposed ranking method for web search by introducing the activation level concept. Finally, through experiments, we show effectiveness of the proposed ranking method.

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

social bookmark
activation analysis
ranking algorithm
web mining


Multiple views analysis of software designs Designs are expressed in terms of structure, behavior, objects, modules, and functions which, once consolidated, become design blueprints. This paper describes a formal framework for expressing, analyzing, and comparing multiple views of designs. The analysis of multiple designs or views using different design notations is proposed as a strategy to enhance design quality by providing a systematic identification of design defects and discrepancies. Views are formalized, analyzed independently, and then compared to each other. The type of design discrepancies identified are omission of information, incompatible information, and inconsistencies between views.

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

design analysis
formal design representation
abstract interpretation


interactive visibility ordering and transparency computations among geometric primitives in complex environments We describe a novel algorithm for visibility ordering among non-overlapping geometric objects in complex and dynamic environments. Our algorithm rearranges the objects in a back-to-front or a front-to-back order from a given viewpoint. We perform comparisons between the primitives by using occlusion queries on the GPUs and exploit frame to frame coherence to reduce the number of occlusion queries. Our visibility ordering algorithm requires no preprocessing and is applicable to all kind of models, including polygon soups and deformable models. We have used our algorithm for order-independent transparency computations in high-depth complexity environments and performing N-body collision culling in dynamic environments. We have implemented our algorithm on a PC with a 3.4 GHz Pentium IV CPU with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 6800 Ultra GPU and applied it to complex environments with tens or hundreds of thousands of polygons. Our algorithm can compute a visibility ordering among the objects and triangles at interactive frame rates.

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

visibility ordering
collision
transparency computations
order
environments
exploit
queries
polygon
complexity
occlusion
algorithm
coherence

collision detection
graphics hardware
interaction
sorting
deformable model
transparency
computation
object
model
dynamic environment
visibility


DiasNeta diabetes advisory system for communication and education via the internet Intensive diabetes treatment can lead to a substantial reduction of the rate of the complications associated with diabetes. However, a number of patients may have poor control despite specialist care, and this along with devolution of care to non-specialists suggests that alternative interventions should be developed. The present paper describes an Internet based system where more emphasis is put on patient empowerment, the keywords being education and communication. The DiasNet system is based on a well documented decision support system, Dias, designed for use by clinicians. The scope of DiasNet has been widened from being used by clinicians to give advice on insulin dose, to also being used by patients as a tool for education and communication. Patients can experiment with their own data, adjusting insulin doses or meal sizes. In this way different therapeutic and dietary alternatives can be tried out, allowing the patient to gain experience in achieving glycaemic control. DiasNet is implemented in JAVA according to the client/server principle, enabling a new way of communication between patient and clinician: in case of any problems, the patient simply phones the clinician, who immediately, using his or her office PC, can take a look at the data the patient has entered.

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

diabetes
decision support
internet
patient empowerment
communication
education


On universal classes of extremely random constant-time hash functions A family of functions F that map [0, m-1] into [0, n-1] is said to be kappa-wise independent if any tuple of kappa distinct points in [0, m-1] have a corresponding image, for a randomly selected f is an element of F, that is uniformly distributed in [0, n-1](kappa). This paper shows that for suitably fixed epsilon<1 and any κ<m(epsilon), there are families of kappa-wise independent functions that can be evaluated in constant time for the standard random access model of computation. It is also proven that any such family requires a storage array of m(delta) random seeds for a suitable delta<1. These seeds can be pseudorandom values precomputed from an initial O(κ) random seeds. A simple adaptation yields n(ε)-wise independent functions that require n(δ) storage in many cases where m&MGT;n. Lower bounds are presented to show that neither storage requirement can be materially reduced. Previous constructions of random functions having constant evaluation time and sublinear storage exhibited only a constant degree of independence. Unfortunately, the explicit randomized constructions, while requiring a constant number of operations, are far too slow for any practical application. However, nonconstructive existence arguments are given, which suggest that this factor might be eliminated. The problem of eliminating this factor is shown to be equivalent to a fundamental open question in graph theory. As a consequence of these constructions, many probabilistic algorithms-from traditional hashing to Ranade's emulation of common PRAM algorithms-can for the first time be shown to achieve, up to constant factors, their expected asymptotic performance for a programmable, albeit formal and currently impractical, model of computation, and a research direction is now available that may eventually lead to implementations that are fast and provably sound.

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

universal hash functions
limited independence
optimal speedup
pram emulation
storage-time tradeoff


Schemas for Unordered XML on a DIME We investigate schema languages for unordered XML having no relative order among siblings. First, we propose unordered regular expressions (UREs), essentially regular expressions with unordered concatenation instead of standard concatenation, that define languages of unordered words to model the allowed content of a node (i.e., collections of the labels of children). However, unrestricted UREs are computationally too expensive as we show the intractability of two fundamental decision problems for UREs: membership of an unordered word to the language of a URE and containment of two UREs. Consequently, we propose a practical and tractable restriction of UREs, disjunctive interval multiplicity expressions (DIMEs). Next, we employ DIMEs to define languages of unordered trees and propose two schema languages: disjunctive interval multiplicity schema (DIMS), and its restriction, disjunction-free interval multiplicity schema (IMS). We study the complexity of the following static analysis problems: schema satisfiability, membership of a tree to the language of a schema, schema containment, as well as twig query satisfiability, implication, and containment in the presence of schema. Finally, we study the expressive power of the proposed schema languages and compare them with yardstick languages of unordered trees (FO, MSO, and Presburger constraints) and DTDs under commutative closure. Our results show that the proposed schema languages are capable of expressing many practical languages of unordered trees and enjoy desirable computational properties.

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

schemas for xml
twig queries
semi-structured data.


A derived Markov process for modeling reaction networks A reaction network arises when a set of reactants (chromosomes, chemicals, economic goods, or the like) recombine at specified rates to produce other reactants in the set. When the reactants are characterized in terms of "reactive regions" (schemata, active sites, building blocks), reaction networks can be modeled by classic stochastic urn models. The corresponding Markov processes are specified by matrices that, for realistic problems, are small enough to allow standard matrix operations and Monte Carlo estimates of important properties of the trajectory of the process, such as the expected time to first occurrence of some designated reactant.

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

crossover
founder effect
genetic algorithm
hyperplane-defined function
monte carlo algorithm
schema
urn model
waiting time


A Simple and Fast Particle Swarm Optimization Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has shown its good performance on well-known numerical function problems. However, on some multimodal functions the PSO easily suffers from premature convergence because of the rapid decline in diversity. Some diversity-guided PSO algorithms have been proposed to maintain diversity, while these techniques cost much computation time on the calculation of diversity. In this paper, a simple and fast PSO (hybrid PSO, namely HPSO) is proposed, which indirectly maintains the diversity of swarm but not compute it. Experimental studies on 16 well-known benchmark functions show that the HPSO not only obtains better performance than the standard PSO and other two diversity-guided PSO algorithms, but almost cost the same computation time with the standard PSO. In addition, a comprehensive set of experiments including the average computation time, the effects of crossover rate (CR) on the performance of HPSO, the successful rate of the elitist selection and the effects of CR on the diversity are empirically verified.

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

particle swarm optimization (pso)
diversity-guided
function optimization
diversity measure


Cryptanalysis and improvement on two efficient remote user authentication scheme using smart cards In 2002, Chien et al. proposed an efficient remote authentication scheme using smart cards, in which only few hashing operations are required. Later, Ku et al. gave an improved scheme to repair the security pitfalls found in Chien et al.'s scheme. Also Yoon et al. presented an enhancement on Ku et al.'s scheme. In this paper, we show that both Ku et al.'s scheme and Yoon et al.'s scheme are stilt vulnerable to the guessing attack, forgery attack and denial of service (DoS) attack. In addition, their schemes lack efficiency when users input wrong passwords. To remedy these flaws, this paper proposes an efficient improvement over Ku et al.'s and Yoon et al.'s schemes with more security. The computation cost, security, and efficiency of the improved scheme are embarking for the real application in the resource-limited environment. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Efficient parallelizations of Hermite and Smith normal form algorithms Hermite and Smith normal form are important forms of matrices used in linear algebra. These terms have many applications in group theory and number theory. As the entries of the matrix and of its corresponding transformation matrices can explode during the computation, it is a very difficult problem to compute the Hermite and Smith normal form of large dense matrices. The main problems of the computation are the large execution times and the memory requirements which might exceed the memory of one processor. To avoid these problems, we develop parallelizations of Hermite and Smith normal form algorithms. These are the first parallelizations of algorithms for computing the normal forms with corresponding transformation matrices, both over the rings Z Z and F[x] F [ x ] . We show that our parallel versions have good efficiency, i.e., by doubling the processes, the execution time is nearly halved. Furthermore, they succeed in computing normal forms of dense large example matrices over the rings Q[x] Q [ x ] , F3[x] F 3 [ x ] , and F5[x] F 5 [ x ] .

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


paging on an object-oriented personal computer A high-performance personal computing environment must avoid perceptible pauses resulting from many page faults within a short period of time. Our performance goals for a paged virtual memory system for the Smalltalk-80 TM@@@@ ; programming environment are both to decrease the average page fault rate and to minimize the pauses caused by clusters of page faults. We have applied program restructuring techniques to the Smalltalk-80 object memory in order to improve the locality of reference. The analysis in this paper considers the clustering of page faults over time and distinguishes between steady-state behavior and phase transitions. We compare the effectiveness of different restructuring strategies in reducing the amount of main memory needed to obtain desired levels of performance.

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

order
paging
strategies
personal computer
analysis
goals
behavior
memory system
performance
object
fault
paper
programming environment
locality

environments transit smalltalk high-performance perception memorialized timing virtualization object-oriented effect cluster


Poststress RF-drifts of dual-band LC VCO in 0.18-?m CMOS technology This article studies the RF-property of a dual-band voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). The designed circuit consists of a dual-resonance LC resonator and a Colpitts negative resistance cell. The dual-resonance LC resonator comprises a series-tuned LC resonator and a parallel resonant resonator. The proposed VCO has been implemented with the TSMC 0.18 ?m 1P6M CMOS technology. The VCO can generate differential signals in the frequency range of 3.03.37 GHz and 6.957.40 GHz with core power consumption of 10.08 and 10.24 mW at the dc drain-source bias VDD of 1.4 V, respectively. The die area of the dual-band VCO is 0.485 0.800 mm2. The circuit was operated at VDD = 3 V for 8 h and significant drift in RF parameters was found. 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:243248, 2014.

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

hot-carrier
series-tuned lc resonator
dual-band voltage-controlled oscillator


Efficient Boolean division and substitution using redundancy addition and removing Boolean division, and hence Boolean substitution, produces better result than algebraic division and substitution. However, due to the lack of an efficient Boolean division algorithm, Boolean substitution has rarely been used. We present an efficient Boolean division and Boolean substitution algorithm, Our technique is based on the philosophy of redundancy addition and removal. By adding multiple wires/gates in a specialized way, we tailor the philosophy onto the Boolean division and substitution problem, From the viewpoint of traditional division/substitution our algorithm can perform substitution not only in sum-of-product form but also in product-of-sum form. Our algorithm can also naturally take all types of internal don't cares into consideration, As far as substitution is concerned, we also discuss the case where we are allowed to decompose not only the dividend but also the divisor. Experiments are presented and the result is promising.

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

boolean functions
circuit optimization
circuit synthesis
design automation
logic design


A cooperative pursuit-evasion game in wireless sensor and actor networks A novel multi-step cooperative strategy for pursuit-evasion control is presented. A pursuit control law with less state information is proposed to guarantee the line formation. A Daisy-Chain Formation algorithm and a sliding mode-based method are presented to control the pursuit. We present a cooperative pursuit approach where the evader can be static or dynamic.

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

wireless sensor and actor networks (wsans)


Information overload and virtual institutions The Internet puts at our disposal an unprecedented wealth of information. Unfortunately much of this information is unreliable and its very quantity exceeds our cognitive capacity. To deal with the resulting information overload requires knowledge evaluation procedures that have traditionally been performed by social institutions, such as the press or universities. But the Internet has also given rise to a new type of social institution operating online, such as Wikipedia. We will analyze these virtual institutions to understand how they function, and to determine to what extent they can help manage the information overload. Their distributed and collaborative nature, their agility and low cost make them not only a very interesting social model, but also a rather fragile one. To be durable, virtual institutions probably need strong rules and norms, as well as an appropriate social framework.

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

information overload
social institutions
virtual institutions
wikipedia


Improved solutions for the traveling purchaser problem The traveling purchaser problem (TPP) is a generalization of the well-known traveling salesman problem (TSP), which has many real-world applications. Examples include the purchase of the required raw materials for the manufacturing factories in which the total cost has to be minimized, and the scheduling of a set of jobs over some machines with different set-up and job processing costs in which the total cost for completing the jobs has to be minimized. The TPP has been shown to be computationally intractable. Therefore, many heuristic solution procedures have been proposed to solve the TPP approximately. The purpose of this paper is to consider some variations of the existing solution procedures to improve the solutions. Computational experiments and performance comparisons among the existing algorithms as well as the proposed variations are provided, and the results are analyzed. The traveling purchaser problem (TPP) is an interesting generalization of the well-known traveling salesman problem (TSP), in which a list of commodity items have to be purchased at some markets selling various commodities with different prices, and the total travel and purchase costs must be minimized. Applications include the purchase of raw materials for the manufacturing factories in which the total cost has to be minimized, and the scheduling of jobs over some machines with different set-up and job processing costs in which the total costs for completing the jobs has to be minimized. The TPP has been shown to be computationally intractable. Therefore, many heuristic solution procedures, including the Search algorithm, the Generalized-Savings algorithm, the Tour-Reduction algorithm, and the Commodity-Adding algorithm have been proposed to solve the TPP approximately. In this paper, we consider some variations of these algorithms to improve the solutions. The proposed variations are compared with the existing solution procedures. The results indicate that the proposed variations significantly improve the existing solutions.

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

network optimization
combinatorics
complexity


Manifold Reconstruction in Arbitrary Dimensions Using Witness Complexes It is a well-established fact that the witness complex is closely related to the restricted Delaunay triangulation in low dimensions. Specifically, it has been proved that the witness complex coincides with the restricted Delaunay triangulation on curves, and is still a subset of it on surfaces, under mild sampling conditions. In this paper, we prove that these results do not extend to higher-dimensional manifolds, even under strong sampling conditions such as uniform point density. On the positive side, we show how the sets of witnesses and landmarks can be enriched, so that the nice relations that exist between restricted Delaunay triangulation and witness complex hold on higher-dimensional manifolds as well. We derive from our structural results an algorithm that reconstructs manifolds of any arbitrary dimension or co-dimension at different scales. The algorithm combines a farthest-point refinement scheme with a vertex pumping strategy. It is very simple conceptually, and it does not require the input point sample to be sparse. Its running time is bounded by c(d)n (2), where n is the size of the input point cloud, and c(d) is a constant depending solely (yet exponentially) on the dimension d of the ambient space. Although this running time makes our reconstruction algorithm rather theoretical, recent work has shown that a variant of our approach can be made tractable in arbitrary dimensions, by building upon the results of this paper.

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

manifold
reconstruction
restricted delaunay triangulation
witness complex


Estimation of the Hurst parameter in some fractional processes We propose to estimate the Hurst parameter involved in fractional processes via a method based on the KarhunenLoeve expansion of a Gaussian process. We specifically investigate the cases of the fractional Brownian motion, the fractional OrnsteinUhlenbeck family and the fractional Brownian bridge. We numerically compare our results with the ones obtained by the maximum-likelihood method, which show the validity of our proposal.

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

karhunen-loeve expansion
fractional gaussian process
hurst parameter estimation


On PSS-based constraint preconditioners for singular nonsymmetric saddle point problems ? For singular nonsymmetric saddle point problems, a class of singular constraint preconditioners and the corresponding preconditioning iteration methods are proposed based on the positive-definite and skew-symmetric splitting (PSS) of (1,1) ( 1 , 1 ) block of the coefficient matrix, which can be categorized into a recently proposed generalized constraint preconditioner (GCP) for singular nonsymmetric saddle point problems. The convergence analysis of the preconditioned iteration method is presented and the convergence conditions are derived. Some numerical experiments are implemented to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the PSS-based constraint preconditioning both as a preconditioned iteration method and a preconditioner of the Krylov subspace method.

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

positive definite and skew-symmetric splitting


High-Performance VLSI Architecture of the LMS Adaptive Filter Using 4-2 Adders In this report, we propose a high-performance pipelined VLSI architecture of the LMS adaptive filter derived by a cut-set retiming technique. The proposed architecture has a peculiar pipelined form with 3 adaptation delays, and the FIR filter portion has a peculiar class of the transposed form providing a minimum output latency and coefficient delay. Both the delays, the adaptation delay and coefficient delay, are compensated by a look-ahead conversion. A new high-speed 4-input and 2-output CSA type adder with a small hardware is employed. The proposed architecture can achieve a good convergence property, high-sampling rate, minimum output latency, small hardware, and lower power dissipation, simultaneously, and is very suitable to implement on the VLSI.

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


The migration of multi-tier E-commerce applications to an Enterprise Java environment As technology evolves, many organizations face the problem of migrating legacy applications from one technology base to another. We report on a case study involving the migration of legacy code into the IBM(R) WebSphere(R) Commerce Suite product. Specifically, we focus on the problem of migrating applications that use traditional database access techniques to applications using the Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) programming model. Our results include a practical methodology that facilitates such migration, as well as a tool that supports this methodology. The tool has been released on IBM's alphaWorks site.

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

e-commerce
database reengineering
sql
net.data
jsp
relational-object mapping


Multiscale simulations of porous media flows in flow-based coordinate system In this paper, we propose a multiscale technique for the simulation of porous media flows in a flow-based coordinate system. A flow-based coordinate system allows us to simplify the scale interaction and derive the upscaled equations for purely hyperbolic transport equations. We discuss the applications of the method to two-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media. For two-phase flow simulations, the use of a flow-based coordinate system requires limited global information, such as the solution of single-phase flow. Numerical results show that one can achieve accurate upscaling results using a flow-based coordinate system.

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

porous media flow
flow-based coordinate system
two-phase flow


Realising the Potential of Web 2.0 for Collaborative Learning Using Affordances With the emergence of the Web 2.0 phenomena, technology-assisted social networking has become the norm. The potential of social software for collaborative learning purposes is clear, but as yet there is little evidence of realisation of the benefits. In this paper we consider Information and Communication Technology student attitudes to collaboration and via two case studies the extent to which they exploit the use of wikis for group collaboration. Even when directed to use a particular wiki designed for the type of project they are involved with, we found that groups utilized the wiki in different ways according to the affordances ascribed to the wiki. We propose that the integration of activity theory with an affordances perspective may lead to improved technology, specifically Web 2.0, assisted collaboration.

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

collaborative learning
affordances
activity theory


Jacobi matrix differential equation, polynomial solutions, and their properties In this paper, Jacobi matrix polynomials are introduced, starting from the hypergeometric matrix function. The differential equation satisfied by them is presented. A Rodrigues' formula, orthogonality, and a three terms matrix recurrence relationship are then developed for Jacobi matrix polynomials. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

jacobi matrix differential equation
jacobi matrix polynomials

hypergeometric function
matrix functional calculus


Alternating projection method applied to indefinite correlation matrices for generation of synthetic MIMO channels Complex correlation multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) matrices estimated from measurements under realistic propagation conditions occasionally have positive, zero and negative eigenvalues, converting them to indefinite matrices. In this framework, this paper presents a novel correction procedure (CP) based on the alternating projection (AP) method to find the Hermitian and positive definite matrix closest to an estimated indefinite full spatial correlation (FSC) MIMO matrix. This corrected matrix allows the Cholesky factorisation usually used for generation of synthetic MIMO channel samples. The applicability of the CP has been analysed using real data from non-line-of-sight (NLOS) indoor measurements. The results reported in this paper show that a proper selection of the CP parameters has not a sensitive impact on the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the eigenvalues of the estimated FSC MIMO matrices. This characteristic makes the CP useful for channel characterisation, allowing to assess the performance of a MIMO system. As an example of the CP application, a study of ergodic and outage MIMO capacities for different array configurations is presented .

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

alternating projections
channel capacity
synthetic channels


A practical disturbance generator to test performances of various power quality mitigation devices In this paper, a practical thyristor-based 3-phase sag/swell/outage generator (disturbance generator) is designed to test various power quality mitigation devices (PQMDs), such as solid state transfer switch (SSTS), static voltage compensator (SVC), and uninterruptible power supply. The latest technological disturbance generators (DGs) and the proposed DG are comprehensively discussed and compared with focus on usefulness, economic aspects, and simplicity. The proposed DG is used for experimentally generating different fault conditions and testing a SSTS. The comparisons and analyses show that the proposed DG is an optimum and simple solution to generate sag, swell, unbalance, overvoltage, undervoltage, and outage to test PQMDs.

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

power quality
disturbance generator
outage

power quality mitigation device
voltage sag
voltage swell


A learning model for the dual evolution of human social behaviors In this work we modelize, with an abstract mathematical model by computer simulation, the processes that have made to appear in the world a strong duality between orient and occident, by combining changes in conditions of initialization, natural system and the opposition gregarious/individualism of the social behaviors. Finally we present a statistical study of the influence of the repression adaptability, resignation and recycling on the ecological destruction and social evolution. This model can help us to analyze if the current capitalist globalization can be stopped, changed or regulated, and if it is possible to overcome it towards a Free Scientific Society.

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

cybernetics
modelling
individual behaviour


THE RESEARCH OF A NEW STREAMING MEDIA NETWORK ARCHITECTURE BASED ON THE FUSION OF P2P AND CDN A new three-layered streaming media network architecture based on the fusion of P2P and CDN which can be used for mobile device users is proposed in this paper. It uses P2P network as the backbone, selects nodes of high-performance, high-bandwidth, and stable online time as CDN edge servers, and provides mobile device users with steaming media services under the schedule of the load-balancing servers. Since P2P has the inherent drawback of flow disorder, an optimized idea of P4P has been introduced into P2P network in this architecture to make the flow ordered. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that this architecture has optimized P2P network with higher transmission efficiency, lower bandwidth utilization of the backbone network and lower cost and fewer resources to provide streaming media services as higher network scalability and quality as possible. A streaming media system for video-on-demand which uses the method proposed in the paper has good performance when a large number of mobile users access concurrently.

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


Feature selection via neighborhood multi-granulation fusion Feature selection is an important data preprocessing technique, and has been widely studied in data mining, machine learning, and granular computing. However, very little research has considered a multi-granulation perspective. In this paper, we present a new feature selection method that selects distinguishing features by fusing neighborhood multi-granulation. We first use neighborhood rough sets as an effective granular computing tool, and analyze the influence of the granularity of neighborhood information. Then, we obtain all feature rank lists based on the significance of features in different granularities. Finally, we obtain a new feature selection algorithm by fusing all individual feature rank lists. Experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively select a discriminative feature subset, and performs as well as or better than other popular feature selection algorithms in terms of classification performance.

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

granular computing
feature selection
neighborhood rough sets


CONTOUR BASED MULTI-ROI MULTI-QUALITY ROI CODING FOR STILL IMAGE Region-of-interest (ROI) image coding is one of the new features included in the JPEG2000 image coding standard. Two methods are defined in the standard: the Maxshift method and the generic scaling based method. In this paper, a new region-of-interest coding method called Contour-based Multi-ROI Multi-quality Image Coding (CMM) is proposed. Unlike other existing methods, the CMM method takes the contour and texture of the whole image as a special ROI, which makes the visually most important parts (in both ROI and Background) to be coded first. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method significantly outperforms the previous ROI coding schemes in the overall ROI coding performance.

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

image compression
contour detection
multi-quality


Notes on "Scheduling problems with general effects of deterioration and learning" In this note, we point out by a counterexample that the main results in a recent paper by Lee and Lai [W.-C. Lee, P.-J. Lai, Scheduling problems with general effects of deterioration and learning, Inform. Sci. 181 (2011) 1164-1170] are incorrect, and provide a sufficient condition for them being true. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

learning effect
deteriorating jobs
single-machine


Federating access to digital objects: PictureAustralia This article discusses the successful Australian service, PictureAustralia, a collaboration which utilises the Web as a delivery mechanism for enhanced access to unique cultural materials. PictureAustralia has been a very useful platform for exploring the benefits and disadvantages of federated searching with an emphasis on interoperability, and it continues to provide opportunities to explore new protocols in the future.

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

australia
digital libraries
database management
collection management


Geometric phase and entanglement for a single qubit interacting with deformed-states superposition The geometric phase and quantum entanglement for a nonlinear field-atom system are described quantitatively in terms of different parameters. Specifically, considering a deformed Schrdinger cat interacting with a qubit and taking into account the time dependent of the system coupling. The results show that the initial state setting, atomic motion, photon number and deformation play important roles in the evolution of the system dynamics, nonlocal correlation and geometric phase. An interesting correlation between the entanglement and geometric phase is observed during the time evolution. The presented system is very useful to generate and maintain high amount of entanglement through controlling the phase variation of the system under consideration. We test this observation with experimentally accessible parameters and some new aspects are obtained.

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 B I 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


Approximate mean value analysis for stochastic marked graphs An iterative technique for the computation of approximate performance indices of a class of stochastic Petri nets models is presented. The proposed technique is derived from the mean value analysis algorithm for product form solution stochastic Petri nets. in this paper, we apply the approximation technique to stochastic marked graphs; In principle, the proposed technique can be used for other stochastic Petri net subclasses in the paper, some of these possible applications are presented. Several examples are presented in order to validate the approximate results.

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

approximate mean value analysis algorithm


Edge coloring of planar graphs which any two short cycles are adjacent at most once By applying discharging methods and properties of critical graphs, we proved that every simple planar graph G is of class 1 if ?(G)=6 ? ( G ) = 6 and any k-cycle is adjacent to at most one k -cycle for some k ( k = 3 , 4 , 5 ) .

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


Generating test data from SOFL specifications1 Software testing can only be formalized and quantified when a solid basis for test generation can be defined. Tests are commonly generated from the source code, control flow graphs, design representations, and specifications/requirements. Formal specifications represent a significant opportunity for testing because they precisely describe functions the software is supposed to provide in a form that can be easily manipulated. This paper presents a new method for generating tests from formal specifications. This method is comprehensive in specification coverage, applies at several levels of abstraction, and can be highly automated. The paper applies the method to SOFL specifications, describes the technique, and demonstrates the application on a case study. A preliminary evaluation using a code-level coverage criterion (mutation testing), indicates that the method can result in very effective tests.

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

formal methods
specification-based testing


Treatment of uncertain material interfaces in compressible flows To treat uncertain interface position is an important issue for complex applications. In this paper, we address the characterization of randomly perturbed interfaces between fluids thanks to stochastic modeling and uncertainty quantification through the 2D Euler system. The perturbed interface is modeled as a random field and represented by a KarhunenLove expansion. The stochastic 2D Euler system is solved applying Polynomial Chaos theory through the Intrusive Polynomial Moment Method (IPMM). This stochastic resolution method is fully explained and studied (theoretically and numerically). Stochastic RichtmyerMeshkov unstable flows are solved and presented for several configurations of the uncertain interface (different rugosities) between the fluids. The probability density functions of the mass density of the fluid in the vicinity of the interface are computed built and compared for the different simulations: the system exhibits strong sensitivity with respect to the stochastic initially leading modes.

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

polynomial chaos
uncertainty quantification
euler system
uncertain interface


Knowledge extraction from Chinese wiki encyclopedias The vision of the Semantic Web is to build a 'Web of data' that enables machines to understand the semantics of information on the Web. The Linked Open Data (LOD) project encourages people and organizations to publish various open data sets as Resource Description Framework (RDF) on the Web, which promotes the development of the Semantic Web. Among various LOD datasets, DBpedia has proved a successful structured knowledge base, and has become the central interlinking-hub of the Web of data in English. However, in the Chinese language, there is little linked data published and linked to DBpedia. This hinders the structured knowledge sharing of both Chinese and cross-lingual resources. This paper deals with an approach for building a large-scale Chinese structured knowledge base from Chinese wiki resources, including Hudong and Baidu Baike. The proposed approach first builds an ontology based on the wiki category system and infoboxes, and then extracts instances from wiki articles. Using Hudong as our source, our approach builds an ontology containing 19 542 concepts and 2381 properties. 802 593 instances are extracted and described using the concepts and properties in the extracted ontology and 62 679 of them are linked to equivalent instances in DBpedia. As from Baidu Baike, our approach builds an ontology containing 299 concepts, 37 object properties, and 5590 data type properties. 1 319 703 instances are extracted from Baidu Baike, and 84 343 of them are linked to instances in DBpedia. We provide RDF dumps and SPARQL endpoint to access the established Chinese knowledge bases. The knowledge bases built using our approach can be used not only in Chinese linked data building, but also in many useful applications of large-scale knowledge bases, such as question-answering and semantic search.

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

semantic web
linked data
ontology
knowledge base


Computational study of a transition state analog of phosphoryl transfer in the Ras-RasGAP complex: AlFx versus MgF3- The structures of the complexes between Ras.GDP bound to RasGAP in the presence of three probable g-phosphate analogs (AlF3433, AlF- and MgF-) for the transition state (TS) of the hydrolysis of guanosine triphosphate (GTP) by the Ras-RasGAP enzymes have been modeled by quantum mechanical-molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations. These simulations contribute to the dispute on the nature of the TS in the hydrolysis reaction, since medium resolution X-ray crystallography cannot discern among stereochemically similar isoelectronic species (e.g., AlF (or MgF)(-). The optimized geometry for each structure has been found starting from experimental coordinates of one of them (PDBID: 1WQ1). Direct comparison of the experimental and computed geometry configurations in the immediate vicinity of the active site suggests that MgF)(3)(3)- is the most likely candidate for the phosphate analog in the experimental structure.

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


A rule-based intelligent method for fault diagnosis of rotating machinery To better equip with a non-expert to carry out the diagnosis operations, a new method for intelligent fault identification of rotating machinery based on the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), dimensionless parameters, fault decision table (FDT), MLEM2 rule induction algorithm and improved rule matching strategy (IRMS) is proposed in this paper. EMD is used to preprocess the vibration signals for mining the fault characteristic information more accurately. Then, dimensionless parameters are extracted from both the decomposed signals in time domain and envelop spectrum in frequency domain respectively to form the conditional attributes of a FDT. Moreover, MLEM2 algorithm is run directly on the FDT to generate decision rules imbedded in the data. To make the following classification process more robust, the IRMS is adopted to resolve the conflicting and non-matching problems. Finally, data of rolling element bearings with four typical working conditions is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The testing result demonstrates that the method has high accuracy and systematically good performance. It is proved to be a convenient, concise, interpretable and reliable way to diagnose bearings faults. The advantages are also confirmed by the comparisons with the other two approaches, i.e. the principal component analysis (PCA) and probabilistic neural network (PNN) based method as well as the wavelet transform (WT) and genetic algorithm (GA) based one. Furthermore, thank to the FDT working as a data interface, the method is more transplantable, therefore it may be applied to diagnose other types of rotating machines effectively.

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

fault diagnosis
rule induction
rotating machinery
empirical mode decomposition