A study of n-gram and decision tree letter language modeling methods The goal of this paper is to investigate various language model smoothing techniques and decision tree based language model design algorithms. For this purpose, we build language models for printable characters (letters), based on the Brown corpus. We consider two classes of models for the text generation process: the n-gram language model and various decision tree based language models. In the first part of the paper, we compare the most popular smoothing algorithms applied to the former. We conclude that the bottom-up deleted interpolation algorithm performs the best in the task of n-gram letter language model smoothing, significantly outperforming the back-off smoothing technique for large values of n. In the second part of the paper, we consider various decision tree development algorithms. Among them, a K-means clustering type algorithm for the design of the decision tree questions gives the best results. However, the n-gram language model outperforms the decision tree language models for letter language modeling. We believe that this is due to the predictive nature of letter strings, which seems to be naturally modeled by n-grams.

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

language modeling
smoothing
deleted interpolation
brown corpus

n-grams
decision trees
laws of succession
back-off language model


Stability of a coupling technique for partitioned solvers in FSI applications This paper focuses on the stability of the coupling iterations in the partitioned approach to fluidstructure interaction. Previous research has shown that the number of coupling iterations increases when the time step decreases or when the structure becomes more flexible which is explained here by Fourier error analysis of the unsteady, incompressible flow in an elastic tube. Substituting a linearized model of the structural solver into the flow solver makes the coupling more stable but is impracticable if the flow solver is a black box. Therefore the coupling iterations are stabilized by coupling with reduced-order models and Aitken underrelaxation.

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


Performance Analysis of IEC 61850 Sampled Value Process Bus Networks Process bus networks are the next stage in the evolution of substation design, bringing digital technology to the high-voltage switchyard. Benefits of process buses include facilitating the use of nonconventional instrument transformers, improved disturbance recording and phasor measurement, and the removal of costly, and potentially hazardous, copper cabling from substation switchyards and control rooms. This paper examines the role a process bus plays in an IEC 61850-based substation automation system. Measurements taken from a process bus substation are used to develop an understanding of the network characteristics of "whole of substation" process buses. The concept of "coherent transmission" is presented, and the impact of this on Ethernet switches is examined. Experiments based on substation observations are used to investigate in detail the behavior of Ethernet switches with sampled value traffic. Test methods that can be used to assess the adequacy of a network are proposed, and examples of the application and interpretation of these tests are provided. Once sampled value frames are queued by an Ethernet switch, the additional delay incurred by subsequent switches is minimal, and this allows their use in switchyards to further reduce communications cabling, without significantly impacting operation. The performance and reliability of a process bus network operating close to the theoretical maximum number of digital sampling units (merging units or electronic instrument transformers) was investigated with networking equipment from several vendors and has been demonstrated to be acceptable.

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

ethernet networks
performance evaluation
power transmission
protective relaying
smart grids


Toward the design and evaluation of continuous sound in tangible interfaces: The Spinotron This paper reports on an approach to the design of continuous sonic feedback in tangible interfaces, and on quantitative evaluation methods intended to guide such design tasks. The issues it addresses may be of central relevance to areas of the emerging discipline of sonic interaction design that have begun to address the unique problems of designing sound for highly interactive contexts. Three experiments were conducted to assess two key aspects of the sound design developed for an abstract object designed for these experiments, which we refer to as the Spinotron. First, a comparison of sound source identification was made between three cases: passive listening to temporally static sounds; passive listening to dynamically evolving sounds; and listening to sounds generated through active manipulation of the artifact. The results show that control over the sound production process influences the material of the objects in interaction identified as the source of the sounds. Second, in a learning experiment, users performance with the Spinotron device was compared between a group of participants that were provided only with passive proprioceptive information, and for another group who were also presented with synthetic sound produced by the artifact. The results indicated that the sound, when present, aided users in learning to control the device, whereas without the sound no learning was observed. Together, these results hold promise toward creating a foundation for the design of continuous sound that is intended to accompany control actions on the part of users, and toward establishing a basis for experimental/quantitative evaluation methods and gathering basic knowledge about sensory-motor activity engaged in tangible sonic interactions.

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

auditory perception
sound identification


Data Rate Limitations in Feedback Control over Networks This paper provides an overview on the recent research on networked control with an emphasis on the tight relation between the two fields of control and communication. In particular, we present several results focusing on data rate constraints in networked control systems, which can be modeled as quantization of control-related signals. The motivation is to reduce the amount of data rate as much as possible in obtaining control objectives such as stabilization and control performance under certain measures. We also discuss some approaches towards control problems based on techniques from signal processing and information theory.

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

networked control systems
communication
quantization
information theory


Towards a robust affect recognition: Automatic facial expression recognition in 3D faces Proposing a fully automatic 3D facial expression recognition framework. Investigating the capability of conformal mapping in the field of expression recognition. Enhancing the probability estimation of SVM for expression recognition. The results outperformed the previous studies significantly.

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

3d facial expression recognition
conformal mapping
probability estimation

speed up robust features
differential evolution
support vector machines
action units


adaptive model for user knowledge in the e-learning system The paper presents a conceptual model and some ideas for realization of the e-learning system in the secondary school that is adaptive to the user knowledge. We propose the algorithm for evaluation of student's cognitions at three levels -- as general mark, as level of subject domain knowledge and as mark of each concept. According to this valuation and the stereotype information, the LMS starts and manages an appropriate training process.

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

e-learning
overlay model
stereotype model
adaptable
user model
delc


Detail preserving deformation of B-spline surfaces with volume constraint Geometric constraints have proved to be helpful for shape modeling. Moreover, they are efficient aids in controlling deformations and enhancing animation realism. The present paper addresses the deformation of B-spline surfaces while constraining the volume enclosed by the surface. Both uniform and non-uniform frameworks are considered. The use of level-of-detail (LoD) editing allows the preservation of fine details during coarse deformations of the shape. The key contribution of this paper is the computation of the volume with respect to the appropriate basis for LoD editing: the volume is expressed through all levels of resolution as a trilinear form and recursive formulas are developed to make the computation efficient. The volume constrained is maintained through a minimization process for which we develop closed solutions. Real-time deformations are reached thanks to sparse data structures and efficient algorithms. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

b-spline surfaces
constrained deformation
volume preserving
level-of-detail editing
multiresolution analysis


Securing dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications In this paper we present a novel mechanism for the protection of dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications. Itineraries that are decided as the agent goes are essential in complex applications based on mobile agents, but no approach has been presented until now to protect them. We have conceived a cryptographic scheme for shielding dynamic itineraries from tampering, impersonation and disclosure. By using trust strategically, our scheme provides a balanced trade-off between flexibility and security. Our protection scheme has been thought always bearing in mind a feasible implementation, and thus facilitates the development of applications that make use of it. An example application based on a real healthcare scenario is also presented to show its operation.

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 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 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

mobile agents
dynamic itineraries
security


Multiple replication of thick PDMS micropatterns using surfactants as release agents This paper introduces a simple approach for accurate replication of PDMS thick mould from previous PDMS replicas. The process starts with reinforcing the PDMS mould to provide enough strength for demoulding. Afterwards, the surface of the reinforced PDMS mould was treated with low concentration commercial ceramic surfactants before the replication process. The surfactants are D-3005 and Brij52 and diluted before use. A number of PDMS mould copies have been obtained with excellent dimensional precision. The proposed ceramic surfactants shown to have a good releasing ability, which enabled a clean separation process.

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


Symbolic reachability analysis of FIFO-channel systems with nonregular sets of configurations We address the verification problem of FIFO-channel systems. We apply the symbolic analysis principle to these systems. We represent their sets of configurations using structures called constrained queue-content decision diagrams (CQDDs) combining finite-state automata with linear arithmetical constraints on number of occurrences of symbols. We show that CQDDs allow forward and backward reachability analysis of systems with nonregular sets of configurations. Moreover, we prove that CQDDs allow to compute the exact effect of the repeated execution of any fixed cycle in the transition graph of a system. We use this fact to define a generic reachability analysis semi-algorithm parametrized by a set of cycles Theta. Given a set of configurations, this semi-algorithm performs a least fixpoint calculation to construct the set of its successors (or predecessors). At each step, this calculation is accelerated by considering the cycles in Theta as additional "meta-transitions" in the transition graph, generalizing the approach of Boigelot and Godefroid (CAV'96, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1102, Springer, Berlin, 1996). (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

verification
symbolic reachability analysis
automata

infinite-state systems
fifo-channel systems
non-regular sets
linear constraints


Efficient storage and querying of sequential patterns in database systems? ? The number of patterns discovered by data mining can become tremendous, in some cases exceeding the size of the original database. Therefore, there is a requirement for querying previously generated mining results or for querying the database against discovered patters. In this paper, we focus on developing methods for the storage and querying of large collections of sequential patterns. We describe a family of algorithms, which address the problem of considering the ordering among elements, that is crucial when dealing with sequential patterns. Moreover, we take into account the fact that the distribution of elements within sequential patterns is highly skewed, to propose a novel approach for the effective encoding of patterns. Experimental results, which examine a variety of factors, illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method.

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

pattern post-processing
persistency signatures


An ontology-driven decision support system for high-performance and cost-optimized design of complex railway portal frames Electrification structures design for railway systems is a crucial and complex process, since it compounds plenty of infrastructure elements, design decisions, and calculation conditions. In this paper, an ontology-driven decision support system for designing complex railway portal frames is presented and developed. A knowledge-rules database has been also developed relying on experts knowledge and complying with railway standards. Our system outperforms the current portal frames design methods by decreasing construction time and costs. As a result, an intelligent computer-aided design tool is provided, thus facilitating the task of seeking for the optimal portal frame, which is geometrically and structurally feasible, and cost-effective.

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

ontologies
rule-based systems
expert knowledge
complex structures
intelligent cad tools


Web-based laboratory for engineering education Laboratory experiments and practical work by their nature are unavoidable, important, and costly in the engineering education environment. The web laboratory is an educational tool for teaching students the basic principles and methodology in performing a series of experiments on different equipment at any time and from any location through the Internet. In this paper, pre-requests, architecture, and software realization of the Web Laboratory at University of Kragujevac are presented. Organization, development, goals, and possible demands of the laboratory exercise: The inverted pendulum/gantry crane controls (with the capability to test different control algorithms) are also discussed. The applications of the web lab have been tested with the students enrolled at University of Kragujevac and the initial educational results of the implementation of this laboratory exercise are presented. 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 18: 526536, 2010; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com; DOI 10.1002/cae.20222

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


On the minimum and maximum selective graph coloring problems in some graph classes Given a graph together with a partition of its vertex set, the minimum selective coloring problem consists of selecting one vertex per partition set such that the chromatic number of the subgraph induced by the selected vertices is minimum. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate the complexity status of the minimum selective coloring problem in some specific graph classes motivated by some models described in Demange etal. (2015). Second, we introduce a new problem that corresponds to the worst situation in the minimum selective coloring; the maximum selective coloring problem aims to select one vertex per partition set such that the chromatic number of the subgraph induced by the selected vertices is maximum. We motivate this problem by different models and give some first results concerning its complexity.

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


Computational Aspects of M.C. Eschers Ribbon Patterns At the heart of the ideas of the work of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher is the idea of automation; we consider a problem that was inspired by some of his earlier and lesser known work. Specifically, a motif fragment is a connected region contained in a closed unit square. Consider a union of motif fragments and call the result an Escher tileT. One can then construct a pattern in the Euclidean plane, as Escher did, with the set of horizontal and vertical unit length translations ofT. The resulting pattern gives rise to infinitely many sets of motif fragments (each set may be finite or infinite) that are related visually by way of the interconnections across boundaries of the unit squares that underly the construction; a set of related motif fragments sometimes gives the appearance of a ribbon and thus the resulting pattern in the plane is called a ribbon pattern. Eschers designs gave rise to beautiful artwork and inspired equally aesthetic combinatorial questions as well. In his sketchbooks, Escher coloured the ribbon patterns with pleasing results. Colouring the ribbon patterns led naturally to a question of periodicity: is there a prototile that generates a well-coloured pattern? The current work answers the question in the affirmative by way of tools from graph theory, algorithms, and number theory. We end with tools to help address questions of optimization and a list of open questions.

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

escher
ribbon patterns
periodicity
optimization


Stability analysis of fuzzy large-scale systems with time delays in interconnections The stability problem of fuzzy large-scale systems with time delays in interconnections is considered in this paper. The fuzzy large-scale system consists of J interconnected subsystems, which are represented by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy models. The stability conditions are derived using the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional approach. This condition is independent of time delay and does not need the solution of a Lyapunov equation or Riccati equation. A stabilization approach for the delayed fuzzy large-scale systems through fuzzy state feedback-based controller is also presented in this paper. Finally, an example is given to demonstrate the result.

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

fuzzy large-scale system
takagi-sugeno model
lyapunov-krasovskii functional


designing the user experience in itv-based interactive learning objects This paper reports the design of the user experience in EducaTV, an architecture for the association of value-added interactive content to educational TV programs. To properly tackle the unique user interface (UI) challenges posed by educational TV applications, EducaTV was designed through User-Centered Design (UCD) principles with extensive evaluation along the process. We report the main issues of access and findings obtained throughout the design process. Our findings revealed that iDTV applications must provide strategies to signalize interactive content without being obtrusive. Additionally, the context of the users must be taken into account, for instance by providing functionalities to enable collaborative interaction in learning groups, as well as mobilization affordances to encompass the different levels of technological literacy. Moreover, a recurrent issue that affected user experience was the proper synchronization of the live program with the interactive content.

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

e-learning
multimedia
interface design
interactive tv
distance education


Improving flood forecasting in Bangladesh using an artificial neural network A river stage neural network model has been developed to study and predict the water level of Dhaka city. A total of five stations located at the border area of Bangladesh on the Ganges. Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers are selected as input nodes and Dhaka on the Buriganga river is the output node for the neural network. This model is trained with river stage data for a period of 1998 to 2004 and validated with data from 2005 to 2007. The river stage of Dhaka has been predicted for up to ten days with very high accuracy. Values of R 2, root mean square and mean absolute error are found ranging from 0.537 to 0.968, 0.607m to 0.206m and 0.475m to 0.154m, respectively, during training and validation of the model. The results of this study can be useful for real-time flood forecasting by reducing computational time, improving water resources management and reducing the unnecessary cost of field data collection.

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

artificial neural networks
hydrology
rainfall-runoff


capturing 'in the moment' creativity through data triangulation We present a first attempt at capturing 'in the moment' creativity (ITMC) through a triangulation self-report techniques, external judges, and physiological measures. In our study, participants were asked to sketch for 30 minutes while wearing GSR and EEG; then they retrospectively self-reported their creativity using a custom interface. External judges were also utilized to rate when participants were creative. Our initial results indicate high reliability for self-reporting ITMC, consensus between judges and participants, and that physiological measures trended according to the expectations from research. Our work sets the stage for more extensive research that makes use of temporal measures of creativity.

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 B 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 B


Partitioning problems in dense hypergraphs We study the general partitioning problem and the discrepancy problem in dense hypergraphs. Using the regularity lemma (Szemerdi, Problemes Combinatories et Theorie des Graphes (1978), pp. 399402) and its algorithmic version proved in Czygrinow and Rdl (SIAM J. Comput., to appear), we give polynomial-time approximation schemes for the general partitioning problem and for the discrepancy problem.

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

partitioning problem
the regularity lemma


Color Removal Considering Differences of Colors and Achromatic Color Preservation In this letter, a novel color removal method considering differences of colors in an input color image and achromatic color preservation is proposed. The achromatic color preservation is assigning lightness values to gray-levels concerning achromatic pixels for natural impression. The effectiveness and validity of the proposed method are verified by experiments.

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

color removal
achromatic color preservation
color image


Prediction of chaotic time series using computational intelligence In this paper, two CI techniques, namely, single multiplicative neuron (SMN) model and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), have been proposed for time series prediction. A variation of particle swarm optimization (PSO) with co-operative sub-swarms, called COPSO, has been used for estimation of SMN model parameters leading to COPSO-SMN. The prediction effectiveness of COPSO-SMN and ANFIS has been illustrated using commonly used nonlinear, non-stationary and chaotic benchmark datasets of MackeyGlass, BoxJenkins and biomedical signals of electroencephalogram (EEG). The training and test performances of both hybrid CI techniques have been compared for these datasets.

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

time series prediction
computational intelligence
particle swarm optimization

single multiplicative neuron model
nonlinear time series
biomedical signal analysis


Design for viable organizations - The diagnostic power of the viable system model Purpose - This paper attempts to underpin the theoretical claim of the viable system model to specify the necessary and sufficient preconditions of organizations for viability. Design/methodology/approach - A number of case studies are explored. Findings - The evidence documented in the paper both corroborates the model's claim and provides evidence of its enormous diagnostic power. Originality/value - The cases documented here cover a wide range of applications, thus underlining the vast potential of the VSM. The case studies exemplify the unparalleled strength of the model as a conceptual framework for better organizational diagnosis and design, and can therefore be used for didactic purposes.

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


Justification as truth-finding efficiency: How Ockham's razor works I propose that empirical procedures, like computational procedures, are justified in terms of truth-finding efficiency. I contrast the idea with more standard philosophies of science and illustrate it by deriving Ockham's razor from the aim of minimizing dramatic changes of opinion en route to the truth.

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

confirmation convergence learning mind-changes model-selection naturalism ockham simplicity


Performance comparison of different multi-resolution transforms for image fusion Image fusion combines information from multiple images of the same scene to get a composite image that is more suitable for human visual perception or further images-processing tasks. In this paper, we compare various multi-resolution decomposition algorithms, especially the latest developed image decomposition methods, such as curvelet and contourlet, for image fusion. The investigations include the effect of decomposition levels and filters on fusion performance. By comparing fusion results, we give the best candidates for multi-focus images, infrared-visible images, and medical images. The experimental results show that the shift-invariant property is of great importance for image fusion. In addition, we also conclude that short filter usually provides better fusion results than long filter, and the appropriate setting for the number of decomposition levels is four. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

multi-resolution transform
wavelet
curve let
contour let


SAMBOA system for aligning and merging biomedical ontologies ? Due to the recent explosion of the amount of on-line accessible biomedical data and tools, finding and retrieving the relevant information is not an easy task. The vision of a Semantic Web for life sciences alleviates these difficulties. A key technology for the Semantic Web is ontologies. In recent years many biomedical ontologies have been developed and many of these ontologies contain overlapping information. To be able to use multiple ontologies they have to be aligned or merged. In this paper we propose a framework for aligning and merging ontologies. Further, we developed a system for aligning and merging biomedical ontologies (SAMBO) based on this framework. The framework is also a first step towards a general framework that can be used for comparative evaluations of alignment strategies and their combinations. In this paper we evaluated different strategies and their combinations in terms of quality and processing time and compared SAMBO with two other systems.

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 B O O O O O B 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 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 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


A Novel Constellation Shaping Technique for Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation We present a new and simple method which consists to apply constellation shaping to bit-interleaved turbo-coded modulation (BICTM) over additive white Gaussian noise channels. By assuming the example of a 3-bit/dim 16-PAM BITCM, it is shown that this technique can provide shaping gain of 0.79dB.

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 O O O O


On the query reformulation technique for effective MEDLINE document retrieval Improving the retrieval accuracy of MEDLINE documents is still a challenging issue due to low retrieval precision. Focusing on a query expansion technique based on pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF), this paper addresses the problem by systematically examining the effects of expansion term selection and adjustment of the term weights of the expanded query using a set of MEDLINE test documents called OHSUMED. Implementing a baseline information retrieval system based on the Okapi BM25 retrieval model, we compared six well-known term ranking algorithms for useful expansion term selection and then compared traditional term reweighting algorithms with our new variant of the standard Rocchios feedback formula, which adopts a group-based weighting scheme. Our experimental results on the OHSUMED test collection showed a maximum improvement of 20.2% and 20.4% for mean average precision and recall measures over unexpanded queries when terms were expanded using a co-occurrence analysis-based term ranking algorithm in conjunction with our term reweighting algorithm (p-value<0.05). Our study shows the behaviors of different query reformulation techniques that can be utilized for more effective MEDLINE document retrieval.

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

medline
query reformulation
information retrieval


Musical slideshow: boosting user experience in photo presentation With the advance of digital acquisition and storage technology, people got used to take photos at will and to record almost any event with (many) photos. However, large amounts of photos without appropriate organization for access and consumption raise several potential problems, reducing the users quality of experience. Therefore, to facilitate an effective photo selection and organization process making the consumption process more enjoyable, it is useful to develop advanced image analysis and presentation tools, eventually integrating also some music content in a synchronized way, to further boost the photo presentation user experience. As peoples time is getting more precious and scarce, the availability of applications able to automatically generate a musical slideshow as a pleasant way to consume large amounts of photos is highly desirable. In this context, this paper describes the context and motivation for the development of a musical slideshow application, the architecture designed and the entire signal processing flow implemented. To assess the performance of this multimedia application, a user evaluation methodology was designed and applied with promising results, showing that the developed application is able to create entertaining and efficient photo presentation experiences.

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

color descriptors
music beating
content-based
time-based


Estimating the functional form of a continuous covariate's effect on survival time Several methods for estimating the functional form of the effect of one continuous covariate are investigated in the framework of the Cox proportional hazards model. In particular, prespecified as well as data-driven risk functions are considered: Using the former (e.g. restricted cubic splines, the categorisation of the continuous covariate by fixed cutpoints) the general functional form is given in advance, the data are used for estimating the parameters of these functions only. With data-driven risk functions (e.g. the categorisation by data-driven cutpoints, fractional polynomials) the functional form is estimated from the data, too. All methods are extended by adapting bootstrap aggregating (bagging). The approaches are illustrated with the data of a breast cancer study. Assessment is performed by a simulation study considering typical risk functions. Altogether fractional polynomials performed best. Furthermore, it could be shown that bagging is able to improve the estimation of risk functions, if the underlying method does not describe the true effect correctly in the original data.

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

proportional hazards model
bootstrap aggregating


an adaptive coordinated mac protocol based on dynamic power management for wireless sensor networks To be adaptive to the traffic variations in some real-time sensor applications, AC-MAC is proposed by Jin Ai et al. Based on Sensor Medium Access Control (S-MAC), AC-MAC introduces an adaptive duty cycle scheme within the framework of S-MAC. However, frequent transceiver state switches can lead to the increasing consumption of energy. In order to solve this problem, we focus our research on how to reduce the number of transceiver state switch. By combining AC-MAC with the Dynamic Power Management, it brings in a new protocol, an Adaptive Coordinated MAC Protocol based on Dynamic Power Management for Wireless Sensor Networks, AC-MAC/DPM, which not only guarantees low delay or high throughput, but also reduces the potential energy consumption when the traffic load is high.

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

wireless sensor networks
mac
dynamic power management
adaptive


Action research in policy making: a case in the dairy industry in Gujarat, India Action research has been extensively used world-wide for decision making related to policy due to its nature of involving the researcher and decision maker in the process. Following independence in India, one of the major revolutions was brought about in the dairy sector with regard to complete management systems. Most innovations and changes occurred in the line function while the staff function was more often neglected in the overall change. The authors undertook an action research study focusing on staff function and relayed improvements that can influence policy related to decision making. The authors have also developed the MPS model for staff function which can help a company or industry in appraising their own staff and functions which can thereby aid in utilising their potential.

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

action research
dairy industry
staff function


Local control of interpolating rational cubic spline curves A rational spline based on function values only was constructed in the authors earlier works. This paper deals with the properties of the interpolation and the local control of the interpolant curves. The methods of value control, convex control and inflection-point control of the interpolation at a point are developed. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate these methods.

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


Headquarter-centered common sourcing management through order coordination and consolidation It is common for subsidiaries of a group company to use the same types of components for producing similar products. Different subsidiary companies may well procure such components from the same suppliers. This paper studies two sourcing management models. One is the Subsidiary-Autonomous Sourcing Management (SD-ASM) where subsidiaries manage their inventories and place purchasing orders independent of each other. The other is the Headquarter-centered Common Sourcing Management (HQ-CSM) where purchasing orders of subsidiaries are processed centrally through some kind of headquarter coordination. In the SD-ASM model, each subsidiary places replenishment orders at a time interval corresponding to their economic order quantity (EOQ). In the HQ-CSM model, two purchasing order management policies are examined. One is the Order Coordination policy in which common replenishment epochs or time periods are proposed by the headquarter and the subsidiaries are encouraged to coordinate the timing of their orders based on the common replenishment epochs. The other is the Order Consolidation policy in which the subsidiaries combine the quantity of their orders and the headquarter places a combined order with the supplier. In the Order Coordination policy, classic RAND heuristic is used to find the best common replenishment epoch and the best replenishment timing of each subsidiary. In the Order Consolidation policy, the optimal order quantity of the combined order is obtained from a mathematical model. The combined order is then allocated to the subsidiaries according to a proportional allocation rule. A series of numerical studies is conducted to compare the costs of the SD-ASM and HQ-CSM policies. The results show that HQ-CSM outperforms SD-ASM in terms of cost and robustness against demand uncertainties. This achievement is largely due to the economies of process (synergistic ordering process), the economies of scale (large order quantity with price discount) and risk pooling effect (transshipments). The results also reveal that the Order Consolidation policy with a combined order always performs better than the Order Coordination policy with common replenishment epochs especially in face of high demand uncertainties and high service level in the global market.

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

order coordination
order consolidation
common replenishment epoch
risk pooling

transshipment
joint replenishment problem


a location-aware information browser implemented on brew-based mobile phones We present a method to implement a location-aware information browser on mobile phones. Our location-aware information browser is designed to look for nearby hidden points of interests in mobile computing environments. The method we developed provides two benefits: The first benefit is to improve the performance of transforming and rendering a map by combining filtering techniques of a spatial database and fixed-point arithmetic techniques. Our method is designed to deal with two kinds of minimum bounding rectangles to apply such conventional effective processing techniques of a spatial database to our browser. The second benefit is to handle large or long map elements in BREW-based computing environments by clipping techniques of computer graphics. We clarified the feasibility and effectiveness of our method by several experiments.

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


generating textures on arbitrary surfaces using reaction-diffusion This paper describes a biologically motivated method of texture synthesis called reaction-diffusion and demonstrates how these textures can be generated in a manner that directly matches the geometry of a given surface. Reaction-diffusion is a process in which two or more chemicals diffuse at unequal rates over a surface and react with one another to form stable patterns such as spots and stripes. Biologists and mathematicians have explored the patterns made by several reaction-diffusion systems. We extend the range of textures that have previously been generated by using a cascade of multiple reaction-diffusion systems in which one system lays down an initial pattern and then one or more later systems refine the pattern. Examples of patterns generated by such a cascade process include the clusters of spots on leopards known as rosettes and the web-like patterns found on giraffes. In addition, this paper introduces a method which reaction-diffusion textures are created to match the geometry of an arbitrary polyhedral surface. This is accomplished by creating a mesh over a given surface and then simulating the reaction-diffusion process directly on this mesh. This avoids the often difficult task of assigning texture coordinates to a complex surface. A mesh is generated by evenly distributing points over the model using relaxation and then determining which points are adjacent by constructing their Voronoi regions. Textures are rendered directly from the mesh by using a weighted sum of mesh values to compute surface color at a given position. Such textures can also be used as bump maps.

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

task mesh color geometry examples maps paper model pattern method texture systems values diffuse process surface

reaction-diffusion
coordination
point
biological models
web
computation
texture mapping
posit
region
matching
texture synthesis
complexity
cluster


dynamically resizable binary decision diagrams We present the architecture of a new Ordered Binary Decision Diagram library that is designed from the ground up to be space efficient. The main novelty lies in the library's node structure, which is modified at run-time to closely follow the variations in size of the stored OBDDs. We compare the new library with existing OBDD libraries on ACM/SIGDA and industrial circuits and report significant performance and space gains.

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


Compact probabilistic metrics on bounded closed intervals of distribution functions A Menger space (a special type of probabilistic metric spaces) is said to be compact if its strong uniformity is compact. We construct, in a natural way, Menger T-metrics on the set of distribution functions, one for each copula T (a special type of continuous t-norms). We show that, on each bounded closed interval of distribution functions, the strong uniformities of all our spaces are induced by the modified Levy metric. Hence, they are compact. We establish an alternative description and a number of good properties of our Menger spaces, which may render them well-behaved examples for workers in the field. (C) 2004 Elsevier BY. All rights reserved.

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


tracking players in highly complex scenes in broadcast soccer video using a constraint satisfaction approach This paper deals with player tracking in broadcast soccer video. In soccer games, players sometimes gather in a small area in the case of, for example, a corner kick. In such a case, due to a heavy occlusion, a simple detection-and-tracking method will certainly fail. We cope with such difficult cases using a constraint satisfaction approach. To integrate pieces of evidence at various places and frames, we construct a graph of player blobs representing possible player transitions. The view of each blob provides a constraint on the number of players in the blob. All such constraints are propagated through the graph to reduce the ambiguities in the numbers. The remaining ambiguities after the propagation is handled by a statistical approach in which a set of the most likely interpretations on the numbers is selected. Finally the players' trajectory are determined based on their smoothness. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the method.

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

broadcast soccer video
player tracking
constraint satisfaction


Optimal schedules of cancer surveillance and tumor size at detection The paper explores methodological and mathematical aspects of a new approach to constructing optimal schedules of cancer screening. This approach consists of systematic use of tumor size at detection, combining stochastic models of tumor latency, tumor growth and turner detection, and employing a new biologically natural screening efficiency criterion defined as the Kantorovich distance between the tumor size at spontaneous detection in the absence of screening and the tumor size at detection when both spontaneous and screening based mechanisms are in place. An explicit formula. for the efficiency functional is obtained. Sample calculations suggest that in the case of exponential tumor growth, the optimal screening schedules with a fixed number of exams have a trend to uniformity. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Performance, reliability, and performability of a hybrid RAID array and a comparison with traditional RAID1 arrays We describe a hybrid mirrored disk organization patented by LSI Logic Corp. and compare its performance, reliability, and performability with traditional mirrored RAID1 disk organizations and RAID(4+?), ??1. LSI RAID has the same level of redundancy as mirrored disks, but also utilizes parity coding. Unlike RAID1, which cannot tolerate all two disk failures, LSI RAID similarly to RAID6 is 2Disk Failure Tolerant (2DFT), but in addition it can tolerate almost all three disk failures, while RAID1 organizations are generally 1DFT. We list analytic expressions for the reliability of various RAID1 organizations and use enumeration when the reliability expression cannot be obtained analytically. An asymptotic expansion method based on disk unreliabilities is used for an easy comparison of RAID reliabilities. LSI RAID performance is evaluated with the Read-Modify-Write (RMW) and ReConstruct Write (RCW) methods to update parities. The combination of the two methods is used to balance data and parity disk loads, which results in maximizing the I/O throughput. The analysis shows that LSI RAID has an inferior performance with respect to basic mirroring in processing an OLTP workload, but it outperforms RAID6. LSI RAID in spite of its higher Mean Time to Data Loss (MTTDL) is outperformed by other RAID1 organizations as far as its performability is concerned, i.e., the number of I/Os carried out by the disk array operating at maximum I/Os Per Second (IOPS) until data loss occurs. A survey of RAID1 organizations and distributed replicated systems is also included.

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

raid1 organizations
lsi raid
raid6
performability

disk mirroring
parity encoding
hybrid mirrored disks
sspiral raid
raid5
multiway replication
performance analysis
reliability analysis


a comprehensive mobility management solution for handling peak load in cellular network scenarios First responders are suffering from insufficient information about the incident during alerting and operations at the scene itself. Particularly at major incident operations detailed and up-to-date multimedia information are indispensable and have to be provided as fast and reliable as possible to the rescue forces. Thus, challenging requirements on the mobile communication system like traffic prioritization, seamless handover and everywhere connectivity arise from this use case. In this paper we present a holistic approach for a suitable heterogeneous communication architecture considering the complete mobility management process that consists of mobility modeling, handover trigger algorithms and IP-based handover protocols applied on a big public event at a stadium.

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

pattern recognition
mobility model
handover protocol


A simulated annealing approach to approximate Bayes computations Approximate Bayes computations (ABC) are used for parameter inference when the likelihood function of the model is expensive to evaluate but relatively cheap to sample from. In particle ABC, an ensemble of particles in the product space of model outputs and parameters is propagated in such a way that its output marginal approaches a delta function at the data and its parameter marginal approaches the posterior distribution. Inspired by Simulated Annealing, we present a new class of particle algorithms for ABC, based on a sequence of Metropolis kernels, associated with a decreasing sequence of tolerances w.r.t. the data. Unlike other algorithms, our class of algorithms is not based on importance sampling. Hence, it does not suffer from a loss of effective sample size due to re-sampling. We prove convergence under a condition on the speed at which the tolerance is decreased. Furthermore, we present a scheme that adapts the tolerance and the jump distribution in parameter space according to some mean-fields of the ensemble, which preserves the statistical independence of the particles, in the limit of infinite sample size. This adaptive scheme aims at converging as close as possible to the correct result with as few system updates as possible via minimizing the entropy production of the process. The performance of this new class of algorithms is compared against two other recent algorithms on two toy examples as well as on a real-world example from genetics.

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

approximate bayes computations
simulated annealing
entropy


Strategic investment in switching cost: An integrated customer acquisition and retention perspective This paper considers the interaction between investment to increase Web site stickiness (consumer switching costs) and competition. A duopoly model is used to examine investment by a superior firm to increase consumer switching costs and competition for customer acquisition and customer retention between the investing firm and a non-investing firm. Gaining a competitive advantage in customer retention is the purpose of strategic technology investment, but the model shows that where consumers are myopic about the benefits they will derive from the technology investment, aggressive price competition by a non-investing firm can prevent the investing firm from acquiring a larger market share and consequently reduce its incentive to invest. However, an investing firm that can persuade consumers of the benefits of the technology investment will have an advantage in customer acquisition and thus may have an incentive to invest.

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

customer acquisition
customer retention
switching cost
web site stickiness


Autonomous mobile bionanosensor networks for target tracking: A two-dimensional model This paper designs and models autonomous mobile bionanosensor networks for target tracking. In the bionanosensor networks considered in this paper, nano-to-micro scale bionanosensors autonomously coordinate their movement through the use of two types of signaling molecules: attractants to recruit bionanosensors to a location in the environment, and repellents to spread bionanosensors from a location over the environment. A mathematical model of autonomous mobile bionanosensor networks is first developed for target tracking in a two-dimensional area. Numerical results are then presented to discuss the impact of attractants and repellents on target tracking performance, providing an insight into how bionanosensors may be designed and engineered to improve the target tracking performance.

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

mobile bionanosensor network
target localization
nanonetwork
molecular communication
mathematical modeling


LinMap: Visualizing complexity gradients in evolutionary landscapes This article describes an interactive visualization tool, LinMap, for exploring the structure of complexity gradients in evolutionary landscapes. LinMap is a computationally efficient and intuitive tool for visualizing and exploring multidimensional parameter spaces. An artificial cell lineage model is presented that allows complexity to be quantified according to several different developmental and phenotypic metrics. LinMap is applied to the evolutionary landscapes generated by this model to demonstrate that different definitions of complexity produce different gradients across the same landscape; that landscapes are characterized by a phase transition between proliferating and quiescent cell lineages where both complexity and diversity are maximized; and that landscapes defined by adaptive fitness and complexity can display different topographical features.

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

development
evolution
artificial cell lineages


Incremental multi-linear discriminant analysis using canonical correlations for action recognition Canonical correlations analysis (CCA) is often used for feature extraction and dimensionality reduction. However, the image vectorization of CCA breaks the spatial structure of the original image, and the excessive dimensions of vectors often cause the curse of dimensionality problem. In this paper, we propose a novel feature extraction method based on CCA in multi-linear discriminant subspace by encoding each action sample as a high-order tensor. An optimization approach is presented to iteratively learn the discriminant subspace by unfolding the tensor along different tensor modes, which shows that most of the underlying data structure, including the spatio-temporal information, is retained and the curse of dimensionality problem is alleviated by the use of the proposed approach. At the same time, an incremental scheme is developed for multi-linear subspace online learning, which can improve the discriminative capability efficiently and effectively. In addition, the nearest neighbor classifier (NNC) is employed for action classification. Experiments on the Weizmann database show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and time complexity, and it is robust against partial occlusion.

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

canonical correlations analysis
action recognition

multi-linear subspace
discriminant information
incremental learning


distributed visualization using workstations, supercomputers, and high speed networks Access to supercomputers via the high speed wide area networks being developed will enable sophisticated, interactive visualization on local workstations. As an experiment, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center collaborated to demonstrate the possibilities for such distributed applications. The test case was visualization of 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, with a Cray performing surface reconstruction to generate a set of triangles. The resulting geometric data was sent to a local workstation to be rendered, with minor enhancements to current network protocols enabling effective utilization of the 45 megabit bandwidth of a T3 based network.

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

network
visualization
test
supercomputer
bandwidth
data
3d
demonstrate
case
surface reconstruction
imaging
distributed
access
laboratory

network protocol
interaction visualization
experience
distributed application
effect
wide-area network
locality


Efficient user identification scheme with key distribution preserving anonymity for distributed computer networks In 2000, Lee and Chang (Comput Syst Sci Eng 15 (2000) 211) presented a user identification scheme that also can simultaneously achieve key exchange requirement while preserving the user anonymity. Their idea is valuable especially when it is applied to some applications in which the identity of the user should be protected from the public in the distributed computer networks. Unfortunately, our paper shows that their scheme is insecure under two attacks and we further proposed a more efficient identification scheme preserving the same merits. The proposed scheme not only effectively eliminates the security leaks of the LeeChang scheme, but also reduces computational complexities and communication costs as compared with their scheme.

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

user identification
key distribution
anonymity
distributed computer networks


Adaptive nearest-nodes finite element method guided by gradient of linear strain energy density In this paper, an adaptive finite element method is formulated based on the newly developed nearest-nodes finite element method (NN-FEM). In the adaptive NN-FEM, mesh modification is guided by the gradient of strain energy density, i.e., a larger gradient requires a denser mesh and vice versa. A finite element mesh is iteratively modified by a set of operators, including mesh refinement, mesh coarsening and mesh smoothing, to make its density conform the gradient of strain energy density. The selection of a proper operator for a specific mesh region is determined by a set of criteria based on mesh intensity. The iteration loop of mesh modification is stopped when the relative error in the total potential energy is less than a prescribed accuracy. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed adaptive NN-FEM.

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

gradient of strain energy density
mesh intensity

nearest-nodes finite element method
mesh modification operator


Enhanced design of an indirect adaptive fuzzy sliding mode power system stabilizer for multi-machine power systems Fuzzy logic system to approximate nonlinear system unknown functions. Introducing PI term in the design of sliding mode control to suppress chattering. Design of an indirect adaptive fuzzy sliding mode power system stabilizer. Approach adaptive fuzzy sliding mode applied on a multi-machine system. AFSMPSS damp out low frequency oscillations for large disturbances better than AFPSS.

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

sliding mode control
pi
fuzzy logic
power system stabilizer

adaptive control
multi-machine power system


Robust learning with missing data This paper introduces a new method, called the robust Bayesian estimator (RBE), to learn conditional probability distributions from incomplete data sets. The intuition behind the RBE is that, when no information about the pattern of missing data is available, an incomplete database constrains the set of all possible estimates and this paper provides a characterization of these constraints. An experimental comparison with two popular methods to estimate conditional probability distributions from incomplete data-Gibbs sampling and the EM algorithm-shows a gain in robustness. An application of the RBE to quantify a naive Bayesian classifier from an incomplete data set illustrates its practical relevance.

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

bayesian learning
bayesian networks
bayesian classifiers
probability intervals


Introducing assignment functions to Bayesian optimization algorithms In this paper, we improve Bayesian optimization algorithms by introducing proportionate and rank-based assignment functions. A Bayesian optimization algorithm builds a Bayesian network from a selected sub-population of promising solutions, and this probabilistic model is employed to generate the offspring of the next generation. Our method assigns each solution a relative significance based on its fitness, and this information is used in building the Bayesian network model. These assignment functions can improve the quality of the model without performing an explicit selection on the population. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of this method compared to a conventional BOA.

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

bayesian optimization algorithms
assignment functions


Managers perception of information management and the role of information and knowledge managers: The Malaysian perspectives This paper reports a study conducted to investigate the progression of information and knowledge management (KM) within the business organizations in Malaysia from the managers point of view. Among the objectives set are to identify the information requirements of managers, to identify the need for effective information management (IM) and information managers, and to identify the role and skill requirements of information and knowledge managers in the organizations. Using survey questionnaires and interviews, the findings provided rich and meaningful information about information requirements of managers and their overall perception of information and KM. The findings also revealed the important roles of information and knowledge managers and their desired competencies as perceived by the managers. Positive perception towards the establishment of a one-stop resource center or library was also reported. Overall, the findings may assist in the initial stage of effective IM and KM strategy by organizations, and in the development of curriculum for the IM program and the related management fields.

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

information management
information and knowledge management

information behavior
information needs of managers
the roles of information managers
effective information management


WBC-ALC: A Weak Blocking Coordinated Application-Level Checkpointing for MPI Programs As supercomputers increase in size, the mean time between failures (MTBF) of a system becomes shorter, and the reliability problem of supercomputers becomes more and more serious. MPI is currently the de facto standard used to build high-performance applications, and researches on the fault tolerance methods of MPI are always hot topics. However, due to the characteristics of MPI programs, most current checkpointing methods for MPI programs need to modify the MPI library (even operating system), or implement a complicated protocol by logging lots of messages. In this paper, we carry forward the idea of Application-Level Checkpointing (ALC). Based on the general fact that programmers are familiar with the communication characteristics of applications, we have developed BC-ALC, a new portable blocking coordinated ALC for MPI programs. BC-ALC neither modifies the MPI library (even operating system) nor logs any message. It implements coordination only by the Barrier operations instead of any complicated protocol. Furthermore, in order to reduce the cost of fault-tolerance, we reduce the synchronization range of the barrier, and design WBC-ALC, a weak blocking coordinated ALC utilizing group synchronization instead of global synchronization based on the communication relationship between processes. We also propose a fault-tolerance framework developed on top of WBC-ALC and discuss an implementation of it. Experimental results on NPB3.3-MPI benchmarks validate BC-ALC and WBC-ALC, and show that compared with BC-ALC, the average coordination time and the average backup time of a single checkpoint in WBC-ALC are reduced by 44.5% and 5.7% respectively.

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

application-level checkpointing
weak coordinated
consistency


Searching for information in a time-pressured setting: experiences with a Text-based and an Image-based decision support system Searching for the right information and making quick, accurate decisions within time-pressured settings is often non-trivial. We contrast the relative efficacies of written English (Text) and a more concise, compact communication mode (Image) for information search and decision making by using a financial incentive scheme to apply implicit time pressure on subjects. We found that, while Image users earned as much as Text users, they achieved this earnings parity by following speedier but less accurate strategies. We conclude with thoughts on possible refinements to our work that could steer subjects in the ideal direction of fast, accurate, lucrative decisions with languages like Image.

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

information gathering/search strategies
decision-making strategies
symbolic languages
multimedia systems
ex-ante dss evaluation
induced value theory


modular java web applications As Java EE applications increase in size and complexity the constraints imposed by the existing component model restrict their utility. In this paper, we describe a solution to the problem related to building modular and evolvable server-side applications in Java. We use Eclipse's OSGi runtime as a basis for solving the problem and describe its integration in a Java EE Application Server environment.

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


A model for self-organizing systems Considers a conceptual model that leads to the notions of a "distance function" g(t) and that of a "controlled-disturbance function" delta(t) = h(g(t)). Using these notions we begin a mathematical theory of a system that is self-organizing to achieve a given state of affairs in a given environment. Obtains, in terms of the functions 5(t) and g(t), a condition under which the system always progresses towards the goal We also establish the form of expression for the distance function g(t). This comes as a major tool in the proofs of the so-called goal-state-description theorems. These theorems have results that facilitate the determination of the "working functions" of the self-organizing system (SOS). When they exist, the "working functions" specify a goal-path for the SOS to learn to adopt.

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


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

word
characteristic equation
pseudo-vandermonde determinant


Identifying exogenous drivers and evolutionary stages in FLOSS projects The success of a Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) project has been evaluated in the past through the number of commits made to its configuration management system, number of developers and number of users. Most studies, based on a popular FLOSS repository (SourceForge), have concluded that the vast majority of projects are failures. This studys empirical results confirm and expand conclusions from an earlier and more limited work. Not only do projects from different repositories display different process and product characteristics, but a more general pattern can be observed. Projects may be considered as early inceptors in highly visible repositories, or as established projects within desktop-wide projects, or finally as structured parts of FLOSS distributions. These three possibilities are formalized into a framework of transitions between repositories. The framework developed here provides a wider context in which results from FLOSS repository mining can be more effectively presented. Researchers can draw different conclusions based on the overall characteristics studied about an Open Source software projects potential for success, depending on the repository that they mine. These results also provide guidance to OSS developers when choosing where to host their project and how to distribute it to maximize its evolutionary success.

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

software evolution
software repositories


Asymptotically Good Nonlinear Codes From Algebraic Curves By employing algebraic curves, we give some new asymptotic bounds for (q-1)-ary and (q+1)-ary codes, where q > 2 is a prime power. In particular, our asymptotic bound for (q-1)-ary codes improves on the bound obtained directly from alphabet restriction given by Tafasman and Vladut [12, Th. 1.3.19], while our asymptotic bound for (q+1)-ary codes includes Elkies' result for the square case (STOC 01) (however, the idea in this paper is different from Elkies' one). Our constructions of asymptotically good nonlinear codes are NOT the same as Goppa's construction of algebraic geometry codes in the sense that we consider evaluation of functions at some pole points as well.

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

algebraic geometry codes
asymptotic bound

gilbert-varshamov bound
goppa's construction


A Contrario Selection of Optimal Partitions for Image Segmentation We present a novel segmentation algorithm based on a hierarchical representation of images. The main contribution of this work is to explore the capabilities of the a contrario reasoning when applied to the segmentation problem and to overcome the limitations of current algorithms within that framework. This exploratory approach has three main goals. Our first goal is to extend the search space of greedy merging algorithms to the set of all partitions spanned by a certain hierarchy and to cast the segmentation as a selection problem within this space. In this way we increase the number of tested partitions, and thus we potentially improve the segmentation results. In addition, this space is considerably smaller than the space of all possible partitions, and thus we still keep the complexity controlled. Our second goal aims to improve the locality of region merging algorithms, which usually merge pairs of neighboring regions. In this work, we overcome this limitation by introducing a validation procedure for complete partitions rather than for pairs of regions. The third goal is to perform an exhaustive experimental evaluation methodology in order to provide reproducible results. Finally, we embed the selection process on a statistical a contrario framework which allows us to have only one free parameter related to the desired scale.

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

a contrario
image segmentation
region merging

quantitative evaluation
hierarchical segmentation


Image segmentation using some piecewise constant level set methods with MBO type of projection In this work, we are trying to propose fast algorithms for Mumford-Shah image segmentation using some recently proposed piecewise constant level set methods (PCLSM). Two variants of the PCLSM will be considered in this work. The first variant, which we call the binary level set method, needs a level set function which only takes values I to identify the regions. The second variant only needs to use one piecewise constant level set function to identify arbitrary number of regions. For the Murnford-Shah image segmentation model with these new level set methods, one needs to minimize some smooth energy functionals under some constrains. A penalty method will be used to deal with the constraint. AOS (additive operator splitting) and MOS (Multiplicative operator splitting) schemes will be used to solve the Euler-Lagrange equations for the minimization problems. By doing this, we obtain some algorithms which are essentially applying the MBO scheme for Our segmentation models. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed for the proposed schemes.

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

total variation regularization
phase field model


Evaluation of parallel particle swarm optimization algorithms within the CUDA (TM) architecture Particle swarm optimization (PSO), like other population-based meta-heuristics, is intrinsically parallel and can be effectively implemented on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which are, in fact, massively parallel processing architectures. In this paper we discuss possible approaches to parallelizing PSO on graphics hardware within the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA (TM)), a GPU programming environment by nVIDIA (TM) which supports the company's latest cards. In particular, two different ways of exploiting GPU parallelism are explored and evaluated. The execution speed of the two parallel algorithms is compared, on functions which are typically used as benchmarks for PSO, with a standard sequential implementation of PSO (SPSO), as well as with recently published results of other parallel implementations. An in-depth study of the computation efficiency of our parallel algorithms is carried out by assessing speed-up and scale-up with respect to SPSO. Also reported are some results about the optimization effectiveness of the parallel implementations with respect to SPSO, in cases when the parallel versions introduce some possibly significant difference with respect to the sequential version. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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


A polynomial time interior-point path-following algorithm for LCP based on Chen-Harker-Kanzow smoothing techniques A polynomial complexity bound is established for an interior point path following algorithm for the monotone linear complementarity problem that is based on the Chen-Harker-Kanzow smoothing techniques The fundamental difference with the Chen-Harker and Kanzow algorithms is the introduction of a rescaled Newton direction. The rescaling requires the iterates to remain in the interior of the positive orthant. To compensate for this restriction, the iterates are not required to remain feasible: with respect to the affine constraints. If the method is initiated at an interior point that is also feasible with respect to the affine constraints, then the complexity bound is O(root nL); otherwise, the complexity bound is O(nL.). The relations between our search direction and the one used in the standard interior-point algorithm are also discussed.

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

linear complementarity
polynomial complexity
path following


Propositional temporal linear logic and its application to concurrent systems In computer science, concepts of resource such as data consumption and of time such as execution time are very important. Logical systems which can treat them have been applied in that field. Linear logic has been called a resource conscious logic. The expressive power is enough to describe a dynamic change in process environments. However, linear logic is not enough to treat a dynamic change in Environments with the passage of time since it does not include a concept of time directly. A typical example is the relation between linear logic and Petri nets. It is well known that the reachability problem for Petri nets is equivalent to the provability for the corresponding sequent of linear logic. Hut linear logic cannot naturally represent timed Petri nets which are extensions of ordinary Petri nets with respect to time concept. So we extend linear logic with respect to time concept in order to introduce a resource-conscious and time-dependent logical system, Chat is, temporal linear logic. This system has some temporal operators "O" which means a resource usable only once at the next time, "square": which means a resource usable only once at anytime, and a modal storage operator "1" which means a resource usable any times at anytime. We can show that the reachability problem for timed Petri nets is equivalent to the provability for the corresponding sequent of temporal linear logic. In this paper, we also represent the description of synchronous communication model by temporal linear logic. The expressive power of temporal linear logic will be applicable to various fields of computer science.

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

temporal linear logic
concurrent systems
synchronous communication
timed petri nets
reachability


Breast cancer detection and classification in digital mammography based on Non-Subsampled Contourlet Transform (NSCT) and Super Resolution We propose a new algorithm for breast cancer detection and classification. Our system can accurately detect the probability of benign or malign breast lesion. We utilize NSCT transform and super resolution to improve the quality of the images. The results on MIAS database show significant performance of the proposed method. Our system achieves 91.43% and 6.42% as a mean accuracy and FPR, respectively.

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

non-subsampled contourlet transform (nsct)


Toward Data-Driven Structural Health Monitoring: Application of Machine Learning and Signal Processing to Damage Detection A multilayer data-driven framework for robust structural health monitoring based on a comprehensive application of machine learning and signal processing techniques is introduced. This paper focuses on demonstrating the effectiveness of the framework for damage detection in a steel pipe under environmental and operational variations. The pipe was instrumented with piezoelectric wafers that can generate and sense ultrasonic waves. Damage was simulated physically by a mass scatterer grease-coupled to the surface of the pipe. Benign variations included variable internal air pressure and ambient temperature over time. Ultrasonic measurements were taken on three different days with the scatterer placed at different locations on the pipe. The wave patterns are complex and difficult to interpret, and it is even more difficult to differentiate the changes produced by the scatterer from the changes produced by benign variations. The sensed data were characterized by 365 features extracted from a variety of signal-processing techniques. Automated feature selection methods were then developed using an adaptive boosting algorithm to identify the most effective features for damage detection. With the selected features, five machine-learning classifiers were formulated based on adaptive boosting and support vector machines and achieved 98.5-99.8% average accuracy during random testing and 84.2-89% average accuracy during systematic testing. In addition, other metrics for classifier evaluation generated from a confusion matrix and from a receiver operating characteristic curve are reported. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

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

probe instruments
data analysis
data-driven
damage detection
feature extraction
pipelines
ultrasonics
piezoelectric sensors


Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) This article presents a novel scale- and rotation-invariant detector and descriptor, coined SURF (Speeded-Up Robust Features). SURF approximates or even outperforms previously proposed schemes with respect to repeatability, distinctiveness, and robustness, yet can be computed and compared much faster. This is achieved by relying on integral images for image convolutions; by building on the strengths of the leading existing detectors and descriptors (specifically, using a Hessian matrix-based measure for the detector, and a distribution-based descriptor); and by simplifying these methods to the essential. This leads to a combination of novel detection, description, and matching steps. The paper encompasses a detailed description of the detector and descriptor and then explores the effects of the most important parameters. We conclude the article with SURFs application to two challenging, yet converse goals: camera calibration as a special case of image registration, and object recognition. Our experiments underline SURFs usefulness in a broad range of topics in computer vision.

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

interest points
local features
feature description


Sketch based garment modeling on an arbitrary view of a 3D virtual human model This paper presents a new approach for modeling a virtual garment intuitively and simply by sketching garment style lines. The user sketches directly onto the surface of 3D virtual human from arbitrary viewing directions, and the 3D garment suited to the virtual human can be created automatically. First, a distance field based allocation algorithm is proposed to find the 3D point which has the shortest given distance to the virtual human along the view direction. Then, the 3D style lines are generated by transforming from the 2D strokes on the human model and all the garment pieces are recognized from the 3D style lines. Finally, the 3D garment model is constructed by using the angle and offset based interpolation and Delaunay triangulation. In addition, we propose a body feature based template reusing method to fit the 3D garment to different virtual human models. The method can be adapted to designer habits and improve the usefulness of garment design. Examples show that the method is useful and efficient.

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

sketch-based interfaces
3d garment modeling
garment style template