Emulation of human feelings and behaviors in an animated artwork The behavior of an animated artwork, survivor - a classroom chair which walks, with a dynamics which some viewers find haunting - reflects an attempt to emulate (and suggest to viewers) some feelings and behaviors that are typical of survivors of landmine blasts, learning to use crutches. The artwork itself is intended for sensitizing viewers to the horror experienced by those who survive, and those who do not. The behavior of such a survivor is affected by several factors: some are due to the objective difficulty of using prosthetic legs, and some are due to emotional factors, e.g., fear, "shame" of being in such situation, and pain. The mechanical structure, strongly conditioned by artistic requirements, was combined with a control system that exhibits appropriate behaviors. Behaviroal control, a technique developed for the control of mobile robots, was used in survivor, and implemented over a modified version of the traditional Brooks' subsumption architecture. This technique makes it possible to emulate normal locomotion behaviors such as the need of avoiding obstacles and typical animal feelings such as curiosity, hunger, fatigue and fear We describe the mechanics and viewers' response, and formalize aesthetic response. We briefly survey computer modelling of emotions, robotic art, and biomimetic locomotion in robotics.

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

robotic art
locomotion
subsumption architecture
aesthetic response


Docking-based virtual screening for ligands of G protein-coupled receptors: Not only crystal structures but also in silico models G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) regulate a wide range of physiological functions and hold great pharmaceutical interest. Using the ?2-adrenergic receptor as a case study, this article explores the applicability of docking-based virtual screening to the discovery of GPCR ligands and defines methods intended to improve the screening performance. Our controlled computational experiments were performed on a compound dataset containing known agonists and blockers of the receptor as well as a large number of decoys. The screening based on the structure of the receptor crystallized in complex with its inverse agonist carazolol yielded excellent results, with a clearly delineated prioritization of ligands over decoys. Blockers generally were preferred over agonists; however, agonists were also well distinguished from decoys. A method was devised to increase the screening yields by generating an ensemble of alternative conformations of the receptor that accounts for its flexibility. Moreover, a method was devised to improve the retrieval of agonists, based on the optimization of the receptor around a known agonist. Finally, the applicability of docking-based virtual screening also to homology models endowed with different levels of accuracy was proved. This last point is of uttermost importance, since crystal structures are available only for a limited number of GPCRs, and extends our conclusions to the entire superfamily. The outcome of this analysis definitely supports the application of computer-aided techniques to the discovery of novel GPCR ligands, especially in light of the fact that, in the near future, experimental structures are expected to be solved and become available for an ever increasing number of GPCRs.

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

g protein-coupled receptors
beta-adrenergic receptors
docking
homology modeling


personalized recommendation on dynamic content using predictive bilinear models In Web-based services of dynamic content (such as news articles), recommender systems face the difficulty of timely identifying new items of high-quality and providing recommendations for new users. We propose a feature-based machine learning approach to personalized recommendation that is capable of handling the cold-start issue effectively. We maintain profiles of content of interest, in which temporal characteristics of the content, e.g. popularity and freshness, are updated in real-time manner. We also maintain profiles of users including demographic information and a summary of user activities within Yahoo! properties. Based on all features in user and content profiles, we develop predictive bilinear regression models to provide accurate personalized recommendations of new items for both existing and new users. This approach results in an offline model with light computational overhead compared with other recommender systems that require online re-training. The proposed framework is general and flexible for other personalized tasks. The superior performance of our approach is verified on a large-scale data set collected from the Today-Module on Yahoo! Front Page, with comparison against six competitive approaches.

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

framework
news
performance
temporal
general
model
online
user
recommendation
regression
users
dynamic
data
machine learning
bilinear models
profiles
recommender systems

user and content profile
activation
paging
ranking
quality
web-based
large-scale
maintainability
computation
personalization
competition
flexibility
service
timing
real-time
comparisons
informal
lighting
predict
training
contention
module
feature
dynamic features


Delay monitoring for wireless sensor networks: An architecture using air sniffers Wireless sensor networks have been used for many delay-sensitive and safetycritical applications, e.g., emergency response and plant automation. For such applications, delay measurement inside the sensor networks is important for real-time monitoring and control of the networked system, and abnormal delay detection. In this paper, we propose a measurement architecture using distributed air sniffers. This approach provides convenient delay measurement, and requires no clock synchronization or instrumentation at the sensor nodes. Since using sniffers incurs additional deployment cost, we investigate two aspects to reduce deployment cost: (1) using inexpensive mote-class sniffers and (2) carefully placing the sniffers to minimize the number of sniffers that are needed. Specifically, we experimentally quantify the capability and fidelity of mote-class sniffers for delay measurement, and show that they provide satisfactory monitoring performance. We further formulate and solve a sniffer placement problem that minimizes the number of sniffers while taking account of the workload constraints of the sniffers, and show that the number of sniffers under our sniffer placement algorithms is only a small fraction of the number of sensor nodes in the network. Last, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our architecture for abnormal delay detection using experiments in a testbed.

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

delay monitoring
abnormal delay detection
wireless sensor networks


ineractive 3d presentations and buyer behavior This paper shows preliminary results on how interactive 3D product presentations affect buyer behavior in e-commerce applications over the Internet. We conducted two experiments involving simulated online shopping trips, in which subjects saw some products with 3D presentations and made product choices. The results show that the availability of interactive 3D product presentations instead of still images may affect some important aspects of buyer behavior, including the amount of time spent examining products and purchase likelihood.

O O O O 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 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


Field inhomogeneity correction based on gridding reconstruction for magnetic resonance imaging Spatial variations of the main field give rise to artifacts in magnetic resonance images if disregarded in reconstruction. With non-Cartesian k-space sampling, they often lead to unacceptable blurring. Data from such acquisitions are usually reconstructed with gridding methods and optionally restored with various correction methods. Both types of methods essentially face the same basic problem of adequately approximating an exponential function to enable an efficient processing with fast Fourier transforms. Nevertheless, they have commonly addressed it differently so far. In the present work, a unified approach is pursued. The principle behind gridding methods is first generalized to nonequispaced sampling in both domains and then applied to field inhomogeneity correction. Three new algorithms, which are compatible with a direct conjugate phase and an iterative algebraic reconstruction, are derived in this way from a straightforward embedding of the data into a higher dimensional space. Their evaluation in simulations and phantom experiments with spiral k-space sampling shows that one of them promises to provide a favorable compromise between fidelity and complexity compared with existing algorithms. Moreover, it allows a simple choice of key parameters involved in approximating an exponential function and a balance between the accuracy of reconstruction and correction.

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

field inhomogeneity
gridding
magnetic resonance imaging

conjugate phase reconstruction
image reconstruction
iterative reconstruction
off-resonance correction
spiral imaging


Adaptive fuzzy decentralized dynamics surface control for nonlinear large-scale systems based on high-gain observer This paper discusses the adaptive fuzzy decentralized output-feedback control problem for a class of nonlinear large-scale systems. The systems under study have unknown nonlinearities, mismatched interconnections in control inputs, and unmeasurable state variables. Therefore, fuzzy logic systems are employed to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions in the control design; and an adaptive high-gain observer is established to estimate the unmeasured states. Based on the backstepping design technique and the dynamic surface control (DSC) approach, a novel adaptive fuzzy decentralized output-feedback control scheme is developed. It is proved that the proposed control approach can ensure that all the signals of the closed-loop system are semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded (SUUB) and the observer error and tracking error can all converge to a small neighborhood of the origin. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by simulation examples with comparisons with several existing methods.

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

adaptive decentralized control
fuzzy logic system
high-gain state observer
nonlinear large-scale systems
stability analysis


Dispersion, group velocity, and multisymplectic discretizations This paper examines the dispersive properties of multisymplectic discretizations of linear and nonlinear PDEs. We focus on a leapfrog in space and time scheme and the Preissman box scheme. We find that the numerical dispersion relations are monotonic and determine the relationship between the group velocities of the different numerical schemes. The group velocity dispersion is used to explain the qualitative differences in the numerical solutions obtained with the different schemes. Furthermore. the numerical dispersion relation is found to be relevant when determining the ability of the discretizations to resolve nonlinear dynamics. (C) 2009 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

box schemes
leap-frog method
sine-gordon equation


Integrating cognitive analyses in a large-scale system design process This paper describes the integration of cognitive analysis into the early stages of design of a new, large-scale systema next generation US Navy Surface combatant. Influencing complex system designs in ways cognizant of humansystem integration principles requires work products that are timely and tightly coupled to other elements of the design process. Because analyses were conducted simultaneously with the design processes regarding ship functionality and staffing, it was necessary to select and adapt cognitive work analysis methods to fit the demands of a time pressured and information-limited design situation. Interviews were conducted and analyzed based on aspects of an abstraction hierarchy and control task models. An abstraction hierarchy, a series of cross-linked matrices, and a set of decision ladder models were developed to provide a principled mapping between system function decompositions produced by system engineering teams and cognitive tasks, information needs, automation requirements, and concepts for displays. Cross-referencing the matrices supported design traceability and facilitated the integration of cognitive analyses with functional analyses being performed by other design teams. Results fed into design recommendations with respect to level of automation, human roles and initial display prototypes for the ship combat command center. The case study illustrates the utility of cognitive work analysis models (specifically, abstraction hierarchies and decision-ladder models) in the design of large-scale, first-of-a-kind systems, and presents new design artifacts that link concepts used in cognitive analyses to those used in systems engineering for more effective integration within the systems engineering process.

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


the limits of localization using rss We characterize the fundamental limits of localization using signal strength in indoor environments. Signal strength approaches are attractive because they are widely applicable to wireless sensor networks and do not require additional localization hardware. We show that although a broad spectrum of algorithms can trade accuracy for precision, none has a significant advantage in localization performance. We found that using commodity 802.11 technology over a range of algorithms, approaches and environments, one can expect a median localization error of 10ft and 97th percentile of 30ft. We present strong evidence that these limitations are fundamental and that they are unlikely to be transcended without fundamentally more complex environmental models or additional localization infrastructure.

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


Service-oriented architecture for distributed publish/subscribe middleware in electronics production The Computer Aided Manufacturing using XML (CAMX) framework enables integrating electronics production systems using message-oriented middleware, offering standards-based communication among machines and control software applications. CAMX frameworks implement publish/subscribe of XML messages through an entity called the message broker (MSB), which provides the messaging service using a web-based interface. A challenge for MSB-based systems is that they must scale to handle large volumes of messaging traffic, which is a characteristic of modern information-intensive manufacturing systems. This paper first tackles this challenge by presenting an array of architecture patterns for creating distributed MSB frameworks, focusing mainly on globally distributed federations and locally distributed clusters. A unified architecture is subsequently presented that leverages the different patterns by combining federated frameworks with locally distributed clusters into a unified set of architecture elements and interactions. A service-oriented approach is followed to provide a uniform interface for distributed MSB elements, whether federated or locally distributed. The service-oriented approach is also used to dynamically discover resources and automatically invoke the (re)configuration and messaging services. The services are enriched with semantics in order to facilitate automatic discovery and selection of services using the semantic web services formal ontology. Semantic service advertisements are propagated using a peer-to-peer discovery protocol. The approach presented in this paper is not limited to the CAMX case and is generally applicable to distributed event-based manufacturing systems.

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

electronic equipment manufacture
manufacturing automation
manufacturing automation software
message systems
service-oriented architecture


workshop on flexible modeling tools (flexitools 2011) Modeling tools are often not used for tasks during the software lifecycle for which they should be more helpful; instead free-from approaches, such as office tools and white boards, are frequently used. Prior workshops explored why this is the case and what might be done about it. The goal of this workshop is to continue those discussions and also to form an initial set of challenge problems and research challenges that researchers and developers of flexible modeling tools should address.

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

software development tools
flexible modeling tools


Comparative tempo-spatial pattern analysis: CTSPA A new method is illustrated for describing the characteristics of urban pattern changes over different time periods. This method employs vector geometry, paired centroids, shared boundary lines, and overlain polygons. Three new statistics are proposed for characterizing local polygon feature changes in quantity, shape, and size. These statistics are standardized, based on conventional theories from urban geography Such as directional concentric zones and user-designated corridors to document both regional and global patterns of land-use change. This method is used to analyse land-use changes in metropolitan Detroit between 1990 and 2000. The Detroit case study indicates that the CTSPA statistics are effective in describing urban spatial pattern changes and in characterizing the evolution of discrete urban landscapes over selected periods.

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

comparative tempo-spatial pattern analysis (ctspa)


An Information-Theoretical Approach to High-Speed Flow Nature Identification This paper concerns the fundamental problem of identifying the content nature of a flow-namely text, binary, or encrypted-for the first time. We propose Iustitia, a framework for identifying flow nature on the fly. The key observation behind Iustitia is that text flows have the lowest entropy and encrypted flows have the highest entropy, while the entropy of binary flows stands in between. We further extend Iustitia for the finer-grained classification of binary flows so that we can differentiate different types of binary flows (such as image, video, and executables) and even the file formats (such as JPEG and GIF for images, MPEG and AVI for videos) carried by binary flows. The basic idea of Iustitia is to classify flows using machine learning techniques where a feature is the entropy of every certain number of consecutive bytes. Our experimental results show that the classification can be done with high speed and high accuracy. On average, Iustitia can classify flows with 88.27% of accuracy using a buffer size of 1 K with a classification time of less than 10% of packet interarrival time for 91.2% of flows.

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

flow content analysis
flow identification


CTrigger: Exposing Atomicity Violation Bugs from Their Hiding Places Multicore hardware is making concurrent programs pervasive. Unfortunately, concurrent programs are prone to bugs. Among different types of concurrency bugs, atomicity violation bugs are common and important. Existing techniques to detect atomicity violation bugs suffer from one limitation: requiring bugs to manifest during monitored runs, which is an open problem in concurrent program testing. This paper makes two contributions. First, it studies the interleaving characteristics of the common practice in concurrent program testing (i.e., running a program over and over) to understand why atomicity violation bugs are hard to expose. Second, it proposes CTrigger to effectively and efficiently expose atomicity violation bugs in large programs. CTrigger focuses on a special type of interleavings (i.e., unserializable interleavings) that are inherently correlated to atomicity violation bugs, and uses trace analysis to systematically identify (likely) feasible unserializable interleavings with low occurrence-probability. CTrigger then uses minimum execution perturbation to exercise low-probability interleavings and expose difficult-to-catch atomicity violation. We evaluate CTrigger with real-world atomicity violation bugs from four sever/desktop applications (Apache, MySQL, Mozilla, and PBZIP2) and three SPLASH2 applications on 8-core machines. CTrigger efficiently exposes the tested bugs within 1-235 seconds, two to four orders of magnitude faster than stress testing. Without CTrigger, some of these bugs do not manifest even after 7 full days of stress testing. In addition, without deterministic replay support, once a bug is exposed, CTrigger can help programmers reliably reproduce it for diagnosis. Our tested bugs are reproduced by CTrigger mostly within 5 seconds, 300 to over 60000 times faster than stress testing.

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

languages
reliability
software testing
concurrency bug


Enabling MPEG-2 video playback in embedded systems through improved data cache efficiency Digital video decoding, enabled by the MPEG-2 video standard, is an important future application for embedded systems, particularly personal digital assistants and other information appliances. Many such systems require portability and wireless communication capabilities, and thus face severe limitations in size and power consumption. This places a premium on integration and efficiency, and favors software solutions for video functionality over specialized hardware. Apart from computation, an equally important problem in video decoding is the data bandwidth and the need to insure adequate data supply. MPEG data sets are very large, and generate significant amounts of excess memory traffic for standard data caches, up to 100 times the amount required for decoding. Yet MPEG data has locality which caches can exploit if properly optimized, providing fast, flexible, and automatic data supply. We propose a set of enhancements which target the specific needs of the heterogeneous types within the MPEG decoder working set. These optimizations significantly improve the efficiency of small caches, reducing cache-memory traffic by almost 70%, and can make an enhanced 4-kB cache perform better than a standard 1 MB cache. This performance improvement can enable high-resolution, full frame rate video playback in cheaper, smaller systems than would otherwise be possible.

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

cache memories
multimedia computing
video codecs
video coding
video signal processing


Reinforcement-learning agents with different temperature parameters explain the variety of human actionselection behavior in a Markov decision process task We investigated the characteristics of the human actionselection in performing a Markov decision process (MDP) task, and compared them to those of reinforcement-learning (RL) agents. The behavior of human participants was roughly classified into two qualitatively different types. On the other hand, surprisingly, the variety of human behavior could be explained simply by a single parameter of the degree of randomness (i.e., the temperature parameter) in the actionselection rules of the RL agents. This result implies that the various behaviors of human actionselection may be determined by a simple mechanism in the brain.

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

action selection
reinforcement learning
inverse temperature parameter


Numerical simulation of three dimensional pyramid quantum dot We present a simple and efficient numerical method for the simulation of the three-dimensional pyramid quantum dot heterostructure. The pyramid-shaped quantum dot is placed in a computational box with uniform mesh in Cartesian coordinates. The corresponding Schrdinger equation is discretized using the finite volume method and the interface conditions are incorporated into the discretization scheme without explicitly enforcing them. The resulting matrix eigenvalue problem is then solved using a JacobiDavidson based method. Both linear and non-linear eigenvalue problems are simulated. The scheme is 2nd order accurate and converges extremely fast. The superior performance is a combined effect of the uniform spacing of the grids and the nice structure of the resulting matrices. We have successfully simulated a variety of test problems, including a quintic polynomial eigenvalue problem with more than 32 million variables.

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

finite volume method
heterostructure
schrdinger equation

large scale polynomial eigenvalue problem


MCMC sampling for joint estimation of phase distortions and transmitted symbols in OFDM systems In this paper, we address the challenging problem of the OFDM reception in the presence of phase distortions. Phase noise and carrier frequency offset seriously degrade the performances of OFDM systems by destroying orthogonality of the subcarriers. Based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling mechanization, our approach consists in jointly estimating the phase noise, the frequency offset and the transmitted symbols. The proposed algorithm is implemented in the time domain in order to benefit from the redundancy information induced by the cyclic prefix and from the time correlation of the OFDM signal owing to the presence of virtual and/or pilot subcarriers. The algorithm's efficiency is enhanced by incorporating the Rao-Blackwellization technique as well as various sampling improvement strategies. Simulation results, provided in terms of bit error rate (BER) and mean square error (MSE), clearly illustrate the efficiency and the robustness of the proposed estimator.

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

phase noise
carrier frequency offset
ofdm systems
markov chain monte carlo


optimistic distributed simulation based on transitive dependency tracking In traditional optimistic distributed simulation protocols, a logical process (LP) receiving a straggler rolls back and sends out anti-messages. The receiver of an anti-message may also roll back and send out more anti-messages. So a single straggler may result in a large number of anti-messages and multiple rollbacks of some LPs. In the authors' protocol, an LP receiving a straggler broadcasts its rollback. On receiving this announcement, other LPs may roll back but they do not announce their rollbacks. So each LP rolls back at most once in response to each straggler. Anti-messages are not used. This eliminates the need for output queues and results in simple memory management. It also eliminates the problem of cascading rollbacks and echoing, and results in faster simulation. All this is achieved by a scheme for maintaining transitive dependency information. The cost incurred includes the tagging of each message with extra dependency information and the increased processing time upon receiving a message. They also present the similarities between the two areas of distributed simulation and distributed recovery. They show how the solutions for one area can be applied to the other area.

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

memory management
distributed recovery
dependency information
transitive dependency tracking
straggler
optimistic distributed simulation
logical process

message tagging
anti-messages
time warp simulation
transitive dependency information
rollback broadcasting
process rollback


A new semantics for overriding in description logics Many modern applications of description logics (DLs, for short), such as biomedical ontologies and semantic web policies, provide fresh motivations for extending DLs with nonmonotonic inferencesa topic that has attracted a significant amount of attention along the years. Despite this, nonmonotonic inferences are not yet supported by DL technology due to a number of issues related to expressiveness, computational complexity, and optimizations. This paper contributes to the practical support of nonmonotonic inferences in description logics by introducing a new semantics expressly designed to address knowledge engineering needs. This formalism has appealing expressiveness, enjoys nice computational properties, and constitutes an interesting solution to an ample class of application needs. The formalism is validated through extensive comparison with the other nonmonotonic DLs, and systematic scalability tests. The test case generator and its novel validation methodology constitute a further contribution of this paper.

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

nonmonotonic reasoning
knowledge representation


An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (20022006) This paper summarizes a survey of publications in the field of systems and software engineering from 2002 to 2006. The survey is an ongoing, annual event that identifies the top 15 scholars and institutions over a 5-year period. The rankings are calculated based on the number of papers published in TSE, TOSEM, JSS, SPE, EMSE, IST, and Software. The top-ranked institution is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, and the top-ranked scholar is Magne Jrgensen of Simula Research Laboratory, Norway.

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

top scholars
top institutions
research publications


GridLaba grid application toolkit and testbed In this paper we present the new project called GridLab which is funded by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme. The GridLab project, made up of computer scientists, astrophysicists and other scientists from various application areas, will develop and implement the grid application toolkit (GAT) together with a set of services to enable easy and efficient use of Grid resources in a real and production grid environment. GAT will provide core, easy to use functionality through a carefully constructed set of generic higher level grid APIs through which an application will be able to call the grid services laying beneath in order to perform efficiently in the Grid environment using various, dramatically wild application scenarios.

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


Robust structure and motion from outlines of smooth curved surfaces This paper addresses the problem of estimating the motion of a camera as it observes the outline ( or apparent contour) of a solid bounded by a smooth surface in successive image frames. In this context, the surface points that project onto the outline of an object depend on the viewpoint and the only true correspondences between two outlines of the same object are the projections of frontier points where the viewing rays intersect in the tangent plane of the surface. In turn, the epipolar geometry is easily estimated once these correspondences have been identified. Given the apparent contours detected in an image sequence, a robust procedure based on RANSAC and a voting strategy is proposed to simultaneously estimate the camera configurations and a consistent set of frontier point projections by enforcing the redundancy of multiview epipolar geometry. The proposed approach is, in principle, applicable to orthographic, weak-perspective, and affine projection models. Experiments with nine real image sequences are presented for the orthographic projection case, including a quantitative comparison with the ground-truth data for the six data sets for which the latter information is available. Sample visual hulls have been computed from all image sequences for qualitative evaluation.

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

image processing and computer vision
shape


a multiscale approach to modelling planar cell polarity in drosophila wing using hierarchically coloured petri nets Modelling across multiple scales is a current challenge in Systems Biology, especially when applied to multicellular organisms. In this paper we present an approach to model at different spatial scales, using the new concept of hierarchically coloured Petri Nets (HCPN). We apply HCPN to model a tissue comprising multiple cells hexagonally packed in a honeycomb formation in order to describe the phenomenon of Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) signalling in Drosophila wing. We illustrate different levels of abstraction that can be used in order to assist the systematic modelling of such a complex system involving intra- and inter-cellular signalling mechanisms, and we provide a design pattern for similar modelling problems. Our initial model describes normal, wild-type PCP signalling, and we illustrate the power of our approach by easily adapting it to various tissue sizes and to describe the phenotype of a well-documented genetic mutation in Drosophila. We have performed a series of analyses on our models which require computational experiments over very large underlying models. All results are reproducible.

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

hierarchically coloured petri nets
planar cell polarity

multiscale modelling
continuous and stochastic simulation


A novel yield optimization technique for digital CMOS circuits design by means of process parameters run-time estimation and body bias active control This work presents a novel approach to optimize digital integrated circuits yield referring to speed, dynamic power and leakage power constraints. The method is based on process parameter estimation circuits and active control of body bias performed by an on-chip digital controller. The associated design flow allows us to quantitatively predict the impact of the method on the expected yield in a specific design. We present the architecture scheme, the theoretical foundation, the estimation circuits used, and two application case studies, referring to an industrial 0.13-mu m CMOS process data. The approach results to be remarkably effective at high operating temperature. In the presented case study, initial yields below 14% are improved to 86% by using a single controller and a single set of estimation circuits per die.

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

active body bias
process parameters estimation


Improving GMMUBM speaker verification using discriminative feedback adaptation The Gaussian mixture model Universal background model (GMMUBM) system is one of the predominant approaches for text-independent speaker verification, because both the target speaker model and the impostor model (UBM) have generalization ability to handle unseen acoustic patterns. However, since GMMUBM uses a common anti-model, namely UBM, for all target speakers, it tends to be weak in rejecting impostors voices that are similar to the target speakers voice. To overcome this limitation, we propose a discriminative feedback adaptation (DFA) framework that reinforces the discriminability between the target speaker model and the anti-model, while preserving the generalization ability of the GMMUBM approach. This is achieved by adapting the UBM to a target speaker dependent anti-model based on a minimum verification squared-error criterion, rather than estimating the model from scratch by applying the conventional discriminative training schemes. The results of experiments conducted on the NIST2001-SRE database show that DFA substantially improves the performance of the conventional GMMUBM approach.

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

discriminative feedback adaptation
speaker verification

loglikelihood ratio
minimum verification squared-error


Perceptual Considerations for Motion Blur Rendering Motion blur is a frequent requirement for the rendering of high-quality animated images. However, the computational resources involved are usually higher than those for images that have not been temporally antialiased. In this article we study the influence of high-level properties such as object material and speed, shutter time, and antialiasing level. Based on scenes containing variations of these parameters, we design different psychophysical experiments to determine how influential they are in the perception of image quality. This work gives insights on the effects these parameters have and exposes certain situations where motion blurred stimuli may be indistinguishable from a gold standard. As an immediate practical application, images of similar quality can be produced while the computing requirements are reduced. Algorithmic efforts have traditionally been focused on finding new improved methods to alleviate sampling artifacts by steering computation to the most important dimensions of the rendering equation. Concurrently, rendering algorithms can take advantage of certain perceptual limits to simplify and optimize computations. To our knowledge, none of them has identified nor used these limits in the rendering of motion blur. This work can be considered a first step in that direction.

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

performance
experimentation
human factors
temporal antialiasing
perceptual rendering


Compromising prioritization from pairwise comparisons considering type I and II errors We explore an important problem in prioritizing product design alternatives, using a real-world case. Despite the importance of prioritization in the area of new product development, the development of systematic schemes has been limited and the concepts and methods developed in the decision analysis area do not seem to be used actively. Therefore, we propose a new method, referred to as the compromising prioritization technique, to prioritize the product design alternatives based on paired comparisons. It introduces type I and type II errors and compromises these two errors to arrive at a desirable order of alternatives. To accomplish this, the two indices of homogeneity and separation are developed together with a heuristic algorithm. A comparative study is also conducted to support our method for use in product development and analogous areas. We then demonstrate how to use the developed compromising prioritization technique using a case study on the asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL)-based high-speed internet service product.

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

prioritization
type i and ii errors
pairwise comparisons


A study on wavelet data compression of a real-time monitoring system for large hydraulic machines The general concept of data compression consists in removing the redundancy existing in data to find a more compact representation. This paper is concerned with a new method of compression using the second generation, wavelets based on the lifting scheme, which is a simple but powerful wavelet construction method. It has been proved by its successful application to a real-time monitoring system of large hydraulic machines that it is a promising compression method.

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

data compression
lifting scheme
second generation wavelets


Resource Dynamics under Partial Cooperation in an Oligopoly We study the long-run evolution of a renewable resource which is subject to harvest by partially cooperating players who sell the harvested quantities on distinct markets. We derive explicit expressions for the total harvesting quantity of all players in this general framework and investigate the dependence of the total and relative harvest rates on the level of cooperation, available fish stock, and fishing costs. Combining the biological growth model with oligopoly leads to a nonlinear dynamic law for the evolution of the fish stock in the presence of commercial fishing. We provide also existence results for its equilibrium and examine the asymptotic behavior of the equilibrium.

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

oligopolies
renewable resources
equilibrium analyses


a taskonomy of 3d web use This paper aims to shed some light on the fundamental tasks users engage in while browsing the 3D Web. Firstly, we will provide an overview and discussion of several field studies that provide insights on how the current version of the Web is used focusing on the tasks that users carry out. Then we will present a comprehensive review of the state of the art of mouse-based 3D interaction techniques for Desktop 3D Virtual Environments (DVEs). Finally, we will introduce a simple taxonomy - a " 3D Web Taskonomy " that was designed to assists designers and developers of interactive 3D Web applications to better evaluate their options when choosing and implementing an interaction technique.

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


A framework for the application of metaheuristics to tasks-to-processors assignation problems The optimization of the execution time of a parallel algorithm can be achieved through the use of an analytical cost model function representing the running time. Typically the cost function includes a set of parameters that model the behavior of the system and the algorithm. In order to reach an optimal execution, some of these parameters must be fitted according to the input problem and to the target architecture. An optimization problem can be stated where the modeled execution time for the algorithm is used to estimate the parameters. Due to the large number of variable parameters in the model, analytical minimization techniques are discarded. Exhaustive search techniques can be used to solve the optimization problem, but when the number of parameters or the size of the computational system increases, the method is impracticable due to time restrictions. The use of approximation methods to guide the search is also an alternative. However, the dependence on the algorithm modeled and the bad quality of the solutions as a result of the presence of many local optima values in the objective functions are also drawbacks to these techniques. The problem becomes particularly difficult in complex systems hosting a large number of heterogeneous processors solving non-trivial scientific applications. The use of metaheuristics allows for the development of valid approaches to solve general problems with a large number of parameters. A well-known advantage of metaheuristic methods is the ability to obtain high-quality solutions at low running times while maintaining generality. We propose combining the parameterized analytical cost model function and metaheuristic minimization methods, which contributes to a novel real alternative to minimize the parallel execution time in complex systems. The success of the proposed approach is shown with two different algorithmic schemes on parallel heterogeneous systems. Furthermore, the development of a general framework allows us to easily develop and experiment with different metaheuristics to adjust them to particular problems.

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

processes scheduling
heterogeneous computing
execution time modeling


Oriented wavelet transform for image compression and denoising In this paper, we introduce a new transform for image processing, based on wavelets and the lifting paradigm. The lifting steps of a unidimensional wavelet are applied along a local orientation defined on a quincunx sampling grid. To maximize energy compaction, the orientation minimizing the prediction error is chosen adaptively. A fine-grained multiscale analysis is provided by iterating the decomposition on the low-frequency band. In the context of image compression, the multiresolution orientation map is coded using a quad tree. The rate allocation between the orientation map and wavelet coefficients is jointly optimized in a rate-distortion sense. For image denoising, a Markov model is used to extract the orientations from the noisy image. As long as the map is sufficiently homogeneous, interesting properties of the original wavelet are preserved such as regularity and orthogonality. Perfect reconstruction is ensured by the reversibility of the lifting scheme. The mutual information between the wavelet coefficients is studied and compared to the one observed with a separable wavelet transform. The rate-distortion performance of this new transform is evaluated for image coding using state-of-the-art subband coders. Its performance in a denoising application is also assessed against the performance obtained with other transforms or denoising methods.

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


Solving real car sequencing problems with ant colony optimization An automobile assembly line is usually configured as three successive shops in which the body is constructed, painted, and then assembled together with all component parts into a finished vehicle. However, many published production sequencing models ignore the first two shops and base their results only on the requirements and constraints of the assembly shop. In this article, we propose to more closely follow the actual industrial structure. We therefore first propose a single objective mathematical model for scheduling the paint and assembly shops. We then propose an ACO metaheuristic for solving a multiple-objective formulation. Data provided by Groupe Renault show that the proposed approach offers better solutions than those of current practice.

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

car sequencing problem
integer linear programming


A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for feature selection based on mutual information with a new redundancy measure A new feature redundancy measurement based on mutual information was proposed. A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for feature selection was presented. Pareto optimality was used to evaluate candidate feature subsets and find compact feature subsets. Experiments showed that our algorithm could select compact and discriminative feature subsets.

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

data mining
multi-objective evolutionary algorithm


The effects of external electric field: creating non-zero first hyperpolarizability for centrosymmetric benzene and strongly enhancing first hyperpolarizability for non-centrosymmetric edge-modified graphene ribbon H2N-(3,3)ZGNR-NO2 How to generate a non-zero first hyperpolarizability for a centrosymmetric molecule is a challenging question. In this paper, an external (pump) electric field is used to make a centrosymmetric benzene molecule generate a non-zero value of the electric field induced first hyperpolarizability (beta (F) ). This comes from the centrosymmetry breaking of electron cloud. Two interesting rules are exhibited. (1) beta (F) is anisotropic for different directional fields (F (i), i = X, Y, Z). (2) The field dependence of beta (F) is a non-monotonic function, and an optimum external electric field causes the maximum value of beta (F) . The largest first hyperpolarizability beta (F) reaches the considerable level of 3.9 x 10(5) a.u. under F (Y) = 330 x 10(-4) a.u. for benzene. The external electric field effects on non-centrosymmetric edge-modified graphene ribbon H2N-(3,3)ZGNR-NO2 was also studied in this work. The first hyperpolarizability reaches as much as 2.1 x 10(7) a.u. under F (X) = 600 x 10(-4) a.u. for H2N-(3,3)ZGNR-NO2. We show that the external electric field can not only create a non-zero first hyperpolarizability for centrosymmetric molecule, but also remarkably enhance the first hyperpolarizability for a non-centrosymmetric molecule.

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

centrosymmetric and noncentrosymmetric nlo molecules


Evaluation of general practitioner's time investment during a store-and-forward teledermatology consultation Introduction of teledermatology in general practice changes responsibilities and workloads of general practitioners (GPs) and dermatologists. We investigated the time investment of GPs as well as the relative share of the separate teledermatology activities during a store-and-forward teledermatology consultation. Sixty-four teledermatology consultations (eight GPseight patients) were conducted in a laboratory setting. The starting and ending time of each consultation and of five separate teledermatology activities were recorded by independent observers. The impact of several GP, patient and consultation characteristics on the calculated durations was investigated with repeated measurements analysis. The mean duration of a teledermatology consultation was 11:32min (range 7:0226:44min). The activity filling out electronic referral form was the most time consuming teledermatology activity (3:12min; 28%). Most time was spent on non-TD related consultation activities, e.g. taking medical history (4:43min; 41%). The first of the eight consultations (p<0.001) and consultations with female patients (p=0.032) took on average more time than subsequent consultations (first consultations 13:42min (male patients) and 17:03min (female patients), and subsequent consultations 9:56min (male patients) and 11:08min (female patients)). Usage of store-and-forward teledermatology increases the average duration of a GP consultation with at least three and a half minutes. Further integration of teledermatology applications and electronic patients records may reduce the total duration of a consultation and increase acceptance of teledermatology in general practice.

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

telemedicine
dermatology
workload
time and motion studies


Mathematical models of complex structural systems. A linguistic vision The concept of structure is essential in the definition of a system, not only as the basis or backbone of relationships, but also as organization. But where it acquires its most relevant aspect is in ecological or socio-economic systems, where the number of relationships among objects is very high. At the same time, the structure itself is synchronic and develops, in time, a diachronic behavior. It is from the point of view of modern linguistic theories that the authors have developed a concept of structure that is based on the following assumptions: (1) The attributes may or may not be measurable. (2) Each measurable attribute defines an associative field or vocabulary. (3) The whole of all the vocabularies forms the lexicon. (4) With these elements we can define a language of L(m) models. In this paper, the authors will study the synchronic aspect of structure in complex structural models from the point of view of L(m).

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

complex system
connected functions
symbol


Multilevel iterative solvers for the edge finite element solution of the 3D Maxwell equation ? In the edge vector finite element solution of the frequency domain Maxwell equations, the presence of a large kernel of the discrete rotor operator is known to ruin convergence of standard iterative solvers. We extend the approach of [R. Hiptmair, Multigrid method for Maxwells equations, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 36 (1) (1999) 204225] and, using domain decomposition ideas, construct a multilevel iterative solver where the projection with respect to the kernel is combined with the use of a hierarchical representation of the vector finite elements. The new iterative scheme appears to be an efficient solver for the edge finite element solution of the frequency domain Maxwell equations. The solver can be seen as a variable preconditioner and, thus, accelerated by Krylov subspace techniques (e.g.GCR or FGMRES). We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach on a test problem with strong jumps in the conductivity.

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

multilevel iterative solvers
domain decomposition

ndlec vector finite elements
kernel of the rotor operator
hierarchical preconditioners


Construction of component tapes for radial placement machines With a great variation of products, PCB assembling machines must be reconfigured often, but at the same time the efficiency of the assembly process should be kept high. In this paper we consider PCB assembly machines of the radial type, which are used for manufacturing robust electronics devices. In this machine type the components are brought to the assembly point by the means of a single component tape, and a robotic arm places them onto a bare PCB one at a time. The component tape is constructed on-line by a separate feeder unit (sequencer) composed of a set of slots storing component reels of various types. While the insertion of components to the tape does not normally delay their placements on the PCB, certain (broad) components delay the processing due to the operation principle of the sequencer, thus increasing the manufacturing time. We study the problem of assigning components to the sequencer in such a way that tape construction delay is minimized, give an integer programming formulation of the problem, and present an optimization algorithm to reduce the component insertion time caused by slow components. The results of this optimization algorithm show considerable improvement against a simple feeder assignment, in case of tape instances containing repeating sequences of components.

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

printed circuit boards
flexible manufacturing
heuristics
combinatorial optimization


Cluster-Based Population Initialization for differential evolution frameworks This article proposes a procedure to perform an intelligent initialization for population-based algorithms. The proposed pre-processing procedure, namely Cluster-Based Population Initialization (CBPI) consists of three consecutive stages. At the first stage, the individuals belonging to a randomly sampled population undergo two subsequent local search algorithms, i.e. a simple local search that performs moves along the axes and Rosenbrock algorithm. At the second stage, the solutions processed by the two local searches undergo the K-means clustering algorithm and are grouped into sets on the basis of their euclidean distance. At the third stage the best individuals belonging to each cluster are saved into the initial population of a generic optimization algorithm. If the population has not been yet filled, the other individuals of the population are sampled within the clusters by using a fitness-based probabilistic criterion. This three stage procedure implicitly performs an initial screening of the problem features in order to roughly estimate the most interesting regions of the decision space. The proposed CBPI has been tested on multiple classical and modern Differential Evolution variants, on a wide array of test problems and dimensionality values as well as on a real-world problem. The proposed intelligent sampling appears to have a significant impact on the algorithmic functioning as it consistently enhances the performance of the algorithms with which it is integrated.

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

differential evolution
intelligent sampling

memetic computing
evolutionary computation


Optimal Design of Brittle Composite Materials: a Nonsmooth Approach Our goal is to design brittle composite materials yielding maximal energy dissipation for a given static load case. We focus on the effect of variation of fiber shapes on resulting crack paths and thus on the fracture energy. To this end, we formulate a shape optimization problem, in which the cost function is the fracture energy and the state problem consists in the determination of the potentially discontinuous displacement field in the two-dimensional domain. Thereby, the behavior at the crack surfaces is modeled by cohesive laws. We impose a nonpenetration condition to avoid interpenetration of opposite crack sides. Accordingly, the state problem is formulated as variational inequality. This leads to potential nondifferentiability of the shape-state mapping. For the numerical solution, we derive first-order information in the form of subgradients. We conclude the article by numerical results.

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

shape optimization
variational inequality


A differentiation-enabled Fortran 95 compiler The availability of first derivatives of vector functions is crucial for the robustness and efficiency of a large number of numerical algorithms. An upcoming new version of the differentiation-enabled NAGWare Fortran 95 compiler is described that uses programming language extensions and a semantic code transformation known as automatic differentiation to provide Jacobians of numerical programs with machine accuracy. We describe a new user interface as well as the relevant algorithmic details. In particular, we focus on the source transformation approach that generates locally optimal gradient code for single assignments by vertex elimination in the linearized computational graph. Extensive tests show the superiority of this method over the current overloading-based approach. The robustness and convenience of the new compiler-feature is illustrated by various case studies.

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


Orienting rewrite rules with the KnuthBendix order We consider two decision problems related to the KnuthBendix order (KBO). The first problem is orientability: given a system of rewrite rules R, does there exist an instance of KBO which orients every ground instance of every rewrite rule in R. The second problem is whether a given instance of KBO orients every ground instance of a given rewrite rule. This problem can also be reformulated as the problem of solving a single ordering constraint for the KBO. We prove that both problems can be solved in the time polynomial in the size of the input. The polynomial-time algorithm for orientability builds upon an algorithm for solving systems of homogeneous linear inequalities over integers. We show that the orientability problem is P-complete. The polynomial-time algorithm for solving a single ordering constraint does not need to solve systems of linear inequalities and can be run in time O(n2). Also we show that if a system is orientable using a real-valued instance of KBO, then it is also orientable using an integer-valued instance of KBO. Therefore, all our results hold both for the integer-valued and the real-valued KBO.

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

term rewriting
termination
knuthbendix orders
ordering constraints


addressing cbir efficiency, effectiveness, and retrieval subjectivity simultaneously This work is about Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), focusing on developing a Fast And Semantics-Tailored (FAST) image retrieval methodology. Specifically, the contributions of FAST methodology to the CBIR literature include: (1) development of a new indexing method based on fuzzy logic to incorporate color, texture, and shape information into a region based approach to improving the retrieval effectiveness and robustness (2) development of a new hierarchical indexing structure and the corresponding Hierarchical, Elimination-based A* Retrieval algorithm (HEAR) to significantly improve the retrieval efficiency without sacrificing the retrieval effectiveness; it is shown that HEAR is guaranteed to deliver a logarithm search in the average case (3) employment of user relevance feedbacks to tailor the semantic retrieval to each user's individualized query preference through the novel Indexing Tree Pruning (ITP) and Adaptive Region Weight Updating (ARWU) algorithms. Theoretical analysis and experimental evaluations show that FAST methodology holds a great promise in delivering fast and semantics-tailored image retrieval in CBIR.

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

region based features
relevance feedback
indexing tree pruning (itp)
content based image retrieval (cbir)
adaptive region weight updating (arwu)


EBG structure with T-shaped slits for suppression of simultaneous switching noise In this article, electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure with T-shaped slits is proposed for suppressing simultaneous switching noise. T-shaped slits, bridges, and the solid ground plane are used to constitute the novel L-EBG structure. Considering a threshold of ?35 dB, the stopband of the proposed EBG structure is about 7.29 GHz which is 1.68 GHz wider than that of a conventional L-EBG structure. Measurement results confirm the wide bandwidth of the prototype that is predicted in simulations. In addition, the lower and upper cutoff frequencies are estimated by use of lumped-component circuit models and parallel-plate waveguide models, respectively. Moreover, the IR-drop and dc resistance are examined through simulations. Additionally, common signal integrity issues in a power distribution network such as IR-drop, DC resistance, and eye diagrams are investigated and compared to a conventional L-EBG structure. 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:419426, 2015.

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

electromagnetic band gap
signal integrity
simultaneous switching noise


Desktop information systems and services: a user survey in a pharmaceutical research organisation A survey of scientist users of information systems and services in a pharmaceutical research organisation was conducted, primarily by semi-structured interview, with the primary aim of assessing, and where possible quantifying, the changes in information-related behaviour resulting from the provision of desktop information systems. Difficulties were encountered due to the great difference in the nature of work which has occurred simultaneous with, and to a degree due to, improvements in the information environment, where information tools are now central to scientific work. The results cast light on the changing nature of information handling in the new environment, and on specific issues of the `information gatekeeper', information overload, and information literacy. A cluster analysis of the results showed three distinct groups of users, `perfectionists', `pragmatists and `positivists', the grouping likely to result from personality factors.

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


Interconnect reliability A study of the effect of dimensional and porosity scaling A number of challenges linked to the reliability characterization of downscaled back-end-of-line copper/low-k interconnects are covered. Concerning copper reliability, it is shown using early data on 30nm pitch that advanced barrier/seed/plating options can counteract models that predict decreased electromigration performance in smaller dimensions. Regarding stress-induced voiding, it is discussed that porosity scaling negatively influences metal degradation due to increased stress gradients. Also, since copper degradation during high temperature storage tests is driven by different failure mechanisms, it is argued that tests at a wide range of temperatures are needed to characterize stress-induced voiding in copper/low-k systems at normal operating conditions. In addition, it is suggested that the current knowledge on the dependence of interconnect pitches and dielectric porosity on stress in copper lines needs to be taken into account when building finite element models of copper/low-k stacks. This is motivated by highlighting results of our recent study where the copper strain is varied for different copper dimensions and pattern densities. Finally, because the reliability margin of time dependent dielectric breakdown of scaled intermetal dielectrics becomes smaller, it is put forward that understanding the low voltage behaviour of time dependent dielectric breakdown becomes indispensable. A case study using fully passivated MOS capacitors without metallic barrier between the copper and the dielectric is detailed out and differences in current versus time behaviour and distributional shapes between low and high fields are highlighted.

O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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 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 B 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 set multi-cover problem in geometric settings We consider the set multi-cover problem in geometric settings. Given a set of points P and a collection of geometric shapes (or sets) F, we wish to find a minimum cardinality subset of F such that each point p ? P is covered by (contained in) at least demands d(p) sets. Here demands d(p) is an integer demand (requirement) for p. When the demands demands d(p)=1 for all p, this is the standard set cover problem. The set cover problem in geometric settings admits an approximation ratio that is better than that for the general version. In this paper, we show that similar improvements can be obtained for the multi-cover problem as well. In particular, we obtain an O(log Opt) approximation for set systems of bounded VC-dimension, and an O(1) approximation for covering points by half-spaces in three dimensions and for some other classes of shapes.

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


communication environment for sharing fond memories Fond memories are kept in one's mind and are used to reminisce from time to time. They provide not only a life of pleasure to those who possess them, but also bonds that tie people who share them together. Utilizing this property, we propose to develop an environment where people can share their feelings for fond memories, as well as empathize and communication with each other.We consider this environment like a park, where you drop in and take a rest on a bench, look at the fountain and feel comfortable atmosphere away from your daily life. Instead of benches or fountains, we provide some triggers for fond memories and create a warm environment for your heart. We named this environment "Reminiscence Park." The triggers for remembering in Reminiscence Park are the old popular songs common to the users' younger days. Such songs are expected to have many connections to people's memory because they are widely listened to.One of the many possible applications we are developing for Reminiscence Park is a prototyping system modeling a music box. Opened by one or more people, the box starts to play a common song from their youth. The box chooses the songs based on their ages and ranks them based on the activeness to their conversation.

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


Data hiding in the NTFS file system In this paper we examine the methods of hiding data in the NTFS file system. Further we discuss the analysis techniques which can be applied to detect and recover data hidden using each of these methods. We focus on sophisticated data hiding where the goal is to prevent detection by forensic analysis. Obvious data hiding techniques, for example setting the hidden attribute of a file, will not be included. Hidden data can be further obfuscated by file system independent approaches like data encryption and steganography. This paper is only concerned with the methods which are made possible by the structure of the NTFS file system, and with the recovery of hidden data, not its interpretation.

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


Cyberspace Violence against Girls and Adolescent Females Children and adolescents today are the first generation raised in a society in which technological literacy is essential for effective citizenship in the 21st century. With many more youth using digital technologies for educational and recreational purposes, there has been an increase in social problems in cyberspace, exposing them to different forms of cyberviolence. This article gives an overview of the developments in cyberspace, describes different types of cyberviolence, and focuses on cyberbullying among girls and adolescent females as both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying. At-risk online activities among girls and adolescent females as well as strategies to promote cybersafety are presented. Current research and future directions for research are reviewed

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


Portfolio symmetry and momentum ? ?? This paper presents a novel theoretical framework to model the evolution of a dynamic portfolio (i.e., a portfolio whose weights vary over time), considering a given investment policy. The framework is based on graph theory and the quantum probability. Embedding the dynamics of a portfolio into a graph, each node of the graph representing a plausible portfolio, we provide the probabilities for a dynamic portfolio to lie on different nodes of the graph, characterizing its optimality in terms of returns. The framework embeds cross-sectional phenomena, such as the momentum effect, in stochastic processes, using portfolios instead of individual stocks. We apply our methodology to an investment policy similar to the momentum strategy of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993). We find that the strategy symmetry is a source of momentum.

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

graph theory
momentum
quantum probability


Against the grain: psychologies and politics of secrecy Verne Harris explores the degree to which it still goes against the grain for archivists to open their discourses to what is outside. He suggests that what could be called the conditions of postmodernity have challenged the insularity of these discourses in profound ways, and argues that they have been enriched by engagement with other disciplines, professions and traditions. Reading against the grain of archival discourses, he goes further and argues that the boundaries between inside and outside have always been, and will always be, permeable. His illustrative reading focuses on that space we call the secret, offering a preliminary exploration of the psychologies and the politics of secrecy.

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

access
deconstruction
freedom of information
philosophy
privacy


Photonic nanometer scale metamaterials and nanoporous thermoelectric materials for enhancement of hybrid photovoltaic thermoelectric devices We design TE device with plasmonic fishnet metastructure and nanoporous TE ink and binder to improve efficiency by 11 folds of hybrid PV-TE device. Performance of different formulations of nanoporous TE filler and nanocomposite conductive binders compared to silver based conductive binder. Application of nanoporous p-type and n-type TE inks and nanoimprinted fishnet structure enables Roll to Roll manufacturing of Hybrid TE device.

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

nanoporous materials
nanostructured materials
photovoltaic systems
printed electronics


audio similarity retrieval engine This paper briefly describes an audio similarity retrieval engine included in the MUFIN project. The engine uses low-level audio descriptors defined by MPEG-7 standard for calculation of similarity measure between audio recordings. The core of the engine is implemented in Java with the use of the MESSIF framework that provides support for metric-based indexing and searching. The presentation layer of the engine is provided by the MUFIN interface.

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


State filters on fuzzy structures with internal states The aim of this paper is the study of some properties of the state filters of a state pseudo BL-algebra \(\left( A,\sigma \right) \) and also some properties of a state pseudo BL-algebra. By introducing the concepts of simple, semisimple and local state pseudo BL-algebra relative to its state filters set, we present some characterizations of a simple, semisimple and local state pseudo BL-algebras. Also, we adjust a result from universal algebra (Chinese remainder theorem) and, by introducing the concept of a primary state filter on a state BL-algebra, we present a characterization of a local state BL-algebra. We introduce the notion of extended state filter of a state filter associated to a subset of a state pseudo BL-algebra.

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

pseudo bl-algebra
bl-algebra
state operator
state-filter


Heterogeneous message passing and a link to resource management Parallel process communication and system resource management have been seen as two separate entities in parallel and distributed systems. This causes difficulties in the dynamic mapping of newly spawned processes, because the application has little or no information on the availability, the connectivity and the current work-load of the target system. As a consequence, process mappings are often sub-optimal, overloading resources on one system while other processors are idling. We present a software system named "PLUS" that provides interprocess communication between different message passing models such as MPI, PVM and PARIX, and access to resource management systems for optimal process mapping and task migration. PLUS is a light-weight, extensible and efficient communication interface. with only four commands, PLUS is almost transparent to the application code. Our current implementation supports inter-process communication between PVM, MPI and PARIX, but it can be easily extended to other vendor-specific message passing Libraries. As PLUS has been designed for wide area networks, much effort has been spent on portability and on optimizing the communication speed across internet and also intranet links.

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

computer resource management
communication protocols


Hybrid flexible flowshops with sequence-dependent setup times and machine availability constraints One of the common assumptions in the field of scheduling is that machines are always available in the planning horizon. This may not be true in realistic problems since machines might be busy processing some jobs left from previous production horizon, breakdowns or preventive maintenance activities. Another common assumption is the consideration of setup times as a part of processing times, while in some industries, such as printed circuit board and automobile manufacturing, not only setups are an important factor but also setup magnitude of a job depends on its immediately preceding job on the same machine, known as sequence-dependent setup times. In this paper, we consider hybrid flexible flowshops with sequence-dependent setup times and machine availability constraints caused by preventive maintenance. The optimization criterion is the minimization of makespan. Since this problem is NP-hard in the strong sense, we propose three heuristics, based on SPT, LPT and Johnson rule and two meta-heuristics based on genetic algorithm and simulated annealing. Computational experiments are performed to evaluate the efficiencies of the algorithms. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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

scheduling
hybrid flexible flowshops
machine availability constraints
genetic algorithm
simulated annealing


A cutting algorithm for the quadratic assignment problem We address the Quadratic Assignment Problem following a polyhedral method. We consider the Quadratic Assignment Polytope defined as the convex hull of the solutions of the linearized problem. Its dimension and a minimal description of its affine bull have been given by Padberg and Rijal (1996). Here we propose a large family of valid inequalities inducing facets. We show that the separation problem of this family is NP-complete. We propose a heuristic for the separation problem and a cutting plane algorithm based on this heuristic. Numerical results show the practical interest of this family of inequalities.

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

quadratic assignment
facets
cutting plane algorithm


statistical analysis of external interference in wireless networks External interference is the pivotal issue that degrades the performance of wireless systems significantly as more and more wireless networks coexist with the limited frequency bands but lack of investigations. As a representation, the novel technique cognitive radio networks confront the similar interference problem extensively. In this paper, general statistical analyses of absolute (interference only) and relative (the ratio of signal to interference, SIR) external interference in both omnidirectional coverage and linear coverage networks are presented respectively. The scenario considered is a general condition in cognitive radio networks or several wireless networks coexist in the same area with mutual external interference that the interferers share the same frequency bands with the signal in Nakagami- m and shadowing fading channels. Assumed that the interferers outside the service networks obey Poisson distribution in space field to model the random architectures and parameters of external interferers for lacking of knowledge at the service base station receivers. Finally, extensive understandings of the nature of external interference are provided by the simulations and conclusions.

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

gamma distribution
outage probability
frequency reuse


Error diffusion on meshes The problem of quantization for surface graphs is considered. The process of error diffusion generalized to meshes. Paths for processing mesh elements are suggested. The benefit of error diffusion at mesh processing applications is demonstrated.

B I O O O O O B 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


The impact of cognitive absorption on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in on-line learning: an extension of the technology acceptance model Internet-based learning systems are being used in many universities and firms but their adoption requires a solid understanding of the user acceptance processes. Our effort used an extended version of the technology acceptance model (TAM), including cognitive absorption, in a formal empirical study to explain the acceptance of such systems. It was intended to provide insight for improving the assessment of on-line learning systems and for enhancing the underlying system itself. The work involved the examination of the proposed model variables for Internet-based learning systems acceptance. Using an on-line learning system as the target technology, assessment of the psychometric properties of the scales proved acceptable and confirmatory factor analysis supported the proposed model structure. A partial-least-squares structural modeling approach was used to evaluate the explanatory power and causal links of the model. Overall, the results provided support for the model as explaining acceptance of an on-line learning system and for cognitive absorption as a variable that influences TAM variables.

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

online learning
cognitive absorption
tam

it acceptance and adoption
internet
perceptions


evolving computer intrusion scripts for vulnerability assessment and log analysis Evolutionary computation is used to construct undetectable computer attack scripts. Using a simulated operating system, we show that scripts can be evolved to cover their tracks and become difficult to detect from log file analysis.

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


Predicting microRNA modulation in human prostate cancer using a simple String IDentifier (SID1.0) To make faster and efficient the identification of mRNA targets common to more than one miRNA, and to identify new miRNAs modulated in specific pathways, a computer program identified as SID1.0 (simple String IDentifier) was developed and successfully applied in the identification of deregulated miRNAs in prostate cancer cells. This computationally inexpensive Fortran program is based on the strategy of exhaustive search and specifically designed to screen shared data (target genes, miRNAs and pathways) available from PicTar and DIANA-MicroT 3.0 databases. As far as we know this is the first software designed to filter data retrieved from available miRNA databases. SID1.0 takes advantage of the standard Fortran intrinsic functions for manipulating text strings and requires ASCII input files. In order to demonstrate SID1.0 applicability, some miRNAs expected from the literature to associate with cancerogenesis (miR-125b, miR-148a and miR-141), were randomly identified as main entries for SID1.0 to explore matching sequences of mRNA targets and also to explore KEGG pathways for the presence of ID codes of targeted genes. Besides genes and pathways already described in the literature, SID1.0 has proven to useful for predicting other genes involved in prostate carcinoma. These latter were used to identify new deregulated miRNAs: miR-141, miR-148a, miR-19a and miR-19b. Prediction data were preliminary confirmed by expression analysis of the identified miRNAs in androgen-dependent (LNCaP) and independent (PC3) prostate carcinoma cell lines and in normal prostatic epithelial cells (PrEC).

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

computational methods
prostate cancer (cap)
sid1.0
diana-microt 3.0
microrna prediction
exhaustive search algorithm
fortran language