Glucocorticoid Hyper- and Hypofunction It is now well documented that both increased and decreased stress responses can profoundly affect cognition and behavior. This mini review presents possible neural mechanisms subserving stress effects on memory and aggression, particularly focusing on glucocorticoid (GC) hyper- and hypofunction. First, uncontrollable stress impedes hippocampal memory and long-term potentiation (LTP). Because the hippocampus is important for the stability of long-term memory and because LTP has qualities desirable of an information storage mechanism, it has been hypothesized that stress-induced alterations in LTP contribute to memory impairments. Recent evidence suggests a neuralendocrine network comprising amygdala, prefrontal cortex (PFC), and glucocorticoids may be involved in regulating stress effects on hippocampal mnemonic functioning. Second, antisocial aggressiveness correlates with chronically decreased glucocorticoid production, and this condition leads in rats to behavioralautonomic deficits reminiscent of the human disorder. Glucocorticoid deficiency-induced antisocial aggressiveness results from functional changes in the PFC, medial and central amygdala, and altered serotonin and substance P neurotransmissions. Accordingly, a neurobiological understanding of how stress and glucocorticoid deficiency alter brain, cognition, and behavior is an important challenge facing modern neuroscience with broad implications for individual and social well-being

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

memory
aggression
hippocampus
amygdala
prefrontal cortex

learning
corticosterone
synaptic plasticity


Application of DInSAR-GPS optimization for derivation of three-dimensional surface motion of the southern California region along the San Andreas fault ? We present here a methodology that allows the combination of GPS and Differential InSAR data for the calculation of continuous three-dimensional (3D) high-resolution velocity maps with corresponding errors. It is based on analytic minimization of the Gibbs energy function, which is possible in the case when neighborhood pixels of the velocity maps are considered independent. By joining scalar DInSAR data and vector GPS data, the technique allows us to achieve significant improvement in accuracy in the components of the velocity vector in comparison with the GPS data alone. In the accompanying example, the method is used for the investigation of the creep motion of the southern San Andreas fault around the Salton Sea region. The velocity maps are calculated for two time periods (19921998 and 19972001) and also for 3D and 2D cases. The preliminary analysis of the optimized data suggests that creep on the San Andreas fault in this region is time-dependent.

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


A column generation approach to capacitated p-median problems The Capacitated p-median problem (CPMP) seeks to solve the optimal location of p facilities, considering distances and capacities for the service to be given by each median. In this paper we present a column generation approach to CPMP. The identified restricted master problem optimizes the covering of 1-median clusters satisfying the capacity constraints, and new columns are generated considering knapsack subproblems. The Lagrangean/surrogate relaxation has been used recently to accelerate subgradient like methods. In this work the Lagrangean/surrogate relaxation is directly identified from the master problem dual and provides new bounds and new productive columns through a modified knapsack subproblem. The overall column generation process is accelerated, even when multiple pricing is observed. Computational tests are presented using instances taken from real data from So Jos dos Campos city. The location of facilities is a central problem for strategic decisions. Many applications have been explored and the resulting mathematical problems are considered by heuristics and exact methods. We revive in this paper the application of column generation to a capacitated p-median location problem. There has been renewed interest in the column generation approach as it can be faster than nonlinear subgradient methods. However, in many cases a straightforward application of column generation may result in slow convergence. We explore in this paper an alternative to stabilize the column generation when applied to the location problem.

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

location problems
capacitated p-median problems
lagrangean/surrogate relaxation


Estimation algorithm from delayed measurements with correlation between signal and noise using covariance information This paper considers the least-squares linear estimation problem of signals from randomly delayed observations when the additive white noise is correlated with the signal. The delay values are treated as unknown variables, modelled by a binary white noise with values zero or one; these values indicate that the measurements arrive in time or they are delayed by one sampling time. A recursive one-stage prediction and filtering algorithm is obtained by an innovation approach and do not use the state-space model of the signal. It is assumed that both, the autocovariance functions of the signal and the crosscovariance function between the signal and the observation noise are expressed in a semi-degenerate kernel form; using this information and the delay probabilities, the estimators are recursively obtained.

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

randomly delayed observations
covariance information

least-squares estimation
innovation process
signal-noise correlation


Predictors of Damage Progression in Portuguese Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a longer life expectancy. The occurrence of irreversible damage has become a major concern. The present study assessed damage progression in patients with SLE over a 2-year period and identified baseline features associated with damage accrual. Two hundred and twenty-one patients that fulfilled criteria for SLE and had a follow-up longer than 6 months were enrolled. Demographic, clinical, and immunological data were collected at baseline. Accumulated organ damage was scored using the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology damage index (SDI). Patients were prospectively followed and SDI assessment repeated at 2 years. At baseline 72 patients (33%) presented some irreversible damage, and after 2 years 53 had accrued new damage. The mean SDI for the whole cohort increased from 0.582 to 0.980. Damage progression was higher in ocular, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal systems. Older age [OR = 1.045; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0211.069; P= 0.03], presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (OR = 3.047; 95% CI 1.1697.941; P= 0.02), steroid use (OR = 6.401; 95% CI 1.60125.210; P= 0.008), azathioprine use (OR = 3.501; CI 1.22410.012; P= 0.01), and hypertension (OR = 3.825; 95% CI 1.4909.820; P= 0.005) were predictors of damage progression in multivariate analysis. Overall SDI increased over time, with some systems being affected more frequently. Demographic and clinical characteristics, co-morbidity, and treatment options may contribute to irreversible damage. It is necessary to determine whether the control of modifiable factors (e.g., hypertension and judicious use of medications) might prevent damage progression in SLE patients.

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

systemic lupus erythematosus
organ damage


Simultaneous identification of time-varying parameters and estimation of system states using iterative learning observers This article presents the design of an iterative learning observer (ILO) for the purpose of estimating system states while simultaneously identifying time-varying parameters. The proposed ILO uses a novel updating mechanism to identify time-varying parameters instead of using integrators which are commonly used in classical adaptive observers to identify constant parameters while estimating system states. The main idea behind the design of the ILO is the use of learning, i.e. previous information is combined into the ILO for identifying time-varying parameters in real time. Stability and convergence of state and parameter estimation errors are established and proven. An illustrative example exhibits the effectiveness of the proposed ILO.

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

estimation of system states
iterative learning observer


Developing a grid-enabled spatial Web portal for Internet GIServices and geospatial cyberinfrastructure Geospatial cyberinfrastructure integrates distributed geographic information processing (DGIP) technology, high-performance computing resources, interoperable Web services, and sharable geographic knowledge to facilitate the advancement of geographic information science (GIScience) research, geospatial technology, and geographic education. This article addresses three major development issues of geospatial cyberinfrastructure: the performance of grid-enabled DGIP services, the integration of Internet GIService resources, and the technical challenges of spatial Web portal implementation. A four-tier grid-enabled Internet GIService framework was designed for geospatial cyberinfrastructure. The advantages of the grid-enabled framework were demonstrated by a spatial Web portal. The spatial Web portal was implemented based on current available Internet technologies and utilizes multiple computing resources and high-performance systems, including local PC clusters and the TeraGrid. By comparing their performance testing results, we found that grid computing (TeraGrid) is more powerful and flexible than local PC clusters. However, job queuing time and relatively poor performance of cross-site computation are the major obstacles of grid computing for geospatial cyberinfrastructure. Detailed analysis of different computational settings and performance testing contributes to a deeper understanding of the improvements of DGIP services and geospatial cyberinfrastructure. This research demonstrates that resource/service integration and performance improvement can be accomplished by deploying the new four-tier grid-enabled Internet GIService framework. This article also identifies four research priorities for developing geospatial cyberinfrastructure: the design of GIS middleware, high-performance geovisualization methods, semantic GIService, and the integration of multiple GIS grid applications.

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

cyberinfrastructure
internet giservices
grid computing
web services


designing high bandwidth on-chip caches In this paper we evaluate the performance of high bandwidth caches that employ multiple ports, multiple cycle hit times, on-chip DRAM, and a line buffer to find the organization that provides the best processor performance. Processor performance is measured in execution time using a dynamic superscalar processor running realistic benchmarks that include operating system references. The results show that a large dual-ported multi-cycle pipelined SRAM cache with a line buffer maximizes processor performance. A large pipelined cache provides both a low miss rate and a high CPU clock frequency. Dual-porting the cache and the use of a line buffer provide the bandwidth needed by a dynamic superscalar processor. In addition, the line buffer makes the pipelined dual-ported cache the best option by increasing cache port bandwidth and hiding cache latency.

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

processor
organization
cache
use
latency
dynamic
performance
operating system
clock
bandwidth
paper
caches

benchmark
pipeline
timing
buffers
evaluation
superscalar processor


Generating consensus priority point vectors: a logarithmic goal programming approach The analytic hierarchy process (Saaty, The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning, Priority Setting, Resource Allocation, New York: McGraw-Hill 1980) is a popular technique for addressing multiple-criteria decision-making problems (MCDMs). Various techniques have been proposed for using the AHP in group situations. Fundamental to the AHP is the generation of priority point vectors from matrices of pairwise comparison data. In this paper, we present a logarithmic goal programming model for generating the 'consensus' priority point vector from the set of individual priority point vectors. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Segmentation of B-mode cardiac ultrasound data by Bayesian Probability Maps We want to determine the position of the endocardium in B-mode ultrasound sequences. Bayesian Probability Maps give the probability of pixels being in the endocardium. Map provides information of uncertainty instead of single curve. Inter-observer study shows that the results are comparable to expert segmentations. Proposed method outperforms model of Chen et al. on our test data.

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


Integrated optimal topology design and shape optimization using neural networks In this paper, neural network- and feature-based approaches are introduced to overcome current shortcomings in the automated integration of topology design and shape optimization. The topology optimization results are reconstructed in terms of features, which consist of attributes required for automation and integration in subsequent applications. Features are defined as cost-efficient simple shapes for manufacturing. A neural network-based image-processing technique is presented to match the arbitrarily shaped holes inside the structure with predefined features. The effectiveness of the proposed approach in integrating topology design and shape optimization is demonstrated with several experimental examples.

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

topology optimization
shape optimization
neural networks


Estrogen as a Neuroprotective Agent in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury The following review is a brief discussion about spinal cord injury and the possibility of using estrogen as a neuroprotective agent. There are several pathways by which secondary cell death can occur following spinal cord injury, including infiltration of inflammatory cells, generation of reactive oxygen species, decreases in spinal cord blood flow, and increases in intracellular Ca2+ levels. This secondary damage leads to apoptotic cell death, and the neuroprotective effects of pharmacologic agents have been investigated using experimentally induced spinal cord injury in animals. Currently, only high-dose methylprednisolone is advocated for the treatment of patients following spinal cord injury. Estrogen has been shown to be neuroprotective in both in vitro and in vivo studies. There are several possible mechanisms of action by which estrogen may attenuate damage following spinal cord injury and improve functional outcome. Estrogen has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties. Estrogen levels are correlated with an increase in post-traumatic blood flow to injured tissue. Estrogen may also upregulate protein levels of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 and may attenuate the post-traumatic influx of Ca2+.

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

neuroprotectant anti-inflammatory anti-oxidant apoptosis


A novel Delta Sigma control system processor and its VLSI implementation This paper describes a novel control system processor architecture based on AY modulation known as the Delta Sigma-CSP. The Delta Sigma-CSP utilizes 1-bit processing which is a new concept in digital control applications with the direct benefit of making multi-bit multiplication operations redundant. A simple conditional-negate-and-add (CNA) unit is instead used for operations in control law implementations. For this reason, the proposed processor has a very small silicon footprint and runs at very high frequencies making it ideal for high-sampling rate, real-time control applications. A number of Delta Sigma-CSP configurations have been implemented as VLSI hard macros in a high-performance 0.13-mu m CMOS process and a particular configuration achieved a post-route operating frequency of 355 MHz resulting in a 2.17 MHz sampling rate for a fourth-order control law implementation. Additional results prove that the Delta Sigma-CSP compares very favorably, in terms of silicon area and sampling rates, to two other specialized digital control processing systems, including direct, hardwired implementation of control laws; at the same time, it substantially outperforms software implementations of control laws running on very wide, general-purpose VLIW architectures.

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

1-bit processing delta sigma modulation
system-on-chip (soc)


Clock-skew-Optimization methodology for substrate-noise reduction with supply-current folding In a synchronous clock distribution network with negligible skews, digital circuits switch simultaneously on the clock edge; therefore, they generate a lot of substrate noise due to the resulting sharp peaks on the supply current. A solution is to split a large design in different clock regions and introduce intentional clock skews between them, while taking the timing constraints into account. In this paper, the authors present a complete design flow to optimize the clock tree for less substrate-noise generation in large digital systems. It proposes a technique to assign combinatorial cells and flip-flops to the clock regions. It also takes into account the impact of unintentional clock skew such as jitter on the computed skews in order to assure a robust design. During the optimization, it uses compressed supply-current profiles to improve the CPU time. Experimental results show more than a factor-of-2 reduction in substrate-noise generation from large digital circuits of which the skews are optimized.

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

deep submicrometer
ground bounce
low-noise digital design
mixed analog-digital ics
power modeling and estimation


computer chess programs (panel) Last year, during ACM'70 in New York, the First United States Computer Chess Championship was held. Six programs competed, with Northwestern University's CHESS 3.0 winning the tournament. This year at ACM'71, the Second Annual Computer Chess Championship and a panel of the programs' authors are scheduled. At the time of this writing, there are six programs entered in the tournament. Presented below are short summaries of authors' panel presentations, giving some details of their programs and discussing techniques for developing more effective chess playing programs. Mr. David Levy, an international chess master from the University of Glasgow, is the tournament director for the chess championship and a discussant during the panel.

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 B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O 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 chess championship
chess playing programs

artificial intelligence
tree searching
minimax
heuristic programming
alpha-beta pruning


Attribute-based ring signcryption scheme In this paper, we present attribute-based ring signcryption scheme, which realizes the concept of ring signcryption in the attribute-based encryption frame firstly. In our system, it allows a user to signcrypt a message by a set of attributes that are chosen without revealing its identity. In additional, we propose the security models and prove the confidentiality and unforgeability of our schemes. We also present the efficiency of our scheme by comparisons. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

attribute-based encryption
provable security
cryptography


Root isolation of zero-dimensional polynomial systems with linear univariate representation In this paper, a linear univariate representation for the roots of a zero-dimensional polynomial equation system is presented, where the complex roots of the polynomial system are represented as linear combinations of the roots of several univariate polynomial equations. An algorithm is proposed to compute such a representation for a given zero-dimensional polynomial equation system based on Grobner basis computation. The main advantage of this representation is that the precision of the roots of the system can be easily controlled. In fact, based on the linear univariate representation, we can give the exact precisions needed for isolating the roots of the univariate equations in order to obtain roots of the polynomial system with a given precision. As a consequence, a root isolating algorithm for a zero-dimensional polynomial equation system can be easily derived from its linear univariate representation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

linear univariate representation
root isolation
grobner basis

zero-dimensional polynomial system
local generic position


Visions and open challenges for a knowledge-based culturomics The concept of culturomics was born out of the availability of massive amounts of textual data and the interest to make sense of cultural and language phenomena over time. Thus far however, culturomics has only made use of, and shown the great potential of, statistical methods. In this paper, we present a vision for a knowledge-based culturomics that complements traditional culturomics. We discuss the possibilities and challenges of combining knowledge-based methods with statistical methods and address major challenges that arise due to the nature of the data; diversity of sources, changes in language over time as well as temporal dynamics of information in general. We address all layers needed for knowledge-based culturomics, from natural language processing and relations to summaries and opinions.

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

statistical analysis
knowledge-based analysis
temporal text analysis
digital humanities
escience
einfrastructure


Enhanced power system stabilizer via integrated tabufuzzy knowledge based controller An integrated tabufuzzy knowledge based controller applied to enhance the performance of power system stabilizer (PSS) is presented in this paper. The fuzzy knowledge based controller (FKBC) has been developed to perform the function of a PSS and to provide a supplementary signal to the excitation system of the synchronous generator. The method used for storing and representing the fuzzy rules is called the fuzzy associative memory (FAM) matrix. The well-defined FAM determines the performance of the FKBC and hence the tabu search algorithm is proposed and applied to determine the construction and optimization of the FAM. The controller has been tested in the case of single machine infinite bus and multi-machine systems for various types of disturbance. To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, the comparison with the conventional PSS is presented.

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

tabu search
fuzzy knowledge based controller
fuzzy associative memory
power system stabilizer

dynamic stability
low-frequency oscillations


The

PRALINE

online

server:

optimising

progressive

multiple

alignment

on

the

web

We

introduce

the

online

server

for

PRALINE

an

iterative

versatile

progressive

multiple

sequence

alignment

(MSA)

tool.

PRALINE

provides

various

MSA

optimisation

strategies

including

weighted

global

and

local

profile

pre-processing,

secondary

structure-guided

alignment

and

a

reliability

measure

for

aligned

individual

residue

positions.

The

latter

can

also

be

used

to

optimise

the

alignment

when

the

profile

pre-processing

strategies

are

iterated.

In

addition,

we

have

modelled

the

server

output

to

enable

comprehensive

visualisation

of

the

generated

alignment

and

easy

figure

generation

for

publications.

The

alignment

is

represented

in

five

default

colour

schemes

based

on:

residue

type,

position

conservation,

position

reliability,

residue

hydrophobicity

and

secondary

structure;

depending

on

the

options

set.

We

have

also

implemented

a

custom

colour

scheme

that

allows

the

user

to

select

which

colour

will

represent

one

or

more

amino

acids

in

the

alignment.

The

grouping

of

sequences,

on

which

the

alignment

is

based,

can

also

be

visualised

as

a

dendrogram.

The

PRALINE

algorithm

is

designed

to

work

more

as

a

toolkit

for

MSA

rather

than

a

one

step

process.

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

profile pre-processing
secondary structure-guided msa
positional reliability


CoLD: a versatile detection system for colorectal lesions in endoscopy video-frames In this paper, we present CoLD (colorectal lesions detector) an innovative detection system to support colorectal cancer diagnosis and detection of pre-cancerous polyps, by processing endoscopy images or video frame sequences acquired during colonoscopy. It utilizes second-order statistical features that are calculated on the wavelet transformation of each image to discriminate amongst regions of normal or abnormal tissue. An artificial neural network performs the classification of the features. CoLD integrates the feature extraction and classification algorithms under a graphical user interface, which allows both novice and expert users to utilize effectively all system's functions. It has been developed in close cooperation with gastroenterology specialists and has been tested on various colonoscopy videos. The detection accuracy of the proposed system has been estimated to be more than 95%. As it has been resulted, it can be used as a supplementary diagnostic tool for colorectal lesions.

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

medical imaging
computer aided diagnosis
texture
neural networks


Dynamic conceptual design of industrial processes This paper focuses on chemical process design and layout optimization based on a theoretical approach that takes into account the dynamic feature of price/cost fluctuations. As originally supposed, conceptual and systematic process design consider fixed prices and costs as input data in their models. These models do not account for well-known price and cost fluctuations such as electric energy and crude oil prices. The conventional modeling approach to conceptual design can find a sub-optimal solution because of neglecting the dynamic changes of economic terms within a given time horizon. This manuscript modifies the perspective, and considers the fluctuations of prices and costs within the conceptual design activity, in order to maximize a so-called economic potential. The term fluctuation refers to the deterministic variations of prices and costs while it does not quantify the stochastic oscillations of the market. These oscillations are bound to the mood of investors and require a forecasting approach, which is typical of forms of investment such as the exchange-traded derivatives. A straightforward case study, based on an energy intensive chemical process, shows the benefits and the opportunities of this approach. The mathematical model is based on the implementation of dynamic superstructures, which call for a MINLP formulation. Finally, the manuscript presents and discusses some numerical results and the economic benefits coming from the dynamic approach to conceptual design. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

dynamic conceptual design
dynamic superstructures
price and cost fluctuations
economic potential
process design


music compositional intelligence with an affective flavor The consideration of human feelings in automated music generation by intelligent music systems, albeit a compelling theme, has received very little attention. This work aims to computationally specify a system's music compositional intelligence that tightly couples with the listener's affective perceptions. First, the system induces a model that describes the relationship between feelings and musical structures. The model is learned by applying the inductive logic programming paradigm of FOIL coupled with the Diverse Density weighting metric over a dataset that was constructed using musical score fragments that were hand-labeled by the listener according to a semantic differential scale that uses bipolar affective descriptor pairs. A genetic algorithm, whose fitness function is based on the acquired model and follows basic music theory, is then used to generate variants of the original musical structures. Lastly, the system creates chordal and non-chordal tones out of the GA-obtained variants. Empirical results show that the system is 80.6\% accurate at the average in classifying the affective labels of the musical structures and that it is able to automatically generate musical pieces that stimulate four kinds of impressions, namely, favorable-unfavorable, bright-dark, happy-sad, and heartrending-not heartrending .

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

affective computing
automated reasoning
user modeling
adaptive user interface


Model-checking dense-time duration calculus Since the seminal work of Zhou Chaochen, M. R. Hansen, and R Sestoft on decidability of dense-time Duration Calculus [ZHS93] it is well known that decidable fragments of Duration Calculus can only be obtained through withdrawal of much of the interesting vocabulary of this logic. While this was formerly taken as an indication that key-press verification of implementations with respect to elaborate Duration Calculus specifications were also impossible, we show that the model property is well decidable for realistic designs which feature natural constraints on their switching dynamics. The key issue is that the classical undecidability results rely on a notion of validity of a formula that refers to a class of models which is considerably richer than the possible behaviours of actual embedded real-time systems: that of finitely variable trajectories. By analysing two suitably sparser model classes we obtain model-checking procedures for rich subsets of Duration Calculus. Together with undecidability results also obtained, this sheds light upon the exact borderline between decidability and undecidability of Duration Calculi and related logics.

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 B O O O O O O O O

dense-time duration calculus
model-checking


towards best practices in implementing and operating for the cloud Cloud computing is the latest technology evolution and potential silver bullet, and there is both great expectation and fear to what consequences these technologies might cause. Based on the experience with the lack of adoption of SOA among the general development community the recommendation is to make sure that the development community engage in how cloud computing evolves. Although there is already strong support for these technologies from companies such as IBM and Microsoft, there is a need to explore good ways of implementing and operating services for the Cloud to ensure quality and productivity. In addition - due to the potential rapid availability of services in the cloud it is important to start exploring consequences of using such services, for instance access control, regulatory issues, development practices, security and practical operational issues. Capturing and discussing best practices on these subjects will contribute to a healthy movement in the right direction for those who will develop services for the Cloud.

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


Multi-mechanism reliabflity modeling and management in dynamic systems Reliability failure mechanisms, such as time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB), electromigration, and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI), have become a key concern in integrated circuit (IC) design. The traditional approach to reliability qualification assumes that the system will operate at maximum performance continuously under worst case voltage and temperature conditions. In reality, due to widely varying environmental conditions and an increased use of dynamic control techniques, such as dynamic voltage scaling and sleep modes, the typical system spends a very small fraction of its operational time at maximum voltage and temperature. In this paper, we show how this results in a reliability "slack" that can be leveraged to provide increased performance during periods of peak processing demand. We develop a novel, real time reliability model based on workload driven conditions. Based on this model, we then propose a new dynamic reliability management (DRM) scheme that results in 20%-35% performance improvement during periods of peak computational demand while ensuring the required reliability lifetime.

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

integrated circuit (ic) reliability
system-level reliability modeling


Assessing requirements engineering and software test alignmentFive case studies REST-bench assesses how requirements and test engineers coordinate. Is based on a taxonomy that has been used to describe REST alignment methods. Has been applied at five companies, both in Agile and plan-driven environments. Provides guidelines, best practices and effort estimates for practitioner adoption. Has been judged as efficient and effective in identifying alignment gaps.

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


A vision inspection system for the surface defects of strongly reflected metal based on multi-class SVM This paper describes the designing and testing process of a vision system for strongly reflected metal's surface defects detection. In the authors' view, an automatic inspection system has the following stages: image acquisition, image pre-processing, feature extraction and classification. Thus, the system including four subsystems is designed, and image processing method and pattern recognition algorithm that perform specific functions are outlined. First, the study uses wavelet smoothing method to eliminate noise from the images. Then, the images are segmented by Otsu threshold. At last, five characteristics based on spectral measure of the binary images are collected and input into a support vector machine (SVM). Furthermore, kernel function selection and parameters settings which are used for SVM method are evaluated and discussed. Also, a very difficult detection case for the surface defects of strongly reflected metal is depicted in details. The classification results demonstrate that the proposed method can identify seven classes of metal surface defects effectively, and the results are summarized and interpreted. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

strongly reflected metal
feature extraction
support vector machine


Quick decision-making support for inspection allocation planning with rapidly changing customer requirements Manufacturing products with multiple quality characteristics is always one of the main concerns for an advanced manufacturing system. To assure product quality, finite automatic inspection systems should be available and employed. Inspection planning to allocate inspection stations should then be performed to manage limited inspection resources.

O O O O B 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

inspection allocation
multiple quality characteristics

inspection resource constraint
internal cost
external cost


teaching students to think nondeterministically Nondeterminism is a fundamental concept of computer science. However, since it is a very abstract concept, teaching and learning nondeterminism is difficult. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the teaching and learning processes of nondeterminism: the extent to which undergraduate students of computer science perceive that nondeterministic automata exhibit nondeterministic behavior, that is, they are unpredictable and inconsistent. First we show that students tend to think of nondeterministic automata as consistent machines; then we show that an explicit intervention can significantly affect students' mental models of nondeterministic automata in the direction of improving their perception of nondeterministic behavior.

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


A new mechanism for maintaining diversity of Pareto archive in multi-objective optimization The article introduces a new mechanism for selecting individuals to a Pareto archive. It was combined with a micro-genetic algorithm and tested on several problems. The ability of this approach to produce individuals uniformly distributed along the Pareto set without negative impact on convergence is demonstrated on presented results. The new concept was confronted with NSGA-II, SPEA2, and IBEA algorithms from the PISA package. Another studied effect is the size of population versus number of generations for small populations.

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

multi-objective optimization
micro-genetic algorithm


Analysis and evaluation of the top-\(k\) most influential location selection query In this paper, we propose a new type of queries to retrieve the top-k most influential locations from a candidate set \(C\) given sets of customers \(M\) and existing facilities \(F\). The influence models the popularity of a facility. Such queries have wide applications in decision support systems. A naive solution sequentially scans (SS) all data sets, which is expensive, and hence, we investigate two branch-and-bound algorithms for the query, namely Estimate Expanding Pruning (EEP) and Bounding Influence Pruning (BIP). Both algorithms follow the best first traverse. On determining the traversal order, while EEP leverages distance metrics between nodes, BIP relies on half plane pruning which avoids the repetitive estimations in EEP. As our experiments shown, BIP is much faster than SS which outperforms EEP, while the worst-case complexity of EEP and BIP is worse than that of SS. To improve the efficiency, we further propose a Nearest Facility Circle Join (NFCJ) algorithm. NFCJ builds an influence R-tree on the influence relationship between customers and existing facilities and joins the candidate R-tree with the influence R-tree to obtain the results. We compare all algorithms and conclude that NFCJ is the best solution, which outperforms SS, EEP, and BIP by orders of magnitude.

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


Capturing human data in a letter counting task: Accessibility and action-centeredness in representing cognitive skills This work presents an integrated model of skill learning that takes into account both implicit and explicit processes and both action-centered and non-action-centered knowledge. The existing distinction between procedural and declarative knowledge unnecessarily confounds these two aspects (action-centeredness and accessibility), and can be made clearer through separating the two aspects. The model is used to simulate human data in a letter counting task. The work shows how the data in this task may be captured using either action-centered knowledge alone or both action-centered and non-action-centered knowledge, though the combined approach produced a better fit. The results demonstrate the difference between these approaches and provide a new perspective on skill learning.

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

cognitive architecture
skill acquisition
alphabetic arithmetic
procedural knowledge
implicit knowledge
explicit knowledge


Spatial and temporal visual attention prediction in videos using eye movement data Visual attention detection in static images has achieved outstanding progress in recent years whereas much less effort has been devoted to learning visual attention in video sequences. In this paper, we propose a novel method to model spatial and temporal visual attention for videos respectively through learning from human gaze data. The spatial visual attention mainly predicts where viewers look in each video frame while the temporal visual attention measures which video frame is more likely to attract viewers? interest. Our underlying premise is that objects as well as their movements, instead of conventional contrast-related information, are major factors in dynamic scenes to drive visual attention. Firstly, the proposed models extract two types of bottom-up features derived from multi-scale object filter responses and spatiotemporal motion energy, respectively. Then, spatiotemporal gaze density and inter-observer gaze congruency are generated using a large collection of human-eye gaze data to form two training sets. Finally, prediction models of temporal visual attention and spatial visual attention are learned based on those two training sets and bottom-up features, respectively. Extensive evaluations on publicly available video benchmarks and applications in interestingness prediction of movie trailers demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed work.

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

spatial visual attention
temporal visual attention
human gaze
spatiotemporal gaze density


A Double Pulse MIMO Frequency Diverse Array Radar for Improved Range-Angle Localization of Target In this paper, we have proposed a double pulse multiple input multiple outputfrequency diverse array (MIMOFDA) radar to improve the range-angle localization of the target. Although frequency diverse array (FDA) radar has been widely used to generate both range and angle dependent beamforming, however, it is difficult for FDA to localize the target in both dimensions due to strong coupling of range and angle dimension. To overcome this inability of FDA radar, a double pulse based MIMOFDA has been presented here. MIMOFDA can be obtained by partitioning of FDA transmit array into subarrays and then transmit a unique waveform from each subarray. The resultant MIMOFDA radar will send a pulse with zero frequency increment to locate the target in angle dimension, which is followed by a pulse with suitable frequency increment to locate the target in range dimension. Using the MIMOFDA radar with double pulse method has improved the range-angle localization of the target. Simulations and results have verified the effectiveness of the proposed radar. The Cramer Rao lower bound for the proposed radar has also been derived and compared with the double pulse FDA radar.

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

range-angle localization
range dependent beamforming
fda with subarrays
double pulse radar


Security analysis of joint group key agreement protocol In a secure group communication, a group key agreement is to provide a secret key exchange among a group of users. When a new user joins the group, a new group key will be established. In this paper, we analyse Horng's joint protocol and show that this protocol does not provide backward secrecy. This means that a new joining user is able to discover the previous group key used by the previous group member.

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


Absorbing boundary condition on elliptic boundary for finite element analysis of water wave diffraction by large elongated bodies In a domain method of solution of exterior scalar wave equation, the radiation condition needs to be imposed on a truncation boundary of the modelling domain. The Bayliss, Gunzberger and Turkel (BGT) boundary dampers of first- and second-orders, which require a circular cylindrical truncation boundary in the diffraction-radiation problem of water waves, have been particularly successful in this task. However, for an elongated body, an elliptic cylindrical truncation boundary has the potential to reduce the modelling domain and hence the computational effort. Grote and Keller [On non-reflecting boundary conditions. Journal of Computational Physics 1995; 122: 231-243] proposed extension of the first- and second-order BGT dampers for the elliptic radiation boundary and used these conditions to the acoustic scattering by an elliptic scatterer using the finite difference method. In this paper, these conditions are implemented for the problem of diffraction of water waves using the finite element method. Also, it is shown that the proposed extension works well only for head-on wave incidence. To remedy this, two new elliptic dampers are proposed, one for beam-on incidence and the other for general wave incidence. The performance of all the three dampers is studied using a numerical example of diffraction by an elliptic cylinder. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

absorbing boundary condition
elongated bodies
finite element method
wave diffraction


Integrating QoS awareness with virtualization in cloud computing systems for delay-sensitive applications We investigate the QoS-aware virtual machine placement (QAVMP) problem. We formulate the QAVMP problem as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model. We propose a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm to efficiently solve the QAVMP problem. A bipartite graph is used to model all possible placement relationships of virtual machines. The proposed heuristic algorithm can maximize the profit of cloud provider.

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 O O O O O O 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

cloud computing
virtualization
heuristic algorithm

quality of service
technique integration


Participatory modeling and the dilemma of diffuse nitrogen management in a residential watershed Whereas point sources of nutrients are well understood and controllable, there is growing concern about non-point sources, especially those that are related to individual property owners. Modeling tools were used to analyze and visualize the fate of nitrogen from three anthropogenic sources: septic tanks, atmospheric deposition, and fertilizer. Our results suggest that septic tanks may be a less significant contributor to surface water nitrogen pollution in the short-term whereas fertilizer used at the home scale is a more significant source than previously thought. Participation in the study was solicited from community stakeholders who were instrumental in understanding how models could be applied to local decision making, in making appropriate model assumptions, and in developing politically feasible scenarios. Stakeholders used the model results to develop recommendations for the Calvert County Board of Commissioners. Recommendations include mandating nitrogen removal septic tanks for some homes, intensive citizen education about fertilizer usage, local regulation of fertilizer sales, reduction in automobile traffic, and cooperation with regional regulatory agencies working to reduce regional NOx emissions. We explore how the participatory process can be used to influence decision-making, management policies, and citizen education in Calvert County, MD, to reduce all anthropogenic sources of nitrogen to local waters.

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

spatial modeling
onsite sewage disposal systems
septic systems
landscape
decentralized wastewater
water quality
residential fertilizer use


Efficient polynomial root-refiners: A survey and new record efficiency estimates A typical iterative polynomial root-finder begins with a relatively slow process of computing a crude but sufficiently close initial approximation to a root and then rapidly refines it. The policy of using the same iterative process at both stages of computing an initial approximation and refining it, however, is neither necessary nor most effective. The efficiency of an iteration at the former stage resists formal study and is usually decided empirically, whereas formal study of the efficiency at the latter stage of refinement is not hard and is the subject of the current paper. We define this local efficiency as log 10 q d = log 10 ( q 1 / d ) (q q is the convergence order, and d d is the number of function evaluations per iteration); it is inversely proportional to the number of flops involved. Assuming that about 2n 2 n flops are needed per evaluation of a polynomial of a degree n n at a single point, we extend the definition to cover the recent matrix methods for polynomial root-finding as well as some methods that combine n n approximations to all n n roots to refine them simultaneously. For the approximation of a single root of a polynomial of degree n n , the maximum local efficiency achieved so far is log102?0.301 log 10 2 ? 0.301 , but we show its growth to infinity for simultaneous approximation of all n n roots as n n grows to infinity.

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

iterative root-refiners
simultaneous iterations
polynomial factorization
companion matrix methods


Applications of blogging in problem based learning The context of the study presented in this paper is a sixth-semester undergraduate course on Relational database management system that was held in session 20092010. The course is part of the bachelors degree curriculum of Computer Science and Engineering branch at Punjab Technical University, Punjab, India. It consists of a lecture course and a concurrent lab course. The common approach has been to divide the course into lectures, tutorials, and practicals. To conduct practical sessions, lab plan is prepared beforehand by the faculty. The course duration is 1416weeks. Here the lab course was conducted in a blended learning mode, starting with syllabus related tasks, then subject specific projects, and presenting team project results. Problem based learning (PBL) and Blogging have been introduced for practical sessions. This paper describes this novel approach in which problems are designed to cover the syllabus topics, and blogging is used to bridge the communication gap. A significant difference was seen between performance and attitude of the treatment group (PBL with blogging) and control group (only PBL) for Lab sessions. Additionally teamwork and communication skills were also significantly improved in the case of PBL with blogging class.

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


Neuropilins, Semaphorins, and Their Role in Thymocyte Development Some molecules described in the nervous system are also expressed in cells involved in the control of the immune response, suggesting they have a role as common mechanisms between neuroendocrine and immune systems. In this review, we focus on the expression and role of neuropilins (NPs) and their soluble ligands class 3 semaphorins in thymus physiology, particularly migration of developing thymocytes. We also discuss the concept of multivectorial thymocyte migration, including semaphorins, as a new individual cell migration vector.

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

semaphorins
neuropilins
thymus
thymocyte migration
thymocyte development


On the complexity of minimizing interference in ad-hoc and sensor networks One of the most critical factors for lifetime and operability of ad-hoc and sensor networks is the limited amount of available energy. TO this respect, minimizing the interference in the network (i.e., the overlapping of signals at network nodes) has certainly a positive effect, because it induces a reduction of the number of conflicting transmissions, and then results in an overall saving of energy consumption. Along this direction, in this paper we study the computational hardness of several interference minimization problems which arise while supporting some classic network communication patterns such as broadcasting (one-to-all), gossiping (all-to-all), and symmetric gossiping (symmetric all-to-all). In particular, concerning the non-approximability results, we prove that for any of the above communication patterns, the prominent problem of minimizing the maximum interference experienced by any node in the network is hard to approximate within better than a logarithmic factor, unless NP admits slightly superpolynomial time algorithms. On a positive side, we show that any approximation algorithm for the problem of minimizing the total transmission power assigned to the nodes in order to guarantee any of the above communication patterns, can be transformed, by maintaining the same performance ratio, into an approximation algorithm for the problem of minimizing the total interference experienced by all the nodes in the network. (c) 2008 Elsevier BX All rights reserved.

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

ad hoc networks
transmission power assignment


On the relationship between squared pairings and plain pairings In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the squared Weil/Tate pairing and the plain Weil/Tate pairing. Along these lines, we first show that the squared pairing for an arbitrary chosen point can be transformed into the plain pairing for a trace zero point which has a special form to compute them more efficiently. Then the optimizations made for computing squared pairings are combined with the computation of pairings on these trace zero points, to achieve even better performance for the computation of the 4th powered Weil pairing. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

weil/tate pairing
pairing computation
pairing-based cryptosystems
cryptography


Point counting in families of hyperelliptic curves Let E(Gamma) be a family of hyperelliptic curves defined by Y(2) = (Q) over bar (X,Gamma) where (Q) over bar is defined over a small finite field of odd characteristic. Then with (gamma) over bar in an extension degree n field over this small field, we present a deterministic algorithm for computing the zeta function of the curve E (gamma) over bar by using Dwork deformation in rigid cohomology. The time complexity of the algorithm is O( n(2.667)) and it needs O(n(2.5)) bits of memory. A slight adaptation requires only O( n(2)) space, but costs time (O) over tilde( n(3)). An implementation of this last result turns out to be quite efficient for n big enough.

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

point counting
hyperelliptic curves
deformation
rigid cohomology


Using the analytic network process (ANP) in a SWOT analysis A case study for a textile firm Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis does not provide an analytical means to determine the importance of the identified factors or the ability to assess decision alternatives according to these factors. Although the analysis successfully pinpoints the factors, individual factors are usually described briefly and very generally. For this reason, SWOT analysis possesses deficiencies in the measurement and evaluation steps. Although the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique removes these deficiencies, it does not allow for measurement of the possible dependencies among the factors. The AHP method assumes that the factors presented in the hierarchical structure are independent; however, this assumption may be inappropriate in light of certain internal and external environmental effects. Therefore, it is necessary to employ a form of SWOT analysis that measures and takes into account the possible dependency among the factors. This paper demonstrates a process for quantitative SWOT analysis that can be performed even when there is dependence among strategic factors. The proposed algorithm uses the analytic network process (ANP), which allows measurement of the dependency among the strategic factors, as well as AHP, which is based on the independence between the factors. Dependency among the SWOT factors is observed to effect the strategic and sub-factor weights, as well as to change the strategy priorities.

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

strategic planning
multi-criteria decision analysis


A two-slope achievement scalarizing function for interactive multiobjective optimization The use of achievement (scalarizing) functions in interactive multiobjective optimization methods is very popular, as indicated by the large number of algorithmic and applied scientific papers that use this approach. Key parameters in this approach are the reference point, which expresses desirable objective function values for the decision maker, and weights. The role of the weights can range from purely normalizing to fully preferential parameters that indicate the relative importance given by the decision maker to the achievement of each reference value. Technically, the influence of the weights in the solution generated by the achievement scalarizing function is different, depending on whether the reference point is achievable or not. Besides, from a psychological point of view, decision makers also react in a different way, depending on the achievability of the reference point. For this reason, in this work, we introduce the formulation of a new achievement scalarizing function with two different weight vectors, one for achievable reference points, and the other one for unachievable reference points. The new achievement scalarizing function is designed so that an appropriate weight vector is used in each case, without having to carry out any a priori achievability test. It allows us to reflect the decision maker's preferences in a better way as a part of an interactive solution method, and this can cause a quicker convergence of the method. The computational efficiency of this new formulation is shown in several test examples using different reference points.

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

multiobjective programming
interactive methods
reference point methods
pareto optimality


Human experience and product usability: Principles to assist the design of userproduct interactions This paper introduces research that investigates how human experience influences people's understandings of product usability. It describes an experiment that employs visual representation of concepts to elicit participants' ideas of a product's use. Results from the experiment lead to the identification of relationships between human experience, knowledge, and context-of-use relationships that influence designers' and users' concepts of product usability. These relationships are translated into design principles that inform the design activity with respect to the aspects of experience that trigger people's understanding of a product's use. A design tool (ECEDT) is devised to aid designers in the application of these principles. This tool is then trialled in the context of a design task in order to verify applicability of the findings.

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


Tensor product formulation for Hilbert space-filling curves We present a tensor product formulation for Hilbert space-filling curves. Both recursive and iterative formulas are expressed in the paper. We view a Hilbert space-filling curve as a permutation which maps two-dimensional 2(n) x 2(n) data elements stored in the row major or column major order to the order of traversing a Hilbert curve. The tensor product formula of Hilbert space-filling curves uses several permutation operations: stride permutation, radix-2 Gray permutation, transposition, and anti-diagonal transposition. The iterative tensor product formula can be manipulated to obtain the inverse Hilbert permutation. Also, the formulas are directly translated into computer programs which can be used in various applications including image processing, VLSI component layout, and R-tree indexing, etc.

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

tensor product
stride permutation
gray permutation
transposition

block recursive algorithm
hilbert space-filling curve
anti-diagonal transposition
data allocation


Investigation of filter sets for supervised pixel classification of cephalometric landmarks by spatial spectroscopy The diagnostic process of orthodontics requires the analysis of a cephalometric radiograph. Image landmarks on this two-dimensional lateral projection image of the patient's head are manually identified and spatial relationships are evaluated. This method is very time consuming. A reliable method for automatic computer landmark identification does not exist. Spatial Spectroscopy is a proposed method of automatic landmark identification on cephalometric radiographs, that decomposes an image by convolving it with a set of filters followed by a statistical decision process. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and test appropriate filter sets for the application of Spatial Spectroscopy for automatic identification of cephalometric radiographic landmarks. This study evaluated two different filter sets with 15 landmarks on fourteen images. Spatial Spectroscopy was able to consistently locate landmarks on all 14 cephalometric radiographs tested. The mean landmark identification error of 0.8411.253 pixels for a Multiscale Derivative filter set and 0.9121.364 pixels for an Offset Gaussian filter set was not significantly different. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between identification of individual landmarks for the Multiscale Derivative and the Offset Gaussian filter set (P>0.05). These results suggest that Spatial Spectroscopy may be useful in landmark identification tasks.

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

cephalometric
landmarks
pixel classification
filters


A decision support modelling framework for multiple use forest management: The Queen Elizabeth Forest case study in Scotland A multiple criteria interactive modelling framework has been developed to support forest resource allocation decisions in the context of multiple use forest management at the tactical level. The modelling framework consists of four components: (i) Intelligence, referring to the forest management problem formulation; (ii) design, which uses a technological forecast model to produce technical coefficients; (iii) choice, which uses multi-criteria analysis based on a combined MINMAX approach and generates iteratively in trade-off outputs; and (iv) implementation, related to the final resource allocation scheme adopted after examining trade-offs. The system allows exploration of alternatives, which are not extreme points of the feasible solution set. The weighting procedure is done internally by the system and forest managers are given more flexibility in changing goal targets as more information is gained about the problem. The combined MINMAX approach used in the choice component converges fast to the final solution. Forest managers are in full control of the decision making process and therefore, they can provide their answers and solutions to forest resource allocation problems. The decision support framework is closely linked to the planning and management conditions of the Queen Elizabeth National Forest Park in Central Scotland. However, the system is adaptable to other similar multiple use forest management cases.

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

decision support
multiple use forest management


Ground adaptive and optimized locomotion of snake robot moving with a novel gait In this paper, we present a novel gait, forward head serpentine (FHS), for a two dimensional snake robot. The advantage of this new gait is that the head link remains in the forward direction during motion. This feature significantly improves snake robot potential applications. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to find FHS gait parameters. Relationship between FHS gait parameters and friction coefficients of the ground are developed. Next, robot speed is considered in the optimization. A fitness function covering robot speed and head link angular changes is defined. A general sinusoidal wave form is applied for each joint. GA is used to find gait parameters resulting in maximum speed while head link angular changes remain in an acceptable range. Optimal gait parameters are also calculated for different friction coefficients and relationships between them are developed. Experiments are also performed using a 5-link snake robot. It is shown that experimental and theoretical results closely agree.

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

snake robot
novel gait
locomotion
serpentine
genetic algorithm


Clausal Tableaux for Multimodal Logics of Belief We develop clausal tableau calculi for six multimodal logics variously designed for reasoning about multi-degree belief, reasoning about distributed systems of belief and for reasoning about epistemic states of agents in multi-agent systems. Our tableau calculi are sound, complete, cut-free and have the analytic superformula property, thereby giving decision procedures for all of these logics. We also use our calculi to obtain complexity results for five of these logics. The complexity of the remaining logic was known.

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

complexity and decidability of modal logics


real-time document collaboration using ipads This paper presents a real-time collaborative interface for reading groups. We exploit the light and portable properties of iPad hardware to facilitate an intimate interaction experience that gives users the ability to simultaneously mark up their own copy of a document, while instantly viewing notes made by other members of the group. We also introduce a tool that allows group members to quickly `point out' information within a document to other members without physically gesturing with their hands. We finish with a short explanation of a study proposed to test the implemented system.

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


Hierarchical clustering of self-organizing maps for cloud classification This paper presents a new method for segmenting multispectral satellite images. The proposed method is unsupervised and consists of two steps. During the first step the pixels of a learning set are summarized by a set of codebook vectors using a Probabilistic Self-Organizing Map (PSOM, Statistique et mthodes neuronales, Dunod, Paris, 1997). In a second step the codebook vectors of the map are clustered using Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC, Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996). Each pixel takes the label of its nearest codebook vector. A practical application to Meteosat images illustrates the relevance of our approach.

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

hierarchical clustering
cloud classification


A non-uniform multi-rate control strategy for a Markov chain-driven Networked Control System In this work, a non-uniform multi-rate control strategy is applied to a kind of Networked Control System (NCS) where a wireless path tracking control for an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) is carried out. The main aims of the proposed strategy are to face time-varying network-induced delays and to avoid packet disorder. A Markov chain-driven NCS scenario will be considered, where different network load situations, and consequently, different probability density functions for the network delay are assumed. In order to assure mean-square stability for the considered NCS, a decay-rate based sufficient condition is enunciated in terms of probabilistic Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Simulation results show better control performance, and more accurate path tracking, for the scheduled (delay-dependent) controller than for the non-scheduled one (i.e. the nominal controller when delays appear). Finally, the control strategy is validated on an experimental test-bed.

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

networked control system
unmanned ground vehicle
network delay
packet disorder

multi-rate control system
pid controller


A new scan power reducdon scheme using transition freezing for pseudo-random logic BIST This paper presents a new low power BIST TPG scheme for reducing scan transitions. It uses a transition freezing and melting method which is implemented of the transition freezing block and a MUX. When random test patterns are generated from an LFSR, transitions of those patterns satisfy pseudo-random Gaussian distribution. The proposed technique freezes transitions of patterns using a freezing value. Experimental results show that the proposed BIST TPG schemes can reduce average power reduction by about 60% without performance loss and peak power by about 30% in ISCAS'89 benchmark circuits.

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

low power bist (built-in self test)
pseudo-random bist
low power pattern generator


An optimization of credit-based payment for electronic toll collection systems Credit-based electronic payment systems are considered to play important roles in future automated payment systems. Like most other types of payment systems, however, credit-based systems proposed so far generally involve computationally expensive cryptographic operations. Such a relatively heavy computational load is preventing credit-based systems from being used in applications which require very East processing. A typical example is admission-fee payment at the toll gate of an expressway without stopping a vehicle that travels at a high speed. In this article, we propose a very fast credit-based electronic payment protocol for admission-fee payment. More specifically, we propose a payment system between a high-speed vehicle and a toll gate which uses only very simple and fast computations. The proposed system makes use of an optimized Key Pre-distribution System (or KPS) to obtain high resistance against collusion attacks.

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

credit-based payment
electronic toll collection system
id-based cryptosystem
collusion attack


repeatable and reliable search system evaluation using crowdsourcing The primary problem confronting any new kind of search task is how to boot-strap a reliable and repeatable evaluation campaign, and a crowd-sourcing approach provides many advantages. However, can these crowd-sourced evaluations be repeated over long periods of time in a reliable manner? To demonstrate, we investigate creating an evaluation campaign for the semantic search task of keyword-based ad-hoc object retrieval. In contrast to traditional search over web-pages, object search aims at the retrieval of information from factual assertions about real-world objects rather than searching over web-pages with textual descriptions. Using the first large-scale evaluation campaign that specifically targets the task of ad-hoc Web object retrieval over a number of deployed systems, we demonstrate that crowd-sourced evaluation campaigns can be repeated over time and still maintain reliable results. Furthermore, we show how these results are comparable to expert judges when ranking systems and that the results hold over different evaluation and relevance metrics. This work provides empirical support for scalable, reliable, and repeatable search system evaluation using crowdsourcing.

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


integrating games and machine learning in the undergraduate computer science classroom A student will be more likely motivated to pursue a field of study if they encounter relevant and interesting challenges early in their studies. The authors are PIs on two NSF funded course curriculum development projects (CCLI). Each project seeks to provide compelling curricular modules for use in the Computer Science classroom starting as soon as CS 1. In this paper, we describe one curriculum module which is the synergistic result of these two projects. This module provides a series of challenges for undergraduate students by using a game environment to teach machine learning and classic Artificial Intelligence concepts.

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

artificial intelligence
machine learning


Enhancing 3D mesh topological skeletons with discrete contour constrictions This paper describes a unified and fully automatic algorithm for Reeb graph construction and simplification as well as constriction approximation on triangulated surfaces. The key idea of the algorithm is that discrete contours - curves carried by the edges of the mesh and approximating the continuous contours of a mapping function - encode both topological and geometrical shape characteristics. Therefore, a new concise shape representation, enhanced topological skeletons, is proposed, encoding the contours' topological and geometrical evolution. First, mesh feature points are computed. Then they are used as geodesic origins for the computation of an invariant mapping function that reveals the shape most significant features. Next, for each vertex in the mesh, its discrete contour is computed. As the set of discrete contours recovers the whole surface, each of them can be analyzed, both to detect topological changes and constrictions. Constriction approximations enable Reeb graphs refinement into more visually meaningful skeletons, which we refer to as enhanced topological skeletons. Extensive experiments showed that, without any preprocessing stage, proposed algorithms are fast in practice, affine-invariant and robust to a variety of surface degradations (surface noise, mesh sampling and model pose variations). These properties make enhanced topological skeletons interesting shape abstractions for many computer graphics applications.

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

topological skeletons
feature points
constrictions

shape abstraction
topology driven segmentation


New insights into basophil biology: initiators, regulators, and effectors of type 2 inflammation Recent studies indicate that basophils perform essential functions in multiple models of Th2 cytokine-dependent immunity and inflammation. In addition to their role as late phase effector cells, basophil populations can express MHC class II and costimulatory molecules, migrate into draining lymph nodes, present antigen to naive CD4+ T cells, and promote Th2 cell differentiation. In this context, basophils have been shown to contribute to the induction and propagation of Th2 cytokine responses following exposure to some helminth parasites or allergens. In this review, we discuss recent studies that provide new insights into basophil development, regulation, and effector function. In addition, we discuss the ability of basophils to act both independently and cooperatively with dendritic cells to support Th2 cytokine-mediated inflammation.

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

basophils
th2 cell
helminth
cytokine
immunity
inflammation


Buffer design and insertion for global interconnections in 0.1 ?m technology This paper examines high-speed interconnection design in 0.1 ?m technology from a simulation and modelling perspective. It is shown that using Cu metallisation in combination with a low-? dielectric can reduce the minimum delay considerably, as compared to using Al metallisation with SiO2 as the inter-metal dielectric. Consequently, the use of Cu and a low-? dielectric leads to substantial saving of the surface area for buffers that are necessary to incorporate in order to maintain the improved performance when scaling down the device dimensions. As regard to buffer design and insertion, it is a good choice to allow the size of the cascaded inverters in each buffer to increase successively, and simultaneously to permit the size-ratio of two consecutive inverters to increase along the signal propagation direction in order to minimise power consumption and delay. Furthermore, in order to save the precious Si surface area, it is preferable not to drive an interconnection line at a speed unnecessarily higher than the specified speed. Therefore, in parallel with the search for better conductors and insulators as well as improved interconnection technologies, there is an urgent need to address the interconnection issue from the circuit design perspective.

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

vlsi physical design
buffer insertion
deep submicron technology
minimum delay and power


FOX-GA: A Genetic Algorithm for Generating and Analyzing Battlefield Courses of Action This paper describes FOX-GA, a genetic algorithm (GA) that generates and evaluates plans in the complex domain of military maneuver planning. FOX-GA's contributions are to demonstrate an effective application of GA technology to a complex real world planning problem, and to provide an understanding of the properties needed in a GA solution to meet the challenges of decision support in complex domains. Previous obstacles to applying GA technology to maneuver planning include the lack of efficient algorithms for determining the fimess of plans. Detailed simulations would ideally be used to evaluate these plans, but most such simulations typically require several hours to assess a single plan. Since a GA needs to quickly generate and evaluate thousands of plans, these methods are too slow. To solve this problem we developed an efficient evaluator (wargamer) that uses course-grained representations of this problem domain to allow appropriate yet intelligent trade-offs between computational efficiency and accuracy. An additional challenge was that users needed a diverse set of significantly different plan options from which to choose. Typical GA's tend to develop a group of "best" solutions that may be very similar (or identical) to each other. This may not provide users with sufficient choice. We addressed this problem by adding a niching strategy to the selection mechanism to insure diversity in the solution set, providing users with a more satisfactory range of choices. FOX-GA's impact will be in providing decision support to time constrained and cognitively overloaded battlestaff to help them rapidly explore options, create plans, and better cope with the information demands of modern warfare.

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

knowledge-based niching
military reasoning
course of action planning
computer assisted assessment


Design of observer-based H(infinity) control for fuzzy time-delay systems This paper addresses the problem of observer-based H. control for nonlinear systems with time-varying delay represented by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model. It presents a single-step linear matrix inequality (LMI) method for the fuzzy control design, which overcomes the drawback of the two-step LMI approach often encountered in the literature. The derivation relies mainly on a proposed matrix decoupling technique using which a resultant matrix inequality can be equivalently converted to strict LMIs. When restricted to delay-free fuzzy systems, the present results improve or reduce to existing ones. Illustrative examples show the effectiveness and merits of the present 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

h(infinity) control
observer
takagi-sugeno (t-s) fuzzy systems
time-delay


Hybrid defensive resource allocations in the face of partially strategic attackers in a sequential defenderattacker game Many models have been developed to study homeland security games between governments (defender) and terrorists (attacker, adversary, enemy), with the limiting assumption of the terrorists being rational or strategic. In this paper, we develop a novel hybrid model in which a centralized government allocates defensive resources among multiple potential targets to minimize total expected loss, in the face of a terrorist being either strategic or non-strategic. The attack probabilities of a strategic terrorist are endogenously determined in the model, while the attack probabilities of a non-strategic terrorist are exogenously provided. We study the robustness of defensive resource allocations by comparing the governments total expected losses when: (a) the government knows the probability that the terrorist is strategic; (b) the government falsely believes that the terrorist is fully strategic, when the terrorist could be non-strategic; and (c) the government falsely believes that the terrorist is fully non-strategic, when the terrorist could be strategic. Besides providing six theorems to highlight the general results, we find that game models are generally preferred to non-game model even when the probability of a non-strategic terrorist is significantly greater than 50%. We conclude that defensive resource allocations based on game-theoretic models would not incur too much additional expected loss and thus more preferred, as compared to non-game-theoretic models.

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

game theory
resource allocation
attackerdefender game
non-strategic player
partially strategic player