an eco algorithm for eliminating crosstalk violations ECO changes are almost inevitable in late stages of a design process. Based on an existing design, incremental change is favored since it can avoid considerable efforts of re-doing the whole process and can minimize the disturbance on the existing converged design. In this paper, we address the CVE (Crosstalk Violation Elimination) problem. Due to the changes in a multiple layer routing design, the total capacitive crosstalk on some signal wire segments on a layer may be larger than their allowable bounds after post-layout timing/noise analysis. The target is to find a new routing solution without crosstalk violations under certain constraints which help to keep the new design close to the original one. We propose a two-stage algorithm to solve CVE problems, and present optimization strategies to speed up the execution. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our algorithm.

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


An experimental study of a cooperative positioning system Several position identification methods are being used for mobile robots. Dead reckoning is a popular method but due to the error accumulation from wheel slippage, its reliability is low for measurement of long distances especially on uneven surfaces. Another popular method is the landmark method, which estimates current position relative to known landmarks, but the landmark method's limitation is that it cannot be used in an uncharted environment. Thus, this paper proposes a new method called "Cooperative Positioning System (CPS)" that is able to overcome these shortcomings. The main concept of CPS is to divide the robots into two groups, A and B where group A remains stationary and acts as a landmark while group B moves and then group B stops and acts as a landmark for group A. This process is repeated until the target position is reached. Compared with dead reckoning, CPS has a far lower accumulation of positioning errors, and can also work in three dimensions. Furthermore, CPS employs inherent landmarks and therefore can be used in uncharted environments unlike the landmark method. In this paper, we introduce the basic concept of CPS and its positioning principle. Next, we outline a second prototype CPS machine model (CPS-II) and discuss the method of position estimation using the variance of positioning error and weighted least squares method. Position identification experiments using the CPS-II model give a positioning accuracy of 0.12% for position and 0.32 degree for attitude after the robots traveled a distance of 21.5 m.

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 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

multiple robots
cooperation
outdoor environment


Perceptually motivated morphological strategies for shape retrieval In this paper, two perceptually motivated morphological strategies (PMMS) are proposed to enhance the retrieval performance of common shape matching methods. Firstly, two human perception customs are introduced, which have important relations to shape retrieval. Secondly, these two customs are properly modeled by morphological operations. Finally, the proposed PMMS is applied to improve the retrieval performances of a popular shape matching method named Inner-Distance Shape Contexts (IDSC), and then the Locally Constrained Diffusion Process (LCDP) method is exploited to further enhance the retrieval performance. This combination achieves a retrieval rate of 98.56% on MPEG-7 dataset. We also conduct the experiments on Swedish Leaf dataset, the ETH-80 dataset and the Natural Silhouette dataset. The experimental results obtained from four datasets demonstrate clearly the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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

morphological operation
perceptual custom


Kernelising the Proportional Odds Model through kernel learning techniques ? The classification of patterns into naturally ordered labels is referred to as ordinal regression, which is a very common setting for real world applications. One of the most widely used ordinal regression algorithms is the Proportional Odds Model (POM), despite the linearity of the resultant decision boundaries. Through different proposals, this paper explores the notions of kernel trick and empirical feature space to reformulate the POM method and obtain nonlinear decision boundaries. Moreover, a new technique for aligning the kernel matrix taking into account the ordinal problem information is proposed, as well as a regularised gradient ascent methodology which is used to select the optimal dimensionality for the empirical feature space. The capability of the different developed methodologies is evaluated by the use of a nonlinearly separable toy dataset and an extensive set of experiments over 28 ordinal datasets. The results indicate that the tested methodologies are competitive with respect to other state-of-the-art algorithms, and they significantly improve the original POM algorithm.

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

proportional odds model
ordinal regression
kernel trick
kernel learning


Brazilian scientific production in science education In the present study we analyzed the Brazilian scientific production in the area of science education. The study was structured on: data by research groups registered in Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnolgico; analysis of the post-graduate strictu sensu programs; analysis of theses and dissertations linked to post-graduate programs; and papers in international databases. Our research was conducted strictly via world wide web, from December 2009 to September 2010. It was found that both number of research groups, researchers, post-graduate programs, thesis, dissertations and papers presented a marked increase, especially in the last decade (from 2000 onwards). The major research centers were found to be located in public universities from Brazilian southeast and south regions. However, it was observed a tendency of decentralization, due to a recent investment in new public universities in the other Brazilian regions. So, this study sought to present an overview of the scientific production about science education and we expect that this information can help to expand the vision about the development of this research area in Brazil.

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

science education
scientific production
brazil


Multipath Routing for Video Streaming in Wireless Mesh Networks The performance of low-latency video streaming with multipath routing over wireless mesh networks is studied (WMN). This paper presents a novel multipath routing video delivery scheme (MRVD) in which video takes multipath to reach its destination, thereby increasing the aggregate throughput. Based on proposed multipath routing scheme, a video scheduling algorithm is proposed, which achieves high bandwidth with low delay. In MRVD, the video traffic is divided into multiple segments before transmitted according to the path available bandwidth and path delay. MRVD optimizes the video schedule scheme according to the path delay; therefore video cart be delivered onto multipath with more high efficiency. The validity of the routing scheme and video load balancing algorithm are verified by network simulations performed with different network load, latency and encoding structures.

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


accessible indoor navigation This research focuses on designing an indoor navigation application for disabled users. Outdoor navigation systems make use of GPS satellites to locate users; this same technique, however, is not reliable enough for indoor way-finding. Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) exist but rely on complex and expensive networks. Described here is a new approach towards such indoor navigation, reporting on research related to the interactions and user experiences involved in locating a user within a building. Interactions are customized to suit the needs of individual users when way-finding helping to ensure that the tool is both usable and accessible by users of varying abilities.

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

accessibility
way-finding
adaptive systems


Remote mutual authentication and key agreement scheme based on elliptic curve cryptosystem Remote mutual authentication is an important part of security, along with confidentiality and integrity, for systems that allow remote access over untrustworthy networks, like the Internet. In 2006, Shieh-Wang pointed out the weakness of Juang's remote mutual authentication scheme using smart card and further proposed a novel remote user authentication scheme using smart card. However, this paper demonstrates that Shieh-Wang's scheme still does not provide perfect forward secrecy and is vulnerable to a privileged insider's attack. We also present an improved scheme based on the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman problem (ECDHP) and secure one-way hash function, in order to isolate such security problems.

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

authentication
key agreement
smart card
elliptic curve cryptosystem


An efficient and effective ensemble of support vector machines for anti-diabetic drug failure prediction We propose a method called E3-SVM, efficient and effective ensemble of SVMs. E3-SVM excludes superfluous data points when constructing an SVM ensemble. E3-SVM was applied to the drug failure prediction problem for type 2 diabetes. We confirmed the suitability of SVM with an accuracy of about 80%.

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

support vector machines
ensemble
type 2 diabetes
drug failure prediction


On synthesis of easily testable (k, K) circuits A (k-, K) circuit is one which can be decomposed into nonintersecting blocks of gates where each block has no more than K external inputs, such that the graph formed by letting each block be a node and inserting edges between blocks if they share a signal line, is a partial k-tree. (k, K) circuits are special in that they have been shown to be testable in time polynomial in the number of gates in the circuit, and are useful if the constants k and K are small. We demonstrate a procedure to synthesise (k, K) circuits from a special class of Boolean expressions.

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

testing
stuck-at fault
polynomial time
k-tree
treewidth


A novel method to assess collagen architecture in skin Texture within biological specimens may reveal critical insights, while being very difficult to quantify. This is a particular problem in histological analysis. For example, cross-polar images of picrosirius stained skin reveal exquisite structure, allowing changes in the basketweave conformation of healthy collagen to be assessed. Existing techniques measure gross pathological changes, such as fibrosis, but are not sufficiently sensitive to detect more subtle and progressive pathological changes in the dermis, such as those seen in ageing. Moreover, screening methods for cutaneous therapeutics require accurate, unsupervised and high-throughput image analysis techniques.

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

fast fourier transform
gabor filter
histology
type 2 diabetes mellitus


Identification of the minimum effective dose for right-censored survival data In this paper, we consider identifying the minimum effective dose (MED) in a doseresponse study when survival data are subject to random right-censorship, where the MED is defined to be the smallest dose level under study that has survival advantage over the zero-dose control. To this end, we suggest single-step-down testing procedures based on three different types of weighted logrank statistics, respectively. The comparative results of a Monte Carlo error rate and power/bias study for a variety of survival and censoring distributions are then presented and discussed. The application of the testing procedures for identifying the MED is finally illustrated by using a numerical example of prostate cancer data.

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

doseresponse study
minimum effective dose

closed test
monte carlo study
right-censored data


Applying the JBOS reduction method for relevant knowledge extraction This work presents results from an experiment used to assess the JBOS (junction based on objects similarity) reduction method. Two reductions were made of a formal context about patients having symptoms in a tuberculosis data base. The first reduction used the knowledge expressed in the original formal context and the second used the knowledge expressed in expert rules. The assessment was made, in the first case, by comparison of the performances of the sets of extracted rules (stem bases) before and after the reduction, and in the second case, by comparison of the performances of the set of extracted rules after reduction with that of the expert rules. The performance in the first case was exactly the same as before reduction. In the second case the performance even improved, showing that the weighting process, besides incorporating the expert knowledge, resulted in rules well adjusted to the knowledge expressed in the original formal context. So, both reductions resulted in rule sets absolutely consistent with the original ones. The expert rules, FCA rules and both set of rules obtained after reduction were used also to classify patients of a validation set. In this case, the results have shown that the performance was the same before and after reduction. Therefore, it was shown that by means of an appropriate attributes weight assignment it is possible, by the JBOS method, to achieve a suitable level of performance in a specific task after reduction.

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

formal concept analysis
formal context reduction
lattice reduction


The first-kind and the second-kind boundary integral equation systems for solution of frictionless contact problems An original approach to the numerical solution of displacement boundary integral equation (BIE) and traction hypersingular boundary integral equation (HBIE) by the boundary element method (BEM) for contact problems is given. The main point is to show, how the contact conditions are used to formulate the first-kind and the second-kind BIE systems in the case of frictionless two-body elastic contact. The solution of the first-kind BIE is performed by symmetric Galerkin BEM; the second-kind BIE is solved by an appropriate collocation BEM. The contact problem in itself is solved by the method of subsequent approximations of contact region. Both forms of BIE system are compared in several numerical examples. This comparison is made for different kinds of contact problem. The major emphasis is put on the evaluation of contact pressure. The obtained results are compared with referenced numerical and with the analytical ones.

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

boundary integral equation
boundary element method
contact problem
symmetric galerkin bem


The Balloon Popping Problem Revisited: Lower and Upper Bounds We consider the balloon popping problem introduced by Immorlica et al. (Proceedings of FOCS'07, pp. 104-112, 2007). This problem is directly related to the problem of profit maximization in online auctions, where an auctioneer is selling a collection of identical items to anonymous unit-demand bidders. The auctioneer has the full knowledge of bidders' private valuations for the items and tries to maximize his profit. Compared with the profit of fixed price schemes, the competitive ratio of Immorlica et al.'s algorithm was in the range [1.64,4.33]. In this paper, we narrow the gap to [1.6595,2].

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

auction
lower bound
upper bound
ballot theorem


A Monte Carlo study of the Friedman and Conover tests tn the single-factor repeated measures design A Monte Carlo study was used to compare the Type I error rates and power of two nonparametric tests against the F test for the single-factor repeated measures model. The performance of the nonparametric Friedman and Conover tests was investigated for different distributions, numbers of blocks, and numbers of repeated measures. The results indicated that the type of the distribution has little effect on the ability of the Friedman and Conover tests to control Type I error rates. For power, the Friedman and Conover tests tended to agree in rejecting the same false hypothesis when the design consisted of three repeated measures. However, the Conover test was more powerful than the Friedman test when the number of repeated measures was 4 or 5. Still, the F test is recommended for the single-factor repeated measures model because of its robustness to non-normality and its good power across a range of conditions.

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

conover test
friedman test
repeated measures


efficiently evaluating graph constraints in content-based publish/subscribe We introduce the problem of evaluating graph constraints in content-based publish/subscribe (pub/sub) systems. This problem formulation extends traditional content-based pub/sub systems in the following manner: publishers and subscribers are connected via a (logical) directed graph G with node and edge constraints, which limits the set of valid paths between them. Such graph constraints can be used to model a Web advertising exchange (where there may be restrictions on how advertising networks can connect advertisers and publishers) and content delivery problems in social networks (where there may be restrictions on how information can be shared via the social graph). In this context, we develop efficient algorithms for evaluating graph constraints over arbitrary directed graphs G . We also present experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed algorithms using a realistic dataset from Yahoo!'s Web advertising exchange.

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


On Fast-Decodable Space-Time Block Codes We focus on full-rate, fast-decodable space-time block codes (STBCs) for 2 x 2 and 4 x 2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission. We first derive conditions and design criteria for reduced-complexity maximum-likelihood (ML) decodable 2 x 2 STBCs, and we apply them to two families of codes that were recently discovered. Next, we derive a novel reduced-complexity 4 x 2 STBC, and show that it outperforms all previously known codes with certain constellations.

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

quasi-orthogonal space-time block codes (stbcs)


Approximation of state-space trajectories by locally recurrent globally feed-forward neural networks ? The paper deals with investigating approximation abilities of a special class of discrete-time dynamic neural networks. The networks considered are called locally recurrent globally feed-forward, because they are designed with dynamic neuron models which contain inner feedbacks, but interconnections between neurons are strict feed-forward ones like in the well-known multi-layer perceptron. The paper presents analytical results showing that a locally recurrent network with two hidden layers is able to approximate a state-space trajectory produced by any Lipschitz continuous function with arbitrary accuracy. Moreover, based on these results, the network can be simplified and transformed into a more practical structure needed in real world applications.

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

recurrent networks
approximation ability
universal approximation theorem
state-space representation
lipschitz mapping
cascade network


A CoMFA study of enantiomeric organophosphorus inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase In a previous paper, presented by P. Bernard et al. [1], an automated docking was performed for stereospecific and quasi-irreversible organophosphorus acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors. In this study twelve chiral inhibitors, corresponding to six enantiomeric pairs, each with a phosphorus atom as a stereocenter, were docked to the crystal structure of mouse AChE. Then, the automated docking procedure was extended to a series of 35 organophosphorus compounds. The selected bioactive conformations derived from the docking procedure were used to establish a three dimensional model by means of the Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) method. In contrast to the conventional CoMFA studies, the compounds were not fitted to a reference compound but taken in their protein-based alignments derived from the docking study. For validation purposes, the established CoMFA model was then applied to another series of 24 organophosphorus compounds whose AChE inhibitory activity data were measured in different experimental conditions. A good correlation between predicted and experimental activity data shows that the model is robust and can also be extended to AChE inhibitory activity data measured on another acetylcholinesterase and/or at different incubation times and pH level.

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


Neighborhood Filters and the Decreasing Rearrangement Nonlocal filters are simple and powerful techniques for image denoising. In this paper, we give new insights into the analysis of one kind of them, the Neighborhood filter, by using a classical although not commonly used transformation: the decreasing rearrangement of a function. Independently of the dimension of the image, we reformulate the Neighborhood filter and its iterative variants as an integral operator defined in a one-dimensional space. The simplicity of this formulation allows to perform a detailed analysis of its properties. Among others, we prove that the filtered image is a contrast change of the original image, an that the filtering procedure behaves asymptotically as a shock filter combined with a border diffusive term, responsible for the staircaising effect and the loss of contrast.

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

neighborhood filters
decreasing rearrangement
denoising


Bi-LCQ: A low-weight clustering-based Q-learning approach for NoCs Network congestion has a negative impact on the performance of on-chip networks due to the increased packet latency. Many congestion-aware routing algorithms have been developed to alleviate traffic congestion over the network. In this paper, we propose a congestion-aware routing algorithm based on the Q-learning approach for avoiding congested areas in the network. By using the learning method, local and global congestion information of the network is provided for each switch. This information can be dynamically updated, when a switch receives a packet. However, Q-learning approach suffers from high area overhead in NoCs due to the need for a large routing table in each switch. In order to reduce the area overhead, we also present a clustering approach that decreases the number of routing tables by the factor of 4. Results show that the proposed approach achieves a significant performance improvement over the traditional Q-learning, C-routing, DBAR and Dynamic XY algorithms.

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

network-on-chip
congestion-aware routing algorithm
adaptive routing algorithm
q-learning and q-routing approaches


Adaptive PSODV algorithm for OPF with non-smooth cost functions and statistical analysis This paper presents a particle swarm optimization with differentially perturbed velocity hybrid algorithm with adaptive acceleration coefficient (APSO-DV) for solving the optimal power flow problem with non-smooth and non-convex generator fuel cost characteristics. The APSO-DV employs differentially perturbed velocity with adaptive acceleration coefficient for updating the positions of particles for the particle swarm optimization. The feasibility of the proposed approach was tested on IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 118-bus systems with three different objective functions. Several cases were investigated to test and validate the robustness of the proposed method in finding the optimal solution. The effectiveness of the proposed approach was tested including contingency also. Simulation results demonstrate that the APSO-DV provides superior results compared to classical DE, PSO, PSO-DV and other methods recently reported in the literature. An innovative statistical analysis based on central tendency measures and dispersion measures was carried out on the bus voltage profiles and voltage stability indices.

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

non-smooth cost functions
voltage stability index


Integration of production scheduling and dynamic optimization for multi-product CSTRs: Generalized Benders decomposition coupled with global mixed-integer fractional programming Integration of production scheduling and dynamic optimization can improve the overall performance of multi-product CSTRs. However, the integration leads to a mixed-integer dynamic optimization problem, which could be challenging to solve. We propose two efficient methods based on the generalized Bender decomposition framework that take advantage of the special structures of the integrated problem. The first method is applied to a time-slot formulation. The decomposed primal problem is a set of separable dynamic optimization problems and the master problem is a mixed-integer nonlinear fractional program. The master problem is then solved to global optimality by a fractional programming algorithm, ensuring valid Benders cuts. The second decomposition method is applied to a production sequence formulation. Similar to the first method, the second method uses a fractional programming algorithm to solve the master problem. Compared with the simultaneous method, the proposed decomposition methods can reduce the computational time by over two orders of magnitudes for a polymer production process in a CSTR. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

production scheduling
dynamic optimization
generalized benders decomposition
fractional programming


A univariate resultant-based implicitization algorithm for surfaces In this paper, we present a new algorithm for computing the implicit equation of a rational surface V from a rational parametrization P((t) over bar). The algorithm is valid independent of the existence of base points, and is based on the computation of polynomial gcds and univariate resultants. Moreover, we prove that the resultant-based formula provides a power of the implicit equation. In addition, performing a suitable linear change of parameters, we prove that this power is indeed the degree of the rational map induced by the parametrization. We also present formulas for computing the partial degrees of the implicit equation. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd

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

rational surface parametrization
properness


An efficient triple-tail cell based PFSCL D latch In this paper, an efficient positive feedback source-coupled logic (PFSCL) D latch topology is proposed. It uses triple-tail cell concept which results in lesser number of stages as well as gate count in comparison to the traditional PFSCL D latch. The operation of the proposed D latch is described and is supported with mathematical formulations. The functionality is verified through SPICE simulations using TSMC 0.18m CMOS technology parameters. It is found that the proposed D latch topology significantly reduces the power consumption and delay in comparison to the traditional PFSCL D latch. The impact of process variation on the proposed and traditional PFSCL D latch at different design corners shows similar variations.

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


MONOTONIC FUZZY SYSTEMS AS UNIVERSAL APPROXIMATORS FOR MONOTONIC FUNCTIONS In this paper, we propose a constructive method to develop a fuzzy system having a monotonic input-output relationship and prove that the developed fuzzy system can approximate any continuously differentiable monotonic function with any desired degree of accuracy. The fuzzy system is constructed with complete and consistent input membership functions and imposes special parametric constraints on the consequent part of the fuzzy rules. The monotonicity property and approximation capability of the developed fuzzy system are demonstrated using numerical examples.

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

fuzzy constraint satisfaction
monotonic fuzzy systems
monotonicity constraints
universal approximation


The Cartesian product of hypergraphs We show that every simple, (weakly) connected, possibly directed and infinite, hypergraph has a unique prime factor decomposition with respect to the (weak) Cartesian product, even if it has infinitely many factors. This generalizes previous results for graphs and undirected hypergraphs to directed and infinite hypergraphs. The proof adopts the strategy outlined by Imrich and erovnik for the case of graphs and introduces the notion of diagonal-free grids as a replacement of the chord-free 4-cycles that play a crucial role in the case of graphs. This leads to a generalization of relation ? on the arc set, whose convex hull is shown to coincide with the product relation of the prime factorization. 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory

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

hypergraph
weak cartesian product
prime factor decomposition


The Linux kernel as a case study in software evolution We use 810 versions of the Linux kernel, released over a period of 14years, to characterize the systems evolution, using Lehmans laws of software evolution as a basis. We investigate different possible interpretations of these laws, as reflected by different metrics that can be used to quantify them. For example, system growth has traditionally been quantified using lines of code or number of functions, but functional growth of an operating system like Linux can also be quantified using the number of system calls. In addition we use the availability of the source code to track metrics, such as McCabes cyclomatic complexity, that have not been tracked across so many versions previously. We find that the data supports several of Lehmans laws, mainly those concerned with growth and with the stability of the process. We also make some novel observations, e.g. that the average complexity of functions is decreasing with time, but this is mainly due to the addition of many small functions.

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

software evolution
lehmans laws
linux kernel


computer aided breast cancer analysis and detection using statistical features and neural networks Mammography is acknowledged as the single most effective method of screening for breast cancer. We have used statistical feature extraction method by using a sliding window analysis, for detecting circumscribed masses in mammograms. This procedure is implemented by taking into account the multi-scale statistical properties of the breast tissue, and succeeds in finding the exact tumor position by performing the mammograph analysis using first few moments of each window. We have demonstrated that fast implementation in both feature extraction and the neural classification module can be achieved. The MIAS database, was used for the evaluation of the proposed circumscribed mass, giving reliable detection accuracy in both position and mass size.

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

circumscribed lesions
mammograms image analysis
matlab
threshold
distance measure
coefficients


Which role do non-source items play in the social sciences? A case study in political science in Germany Publications that are not indexed by citation indices such as Web of Science (WoS) or Scopus are called non-source items. These have so far been neglected by most bibliometric analyses. The central issue of this study is to investigate the characteristics of non-source items and the effect of their inclusion in bibliometric evaluations in the social sciences, specifically German political science publications. The results of this study show that non-source items significantly increase the number of publications (+1,350%) and to a lesser extent the number of citations from SCIE, SSCI, and A&HCI (+150%) for evaluated political scientists. 42% of non-source items are published as book chapters. Edited books and books are cited the most among non-source items. About 40% of non-source items are in English, while 80% of source items are in English. The citation rates of researchers taking non-source items into account are lower than those from source items, partially as a result of the limited coverage of WoS. In contrast, the H-indices of researchers taking only non-source items into account are higher than those from source items. In short, the results of this study show that non-source items should be included in bibliometric evaluations, regardless of their impact or the citations from them. The demand for a more comprehensive coverage of bibliometric database in the social sciences for a higher quality of evaluations is shown.

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

non-source items
publication patterns
research evaluation
a14


The application of geometrically exact shell elements to B-spline surfaces In the present study, we propose a framework that directly links a general tensor-based geometrically exact shell finite element to B-spline surface geometric modeling. Four-node and 9-node assumed strain elements based on the partial mixed HellingerReissner variational functional and a 4-node assumed natural strain (ANS) element are implemented in B-spline surface representation. Bubble functions are included in the basis functions to improve the performance of the developed elements. The bi-cubic rectangular B-spline tensor patch is employed to generate the general form of parameterized shell surfaces. By using the B-spline function, the present general tensor-based shell elements can handle the arbitrary geometry of the free-form surfaces. Numerical results demonstrate the efficient linkage concept between surface modeling of computer aided geometric design (CAGD) and finite element shell analysis in static and dynamic examples.

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

geometric modeling
shell
finite element
ans


an efficient algorithm for one-step planar complaint motion planning with uncertainty Uncertainty in the execution of robot motion plans must be accounted for in the geometric computations from which plans are obtained, especially in the case where position sensing is inaccurate. We give an &Ogr; ( n 2 log n ) algorithm to find a single commanded motion direction which will guarantee a successful motion in the plane from a specified start to a specified goal whenever such a one-step motion is possible. The plans account for uncertainty in the start position and in robot control, and anticipate that the robot may stick on or slide along obstacle surfaces with which it comes in contact. This bound improves on the best previous bound by a quadratic factor, and is achieved in part by a new analysis of the geometric complexity of the backprojection of the goal as a function of commanded motion direction.

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

uncertainty factor log analysis case account complexity algorithm control motion

efficiency
functional
direct
robotics
motion planning
senses
surface
posit


Built-in-self-test techniques for MEMS As predicted by technology roadmaps, embedded micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) is yet another step in the continuous search for higher levels of integration and miniaturization. MEMS are analog components and the test paradigm is similar to the case of analog and mixed-signal circuits. However, given the fact that they work with signals other than electrical, the test of these embedded parts poses new challenges. In this paper, we will review some recent works in this field and we will present a complete approach to MEMS built-in-self-test (BIST) based on pseudorandom testing.

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

failure mechanisms
defects
fault modelling
fault simulation


The automatic acquisition, evolution and reuse of modules in Cartesian genetic programming This paper presents a generalization of the graph-based genetic programming (GP) technique known as Cartesian genetic programming (CGP). We have extended CGP by utilizing automatic module acquisition, evolution, and reuse. To benchmark the new technique, we have tested it on: various digital circuit problems, two symbolic regression problems, the lawnmower problem, and the hierarchical if-and-only-if problem. The results show the new modular method evolves solutions quicker than the original nonmodular method, and the speedup is more pronounced on larger problems. Also, the new modular method performs favorably when compared with other GP methods. Analysis of the evolved modules shows they often produce recognizable functions. Prospects for further improvements to the method are discussed.

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

embedded cartesian genetic programming (ecgp)


A mesh-geometry-based solution to mixed-dimensional coupling When conducting a finite element analysis, the total number of degrees of freedom can be dramatically decreased using finite elements such as beams and shells. Because of geometric complexities, entire models (or portions of models) must be meshed using volume elements in order to obtain accurate simulation results. If however some parts of these models fit the description of shells or beams, then a mixed dimensional model containing shell, beam and volume elements side by side can be used. This approach, referred to as a mixed-dimensional analysis (MDA) can significantly reduce the time needed to mesh and solve the system. Unfortunately, problems arise when trying to connect the different types of element in part due to incompatibilities between the degrees of freedom, and due to the discontinuities between meshes generated independently. This paper presents a solution to these problems based on the generation of a compatible mesh composed solely of standard finite elements and without requiring the use of constraint equations. This mesh can then be exported to a standard FE solver without using specific connection elements.

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

mixed-dimensional analysis
fea analysis
beam elements
shell elements
reduced-dimensional analysis


extending path profiling across loop backedges and procedure boundaries Since their introduction, path profiles have been used toguide the application of aggressive code optimizations andperforming instruction scheduling. However, for optimizationand scheduling, it is often desirable to obtain frequencycounts of paths that extend across loop iterations and crossprocedure boundaries. These longer paths, referred to asinteresting paths in this paper, account for over 75\% of theflow in a subset of SPEC benchmarks. Although the frequencycounts of interesting paths can be estimated frompath profiles, the degree of imprecision of these estimates isvery high. We extend Ball Larus (BL) paths to create slightlylonger overlapping paths and develop an instrumentationalgorithm to collect their frequencies. While these pathsare slightly longer than BL paths, they enable very preciseestimation of frequencies of potentially much longer interestingpaths. Our experiments show that the average cost ofcollecting frequencies of overlapping paths is 86.8\% whichis 4.2 times that of BL paths. However, while the averageimprecision in estimated total flow of interesting paths derivedfrom BL path frequencies ranges from -38 \% to +138\%, the average imprecision in flow estimates derived fromoverlapping path frequencies ranges only from -4\% to +8\%.

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

instruction scheduling
scheduling
path profiles
code
collect
flow
account
paper
profiles
cost

applications
optimality
benchmark
profileguided optimization
and instruction scheduling
overlapping path profiles
experience
iter


personalisation for user agents This paper is concerned with personalisation of user agents by symbolic, on-line machine learning techniques. The application of these ideas to an infotainment agent is discussed in detail. Also experimental results, which indicate that a high level of personalisation can be achieved by this approach, are presented.

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


Discovery and learning of models with predictive state representations for dynamical systems without reset Modeling dynamical systems is a common problem in science and engineering. After a system has been modeled, the system can be controlled and predicted. Predictive state representations (PSRs) is a recently proposed method of modeling controlled dynamical systems. One central problem in the PSRs literature is concerned with discovery and learning of PSRs. This paper presents a new algorithm for discovery and learning of PSRs by using only a continuous trace of actions and observations as the training data, in which the history at any time step in the training data can be identified, and then the prediction of test at a history and the PSR model of the system can be obtained. We empirically evaluate and compare our algorithm on a standard set of POMDP test problems and the empirical results show that our algorithm is competitive and outperforms the suffix-history algorithm.

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

modeling dynamical system
suffix-history algorithm


Mediated Cues of Group Emotion during Knowledge-Work Tasks: Effects on Subjective and Physiological Responses We examined how mediated cues of group emotion influence the emotional state of the members of a non-co-located group when performing knowledge-work tasks in a laboratory. The emotion displayed was determined by the experimenter and the participants were led to believe that there were three other group members simultaneously performing the same tasks (four routine tasks and four planning tasks) in different rooms. Prevailing emotional state of the group (depressed, nervous/stressed, pleasantly excited and pleasantly relaxed), allegedly based on self-report, was displayed in textual format on a web page before the first task and after each task. Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity and electrodermal activity (EDA) were recorded during task performance. Negative cues of group emotion elicited lower self-reported pleasure, lower perceived confidence in the other group members, higher corrugator supercilii EMG activity and higher EDA compared with cues of positive group emotions. Planning tasks elicited higher self-reported pleasure and arousal, lower corrugator EMG activity, and higher EDA compared with routine tasks. The results suggest that mediated textual cues of group emotion can lead to emotional contagion to the individual group members during distributed knowledge work.

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


MILD: Multiple-Instance Learning via Disambiguation In multiple-instance learning (MIL), an individual example is called an instance and a bag contains a single or multiple instances. The class labels available in the training set are associated with bags rather than instances. A bag is labeled positive if at least one of its instances is positive; otherwise, the bag is labeled negative. Since a positive bag may contain some negative instances in addition to one or more positive instances, the true labels for the instances in a positive bag may or may not be the same as the corresponding bag label and, consequently, the instance labels are inherently ambiguous. In this paper, we propose a very efficient and robust MIL method, called Multiple-Instance Learning via Disambiguation (MILD), for general MIL problems. First, we propose a novel disambiguation method to identify the true positive instances in the positive bags. Second, we propose two feature representation schemes, one for instance-level classification and the other for bag-level classification, to convert the MIL problem into a standard single-instance learning (SIL) problem that can be solved by well-known SIL algorithms, such as support vector machine. Third, an inductive semi-supervised learning method is proposed for MIL. We evaluate our methods extensively on several challenging MIL applications to demonstrate their promising efficiency, robustness, and accuracy.

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

multiple-instance learning
learning from ambiguity
cbir
object recognition
co-training
drug activity prediction


An improved security-aware packet scheduling algorithm in real-time wireless networks Developing security-aware packet scheduling algorithms can efficiently enhance the security while delivering packets through wireless links. Existing scheduling algorithms developed for real-time wireless networks provide security at the cost of other important performance, e.g., schedulability. The performance problem becomes especially apparent when wireless networks are heavily loaded. To address this issue, we propose in this paper an improved security-aware packet scheduling algorithm (or ISAPS in short) in wireless networks. ISAPS first gives high priority to deal with schedulability when the real-time system is heavily loaded. When the system is under light workload, ISAPS strives to improve the security levels while achieving high schedulability for real-time packets. Compared with the existing packet scheduling algorithm SPSS, ISAPS shows excellent scheduling quality under a wide range of workload characteristics. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

algorithms
packet scheduling
wireless networks


preliminary evaluation of a remote mobile collaborative environment MCEs (Mobile Collaborative Environments) are systems designed to allow users to collaborate any time and anywhere using wireless networks and mobile devices. In this paper we report on our findings from the development and testing of a fully functional MCE photo-conferencing service that enables seamless synchronous collaboration between remote mobile users over existing 3G cellular networks. Key to the development of MCEs is an understanding of the effects of remote gestural interactions between mobile participants. We report on the results of an initial evaluation of our photo-conferencing service, examining the effects of two remote gestural interactions, 'Pointing' and 'Scaling', assessing their impact on performance measurements. Our findings begin to inform the design of future mobile collaborative environments.

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

mobile sharing.
mobile collaboration services
conferencing


The unpredictable deviousness of models Computation models are central to algorithmic research. A model, designed to capture the essential features of a technology dispensing with irrelevant and burdensome details, is a judicious compromise between simplicity and fidelity (or reflectivity). This approach has unleashed an enormous amount of valuable algorithmic research over the years. However, the pursuit of simplicity may filter out details, once deemed irrelevant, which may later reassert their significance under either technological pressure or more careful scrutiny, in which case the inadequacy of the model cripples the validity of the derived results. Examples of this situation, drawn from computational geometry, numerical parallel computation, VLSI theory, and computational biology, will be reviewed and examined in detail. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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

algorithmic research
computation models
computational geometry

parallel computing
sequencing by hybridization


NAM expansion method for systematic synthesis of OTA-based floating gyrators This paper presents a NAM expansion method for systematically synthesizing OTA-based floating gyrators. After describing nullor-mirror components of OTAs, class I, II and III gyrators, which can be built with standard OTAs, are synthesized by using the nullor-mirror equivalent models described by NAM. The class-I gyrators employing two DO-OTAs have four equivalent realizations, the class-II gyrators employing three SO-OTAs have eight equivalent realizations, and the class-III gyrators employing four SISO-OTAs have 16 equivalent realizations. Having used canonic number of components, the circuits are easy to be integrated and their parameters can be tuned electronically through tuning bias currents of OTAs. Finally, as an example, the MULTISIM simulation results of a notch filter constructed by the OTA-based III gyrator are presented to verify the realizability of the derived 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

floating gyrator
ota
nullor-mirror element
nodal admittance matrix expansion


Access control mechanisms in a distributed, persistent memory system A distributed, persistent memory system is considered, which implements a form of segmentation with paging within the framework of the single-address-space paradigm of memory reference. A peculiar problem of a system of this type is the lack of protection of the private information items of any given process against unauthorized access attempts possibly performed by the other processes. We present a set of mechanisms able to enforce access control over the private virtual space areas. These mechanisms guarantee a degree of protection comparable to that typical of a multiple-address-space system, while preserving the advantages of ease of information sharing, typical of the single-address-space model. The resulting environment is evaluated from a number of salient viewpoints, including ease of distribution and revocation of access rights, strategies for virtual space reuse, and the storage requirements of the information for memory management.

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

access control
memory management
protection

distributed system
persistent system
single address space


Adaptive mobile activity recognition system with evolving data streams Mobile activity recognition focuses on inferring current user activities by leveraging sensory data available on today?s sensor rich mobile phones. Supervised learning with static models has been applied pervasively for mobile activity recognition. In this paper, we propose a novel phone-based dynamic recognition framework with evolving data streams for activity recognition. The novel framework incorporates incremental and active learning for real-time recognition and adaptation in streaming settings. While stream evolves, we refine, enhance and personalise the learning model in order to accommodate the natural drift in a given data stream. Extensive experimental results using real activity recognition data have evidenced that the novel dynamic approach shows improved performance of recognising activities especially across different users.

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

ubiquitous computing
mobile application
stream mining
incremental learning


Shipment planning at oil refineries using column generation and valid inequalities In this paper we suggest an optimization model and a solution method for a shipment planning problem. This problem concerns the simultaneous planning of how to route a fleet of ships and the planning of which products to transport in these ships. The ships are used for moving products from oil refineries to storage depots. There are inventory levels to consider both at the refineries and at the depots. The inventory levels are affected by the process scheduling at the refineries and demand at the depots. The problem is formulated using an optimization model including an aggregated representation of the process scheduling at the refineries. Hence, we integrate the shipment planning and the process scheduling at the refineries. We suggest a solution method based on column generation, valid inequalities, and constraint branching. The solution method is tested on data provided by the Nynas oil refinery company and solutions are obtained within 4 hours, for problem instances of up to 3 refineries, 15 depots, and 4 products when considering a time horizon of 42 days.

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

shipment planning
valid inequalities
column generation
oil refinery


A Method for Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration in Design-Oriented IS Research Design-oriented research in the Information Systems (IS) domain aims at delivering results which are both of scientific rigor and of relevance for practitioners. Today, however, academic researchers are facing the challenge of gaining access to and capturing knowledge from the practitioner community. Against this background, the paper proposes a method for Consortium Research, which is supposed to facilitate multilateral collaboration of researchers and practitioners during the research process. The method's design is based on a self-evaluating design process which was carried out over a period of 20 years. The paper's contribution is twofold. First, it addresses the science of design, since it proposes guidance to researchers for practitioner collaboration during the process of artifact design. Second, the method is an artifact itself, hence, the result of a design-oriented research process.

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


Server-centric web frameworks: An overview Most contemporary Web frameworks may be classified as server-centric. An overview of such Web frameworks is presented. It is based on information gleaned from surveying 80 server-centric Web frameworks, as well as from popular related specifications. Requirements typically expected of a server-centric Web framework are discussed. Two Web framework taxonomies are proposed, reflecting two orthogonal ways of characterizing a framework: the way in which the markup language content of a browser-destined document is specified in the framework (presentation concerns); and the framework's facilities for the user to control the flow of events between browser and server (control concerns).

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

design
languages
architecture
specification techniques
user interfaces


Modeling safety considerations and space limitations in piling operations using agent based simulation Site space availability is an aspect resource that must be taken into consideration when estimating the duration of construction operations. Site space availability has significant effect in meeting target schedule. This paper proposes a model for estimating the productivity of bored piles, taking into consideration safety requirements and space availability. Executing bored piles requires special equipment resources that require space to work and to move. The cost of equipment that is used in bored pile operations ranges from 25% to 30% of the total cost. Therefore, it is deemed important to decide on the exact number of required equipment in piling operations. The proposed model utilizes agent based simulation (ABS) to estimate bored pile productivity depending on the available resources (rig and crane equipment). The model captures the probabilities of equipment breakdowns based on equipment historical data. It also animates movements of equipment taking into consideration safety requirements. A case study is presented to demonstrate the practical features of the proposed ABS model.

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

agent based simulation
piling operations
safety considerations
space limitations


computer vision techniques for pda accessibility of in-house video surveillance In this paper we propose an approach to indoor environment surveillance and, in particular, to people behaviour control in home automation context. The reference application is a silent and automatic control of the behaviour of people living alone in the house and specially conceived for people with limited autonomy (e.g., elders or disabled people). The aim is to detect dangerous events (such as a person falling down) and to react to these events by establishing a remote connection with low-performance clients, such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). To this aim, we propose an integrated server architecture, typically connected in intranet with network cameras, able to segment and track objects of interest; in the case of objects classified as people, the system must also evaluate the people posture and infer possible dangerous situations. Finally, the system is equipped with a specifically designed transcoding server to adapt the video content to PDA requirements (display area and bandwidth) and to the user's requests. The main issues of the proposal are a reliable real-time object detector and tracking module, a simple but effective posture classifier improved by a supervised learning phase, and an high performance transcoding inspired on MPEG-4 object-level standard, tailored to PDA. Results on different video sequences and performance analysis are discussed.

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

indoor surveillance
people posture classifier


Analytic one-bit and CNOT gate constructions of general n-qubit controlled gates General n-qubit controlled unitary gates are frequently used in quantum information processing tasks. Barenco, Bennett, Cleve, Di Vincenzo, Margolus and Shor [Phys. Rev. A 52 ( 1995) 3457] have given the general construction methods, and explicit results for up-to-four-qubits controlled unitary gates. We extended their calculation and gave two analytic expressions for the construction of general n-qubit controlled unitary gates in terms of one-qubit and two-qubit CNOT gates. There are two expressions - one is exponential in the qubit number which is efficient for up to ten qubits, and the other is polynomial in the qubit number, which is efficient for more than ten qubits.

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

quantum circuit
analytic construction
controlled unitary gate


Extension and representation of comonotonically additive functionals The domain of comonotonically additive and monotone functionals on the class of continuous functions with compact support is extended in a natural way. A necessary and sufficient condition for which the extended functional is comonotonically additive and monotone is presented. It is shown that the extended functional can be represented by a Choquet integral when the extended functional is comonotonically additive and monotone, (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy measure
non-additive measure
comonotonic
integral representation


Strong mediated equilibrium Stability against potential deviations by sets of agents is a most desired property in the design and analysis of multi-agent systems. However, unfortunately, this property is typically not satisfied. In game-theoretic terms, a strong equilibrium, which is a strategy profile immune to deviations by coalition, rarely exists. This paper suggests the use of mediators in order to enrich the set of situations where we can obtain stability against deviations by coalitions. A mediator is defined to be a reliable entity, which can ask the agents for the right to play on their behalf, and is guaranteed to behave in a pre-specified way based on messages received from the agents. However, a mediator cannot enforce behavior; that is, agents can play in the game directly, without the mediator's help. A mediator generates a new game for the players, the mediated game. We prove some general results about mediators, and mainly concentrate on the notion of strong mediated equilibrium, which is just a strong equilibrium at the mediated game. We show that desired behaviors, which are stable against deviations by coalitions, can be obtained using mediators in several classes of settings. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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

mediator
mediated equilibrium
strong equilibrium


data transmission and base-station placement for optimizing network lifetime We study the problem of transmitting data from a set of sensors to a base-station where the data is to be gathered. Each sensor continuously generates data and has to transmit it through the network (via other sensor nodes) to the base-station. Considering the battery limitations of the sensors, our goal is to find an optimum location of the base-station and a corresponding data transmission scheme for routing the data from the sensors, such that the network is operating for the longest possible time. We focus mainly on tree networks for 2-level trees, with at most 2 hops from sensor to the base-station. For such networks we give efficient algorithms for forwarding data from sensors to the base-station and for locating the base-station optimally for maximizing network lifetime. Further, we show that determining a transmission protocol for trees with 3 or more levels is NP-hard. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods with experimental results on simulated data, comparing our 2-level tree algorithm with methods based on linear programming.

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

sensor networks
matching
optimization
base-station location


Automatic detection of mis-spelled Japanese expressions using a new method for automatic extraction of negative examples based on positive examples We developed a method for extracting negative examples when only positive examples are given as supervised data. This method calculates the probability of occurrence of an input example, which should be judged to be positive or negative. It considers an input example that has a high probability of occurrence but does not appear in the set of positive examples as a negative example. We used this method for one of important tasks in natural language processing: automatic detection of misspelled Japanese expressions. The results showed that the method is effective. In this study, we also described two other methods we developed for the detection of misspelled expressions: a combined method and a "leaving-one-out" method. In our experiments, we found that these methods are also effective.

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


Semi-passive replication and Lazy Consensus ? This paper presents two main contributions: semi-passive replication and Lazy Consensus. The former is a replication technique with parsimonious processing. It is based on the latter; a variant of Consensus allowing the lazy evaluation of proposed values. Semi-passive replication is a replication technique with parsimonious processing. This means that, in the normal case, each request is processed by only one single process. The most significant aspect of semi-passive replication is that it requires a weaker system model than existing techniques of the same family. For semi-passive replication, we give an algorithm based on the Lazy Consensus. Lazy Consensus is a variant of the Consensus problem that allows the lazy evaluation of proposed values, hence the name. The main difference with Consensus is the introduction of an additional property of laziness. This property requires that proposed values are computed only when they are actually needed. We present an algorithm based on Chandra and Toueg's Consensus algorithm for asynchronous distributed systems with a ?S ? S failure detector.

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

replication techniques
fault tolerance
high availability
failure detectors
asynchronous systems
group membership


A time-domain weighted linear successive interference cancellation detector for rapidly time-varying OFDMA communication systems ? A low computational complexity weighted linear SIC detector is proposed. It can converge to either the decorrelator or the LMMSE detector for two distinct values. A reduced complexity version of the weighted linear SIC detector is also proposed. The proposed scheme is convergent if the weighting factor is between 0 and 1.

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


an evaluation of off-line calibration techniques for evolutionary algorithms Most metaheuristics define a set of parameters that must be tuned. A good setup of those parameter values can lead to take advantage of all the metaheuristic capabilities to solve the problem at hand. Tuning techniques are step by step methods based on multiple runs of the algorithm. In this study we compare three automated tuning methods: F-Race, Revac and ParamILS. We evaluate the performance of each method using a genetic algorithm for combinatorial optimization. The differences and advantages of each technique are discussed. Finally we establish some guidelines that might help to choose a tuning process to use.

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


Interval oscillation criteria for a forced second-order differential equation with nonlinear damping In this paper, we are concerned with the oscillations in a class of forced second-order differential equations with nonlinear damping terms. By using an inequality due to Hardy et al., several new interval oscillation criteria for the equations are established. These criteria are different from most known ones in that they are based on the information only on a sequence of subintervals of [t(0), infinity), rather than on the whole half-line. Our results are more general, and extend the oscillation criteria of Wong and Yang. Examples are also given to illustrate the results. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

interval criteria
forced term
second-order


Mathematical modelling for determining economic batch size and optimal number of deliveries for EPQ model with quality assurance The classic economic production quantity (EPQ) model assumes a continuous inventory-issuing policy for satisfying product demand and a perfect production for all items produced. However, in a real-life vendor-buyer integrated system, a multi-delivery policy is often used in lieu of continuous issuing policy and it is inevitable to generate defective items during a production run. This study addresses these issues by incorporating multiple deliveries of the finished batch, customer's inventory-holding cost and manufacturer's quality assurance cost into an EPQ model with the imperfect reworking of random defective items. Mathematical modelling and analyses are employed. Convexity of the long-run expected cost function is proved by the use of Hessian matrix equations, and the closed-form solutions in terms of the optimal lot size and optimal number of deliveries are obtained. The research results are demonstrated with a numerical example with a discussion on its practical usage.

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


modular implementation of presentations The presentation of an application program specifies how the data and operations provided by an application are presented to users. Most traditional techniques for implementing presentations lead to unstructured, unmodular implementations that are hard to construct and change. We present a model of presentation that identifies the dependencies between the presentation and functionality portions of an application. Based on this model, we show how several implementation techniques can be used to construct presentations in a modular way.

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

present dependencies users implementation data modular model change

graphical user interfaces
user interface management systems
applications
semantics of interaction
functional
operability
object-oriented programming


ipv6 training in europe The situation regarding the current curricula landscape (actors, offer and needs) for the Future Internet Protocol (IPv6) in Europe is analysed. The results target establishment of scenarios to evaluate how actions aimed at developing the IPv6 training offer would secure, support and potentially accelerate the IPv6 adoption in Europe. This analysis is illustrated by case studies and will be expressed through recommendations suggested to the European Commission. This work is financed by a grant assigned by the European Commission.

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


ON THE EFFICIENT COMPUTATION OF THE MINIMAL COVERABILITY SET OF PETRI NETS The minimal coverability set (MCS) of a Petri net is a finite representation of the downward-closure of its reachable markings. The minimal coverability set allows to decide several important problems like coverability, semi-liveness, place boundedness, etc. The classical algorithm to compute the MCS constructs the Karp&Miller (KM) tree [10]. Unfortunately the KM tree is often huge, even for small nets. An improvement of this KM algorithm is the Minimal Coverability Tree (MCT) algorithm [3], which has been introduced nearly 20 years ago, and implemented since then in several tools such as Pep [9]. Unfortunately, we show in this paper that the MCT is flawed: it might compute an under-approximation of the reachable markings. We propose a new solution for the efficient computation of the MCS of Petri nets. Our algorithm is based on new ideas, and the experimental results show that it behaves much better in practice than the KM algorithm.

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


A dynamic geomonitoring system for Venetian coastal ecosystem: WATERS project The main purpose of the WATERS project is to set up an innovative system for integrated monitoring of environmental parameters in the water body of the Venice lagoon, allowingwith limited investment and low operating costsa sharp improvement in the environment survey and restoration practices. For this aim, 15 boats from AMAV's operating fleet, daily travelling over wide areas of the territory for normal refuse collection service, shall be equipped with special monitoring and data transmission devices. The research, co-financed by the European Union (EU) within LIFE Program 1997, to be carried out in tight cooperation with the appointed local authorities, shall be performed as follows: (1) testing and development of special monitoring equipment to be installed on the foreseen 15 AMAV's boats; (2) installation and testing, on the same boats, of GPS-NAVSTAR high-precision differential positioning system, integrated with available navigation instruments through a Kalman sequential filter; this system shall allow tagging of each sample with precise time and position reference marks; (3) set up of a data processing and transmission system, from AMAV's boats to a central control station; (4) development of a suitable geographical information system specific to the coastal environment, receiving the continuous flow of environment monitoring data, open to new software applications and created on the basis of existing historical and scientific documents; (5) design and development of a laboratory boat for supplementary hydrodynamic and physicochemical data, for taking samples of water, sediment and biomarkers, and for detailed in situ analysis of phenomena through the on-board equipment; and (6) validation of the correlations found among physico-chemical, biological and hydrodynamic environmental variables and determination of critical environment matrices. As a final result, the research will define a real management strategy for coastal environments, a widely applicable model derived from the strategy to be adopted for Venice, a very complex ecosystem affected by many phenomena and many sources of possible pollution (anthropogenic, agricultural, industrial, etc.), in the presence of particular tidal variations capable of producing significant impacts on the environment.

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

waters project
geomonitoring
venice
environment


Finding rough and fuzzy-rough set reducts with SAT Feature selection refers to the problem of selecting those input features that are most predictive of a given outcome; a problem encountered in many areas such as machine learning, pattern recognition and signal processing. In particular, solution to this has found successful application in tasks that involve datasets containing huge numbers of features (in the order of tens of thousands), which would otherwise be impossible to process further. Recent examples include text processing and web content classification. Rough set theory has been used as such a dataset pre-processor with much success, but current methods are inadequate at finding globally minimal reductions, the smallest sets of features possible. This paper proposes a technique that considers this problem from a propositional satisfiability perspective. In this framework, globally minimal subsets can be located and verified.

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 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

fuzzy rough set theory
boolean satisfiability


class point based effort estimation of oo systems using fuzzy subtractive clustering and artificial neural networks Fuzzy Logic is a convenient way to map an input space to an output space. Class points have been accepted to estimate the size of Object Oriented (OO) products and to directly predict the effort, cost and duration of the software projects. Most estimation models in use or proposed in the literature are based on regression techniques. In this paper, we attempt on using Fuzzy Subtractive Clustering and Artificial Neural Networks to estimate the development effort of OO systems using class points. The estimation model uses class points as the independent variable and development effort as the dependent variable. The results show that the estimation accuracy is higher in Fuzzy Logic compared to the Neural Network model. This experiment is carried out using the data set found in the literature

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

effort estimation
artificial neural networks
subtractive clustering
class point
fuzzy logic

object oriented systems
regression analysis
fuzzy inference


A note on exact image reconstruction from a limited number of projections In a recent paper in this journal by Kesidis and Papamarkos A new method for the exact reconstruction of any gray-scale image from its projections is proposed. In this note we point out that this method is a special case of a well-known approach (peeling) and that it can produce exact reconstructions only under assumptions that are not realistic for practical methods of data collection. Further, we point out that some statements made in the paper regarding disadvantages of the algebraic reconstruction techniques (ART) as compared to the method of the paper are false.

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

image reconstruction
peeling
algebraic reconstruction techniques
art
projections

computerized tomography
algorithm
digital difference analyzer


Assessment of Open-Ended Questions using a Multidimensional Approach for the Interaction and Collaboration of Learners in E-Learning Environments Currently, the assessment of learners in conventional e-learning systems is only one dimension in which learners are required to produce answers, for example, by selecting multiple-choice, true/false, or matching answers or by giving short answers. This type of assessment still lacks interactions among the learners, and thus, it might not fully support learning. Many researchers have endeavored to propose an open-ended question method for evaluation, but their methods still focus on content assessment rather than learners' activities, which again lacks interactions among the learners. This paper concentrates on creating a new assessment method using open-ended questions with the aim of enhancing collaborations, activities and interactions of learners at the same time. The objectives are as follows: 1) to develop a process model for multidimensional assessment (M-DA) to enable effective learning; 2) to develop free-text answer assessments using a vector space model and a semantic extraction model; and 3) to develop an algorithm for evaluating learners based on a M-DA to encourage learners' activities. In addition, we created an environment for learners to be actively assessed and to interact with others when studying online. Two groups of parallel learners taking an e-course were tested on the two systems in a virtual learning environment. The results of the experiment noted that the system with multidimensional assessment showed a better outcome than the system without M-DA.

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

e-learning collaboration
multidimensional assessment (m-da)
free-text answers assessment
collaborative virtual environment


A study of subsidiaries views of information systems strategic planning in multinational organisations This research examines information systems strategic planning (ISSP) in multinationals from the perspective of the subsidiaries. The research was carried out through interviews with the IT and business managers in subsidiaries of nine large American, European, and Japanese multinationals. The evidence from this study reveals that, in the majority of these organisations, IS planning is either centralised or moving towards centralisation. The main focus of IS planning, in many of these organisations, is to control cost and achieve scale economies. As centralisation increases IT tends to control the planning process and, as a result, IS planning becomes more tactical than strategic and is dominated by IT infrastructure planning. Project implementation was the main criterion used to measure IS planning success. However, due to the dominant role of IT, the subsidiary business managers are often less satisfied with the IS planning approach compared with the subsidiary IT managers. The level of involvement of business managers and their satisfaction with ISSP was related to the degree of decentralisation of responsibility for IS planning.

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

strategic alignment
multinational companies
multinational subsidiaries


Performance analysis and optimization of best-effort service in IEEE 802.16 networks The IEEE 802.16-based WiMAX technology has great potential for the fourth-generation mobile networks. Some of its service classes use the contention-based broadcast polling mechanism to request resources. In this paper, we investigate the performance experienced by these services when the network is unsaturated. In particular, we model each subscriber station as an M/G/1 queue where the service time is determined by the parameters of the network configuration and the binary exponential backoff contention resolution algorithm. We develop a fixed-point analysis to derive analytical expressions for network throughput and packet access delay. The accuracy of the analytical model is validated by comparing it with simulation over a wide range of operating conditions. The implications of various different parameter configurations on the performance are investigated using the analytical model. Moreover, we show that the model can be degenerated to the saturated condition. The utility of both the unsaturated and saturated models is further demonstrated by finding the optimal set of parameter values that maximize the network throughput. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

wimax contention unsaturated performance