Video based actigraphy and breathing monitoring from the bedside table of shared beds Good sleep is an important factor for a high quality of life. Presence of sleep disorders requires patients to undergo polysomnography examinations at a sleep clinic, which involves attaching multiple head and body sensors. This results in an uncomfortable and unnatural sleep setting for the patients, complicating an accurate diagnosis. Currently, this diagnosis is done manually, making the entire process time consuming and cumbersome. We propose a camera based system capable of analyzing the subjects in their own sleeping environment. The system segments the primary subject from the background and any other bed occupants, then computes the actigraphy and the breathing characteristics of the subject. Segmentation is performed with an AdaBoost classifier using among others motion, intensity, focus and Histogram of Oriented Gradients features. A sum of absolute differences operation on the pixels within the segmented area of the primary subject returns the actigraphy signal. The breathing characteristics are extracted based on small motion analysis of consecutive and reference frames. The proposed system has been evaluated on four healthy adults for actigraphy and on five healthy adults for breathing analysis using a Texas Instrument Chronos wrist watch and inductive respiratory belts as references respectively. Evaluation was performed using the metrics accuracy, precision, sensitivity and breathing rate correspondence. The proposed system has an average accuracy of 88% at a precision of 79% for segmentation of the primary subject. It can detect movements up to an accuracy of 85% while outperforming wrist actigraphy at 75% accuracy. State-of-the-art video based breathing algorithms were surpassed with an overall sensitivity of 87%, precision of 90%, and a breathing rate correspondence of 93%.

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

sleep monitoring
shared bed
movement analysis
video actigraphy
video breathing analysis


Minimum sum set coloring of trees and line graphs of trees ? In this paper, we study the minimum sum set coloring (MSSC) problem which consists in assigning a set of x(v) x ( v ) positive integers to each vertex v v of a graph so that the intersection of sets assigned to adjacent vertices is empty and the sum of the assigned set of numbers to each vertex of the graph is minimum. The MSSC problem occurs in two versions: non-preemptive and preemptive. We show that the MSSC problem is strongly NP-hard both in the preemptive case on trees and in the non-preemptive case in line graphs of trees. Finally, we give exact parameterized algorithms for these two versions on trees and line graphs of trees.

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

graph coloring
minimum sum coloring
set-coloring
line graphs of trees


Four new efficient logical display techniques of electricity distribution networks Tracing a schematic display of an electricity distribution network is a cumbersome task and does not empower the engineer to take fast decisions to control the dynamic network because of the difficulty in reading the displayed circuits. This paper presents four different new approaches, which achieve an intelligent logical dynamically derived network connections and display for Electrical Distribution Networks. The four approaches were designed and implemented using the Object Oriented approach and programmed using Delphi graphics components. The system developed is dynamically interactive and allows switching operations as well as displays. This paper focuses on the display issues only. The logical display approaches presented in this paper eliminate the well-known difficulties of adding and retiring stations which are awkward operations in the schematic display. The four new approaches are compared in terms of speed, readability and space utilization. To our knowledge there is no similar work done previously.

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

electricity distribution network
schematic display
logical display

distribution control center
display algorithms


Computation and hypercomputation Does Nature permit the implementation of behaviours that cannot be simulated computationally? We consider the meaning of physical computation in some detail, and present arguments in favour of physical hypercomputation: for example, modern scientific method does not allow the specification of any experiment capable of refuting hypercomputation. We consider the implications of relativistic algorithms capable of solving the (Turing) Halting Problem. We also reject as a fallacy the argument that hypercomputation has no relevance because non-computable values are indistinguishable from sufficiently close computable approximations. In addition to considering the nature of computability relative to any given physical theory, we can consider the relationship between versions of computability corresponding to different models of physics. Deutsch and Penrose have argued on mathematical grounds that quantum computation and Turing computation have equivalent formal power. We suggest this equivalence is invalid when considered from the physical point of view, by highlighting a quantum computational behaviour that cannot meaningfully be considered feasible in the classical universe.

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

computability
hypercomputation
scientific method

church-turing thesis
recursion
super-turing machine


Addressing capacity uncertainty in resource-constrained assignment problems Resource-constrained assignment problems typically assume capacities are known. We focus on the situation when capacities are uncertain. In addition to the well-known generalized assignment problem (GAP) and the assignment problem with side-constraints (APSC), we discuss two other resource-constrained generalizations of the assignment problem. We identify two alternative approaches to utilize deterministic solution strategies while addressing capacity uncertainty, and illustrate how these approaches can be applied to a specific generalization. We also report the performance of these alternatives on a number of random test problems.

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

generalized assignment problem
resource constraints
approximation


A Pay-and-Stay model for tackling intruders in hybrid wireless mesh networks Intrusion handling in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) is a relatively less addressed topic. The difficulty may lie in the fact that there are other wireless networks for which some intrusion detection or prevention schemes are proposed that could also be applied in some way in a WMN setting. As those schemes are contributing, researchers may not find it necessary to specifically focus on this field. Another critical reason may be the difficulty in developing an effective scheme for WMNs. In fact, the structural differences among various wireless ad hoc networking technologies make it imperative to devise the mechanisms in subtle but critically different ways. For WMNs, there is a proper network backbone that is called mesh backbone (which is not present in many other wireless network counterparts), which supports the fringe part or the mesh clients. Hence, it is often possible to install the intrusion handling mechanisms or agents in the stable part and allowing some flexibility in the client or fringe parts. Nonetheless, instead of thinking in this pattern, we take a different approach of tackling intrusion by allowing an intruder to stay in the network as long as it proves to be worthy of staying in the network by supporting the network's regular activities. The idea is that by not always directly purging rogue entities, one could exploit the intruder's resources, thereby benefiting the network. We call our approach an intrusion-tackling mechanism and term it a Pay-and-Stay model. Alongside presenting the details and analysis of our model, in this paper, we also present the basics of various forms of intrusion handling in such types of networks. Using our evaluation results, we found that the model could be very effective in handling intruders and defending the network against a broad range of security attacks.

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

game theory
selective forwarding
wireless mesh network


Chinese document layout analysis using an adaptive regrouping strategy In document layout analysis, the defining conditions for textlines and text regions involve certain numerical parameters (e.g. inter-character spacing and inter-textline spacing) whose values can only be estimated when textlines and text regions have already been formed. This seemingly chicken-and-egg problem can be solved through an adaptive regrouping strategy, which consists of three operations. First, we group basic ingredients into preliminary textlines and text regions according to crude parametric values. Second, we refine our estimate of the parametric values based on the groups thus formed. Third, we form new groups by splitting and merging existing groups based on the newly estimated values. This paper applies the above strategy to Chinese documents whose complexity derives from the coexistence of horizontal and vertical textlines. Successful results are obtained using this approach. The accuracy rates for identifying text regions and textlines are above 98% in a test database consisting of over one thousand document samples and various layout structures.

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

layout analysis
chinese documents
adaptive regrouping strategy


Design science in action: developing a modeling technique for eliciting requirements on business process management (BPM) tools Selecting a suitable business process management (BPM) tool to build a business process support system for a particular business process is difficult. There are a number of BPM tools on the market that are available as systems to install locally and as services in the cloud. These tools are based on different BPM paradigms (e.g., workflow or case management) and provide different capabilities (e.g., enforcement of the control flow, shared spaces, or a collaborative environment). This makes it difficult for an organization to select a tool that would fit the business processes at hand. The paper suggests a solution for this problem. The core of the solution is a modeling technique for business processes for eliciting their requirements for a suitable BPM tool. It produces a high-level, business process model, called a step-relationship model that depicts the essential characteristics of a process in a paradigm-independent way. The solution presented in this paper has been developed based on the paradigm of design science research, and the paper discusses the research project from the design science perspective. The solution has been applied in two case studies in order to demonstrate its feasibility.

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


Minimal concave cost rebalance of a portfolio to the efficient frontier One usually constructs a portfolio on the efficient frontier, but it may not be efficient after, say three months since the efficient frontier will shift as the elapse of time. We then have to rebalance the portfolio if the deviation is no longer acceptable. The method to be proposed in this paper is to find a portfolio on the new efficient frontier such that the total transaction cost required for this rebalancing is minimal. This problem results in a nonconvex minimization problem, if we use mean-variance model. In this paper we will formulate this problem by using absolute deviation as the measure of risk and solve the resulting linearly constrained concave minimization problem by a branch and bound algorithm successfully applied to portfolio optimization problem under concave transaction costs. It will be demonstrated that this method is efficient and that it leads to a significant reduction of transaction costs.

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 O O O O O 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

mean-absolute deviation model
concave cost minimization
optimization over the efficient set
global optimization


finding redundant and complementary communities in multidimensional networks Community Discovery in networks is the problem of detecting, for each node, its membership to one of more groups of nodes, the communities, that are densely connected, or highly interactive. We define the community discovery problem in multidimensional networks, where more than one connection may reside between any two nodes. We also introduce two measures able to characterize the communities found. Our experiments on real world multidimensional networks support the methodology proposed in this paper, and open the way for a new class of algorithms, aimed at capturing the multifaceted complexity of connections among nodes in a network.

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


Statistical power and its subcomponents - Missing and misunderstood concepts in empirical software engineering research Recently we have witnessed a welcomed increase in the amount of empirical evaluation of Software Engineering methods and concepts. It is hoped that this increase will lead to establishing Software Engineering as a well-defined subject with a sound scientifically proven underpinning rather than a topic based upon unsubstantiated theories and personal belief. For this to happen the empirical work must be of the highest standard. Unfortunately producing meaningful empirical evaluations is a highly hazardous activity, full of uncertainties and often unseen difficulties. Any researcher can overlook or neglect a seemingly innocuous factor, which in fact invalidates all of the work. More serious is that large sections of the community can overlook essential experimental design guidelines, which bring into question the validity of much of the work undertaken to date. In this paper, the authors address one such factor - Statistical Power Analysis. It is believed, and will be demonstrated, that any body of research undertaken without considering statistical power as a fundamental design parameter is potentially fatally flawed. Unfortunately the authors are unaware of much Software Engineering research which takes this parameter into account. In addition to introducing Statistical Power, the paper will attempt to demonstrate the potential difficulties of applying it to the design of Software Engineering experiments and concludes with a discussion of what the authors believe is the most viable method of incorporating the evaluation of statistical power within the experimental design process.

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


ensuring quality in peer review Faculty users of education digital libraries require contents that are high quality and that are effective teaching and learning materials. Faculty use peer reviews of these materials to select those that they wish to use. MERLOT has developed a scalable, effective peer review system that meets the needs of its users. This paper describes evaluation research conducted to ensure that as the process is reliable, trusted and useable.

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


Practical development of an Eclipse-based software fault prediction tool using Naive Bayes algorithm Despite the amount of effort software engineers have been putting into developing fault prediction models. software fault prediction still poses great challenges. This research using machine learning and statistical techniques has been ongoing for 15 years, and yet we still have not had a breakthrough. Unfortunately, none of these prediction models have achieved widespread applicability in the software industry due to a lack of software tools to automate this prediction process. Historical project data, including software faults and a robust software fault prediction tool, can enable quality managers to focus on fault-prone modules. Thus, they can improve the testing process. We developed an Eclipse-based software fault prediction tool for Java programs to simplify the fault prediction process. We also integrated a machine learning algorithm called Naive Bayes into the plug-in because of its proven high-performance for this problem. This article presents a practical view to software fault prediction problem, and it shows how we managed to combine software metrics with software fault data to apply Naive Bayes technique inside an open source platform. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

machine learning
naive bayes
software fault prediction


A novel approach for predicting the operation of external gear pumps under cavitating conditions A model to evaluate fluid properties considering the dynamic features of cavitation is presented. The new model for the evaluation of fluid properties is suitable for lumped parameters models. The paper studies the operation of gear pumps under cavitating conditions. Experimental activity on a gear pump was performed to validate the modelling approach.

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


Power-delay optimizations in gate sizing The problem of power-delay tradeoffs in transistor sizing is examined using a nonlinear optimization formulation. Both the dynamic and the short-circuit power are considered, and a new modeling technique is used to calculate the short-circuit power. The notion of transition density is used, with an enhancement that considers the effect of gate delays on the transition density. When the short-circuit power is neglected, the minimum power circuit is idential to the minimum area circuit. However, under our more realistic models, our experimental results on several circuits show that the minimum power circuit is not necessarily the same as the minimum area circuit.

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


A multi-objective artificial immune algorithm for parameter optimization in support vector machine Support vector machine (SVM) is a classification method based on the structured risk minimization principle. Penalize, C; and kernel, ? parameters of SVM must be carefully selected in establishing an efficient SVM model. These parameters are selected by trial and error or man's experience. Artificial immune system (AIS) can be defined as a soft computing method inspired by theoretical immune system in order to solve science and engineering problems. A multi-objective artificial immune algorithm has been used to optimize the kernel and penalize parameters of SVM in this paper. In training stage of SVM, multiple solutions are found by using multi-objective artificial immune algorithm and then these parameters are evaluated in test stage. The proposed algorithm is applied to fault diagnosis of induction motors and anomaly detection problems and successful results are obtained.

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

support vector machine
artificial immune system
optimization
fault diagnosis
anomaly detection


Explication of interactions between HMGCR isoform 2 and various statins through In silico modeling and docking The enzyme 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGCR) catalyzes the conversion of HMG-CoA to mevalonate, a four-electron oxidoreduction that is the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of cholesterol and other isoprenoids. This study was designed to understand the mode of interactions of HMGCR isoform 2 with other statins. Hence, ligands such as Atorvastatin (DB01076), Lovastatin (DB00227), Fluvastatin (DB01095), Simvastatin (DB00641), Pravastatin (DB00175), Rosuvastatin (DB01098) and Cerivastatin (DB00439) were docked with enzymes HMGCR isoform 1 (pdb: 1DQ8) and modeled HMGCR isoform 2 (gi|196049380). Our homology modeling results were further processed to model the structure of human HMGCR isoform 2 and its accuracy was confirmed through RMS Z-scores (1.249). These interactions revealed that binding residues such as Arg515, Asp516, Tyr517 and Asn518 are found to be conserved in HMGCR isoform 2 with various statins. Our studies further concluded that Atorvastatin is most efficient inhibitor against both the isoforms of HMGCR whereas HMGCR isoform 2 shows less effectiveness with statins when compared with HMGCR isoform 1.

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

statins
docking
homology modeling
hmgcr isoform 1
hmgcr isoform 2


Weiszfelds Method: Old and New Results In 1937, the 16-years-old Hungarian mathematician Endre Weiszfeld, in a seminal paper, devised a method for solving the FermatWeber location problema problem whose origins can be traced back to the seventeenth century. Weiszfelds method stirred up an enormous amount of research in the optimization and location communities, and is also being discussed and used till these days. In this paper, we review both the past and the ongoing research on Weiszfeds method. The existing results are presented in a self-contained and concise mannersome are derived by new and simplified techniques. We also establish two new results using modern tools of optimization. First, we establish a non-asymptotic sublinear rate of convergence of Weiszfelds method, and second, using an exact smoothing technique, we present a modification of the method with a proven better rate of convergence.

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


Multi-layer loss recovery in TCP over optical burst-switched networks It is well-known that the bufferless nature of optical burst-switching (OBS) networks cause random burst loss even at low traffic loads. When TCP is used over OBS, these random losses make the TCP sender decrease its congestion window even though the network may not be congested. This results in significant TCP throughput degradation. In this paper, we propose a multi-layer loss-recovery approach with automatic retransmission request (ARQ) and Snoop for OBS networks given that TCP is used at the transport layer. We evaluate the performance of Snoop and ARQ at the lower layer over a hybrid IP-OBS network. Based on the simulation results, the proposed multi-layer hybrid ARQ + Snoop approach outperforms all other approaches even at high loss probability. We developed an analytical model for end-to-end TCP throughput and verified the model with simulation results.

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


A systematic approach for soft sensor development This paper presents a systematic approach based on robust statistical techniques for development of a data-driven soft sensor, which is an important component of the process analytical technology (PAT) and is essential for effective quality control. The data quality is obviously of essential significance for a data-driven soft sensor. Therefore, preprocessing procedures for process measurements are described in detail. First, a template is defined based on one or more key process variables to handle missing data related to severe operation interruptions. Second, a univariate, followed by a multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) approach, is used to detect outlying observations. Then, robust regression techniques are employed to derive an inferential model. A dynamic partial least squares (DPLS) model is implemented to address the issue of auto-correlation in process data and thus to provide smoother estimation than using a static regression model. The proposed methodology is illustrated through applications to a cement kiln system for estimation of variables related to product quality, i.e., free lime, and to emission quality, i.e., nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission. The case studies reveal the effectiveness of the systematic framework in deriving data-driven soft sensors that provide reasonably reliable one-step-ahead predictions. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

multivariate regression analysis
soft sensing
robust statistics


things are clicking in computer science courses This paper presents and discusses a modified approach to teaching an algorithms and data structures course (CS4). The approach relies on frequent evaluation of student understanding of course content and enables the instructor to experiment with various exercises to facilitate peer-instruction and cooperative learning. It uses a web application called MessageGrid which enables instructor and students, each of whom has a laptop computer with wireless access to the web, to interact in a variety of ways both in and out of class.

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

laptop course
peer-instruction
assessment
collaborative learning


Why are decisions in flood disaster management so poorly supported by information from flood models? Decisions during flood disasters are little supported by information from flood models. The practical process of decision-making is not well acknowledged in existing evaluations about the limited use of models. Decisions happen in a dynamic network of participants, exchanging information and knowledge. Social Network Analysis provides insight in how model information flows through this network. Delays, caused by technical and organizational limitations, are the main barrier for model use.

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

flood disaster management
social network analysis

decision support systems
decision-making process


Force Profiles of a Linear Switched Reluctance Motor Having Special Pole Face Shapes In this paper, the results of a finite element analysis are carried out on an new stator geometry of a three phase longitudinal flux Linear Switched Reluctance Motor (LSRM). In the new geometry, pole shoes are affixed to the stator poles. Static and dynamic characteristics for the proposed structure have been highlighted. Motor performance for variable load conditions is discussed. Frequency spectrum analyses of force profile using the fast Fourier transform (FFT) are described to predict the vibration frequencies. The 2-Dimensional (2-D) finite element analysis (FEA) and the experimental results of this paper prove that LSRMs are one of the strong candidates for linear propulsion drives.

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

linear switched reluctance motor
finite element analysis
fft


An efficient method for solving highly anisotropic elliptic equations Solving elliptic PDEs in more than one dimension can be a computationally expensive task. For some applications characterized by a high degree of anisotropy in the coefficients of the elliptic operator, such that the term with the highest derivative in one direction is much larger than the terms in the remaining directions, the discretized elliptic operator often has a very large condition number taking the solution even further out of reach using traditional methods. This paper will demonstrate a solution method for such ill-behaved problems. The high condition number of the D-dimensional discretized elliptic operator will be exploited to split the problem into a series of well-behaved one and (D?1)-dimensional elliptic problems. This solution technique can be used alone on sufficiently coarse grids, or in conjunction with standard iterative methods, such as Conjugate Gradient, to substantially reduce the number of iterations needed to solve the problem to a specified accuracy. The solution is formulated analytically for a generic anisotropic problem using arbitrary coordinates, hopefully bringing this method into the scope of a wide variety of 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 value problems for second-order elliptic systems


An Experiment About Static and Dynamic Type Systems Doubts About the Positive Impact of Static Type Systems on Development Time Although static type systems are an essential part in teaching and research in software engineering and computer science, there is hardly any knowledge about what the impact of static type systems on the development time or the resulting quality for a piece of software is. On the one hand there are authors that state that static type systems decrease an application's complexity and hence its development time (which means that the quality must be improved since developers have more time left in their projects). On the other hand there are authors that argue that static type systems increase development time (and hence decrease the code quality) since they restrict developers to express themselves in a desired way. This paper presents an empirical study with 49 subjects that studies the impact of a static type system for the development of a parser over 27 hours working time. In the experiments the existence of the static type system has neither a positive nor a negative impact on an application's development time (under the conditions of the experiment).

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

experimentation
human factors
languages
programming languages
dynamically typed languages


Human Perception of Audio-Visual Synthetic Character Emotion Expression in the Presence of Ambiguous and Conflicting Information Computer simulated avatars and humanoid robots have an increasingly prominent place in today's world. Acceptance of these synthetic characters depends on their ability to properly and recognizably convey basic emotion states to a user population. This study presents an analysis of the interaction between emotional audio (human voice) and video (simple animation) cues. The emotional relevance of the channels is analyzed with respect to their effect on human perception and through the study of the extracted audio-visual features that contribute most prominently to human perception. As a result of the unequal level of expressivity across the two channels, the audio was shown to bias the perception of the evaluators. However, even in the presence of a strong audio bias, the video data were shown to affect human perception. The feature sets extracted from emotionally matched audio-visual displays contained both audio and video features while feature sets resulting from emotionally mismatched audio-visual displays contained only audio information. This result indicates that observers integrate natural audio cues and synthetic video cues only when the information expressed is in congruence. It is therefore important to properly design the presentation of audio-visual cues as incorrect design may cause observers to ignore the information conveyed in one of the channels.

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

expressive animation
multimodality
synthesis


Modeling uncertain variables of the weighted average operation by fuzzy vectors The paper deals with the fuzzy extension of the weighted average operation. First, we study the convenient ways how uncertain weights and weighted values can be modeled by fuzzy vectors. We show that, in comparison to a tuple of fuzzy numbers that have been used for modeling uncertain values of particular weights and weighted values up to now, fuzzy vectors extend the possibilities of utilizing the vague expert information concerning the weights and weighted values. Next, we focus on computation of a fuzzy weighted average of a fuzzy vector of weighted values with a fuzzy vector of weights. We derive a general formula and we study its special forms. The advantage of the approach presented in the paper is that the resulting fuzzy weighted average is not overly imprecise since every available information about its variables is involved in computation. This fact is illustrated by several examples. Finally, we briefly discuss the problem of defuzzification of the resulting fuzzy weighted average.

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

separability of fuzzy vectors
normalized fuzzy weights
fuzzy probabilities
multiple criteria decision making


On the algorithmic implementation of multiclass kernel-based vector machines In this paper we describe the algorithmic implementation of multiclass kernel-based vector machines. Our starting point is a generalized notion of the margin to multiclass problems. Using this notion we cast multiclass categorization problems as a constrained optimization problem with a quadratic objective function. Unlike most of previous approaches which typically decompose a multiclass problem into multiple independent binary classification tasks, our notion of margin yields a direct method for training multiclass predictors. By using the dual of the optimization problem we are able to incorporate kernels with a compact set of constraints and decompose the dual problem into multiple optimization problems of reduced size. We describe an efficient fixed-point algorithm for solving the reduced optimization problems and prove its convergence. We then discuss technical details that yield significant running time improvements for large datasets. Finally, we describe various experiments with our approach comparing it to previously studied kernel-based methods. Our experiments indicate that for multiclass problems we attain state-of-the-art 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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


NON-GAUSSIANITY AND PURITY IN FINITE DIMENSION We address truncated states of continuous variable systems and analyze their statistical properties numerically by generating random states in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In particular, we focus to the distribution of purity and non-Gaussianity for dimension up to d = 21. We found that both quantities are distributed around typical values with variances that decrease for increasing dimension. Approximate formulas for typical purity and non-Gaussianity as a function of the dimension are derived.

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


A New Evolutionary Algorithm for a Class of Nonlinear Bilevel Programming Problems and Its Global Convergence When the leader's objective function of a nonlinear bilevel programming problem is nondifferentiable and the follower's problem of it is nonconvex, the existing algorithms cannot solve the problem. In this paper, a new effective evolutionary algorithm is proposed for this class of nonlinear bilevel programming problems. First, based on the leader's objective function, a new fitness function is proposed that can be easily used to evaluate the quality of different types of potential solutions. Then, based on Latin squares, an efficient crossover operator is constructed that has the ability of local search. Furthermore, a new mutation operator is designed by using some good search directions so that the offspring can approach a global optimal solution quickly. To solve the follower's problem efficiently, we apply some efficient deterministic optimization algorithms in the MATLAB Toolbox to search for its solutions. The asymptotically global convergence of the algorithm is proved. Numerical experiments on 25 test problems show that the proposed algorithm has a better performance than the compared algorithms on most of the test problems and is effective and efficient.

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

bilevel programming
evolutionary algorithm


Building virtual web views We are so used to the ubiquitous World-Wide Web (WWW) that we take it for granted. There is no need to emphasize how dynamic, large, rich, and unstructured, yet important the web is. From researchers and engineers to children and retired elderly, everyone uses the WWW for a variety of needs. A multitude of tools and search engines were developed to find and retrieve resources from the web. However, everyone knows how frustrating the experience with search engines can be. It is very difficult to find, if ever found, relevant information or patterns from within resources on the Internet. The idea presented in this paper is to warehouse the web in a structure that would allow efficient information retrieval and knowledge discovery from the Internet. Warehousing the web in this context consists of creating different virtual web views with layered databases of descriptors organized hierarchicly. Using a declarative adhoc mining language, one can find and pinpoint explicit as well as implicit knowledge from the web warehouse.

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

querying the web
resource discovery
data warehousing
web mining


A novel RMS delay spread estimation for wireless OFDM systems Multipath search based instantaneous root-mean-squared (RMS) delay spread (RDS) estimators mainly depend on path detection or multipath search. This paper proposes a novel method for multipath search through Minimum Descriptive Length (MDL) criterion, and hence a novel instantaneous RDS estimation method for wireless OFDM systems. compared with the conventional multipath search based instantaneous RDS estimators, the proposed estimator doesn't need any a priori information about the noise variance and the channel power delay profile (PDP) while the performance is improved. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed estimator is also insensitive to the variance of SNR and robust against the frequency selectivity, as well as the vehicle speed.

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

rds
multipath search
noise variance
mdl
ofdm


Shape modeling and matching in identifying 3D protein structures In this paper, we describe a novel geometric approach in the process of recovering 3D protein structures from scalar volumes. The input to our method is a sequence of ? ? -helices that make up a protein, and a low-resolution protein density volume where possible locations of ? ? -helices have been detected. Our task is to identify the correspondence between the two sets of helices, which will shed light on how the protein folds in space. The central theme of our approach is to cast the correspondence problem as that of shape matching between the 3D volume and the 1D sequence. We model both shapes as attributed relational graphs, and formulate a constrained inexact graph matching problem. To compute the matching, we developed an optimal algorithm based on the A*-search with several choices of heuristic functions. As demonstrated in a suite of synthetic and authentic inputs, the shape-modeling approach is capable of identifying helix correspondences in noise-abundant volumes at high accuracy with minimal or no user intervention.

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


Predicting faecal indicator levels in estuarine receiving waters - An integrated hydrodynamic and ANN modelling approach A new EU Bathing Water Directive was implemented in March 2006, which sets a series of stringent microbiological standards. One of the main requirements of the new Directive is to provide the public with information on conditions likely to lead to short-term coastal pollution. The paper describes how numerical models have been combined with Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to develop an accurate and rapid tool for assessing the bathing water status of the Ribble Estuary, UK. Faecal coliform was used as the water quality indicator. In order to provide enough data for training and testing the neural networks, a calibrated hydrodynamic and water quality model was run for various river flow and tidal conditions. In developing the neural network model a novel data analysis tool called WinGamma was used in the model identification process. WinGamma is capable of determining the data noise level, even with the underlying function unknown, and whether or not a smooth model can be developed. Model predictions based on this technique show a good generalisation ability of the neural networks. Details are given of a series of experiments being undertaken to test the ANN model performance for different numbers of input parameters. The main focus has been to quantify the impact of including time series inputs of faecal coliform on the neural network performance. The response time of the receiving water quality to the river boundary conditions, obtained from the hydrodynamic model, has been shown to provide valuable knowledge for developing accurate and efficient neural networks. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

artificial neural networks
numerical models

bathing water quality
faecal coliforms
nonlinear data analysis


Towards the automatic detection of spontaneous agreement and disagreement based on nonverbal behaviour: A survey of related cues, databases, and tools While detecting and interpreting temporal patterns of nonverbal behavioural cues in a given context is a natural and often unconscious process for humans, it remains a rather difficult task for computer systems. Nevertheless, it is an important one to achieve if the goal is to realise a naturalistic communication between humans and machines. Machines that are able to sense social attitudes like agreement and disagreement and respond to them in a meaningful way are likely to be welcomed by users due to the more natural, efficient and human-centred interaction they are bound to experience. This paper surveys the nonverbal behavioural cues that could be present during displays of agreement and disagreement; discusses a number of methods that could be used or adapted to detect these suggested cues; lists some publicly available databases these tools could be trained on for the analysis of spontaneous, audiovisual instances of agreement and disagreement, it examines the few existing attempts at agreement and disagreement classification, and finally discusses the challenges in automatically detecting agreement and disagreement. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

agreement
disagreement
nonverbal behaviour


experiments with simulated annealing The performance of simulated annealing is compared to that of other Monte Carlo methods for optimization. Our experiments show that these other methods often perform better than simulated annealing.

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

simulated annealing
optimization
monte carlo
performance

experience
method
heuistic
monte carlo method


A histogram based data-reducing algorithm for the fixed-point independent component analysis This paper proposes a histogram based data-reducing algorithm for improving the performance of the fixed-point independent component analysis (FastICA). This data-reducing independent component analysis (DR-FastICA) is based upon two statistical criteria to keep the histogram contour of processed data. This algorithm uses two steps (a coarse step for data sampling and a fine one for data tuning) to improve the performance of FastICA. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the computation time and implementation memory needed for executing FastICA, especially for large amounts of data (e.g. 10241024 images).

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


Modeling and verifying probabilistic Multi-Agent Systems using knowledge and social commitments We present an extension of interpreted systems including probabilities and communication channels. We introduce a new logic merging probabilities, knowledge, and social commitments. We advocate a reduction-based technique to model check the logic and prove its soundness. We implement the approach using the PRISM model checker.

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

interpreted systems
knowledge
social commitments

multi-agent systems
probabilistic model checking
verification
modal logic


Predicting memorability of images using attention-driven spatial pooling and image semantics ? We examine the role of visual attention and image semantics in understanding image memorability. We propose an attention-driven spatial pooling strategy for image memorability. Considering image features from the salient parts of images improves the results of the previous models. We also investigate different semantic properties of images. Combining attention-driven pooling with semantic features yields state-of-the-art results.

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 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 B I O O O

image memorability
spatial pooling
semantic features


A cooperative diversity transmission scheme by superposition coding relaying for a wireless system with multiple relays This paper proposes a cooperative diversity transmission scheme by superposition coding relaying (SC-relaying) for a wireless system with multiple relays. In this scheme, two layer signals, i.e., signal \({x_1}\) and \({x_2}\), are transmitted from a base station (BS) in the first and the second time slot, while signal \({x_1}\) is also forwarded from multiple relays to a user in the second time slot. The two layer signals (\({x_1}\) and \({x_2}\)) meet and superimpose with each other in the air in the second time slot. Then successive interference cancellation (SIC) is used for decoding at the user. In this paper, the optimal power allocation that maximizes the sum throughput of \({x_1}\) and \({x_2}\) is first studied. Then the optimal number of selected relays and optimal transmission rate at the BS is derived. Finally the outage probability and diversity gain of the transmission of \({x_1}\) and \({x_2}\) is evaluated for system robustness. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme realizes the goal of increasing spectral efficiency and enhancing system robustness.

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

cooperative diversity
superposition coding
power allocation
rate


Forecasting and trading the EUR/USD exchange rate with stochastic Neural Network combination and time-varying leverage The motivation of this paper is to investigate the use of a Neural Network (NN) architecture, the Psi Sigma Neural Network (PSN), when applied to the task of forecasting and trading the Euro/Dollar (EUR/USD) exchange rate using the European Central Bank (ECB) fixing series and to explore the utility of Kalman Filters in combining NN forecasts. This is done by benchmarking the statistical and trading performance of PSN with a Naive Strategy, an Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) model and two different NN architectures, a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) and a Recurrent Network (RNN). We combine our NN forecasts with Kalman Filter, a traditional Simple Average, the Bayesian Average, the GrangerRamanathan's Regression Approach (GRR) and the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO). Finally, we apply a time-varying leverage strategy based on RiskMetrics volatility forecasts in order to further improve the forecasting performance of our models and combinations. The statistical and trading performance of our models is estimated throughout the period of 20022010, using the last two years for out-of-sample testing. In terms of our results, the PSN outperforms all models' individual performances in terms of statistical accuracy and trading performance. The forecast combinations also present improved empirical evidence, with Kalman Filters outperforming by far its benchmarks. We also note that after the application of the time varying leverage, all models except ARMA show a substantial increase in their trading performance.

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

recurrent network
forecast combinations
kalman filter
lasso
leverage


Prevalence of Bacterial Agents in Ixodes persulcatus Ticks from the Vologda Province of Russia The prevalence of rickettsiae, ehrlichiae, and the rickettsia-like endosymbiont called Montezuma relative to that ofBorreliawas determined in questingIxodes persulcatus(I. persulcatus)ticks collected in 20022003 from Vologda Province, Russia.Ehrlichia muris,Anaplasma phagocytophilum,Montezuma, and new spotted fever group rickettsiae were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the first time in this area. The rickettsiae were allCandidatusRickettsia tarasevichiae, the furthest west this organism has been detected. AfterBorrelia,Montezuma was the agent most frequently detected; it may be present throughout the distribution ofI. persulcatusin Russia. Ehrlichiae and rickettsiae frequently share the same tick host withBorrelia burgdorferi sensu latoso cotransmission and mixed infections in vertebrate hosts, including humans, may occur

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

ehrlichia muris
candidatus rickettsia tarasevichiae
anaplasma
borrelia burgdoreri
coinfection


Segmentation of whole cells and cell nuclei from 3-D optical microscope images using dynamic programming Communications between cells in large part drive tissue development and function, as well as disease-related processes such as tumorigenesis. Understanding the mechanistic bases of these processes necessitates quantifying specific molecules in adjacent cells or cell nuclei of intact tissue. However, a major restriction on such analyses is the lack of an efficient method that correctly segments each object (cell or nucleus) from 3-D images of an intact tissue specimen. We report a highly reliable and accurate semi-automatic algorithmic method for segmenting fluorescence-labeled cells or nuclei from 3-D tissue images. Segmentation begins with semi-automatic, 2-D object delineation in a user-selected plane, using dynamic programming (DP) to locate the border with an accumulated intensity per unit length greater that any other possible border around the same object. Then the two surfaces of the object in planes above and below the selected plane are found using an algorithm that combines DP and combinatorial searching. Following segmentation, any perceived errors can be interactively corrected. Segmentation accuracy is not significantly affected by intermittent labeling of object surfaces, diffuse surfaces, or spurious signals away from surfaces. The unique strength of the segmentation method was demonstrated on a variety of biological tissue samples where all cells, including irregularly shaped cells, were accurately segmented based on visual inspection.

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

confocal microscopy
three-dimensional image analysis


A Stochastic bitwidth estimation technique for compact and low-power custom processors There is an increasing trend toward compiling from C to custom hardware for designing embedded systems in which the area and power consumption of application-specific functional units, registers, and memory blocks are heavily dependent on the bit-widths of integer operands used in computations. The actual bit-width required to store the values assigned to an integer variable during the execution of a program will not, in general, match the built-in C data types. Thus, precious area is wasted if the built-in data type sizes are used to declare the size of integer operands. In this paper, we introduce stochastic bit-width estimation that follows a simulation-based probabilistic approach to estimate the bit-widths of integer variables using extreme value theory. The estimation technique is also empirically compared to two compile-time integer bit-width analysis techniques. Our experimental results show that the stochastic bit-width estimation technique dramatically reduces integer bit-widths and, therefore, enables more compact and power-efficient custom hardware designs than the compile-time integer bit-width analysis techniques. Up to 37% reduction in custom hardware area and 30% reduction in logic power consumption using stochastic bit-width estimation can be attained over ten integer applications implemented on an FPGA chip.

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

custom hardware
extreme value theory
fpga

design and experimentation
bit-width analysis
statistical estimation


Harnessing Traffic Uncertainties in Wireless Mesh Networks-A Stochastic Optimization Approach In this paper, we investigate the routing optimization problem in wireless mesh networks. While existing works usually assume static and known traffic demand, we emphasize that the actual traffic is time-varying and difficult to measure. In light of this, we alternatively pursue a stochastic optimization framework where the expected network utility is maximized. For multi-path routing scenario, we propose a stochastic programming approach which requires no priori knowledge on the probabilistic distribution of the traffic. For the single-path routing counterpart, we develop a learning-based algorithm which provably converges to the global optimum solution asymptotically.

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


On the complexity of distributed BFS in ad hoc networks with non-spontaneous wake-ups We study time and message complexity of the problem of building a BFS tree by a spontaneously awaken node in ad hoc network. Computation is in synchronous rounds, and messages are sent via point-to-point bi-directional links. Network topology is modeled by a graph. Each node knows only its own id and the id's of its neighbors in the network and no pre-processing is allowed; therefore the solutions to the problem of spanning a BFS tree in this setting must be distributed. We deliver a deterministic distributed solution that trades time for messages, mainly, with time complexity O(D . min (D, n/f (n)) . log D . log n) and with the number of point-to-point messages sent O (n . (min (D, n = f (n)) + f (n)) . log D . log n), for any n-node network with diameter D and for any monotonically non-decreasing sub-linear integer function f. Function f in the above formulas come from the threshold value on node degrees used by our algorithms, in the sense that nodes with degree at most f (n) are treated differently that the other nodes. This yields the first BFS-finding deterministic distributed algorithm in ad hoc networks working in time o (n) and with o(n(2)) message complexity, for some suitable functions f (n) = o (n/log(2) n), provided D = o (n/log(4) n).

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

bfs tree
ad hoc network
distributed algorithm
message complexity


An efficient algorithm for solving general coupled matrix equations and its application The general coupled matrix equations {A(11)X(1)B(11) + A(12)X(2)B(12) + ... + A(1l)X(1l)B(1l) = C(1), A(21)X(1)B(21) + A(22)X(22)B(22) + ... + A(2l)X(l)B(2l) - C(2), (I) . . . A(l1)X(1)B(l1) + A(l2)X(2)B(l2) + ... + A(ll)X(l)B(ll) = C(l), (including the generalized coupled Sylvester matrix equations as special cases) have nice applications in various branches of control and system theory. In this paper, by extending the idea of conjugate gradient method, we propose an efficient iterative algorithm to solve the general coupled matrix equations (I). When the matrix equations (I) are consistent, for any initial matrix group, a solution group can be obtained within finite iteration steps in the absence of roundoff errors. The least Frobenius norm solution group of the general coupled matrix equations can be derived when a suitable initial matrix group is chosen. We can use the proposed algorithm to find the optimal approximation solution group to a given matrix group. ((X) over cap (1); (X) over cap (2), ..., (X) over cap (l) in a Frobenius norm within the solution group set of the matrix equations (I). Also several numerical examples are given to illustrate that the algorithm is effective. Furthermore, the application of the proposed algorithm for solving the system of matrix equations {D(1)XE(1) = F(1), . . . D(p)XE(p) = F(p), over (R, S)-symmetric and (R, S)-skew symmetric matrices is highlighted. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

the general coupled matrix equations
iterative algorithm
least frobenius norm solution group
optimal approximation solution group


Objective evaluation of interior noise booming in a passenger car based on sound metrics and artificial neural networks Booming sound is one of the important sounds in a passenger car. The aim of the paper is to develop the objective evaluation method of interior booming sound. The development method is based on the sound metrics and ANN (artificial neural network). The developed method is called the booming index. Previous work maintained that booming sound quality is related to loudness and sharpness the sound metrics used in psychoacoustics and that the booming index is developed by using the loudness and sharpness for a signal within whole frequency between 20Hz and 20kHz. In the present paper, the booming sound quality was found to be effectively related to the loudness at frequencies below 200Hz; thus the booming index is updated by using the loudness of the signal filtered by the low pass filter at frequency under 200Hz. The relationship between the booming index and sound metric is identified by an ANN. The updated booming index has been successfully applied to the objective evaluation of the booming sound quality of mass-produced passenger cars.

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

booming
sound metrics
neural network
car


Characteristic features of concrete behaviour: Implications for the development of an engineering finite-element tool The present article summarises the fundamental characteristics of concrete behaviour which underlie the formulation of an engineering finite element model capable of realistically predicting the behaviour of (plain or reinforced) concrete structural forms in a wide range of problems ranging from static to impact loading without the need of any kind of re-calibration. The already published evidence supporting the proposed formulation is complemented by four additional typical case studies presented herein; for each case, a comparative study is carried out between numerical predictions and the experimental data which reveals good agreement. Such evidence validates the material characteristics upon which the FE model's formulation is based and provides an alternative explanation regarding the behaviour of structural concrete and how it should be modelled which contradicts the presently (widely) accepted assumptions adopted in the majority of FE models used to predict the behaviour of concrete.

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

static (monotonic and cyclic) and dynamic (earthquake and impact) loading


Hierarchical gradient based and hierarchical least squares based iterative parameter identification for CARARMA systems ? This paper presents a two-stage gradient based and a least squares based iterative estimation algorithms for controlled autoregressive ARMA systems. The two-stage least squares based iterative algorithm requires less computation compared with the least squares based iterative algorithm. The two-stage least squares based iterative algorithm converges faster than the two-stage gradient based iterative algorithm.

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

parameter estimation
two-stage identification
hierarchical identification principle


Step sequence planning for a biped robot by means of a cylindrical shape model and a high-resolution 2.5D map A novel step sequence planning (SSP) method for biped-walking robots is presented. The method adopts a free space representation custom-designed for efficient biped robot motion planning. The method rests upon the approximation of the robot shape by a set of 3D cylindrical solids. This feature allows efficient determination of feasible paths in a 2.5D map, comprising stepping over obstacles and stair climbing. A SSP algorithm based on A? A ? -search is proposed which uses the advantages of the aforementioned environment representation. The efficiency of the proposed approach is evaluated by a series of simulations performed for eight walking scenarios.

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

biped walking robot
robot shape model
2.5d map
a? a ? -search a? a ? a? a ? a ?
simulation
evaluation


AMTree: An active approach to multicasting in mobile networks Active networks (ANs) are a new paradigm in computer networking. In ANs, programs can be injected into routers and switches to extend the functionalities of the network. This allows programmers to enhance existing protocols and enables the rapid deployment of new protocols. Little work has been done in the area of multicast routing in heterogeneous environments. In this paper, we propose AMTree, an AN-based multicast tree that is bidirectional, optimizable on demand and adaptive to source migration. We show how ANs can be exploited to enable multicast tree to be modified and optimized efficiently. By filtering unnecessary signaling messages, maintaining minimal storage at routers and incorporating features from shared-tree methods we are able to achieve a scalable solution. Furthermore, we introduce an AN-based optimisation algorithm that is executed on demand by receivers. Besides that we introduce a fast rejoin protocol for receiver migration that makes no assumptions about the existence of multicast services in foreign networks. The performance of AMTree is compared to those of the bidirectional home agent (HA) method and the remote subscription method. We found that compared to the bidirectional HA method AMTree has a much lower handoff and end-to-end latency. Unlike the bidirectional HA method where end-to-end latency increases as the mobile host (MH) migrates further away from its HA, AMTree's latency remains fairly constant. We found that after optimization, the resulting tree's end-to-end latency to be comparable to the remote subscription method but without the need for building a new multicast tree after each handoff.

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


Strong difference families, difference covers, and their applications for relative difference families In (M. Buratti, J Combin Des 7:406-425, 1999), Buratti pointed out the lack of systematic treatments of constructions for relative difference families. The concept of strong difference families was introduced to cover such a problem. However, unfortunately, only a few papers consciously using the useful concept have appeared in the literature in the past 10 years. In this paper, strong difference families, difference covers and their connections with relative difference families and optical orthogonal codes are discussed.

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

relative difference families
optical orthogonal codes
strong difference families
difference covers

sums of squares
partial difference sets
cyclotomic numbers


addressing the lack of direct translation resources for cross-language retrieval Most cross language information retrieval research concentrates on language pairs for which direct, rich, and often multiple translation resources already exist. However, for most language pairs, translation via an intermediate language is necessary. Two distinct methods for dealing with the additional ambiguity introduced by the extra translation step have been proposed and individually, shown to improve retrieval effectiveness. Two previous works indicated that in combination, the methods were ineffective. This paper provides strong empirical evidence that the methods can be combined to produce consistent and often significant improvements in retrieval effectiveness. The improvement is shown across a number of different intermediate languages and test collections.

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

cross-language information retrieval
structured queries
transitive translation
pivot language
cross-lingual


String shuffle: Circuits and graphs We show that shuffle, the problem of determining whether a string w can be composed from an order preserving shuffle of strings x and y , is not in AC0 AC 0 , but it is in AC1 AC 1 . The fact that shuffle is not in AC0 AC 0 is shown by a reduction of parity to shuffle and invoking the seminal result of Furst et al., while the fact that it is in AC1 AC 1 is implicit in the results of Mansfield. Together, the two results provide a lower and upper bound on the complexity of this combinatorial problem. We also explore an interesting relationship between graphs and the shuffle problem, namely what types of graphs can be represented with strings exhibiting the anti-Monge condition.

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


Automatic analysis of CHIMERA experimental data by means of a hierarchical pre-attentive neural system Biological vision processes are at the basis of many studies in the image-processing field. In this context, neural networks developed by S. Grossberg constitute an interesting approach. The paper presents a novel method for the automatic analysis of scatter plots from CHIMERA experimental data based on Grossberg's pre-attentive neural systems. The design and implementation of a system developed for this purpose are illustrated. The proposed method yields satisfactory results also in very noisy cases. (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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

data analysis and visualization
pre-attentive systems


debugging heterogeneous distributed systems using event-based models of behavior Event Based Behavioral Abstraction (EBBA) is a high-level debugging approach which treats debugging as a process of creating models of actual behavior from the activity of the system and comparing these to models of expected system behavior. The differences between the actual and expected models are used to characterize erroneous system behavior and direct further investigation. A set of EBBA-based tools has been implemented that users can employ to construct libraries of behavior models and investigate the behavior of an errorful system through these models. EBBA evolves naturally as a cooperative distributed program that can take better advantage of computational power available in a network computer system to enhance debugging tool transparency, reduce latency and uncertainty for fundamental debugging activities and accommodate diverse, heterogeneous architectures.

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

uncertainty
tool
distributed systems
program
latency
abstraction
users
transparency
behavior
process
distributed
debugging
tools

activation
reuse
use
analysis
modular
incomplete information
model
knowledge
heterogeneity
user
situated
systems
architecture
matching
behavior modeling
events
algorithm


A PN Junction-Current Model for Advanced MOSFET Technologies A PN junction current model for advanced MOSFETs is proposed and implemented into HiSIM2, a complete surface-potential-based MOSFET model. The model includes forward diode currents and reverse diode currents, and requires a total of 13 model parameters covering all bias conditions. Model simulation results reproduce measurements for different device geometries over a wide range of bias and temperature values.

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


Recovering UML class models from C++: A detailed explanation An approach to recovering design-level UML class models from C++ source code to support program comprehension is presented. A set of mappings are given that focus on accurately identifying such elements as relationship types, multiplicities, and aggregation semantics. These mappings are based on domain knowledge of the C++ language and common programming conventions and idioms. Additionally, formal concept analysis is used to detect design-level attributes of UML classes. An application implementing these mappings is used to reverse engineer a moderately sized, open-source application and the resultant class model is compared against those produced by other UML reverse engineering tools. This comparison shows that the presented mapping rules effectively produce meaningful and semantically accurate UML models.

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

reverse engineering
program comprehension
uml class models


How environment risks moderate the effect of control on performance in information technology projects: Perspectives of project managers and user liaisons Internal environment risk (IR) negatively moderates the effectiveness of controls. External environment risk (ER) positively moderates the effectiveness of controls. The moderating effect of IR is stronger than that of ER for project managers. The moderating effect of ER is stronger than that of IR for user liaisons.

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

formal and informal control
stakeholder
project management


Channel capacity and bit error rate optimization of the ultra-wide bandwidth transmitted-reference receiver The channel capacity and the bit error rate of ultra-wide bandwidth transmitted-reference systems are optimized with respect to time delay between the reference and the adjacent data pulses. Approximate and theoretical expressions for the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio are derived. Numerical results show that optimizing the receiver can provide a significant capacity improvement of up to 2.2bits/s/GHz and a bit error rate performance gain of up to 2dB in effective signal-to-noise ratio. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

bit errorrate
transmitted reference
ultra-wide bandwidth


Data fusion for estimating respiratory rate from a single-lead ECG Respiratory rate, an important antecedent of patient deterioration, is inadequately recorded by hospital staff, partially due to the absence of a reliable automated technique for measuring it. The ECG has been proposed by several authors in recent years as a source of reliable respiratory information. Most algorithms proposed use either respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) or the R-peak amplitude (RPA) modulation of the ECG. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating respiratory rate from the ECG which fuses frequency information from the two methods. The method was evaluated on data from 40 young and elderly subjects and validated against a gold standard respiratory rate obtained from simultaneously recorded respiration data. The fusion method outperformed the RSA and RPA methods, giving a mean absolute error of 0.81bpm for the young subject population and 0.84bpm for the elderly, using 1-min windows of data. Unlike other algorithms, the technique does not underperform at the lower or higher respiratory rates.

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

respiratory rate
respiratory sinus arrhythmia


hierarchical partitioning for field-programmable systems This paper presents a new recursive bipartitioning algorithm for a hierarchical field-programmable system. It draws new insights into relating the quality of the bipartitioning algorithm to circuit structures by the use of the partitioning tree (Hagen et al., 1994). The final algorithm proposed not only forms the basis for the partitioning solution of a 1-million gate field programmable system (Lewis et al., 1997) but can also be applied to general VLSI or multiple-FPGA partitioning problems.

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

partitioning tree
hierarchical partitioning
vlsi
quality
circuit structures
recursive bipartitioning algorithm

logic cad
field-programmable systems
field programmable gate arrays
fpga partitioning problems


Learning from cluster examples Learning from cluster examples (LCE) is a hybrid task combining features of two common grouping tasks: learning from examples and clustering. In LCE, each training example is a partition of objects. The task is then to learn from a training set, a rule for partitioning unseen object sets. A general method for learning such partitioning rules is useful in any situation where explicit algorithms for deriving partitions are hard to formalize, while individual examples of correct partitions are easy to specify. In the past, clustering techniques have been applied to such problems, despite being essentially unsuited to the task. We present a technique that has qualitative advantages over standard clustering approaches. We demonstrate these advantages by applying our method to problems in two domains; one with dot patterns and one with more realistic vector-data images.

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


MGRS: A multi-granulation rough set ? The original rough set model was developed by Pawlak, which is mainly concerned with the approximation of sets described by a single binary relation on the universe. In the view of granular computing, the classical rough set theory is established through a single granulation. This paper extends Pawlaks rough set model to a multi-granulation rough set model (MGRS), where the set approximations are defined by using multi equivalence relations on the universe. A number of important properties of MGRS are obtained. It is shown that some of the properties of Pawlaks rough set theory are special instances of those of MGRS. Moreover, several important measures, such as accuracy measure ? ? , quality of approximation ? ? and precision of approximation ? ? , are presented, which are re-interpreted in terms of a classic measure based on sets, the MarczewskiSteinhaus metric and the inclusion degree measure. A concept of approximation reduct is introduced to describe the smallest attribute subset that preserves the lower approximation and upper approximation of all decision classes in MGRS as well. Finally, we discuss how to extract decision rules using MGRS. Unlike the decision rules (AND rules) from Pawlaks rough set model, the form of decision rules in MGRS is OR. Several pivotal algorithms are also designed, which are helpful for applying this theory to practical issues. The multi-granulation rough set model provides an effective approach for problem solving in the context of multi granulations.

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

rough sets
multi-granulation
attribute reduction
rule extraction


Performance of Gauss implicit Runge-Kutta methods on separable Hamiltonian systems We consider implementations of a variable step size (and, separately, constant step size), fourth-order symplectic Gauss implicit Runge-Kutta method for the solution of Hamiltonian systems. We test our implementations on Kepler's problem with the aim of judging the algorithms' qualitative behavior and efficiency. In particular, we introduce compensated summation as a method of controlling roundoff accumulation. Also, we show how the variable step size Gauss implicit Runge-Kutta method performs on Kepler's problem with solution orbits of high eccentricity, and compare its performance with that of two Runge-Kutta-Nystrom codes. Finally, we discuss the calculation of efficient starting values for the associated iterations, measure the cost in iterations of our various predictors, and comment on the strategies for terminating the iteration. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


working towards an open source design approach for the development of collaborative design projects At its core the act of designing begins with an idea that develops over time to shape the creation of a product or service that meets a distinct purpose. Characteristically, a select group of designers, key stakeholders and possibly end-users of a product work together to facilitate the design process. However, if understood with respect to the development of an open source project, open design projects can potentially involve any number of global participants that contribute to the online development of a product's voluntary advancement. In this paper I consider if the concept of open source development can be extended to collaborative interaction design practices. In doing so, I argue that effective open design processes for designing interactive experiences need to be developed and propose a way in which online communication tools and rationale instances can be used to share the iterative direction of open design decisions.

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open source development
open design
rationale instances


The long-term preservation of identifiable personal data: a comparative archival perspective on privacy regulatory models in the European Union, Australia, Canada and the United States This article analyses the extent to which archival exemptions for historical, scientific and statistical research in privacy legislation support preservation in selected European Union countries, and comparable aspects of Australian, American and Canadian law within a legal, ethical and digital archival perspective. The authors recommend that the further processing of personal data under data protection law be given a wider scope of interpretation for archival preservation purposes in both the public and private sector, coupled with the use of researcher and archival codes in relation to access to personal data. They also recommend early appraisal and integration of privacy with freedom of information and archival regimes.

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Adequacy of evolving national standardized terminologies for interdisciplinary coded concepts in an automated clinical pathway Purpose. The purpose of this analysis was to determine the adequacy of evolving national standardized terminologies with regard to coded data elements (concepts) in an automated clinical pathway designed to drive adherence with the American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) Guidelines for Evaluation and Management of Chronic Heart Failure. Method. Concepts were identified in a previously developed automated clinical pathway and associated tools. Once identified, concepts were categorized according to the conceptual domains identified by Campbell et al. (1997). A review of evolving national standardized terminologies and coding systems was initiated to determine if the identified concepts had corresponding representation in one of these coding systems. Available codes were then evaluated for adequacy with respect to national guideline adherence measures put forth by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Results. The concept domain model put forth by Campbell et al. (1997) worked well for organizing concepts and for providing a useful framework for data analysis. Using our method, 260 unique pathway concepts were identified, of which, 91.9% (239) are represented by one or more of the standardized coding systems. Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) and SNOMED CT alone represented 86.2% of the concepts. Seventy percent (70%) of the clinical pathway concepts are represented using the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandated national terminologies alone. Less than 50% of CMS and JCAHO guideline adherence concepts were found to have representation in the HIPAA mandated terminologies. The addition of Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) and SNOMED CT improved representation up to 86.4%, but did not include representation of all concepts necessary for complete electronic monitoring of guideline adherence. Conclusions. Evolving national standardized terminologies provided matching terms for the majority of the data elements in the automated clinical pathway. Standard clinical terminologies with granular terms such as LOINC and SNOMED CT are required to represent the depth and detail of certain procedures and guideline-based care. Gaps exist in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandated terminologies for representing interdisciplinary concepts in national adherence measures.

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standardized terminologies
coded data elements
concepts
automated clinical pathway
adherence measures
heart failure


a simple and expressive semantic framework for policy composition in access control In defining large, complex access control policies, one would like to compose sub-policies, perhaps authored by different organizations, into a single global policy. Existing policy composition approaches tend to be ad-hoc, and do not explain whether too many or too few policy combinators have been defined. We define an access controlpolicy as a four-valued predicate that maps accesses to either grant, deny, conflict , or unspecified . These correspond to the four elements of the Belnap bilattice. Functions on this bilattice are then extended to policies to serve as policy combinators. We argue that this approach provides a simple andnatural semantic framework for policy composition, with a minimal but functionally complete set of policy combinators. We define derived, higher-level operators that are convenient for the specification of access control policies, and enable the decoupling of conflict resolution from policy composition. Finally, we propose a basic query language and show that it can reduce important analyses (e.g., conflict analysis) to checks of policy refinement.

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bilattices
access-control policy languages
multi-valued logic