Investigation of a combined embossing and blanking process using laser shock wave Laser shock forming is a three-dimensional forming technique. It is promising for achieving precise, well-controlled, low-cost, high efficiency 3D metallic microstructures. In this research, a combined process of embossing and blanking is studied by experimental and simulation methods, in which the embossing and blanking of copper sheets are performed at the same time in only one operation. In order to obtain multi-workpieces in one process, overlapping laser spots were applied in the experiment. Moreover, the influence of laser energies on the work pieces were considered, and the results show that the micro features on the boss surface of the mold were successfully replicated on the blanking copper foil surface with the suitable energy. By evaluating the surface roughness data, it can imply that the work piece surface can fit the mold surface. Meanwhile, the process of the combined embossing and blanking was also studied by numerical simulation, the simulation results show that the finite element analysis can predict the final shape of work piece properly, verifying the feasibility of this process.

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


The sensory ego-sphere: a mediating interface between sensors and cognition The Sensory Ego-Sphere (SES) is an interface for a robot that serves to mediate information between sensors and cognition. The SES can be visualized as a sphere centered on the coordinate frame of the robot, spatially indexed by polar and azimuthal angles. Internally, the SES is a graph with a fixed number of edges that partitions surrounding space and contains localized sensor information from the robot. This paper describes the SES and gives the results of implementing the SES on multiple robots, both humanoid and mobile, to support essential functions such as a localized short-term memory, spatio-temporal sensory-motor event detection, attentional processing, data sharing, and ego-centric navigation.

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

robotics
artificial intelligence
sensory fusion
sensory-motor coordination
short-term memory


DNA Lesions and Repair in Immunoglobulin Class Switch Recombination and Somatic Hypermutation Abstract: Immunoglobulin (Ig) gene somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class switch DNA recombination (CSR) are critical for the maturation of the antibody response. These processes endow antibodies with increased antigen-binding affinity and acquisition of new biological effector functions, thereby underlying the generation of memory B cells and plasma cells. They are dependent on the generation of specific DNA lesions and the intervention of activation-induced cytidine deaminase as well as newly identified translesion DNA polymerases, which are expressed in germinal center B cells. DNA lesions include mismatches, abasic sites, nicks, single-strand breaks, and double-strand breaks (DSBs). DSBs in the switch (S) region DNA are critical for CSR, but they also occur in V(D)J regions and possibly contribute to the events that lead to SHM. The nature of the DSBs in the Ig locus, their generation, and the repair processes that they trigger and that are responsible for their regulation remain poorly understood. Aberrant regulation of these events can result in chromosomal breaks and translocations, which are significant steps in B-cell neoplastic transformation.

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

activation-induced cytosine deaminase (aid)

lesion bypass or translesion dna polymerase


Euler circuits and DNA sequencing by hybridization ? Sequencing by hybridization is a method of reconstructing a long DNA string that is, figuring out its nucleotide sequence from knowledge of its short substrings. Unique reconstruction is not always possible, and the goal of this paper is to study the number of reconstructions of a random string. For a given string, the number of reconstructions is determined by the pattern of repeated substrings; in an appropriate limit substrings will occur at most twice, so the pattern of repeats is given by a pairing: a string of length 2n in which each symbol occurs twice. A pairing induces a 2-in, 2-out graph, whose directed edges are defined by successive symbols of the pairing for example the pairing ABBCAC induces the graph with edges AB, BB, BC, and so forth and the number of reconstructions is simply the number of Euler circuits in this 2-in, 2-out graph. The original problem is thus transformed into one about pairings: to find the number fk(n) of n-symbol pairings having k Euler circuits. We show how to compute this function, in closed form, for any fixed k, and we present the functions explicitly for k=1,,9. The key is a decomposition theorem: the Euler circuit number of a pairing is the product of the circuit numbers of component sub-pairings. These components come from connected components of the interlace graph, which has the pairing's symbols as vertices, and edges when symbols are interlaced. (A and B are interlaced if the pairing has the form ?A?B?A?B? or ?B?A?B?A?.) We carry these results back to the original question about DNA strings, and provide a total variation distance upper bound for the approximation error. We perform an asymptotic enumeration of 2-in, 2-out digraphs to show that, for a typical random n-pairing, the number of Euler circuits is of order no smaller than 2n/n, and the expected number is asymptotically at least e?1/22n?1/n. Since any n-pairing has at most 2n?1 Euler circuits, this pinpoints the exponential growth rate.

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

pairing
interlace graph
euler circuit
dna sequencing
hybridization

combinatorial enumeration
circle graph
euler path
matrix-tree theorem
best theorem
catalan number


A robust control law with estimated perturbation compensation for robot manipulators By considering the dynamic response of a robot manipulator as characterized by the sliding function, a technique is proposed to estimate the perturbation in the robot control system. Perturbation compensation is then incorporated in the design of a robust control law to cancel the effects of system parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. A normalized power rate component is introduced to replace the discontinuous control that is usually associated with variable structure system. The suggested robust control law ensures that the robot control system reaches an user specified neighbourhood of the sliding manifold in finite time and with prescribed transient behaviour. Explicit estimates of the bounds on modelling errors and external disturbances are not required while signal measurement uncertainties can be accommodated. Furthermore, using the equivalent control concept, a very simple expression is derived to estimate the system perturbation signal. Detailed computer simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.

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

robot manipulators
perturbation compensation
equivalent control


optimized color gamuts for tiled displays We consider the problem of finding a large color space that can be generated by all units in multi-projector tiled display systems. Viewing the problem geometrically as one of finding a large parallelepiped within the intersection of multiple parallelepipeds, and using colorimetric principles to define a volume-based objective function for comparing feasible solutions, we develop an algorithm for finding the optimal gamut in time O(n 3 ) , where n denotes the number of projectors in the system. We also discuss more efficient quasiconvex programming algorithms for alternative objective functions based on maximizing the quality of the color space extrema.

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

tiled displays
quasiconvex programming
color gamuts

geometric optimization
additive color
high-resolution display systems
gamut mapping


Accurate contact angle boundary conditions for the Cahn-Hilliard equations The contact angle dynamics between a two-phase interface and a solid surface is important in physical interpretations, mathematical modeling, and numerical treatments. We present a novel formulation based on a characteristic interpolation for the contact angle boundary conditions for the Cahn-Hilliard equation. The new scheme inherits characteristic properties, such as the mass conservation, the total energy decrease, and the unconditionally gradient stability. We demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed contact angle boundary formulation with various numerical experiments. The numerical results indicate a potential usefulness of the proposed method for accurately calculating contact angle problems. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

cahn-hilliard equation
unconditionally gradient stable scheme
nonlinear multigrid method


A model of non-elemental olfactory learning in Drosophila The pathways for olfactory learning in the fruitfly Drosophila have been extensively investigated, with mounting evidence that that the mushroom body is the site of the olfactory associative memory trace (Heisenberg, Nature 4:266275, 2003; Gerber et al., Curr Opin Neurobiol 14:737744, 2004). Heisenbergs description of the mushroom body as an associative learning device is a testable hypothesis that relates the mushroom bodys function to its neural structure and input and output pathways. Here, we formalise a relatively complete computational model of the network interactions in the neural circuitry of the insect antennal lobe and mushroom body, to investigate their role in olfactory learning, and specifically, how this might support learning of complex (non-elemental; Giurfa, Curr Opin Neuroethol 13:726735, 2003) discriminations involving compound stimuli. We find that the circuit is able to learn all tested non-elemental paradigms. This does not crucially depend on the number of Kenyon cells but rather on the connection strength of projection neurons to Kenyon cells, such that the Kenyon cells require a certain number of coincident inputs to fire. As a consequence, the encoding in the mushroom body resembles a unique cue or configural representation of compound stimuli (Pearce, Psychol Rev 101:587607, 1994). Learning of some conditions, particularly negative patterning, is strongly affected by the assumption of normalisation effects occurring at the level of the antennal lobe. Surprisingly, the learning capacity of this circuit, which is a simplification of the actual circuitry in the fly, seems to be greater than the capacity expressed by the fly in shock-odour association experiments (Young etal. 2010).

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

olfactory pathways
coincidence detection
non-elemental


A GPU-based discrete event simulation kernel The graphic processing unit (GPU) can perform some large-scale simulations in an economical way. However, harnessing the power of a GPU to discrete event simulation (DES) is difficult because of the mismatch between GPU's synchronous execution mode and DES's asynchronous time advance mechanism. In this paper, we present a GPU-based simulation kernel (gDES) to support DES and propose three algorithms to support high efficiency. Since both limited parallelism and redundant synchronization affect the performance of DES based on a GPU, we propose a breadth-expansion conservative time window algorithm to increase the degree of parallelism while retaining the number of synchronizations. By using the expansion method, it can import as many as possible safe' events. The irregular and dynamic requirement for storing the events leads to uneven and sparse memory usage, thereby causing waste of memory and unnecessary overhead. A memory management algorithm is proposed to store events in a balanced and compact way by using a lightweight stochastic method. When events processed by threads in a warp have different types, the performance of gDES decreases rapidly because of branch divergence. An event redistribution algorithm is proposed by reassigning events of the same type to neighboring threads to reduce the probability of branch divergence. We analyze the superiority of the proposed algorithms and gDES with a series of experiments. Compared to a CPU-based simulator on a multicore platform, the gDES can achieve up to 11x, 5x, and 8x speedup in PHOLD, QUEUING NETWORK, and epidemic simulation, respectively.

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

gpu
memory management
event redistribution

parallel discrete event simulation
time management


Selective Flexibility: Creating Domain-Specific Reconfigurable Arrays Historically, hardware acceleration technologies have either been application-specific, therefore lacking in flexibility, or fully programmable, thereby suffering from notable inefficiencies on an application-by-application basis. To address the growing need for domain-specific acceleration technologies, this paper describes a design methodology (i) to automatically generate a domain-specific coarse-grained array from a set of representative applications and (ii) to introduce limited forms of architectural generality to increase the likelihood that additional applications can be successfully mapped onto it. In particular, coarse-grained arrays generated using our approach are intended to be integrated into customizable processors that use application-specific instruction set extensions to accelerate performance and reduce energy; rather than implementing these extensions using application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) logic, which lacks flexibility, they can be synthesized onto our reconfigurable array instead, allowing the processor to be used for a variety of applications in related domains. Results show that our array is around 2x slower and 15x larger than an ultimately efficient ASIC implementation, and thus far more efficient than field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are known to be 3-4x slower and 20-40x larger. Additionally, we estimate that our array is usually around 2x larger and 2x slower than an accelerator synthesized using traditional datapath merging, which has, if any, very limited flexibility beyond the design set of DFGs.

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

datapaths
domain-specific customization
fpga routing


Feature selection using localized generalization error for supervised classification problems using RBFNN A pattern classification problem usually involves using high-dimensional features that make the classifier very complex and difficult to train. With no feature reduction, both training accuracy and generalization capability will suffer. This paper proposes a novel hybrid filterwrapper-type feature subset selection methodology using a localized generalization error model. The localized generalization error model for a radial basis function neural network bounds from above the generalization error for unseen samples located within a neighborhood of the training samples. Iteratively, the feature making the smallest contribution to the generalization error bound is removed. Moreover, the novel feature selection method is independent of the sample size and is computationally fast. The experimental results show that the proposed method consistently removes large percentages of features with statistically insignificant loss of testing accuracy for unseen samples. In the experiments for two of the datasets, the classifiers built using feature subsets with 90% of features removed by our proposed approach yield average testing accuracies higher than those trained using the full set of features. Finally, we corroborate the efficacy of the model by using it to predict corporate bankruptcies in the US.

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

feature selection
neural network
generalization error
rbfnn


A Preprocessing Procedure for Haplotype Inference by Pure Parsimony Haplotype data are especially important in the study of complex diseases since it contains more information than genotype data. However, obtaining haplotype data is technically difficult and costly. Computational methods have proved to be an effective way of inferring haplotype data from genotype data. One of these methods, the haplotype inference by pure parsimony approach ( HIPP), casts the problem as an optimization problem and as such has been proved to be NP-hard. We have designed and developed a new preprocessing procedure for this problem. Our proposed algorithm works with groups of haplotypes rather than individual haplotypes. It iterates searching and deleting haplotypes that are not helpful in order to find the optimal solution. This preprocess can be coupled with any of the current solvers for the HIPP that need to preprocess the genotype data. In order to test it, we have used two state-of-the-art solvers, RTIP and GAHAP, and simulated and real HapMap data. Due to the computational time and memory reduction caused by our preprocess, problem instances that were previously unaffordable can be now efficiently solved.

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


Robustness of globally exponential stability of delayed neural networks in the presence of random disturbances This paper analyzes the robustness of globally exponential stability of time-varying delayed neural networks (NNs) subjected to random disturbances. Given a globally exponentially stable neural network, and in the presence of noise, we quantify how much noise intensity that the delayed neural network can remain to be globally exponentially stable. We characterize the upper bounds of the noise intensity for the delayed NNs to sustain globally exponential stability. The upper bounds of parameter uncertainty intensity are characterized by using transcendental equation. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the theoretical result.

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

delayed neural networks
globally exponential stability
random disturbances
robustness


Throughput Scaling of Wireless Networks With Random Connections This work studies the throughput scaling laws of ad hoc wireless networks in the limit of a large number of nodes. A random connections model is assumed in which the channel connections between the nodes are drawn independently from a common distribution. Transmitting nodes are subject to an on-off strategy, and receiving nodes employ conventional single-user decoding. The following results are proven: 1) for a class of connection models with finite mean and variance, the throughput scaling is upper-bounded by (n(1/3)) for single-hop schemes, and O(n(1/2)) for two-hop (and multihop) schemes; 2) the Theta(n(1/2)) throughput scaling is achievable for a specific connection model by a two-hop opportunistic relaying scheme, which employs full, but only local channel state information (CSI) at the receivers, and partial CSI at the transmitters; 3) by relaxing the constraints of finite mean and variance of the connection model, linear throughput scaling Theta(n) is achievable with Pareto-type fading models.

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

ad hoc networks
channel state information (csi)
multiuser diversity
opportunistic communication
scaling law


Flow structures in cerebral aneurysms Mechanical properties of blood flow are commonly correlated to a wide range of cardiovascular diseases. In this work means to describe and characterise the flow field in the free-slip and no-slip domains are discussed in the context of cerebral aneurysms, reconstructed from in vivo medical imaging. The approaches rely on a Taylor series expansion of the velocity field to first order terms that leads to a system of ODEs, the solution to which locally describes the motion of the flow. On performing the expansion on the vessel wall using the wall shear stress, the critical points can be identified and the near-wall flow field parallel to the wall can be concisely described and visualised. Furthermore the near-wall expansion can be expressed in terms of relative motion, and the near-wall convective transport normal and parallel to the wall can be accurately derived on the no-slip domain. Together, these approaches give a viable and robust means to identify and describe fluid mechanic phenomena both qualitatively and quantitatively, leading to feasible practical use in biomedical applications. From analysis of steady and unsteady flow simulations in two anatomically accurate cerebral saccular aneurysm cases, a set of measures can be readily obtained at all time intervals, including the impingement region, separation lines, convective transport near the wall and vortex core lines or structures, which have all been related to diseased states. Other fluid mechanic measures are also discussed in order to give further detail and insight during post-processing, and may play an important role in the growth and rupture of the aneurysm. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

description of flow field
cerebral aneurysm
computational haemodynamics
vortex core extraction


An integrated production planning model with load-dependent lead-times and safety stocks The divergence over the years or research paradigms addressing the production planning problem has led to the development of an extensive set of techniques, each of which can address a particular aspect of the practical problem and none of which provides a complete Solution. In particular most approaches fail to. address the circular, non-linear dependency between resource utilization, lead-times and safety stocks. We present a non-linear programming formulation of the integrated problem using clearing functions that determines a work release schedule guaranteeing a specified service level in the face of stochastic demand We introduce an iterative heuristic solution procedure that solves a relaxed LP approximation of the original NLP at each iteration to determine the lead-time profile to set safety-stock levels Computational experiments suggest that our proposed iterative procedure performs well relative to conventional LP models that assume fixed. workload-independent lead-times. (C) 2009 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

capacity planning
clearing function
safety stock
load-dependent lead-times
linear programming


Price markdown scheme in a multi-echelon supply chain in a high-tech industry This paper studies the price markdown scheme in a supply chain that consists of a supplier, a contract manufacturer (CM), and a buyer (retailer). The buyer subcontracts the production of the final product to the CM. The CM buys the components from the supplier and charges the buyer a service fee for the final product produced. The price markdown is made possible by the supplier with the development of new manufacturing technologies that reduce the production cost for the sourced component. Consequently, the buyer adjusts the retail price in order to possibly stimulate stronger demand that may benefit both the supplier and the buyer. Under this scenario, we identify the optimal discount pricing strategies, capacity reservation, and the stocking policies for the supplier and the buyer. We also investigate the optimal inventory decision for the CM to cope with the price discount by considering both demand and delivery uncertainties. Our results suggest that higher production cost accelerates the effects of higher price sensitivity on lowering the optimal capacity and stocking policies in the supply chain. The effect of mean demand error on the optimal prices is relatively marginal compared with that from price sensitivity. We also found that increasing the standard deviation of the random demand does not necessarily increase the stocking level as one would predict. The results show that delivery uncertainty plays an important role in the inventory carried beyond the price break. We discuss potential extensions for future research.

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

three-echelon supply chain
game theory
lead-time demand


Human evolutionary model: A new approach to optimization The aim of this paper is to propose the Human Evolutionary Model (HEM) as a novel computational method for solving search and optimization problems with single or multiple objectives. HEM is an intelligent evolutionary optimization method that uses consensus knowledge from experts with the aim of inferring the most suitable parameters to achieve the evolution in an intelligent way. HEM is able to handle experts knowledge disagreements by the use of a novel concept called Mediative Fuzzy Logic (MFL). The effectiveness of this computational method is demonstrated through several experiments that were performed using classical test functions as well as composite test functions. We are comparing our results against the results obtained with the Genetic Algorithm of the Matlabs Toolbox, Evolution Strategy with Covariance Matrix Adaptation (CMA-ES), Particle Swarm Optimizer (PSO), Cooperative PSO (CPSO), G3 model with PCX crossover (G3-PCX), Differential Evolution (DE), and Comprehensive Learning PSO (CLPSO). The results obtained using HEM outperforms the results obtained using the abovementioned optimization methods.

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 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 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 B O O O O O O O B O

intelligent evolutionary algorithm
fuzzy adaptation


a new algorithm for scalar register promotion based on ssa form We present a new register promotion algorithm based on Static Single Assignment (SSA) form. Register promotion is aimed at promoting program names from memory locations to registers. Our algorithm is profile-driven and is based on the scope of intervals. In cases where a complete promotion is not possible because of the presence of function calls or pointer references, the proposed algorithm is capable of eliminating loads and stores on frequently executed paths by placing loads and stores on less frequently executed paths. We also describe an efficient method to incrementally update SSA form when new definitions are cloned from an existing name during register promotion. On SPECInt95 benchmarks, our algorithm removes about ~12\% of memory operations which access scalar variables.

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

method assignment presence access algorithm update

place variability interval efficiency locatability benchmark definition functional operability memorialized profiles pointers completeness


Comparing environments for developing software agents In the last years, dozens of environments for modeling, testing and finally implementing multi-agent systems have been developed. Unfortunately, no standard criteria for understanding what kind of application profile a particular development environment is good for have been individuated yet, and the question 'How should I choose an existing environment which best suits the features and requirements of my application?' is still difficult to answer. This paper addresses this question, and aims at helping the multi-agent system developer to solve this problem. It provides a set of criteria for evaluating development environments, and then applies these criteria to five selected tools and multi-agent systems prototypes. Furthermore, some application-driven guidelines are described to help identifying the features of a suitable environment for developing an implementation of the given application. The features we identify can be used to find the right development framework among the frameworks we evaluate for doing the right application.

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

agent frameworks
software agent development
multi-agent systems
classification


On the stability of the Immersed Finite Element Method with high order structural elements The Immersed Finite Element Method (IFEM) is a mathematical formulation for fluidstructure interaction problem like the Immersed Boundary Method; in IFEM the immersed structure has the same space dimension of the fluid domain. We present a stability of IFEM for a scheme where the Dirac delta distribution is treated variationally, as in [1]; moreover the finite element space related to the structure displacement consists of piecewise continuous Lagrangian elements, at least quadratic. The analysis is performed on two different time-stepping scheme. We demonstrate also that when the structure density is smaller than the fluid one, the stability is assured only if the time step size is bounded from below.

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

fluid structure interaction
numerical stability
cfl condition


Late adolescent identity definition and intimate disclosure on Facebook We investigate the disclosures of intimate information through Facebook by late adolescents. We relate behaviors with stages of psychosocial development. We collect data using focus groups and a content analysis of Facebook profiles. Users share routine and intimate information and show little concern for managing privacy. There is no significant difference in disclosures across different status categories.

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


Electronic and optical properties of bundled single-walled carbon nanotubes investigated by the first-principles method We performed first-principles calculations to investigate the energetic, electronic and optical properties of bundled armchair and zigzag carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The nanotubes are assumed to be aligned in a hexagonal closed-packed array in the bundle. The total energy and electronic band structure show stronger dependence on the orientation of the tube for the (n,n) ( n , n ) and (n,0) ( n , 0 ) bundles if n=3q(q=integer) n = 3 q ( q = integer ) than if n?3q n ? 3 q . The optical properties are also sensitive to the orientation of the tubes. For the (n,n) ( n , n ) tubes, the calculated imaginary part of the dielectric functions of the tube bundles are similar to that of the isolated tube, except for the appearance of broadened peaks and an extra peak at low energies due to the avoided crossing of the ? ? and ?? ? ? bands. This extra peak is absent in the (n,n) ( n , n ) tubes with n=3q n = 3 q in special orientations where the symmetry of the tube is compatible with that of the hexagonal lattice. For the (n,0) ( n , 0 ) tubes, the imaginary part of the dielectric functions of tubes with larger radius are very similar to that of the isolated tube, while for the (5,0) and (6,0) tubes with smaller radii, coupling causes gaps near the Fermi level, which contribute to an extra peak at low energies.

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

first-principles calculation
carbon nanotube
dielectric function


Brush up your painting skills - Realistic brush design for interactive painting applications Most present-day interactive paint applications lack the means of adequately capturing a user's gestures and translating them into realistic and predictable strokes, despite the importance of such a mechanism. We present a novel brush design that adopts constrained energy optimization to deform the brush tuft according to the user's input movement. It incorporates bidirectional paint transfer and an anisotropic friction model. The main advantage of our method is its ability to handle a wide range of brush tuft shapes that are animated using a freeform deformation lattice, which is associated with the tuft's geometry. This way, almost no conditions or limitations are placed upon the appearance of the brush. Examples range from round brushes modeled as polygon meshes, to flat brushes with individual bristles. Less common deformable tools that are used to apply or remove paint on the canvas, like sponges, can be created as well. The model is integrated in our interactive painting system for creating images with watery paint.

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

paint systems
physically-based modeling
constrained optimization


Short-term and long-term effectiveness of a post-hospital care transitions program in an older, medically complex population Care transition programs can potentially reduce 30 day readmission; however, the effect on long-term hospital readmissions is still unclear. We compared short-term (30 day) and long-term (180 day) utilization of participants enrolled in care transitions versus those matched referents eligible but not enrolled. This cohort study was conducted from January 1, 2011 until June 30, 2013 within a primary care academic practice. Patients at high risk for hospital readmission based on age and comorbid health conditions had participated in care transitions group (cases) or usual care (referent). The primary outcomes were 30, 90, and 180 day hospital readmissions.. Secondary outcomes included: mortality; emergency room visits and days; combined rehospitalizations and emergency room visits; and total intensive care unit days. Cox proportional hazard models using propensity score matching were used to assess rehospitalization, emergency room visits and mortality. Poisson regression models were used to compare the numbers of hospital days. Compared to referent (n=365), Mayo Clinic Care Transitions patients exhibited a lower 30 day rehospitalization rate compared to referent; 12.4% (95% CI 8.915.7) versus 20.1% (95% CI 15.824.1%), respectively (P=0.002). At 180-days, there was no difference in rehospitalization between transitions and referent; 39.9% (95% CI 34.644.9%) versus 44.8% (95% CI 39.449.8%), (P=0.07). We observed a reduction in 30 day rehospitalization rates among those enrolled in care transitions compared to referent. However, this effect was not sustained at 180 days. More work is needed to identify how the intervention can be sustained beyond 30 days.

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


Website Interactivity and Repeated Exposure, what Influences User Experience? This paper reports a study of the influence of website design and repeated exposure to websites on user judgment. Thirty respondents participated in this study; each respondent viewed three websites on three occasions, with a two-week gap between each visit. The three websites differed at their interactivity level; a basic site with limited interactivity, an interactive website with customization features, and a highly interactive website with a virtual agent. Several criteria were assessed through questionnaires. Interviews were conducted to support questionnaire results. Finally, the relative importance of the quality criteria and websites overall preferences were investigated. Results showed that respondents were more positive about the websites with higher interactivity, and the preference for the more interactive site increased over time.

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

user experience
website interactivity
repeated exposure


Structural modal reanalysis for large, simultaneous and multiple type modifications We study modal reanalysis for large and multiple type structural modifications. The structure is modified with type, topology and boundary parameters. ICMO strategy with RayleighRitz analysis is used. High quality reanalysis result was obtained for multiple type modifications.

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

modal reanalysis
boundary
icmo
rayleighritz analysis


A new key assignment scheme for enforcing complicated access control policies in hierarchy In a traditional key assignment scheme, an access control policy is used to solve the access control problem in a hierarchy. A higher security class can access lower security classes, but the opposite is not allowed. However, in some cases, this can be troublesome because of the lack of flexibility. In this paper, we shall propose a secure key assignment scheme which can be performed not only in a hierarchy but also in more complicated policies with anti-symmetrical and transitive exceptions.

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

cryptography
data security
multilevel security


Mean squared error of prediction (MSEP) estimates for principal component regression (PCR) and partial least squares regression (PLSR) This paper presents results from simulations based on real data, comparing several competing mean squared error of prediction (MSEP) estimators on principal component regression (PCR) and partial least squares regression (PLSR): leave-one-out cross-validation, K-fold and adjusted K-fold cross-validation, the ordinary bootstrap estimate, the bootstrap smoothed cross-validation (BCV) estimate and the 0.632 bootstrap estimate. The overall performance of the estimators is compared in terms of their bias, variance and squared,error. The results indicate that the 0.632 estimate and leave-one-out cross-validation are preferable when one can afford the computation. Otherwise adjusted 5- or 10-fold cross-validation are good candidates because of their computational efficiency. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley T Sons, Ltd.

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

mean squared error of prediction (msep)
cross-validation
adjusted cross-validation
0.632 estimate
principal component regression (pcr)
partial least squares regression (plsr)


Intrinsic Dimensionality Predicts the Saliency of Natural Dynamic Scenes Since visual attention-based computer vision applications have gained popularity, ever more complex, biologically inspired models seem to be needed to predict salient locations (or interest points) in naturalistic scenes. In this paper, we explore how far one can go in predicting eye movements by using only basic signal processing, such as image representations derived from efficient coding principles, and machine learning. To this end, we gradually increase the complexity of a model from simple single-scale saliency maps computed on grayscale videos to spatiotemporal multiscale and multispectral representations. Using a large collection of eye movements on high-resolution videos, supervised learning techniques fine-tune the free parameters whose addition is inevitable with increasing complexity. The proposed model, although very simple, demonstrates significant improvement in predicting salient locations in naturalistic videos over four selected baseline models and two distinct data labeling scenarios.

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

computational models of vision
video analysis
spatiotemporal saliency
eye movement prediction
intrinsic dimension
visual attention
interest point detection


A distributed framework for trimmed Kernel k-Means clustering Kernel k-Means extension. Improved performance over baseline Kernel k-Means. Reduced kernel matrix size to make clustering big datasets possible. Distributed versions of all assorted algorithms is provided. Competitive with the state of the art.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 clustering
face clustering
kernel k-means
distributed computing


Using DempsterShafer theory and real options theory to assess competing strategies for implementing IT infrastructures: A case study This paper discusses the selection of a preferred strategy for implementing an IT infrastructure from a range of competing alternatives. The model presented here combines the use of an evidential reasoning approach based on the DempsterShafer theory of belief functions with real options analysis. We discuss the combined use of both theories and show that combining the DempsterShafer theory with real options analysis provides flexible support that takes account of the multi-dimensional nature of implementation decisions. We also go into the fundamental requirements that need to be met when selecting a strategy for implementing an IT infrastructure. We conclude by outlining a number of the model's limitations.

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 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

it infrastructure implementation strategy


An empirical study of cycles among classes in Java Advocates of the design principle avoid cyclic dependencies among modules have argued that cycles are detrimental to software quality attributes such as understandability, testability, reusability, buildability and maintainability, yet folklore suggests such cycles are common in real object-oriented systems. In this paper we present the first significant empirical study of cycles among the classes of 78 open- and closed-source Java applications. We find that, of the applications comprising enough classes to support such a cycle, about 45% have a cycle involving at least 100 classes and around 10% have a cycle involving at least 1,000 classes. We present further empirical evidence to support the contention these cycles are not due to intrinsic interdependencies between particular classes in a domain. Finally, we attempt to gauge the strength of connection among the classes in a cycle using the concept of a minimum edge feedback set.

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 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

dependency cycles
software corpus
program analysis
object-oriented design


A New Lower Bound on the Maximum Number of Satisfied Clauses in Max-SAT and Its Algorithmic Applications A pair of unit clauses is called conflicting if it is of the form (x), . A CNF formula is unit-conflict free (UCF) if it contains no pair of conflicting unit clauses. Lieberherr and Specker (J. ACM 28:411-421, 1981) showed that for each UCF CNF formula with m clauses we can simultaneously satisfy at least clauses, where . We improve the Lieberherr-Specker bound by showing that for each UCF CNF formula F with m clauses we can find, in polynomial time, a subformula F' with m' clauses such that we can simultaneously satisfy at least clauses (in F), where naEuro(3) is the number of variables in F which are not in F'. We consider two parameterized versions of MAX-SAT, where the parameter is the number of satisfied clauses above the bounds m/2 and . The former bound is tight for general formulas, and the later is tight for UCF formulas. Mahajan and Raman (J. Algorithms 31:335-354, 1999) showed that every instance of the first parameterized problem can be transformed, in polynomial time, into an equivalent one with at most 6k+3 variables and 10k clauses. We improve this to 4k variables and clauses. Mahajan and Raman conjectured that the second parameterized problem is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT). We show that the problem is indeed FPT by describing a polynomial-time algorithm that transforms any problem instance into an equivalent one with at most variables. Our results are obtained using our improvement of the Lieberherr-Specker bound above.

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

2-satisfiable
fixed parameter tractable
kernel


Learning a Channelized Observer for Image Quality Assessment It is now widely accepted that image quality should be evaluated using task-based criteria, such as human-observer performance in a lesion-detection task. The channelized Hotelling observer (CHO) has been widely used as a surrogate for human observers in evaluating lesion detectability. In this paper, we propose that the problem of developing a numerical observer can be viewed as a system-identification or supervised-learning problem, in which the goal is to identify the unknown system of the human observer. Following this approach, we explore the possibility of replacing the Hotelling detector within the CHO with an algorithm that learns the relationship between measured channel features and human observer scores. Specifically, we develop a channelized support vector machine (CSVM) which we compare to the CHO in terms of its ability to predict human-observer performance. In the examples studied, we find that the CSVM is better able to generalize to unseen images than the CHO, and therefore may represent a useful improvement on the CHO methodology, while retaining its essential features.

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 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

channelized hotelling observer (cho)
machine learning
support vector machine (svm)
task based image evaluation


Achieving interoperability in synchronous digital hierarchy network management through RM-ODP Ever since the introduction of computerized digital switching systems and related management systems, network operators have been struggling with the question of how to circumvent the issues of customized and proprietary network management solutions. This topic became of paramount importance to network equipment manufacturers and telecommunications service providers with the advent of the SDH and TMN standards in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is in the context of this problem that the authors and their colleagues, as telecom standards experts, discovered the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). This paper describes the approach taken by the authors and their colleagues to use RM-ODP to these issues in the ITU-T study groups, how those efforts were applied and the relevance of RM-ODP to current computing systems based on the concepts of Cloud Computing. This paper thus describes real-world business needs that have been addressed by and illustrate the benefits of RM-ODP.

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 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


acquisition of rule-based knowledge for analyzing dna-binding sites in proteins This study aims to analyze DNA-binding proteins via acquisition of interpretable knowledge which can accurately predict binding sites in proteins to understand DNA-protein recognition mechanism. For mining accurate and interpretable knowledge, a large-scale dataset consisting of 982 DNA-binding proteins is constructed. This study investigates a novel feature set consisting of 11 features, including solvent accessibility, secondary structure, charge information near the residue, amino acid group and neighbor property. The derived binding and non-binding rules reveal that besides the well-known solvent accessibility, the electric charge distribution near the residue and the amino acid groups also play important roles in prediction of binding sites. The interpretable and accurate knowledge is helpful for biologist to analyze DNA-binding proteins.

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

decision tree
binding site
protein
knowledge acquisition


A cross-layer approach for per-station fairness in TCP over WLANs In this paper, we investigate the issue of per-station fairness in TCP over IEEE 802.11-compliant wireless local area networks (WLANs), especially in Wi-Fi hot spots. It is asserted that the hot spot suffers from the unfairness among wireless stations in exploiting the wireless medium. The source of this unfairness is analyzed from two aspects, TCP-induced asymmetry and MAC-induced asymmetry; the former causes TCP congestion control with a cumulative acknowledgment mechanism to prefer the wireless sending stations to the wireless receiving stations, whereas the later exacerbates the unfairness problem in the hot spots. By investigating the interaction between TCP congestion control and MAC contention control, we reveal that, even when a wireless station has a sufficiently large amount of traffic to send, it cannot always participate in the competition to access the wireless medium since the attempts to access the medium in the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer are controlled by the TCP congestion control. Therefore, we propose a cross-layer feedback approach to assure per-station fairness and to ensure high channel utilization. In this approach, we introduce the notion of channel access cost to quantify the system-wide traffic load and per-station channel usage. The access cost is estimated at the MAC in an access point and conveyed to the TCP sender. Then, the TCP sender adjusts its sending rate based on the access cost, so as to assure per-station fairness. The novel aspect of the approach is that it does not entail any modification of either the TCP or the IEEE 802.11 MAC. Furthermore, it neither resorts to any complex fair scheduling, nor compromises the modularity of the layered architecture. The simulation results indicate that the proposed approach can provide both per-station fairness and high channel utilization, irrespective of network configurations.

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

fairness
tcp congestion control
mac contention control


The influence of liners with Ti, Ta or Ru finish on thin Cu films The influence of the different liner material stacks TiN/Ti, TaN/Ta and TaN/Ru on the microstructure of 1?m thick sputtered Cu films is examined prior to and after annealing. It is shown that the liner has an impact on the crystallographic orientation distribution of the Cu grains and seriously affects the defect density in the Cu films. The measured Cu resistivity shows a strong dependence on the microstrain.

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


Generalized (C)-conditions and related fixed point theorems In this manuscript, the notion of C-condition [K. Suzuki, Fixed point theorems and convergence theorems for some generalized nonexpansive mappings, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 340 (2008) 1088-1095] is generalized. Some new fixed point theorems are obtained. (C) 2011 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

contraction mapping
fixed point theory
opial property
suzuki c-conditions


Probabilistic control of chaos: Chaotic maps under control Recently, we have proposed a new probabilistic method for the control of chaotic systems [1]. In this paper, we apply our method to characteristic cases of chaotic maps (one-and two-dimensional examples). As these chaotic maps are structurally stable, they cannot be controlled using conventional control methods without significant change of the dynamics. Our method consists in the probabilistic coupling of the original system with a controlling system. This coupling can be understood as a feedback control. of probabilistic nature. The chosen periodic orbit of the original system is a global attractor for the probability densities. The generalized spectral decomposition of the associated Frobenius-Perron operator provides a spectral condition of controllability for chaotic dynamical systems.

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


Semantics of recursive relationships in entity-relationship model The recursive relationship of the ER model is used to represent a hierarchical situation in a natural way. However, the semantics of recursive relationships are quite difficult to grasp because entities carry out different roles in relationships. This article proposes four classes of entity types allowed in recursive relationships and provides a thorough analysis of all the types of recursive relationships through the four types of the recursive dependency and four classes of the entity type. By the proposed concepts of the entity type properties and the existing relationship constraints of the recursive relationships, we can more clearly capture the semantics of hierarchical structures and integrity constraints in practical databases.

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 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

recursive relationship
recursive dependency


The L(2,1)-labelling problem for cubic Cayley graphs on dihedral groups A k-L(2,1)-labelling of a graph G is a mapping f:V(G)?{0,1,2,,k} such that |f(u)?f(v)|?2 if uv?E(G) and f(u)?f(v) if u,v are distance two apart. The smallest positive integer k such that G admits a k-L(2,1)-labelling is called the ?-number ofG. In this paper we study this quantity for cubic Cayley graphs (other than the prism graphs) on dihedral groups, which are called brick product graphs or honeycomb toroidal graphs. We prove that the ?-number of such a graph is between5 and7, and moreover we give a characterisation of such graphs with ?-number5.

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

l(2
1)-labelling
?-number
honeycomb toroidal graph
honeycomb torus
cayley graph
dihedral group


Particle Filter With a Mode Tracker for Visual Tracking Across Illumination Changes In this correspondence, our goal is to develop a visual tracking algorithm that is able to track moving objects in the presence of illumination variations in the scene and that is robust to occlusions. We treat the illumination and motion (x-y translation and scale) parameters as the unknown "state" sequence. The observation is the entire image, and the observation model allows for occasional occlusions (modeled as outliers). The nonlinearity and multimodality of the observation model necessitate the use of a particle filter (PF). Due to the inclusion of illumination parameters, the state dimension increases, thus making regular PFs impractically expensive. We show that the recently proposed approach using a PF with a mode tracker can be used here since, even in most occlusion cases, the posterior of illumination conditioned on motion and the previous state is unimodal and quite narrow. The key idea is to importance sample on the motion states while approximating importance sampling by posterior mode tracking for estimating illumination. Experiments demonstrate the advantage of the proposed algorithm over existing PF-based approaches for various face and vehicle tracking. We are also able to detect illumination model changes, e. g., those due to transition from shadow to sunlight or vice versa by using the generalized expected log-likelihood statistics and successfully compensate for it without ever loosing track.

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

monte carlo methods
particle filter (pf)
visual tracking


A comparison of different paging mechanisms for mobile IP This paper proposes two Individual paging schemes, then presents a comparative analysis on the signaling cost functions of Mobile IP (MIP) with different paging protocols and paging schemes and investigates constructing optimal paging areas using discrete system model as a mobility model. In wireless mobile Internet, mobile hosts often visit foreign networks that might be far away from their home networks and the occurrences of their inter-domain movement are relatively rare. In this scenario, our analytical results show that paging, particularly individual paging, can significantly improve the total signaling cost of MIP. We show that Domain paging can bring about considerable cost saving compared to FA (Foreign Agent) paging. Our results also demonstrate the significant advantages of Individual Paging over Static Aggregate Paging. The results show that specifying the optimal paging area size is critical in saving signaling cost of MIP with paging support.

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


Assigning types to processes In wide area distributed systems it is now common for higher-order code to be transferred from one domain to another; the receiving host may initialise parameters and then execute the code in its, local environment. In this paper we propose a fine-grained typing system for a higher-order pi-calculus which can be used to control the effect of such migrating code on local environments. Processes may be assigned different types depending on their intended use. This is in contrast to most of the previous work on typing processes where all processes are typed by a unique constant type, indicating essentially that they are well typed relative to a particular environment. Our fine-grained typing facilitates the management of access rights and provides host protection from potentially malicious behaviour. Our process type takes the form of an interface limiting the resources to which it has access and the types at which they may be used. Allowing resource names to appear both in process types and process terms, as interaction ports, complicates the typing system considerably. For the development of a coherent typing system, we use a kinding technique, similar to that used by the subtyping of the system F, and order-theoretic properties of our subtyping relation. Various examples of this paper illustrate the usage of our fine-grained process types in distributed systems. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

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

concurrency theory
the higher-order pi-calculus
type theory
access control


convergence analysis of quantum-inspired genetic algorithms with the population of a single individual In this paper, the Quantum-inspired Genetic Algorithms with the population of a single individual are formalized by a Markov chain model using a single and the stored best individual. Here, we analyze the convergence property of the Quantum-inspired Genetic Algorithms based on our proposed mathematical model, and with assumption in which its special genetic operation in the generation changes is restricted to a quantum operator; and show by means of the Markov chain analysis that the algorithm with preservation of the best individual in the population and comparison of it with the existing individual, will converge on the global optimal solution.

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

global convergence
quantum-inspired genetic algorithm


Deep Inspection of Unreachable BitTorrent Swarms BitTorrent is one of the most popular P2P file sharing applications worldwide. Each BitTorrent network is called a swarm, and millions of peers may join multiple swarms. However, there are many unreachable peers (NATed (network address translated), firewalled, or inactive at the time of measurement) in each swarm; hence, existing techniques can only measure a part of all the peers in a swarm. In this paper, we propose an improved measurement method for BitTorrent swarms that include many unreachable peers. In essence, NATed peers and those behind firewalls are found by allowing them to connect to our crawlers by actively advertising our crawlers' addresses. Evaluation results show that the proposed method increases the number of unique contacted peers by 112% compared to the conventional method. Moreover, the proposed method increases the total volume of downloaded pieces by 66%. We investigate the sampling bias among the proposed and conventional methods, and we find that different measurement methods yield significantly different results.

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

peer-to-peer networks
bit torrent
network measurement


promoting social inclusion through public library e-government partnerships This paper explores the issues faced by public libraries in the provision of e-government access and education to their patrons and communities, particularly through partnerships with other community organizations aimed at promoting social inclusion of disadvantaged populations. Due to a complex set of factors - including policy decisions, widespread trust of libraries, and a lack of social institutions that play similar roles - public libraries now stand as a significant social guarantor of public access to and education about e-government in the United States. Drawing from data collected through a 2009 national survey of public libraries, a 2009 series of site visits of public libraries, and previous research by the authors, this paper examines the challenges of implementing public library networks and connectivity to support e-government access and education, as well as the numerous management issues raised by providing these services. The primary focus of this paper is examining the dual role of public libraries as providers of public Internet access and education and as partners with government agencies and other community organizations to collaborate effectively in the provision of e-government to meet community needs.

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

public access
social inclusion
public libraries

equity of access
e-government
public access technology


using assorted color spaces and pixel window sizes for colorization of grayscale images There is no exact solution for colorization of grayscale images. In the initial work done [23], color traits transfer techniques to color grayscale images are proposed. The main focus of the techniques [23] is to minimise the human efforts needed in manually coloring the grayscale images. The human interaction is needed only to find a reference color image, then the job of transferring color traits from reference color image to grayscale image is done by proposed techniques. Here the techniques of color traits transfer to grayscale images are revisited with various color spaces as well as different sizes of pixel window. For the experimentation seven different color spaces are considered like RGB, Kekre's LUV, XYZ, YIQ, YUV, YCbCr and newly proposed YCbCg. The pixel window sizes used are total twelve ranging from window with size 1x2 to 4x2. So in all 84 different versions of color traits transfer to grayscale algorithms are tested over five different images for deciding the color space and pixel window size giving best quality of coloring. The experimental results gives that the YCbCr color space gives better coloring, and the pixel window of size 3x3 suits the best in all color spaces.

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

color palette
pixel windows
color transfer


A generic method to develop simulation models for ambulance systems In this paper, we address the question of generic simulation models and their role in improving emergency care around the world. After reviewing the development of ambulance models and the contexts in which they have been applied, we report the construction of a reusable model for ambulance systems. Further, we describe the associated parameters, data sources, and performance measures, and report on the collection of information, as well as the use of optimisation to configure the service to best effect. Having developed the model, we have validated it using real data from the emergency medical system in a Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. To illustrate the benefits of standardisation and reusability we apply the model to a UK context by exploring how different rules of engagement would change the performance of the system. Finally, we consider the impact that one might observe if such rules were adopted by the Brazilian system.

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


goal-oriented preservation of essential genetic information by offspring selection This contribution proposes an enhanced and generic selection model for Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Genetic Programming (GP) which is able to preserve the alleles which are part of a high quality solution. Some selected aspects of these enhanced techniques are discussed exemplarily on the basis of standardized benchmark problems.

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


Intraoperative segmentation of iodine and palladium radioactive sources in C-arm images Dynamic dosimetry is becoming the standard to evaluate the quality of radioactive implants during brachytherapy. For this, it is essential to obtain a 3D visualization of the implanted seeds and their relative position to the prostate. A method was developed to obtain a robust and precise segmentation of seeds in C-arm images, and this approach was tested using clinical datasets.

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

declustering
radioactive seeds
c-arm fluoroscopy
iodine implants
palladium implants


A Comprehensive Strategy for Contention Management in Software Transactional Memory In Software Transactional Memory (STM), contention management refers to the mechanisms used to ensure forward progress-to avoid livelock and starvation, and to promote throughput and fairness. Unfortunately, most past approaches to contention management were designed for obstruction-free STM frameworks, and impose significant constant-time overheads. Priority-based approaches in particular typically require that reads be visible to all transactions, an expensive property that is not easy to support in most STM systems. In this paper we present a comprehensive strategy for contention management via fair resolution of conflicts in an STM with invisible reads. Our strategy depends on (1) lazy acquisition of ownership, (2) extendable timestamps, and (3) an efficient way to capture both priority and conflicts. We introduce two mechanisms-one using Bloom filters, the other using visible read bits-that implement point (3). These mechanisms unify the notions of conflict resolution, inevitability, and transaction retry. They are orthogonal to the rest of the contention management strategy, and could be used in a wide variety of hardware and software TM systems. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the overhead of the mechanisms is low, particularly when conflicts are rare, and that our strategy as a whole provides good throughput and fairness, including livelock and starvation freedom, even for challenging workloads.

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

software transactional memory
contention management
priority
inevitability

algorithms
design
performance
condition synchronization


Tracking deforming aortas in two-photon autofluorescence images and its application on quantitative evaluation of aorta-related drugs This paper describes a novel approach to an objective measurement of aorta samples of rats and a quantitative evaluation of aorta-related drugs. Two-photon fluorescence microscopy is used for recording image sequences of deforming aorta. Time sequence snake models are used to track the structural deformations of aorta walls caused by drug stimulation of the elastic lamina in the aorta. Several objective and quantitative biomarkers extracted from these models are used as diagnostic indicators. In a preliminary study, the technique was successfully used for evaluating the effect of a newly developed drughuman erythrocyte-derived depressing factor quantitatively and objectively.

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


Multi-Class Active Learning by Uncertainty Sampling with Diversity Maximization As a way to relieve the tedious work of manual annotation, active learning plays important roles in many applications of visual concept recognition. In typical active learning scenarios, the number of labelled data in the seed set is usually small. However, most existing active learning algorithms only exploit the labelled data, which often suffers from over-fitting due to the small number of labelled examples. Besides, while much progress has been made in binary class active learning, little research attention has been focused on multi-class active learning. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised batch mode multi-class active learning algorithm for visual concept recognition. Our algorithm exploits the whole active pool to evaluate the uncertainty of the data. Considering that uncertain data are always similar to each other, we propose to make the selected data as diverse as possible, for which we explicitly impose a diversity constraint on the objective function. As a multi-class active learning algorithm, our algorithm is able to exploit uncertainty across multiple classes. An efficient algorithm is used to optimize the objective function. Extensive experiments on action recognition, object classification, scene recognition, and event detection demonstrate its advantages.

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

active learning
uncertainty sampling
diversity maximization


Structure-based design of inhibitors of NS3 serine protease of hepatitis C virus We have designed small focused combinatorial library of hexapeptide inhibitors of NS3 serine protease of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) by structure-based molecular design complemented by combinatorial optimisation of the individual residues. Rational residue substitutions were guided by the structure and properties of the binding pockets of the enzymes active site. The inhibitors were derived from peptides known to inhibit the NS3 serine protease by using unusual amino acids and ?-ketocysteine or difluoroaminobutyric acid, which are known to bind to the S1 pocket of the catalytic site. Inhibition constants (Ki) of the designed library of inhibitors were predicted from a QSAR model that correlated experimental Ki of known peptidic inhibitors of NS3 with the enthalpies of enzymeinhibitor interaction computed via molecular mechanics and the solvent effect contribution to the binding affinity derived from the continuum model of solvation. The library of the optimised inhibitors contains promising drug candidateswater-soluble anionic hexapeptides with predicted in the picomolar range.

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

ns3 viral non-structural protein number 3 of hcv

ns4a viral non-structural protein number 4 of hcv

ns3/4a complex of ns3 with cofactor ns4a

qsar quantitative structureactivity relationships

logpo/w log of partitioning coefficient in octanol/water system.


Communication of statistical concepts: Examples in medical collaboration While effective communication of statistical concepts is important for the enthusiastic adoption of these concepts by collaborators, statisticians are not necessarily trained in the process of communication with collaborators in other substantive fields. It is proposed that increased attention be paid to pedagogical techniques for communicating to our non-statistical colleagues what statisticians have to offer to the design and analysis aspects of a collaborative effort. One approach is to offer examples relevant to our colleagues' fields when we explain statistical ideas. This paper provides several such examples from the field of neurology, focusing on the issue of sample selection bias and prospective study designs.

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

prospective studies
outcome assessment
diagnosis
prevalence


White hole, black whole, and the book Physical and intellectual spaces are visualized making use of concepts from intuitive set theory. Intellectual space is defined as the set of all proofs of mathematical logic contained in The Book conceived by Erdos. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science 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 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


Functional Characterization of Amyloid ? Precursor Protein Regulatory Elements: Rationale for the Identification of Genetic Polymorphism Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the formation of senile plaques of the amyloid peptide (A?) derived from a large A? precursor protein (APP). Autosomally inherited or familial AD has only been previously demonstrated in connection with coding sequence missense mutations. Abnormal regulation of APP gene expression has been demonstrated to play a role in AD. Genome screen and linkage analysis suggest that the APP locus may predispose to AD. The aim is to characterize genetic variability in the APP gene within its upstream regulatory region and to determine whether that variability is associated with AD and affects the expression of APP. This article describes the rationale and strategy for identifying genetic polymorphisms in the APP regulatory region, including its promoter, to associate any variability with the disease.

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

aging
?-protein
brain
dementia
gene regulation
snp
transcription


Dynamic avalanche in diodes with local lifetime control by means of palladium The increase of the static breakdown voltage and the reduction of dynamic avalanche in a fast recovery 2.5kV/150A P-i-N diode subjected to the radiation enhanced diffusion of a palladium are discussed. The in-diffusing palladium compensates the doping profile in a lightly doped N-base close to the anode junction. Using a device simulation, the increase of the breakdown voltage and the reduction of the dynamic avalanche are explained by the reduction of peak electric field in the additional low-doped P-type layer created by the compensation effect. This is presented for both a dc and transient device operation and confirmed experimentally as well. An improved technology curve for the static versus recovery losses at a high line voltage has been obtained. A high thermal budget of deep levels and a low leakage current are additional benefits of the method.

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 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


DTW Based Classification of Diverse Pre-Processed Time Series Obtained from Handwritten PIN Words Personal identity verification by means of signature handwriting dynamics is a widely researched aspect of behavioral biometrics. The Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) technique has been successfully used for accessing the similarity of time series of handwritten objects by minimizing non-linear time distortions. Generally, in DTW based classifiers, the sequences are normalized in time and amplitude domains. In the paper, different length and amplitude normalization techniques are applied on signatures and handwritten PIN word sequences and their influence on accuracy of recognition are examined. A special approach to amplitude normalization based on reference level assigned Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) technique is presented. The standard deviation values calculated from the time series are used as so called bio-reference levels to improve the performance of classification. For this, they are added to the time series of query and sample datasets prior to DTW matching. The acquisition of online data is carried out by a digital pen equipped with pressure and inclination sensors. The time series obtained from the pen during handwriting provide valuable insight into the unique characteristics of the writers. Experimental results show that with the help of proposed length and amplitude normalizations of sequences including the bio-reference levels, the computational time is reduced and false acceptance rates are decreased.

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

biometric signature authentication
biometric person authentication
handwritten pin recognition
dynamic time warping (dtw)
time series pre-processing


quality, cleanroom and formal methods We have proposed a new approach to software quality combining cleanroom methodologies and formal methods. Cleanroom emphasizes defect prevention rather than defect removal. Formal methods use mathematical and logical formalizations to find defects early in the software development lifecycle. These two methods have been used separately to improve software quality since the 1980's. The combination of the two methods may provide further quality improvements through reduced software defects. This result, in turn, may reduce development costs, improve time to market, and increase overall product excellence.Defects in computer software are costly. Their detection is usually postponed to the test phase, and their removal is also a very time consuming and expensive task. Cleanroom software engineering is a methodology which relies on preventing the defects, rather than removing them. It is based on incremental development and it emphasizes the development phase. An enhancement to this methodology is presented in this paper, which combines formal methods and cleanroom. The efficiency of the new model rests on an appropriate logical representation, to write the specification of the intended system. In the new model, design plans are formally verified before any implementation is done. The advantages of finding defects in the early stages are decreased cost and increased quality. Results show that, by using formal methods, a higher quality will be achieved and the software project can also benefit from the existing mechanized tools of these two techniques.

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

software quality
formal methods
cleanroom


Evolutionary circuit design for fast FPGA-based classification of network application protocols ? The evolutionary design can produce fast and efficient implementations of digital circuits. It is shown in this paper how evolved circuits, optimized for the latency and area, can increase the throughput of a manually designed classifier of application protocols. The classifier is intended for high speed networks operating at 100Gbps. Because a very low latency is the main design constraint, the classifier is constructed as a combinational circuit in a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The classification is performed using the first packet carrying the application payload. The improvements in latency (and area) obtained by Cartesian genetic programming are validated using a professional FPGA design tool. The quality of classification is evaluated by means of real network data. All results are compared with commonly used classifiers based on regular expressions describing application protocols.

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

classifier
cartesian genetic programming
field programmable gate array


Development of a parallel Poisson's equation solver with adaptive mesh refinement and its application in field emission prediction A parallel electrostatic Poisson's equation solver coupled with parallel adaptive mesh refinement (PAMR) is developed in this paper. The three-dimensional Poisson's equation is discretized using the Galerkin finite element method using a tetrahedral mesh. The resulting matrix equation is then solved through the parallel conjugate gradient method using the non-overlapping subdomain-by-subdomain scheme. A PAMR module is coupled with this parallel Poisson's equation solver to adaptively refine the mesh where the variation of potentials is large. The parallel performance of the parallel Poisson's equation is studied by simulating the potential distribution of a CNT-based triode-type field emitter. Results with ?100?000 nodes show that a parallel efficiency of 84.2% is achieved in 32 processors of a PC-cluster system. The field emission properties of a single CNT triode- and tetrode-type field emitter in a periodic cell are computed to demonstrate their potential application in field emission prediction.

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

galerkin finite element method
parallel adaptive mesh refinement
field emission


Extraordinary magnetization of amorphous TbDyFe films Giant magnetostrictive, amorphous TbDyFe thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering. Presents giant magnetostriction of 300400ppm at room temperature. Spin-glass behavior at temperatures lower than 200K. Huge coercivity values were observed at T<40K reaching 2.5T at T=5K.

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

magnetoelastic
spin glass
amorphous magnetism


a strategy for efficient verification of relational specifications, based on monotonicity analysis We introduce a strategy for the verification of relational specifications based on the analysis of monotonicity of variables within formulas. By comparing with the Alloy Analyzer, we show that for a relevant class of problems this technique drastically outperforms analysis of the same problems using SAT-solvers, while consuming a fraction of the memory SAT-solvers require.

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

software validation
software specification
relational methods


C-7-coloring problem H-coloring problem is a coloring problem with restrictions such that some pairs of colors cannot be used for adjacent vertices, where H is a graph representing the restrictions of colors. We deal with the case that H is the complement graph (C2p+1) over bar of a cycle of odd order 2p + 1. This paper presents the following results: (1) chordal graphs and internally maximal planar graphs are (C2p+1) over bar -colorable if and only if they are p-colorable (p greater than or equal to 2), (2) C-7-coloring problem on planar graphs is NP-complete, and (3) there exists a class that includes infinitely many (C-7) over bar -colorable but non-3-colorable planar graphs.

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

h-coloring
cycles of odd order
complement graphs
np-completeness


e-governance initiatives in india Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in government agencies as well as educational and research institutions facilitates an efficient, speedy and transparent dissemination of information to the public and other agencies for performance of governments' administrative activities. The importance of ICT in governance has been recognised the world over. Electronic governance (e-governance) highlights several elements of good governance such as transparency, accountability, participation, social integration, public financial management reforms and development. This study is based on personal interview of selected representatives of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi and review of e-Governance initiatives taken by the government. The findings of this study highlight the role of Internet, particularly the World Wide Web (WWW), which has made it easier for citizens to locate and download official information and to conduct transactions. We conclude that e-Governance needs to be integrated into the broader public management framework so as to make a substantial change in the government to citizen (G2C) relationship.

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

delhi government
e-governance
networked environment
information communication technologies