Core versus peripheral information technology employees and their impact on firm performance ? Scholars have widely argued, but not previously examined, that core employees with firm specific skills are critical to the firm's strategic success. This argument has led to the belief that employees whose skills are not firm specific can be readily replaced in the external market and are peripheral to the firm's strategic goals. Employing a resource based view of the firm, we find that the core information technology (IT) employees with firm specific skills are value-adding resources that aid the firm's performance whereas peripheral employees with less firm specific skills provide no value to the firm's performance. Examining the issue deeper, we find that the economic impact of the presence of core IT employees is moderated by the organization's non-IT investment intensity. The findings of the research provide insights that help to expand the understanding of resource complements and the role of strategic human resources in a firm.

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

firm performance
resource based view
strategic human resources

core and periphery
complementary resources


Identification of Scene Locations from Geotagged Images Due to geotagging capabilities of consumer cameras, it has become easy to capture the exact geometric location where a picture is taken. However, the location is not the whereabouts of the scene taken by the photographer but the whereabouts of the photographer himself. To determine the actual location of an object seen in a photo some sophisticated and tiresome steps are required on a special camera rig, which are generally not available in common digital cameras. This article proposes a novel method to determine the geometric location corresponding to a specific image pixel. A new technique of stereo triangulation is introduced to compute the relative depth of a pixel position. Geographical metadata embedded in images are utilized to convert relative depths to absolute coordinates. When a geographic database is available we can also infer the semantically meaningful description of a scene object from where the specified pixel is projected onto the photo. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in accurately identifying actual locations.

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

algorithms
design
experimentation
visual context
image metadata
geotag
stereo vision


a general purpose data base design One of the major problems facing data base designers is how to develop a logical data base design for a proposed application. Usually, for each new application, a new data base design is produced. For a Data Base Task Group (DBTG) data base management system (DBMS) this means creating a new schema and subschemas. This paper describes a non-volatile data base design that allows the DBTG structure of the data base to remain constant, regardless of changes in the applications it is portraying.

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

meta-schema
database administration
data dictionary
database management
logical design


Calibration transfer of near-IR partial least squares property models of fuels using virtual standards Partial least squares (PLS) models of 10 important jet and diesel fuel properties were built using spectra from a master near-IR dispersive instrument and then subsequently transferred to a secondary dispersive instrument via a novel calibration transfer method using virtual standards and a slope-bias correction. Implementation of the transfer requires that only seven spectra of neat solvents be acquired on the master and secondary instruments. The spectra of the neat solvents are then used to digitally replicate spectra from the calibration set to generate virtual standards. Comparison of PLS predictions for the master and secondary instrument virtual standards provides a simple but effective slope-bias correction for transfer. The transferred fuel properties include American Petroleum Institute gravity, % aromatics, cetane index, flashpoint, hydrogen content, % saturates, and distillation temperatures at 10%, 20%, 50%, and 90% volume recovered. Transfer error was lower than using either the pure solvents with a slope-bias correction or than using a piecewise direct standardization calibration transfer using fuel spectra. Transfer error was higher than when using actual fuels to transfer the calibration. The use of virtual standards eliminates the need to maintain either complex fuel standards or the master instrument for future instrument calibration transfers. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


A best block exploring algorithm for two-dimensional downlink burst construction in IEEE 802.16 networks Various burst construction algorithms for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) were proposed. However, these algorithms did not consider the downlink burst characteristics that are specified in IEEE 802.16 standard. This work therefore presents the Best Block-Oriented (BBO) algorithm. BBO not only complies with the downlink burst characteristics, but also addresses three further issues that are important to obtain high throughput: BBO reduces external fragment by shrinking a burst to fit into the available bandwidth area if the available area is otherwise insufficient to accommodate it; BBO shrinks the burst area to minimize internal fragment if the requested bandwidth has been satisfied; to find the subchannels that have good channel quality, BBO evaluates the channel quality of subchannels and constructs the burst in the subchannels that provide the highest throughput. Simulation results show that BBO yields 1.29 times the throughput that has been achieved using previous algorithms under a heavy load.

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


Differential quadrature Trefftz method for irregular plate problems Differential quadrature Trefftz method (DQTM) is developed to deal with plate problems defined in irregular domains. DQTM divides the solution into two parts, a particular solution for inhomogeneous biharmonic equation and the general solution for homogeneous biharmonic equation. For the former, differential quadrature method based on the interpolation of the highest derivative (DQIHD) is involved. For the latter, polynomial basis functions are adopted instead of fundamental solutions. We will show that DQTM not only keeps the advantages of traditional differential quadrature method (DQM), high efficiency and accuracy, but also has no difficulties to deal with geometrically irregular domains.

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 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 B 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

dqtm
dqihd
polynomial basis functions
particular solution
general solution


genetic algorithm optimization of superresolution parameters Superresolution is the process of producing a high resolution image from a collection of low resolution images. This process has potential application in a wide spectrum of fields in which navigation, surveillance, and observation are important, yet in which target images have limited resolution. There have been numerous methods proposed and developed to implement superresolution, each with its own advantages and limitations. However, there is no standard method or software for superresolution. In this paper a genetic algorithm solution for determining the registration and point spread function (PSF) parameters for superresolution is proposed and implemented, and a superresolved image is generated using genetic algorithm optimization of an existing superresolution method.

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

registration
point spread function
superresolution


Wireless sensor networks for rehabilitation applications: Challenges and opportunities Rehabilitation supervision has emerged as a new application of wireless sensor networks (WSN), with unique communication, signal processing and hardware design requirements. It is a broad and complex interdisciplinary research area on which more than one hundred papers have been published by several research communities (electronics, bio-mechanical, control and computer science). In this paper, we present WSN for rehabilitation supervision with a focus on key scientific and technical challenges that have been solved as well as interdisciplinary challenges that are still open. We thoroughly review existing projects conducted by several research communities involved in this exciting field. Furthermore, we discuss the open research issues and give directions for future research works. Our aim is to gather information that encourage engineers, clinicians and computer scientists to work together in this field to tackle the arising challenges. We believe that bridging researchers with different scientific backgrounds could have a significant impact on the development of WSN for rehabilitation and could improve the way rehabilitation is provided today.

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

wireless sensor networks
rehabilitation supervision


an architectural style for high-performance asymmetrical parallel computations Researchers with deep knowledge of scientific domains are becoming more interested in developing highly-adaptive and irregular ( asymmetrical ) parallel computations, leading to development challenges for both delivery of data for computation and mapping of processes to physical resources. Using software engineering principles, we have developed a new communications protocol and architectural style for asymmetrical parallel computations called ADaPT.Utilizing the support of architecturally-aware middleware, we show that ADaPT provides a more efficient solution in terms of message passing and load balancing than asymmetrical parallel computations using collective calls in the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) or more advanced frameworks implementing explicit load-balancing policies. Additionally, developers using ADaPT gain significant windfall from good practices in software engineering, including implementation-level support of architectural artifacts and separation of computational loci from communication protocols.

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

adapt
asymmetrical parallel computations


Equivalence of standard and computerized versions of the Raven Progressive Matrices Test The present study examined the equivalence of the computer administered version of the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) with the standard paper-and-pencil administered version of the RSPM. In addition, the effects of state and trait anxiety as well as computer anxiety were investigated. Fifty undergraduate volunteers were administered the RSPM twice under one of four conditions: computercomputer, standardstandard, computerstandard, or standardcomputer. No significant differences were found between mean scores and standard deviations across administrations or formats. Rank-order correlations revealed similar ranking across formats. Tentative support for the equivalence of the computerized version of the RSPM was found. Analyses revealed no significant differences in anxiety across formats and no significant correlations between anxiety and RSPM performance. Explanations and implications for further research are discussed.

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

computerised assessment
non-verbal intelligence


aWESoME: A web service middleware for ambient intelligence This work presents a Web Service Middleware infrastructure for Ambient Intelligence environments, named aWESoME. aWESoME is a vital part of the Smart IHU project, a large-scale Smart University deployment. The purpose of the proposed middleware within the project is twofold: for one, to ensure universal, homogeneous access to the systems functions and secondly, to fulfill functional and non-functional requirements of the system. Namely, the infrastructure itself should consume significantly low power (as it is meant for energy savings in addition to automations), without compromising reliability and fast response time. The infrastructure should enable fast and direct discovery, invocation and execution of services. Finally, on hardware level, the wireless sensor and actuator network should be optimally configured for speed and reliability as well. The proposed solution employs widely used web open standards for description and discovery to expose hardware and software functions and ensure interoperability, even outside the borders of this university deployment. It proposes a straightforward method to integrate low-cost and resource-constrained heterogeneous devices found in the market and a large-scale placement of servers and wireless sensor networks. Different server hardware installations have been evaluated to find the optimum trade-off between response time and power consumption. Finally, a range of client applications that exploit the middleware on different platforms are demonstrated, to prove its usability and effectiveness in enabling, in this scenario, energy monitoring and savings.

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

web services
real-time and embedded systems
ubiquitous computing


Visualization of fuzzy classifiers This paper presents different techniques to visualize high-dimensional fuzzy rule bases in relation to classified data. The degree of membership to influential rules can be visualized for an entire data set. This enables the observer to detect conflicting or error-prone rules as well as misclassified feature vectors. Results are shown on a benchmark data set and on a weather data set that is used to predict flight derations on a major European airport.

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

visualization multidimensional scaling
fuzzy rules
air traffic management


Web performance scale What does a high performance website look like? And how can we measure its performance? The present research develops and validates a new scale that measures Web performance as perceived by consumers. This scale discerns the formation of Web performance into the hedonic and utilitarian aspects reflecting Web users entertainment and information needs. Content domains for the two aspects were developed based on marketing and information systems literatures, and then tested for reliability and validity in two studies involving a total of 912 Web users. The measure was purified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and MTMM models, resulting in one three-item scale for hedonic (reliability=0.867) and one four-item scale for utilitarian (reliability=0.850) Web performance. The scale thus developed not only has face validity, but also displays adequate construct reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity. It achieved reliability and validity using only seven items for the two aspects of Web performance making it highly feasible for implementation and particularly appealing to Web managers for tracking and improving site performance.

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


Form and function of arterial bifurcations in various parts of the animal body Branching patterns of arterial networks might influence vascular resistance and allow control of blood supply to peripheral tissues. Arterial casts from the brain, kidneys, and earlobes of cats and the chorioallantoic arteries of chick embryos were used for microscopic measurements of arterial geometry. From the measured diameters of parent and two daughter vessels at arterial bifurcations, we calculated the diameter exponent m. By applying the minimum work concept to blood flow through a cylindrical vessel, an optimal value m=3 has been derived (Murrays cubic law). The measured values of the diameter exponent were 2.59, 2.54, 2.58, and 2.49 for the brain, kidneys, earlobes, and chick embryos, respectively, exhibiting significant deviation from Murrays law. The physiological implication of the m values is discussed here.

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

arterial geometry
blood flow
murrays law


A Novel Multichannel Streaming Scheme to Reduce Channel Switching Delay in Application Layer Multicast Video streaming services over the Internet are growing rapidly owing to the broadbandization of various networks. However, in such systems where a large number of users simultaneously access the same contents server, the convergence of the network traffic and service requests presents a significant problem. From this point of view, application layer multicast (ALM) has recently attracted much attention due to its scalability and feasibility in the current network systems. In ALM, user nodes construct a multicast tree structure to efficiently deliver an identical video streaming content. Various techniques to construct ALM trees have been designed to achieve improved performance in terms of shorter delay and higher reliability. However, in most of the existing ALM schemes, the performance in channel switching events has not been studied sufficiently; channel switching can be considered as the combination of the procedures for departing from the current and joining the future ALM trees, respectively. In general, node joining and departure processes take a certain time, which can be increased significantly depending on the network conditions whereby users are left waiting for the start of a new program on the switched channel. Therefore, reducing the channel switching delay is a significant issue in multichannel video streaming in ALM. In this paper, we propose a multichannel streaming scheme to reduce channel switching delay in ALM. Our scheme is based on an advanced ALM method dubbed network-aware hierarchical arrangement graph, which constructs node-disjoint multicast trees by utilizing the arrangement graph theory to achieve high robustness on node departures. The performance of the proposed scheme is verified through extensive computer simulations, which demonstrate that our proposed scheme succeeds in reducing the delay in channel switching without system throughput degradation.

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

channel switching delay
multichannel streaming

application layer multicast (alm)
channel change
internet tv


Gender classification by combining clothing, hair and facial component classifiers In this paper, we propose a novel gender classification framework, which utilizes not only facial features, but also external information, i.e. hair and clothing. Instead of using the whole face, we consider five facial components: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and chin. We also design feature extraction methods for hair and clothing; these features have seldom been used in previous work because of their large variability. For each type of feature, we train a single support vector machine classifier with probabilistic output. The outputs of these classifiers are combined using various strategies, namely fuzzy integral, maximal, sum, voting, and product rule. The major contributions of this paper are (1) investigating the gender discriminative ability of clothing information; (2) using facial components instead of the whole face to obtain higher robustness for occlusions and noise; (3) exploiting hair and clothing information to facilitate gender classification. Experimental results show that our proposed framework improves classification accuracy, even when images contain occlusions, noise, and illumination changes.

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

gender classification
facial components
support vector machine

clothing feature
hair feature
classifier combination
local binary pattern


Illuminating labyrinths A labyrinth is set L of line segments in the plane (E2) ( E 2 ) such that the line segments have pairwise disjoint relative interiors and their complement E2\?L E 2 \ ? L is connected. This paper gives combinatorial bounds on four classical illumination problems for labyrinths. For comparison, we refer to bounds on the corresponding problems in the presence of disjoint opaque line segments.

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


Vibration analysis of edge-cracked beam on elastic foundation with axial loading using the differential quadrature method The eigenvalue problems of clamped-free and hingedhinged BernoulliEuler beams on elastic foundation with a single edge crack, axial loading and excitation force were numerically formulated using the differential quadrature method (DQM). Appropriate boundary conditions accompanied the DQM to transform the partial differential equation of a BernoulliEuler beam with a single edge crack into a discrete eigenvalue problem. The DQM results for the natural frequencies of cracked beams agree well with other literature values. The sampling point number effect, the location of the crack effect and the depth of the crack effect on the accuracy variation of calculated natural frequencies are presented by using two elements in this work. The effects of axial loading, foundation stiffness, opening crack and closing crack are also studied.

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

vibration analysis
dqm
elastic foundation
axial loading


investigation of architecture for verification and recognition of speaker The growing need to identify individuals becomes increasingly evident today, and biometrics are presented as the most safe and effective to perform this task. Among the various patterns that can be used in a biometric system, this work is dedicated to the study of the voice biometrics. Thus, a study of the area of voice processing and its applications were made and an architecture to systems of recognition and verification of a speaker was proposed. To that end, it was necessary to acquire a basic human voice to be built. The feature extractor MFCC (Mel Frequency cepstral coefficients) was used for the purpose of obtaining information that best representing each speaker. From the data obtained, was conducted a detailed study of the database (through statistical methods) and performance of Neural Networks MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) and SVM (Support Vectors Machines) were investigated to recognize the speakers. Besides In addition, the Vector Quantization also been applied to test speakers, showing satisfactory results.

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

mlp
svm
mfcc
vector quantization
architecture

binders
recognition and speaker verification


A Survey of Support Vector Machines with Uncertainties Support Vector Machines (SVM) is one of the well known supervised classes of learning algorithms. SVM have wide applications to many fields in recent years and also many algorithmic and modeling variations. Basic SVM models are dealing with the situation where the exact values of the data points are known. This paper presents a survey of SVM when the data points are uncertain. When a direct model cannot guarantee a generally good performance on the uncertainty set, robust optimization is introduced to deal with the worst case scenario and still guarantee an optimal performance. The data uncertainty could be an additive noise which is bounded by norm, where some efficient linear programming models are presented under certain conditions; or could be intervals with support and extremum values; or a more general case of polyhedral uncertainties with formulations presented. Another field of the uncertainty analysis is chance constrained SVM which is used to ensure the small probability of misclassification for the uncertain data. The multivariate Chebyshev inequality and Bernstein bounding schemes have been used to transform the chance constraints through robust optimization. The Chebyshev based model employs moment information of the uncertain training points. The Bernstein bounds can be less conservative than the Chebyshev bounds since it employs both support and moment information, but it also makes a strong assumption that all the elements in the data set are independent.

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

support vector machines
robust optimization
polyhedral uncertainties
chance constraints


Agent-based simulation of cooperative defence against botnets The paper outlines a framework and software tool intended for simulation of cooperative defence mechanisms against botnets. These framework and software tool are based on agent-oriented approach and packet-level network simulation. They are intended to evaluate and compare different cooperative distributed attacks and defence mechanisms. Botnet and defence components are represented in the paper as a set of collaborating and counteracting agent teams. Agents are supposed to collect information from various network sources, operate different situational knowledge, and react to actions of other agents. The paper describes the results of experiments aimed to investigate botnets and distributed denial of service defence mechanisms. We explore various botnet attacks and counteraction against them on the example of defence against distributed denial of service attacks. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

cooperative defence against botnet attacks


dynamically updatable component-based system (ducs) We present our framework called DUCS. DUCS supports on-the-fly updates of distributed component-based applications. DUCS has a layered architecture running on top of a virtual machine extended with a support for object unload and replacement. DUCS is a meta-level framework, so the impact on the application's implementation is minimal. It supports dynamic component replacement, state transfer among components, interface modifications, and automatic propagation of updates. The framework is expandable and can be applied to many programming languages as well as many hardware platforms.

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

reflection
dynamic updates
state-transfer
interface adaptation


Information Systems Offshore Outsourcing: An Exploratory Study of Motivations and Risks in Large Spanish Firms Information systems offshore outsourcing is motivated by such factors as globalization, technological development and the possibility to explore new markets. However, both the geographical and the cultural distance create more risks than in onshore outsourcing. The aim of this article is to develop a typology of firms based on the specific motivations and risks associated with offshore outsourcing in large Spanish firms.

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


Proper cell dimension and number of particles per cell for DSMC The Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method models fluid flows using simulation particles which represent a large number of real molecules in a probabilistic simulation to solve the Boltzmann equation. Different opinions still exist on some basic understandings of the controlling factors of DSMC method, such as the proper grid dimension and the proper number of particles in a cell. In this contribution, DSMC simulation of Poiseuille flow was carried out to evaluate the dependence of simulation results on cell dimension and number of particles per cell. In the simulation process a self-adaptive block-structured grid system was employed to guarantee that the number of particles per cell is constant. The simulation covers both 2D and 3D, slip flow regime and transition flow regime, and for each regime, covers both high pressure and low pressure cases. Our simulation results indicate that the number of particles per cell and scaling factor have little influence on simulation result for both slip flow and transition flow when the number of particles per cell is greater than 5, but the dimension of cell influences the accuracy of results significantly. The error caused by cell dimension decreases with the decrease of cell dimension. It is concluded that in the DSMC method it is necessary to ensure that the cell is less than 1/2 of molecular mean free path. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

dsmc
cell dimension
number of particles per cell
scaling factor


Simulation-assisted saddlepoint approximation A general saddlepoint/Monte Carlo method to approximate (conditional) multivariate probabilities is presented. This method requires a tractable joint moment generating function (m.g.f.), but does not require a tractable distribution or density. The method is easy to program and has a third-order accuracy with respect to increasing sample size in contrast to standard asymptotic approximations which are typically only accurate to the first order. The method is most easily described in the context of a continuous regular exponential family. Here, inferences can be formulated as probabilities with respect to the joint density of the sufficient statistics or the conditional density of some sufficient statistics given the others. Analytical expressions for these densities are not generally available, and it is often not possible to simulate exactly from the conditional distributions to obtain a direct Monte Carlo approximation of the required integral. A solution to the first of these problems is to replace the intractable density by a highly accurate saddlepoint approximation. The second problem can be addressed via importance sampling, that is, an indirect Monte Carlo approximation involving simulation from a crude approximation to the true density. Asymptotic normality of the sufficient statistics suggests an obvious candidate for an importance distribution. The more general problem considers the computation of a joint probability for a subvector of random T, given its complementary subvector, when its distribution is intractable, but its joint m.g.f. is computable. For such settings, the distribution may be tilted, maintaining T as the sufficient statistic. Within this tilted family, the computation of such multivariate probabilities proceeds as described for the exponential family setting.

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

conditional inference
monte carlo error
multivariate t-distribution
nuisance parameters
p*-formula
saddlepoint density


Dynamic data resolution to improve the tractability of UMTS network planning Transmission site selection and configuration for cellular networks is in general an NP-hard optimization problem. Consequently efforts to improve tractability are very valuable and meta-heuristic algorithms are now commonly applied in artificial intelligence frameworks and expert systems. The speed of network evaluation is a binding constraint on performance of meta-heuristic techniques. This is particularly challenging for CDMA-based systems because power allocation is required before coverage can be evaluated. The current most efficient heuristic for achieving this requires \(O(n^{2}_{\mathit{cell}} \cdot n_{\mathit{stp}})\) time where n cell is the number of cells and n stp is the number of active user locations. In the large-scale scenarios that arise in practice, n stp is large compared to n cell and consequently tractability is significantly impeded by n stp .

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 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

cell planning
power control
radio network design
cdma


Network-on-SSD: A Scalable and High-Performance Communication Design Paradigm for SSDs In recent years, flash memory solid state disks (SSDs) have shown a great potential to change storage infrastructure because of its advantages of high speed and high throughput random access. This promising storage, however, greatly suffers from performance loss because of frequent "erase-before-write" and "garbage collection" operations. Thus. novel circuit-level, architectural, and algorithmic techniques are currently explored to address these limitations. In parallel with others, current study investigates replacing shared buses in multi-channel architecture of SSDs with an interconnection network to achieve scalable, high throughput, and reliable SSD storage systems. Roughly speaking, such a communication scheme provides superior parallelism that allows us to compensate the main part of the performance loss related to the aforementioned limitations through increasing data storage and retrieval processing throughput.

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 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

solid state disk
inter-package parallelism


Assessment methodology of the lateral migration component in data retention of 3D SONOS memories A new procedure to assess the impact of lateral charge migration from the overall retention transient is developed. This experimental procedure is designed to be applied on any 3D NAND string, and does not require devices specifically designed; this allows to assess the impact of lateral migration in realistic conditions. The experimental procedure relies on comparing retention loss of a standard sample with a control sample not suffering from lateral migration, thanks to a pre-conditioning operation. The pre-conditioning procedure to obtain the control samples is discussed in detail and demonstrated through measurements and simulations.

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

charge trapping memories
3d-sonos
retention modeling
reliability


on achieving good operating points on an roc plane using stochastic anomaly score prediction ROC curves have historically been used to evaluate the accuracy of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs). In this paper, we argue that a real-time IDS' input changes considerably over time and ROC curves generated using fixed, time-invariant classification thresholds do not characterize the best accuracy that an IDS can achieve. To address this problem, we propose a simple, generic and adaptive technique to achieve good ROC operating points for any given IDS. The proposed technique stochastically predicts the next anomaly score of an IDS and the anomaly classification threshold is then set as a function of the predicted score. We first perform statistical and information-theoretic analyses of network- and host-based IDSs' anomaly scores to reveal a consistent time correlation structure during benign activity periods. We model the observed correlation structure using Markov chains and then use this model to predict and adapt an IDS' classification threshold. The proposed adaptive thresholding module is incorporated into six prominent network- and host-based Anomaly Detection Systems (ADSs). These adaptive ADSs are evaluated on public and labeled attack datasets. We show that, while reducing the need for manual threshold configuration and having very low-complexity, adaptive thresholding enables the ADSs to achieve considerably higher accuracies on the ROC plane.

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

anomaly detection
intrusion detection
adaptive thresholding


Memetic algorithms for parallel code optimization Discovering the optimum number of processors and the distribution of data on distributed memory parallel computers for a given algorithm is a demanding task. A memetic algorithm (MA) is proposed here to find the best number of processors and the best data distribution method to be used for each stage of a parallel program. Steady state memetic algorithm is compared with transgenerational memetic algorithm using different crossover operators and hill-climbing methods. A self-adaptive MA is also implemented, based on a multimeme strategy. All the experiments are carried out on computationally intensive, communication intensive, and mixed problem instances. The MA performs successfully for the illustrative problem instances.

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

distributed memory parallel computers
memetic algorithms


Study and development of morphological analysis guidelines for point cloud management: The "decisional cube" When talking about reverse engineering, it is necessary to focus on the management of point clouds. Generally speaking, every 3D scanner device codifies simple and complex geometries providing different point cloud densities as an output. Point cloud density is usually more correlated with the technical specifications of the device employed rather than with the morphology of the object acquired. This situation is due to the frequent use of structured grids by a large quantity of devices. In order to solve this problem, we therefore need to integrate the classical structured grid acquisition with a smart selective one, which is able to identify different point cloud densities in accordance with the morphological complexity of the object regions acquired. Currently, we can reach the destination in many different ways. Each of them is able to provide different performances depending on the object morphology and the performances of 3D scanner devices. Unfortunately, there does not yet exist one universal approach able to be employed in all cases. For this reason, the present paper aims to propose a first analysis of the available methodologies and parameters, in order to provide final users with some guidelines for supporting their decisions according to the specific application they are facing. Moreover, the developed guidelines have been illustrated and validated by a series of case studies of the proposed method. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

reverse engineering
3d scanner
point cloud management
morphological analysis


Numerical investigation of a modified family of centered schemes applied to multiphase equations with nonconservative sources Systems of hyperbolic partial differential equations are frequently used to model the flow of multiphase mixtures. These equations often contain sources, referred to as nozzling terms, that cannot be posed in divergence form, and have proven to be particularly challenging in the development of finite-volume methods. Upwind schemes have recently shown promise in properly resolving the steady wave solution of the associated multiphase Riemann problem. However, these methods require a full characteristic decomposition of the system eigenstructure, which may be either unavailable or computationally expensive. Central schemes, such as the KurganovTadmor (KT) family of methods, require minimal characteristic information, which makes them easily applicable to systems with an arbitrary number of phases. However, the proper implementation of nozzling terms in these schemes has been mathematically ambiguous. The primary objectives of this work are twofold: first, an extension of the KT family of schemes is proposed that formally accounts for the nonconservative nozzling sources. This modification results in a semidiscrete form that retains the simplicity of its predecessor and introduces little additional computational expense. Second, this modified method is applied to multiple, but equivalent, forms of the multiphase equations to perform a numerical study by solving several one-dimensional test problems. Both ideal and MieGrneisen equations of state are used, with the results compared to an analytical solution. This study demonstrates that the magnitudes of the resulting numerical errors are sensitive to the form of the equations considered, and suggests an optimal form to minimize these errors. Finally, a separate modification of the wave propagation speeds used in the KT family is also suggested that can reduce the extent of numerical diffusion in multiphase flows.

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

multiphase flows
riemann problem
nonconservative sources

finite-volume methods
hyperbolic systems


Empathy with Inanimate Objects and the Uncanny Valley The term uncanny valley goes back to an article of the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori (Mori 1970, 2005). He put forward the hypothesis that humanlike objects like certain kinds of robots elicit emotional responses similar to real humans proportionate to their degree of human likeness. Yet, if a certain degree of similarity is reached emotional responses become all of a sudden very repulsive. The corresponding recess in the supposed function is called the uncanny valley. The present paper wants to propose a philosophical explanation why we feel empathy with inanimate objects in the first place, and why the uncanny valley occurs when these objects become very humanlike. The core of this explanationwhich is informed by the recently developing empirical research on the matterwill be a form of empathy involving a kind of imaginative perception. However, as will be shown, imaginative perception fails in cases of very humanlike objects.

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

empathy
uncanny valley
imaginative perception


Two-dimensional schemes for clocking/timing of QCA circuits At nanoscale, quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) defines a new device architecture that permits the innovative design of digital systems. Features of these systems are the allowed crossing of signal lines with different orientation in polarization on a Cartesian plane, the potential of high throughput due to efficient pipelining, fast signal switching, and propagation. However, QCA designs of even modest complexity suffer from the negative impact due to the placement of long lines of cells among clocking zones, thus resulting in increased delay, slow timing, and sensitivity to thermal fluctuations. In this paper, different schemes for clocking and timing of the QCA systems are proposed; these schemes utilize 2-D techniques that permit a reduction in the longest line length in each clocking zone. The proposed clocking schemes utilize logic-propagation techniques that have been developed for systolic arrays. Placement of QCA cells is modified to ensure correct signal generation and timing. The significant reduction in the longest line length permits a fast timing and efficient pipelining to occur while guaranteeing a kink-free behavior in switching.

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

quantum-dot cellular-automata (qca) architecture


Transmission capacity in power networks This survey article deals with the complex topic of transmission capacity, starting from its definition through modeling and analysis. Methods for evaluating transmission capacity are also briefly described. The second part of the article is concerned with possible means of increasing the transmission capacity at the locations of most interest. The third part is concerned with possible economic incentives for enhancing transmission capacity in a changing electric power industry.

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

incremental power transfer
security regions
power systems control
facts
changing industry
economic value of transmission capacity


Partitioned EDF scheduling on a few types of unrelated multiprocessors A polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) is derived for the partitioned EDF scheduling of implicit-deadline sporadic task systems upon unrelated multiprocessor platforms that are comprised of a constant number of distinct types of processors. This generalizes earlier results showing the existence of polynomial-time approximation schemes for the partitioned EDF scheduling of implicit-deadline sporadic task systems on (1)identical multiprocessor platforms, and (2)unrelated multiprocessor platforms containing a constant number of processors.

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

multiprocessor scheduling
polynomial-time approximation scheme


A VOTING SCHEME FOR PARTIAL OBJECT EXTRACTION UNDER CLUTTERED ENVIRONMENT Shape extraction aims to detect and localize objects via the shape information. The paper presents a novel voting scheme that can extract partially occluded objects under cluttered environments using a single shape. It works by jointly figuring out the boundaries and resolving the geometric configurations. To model the missing part lead by occlusion, we discretize the shape template into a set of its subpart, named portions. Our representation of shape template is through a set of portion together with their interconnections. Instead of forming a fully connected network, our interconnections make the portions consistent with the chain along the boundary of shape template. Based on the representation, we formulate an auto-locked objective function that contains both the unary and pairwise terms and balances the effects of missing parts. Min-sum voting scheme with strategy driven by bottom-up information is then proposed to minimize the objective function. Conducted experiments show that proposed algorithm is promising for shape extraction with occlusion and noisy backgrounds and allows the non-rigid deformations.

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

model-based shape extraction
pose cluster
dynamic programming
belief propagation
geometric hashing
object detection


an efficient and generic reversible debugger using the virtual machine based approach The reverse execution of programs is a function where programs are executed backward in time. A reversible debugger is a debugger that provides such a functionality. In this paper, we propose a novel reversible debugger that enables reverse execution of programs written in the C language. Our approach takes the virtual machine based approach . In this approach, the target program is executed on a special virtual machine. Our contribution in this paper is two-fold. First, we propose an approach that can address problems of (1) compatibility and (2) efficiency that exist in previous works. By compatibility, we mean that previous debuggers are not generic, i.e., they support only a special language or special intermediate code. Second, our approach provides two execution modes: the native mode, where the debuggee is directly executed on a real CPU, and the virtual machine mode, where the debuggee is executed on a virtual machine. Currently, our debugger provides four types of trade-off settings (designated by unit and optimization) to consider trade-offs between granularity, accuracy, overhead and memory requirement. The user can choose the appropriate setting flexibly during debugging without finishing and restarting the debuggee.

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

debugger
virtual machine
reverse execution


Saccade detection during smooth tracking Saccade detection in an eye-movement trace provides a starting point for analyses ranging from the investigation of low-level oculomotor mechanisms to high-level cognitive processes. When the eye tracks the motion of the object of current interest (smooth pursuit), of the visual background (OKN), or of the resultant visual motion from a head movement (tVOR, rVOR), the smooth tracking movement is generally intermixed with rapid-phase saccadic eye movements, which must be excised to analyze the smooth components of tracking behavior properly. We describe a simple method to detect saccades on a background trace of variable velocity, compare our saccade-detection algorithm with the performance of an expert human observer, and present an ideal-observer analysis to benchmark its detection performance.

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


A range scanner with a virtual laser A scanner is developed that can capture range and color data from four sides of an object and combine the data into a model of the object. The scanner has four synchronous heads that scan an object from four sides in a coordinate system that is attached to the object. Data produced by the four heads automatically come together without the need for image registration. The uniqueness of the scanner is in its use of an imaginary (virtual) laser rather than a real one for scanning. Use of a virtual laser makes it possible to scan an object with detailed color and under bright lighting. Characteristics of the scanner are investigated and example images produced by the scanner are given.

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

volumetric representation
energy-minimizing model
multiview range data integration
estimation of missing range data
stereo correspondence


A network analytic-based method for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue at conferences This paper proposes a network analytic-based method in order to better facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue at conferences. Using a network composed of papers and subject headings of the 2013 ASIS&T Conference Proceedings, its structure is first analyzed by applying a community detection algorithm and two major centrality measures: betweenness and degree centralities. A combination of degree centrality measurements, along with a qualitative evaluation of the results of those measurements, form a novel method that could potentially connect collections whose content may have been previously siloed into separate tracks.

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

network analysis
organization of conference structure
classification
measurements of interdisciplinarity


A CaRBS analysis of hip replacement approaches and non-pathology This study investigates the differences in hip biomechanics for subjects following a total hip arthroplasty (THA), through the lateral approach (LA) and posterior approach (PA), to those with no pathology (NP). The principal component analysis was performed on two kinematic and two kinetic waveforms (subject-based characteristics) from level gait to identify salient portions of the waveforms for comparison between the subject cohorts. These were classified to identify the differences between post-THA and non-pathological cohorts. The primary technique exposited in the THA analysis is classification and ranking belief simplex (CaRBS). Within the analysis, from the configuration of a CaRBS model, there is discussion on the model fit and contribution of the subject-based characteristics. Where appropriate, comparisons to the CaRBS model are made with the results from a logistic regression (LR) analysis. In terms of model fit, using CaRBS, 24 out of 27 LA/PA subjects (88.89%) and 13 out of 16 NP subjects (81.25%) were correctly classified as exhibiting either post-THA or NP hip functional characteristics during level gait, combining to 86.05% classification accuracy, compared with 81.40% classification accuracy when using LR.

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

carbs
classification
principal component analysis


High-level delay test generation for modular circuits Circuits containing functional blocks (modules) whose implementation details are not available pose major problems for delay fault testing. High-level testing methods are needed, but they often generate excessively large test sets to ensure good realization-independent fault coverage. This paper extends high-level delay fault models to large modular logic circuits by demonstrating that a hierarchical approach to delay test generation for modular circuits is feasible. Module implementation and input pattern pair requirements for robust delay testing are proposed along with a new fault model, the module path delay fault (MPDF) model. A test generation program called Module PATH delay test generator for MPDFs is presented, which exploits binary decision diagrams to increase its efficiency. Experimental results evaluating the proposed technique are presented, which show that it achieves a significant reduction in test set size compared to nonhierarchical approaches.

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 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 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

delay testing
fault models
modular circuits


a balanced tree storage and retrieval algorithm A storage and retrieval scheme which places items to be stored at the nodes of a binary tree is discussed. The tree is always balanced in a certain sense thus insuring that no excessively long search paths can exist. In addition to presenting the storage and retrieval algorithms, the deletion problem is also solved. The programming approaches involved yield a non-trivial case study of list-processing techniques. Finally, a cost analysis is given.

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

yield tree analysis storage retrieval algorithm cost scheme

place
present
program
case studies
list processing
data structures
searching
balanced trees
storage and retrieval


A metamodel optimization methodology based on multi-level fuzzy clustering space reduction strategy and its applications This paper proposes metamodel optimization methodology based on multi-level fuzzy-clustering space reduction strategy with Kriging interpolation. The proposed methodology is composed of three levels. In the 1st level, the initial samples need partitioning into several clusters due to design variables by fuzzy-clustering method. Sequentially, only some of the clusters are involved in building metamodels locally in the 2nd level. Finally, the best optimized result is collected from all metamodels in the 3rd level. The nonlinear problems with multi-humps as test functions arc implemented for proving accuracy and efficiency of proposed method. The practical nonlinear engineering problems are optimized by suggested methodology and satisfied results are also obtained. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

metamodel
fuzzy clustering
nonlinear
kriging interpolation


Fuzzy algorithms for combined quantization and dithering Color quantization reduces the number of the colors in a color image, while the subsequent dithering operation attempts to create the illusion of more colors with this reduced palette, In quantization, the palette is designed to minimize the mean squared error (MSE), However, the dithering that follows enhances the color appearance at the expense of increasing the MSE, We introduce three joint quantization and dithering algorithms to overcome this contradiction. The basic idea is the same in two of the approaches: introducing the dithering error to the quantizer in the training phase, The fuzzy C-means (FCM) and the fuzzy learning vector quantization (FLVQ) algorithms are used to develop two combined mechanisms. In the third algorithm, we minimize an objective function including an inter-cluster separation (ICS) term to obtain a color palette which is more suitable for dithering, The goal is to enlarge the convex hull of the quantization colors to obtain the illusion of more colors after error diffusion, The color contrasts of images are also enhanced with the proposed algorithm, We test the results of these three new algorithms using quality metrics which model the perception of the human visual system and illustrate that substantial improvements are achieved after dithering.

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

color quantization
combined quantization and dithering
dithering
human visual system


External matrix multiplication and all-pairs shortest path Algorithms are presented for external matrix multiplication and for all-pairs shortest path computation. In comparison with earlier algorithms, the amount of I/O is reduced by a constant factor. The all-pairs shortest path algorithm even performs fewer internal operations, making the algorithm practically interesting. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

external algorithms
all-pairs shortest paths
graph algorithms


Coexistence of a general elliptic system in population dynamics This paper is concerned with a strongly-coupled elliptic system representing a competitive interaction between two species. We give a sufficient condition for the existence of positive solutions. An example is also given to show that there is a coexistence of a steady state if the cross-diffusions or the intraspecific competitions are weak. (C) 2004 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

strongly-coupled elliptic systems
reaction
diffusion
positive solution


Flexible supply chain optimization with controllable lead time and shipping option Proposing a five- tiers supply chain with flexible lead time. The lead time of manufacturers and warehouses can be shortened with extra crashing cost. The use of different types of transportation option with different prices. Proposing a hybrid algorithm (AIS and Taguchi) to solve the proposed model.

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

taguchi
controllable lead time
optimization


Noise canceling LNA with gain enhancement by using double feedback We present a balun LNA with high gain and low noise figure by using active loads. A double feedback technique for gain enhancement and noise figure reduction is used. Two RF front-end receivers using a 130 nm CMOS technology were implemented: (1) using an LNA with active loads; (2) using an LNA with active loads and local double feedback.

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

rf front-end receivers
cmos lnas
wideband lna


Empirical study of open source software selection for adoption, based on software quality characteristics We use a new model of internal quality characteristics for selecting OSS. The model quality characteristics are system, information, service qualities. The proposed model is applied on eight different OSS systems. Open source learning management systems (Moodle, Sakai, ATutor and ALIAS). Open source network tools (ns-2, ns-3, Wireshark and FileZilla).

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 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

information quality
open source software (oss)
selection criteria
service quality
system quality


Inefficiency in selecting products for submission to national research assessment exercises One of the critical issues in national research assessment exercises concerns the choice of whether to evaluate the entire scientific portfolio of the institutions or a subset composed of the best products. Under the second option, the capacities of the institutions to select the appropriate researchers and their best products (the UK case) or simply the best products of every researcher (the Italian case) becomes critical, both for purposes of correct assessment of the real quality of research in the institutions evaluated, and for the selective funding that follows. In this work, through case studies of three Italian universities, we analyze the efficiency of the product selection that is intended to maximize the universities scores in the current national research assessment exercise, the results of which will be the basis for assigning an important share of public financing over the coming years.

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

research assessment exercises
universities

selection efficiency
peer review
bibliometrics
vqr
italy


an efficient subcircuit recognition using the nonlinear graph matching Subcircuit recognition (SR) is a problem of identifying all instances of a small subcircuit in a larger circuit. Despite recent progress toward the linear graph matching based SR algorithms, finding a large set of subcircuits in a multi-million circuit may be still prohibitively long for many IC CAD applications. In this paper we develop a new efficient SR method using a nonlinear graph matching strategy. Namely, our method employs an advanced nonlinear technique to minimize the objective function (OF) associated with the SR problem. Unlike the linear graph matching we don't approximate the OF by the first-order terms in its Taylor series expansion. In contrast, the second-order terms are exploited to form a set of nonlinear equations (SNE) that describe the net and device match probabilities. To solve the obtained SNE we use a nonlinear version of the Kaczmarz method (KM). We improve the KM efficiency by making two modifications in its updating scheme; this leads to fast and stable convergence of the SR process. The experimental results show that the new method is on average three times faster compared to the linear graph matching algorithms.

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


Parametric Identification of Systems with General Backlash The notion of general backlash is introduced where instead of the straight lines determining the upward and downward parts of backlash characteristic general curves are considered. An analytic form of general backlash characteristic description is proposed, which is based on appropriate switching and internal functions. Consequently, this multi-valued mapping is represented by one difference equation. All the parameters in the equation describing this hard nonlinearity are separated; hence the general backlash identification can be solved as a quasi-linear problem using an iterative parameter estimation method with internal variable estimation. Also the identification of cascaded systems consisting of a general input backlash followed by a linear dynamic system is presented. Simulation studies of general backlash identification and that of cascaded systems with general input backlash are included.

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


Nonlinear analysis of frames with curved members This paper develops a general nonlinear analysis method for structural frames with curved members. The initial geometry is specified in a flexible manner that allows a variety of geometries to be exactly specified, and avoids any geometric modelling errors. The procedure only requires minimum discretisation of the structure as a self-adaptive procedure is used to solve the member equations. The solution technique used enables the complete loaddeflection response to be calculated. The paper includes high-accuracy results for a number of examples that can serve as standard benchmarks with a clearly-defined theoretical basis.

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


Efficient encoding algorithm for third-order spectral-null codes An efficient algorithm is presented for encoding unconstrained information sequences into a third-order spectral-null code of length n and redundancy theta log(2) n + O(log log n). The encoding can be implemented using O(n) integer additions and O(n log n) counter increments.

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


renewal model of mobile data services through user experience analysis In this paper, we introduced real renewal examples of KTF's mobile data service. At the time of development, we focused on user analysis and tried to improve the existing mobile data service based on user's opinion. After the new mobile data service was launched based on user experience analysis, the customers were satisfied with the newly developed mobile data service. We expect that new mobile data service would make continuous revenue streams and contribute to image up the company.

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


A theory of epineuronal memory How can a brain maintain stable memories and behaviors when its underlying electrical and chemical structures are constantly changing? We investigate this stability problem thinking that the state variables (e.g. voltages, ionic currents, etc.) are governed by a complex system that itself is closely regulated. Regulation of the network is through its operating environment, which is described by parameters. We study a standard neural network model, but one whose parameters are governed by a mnemonic landscape function. Parameter configurations are attracted to local maxima of this landscape, which represent memorized parameter configurations. The operating environment changes slowly (relative to the state variables) guided by the mnemonic landscape function, and this provides a quasi-static operating environment for the network. We describe shaping the mnemonic landscape, how it acts as a probability density function to guide slow parameter dynamics, and how the parameters shape the network output. Simulations of memory registration, activity patterns, and sequential recall are described.

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

memory and recall of sequences
learning
epineuronal landscape
reward
slow and fast time scales


Impact of oxygen composition of ZnO metal-oxide on unipolar resistive switching characteristics of Al/ZnO/Al resistive RAM (RRAM) Effect of oxygen content on electrical performance of ZnO RRAM. Demonstrate the optimal oxygen content in ZnO film for RRAM application. Propose the resistance switching model of ZnO RRAM at different oxygen content.

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

zno
resistive ram
rram
oxygen composition

oxygen gas flow ratio
switching mechanism


Existential type systems between Church and Curry style (type-free style) We study type checking, typability, and type inference problems for second-order existential systems in type-free style. The type-free style is an intermediate representation of terms between the Curry style and the Church style. Terms in the type-free style contain information on where the existential quantifier elimination and introduction take place, but omit the information on which types are involved. We show that all the problems are undecidable employing reduction of second-order unification for considerably restricted special instances in flat form. These results hold even in a fragment of the existential system where ?,? ? , ? are only used and in case of predicative fragments of the existential systems.

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

existential types
undecidability
type-free type system
church style type system


A special issue on "Computational finance and economics" - Impact of it on some economics problems We present a brief discussion on the impact of information technology on problems from finance and economics. Then, an overview is given upon the papers that are included in the special issue.

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


Probabilistic Approach to Realistic Face Synthesis With a Single Uncalibrated Image This paper presents a novel approach to automatic face modeling for realistic synthesis from an unknown face image, using a probabilistic face diffuse model and a generic face specular map. We construct a probabilistic face diffuse model for estimating the albedo and normals of the input face. Then, we develop a generic face specular map for estimating the specularity of face. Using the estimated albedo, normal, and specular information, we can synthesize the face under arbitrary lighting and viewing directions realistically. Unlike many existing techniques, our approach can extract both the diffuse and specular information of face without involving an intensive 3-D matching procedure. We conduct three different experiments to show our improvement over the prior art. First, we compare the proposed algorithm with previous techniques, including the state of the art, to demonstrate our achievement in realistic face synthesis. Moreover, we evaluate the proposed algorithm over nonautomatic face modeling techniques through a subjective user study. This evaluation is meaningful in that it tells us how far our results as well as others are from the real photograph in terms of the perceptual quality. Finally, we apply our face model for improving the face recognition performance under varying illumination conditions and show that the proposed algorithm is effective in enhancing the face recognition rate. Thanks to the compact representation and the effective inference scheme, our technique is applicable for many practical applications, such as avatar creation, digital face cloning, face normalization, de-identification and many others.

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

face modeling
face recognition
face synthesis
probabilistic approach


Un-decimated discrete wavelet transform based algorithm for extraction of geomagnetic storm sudden commencement onset of high resolution records The automatic detection of the onset time of the geomagnetic storm sudden commencement (SSC) is of great importance for many applications. The distribution of the power along the frequency axis during the SSC was investigated. This analysis guide us to build an SSC automatic detector, for the first time, of one sample per second data based on the un-decimated discrete wavelet transform (DWT), unlike previous studies that focused on determining the SSC times using one-minute resolution data. Using such high-resolution data enabled us to achieve a small detection error and short processing time. One hundred thirty four geomagnetic storms were considered for testing the proposed algorithm; it was found that the average and maximum standard deviation of the errors in the detection times determined by the algorithm were 35 and 44s, respectively, of the corresponding manually determined onset times. The proposed algorithm tested by using continuous period data (six months). The results show the capability of the algorithm to detect the SSCs successfully with low rate of false detections.

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

automatic detection
geomagnetic storm sudden commencement

un-decimated dwt
mra (multi resolution analysis)
cpmn


Formulas for cube roots in F3m F 3 m We determine the number of nonzero coefficients (called the Hamming weight) in the polynomial representation of x1/3 x 1 / 3 in F3m=F3[x]/(f) F 3 m = F 3 [ x ] / ( f ) , where f?F3[x] f ? F 3 [ x ] is an irreducible trinomial.

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


Redox-Dependent Apoptosis in Human Endothelial Cells after Adhesion of Plasmodium falciparum-Infected Erythrocytes During Plasmodium falciparum infection leading to cerebral malaria, mechanisms such as cytokine generation and cytoadherence of parasitized red blood cells (PRBC) to post-capillary venules are clearly involved. We demonstrated that PRBC adhesion to human lung endothelial cells (HLEC) upregulated TNF-? superfamily genes and genes related to apoptosis and inflammation. Apoptosis was confirmed by standard techniques (annexin-V binding, genomic DNA fragmentation, and caspases activation). This apoptotic process involved the cytoplasmic pathway from a death receptor (DR-6, Fas, TNF-R1) through caspase 8, and the mitochondrial pathway though Bad and caspase 9 activation. Oxidative stress has been implicated in apoptosis induction in various pathological models. Superoxide anion (O2-) is a key molecule in the oxidative stress pathway which can form peroxynitrites (ONOO-) in association with nitric oxide (NO). Even though the role of NO in malaria physiopathology is still a matter of controversy, we demonstrated that PRBC-induced apoptosis in endothelial cells is mediated through an oxidative stress pathway. The inhibition of NO synthesis protected the endothelial cells suggesting a deleterious role for NO. In addition, the superoxide dismutase mimetic, MnTBAP, also protected the HLEC against PRBC-induced apoptosis, revealing the role of O2- and ONOO-.

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

plasmodium falciparum
endothelial cells
oxidative stress
nitric oxide


Geometric Mechanics and the Dynamics of Asteroid Pairs The purpose of this paper is to describe the general setting for the application of techniques from geometric mechanics and dynamical systems to the problem of asteroid pairs. The paper also gives some preliminary results on transport calculations and the associated problem of calculating binary asteroid escape rates. The dynamics of an asteroid pair, consisting of two irregularly shaped asteroids interacting through their gravitational potential is an example of a full-body problem or FBP in which two or more extended bodies interact. One of the interesting features of the binary asteroid problem is that there is coupling between their translational and rotational degrees of freedom. General FBPs have a wide range of other interesting aspects as well, including the 6-DOF guidance, control, and dynamics of vehicles, the dynamics of interacting or ionizing molecules, the evolution of small body, planetary, or stellar systems, and almost any other problem in which distributed bodies interact with each other or with an external field. This paper focuses on the specific case of asteroid pairs using techniques that are generally applicable to many other FBPs. This particular full two-body problem (F2BP) concerns the dynamical evolution of two rigid bodies mutually interacting via a gravitational field. Motivation comes from planetary science, where these interactions play a key role in the evolution of asteroid rotation states and binary asteroid systems. The techniques that are applied to this problem fall into two main categories. The first is the use of geometric mechanics to obtain a description of the reduced phase space, which opens the door to a number of powerful techniques, such as the energy-momentum method for determining the stability of equilibria and the use of variational integrators for greater accuracy in simulation. Second, techniques from computational dynamic systems are used to determine phase space structures that are important for transport phenomena and dynamic evolution.

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

geometric mechanics
dynamics
asteroid pairs


interpersonal variation in understanding robots as social actors In this paper, I investigate interpersonal variation in verbal HRI with respect to the computers-as-social-actors hypothesis. The analysis of a corpus of verbal human-robot interactions shows that only a subgroup of the users treat the robot as a social actor. Thus, taking interpersonal variation into account reveals that not all users transfer social behaviors from human interactions into HRI. This casts doubts on the suggestion that the social responses to computers and robots reported on previously are due to mindlessness. At the same time, participants' understanding of robots as social or non-social actors can be shown to have a considerable influence on their linguistic behavior throughout the dialogs.

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

verbal human-robot interaction
linguistic variation
mindless transfer
computers-as-social-actors paradigm


Boolean layer cakes. Proceedings ORDAL '96 A Boolean layer cake is an ordered set obtained from a Boolean lattice 2(n) by selecting any number of complete level sets from 2(n) and endowing their set union with the order inherited from 2(n). The first Boolean layer cake considered in the literature seems to be the set of all atoms and of all coatoms of 2(n) in Dushnik and Miller (1941, Amer. J. Math. 63, 600-610) - what is known today as the standard example of an n-dimensional ordered set. Our intention is (i) to survey the more recent literature on Boolean layer cakes and (ii) to consider some properties of those among them which happen to be lattices (a point of view which seems to be new in this context). As for (i), the dominating part of the work done is about ordered sets consisting of just two layers from 2(n), and within that part, the major theme is their dimension. If n is odd, the two middle levels of 2(n) have the same size, and an (open) conjecture now attributed to Havel states that the covering graph of such an ordered sets always admits a Hamiltonian path. Another question is which ordered sets allow an embedding into 2(n) or into a 2-layer cake. We also consider the number of isotone self-maps and of order automorphisms of Boolean layer cakes. Further, jump numbers of general layer cakes have been determined. As for (ii), a Boolean layer cake is a lattice iff it consists of consecutive nontrivial levels of 2(n) plus top and bottom. Concentrating on the case of 2-layer cakes with levels 2 and 3, we show that these lattices have a large number of large (in a sense to be specified) sublattices. The enumeration and classification of such large sublattices sheds some light on the sublattice spectrum question and shows that there is no polynomial bound (in the size of the underlying lattice) for the number of maximal sublattices of an arbitrary lattice. Sizes of generating sets and computational aspects are also considered. (C) 1999-Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

suborder
order dimension
automorphism
maximal sublattice


Comparison of stochastic optimization methods for design optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motor This study presents design optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motor by using different artificial intelligence methods. For this purpose, three stochastic optimization methodsgenetic algorithm, simulated annealing, and differential evolutionwere used. Motor design parameters and efficiency results obtained by the artificial intelligence methods were compared with each other. The results were later checked by finite element analysis. Consequently, the motor efficiencies obtained from the algorithms have high accuracy. Approaches strategies of the artificial intelligence algorithms are quite sufficient and remarkable for design optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motor. The differential evolution is better and more reliable optimization method nevertheless.

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

permanent magnet synchronous motor
design optimization
simulated annealing
differential evolution


On the Dynamics of Social Balance on General Networks (with an application to XOR-SAT) We study nondeterministic and probabilistic versions of a discrete dynamical system (due to T. Antal, P. L. Krapivsky, and S. Redner [3]) inspired by Heider's social balance theory. We investigate the convergence time of this dynamics on several classes of graphs. Our contributions include: 1. We point out the connection between the triad dynamics and a generalization of annihilating walks to hypergraphs. In particular, this connection allows us to completely characterize the recurrent states in graphs where each edge belongs to at most two triangles. 2. We also solve the case of hypergraphs that do not contain edges consisting of one or two vertices. 3. We show that on the so-called "triadic cycle" graph, the convergence time is linear. 4. We obtain a cubic upper bound on the convergence time on 2-regular triadic simplexes G. This bound can be further improved to a quantity that depends on the Cheeger constant of G. In particular this provides some rigorous counterparts to experimental observations in [25]. We also point out an application to the analysis of the random walk algorithm on certain instances of the 3-XOR-SAT problem.

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

discrete dynamical systems
rapidly mixing markov chains
xor-sat


On the number of minimal dominating sets on some graph classes A dominating set in a graph is a subset of vertices such that each vertex is either in the dominating set or adjacent to some vertex in the dominating set. It is known that graphs have at most O(1.7159n) O ( 1.7159 n ) minimal dominating sets. In this paper, we establish upper bounds on this maximum number of minimal dominating sets for split graphs, cobipartite graphs and interval graphs. For each of these graph classes, we provide an algorithm to enumerate them. For split and interval graphs, we show that the number of minimal dominating sets is at most 3n/3?1.4423n 3 n / 3 ? 1.4423 n , which is the best possible bound. This settles a conjecture by Couturier et al. (SOFSEM 2012, [1]). For cobipartite graphs, we lower the O(1.5875n) O ( 1.5875 n ) upper bound from Couturier et al. to O(1.4511n) O ( 1.4511 n ) .

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

graph algorithms
exponential-time algorithms
enumerating algorithms


Intoxicated speech detection: A fusion framework with speaker-normalized hierarchical functionals and GMM supervectors Segmental and suprasegmental speech signal modulations offer information about paralinguistic content such as affect, age and gender, pathology, and speaker state. Speaker state encompasses medium-term, temporary physiological phenomena influenced by internal or external bio-chemical actions (e.g., sleepiness, alcohol intoxication). Perceptual and computational research indicates that detecting speaker state from speech is a challenging task. In this paper, we present a system constructed with multiple representations of prosodic and spectral features that provided the best result at the Intoxication Subchallenge of Interspeech 2011 on the Alcohol Language Corpus. We discuss the details of each classifier and show that fusion improves performance. We additionally address the question of how best to construct a speaker state detection system in terms of robust and practical marginalization of associated variability such as through modeling speakers, utterance type, gender, and utterance length. As is the case in human perception, speaker normalization provides significant improvements to our system. We show that a held-out set of baseline (sober) data can be used to achieve comparable gains to other speaker normalization techniques. Our fused frame-level statistic-functional systems, fused GMM systems, and final combined system achieve unweighted average recalls (UARs) of 69.7%, 65.1%, and 68.8%, respectively, on the test set. More consistent numbers compared to development set results occur with matched-prompt training, where the UARs are 70.4%, 66.2%, and 71.4%, respectively. The combined system improves over the Challenge baseline by 5.5% absolute (8.4% relative), also improving upon our previously best result. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

gmm supervectors
speaker normalization
speaker state

hierarchical features
intoxication detection
cognitive and motor load