Learning classifier systems with memory condition to solve non-Markov problems In the family of learning classifier systems, the classifier system XCS has been successfully used for many applications. However, the standard XCS has no memory mechanism and can only learn optimal policy in Markov environments, but fails in non-Markov ones. In this work, we aim to develop a new classifier system based on XCS to tackle this problem. It adds a memory list with numbered slots to XCS to record input sensation history, and extends only a small number of classifiers with memory conditions. The classifiers memory condition, as a foothold to disambiguate non-Markov states, is used to sense a specified element in the memory list, which makes our system can jump over irrelevant or confusing states to get decisive prior information that may be far back in time. Besides, a detection method is employed to recognize non-Markov states in environments, to avoid these states controlling over classifiers memory conditions. Furthermore, four sets of different complex maze environments have been tested by the proposed method. Experimental results show that our system can overcome the overhead problem often encountered in history-window approaches, and is an effective technique to solve non-Markov environments.

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

learning classifier system
aliasing state detection
partially observable environments
non-markov problems


Interspliced transcription chimeras: Neglected pathological mechanism infiltrating gene accession queries? Over half of the DNA of mammalian genomes is transcribed, and one of the emerging enigmas in the field of RNA research is intergenic splicing or transcription induced chimerism. We argue that fused low-copy-number transcripts constitute neglected pathological mechanism akin to copy number variation, due to loss of stoichiometric subunit ratios in protein complexes. An obstacle for transcriptomics meta-analysis of published microarrays is the traditional nomenclature of merged transcript neighbors under same accession codes. Tandem transcripts cover 420% of genomes but are only loosely overlapping in population. They were most enriched in systems medicine annotations concerning neurology, thalassemia and genital disorders in the GeneGo Inc. MetaCore-MetaDrugTM knowledgebase, evaluated with external randomizations here. Clinical transcriptomics is good news since new disease etiologies offer new remedies. We identified homeotic HOX-transfactors centered around BMI-1, the Grb2 adaptor network, the kallikrein system, and thalassemia RNA surveillance as vulnerable hotspot chimeras. As a cure, RNA interference would require verification of chimerism from symptomatic tissue contra healthy control tissue from the same patient.

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

clinical transcriptomics
systems medicine
intergenic splicing
chimerism


Multi-GPU simulations of Vlasovs equation using Vlasiator We use GPUs to accelerate the propagation of six-dimensional Vlasov equation using a finite volume method. The simulation has been parallelized with MPI. CUDA streams were used to pipeline GPUCPU and CPUCPU data transfers. Presented pipeline strategy simplifies the coding of parallel GPU simulations.

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

plasma simulations
conservative scheme
finite volume methods
magnetosphere
graphics processing units


Industrial semiosis: founding the deployment of the ubiquitous information infrastructure Increasingly, models and data pertaining to products, resources and industrial processes are being stored on computers. Moreover, corporate and personal computers and information systems are rapidly being connected into intranets, extranets, and a world wide web making ubiquitous information services for industry feasible, both from the technical and economical points of view. But whereas information and communication technology (ICT) developments are breathtaking, our methods to deploy these technologies in industry do not keep pace. They are developed slowly, heavily influenced by mature technologies, often at odds with newer technologies. Following an effort to bridge the gap between methods and technology this paper presents the result of a fundamental investigation into the relationship between industrial networks on the one hand, and the possible services of ICT networks on the other hand. The result is a framework of industrial semiosis (FIS) which applies and further elaborates the concepts of semiotics in the context of industry. These concepts are technology-independent, but at the same time they support an easy characterization, evaluation, and inclusion of the services of new technologies. The framework is proposed to influence more concrete, directly applicable modelling research and information system development and implementation methods, as well as curriculum components covering information and automation systems and e-commerce. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

ubiquitous computing
e-commerce
enterprise modelling
product life cycle modelling


Identification by Proteomic Tool of Atypical Anti-Liver/Kidney Microsome Autoantibodies Targets in de Novo Autoimmune Hepatitis after Liver Transplantation De novo autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) occurs after liver transplantation for nonautoimmune disorders. Autoantibodies so-called atypical anti-liver/kidney microsome antibodies (LKMA) with an unusual liver/kidney cytoplasmic staining as judged by indirect immunofluorescence, can be detected in some patients' sera. Few studies investigated their molecular targets, and the aim of this work was to identify the atypical anti-LKMA targets by proteomic tool. This proteomic approach consisted of (a) two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of cytosolic and microsomal proteins obtained by differential centrifugations of rat liver and rat kidney, followed by (b) two-dimensional immunoblotting with sera of patients with de novo AIH (n= 8, including 2 with anti-LKMA antibodies) and then (c) identifications of interest spots performed by ion trap mass spectrometry. By this way several proteins at 25 kDa were unambiguously identifie

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

de novo autoimmune hepatitis
mass spectrometry
proteomic

atypical anti-liver/kidney microsome autoantibodies


Orientation uncertainty goes bananas: An algorithm to visualise the uncertainty sample space on stereonets for oriented objects measured in boreholes Measurements of structure orientations are afflicted with uncertainties which arise from many sources. Commonly, such uncertainties involve instrument imprecision, external disturbances and human factors. The aggregated uncertainty depends on the uncertainty of each of the sources. The orientation of an object measured in a borehole (e.g. a fracture) is calculated using four parameters: the bearing and inclination of the borehole and two relative angles of the measured object to the borehole. Each parameter may be a result of one or several measurements. The aim of this paper is to develop a method to both calculate and visualize the aggregated uncertainty resulting from the uncertainty in each of the four geometrical constituents. Numerical methods were used to develop a VBA-application in Microsoft Excel to calculate the aggregated uncertainty. The code calculates two different representations of the aggregated uncertainty: a 1-parameter uncertainty, the minimum dihedral angle, denoted by ?; and, a non-parametric visual representation of the uncertainty, denoted by ?. The simple 1-parameter uncertainty algorithm calculates the minimum dihedral angle accurately, but overestimates the probability space that plots as an ellipsoid on a lower hemisphere stereonet. The non-parametric representation plots the uncertainty probability space accurately, usually as a sector of an annulus for steeply inclined boreholes, but is difficult to express numerically. The 1-parameter uncertainty can be used for evaluating statistics of large datasets whilst the non-parametric representation is useful when scrutinizing single or a few objects.

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

borehole
orientation uncertainty
sample space
algorithm


Investigation of fuzzy control based LCL resonant converter in RTOS environment This paper presents a comparative evaluation of Fuzzy Logic (FLC) Controller and Open loop Controller for a modified LCL Resonant Converter has been simulated and the performance is analyzed. A three element LCL Resonant converter working under load independent operation is presented in this paper. In this work, the applicability of the ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) processor LPC 2148 is to be investigated as the controller for resonant converter. The simulation study indicates the superiority of Fuzzy Logic control over the conventional control method. The evaluation version of MATLAB was used to model the LCL topology for varied loads and LCL configurations. A LCL Resonant Inverter is proposed for applications in high frequency distributed AC power systems and Resonant Converter is proposed for applications in many space and radar power supplies. The advantages of the LCL topology are low total harmonic distortion (THD) high efficiency and the ability to handle varying loads.

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

arm processor
dynamic response
fuzzy controller


A hierarchical algorithm for fuzzy template matching in emotional facial images The paper aims at developing a hierarchical algorithm for matching a given template of m x non an image of M x N pixels partitioned into equal sized blocks of m x n pixels. The algorithm employs a fuzzy metric to measure the dispersion of individual feature of a block with respect to that of the template. A fuzzy threshold, preset by the user, is employed to restrict less likely blocks from participation in the matching. A decision tree is used to test the feasibility of a block for matching with the template. The tree at each link examines the condition for fuzzy thresholding for one feature of the image. If the block satisfies the condition, it is passed on to the next level in the tree for testing its feasibility of matching with respect to the next feature. If it fails, the block is discarded from the search space, and the next block from the partitioned image is passed on for examination. The process goes on until all the blocks pass through the decision tree. If a suitable block satisfies all the test conditions in the decision tree, the block is declared as the solution for the matching problem. The ordering of features to be examined by the tree is performed here by an entropy measure as used in classical decision tree. The time-complexity of the algorithm is of the order of MN/mn, and the elegance of the algorithm lies in its power of approximate matching using fuzzy conditions. The algorithm has successfully been implemented for template matching of human eyes in facial images carrying different emotions, and the classification accuracy is as high as 96%.

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

template matching
decision tree
entropy measure
fuzzy threshold


Development of a skin care formulation using experimental designs New cosmetic emulsion with biomimetic molecules have been investigated using experimental designs. For this purpose, six variables have been studied: the nature of surfactant (three mixture variables), the percentages of surfactant, co-surfactant and squalene, and five properties have been measured: stability, centrifugation, viscosity, pH, microscope analysis. Because of the complexity of the study, the optimization of these five responses has been carried out in two steps. First, a simple additive model has been postulated, in order to define a smaller domain of interest. A Doehlert, a grid and a simplex centriod designs have been built in order to generate candidate points. Exchange algorithm has allowed to extract a design with only 28 experiments. Results have shown that the percentage of squalene exhibits the greatest influence on the stability and on the viscosity of the emulsions. Secondly, a multiplicative model has been postulated using composite and simplex centroid design to generate candidate points. A set of 36 experiments has been selected. Conditions for the percentage of surfactant and co-surfactant, and for mixture variables have been determined in order to obtain a good compromise between the five responses. Finally, these studies have allowed to determine in the whole domain of interest an optimal formula composed only with biomimetic products and presenting good physico-chemical characteristics and stability. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

biomimetic emulsion
response surfaces
combined experimental design


An improved algorithm for tree edit distance with applications for RNA secondary structure comparison An ordered labeled tree is a tree in which the nodes are labeled and the left-to-right order among siblings is relevant. The edit distance between two ordered labeled trees is the minimum cost of transforming one tree into the other through a sequence of edit operations. We present techniques for speeding up the tree edit distance computation which are applicable to a family of algorithms based on closely related recursion strategies. These techniques aim to reduce repetitious steps in the original algorithms by exploring certain structural features in the tree. When these features exist in a large portion of the tree, the speedup due to our techniques would be significant. Viable examples for application include RNA secondary structure comparison and structured text comparison.

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

tree edit distance
rna secondary structure comparison
structured text comparison


comparison of cmos pla and polycell representations of control logic A comparison of the area and speed characteristics of CMOS PLA and Polycell representations of various control logic blocks was carried out. Both types of layout were generated automatically, and were derived from the same high level logic description. The major objectives were to quantify the differences between the two types of circuit and to predict Polycell speed and circuit area from the PLA truth table. Both objectives were achieved. Polycell layout was shown to be a viable alternative to PLAs under certain circumstances.

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


Volume analysis of disk spanning logical volumes ? As storage requirements increase, it is becoming more common for computers to use disk spanning techniques to make multiple disks look like one large disk, called a logical volume. This impacts an investigator because she must be able to recreate the logical volume so that the computer can be analyzed. In this paper, we look at the basic concepts of disk spanning and we look at three Windows and Linux implementations.

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


Numerical modeling and characterization of selected electromagnetic cloaking structures (Invited paper) Electromagnetic cloaking has been widely studied in recent years. In this review article we explain the basic principles of numerical modeling and characterization of selected broadband cloaking structures that are designed to operate within the microwave frequency range. Because the cloaks are periodical structures, the numerical modeling is simplified by employing symmetry boundary conditions. The modeling and characterization are done both with frequency-domain and time-domain simulations. Various experimental results are also compared to numerical results. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 22:483495, 2012.

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


Real-time medical video processing, enabled by hardware accelerated correlations Image processing involving correlation based filter algorithms have proved extremely useful for image enhancement, feature extraction and recognition, in a wide range of medical applications, but is almost exclusively used with still images due to the amount of computations required by the correlations. In this paper, we present two different practical methods for applying correlation-based algorithms to real-time video images, using hardware accelerated correlation, as well as our results in applying the method to optical venography. The first method employs a GPU accelerated personal computer, while the second method employs an embedded FPGA. We will discuss major difference between the two approaches, and their suitability for clinical use. The system presented detects blood vessels in human forearms in images from NIR camera setup for the use in a clinical environment.

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 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

gpu
fpga
image processing
optical venography

convolution
blood sampling
matched filtering
vessel detection


Business IT-Alignment Ergebnisse einer Befragung von IT-Fhrungskrften in Deutschland Nachdem Nicholas Carr (2003) noch behauptet hatte IT doesnt matter, hat sich inzwischen die Erkenntnis durchgesetzt, dass viele Geschftsmodelle, insbesondere im Dienstleistungssektor, ohne eine profunde IT-Unterlegung unmglich wren. Durch diese strategische Bedeutung fr das Geschft wird die IT in vielen Branchen selbst zum Wettbewerbsfaktor und Grundlage fr die Anpassungsfhigkeit von Unternehmen. Zunehmend wird dabei von der IT verlangt, nicht mehr nur enabler der Unternehmensprozesse zu sein, sondern auch zu Innovationen auf der fachlichen Seite des Geschfts beizutragen. In einer umfangreichen Online-Befragung von IT-Fhrungskrften wurde nun untersucht, wie diese vernderten Aufgaben in den IT-Bereichen groer deutscher Unternehmen umgesetzt werden und welche Strukturen dafr geschaffen wurden. Der nachfolgende Beitrag stellt hieraus ausgewhlte Ergebnisse vor. Dabei zeigt sich unter anderem, dass die IT heute berwiegend zentralisiert und als Cost Center gefhrt wird. Bei der Besetzung der IT-Fhrung sind Kandidaten mit Hochschulstudium bevorzugt und IT-Kenntnisse werden hher gewichtet als Fhrungserfahrung. Der IT-Auftrag wird zwar differenziert, jedoch noch immer stark kostenorientiert gesehen. IT-Fhrungskrfte berichten meistens an den CEO oder CFO. Aus Sicht des IT Top Managements erfolgt die Abstimmung der IT-Strategie mit der Unternehmensstrategie insgesamt in einem groen bis sehr groem Umfang. Gleichzeitig wird das IT-Verstndnis des Top-Managements von den IT-Fhrungskrften auf mittlerem Niveau eingestuft, wobei es starke Branchenunterschiede gibt. Dies und die Tatsache, dass die IT Top Manager nur im mittleren Umfang an der Entwicklung der Unternehmensstrategie beteiligt sind, erschweren jedoch in der Praxis das Business-IT-Alignment.

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

business-it-alignment it-strategie it-auftrag it-organisation cio


Enhanced iterative projection for subclass discriminant analysis under EM-alike framework We focus on the classification of the large sample size problems. We propose a new EM-alike iterative projection approach (EMIPA) for subclass division. Our proposed approach outperforms the traditional MDA and SDA. Our approach operates subclass division and eigenvector seeking class by class. Our proposed approach takes only a bit more time than MDA and SDA.

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

linear discriminant analysis
larger sample size problems
mixture discriminant analysis
em-alike framework
iterative steps
generalized eigenvalue problem
k-means clustering


Two Phase Admission Control for QoS Mobile Ad Hoc Networks In this paper a novel and effective two phase admission control (TPAC) for QoS mobile ad hoc networks is proposed that satisfies the real-time traffic requirements in mobile ad hoc networks. With a limited amount of extra overhead, TPAC can avoid network congestions by a simple and precise admission control which blocks most of the overloading flow-requests in the route discovery process. When compared with previous QoS routing schemes such as QoS-aware routing protocol and CACP protocols, it is shown from system simulations that the proposed scheme can increase the system throughput and reduce both the dropping rate and the end-to-end delay. Therefore, TPAC is surely an effective QoS-guarantee protocol to provide for real-time traffic.

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

contention-aware admission control protocol (cacp)


A new morphology method for enhancing power quality monitoring system By means of mathematical morphology (MM), power quality monitoring systems can detect disturbances very soon. However, the signal under investigation is often corrupted by noises, and the performance of the MM would be greatly degraded. This paper proposed a new fast approach to detection of transient disturbances in a noisy environment. In the proposed approach, the appropriate morphologic structure element, new proper combination of the erosion and the dilation morphologic operators can enhance the MMs capability. Furthermore, the soft-threshold de-noising method based on the wavelet transform (WT) was used for reference. In this way, the abilities of the MM can hence be restored. This method possesses the following advantages: high calculation speed, easy implementation of hardware and better use value. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is verified by the results of the simulation and the actual field tests.

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

power quality
mathematical morphology
wavelet transform


Structural analysis of the functional influence of the surface peptide Gtf-P1 on Streptococcus mutans glucosyltransferase C activity Glucosyltransferases (GtfB/C/D) in Streptococcus mutans are responsible for synthesizing water-insoluble and water-soluble glucans from sucrose and play very crucial roles in the formation of dental plaque. A monoclonal antibody against a 19-mer peptide fragment named Gtf-P1 was found in GtfC to reduce the enzyme activity to 50%. However, a similar experiment suggested almost unchanged activity in GtfD, despite of the very high sequence homology between the two enzymes. No further details are yet available to elucidate the biochemical mechanism responsible for such discrimination. For a better understanding of the catalytic behavior of these glucosyltransferases, structural and functional analyses were performed. First, the exact epitope was identified to specify the residue(s) required for monoclonal antibody recognition. The results suggest that the discrimination is determined solely by single residue substitution. Second, based on a combined sequence and secondary structure alignment against known crystal structure of segments from closely related proteins, a three-dimensional homology model for GtfC was built. Structural analysis for the region communicating between Gtf-P1 and the catalytic triad revealed the possibility for an 'en bloc' movement of hydrophobic residues, which may transduce the functional influence on enzyme activity from the surface of molecule into the proximity of the active site.

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

glucosyltransferases
streptococcus mutans
en bloc movement
monoclonal antibody recognition


A NEW SUPERVISED FEATURE SELECTION METHOD FOR PATTERN CLASSIFICATION With the rapid development of information techniques, the dimensionality of data in many application domains, such as text categorization and bioinformatics, is getting higher and higher. The high-dimensionality data may bring many adverse situations, such as overfitting, poor performance, and low efficiency, to traditional learning algorithms in pattern classification. Feature selection aims at reducing the dimensionality of data and providing discriminative features for pattern learning algorithms. Due to its effectiveness, feature selection is now gaining increasing attentions from a variety of disciplines and currently many efforts have been attempted in this field. In this paper, we propose a new supervised feature selection method to pick important features by using information criteria. Unlike other selection methods, the main characteristic of our method is that it not only takes both maximal relevance to the class labels and minimal redundancy to the selected features into account, but also works like feature clustering in an agglomerative way. To measure the relevance and redundancy of feature exactly, two different information criteria, i.e., mutual information and coefficient of relevance, have been adopted in our method. The performance evaluations on 12 benchmark data sets show that the proposed method can achieve better performance than other popular feature selection methods in most cases.

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

feature selection
pattern classification
clustering

dimensionality reduction
information entropy


on the design of camelot, an outdoor game for children This paper describes the design of Camelot, a mobile outdoor game for small groups of children aged 7-10. Camelot was designed with the aim to encourage social interaction between the players and to encourage physical activity. The paper extends the research literature on design methodology for children, by recording and reflecting upon the lessons learnt by applying a range of techniques for involving children in the design of interactive systems.

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


QoS provisioning by EFuNNs-based handoff planning in cellular MPLS networks In recent years, Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) has been considered as the preeminent technology to incur Quality of Service (QoS) for integrated services. However, in wireless networks the remotes mobility endangers resource management procedure and QoS provisioning. In this paper we propose a new location prediction method based on Evolving Fuzzy Neural Networks (EFuNNs), to manage Label Switched Paths (LSPs) in an MPLS domain. The proposed predictor employs geographical characteristics of underlying area and the movement history of a remote, to produce a set of confidence ratios as the output. That set is considered as a criterion for establishing and managing LSPs so that QoS preserved. The simulation results have shown superior performance in terms of prediction accuracy and utilization improvement for the proposed methods. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cellular mpls networks
evolving fuzzy neural networks
quality of service


Finding the maximum suffix with fewer comparisons It is shown how to compute the lexicographically maximum suffix of a string of n?2 n ? 2 characters over a totally ordered alphabet using at most (4/3)n?5/3 ( 4 / 3 ) n ? 5 / 3 three-way character comparisons. The best previous bound, which has stood unchallenged for more than 25 years, is (3/2)n?O(1) ( 3 / 2 ) n ? O ( 1 ) comparisons. We also prove an interesting property of an algorithm for computing the maximum suffix both with respect to a total order .

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


Wide-bandwidth piezoelectric energy harvester integrated with parylene-C beam structures A wide-bandwidth MEMS piezoelectric energy harvester by the Duffing effect. Parylene-C was employed as the structure material to reduce the resonance frequency. The loaddeflection relationship for trapezoid doubly-clamped beams was formulated. At 615Hz, with a maximum open-circuit voltage 368mV, the power achieves to 0.28?W. A wide operational frequencies range is obtained (from 200Hz to 600Hz).

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


Robust Reconstruction of MRSI Data Using a Sparse Spectral Model and High Resolution MRI Priors We introduce a novel algorithm to address the challenges in magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopic imaging. In contrast to classical sequential data processing schemes, the proposed method combines the reconstruction and postprocessing steps into a unified algorithm. This integrated approach enables us to inject a range of prior information into the data processing scheme, thus constraining the reconstructions. We use high resolution, 3-D estimate of the magnetic field inhomogeneity map to generate an accurate forward model, while a high resolution estimate of the fat/water boundary is used to minimize spectral leakage artifacts. We parameterize the spectrum at each voxel as a sparse linear combination of spikes and polynomials to capture the metabolite and baseline components, respectively. The constrained model makes the problem better conditioned in regions with significant field inhomogeneity, thus enabling the recovery even in regions with high field map variations. To exploit the high resolution MR information, we formulate the problem as an anatomically constrained total variation optimization scheme on a grid with the same spacing as the magnetic resonance imaging data. We analyze the performance of the proposed scheme using phantom and human subjects. Quantitative and qualitative comparisons indicate a significant improvement in spectral quality and lower leakage artifacts.

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

magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (mrsi)


Compressible memory data structures for event-based trace analysis The paper presents a new compressible memory data structure for trace events. Its primary intention is to aid the analysis of huge traces by reducing the memory requirements significantly. Furthermore, customized evaluation algorithms reduce the computational effort. The data structure as well as algorithms for construction and evaluation are discussed in detail. Experiments with real-life traces demonstrate the theoretically derived capabilities of the new approach.

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

performance analysis
tracing
compression


BiGlobal stability analysis of steady flow in constricted channel geometries In this paper we apply a BiGlobal stability analysis technique to measure the stability of two-dimensional constricted channel flows to three-dimensional perturbations. Critical Reynolds numbers and spanwise perturbation wavelengths are presented for three instabilities of steady flow in constricted channels. Copyright (c) 2004 John Wiley I Sons, Ltd.

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


Operator Splittings, Bregman Methods and Frame Shrinkage in Image Processing We examine the underlying structure of popular algorithms for variational methods used in image processing. We focus here on operator splittings and Bregman methods based on a unified approach via fixed point iterations and averaged operators. In particular, the recently proposed alternating split Bregman method can be interpreted from different points of view-as a Bregman, as an augmented Lagrangian and as a Douglas-Rachford splitting algorithm which is a classical operator splitting method. We also study similarities between this method and the forward-backward splitting method when applied to two frequently used models for image denoising which employ a Besov-norm and a total variation regularization term, respectively. In the first setting, we show that for a discretization based on Parseval frames the gradient descent reprojection and the alternating split Bregman algorithm are equivalent and turn out to be a frame shrinkage method. For the total variation regularizer, we also present a numerical comparison with multistep methods.

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

bregman methods
alternating split bregman algorithm
image denoising

douglas-rachford splitting
forward-backward splitting
augmented lagrangian method


Secure mutual authentication for ad hoc wireless networks As wireless LANs and wireless terminals deployed, Security and authentication, among other things, became important. We propose a mutual authentication scheme for access security among wireless terminals. We use user identification together with hardware identification in creating a certificate for the wireless access. And authentication is performed based on the certificate. It enables reliable user authentication, establishment and check of access rights (when a terminal is managed in connection with a network gateway), Peer-to-Peer access with authentication, and international roaming of terminals.

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


an experience report on using collaboration technologies for distance and on-campus learning This paper summarises our experiences and observations using two online collaboration technologies, Blackboard and Wimba Live Classroom, while teaching Software Engineering courses. Blackboard is used to make announcements and course materials available. The Wiki facility of Blackboard is used to update information about software tools used in the course. In addition to the text chat and record feature in Blackboard, Wimba Live Classroom is used for audio chatting with application sharing and the whiteboard facility, and also to record lectures. Blended learning, which combines traditional face-to-face teaching with online methods, can improve the quality, convenience and flexibility of communication for participants and student satisfaction. This paper reports our experiences using Blackboard and Wimba in a blended-learning environment and presents our suggestions for using collaboration technologies in teaching.

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

software engineering education
collaboration technology


Probability of failure of overloaded lines in cascading failures Blackouts in transmission power systems are due to cascading failures. Outages of overloaded lines are main contributors to cascading failures. The probability of line tripping as a function of the overload must be modeled. Previous models do not rely on empirical evidence or detailed analysis. This paper proposes a simple model backed up by a detailed analysis.

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

overloaded overhead line
thermal model
probabilistic approach


QSAR design of triazolopyridine mGlu2 receptor positive allosteric modulators Topomer CoMFA identification of new positive allosteric modulators of the mGlu2 receptor. Comparison of 3D and 2D QSAR approaches in prospective application. Design and synthesis performed based on predictions from QSAR modelling. QSAR model performance deterioration during project evolution. R-group substituents accessing new chemical space identified based on QSAR model.

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


Vicarious radiometric calibration of a multispectral sensor from an aerial trike applied to precision agriculture Vicarious radiometric calibration of a multispectral sensor. High spatial resolution vegetation indices from a low-cost manned aerial platform. Management of extensive crop areas using low-cost geomatic techniques. Low-cost remote sensing for precision agriculture. Vicarious calibration to acquire quantitative physical parameters.

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

radiometric calibration
precision agriculture
multispectral sensor
remote sensing
vicarious calibration


Lower bound on complexity of optimization of continuous functions This paper considers the problem of approximating the minimum of a continuous function using a fixed number of sequentially selected function evaluations. A lower bound on the complexity is established by analyzing the average case for the Brownian bridge. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. 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

global optimization
wiener measure
average case complexity


a modeling language's evolution driven by tight interaction between academia and industry Domain specific languages play an important role in model-driven engineering of software-intensive industrial systems. A rich body of knowledge exists on the development of languages, modeling environments, and transformation systems. The understanding of architectural choices for combining these parts into a feasible solution, however, is not particularly deep. We report on an endeavor in the realm of a technology transfer process from academia to industry, where we encountered unexpected influences of the architecture on the modeling language. By examining the evolution of our language and its programming interface, we show that these influences mainly stemmed from practical considerations; for identifying these early on, tight interaction between our research lab and the industrial partner was key. In addition, we share insights into the practice of cooperating with industry by presenting essential lessons we learned.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 driven engineering architecture
domains specific language
academic-industry cooperation
clabjects


Sparse learning via Boolean relaxations We introduce novel relaxations for cardinality-constrained learning problems, including least-squares regression as a special but important case. Our approach is based on reformulating a cardinality-constrained problem exactly as a Boolean program, to which standard convex relaxations such as the Lasserre and Sherali-Adams hierarchies can be applied. We analyze the first-order relaxation in detail, deriving necessary and sufficient conditions for exactness in a unified manner. In the special case of least-squares regression, we show that these conditions are satisfied with high probability for random ensembles satisfying suitable incoherence conditions, similar to results on \(\ell _1\)-relaxations. In contrast to known methods, our relaxations yield lower bounds on the objective, and it can be verified whether or not the relaxation is exact. If it is not, we show that randomization based on the relaxed solution offers a principled way to generate provably good feasible solutions. This property enables us to obtain high quality estimates even if incoherence conditions are not met, as might be expected in real datasets. We numerically illustrate the performance of the relaxation-randomization strategy in both synthetic and real high-dimensional datasets, revealing substantial improvements relative to \(\ell _1\)-based methods and greedy selection heuristics.

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

sparsity
regularization
convex relaxation
combinatorial optimization
machine learning
90c25 convex programming
90c06 large-scale problems
90c09 boolean programming
68t05 learning and adaptive systems


Decentralized string-stability analysis for heterogeneous cascades subject to load-matching requirements A heterogeneous cascade of stable linear time-invariant subsystems is studied in terms of the spatial and temporal propagation of boundary conditions. The particular context requires constant spatial boundary conditions to be asymptotically matched by the interconnection signals along the string (e.g., to match supply to demand in steady state). Furthermore, the transient response associated with a step change in the spatial boundary condition must remain bounded across space in a string-length independent fashion. With this in mind, an infinite cascade abstraction is considered. A corresponding decentralized string-stability certificate for the desired behaviour is established in terms of the subsystem \(H_\infty \) norms, via Lyapunov-type analysis of a two-dimensional model in Roesser form. Verification of the certificate implies uniformly bounded interconnection signals in response to the following system inputs: (i) a square-summable (across space) sequence of initial conditions; and (ii) a uniformly-bounded (across time) finite-energy input applied as the spatial boundary condition (e.g., finite duration on-off pulse). The decentralized nature of the certificate facilitates subsystem-by-subsystem design of local controllers that achieve string-stable behaviour overall. This application of the analysis is explored within the context of a scalable approach to the design of distributed distant-downstream controllers for the sections of an automated irrigation channel.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 control
2-d roesser models
scalable analysis
string stability
irrigation channel automation


An evaluation of the compactness of superpixels We propose a metric to measure the compactness of superpixel segmentations. We show that there is a negative correlation between compactness and boundary recall. The proposed algorithm offers a transparent compactness control. The segmentation optionally conforms to a superpixel lattice. An example application demonstrates the relevance of controlling compactness.

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

superpixel segmentation
superpixel lattices


Hybrid modelization of intracoronary stents In this paper we suggest a general procedure to model tube-shaped stents by CAD, in particular of intravascular coronary kind. The methodology utilisation is highly independent of modelization softwares and enables us to build up careful stent models. These models can be usefully used to perform structural and/or blood fluid dynamic analysis. The procedure is based on particular considerations of Descriptive Geometry that are inspired by the laser cutting technology of the stents. The study is developed by using a hybrid technique of surfaces and solids modelling. The method suggested is illustrated with reference to a class of intracoronary stents cut by laser beam. Some general conclusions show how it is possible to apply the procedure also for modelling of stents manufactured by using welded stainless steel wire.

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


Characteristic of mutually coupled two-layer CNN and its stability This paper presents some interesting image processing applications with the mutually coupled two-layer Cellular Neural Networks (CNNs). We found that the two-layer CNNs are very useful compared to single layer CNNs in some applications such as center point detection, skeletonization, and so on. We also focus our discussions on both their transients and operations. In addition, the stability of the two-layer CNNs with mutually coupled symmetric templates is also discussed based on those of decoupling CNN technique.

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

center point detection
skeletonization
stability


Managing capacity flexibility in make-to-order production environments This paper addresses the problem of managing flexible production capacity in a make-to-order (MTO) manufacturing environment. We present a multi-period capacity management model where we distinguish between process flexibility (the ability to produce multiple products on multiple production lines) and operational flexibility (the ability to dynamically change capacity allocations among different product families over time). For operational flexibility, we consider two polices: a fixed allocation policy where the capacity allocations are fixed throughout the planning horizon and a dynamic allocation policy where the capacity allocations change from period to period. The former approach is modeled as a single-stage stochastic program and solved using a cutting-plane method. The latter approach is modeled as a multi-stage stochastic program and a sampling-based decomposition method is presented to identify a feasible policy and assess the quality of that policy. A computational experiment quantifies the benefits of operational flexibility and demonstrates that it is most beneficial when the demand and capacity are well-balanced and the demand variability is high. Additionally, our results reveal that myopic operating policies may lead a firm to adopt more process flexibility and form denser flexibility configuration chains. That is, process flexibility may be over-valued in the literature since it is assumed that a firm will operate optimally after the process flexibility decision. We also show that the value of process flexibility increases with the number of periods in the planning horizon if an optimal operating policy is employed. This result is reversed if a myopic allocation policy is adopted instead.

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

supply chain management
stochastic programming
make-to-order
assignment


integrating bioinformatic data sources over the sfsu er design tools xml databus The SFSU ER Design Tools were developed to support database design and data integration over multiple implementation data models. These tools allow users to enter and view Entity Relationship (ER) schemas and to translate ER schemas into a variety of equivalent implementation schemas, including Relational (ANSI SQL2), Object Oriented (ODMG 3.0), Spreadsheet (Universal Relation with associated functional dependencies) and W3C XML DTD. In addition, for each implementation data model, the Tools generate DDL statements to create a database, as well as simple JDBC/ODBC based code to dump stored data into an XML file and to load data from an XML file into a database. Data can be transferred from one data store to another over an HTTP based XML Databus. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of our XML Databus using Web Services, as well as a new strategy to support integration of bioinformatics data sets. We first manually identify semantically equivalent attributes in both schemas, then automatically join the corresponding data sets into a single integrated collection of XML formatted data. Our software is operational, and preliminary performance measurements over DTD and data downloaded from the NIH-NCBI Web site show that our strategy is feasible for moderately sized data sets.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 query processing
join processing
schema integration
web services data integration


PHOTON INDUCED ENTANGLEMENT IN ATOM-CAVITY SYSTEMS We study the evolution of quantum entanglement in double cavity systems. The entanglement of cavity atoms induced by entangled pair of photons is investigated. Both entanglement sudden death and entanglement sudden birth phenomena are shown to exist and are analyzed in detail. We also propose a strategy to enhance the entanglement between the atom in one cavity and the photon in another cavity by using quantum Zeno effect.

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

double j-c model
esd and esb
quantum zero effect


A framework to support qualitative reasoning about COAs in a dynamic spatial environment We propose a framework to reason qualitatively about courses of action (COAs) which need to be executed in a realistic geographic space that may change. Particularly, the framework aims to support human mental 'What-If' analysis by simulating the execution of COAs in a virtual geographic environment, which can change during the simulation, and by allowing the user to explore various scenarios (different COAs) and to analyse their outcomes using causal reasoning techniques. In this article, we first present a framework which is based on a conceptual model of spatio-temporal situations, a multi-agent geosimulation platform and qualitative spatio-temporal causal reasoning techniques. Then, we illustrate the framework using a case study.

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

modelling and analysis of dynamic phenomena in virtual geographic environments


Performance analysis of UWB systems in the presence of timing jitter In this paper, performances of different ultra-wideband (UWB) modulation schemes in the presence of timing jitter are evaluated and compared. Static and Rayleigh fading channels are considered. For fading channels, flat and dispersive channels are assumed. First, bit error rate (BER) performances for each case are derived for a fixed value of timing jitter. Later, a uniform distribution of jitter is assumed to evaluate the performance of the system, and the theoretical results are verified by computer simulations. Finger estimation error is treated as timing jitter and an appropriate model is generated. Furthermore, a worst case distribution that provides an upper bound on the system performance is presented and compared with other distributions. Effects of timing jitter on systems employing different pulse shapes are analyzed to show the dependency of UWB performance on pulse shape. Although our analysis assumes uniform timing jitter, our framework can be used to evaluate the BER performance for any given probability distribution function of the jitter.

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

maximal ratio combining
multiband uwb
rake receivers
ultra-wideband


Improving braincomputer interface classification using adaptive common spatial patterns An adaptive common spatial patterns method is proposed for EEG spatial filtering. The method is evaluated for intra- and inter-subject classifications. The method is compared to existing techniques and shows superior performance. The effects of adding misclassified trials to training data are investigated. The method is potentially applicable to various real-time BCI tasks.

O B I O O B B I I O B 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

braincomputer interface
common spatial patterns
adaptive


The PEWs microarchitecture: reducing complexity through data-dependence based decentralization This paper presents a microarchitecture based on exploiting the locality of data dependences for efficiently executing many instructions per cycle. The instruction window is split into multiple hardware units, and the instruction stream is distributed among them in such a way that data-dependent instructions are generally allocated to the same unit. The fetch bandwidth of the processor is enhanced by doing control predictions at a level higher than that of branches, which permits fetching a large number of instructions every cycle despite the presence of taken branches in the instruction stream. The microarchitecture also off-loads most of the work involved in instruction distribution decisions to hardware that is not in the critical path of execution. It also uses a novel hardware mechanism to resolve memory references. The paper also represents detailed simulation results, which show the capability of the proposed microarchitecture to achieve high issue rates. A sensitivity study of the microarchitecture shows its issue rate to be steadily increasing as the number of hardware units is increased from 1 to 8.

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

dynamic scheduling
hardware window
instruction-level parallelism (ilp)
speculative execution


Performance analysis of Nitzberg's clutter map for Weibull distribution The clutter map analyzed by Nitzberg, which averages the detector outputs of the same resolution cell over several past scans to set the detection threshold, plays an important role in radar detection fields. In this work, the average detection threshold (ADT) of Nitzberg's clutter map is derived and its steady-state property is analyzed, moreover, the detection performance of Nitzberg's clutter map for Weibull background is analyzed by the importance sampling technique.

O O O O B I 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 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

radar detection
clutter map
weibull distribution


Large-scale Internet benchmarking: Technology and application in warehousing operations Effective benchmarking requires standards for measuring performance across a broad range of organizations. Industry-benchmarking measures the relative performance levels of similar operations, but gathering sufficient data to robustly characterize best performance is the primary hurdle to more widespread implementation. This paper describes the development of an innovative, large-scale benchmarking methodology which employs Internet technology to overcome the data collection problem. We discuss a particular instance of this approach, iDEAs-W-the result of an ongoing collaboration between academia and the warehousing industry. This paper's purpose is to demonstrate the methodology for the warehousing industry and share our insights to allow others to refine the tool for applications in other industries. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

data envelopment analysis
internet tools
performance measurement


An Agent-Based Distributed Coordination Mechanism for Wireless Visual Sensor Nodes Using Dynamic Programming The efficient management of the limited energy resources of a wireless visual sensor network is central to its successful operation. Within this context, this article focuses on the adaptive sampling, forwarding and routing actions of each node in order to maximize the information value of the data collected. These actions are inter-related in a multi-hop routing scenario because each node's energy consumption must be optimally allocated between sampling and transmitting its own data, receiving and forwarding the data of other nodes, and routing any data. Thus, we develop two optimal agent-based decentralized algorithms to solve this distributed constraint optimization problem. The first assumes that the route by which data is forwarded to the base station is fixed, and then calculates the optimal sampling, transmitting and forwarding actions that each node should perform. The second assumes flexible routing, and makes optimal decisions regarding both the integration of actions that each node should choose and also the route by which the data should be forwarded to the base station. The two algorithms represent a trade-off in optimality, communication cost and processing time. In an empirical evaluation on sensor networks (whose underlying communication networks exhibit loops), we show that the algorithm with flexible routing is able to deliver approximately twice the quantity of information to the base station compared with the algorithm using fixed routing (where an arbitrary choice of route is made). However, this gain comes at a considerable communication and computational cost (increasing both by a factor of 100 times). Thus, while the algorithm with flexible routing is suitable for networks with a small number of nodes, it scales poorly, and as the size of the network increases, the algorithm with fixed routing is favoured.

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

transmitting
receiving
forwarding and routing
distributed constraint optimization

distributed algorithms
decentralized mechanism
information metric
inter-related adaptive sampling


The inapproximability of non-NP-hard optimization problems The inapproximability of non-NP-hard optimization problems is investigated. Techniques are given to show that the problems LOG DOMINATING SET and LOG HYPERGRAPH VERTEX COVER cannot be approximated to a constant ratio in polynomial time unless the corresponding NP-hard versions are also approximable in deterministic subexponential time. A direct connection is established between non-NP-hard problems and a PCP characterization of NP. Reductions from the PCP characterization show that LOG CLIQUE is not approximable in polynomial time and MAX SPARSE SAT does not have a FPTAS under the assumption that NP not subset of or equal to DTIME(2(O(rootn log n))). A number of nontrivial approximation-preserving reductions are also presented, making it possible to extend inapproximability results to more natural non-NP-hard problems such as TOURNAMENT DOMINATING SET and RICH HYPERGRAPH VERTEX COVER. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

computational complexity
approximation hardness
combinatorial optimization


Multiple Workflow Scheduling Strategies with User Run Time Estimates on a Grid In this paper, we present an experimental study of deterministic non-preemptive multiple workflow scheduling strategies on a Grid. We distinguish twenty five strategies depending on the type and amount of information they require. We analyze scheduling strategies that consist of two and four stages: labeling, adaptive allocation, prioritization, and parallel machine scheduling. We apply these strategies in the context of executing the Cybershake, Epigenomics, Genome, Inspiral, LIGO, Montage, and SIPHT workflows applications. In order to provide performance comparison, we performed a joint analysis considering three metrics. A case study is given and corresponding results indicate that well known DAG scheduling algorithms designed for single DAG and single machine settings are not well suited for Grid scheduling scenarios, where user run time estimates are available. We show that the proposed new strategies outperform other strategies in terms of approximation factor, mean critical path waiting time, and critical path slowdown. The robustness of these strategies is also discussed.

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

grid computing
resource management
user run time estimate


Dynamic Bayesian networks based performance evaluation of subsea blowout preventers in presence of imperfect repair The reliability and availability of subsea BOP system are evaluated. The fault tree is translated into dynamic Bayesian network directly. The imperfect repair is modeled using multi-state degraded system. The imperfect repair cannot degrade the system performances significantly. Eight basic events contribute much to subsea BOP system failure.

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

dynamic bayesian networks
fault tree
imperfect repair
reliability
availability


Time matrix controller design of flexible manufacturing systems A matrix framework that based on the Petri nets theory (PNs) and the standard industrial engineering (IE) techniques were adopted into this paper. In this paper, the operational times are modeled and introduced into the matrix system model to activate the matrix system functioning. Different types of time include parts input, for operations and processing, for resources arriving, and time for finished goods or products output are developed for designing manufacturing systems. Therefore, different time matrices Ts (i.e., T-u, T-v, T-r, T-y) are constructed in this paper. Those time matrices are the key factors for integrating the manufacturing systems to approach the real time manufacturing world. Here, the key procedure for developing those time matrices is to develop and integrate the manufacturing matrix framework with the techniques of max/plus algebra. The result of this paper is to introduce and establish time into the matrix manufacturing system to approach the real world production situation. System simulation is also provided in this paper to demonstrate the integration between matrix formulation and time matrices. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

timed matrix framework
max/plus technique
flexible manufacturing system


perceptually consistent example-based human motion retrieval Large amount of human motion capture data have been increasingly recorded and used in animation and gaming applications. Efficient retrieval of logically similar motions from a large data repository thereby serves as a fundamental basis for these motion data based applications. In this paper we present a perceptually consistent, example-based human motion retrieval approach that is capable of efficiently searching for and ranking similar motion sequences given a query motion input. Our method employs a motion pattern discovery and matching scheme that breaks human motions into a part-based, hierarchical motion representation. Building upon this representation, a fast string match algorithm is used for efficient runtime motion query processing. Finally, we conducted comparative user studies to evaluate the accuracy and perceptual-consistency of our approach by comparing it with the state of the art example-based human motion search algorithms.

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

motion pattern extraction
character animation
perceptual consistency


Story Tracker: Incremental visual text analytics of news story development Online news sources produce thousands of news articles every day, reporting on local and global real-world events. New information quickly replaces the old, making it difficult for readers to put current events in the context of the past. The stories about these events have complex relationships and characteristics that are difficult to model: they can be weakly or strongly related or they can merge or split over time. In this article, we present a visual analytics system for temporal analysis of news stories in dynamic information streams, which combines interactive visualization and text mining techniques to facilitate the analysis of similar topics that split and merge over time. Text clustering algorithms extract stories from online news streams in consecutive time windows and identify similar stories from the past. The stories are displayed in a visualization, which (1) sorts the stories by minimizing clutter and overlap from edge crossings, (2) shows their temporal characteristics in different time frames with different levels of detail, and (3) allows incremental updates of the display without recalculating the past data. Stories can be interactively filtered by their duration and connectivity in order to be explored in full detail. To demonstrate the system's capabilities for detailed dynamic text stream exploration, we present a use case with real news data about the Arabic Uprising in 2011.

O 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

news stream analysis
topic evolution
dynamic visualization


improving web accessibility using content-aware plug-ins This paper describes a novel approach to improve blind and visually impaired people's access to the Web by using a content-aware Web browser plug-in coupled with audio and haptic tools. The Web plug-in accesses the current mouse position on-screen, and makes the co-ordinates available to the audio and haptic modalities. This allows the user to be informed when they are in the vicinity of an image or hyperlink; previously they would only have been informed when they are physically on the link. Thus, when the user is close to an image or hyperlink, haptics and audio will be used to inform and guide them to the actual spatial position. The Web browser plug-in and the associated audio and haptic feedback tools are described in the paper. Finally, results from a pilot study on the usability of this system are also presented.

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

assistive technology
auditory
web plug-in
haptic interfaces
navigation


Improved induced matchings in sparse graphs ? An induced matching in a graph G=(V,E) G = ( V , E ) is a matching M M such that (V,M) ( V , M ) is an induced subgraph of G G . Clearly, among two vertices with the same neighbourhood (called twins) at most one is matched in any induced matching, and if one of them is matched then there is another matching of the same size that matches the other vertex. Motivated by this, Kanj etal. [10] studied induced matchings in twinless graphs. They showed that any twinless planar graph contains an induced matching of size at least n 40 and that there are twinless planar graphs that do not contain an induced matching of size greater than n 27 + O ( 1 ) . We improve both these bounds to n 28 + O ( 1 ) , which is tight up to an additive constant. This implies that the problem of deciding whether a planar graph has an induced matching of size k k has a kernel of size at most 28k 28 k . We also show for the first time that this problem is fixed parameter tractable for graphs of bounded arboricity. Kanj et al. also presented an algorithm which decides in O ( 2 159 k + n ) -time whether an n n -vertex planar graph contains an induced matching of size k k . Our results improve the time complexity analysis of their algorithm. However, we also show a more efficient O ( 2 25.5 k + n ) -time algorithm. Its main ingredient is a new, O?(4l) O ? ( 4 l ) -time algorithm for finding a maximum induced matching in a graph of branch width at most l l .

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

induced matching
sparse graphs
planar graphs


Researching the adoption of ICT in Ethiopia: a case study of small hotels in Addis Ababa Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the difficulties encountered when researching the adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) by small hotels in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and to indicate how some of these difficulties were overcome. Design/methodology/approach - The background and theoretical framework of the research project is described, and the research difficulties analysed in the context of the literature and of experience elsewhere in Africa. Issues such as informed consent are considered from different cultural perspectives. Findings - The conclusion is that an understanding of the political, economic and cultural context is essential to the carrying-out of a successful research project in Ethiopia, and that these same factors are likely to have a major influence on the diffusion of ICT within the country. Practical implications - An Ethiopian case study is of particular interest because unlike Tanzania, Kenya and much of the rest of Africa, the country's telecommunications industry remains in government hands, a broadband connection is very expensive, and the percentage of Ethiopians using the internet is very small - no more than 0.75 percent of the population in 2010 according to the figures of the International Telecommunication Union. Originality/value - Little has been written about small hotels and other small and micro businesses in Addis Ababa, and little or nothing about the setbacks that can occur when researching them. This paper fills some of the gaps in the literature.

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

information and communication technology

small and micro-size business enterprises


Mathematical conditions for and physical meaning of a maximum of the determinant of (K)over-tilde(T) in the prebuckling regime It is shown that the determinant of the tangent stiffness matrix has a maximum in the prebuckling regime if and only if the determinant of a specific linear combination of the first and the third derivative of this matrix with respect to a dimensionless load factor vanishes. The mathematical tool for this proof is the so-called consistently linearized eigenproblem in the frame of the Finite Element Method. The physical meaning of the mentioned maximum is the one of,a minimum of the percentage bending energy of the total strain energy. The paper provides mathematical and physical background knowledge on numerical results that were obtained 35 years ago. (C) 2013 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 B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

consistently linearized eigenproblem
percentage bending energy
tangent stiffness matrix

buckling
maximum of determinant
pressure vessel


New Facet of Antiphospholipid Antibodies Abstract: Since the aCL test was first described, several reports have described the heterogeneity of aPL, which binds to different anionic phospholipids, proteins, or to a phospholipid-protein complex. It has been recently reported that antiphospholipids (aPLs) from the sera of patients with the antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are able to bind some newly identified antigens, the lyso(bis)phosphatidic acid (LBPA), lipid restricted to the late endosomes, and the sulfatides, acidic glycosphingolipids involved in the hemostatic process. Of interest, aLBPAs are present in the sera of a large number of patients with APS showing similar sensitivity and specificity compared to anti-?2 glycoprotein I antibodies (a?2-GPIs) and close association with lupus anticoagulant. Moreover, ?2-GPI binds to sulfatides and the majority of the aPL reacting with cardiolipin-?2-GPI complex also react with the sulfatide-?2-GPI complex. Different mechanisms involved in the production of autoantibodies in autoimmune diseases have been proposed and, among them, apoptosis or programmed cell death seems to play a leading role. The relocation of CL and its metabolites during apoptosis may represent an in vivo trigger for the generation of aCL, and the higher reactivity of sera from APS patients to monolysocardiolipin, the immediate degradation product of mitochondrial CL validates this hypothesis. Finally, increasing evidence suggests that oxidative stress could be a pathogenic link between aPL and thrombosis, and antioxidant treatment may have some efficacy in preventing the clinical manifestations of this syndrome.

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

antiphospholipid antibodies
antiphospholipid syndrome
monolysocardiolipin
sulfatides
apoptosis


GPS accuracy estimation using map matching techniques: Applied to vehicle positioning and odometer calibration A test-bed application, called Map Matched GPS (MMGPS) processes raw GPS output data, from RINEX files, or GPS derived coordinates. This developed method uses absolute GPS positioning, map matched, to locate the vehicle on a road centre-line, when GPS is known to be sufficiently accurate. MMGPS software has now been adapted to incorporate positioning based on odometer derived distances (OMMGPS), when GPS positions are not available. Relative GPS positions are used to calibrate the odometer. If a GPS position is detected to be inaccurate, it is not used for positioning, or for calibrating the odometer correction factor. In OMMGPS, GPS pseudorange observations are combined with DTM height information and odometer positions to provide a vehicle position at 1s epochs. The described experiment used GPS and odometer observations taken on a London bus on a predefined route in central of London. Therefore, map matching techniques are used to test GPS positioning accuracy, and to identify grossly inaccurate GPS positions. In total, over 15,000 vehicle positions were computed and tested using OMMGPS. In general, the position quality provided by GPS alone was extremely poor, due to multipath effects caused by the urban canyons of central London, so that odometer positioning was used much more often to position the vehicle than GPS. Typically, the ratio is 7:3 odometer positions to GPS positions. In the case of one particular trip, OMMGPS provides a mean error of position of 8.8m compared with 53.7m for raw GPS alone.

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


An algorithm for the class of pure implicational formulas Heusch introduced the notion of pure implicational formulas. He showed that the falsifiability problem for pure implicational formulas with k negations is solvable in time . Such falsifiability results are easily transformed to satisfiability results on CNF formulas. We show that the falsifiability problem for pure implicational formulas is solvable in time , which is polynomial for a fixed k. Thus this problem is fixed-parameter tractable.

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

fixed parameter tractable
boolean functions


Spatial and spectral morphological template matching Template matching is a very topical issue in a wide range of imaging applications. Mathematical morphology offers the hit-or-miss transform, an operator which has been successfully applied for template matching in binary images. More recently, it has been extended to grayscale images and even to multivariate images. Nevertheless, these extensions, despite being relevant from a theoretical point-of-view, might lack practical interest due to the inherent difficulty to set up correctly the transform and its parameters (e.g. the structuring functions). In this paper, we propose a new and more intuitive operator which allows for morphological template matching in multivariate images from both a spatial and spectral point of view. We illustrate the potential of this operator in the context of remote sensing. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

hit-or-miss transform
multivariate morphology


call for bags Inspired by the theme of Everyday Creativity, we asked people across the world to post their old conference bag(s) to us so that they could be recycled into one-of-a-kind reusable conference bags. Each bag sent was then hand crafted and sculpted by up-and-coming British designer Sarah Atkinson. Unlike many consumer products that we buy today, each bag has its previous history attached.

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 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 B O

recycled
history
bag
everyday creativity


A method to develop feasible requirements for Java mobile code application We propose a method for analyzing trade-off between an environment where a Java mobile code application is running and requirements for the application. In particular, we focus on the security-related problems that originate in low-level security policy of the code-centric style of the access control in Java runtime. As the result of this method, we get feasible requirements with respect to security issues of mobile codes. This method will help requirements analysts to compromise the differences between customers goals and realizable solutions. Customers will agree to the results of the analysis by this method because they can clearly trace the reasons why some goals are achieved but others are not. We can clarify which functions can be performed under the environment systematically. We also clarify which functions in mobile codes are needed so as to meet the goals of users by goal oriented requirements analysis(GORA). By comparing functions derived from the environment and functions from the coals. we can find conflicts between the environments and the goals, and also find vagueness of the requirements. By resolving the conflicts and by clarifying the vagueness, we can develop bases for the requirements specification.

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

goal oriented requirements analysis
anti-requirements
java mobile codes


Foundations of compositional model theory Graphical Markov models, most of all Bayesian networks, have become a very popular way for multidimensional probability distribution representation and processing. What makes representation of a very-high-dimensional probability distribution possible is its independence structure, i.e. a system of conditional independence relations valid for the distribution in question. The fact that some of independence systems can be successfully represented with the help of graphs is reflected in the general title: graphical modelling. However, graphical representation of independence structures is also associated with some disadvantages: only a small part of different independence structures can be faithfully represented by graphs; and still one structure is usually equally well represented by several graphs. These reasons, among others, initiated development of an alternative approach, called here theory of compositional models, which enables us to represent exactly the same class of distributions as Bayesian networks. This paper is a survey of the most important basic concepts and results concerning compositional models necessary for reading advanced papers on computational procedures and other aspects connected with this (relatively new) approach for multidimensional distribution representation.

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

graphical markov model
composition of distributions


Analyzing dependent proportions in cluster randomized trials: Modeling inter-cluster correlation via copula function When two interventions are randomized to multiple sub-clusters within a whole cluster, accounting for the within sub-cluster (intra-cluster) and between sub-clusters (inter-cluster) correlations is needed to produce valid analyses of the effect of interventions. With the growing interest in copulas and their applications in statistical research, we demonstrate, through applications, how copula functions may be used to account for the correlation among responses across sub-clusters. Copulas having asymmetric dependence property may prove useful for modeling the relationship between random functions especially in clinical, health and environmental sciences where response data are in general skewed. These functions can in general be used to study scale-free measures of dependence, and they can be used as a starting point for constructing families of bivariate distributions, with a view to simulations. The core contribution of this paper is to provide an alternative approach for estimating the inter-cluster correlation using copula to accurately estimate the treatment effect when the outcome variable is measured on the dichotomous scale. Two data sets are used to illustrate the proposed methodology.

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

cluster randomization
correlated proportion
beta binomial distribution


Two levels of Bayesian model averaging for optimal control of stochastic systems Bayesian model averaging provides the best possible estimate of a model, given the data. This article uses that approach twice: once to get a distribution of plausible models of the world, and again to find a distribution of plausible control functions. The resulting ensemble gives control instructions different from simply taking the single best-fitting model and using it to find a single lowest-error control function for that single model. The only drawback is, of course, the need for more computer time: this article demonstrates that the required computer time is feasible. The test problem here is from flood control and risk management.

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

risk management
bayesian model averaging
control


SASI: a generic texture descriptor for image retrieval In this paper, a generic texture descriptor, namely, Statistical Analysis of Structural Information (SASI) is introduced as a representation of texture. SASI is based on statistics of clique autocorrelation coefficients, calculated over structuring windows. SASI defines a set of clique windows to extract and measure various structural properties of texture by using a spatial multi-resolution method. Experimental results, performed on various image databases, indicate that SASI is more successful then the Gabor Filter descriptors in capturing small granularities and discontinuities such as sharp corners and abrupt changes. Due to the flexibility in designing the clique windows, SASI reaches higher average retrieval rates compared to Gabor Filter descriptors. However, the price of this performance is increased computational complexity.

O O O O B 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 B 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 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

image retrieval
clique
autocorrelation
descriptor


Correlations between interfacial reactions and bonding strengths of Cu/Sn/Cu pillar bump An investigation of the effects of thermal annealing on the growth of intermetallic compounds (IMCs) and the shear strength of Cu/Sn/Cu pillar bump structures is presented. The Cu6Sn5 phase formed at the Cu/Sn interface right after bonding and grew as with annealing time, while the Cu3Sn phase formed and grew at the Cu/Cu6Sn5 interface with increased annealing time. IMC growth followed a linear relationship with the square root of the annealing time due to a diffusion-controlled mechanism. The shear strength was measured by the lap shear test and was observed to monotonically decrease with annealing until 150h at 150C. It then stayed nearly constant with further annealing, which is correlated with the change in fracture modes from ductile to brittle at around the 150h mark. This is ascribed not only to the increasing thickness of brittle IMCs but also to the decreasing thickness of Sn, as there exists a critical annealing time for a fracture mode transition in our thinly Sn-capped Cu pillar bump structures.

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

cu/sn/cu pillar bump
intermetallic compound


extracting related named entities from blogosphere for event mining We propose a method of extracting named entities that are related to a single input word. Focusing on the syntactic dependency relation in sentences, it is reasonable to extract a case element that syntactically depends on the predicate that the input word depends on. In Japanese, though, a word which has appeared in a previous sentence is often omitted or replaced. Our proposed method, first, extracts "predicate patterns" consisting of case elements with case particles and a predicate. Then it combines predicate patterns that have the same predicate to form possible unabridged dependence relations.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 extraction
world wide web
text mining