novel polarization interference imaging spectroscope A novel principle and scheme of Polarization Interferometer Imaging Spectroscope has been proposed. A wide-field-of-view polarization Interference imaging spectrometer (WPIIS) based on a Savart polariscope, without moving parts, and with a narrow slit has been designed and developed. The primary feature of the WPIIS is the target image as well as the interferogram and polarization information can be obtained at the same time in the spatial domain and are recorded by a two-dimensional CCD camera. The field of view of the WPIIS will be extend 3--5 times as large as a common interference imaging spectrometer, and the throughput will raise 1--2 orders of magnitude. The total optics is as small as 531.1 X 150 X 243mm 3 in size, and 5.5kg in mass, the spectral resolution of the prototype system is 81.38cm -1 between 0.48?m and 0.96?m (?=480nm, ? ?=1.87nm; ?=960nm, ? ?=7.5nm). The WPIIS has advantages of ultra-compact size, wide field of view, high throughput and without any moving parts. The optics system and especially principle is described, and the experimental result of the Interference Imaging spectrum is show.

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


Coupling dense and landmark-based approaches for nonrigid registration In this paper, we investigate the introduction of cortical constraints for non rigid intersubject brain registration. We extract sulcal patterns with the active ribbon method, presented by Le Goualher et al. (1997). An energy based registration method (Hellier et al., 2001), which will be called photometric registration method in this paper, makes it possible to incorporate the matching of cortical sulci. The local sparse similarity and the photometric similarity are, thus, expressed in a unified framework. We show the benefits of cortical constraints on a database of 18 subjects, with global and local assessment of the registration. This new registration scheme has also been evaluated on functional magnetoencephalography data. We show that the anatomically constrained registration leads to a substantial reduction of the intersubject functional variability.

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

atlas matching
multigrid minimization
robust estimators


Generating a pronunciation dictionary for European Portuguese using a joint-sequence model with embedded stress assignment This paper addresses the problem of grapheme to phoneme conversion to create a pronunciation dictionary from a vocabulary of the most frequent words in European Portuguese. A system based on a mixed approach funded on a stochastic model with embedded rules for stressed vowel assignment is described. The implemented model can generate pronunciations from unrestricted words; however, a dictionary with the 40k most frequent words was constructed and corrected interactively. The dictionary includes homographs with multiplepronunciations. The vocabulary was defined using the CETEMPblico corpus. The model and dictionary are publicly available.

O O B I O 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

g2p conversion
graphemephoneme converter
joint-sequence model
stress assignment rules


On subject reference and the cartography of clause types In this commentary, Iwill critically discuss Priyanka Biswas contribution to this volume (2013), in which she examines the properties of five types of clauses headed by participial verb forms in Bangla and proposes an account of their sometimes novel properties in terms of Landau (2004)s theory of control. Iwill take Biswas empirical analysis as a starting point for a broader discussion of finiteness and the relationship between different types of embedded clauses and the kinds of subjects they allow. Iwill argue that the theoretical treatment Biswas herself adopts does not allow a proper explanation of the connection, and will propose a distinct approach in terms of differential clause sizes. While this approach will remain highly speculative, Iwill argue that it at least allows us to formulate falsifiable hypotheses with testable predictions, and thus could serve as the foundation for a truly insightful theory of the distribution of subject types.

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 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 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

finiteness cartography subjects control bangla


A lattice Boltzmann study of blood flow in stented aneurism The treatment of cerebral aneurisms with a porous stent has recently been proposed as a minimally invasive way to prevent rupture and favor coagulation mechanism inside the aneurism. The efficiency of a stent is related to several parameters which are not yet fully understood. The goal of this paper is to identify, through numerical simulations, how the stent structure and its positioning affect the hemodynamics properties of the flow inside the aneurism. We use the concept of flow reduction to characterize the stent efficiency. Our simulations are based on a lattice Boltzmann modeling of blood flow. Our results, which agree well with in vitro experiments, show how the various parameters play a role and help us to understand the phenomena.

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

lattice boltzmann
hemodynamics
blood flow
aneurism


View-invariant motion trajectory-based activity classification and recognition Motion trajectories provide rich spatio-temporal information about an object's activity. The trajectory information can be obtained using a tracking algorithm on data streams available from a range of devices including motion sensors, video cameras, haptic devices, etc. Developing view-invariant activity recognition algorithms based on this high dimensional cue is an extremely challenging task. This paper presents efficient activity recognition algorithms using novel view-invariant representation of trajectories. Towards this end, we derive two Affine-invariant representations for motion trajectories based on curvature scale space (CSS) and centroid distance function (CDF). The properties of these schemes facilitate the design of efficient recognition algorithms based on hidden Markov models (HMMs). In the CSS-based representation, maxima of curvature zero crossings at increasing levels of smoothness are extracted to mark the location and extent of concavities in the curvature. The sequences of these CSS maxima are then modeled by continuous density (HMMs). For the case of CDF, we first segment the trajectory into subtrajectories using CDF-based representation. These subtrajectories are then represented by their Principal Component Analysis (PCA) coefficients. The sequences of these PCA coefficients from subtrajectories are then modeled by continuous density hidden Markov models (HMMs). Different classes of object motions are modeled by one Continuous HMM per class where state PDFs are represented by GMMs. Experiments using a database of around 1750 complex trajectories (obtained from UCI-KDD data archives) subdivided into five different classes are reported.

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

activity recognition
hidden markov models
centroid distance function
curvature scale space

affine-invariant trajectory descriptors
trajectory modeling


On linear combinations of two commuting hypergeneralized projectors The concept of a hypergeneralized projector as a matrix H satisfying H 2 = H , where H denotes the MoorePenrose inverse of H , was introduced by Groand Trenkler in [J. Gro, G. Trenkler, Generalized and hypergeneralized projectors, Linear Algebra Appl. 264 (1997) 463474]. Generalizing substantially preliminary observations given therein, Baksalary etal.in [J.K. Baksalary, O.M. Baksalary, J. Gro, On some linear combinations of hypergeneralized projectors, Linear Algebra Appl. 413 (2006) 264273] characterized some situations in which a linear combination c 1 H 1 + c 2 H 2 , where c1,c2?C c 1 , c 2 ? C and H 1 , H 2 are hypergeneralized projectors such that H 1 H 2 = ? 1 H 1 2 + ? 2 H 2 2 = H 2 H 1 for some ?1,?2?C ? 1 , ? 2 ? C , inherits the hypergenerality property. In the present paper, the problem considered in the latter paper is revisited and solved completely under the essentially weaker assumption that H 1 H 2 = H 2 H 1 .

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

partitioned matrix
ep matrix
diagonalizability


LPBoost with Strong Classifiers The goal of boosting algorithm is to maximize the minimum margin on sample set. Based on minimax theory, the goal can be converted into minimize the maximum edge. This idea motivates LPBoost and its variants (including TotalBoost, SoftBoost, ERLPBoost) which solve the optimization problem by linear programming. These algorithms ignore the strong classifier and just minimize the maximum edge of weak classifiers so that all the edges of weak classifier are at most gamma. This paper shows that the edge of strong classifier may be higher than the maximum edge of weak classifiers and proposes a novel boosting algorithm which introduced strong classifier into the optimization problem and constrained the edges of both weak and strong classifiers no more than gamma. Furthermore, we justified the reasonability of introducing strong classifier using minimax theory. We compared our algorithm with other approaches including AdaBoost, LPBoost, TotalBoost, SoftBoost, and ERLPBoost on the UCI benchmark dataset. In simulation studies we show that our algorithm converges faster than SoftBoost and ERLPBoost. In a benchmark comparison we illustrate the competiveness of our approach from the aspect of time consuming, and generalization error.

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

boosting
strong classifier
minimax theory
linear programming


A family of inexpensive sampling schemes To improve image quality in computer graphics, antialiazing techniques such as supersampling and multisampling are used. We explore a family of inexpensive sampling schemes that cost as little as 1.25 samples per pixel and up to 2.0 samples per pixel. By placing sample points in the corners or on the edges of the pixels, sharing can occur between pixels, and this makes it possible to create inexpensive sampling schemes. Using an evaluation and optimization framework, we present optimized sampling patterns costing 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0 samples per pixel.

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


Multi-objective optimization of two stage thermoelectric cooler using a modified teachinglearning-based optimization algorithm Teachinglearning-based optimization (TLBO) is a recently developed heuristic algorithm based on the natural phenomenon of teachinglearning process. In the present work, a modified version of the TLBO algorithm is introduced and applied for the multi-objective optimization of a two stage thermoelectric cooler (TEC). Two different arrangements of the thermoelectric cooler are considered for the optimization. Maximization of cooling capacity and coefficient of performance of the thermoelectric cooler are considered as the objective functions. An example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The results of optimization obtained by using the modified TLBO are validated by comparing with those obtained by using the basic TLBO, genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithms.

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

two stage thermoelectric cooler
cooling capacity
coefficient of performance

thermoelectric modules
teachinglearning-based optimization


optimizing the evaluation of patterns in pointcuts Pointcuts in aspect-oriented programming languages specify runtime events which cause execution of additional functionality. Hereby, pointcuts typically have a pattern-based static component selecting instructions whose execution triggers an event, e.g., a pattern that selects method-call instructions based on the target method's name. Current implementations realize identification of matching instructions by examining all instructions in the executed program and matching them against all patterns found in the program's pointcuts. But such an implementation is slow. An optimized implementation is therefore highly desirable in runtime environments which support the dynamic deployment of aspects; slow pattern evaluation invariably causes a slowdown of the entire application. The patterns used in pointcuts as well as the signatures against they are matched, i.e., method, constructor, and field signatures, are well structured. We present two case studies that survey patterns and signatures actually occurring in the wild. From the resulting data we derive several heuristics that can drive pattern-evaluation optimizations, both by creating indexes over the relevant instructions and by optimizing the order in which the sub-patterns are evaluated.

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

pattern matching
aspect-oriented programming


River model calibration, from guidelines to operational support tools Numerical modelling is now used routinely to make predictions about the behaviour of environmental systems. Model calibration remains a critical step in the modelling process and different approaches have been taken to develop guidelines to support engineers and scientists in this task. This article reviews currently available guidelines for a river hydraulics modeller by dividing them into three types: on the calibration process, on hydraulic parameters, and on the use of hydraulic simulation codes. The article then presents an integration of selected guidelines within a knowledge-based calibration support system. A prototype called CaRMA-1 (Calibration of River Model Assistant) has been developed for supporting the calibration of models based on a specific 1D code. Two case studies illustrate the ability of the prototype to face operational situations in river hydraulics engineering, for which both data quality and quantity are not sufficient for an optimal calibration. Using CaRMA-1 allows the modeller to achieve the calibration task in accordance with good calibration practice implemented in the knowledge base. Relevant reasoning rules can easily be added to the knowledge base to extend the prototype range of applications. This study thus provides a framework for building operational support tools from various types of existing engineering guidelines.

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

knowledge-based system
good practice
decision support


MUSE: A content-based image search and retrieval system using relevance feedback The field of Content-Based Visual Information Retrieval (CBVIR) has experienced tremendous growth in the recent years and many research groups are currently working on solutions to the problem of finding a desired image or video clip in a huge archive without resorting to metadata. This paper describes the ongoing development of a CBVIR system for image search and retrieval with relevance feedback capabilities. It supports browsing, query-by-example, and two different relevance feedback modes that allow users to refine their queries by indicating which images are good or bad at each iteration.

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 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


In Silico Evolution of Early Metabolism We developed a simulation tool for investigating the evolution of early metabolism, allowing us to speculate on the formation of metabolic pathways from catalyzed chemical reactions and on the development of their characteristic properties. Our model consists of a protocellular entity with a simple RNA-based genetic system and an evolving metabolism of catalytically active ribozymes that manipulate a rich underlying chemistry. Ensuring an almost open-ended and fairly realistic simulation is crucial for understanding the first steps in metabolic evolution. We show here how our simulation tool can be helpful in arguing for or against hypotheses on the evolution of metabolic pathways. We demonstrate that seemingly mutually exclusive hypotheses may well be compatible when we take into account that different processes dominate different phases in the evolution of a metabolic system. Our results suggest that forward evolution shapes the metabolic networks in the very early steps of evolution. In later and more complex stages, enzyme recruitment supersedes forward evolution, keeping a core set of pathways from the early phase.

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

genotype-phenotype map
multi-scale model
evolution of catalysis


Geometric Predicted Unscented Kalman Filtering in Rotate Magnetic Ranging Rotate magnetic field can be used for ranging, especially the environment where electronic filed suffers a deep fading and attenuation, such as drilling underground. However, magnetic field is still affected by the ferromagnetic materials, e.g., oil casing pipe. The measurement error is not endurable for single measurement. In this paper, the Geometric Predicted Unscented Kalman Filtering (GP-UKF) algorithm is developed for rotate magnetic ranging system underground. With GP-UKF, the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) can be suppressed. It is really important in a long range detection by magnetic field, i.e., more than 50 meters.

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

rotate magnetic field
kalman filtering
ranging


Learning task models in ill-defined domain using an hybrid knowledge discovery framework Domain experts should provide Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) with relevant domain knowledge that enable it to guide the learner during problem-solving learning activities. However, for ill-defined domains this knowledge is hard to define explicitly. Our hypothesis is that knowledge discovery (KD) techniques can be used to extract problem-solving task models from the recorded usage of expert, intermediate and novice learners. This paper proposes a procedural-knowledge acquisition framework based on a combination of sequential pattern mining and association rules discovery techniques. The framework has been implemented and is used to discover new meta-knowledge and rules in a given domain which then extend domain knowledge and serve as problem space, allowing the Intelligent Tutoring System to guide learners in problem-solving situations. Preliminary experiments have been conducted using the framework as an alternative to a path-planning problem solver in CanadarmTutor.

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

intelligent tutoring systems
knowledge discovery

data mining
knowledge acquisition
robotics


Parametric polynomial spectral factorization using the sum of roots and its application to a control design problem This paper presents an algebraic approach to polynomial spectral factorization, an important mathematical tool in signal processing and control. The approach exploits an intriguing relationship between the theory of Grobner bases and polynomial spectral factorization which can be observed through the sum of roots, and allows us to perform polynomial spectral factorization in the presence of real parameters. It is discussed that parametric polynomial spectral factorization enables us to express quantities Such as the optimal cost in terms of parameters and the sum of roots. Furthermore an optimization method over parameters is suggested that makes use of the results from parametric polynomial spectral factorization and also employs two quantifier elimination techniques. This proposed approach is demonstrated in a numerical example of a particular control problem. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

parametric optimization
grobner basis
h(2) control


Spectroscopic remote sensing of plant stress at leaf and canopy levels using the chlorophyll 680nm absorption feature with continuum removal This paper explores the use of spectral feature analysis to detect plant stress in visible/near infrared wavelengths. A time series of close range leaf and canopy reflectance data of two plant species grown in hydrocarbon-contaminated soil was acquired with a portable spectrometer. The ProSpecTIR-VS airborne imaging spectrometer was used to obtain far range hyperspectral remote sensing data over the field experiment. Parameters describing the chlorophyll 680nm absorption feature (depth, width, and area) were derived using continuum removal applied to the spectra. A new index, the Plant Stress Detection Index (PSDI), was calculated using continuum-removed values near the chlorophyll feature centre (680nm) and on the green-edge (560 and 575nm). Chlorophyll features depth, width and area, the PSDI and a narrow-band normalised difference vegetation index were evaluated for their ability to detect stressed plants. The objective was to analyse how the parameters/indices were affected by increasing degrees of plant stress and to examine their utility as plant stress indicators at the remote sensing level (e.g. airborne sensor). For leaf data, PSDI and the chlorophyll feature area revealed the highest percentage (6770%) of stressed plants. The PSDI also proved to be the best constraint for detecting the stress in hydrocarbon-impacted plants with field canopy spectra and airborne imaging spectroscopy data. This was particularly true using thresholds based on the ASD canopy data and considering the combination of higher percentage of stressed plants detected (across the thresholds) and fewer false-positives.

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

hyperspectral
airborne sensor
continuum removal
spectral feature analysis
vegetation index


A mixed problem for the steady Navier-Stokes equations We consider a mixed boundary problem for the Navier-Stokes equations in a bounded Lipschitz two-dimensional domain: we assign a Dirichlet condition on the curve portion of the boundary and a slip zero condition on its straight portion. We prove that the problem has a solution provided the boundary datum and the body force belong to a Lebesgue's space and to the Hardy space respectively. c (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

two-dimensional bounded domains
stokes system
stationary navier-stokes equations
boundary value problem


Query processing techniques for arrays Arrays are a common and important class of data. At present, database systems do not provide adequate array support: arrays can neither be easily defined nor conveniently manipulated. Further, array manipulations are not optimized. This paper describes a language called the Array Manipulation Language (AML), for expressing array manipulations, and a collection of optimization techniques for AML expressions. In the AML framework for array manipulation, arbitrary externally-defined functions can be applied to arrays in a structured manner. AML can be adapted to different application domains by choosing appropriate external function definitions. This paper concentrates on arrays occurring in databases of digital images such as satellite or medical images. AML queries can be treated declaratively and subjected to rewrite optimizations. Rewriting minimizes the number of applications of potentially costly external functions required to compute a query result. AML queries can also be optimized for space. Query results are generated a piece at a time by pipelined execution plans, and the amount of memory required by a plan depends on the order in which pieces are generated. An optimizer can consider generating the pieces of the query result in a variety of orders, and can efficiently choose orders that require less space. An AML-based prototype array database system called Array DB has been built, and it is used to show the effectiveness of these optimization techniques.

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

array query optimization
declarative query language
user-defined functions
pipelined evaluation
memory-usage optimization


A novel framework for making dominant point detection methods non-parametric Most dominant point detection methods require heuristically chosen control parameters. One of the commonly used control parameter is maximum deviation. This paper uses a theoretical bound of the maximum deviation of pixels obtained by digitization of a line segment for constructing a general framework to make most dominant point detection methods non-parametric. The derived analytical bound of the maximum deviation can be used as a natural bench mark for the line fitting algorithms and thus dominant point detection methods can be made parameter-independent and non-heuristic. Most methods can easily incorporate the bound. This is demonstrated using three categorically different dominant point detection methods. Such non-parametric approach retains the characteristics of the digital curve while providing good fitting performance and compression ratio for all the three methods using a variety of digital, non-digital, and noisy curves. (C) 2012 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

non-parametric
polygonal approximation
dominant points
digital curves


Clustering on the unit hypersphere using von Mises-Fisher distributions Several large scale data mining applications, such as text categorization and gene expression analysis, involve high-dimensional data that is also inherently directional in nature. Often such data is L(2) normalized so that it lies on the surface of a unit hypersphere. Popular models such as (mixtures of) multi-variate Gaussians are inadequate for characterizing such data. This paper proposes a generative mixture-model approach to clustering directional data based on the von Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution, which arises naturally for data distributed on the unit hypersphere. In particular, we derive and analyze two variants of the Expectation Maximization (EM) framework for estimating the mean and concentration parameters of this mixture. Numerical estimation of the concentration parameters is non-trivial in high dimensions since it involves functional inversion of ratios of Bessel functions. We also formulate two clustering algorithms corresponding to the variants of EM that we derive. Our approach provides a theoretical basis for the use of cosine similarity that has been widely employed by the information retrieval community, and obtains the spherical kmeans algorithm (kmeans with cosine similarity) as a special case of both variants. Empirical results on clustering of high-dimensional text and gene-expression data based on a mixture of vMF distributions show that the ability to estimate the concentration parameter for each vMF component, which is not present in existing approaches, yields superior results, especially for difficult clustering tasks in high-dimensional spaces.

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

clustering
mixtures
expectation maximization

directional distributions
von mises-fisher
maximum likelihood
high dimensional data


cooperative coevolution and univariate estimation of distribution algorithms In this paper, we discuss a curious relationship between Cooperative Coevolutionary Algorithms (CCEAs) and univariate Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs). Specifically, the distribution model for univariate EDAs is equivalent to the infinite population EGT model common in the analysis of CCEAs. This relationship may permit cross-pollination between these two disparate fields. As an example, we derive a new EDA based on a known CCEA from the literature, and provide some preliminary experimental analysis of the algorithm.

B I O O B I I I 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

estimation of distribution algorithms
cooperative coevolution


On the use of the boundary element analysis in bioelectromagnetics The paper reviews a boundary element analysis of the human exposure to electrostatic, low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) electromagnetic fields. The formulation for the low frequency exposures is based on the quasi-static approximation and the related Laplace equation form of the continuity equation. The assessment of high frequency exposures is based on the Helmholtz equation. The solution of the governing equations is carried out using certain boundary element procedures. Some illustrated computational examples are related to the human head exposed to electrostatic field from video display units (VDUs), pregnant woman/foetus exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) fields from power lines and the human eye exposed to high frequency (HF) electromagnetic radiation.

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

boundary element analysis
electromagnetic fields
human exposure

realistic models
induced current density
specific absorption rate (sar)


Test Data Compression Using Efficient Bitmask and Dictionary Selection Methods Higher circuit densities in system-on-chip (SOC) designs have led to drastic increase in test data volume. Larger test data size demands not only higher memory requirements, but also an increase in testing time. Test data compression addresses this problem by reducing the test data volume without affecting the overall system performance. This paper proposes a novel test data compression technique using bitmasks which provides a substantial improvement in the compression efficiency without introducing any additional decompression penalty. The major contributions of this paper are as follows: 1) it develops an efficient bitmask selection technique for test data in order to create maximum matching patterns; 2) it develops an efficient dictionary selection method which takes into account the bitmask based compression; and 3) it proposes a test compression technique using efficient dictionary and bitmask selection to significantly reduce the testing time and memory requirements. We have applied our method on various test data sets and compared our results with other existing test compression techniques. Our algorithm outperforms existing dictionary-based approaches by up to 30%, giving a best possible test compression of 92%.

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


Genetic algorithms for door-assigning and sequencing of trucks at distribution centers for the improvement of operational performance ? In a supply chain, cross docking is one of the most innovative systems for improving the operational performance at distribution centers. By utilizing this cross docking system, products are delivered to the distribution center via inbound trucks and immediately sorted out. Then, products are shipped to customers via outbound trucks and thus, no inventory remains at the distribution center. In this paper, we consider the scheduling problem of inbound and outbound trucks at distribution centers. The aim is to maximize the number of products that are able to ship within a given working horizon at these centers. In this paper, a mathematical model for an optimal solution is derived and intelligent genetic algorithms are proposed. The performances of the genetic algorithms are evaluated using several randomly generated examples.

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


Solving for colour constancy using a constrained dichromatic reflection model Statistics-based colour constancy algorithms work well as long as there are many colours in a scene, they fail however when the encountering scenes comprise few surfaces. In contrast, physics-based algorithms, based on an understanding of physical processes such as highlights and interreflections, are theoretically able to solve for colour constancy even when there are as few as two surfaces in a scene. Unfortunately, physics-based theories rarely work outside the lab. In this paper we show that a combination of physical and statistical knowledge leads to a surprisingly simple and powerful colour constancy algorithm, one that also works well for images of natural scenes. From a physical standpoint we observe that given the dichromatic model of image formation the colour signals coming from a single uniformly-coloured surface are mapped to a line in chromaticity space. One component of the line is defined by the colour of the illuminant (i.e. specular highlights) and the other is due to its matte, or Lambertian, reflectance. We then make the statistical observation that the chromaticities of common light sources all follow closely the Planckian locus of black-body radiators. It follows that by intersecting the dichromatic line with the Planckian locus we can estimate the chromaticity of the illumination. We can solve for colour constancy even when there is a single surface in the scene. When there are many surfaces in a scene the individual estimates from each surface are averaged together to improve accuracy. In a set of experiments on real images we show our approach delivers very good colour constancy. Moreover, performance is significantly better than previous dichromatic algorithms.

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

computational colour constancy
illuminant estimation
specularities
physics-based vision


role-based access control for data service integration We describe the implementation of role-based access control in a data service integration system. Users in research or other projects may access a diverse collection of data sources but are to allowed access to only the part of the data collection that is necessary for their purposes. To simplify the administration of the access control, Role Based Access control is used, with the role hierarchy defined within and limited to each project. User queries to the integration system are analysed for their data access needs and those needs checked against the access control policies. The policies for the data held by individual data custodians can be managed and implemented by the custodian, or held in a central authorisation server in the integration system. The system is built around the Security Assertion Markup Language and eXtensible Access Control Markup Language standards. The access control architecture was developed for a health data integration system, but both the architecture and some of its components for authentication and authorisation could be readily reused in other similar systems.

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


macrodebugging with mdb Macroprogramming abstractions provide abstract distributed data structures to simplify the programming of wireless embedded networks. However, none of the current macroprogramming systems provide debugging support for application development. We have developed MDB, a GDB-like post-mortem debugger for the MacroLab macroprogramming abstraction. In this demonstration, we show how MDB enables application development and debugging at a single level of abstraction. MDB eliminates the need for a programmer to reason about low-level event traces and message passing protocols, instead allowing debugging in terms of abstract data types. We expect MDB to fill a crucial link in the development cycle as a macroprogram progresses from the drawing board to real deployment.

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

wireless embedded networks
macrodebugging


STUDIES OF OPINION STABILITY FOR SMALL DYNAMIC NETWORKS WITH OPPORTUNISTIC AGENTS There are numerous examples of societies with extremely stable mix of contrasting opinions. We argue that this stability is a result of an interplay between society network topology adjustment and opinion changing processes. To support this position we present a computer model of opinion formation based on some novel assumptions, designed to bring the model closer to social reality. In our model, the agents, in addition to changing their opinions due to influence of the rest of society and external propaganda, have the ability to modify their social network, forming links with agents sharing the same opinions and cutting the links with those they disagree with. To improve the model further we divide the agents into "fanatics" and "opportunists," depending on how easy it is to change their opinions. The simulations show significant differences compared to traditional models, where network links are static. In particular, for the dynamical model where inter-agent links are adjustable, the final network structure and opinion distribution is shown to resemble real world observations, such as social structures and persistence of minority groups even when most of the society is against them and the propaganda is strong.

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

consensus formation
social simulations
artificial societies


Incremental building association link network Association Link Network (ALN) is used to establish associated relations among various resources, aiming at extending the hyperlink network World Wide Web to an association-rich network. Unfortunately, given the scale of the Web, the challenge of incremental building ALN is on how to perform the association weight of the new coming Web resources efficiently and exactly. A nave way is to compare every pair of resources in the existing ALN, thus bearing a 0(nm) time complexity with in new coming resources in a n mades ALN. In this paper, through the analysis of some candidate methods, two strategies are proposed. The first strategy converses the All-pairs algorithm from duplicate detection field, in which each resource is canonicalized by a global ordering to reduce the candidate size. The second strategy uses collaborative filtering technologies to achieve the incremental building ALN, in which the nodes of ALN with top degree are used to select candidate nodes to reduce the time complexity. Experiments and evaluations show that the second strategy performs a higher accuracy than the first strategy in the same candidate size. Moreover, the scale-independent property of the second strategy makes it to be used on the Web appropriately.

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

association link network
duplicate detection
collaborative filtering


Parametric vs. divisor methods of apportionment This paper formulates a new criterion that distinguishes the set of parametric methods within the set of all the divisor methods of apportionment. The criterionthat a method transfer seats as it shouldasks that as population (or the votes of parties in a PR system) is shifted more and more from one state to another state (from one party to another party) at some point the first state (or party) is apportioned one less seat, the second state (or party) one more seat, and the remaining apportionments are as they were. It goes on to examine several properties of parametric methods.

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

apportionment
divisor methods
parametric methods


on botnets A botnet is a network of computers on the Internet infected with software robots, bots. There are numerous botnets. Some of them control millions of computers. Botnets have become the platform for the scourge of the Internet, namely, spam e-mails, launch denial of service attacks, click fraud, theft of sensitive information, cyber sabotage, cyber warfare, etc. In this paper, we review the status of the botnets, how they work, and how they may be defeated.

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


An optimal storage format for sparse matrices The irregular nature of sparse matrix-vector multiplication, Ax = y, has led to the development of a variety of compressed storage formats, which are widely used because they do not store any unnecessary elements. One of these methods, the Jagged Diagonal Storage format (JDS) is, in addition, considered appropriate for the implementation of iterative methods on parallel and vector processors. In this work we present the Transpose Jagged Diagonal Storage format (TJDS) which drew inspiration from the Jagged Diagonal Storage scheme but requires less storage space than JDS. We propose an alternative storage scheme which makes no assumptions about the sparsity pattern of the matrix and only needs three linear arrays instead of the four linear arrays required by JDS. Specifically, the data is aligned in such a way that the permutation array used in JDS, to permute the solution vector back to the original ordering, is unnecessary. This allow us to save the memory space required to store an integer vector of length n, where n stands for the number of columns in the sparse matrix A. This storage saving reaches, for the selection of matrices used in this work, from 14% up to 45% of the number of non-zero values of the sparse matrices. We present a case study of a 6 x 6 sparse matrix to show the data structures and the algorithm to compute Ax = y using the TJDS format. (C) 2004 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Nonlinear inversion of potential-field data using a hybrid-encoding genetic algorithm Using a genetic algorithm to solve an inverse problem of complex nonlinear geophysical equations is advantageous because it does not require computer gradients of models or good initial models. The multi-point search of a genetic algorithm makes it easier to find the globally optimal solution while avoiding falling into a local extremum. As is the case in other optimization approaches, the search efficiency for a genetic algorithm is vital in finding desired solutions successfully in a multi-dimensional model space. A binary-encoding genetic algorithm is hardly ever used to resolve an optimization problem such as a simple geophysical inversion with only three unknowns. The encoding mechanism, genetic operators, and population size of the genetic algorithm greatly affect search processes in the evolution. It is clear that improved operators and proper population size promote the convergence. Nevertheless, not all genetic operations perform perfectly while searching under either a uniform binary or a decimal encoding system. With the binary encoding mechanism, the crossover scheme may produce more new individuals than with the decimal encoding. On the other hand, the mutation scheme in a decimal encoding system will create new genes larger in scope than those in the binary encoding. This paper discusses approaches of exploiting the search potential of genetic operations in the two encoding systems and presents an approach with a hybrid-encoding mechanism, multi-point crossover, and dynamic population size for geophysical inversion. We present a method that is based on the routine in which the mutation operation is conducted in the decimal code and multi-point crossover operation in the binary code. The mix-encoding algorithm is called the hybrid-encoding genetic algorithm (HEGA). HEGA provides better genes with a higher probability by a mutation operator and improves genetic algorithms in resolving complicated geophysical inverse problems. Another significant result is that final solution is determined by the average model derived from multiple trials instead of one computation due to the randomness in a genetic algorithm procedure. These advantages were demonstrated by synthetic and real-world examples of inversion of potential-field data.

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

hybrid-encoding genetic algorithm
potential fields


Evolutionary Hough Games for coherent object detection In this paper we propose a novel, game-theoretic approach for finding multiple instances of an object category as sets of mutually coherent votes in a generalized Hough space. Existing Hough-voting based detection systems have to inherently apply parameter-sensitive non-maxima suppression (NMS) or mode detection techniques for finding object center hypotheses. Moreover, the voting origins contributing to a particular maximum are lost and hence mostly bounding boxes are drawn to indicate the object hypotheses. To overcome these problems, we introduce a two-stage method, applicable on top of any Hough-voting based detection framework. First, we define a Hough environment, where the geometric compatibilities of the voting elements are captured in a pairwise fashion. Then we analyze this environment within a game-theoretic setting, where we model the competition between voting elements as a Darwinian process, driven by their mutual geometric compatibilities. In order to find multiple and possibly overlapping objects, we introduce a new enumeration method inspired by tabu search. As a result, we obtain locations and voting element compositions of each object instance while bypassing the task of NMS. We demonstrate the broad applicability of our method on challenging datasets like the extended TUD pedestrian crossing scene. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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


Fast gradient vector flow computation based on augmented Lagrangian method Gradient vector flow (GVF) and generalized GVF (GGVF) have been widely applied in many image processing applications. The high cost of GVF/GGVF computation, however, has restricted their potential applications on images with large size. Motivated by progress in fast image restoration algorithms, we reformulate the GVF/GGVF computation problem using the convex optimization model with equality constraint, and solve it using the inexact augmented Lagrangian method (IALM). With fast Fourier transform (FFT), we provide two novel simple and efficient algorithms for GVF/GGVF computation, respectively. To further improve the computational efficiency, the multiresolution approach is adopted to perform the GVF/GGVF computation in a coarse-to-fine manner. Experimental results show that the proposed methods can improve the computational speed of the original GVF/GGVF by one or two order of magnitude, and are more efficient than the state-of-the-art methods for GVF/GGVF computation.

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

gradient vector flow
convex optimization
augmented lagrangian method
fast fourier transform


Evaluating classification performances of single-layer perceptron with a Choquet fuzzy integral-based neuron The sigmoid function is usually used as the activation function for a well-known classification method, namely the single-layer perceptron. In the function, a weighted sum, in which the additivity among individual variables is assumed, is performed. However, it is known that an assumption of additivity may not be reasonable, since the input variables are not always independent of each other. This paper thus employs a Choquet fuzzy integral-based neuron as an output neuron of the single-layer perceptron. Moreover, the connection weights can be interpreted as fuzzy measure values or degrees of importance of the respective attributes. The connection weights are determined by the genetic algorithms in which the maximization of the training classification performance and the minimization of the errors between the actual and desired outputs of individual training patterns are taken into account. The experimental results further demonstrate that the classification results of the single-layer perceptron with a Choquet fuzzy integral-based neuron are comparable to those of the traditional single-layer perceptron and the other fuzzy classification methods.

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

single-layer perceptron
choquet fuzzy integral
pattern classification


Analysis of baby-step giant-step algorithms for non-uniform distributions The baby-step giant-step algorithm, BSGS for short, was proposed by Shanks in order to compute the class number of an imaginary quadratic field. This algorithm is at present known as a very useful tool for computing with respect to finite groups such as the discrete logarithms and counting the number of the elements. Especially, the BSGS is normally made use of counting the rational points on the Jacobian of a hyperelliptic curve over a finite field. Indeed, research on the practical improvement of the BSGS has recently received a lot of attention from a cryptographic viewpoint. In this paper, we explicitly analyze the modified BSGS, which is for non-uniform distributions of the group order, proposed by Blackburn and Teske. More precisely, we refine the Blackburn-Teske algorithm, and also propose a criterion for the decision of the effectiveness of their algorithm; namely, our proposed criterion explicitly shows that what distribution is needed in order that their proposed algorithm is faster than the original BSGS. That is, we for the first time present a necessary and sufficient condition under which the modified BSGS is effective.

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

baby-step giant-step algorithm
finite group


Boundary element analysis of mode I and mixed mode (I and II) crack problems of 2-D gradient elasticity A boundary element method is developed for fracture analysis of gradient elastic planar solids under static loading. A simple version of Mindlins general theory of gradient elastic materials is employed and the two required boundary integral equations, one for the displacement vector and the other for its normal derivative are presented. Use is made of the fundamental solution of the problem and this leads to a formulation that requires only a boundary discretization. Two representative numerical examples are presented to illustrate the method, demonstrate its accuracy and efficiency and assess the gradient effect on the response. The first deals with a mode I crack, while the second with a mixed mode (I & II) crack. For the second case the proposed method is used in conjunction with the method of subregions. The method is employed with regular and special (near the crack tip) boundary elements. The gradient effect consists of modifying both the displacement and the stress field around the crack tip and resulting in a response which is more physically acceptable than the one coming from the classical theory of elasticity.

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

fracture mechanics
bem
variable-order singularity element


Meanvariance analysis of supply chains under wholesale pricing and profit sharing schemes ? In this paper, we explore the use of a wholesale pricing and profit sharing scheme (WPPS) for coordinating supply chains under the meanvariance (MV) decision framework. We first analytically establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for coordinating the centralized supply chain by WPPS. We then show that there exists a unique equilibrium of the Stackelberg game with WPPS in the decentralized case. After that, we discuss the information asymmetric case in which the retailer can be benefited by pretending to be more risk averse. Finally, we propose a new measure for the manufacturer to prevent this cheating from happening. Insights are generated.

B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
supply chain coordination


A calculational approach to path-based properties of the EisensteinStern and SternBrocot trees via matrix algebra This paper proposes a calculational approach to prove properties of the EisensteinStern and the SternBrocot trees. The calculational style of reasoning is enabled by a matrix formulation well-suited to formulate path-based properties. We show that nodes with palindromic paths contain the same rational in both the EisensteinStern and SternBrocot trees. We show how certain numerators and denominators in these trees can be written as the sum of two squares. We show how we can construct Sierpinski's triangle from these trees of rationals.

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

eisensteinstern tree (aka calkinwilf tree)


Design and performance of cognitive packet networks We discuss a packet network architecture called a cognitive packet network (CPN), in which intelligent capabilities for routing and flow control are moved towards the packets, rather than being concentrated in the nodes and protocols. Our architecture contains "smart" and "dumb" packets, as well as acknowledgement packets. Smart CPN packets route themselves, and learn to avoid congestion and losses from their own observations about the network and from the experience of other packets. They use a reinforcement learning algorithm to route themselves based on a goal function which has been assigned to them for each connection. Dumb CPN packets of a specific quality of service (QoS) class use routes which have been selected by the smart packets (SPs) of that class. Acknowledgement (ACK) packets are generated by the destination when an SP arrives there; the ACK heads back to the source of the SP along the inverse route and is used to update mailboxes in CPN routers, as well as to provide source routing information for dumb packets. We first summarize the basic concepts behind CPN, and present simulations illustrating their performance for different QoS goals, and analytical results for best and worst case performance. We then describe a test-bed network we have designed and implemented in order to demonstrate these ideas. We provide measurement data on the test-bed to illustrate the capacity of the network to adapt to changes in traffic load and to failures of links. Finally, we use measurements to evaluate the impact of the ratio of smart to dumb packets on the end-to-end delay experienced by all of the packets. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

design and performance
cognitive packet networks
smart and dumb packets
acknowledgement packets


A note on the Euler-Maruyama scheme for stochastic differential equations with a discontinuous monotone drift coefficient It is shown that the Euler-Maruyama scheme applied to a stochastic differential equation with a discontinuous monotone drift coefficient, such as a Heaviside function, and additive noise converges strongly to a solution of the stochastic differential equation with the same initial condition. The proof uses upper and lower solutions of the stochastic differential equations and the Euler-Maruyama scheme.

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

discontinuous monotone drift
upper and lower solutions


Research of high-resolution vibration signal detection technique and application to mechanical fault diagnosis Bilinear timefrequency transformation can possess a simultaneous high resolution both in the time domain and the frequency domain. It can be utilised to detect weak transient vibration signals generated by early mechanical faults in complex background and thus is of great importance to early mechanical fault diagnoses. It has been found that the spectrogram has low resolution, and there is strong cross-terms in WignerVille distribution and frequency aliasing and information loss in ChoiWilliams distribution (CWD). Hence, they cannot achieve satisfied transient signal detection results. To enhance the capability of detecting transient vibration signals, based on the analysis of exponent distribution, this paper presents some novel alias-free timefrequency distributions. These distributions can avoid the information loss in CWD while suppressing the cross-terms. Moreover, they have high simultaneous resolutions in both the time and frequency domain. Digital simulation and gearbox fault diagnosis experiments prove that these new distributions can effectively detect transient components from complicated mechanical vibration signals.

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

transient vibration
signal detection
fault diagnosis

timefrequency distribution
kernel function


Dynamic resource management considering the real behavior of aggregate traffic This paper explains why the theory of effective bandwidth is in general not applicable to characterize realistic traffic sources. Moreover, we show that a static allocation of network resources (bandwidth and/or buffer space) based on large deviation theory can be highly inefficient when the real statistical behavior of traffic is taken into account. As an alternative; we propose a dynamic resource management scheme based on prediction techniques. As a specific example, we apply this scheme to a Differentiated Service (DiffServ) Internet environment, in which the goal, besides policing the incoming traffic, is to optimize the use of network resources, thus minimizing the probability of occurrence of violations of contract guarantees. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated via simulations and our results show the superior performance of the new algorithm in terms of buffer overflows, output link utilization, and jitter, as compared to currently used policing and shaping mechanisms.

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

dynamic resource management
prediction techniques

alpha-stable self-similar processes
effective bandwidth theory
traffic modeling
traffic policing and shaping


on order-invariance of a binomial over a nullifying cell The improved projection operation for cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD) described in [10] requires for its validity the crucial concept of order-invariance . A real polynomial f(x 1 , ..., x r ) is said to be order-invariant in a subset c of R r if the order (of vanishing) of f at the point p is constant as p varies throughout c. The application of the improved projection which is perhaps simplest conceptually is in the construction of a CAD for a set of polynomials which is well-oriented in a certain sense. Given a well-oriented set A of r-variate integral polynomials algorithm CADW [10] uses the improved projection to construct a CAD of R r which is order-invariant for each polynomial in A. A drawback of CADW is that it halts in failure, reporting that A is not well-oriented, when presented with a non-well-oriented set A as input. Such failure of CADW is potentially serious, because it forces the user to fall back on less efficient projection operators (such as the Collins-Hong projection) for CAD. The present paper describes an efficient method for avoiding the failure of CADW in certain special non-well-oriented cases. The method is based upon a sufficient criterion for the order of a polynomial h(x 1 , ..., x r ) of the special form h = a(x 1 , ..., x r-1 )x r k + b(x 1 , ldots, x r-1 ) (which we shall call a binomial in x r ) to be 1 throughout the entire cylinder over a nullifying point p in R r-1 for h (that is, a point p for which h(p, x r ) = 0 identically). Following a review of CADW, the sufficient criterion referred to is motivated and proved. The algorithmic application of the criterion is carefully described and validated, and an example discussed.

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


Improving the FTTH business caseA joint telco-utility network rollout model Fiber to the home networks are seen as the most future proof technology to offer increasing bandwidth to customers. The publication of the Digital Agenda has put forward challenging goals for the broadband connectivity in Europe, but the rollout of next generation fixed access networks is still lagging. One of the reasons is the high initial investment cost associated with the rollout of these networks. To decrease this cost, a cooperation model between utility operators during the deployment phase is proposed in this paper. A model has been developed, in order to optimize the position of the different infrastructures in the trench and to allow for a fair allocation of the different costs incurred between all cooperating parties. The combination of these models has shown that a synergetic deployment phase of new infrastructures, both in Greenfield and Brownfield installations, can decrease the deployment costs for fiber infrastructure up to 21%.

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

techno-economics
utility networks
optimization


snap and share your photobooks The sharing of photos with others, friends and family, has become even more popular with digital photography and Internet applications such as email or Web albums. At the same time, the physical touch of printed photos is still appreciated and customers use different services to print their photos on post cards, calendars or photobooks, often to give them as a present or to create a physical souvenir. Once printed, however, the sharing of photos with others becomes difficult as there is no link back from the now physical item to its digital counterpart. With Bookmarkr, we developed a system that employs a mobile camera phone to bridge the gap between the printed photo and its digital counterpart. The user takes an image of a photo in a photobook with the mobile phone's camera. The image is transmitted to a photobook server, which employs image analysis techniques to retrieve the corresponding photo. The photo is sent back to the user and establishes the digital-physical match. Bookmarkr allows the user to interact with printed photos in a similar way as interacting with digital photos by using a point-and-shoot metaphor. Our performance evaluation shows that the system is able to return the correct photo in up to 99\% of all cases. A conducted user study revealed that the designed interaction is suitable for the participants and their printed photobooks.

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

mobile interaction
contextual bookmark
photo sharing


Adaptive neural control of non-affine pure-feedback non-linear systems with input nonlinearity and perturbed uncertainties In this article, two robust adaptive control schemes are investigated for a class of completely non-affine pure-feedback non-linear systems with input non-linearity and perturbed uncertainties using radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs). Based on the dynamic surface control (DSC) technique and using the quadratic Lyapunov function, the explosion of complexity in the traditional backstepping design is avoided when the gain signs are known. In addition, the unknown virtual gain signs are dealt with using the Nussbaum functions. Using the mean value theorem and Young's inequality, only one learning parameter needs to be tuned online at each step of recursion. It is proved that the proposed design method is able to guarantee semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness (SGUUB) of all signals in the closed-loop system. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

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

adaptive control
neural networks
dynamic surface control

pure-feedback non-linear systems
input non-linearity
nussbaum function


Pathways of Methamphetamine Toxicity Methamphetamine (METH) is a drug of abuse which is neurotoxic for the nigrostriatal system. METH-induced neurodegeneration involves production of reactive oxygen species, triggering autophagic vacuoles within nigral neurons of chronic abusers of METH. In fact, Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) is a critical protein for the neurotoxic effects of METH on DA neurons. Moreover, mutations in the SOD1 gene cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a dramatic neurodegenerative disorder. In the present paper we demonstrate that in G93A transgenic mice, overexpressing the ALS-linked mutant form of SOD1, surviving motor neurons share common intracellular alterations with METH-exposed DA neurons. We hypothesize that in mutant SOD1 transgenic mice, a defective autophagy might be responsible for the neurotoxic effects seen with in nigral neurons during METH toxicity.

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

neurodegeneration
autophagy
methamphetamine
motor neurons


Structure unanimity multiple description coding A novel multiple description coding framework, called structure unanimity multiple description coding, is proposed in this paper. Each wavelet coefficient is first decomposed into an odd position coefficient made from the bits in the odd positions and an even position coefficient made from the bits in the even positions. These two types of coefficients form the odd image and the even image, respectively, which are next encoded, and then transmitted using two different channels. Since the two images share the same hierarchical tree structure, only coefficient values in the redundancy parts need to be coded, resulting in improved coding efficiency. To meet the requirements of the packet switching network, these two images are rearranged in tree blocks, and the tree blocks in the even image and odd image are grouped to form the row and column packets, respectively. These packets are next separately dispatched through diverse channels. Since the row and the column packets have limited intersections, even with simultaneous loss of row and column packets, the proposed system exhibits good error resilient ability. Experimental results have verified the improved performance of the proposed algorithm.

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

error resilience
wavelet coding
image transmission


Object-oriented change detection for the city of Harare, Zimbabwe Object building and the extraction of homogeneous landscape units on which spatial statistics can be applied is useful in assessing land use and land cover change. Object-oriented processing techniques are becoming more popular compared to traditional pixel-based image analysis. A hierarchical image segmentation approach was adopted to extract the objects from multi-temporal Landsat images over Zimbabwe. The spatial arrangement of t0 and t1 objects was independent as the segmentation process was independently applied, although object change of t1 was based on t0 boundaries. We applied a Standardized, Object Oriented, Automatic Classification (SOOAC) method based on fuzzy logic. The error matrix for the TM image had an overall accuracy of 95.6% and a KIA value of 94.7%, the ETM showed slightly lower overall accuracy. Various LULC changes were identified over the 13year period per object and also per class, mainly vegetation decrease. Object-oriented change information is necessary in decision support systems and uncertainty management strategies. This approach addresses some of the major issues in object-based GIS change analysis as it is based on stable object geometry.

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

land use
land cover
change detection
classification

remote sensing
satellite
object-oriented
sustainable development


The impact of information and communication technology (ICF), education and regulation on economic freedom in Islamic Middle Eastern countries Our study investigated the impact of ICT expansion on economic freedom in the Middle East (Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen). Our empirical analysis used archival data from 1995 to 2005; it showed that ICT expansion in the Middle East has been effective both in bridging the digital divide and also in promoting economic freedom in a region that was vulnerable to political, social, and global conflict. However, differences between countries, such as the educational attainment of their citizens and institutional resistance to technology acceptance, both enhanced and restricted the relationship between ICT and economic freedom. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

economic freedom
ict
middle east
digital divide
regulation
institutional resistance


U-HMS: hybrid system for secure intelligent multimedia data services in Ubi-Home Requirements for are rapidly increasing, such as multimedia services, automatic execution of intelligent services without manual commands from user, user-friendliness, transparency of use, and interoperability of multimedia data among incompatible devices. In addition, in order to provide secure multimedia data services, multimedia data protection and management, authentication, and authorization management methods that fit the purpose of the above demands are expected to be required. In this paper, ubiquitous-hybrid multimedia system for secure and intelligent multimedia data services in Ubi-Home is proposed. In addition, an authentication method suitable for the Ubi-Home is suggested. The proposed system provides intelligent services by reflecting context information (user preference, user location, device status information) through sensor network modules, providing transparent and secure multimedia service.

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


A cognitive tool for teaching the addition/subtraction of common fractions: a model of affordances The aim of this research is to devise a cognitive tool for meeting the diverse needs of learners for comprehending new procedural knowledge. A model of affordances on teaching fraction equivalence for developing procedural knowledge for adding/subtracting fractions with unlike denominators was derived from the results of a case study of an initial prototype of a graphical partitioning model. Offering affordances in our model makes available profitable spaces for learners to interact in ways that meet their needs. This model of affordances was evaluated by a pre-test-post-test control group design to study the performance of the experimental group in learning with the model. Results of the study indicated that the model afforded learners, with various abilities for learning, knowledge of fraction equivalence. The key for mediating the generation of procedural knowledge for adding/subtracting fractions with unlike denominators in working with our cognitive tool was the concept of fraction equivalence and the capability of computing this. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

evaluation of cal systems
applications in subject areas
improving classroom teaching
teaching/learning strategies
elementary education


perceptually guided simplification of lit, textured meshes We present a new algorithm for best-effort simplification of polygonal meshes based on principles of visual perception. Building on previous work, we use a simple model of low-level human vision to estimate the perceptibility of local simplification operations in a view-dependent Multi-Triangulation structure. Our algorithm improves on prior perceptual simplification approaches by accounting for textured models and dynamic lighting effects. We also model more accurately the scale of visual changes resulting from simplification, using parametric texture deviation to bound the size (represented as spatial frequency) of features destroyed, created, or altered by simplifying the mesh. The resulting algorithm displays many desirable properties: it is view-dependent, sensitive to silhouettes, sensitive to underlying texture content, and sensitive to illumination (for example, preserving detail near highlight and shadow boundaries, while aggressively simplifying washed-out regions). Using a unified perceptual model to evaluate these effects automatically accounts for their relative importance and balances between them, overcoming the need for ad hoc or hand-tuned 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

level of detail
mesh simplification
perceptually motivated rendering


A simple model to predict soil moisture: Bridging Event and Continuous Hydrological (BEACH) modelling This paper introduces a simple two-layer soil water balance model developed to Bridge Event And Continuous Hydrological (BEACH) modelling. BEACH is a spatially distributed daily basis hydrological model formulated to predict the initial condition of soil moisture for event-based soil erosion and rainfallrunoff models. The latter models usually require the spatially distributed values of antecedent soil moisture content and other input parameters at the onset of an event. BEACH uses daily meteorological records, soil physical properties, basic crop characteristics and topographical data. The basic processes incorporated in the model are precipitation, infiltration, transpiration, evaporation, lateral flow, vertical flow and plant growth. The principal advantage of this model lies in its ability to provide timely information on the spatially distributed soil moisture content over a given area without the need for repeated field visits. The application of this model to the CATSOP experimental catchment showed that it has the capability to estimate soil moisture content with acceptable accuracy. The root mean squared error of the predicted soil moisture content for 6 monitored locations within the catchment ranged from 0.011 to 0.065cm3cm?3. The predicted daily discharge at the outlet of the study area agreed well with the observed data. The coefficient of determination and NashSutcliffe efficiency of the predicted discharge were 0.824 and 0.786, respectively. BEACH has been developed within freely available GIS and programming language, PCRaster. It is a useful teaching tool for learning about distributed water balance modelling and land use scenario analysis.

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


Revisiting Automated Physical Synthesis of High-Performance Clock Networks High-performance clock distribution has been a challenge for nearly three decades. During this time, clock synthesis tools and algorithms have strove to address a myriad of important issues helping designers to create faster, more reliable, and more power efficient chips. This work provides a complete discussion of the high-performance ASIC clock distribution using information gathered from both leading industrial clock designers and previous research publications. While many techniques are only briefly explained, the references summarize the most influential papers on a variety of topics for more in-depth investigation. This article also provides a thorough discussion of current issues in clock synthesis and concludes with insight into future research and design challenges for the community at large.

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


MLP-based isolated phoneme classification using likelihood features extracted from reconstructed phase space Nonlinear properties of a complex signal can be represented in reconstructed phase space (RPS). Previously, researchers have developed RPS-based feature extraction approaches to capture nonlinear properties. Typically, these approaches are more computationally demanding higher run-time and less accurate than traditional techniques such as Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) that fail to capture nonlinear properties of signals. To overcome these issues, we propose a new RPS-based feature extraction approach that is based on a previously reported approach. The proposed approach calculates the similarities between the embedded speech signals and a set of predefined speech attractor models in the RPS, and uses the similarities as a set of proper input features for a final phonetic classifier. A set of Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) is trained to represent the variety of all phoneme attractors in the RPS. Using the developed GMMs, for each embedded out-sample speech signal, a feature vector is calculated that consists of the Log-likelihoods. Then, an MLP-based classifier is used to estimate posterior probabilities for the phoneme classes. To test the performance of the proposed approach, we apply the approach to a Persian speech corpus (i.e., FARSDAT). Results show 1.89% absolute classification accuracy improvement in comparison to performance of a baseline system that exploits MFCC features. Combining different classifiers that use the proposed RPS-based features and MFCC features, the classifier gain the highest accuracy of 68.85% phoneme classification rate, with absolute accuracy improvements of 4.78% against a baseline system.

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

isolated phoneme classification
reconstructed phase space
gaussian mixture models

nonlinear speech processing
phoneme attractor


DUALITIES AND POSITIVITY IN THE STUDY OF QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT We present a survey on mathematical topics relating to separable states and entanglement witnesses. The convex cone duality between separable states and entanglement witnesses is discussed and later generalized to other families of operators, leading to their characterization via multiplicative properties. The condition for an operator to be an entanglement witness is rephrased as a problem of positivity of a family of real polynomials. By solving the latter in a specific case of a three-parameter family of operators, we obtain explicit description of entanglement witnesses belonging to that family. A related problem of block positivity over real numbers is discussed. We also consider a broad family of block positivity tests and prove that they can never be sufficient, which should be useful in case of future efforts in that direction. Finally, we introduce the concept of length of a separable state and present new results concerning relationships between the length and Schmidt rank. In particular, we prove that separable states of length lower or equal to 3 have Schmidt ranks equal to their lengths. We also give an example of a state which has length 4 and Schmidt rank 3.

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

quantum entanglement
entanglement witnesses

separable sates
positive maps
convex cones


Cooperative control of modular space robots Modular self-assembling on-orbit robots have the potential to reduce mission costs, increase reliability, and permit on-orbit repair and refueling. Modules with a variety of specialized capabilities would self-assemble from orbiting inventories. The assembled modules would then share resources such as power and sensors. As each free-flying module carries its own attitude control actuators, the assembled system has substantial sensor and actuator redundancy. Sensor redundancy enables sensor fusion that reduces measurement error. Actuator redundancy gives a system greater flexibility in managing its fuel usage. In this paper, the control of self-assembling space robots is explored in simulations and experiments. Control and sensor algorithms are presented that exploit the sensor and actuator redundancy. The algorithms address the control challenges introduced by the dynamic interactions between modules, the distribution of fuel resources among modules, and plume impingement.

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


Fuzzy coalition structures The paper deals with a fuzzy cooperation model where the fuzziness reflects the vague expectation of achievable pay-offs. This vagueness implies the possibilities of the coalitions forming and results into the vague idea about possible partitions of the set of players into coalition structures. (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 B O O O O O O O O O

game
coalition game
fuzzy set
fuzzy quantity
core of game


Virtual Tree: A robust architecture for interval valid queries in dynamic distributed systems ? A novel architecture for in-network aggregate query answering. The architecture is designed to provide interval valid results. Proofs on the correctness of our approach in a relaxed asynchronous model. Extensions to our architecture in order to enable WAN deploying. An extensive experimental evaluation of the proposed architecture.

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

distributed query answering
overlay networks
peer-to-peer systems
node clustering


Deliberation in a metadata-based modeling and simulation environment for inter-organizational networks In the emerging field of database centric business process management, inter-organizational networks of people, information and communication systems are often described by the interplay between individual goals and actions and the strategic dependencies among individuals and subgroups. Our research aims at improving requirements engineering for such networks by not just representing these goals and dependencies statically, but also by studying the dynamic interactions between both. In previous work, we proposed the prototype environment SNet for the representation and dynamic simulation of agent-based designs for inter-organizational networks. A key feature of SNet was the automatic translation of extended i* * models into the action language ConGolog. While this allowed the simulation of agent networks specified in i* * , the resulting agents were purely reactive. In this paper, we explicitly incorporate deliberation into the agent design of SNet. At the level of i* * , deliberation is represented in terms of goals which are satisfiable by different tasks or agents. Utilities are modeled, in part, using the existing concept of softgoals, which are given a quantitative interpretation. At the level of ConGolog, decision-theoretic features are built into the interpreter, which drives the simulations, and the process of delegating tasks to other agents is explicitly represented.

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

social networks
agent-simulation
logics of action
decision-theoretic planning