Cognitive, social, motivational and health aspects of students in laptop classrooms Effects on cognitive performance, social atmosphere, communication, motivation and aspects of strain were investigated when laptops were integrated in classrooms. According to a quasi-experimental design 27 laptop students were compared with 22 non-laptop students from the same high school, aged 1718 years. Results of tests and questionnaires showed that laptop students had better spatial abilities and computer skills, furthermore higher participation, learning interest, motivation and pressure to perform were found in laptop classrooms. However, laptop students experienced greater physical discomfort, particularly in their arms, but concerning creativity, social intelligence and mental stress no group differences occurred. Results indicate that laptops integrated in teaching can enhance learning and motivation in schools, at least after 1.7 years of introduction, but health risks must be considered.

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

laptop classrooms
motivation
cognitive performance
stress
health
learning


A model of self-limiting residual acid diffusion for pattern doubling Pattern doubling by cross-linking of a spacer triggered by residual acid diffusion from a previously developed primary structure into the spacer is a possible option to create the necessary structure widths for the 32nm node with current exposure technology by pattern doubling. A particular advantage of this process step would be the self-alignment to the primary structure, which would render a second exposure step unnecessary. In the paper, we present a new prototypical model of the bake step of this process and discuss the dependency of the desired behavior on parameters of the model.

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

lithography
chemically amplified photoresist
simulation


The Next Generation Software Program The papers in this issue provide an overview of the research fostered by the NSF Next Generation Software (NGS) Program(2), and some representative projects funded under the program. The NGS Program was announced in October of 1998, and with several calls for proposals between 1998 and 2004 has supported research in two broad technical thrusts. One program component has supported research for developing Technology for Performance Engineered Systems (TPES) for the Design, Management and Runtime Support of Computing Systems and Applications. The second program component, Complex Application Development and runtime Support Systems (CADSS) has sought to create new systems' software technology, including enhanced compiler capabilities, and tools for the development, runtime support and dynamic composition of complex applications executing on complex computing platforms, such as Computational Grids, assemblies of embedded systems and sensor systems, as well as high-end platforms (Grids-in-a-Box) and special purpose processing systems. Work along the directions of the NGS Program presently continues under the successor program, the NSF Computer Systems Research Program.

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

next generation software program
tpes
cadss


A new TVD-MUSCL scheme for hyperbolic conservation laws The second-order extension of Godunov's method for hyperbolic conservation laws, known as MUSCL schemes, is studied in this paper. We present a new type of Eulerian MUSCL scheme and oscillation-free algorithms. The intercell flux is computed from difference approximations of characteristic equations with the data influencing the values at half-time step. The data for characteristic equations are classified in several different types by the domain of dependence. The oscillation-free algorithm, based on TVD method, gives a general formulation for previously used method and provides a class of limiters including existing limiters. To validate the new TVD-MUSCL scheme, numerical experiments are performed for several model problems in one and two dimensions. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


analysis of super cut-off transistors for ultralow power digital logic circuits Super cut-off devices with sub-60mV/decade subthreshold swings have recently been demonstrated and being extensively studied. This paper presents a feasibility analysis of such tunneling devices for ultralow power subthreshold logic. Analysis shows that this device can deliver 800X higher performance (@iso-IOFF) compared to a MOSFET. The possible use of this device as a sleep transistor in conjunction with the regular Si MOSFET shows 2000X average improvement in leakage power compared to Si MOSFETs.

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

tunneling transistors
carbon nanotube fets


Power quality monitoring using an integrated Fourier linear combiner and fuzzy expert system The paper presents a new approach for the classification of transient disturbance waveforms in a power system by using a Fourier linear combiner and a fuzzy expert system. The measured voltage or current waveforms at a distribution bus are passed through a Fourier linear combiner block to provide peak or root mean square (RMS) amplitude and phase of the fundamental component at every sampling instant. The peak or RMS amplitude and computed slope of the waveforms are then passed on to a diagnostic module that computes the truth value of the signal combination and determines the class to which the waveform belongs. Computer simulated tests are carried out using emtp programs to obtain the disturbance waveform classification with the help of a new hybrid approach which is much simpler than the recently postulated neural network and wavelet based techniques. The classification is found to be robust and yields accurate results in most cases with the least amount of computational burden.

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

fourier linear combiner
fuzzy expert system
disturbance waveform classification


Design of 100?WWireless Sensor Nodes for Biomedical Monitoring Wireless sensor nodes span a wide range of applications. This paper focuses on the biomedical area, more specifically on healthcare monitoring applications. Power dissipation is the dominant design constraint in this domain. This paper shows the different steps to develop a digital signal processing architecture for a single channel electrocardiogram application, which is used as an application example. The target power consumption is 100?W as that is the power energy scavengers can deliver. We follow a bottleneck-driven approach: first the algorithm is tuned to the target processor, then coarse grained clock-gating is applied, next the static as well as the dynamic dissipation of the digital processor is reduced by tuning the core to the target domain. The impact of each step is quantified. A solution of 11?W is possible for both radio and DSP running the electrocardiogram algorithm.

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

wireless sensor node
asip
low power
clock gating
ecg


secure communication for ad-hoc, federated groups Ad-hoc federated groups are getting increasingly popular as means of addressing collaborative tasks that require information sharing. However, in some application scenarios, the security of the shared information is vital. Managing the communication security of such groups in an efficient way is a difficult task. This paper presents an architecture that enables secure communication for ad-hoc, cross-organisational groups. Our architecture covers group admission control, group key management and secure group communication. The groups in question are expected to be ad-hoc groups where the potential participants have no prior knowledge of each other and thus federation mechanisms need to be used to establish group admission rights. In order to handle group admission we use the SAML and XACML standards, for group key management we use the TGDH protocol. Our approach thus supports decentralised management of the most important tasks in secure group communication using an integrated approach based on established security standards. We have also produced a demo implementation to show the feasibility of our architecture. This research was pursued as part of the TrustDis project funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova).

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

authorization
access control
tree-based group
diffie-hellman


Main memory evaluation of monitoring queries over moving objects In this paper we evaluate several in-memory algorithms for efficient and scalable processing of continuous range queries over collections of moving objects. Constant updates to the index are avoided by query indexing. No constraints are imposed on the speed or path of moving objects or fraction of objects that move at any moment in time. We present a detailed analysis of a grid approach which shows the best results for both skewed and uniform data. A sorting based optimization is developed for significantly improving the cache hit-rate. Experimental evaluation establishes that indexing queries using the grid index yields orders of magnitude better performance than other index structures such as R*-trees.

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

query indexing
moving objects
main memory
index structures


Low-cost Turbo receiver for coded asynchronous DS-CDMA in frequency selective channels When channel coding is used on a CDMA transmission. the most appropriate approach for reception is joint Multiuser detection and decoding. This joint problem can be successfully processed by the Turbo-techniques. Therefore, we consider a low-complexity iterative receiver for the CDMA uplink transmission, called Turbo-CDMA, and we propose to further improve it. First, we derive a new DFE to be used at the first iteration. Then, we propose to fully use the decoded information in a new structure called Full Turbo-CDMA. Finally, we derive a new demodulation order that is well suited to the Turbo-CDMA receiver. This improved receiver, called Full Turbo-CDMA, alms to eliminate MUI and ISI almost completely in the presence of frequency selective channels. Improved performance is illustrated by simulations.

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

turbo equalization
multiuser receiver
code division multiaccess (cdma)
interference suppression


A coupled biventricular finite element and lumped-parameter circulatory system model of heart failure Numerical modelling of the cardiovascular system is becoming an important tool for assessing the influence of heart disease and treatment therapies. In the current study, we present an approach for modelling the interaction between the heart and the circulatory system. This was accomplished by creating animal-specific biventricular finite element (FE) models, which characterise the mechanical response of the heart, and by coupling them to a lumped-parameter model that represents the systemic and pulmonic circulatory system. In order to minimise computation time, the coupling was enforced in a weak (one-way) manner, where the ventricular pressure-volume relationships were generated by the FE models and then passed into the circulatory system model to ensure volume conservation and physiological pressure changes. The models were first validated by tuning the parameters, such that the output of the models matched experimentally measured pressures and volumes. Then the models were used to examine cardiac function and the myofibre stress in a healthy canine heart and a canine heart with dilated cardiomyopathy. The results showed good agreement with experimental measurements. The stress in the case of cardiomyopathy was found to increase significantly, while the pump function was decreased, compared to the healthy case. The total runtime of the simulations is lesser than that of many fully coupled models presented in the literature. This will allow for a much quicker evaluation of possible treatment strategies for combating the effects of heart failure, especially in optimisation schemes that require numerous FE simulations.

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


A new reasoning scheme for efficient redundancy addition and removal Redundancy addition and removal is a rewiring technique which, for a given target wire w(t), finds a redundant alternative wire w(a). The addition of w(a) makes w(t) redundant and, hence, removable without changing the overall circuit functionality. Incremental logic restructuring based on this technique has been used in many applications. However, in the earlier methods, the search for valid alternative wires required trial-and-error redundancy testing of a potentially large set of candidate wires. Here, we study the fundamental theory behind this technique and propose a new reasoning scheme (RAMFIRE), which directly identifies alternative wires without performing trial-and-error tests. Experimental results show speedup of up to 15 times than that of the best techniques in the literature.

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

logic synthesis
physical synthesis
timing optimization


on the success of empirical studies in the international conference on software engineering Critiques of the quantity and quality of empirical evaluations in software engineering have existed for quite some time. However such critiques are typically not empirically evaluated. This paper fills this gap by empirically analyzing papers published by ICSE, the prime research conference on Software Engineering. We present quantitative and qualitative results of a quasi-random experiment of empirical evaluations over the lifetime of the conference. Our quantitative results show the quantity of empirical evaluation has increased over 29 ICSE proceedings but we still have room to improve the soundness of empirical evaluations in ICSE proceedings. Our qualitative results point to specific areas of improvement in empirical evaluations.

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


Error bounds in mathematical programming Originated from the practical implementation and numerical considerations of iterative methods for solving mathematical programs, the study of error bounds has grown and proliferated in many interesting areas within mathematical programming, This paper gives a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey of the extensive theory and rich applications of error bounds for inequality and optimization systems and solution sets of equilibrium problems. (C) 1997 The Mathematical Programming Society, Inc, Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

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

inequality systems
complementarity problems
variational inequalities
metric regularity
penalty function
convergence of algorithms


Robust visual speakingness detection using bi-level HMM Visual voice activity detection (V-VAD) plays an important role in both HCI and HRI, affecting both the conversation strategy and sync between humans and robots/computers. The typical speakingness decision of V-VAD consists of post-processing for signal smoothing and classification using thresholding. Several parameters, ensuring a good trade-off between hit rate and false alarm, are usually heuristically defined. This makes the V-VAD approaches vulnerable to noisy observation and changes of environment conditions, resulting in poor performance and robustness to undesired frequent speaking state changes. To overcome those difficulties, this paper proposes a new probabilistic approach, naming bi-level HMM and analyzing lip activity energy for V-VAD in HRI. The designing idea is based on lip movement and speaking assumptions, embracing two essential procedures into a single model. A bi-level HMM is an HMM with two state variables in different levels, where state occurrence in a lower level conditionally depends on the state in an upper level. The approach works online with low-resolution image and in various lighting conditions, and has been successfully tested in 21 image sequences (22,927 frames). It achieved over 90% of probabilities of detection, in which it brought improvements of almost 20% compared to four other V-VAD approaches.

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

visual voice activity detection
speakingness detection


On-line arbitrarily vertex decomposable trees A tree T is arbitrarily vertex decomposable if for any sequence ? ? of positive integers adding up to the order of T there is a sequence of vertex-disjoint subtrees of T whose orders are given by ? ? . An on-line version of the problem of characterizing arbitrarily vertex decomposable trees is completely solved here.

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

arbitrarily vertex decomposable graphs
on-line


Exact computation of bivariate projection depth and the Stahel-Donoho estimator The idea of data depth provides a new and promising methodology for multivariate non-parametric analysis Nevertheless the computation of data depth and the depth function his remained as a very challenging problem which has hindered the methodology from becoming more prevailing in practice The same is true for the powerful Stahel-Donoho (S-D) estimator Here we present an exact algorithm for the computation of the bivariate projection depth (PD) of data points and consequently of the S-D estimator (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved

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


Design of robust decentralized dynamic controller for uncertain large-scale interconnected systems with time-delays In this paper, we present a dynamic output feedback controller design technique for robust decentralized stabilization of uncertain large-scale systems with time-delay in the subsystem interconnections. Based on Lyapunov second method. a sufficient condition for the stability, is derived in terms of three linear matrix inequalities (LMI). The solutions of the LMIs can be easily obtained using efficient convex 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 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

decentralized control
large-scale system
lyapunov method


An Efficient RFID Search Protocol Based On Clouds In RFID applications, we may have to search a number of particular goods in a large-scale number of products. Previous work solve this problem to some extent. Firstly, they cannot work when the cardinality of X is lager than Y. Besides, they assume the reader has a powerful capacity which is adequate for computation. In this paper, we propose ITSP Iterative Tag Search Protocol based on cloud which solves these two problems. It uses multi-rounds communication on behalf of one-round communication to make search work when |X| > |Y|. Besides the readers request cloud service to help do computation to make up its limited computation capacity. Further, we still study the security during RFID Search. To be secure, ITSP authenticates readers and tags in advance to keep secure. Experimental results show that proposed scheme achieves higher searching efficiency with the improvement at least 19 %.

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


A dynamical N-queen problem solver using hysteresis neural networks In a previous study about a combinatorial optimization problem solver using neural networks, since the Hopfield method, convergence to the optimum solution sooner and with more certainty is regarded as important. Namely, only static states are considered as the information. However, from a biological point of view, dynamical systems have attracted attention recently. Therefore, we propose a "dynamical" combinatorial optimization problem solver using hysteresis neural networks. In this paper, the proposed system is evaluated by the N-Queen problem.

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

hysteresis neural network
dynamical solver
n-queen
problem number of all optimum solutions


Heat exchanger Kalman filtering with process dynamic acknowledgement This paper deals with the application of adaptive fading Kalman filtering (AFKF) to the design of an observer used to predict the state of an counter-current heat exchanger. In order to implement the AFKF, an accurate mathematical model, based on the approximation of temperatures along the process by first order dynamic model, is considered. This method could be applied when the heat exchanger is solicited by the flow rate changes. Experimental validation of this method is illustrated by an example. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

kalman observer
distributed parameter systems
system dynamic


New Forward-Secure Signature Scheme with Untrusted Update Forward-secure signatures can be used to limit the damage of secret key exposure for digital signatures. In a forward-secure signature scheme, the exposure of current secret key doesn't affect the security of signatures generated in previous periods. In order to integrate this primitive into standard security architectures, Boyen et al. presented a forward-secure signature scheme with untrusted update in the standard model. In this study, we propose another forward-secure signature scheme with untrusted update in the random oracle model. Compared with Boyen's scheme, this scheme has shorter public key, secret key and better key generation algorithm, update algorithm, encrypted key verifying algorithm and signing algorithm. At last, we prove that the scheme is update secure and forward secure under CDH assumption in the random oracle model.

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

digital signature
forward security
bilinear pairings
random oracles
provable security


Fuzzy rule-based similarity model enables learning from small case bases The concept of similarity plays a fundamental role in case-based reasoning. However, the meaning of similarity can vary in situations and is largely domain dependent. This paper proposes a novel similarity model consisting of linguistic fuzzy rules as the knowledge container. We believe that fuzzy rules representation offers a more flexible means to express the knowledge and criteria for similarity assessment than traditional similarity metrics. The learning of fuzzy similarity rules is performed by exploiting the case base, which is utilized as a valuable resource with hidden knowledge for similarity learning. A sample of similarity is created from a pair of known cases in which the vicinity of case solutions reveals the similarity of case problems. We do pair-wise comparisons of cases in the case base to derive adequate training examples for learning fuzzy similarity rules. The empirical studies have demonstrated that the proposed approach is capable of discovering fuzzy similarity knowledge from a rather low number of cases, giving rise to the competence of CBR systems to work on a small case library.

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


Parameter estimation in single-compartment neuron models using a synchronization-based method We describe a method for estimating parameter values in single-compartment neuron models from a recorded voltage trace. The technique involves synchronization between the model and the experimental data and minimizing a cost function that depends on the goodness of this synchrony with a minimum for optimal parameter values. We test our method using a previously developed single-compartment interneuron model that includes noise to mimic experimental data. Direct computation of the cost function over ranges of parameter values suggests that it changes smoothly, allowing for downhill optimization routines that utilize the gradient. We implement one such optimization routine with several kinetic parameters set at incorrect values. The optimization is fast and consistently returns good values. We discuss the considerations necessary when applying this approach to noisy data. In conclusion, we believe that this approach will be a useful tool in developing neuronal models.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-compartment model
parameter optimization
hodgkinhuxley model
synchronized dynamics


interactive tabletops with non-interactive rims The focus of digital tabletop research centers on the interactive display area. However, these displays are often integrated into physical non-interactive structures, which have received little attention previously. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of this non-interactive area, or 'rim' around the interactive display. We aim to increase the awareness and understanding of possible characteristics of non-interactive rims in order to guide designers to enhance user interaction and collaboration on the tabletop as a whole. Our findings were drawn from rim configurations in existing experimental settings, commercially available systems, and observations from a preliminary exploratory study that captures the usage of the rim by small groups collaborating in an office environment. We also envision possible opportunities that may arise for future tabletop systems.

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

synchronous co-located collaboration
multi-touch input devices


Experimental design methodology and data analysis technique applied to optimise an organic synthesis The study reported here was aimed at maximising the yield of a Michaelis-Becker dibromoalkane monophosphorylation reaction. In order to spare time and save money, we first applied a full factorial experimental design to search for the optimum conditions while performing a low number of experiments. In a second time, we used the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique to evidence two uncontrolled factors. Lastly, a special experimental design that took into account all the influential factors allowed us to determine the maximum-yield experimental conditions. This study also evidenced the complementary nature of experimental design methodology and data analysis techniques. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

experimental design methodology
data analysis technique
organic synthesis


Minimizing delivery cost in scalable streaming content distribution systems Recent scalable multicast streaming protocols for on-demand delivery of media content offer the promise of greatly reduced server and network bandwidth. However, a key unresolved issue is how to design scalable content distribution systems that place replica servers closer to various client populations and route client requests and response streams so as to minimize the total server and network delivery cost. This issue is significantly more complex than the design of distribution systems for traditional Web files or unicast on-demand streaming, for two reasons. First, closest server and shortest path routing does not minimize network bandwidth usage; instead, the optimal routing of client requests and server multicasts is complex and interdependent. Second, the server bandwidth usage increases with the number of replicas. Nevertheless, this paper shows that the complex replica placement and routing optimization problem, in its essential form, can be expressed fairly simply, and can be solved for example client populations and realistic network topologies. The solutions show that the optimal scalable system can differ significantly from the optimal system for conventional delivery. Furthermore, simple canonical networks are analyzed to develop insights into effective heuristics for near-optimal placement and routing. The proposed new heuristics can be used for designing large and heterogeneous systems that are of practical interest. For a number of example networks, the best heuristics produce systems with total delivery cost that is within 16% of optimality.

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


Accurate and efficient curve detection in images: the importance sampling Hough transform The Hough transform is a well known technique for detecting parametric curves in images. We place a particular group of Hough transforms, the probabilistic Hough transforms, in the framework of importance sampling. This framework suggests a way in which probabilistic Hough transforms can be improved: by specifying a target distribution and weighting the sampled parameters accordingly to make identification of curves easier. We investigate the use of clustering techniques to simultaneously identify multiple curves in the image. We also use probabilistic arguments to develop stopping conditions for the algorithm. Results from applying our method and two popular versions of the Hough transform to both simulated and real data are shown.

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

clustering
importance sampling
hough transform
target distribution


Privacy-preserving collaborative filtering Collaborative filtering (CF) techniques are becoming very popular on the Internet and are widely used in several domains to cope with information overload. E-commerce sites use filtering systems to recommend products to customers based on the preferences of like-minded customers, but their systems do not protect user privacy. Because users concerned about privacy may give false information, it is not easy to collect high-quality user data for collaborative filtering, and recommendation systems using poor data produce inaccurate recommendations. This means that privacy measures are key to the success of collecting high-quality data and providing accurate recommendations. This article discusses collaborative filtering with privacy based on both correlation and singular-value decomposition (SVD) and proposes the use of randomized perturbation techniques to protect user privacy while producing reasonably accurate recommendations. Such techniques add randomness to the original data, preventing the data collector (the server) from learning private user data, but this scheme can still provide accurate recommendations. Experiments were conducted with real datasets to evaluate the overall performance of the proposed scheme. The results were used for analysis of how different parameters affect accuracy. Collaborative filtering systems using randomized perturbation techniques were found to provide accurate recommendations while preserving user privacy.

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

accuracy
collaborative filtering
privacy
randomized perturbation
svd


Dual-stage repetitive control with Prandtl-Ishlinskii hysteresis inversion for piezo-based nanopositioning The positioning performance of piezo-based nanopositioning systems is limited by dynamic and hysteresis effects in the piezoactuator. Herein, a high-performance, dual-stage repetitive controller (dual-RC) with a feedforward hysteresis compensator is proposed for tracking periodic trajectories, such as the scanning-type motion, in nanopositioning systems. Firstly, a discrete-time dual-RC is created by cascading a conventional RC with an odd-harmonic RC. The favorable gain characteristics of the dual-RC coincide with the odd harmonics of the scanning-type periodic reference trajectory, thus offering good robustness and low tracking error. Secondly, a new inverse-hysteresis compensator is developed based on the Prandtl-Ishlinskii hysteresis model. The structure of the inverse model mimics the structure of the forward model, where the parameters of the inverse model can be easily identified from measured input-output data. Finally, the controllers are applied to a custom-designed high-speed nanopositioner, and simulations and experimental results are provided to illustrate the performance improvement of the proposed control scheme compared to industry-standard PID control and conventional RC. High-speed positioning results (tracking of triangle scan trajectories) at rates of 1 kHz, 1.5 kHz, and 2 kHz are shown. Compared to a conventional RC, the tracking error of the dual-RC is 48% lower at 1 kHz and 33% lower at 2 kHz scanning frequency. It is also shown that by compensating for hysteresis, the performance of the RC system designed based on the linear dynamics can be enhanced. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

repetitive control
hysteresis
nanopositioning


An accessible implementation of interest rate models with Markov-switching ? We examine the performance of interest rate models with regime-switching feature through a straightforward implementation. In particular, three short-rate models, the Vasicek, CIR and BlackKarasinski models, are extended to capture the switching of economic regimes using a finite-state Markov chain in discrete time. The Markov chain modulates the parameters of the model. We illustrate numerically that the resulting extended models are capable of reproducing various shapes of the yield curve. A quasi-maximum likelihood method based on James and Webber (2000) is employed to estimate the parameters of the regime-switching models. We demonstrate the implementation using actual financial datasets of Canadian yield rates. The numerical results show that under some model validation metrics, the two-state regime-switching models are more flexible, have better forecasting performance and provide better fit than the models without the regime-switching characteristic.

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

vasicek model
coxingersollross model
blackkarasinski model
quasi-maximum likelihood method
parameter estimation
regime-switching


The effect of base replacement on the dynamic load carrying capacity of robotic manipulators The problem of establishing the load carrying capacity of mobile base manipulators operated by limited force or torque actuators is presented. It is shown the maximum allowable load on a given load trajectory, is a function of base position. The load workspace is defined as the union of places where the base can be located on them and it carries a load by the manipulator on a desired trajectory. The load workspace is discretised into some grid points, and the base is positioned on each grid point. The recursive Newton-Euler method is used to compute the dynamic effects of the load and manipulator on each joint actuator, then the load carrying capacity of the mobile manipulator at each base location is computed by considering the manipulator joints and actuator torque constraints. By applying a simple procedure, a smaller subspace of the load workspace is selected, so that the load carrying capacity is near to a maximum. This procedure is repeated until the optimum base location is found so that the load carrying of the manipulator is a global maximum in the load workspace for the desired dynamic trajectory. Finally, the effect of base mobility on optimising the dynamic load carrying capacity for different robotic arms is investigated in separate case studies.

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


Linear-complexity detection with iterative processing for space-time coded systems This paper considers wireless data transmission over multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) channels when only the receiver has perfect channel state information. A linear-complexity space-time detector is derived in the context of a turbo-code-based space-time transmitter and iterative processing (turbo detection, demodulation and decoding). Simulation results illustrate that the proposed receivers, suitable for uplink transmission, perform at a level within 2 to 3 dB of the ergodic channel capacity on MIMO channels affected by uncorrelated and correlated Rayleigh flat fading.

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

signal detection
space-time coding
turbo codes


interactive object registration and recognition for augmented desk interface Identification of objects in a real world plays a key role for human-computer interaction in a computer-augmented environment using augmented reality techniques. For providing natural interaction in such environments, it is necessary for an interface system to know which objects a user is using. In the previously developed interface systems, real objects are identified by using specially designed tags attached to objects. In this work, we propose a new method for interactive object recognition and registration for more natural and intuitive interaction without using any tags. In particular, we introduce interactive object registration and recognition by combining direct manipulation with user's hands and a color-based object recognition algorithm.

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

color histogram
human computer interaction
computer vision


Bridging the algorithm gap: A linear-time functional program for paragraph formatting In the constructive programming community it is commonplace to see formal developments of textbook algorithms. In the algorithm design community, on the other hand, it may be well known that the textbook solution to a problem is not the most efficient possible. However, in presenting the more efficient solution, the algorithm designer will usually omit some of the implementation details, thus creating an algorithm gap between the abstract algorithm and its concrete implementation. This is in contrast to the formal development, which usually proceeds all the way to the complete concrete implementation of the less efficient solution. We claim that the algorithm designer is forced to omit some of the details by the relative expressive poverty of the Pascal-like languages typically used to present the solution. The greater expressiveness provided by a functional language would allow the whole story to be told in a reasonable amount of space. In this paper we use a functional language to present the development of a sophisticated algorithm all the way to the final code. We hope to bridge the algorithm gap between abstract and concrete implementations, and thereby facilitate communication between the constructive programming and algorithm design communities. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

functional programming
sparse dynamic programming
transformational programming


A refinement of the common cause principle I study the interplay between stochastic dependence and causal relations within the setting of Bayesian networks and in terms of information theory. The application of a recently defined causal information flow measure provides a quantitative refinement of Reichenbachs common cause principle.

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

bayesian networks
common cause principle

causality theory
information flows
multi-information


Texture- and multiple-template-based algorithm for lossless compression of error-diffused images Recently, several efficient context-based arithmetic coding algorithms have been developed successfully for lossless compression of error-diffused images. In this paper, we first present a novel block- and texture-based approach to train the multiple-template according to the most representative texture features. Based on the trained multiple template, we next present an efficient texture- and multiple-template-based (TM-based) algorithm for lossless compression of error-diffused images. In our proposed TM-based algorithm, the input image is divided into many blocks and for each block, the best template is adaptively selected from the multiple-template based on the texture feature of that block. Under 20 testing error-diffused images and the personal computer with Intel Celeron 2.8-GHz CPU, experimental results demonstrate that with a little encoding time degradation, 0.365 s (0.901 s) on average, the compression improvement ratio of our proposed TNI-based algorithm over the joint bilevel image group (JBIG) standard [over the previous block arithmetic coding for image compression (BACIC) algorithm proposed by Reavy and Boncelet is 24%] (19.4%). Under the same condition, the compression improvement ratio of our proposed algorithm over the previous algorithm by Lee and Park is 17.6% and still only has a little encoding time degradation (0.775 s on average). In addition, the encoding time required in the previous free tree-based algorithm is 109.131 s on average while our proposed algorithm takes 0.995 s; the average compression ratio of our proposed TM-based algorithm, 1.60, is quite competitive to that of the free tree-based algorithm, 1.62.

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

arithmetic coding
lossless compression
texture

context
error-diffused images
multiple-template


a study into the use of hyper-heuristics to solve the school timetabling problem Research in the domain of school timetabling has not developed as rapidly as other areas of educational timetabling such as university course and examination timetabling. A lot of research has been conducted into using hyper-heuristics to solve the university course and examination timetabling problem, however this area has not been investigated for school timetabling. The aim of hyper-heuristics is to generalize well over a set of problems for a particular domain, rather than producing the best result for one or more problems. Hyper-heuristics search a heuristic space instead of a space of potential solutions to the problem. This study is a first attempt at applying hyper-heuristics to the school timetabling problem. The study compares the performance of different low-level construction heuristics for this domain. An evolutionary algorithm (EA) is implemented to search the space of heuristic combinations. The study has also revealed that the use of "nondestructive" mutation and crossover operators, which incorporate the use of hill-climbing, improves the performance of the EA-based hyper-heuristic. The performance of the EA hyper-heuristic in solving the school timetabling problem is also compared to other methods applied to the same problem.

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


inertia-based distributed channel allocation We consider distributed channel allocation on planar conflict graphs describing interference couplings of wireless networks. We observe that the corresponding graph colouring problem is riddled by topologic defects that are annihilated when they meet the network boundary, or possibly another defect. Greedy algorithms lead to random walk -like motion of these defects. To increase the probability for them to meet the network boundary, we impose rules that add inertia to the motion of these defects. These rules give rise to a self-organizing resource allocation algorithm on the network which is cognicient of the motion of the defects. The example case of four-colouring a regular triangular lattice is considered. The median convergence time is found to be less than quadratic in the network size.

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


Multiple ROI selection based focal liver lesion classification in ultrasound images Ultrasound imaging is one of the most widely used imaging modality for the purpose of visualizing the human soft tissues. Especially, liver imaging application is of great importance in the areas of diagnostic ultrasound. In ultrasound liver image, the classification of lesions depends heavily on the characteristics of the lesions including internal echo, morphology, edge, echogenicity, and posterior echo enhancement. These characteristics are differently observed according to ROI selection methods that may indeed significantly impact the classification performances. Currently developed ROI selection methods have limitation for guaranteeing robust classification performance for focal liver lesions, mainly due to the inherent difficulties that represent all ultrasonic appearances of characteristics of lesion. In order to obtain better and more stable classification performances, we propose a new and novel approach, so-called multiple-ROI based focal liver lesion classification. The proposed approach properly combines the advantages of existing ROI selection methods to represent well various ultrasonic appearances of liver lesions including internal echo, morphology, edge, echogenicity, and posterior echo enhancement. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed ROI selection approach, extensive and comparative experiments have been performed using a total of 150 ultrasound images. Each ultrasound image contains one corresponding focal liver lesion so that a total of 150 focal liver lesions is used, comprising of 50 cysts, 50 hemangiomas, and 50 malignancies. Experimental results show that the proposed multiple-ROI-based approach can achieve the enhanced and stable classification performance regardless of features being used. In addition, our proposed method outperforms other existing classification methods designed for focal liver lesion classification. Especially, the proposed approach attains classification accuracy of up to 80% over well-known challenging task of classifying the hemangiomas and malignancies.

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

multiple roi
roi selection
focal liver lesion classification
ultrasound images


Saliency detection in complex scenes Detecting multiple salient objects in complex scenes is a challenging task. In this paper, we present a novel method to detect salient objects in images. The proposed method is based on the general center-surround visual attention mechanism and the spatial frequency response of the human visual system (HVS). The saliency computation is performed in a statistical way. This method is modeled following three biologically inspired principles and compute saliency by two scatter matrices which are used to measure the variability within and between two classes, i.e., the center and surrounding regions, respectively. In order to detect multiple salient objects of different sizes in a scene, the saliency of a pixel is estimated via its saliency support region which is defined as the most salient region centered at the pixel. Compliance with human perceptual characteristics enables the proposed method to detect salient objects in complex scenes and predict human fixations. Experimental results on three eye tracking datasets verify the effectiveness of the method and show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the visual saliency detection task.

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

saliency model
complex scene
human fixation prediction


Modeling the spatial distribution of crop sequences at a large regional scale using land-cover survey data: A case from France Mining crop sequences in land survey dataset with hidden Markov models. Estimation of the crop sequence probabilities without a priori using survey data. District clustering based on the similarity of occurrence of crop sequences. Cluster description in terms of 21 groups belonging to four cropping systems.

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

crop sequences
cropping systems
hidden markov models

cropping patterns
agricultural land-use
teruti survey


On the global avalanche characteristics between two Boolean functions and the higher order nonlinearity The criterion for the global avalanche characteristics (GAC) of cryptographic functions is an important property. To measure the correlation between two arbitrary Boolean functions, we propose two new criteria called the sum-of-squares indicator and the absolute indicator of the cross-correlation between two Boolean functions. The two indicators generalize the GAC criterion. Based on the properties of the cross-correlation function, we deduce the rough lower and the rough upper bounds on the two indicators by hamming weights of two Boolean functions, and generalize some properties between the Walsh spectrum and the cross-correlation function. Furthermore, we give the tight upper and the tight lower bounds on the two indicators. Finally, we show some relationships between the upper bounds on the two indicators and the higher order nonlinearity. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

boolean functions
global avalanche characteristics
walsh spectrum
higher order nonlinearity


Adaptive structure radial basis function network model for processes with operating region migration An adaptive structure radial basis function (RBF) network model is proposed in this paper to model nonlinear processes with operating point migration. The recursive orthogonal least squares algorithm (ROLS) is adopted to select new centers on-line, as well as to train the network weights. Based on the R matrix in the orthogonal decomposition, an initial center bank is formed and updated in each sample period. A new learning strategy is proposed to gain information from the new data for network structure adaptation. A center grouping algorithm is also developed to divide the centers into active and non-active groups, so that a structure with a smaller size is maintained in the final network model used for output prediction. The proposed RBF model is evaluated and compared with the three existing adaptive structure RBF networks by modeling a nonlinear time-varying numerical example. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has several advantages in term of the adaptive tracking ability and a better recovery speed over the existing methods during the migration of system?s operating point.

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

neural network model
adaptive structure network
rols algorithm
rbf structure adaptation


Performance analysis of CSMA/CA protocols with multi-packet transmission Wireless objects equipped with multiple antennas are able to simultaneously transmit multiple packets by exploiting the channels spatial dimensions. In this paper, we study the benefits of such Multiple Packet Transmission (MPT) approach, when it is used in combination with a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol for fully interconnected networks, addressing the interactions between the two mechanisms and showing the performance gains that can be achieved. To this end, a very simple Media Access Control (MAC) protocol that captures the fundamental properties and tradeoffs of a CSMA/CA channel access protocol supporting MPT is introduced. Using this protocol as a reference, a new analytical model is presented for the case of non-saturated traffic sources with finite buffer space. Simulation results show that the analytical model is able to accurately characterize the steady-state behavior of the reference protocol for different number of antennas and different traffic loads, providing a useful tool for understanding the performance gains achieved by MAC protocols supporting MPT.

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

csma/ca
multi-packet transmission
sdma
queueing model
non-saturation
performance evaluation


International Standard Development for Knowledge Based Engineering Services for Product Lifecycle Management In September 2005, the international information technology standard body Object Management Group (OMG) published a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an international standard for Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) Services for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The standard aims to facilitate the integration of KBE applications in a PLM environment. KBE has been used in key engineering industry to deliver significant business benefits and has been a catalyst for changes in engineering processes. In recent years, mainstream CAD vendors begin to incorporate KBE functionalities in their solutions. PLM is evolving from the platform to manage engineering data to the repository of complete enterprise knowledge. As CAD becomes more knowledge based, the convergence of KBE and PLM is expected to happen soon. The OMG standard RFP is an action to accelerate this convergence. The RFP is the result of an international effort with a team that includes engineering end users, software vendors and researchers. This paper presents the essence and the development process of the RFP to widen the engagement with the engineering research community.

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 B I I O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 engineering
product lifecycle management


On Detecting Spectrum Opportunities for Cognitive Vehicular Networks in the TV White Space We overview the challenges related to spectrum awareness in the vehicular environment, with emphasis on awareness in the TV licensed band. In the vehicular environment the cognitive radio can help to: 1) satisfy capacity demand for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications; and 2) offload time insensitive applications from the ITS dedicated spectrum. However, using simple propagation models we show that neither sensing, nor geolocation database lookup alone can provide sufficient incumbent protection. Collaboration among the sensors to take advantage of spatial diversity is difficult due to the rapidly changing network topology. Nevertheless, mobility provides the opportunity to use time diversity at each sensor. We also discuss the influence of sensing subsystem design on the vehicular cognitive network medium access (MAC) sublayer. Whenever appropriate, we evaluate applicability of the requirements imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the IEEE 802.22 standard to the cognitive vehicular networks.

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

vehicular networks
geolocation database lookup

cognitive networks
spectral awareness
spectrum sensing
wireless channel diversity


A novel network mobility management scheme supporting seamless handover for high-speed trains Automotive telematics has become an important technology for high-speed rail systems, which are being increasingly popular in this era of green technology. As the train speed increases, however, communications between the train and infrastructure encounter major difficulties of maintaining high quality communication. Handovers on high-speed trains occur more frequently and have shorter permissible handling times than for traditional vehicles. In this paper, the proposed 2MR network mobility scheme takes advantage of the physical size of high-speed trains to deploy two mobile routers (MRs) in the first and last carriages. This scheme provides a protocol to allow the two MRs to cooperate with a wireless network infrastructure in facilitating seamless handovers. Our simulation results demonstrate that compared to the traditional single MR schemes, the 2MR scheme noticeably improves the communication quality during handover by significantly reducing handover latency as well as packet loss for high-speed trains. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Formulation, computation and improvement of steady state security margins in power systems. Part I: Theoretical framework A steady state security margin for a particular operational point can be defined as the distance from this initial point to the secure operational limits of the system. Four of the most used steady state security margins are the power flow feasibility margin, the contingency feasibility margin, the load margin to voltage collapse, and the total transfer capability between system areas. A comprehensive literature survey has shown that these security margins have been studied separately. This fact has suggested to the authors the possibility of researching a common analysis framework valid for all of them. This is the first part of a two-part paper. In part I, a novel mathematical formulation valid to address the study of any steady state security margin is proposed. The developed general approach is presented in three steps: (a) formulation, (b) computation, and (c) improvement of security margins. In part II, the performance of the proposed approach when used to compute and improve the aforementioned steady security margins is illustrated through its application to the Spanish power system. Results denote that this approach can be a useful tool to solve a variety of practical situations in modern real power systems.

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

security margins
power flow feasibility
voltage collapse
total transfer capability

steady state analysis
contingency analysis


Wireless sensor networks in intelligent transportation systems Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) offer the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of existing transportation systems. Currently, collecting traffic data for traffic planning and management is achieved mostly through wired sensors. The equipment and maintenance cost and time-consuming installations of existing sensing systems prevent large-scale deployment of real-time traffic monitoring and control. Small wireless sensors with integrated sensing computing, and wireless communication capabilities offer tremendous advantages in low cost and easy installation. In this paper, we first survey existing WSN technologies for intelligent transportation systems (ITSs), including sensor technologies, energy-efficient networking protocols, and applications of sensor networks for parking lot monitoring. traffic monitoring, and traffic control. Then. we present new methods on applying WSNs in traffic modeling and estimation and traffic control, and show their improved performance overexisting solutions. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

wireless sensor network (wsn)
intelligent transportation system (its)
traffic estimation


high resolution mash 2-2 sigma delta interface for capacitive accelerometers This paper describes the design of fourth order MASH ?? interface for MEMS capacitive accelerometers which is capable of converting change in differential capacitance to a digital output. It employs a switched capacitor (SC) charge amplifier as front end block with open loop gain of 120dB and total integrated noise of 4.5V from dc to 10 kHz and a switched capacitor 2-2 multi stage noise shaping (MASH) sigma delta modulator as a back end block. Circuit simulations show that the interface system can achieve SNDR of 100dB in the signal band which is equivalent to capacitive resolution of 10aF for nominal capacitance ranging from 1pF to 10pF.

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


Efficient disk-based K-means clustering for relational databases K-means is one of the most popular clustering algorithms. This article introduces an efficient disk-based implementation of K-means. The proposed algorithm is designed to work inside a relational database management system. It can cluster large data sets having very high dimensionality. In general, it only requires three scans over the data set. It is optimized to perform heavy disk I/O and its memory requirements are low. Its parameters are easy to set. An extensive experimental section evaluates quality of results and performance. The proposed algorithm is compared against the Standard K-means algorithm as well as the Scalable K-means algorithm.

O O O B 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 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


A Cumulative Belief Degree-Based Approach for Missing Values in Nuclear Safeguards Evaluation Nuclear safeguards are a set of activities to verify that a State is living up to its international undertakings not to use nuclear programs for nuclear weapons purposes. Nuclear safeguards experts of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) evaluate indicators by benefitting from several sources such as State declarations, on-site inspections, the IAEA databases, and other open sources. The IAEA expert evaluations are aggregated to make a final decision, which usually incomplete because of over 900 indicators, lack of expertise, and unavailability of information sources. In this study, a cumulative belief degree approach is introduced based on the belief structure. It is used to aggregate the incomplete expert evaluations that are represented with fuzzy linguistic terms. Moreover, a reliability index is employed to find the trustworthiness of the final result depending on the available evaluations. A numerical example illustrates the applicability of the proposed methodology.

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 O O O O O O O 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

cumulative belief degree
missing values
nuclear safeguards evaluation


A constructive enumeration of nanotube caps In this article, we describe a method of constructing all non-isomorphic caps for a nanotube with given parameters l,m and present results of a computer program based on this algorithm.

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

planar graph
fullerene
construction
isomorphism


A web service-based grid portal for edgebreaker compression Background: In health applications, and elsewhere, 3D data sets are increasingly accessed through the Internet. To reduce the transfer time while maintaining an unaltered 3D model, adequate compression and decompression techniques are needed. Recently, Grid technologies have been integrated with Web Services technologies to provide a framework for interoperable application-to-application interaction. Objectives. The paper describes an implementation of the Edgebreaker compression technique exploiting web services technology and presents a novel approach for using such services in a Grid Portal. The Grid portal, developed at the CACT/ISUFI of the University of Lecce, allows the processing and delivery of biomedical images (CT - computerized tomography - and MRI magnetic resonance images) in a distributed environment, using the power and security of computational Grids. Methods: The Edgebreaker Compression Web Service has been deployed on a Grid portal and allows compressing and decompressing 3D data sets using the Globus toolkit GSI (Globus Security Infrastructure) protocol. Moreover, the classical algorithm has been modified extending the compression to files containing more than one object. Results and Conclusions. An implementation of the Edgebreaker compression technique and related experimental results are presented. A novel approach for using the compression web service in a Grid portal allowing storing and preprocessing of huge 3D data sets, and subsequent efficient transmission of results for remote visualization is also described.

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

edgebreaker algorithm
computational grid


A note on worst-case performance of heuristics for maintenance scheduling problems We study a machine scheduling model in which job scheduling and machine maintenance activities have to be considered simultaneously. We develop the worst-case bounds for some heuristic algorithms, including a sharper worst-case bound of the SPT schedule than the results in the literature, and another bound of the EDD schedule.

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

scheduling
maintenance
spt schedule
edd schedule


Economic analysis of the introduction of the MVNO system and its major implications for optimal policy decisions in Korea This study analyzes the anticipated economic effects arising from the introduction of the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) system in the mobile communications service market. For the analysis, actual data (or estimated data)such as price elasticity, the number of subscribers, traffic volume, rate, and access chargewere combined with an assumption about a competition scenario in the future market. Based on this analysis, consumer surplus, and change in the service provider's profits were estimated according to the type of policy that may be adopted for the MVNO system by the regulator. The results of the analysis indicate that consumer surplus appears to increase largely because of the reduction of the mobile service rate by the promotion of service-based competition, which occurs upon adoption of an MVNO policy in the mobile communication service market. Moreover, the introduction of an MVNO system into the mobile communication market seems to be socially beneficial regardless of policy type if access charges are set reasonably by a cost-plus or retail-minus method. In particular, in order to make sense of the introduction of a special MVNO, whether by the cost-plus method or the retail-minus method, the correct discount rate must be used in setting an access charge between the special MVNO and the significant market power (SMP) mobile network operator (MNO).

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

carrier selection
indirect access
interconnection
local loop unbundling
roaming
service-based competition
wibro


Gossiping with multiple messages This paper investigates the dissemination of multiple pieces of information in large networks where users contact each other in a random uncoordinated manner, and users upload one piece per unit time. The underlying motivation is the design and analysis of piece selection protocols for peer-to-peer networks which disseminate files by dividing them into pieces. We first investigate one-sided protocols, where piece selection is based on the states of either the transmitter or the receiver. We show that any such protocol relying only on pushes, or alternatively only on pulls, is inefficient in disseminating all pieces to all users. We propose a hybrid one-sided piece selection protocol-INTERLEAVE-and show that by using both pushes and pulls it disseminates k pieces from a single source ton, users in 9(k + logn) time, while obeying the constraint that each user can upload at most one piece in one unit of time, with high probability for large it. An optimal, unrealistic, centralized protocol would take k + log(2)n time in this setting. For a soft upload constraint, the finishing time of INTERLEAVE is, with high probability, at most 3.2 (k + log n). Moreover, efficient dissemination is also possible if the source implements forward erasure coding, and users push the latest released coded pieces (but do not pull). We also investigate two-sided protocols where piece selection is based on the states of both the transmitter and the receiver. We show that it is possible to disseminate n pieces to n users in n + O(logn) time, starting from an initial state where each user has a unique piece.

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

gossip
peer-to-peer
random networks
rumor mongering


Combining static analysis and state transition graphs for verification of event-condition-action systems in the RERS 2012 and 2013 challenges We present a combination of approaches for the verification of event-condition-action (ECA) systems. The analyzed ECA systems range from structurally simple to structurally complex systems. We address the verification of reachability properties and behavioral properties. Reachability properties are represented by assertions in the program and we determine statically whether an assertion holds for all execution paths. Behavioral properties are represented as linear temporal logic formulas specifying the input/output behavior of the program. Our approach assumes a finite state space. We compare a symbolic analysis with an exhaustive state space exploration and discuss the trade-offs between the approaches in terms of the number of computed states and run-time behavior. All variants compute a state transition graph which can also be passed to an LTL verifier. The variants have a different impact on the number of computed states in the state transition graph which in turn impacts the run-time and memory consumption of subsequent phases. We evaluate the different analysis variants with the RERS benchmarks.

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

program analysis
model checking
event-condition-action system


Analysis of distribution time of multiple files in a P2P network Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing attracts much attention due to its scalability and robustness. One important metric in measuring the performance of a P2P file sharing system is the amount of time required for all peers to get the files. We refer this time as the file distribution time. Researchers have proposed protocols to minimize the file distribution time under different situation. However, most works are based on the single-file scenario. On the other hand, there are studies showing that in a file sharing application, users may download multiple files at the same time. In this paper, we analyze the minimum time needed to distribute multiple files. We develop an explicit expression for the minimum amount of time needed to distribute multiple files in a heterogeneous P2P fluid model. Unlike the single-file scenario, we demonstrate that the theoretical lower bound in multi-file is not always achievable. With a comprehensive consideration of all the configurations, we elaborate how to partition the bandwidth capacities of both seeds and leechers for a particular file such that the finish time is optimal.

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

file distribution
multiple files
distribution time


Antonyms and linguistic quantifiers in fuzzy logic The paper is a contribution to the theory of fuzzy logic in broader sense (FLb), namely the discussion of linguistic expressions fundamental for it-the evaluating linguistic predications, the pairs "nominal syntagm-antonym", and the theory of linguistic quantifiers. The aim is to develop a theory of natural human reasoning, whose characteristic feature is the use of natural language. Formalism of FLb is based on the theory of fuzzy logic in narrow sense with evaluated syntax, which provides us means for modelling of the concepts of intension, possible world and extension. Characterization of some of the main properties of the above expressions is provided. We also propose a modified definition of the linguistic variable. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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 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

antonyms
intension
extension
possible world

fuzzy logic in narrow and broader sense
generalized quantifiers


Efficient codebooks for fast and accurate low resource ASR systems Today, speech interfaces have become widely employed in mobile devices, thus recognition speed and resource consumption are becoming new metrics of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) performance. For ASR systems using continuous Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), the computation of the state likelihood is one of the most time consuming parts. In this paper, we propose novel multi-level Gaussian selection techniques to reduce the cost of state likelihood computation. These methods are based on original and efficient codebooks. The proposed algorithms are evaluated within the framework of a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition task.

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


Fire flame detection in video sequences using multi-stage pattern recognition techniques In this paper, we propose an effective technique that is used to automatically detect fire in video images. The proposed algorithm is composed of four stages: (1) an adaptive Gaussian mixture model to detect moving regions, (2) a fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm to segment the candidate fire regions from these moving regions based on the color of fire, (3) special parameters extracted based on the tempo-spatial characteristics of fire regions, and (4) a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm using these special parameters to distinguish between fire and non-fire. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperforms other fire detection algorithms, providing high reliability and a low false alarm rate.

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

mixture of gaussian model
fuzzy c-means
support vector machines


Comprehensive tireroad friction coefficient estimation based on signal fusion method under complex maneuvering operations Simple method to estimate road friction for ABS, TCS and AYC for ground test. No extra pressure sensors and other apparatus. Combine the road friction for ABS, TCS and AYC to improve robustness and accuracy. Tested under complex maneuvering operations. Consider the driving and steering combined condition.

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

tireroad friction coefficient
signal fusion
complex maneuvering operations

vehicle dynamics control
experimental vehicle test


Profit allocation mechanisms for carrier collaboration in pickup and delivery service In collaborative logistics, multiple carriers may form an alliance by sharing their transportation requests and vehicle capacities in order to increase vehicle utilization rates and reduce empty back hauls. In this paper, a carrier collaboration problem in pickup and delivery service (CCPPD) is studied. CCPPD has two important issues which are the optimal reallocation of transportation requests among the carriers to maximize a total profit of the alliance and a fair allocation of the profit among the carriers so as to maintain the stability of the alliance. In this study, the profit allocation among carriers is addressed under a centralized collaboration framework. We propose three profit allocation mechanisms which are based on Shapley value, the proportional allocation concept, and the contribution of each carrier in offering and serving requests, respectively. All the mechanisms ensure that the allocation is in the core lithe latter is not empty. They are evaluated and compared with numerical experiments on randomly generated instances. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

collaborative logistics
carrier collaboration

profit allocation mechanism
cooperative game


Technology trends in survey data collection This article reviews recent and emerging technology developments in survey research. Recent developments include computer-assisted self-interviewing (CASI) methods using audio and/or video, automated telephone interviewing systems (interactive voice response), and the World Wide Web. These developments are already having a profound effect on survey data collection. Newer technological challenges include wireless applications (mobile web) and portable digital devices. These technologies offer many opportunities to expand the way we think of survey data collection, increasing the ways we can interact with survey respondents and expanding the range of stimulus material that can be used. The implications of many of these new developments for survey data quality are yet to be fully understood. This article reviews the state of the field with regard to emerging data collection technologies, and their implications for survey research.

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

automated telephone interviewing
survey research
data collection technologies


Linguistic kernels for answer re-ranking in question answering systems Answer selection is the most complex phase of a question answering (QA) system. To solve this task, typical approaches use unsupervised methods such as computing the similarity between query and answer, optionally exploiting advanced syntactic, semantic or logic representations. In this paper, we study supervised discriminative models that learn to select (rank) answers using examples of question and answer pairs. The pair representation is implicitly provided by kernel combinations applied to each of its members. To reduce the burden of large amounts of manual annotation, we represent question and answer pairs by means of powerful generalization methods, exploiting the application of structural kernels to syntactic/semantic structures. We experiment with support vector machines and string kernels, syntactic and shallow semantic tree kernels applied to part-of-speech tag sequences, syntactic parse trees and predicate argument structures on two datasets which we have compiled and made available. Our results on classification of correct and incorrect pairs show that our best model improves the bag-of-words model by 63% on a TREC dataset. Moreover, such a binary classifier, used as a re-ranker, improves the mean reciprocal rank of our baseline QA system by 13%. These findings demonstrate that our method automatically selects an appropriate representation of questionanswer relations.

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

question answering
predicate argument structures


REMOTE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN UNKNOWN SINGLE-QUBIT OPERATION BY DIFFERENT DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM CHANNEL We present two novel protocols for remote implementation of an unknown single-qubit operation with an EPR pair and a high-dimensional entangled state as the quantum channel, without and with quantum control. The main strategy of the protocols is teleportation of an unknown single-qubit operation, which consists of an usual teleportation of an arbitrary single-qubit state, nonsymmetric basis measurement, and corresponding local transformation. It is shown that the teleportation of the quantum operation can be implemented with unit successful probability.

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

teleportation
nonsymmetric basis measurement

quantum nonlocal operation
high-dimensional entangled state
generalized projective measurement


Alg_OS-A Web-Based Software Tool to Teach Page Replacement Algorithms of Operating Systems to Undergraduate Students Operating systems (OS) is an important and mandatory discipline in many Computer Science, Information Systems, and Computer Engineering curricula. Some of its topics require a careful and detailed explanation from the instructor as they often involve theoretical concepts and somewhat complex mechanisms, demanding a certain degree of abstraction from the students if they are to gain a full understanding. The aim of this study was to design and evaluate the software tool Alg_OS. This software tool was designed to serve the learning purposes of the memory management and especially the page replacement algorithms operation to be used in the everyday OS classrooms. The undergraduate students can easily explore the operations of those algorithms through an interaction with Alg_OS user interface. More specifically, students can develop the operation way for each algorithm separately and learn from their mistakes that the software shows automatically in real time. All students performances stored in a database of Alg_OS. A total of 111 final-year undergraduate university students of the Department of Applied Informatics in Management and Economy, Technological Educational Institution of Messolonghi, Messolonghi, Greece were surveyed about their intention to use Alg_OS in their learning. The results showed that students had positive values indicating a tendency to be favorable towards using Alg_OS in their learning. (c) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 581-585, 2013

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

operating systems
page replacement algorithms


An extensible toolbox for modeling naturesociety interactions TerraME is a toolbox for modeling and simulation of naturesociety interactions. Novel abstractions and services support multiscale spatiotemporal modeling. It allows the combined use of several paradigms for model implementation. It provides an extensible high-level modeling language. GIS integration supports real-world case studies.

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

naturesociety models
multi-scale modeling
environmental modeling
discrete event simulation
cellular automata
multi-agent systems