Segmented Tau approximation for a forward-backward functional differential equation A new approach to numerically solve the forward-backward functional differential equation x'(t) = ax(t) + bx(t - 1) + cx(t + 1), (1) is presented, where a, b, and c are constant parameters. The step by step version of the Tau method is applied to approximate the solution of Eq. (1) by a piecewise polynomial function. A boundary value problem is posed, solved with the proposed method, and analyzed. The numerical results obtained are consistent with those produced by other methods found in the literature. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

numerical functional differential equation


Extending the value of ERP Two distinct phases of ERP have been identified. The first phase refers to the changes that an organization undergoes In transforming from the old system and "going live" with the ERP system. The second phase, also called the second wave of ERP, refers to the actions subsequent to ERP Implementation, that enable the organization to achieve the full capabilities and benefits of ERP. The paper examines the problems organizations frequently experience with ERP implementations, and suggests strategies for extending the value of ERP systems.

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

software use
organizational change
information systems


Multifrequency vibro-acoustography Elasticity imaging is a burgeoning medical imaging field. Many methods have been proposed that impart a force to tissue and measure the mechanical response. One method, vibroacoustography, uses the ultrasound radiation force to harmonically vibrate tissue and measure the resulting acoustic emission field with a nearby hydrophone. Another method, vibrometry, uses the ultrasound radiation force accompanied with a measurement of the resulting velocity or displacement of the vibrating tissue or object has also been used for different applications. An extension of the vibro-acoustography method using a multifrequency stress field to vibrate an object is described. The objective of this paper is to present the image formation theory for multifrequency vibro-acoustography. We show that the number of low-frequency components created by this multifrequency method scales with the square of the number of ultrasound sources used. We provide experimental validation of the point-spread function-of the multifrequency stress field and show examples of both vibrometry and vibro-acoustography imaging applications. This method holds the potential for a large gain of information with no increase in scanning time compared to conventional vibro-acoustography systems.

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

elasticity imaging
imaging
multifrequency
ultrasound
vibrometry


On computational power of insertion-deletion systems without using contexts An Insertion-Deletion system, first introduced in [1], is a theoretical computing model in the DNA computing framework based on insertion and deletion operations. When insertion and deletion operations work together, as expected, they are very powerful. In fact, it has been shown that even the very restricted Insertion-Deletion systems can characterize the class of recursively enumerable languages [1]-[4]. In this paper, we investigate the computational power of Insertion-Deletion systems and show that they preserve the computational universality without using contexts.

O 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

insertion-deletion system
formal language
automaton


The prediction for listed companies financial distress by using multiple prediction methods with rough set and DempsterShafer evidence theory It is critical to build an effective prediction model to improve the accuracy of financial distress prediction. Some existing literatures have demonstrated that single classifier has limitations and combination of multiple prediction methods has advantages in financial distress prediction. In this paper, we extend the research of multiple predictions to integrate with rough set and DempsterShafer evidence theory. We use rough set to determine the weight of each single prediction method and utilize DempsterShafer evidence theory method as the combination method. We discuss the research process for the financial distress prediction based on the proposed method. Finally, we provide an empirical experiment with Chinese listed companies real data to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method. We find that the performance of the proposed method is superior to those of single classifier and other multiple classifiers.

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

financial distress prediction
multiple prediction methods
rough set
dempstershafer evidence theory
weight


dynamic load balancing in rcan content addressable network RCAN [1] is a novel multi-ring content addressable peer-to-peer system. RCAN was proposed in the aim of improving the routing performance of CAN [4] overlays while minimizing the maintenance overhead during nodes churn in large networks. The key idea of RCAN is to equip each node with a few long-links towards some distant nodes. Long-links are clockwise directed and wrap around to form small rings along each dimension. The number of rings and their sizes self-adjust as nodes join and leave the system. RCAN is a pure P2P design, where all nodes assume the same responsibility. Unlike some existing P2P overlays, RCAN is self-organizing and does not assume any a-priori fixed limits for the network size or the routing state per node. Each node auto-adapts its routing state to cope with network changes. In this work, we address the problem of load balancing in RCAN system. We propose fully decentralized mechanisms to cope with large scale data imbalance. Our methods extend the random join process [7,12] to enable a newly joining node to locate an existing node with a heavy load to share the load with. A new joining node selects one or more existing nodes at random, and then it chooses the heaviest node among them to share the load with. The heaviest node may also be located through a random walk starting from a randomly selected node. In opposition to [7], the proposed methods do not rely on any external index nor assume any global knowledge. All routing and load information is disseminated in the network through links established between immediate and distant neighbors, incurring thus no extra overhead. On another side, the number of probed nodes is logarithmic [1] which enables to achieve constant load imbalance less than or equal to 8 [12, 13, 16]. A combination of the two methods would achieve much smaller load imbalance that is less than or equal to 4 [12]. We also studied the impact of number of entry points to the systems on the load imbalance factor. To the best of our knowledge we are the first to address this problem. We have also conducted an extensive experimental study using uniform and non-uniform data distributions to demonstrate the effectiveness and the scalability of our proposals.

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


An efficient multiple shooting based reduced SQP strategy for large-scale dynamic process optimization - Part II: Software aspects and applications As model based optimization techniques play a more and more important role in the chemical process industries, there is a great demand for ever more efficient and reliable process optimization software. In the first part of this paper, the theoretical aspects of a tailored multiple shooting based solution strategy for dynamic process optimization have been presented (Leineweber, Bauer, Bock & Schloder, 2002. An efficient multiple shooting based reduced SQP strategy for large-scale dynamic process optimization-part 1: theoretical aspects). The current second part describes software aspects of the specific implementation muscod-ii and provides numerical results for several application examples. muscod-ii has been coupled with the dynamic process modeling software gPROMS via the standard equation set object (ESO) interface of CAPE-OPEN. Thereby, an advanced dynamic optimization platform for integrated batch processes has been created, where each process stage is separately modeled in gPROMS, and the multistage dynamic optimization problem is assembled and solved with MUSCOD-II. The code has also been parallelized. based on the portable MPI standard. It is shown that the use of directional sensitivities becomes very important for larger problems with many algebraic variables, leading to drastically reduced computing times compared with strategies with complete constraint linearization. In addition, gPROMS ESO models are compared with classical Fortran models in terms of computational performance, and it is found that only a moderate loss of performance occurs if so-called in-process ESOs are employed. Finally, it is demonstrated that a significant speed-up can be obtained through parallel function and gradient evaluations. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 shooting
directional sensitivities
integrated batch processes

dynamic optimization software
cape-open standard
equation set object (eso)
structured rsqp methods
multistage optimal control problems
parallel computing


A SELF-OSCILLATING SWITCHING POWER AMPLIFIER A self-oscillating switching power amplifier is proposed. We use feedback to reduce the output DC bias current and to produce self-oscillation. Further, filters are added in the feedback loop to reduce the quantization noise. The experimental results show that the proposed circuit has 0.25% total harmonic distortion (THD) and the efficiency of output power of 840 mu W reaches 90.1% while the DC output bias current is 8 mu A and the supply voltage is 1.5 V.

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


Improved Gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density smoother An improved GM-PHD smoother is proposed. The modified survival probability used in backward smoothing is developed. A modified backward corrector based on the original formulation is presented. Our algorithm overcomes the existing drawbacks in standard GM-PHD smoother. The superiority of our algorithm has been verified by simulation results.

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

gaussian mixture
probability hypothesis density
smoothing


Slow serious games, interactions and play: Designing for positive and serious experience and reflection ? Proposed herein are slow interactions and gameplay with serious games, referred to as slow serious games. These are slow movements intended to focus attention/concentration, and provide openings and opportunities for reflection, contemplation, and learning. Like devices used in film and theatre, this forms part of an emerging design repertoire of strategies and devices to articulate and manipulate time and space and narrative in interactions and games for the shaping of experience. To illustrate the idea of slow serious interactions and gameplay, the related interaction design, interactive art and game literature is reviewed. Next, devices and strategies for the design and development of slow serious interactions are proposed. Through example, we describe the development of a game to raise awareness of issues and threats affecting ecosystems in Australias Great Barrier Reef. This includes novel design strategies to engage the player in interaction/play with these issues and threats, and to blend slow and fast interaction and gameplay to stimulate thought and shape experience between positive and serious experience. The design strategies outlined herein can be used to inform design and development of other interactions, games and slow serious games and art games.

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


Knowledge representation framework for interactive capture and management of reflection process in product concepts development A design process can be characterized by reflection-in-action; that is, the process consists of a series of problem solving activities and each is embodied with a problem and a solution. In this process, a designer represents a hypothetical concept on each design alternative, deploys and verifies the concept from multiple viewpoints considering other alternatives, and modifies it. An advanced integrated design environment should be based on a representation framework that embodies this process of reflection in concept development, which usually remains in the realm of the designers tacit knowledge. This paper proposes a knowledge representation framework for an integrated design environment, named DRIFT (Design Representation Integration Framework of Three layers), which interactively captures and manages reflection processes of generating and verifying design concepts. The core of DRIFT is a three-layered design process model of actions, operations, and argumentation. This model integrates various design tools and captures performed design activities. The action level captures the sequence of design operations. The model operation level captures the transition of design states, recording a design snapshot over design tools, which are integrated through ontology-based representation of design concepts. The argumentation level captures the process of defining problems and corresponding alternative solutions. Integration of three levels with a template of design operation extracted from Design-For-X approaches enables a proposed system to interactively and efficiently capture and manage the process of design concept development through operations over design tools. A design operation template works to limit the number of links between the three levels remaining easy to manage its semantics. This paper also demonstrates a prototype implementation of DRIFT and its application to conceptual design of a small mechatronic system with a system modeling method. The paper concludes with a discussion of some future issues.

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

knowledge management
design rationale
design support system
ontology


dynamically-optimized context in recommender systems Traditional approaches to recommender systems have not taken into account situational information when making recommendations, and this seriously limits the relevance of the results. This paper advocates context-awareness as a promising approach to enhance the performance of recommenders, and introduces a mechanism to realize this approach. We present a framework that separates the contextual concerns from the actual recommendation module, so that contexts can be readily shared across applications. More importantly, we devise a learning algorithm to dynamically identify the optimal set of contexts for a specific recommendation task and user. An extensive series of experiments has validated that our system is indeed able to learn both quickly and accurately.

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

user feedback
machine learning
context weight
recommender system


On local search and placement of meters in networks This work is motivated by the problem of placing pressure-meters in fluid networks. The problem is formally defined in graph-theoretic terms as follows. Given a graph, find a cotree (complement of a tree) incident upon the minimum number of vertices. We show that this problem is NP-hard and MAX SNP-hard. We design an algorithm with an approximation factor of 2+epsilon for this problem for any fixed epsilon>0. This approximation bound comes from the analysis of a local search heuristic, a common practical optimization technique that does not often allow formal worst-case analysis. The algorithm is made very efficient by finding restrictive definitions of the local neighborhoods to be searched. We also exhibit a polynomial time approximation scheme for this problem when the input is restricted to planar graphs.

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

approximation algorithms
feedback sets
pressure-meters


Gene selection for cancer identification: a decision tree model empowered by particle swarm optimization algorithm In the application of microarray data, how to select a small number of informative genes from thousands of genes that may contribute to the occurrence of cancers is an important issue. Many researchers use various computational intelligence methods to analyzed gene expression data.

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

gene expression
cancer
particle swarm optimization


A modified simulated annealing algorithm for the quadratic assignment problem The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is one of the well-known combinatorial optimization problems and is known for its various applications. In this paper, we propose a modified simulated annealing algorithm for the QAP - M-SA-QAP. The novelty of the proposed algorithm is an advanced formula of calculation of the initial and final temperatures, as well as an original cooling schedule with oscillation, i.e., periodical decreasing and increasing of the temperature. In addition, in order to improve the results obtained, the simulated annealing algorithm is combined with a tabu search approach based algorithm. We tested our algorithm on a number of instances from the library of the QAP instances - QAPLIB. The results obtained from the experiments show that the proposed algorithm appears to be superior to earlier versions of the simulated annealing for the QAR The power of M-SA-QAP is also corroborated by the fact that the new best known solution was found for the one of the largest QAP instances - THO150.

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

simulated annealing
quadratic assignment problem


An effective shaking procedure for 2D and 3D strip packing problems Strip packing intends to minimise the height required for placing a set of rectangular items into a strip with infinite height. The present paper introduces a fast, yet effective shaking algorithm for the two- and three-dimensional strip packing problems, which are both NP-hard. The proposed heuristic procedure starts from an ordered item list, from which it alternates between forward and backward construction phases. The algorithm builds upon the common (deepest) bottom-left-fill algorithm, but shows significantly better results. Improvements on the solution quality of more than 9% can be observed. Moreover, applying the shaking procedure as a post processing algorithm to existing high performance heuristics also leads to improvements.

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


Numerical experiments on the capacity of quantum channel with entangled input states The capacity of quantum channel with product input states was formulated by the quantum coding theorem. However, whether entangled input states can enhance the quantum channel is still open. It turns out that this problem is reduced to a special case of the more general problem whether the capacity of product quantum channel exhibits additivity. In the present study, we apply one of the quantum Arimoto-Blahut type algorithms to the latter problem. The results suggest that the additivity of product quantum channel capacity always holds and that entangled input states cannot enhance the quantum channel capacity.

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

quantum channel capacity
quantum coding theorem

quantum entanglement
quantum information theory


Encoding and decoding the knowledge of association rules over SVM classification trees This paper presents a constructive method for association rule extraction, where the knowledge of data is encoded into an SVM classification tree (SVMT), and linguistic association rule is extracted by decoding of the trained SVMT. The method of rule extraction over the SVMT (SVMT-rule), in the spirit of decision-tree rule extraction, achieves rule extraction not only from SVM, but also over the decision-tree structure of SVMT. Thus, the obtained rules from SVMT-rule have the better comprehensibility of decision-tree rule, meanwhile retains the good classification accuracy of SVM. Moreover, profiting from the super generalization ability of SVMT owing to the aggregation of a group of SVMs, the SVMT-rule is capable of performing a very robust classification on such datasets that have seriously, even overwhelmingly, class-imbalanced data distribution. Experiments with a Gaussian synthetic data, seven benchmark cancers diagnosis, and one application of cell-phone fraud detection have highlighted the utility of SVMT and SVMT-rule on comprehensible and effective knowledge discovery, as well as the superior properties of SVMT-rule as compared to a purely support-vector based rule extraction. (A version of SVMT Matlab software is available online at http://kcir.kedri.info).

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 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

association rule extraction
svm classification tree

support vector machine
svm aggregating intelligence
svm ensemble
class imbalance
class overlap


A fuzzy sets theoretic approach to approximate spatial reasoning Relational composition-based reasoning has become the most prevalent method for qualitative reasoning since Allen's 1983 work on temporal intervals. Underlying this reasoning technique is the concept of a jointly exhaustive and pairwise disjoint set of relations. Systems of relations such as RCC5 and RCC8 were originally developed for ideal regions, not subject to imperfections such as vagueness or fuzziness which are found in many applications in geographic analysis and image understanding. This paper, however, presents a general method for classifying binary topological relations involving fuzzy regions using the RCC5 or the RCC8 theory. Our approach is based on fuzzy set theory and the theory of consonant random set. Some complete classifications of topological relations between fuzzy regions are also given. Furthermore, two composition operators on spatial relations between fuzzy regions are introduced in this paper. These composition operators provide reasonable relational composition-based reasoning engine foe spatial reasoning involving fuzzy regions.

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

fuzzy logic
fuzzy region
mode
region connection calculus
relational composition
spatial relation


The effect of uniform virtual appearance on conformity intention: Social identity model of deindividuation effects and optimal distinctiveness theory This study integrates social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) and optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) in investigating the effect of uniform virtual appearance on individuals willingness to conform to a majority opinion in computer-mediated groups. SIDE posits that sharing the same visual cue can promote group identification process and eventually induce stronger conformity. Meanwhile, ODT indicates that too much visual similarity rather concerns individuals about their deprived uniqueness, so they would be reluctant to conform to a majority opinion as a way to restore their uniqueness. This study concurs with previous research based on SIDE by showing that group identification induced by uniform appearance increases conformity intention. It also showed that perceived deindividuation, another variable that is induced by a high level of visual similarity relative to others, decreases conformity intention. As a result, the current study shows that the effect of virtual uniform appearance on conformity intention is inconsistently mediated by group identification and perceived deindividuation.

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

virtual appearance
uniqueness
similarity

virtual group identity
computer-mediated communication


promoting levels of openness on component-based adaptable middleware It is widely accepted that middleware is an important architectural element which facilitates the development of software systems. In this paper we propose a novel approach for designing middleware. It is based on hardware motherboards and two distinct views with a clear separation of concerns. The view for middleware designer (MD-view) is concerned with all complex details of middleware structure and the view for middleware users (MU-view) is only concerned with an abstract set of open architectural elements that can be used to customize the middleware.

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

transactional middleware
components
design methodology
adaptability
customizability


clock offset estimation using collaborative one-way transit time We propose a new collaborative clock offset estimation scheme between two nodes in the Internet using independent one-way offset estimations. Our proposal (different than current schemes in the literature) is intended to provide a fast and accurate clock offset estimation in approximately [Round-Trip Time (RTT)+40]ms. The scheme sends a group of 5 probes in the the forward and reverse paths, and models the One-way Transit Time (OTT) by a Gamma distribution (with parameters adapted to actual path condition) to estimate the minimum distribution value (or long-term minimum OTT value). End nodes exchange their corresponding minimum distribution values to get an improved final clock offset estimate, which takes into account the network path asymmetries. We show that our scheme provides a faster clock offset estimation with lower RMSE and superior stability than NTP and current NTP-like state of the art methodologies in the literature.

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


Investing in product development and production capabilities: The crucial linkage between time-to-market and ramp-up time Shorter product life cycles, more rapid product obsolescence, and the increasing intensity of global competition have driven firms to strive for a more rapid introduction of new products to market. We introduce a normative model which yields insights concerning several key new product development (NPD) decisions. First, we examine investment strategies related to the timing and duration for investments in both design and process capacity over a given planning horizon. Second, the model offers guidance regarding the optimal time-to-market and ramp-up time necessary to meet peak demand for the new product. The model thus provides both theoretical and managerial insights into the crucial linkage between time-to-market and ramp-up time decisions. Finally, the implications of several specific NPD investment mechanisms on these NPD metrics are explored.

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

manufacturing
marketing
knowledge management
optimal control


Characterising effective eLearning resources The widespread availability of digital learning resources in a variety of media formats offers the possibility to make a profound difference in education. This potential has not been fully realised for range of interrelated reasons. fit this paper We Study the key characteristics of learning resources that have proved effective in changing learning and teaching, and relate them to existing frameworks for understanding resources. We outline the relationships between resources, their users, and the way they are used, and explore issues that influence practitioners in choosing a particular resource. Our study is based on a review of resources for e-learning and chemistry in post-compulsory education, undertaken for the UK Joint Information Systems Committees (JISC), as part of a wider study examining 'The Effectiveness of Resources, Tools and Support Set-vices used by Tutors in Designing and Delivering E-Learning Activities'. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

media in education
teaching/learning strategies
improving classroom teaching
applications in subject areas
authoring tools and methods


Estimates for perturbations of average Markov decision processes with a minimal state and upper bounded by stochastically ordered Markov chains This paper deals with Markov decision processes (MDPs) with real state space for which its minimum is attained, and that are upper bounded by (uncontrolled) stochastically ordered (SO) Markov chains. We consider MDPs with (possibly) unbounded costs, and to evaluate the quality of each policy, we use the objective function known as the average cost. For this objective function we consider two Markov control models P and P-1. P and P-1 have the same components except for the transition laws. The transition q of P is taken as unknown, and the transition q(1) of P-1, as a known approximation of q. Under certain irreducibility, recurrence and ergodic conditions imposed on the bounding SO Markov chain (these conditions give the rate of convergence of the transition probability in t-steps, t = 1,2.... to the invariant measure), the difference between the optimal cost to drive P and the cost obtained to drive P using the optimal policy of P-1 is estimated. That difference is defined as the index of perturbations, and in this work upper bounds of it are provided. An example to illustrate the theory developed here is added.

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

stochastically ordered markov chains
average markov decision processes

lyapunov condition
invariant probability


A Study on Possibility of Detecting IEEE802.15.4a Signals for Spectrum Sharing In March, 2007, IEEE802.15.4a was standardized as a low-rate and low-power UWB system for sensor networks. In general, detection of the IEEE802.15.4a signal is considered to be difficult because of its low transmitting power density and low duty cycle. However, if detecting of the IEEE802.15.4a signal is available, it is possible to avoid interference issues both among the IEEE802.15.4a systems and between the 15.4a and other UWB systems. This letter proposes a simple detection method using non-coherent detectors. The possibility of detecting of the IEEE802.15.4a signal by proposal detection method was examined. By conducting experiments with an emulated 15.4a RF signal, the signal detection probability was examined, and 15.4a signal from the range of about 11 meters in the radius could be detected. From this observation, the CSMA/CA method with detecting the signal in 15.4a system may be applied for alternative access method for 15.4a systems.

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


Design principles for developing stream processing applications Stream processing applications are used to ingest, process, and analyze continuous data streams from heterogeneous sources of live and stored data, generating streams of output results. These applications are, in many cases, complex, large-scale, low-latency, and distributed in nature. In this paper, we describe the design principles and architectural underpinnings for stream processing applications. These principles are distilled from our experience in building real-world applications both for internal use as well as with customers from several industrial and academic domains. We provide principles, guidelines, as well as appropriate implementation examples to highlight the different aspects of stream processing application design and development. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

design principles
stream processing applications


A two-level relevance feedback mechanism for image retrieval Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a group of techniques that analyzes the visual features (such as color, shape, texture) of an example image or image subregion to find similar images in an image database. Relevance feedback is often used in a CBIR system to help users express their preference and improve query results. Traditional relevance feedback relies on positive and negative examples to reformulate the query. Furthermore, if the system employs several visual features for a query, the weight of each feature is adjusted manually by the user or system predetermined and fixed by the system. In this paper we propose a new relevance feedback model suitable for medical image retrieval. The proposed method enables the user to rank the results in relevance order. According to the ranking, the system can automatically determine the importance ranking of features, and use this ranking to automatically adjust the weight of each feature. The experimental results show that the new relevance feedback mechanism outperforms previous relevance feedback models.

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


Pupil size variation as an indication of affective processing The present objective was to investigate pupil size variation during and after auditory emotional stimulation. Thirty subjects (15 females and 15 males) pupil responses were measured while listening to 10 negative and 10 positive highly arousing sounds (e.g. a baby crying and laughing), and 10 emotionally neutral sounds (e.g. regular office noise). The subjects also rated their subjective experiences related to the stimuli. The results showed that the pupil size was significantly larger during both emotionally negative and positive stimuli than during neutral stimuli. The results for the time period of 2s following the stimulus offset showed that pupil size was significantly larger after both negative and positive than neutral stimulation. These results suggest that the autonomic nervous system is sensitive to highly arousing emotional stimulation. The subjective ratings confirmed that the stimuli influenced the subjects emotional experiences as expected. Further analyses showed that female subjects had significantly larger pupil responses than males only to neutral stimuli and only during the auditory stimulation. In sum, our results showed that systematically chosen stimuli significantly affected the subjects physiological reactions and subjective experiences. It could be possible to use pupil size variation as a computer input signal, for example, in affective computing. Auditory emotion-related cues could also be utilized to modulate the user's emotional reactions.

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

pupil size
autonomic nervous system
affective computing


Price discount and capacity planning under demand postponement with opaque selling We model the demand postponement strategy with opaque selling. We are among the first to endogenize the capacity decision in opaque selling. We study the optimal price discount and capacity decisions. Demand postponement allows the firm to use less safety stock to hedge against the demand risk. The additional value of demand information updating is evaluated.

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

demand management
early order discounts
newsvendor model


Computing tensor decompositions of finite matrix groups We describe an algorithm to compute tensor decompositions of central products of groups. The novelty over previous algorithms is that in the case of matrix groups that are both tensor decomposable and imprimitive, the new algorithm more often outputs the more desirable tensor decomposition.

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

matrix group recognition
tensor product decomposition


Reliable shop floor bottleneck detection for flow lines through process and inventory observations: the bottleneck walk Bottleneck detection in manufacturing is the key to improving production efficiency and stability in order to improve capacity. Yet, common bottleneck detection methods in industry and academia lack either accuracy or practicability, or both, for dynamic systems. The new methodology is conducted by the observation of processes and inventories. Blocked processes and full inventories indicate a downstream bottleneck. Starved processes and empty inventories indicate an upstream bottleneck. Through subsequent observations of multiple process states and inventory levels within a system, it is possible to determine the direction of the bottleneck at the given time and hence to find the momentary bottleneck in the system. The shifting of bottlenecks can be observed directly. Work sampling techniques can be used to obtain a long-term picture of the dynamically shifting bottleneck. The new methodology does not require any calculations, statistics, or time measurements. Hence, the method is suited for practical use by shop floor supervisors and clerks. The direct observation of the bottleneck also gives additional information about the underlying causes of the bottlenecks, simplifying the improvement of the system capacity. Extensive field testing of the method received positive feedback not only from management but also from shop floor operators. The method is already in use at the Robert Bosch GmbH, where it is known as the bottleneck walk.

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

bottleneck detection
shifting bottleneck


Verifying pointer safety for programs with unknown calls We study the automated verification of pointer safety for heap-manipulating imperative programs with unknown procedure calls. Given a Hoare-style partial correctness specification S = {Pre}C{Post} in separation logic, where the program C contains calls to some unknown procedure U, we infer a specification S(U) for the unknown procedure U from the calling contexts. We show that the problem of verifying the program C against the specification S can be safely reduced to the problem of proving that the procedure U (once its code is available) meets the derived specification S(U). The expected specification S(U) for the unknown procedure U is automatically calculated using an abduction-based shape analysis. We have also implemented a prototype system to validate the viability of our approach. Preliminary results show that the specifications derived by our tool fully capture the behaviors of the unknown code in many cases. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Effect of gazing at the camera during a video link on recall The impact of looking into the camera during a presentation over a video link (resulting in the perception of mutual gaze) on information recall was investigated. In a face-to-face context mutual gaze has been shown to facilitate the encoding and subsequent recall of information [Fry, R., Smith, G.F., 1975. The effects of feedback and eye contact on performance of a digit-coding task. J. Soc. Psychol. 96, 145146; Otteson, J.D., Otteson, C.R., 1980. Effect of teacher's gaze on children's story recall. Percept. Motor Skill. 50, 3542; Sherwood, J.V., 1988. Facilitative effects of gaze upon learning. Percept. Motor Skill. 64 (3 Part 2), 12751278]. One explanation for these findings is that gaze acts as an arousal stimulus, which increases attentional focus and therefore enhances memory [Kelley, D.H., Gorham, J., 1988. Effects of immediacy on recall of information. Commun. Edu. 37(3), 198207]. Two studies were conducted in order to test whether gazing at the camera during video-mediated presentations resulted in similar benefits as mutual gaze in a face-to-face context. In study 1 a confederate presented information about two fictitious soap products. In one condition, the confederate gazed at the camera for 30% of the presentation, therefore giving the participants the impression that he was gazing in their direction. In the other condition the confederate did not gaze at the camera. Participants viewed the sales presentations from both conditions. In the condition where gaze was directed at the camera, participants recalled significantly more information about the sales presentation. Study 2 employed the same pre-recorded sales presentations used in study 1, however they were delivered to the participants under audio-only conditions (therefore, the image was switched off). Results from study 2 indicated no recall differences between the two conditions. Findings from these studies would seem to indicate that the perception of gaze aversion over a video link (a consequence of the salesman not looking into the camera) has a negative impact on information recall. This has practical implications for video-mediated presentations. In a distance learning environment lecturers could be advised to look into the camera in order to promote more efficient learning in students.

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


A Generation Method of Alternative Scenarios with a Normal Scenario This paper proposes a method to generate alternative scenarios from a normal scenario written with a scenario language This method includes (1) generation of alternative plans and (2) generation of alternative scenario by a user's selection of these plans The proposed method enables users to decrease the omission of the possible alternative scenarios in the early stages of development The method will be illustrated with some examples.

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

requirements elicitation
scenario analysis
scenario generation


Genetic algorithm-based feature set partitioning for classification problems Feature set partitioning generalizes the task of feature selection by partitioning the feature set into subsets of features that are collectively useful, rather than by finding a single useful subset of features. This paper presents a novel feature set partitioning approach that is based on a genetic algorithm. As part of this new approach a new encoding schema is also proposed and its properties are discussed. We examine the effectiveness of using a VapnikChervonenkis dimension bound for evaluating the fitness function of multiple, oblivious tree classifiers. The new algorithm was tested on various datasets and the results indicate the superiority of the proposed algorithm to other methods.

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

feature set-partitioning
ensemble learning


A narrative-based abstraction framework for story-oriented video This article proposes a novel video abstraction framework for online review services of story-oriented videos such as dramas. Among the many genres of TV programs, a drama is one of the most popularly watched on the Web. The abstracts generated by the proposed framework not only give a summary of a video but also effectively help viewers understand the overall story. In addition, our method is duration-flexible. We get clues about human understanding of a story from scenario writing rules and editorial techniques that are popularly used in the process of video production to explicitly express a narrative, and propose a new video abstraction model, called a Narrative Abstraction Model. The model effectively captures the narrative structure embedded in a story-oriented video and articulates the progress of the story in a weighted directed graph, called a Narrative Structure Graph (NSG). The model provides a basis for a flexible framework for abstract generation using the NSG as the. intermediary representation of a video. Different abstracts can be appropriately generated based upon different user requirements. To show the effectiveness of the proposed model and method, we developed a video abstraction system realizing the framework, and successfully applied it to large volumes of TV dramas. The evaluation results show that the proposed framework is a feasible solution for online review services.

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

video abstraction
narrative structure
online review services

design
human factors
film
story-oriented
story understanding
video abstraction system


Hex-dominant mesh generation for subterranean formation modeling Under the context of subterranean formation modeling using finite volume methods, the computational domain is a basin, a reservoir, or an underground CO2 storage site. Such a domain has a layered structure and is geometrically described by its layer limits called horizons and random disruption of layers called faults. Horizons and faults are both numerically represented by 3D triangulated surface meshes. Respecting the interface formed by horizons and faults, the volume mesh of the subterranean formation is required to be mainly hexahedral, with a few tetrahedrons, prisms or pyramids allowed along the faults, where mesh non-conformity is tolerated. A constrained grid approach is proposed to generate the so-desired mesh. Firstly, each horizon surface is unfolded with fault traces being sewn. Then, for each unfolded horizon, a regular grid with the same topology is generated from its boundary. Subsequently, node relocation and conditional grid refinement are applied to constrain fault traces to the grid. Afterwards, each grid is mapped back to its corresponding 3D horizon surface with fault nodes being split. Finally, a hex-dominant mesh is generated by connecting consecutive grids along corresponding nodes, with some elements cut into two by faults and degenerated into prisms, tetrahedrons, and pyramids. An optimization procedure is then applied to enhance the shape quality of the resulting 3D mesh.

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

hex-dominant mesh generation
mesh optimization
mesh refinement


Multiple ontologies in action: Composite annotations for biosimulation models There now exists a rich set of ontologies that provide detailed semantics for biological entities of interest. However, there is not (nor should there be) a single source ontology that provides all the necessary semantics for describing biological phenomena. In the domain of physiological biosimulation models, researchers use annotations to convey semantics, and many of these annotations require the use of multiple reference ontologies. Therefore, we have developed the idea of composite annotations that access multiple ontologies to capture the physics-based meaning of model variables. These composite annotations provide the semantic expressivity needed to disambiguate the often-complex features of biosimulation models, and can be used to assist with model merging and interoperability. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of composite annotations for model merging by describing their use within SemGen, our semantics-based model composition software. More broadly, if orthogonal reference ontologies are to meet their full potential, users need tools and methods to connect and link these ontologies. Our composite annotations and the SemGen tool provide one mechanism for leveraging multiple reference ontologies.

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 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

biomedical ontology
annotation
computer simulation


A multi-criteria decision-making framework for the selection of strategies for acquiring biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity Selecting an appropriate path for acquiring commercial-scale biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity often requires the rationalisation of multiple conflicting criteria and the reconciling of financial and non-financial issues. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) can provide a holistic framework for evaluating such scenarios. This paper presents the development of a decision-support framework for decision-making scenarios involving the acquisition of commercial-scale biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity that utilises MCDM. To illustrate the functionality of the framework. a hypothetical scenario was constructed based on a biopharmaceutical company faced with a number of options for acquiring commercial manufacturing capacity. A deterministic analysis showed that building manufacturing capacity was the highest ranking option for the scenario considered. Stochastic analyses demonstrated that this option was also the highest ranking overall. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

biopharmaceutical manufacture
strategy selection
decision-support
multi-criteria decision-making
uncertainty
process economics


Interactive Programming with Dependent Types In dependently typed languages run-time values can appear in types, making it possible to give programs more precise types than in languages without dependent types. This can range from keeping track of simple invariants like the length of a list, to full functional correctness. In addition to having some correctness guarantees on the final program, assigning more precise types to programs means that you can get more assistance from the type checker while writing them. This is what I focus on here, demonstrating how the programming environment of AGDA can help you when developing dependently typed programs.

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


Real-time digital-optical correlator-systems design The systems design of a real-time hybrid digital-optical correlator is detailed. Emphasis is on: partitioning of the digital and optical systems such that the efficiency of the optical image train is maximised; and the parallelisation of tasks within the digital sub-system to maximise throughput. The significance of communication bottlenecks are emphasised in the digital system and the constraints this enforces on the initial selection of DSP devices. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

optical-correlation
fourier image processing
template matching
real-time pattern recognition


Expected utility maximization of optimal stopping problems We consider the problem of optimal stopping of an independent and identically distributed sequence of random variables with observation costs and no recall for a decision maker, who maximizes expected utility. Though this problem does not fit into the framework of dynamic programming, we derive a recursive algorithm to find the optimal solution. Moreover, we show that the optimal stopping strategy has the reservation level property for all utility functions and we investigate how attitude to risk affects the solution. In the case of exponential utility we derive an easy recursion for the reservation levels and determine the range of its possible values. The results are illustrated by several examples.

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 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


Cooperative planning in express carrier networks An empirical study on the effectiveness of a real-time Decision Support System For small transportation firms cooperation in a carrier network is a proper mean to overcome the inefficiencies from deadheading. To be successful, such a network has to secure two different but equally important aspects: the partners have to be aware of specific consolidation potentials through order exchange which is an optimization and communication problem, and, the partners have to experience incentives to contribute actively to the network which is the problem of finding a fair cost/profit allocation schema for order exchanges. In this paper we discuss the experience with the development of a Decision Support System for a specific express carrier network. We illustrate how the consolidation potentials in such a network with autonomously planning carriers can be exploited and cost effectiveness can be improved substantially through the use of a suitable distributed Decision Support System if the two success factors awareness and fairness are addressed properly.

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

dynamic vehicle routing problem
simulation


Relaxed update and partition network games In this paper, we study the complexity of deciding which player has a winning strategy in certain types of McNaughton games. These graph games can be used as models for computational problems and processes of infinite duration. We consider the cases (1) where the first player wins when vertices in a specified set are visited infinitely often and vertices in another specified set are visited finitely often, (2) where the first player wins when exactly those vertices in one of a number of specified disjoint sets are visited infinitely often, and (3) a generalization of these first two cases, We give polynomial time algorithms to determine which player has a winning strategy in each of the games considered.

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

graph and network algorithms
infinite graph games


developing semantically interoperable e-commerce systems This paper discusses semantic interoperability issues in agent-based E-commerce systems. The literature reports various techniques to enable agents to understand the meanings of the messages exchanged. We will argue how these different techniques can be combined in one agent communication protocol to obtain the best of each world. The resulting communication protocol enables agents to sufficiently understand each other to participate in successful collaboration.

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


The rising pitch metaphor: an empirical study This paper describes a set of experiments that investigated the use of rising pitch notes to communicate graphical information to visually impaired users. The information communicated in the experiments included coordinate locations within a 4040 40 40 graphical grid, the navigation of an auditory cursor within the graphical grid, the communication of simple graphical shapes and their size. The five simple shapes communicated were rectangles, squares, circles, horizontal and vertical lines. Stereophony, timbre, rhythms, and short tunes were used in addition to the rising pitch metaphor to aid disambiguation. Results suggested that the rising pitch approach enabled visually impaired users to understand the graphical information communicated in the absence of any visual aid. The paper concludes with a discussion of the use of rising pitch metaphor to communicate graphical information.

O O O O O 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 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

auditory user interface
graphics
earcons


The effects of IS resources, capabilities, and qualities on organizational performance: An integrated approach Several theories, such as the resource-based view (RBV) and the information systems (IS) success model (ISSM), have provided inconclusive results on the impacts of IS on business processes and organizational performance. The current study reviews the effects of these theories in terms of IS resources, capabilities and qualities, and further proposes an integrated approach for examining organizational performance. Our integrated model was statistically tested by using a structural equation modeling (SEM) method. Our results provide an integrated view of the associations among theories and enhance the understanding of IS contributions to organizational performance.

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

resource-based view
is capabilities
is qualities
is process


behavioral attestation for web services (ba4ws) Service Oriented Architecture with underlying technologies like web services and web service orchestration opens new vistas for integration among business processes operating in heterogeneous environments. However, such dynamic collaborations require a highly secure environment at each respective business partner site. Existing web services standards address the issue of security only on the service provider platform. The partner platforms to which sensitive information is released have till now been neglected. Remote Attestation is a relatively new field of research which enables an authorized party to verify that a trusted environment actually exists on a partner platform. To incorporate this novel concept in to the web services realm, a new mechanism called WS-Attestation has been proposed. This mechanism provides a structural paradigm upon which more fine-grained solutions can be built. In this paper, we present a novel framework, Behavioral Attestation for Web Services, in which XACML is built on top of WS-Attestation in order to enable more flexible remote attestation at the web services level. We propose a new type of XACML policy called XACML behavior policy, which defines the expected behavior of a partner platform. Existing web service standards are used to incorporate remote attestation at the web services level and a prototype is presented, which implements XACML behavior policy using low-level attestation techniques.

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

remote attestation
web services
behavioral attestation


Performance Measurement and Analysis of WiMAX-LAN Communication Operating at 5.8 GHz Deployment of a hybrid wireless and local area network (LAN) system is a feasible solution for smart grid communication. In this paper, a combination of fixed worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) at 5.8 GHz and Ethernet LAN is proposed for monitoring and control of energy meters in a smart grid. Communication signal quality is an important factor to consider as it directly affects the reliability of the whole monitoring and control system of a smart grid. In this paper, the signal quality in terms of received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the WiMAX system is investigated with a laboratory-scale smart grid prototype. Real-time RSSI is recorded and analyzed to develop an analytical model for the WiMAX RSSI transmitting at 5.8 GHz. It was found that in order to achieve reliable communication for a coverage area of 2 km, the base station has to transmit at a total power of 28.08 dBm for a receiver height of 1.875 m. Similarly, a receiver height of 2.766 m is required for a transmitted power of 25 dBm. The performance of the proposed WiMAX-LAN communication system for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grids is analyzed. On average, the proposed system completes the data collection of 3705 meter units in less than 997 s.

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

received signal strength indicator (rssi)

worldwide interoperability for microwave access (wimax)


On the network impact of dynamic server selection Widespread replication of information can ameliorate the problem of server overloading but raises the allied question of server selection. Clients may be assigned to a replica in a static manner or they may choose among replicas based on client-initiated measurements. The latter technique, called dynamic server selection (DSS), can provide significantly improved response time to users when compared with static server assignment policies (for example, based on network distance in hops). In the first part of this paper we demonstrate the idea of DSS using experiments performed in the Internet. We compare a range of policies for DSS and show that obtaining additional information about servers and paths in the Internet before choosing a server improves response time significantly. The best policy we examine adopts a strategy of never adding more than 1% additional traffic to the network, and is still able to provide nearly all the benefits of the most expensive policies. While these results suggest that DSS is beneficial from the network user's standpoint, the system-wide effects of DSS schemes should also be closely examined. In the second part of this paper we use large-scale simulation to study the system-wide network impact of dynamic server selection. We use a simulated network of over 100 hosts that allows local-area effects to be distinguished from wide-area effects within traffic patterns. In this environment we compare DSS with static server selection schemes and confirm that client benefits remain even when many use DSS simultaneously. Importantly, we also show that DSS confers system-wide benefits from the network standpoint, as compared to static server selection. First, overall data traffic volume in the network is reduced, since DSS tends to diminish network congestion. Second, traffic distribution improves traffic is shifted from the backbone to regional and local networks.

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

distributed systems
internet and network algorithms
network simulation


Discrete Buffer and Wire Sizing for Link-Based Non-Tree Clock Networks Clock network is a vulnerable victim of variations as well as a main power consumer in many integrated circuits. Recently, link-based non-tree clock network attracts people's attention due to its appealing tradeoff between variation tolerance and power overhead. In this work, we investigate how to optimize such clock networks through buffer and wire sizing. A two-stage hybrid optimization approach is proposed. It considers the realistic constraint of discrete buffer/wire sizes and is based on accurate delay models. In order to provide reliable and efficient guidance for the optimization, we suggest to apply support vector machine (SVM)-based machine learning as a surrogate for expensive circuit-level simulation. Experimental results on benchmark circuits show that our sizing method can reduce clock skew by 45% on average with very small increase on power dissipation.

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

links
non-tree
support vector machine (svm)


Incremental integration testing of concurrent programs We present a method for selecting test sequences for concurrent programs from labeled transitions systems (LTS). A common approach to selecting test sequences from a set of LTSs is to derive a global LTS, called the reachability graph, and then force deterministic program executions according to paths selected from the graph. However, using a reachability graph for test path selection introduces a state explosion problem. To overcome this problem, a reduced graph can be generated using incremental reachability analysis, which consists of repeatedly generating a reachability graph for a subset of LTSs, reducing this graph, and using the reduced graph in place of the original LTSs. Unfortunately, existing incremental reachability analysis techniques generate reduced graphs with insufficient information for deterministic testing. In this paper, we present an incremental approach to testing concurrent programs. Incremental testing consists of incremental reachability analysis for test path selection and deterministic testing for test execution. We define a new type of reachability graph for incremental analysis, called an annotated labeled transition system (ALTS). An ALTS is an LTS annotated with information necessary for deterministic testing. We propose practical coverage criteria for selecting tests paths from an ALTS and present an ALTS reduction algorithm. The results of several case studies are reported.

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


run-time hw/sw codesign for discrete event systems using dynamically reconfigurable architectures HW/SW codesign and Reconfigurable Computing are commonly used methodologies for digital systems design. However, no previous work has been carried out in order to define a run-time HW/SW codesign methodology for dynamically reconfigurable architectures. Besides, all previous approaches to reconfigurable computing context scheduling are based on static scheduling techniques.In this paper we present a run-time HW/SW codesign methodology for discrete event systems using dynamically reconfigurable architectures and a dynamic approach to reconfigurable computing multi-context scheduling. We have applied our methodology to software acceleration, and present the obtained results.

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

software order scheduling systems methodology event dynamic acceleration context codesign paper

digitize
reconfigurable architecture
system design
reconfigurable computers
timing


Analysis of a Polynomial System Arising in the Design of an Optical Lattice Filter Useful in Channelization In this work, we consider design questions for an active optical lattice filter, which is being manufactured at the University of Texas at Dallas, and which has proven to be useful in the signal processing task of RF channelization. The filter can be described by a linear, discrete time state space model. The controlling agents, the gains, are embedded in the matrices intervening in this state space model. Consequently, techniques from linear feedback control theory do not apply. We concentrate on the question of finding real valued gains so that the A matrix of the state space model has a prescribed characteristic polynomial. We find that three of the coefficients can be arbitrarily picked, but that the remaining are constrained by these and the other system parameters. Our techniques use methods from constructive algebraic geometry.

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

channelizers
photonics
groebner bases
bezouts theorem


The evolving landscape of quality measurement for heart failure Heart failure (HF) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity, representing a leading cause of death and hospitalization among U.S. Medicare beneficiaries. Advances in science have generated effective interventions to reduce adverse outcomes in HF, particularly in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction. Unfortunately, effective therapies for heart failure are often not utilized in an effective, safe, timely, equitable, patient-centered, and efficient manner. Further, the risk of adverse outcomes for HF remains high. The last decades have witnessed the growth of efforts to measure and improve the care and outcomes of patients with HF. This paper will review the evolution of quality measurement for HF, including a brief history of quality measurement in medicine; the measures that have been employed to characterize quality in heart failure; how the measures are obtained; how measures are employed; and present and future challenges surrounding quality measurement in heart failure.

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

quality measurement
heart failure
outcomes


Duplex fitting of zero-level and offset surfaces Offset surfaces play an important role in various CAD/CAM applications. Given a set of oriented points, we propose a hierarchical method in this paper to fit both the zero-level surface and its offset surface with a single implicit function. The implicit function is formed by compactly supported radial basis functions (CSRBFs). Different from other existing methods in literature, our approach reconstructs an implicit function which interpolates or approximates both the zero-level surface and the offset surface of a given point set, simultaneously. Employing locally supported functions leads to an efficient computational procedure, while the coarse-to-fine hierarchy makes our approach insensitive to the density of scattered data and allows us to reconstruct large parts of missing data. The performance of our method is demonstrated by a number of examples and the application of adaptive slicing hollowed models in rapid prototyping.

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

surface reconstruction
implicit surface
hollowed model
cad/cam


Independent component analysis using prior information for signal detection in a functional imaging system of the retina Independent component analysis (ICA) is a statistical technique that estimates a set of sources mixed by an unknown mixing matrix using only a set of observations. For this purpose, the only assumption is that the sources are statistically independent. In many applications, some information about the nature of the unknown signals is available. In this paper we show a method for incorporating prior information about the mixing matrix to increase the levels of detection of responses to visual stimuli. Experimentally, our method matches the performance of known ICA algorithms for high SNR and can greatly improve the performance for low levels of SNR or low levels of signal-to-background ratio (SBR). For the problem of signal extraction, we have achieved detection for signals as small as 0.01% (?40dB SBR) in hybrid live/synthetic data simulations. In experiments using a functional imager of the retina, measured changes in reflectance in response to visual stimulus are in the order of 0.11% of the total pixel intensity value, which makes the functional signal difficult to detect by standard methods. The results of the analysis show that using ICA-P signal levels of 0.1% can be detected. The approach also generalizes the standard Infomax algorithm which can be thought of as a special case of ICA-P when the confidence parameter or a tolerance value is zero. For in vivo animal experiments, we show that signal detection agreement over a range of confidence values parameters can be used to establish reflectance changes in response to the visual stimulus.

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

independent component analysis
functional imaging
retina


Triple symmetric positive solutions for multipoint boundary-value problem with one-dimensional p-Laplacian in this paper, we consider the multipoint boundary value problem for one-dimensional p-Laplacian (phi(p) (u'(t)))' + q (t) f (t, u(t), u'(t)) = 0, t is an element of (0, 1), subject to the boundary conditions: n n u(0) - (n)Sigma(i=1) mu(i) u'(xi(i)) = 0, u(1) + (n)Sigma(i=1) mu(i) u' (eta(i)) = 0, where phi(p) (s) = |s|(p-2)s, p > 1, mu(i) > 0, 0 < xi(1) < xi(2) < ... < xi(n) < 1/2, xi(i) + eta(i) = 1, i = 1, 2, ... , n. Applying the fixed point theorem due to Avery and Peterson, we study the existence of at least three symmetric positive solutions to the above boundary value problem. The interesting point is that the nonlinear term f contains the first-order derivative explicitly and the boundary condition is of Sturm-Liouville type. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

avery-peterson's fixed point theorem
symmetric positive solution
one-dimensional p-laplacian


A DFT study of the 67Zn, 14N and 2H electric field gradient tensors in Zinc(II)4-MeIm complexes and extrapolation to superoxide dismutase A computational investigation was carried out to characterize the 14N and 2H electric field gradient, EFG, in four protonated forms of 4-methyl imidazole (4-MeIm) and Histidine. In an attempt to establish metal binding effect in biological systems, we have considered the various forms of zinc (II) complexes of 4-MeIm. The computations were performed at the B3LYP and PW91P86 levels with 6-311++G(d,P) standard basis set. Calculated EFG tensors were used to determine 14N and 2H nuclear quadrupole coupling constant, ? and asymmetry parameter, ?. The results show that Zn2+ has a strong effect on the NQR parameters (?, ?) of proximal nitrogen in contrast with the remote nitrogen. In addition, EFG tensors at the Zn nuclear site were calculated for Zn4-MeIm complexes and estimated the ? and ? values of 67Zn. The influence of the bulk solvent was investigated at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level using the polarizable continuum model. Finally, we predicted (?=1.95MHz, ?=0.84) for proximal nitrogen, (?=2.38MHz, ?=0.07) for remote nitrogen and (?=1.28MHz, ?=0.22) for Zn in superoxide dismutase.

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

4-methyl imidazole
metalligand interactions


an accuracy-aware compression technique for multidimensional data cubes A novel data cube compression technique, based on the well-known LSA method, is presented in this paper, along with its experimental evaluation against state-of-the-art approximate query answering techniques. Particularly, the proposed technique is able to drive the LSA-based compression process in dependence on the accuracy (i.e., the quality of the approximate answers) required from OLAP users/applications, thus drawing new scenarios for delivering summarized knowledge extracted from huge amounts of multidimensional data.

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


A note on a proposed student t approximation Li and De Moor (1999, Comput. Statist. Data Anal. 29, 213216) suggested a simple approximation to the distribution function of the student t family. This note observes that the GaverKafadar approximation (1984, Amer. Statist. 38, 308311) is of the same type, and it ought to be preferred to the LiDe Moor approximation on the grounds of accuracy and convenience.

O O O 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

computation
quantile function
student t distribution


atg-based timing analysis of circuits containing complex gates Most of the false path-aware timing analysis algorithms were originally developed for circuits made of simple gates, i.e. ANDs/NANDs, ORs/NORs and inverters. However, the availability of efficient CMOS macrocell generators and "library-free" technology mapping tools has made possible the extensive use of complex gates (mainly static CMOS) in the physical design of large combinational blocks. As a consequence, the ability of handling circuits containing complex gates appears as a highly desirable feature for current timing analysis tools. A common solution to this problem relies on using macro-expansion. Macro-expansion results in loss of accuracy and increase in execution time, however. On the other hand, the direct application of the existing false path aware timing analysis algorithms demands that sensitization conditions take complex gates into account. Currently, the state of the art in false-path aware timing analysis (also called functional timing analysis) is represented by the algorithms based on Automatic Test Generation (ATG-based) and those based on satisfiability (SAT-based). This paper presents an extension to an ATG-based algorithm, the timed-test generation procedure, for performing functional timing analysis of circuits containing complex gates without using macro-expansion.

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

complex gates
timing
static cmos
large combinational blocks

false-path aware timing analysis
atg-based algorithm
atg-based timing analysis
logic testing
timed-test generation procedure
circuit analysis computing
cmos logic circuits
functional timing analysis
logic gates
combinational circuits
automatic test pattern generation


directed spanners via flow-based linear programs We examine directed spanners through flow-based linear programming relaxations. We design an ~O(n 2/3 )-approximation algorithm for the directed k-spanner problem that works for all k ? 1, which is the first sublinear approximation for arbitrary edge-lengths. Even in the more restricted setting of unit edge-lengths, our algorithm improves over the previous ~O(n 1-1/k ) approximation [BGJRW09] when k ? 4. For the special case of k=3 we design a different algorithm achieving an ~O(?n)-approximation, improving the previous ~O(n 2/3 ) [EP05,BGJRW09] (independently of our work, an ~O(n 1-1/? k/2? ) was recently devised [BRR10]). Both of our algorithms easily extend to the fault-tolerant setting, which has recently attracted attention but not from an approximation viewpoint. We also prove a nearly matching integrality gap of ~?(n 1/3 - ? ) for every constant ? > 0. A virtue of all our algorithms is that they are relatively simple. Technically, we introduce a new yet natural flow-based relaxation, and show how to approximately solve it even when its size is not polynomial. The main challenge is to design a rounding scheme that "coordinates" the choices of flow-paths between the many demand pairs while using few edges overall. We achieve this, roughly speaking, by randomization at the level of vertices .

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On modularity in infinitary term rewriting We study modular properties in strongly convergent infinitary term rewriting. In particular, we show that: Confluence is not preserved across direct sum of a finite number of systems, even when these are non-collapsing. Confluence modulo equality of hypercollapsing subterms is not preserved across direct sum of a finite number of systems. Normalization is not preserved across direct sum of an infinite number of left-linear systems. Unique normalization with respect to reduction is not preserved across direct sum of a finite number of left-linear systems. Together, these facts constitute a radical departure from the Situation infinitary term rewriting. Positive results are: Confluence is preserved under the direct sum of an infinite number of left-linear systems iff at most one system contains a collapsing rule. Confluence is preserved under the direct sum of a finite number of non-collapsing systems if only terms of finite rank are considered. Top-termination is preserved under the direct sum of a finite number of left-linear systems. Normalization is preserved under the direct sum of a finite number of left-linear systems. All of the negative results above hold in the setting of weakly convergent rewriting as well, as do the positive results concerning modularity of top-termination and normalization for left-linear systems. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

term rewriting
modularity
confluence
normalization

infinitary rewriting
strong convergence
church-rosser property


Explore biological pathways from noisy array data by directed acyclic Boolean networks We consider the structure of directed acyclic Boolean (DAB) networks as a tool for exploring biological pathways. In a DAB network, the basic objects are binary elements and their Boolean duals. A DAB is characterized by two kinds of pairwise relations: similarity and prerequisite. The latter is a partial order relation, namely, the on-status of one element is necessary for the on-status of another element. A DAB network is uniquely determined by the state space of its elements. We arrange samples from the state space of a DAB network in a binary array and introduce a random mechanism of measurement error. Our inference strategy consists of two stages. First, we consider each pair of elements and try to identify their most likely relation. In the meantime, we assign a score, s-p-score, to this relation. Second, we rank the s-p-scores obtained from the first stage. We expect that relations with smaller s-p-scores are more likely to be true, and those with larger s-p-scores are more likely to be false. The key idea is the definition of s-scores (referring to similarity), p-scores (referring to prerequisite), and s-p-scores. As with classical statistical tests, control of false negatives and false positives are our primary concerns. We illustrate the method by a simulated example, the classical arginine biosynthetic pathway, and show some exploratory results on a published microarray expression dataset of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae obtained from experiments with activation and genetic perturbation of the pheromone response MAPK pathway.

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

microarray
pathway
boolean networks
measurement error


RENS This article introduces rens, the relaxation enforced neighborhood search, a large neighborhood search algorithm for mixed integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs). It uses a sub-MINLP to explore the set of feasible roundings of an optimal solution \(\bar{x}\) of a linear or nonlinear relaxation. The sub-MINLP is constructed by fixing integer variables \(x_j\) with \(\bar{x} _{j} \in \mathbb {Z}\) and bounding the remaining integer variables to \(x_{j} \in \{ \lfloor \bar{x} _{j} \rfloor , \lceil \bar{x} _{j} \rceil \}\). We describe two different applications of rens: as a standalone algorithm to compute an optimal rounding of the given starting solution and as a primal heuristic inside a complete MINLP solver. We use the former to compare different kinds of relaxations and the impact of cutting planes on the so-called roundability of the corresponding optimal solutions. We further utilize rens to analyze the performance of three rounding heuristics implemented in the branch-cut-and-price framework scip. Finally, we study the impact of rens when it is applied as a primal heuristic inside scip. All experiments were performed on three publicly available test sets of mixed integer linear programs (MIPs), mixed integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs), and MINLP s, using solely software which is available in source code. It turns out that for these problem classes 60 to 70% of the instances have roundable relaxation optima and that the success rate of rens does not depend on the percentage of fractional variables. Last but not least, rens applied as primal heuristic complements nicely with existing primal heuristics in scip.

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

primal heuristic
large neighborhood search
rounding