A 3D simplification algorithm for distributed visualization One of the challenging problems that hinder the development of distributed design systems is the contradiction of large CAD files and the limited speed to share them over the Internet and Web. 3D streaming technique, which can allow effective and efficient dispatch and access of large-volume CAD data as a series of patched streams across the Internet, provides a promising solution to overcome the obstacle. Geometric simplification (or decimation) of 3D models is a key algorithm to realize the streaming technique. In this paper, a new geometric simplification algorithm has been developed, in which two criteria are the crucial elements to control the collapse process for edges in 3D VRML models to reduce the amount of information. After the simplification and sharing of a model, a developed refinement algorithm is carried out to restore the model from its simplified version back to its original, through combining the simplified model with some reconstruction data generated during the simplification process, therefore, to realize the streaming information sharing. The major feature of the simplification algorithm is that it has incorporated some advantages of the previously developed vertex decimation approach and edge collapse approach. Meanwhile, the mechanism of adaptive threshold parameters adopted in this work enhances the adaptability of the algorithm for various applications. Through case studies and comparisons with some related works, the algorithm shows good performance and potentials in terms of effectiveness, adaptability and robustness. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

3d streaming
geometric simplification
vrml
distributed design


UNSUPERVISED LEARNING BASED DISTRIBUTED DETECTION OF GLOBAL ANOMALIES Anomaly detection has recently become an important problem in many industrial and financial applications. Very often, the databases from which anomalies have to be found are located at multiple local sites and cannot be merged due to privacy reasons or communication overhead. In this paper, a novel general framework for distributed anomaly detection is proposed. The proposed method consists of three steps: (i) building local models for distributed data sources with unsupervised anomaly detection methods and computing quality measure of local models; (ii) transforming local unsupervised local models into sharing models; and (iii) reusing sharing models for new data and combining their results by considering both quality and diversity of them to detect anomalies in a global view. In experiments performed on synthetic and real-life large data set, the proposed distributed anomaly detection method achieved prediction performance comparable or even slightly better than the global anomaly detection algorithm applied on the data set obtained when all distributed data set were merged.

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

distributed anomaly detection
global anomalies


On the accuracy of two analytical models for evaluating the performance of Gigabit Ethernet hosts In this paper we develop and assess the accuracy of two analytical models that capture the behavior of network hosts when subjected to heavy load such as that of Gigabit Ethernet. The first analytical model is based on Markov processes and queuing theory, and the second is a pure Markov process. In order to validate the models and assess their accuracy, two different numerical examples are presented. The two numerical examples use system parameters that are realistic and appropriate for modern hardware. Both analytical models give closed-form solutions that facilitate the study of a number of important system performance metrics. These metrics include throughput, latency, stability condition, CPU utilizations of interrupt handling and protocol processing, and CPU availability for user applications. The two models give mathematically equivalent closed-form solutions for all metrics except for latency. To address latency, we compare the results of both models with the results of a discrete-event simulation. The latency accuracy of the two models is assessed relative to simulation in terms of differences and percentage errors. The paper shows that the second model is more accurate.

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

high-speed networks
operating systems
interrupts
receive livelock
modeling and analysis
performance evaluation


Appointments in care pathways: the \(Geo^x/D/1\) queue with slot reservations Motivated by the increasing popularity of care pathways in outpatient clinics, where some patients complete a significant part of the path in one day, hospitals aim to optimize the flow of these patients by prioritizing them in the appointment planning process. This paper considers the \(Geo^x/D/1\) queue with slot reservations that serves regular patients and priority patients. Priority patients reserve a time slot in a reservation window and are blocked when all slots in the reservation window are occupied by other priority patients. The reservation window models the advance reservation of service slots by patients on a care pathway. We model the \(Geo^x/D/1\) queue as a \(M/G/1\)-type queue and apply a matrix-analytic approach, which simplifies to a matrix-geometric solution. We use the vector generating functions to derive the patients waiting times. Numerical experiments illustrate the influence of the reservation window on the number of regular and priority patients present and the blocking probabilities for priority patients.

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 fine motor skill training system using multi-fingered haptic interface robot ? We proposed optimal switching method for transferring multiple fingertip forces. Based on the proposed method, a haptic training system was developed. The proposed method enhanced the training effect compared with our earlier method.

O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O 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 reality
humancomputer interaction
skill transfer
fine motor skill in fingers


STUDY ON REGULARITY OF FUMES EMITTING FROM ASPHALT A large number of poisonous asphalt fumes are emitted into environment during the mix and compaction process on the pavement placement, which pollute environment and do harm to people's health. In this paper, the regularity of emitting fumes from asphalt and the effect of suppressing smoke with additives on asphalt were investigated. The results showed that the amount of fumes emitted was related to temperature, thickness and surface area of the asphalt; the amount of fumes was reduced by using melamine, polyethylene, and activated carbon additives respectively, and good effects were achieved. It has great significance on improving working condition on the pavement placement and promoting the construction of environment-friendly society.

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

asphalt fume
smoke suppression
carcinogenicty


Towards a neurocomputational model of speech production and perception The limitation in performance of current speech synthesis and speech recognition systems may result from the fact that these systems are not designed with respect to the human neural processes of speech production and perception. A neurocomputational model of speech production and perception is introduced which is organized with respect to human neural processes of speech production and perception. The productionperception model comprises an artificial computer-implemented vocal tract as a front-end module, which is capable of generating articulatory speech movements and acoustic speech signals. The structure of the productionperception model comprises motor and sensory processing pathways. Speech knowledge is collected during training stages which imitate early stages of speech acquisition. This knowledge is stored in artificial self-organizing maps. The current neurocomputational model is capable of producing and perceiving vowels, VC-, and CV-syllables (V=vowels and C=voiced plosives). Basic features of natural speech production and perception are predicted from this model in a straight forward way: Production of speech items is feedforward and feedback controlled and phoneme realizations vary within perceptually defined regions. Perception is less categorical in the case of vowels in comparison to consonants. Due to its human-like productionperception processing the model should be discussed as a basic module for more technical relevant approaches for high-quality speech synthesis and for high performance speech recognition.

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

speech production
speech perception
artificial neural networks
self-organizing networks


A characterization of the (natural) graph properties testable with one-sided error The problem of characterizing all the testable graph properties is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the area of property testing. Our main result in this paper is a solution of an important special case of this general problem: Call a property tester oblivious if its decisions are independent of the size of the input graph. We show that a graph property P has an oblivious one-sided error tester if and only if P is semihereditary. We stress that any "natural" property that can be tested (either with one-sided or with two-sided error) can be tested by an oblivious tester. In particular, all the testers studied thus far in the literature were oblivious. Our main result can thus be considered as a precise characterization of the natural graph properties, which are testable with one-sided error. One of the main technical contributions of this paper is in showing that any hereditary graph property can be tested with one-sided error. This general result contains as a special case all the previous results about testing graph properties with one-sided error. More importantly, as a special case of our main result, we infer that some of the most well-studied graph properties, both in graph theory and computer science, are testable with one-sided error. Some of these properties are the well-known graph properties of being perfect, chordal, interval, comparability, permutation, and more. None of these properties was previously known to be testable.

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

hereditary properties
one-sided error
regularity lemma


applying the dependability paradigm to computer security Dependability is that property of a computer system such that reliance can justifiably be place on the service it delivers [Lap94]. In this paper we contrast the way different ways faults are handled in the dependability paradigm with the way they are handled in the current paradigms for secure systems design. We show how the current security paradigm is generally restricted to a subset of the types of approaches used in dependability, largely concentrating on fault prevention and removal while neglecting fault tolerance and forecast, and argue that this paradigm is fast becoming obsolete. We discuss the implications of extending the security paradigm to cover the full range of options covered by dependability. In particular, we develop a rough outline of a fault model for security and show how it could be applied to better our understanding of the place of both fault tolerance and fault forecast in computer security.

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

fault tolerance
fault prevention
computer security
dependability paradigm

fault prediction
security of data
secure system design
fault removal
fault tolerant computing
reliable service
reliability
fault forecasting


Phorma: perfectly hashable order restricted multidimensional arrays In this paper we propose a simple and efficient data structure yielding a perfect hashing of quite general arrays. The data structure is named phorma, which is an acronym for perfectly hashable order restricted multidimensional array.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 affordance-based approach to architectural theory, design, and practice The idea of affordance, borrowed from perceptual psychology, is applied to the domain of architecture. As to architectural theory, affordances can be used as a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between environments and occupants, especially with respect to form and function. Regarding architectural design, the concept of affordance allows for a common theoretical basis to improve the design process. Concerning architectural practice, affordances can be used as a tool to explore the connection between the intentions of the design with how the artifact is actually used, leading to archived knowledge, and the potential for avoiding common design failures.

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

design theory
design practice
theory of affordances


The Third Homomorphism Theorem on Trees Downward & Upward Lead to Divide-and-Conquer Parallel programs on lists have been intensively studied. It is well known that associativity provides a good characterization for divide-and-conquer parallel programs. In particular, the third homomorphism theorem is not only useful for systematic development of parallel programs on lists, but it is also suitable for automatic parallelization. The theorem states that if two sequential programs iterate the same list leftward and rightward, respectively, and compute the same value, then there exists a divide-and-conquer parallel program that computes the same value as the sequential programs. While there have been many studies on lists, few have been done for characterizing and developing of parallel programs on trees. Naive divide-and-conquer programs, which divide a tree at the root and compute independent subtrees in parallel, take time that is proportional to the height of the input tree and have poor scalability with respect to the number of processors when the input tree is ill-balanced. In this paper, we develop a method for systematically constructing scalable divide-and-conquer parallel programs on trees, in which two sequential programs lead to a scalable divide-and-conquer parallel program. We focus on paths instead of trees so as to utilize rich results on lists and demonstrate that associativity provides good characterization for scalable divide-and-conquer parallel programs on trees. Moreover, we generalize the third homomorphism theorem from lists to trees. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with various examples. Our results, being generalizations of known results for lists, are generic in the sense that they work well for all polynomial data structures.

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 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 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 B I I

polynomial data structures
the third homomorphism theorem

algorithm
theory
divide-and-conquer
huet's zippers


Monte

Carlo

event

generator

for

black

hole

production

and

decay

in

proton-proton

collisions

QBH

version

We

describe

the

Monte

Carlo

event

generator

for

black

hole

production

and

decay

in

proton-proton

collisions

QBH

version

The

generator

implements

a

model

for

quantum

black

hole

production

and

decay

based

on

the

conservation

of

local

gauge

symmetries

and

democratic

decays.

The

code

in

written

entirely

in

C++

and

interfaces

to

the

PYTHIA

Monte

Carlo

code

for

fragmentation

and

decays.

Program

summary

Program

title:

QBH

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

URL:

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queen's

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

C++

Computer:

Operating

system:

Scientific

Linux,

Mac

OS

X

RAM:

GB

Classification:

External

routines:

PYTHIA

to

and

LHAPDF

Nature

of

problem:

Simulate

black

hole

production

and

decay

in

proton-proton

collision.

Solution

method:

Monte

Carlo

simulation

using

importance

sampling.

Running

time:

Eight

events

per

second.

(C)

Elsevier

B.V.

All

rights

reserved.

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

extra dimensions
black holes
hardon colliders
monte carlo methods


Multi-scale modelling of the permeability evolution of fine sands during cement suspension grouting with filtration Fluid flow during permeation grouting of fine sands with a microcement-based grout is studied by assuming that the heterogeneous medium composed of the initial granular skeleton, filtered cement and the interstitial fluid phase can be replaced by a continuous equivalent medium at the macroscopic level. Consequently, the method of Homogenization of Periodic Structures (HPS) is used to identify the effective permeability tensor evolution under the effect of cement filtration. The expression of the macroscopic permeability tensor derived through the HPS procedure is shown to depend on the permeating fluid viscosity and the geometrical arrangement of the sand grains and cement deposit within the microstructure. Numerical computations are made using various two-dimensional and three-dimensional microstructures, and the model results are confronted with grouting experiments performed on small scale columns in the laboratory.

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

micro-cement grouting
multi-scale modelling
evolving microstructure
finite element method
experimental validation


Variation of reaction dynamics for OH hydrogen abstraction from glycine between ab initio levels of theory The variation in reaction dynamics of OH hydrogen abstraction from glycine between HF, MP2, CCSD(T), M05-2X, BHandHLYP, and B3LYP levels was demonstrated. The abstraction mode shows distinct patterns between these five levels and determines the barrier height, and the spin density transfer between OH radical and glycine. These differences are mainly resulted from the spin density distribution and geometry of the alpha carbon during the abstraction. The captodative effect which is commonly believed as one of the major factors to stabilize the caron-centered radical can only be observed in DFT levels but not in HF and MP2 levels. Difference in the abstraction energy were found in these calculation levels, by using the result of CCSD(T) as reference, B3LYP, BHandHLYP, and M05-2X underestimated the reaction barrier about 5.1, 0.1, and 2.4 kcal mol(-1), while HF and MP2 overestimated 19.1 kcal mol(-1) and 1.6 kcal mol(-1), respectively. These differences can be characterized by the vibration mode of imaginary frequency of transition states, which indicates the topology around transition states and determines reaction barrier height. In this model system, BHandHLYP provides the best prediction of the energy barrier among those tested methods.

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

(alpha)carbon-centered radical
reaction pathway


The prospects of a quantitative measurement of agility: A validation study on an agile maturity model A quantitative measurement of agility with connected CI to the items. A positive result from practitioners on a quantitative agile measurement. Validation tests of internal consistency and construct validity (negative result). New groups of items, but questions agile maturity models. Tradeoff between quick quantitative and time-consuming contextual assessments.

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


The complex local mean decomposition The local mean decomposition (LMD) has been recently developed for the analysis of time series which have nonlinearity and nonstationarity. The smoothed local mean of the LMD surpasses the cubic spline method used by the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to extract amplitude and frequency modulated components. To process complex-valued data, we propose complex LMD, a natural and generic extension to the complex domain of the original LMD algorithm. It is shown that complex LMD extracts the frequency modulated rotation and envelope components. Simulations on both artificial and real-world complex-valued signals support the analysis.

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

data fusion
complex signal analysis
timefrequency analysis
signal nonlinearity
spike identification


Adaptive molecular docking method based on information entropy genetic algorithm We present a coefficient adaptive scoring function of molecular docking. This function improves the docking accuracy greatly. Genetic algorithm with the multi-population evolution and entropy-based. It is based on force-field scoring, using empirical-based and knowledge-based scoring as other scoring factors.

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

molecular docking
genetic algorithm
information entropy


a comparative study and analysis on k-view based algorithms for image texture classification Several K-View based algorithms have been made for developing image texture classification. These are K-View-Template algorithm (K-View-T), K-View-Datagram algorithm (K-View-D), Fast Weighted K-View-Voting algorithm (K-View-V), and K-View Using Rotation-Invariant Feature algorithm (K-View-R). In this paper, we review those K-View based algorithms and perform an empirical study for comparison by using classification accuracy, efficiency and stability. In addition, we propose a new K-View algorithm Using Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix algorithm (K-View-G) which also is compared with other K-View algorithms to demonstrate its effectiveness in image texture classification.

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 B I I

gray level co-occurrence matrix (glcm)
k-view algorithms


Amount of weight loss or gain influences the severity of respiratory events in sleep apnea Severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is estimated based on respiratory events per hour [i.e., apneahypopnea index (AHI)]. The aim of this study was to investigate effects of weight change on the severity of respiratory events. Respiratory event severity, including duration and morphology, was estimated by determining parameters quantifying obstruction and desaturation event lengths and areas, respectively. Respiratory events of 54 OSA patients treated with dietary intervention were evaluated at baseline and after 5-year follow-up in subgroups with different levels of weight change. AHI, oxygen desaturation index (ODI) and obstruction event severities decreased during weight loss. In lower level weight loss, the decrease was milder in obstruction severity than in AHI and ODI, indicating that the decrease in the number of events is more focused on less severe events. In weight gain groups, parameters incorporating obstruction event severity, AHI and ODI increased, although increase was greater in parameters incorporating obstruction event severity. The number and severity of respiratory events were modulated differently by the level of weight change. AHI misses this change in the severity of respiratory events. Therefore, parameters incorporating information on the respiratory event severities may bring additional information on the health effects obtained with dietary treatment of OSA.

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

sleep apnea
weight gain
weight loss
obstruction severity

novel parameters
nocturnal respiratory events


A simple solid-on-solid model of epitaxial film growth: Surface roughness and dynamics The random deposition model must be enhanced to reflect the variety of surface roughness due to some material characteristics of the film growing by vacuum deposition of sputtering. The essence of the computer simulation in this case is to account for possible surface migration of atoms just after the deposition, in connection with the binding energy between atoms (as the mechanism provoking the diffusion) and/or diffusion energy barrier. The interplay of these two factors leads to different morphologies of the growing surfaces, from flat and smooth ones to rough and spiky ones. In this paper, we extended our earlier calculation by applying an extra diffusion barrier at the edges of terrace-like structures, known as the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. It is experimentally observed that atoms avoid descending when the terrace edge is approached, and these barriers mimic this tendency. Results of our Monte Carlo computer simulations are discussed in terms of surface roughness, and compared with other model calculations and some experiments from literature. The power law of the surface roughness sigma against film thickness t was confirmed. The nonzero minimum value of the growth exponent beta near 0.2 was obtained which is due to the limited range of the surface diffusion and the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. Observations for different diffusion ranges are also discussed. The results are also confirmed with some deterministic growth models.

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

roughness
surface diffusion
computer simulations

surface structure
morphology
topography
monte carlo methods


Control flow prediction schemes for wide-issue superscalar processors In order to achieve high performance, wide-issue superscalar processors have to fetch a large number of instructions per cycle. Conditional branches are the primary impediment to increasing the fetch bandwidth because they can potentially alter the flow of control and are very frequent. To overcome this problem, these processors need to predict the outcome of multiple branches in a cycle. This paper investigates two control flow prediction schemes that predict the effective outcome of multiple branches with the help of a single prediction. Instead of considering branches as the basic units of prediction, these schemes consider subgraphs of the control flow graph of the executed program as the basic units of prediction and predict the target of an entire subgraph at a time, thereby allowing the superscalar fetch mechanism to go past multiple branches in a cycle. The first control flow prediction scheme investigated considers sequential block-like subgraphs and the second scheme considers tree-like subgraphs to make the control Row predictions. Both schemes do a 1-out-of-4 prediction as opposed to the 1-out-of-2 prediction done by branch-level prediction schemes. These two schemes are evaluated using a MIPS ISA-based 12-way superscalar microarchitecture. An improvement in effective fetch size of approximately 25 percent and 50 percent, respectively, is observed over identical microprocessors that use branch-level prediction. No appreciable difference in the prediction accuracy was observed, although the control flow prediction schemes predicted 1-out-of-4, outcomes.

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

block-level prediction
instruction-level parallelism (ilp)
multiple-issue processors
multiple-branch prediction
speculative execution
trace cache
tree-level prediction


Eigen-Inference for Energy Estimation of Multiple Sources In this paper, a new method is introduced to blindly estimate the transmit power of multiple signal sources in multi-antenna fading channels, when the number of sensing devices and the number of available samples are sufficiently large compared to the number of sources. Recent advances in the field of large dimensional random matrix theory are used that result in a simple and computationally efficient consistent estimator of the power of each source. A criterion to determine the minimum number of sensors and the minimum number of samples required to achieve source separation is then introduced. Simulations are performed that corroborate the theoretical claims and show that the proposed power estimator largely outperforms alternative power inference techniques.

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

cognitive radio
g-estimation
power estimation
statistical inference


The contingent effects of management support and task interdependence on successful information systems implementation Management support is considered to be a critical factor in the successful implementation of information systems innovations. The literature suggests a complex relationship between management support and implementation success. However, the empirical literature typically hypothesizes and tests a simple main-effects model. Drawing upon the role of the institutional context and metastructuration actions, we propose a contingent model in which task interdependence moderates the effect of management support on implementation success. A meta-analysis of the empirical literature provides strong support for the model and begins to explain the wide variance in empirical findings. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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

is success
is utilization
is implementation
meta-analysis
contingency models


Relay Selection Protocols for Relay-Assisted Free-Space Optical Systems We investigate transmission protocols for relay-assisted free-space optical (FSO) systems, when multiple parallel relays are employed and there is no direct link between the source and the destination. As alternatives to all-active FSO relaying, where all the available relays transmit concurrently, we propose schemes that select only a single relay to participate in the communication between the source and the destination in each transmission slot. The selection is based on the channel state information obtained either from all or from the last used FSO links. Thus, the need for synchronization of the relays' transmissions is avoided, while the slowly varying nature of the atmospheric channel is exploited. For the considered relay selection and all-active relaying schemes, novel closed-form expressions for the outage performance are derived, assuming the versatile Gamma-Gamma channel model. In addition, based on the derived analytical results, the problem of optimizing the optical power resources of the FSO links is addressed. Optimal and more computationally attractive suboptimal solutions are proposed that lead to a power efficient system design. Numerical results for equal and non-equal length FSO links illustrate the merits of the proposed relay selection protocols compared to the all-active scheme and demonstrate the significant power savings offered by the proposed power allocation schemes.

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

cooperative diversity
distributed switch and stay relaying
free-space optical communications
relay-assisted communications


A modular approach for lexical normalization applied to Spanish tweets An extensible and modular approach for normalizing Spanish tweets is proposed. We make use of lightweight resources build with low manual effort. System performance is also analyzed module-wise and phenomenon-wise. The domain adaptability of our proposed system is easy and successful. The performance increases if a classifier-based reranking process is introduced.

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

twitter
text normalization
domain adaptation


incremental incrementally compacting garbage collection A mixed-strategy garbage collection algorithm is presented, which combines mark-and-sweep and copy collection. The intent is to benefit from the compacting and linearizing properties of copy collection without losing computational use of half the memory. The stop-and-collect version of the algorithm is a simple and cheap technique to fight memory fragmentation. The collection strategy may be dynamically adapted to minimize the cost of collection, according to the amount of memory actually accessed by the computing process. The parallel version of the algorithm is to our knowledge the only parallel compacting collector for varisized cells, that leaves most (more than half) of the memory available for the computing process.

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

fragmentation use parallel process intent version knowledge algorithm cost incremental

strategies compact collect computation memorialized


Design and implementation of an intelligent recommendation system for tourist attractions: The integration of EBM model, Bayesian network and Google Maps Selecting tourist attractions and collecting related site information is one of the most crucial activities for a tourist when making decisions for a trip. Although various recommendation systems have been discussed over the last decade, rarely do such systems take individual tourist preference information into consideration. Based on the Engel-Blackwell-Miniard (EBM) model, this study used data published by the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan to develop a decision support system for tourist attractions. The probability of a tourist attraction appealing to a particular tourist is calculated utilizing a Bayesian network, and the accuracy of the prediction is validated by a ROC curve test. Finally, recommended routes and tourist attractions are presented through an interactive user interface using Google Maps. This study confirms that by combining the EBM model with a Bayesian network to propose a decision support system called the Intelligent Tourist Attractions System (ITAS). It has demonstrated good prediction of tourism attractions and provides useful map information to tourists. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

tourist attractions
ebm model
bayesian network
roc curve
google maps


Member use of social networking sites an - empirical examination In this research the authors examine members' voluntary use of social networking sites. Site use leads to the growth of social relationships, increased volume of site visits and traffic, and an accumulation of user generated contents; hence it is imperative to the success of social networking sites. Drawing upon Social Exchange Theory (SET), we develop a research model that examines the major determinants of member site use behavior through a cost-benefit framework. This model also investigates the key antecedents to site use that stem from website designs, personal traits, and personal beliefs in the environment. The research model has been validated through survey data collected from 222 social networking site users, and the analysis results provide strong support to the hypothesized relationships. The current study generates new knowledge on the literature of SET and social networking sites; it also sheds lights on site management for networking service providers. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

social networking
social exchange theory
site use


SOA-based Service Layering for Facilitating Dynamic Service Composition and Alternative Service Discovery SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) is a methodology that is gaining popularity as a system design paradigm. In this paper, we propose metaservice as a SOA-based service abstraction for ubiquitous computing. The key to service modeling of SOA-based systems is in classifying services into business, application, and orchestration layers. However, service modeling techniques for SOA cannot be directly applied to a ubiquitous computing environment, which is dynamic, autonomous, and largely affected by run-time context. We have mainly focused on establishing the service layer to allow users to specify the computing goal using abstract description, detailed description, or both. The layered service abstraction also supports dynamic service composition and alternative service discovery to achieve the goal. Experiments show that the proposed metaservice provides a 49%-81% improvement in completing the execution of services over composition using none-layered services and a 30%-47% reduction in binding time by facilitating alternative service discovery.

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

ubiquitous computing
metaservice
service modeling
dynamic service composition

service-oriented architecture
community computing
service ontology


The inclusion-exclusion principle for IF-events The probabilistic version of the inclusion-exclusion principle is generalized for IF-events. Two versions of the generalized formula, corresponding to different t-conorms applied for defining the union of IF-events are shown. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy sets
if-event
if-sets
inclusion-exclusion principle
intuitionistic fuzzy set
probability
t-conorm


Improving performance of heterogeneous agents Agents provide services not only to humans users but also to agents in one or more multiagent systems. When agents are confronted with multiple tasks to perform ( or requests to satisfy), the agent can reduce load on itself by attempting to take advantage of commonalities between the tasks that need to be performed. In this paper, we develop a logical theory by which such "heavily loaded" agents can merge commonalities amongst such tasks. In our framework, agents can be built on top of legacy codebases. We propose a logical formalism called invariants using which agent developers may specify known commonalities between tasks - after this, we propose a sound and complete mechanism to derive all possible derived commonalities. An obvious A*-based algorithm may be used to merge a set of tasks in a way that minimised expected execution cost. Unfortunately the execution time of this algorithm is prohibitive, even when only 10 tasks need to be merged, thus making it unusable in practice. We develop heuristic algorithms for this problem that take much less time to execute and produce almost as good ways of merging tasks.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 ai
deduction and theorem proving
interoperability
multi-agency
logical foundations
multi-agent reasoning
heterogenous data sources


A novel geometric flow approach for quality improvement of multi-component tetrahedral meshes This paper presents an efficient and novel geometric flow-driven method for mesh optimization of multicomponent tetrahedral meshes with non-manifold boundaries. The presented method is composed of geometric optimization and topological transformation techniques, so that both location and topology of mesh vertices are optimized. Due to the complexity of non-manifold boundaries, we categorize the boundary vertices into three groups: surface vertices, curve vertices, and fixed vertices. Each group of boundary vertices is modified by different shape-preserving geometric flows in order to smooth and regularize boundary meshes. Meanwhile, all vertices are relocated by minimizing an energy functional which is relevant to the quality measure of tetrahedra. In addition, face-swapping and edge-removal operations are employed to eliminate poorly-shaped elements. Finally, the performance of our method is compared with a state of the art technique, named Stellar, for a dozen single-component meshes. We obtain similar or even better results with much less running time. Moreover, we validate the presented method on several multi-component tetrahedral meshes, and the results demonstrate that the mesh quality is improved significantly. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

multi-component tetrahedral mesh
mesh quality improvement
mesh smoothing
shape-preserving


tagging and navigability We consider the problem of optimal tagging for navigational purposes in one's own collection. What is the best that a forgetful user can hope for in terms of ease of retrieving a labeled object? We prove that the number of tags has to increase logarithmically in the collection size to maintain a manageable result set. Using Flickr data we then show that users do indeed apply more and more tags as their collection grows and that this is not due to a global increase in tagging activity. However, as the additional terms applied are not statistically independent, users of large collections still have to deal with larger and larger result sets, even when more tags are used as search terms. We pose optimal tag suggestion for navigational purposes as an open problem.

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


A permutation test based on regression error characteristic curves for software cost estimation models Regression Error Characteristic (REC) curves provide a visualization tool, able to characterize graphically the prediction power of alternative predictive models. Due to the benefits of using such a visualization description of the whole distribution of error, REC analysis was recently introduced in software cost estimation to aid the decision of choosing the most appropriate cost estimation model during the management of a forthcoming project.

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

cost prediction models
accuracy measures
graphical comparison
hypothesis test


Image classification without segmentation using a hybrid pyramid kernel Image classification usually requires complicated segmentation to separate foreground objects from the background scene. However, the statistical content of a background scene can actually provide very useful information for classification. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid pyramid kernel which incorporates local features extracted from both dense regular grids and interest points for image classification, without requiring segmentation. Features extracted from dense regular grids can better capture information about the background scene, while interest points detected at corners and edges can better capture information about the salient objects. In our algorithm, these two local features are combined in both the spatial and the feature-space domains, and are organized into pyramid representations. In order to obtain better classification accuracy, we fine-tune the parameters involved in the similarity measure, and we determine discriminative regions by means of relevance feedback. From the experimental results, we observe that our algorithm can achieve a 6.37% increase in performance as compared to other pyramid-representation-based methods. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed hybrid kernel to large-scale databases, we have performed a cross-dataset experiment and investigated the effect of foreground/background features on each of the kernels. In particular, the proposed hybrid kernel has been proven to satisfy Mercers condition and is efficient in measuring the similarity between image features. For instance, the computational complexity of the proposed hybrid kernel is proportional to the number of features.

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

un-segmented image classification
bag-of-features
spatial-pyramid match
feature-space pyramid representation
point-of-interest


Dynamic adaptation of sharing granularity in DSM systems The trade-off between false sharing elimination and aggregation in distributed shared memory (DSM) systems has a major effect on their performance. Some studies in this area show that fine grain access is advantageous, while others advocate the use of large coherency units. One way to resolve the trade-off is to dynamically adapt the granularity to the application memory access pattern. In this paper, we propose a novel technique for implementing multiple sharing granularities over page-based DSMS. We present protocols for efficient switching between small and large sharing units during runtime. We show that applications may benefit from adapting the memory sharing to the memory access pattern, using both coarse grain sharing and fine grain sharing interchangeably in different stages of the computation. Our experiments show a substantial improvement in the performance using adapted granularity level over using a fixed granularity level. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

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

virtual parallel machine
network programming


Extracting road information from recorded GPS data using snap-drift neural network Research towards an innovative solution to the problem of automated updating of road network databases is presented. It moves away from existing methods where vendors of road network databases either go through the time consuming and logistically challenging process of driving along roads to register changes or use update methods that rely on remote sensing images. The solution presented here would allow users of road network dependent applications (e.g. in-car navigation system or Sat Nav) to passively collect characteristics of any unknown route (departure from the known roads in the database) on behalf of the provider. These data would be processed either by an on-board artificial neural network (ANN) or transferred back to the Sat Nav provider and input into their ANN along with similar track data provided by other service users, to decide whether or not to automatically update (add) the unknown road to the road database. The solution presented here addresses the feasibility of identifying roads and assigning them into classes from recorded global positioning system (GPS) trajectory data. GPS trajectory data collected in London are analysed using a snap-drift neural network (SDNN) which categorises them into their strongest natural groupings, by combining clustering with feature detection in a single ANN. The key variables required are discussed. We have demonstrated that the SDNN offers a fast method of learning that preserves feature discovery. Using only GPS trajectory information, the SDNN is able to group collected points to reveal travelled road segments. The results showed that relying only on the winning node, a grouping accuracy of about 71% is achieved compared to 51% from learning vector quantisation (LVQ). On analysis and further experimentation with the SDNN d-nodes a grouping accuracy of nearly 100% was achieved, but with a high count of unique d-node combinations.

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

snap-drift
adaptive resonance theory
location-based services


Trust based prioritization of quality attributes Advances in network and distributed technology has revolutionized the advent of multi-agent systems. Nowadays, agent technology has been applied in revising and restructuring the complex software systems. Trust plays a key role in multiagent systems as agents will be representing or acting on behalf of users or owners with different goals and motivations. Tasks are delegated to software agents that achieve their common goals based on interaction among themselves. Current trust models focus on the limited aspect of stakeholders trust in multi-agent systems; for example security issues of the entities involved in system while ignoring the other issues such as knowledgeability, usability, persistency, accessibility, performance, collaboration, realism and integrity. This paper identifies the quality attributes of Multi-agent system, which foster the stakeholders trust in the system and hence establishes the multifaceted definition of trust in MAS. Building trust from the quality attributes would encourage the developer to induce these quality attributes in the MAS development life cycle and produce a system whose foundation will be the stakeholders trust. This paper also prioritizes the quality attributes of MAS in order of their impact on stakeholders' trust.

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

multi-agent systems (mas)
intuitionistic fuzzy sets (ifs)
quality attribute


Brushing with additional cleaning restrictions In graph cleaning problems, brushes clean a graph by traversing it subject to certain rules. We consider the process where at each time step, a vertex that has at least as many brushes as incident, contaminated edges, sends brushes down these edges to clean them. Various problems arise, such as determining the minimum number of brushes (called the brush number) that are required to clean the entire graph. Here, we study a new variant of the problem in which no more than k brushes can be sent at any time step.

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


predicting web spam with http session information Web spam is a widely-recognized threat to the quality and security of the Web. Web spam pages pollute search engine indexes, burden Web crawlers and Web mining services, and expose users to dangerous Web-borne malware. To defend against Web spam, most previous research analyzes the contents of Web pages and the link structure of the Web graph. Unfortunately, these heavyweight approaches require full downloads of both legitimate and spam pages to be effective, making real-time deployment of these techniques infeasible for Web browsers, high-performance Web crawlers, and real-time Web applications. In this paper, we present a lightweight, predictive approach to Web spam classification that relies exclusively on HTTP session information (i.e., hosting IP addresses and HTTP session headers). Concretely, we built an HTTP session classifier based on our predictive technique, and by incorporating this classifier into HTTP retrieval operations, we are able to detect Web spam pages before the actual content transfer. As a result, our approach protects Web users from Web-propagated malware, and it generates significant bandwidth and storage savings. By applying our predictive technique to a corpus of almost 350,000 Web spam instances and almost 400,000 legitimate instances, we were able to successfully detect 88.2\% of the Web spam pages with a false positive rate of only 0.4\%. These classification results are superior to previous evaluation results obtained with traditional link-based and content-based techniques. Additionally, our experiments show that our approach saves an average of 15.4 KB of bandwidth and storage resources for every successfully identified Web spam page, while only adding an average of 101 microseconds to each HTTP retrieval operation. Therefore, our predictive technique can be successfully deployed in applications that demand real-time spam detection.

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

classification
web spam
http session information


XPath-logic and XPathLog: A logic-programming style XML data manipulation language We define XPathLog as a Datalog-style extension of XPath. XPathLog provides a clear, declarative language for querying and manipulating XML whose perspectives arc especially in XML data integration. In Our characterization, the formal semantics is defined wrt. an edge-labeled graph-based model, which covers the XML data model. We give a complete, logic-based characterization of XML data and the main language concept Cor XML, XPath. XPath-Logic extends the XPath language with variable bindings and embeds it into first-order logic. XPathLog is then the Horn fragment of XPath-Logic, providing a Datalog-style, rule-based language for querying and manipulating X M L data. The model-theoretic semantics of XPath-Logic serves as the base of XPathLog as a logic-programming language, whereas also an equivalent answer-set semantics for evaluating XPathLog queries is given. In contrast to other approaches, the XPath syntax and semantics is also used for a declarative specification how the database Should be updated : when used in rule heads, XPath filters are interpreted as specifications of elements and properties Which Should he added to the database.

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

logic programming
information integration


GMRVVmSVR model for financial time series forecasting The complex model GMRVVmSVR has been adopted to predict financial time series with such characteristics as small sample size, poor information, non-stationary, high noise and non-linearity. In order to construct GMRVVmSVR, the m-root grey model with revised verge value (GMRVVm) has been introduced and modified by support vector regression based on the calculation of the residual error sequence between predicted values and original data. Due to the recent data points providing more information than distant data points, more importance has been attached to the punishment parameter C of recent data points in support vector regression. Simultaneously, the parameter ? in ?-insensitive loss function has been determined according to smoothing overshooting. Pattern search (PS) algorithm has been carried out to tune free parameters. A real experimental result shows that the complex model can achieve comparative accurate prediction as well as smoothing overshooting in financial time series prediction.

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

support vector regression
smoothing overshooting

m-root grey model
verge value conditions
pattern search algorithm


Fuzzy description logic programs under the answer set semantics for the semantic web There are numerous semantic web applications where dealing with vagueness and imprecision plays an important role. Some examples of such applications are (i) multimedia information processing and retrieval, (ii) natural language interfaces to the Web, and (iii) ontology mapping and information retrieval. In this paper, towards dealing with vagueness and imprecision in the reasoning layers of the Semantic Web, we present an approach to normal fuzzy description logic programs under the answer set semantics, which are a generalization of normal description logic programs (dl-programs) under the answer set semantics by fuzzy vagueness and imprecision in both the description logic and the logic program component. We define a canonical semantics of positive and stratified fuzzy dl-programs in terms of a unique least model and iterative least models, respectively. We then define the answer set semantics of general fuzzy dl-programs, and show in particular that all answer sets of a fuzzy dl-prograrn are minimal models, and that the answer set semantics of positive and stratified fuzzy dl-prograrns coincides with their canonical least model and iterative least model semantics, respectively. We also provide a characterization of the canonical semantics of positive and stratified fuzzy dl-programs in terms of a fixpoint and an iterative fixpoint semantics, respectively. Furthermore, we provide a reduction of fuzzy dl-programs under the answer set semantics to normal dl-prograrns under the answer set semantics. Finally, we also describe a special case of fuzzy dl-prograrns where query processing can be done in polynomial time in the data complexity.

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

fuzzy description logic programs
answer set semantics
vagueness and imprecision
semantic web

fuzzy description logics
fuzzy normal programs


Opening up design science: The challenge of designing for reuse and joint development The purpose of this paper is to advance design science by developing a framework for research on reuse and the relationship between external IT artifacts and their users. A design science approach to IS research needs to grapple with the fact that a number of relevant, economically attractive, external IT artifacts cannot be designed from scratch nor meaningfully evaluated based on the current state of development, and so design science research will struggle with incomplete cycles of design, relevance, and rigor. We suggest a strategic research agenda that integrates the design of the relationship between an external IT artifact and the user by considering the impact artifacts exert on users. Three dimensions derived from adaptive structuration theory inform our framework on three levels of design granularity (middle management, top management, and entrepreneur): agenda considers the dynamic properties of technological objects, adaptability refers to the functional affordance of external artifacts in development, and auspice captures the symbolic expression and scope for interpretation. We derive implications for research design.

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 science
it artifact
adaptive structuration


Comparison of intelligent control planning algorithms for robot's part micro-assembly task Two intelligent control (path or motion) planning algorithms, based on a neural network and a fuzzy set theory, related to a robotic quasi-static part micro-assembly task are introduced. The part micro-assembly considered in this paper consists in a mating a part with an assembly hole or a receptacle (target) without a jamming. These algorithms are then compared through the utilization of experimentally measured data as well as simulations and a set of criteria. An entropy function, which is a useful measure of the variability and the information in terms of uncertainty, is introduced to measure its overall performance of a task execution related to the part micro-assembly task. Fuzzy set theory is introduced to address the uncertainty associated with the part micro-assembly procedure. The degree of uncertainty associated with the part micro-assembly is used as an optimality criterion, e.g. minimum fuzzy entropy, for a specific task execution. It is shown that the machine organizer using a sensor system can intelligently determine an optimal control value, based on explicit performance criteria. The algorithms utilize knowledge processing functions such as machine reasoning, planning, inferencing, learning, and decision-making. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. The proposed techniques are applicable to a wide range of robotic tasks including motion planning, pick and place operations, and part mating with various shaped parts.

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

part micro-assembly (part mating)
fuzzy coordinator
optimality criterion (fuzzy entropy)
uncertainty (=fuzziness)
machine intelligence
vision and force sensors


Probabilistic argumentation Argumentation in the sense of a process of logical reasoning is a very intuitive and general methodology of establishing conclusions from defeasible premises. The core of any argumentative process is the systematical elaboration, exhibition, and weighting of possible arguments and counter-arguments. This paper presents the formal theory of probabilistic argumentation, which is conceived to deal with uncertain premises for which respective probabilities are known. With respect to possible arguments and counter-arguments of a hypothesis, this leads to probabilistic weights in the first place, and finally to an overall probabilistic judgment of the uncertain proposition in question. The resulting probabilistic measure is called degree of support and possesses the desired properties of non-monotonicity and non-additivity. Reasoning according to the proposed formalism is an simple and natural generalization of the two classical forms of probabilistic and logical reasoning, in which the two traditional questions of the probability and the logical deducibility of a hypothesis are replaced by the more general question of the probability of a hypothesis being logically deducible from the available knowledge base. From this perspective, probabilistic argumentation also contributes to the emerging area of probabilistic logics. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

logic
probability theory
uncertainty
degrees of beliefs
probabilistic logic
dempster-shafer theory


A spatio-temporal geostatistical approach to predicting pollution levels: The case of mono-nitrogen oxides in Madrid In spite of the effort made in the last years, NOx is still one of the main pollution problems in large cities. This is why the literature related to predicting NOx levels is certainly extensive. However, most of this literature does not take into account the spatio-temporal dependencies of such NOx levels. As spatio-temporal dependencies are a core aspect of pollution, we propose both a spatio-temporal kriging and a functional kriging strategy to incorporate such dependencies into the prediction procedure. We also use an innovative method for estimating the parameters of the non separable spacetime covariance function involved in the spatio-temporal kriging strategy, which significantly reduces the computational burden of traditional likelihood-based methods. The empirical study focuses on Madrid City and is backed by a massive hourly database. Results indicate that the functional strategy outperforms the spatio-temporal procedure at non peripheral sites, which is a remarkable finding due to the high computational requirements of spatio-temporal kriging.

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

spatio-temporal kriging
composite weighted likelihood


using semi-parametric clustering applied to electronic health record time series data We describe a exible framework for biomedical time series clustering that aims to facilitate the use of temporal information derived from EHRs in a meaningful way. As a case study, we use a dataset indicating the presence of physician ordered glucose tests for a population of hospitalized patients and aim to group individuals with similar disease status. Our approach pairs Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to abstract variable length temporal information, with non-parametric spectral clustering to reveal inherent group structure. We focus on systematically comparing the performance of our approach with two alternative clustering methods that use various time series statistics instead of HMM based temporal features. Intrinsic evaluation of cluster quality shows a dramatic improvement using the HMM based feature set, generating clusters that indicate more than 90\% of patients are similar to members of their own cluster, and distinct from patients in neighboring clusters.

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

electronic health records
semi-parametric clustering


Skeptical notes on a physics of passage This paper investigates the mathematical representation of time in physics. In existing theories, time is represented by the real numbers, hence their formal properties represent properties of time: these are surveyed. The central question of the paper is whether the existing representation of time is adequate, or whether it can or should be supplemented: especially, do we need a physics incorporating some kind of dynamical passage of time? The paper argues that the existing mathematical framework is resistant to such changes, and might have to be rejected by anyone seeking a physics of passage. Then it rebuts two common arguments for incorporating passage into physics, especially the claim that it is an element of experience. Finally, the paper investigates whether, as has been claimed, causal set theory provides a physics of passage.

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


seamlessly integrated distributed shared virtual environments Multi-user virtual environments implemented across the web allow many users to interact with the virtual world and each other in a seamless manner. The current standard for embedding virtual worlds in the Internet, VRML 2.0, provides links between these worlds, but it does not allow the user to see across these links before physically entering them. This paper describes the client-server design, implementation and experimental results for CurlSpace, a system that supports real-time visual interaction between many users and scalability in a shared virtual 3D environment such as the Internet. This system, developed using C++ and OpenGL, is based on using portals to connect different virtual environments (VE) in a way that visual connectivity between different VE will always be maintained.

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

distributed virtual environments
client-server


Tricyclic graphs with maximum MerrifieldSimmons index ? It is well known that the graph invariant, the MerrifieldSimmons index is important one in structural chemistry. The connected acyclic graphs with maximal and minimal MerrifieldSimmons indices are determined by Prodinger and Tichy [H. Prodinger, R.F. Tichy, Fibonacci numbers of graphs, Fibonacci Quart. 20 (1982) 1621]. The sharp upper and lower bounds for the MerrifieldSimmons indices of unicyclic graphs are characterized by Pedersen and Vestergaard [A.S. Pedersen, P.D. Vestergaard, The number of independent sets in unicyclic graphs, Discrete Appl. Math. 152 (2005) 246256]. The sharp upper bound for the MerrifieldSimmons index of bicyclic graphs is obtained by Deng, Chen and Zhang [H. Deng, S. Chen, J. Zhang, The MerrifieldSimmons index in (n,n+1) ( n , n + 1 ) -graphs, J. Math. Chem. 43 (1) (2008) 7591]. The sharp lower bound for the MerrifieldSimmons index of bicyclic graphs is determined by Jing and Li [W. Jing, S. Li, The number of independent sets in bicyclic graphs, Ars Combin, 2008 (in press)]. In this paper, we will consider the tricyclic graph, i.e.,a connected graph with cyclomatic number 3. The tricyclic graph with n n vertices having maximum MerrifieldSimmons index is determined.

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


Medium term speaker state detection by perceptually masked spectral features Acoustic features are designed to detect sleepiness from speech using perceptual content. Perceptual enhancers are used to model human ears spectral perception. The model does not require pre-segmentation and can be adopted to online processing. The achieved results outperformed the baseline studies and reduced computational complexity. We applied SVM and LVQ classifiers and 1030% improvement is obtained.

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

sleepiness detection
speaker emotion recognition
perceptual audio features
bag-of-words


Effect of varying the 1-4 intramolecular scaling factor in atomistic simulations of long-chain N-alkanes with the OPLS-AA model A comprehensive molecular dynamics simulation study of n-alkanes using the optimized potential for liquid simulation with all-atoms (OPLS-AA) force field at ambient condition has been performed. Our results indicate that while simulations with the OPLS-AA force field accurately predict the liquid state mass density for n-alkanes with carbon number equal or less than 10, for n-alkanes with carbon number equal or exceeding 12, the OPLS-AA force field with the standard scaling factor for the 1-4 intramolecular Van der Waals and electrostatic interaction gives rise to a quasi-crystalline structure. We found that accurate predictions of the liquid state properties are obtained by successively reducing the aforementioned scaling factor for each increase of the carbon number beyond n-dodecane. To better understand the effects of reducing the scaling factor, its influence on the torsion potential profile, and the corresponding gauche-trans conformer distribution, heat of vaporization, melting point, and self-diffusion coefficient for n-dodecane were investigated. This relatively simple procedure enables more accurate predictions of the thermo-physical properties of longer n-alkanes.

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

alkanes
chain stiffness
intramolecular interaction
opls


Defectivity profiling with dynamic COQUALMO: An explication and product quality retrospective A software development organization's process trustworthiness can be enhanced through development project retrospectives or postmortems, which seek to produce lessons from mistakes and successes in the project performance. Tool support for such retrospectives is usually limited to qualitative analysis. A new model, Dynamic COQUALMO, offers quantitative support through a defectivity profile that can be calibrated to a project's actual profile of defects found over time. The model inputs can then be varied to represent alternative project decisions and conditions, providing a basis for estimating the effects of project improvements on product quality. This paper describes Dynamic COQUALMO and demonstrates its use in a project retrospective. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

retrospective
dynamic coqualmo
defectivity profiling

postmortem
lessons learned
residual defects
defect profile
coqualmo
defect introduction and removal


DISCOVERING FUZZY RULES IN DATABASES WITH LINGUISTIC VARIABLE ELIMINATION A group of fuzzy IF-THEN rules is belonging to one of the most popular, most effective, and user-friendliest knowledge representations. For this reason, extraction of these rules is becoming a more-and-more important part of the Data Mining stage in the Knowledge Discovery in Databases Process. In this paper, a direct algorithm for extracting fuzzy IF-THEN rules on the basis of linguistic variable elimination is described. The algorithm is implemented within a designed object-oriented software library Fuzzy Rule Miner. Besides the introduced algorithm, it implements two algorithms for fuzzy rule extraction based on using fuzzy decision trees of ID3 kind. An essential precondition for comparing the implemented algorithms and for verifying the legitimacy of the introduced algorithm is performance of experiments. The goal of experiments is to take in the behavior of algorithms on testing databases from the UCI Repository of Machine Learning Databases and to make comparisons of algorithms with one another. According to the conducted experiments, the introduced algorithm achieves high accuracy levels of discovered knowledge. The paper also contains a classification of rules and a specification of the Fuzzy Rule Discovery in Databases Process.

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

fuzzy rules
fuzzy decision trees
linguistic variable elimination
classification
fuzzy rule extraction
data mining
knowledge discovery in databases


Application-aware protection in DWDM optical networks Fast recovery time and reduced resource utilization are the two main criteria for determining the quality of survivability mechanism. Now, it is well known that link-based protection and path-based protection provide, respectively, a short recovery time and reduced use of resources. To benefit from the both of these saliencies, we propose in this paper to use these mechanisms simultaneously. Indeed, demands mandating shorter recovery time will be protected using link-based protection. Meanwhile, other demands (e.g., no-critical) will be protected using path-based protection. Simulation results show that the proposed solution achieves a good trade-off between resource utilization and recovery time.

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

link-based protection
path-based protection
optical network


Hierarchical extreme learning machine for feedforward neural network ? An approach, named extended extreme learning machine (ELM), is proposed for training the weights of a class of hierarchical feedforward neural network (HFNN). Unlike conventional single-hidden-layer feedforward networks (SLFNs), this hierarchical ELM (HELM) is based on the hierarchical structure which is capable of hierarchical learning of sequential information online, and one may simply choose hidden layers and then only need to adjust the output weights linking the hidden layer and the output layer. In such HELM implementations, the extended ELM provides better generalization performance during the learning process. Moreover, the proposed extended ELM method is efficient not only for HFNNs with sigmoid hidden nodes but also for HFNNs with radial basis function (RBF) hidden nodes. Finally, the HELM is applied to the activated sludge wastewater treatment processes (WWTPs) for predicting the water qualities. Experimental results and the performance comparison demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed HELM.

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

hierarchical extreme learning machine
feedforward neural network

wastewater treatment process
predicting water qualities


Structural optimization system based on trabecular bone surface adaptation In the paper the structural optimization system based on trabecular bone surface adaptation is presented. The basis of the algorithm formulation was the phenomenon of bone adaptation to mechanical stimulation. This process, called remodeling, leads to the optimization of the trabecular network in the bone. The simulation system, as well as the finite element mesh generation, decision criteria for structural adaptation, and the finite element analysis in a parallel environment are described. The possibility of applying the system in mechanical design is discussed. Some computation results using the developed system are presented, including the comparison to the topology optimization method.

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

biomechanics
structural analysis
trabecular bone structure


Content-aware adaptive media playout controls for wireless video streaming Video streaming is one of the killer applications for cellular communications. The MPEG-4 fine-granularity scalability video coding technique can adapt to bandwidth variation and random packet errors. In this paper, to explore the impacts of cellular channel characteristics on the tolerance of buffer performance and quality of service, a novel statistical model-based adaptive media playout (AMP) is proposed by utilizing the statistical assumptions of both arrival and departure processes for a better decision on the dynamic threshold adjustment an frame-rate adjustment. Based on third-generation cellular transmission environment, simulation results will demonstrate that as compared to other AMP schemes, the proposed AMP control provides better visual quality with lower complexity.

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

adaptive media playout (amp)
buffers
cdma2000 1 x -rtt
scalable video streaming


Financial decision support using neural networks and support vector machines Bankruptcy prediction and credit scoring are the two important problems facing financial decision support. The multilayer perceptron (MLP) network has shown its applicability to these problems and its performance is usually superior to those of other traditional statistical models. Support vector machines (SVMs) are the core machine learning techniques and have been used to compare with MLP as the benchmark. However, the performance of SVMs is not fully understood in the literature because an insufficient number of data sets is considered and different kernel functions are used to train the SVMs. In this paper, four public data sets are used. In particular, three different sizes of training and testing data in each of the four data sets are considered (i.e. 3

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

bankruptcy prediction
credit scoring
financial decision support
support vector machines
neural networks


Robust Non-linear Precoder for Multiuser MISO Systems Based on Delay and Channel Quantization In multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, non-linear precoder is able to achieve the theoretical sum capacity of downlink channel with perfect channel state information (CSI). However, the perfect CSI is not available at the transmitter in practical system, especially in frequency division duplex (FDD) system where the imperfect CSI is the delayed, quantized channel direction information relayed back from the receiver through a dedicated feedback channel. So the performance of conventional non-linear precoder degrades significantly. In this paper, a robust non-linear TomlinsonHarashima precoding (THP) based on sum mean squared error (SMSE) minimization for the downlink of multiuser MISO FDD systems is proposed. The proposed precoder is robust to the channel uncertainties arising from channel delay and quantization error. Furthermore, an improved non-linear THP with channel magnitude information (CMI) consideration is introduced to compensate the instantaneous CMI shortage at the transmitter. Additionally, the computational complexity of both proposed precoders can be reduced remarkably by Cholesky factorization with symmetric permutation. Simulation results demonstrate the improvement in bit error ratio performance and illustrate the SMSE performance of the proposed algorithms compared with conventional THP with perfect CSI in the literature.

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

multi-user multiple-input single-output (miso)


Shift-and-merge technique for the DP solution of the time-constrained backpacker problem We formulate the time-constrained backpacker problem as an extension of the classical knapsack problem (KP), where a backpacker travels from a origin to a destination on a directed acyclic graph, and collects items en route within the capacity of his knapsack and within a fixed time limit. We present a dynamic programming (DP) algorithm to solve this problem to optimality, and a shift-and-merge DP algorithm to solve larger instances. The latter is an extension of the list-type DP, which has been successful for one-dimensional KPs, to the two-dimensional case. Computational experiments on a series of instances demonstrate advantage of the shift-and-merge technique over commercial MIP solvers.

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

two-dimensional 01 knapsack problem
combinatorial optimization


Distributed-based massive processing of activity logs for efficient user modeling in a Virtual Campus This paper reports on a multi-fold approach for the building of user models based on the identification of navigation patterns in a virtual campus, allowing for adapting the campus usability to the actual learners needs, thus resulting in a great stimulation of the learning experience. However, user modeling in this context implies a constant processing and analysis of user interaction data during long-term learning activities, which produces huge amounts of valuable data stored typically in server log files. Due to the large or very large size of log files generated daily, the massive processing is a foremost step in extracting useful information. To this end, this work studies, first, the viability of processing large log data files of a real Virtual Campus using different distributed infrastructures. More precisely, we study the time performance of massive processing of daily log files implemented following the master-slave paradigm and evaluated using Cluster Computing and PlanetLab platforms. The study reveals the complexity and challenges of massive processing in the big data era, such as the need to carefully tune the log file processing in terms of chunk log data size to be processed at slave nodes as well as the bottleneck in processing in truly geographically distributed infrastructures due to the overhead caused by the communication time among the master and slave nodes. Then, an application of the massive processing approach resulting in log data processed and stored in a well-structured format is presented. We show how to extract knowledge from the log data analysis by using the WEKA framework for data mining purposes showing its usefulness to effectively build user models in terms of identifying interesting navigation patters of on-line learners. The study is motivated and conducted in the context of the actual data logs of the Virtual Campus of the Open University of Catalonia.

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

massive processing
log files
cluster computing
planetlab
weka framework
navigation patterns
virtual campus


An improved mechanism for multiple MBMS sessions assignment in B3G cellular networks In Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), the downlink capacity is limited by the base station transmission power. Therefore, power control plays an important role to minimize the transmitted power shared among unicast and multicast users within a cell. In Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS), power control targets to the efficient utilization of radio and network resources. However, the expected high demand for such services stresses the need for an efficient scheme, capable of dynamically allocating radio resources to parallel MBMS sessions. This paper proposes a power control mechanism for efficient MBMS session assignment in next generation UMTS networks. The mechanism shares efficiently the available power resources of UMTS base stations to MBMS sessions running in the network. Furthermore, the mechanism is evaluated through several realistic scenarios and the results indicate the ability of the mechanism to utilize efficiently the radio resources and to ensure the service continuity when parallel MBMS services run in the network. Our approach is compared with current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) approaches, such as these presented in TS 25.346 and in TR 25.922, in order to highlight the enhancements that it provides.

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


Systems biology approach reveals possible evolutionarily conserved moonlighting functions for enolase Enolase interaction networks were designed for four distantly related organisms. Enolase was identified as a bottleneck node in all designed networks. Enolase non glycolic partners indicate several moonlighting functions. Enolase connectivity patterns indicate partial conservation in its interactions. Some enolase moonlighting functions seem to be evolutionary conserved.

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

enolase
moonlighting functions
systems biology

glycolytic enzyme
proteinprotein interaction network