Sensitivity of molecular docking to induced fit effects in influenza virus neuraminidase Many proteins undergo small side chain or even backbone movements on binding of different ligands into the same protein structure. This is known as induced fit and is potentially problematic for virtual screening of databases against protein targets. In this report we investigate the limits of the rigid protein approximation used by the docking program, GOLD, through cross-docking using protein structures of influenza neuraminidase. Neuraminidase is known to exhibit small but significant induced fit effects on ligand binding. Some neuraminidase crystal structures caused concern due to the bound ligand conformation and GOLD performed poorly on these complexes. A 'clean' set, which contained unique, unambiguous complexes, was defined. For this set, the lowest energy structure was correctly docked (i.e. RMSD < 1.5 &ANGS; away from the crystal reference structure) in 84% of proteins, and the most promiscuous protein (1mwe) was able to dock all 15 ligands accurately including those that normally required an induced fit movement. This is considerably better than the 70% success rate seen with GOLD against general validation sets. Inclusion of specific water molecules involved in water-mediated hydrogen bonds did not significantly improve the docking performance for ligands that formed water-mediated contacts but it did prevent docking of ligands that displaced these waters. Our data supports the use of a single protein structure for virtual screening with GOLD in some applications involving induced fit effects, although caremust be taken to identify the protein structure that performs best against a wide variety of ligands. The performance of GOLD was significantly better than the GOLD implementation of ChemScore and the reasons for this are discussed. Overall, GOLD has shown itself to be an extremely good, robust docking program for this system.

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

gold
induced fit effects
rigid protein approximation
influenza
neuraminidase


Univariate linear calibration via replicated errors-in-variables model In this paper, we deal with the comparative calibration problem, i.e. with the situation when one instrument or measurement technique is calibrated against another, each of which is subject to the measurement error. We propose an approximate, small sample, calibration confidence interval of the unknown true value of the measured substance in units of the more precise instrument, given measurement in units of the less precise instrument. Here we deal with the simplest case-single-use linear univariate calibration, i.e. the case in which we assume linear relationship between the two measurement techniques (instruments), and, further, that the calibration procedure is conducted in order to obtain one value for an unknown, reported together with an interval estimate. The method for deriving the approximate confidence interval is based on estimation of the calibration line via the replicated errors-in-variables model. The model is locally linearized and the Wald-type F-statistic is constructed. An essential point in this approach is the use of the F-approximation of the distribution of the F-statistic suggested by Kenward and Roger [Kenward, M. G. and Roger, J.H., 1997, Small sample inference for fixed effects from restricted maximum likelihood. Biometrics, 53, 983-997]. The statistical properties of the proposed interval estimator are verified by simulations for wide spectrum of experimental designs and compared with two standard univariate interval estimates-the classical approach for deriving the calibration interval was proposed by Eisenhart [Eisenhart, C., 1939, The interpretation of certain methods and their use in biological and industrial research. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 10, 162-186] and the inverse method was proposed by Krutchkoff [Krutchkoff, R. G., 1967, Classical and inverse methods of calibration. Technometrics, 9, 425-439].

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

comparative univariate linear calibration


Geometry of single axis motions using conic fitting Previous algorithms for recovering 3D geometry from an uncalibrated image sequence of a single axis motion of unknown rotation angles are mainly based on the computation of two-view fundamental matrices and three-view trifocal tensors. In this paper, we propose three new methods that are based on fitting a conic locus to corresponding image points over multiple views. The main advantage is that determining only five parameters of a conic from one corresponding point over at least five views is simpler and more robust than determining a fundamental matrix from two views or a trifocal tensor from three views. It is shown that the geometry of single axis motion can be recovered either by computing one conic locus and one fundamental matrix or by computing at least two conic loci. A maximum likelihood solution based on this parametrization of the single axis motion is also described for optimal estimation using three or more loci. The experiments on real image sequences demonstrate the simplicity, accuracy, and robustness Of the new methods.

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

single axis motion
geometry
conic
fundamental matrix


Quasiconvex Analysis of Multivariate Recurrence Equations for Backtracking Algorithms We consider a class of multivariate recurrences frequently arising in the worst-case analysis of Davis-Putnam-style exponential-time backtracking algorithms for NP-hard problems. We describe a technique for proving asymptotic upper bounds on these recurrences, by using a suitable weight function to reduce the problem to that of solving univariate linear recurrences; show how to use quasiconvex programming to determine the weight function yielding the smallest upper bound; and prove that the resulting upper bounds are within a polynomial factor of the true asymptotics of the recurrence. We develop and implement a multiple-gradient descent algorithm for the resulting quasiconvex programs, using a real-number arithmetic package for guaranteed accuracy of the computed worst-case time bounds.

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

algorithms
backtracking
multivariate recurrences
quasiconvex programming

automated analysis of algorithms
davis-putnam procedures
method of feasible directions
worst-case analysis


Bilinear modelling of batch processes. Part I: theoretical discussion When studying the principal component analysis (PCA) or partial least squares (PLS) modelling of batch process data, one realizes that there is a wide range of approaches. In many cases, new modelling approaches are presented just because they work properly for a particular application, for example, on-line monitoring and a given number of processes. A clear understanding of why these approaches perform successfully and which are the advantages and disadvantages in front of the others is seldom supplied. Why does modelling after batch-wise unfolding capture changing dynamics? What are the consequences of variable-wise unfolding? Is there any best unfolding method? When should several models for a single process be used? In this paper, it is shown how these and other related questions can be answered by properly analyzing the dynamic covariance structures of the various approaches. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

principal component analysis
partial least squares
batch processes


clustering search results for mobile terminals Mobile terminals such as cell phones are much more restricted in terms of input/output functionality and, therefore, some special techniques must be incorporated to enable them to be easily used for Web searching. Further, searching for a location name is related to a dazzling variety of topics. We relate these two factors to each other to yield a new search system for map and text information. Presenting search results as clusters is helpful for users, especially in a mobile environment. The system makes mobile web searching easier and more efficient.

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


Automatic labelling of the human cortical surface using sulcal basins ? Human brain mapping aims at establishing correspondences between brain function and brain anatomy. One of the most intriguing problems in this field is the high interpersonal variability of human neuroanatomy which makes studies across many subjects very difficult. The cortical folds (sulci) often serve as landmarks that help to establish correspondences between subjects. In this paper, we will present a method that automatically detects and attributes neuroanatomical names to the cortical folds using image analysis methods applied to magnetic resonance data of human brains. We claim that the cortical folds can be subdivided into a number of substructures which we call sulcal basins. The concept of sulcal basins allows us to establish a complete parcellation of the cortical surface into separate regions. These regions are neuroanatomically meaningful and can be identified from MR data sets across many subjects. Sulcal basins are segmented using a region growing approach. The automatic labelling is achieved by a model matching technique.

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

medical image analysis
cortical topography


Modeling the Interactions Between alpha(1)-Adrenergic Receptors and Their Antagonists As crucial members of the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily, alpha(1)-adrenergic receptors (alpha(1)-ARs) are recognized to intervene the actions of endogenous catecholamines such as norepinephrine and epinephrine. So far three distinct alpha(1)-AR subtypes, alpha(1A), alpha(1B) and alpha(1D), have been characterized by functional analysis, radio-ligand binding and molecular biology studies. The alpha(1)-ARs are of therapeutic interest because of their distinct and critical roles in many physiological processes, containing hypertension, benign prostatic hyperplasia, smooth muscle contraction, myocardial inotropy and chronotropy, and hepatic glucose metabolism. Accordingly, designing subtype-selective antagonists for each of the three alpha(1)-AR subtypes has been an enthusiastic region of medicinal research. Even though a large number of studies on GPCRs have been conducted, understanding of how known antagonists bind to alpha(1)-ARs still remains sketchy and has been a serious impediment to search for potent and subtype-selective alpha(1)-AR antagonists because of the lack of detailed experimental structural knowledge. This review deliberates the simulation of alpha(1)-ARs and their interactions with antagonists by using ligand-based (pharmacophore identification and QSAR modeling) and structure-based (comparative modeling and molecular docking) approaches. Combined with experimental data, these computational attempts could improve our understanding of the structural basis of antagonist binding and the molecular basis of receptor activation, thus offering a more reasonable approach in the design of drugs targeting alpha(1)-ARs.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Fast continuous collision detection and handling for desktop virtual prototyping This paper presents an overview of our recent work on continuous collision detection methods and constraints handling for rigid polyhedral objects. We demonstrate that continuous collision detection algorithms are practical in interactive dynamics simulation of complex polyhedral rigid bodies and show how continuous collision detection and efficient constraint-based dynamics algorithms allow us to perform various virtual prototyping tasks intuitively, precisely and robustly on commodity desktop computers. Especially, we present two applications of our system to actual industrial cases. We note that both tasks are performed with a simple 2D mouse on a high-end computer.

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

continuous collision detection
dynamics simulation
virtual prototyping


INFORMATION SHARING BETWEEN LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS Integration and information sharing among government agencies is one of the highest priorities of decision makers. Local governments play a vital role in the nationwide information sharing efforts. This study investigates the factors that influence local agency electronic information sharing with state agencies. Survey methodology was used to collect data from local law enforcement agencies. Results show that local agency electronic information sharing is determined by technological, agency and environmental factors. Implications for research and practice are provided.

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 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

electronic information sharing
government

data sharing
interagency information sharing
state-local information systems


Experimental analysis of the two-link manipulator in consideration of the relative motion between link and object In this article, equations of motion of two-link manipulator are derived in consideration of characteristics of driving source. By considering for different heights of falling object, trajectories for saving energy are calculated by iterative dynamic programming method. And the dynamic characteristics of two-link system controlled based on the trajectory for saving energy are also analyzed theoretically and investigated experimentally.

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

manipulator
trajectory
dynamic programming


Effective symbolic dynamics, random points, statistical behavior, complexity and entropy We consider the dynamical behavior of Martin-Lof random points in dynamical systems over metric spaces with a computable dynamics and a computable invariant measure. We use computable partitions to de. ne a sort of effective symbolic model for the dynamics. Through this construction, we prove that such points have typical statistical behavior (the behavior which is typical in the Birkhoff ergodic theorem) and are recurrent. We introduce and compare some notions of complexity for orbits in dynamical systems and prove: (i) that the complexity of the orbits of random points equals the Kolmogorov-Sina entropy of the system, (ii) that the supremum of the complexity of orbits equals the topological entropy. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

algorithmic randomness
kolmogorov-chaitin complexity
computable partition
orbit complexity


Clinical Significance of Complement Deficiencies The complement system is composed of more than 30 serum and membrane-bound proteins, all of which are needed for normal function of complement in innate and adaptive immunity. Historically, deficiencies within the complement system have been suspected when young children have had recurrent and difficult-to-control infections. As our understanding of the complement system has increased, many other diseases have been attributed to deficiencies within the complement system. Generally, complement deficiencies within the classical pathway lead to increased susceptibility to encapsulated bacterial infections as well as a syndrome resembling systemic lupus erythematosus. Complement deficiencies within the mannose-binding lectin pathway generally lead to increased bacterial infections, and deficiencies within the alternative pathway usually lead to an increased frequency of Neisseria infections. However, factor H deficiency can lead to membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis and hemolytic uremic syndrome. Finally, deficiencies within the terminal complement pathway lead to an increased incidence of Neisseria infections. Two other notable complement-associated deficiencies are complement receptor 3 and 4 deficiency, which result from a deficiency of CD18, a disease known as leukocyte adhesion deficiency type 1, and CD59 deficiency, which causes paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. Most inherited deficiencies of the complement system are autosomal recessive, but properidin deficiency is X-linked recessive, deficiency of C1 inhibitor is autosomal dominant, and mannose-binding lectin and factor I deficiencies are autosomal co-dominant. The diversity of clinical manifestations of complement deficiencies reflects the complexity of the complement system.

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

c1 inhibitor
leukocyte adhesion deficiency
paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria

angioedema
mannose-binding lectin
membrane attack complex
mbl-associated serine protease-2
properdin
lectin-binding pathway


Solving nonlinear eigenvalue problems by using p-version of FEM Two nonlinear eigenvalue problems associated with strongly nonlinear partial differential equations are considered under a Dirichlet boundary condition on a square domain. The p-version of the finite-element method is applied to evaluate the first eigenvalue and the corresponding eigen-function. The numerical results are compared with the results obtained by the h-version of the FEM. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

p-version fem
nonlinear pde
eigenvalue problem


Towards perfectly matching layers for lattice Boltzmann equation Following the efficient technique of Berenger in classical computational fluid dynamics methods to avoid reflection of sound waves on the boundaries of the computational domain, we propose a new LBE scheme that behaves like a Berenger medium for absorbing waves without reflection. This model is presented and its' properties are discussed using the method of "equivalent equations". We also proposed a general method to introduce zero-order damping terms in Boltzmann schemes that are used to absorb the waves propagating in the Berenger medium. Results of the simulation are discussed with theoretical interpretation in the case of waves incoming normal to the interface. We shall also show that the reflection of sound waves can be reduced simply by changing the "advection step" of the lattice Boltzmann algorithm on the nodes close to the interface. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

lattice boltzmann equation
berenger medium
damping terms


Importance Sampling of Word Patterns in DNA and Protein Sequences Monte Carlo methods can provide accurate p-value estimates of word counting test statistics and are easy to implement. They are especially attractive when an asymptotic theory is absent or when either the search sequence or the word pattern is too short for the application of asymptotic formulae. Naive direct Monte Carlo is undesirable for the estimation of small probabilities because the associated rare events of interest are seldom generated. We propose instead efficient importance sampling algorithms that use controlled insertion of the desired word patterns on randomly generated sequences. The implementation is illustrated on word patterns of biological interest: palindromes and inverted repeats, patterns arising from position-specific weight matrices (PSWMs), and co-occurrences of pairs of motifs.

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

importance sampling
monte carlo
motifs
palindromes


Application of a Time-Scale Local Hurst Exponent analysis to time series We present a method for estimating a time-scale local Hurst exponent on time series. The method has proven to be sensitive to sudden behavior changes on time series. Lower scales evaluate short-range correlations. Larger scales evaluate long-range correlations. The analysis evaluates pattern changes regardless the amplitude and scale.

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

time-scale local hurst exponent
multi-scale rescaled-range analysis
fractional brownian motion series
seismic traces


Multi-contextuality in boundary-spanning practices The capability to establish boundary-spanning practices within and across organizations has for long been recognized as a key strategic resource. As organizations are becoming distributed and dynamic, they will be increasingly populated by multiple functional, geographical, hierarchical and professional boundaries. The inherent complexity of such settings makes it difficult for organizations to leverage their boundary-spanning practices. Information technology (IT) systems have been hailed as a critical enabler of boundary spanning. However, there is little knowledge on how organizations are affected by the introduction of different types of IT systems. Building on an interpretive case study of Swedish transport organizations, this paper explores consequences of sensor technology for boundary spanning. The paper contributes with an understanding of what coexisting use contexts mean for boundary-spanning practices. A theoretical implication is that such multi-contextuality requires an integrative view on boundary spanning that combines insights from the organizational innovation and work practice literatures.

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

boundary spanning
innovation
sensor technology
work practice

multi-contextuality
ubiquitous computing environments


Finite element analysis of two-dimensional electrochemicalmechanical response of ionic conducting polymermetal composite beams Attention has been focused on ionic conducting polymermetal composites (IPMCs) as intelligent materials for artificial muscles and robotics for recent years. The two-dimensional finite element formulation based on Galerkin method is conducted for the basic field equations governing electrochemical response of IPMC beams with two pairs of electrodes upon applied electric field. The three-dimensional finite element analysis is also conducted for the deformation of IPMC beams due to water redistribution in the beams associated with the electrochemical response. Some numerical studies are carried out in order to show the validity of the present formulation.

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

computational mechanics
finite element method
electrochemicalmechanical analysis
actuator
coupled problem


Evaluation of the reliability and validity of GraphClick as a data extraction program Data extraction programs are used to obtain approximations of raw data from published graphs. Quantitative syntheses of single-subject data require that researchers have access to valid and reliable data extraction programs. We analyzed the reliability and validity of a data extraction program, GraphClick. Three independent coders extracted data from 191 graphs from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) and 15 graphs of hypothetical data. Results showed that GraphClick is both reliable and valid with nearly perfect correlations for all analyses. Suggestions are included for researchers and authors to improve the accuracy of data extraction techniques.

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


a synchronization method for real time surround display using clustered systems This note describes a synchronization method for use of the multichannel display and the associated clustered PC rendering systems, within multi user Virtual Reality online games with real time frame rates. It provides a real time surround game display to render the very complex 3D graphics objects. Our system is composed of Multi-channel Distributor, and Visualization Clients. Visual client system can be connected to multi monitors or projectors. With Multi-channel distributor, an application can be configured, at runtime, to span any number of visuals to makeup a complete surround and to manage the user game event. All visualization clients produced are frame synchronized to ensure visual uniformity. However, tightly synchronized PC cluster may cause a draw back in its rendering speed. So, we propose a dual scene graph management method to adaptively synchronize. One scene graph is conventionally organizes and control the rendering of its constituent objects. And the other is spatially grouping on the geometric objects found at the edge of two adjacent channels between of the clustered PCs and or not. In this paper describes the method of a construction dual-scene graph based clustered rendering system for scalable display in order to generate high-resolution images at real time frame rates. And also we are planning to develop a multi-projector display system which calibrates itself automatically regardless its shape of display surface and which provides a user with a seamless game display. Our results are well suited for surround 3D game displays such as multi-projector or multi-monitor running on a PC cluster.

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

clustered rendering system
synchronization


A 3D image processing method for manufacturing process automation Three-dimensional (3D) image processing provides a useful tool for machine vision applications. Typically a 3D vision system is divided into data acquisition, low-level processing, object representation and matching. In this paper, a 3D object pose estimation method is developed for an automated manufacturing assembly process. The experimental results show that the 3D pose estimation method produces accurate geometrical information for an automated material handling application. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

range imaging
3d object recognition
pattern recognition
robot vision
manufacturing technology


Wavelet SDF-Reps: Solid Modeling With Volumetric Scans This paper describes a new formulation of solid modeling for treating parts derived from volumetric scans (computed tomography, magnetic resonance, etc.) along with parts from traditional computer-aided design operations. Recent advances in segmentation via level set methods produce voxel grids of signed distance values, and we interpolate the signed distance values using wavelets to produce an implicit or function-based representation called wavelet signed distance function representation that provides inherent support for data compression, multiscale modeling, and skeletal-based operations.

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

cad
interpolation
solid modelling
wavelet transforms


Evaluation of k-Nearest Neighbor classifier performance for direct marketing Text data mining is a process of exploratory data analysis. Classification maps data into predefined groups or classes. It is often referred to as supervised learning because the classes are determined before examining the data. This paper describes the proposed k-Nearest Neighbor classifier that performs comparative cross-validation for the existing k-Nearest Neighbor classifier. The feasibility and the benefits of the proposed approach are demonstrated by means of data mining problem: direct marketing. Direct marketing has become an important application field of data mining. Comparative cross-validation involves estimation of accuracy by either stratified k-fold cross-validation or equivalent repeated random subsampling. While the proposed method may have a high bias; its performance (accuracy estimation in our case) may be poor due to a high variance. Thus the accuracy with the proposed k-Nearest Neighbor classifier was less than that with the existing k-Nearest Neighbor classifier, and the smaller the improvement in runtime the larger the improvement in precision and recall. In our proposed method we have determined the classification accuracy and prediction accuracy where the prediction accuracy is comparatively high.

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


Anthropomorphism and AI: Turing's much misunderstood imitation game The widespread tendency, even within AI, to anthropomorphize machines makes it easier to convince us of their intelligence. How can any putative demonstration of intelligence in machines be trusted if the AI researcher readily succumbs to make-believe? This is (what I shall call) the forensic problem of anthropomorphism. I argue that the Turing test provides a solution. This paper illustrates the phenomenon of misplaced anthropomorphism and presents a new perspective on Turing's imitation game. It also examines the role of the Turing test in relation to the current dispute between human-level AI and 'mindless intelligence'. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

turing test
anthropomorphism
mindless intelligence


Exponential attractor of ? ? -almost periodic sequence solution of discrete-time bidirectional neural networks In this paper, several criteria are obtained for the existence and exponential attractivity of a unique ? ? -almost periodic sequence solution of discrete-time bidirectional neural networks (BNNs). Our results generalize the corresponding results about almost periodic sequence solution in common sense. Finally, computer simulations illustrate the dynamic behavior of discrete-time bidirectional neural networks. It is shown that discretization step ? ? affects dynamical characteristics of bidirectional neural networks and our results on ? ? -almost periodic sequence solution lead to effective estimates of continuous-time neural networks during real-time computations.

O O O 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

? ? -almost periodic sequence solution ? ? ? ? ?


optical character recognition errors and their effects on natural language processing Errors are unavoidable in advanced computer vision applications such as optical character recognition, and the noise induced by these errors presents a serious challenge to down-stream processes that attempt to make use of such data. In this paper, we apply a new paradigm we have proposed for measuring the impact of recognition errors on the stages of a standard text analysis pipeline: sentence boundary detection, tokenization, and part-of-speech tagging. Our methodology formulates error classification as an optimization problem solvable using a hierarchical dynamic programming approach. Errors and their cascading effects are isolated and analyzed as they travel through the pipeline. We present experimental results based on a large collection of scanned pages to study the varying impact depending on the nature of the error and the character(s) involved. The problem of identifying tabular structures that should not be parsed as sentential text is also discussed.

B I I 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 B I I 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

sentence boundary detection
tokenization
optical character recognition

part-of-speech tagging
performance evaluation


Modeling multiscale diffusion processes in random heterogeneous media A simple stochastic up-scaling strategy is presented for incorporating the effects of micro-scale variations of thermal conductivity in the thermal analysis of macro-scale systems. Incomplete characterization of the fine-scale variation necessitates posing the thermal conductivity as a stochastic multiscale random field. A data-driven approach coupled with a non-linear dimension reduction algorithm is used to construct a low-dimensional stochastic descriptor of the fine-scale variation of the stochastic conductivity. A representative volume element (RVE) argument is utilized to construct a simple model for up-scaling the stochastic thermal conductivity. In this model, the effective stochastic thermal conductivity is estimated by virtually interrogating the stochastic RV. A realistic example of the proposed stochastic multiscale diffusion strategy is illustrated utilizing limited experimental data.

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

stochastic partial differential equations


A compressible Lagrangian framework for the simulation of the underwater implosion of large air bubbles A fully Lagrangian compressible numerical framework for the simulation of underwater implosion of a large air bubble is presented. Both air and water are considered compressible and the equations for the Lagrangian shock hydrodynamics are stabilized via a variationally consistent multiscale method. A nodally perfect matched definition of the interface is used and then the kinetic variables, pressure and density, are duplicated at the interface level. An adaptive mesh generation procedure, which respects the interface connectivities, is applied to provide enough refinement at the interface level. This framework is verified by several benchmarks which evaluate the behavior of the numerical scheme for severe compression and expansion cases. This model is then used to simulate the underwater implosion of a large cylindrical bubble, with a size in the order of cm. We observe that the conditions within the bubble are nearly uniform until the converging pressure wave is strong enough to create very large pressures near the center of the bubble. These bubble dynamics occur on very small spatial (0.3mm), and time (0.1ms) scales. During the final stage of the collapse RayleighTaylor instabilities appear at the interface and then disappear when the rebounce starts. At the end of the rebounce phase the bubble radius reaches 50% of its initial value and the bubble recover its circular shape. It is when the second collapse starts, with higher mode shape instabilities excited at the bubble interface, that leads to the rupture of the bubble. Several graphs are presented and the pressure pulse detected in the water is compared by experiment.

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

variational multiscale stabilization
two phase flow
pfem
bubble implosion


a context gathering framework for context-aware mobile solutions One of the fundamental design issues in context-aware mobile services development is the necessary support for adequately powerful yet efficient querying of the sensory data. This issue argues for research into the creation of a technology-independent, high-level software application programming interface (API) that provides mechanisms for dealing with the heterogeneity of sensors providing raw context data. In this paper, we review approaches in existing context-aware platforms especially those that consider with sensory data acquisition. The review formed the basis for the design and development of the context gathering framework which consists of sensor data model, messaging and communication protocol and software application programming interface. These components form as one of the enabler to support the development of context aware mobile applications.

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 B 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


A knowledge base model for complex forging die machining Recent evolutions on forging process induce more complex shape on forging die. These evolutions, combined with High Speed Machining (HSM) process of forging die lead to important increase in time for machining preparation. In this context, an original approach for generating machining process based on machining knowledge is proposed in this paper. The core of this approach is to decompose a CAD model of complex forging die in geometrical features. Technological data and topological relations are aggregated to a geometrical feature in order to create machining features. Technological data, such as material, surface roughness and form tolerance are defined during forging process and dies design. These data are used to choose cutting tools and machining strategies. Topological relations define relative positions between the surfaces of the die CAD model. After machining features identification cutting tools and machining strategies currently used in HSM of forging die, are associated to them in order to generate machining sequences. A machining process model is proposed to formalize the links between information imbedded in the machining features and the parameters of cutting tools and machining strategies. At last machining sequences are grouped and ordered to generate the complete die machining process. In this paper the identification of geometrical features is detailed. Geometrical features identification is based on machining knowledge formalization which is translated in the generation of maps from STL models. A map based on the contact area between cutting tools and die shape gives basic geometrical features which are connected or not according to the continuity maps. The proposed approach is illustrated by an application on an industrial study case which was accomplished as part of collaboration. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

machining feature
cam
machining process preparation


A Unified Spectral-Domain Approach for Saliency Detection and Its Application to Automatic Object Segmentation In this paper, a visual attention model is incorporated for efficient saliency detection, and the salient regions are employed as object seeds for our automatic object segmentation system. In contrast with existing interactive segmentation approaches that require considerable user interaction, the proposed method does not require it, i.e., the segmentation task is fulfilled in a fully automatic manner. First, we introduce a novel unified spectral-domain approach for saliency detection. Our visual attention model originates from a well-known property of the human visual system that the human visual perception is highly adaptive and sensitive to structural information in images rather than nonstructural information. Then, based on the saliency map, we propose an iterative self-adaptive segmentation framework for more accurate object segmentation. Extensive tests on a variety of cluttered natural images show that the proposed algorithm is an efficient indicator for characterizing the human perception and it can provide satisfying segmentation performance.

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

automatic object segmentation
saliency detection

graph cut
human visual system (hvs)
spectral-domain analysis


Impairment constraint multicasting in translucent WDM networks: architecture, network design and multicasting routing The popularity of broadband streaming applications requires communication networks to support high-performance multicasting at the optical layer. Suffering from transmission impairments in multi-hop all-optical (transparent) WDM multicasting networks, the signal may be degraded beyond the receivable margin at some multicast destinations. To guarantee the signal quality, we introduce a translucent WDM multicasting network to regenerate the degraded signals at some switching nodes with electronic 3R (reamplification, reshaping and retiming) functionality. The translucent network is built by employing three kinds of multicasting capable switching architectures: (1) all-optical multicasting capable cross connect (oMC-OXC), (2) electronic switch and (3) translucent multicasting capable cross connect (tMC-OXC). Among them both the electronic switch and tMC-OXC are capable of electronic 3R regeneration. Furthermore, we propose a multicast-capable nodes placement algorithm based on regeneration weight, and two multicasting routing algorithms called nearest hub first and nearest on tree hub first to provide signal-quality guaranteed routes for the multicasting requests. The numerical simulation on two typical mesh networks shows that it is sufficient to equip 30% of the nodes or less with signal-regeneration capability to guarantee the signal quality.

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

multicasting routing algorithm
optical networks
wdm optical multicasting networks


High gain microstrip antenna design for broadband wireless applications This article presents a new broadband microstrip antenna for personal communications systems (PCS) applications. Using multilayer substrate structure with aperture-coupled feed, a rectangular microstrip patch antenna operating at 1.9-GHz band is designed and experimentally validated. This antenna configuration uses a quarter-wave transformer to enhance the matching between the feed transmission line and the antenna patch. To demonstrate the design procedure, a first experimental broadband microstrip antenna prototype is designed and implemented. To analyse its performance, measurements are carried out and good performances are achieved. However, this prototype has a low front-to-back ratio. To overcome this drawback, an optimization process is proposed, and a second prototype is designed and successfully realized. To examine the effect of the optimization, experimental investigations are carried out on the second prototype. Very good agreement is obtained between numerical and measured results. Experimental results indicate that the proposed antenna achieves a bandwidth of 21%, a gain of 9.5 dB, and a front-to-back ratio of 20 dB, which are very sufficient for broadband wireless applications. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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


Cryogenic etching of n-type silicon with p+ doped walls with the TGZM process through the Al/Si eutectic alloy The dry etching of n-type silicon with p+ doped walls was studied with the cryogenic etching directly after the thermomigration process. The selectivity between n-type silicon and p+ doped silicon was first considered in SF6/O2 plasma. No selectivity was observed between these two zones. Thereafter, the capacity of the Al/Si eutectic alloy covered with a thin film of Al2O3 to play the role of hard mask for the etching was confirmed, always in the case of SF6/O2 plasma. Finally, the etching of 50?m deep trenches through the Al/Si alloy was performed using three different types of process.

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

silicon etching cryogenic plasma thermomigration selectivity


Ant colony test center for planning autonomous mobile robot navigation This paper presents the navigation software called Ant Colony Test Center designed to teach the different stages involved in mobile robotics. The navigation problem consists of the four subproblems: world perception, path planning, path generation, and path tracking. This software based on ant colonies has two operational modes: virtual and on-line. In virtual mode, is able to achieve path generation, path planning and virtual path tracking at once, since the virtual mobile robots ants searches for the objective point generating feasible paths, then generate a set of subgoals to obtain the optimal path, since the optimal path was obtained using a cost function that considers the robot architecture, the optimal trajectory for the robot also is obtained. In on-line mode, the robot is able to sense the world using stereoscopic vision, the map is updated using epipolar geometry, and the on-line navigation problem is handled similar to the virtual mode. The software has many educational skills, since students can learn about path generation, optimal planning and path tracking using the heuristic methodology known as Ant Colony Optimization that recently has had good acceptance for solving discrete optimization planning problems. The platform is also a good tool to learn about stereoscopic vision and epipolar geometry that is one of the best sensing methods in mobile robotics. 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 214229, 2013

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

ant colony optimization
autonomous mobile robot navigation
path planning


Group preserving scheme for the Cauchy problem of the Laplace equation In this paper, we consider the Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation by group preserving scheme (GPS) which is an ill-posed problem, because the solution does not depend continuously on the data. For this, the Laplace equation, by using a semi-discretization method namely method of line, is converted to an ODEs system and then obtained ODEs system is considered by GPS. Stability of GPS for ill-posed Laplace equation is shown. The problem numerical results show the efficiency and power of this method.

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

laplace equation
method of line
group preserving scheme


Transmission performance of all-optical domain orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signals due to fiber nonlinearities for long-reach PON applications This study examined the performance of 110Gb/s all-optical domain orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AO-OFDM) signal transmission systems using optical multi-carrier generation and optical 2-subcarrier modulation under the effects of chromatic dispersion and fiber nonlinearity. The numerical simulation results showed that the performance degradation of AO-OFDM signals lies in the inter-carrier interference between the subcarrier signals generated from the fiber nonlinearities. The numerical simulation showed that the calculated BER of the AO-OFDM channels has some power penalties at 10?9 BER for the fiber chromatic dispersion effect. The calculated receiver sensitivity at 10?9 BER showed additional degradation at the central subcarrier channel by applying a fiber launching power of 12dBm after transmission over a 100km standard single-mode fiber (SMF) link. The simulation results are expected to be useful for multi-service systems employing AO-OFDM technology in the future long-reach passive optical network (PON) applications.

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

orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm)


Efficient Schemes for Compressed-Domain Image Resizing Fast schemes for compressed-domain image size change, are proposed. Fast Winograd DCTs are applied to resizing images by a factor of two to one. First, we speed up the DCT domain downsampling scheme which uses the bilinear interpolation. Then, we speed up other image resizing schemes which use DCT lowpass truncated approximations. The schemes proposed here reduce the computational complexities significantly, while there is no difference in the overall quality of the images compared to previous works.

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

compressed domain processing
jpeg
mpeg
convolution
filtering
upsampling


Calorie Restriction, Post-reproductive Life Span, and Programmed Aging All scientists are acutely aware of the profound challenge that they face when communicating scientific findings to nonscientists, especially when great uncertainty is involved and when the topic is of personal interest to the general public. Simplification of the issuessometimes extending to a degree of oversimplificationis a sad but generally recognized necessity. It is not, however, a necessity when scientists communicate with each other, and when that happens, the explanation may lie elsewher

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


RAGE: A Java-implemented visual random generator Carefully designed Java applications turn out to be efficient and platform independent tools that can compete well with classical implementations of statistical software. The project presented here is an example underlining this statement for random variate generation. An end-user application called RAGE ( Random Variate Generator) is developed to generate random variates from probability distributions. A Java class library called JDiscreteLib has been designed and implemented for the simulation of random variables from the most usual discrete distributions inside RAGE. For each distribution, specific and general algorithms are available for this purpose. RAGE can also be used as an interactive simulation tool for data and data summary visualization.

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

random numbers
discrete variates
statistical visualization


An expert system using rough sets theory and self-organizing maps to design space exploration of complex products In complex product design, product performance driving design is a new and innovative research in the engineering field. For realizing the product performance driving design, an elaborated expert system, Expert Systems for Assisting Mapping from Performance Space to Design Space (ESMPD) is proposed, which have two main modules for mapping from product performance space to interesting design space by two layers mapping method. In Rough Sets Theory Analysis Module, Rough Sets Theory (RST) is used to calculate configuration rules in incomplete configuration information system to assist product designers in mapping performance space to configuration space. In self-organizing maps Analysis Module, SOM is employed to analyze design variables and objective function based on preliminary optimization, to mapping from the fixed configuration space to smaller interesting regions in design space. The contribution of this research is utilizing the product design knowledge to guide engineer to partition and reduce the design space, which can save product design time and promote the design efficiency. Finally, a new bulk carrier design is taken as a case study to prove the validity and necessity of this expert system. The detailed analysis testifies ESMPD can effectively facilitate rapid and intelligent design, and reduce the cost of complex product design.

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

rough sets theory (rst)
self-organizing maps


Web-based electronic patient records for collaborative medical applications We developed a web-based system to interactively display electronic patient records (EPR), such as DICOM images, graphics, and structure reports and therapy records, for intranet and internet collaborative medical applications. This system has three major components, a C/S (client/server) architecture for EPR data acquisition and authoring, and a Web B/S architecture for data delivering. The Web viewer of this system integrates multi-media display modules and remote control module together to provide interactive EPR display and manipulation functions for collaborative applications. We have successfully used this system two times to provide teleconsultation for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patients in Shanghai Infection Hospital and Xinhua Hospital. During the consultation, both the physicians in infection control area and the experts outside the control area could use this system interactively to manipulate and navigate the EPR objects of the SARS patients to facilitate a more precise diagnosis. This paper gives a new approach to create and manage image-based EPR from actual patient records, and also presents a novel method to use Web technology and DICOM standard to build an open architecture for collaborative medical applications. The system can be used for both intranet and internet medical applications such as tele-diagnosis, teleconsultation, and distant learning.

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

web technology
collaborative applications

dicom-based images
electronic patient record


Climbing combinatorial fitness landscapes Comparison of the behavior of classical basic local search techniques and their ability to reach high local optima in combinatorial fitness landscapes. Two particular aspects of local search are considered: pivoting rules (first and best improvement strategies), neutral move policies (how neutral moves are considered during the search). Experimental analysis on four different landscape models (non-neutral and neutral NK landscapes, flow-shop, QAP, MAXSAT).

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

hill-climbing first-improvement best-improvement neutrality


Self-organization of spiking neural network that generates autonomous behavior in a real mobile robot In this paper, we propose self-organization algorithm of spiking neural network (SNN) applicable to autonomous robot for generation of adoptive and goal-directed behavior. First, we formulated a SNN model whose inputs and outputs were analog and the hidden unites are interconnected each other. Next, we implemented it into a miniature mobile robot Khepera. In order to see whether or not a solution(s) for the given task(s) exists with the SNN, the robot was evolved with the genetic algorithm in the environment. The robot acquired the obstacle avoidance and navigation task successfully, exhibiting the presence of the solution. After that, a self-organization algorithm based on a use-dependent synaptic potentiation and depotentiation. at synapses of input layer to hidden layer and of hidden layer to output layer was formulated and implemented into the robot. In the environment, the robot incrementally organized the network and the given tasks were successfully performed. The time needed to acquire the desired adoptive and goal-directed behavior using the proposed self-organization method was much less than that with the genetic evolution, approximately one fifth.

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

hebbian rule, use-dependent synaptic modification


EcoMark 2.0: empowering eco-routing with vehicular environmental models and actual vehicle fuel consumption data Eco-routing is a simple yet effective approach to substantially reducing the environmental impact, e.g., fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of vehicular transportation. Eco-routing relies on the ability to reliably quantify the environmental impact of vehicles as they travel in a spatial network. The procedure of quantifying such vehicular impact for road segments of a spatial network is called eco-weight assignment. EcoMark 2.0 proposes a general framework for eco-weight assignment to enable eco-routing. It studies the abilities of six instantaneous and five aggregated models to estimating vehicular environmental impact. In doing so, it utilizes travel information derived from GPS trajectories (i.e., velocities and accelerations) and actual fuel consumption data obtained from vehicles. The framework covers analyses of actual fuel consumption, impact model calibration, and experiments for assessing the utility of the impact models in assigning eco-weights. The application of EcoMark 2.0 indicates that the instantaneous model EMIT and the aggregated model SIDRA-Running are suitable for assigning eco-weights under varying circumstances. In contrast, other instantaneous models should not be used for assigning eco-weights, and other aggregated models can be used for assigning eco-weights under certain circumstances.

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

gps trajectories
vehicular environmental impact


Improving phone duration modelling using support vector regression fusion In the present work, we propose a scheme for the fusion of different phone duration models, operating in parallel. Specifically, the predictions from a group of dissimilar and independent to each other individual duration models are fed to a machine learning algorithm, which reconciles and fuses the outputs of the individual models, yielding more precise phone duration predictions. The performance of the individual duration models and of the proposed fusion scheme is evaluated on the American-English KED TIMIT and on the Greek WCL-1 databases. On both databases, the SVR-based individual model demonstrates the lowest error rate. When compared to the second-best individual algorithm, a relative reduction of the mean absolute error (MAE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) by 5.5% and 3.7% on KED TIMIT, and 6.8% and 3.7% on WCL-1 is achieved. At the fusion stage, we evaluate the performance of 12 fusion techniques. The proposed fusion scheme, when implemented with SVR-based fusion, contributes to the improvement of the phone duration prediction accuracy over the one of the best individual model, by 1.9% and 2.0% in terms of relative reduction of the MAE and RMSE on KED TIMIT, and by 2.6% and 1.8% on the WCL-1 database.

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

duration modelling
phone duration prediction
support vector regression

parallel fusion scheme
text-to-speech synthesis


Fabrication of a 3D stamp with the micro- and nano-scale patterns through combined NIL and optical lithography processes Nanoimprint lithography is in the spotlight of the nano technology field for its ability to produce large area patterning [1], [2]and[4]. This kind of lithography is also able to fabricate three-dimensional functional structures all at once. In order to fabricate three-dimensional structures for an entire wafer, simple fabrication of three-dimensional large area stamp that combines micro- and nano-scale patterns is required. This paper proposes, the fabrication process of three-dimensional large area stamp that incorporates both micro- and nano-scale pattern. The three-dimensional stamp, which accounts for areas that range from 70nm to 3um, is fabricated on a Si substrate using nanoimprint lithography and optical lithography.

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 B I

nonoimprint lithography
micro- and nano- patterning
stamp replication


Death ligand concentration and the membrane proximal signaling module regulate the type 1/type 2 choice in apoptotic death signaling Apoptotic death pathways are frequently activated by death ligand induction and subsequent activation of the membrane proximal signaling module. Death receptors cluster upon binding to death ligands, leading to formation of a membrane proximal death-inducing-signaling-complex (DISC). In this membrane proximal signalosome, initiator caspases (caspase 8) are processed resulting in activation of both type 1 and type 2 pathways of apoptosis signaling. How the type 1/type 2 choice is made is an important question in the systems biology of apoptosis signaling. In this study, we utilize a Monte Carlo based in silico approach to elucidate the role of membrane proximal signaling module in the type 1/type 2 choice of apoptosis signaling. Our results provide crucial mechanistic insights into the formation of DISC signalosome and caspase 8 activation. Increased concentration of death ligands was shown to correlate with increased type 1 activation. We also study the caspase 6 mediated system level feedback activation of apoptosis signaling and its role in the type 1/type 2 choice. Our results clarify the basis of cell-to-cell stochastic variability in apoptosis activation and ramifications of this issue is further discussed in the context of therapies for cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

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

systems biology
caspase 6
cancer
neurodegenerative disorders
monte carlo


THE CONSEQUENCES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CONTROL WEAKNESSES ON MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THE CASE OF SARBANES-OXLEY INTERNAL CONTROL REPORTS In this article, the association between the strength of information technology controls over management information systems and the subsequent forecasting ability of the information produced by those systems is investigated. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 highlights the importance of information system controls by requiring management and auditors to report on the effectiveness of internal controls over the financial reporting component of the firm's management information systems. We hypothesize and find evidence that management forecasts are less accurate for firms with information technology material weaknesses in their financial reporting system than the forecasts for firms that do not have information technology material weaknesses. In addition, we examine three dimensions of information technology material weaknesses: data processing integrity, system access and security, and system structure and usage. We find that the association with forecast accuracy appears to be strongest for IT control weaknesses most directly related to data processing integrity. Our results support the contention that information technology controls, as apart of the management information system, affect the quality of the information produced by the system. We discuss the complementary nature of our findings to the information and systems quality literature.

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

sarbanes-oxley
information quality
management forecast


RNA Search with Decision Trees and Partial Covariance Models The use of partial covariance models to search for RNA family members in genomic sequence databases is explored. The partial models are formed from contiguous subranges of the overall RNA family multiple alignment columns. A binary decision-tree framework is presented for choosing the order to apply the partial models and the score thresholds on which to make the decisions. The decision trees are chosen to minimize computation time subject to the constraint that all of the training sequences are passed to the full covariance model for final evaluation. Computational intelligence methods are suggested to select the decision tree since the tree can be quite complex and there is no obvious method to build the tree in these cases. Experimental results from seven RNA families shows execution times of 0.066-0.268 relative to using the full covariance model alone. Tests on the full sets of known sequences for each family show that at least 95 percent of these sequences are found for two families and 100 percent for five others. Since the full covariance model is run on all sequences accepted by the partial model decision tree, the false alarm rate is at least as low as that of the full model alone.

O O O B I 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 B I O O O O 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

computational intelligence
covariance models
decision trees


Implementation of morphological filters using coordinate logic operations In this paper we present a methodology for performing morphological operations using coordinate logic operations. Coordinate logic operations are simple and fast because they are logic operations among the corresponding binary values of the image pixels. Coordinate logic (CL) filters are a family of fast non-increasing, non-linear filters, which are based on coordinate logic operations. CL filters exhibit analogous properties to those of the morphological filters but due to their different definition they display slightly different response. This is revoked in this paper by using appropriate image gray level quantization and mapping of the resulting levels to a specific set of decimal numbers. Based on this approach some fast efficient implementations of morphological filters using CL operators are proposed.

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

morphological filters
coordinate logic operations


Detection and correction of probe-level artefacts on microarrays A recent large-scale analysis of Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data found frequent evidence for spatial defects in a substantial fraction of Affymetrix microarrays in the GEO. Nevertheless, in contrast to quality assessment, artefact detection is not widely used in standard gene expression analysis pipelines. Furthermore, although approaches have been proposed to detect diverse types of spatial noise on arrays, the correction of these artefacts is mostly left to either summarization methods or the corresponding arrays are completely discarded.

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


design and development of a novel balancer with variable difficulty for training and evaluation This paper proposes a novel, portable and cost-effective balance trainer with all necessary important features to improve the reach of rehabilitation to the masses. There are three factors that contribute to a person's ability to maintain standing balance--- proprioceptive feedback (from the joints), vision , and the vestibular system . These systems can be affected by injury, infection, or brain damage caused by stroke. One example of such injuries is ankle injury. A large focus of the physiotherapy and sports medicine community is using postural-control tasks to prevent, assess and rehabilitate patients. Unfortunately, there are presently two extreme ends of balance training devices. On one end there are the high-end equipments which only large hospitals are capable of buying. On the other end are the simple balance boards which offer very limited features. Thus, the authors proposed a novel, portable and cost-effective balance trainer with most of the necessary important features to improve the reach of rehabilitation to the masses. The device has a small footprint, incorporating only the most important and frequently used functions. These functions include being able to provide different levels of difficulty, setting different difficulty in different directions, storing of patients' performance, real-time visual feedback to aid the patients and different types of modes for different purposes. Springs are used to vary the moments, which will actually vary the difficulty levels. This is due to the fact that balancing is actually about keeping the equilibrium moments to be zero.

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


color appearance models and dynamic range reduction When viewing photographs on a monitor, we are adapted to the lighting conditions of our viewing environment, which can be very different from the lighting conditions in which the photograph was taken. As a result, our perception of these photographs depends directly on the environment in which they are displayed. For high dynamic range images, the disconnect in perception of scene and viewing environments is potentially much larger than in conventional film and photography. To prepare an image for display, luminance compression alone is therefore not sufficient. We propose to augment current tone reproduction operators with application of color appearance models as an independent preprocessing step in order to preserve chromatic appearance across scene and display environments. The method is independent of any specific tone reproduction operator and color appearance model (CAM) so that for each application the most suitable tone reproduction operator and CAM can be selected.

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

color appearance
tone reproduction
dynamic range


Layer-by-layer assembly carbon nanotubes thin film based gas sensors for ammonia detection Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) were deposited on interdigital electrode (IDE) devices and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) devices through layer-by-layer self-assembly method to fabricate resistance sensitive and mass sensitive gas sensors, respectively. Their ammonia gas-sensitive characteristics were detected at different temperature. It is revealed that the SWNTs based mass sensitive gas sensor has good sensing properties at room temperature. However, the SWNTs based resistance sensitive gas sensor has irreversible response for ammonia gas. When the temperature increases, the noise of SWNTs based mass sensitive gas sensor increases and the gas sensitive characteristic decreases. Meanwhile, the humidity effect is also discussed. It is important to optimize gas sensor by making it work at an appropriate external environment.

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

layer-by-layer self-assembly
carbon nanotube


Dual-band bandpass filter with controllable center frequency and bandwidth using short stub-loaded SIR and tri-section SIR A novel compact dual-band bandpass filter (BPF) based on short stub-loaded stepped impedance resonator (SSL-SIR) and a pair of tri-section stepped impedance resonator (T-SIR) is presented. The dual-band BPF can be divided into two sub filters. The upper sub filter creates the first passband centered at 2.4GHz, and the lower sub filter generates the second passband centered at 3.5GHz. The two passbands can be controlled separately and have almost no mutual influence between each other. The structure of the filter is miniaturized and a wide stopband performance is also achieved by introducing SIR. The simulated and measured results are both presented and show good agreement.

O O O O B I 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


Exploring self-affine properties in seismograms Self-affine properties have been observed in a large variety of rough profiles and time series from natural data sets. In this work, seismograms used for oil prospecting, which contain information of distinct subsurface features collected by seismic waves reflected or scattered at their interfaces, are taken into consideration. It is expected that any self-affine property, measured by the Hurst exponent H, depends on the depth. For each seismic trace, H is evaluated locally within a moving window, which is chosen narrow enough to reveal space dependency but also wide enough to display scale invariance. With the use of color code diagrams, it is possible to draw two-dimensional diagrams that show the local dependence of H for the analyzed seismogram. The reliability of the method is tested by the investigation of seismograms that contain ground roll components, as well as multiple reflections. The effect of different kinds of filter in the scaling properties is also investigated. In this case, comparisons are drawn among the diagrams obtained from original seismograms and those subjected to appropriate filter to eliminate spurious components.

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


Optimal Multiple Surface Segmentation With Shape and Context Priors Segmentation of multiple surfaces in medical images is a challenging problem, further complicated by the frequent presence of weak boundary evidence, large object deformations, and mutual influence between adjacent objects. This paper reports a novel approach to multi-object segmentation that incorporates both shape and context prior knowledge in a 3-D graph-theoretic framework to help overcome the stated challenges. We employ an arc-based graph representation to incorporate a wide spectrum of prior information through pair-wise energy terms. In particular, a shape-prior term is used to penalize local shape changes and a context-prior term is used to penalize local surface-distance changes from a model of the expected shape and surface distances, respectively. The globally optimal solution for multiple surfaces is obtained by computing a maximum flow in a low-order polynomial time. The proposed method was validated on intraretinal layer segmentation of optical coherence tomography images and demonstrated statistically significant improvement of segmentation accuracy compared to our earlier graph-search method that was not utilizing shape and context priors. The mean unsigned surface positioning errors obtained by the conventional graph-search approach (6.30 +/- 1.58 mu m) was improved to 5.14 +/- 0.99 mu m when employing our new method with shape and context priors.

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

global optimization
graph search
image segmentation
optical coherence tomography (oct)
retina
shape prior


Inhibitor and activator: dual functions for SHIP in immunity and cancer SHIP1 is at the nexus of intracellular signaling pathways in immune cells that mediate bone marrow (BM) graft rejection, production of inflammatory and immunosuppressive cytokines, immunoregulatory cell formation, the BM niche that supports development of the immune system, and immune cancers. This review summarizes how SHIP participates in normal immune physiology or the pathologies that result when SHIP is mutated. This review also proposes that SHIP can have either inhibitory or activating roles in cell signaling that are determined by whether signaling pathways distal to PI3K are promoted by SHIP's substrate (PI(3,4,5)P3) or its product (PI(3,4)P2). This review also proposes the two PIP hypothesis that postulates that both SHIP's product and its substrate are necessary for a cancer cell to achieve and sustain a malignant state. Finally, due to the recent discovery of small molecule antagonists and agonists for SHIP, this review discusses potential therapeutic settings where chemical modulation of SHIP might be of benefit.

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

pi(3
5)p3
4)p2
treg cells
nk cells
mir cells
antigen presentation
osteoblasts
s-ship
crohn's disease
hsc


Improving Attention and Managing Attentional Problems Research and clinical experience in the field of brain injury rehabilitation have focused quite extensively on the need and potential to retrain attentional skills that are commonly affected by acquired brain injury. Four approaches to managing attention impairments that have emerged from this literature include attention process training, training use of strategies and environmental support, training use of external aids, and the provision of psychosocial support. Most often, several of these will be used in combination. For example, a therapy regimen might include attention process training emphasizing specific components of attention (e.g., sustained attention), in conjunction with training in pacing techniques, and psychosocial support, where the client keeps behavioral logs and discusses insights gained from tracking attention successes and attention lapses. Although there are as yet little data with regard to the effectiveness of these approaches in adults with developmental disorders of attention, there is a growing literature suggesting they may be effective in children and adolescents with ADHD. Further investigation of the application of such techniques in adults with a wide variety of attention disorders, including developmental disorders, would be valuable.

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

attention training
compensatory strategies
self-regulation
neuroplasticity


A meshless local natural neighbour interpolation method to modeling of functionally graded viscoelastic materials A meshless local natural neighbour interpolation (MLNNI) method applied to solve two-dimensional quasi-static and transient dynamic problems in continuously heterogeneous and linear viscoelastic media is presented and discussed in this article. The analysis is performed using the correspondence principle and the Laplace transform technique. In the present method, nodal points are spread on the analyzed domain and each node is surrounded by a polygonal sub-domain. The trial functions are constructed by the natural neighbour interpolation and the three-node triangular FEM shape functions are taken as test functions. The natural neighbour interpolants are strictly linear between adjacent nodes on the boundary of the convex hull. As a result, the essential boundary conditions can be imposed by directly substituting the corresponding terms in the system of equations. To get the viscoelastic solution in the time domain, the inverse Laplace transform algorithm of Stehfest is employed. Some numerical examples are given at the end to demonstrate the availability and accuracy of the present method.

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


Photon Upconversion in Homogeneous Fluorescence-based Bioanalytical Assays Upconverting phosphors (UCPs) are very attractive reporters for fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based bioanalytical assays. The large anti-Stokes shift and capability to convert near-infrared to visible light via sequential absorption of multiple photons enable complete elimination of autofluorescence, which commonly impairs the performance of fluorescence-based assays. UCPs are ideal donors for FRET, because their very narrow-banded emission allows measurement of the sensitized acceptor emission, in principle, without any crosstalk from the donor emission at a wavelength just tens of nanometers from the emission peak of the donor. In addition, acceptor dyes emitting at visible wavelengths are essentially not excited by near-infrared, which further emphasizes the unique potential of upconversion FRET (UC-FRET). These characteristics result in favorable assay performance using detection instrumentation based on epifluorometer configuration and laser diode excitation. Although UC-FRET is a recently emerged technology, it has already been applied in both immunoassays and nucleic acid hybridization assays. The technology is also compatible with optically difficult biological samples, such as whole blood. Significant advances in assay performance are expected using upconverting lanthanide-doped nanocrystals, which are currently under extensive research. UC-FRET, similarly to other fluorescence techniques based on resonance energy transfer, is strongly distance dependent and may have limited applicability, for example in sandwich-type assays for large biomolecules, such as viruses. In this article, we summarize the essentials of UC-FRET, describe its current applications, and outline the expectations for its future potential.

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

upconverting phosphors
fluorescence resonance energy transfer

lanthanides
photoluminescence
infrared-to-visible
inorganic nanocrystals


Tunes on the table The Music Table is an augmented reality system for composing music by manipulating objects on a tabletop as a physicalized representation of the music being heard. Educational theory, and the apparent success of related applications in various learning contexts, seems to support this idea. In our experiments with children, all were able to make a musical pattern and made many changes to their pattern over a short period of time. We propose its suitability as an educational tool, particularly in short and intense interactive learning situations such as children's museums. We discuss some future developments of the idea.

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

creative music
entertainment computing
music education
edutainment


an uncommon affair at tooting bec common An Uncommon Affair At Tooting Bec Common is a viewer navigable non-linear film presented on four screens in an immersive installation environment. The interactive film is composed of four tightly wound storylines strategically written so that the plot points can be interleaved, and presented backwards or forwards in time. The interface is designed to engage the user through a sense of play and exploration as they discover an ever-mutating adaptive storyline, which is revealed as they guide the screens through the story space of the film.

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

art installation
rhizomatic
nonlinear narrative
interactive cinema


Wikipedia for academic publishing: advantages and challenges Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of Wikipedia as a venue for academic publishing. Design/methodology/approach - By looking at other sources and studying Wikipedia structures, the paper compares the processes of publishing a peer-reviewed article in Wikipedia and the open access journal model, discusses the advantages and challenges. of adopting Wikipedia in academic publishing, and provides suggestions on how to address the challenges. Findings - Compared to an open access journal model, Wikipedia has several advantages for academic publishing: it is less expensive, quicker, more widely read, and offers a wider variety of articles. There are also several major challenges in adopting Wikipedia in the academic community: the web site structure is not well suited to academic publications; the site is not integrated with common academic search engines such as Google Scholar or with university libraries; and there are concerns among some members of the academic community about the site's credibility and impact in academia. Originality/value - This paper promotes a fundamental idea for adjusting methods of creating and disseminating academic knowledge. It is a valuable resource for those interested in academic innovation, for research librarians, and for the academic community in general. This topic has not been sufficiently addressed in the literature.

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

wikipedia
academic publishing
open access

peer review
electronic publishing
open systems


Implementation of holistic water resources-economic optimization models for river basin management Reflective experiences A holistic model embeds water resources and economic components into a consistent mathematical programming model, with the objective of maximizing economic profits from water uses in various sectors. Such a model can be used to address combined environmental-economic issues. Although holistic modeling represents a simple approach for building truly integrated water resources and economic models, it faces many difficulties in terms of temporal and spatial scale issues and model formulation, calibration, solution and result interpretation, as well as extensive data requirement. This paper addresses the difficulties involved in large-scale holistic modeling for integrated river basin management, and provides solution methods taking a self-reflective stance through a prototype model. This paper is a methodological paper for practitioners who are interested in integrated water resources-economic modeling.

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

water resources
river basin management
optimization