Gantt charts: A centenary appreciation With the proliferation of microcomputer based project management packages Gantt charts have enjoyed a revival in their use. Although Henry L. Gantt is recognized as their developer their origins and provenance are less well known. Gantt was a close associate of Frederick W. Taylor and an advocate of Scientific Management. His paper describing the use of graphics for general production planning appeared alongside Taylors Shop Management in 1903 and was an integral and critical component of Taylors system. Without Gantts charts to plan the workloads for men and machines both in departments and throughout the factory Taylors system would have been unworkable. The focus of this paper is to describe more fully their development and early history; and review their contemporary uses and future prospects.

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

project management
production planning
gantt charts


Molecular surface abstraction In this paper we introduce a visualization technique that provides an abstracted view of the shape and spatio-physico-chemical properties of complex molecules. Unlike existing molecular viewing methods, our approach suppresses small details to facilitate rapid comprehension, yet marks the location of significant features so they remain visible. Our approach uses a combination of filters and mesh restructuring to generate a simplified representation that conveys the overall shape and spatio-physico-chemical properties (e.g. electrostatic charge). Surface markings are then used in the place of important removed details, as well as to supply additional information. These simplified representations are amenable to display using stylized rendering algorithms to further enhance comprehension. Our initial experience suggests that our approach is particularly useful in browsing collections of large molecules and in readily making comparisons between them.

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

molecular surfaces
molecular visualization
surfaces
textures
cartographic labeling


Efficient visual homing based on Fourier transformed panoramic images ? We present a fast and efficient homing algorithm based on Fourier transformed panoramic images. By continuously comparing Fourier coefficients calculated from the current view with coefficients representing the goal location, a mobile robot is able to find its way back to known locations. No prior knowledge about the orientation with respect to the goal location is required, since the Fourier phase is used for a fast sub-pixel orientation estimation. We present homing runs performed by an autonomous mobile robot in an office environment. In a more comprehensive investigation the algorithm is tested on an image data base recorded by a small mobile robot in a toy house arena. Catchment areas for the proposed algorithm are calculated and compared to results of a homing scheme described in [M. Franz, B. Schlkopf, H. Mallot, H. Blthoff, Where did I take that snapshot? Scene based homing by image matching, Biological Cybernetics 79 (1998) 191202] and a simple homing strategy using neighbouring views. The results show that a small number of coefficients is sufficient to achieve a good homing performance. Also, a coarse-to-fine homing strategy is proposed in order to achieve both a large catchment area and a high homing accuracy: the number of Fourier coefficients used is increased during the homing run.

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

visual homing
panoramic images
orientation estimation


Combined input variable selection and model complexity control for nonlinear regression Choosing a useful combination of input variables and an appropriate complexity of the model is an essential task in nonlinear regression analysis because of the risk of overfitting. This article provides a workable solution for the multilayer perceptron model. An initial structure of the model, including all the input variables, is fixed in the beginning. Only the most useful input variables and hidden nodes remain effective when the model is fitted with the proposed penalization method. The method is tested on three benchmark data sets. Experimental results show that the removal of useless input variables and hidden nodes from the model improves its generalization capability. In addition, the proposed method compares favorably with respect to other penalization methods.

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

regression
multilayer perceptron
input variable selection

function approximation
mlp
hidden node selection


Evaluating the supply security of the future Spanish generating system We explore the evolution of the Spanish power system vulnerability over the next two decades and its dependency on fossil fuel prices and CO2 allowances costs. Also, the influence of different generation technologies (clean coal, nuclear and solar technologies) on this vulnerability has been considered. The diversity of primary energy resources has been evaluated to carry out the above analysis by means of two indexes: the Shannon index (H) and an adapted biodiversity index (?). These indexes have been applied to the power results of the period 20132032 that are obtained from a stochastic linear model of the Spanish generating system. As a main conclusion, the vulnerability calculated with ? is bigger than that deduced from H and showing a negative trend throughout the period. In order to reverse this tendency, the future Spanish generating system should be composed of all the available technologies, considering all the primary energy resources.

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

igcc w/ccs integrated gasification combined cycle with ccs

usc pcc w/ccs ultrasupercritical pcc with ccs


Searching and browsing Linked Data with SWSE: The Semantic Web Search Engine In this paper, we discuss the architecture and implementation of the Semantic Web Search Engine (SWSE). Following traditional search engine architecture, SWSE consists of crawling, data enhancing, indexing and a user interface for search, browsing and retrieval of information; unlike traditional search engines, SWSE operates over RDF Web data - loosely also known as Linked Data - which implies unique challenges for the system design, architecture, algorithms, implementation and user interface. In particular, many challenges exist in adopting Semantic Web technologies for Web data: the unique challenges of the Web - in terms of scale, unreliability, inconsistency and noise - are largely overlooked by the current Semantic Web standards. Herein, we describe the current SWSE system, initially detailing the architecture and later elaborating upon the function, design, implementation and performance of each individual component. In so doing, we also give an insight into how current Semantic Web standards can be tailored, in a best-effort manner, for use on Web data. Throughout, we offer evaluation and complementary argumentation to support our design choices, and also offer discussion on future directions and open research questions. Later, we also provide candid discussion relating to the difficulties currently faced in bringing such a search engine into the mainstream, and lessons learnt from roughly six years working on the Semantic Web Search Engine project. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A multikey secure multimedia proxy using asymmetric reversible parametric sequences: Theory, design, and implementation Because of limited server and network capacities for streaming applications, multimedia proxies are commonly used to cache multimedia objects such that, by accessing nearby proxies, clients can enjoy a smaller start-up latency and receive a better quality-of-service (QoS) guarantee-for example, reduced packet loss and delay jitters for their requests. However, the use of multimedia proxies increases the risk that multimedia data are exposed to unauthorized access by intruders. In this paper, we present a framework for implementing a secure multimedia proxy system for audio and video streaming applications. The framework employs a notion of asymmetric reversible parametric sequence (ARPS) to provide the following security properties: i) data confidentiality during transmission, ii) end-to-end data confidentiality, iii) data confidentiality against proxy intruders, and iv) data confidentiality against member collusion. Our framework is grounded on a multikey RSA technique such that system resilience against attacks is provably strong given standard computability, assumptions. One important feature of our proposed scheme is that clients only need to perform a single decryption operation to recover the original data even though the data packets may have been encrypted by multiple proxies along the delivery path. We also propose the use of a set of encryption configuration parameters (ECP) to trade off proxy encryption throughput against the presentation quality of audio/video obtained by unauthorized parties. Implementation results show that we can simultaneously achieve high encryption throughput and extremely low video quality (in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio and visual quality of decoded video frames) for unauthorized access.

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

asymmetric parametric sequence functions


building a filtering test collection for trec 2002 Test collections for the filtering track in TREC have typically used either past sets of relevance judgments, or categorized collections such as Reuters Corpus Volume 1 or OHSUMED, because filtering systems need relevance judgments during the experiment for training and adaptation. For TREC 2002, we constructed an entirely new set of search topics for the Reuters Corpus for measuring filtering systems. Our method for building the topics involved multiple iterations of feedback from assessors, and fusion of results from multiple search systems using different search algorithms. We also developed a second set of "inexpensive" topics based on categories in the document collection. We found that the initial judgments made for the experiment were sufficient; subsequent pooled judging changed system rankings very little. We also found that systems performed very differently on the category topics than on the assessor-built topics.

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

training
fusion
method
systems
relevance
feedback
filtering
test collection
search

measurement
adapt
search algorithm
collect
experience
tracking
documentation
iter


Extended use of the cards procedure as a simple elicitation technique for MAVT. Application to public procurement in Switzerland The cards procedure was designed in the early 90 as a simple way to elicit weights for multiple criteria decision analysis outranking methods. It is based on the elicitation of the difference of importance between successive pairs of criteria. We propose to extend its use in two directions: Use within MAVT, with specific requirements to remain meaningful. Use for the evaluation of the alternatives on a specific type of criterion. This procedure does not necessarily satisfy all theoretical constraints, but it improves the existing practice of lay persons, as exemplified with the case of public procurement in Switzerland.

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

multiple criteria decision analysis
mavt
cards procedure
elicitation
public procurement


Updating response sensitivity models of nonlinear vibrating structures using particle filters The problem of updating response gradients with respect to chosen system parameters based on spatially sparse measurements is considered. The measurement noise and imperfections in mathematical modeling are treated as Gaussian white noise processes. The system states are augmented by response gradients with respect to system parameters and an extended set of equations in the state space is formulated. These equations are cast in the form of Itos stochastic differential equations and measured data are assimilated into this model using Monte Carlo based Bayesian filtering tools. Illustrative examples include a few low dimensional dynamical systems with cubic and hereditary nonlinearities.

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

model updating
dynamic state estimation
itotaylors expansion


Parallel vectors criteria for unsteady flow vortices Feature-based flow visualization is naturally dependent on feature extraction. To extract flow features, often higher order properties of the flow data are used such as the Jacobian or curvature properties, implicitly describing the flow features in terms of their inherent flow characteristics ( for example, collinear flow and vorticity vectors). In this paper, we present recent research that leads to the ( not really surprising) conclusion that feature extraction algorithms need to be extended to a time-dependent analysis framework ( in terms of time derivatives) when dealing with unsteady flow data. Accordingly, we present two extensions of the parallel-vectors-based vortex extraction criteria to the time-dependent domain and show the improvements of feature-based flow visualization in comparison to the steady versions of this extraction algorithm both in the context of a high-resolution data set, that is, a simulation specifically designed to evaluate our new approach and for a real-world data set from a concrete application.

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

vortex feature detection
time-varying data visualization


Equivalent circuit model of resistive IC sensors derived with the box integration method We present an automatic method to produce compact equivalent circuit models of spatially inhomogeneous resistors. Local variations in space of the resistivity due to physical interactions such as magnetic fields or mechanical stress are automatically included. The equivalent circuit model is computed using symbolic algebra, such that the functional relation between the resistivity and the fields interacting with it is included in the circuit design model. Modeling is based on the discretization of the sensor geometry with a mesh of elements and vertex nodes together with the current continuity equation using the box integration method. The resistivity is described by the tensor field of electrical conductivity and depends on the physical interactions to be modeled. The element internode conductivity is mapped to a set of lumped conductances and transconductances;ces (voltage controlled current sources) between the nodes of the discretization mesh. These conductances and transconductances are translated into an equivalent circuit net list. Optionally, the electrical network representing the sensor is simplified before translation by symbolic linear algebra. Thus, equivalent circuit models consisting of many simple elements can be generated as well as models with only a few, algebraically complicated elements. The method is demonstrated using the public domain circuit simulator SPICE3 for the example of a magnetic Hall sensor, with and without the piezoresistive effect.

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

box integration method
equivalent circuit model
mechanical stress

hall effect
resistive microsensors
spice


Bandits With Heavy Tail The stochastic multiarmed bandit problem is well understood when the reward distributions are sub-Gaussian. In this paper, we examine the bandit problem under the weaker assumption that the distributions have moments of order 1 + epsilon, for some epsilon is an element of (0, 1]. Surprisingly, moments of order 2 (i.e., finite variance) are sufficient to obtain regret bounds of the same order as under sub-Gaussian reward distributions. In order to achieve such regret, we define sampling strategies based on refined estimators of the mean such as the truncated empirical mean, Catoni's M-estimator, and the median-of-means estimator. We also derive matching lower bounds that also show that the best achievable regret deteriorates when epsilon < 1.

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

heavy-tailed distributions
robust estimators
stochastic multi-armed bandit


Fixed-parameter algorithms for artificial intelligence, constraint satisfaction and database problems We survey the parameterized complexity of problems that arise in artificial intelligence, database theory and automated reasoning. In particular, we consider various parameterizations of the constraint satisfaction problem, the evaluation problem of Boolean conjunctive database queries and the propositional satisfiability problem. Furthermore, we survey parameterized algorithms for problems arising in the context of the stable model semantics of logic programs, for a number of other problems of non-monotonic reasoning, and for the computation of cores in data exchange.

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

artificial intelligence
constraint satisfaction
parameterized algorithms


Mitochondrial Approaches for Neuroprotection A large body of evidence from postmortem brain tissue and genetic analysis in humans and biochemical and pathological studies in animal models (transgenic and toxin) of neurodegeneration suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction is a common pathological mechanism. Mitochondrial dysfunction from oxidative stress, mitochondrial DNA deletions, pathological mutations, altered mitochondrial morphology, and interaction of pathogenic proteins with mitochondria leads to neuronal demise. Therefore, therapeutic approaches targeting mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative damage hold great promise in neurodegenerative diseases. This review discusses the potential therapeutic efficacy of creatine, coenzyme Q10, idebenone, synthetic triterpenoids, and mitochondrial targeted antioxidants (MitoQ) and peptides (SS-31) in in vitro studies and in animal models of Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. We have also reviewed the current status of clinical trials of creatine, coenzyme Q10, idebenone, and MitoQ in neurodegenerative disorders. Further, we discuss newly identified therapeutic targets, including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-?-coactivator and sirtuins, which provide promise for future therapeutic developments in 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 B B I O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

pgc-1?
parkinson's disease
huntington's disease
alzheimer's disease


The fundamental solutions for transversely isotropic piezoelectricity and boundary element method In this paper, we first supplement two groups of simplified general solution based on previous work. Those results are in terms of harmonic functions and fit for the cases of multiple eigenvalues. Then by trial and error, we obtain the fundamental solutions for three cases for a piezoelectric infinite media by giving the expressions of harmonic functions. Finally, by use of those solutions, we implement a boundary element method program to perform numerical calculations. The numerical results agree well with the analytical ones.

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

piezoelectricity
boundary element method
harmonic functions


SAR image multiclass segmentation using a multiscale and multidirection triplet Markov fields model in nonsubsampled contourlet transform domain Triplet Markov fields (TMFs) model recently proposed is to deal with nonstationary image segmentation and has achieved promising results. In this paper, we propose a multiscale and multidirection TMF model for nonstationary synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image multiclass segmentation in nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) domain, named as NSCT-TMF model. NSCT-TMF model is capable of capturing the contextual information of image content in the spatial and scale spaces effectively by the construction of multiscale energy functions. And the derived multiscale and multidirection likelihoods of NSCT-TMF model can capture the dependencies of NSCT coefficients across scale and directions. In this way, the proposed model is able to achieve multiscale information fusion in terms of image configuration and features in underlying labeling process. Experimental results demonstrate that due to the effective propagation of the contextual information, NSCT-TMF model turns out to be more robust against speckle noise and improves the performance of nonstationary SAR image segmentation. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

sar image multiclass segmentation
multiscale information fusion

nsct-tmf model
nsct-hmt
nsct-tmf energy function


crf-based authors' name tagging for scanned documents Authors' names are a critical bibliographic element when searching or browsing academic articles stored in digital libraries. Therefore, those creating metadata for digital libraries would appreciate an automatic method to extract such bibliographic data from printed documents. In this paper, we describe an automatic author name tagger for academic articles scanned with optical character recognition (OCR) mark-up. The method uses conditional random fields (CRF) for labeling the unsegmented character strings in authors' blocks as those of either an author or a delimiter. We applied the tagger to Japanese academic articles. The results of the experiments showed that it correctly labeled more than 99\% of the author name strings, which compares favorably with the under 96\% correct rate of our previous tagger based on a hidden Markov model (HMM).

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

information extraction
conditional random fields (crf)


Similarity-guided streamline placement with error evaluation Most streamline generation algorithms either provide a particular density of streamlines across the domain or explicitly detect features, such as critical points, and follow customized rules to emphasize those features. However, the former generally includes many redundant streamlines, and the latter requires Boolean decisions on which points are features (and may thus suffer from robustness problems for real-world data). We take a new approach to adaptive streamline placement for steady vector fields in 2D and 3D. We define a metric for local similarity among streamlines and use this metric to grow streamlines from a dense set of candidate seed points. The metric considers not only Euclidean distance, but also a simple statistical measure of shape and directional similarity. Without explicit feature detection, our method produces streamlines that naturally accentuate regions of geometric interest. In conjunction with this method, we also propose a quantitative error metric for evaluating a streamline representation based on how well it preserves the information from the original vector field. This error metric reconstructs a vector field from points on the streamline representation and computes a difference of the reconstruction from the original vector field.

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

adaptive streamlines
vector field reconstruction
shape matching


Estimation of pig weight using a Microsoft Kinect prototype imaging system A Kinect prototype for estimation the weight of pigs is presented. The depth map images from Kinect adds information about animal height in addition to area. Manual intervention with respect to image quality is needed in prototype method. The accuracy of the Kinect prototype is 45% of mean weight.

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


A fuzzy model for competency-based employee evaluation and selection The employee evaluation and selection system is an important problem that can significantly affect the future competitiveness and the performance of an organization. This paper presents a comprehensive hierarchical structure for selecting and evaluating a right employee. The structure can systematically build the goals of employee selection to carry out the business goals and strategies of an organization, identify the suitable factor and measure indicators, and set up a consistent evaluation standard for facilitating a decision process. The process of matching an employee with a certain job is performed through a competency-based fuzzy model. An example demonstrates the feasibility of the presented framework. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

linguistic variables
membership functions
competency
fuzzy-rule base


Optimal multiple assignments based on integer programming in secret sharing schemes with general access structures It is known that for any general access structure, a secret sharing scheme (SSS) can be constructed from an (m, m)-threshold scheme by using the so-called cumulative map or from a (t, m)-threshold SSS by a modified cumulative map. However, such constructed SSSs are not efficient generally. In this paper, a new method is proposed to construct a SSS from a (t, m)-threshold scheme for any given general access structure. In the proposed method, integer programming is used to derive the optimal (t, m)threshold scheme and the optimal distribution of the shares to minimize the average or maximum size of the distributed shares to participants. From the optimality, it can always attain lower coding rate than the cumulative maps because the cumulative maps cannot attain the optimal distribution in many cases. The same method is also applied to construct SSSs for incomplete access structures and/or ramp access structures.

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

secret sharing schemes
general access structures
integer programming


stimulating knowledge discovery and sharing Most of the available knowledge management systems pay little attention to two important aspects: the need of supporting emerging communities of interest together with the official organizational structure; and the need of cluing together knowledge associated with any kind of involved entity including people, communities, and informal knowledge. The MILK system enhances knowledge discovery and sharing by providing services addressing these aspects and supplying innovative interfaces and interaction styles. The goal of MILK is to become a familiar environment integrated in the every-day activities of dynamic modern workers. To meet the users' needs, the solution proposed by MILK roots in ethnographic analysis capturing the common practices within an organization.

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

profiling
personalized and adaptive systems


Medical informatics specialists: What are their job profiles? Results of a study on the first 1024 medical informatics graduates of the Universities of Heidelberg and Heilbronn Objectives: Since 1972, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Applied Sciences Heilbronn have jointly been running a medical informatics program. To continuously provide high quality education, the curriculum is regularly evaluated among its graduates. The objectives of this study were to assess the job situation of the graduates and to evaluate the curriculum from their viewpoint. Method: Anonymous inquiry of all medical informatics graduates, having finished their studies before March 31, 2001 (n = 1024) using a structured questionnaire. Results: The questionnaire was answered by 446 (compliance: 45.5%) graduates. About one third (146 of 444 valid cases) are working in software/hardware companies. 179 (43.0% of 416 valid cases) graduates are working within medical information, 214 (51.4%) are working outside of medical informatics, but within other informatics. 23 (5.5%) graduates are working neither in medical nor in other informatics. 15 percent of the responding graduates have received a doctor's degree. Software engineering, database and information systems are regarded as most important parts of the education. The majority of the graduates are satisfied with their education as well as with their personal career. Conclusions: The variety of jobs, the job profiles, and the high level of our graduates' satisfaction with their education indicate the relevance of specialized medical informatics programs with a curricular profile like the one in Heidelberg/Heilbronn. Investigations like this can help to adjust the contents of the curriculum to professional needs.

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


Exploring dimensionality reduction of EEG features in motor imagery task classification This work analyzes feature selection and transformation methods for BCI systems. Three representative feature extraction methods are used: BP, Hjorth and AAR. An efficient LOO-CV technique is introduced for choosing the embedded dimensionality. Experiments have been conducted on five novice users during their first BCI sessions. According to its excellent results, LFDA is a promising method to design BCI systems.

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

brain-computer interfaces
electroencephalogram signals
feature transformation
linear discriminants
local fisher discriminant analysis


Modeling imprecise requirements with fuzzy objects One of the foci of the recent development in object-oriented modeling (OOM) has been the extension of OOM to fuzzy logic to capture and analyze informal requirements that are imprecise in nature. In this paper, a new approach to object-oriented modeling based on fuzzy logic is proposed to formulate imprecise requirements along four dimensions: (1) to extend a class by grouping objects with similar properties into a fuzzy class, (2) to encapsulate fuzzy rules in a fuzzy class to describe the relationship between attributes, (3) to evaluate the membership function of a fuzzy class by considering both static and dynamic properties, and (4) to model uncertain fuzzy associations between classes. The proposed approach is illustrated using the problem domain of a meeting scheduler system.

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

object-oriented modeling
requirements engineering


The assessment of human exposure to low frequency and high frequency electromagnetic fields using the boundary element analysis Analysis of the human body exposed to low frequency and high frequency electromagnetic fields is presented in this work. The formulation of the problem is based on a simplified thick wire model of the human body. The current distribution induced in the body is determined by solving the Pocklington integral equation for a straight thick wire via the GalerkinBubnov boundary element method. Once the axial current along the equivalent antenna of the body is obtained, one may calculate the induced current density, electric field, specific absorption rate, and the total absorbed power in the human body. Several realistic exposure examples are given.

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

high frequency field
low frequency field


Reliability-based design optimization of shank chisel plough using optimum safety factor strategy We extend the optimum safety factor method to nonlinear probabilistic distributions. We apply the developed formulations on shank chisel plough design. We show the advantage of our probabilistic method relative to the deterministic one.

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

structural reliability
random variables
soil properties
soil tillage equipment
optimum safety factors


Extreme UV diffraction grating fabricated by nanoimprint lithography In this study, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) diffraction gratings were fabricated by nanoimprint lithography owing to its advantages of being low cost and high throughput. The imprinted SU-8 grating can function as the EUV diffraction grating directly without the need of the additional lift-off process. The patterning steps of grating pattern and stop layer were separated to enhance 0th order blocking capability of the stop layer. The exposure results of the one-dimensional 75 and 50nm half-pitch PMMA line/space patterns from the fabricated gratings were demonstrated.

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


Some characteristics of solutions of a class of rational difference equations Purpose - The aim of this paper is to study the global behavior of a higher order nonlinear difference equation. Design/methodology/approach - The character of semicycles, periodicity, global stability and boundedness of positive solutions of the mentioned difference equation are investigated. Findings - It is deduced that, when q 1, then this difference equation possesses unbounded solutions. Originality/value - The paper investigates some of the characteristics of nonlinear difference equations.

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 B I


Extended decision template presentation for combining classifiers In this paper, a new method in classifier fusion is introduced for decision making based on internal structure of base classifiers. Amongst methods used in combining classifiers, there are some methods which work on decision template as a tool for modeling behavior of base classifiers in order to label data. This tool models their behavior only based on their final outputs. Our new method, introduces a special structure for decision template such that internal behavior of a neural network base classifier can be modeled in a proper manner suitable for classifiers fusion. The new method builds decision template for each layer of the neural network including all hidden layers. Therefore, the process of making decision in each base classifier is also available for classifiers fusion. Efficiency of the new method is compared with some known benchmark datasets to show how it can improve efficiency of classifiers fusion.

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


A framework and model for evaluating clinical decision support architectures ? In this paper, we develop a four-phase model for evaluating architectures for clinical decision support that focuses on: defining a set of desirable features for a decision support architecture; building a proof-of-concept prototype; demonstrating that the architecture is useful by showing that it can be integrated with existing decision support systems and comparing its coverage to that of other architectures. We apply this framework to several well-known decision support architectures, including Arden Syntax, GLIF, SEBASTIAN, and SAGE.

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

computer-assisted decision support techniques

information systems/organization & administration/standards


An analytic solution approach for the economic order quantity model with Weibull ameliorating items While deterioration models consider the gradual reduction in quality and quantity of products over time, amelioration models assume the opposite. This paper is based on an earlier work by Hwang for finding an optimal economic order quantity solution for items subject to amelioration in a Weibull distribution. Hwang solved the problem with a graphical procedure. In this paper, a rigorous analytical solution approach is derived for cases with different shape parameters. A detailed numerical example is also presented to illustrate the optimality of the derived solution. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

amelioration
deterioration
weibull distribution
economic order quantity


Information technology innovation diffusion: an information requirements paradigm Abstract.? Information technology (IT) innovation research examines the organizational and technological factors that determine IT adoption and diffusion, including firm size and scope, technological competency and expected benefits. We extend the literature by focusing on information requirements as a driver of IT innovation adoption and diffusion. Our framework of IT innovation diffusion incorporates three industry-level sources of information requirements: process complexity, clock speed and supply chain complexity. We apply the framework to US manufacturing industries using aggregate data of internet-based innovations and qualitative analysis of two industries: wood products and beverage manufacturing. Results show systematic patterns supporting the basic thesis of the information processing paradigm: higher IT innovation diffusion in industries with higher information processing requirements; the salience of downstream industry structure in the adoption of interorganizational systems; and the role of the location of information intensity in the supply chain in determining IT adoption and diffusion. Our study provides a new explanation for why certain industries were early and deep adopters of internet-based innovations while others were not: variation in information processing requirements.

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


Patent network analysis of inter-industrial knowledge flows: The case of Korea between traditional and emerging industries Based on the notion of the national innovation system (NIS), this paper proposes an exploratory method of measuring inter-industrial knowledge flows. The proposed measures are based on patent analysis and inputoutput analysis. By employing the Korean case, the knowledge measures are gauged and the knowledge network is visualized. For both disembodied and embodied knowledge, the densities of the knowledge network have steadily increased over time and the knowledge linkage between the traditional sector and the emerging sector has become more active, along with the evolutionary advancement of industrial structure. However, the knowledge network is still incomplete in that some weak ties and missing links exist. Although the Korean case may not be generally applicable due to national idiosyncrasies, the proposed framework provides a useful tool for measuring knowledge stock and flows at sectoral or industrial level.

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

patent analysis
patent network
inputoutput analysis
emerging industries


Architectural styles for distributed processing systems and practical selection method The software architecture of a system has influences against various software characteristics of the system such as efficiency, reliability, maintainability, etc. For supporting to design the software architecture, we have developed architectural styles for distributed processing systems. The styles classify the architecture for distributed processing systems into nine categories based on the location of data storage and the type of processing between a client and a server. This paper describes our architectural styles and proposes a simple but practical method to select an appropriate architectural style for developing an application system. The selection method introduces the characterization of architectural styles and the characteristic charts to visualize their characteristics of architectural styles. Next, we propose a method to select an appropriate architectural style using the conformity between characteristic charts of a system and architectural styles. We have verified the applicability of this selection method using our customers' real application systems.

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

architectural style
software architecture

distributed computing model
distributed processing system


Financial credit-risk evaluation with neural and neurofuzzy systems Credit-risk evaluation decisions are important for the financial institutions involved due to the high level of risk associated with wrong decisions. The process of making credit-risk evaluation decision is complex and unstructured. Neural networks are known to perform reasonably well compared to alternate methods for this problem. However, a drawback of using neural networks for credit-risk evaluation decision is that once a decision is made, it is extremely difficult to explain the rationale behind that decision. Researchers have developed methods using neural network to extract rules, which are then used to explain the reasoning behind a given neural network output. These rules do not capture the learned knowledge well enough. Neurofuzzy systems have been recently developed utilizing the desirable properties of both fuzzy systems as well as neural networks. These neurofuzzy systems can be used to develop fuzzy rules naturally. In this study, we analyze the beneficial aspects of using both neurofuzzy systems as well as neural networks for credit-risk evaluation decisions.

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


Efficiently computing the drainage network on massive terrains using external memory flooding process We present EMFlow, a very efficient algorithm and its implementation, to compute the drainage network (i.e. the flow direction and flow accumulation) on huge terrains stored in external memory. Its utility lies in processing the large volume of high resolution terrestrial data newly available, which internal memory algorithms cannot handle efficiently. The flow direction is computed using an adaptation of our previous method RWFlood that uses a flooding process to quickly remove internal depressions or basins. Flooding, proceeding inward from the outside of the terrain, works oppositely to the common method of computing downhill flow from the peaks. To reduce the number of I/O operations, EMFlow adopts a new strategy to subdivide the terrain into islands that are processed separately. The terrain cells are grouped into blocks that are stored in a special data structure managed as a cache memory. EMFlows execution time was compared against the two most recent and most efficient published methods: TerraFlow and r.watershed.seg. It was, on average, 25 and 110 times faster than TerraFlow and r.watershed.seg respectively. Also, EMFlow could process larger datasets. Processing a 50000 50000 terrain on a machine with 2GB of internal memory took about 4500 seconds, compared to 87000 seconds for TerraFlow while r.watershed.seg failed on terrains larger than 15000 15000. On very small, say1000 1000 terrains, EMFlow takes under a second, compared to 6 and 20 seconds in r.watershed.seg and TerraFlow respectively. So EMFlow could be a component of a future interactive system where a user could modify terrain and immediately see the new hydrography.

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


On hierarchical modelling of motion for workflow analysis from overhead view Understanding human behaviour is a high level perceptual problem, one which is often dominated by the contextual knowledge of the environment, and where concerns such as occlusion, scene clutter and high within-class variations are commonplace. Nonetheless, such understanding is highly desirable for automated visual surveillance. We consider this problem in a context of a workflow analysis within an industrial environment. The hierarchical nature of the workflow is exploited to split the problem into activity and task recognition. In this, sequences of low level activities are examined for instances of a task while the remainder are labelled as background. An initial prediction of activity is obtained using shape and motion based features of the moving blob of interest. A sequence of these activities is further adjusted by a probabilistic analysis of transitions between activities using hidden Markov models (HMMs). In task detection, HMMs are arranged to handle the activities within each task. Two separate HMMs for task and background compete for an incoming sequence of activities. Imagery derived from a camera mounted overhead the target scene has been chosen over the more conventional oblique views (from the side) as this view does not suffer from as much occlusion, and it poses a manageable detection and tracking problem while still retaining powerful cues as to the workflow patterns. We evaluate our approach both in activity and task detection on a challenging dataset of surveillance of human operators in a car manufacturing plant. The experimental results show that our hierarchical approach can automatically segment the timeline and spatially localize a series of predefined tasks that are performed to complete a workflow.

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

human behaviour recognition
hierarchical motion modelling
video feature extraction
probabilistic sequence analysis


Reading news from a pocket computer in a distracting environment: effects of the tempo of background music. Pocket computers are often used in environments were the user becomes exposed to distracting factors, such as background noise and moving objects. In this study, I examined the effects of background music on reading business news in a crowded cafeteria environment. Measures were taken regarding three reading conditions: (1) no background music, (2) fast music and (3) slow music. The results suggest that the reading condition significantly effects both the reading measures and the emotional evaluation of the news content. Men evaluated the news most positively in the slow music condition, whereas women evaluated the news most positively in the no-music condition. The reading rate and efficiency was significantly lower in the slow-music group than in the fast-music group. The results have several implications both on background music research and on use of background music in the news services, advertising and multimodal environments.

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

pocket computer
news
reading
background music
tempo


Comments on "An improved model for vehicle routing problem with time constraint based on genetic algorithm" [Comput. Ind. Eng. 42 (2002) 361-369] An improved model for vehicle routing problem proposed by Heung-Suk Hwang (2002) was recently published in Computer & Industrial Engineering Journal to solve the time constraint vehicle routing problem based on improved genetic algorithm. In this work, comments are given to the published paper of Heung-Suk Hwang (2002). And they centralize on the example of improved mutation operator and the problem formulation. The suggested modifications are also provided in this work. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

vehicle routing problem
genetic algorithm
improved mutation operator
problem formulation


A framework for awareness support in groupware systems This paper introduces a framework for awareness support in groupware systems. Awareness gathers the group knowledge, its activities and its overall status. Awareness support is an important feature for groupware systems. It provides a context for individual contributions, improving these contributions and avoiding contradictory interactions among group members. Despite its importance, awareness support is not systematic and developers must build it from scratch for each new application. The framework presented here addresses this issue. This framework, called Big Watch (BW), intends to support groupware implementers to easily build past event awareness mechanisms. It has been designed to develop new groupware applications and to improve existing ones. This paper presents the features and the structure of BW, and describes two applications that use it. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

awareness support
groupware systems
framework

groupware design
cooperative work
collaborative design


multi-band csma/ca-based cognitive radio networks A new flexible multiple access control (MAC) scheme embedding channelization in multi-band carrier sense multiple access / collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) systems is proposed to provide different priority classes among users, and its performance is investigated. In the proposed scheme, two priority classes of users, primary and secondary users, are considered; the classical CSMA/CA protocol is modified to multiband operation for secondary users, whereas channelization is provided for primary users to ensure the quality of service (QoS). The performance of the proposed MAC scheme is analyzed using a new multi-band CSMA/CA model based on a Markov chain capturing the primary user channel activity and the number of bands. The throughput of secondary users is obtained as a function of the primary user activity as well as other CSMA/CA parameters. It is shown that this mixed MAC scheme can guarantee the throughput of primary users certainly with minimal performance degradation to secondary users, especially when the number of available bands is large or the maximum contention window (CW) size for the CSMA/CA secondary users is small compared with the number of secondary users.

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


A two-loop robust controller for HIV infection models in the presence of parameter uncertainties A two-loop robust nonlinear controller is proposed to deal with uncertain model parameters in HIV infection models, which are described by nonlinear differential equations of three state variables and antiretroviral drugs. The treatment goal is to suppress the concentration of infected CD4+ T cells to a target value using only the measurement of total CD4+ T cell concentration. The outer-loop controller is designed to achieve the treatment goal for the nominal HIV infection model, while a nonlinear disturbance observer (DOB) controller is employed in the inner-loop to compensate for parameter uncertainties. In the nonlinear DOB controller, a disturbance signal, equivalent to the parameter variation in terms of effect on the output, is canceled by its estimate. Numerical simulations verify that the proposed controller achieves robust performance for reducing the concentration of infected CD4+ T cells even in the presence of parameter uncertainties.

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

hiv infection
antiretroviral drugs
parameter uncertainties
disturbance observer


Network Applications on Simultaneous Multithreading Processors As network applications become increasingly sophisticated and Internet traffic is getting heavier, future network processors must continue processing computation-intensive network applications at line rates. Most programmable network processors on the market today, such as the Intel IXP2800, target relatively low performance (from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps). However, low cost edge routers will find it hard to cope with the forthcoming sophistication of network applications to be processed at those speeds. Hence, new architectures should be designed for the programmable network processors of the future. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the applicability and efficiency of Simultaneous MultiThreaded (SMT) as the base architecture of a network processor. Indeed, the SMT model inherently allows the multiple parallel threads which must be dealt with in network processor applications. In this paper, we investigate the architectural implications of network applications on the SMT architecture. We demonstrate that, when executed as independent threads, applications chosen from different network layers show an improved Instructions Per Cycle (IPC) and cache behavior when compared with the situation where the program executed comes from a single network application. Finally, a new architectural solution to cope with packet dependency is proposed and evaluated.

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

packet dependency
network processor
simultaneous multithreading


Copulas with given values on A horizontal and A vertical section In this paper we study the set of copulas for which both a horizontal section and a vertical section have been given. We give a general construction for copulas of this type and we provide the lower and upper copulas with these sections. Symmetric copulas with given horizontal section are also discussed, as well as copulas defined on a grid of the unit square. Several examples are presented.

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 B I O O O O O O 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


Bounded repairability of word languages We formalize the bounded repair problem and characterize when regular languages admit bounded repair, for streaming and non-streaming settings. We show that bounded repairability in the streamingsetting is independent of the lookahead and is robust under different cost functions. Using the characterizations above, we give results on the complexity of the bounded repair problem in each setting. We study the complexity of computing the optimal number of edits and the optimal repair strategy in the streaming setting. We demonstrate special cases where the streaming and non-streaming bounded repair problems have the same solution.

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


speculative dynamic vectorization Traditional vector architectures have shown to be very effective for regular codes where the compiler can detect data-level parallelism. However, this SIMD parallelism is also present in irregular or pointer-rich codes, for which the compiler is quite limited to discover it. In this paper we propose a microarchitecture extension in order to exploit SIMD parallelism in a speculative way. The idea is to predict when certain operations are likely to be vectorizable, based on some previous history information. In this case, these scalar instructions are executed in a vector mode. These vector instructions operate on several elements (vector operands) that are anticipated to be their input operands and produce a number of outputs that are stored on a vector register in order to be used by further instructions. Verification of the correctness of the applied vectorization eventually changes the status of a given vector element from speculative to non-speculative, or alternatively, generates a recovery action in case of misspeculation.The proposed microarchitecture extension applied to a 4-way issue superscalar processor with one wide bus is 19\% faster than the same processor with 4 scalar buses to L1 data cache. This speed up is due basically to 1) the reduction in number of memory accesses, 15\% for SpecInt and 20\% for SpecFP, 2) the transformation of scalar arithmetic instructions into their vector counterpart, 28\% for SpecInt and 23\% for SpecFP, and 3) the exploitation of control independence for mispredicted branches.

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

control independence
order
recovery
input
vector instructions
speculative dynamic vectorization
reduction
case
paper
microarchitecture
predict
superscalar processor
processor
vectorization
data cache
exploit
correctness
verification
action

speculative data computation
wide buses
extensibility
pointers
informal
control
change
histories
parallel
architecture
dynamic
speculating
instruction
memorialized
data
operability
compilation
effect


performance analysis of cdma network for mobile communication The use of smart antenna systems enables the network operators to increase the wireless network capacity, where such networks are expected to experience an enormous increase in the traffic. This is due to the increased number of users as well as the high data rate services and applications. In addition, smart antenna systems offer the potential of increased spectrum efficiency, extended range of coverage and higher rate of frequency reuse. In this paper simulations for cdma2000 1x network in terms of cell coverage, data throughput, Average Ec/Io, as a function of no of users per sector are simulated using MATLAB 7.4 software and its comparative study is concluded at the end.

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


On the use of SDF-type filters for distortion parameter estimation Synthetic discriminant functions have been used to locate objects irrespective of distortions and to estimate the extent of the distortion. it was recognized from the beginning that accurate estimates are only possible provided the training set is constructed carefully. In this paper, we obtain conditions that will ensure the accuracy of the estimates. The conditions also suggest efficient ways of constructing the training sets and the results are extended to a wide class SDF-type filters. The theoretical results are illustrated with (idealized) examples and are also applied to the more realistic problem of accurate facial location.

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 B I

synthetic discriminant functions
facial location


circuit recognition and verification based on layout information The mathematical and technical background information for our highly efficient procedure of circuit recognition and verification from layout information is presented. Complete verification and extremely short computing times are the main goals. This procedure can be performed for bipolar as well as for MOS technologies and is part of the whole layout-control system LOCATE.

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

layout verification technologies recognition goals

efficiency
informal
computation
completeness
control systems
circuits


Problem Order Implications for Learning The order of problems presented to students is an important variable that affects learning effectiveness. Previous studies have shown that solving problems in a blocked order, in which all problems of one type are completed before the student is switched to the next problem type, results in less effective performance than does solving the problems in an interleaved order. However, we have no precise understanding of the reason for this effect. In addition to existing theoretical results, we use a machine-learning agent that learns cognitive skills from examples and problem solving experience, SimStudent, to provide a computational model of the problem order question. We conduct a controlled simulation study in three different math and science domains (i.e., fraction addition, equation solving and stoichiometry), where SimStudent is tutored by automatic tutors given problems that have been used to teach human students. We compare two problem orders: the blocked problem order, and the interleaved problem order. The results show that the interleaved problem order yields as effective or more effective learning in all three domains, because the interleaved problem order provides more or better opportunities for error detection and correction to the learning agent. Examination of the agents performance shows that learning when to apply a skill benefits more from interleaved problem orders, and suggests that learning how to apply a skill benefits more from blocked problem orders.

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

interleaved problem order
blocked problem order


a method of automatic proof for the specification and verification of protocols In this paper we apply a method of automatic proof to verify some properties of a computer network protocol. The method used is defined as an extension of classical resolution to temporal operators (@@@@), (@@@@), (@@@@) and Until . We define a Precedes operator that is very useful for the specification of protocols. The method has the form of a set of recursive rules. The examples that we give are FIFO and LIFO queues and the alternating bit protocol, and the properties that we verify are livennes properties of the Sender and Receiver processes in order to prove a liveness property of the global system.

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

specifications
temporal logic
queue
automatic proofs
safety


Siting park-and-ride facilities using a multi-objective spatial optimization model Park-and-ride services are an important component of many public transportation systems in the United States. Locating park-and-ride facilities is an essential step when planning for these services. In this research we focus on three major siting/modeling concerns that need to be addressed when siting park-and-ride facilities: covering as much potential demand as possible, locating park-and-ride facilities as close as possible to major roadways, and siting such facilities in the context of an existing system. Unfortunately, existing models do not enable each of these concerns to be simultaneously addressed. This paper presents a multi-objective spatial optimization model for integrating these considerations. This model is applied for siting park-and-ride facilities in Columbus, Ohio. Application results show the usefulness of the developed model in supporting transit planning in an urban region.

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

park-and-ride
location modeling
transportation planning


Towards productive and sustainable forms of interaction in governance Purpose - A central question of governance in our time is how actors in complex, diverse and dynamic contexts can be harmonized, respecting the needs and limitations of their contexts. New technologies enable shaping and modelling interactions to an extent hitherto unknown. They constitute a huge potential to support and integrate interactions and to reshape governance. This paper sets out to explore a concept of interaction applicable to media which captures and addresses the specific characteristics of social systems required to ensure their viability. Design/methodology/approach - The potential of cybernetics and systems theory for both the design and application of media in social contexts is explored. Building on an autopoietic concept of social systems, a notion of governance as a process of interaction is established. Beer's Viable Systems Model (VSM) and Schwaninger's Model of Systemic Control is applied to derive the characteristic elements, configurations and types of interaction required to support balancing actors' images in social systems. Links to political and social science theory are provided. Findings - Cybernetic and system theories provide a solid conceptual basis for capturing the complexity, dynamics and diversity of interaction. Identifying and addressing the relevant characteristics of interaction in social systems can be achieved through the application of cybernetic tools and vocabulary. These can be used to specify and secure the necessary and sufficient design principles for media through which the viability of social systems can be promoted. Originality/value - The paper shows that requirements to the structure of media applied in social contexts can be specified. Analysing interactions in all kind of social systems does provide clues for the development, implementation, and configuration of improved media. When applied properly, these can boost up governing interactions to much more productive and sustainable forms. This turns out to be a remarkable opportunity to promote the governance of social systems.

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


Exponential stability and stabilisation of fuzzy time-varying delay systems This article presents new exponential stability and stabilisation conditions for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy time-varying delay systems. Based on an improved Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, the exponential stability and stabilisation conditions are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities, which allows one to compute simultaneously the two bounds that characterise the exponential stability rate of the solution. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed conditions.

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

exponential stability
linear matrix inequalities
stabilisation

time-delay systems
takagi-sugeno model
fuzzy control


Oxidative Stress Response in Telomerase-Immortalized Fibroblasts from a Centenarian It has been reported that cells with ectopic expression of telomerase are more resistant to apoptotic cell death than their normal counterpart. However, controversial results were obtained when the cellular response to oxidative stress was analyzed. The present research was therefore aimed at defining the effect of the oxidative stress induced by tert-butylhydroperoxide (tBOOH) and 2-deoxy-d-ribose (d-ribose) in human fibroblasts from a centenarian (cen3) and, in parallel, on the same cells after telomerase immortalization (cen3tel cells). By studying different parameters of apoptosis in situ (i.e., chromatin condensation, phosphatidylserine externalization, and DNA fragmentation), we found that both tBOOH and d-ribose induce apoptosis to a greater extent in cen3 than in cen3tel cells, suggesting a protective role of telomerase toward apoptotic death. However, monitoring the cell number during treatment with the drugs, we found a decrease in cell number; since this reduction was lower in cen3 fibroblasts compared to cen3tel cells, it is likely that telomerase does not fully protect cells from drug toxicity

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


Software development for real-time ultrasonic mapping of tree canopy size Ultrasonic transducers have been used for the digital control of agrochemical application rates in sprayers and fertilizer spreaders of tree crops for about 16 years. The early systems were developed before the advent of commercial DGPS receivers and relied on real-time tree canopy sensing and agrochemical rate adjustment according to the size of canopy detected. The widespread availability of fast and accurate DGPS service since 2000 and the rapid evolution of laptop computing power, has offered new opportunities for enhanced processing and spatial mapping of ultrasonically sensed orchard or grove data. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a Windows software application for a 10-transducer Durand-Wayland ultrasonic orchard measurement array and Trimble AgGPS132 DGPS that would allow real-time sensing, monitoring, calculation, storage and mapping of citrus tree canopy volume and height. Program code was written in Delphi 5.0 for Windows. Four main program windows displayed (1) real-time instrument status of ground speed, transducer outputs in a bar chart, canopy height, cross-sectional canopy area, and DGPS signal status; (2) database; (3) SQL filter pages to review and sort the acquired spatial data; and (4) canopy volumes and coordinates for individual trees in the citrus grove. The data collected with this automated system were compared with manually measured size data of 30 trees to estimate accuracy, and a grove of 376 citrus trees was surveyed twice with the system to estimate repeatability. Results showed no significant differences between ultrasonically and manually measured tree sizes ranging in height from 2.1 to 4.3m (R2=0.940***; RMSE=0.157m) and in volume from 6.3 to 54.0m3tree?1 (R2=0.944***; RMSE=3.14m3tree?1). The system located tree positions for GIS mapping purposes within 1.37m, 95% of the time.

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


Finding Bugs in Web Applications Using Dynamic Test Generation and Explicit-State Model Checking Web script crashes and malformed dynamically generated webpages are common errors, and they seriously impact the usability of Web applications. Current tools for webpage validation cannot handle the dynamically generated pages that are ubiquitous on today's Internet. We present a dynamic test generation technique for the domain of dynamic Web applications. The technique utilizes both combined concrete and symbolic execution and explicit-state model checking. The technique generates tests automatically, runs the tests capturing logical constraints on inputs, and minimizes the conditions on the inputs to failing tests so that the resulting bug reports are small and useful in finding and fixing the underlying faults. Our tool Apollo implements the technique for the PHP programming language. Apollo generates test inputs for a Web application, monitors the application for crashes, and validates that the output conforms to the HTML specification. This paper presents Apollo's algorithms and implementation, and an experimental evaluation that revealed 673 faults in six PHP Web applications.

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

software testing
dynamic analysis
reliability
verification


Functional statistical techniques applied to vine leaf water content determination A statistical analysis of functional data, obtained as reflectance values measured using a hyperspectral sensor, was used to determine water content in vine leaves. Our study was conducted using a sample of 80 vine leaves whose water content was determined by calculating the weight difference between leaves before and after drying in an oven. Two regression models, one linear and the other non-linear, were evaluated and compared: functional linear regression and regression with functional radial basis functions. Compared to traditional methods based on calculating indices that only consider reflectance values in specific wavelengths, the functional approach enables a specific bandwidth or the entire electromagnetic spectrum recorded by the sensor to be taken into account; in other words, the functional approach enables the spectral signature of the leaves to be used. The optimal parameters for each model were determined using a cross-validation procedure and the validity of the approach was tested on a test set drawn from the initial sample. The results obtained demonstrate that water content can be predicted for vine leaves on the basis of their spectral signature, allowing for a certain margin of error. This error was smaller for the non-linear model compared to the linear model. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


an empirical evaluation of entropy-based traffic anomaly detection Entropy-based approaches for anomaly detection are appealing since they provide more fine-grained insights than traditional traffic volume analysis. While previous work has demonstrated the benefits of entropy-based anomaly detection, there has been little effort to comprehensively understand the detection power of using entropy-based analysis of multiple traffic distributions in conjunction with each other. We consider two classes of distributions: flow-header features (IP addresses, ports, and flow-sizes), and behavioral features (degree distributions measuring the number of distinct destination/source IPs that each host communicates with). We observe that the timeseries of entropy values of the address and port distributions are strongly correlated with each other and provide very similar anomaly detection capabilities. The behavioral and flow size distributions are less correlated and detect incidents that do not show up as anomalies in the port and address distributions. Further analysis using synthetically generated anomalies also suggests that the port and address distributions have limited utility in detecting scan and bandwidth flood anomalies. Based on our analysis, we discuss important implications for entropy-based anomaly detection.

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


3x+1 minus the We use Conway's Fractran language to derive a function R : Z(+)-->Z(+) of the form R(n) = r(i)n if nequivalent to1 mod d where d is a positive integer, 0less than or equal toi<d and r(0),r(1),...r(d-1) are rational numbers, such that the famous 3x+1 conjecture holds if and only if the R-orbit of 2(n) contains 2 for all positive integers n. We then show that the R-orbit of an arbitrary positive integer is a constant multiple of an orbit that contains a power of 2. Finally we apply our main result to show that any cycle {x(0),...,x(m-1)} of positive integers for the 3x+1 function must satisfy [GRAPHICS] where O={i: x(i) is odd}, E={i : x(i) is even}, and k=&VERBAR;O&VERBAR;. The method used illustrates a general mechanism for deriving mathematical results about the iterative dynamics of arbitrary integer functions from Fractran algorithms.

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 B O

collatz conjecture
3x+1 problem
discrete dynamical systems


Visualizing MR diffusion tensor fields by dynamic fiber tracking and uncertainty mapping Recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging have provided methods for the acquisition of high-resolution diffusion tensor fields. Their 3D-visualization with streamline-based techniquescalled fiber trackingallow analysis of cerebral white matter tracts for diagnostic, therapeutic as well as neuro-scientific purposes. The illusiveness of fiber visualizations and the inability to reliably visualize branching structures are problems still waiting for solutions. In this paper we present an on-the-fly approach to the tracking of branching and crossing fibers by dynamically setting secondary seeds in regions where branching is assumed, thus avoiding computationally intensive preprocessing steps. Moreover, we propose an uncertainty mapping technique that uses color-coding to enrich 3D fiber displays with information on their validity. Probability values for fiber samples are computed from dataset features as well as characteristics of the tracking process. In contrast to data optimization and pre-processing approaches, our algorithms focus on highly interactive visualization scenarios in collaborative environments.

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

fiber tracking
magnetic resonance imaging

collaborative environments in virtual reality


Variable fidelity design based surrogate and artificial bee colony algorithm for sheet metal forming process Optimization integrated with either one step solver (low fidelity model) or incremental nonlinear finite element solver (high fidelity model) has respectively gained increasing popularity in the design of sheet metal forming process to improve product quality and shorten lead time. However, the one step solver directly incorporated with optimization may result in inadequate design precision, while the incremental method often leads to a prohibitively low computing efficiency. In order to take the full advantages of both the one step solver and incremental solver, we present a variable fidelity algorithm which integrates the one step solver with incremental solver for optimizing sheet metal forming process in this study. In the variable fidelity method established, we need to determine the difference between the two solvers at some predefined experimental points firstly, and then constructing a corrected function using surrogate models for compensating the responses of the one step solver at other points. Different surrogate models, such as response surface methodology (RSM), Kriging (KRG), radial basis function (RBF) and support vector regression (SVR), are considered and compared for best modeling accuracy in this paper. The compensated low fidelity model can be used as a high fidelity model in the optimization process. In this study, we adopt the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to obtain the global optimum. To demonstrate the capability of the variable fidelity method combined with the ABC algorithm, the optimal design of draw-bead restraining forces for an automobile inner panel is exemplified herein. The results show that the optimization with variable fidelity method presented significantly improves the computational efficiency and formability of the workpiece.

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

sheet metal forming
surrogate
artificial bee colony algorithm

drawbead design
finite element analysis
design optimization


Diagnosis of lung nodule using Moran's index and Geary's coefficient in computerized tomography images This paper analyzes the application of Moran's index and Geary's coefficient to the characterization of lung nodules as malignant or benign in computerized tomography images. The characterization method is based on a process that verifies which combination of measures, from the proposed measures, has been best able to discriminate between the benign and malignant nodules using stepwise discriminant analysis. Then, a linear discriminant analysis procedure was performed using the selected features to evaluate the ability of these in predicting the classification for each nodule. In order to verify this application we also describe tests that were carried out using a sample of 36 nodules: 29 benign and 7 malignant. A leave-one-out procedure was used to provide a less biased estimate of the linear discriminator's performance. The two analyzed functions and its combinations have provided above 90% of accuracy and a value area under receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curve above 0.85, that indicates a promising potential to be used as nodules signature measures. The preliminary results of this approach are very encouraging in characterizing nodules using the two functions presented.

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

moran's index
geary's coefficient
texture analysis


forwarding in opportunistic networks with resource constraints Effective forwarding in mobile opportunistic networks is a challenge, given the unpredictable mobility of nodes, short contact durations between nodes, wireless interference and limited buffer sizes. Most forwarding algorithms aim at decreasing costs (relative to flooding the network) by forwarding only to nodes which are likely to be good relays. While it is non-trivial to decide if an encountered node is a good relay or not at the moment of encounter, it is harder still to prioritize which messages to transmit under the presence of short contact durations and which messages to drop when buffers become full. The main objective of this paper is to study different message prioritization schemes using real measurements. Such schemes can be broadly divided into two categories - schemes which do not use any network information, and schemes which do. Examples of the former set of schemes include FIFO/LIFO etc. For the latter set of schemes, there is a key design choice: On one hand, we have the following scheme: when a forwarding opportunity presents itself, assign high priorities to messages which are relatively close to their intended destination. On the other hand, we can assign high priorities to messages which are farther away from their destination than closer messages. In order to decide if messages are close to their destination or not, we have to rely on a forwarding algorithm. For this, we use delegation forwarding schemes which have been shown to be efficient in terms of cost incurred in the network. We develop a new set of prioritization schemes based on delegation schemes. We consider these schemes in our empirical study.

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

forwarding algorithms
mobile opportunistic networks

pocket switched networks
delay tolerant networks


Generation of a clustering ensemble based on a gravitational self-organising map Clustering-ensemble methods have emerged recently as an effective approach to the problem of clustering, which is one of the fundamental data-analysis tools. Data clustering with an ensemble involves two steps: generation of the ensemble with single-clustering methods and the combination of the obtained solutions to produce a final consensus partition of the data. In this paper we first propose a novel clustering method, based on Kohonen's self-organising map and gravitational algorithm, and, second, investigate its performance in the generation of a clustering ensemble. The proposed method is able to discover clusters of complex shapes and determines the number of clusters automatically. Furthermore, its stochastic nature is beneficial in the construction of a diverse ensemble of partitions. Promising results of the presented method were obtained in comparison with three, relevant, single-clustering algorithms over artificial and real data sets.

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

cluster analysis
self-organising map
clustering-ensemble generation
experimental comparison


Algorithms for point set matching with k-differences The largest common point set problem (LCP) is, given two point set P and Q in d-dimensional Euclidean space, to find a subset of P with the maximum cardinality that is congruent to some subset of Q. We consider a special case of LCP in which the size of the largest common point set is at least (vertical bar P vertical bar + vertical bar Q vertical bar - k)/2. We develop efficient algorithms for this special case of LCP and a related problem. In particular, we present an O (k(3)n(1.34) + kn(2) log n) time algorithm for LCP in two-dimensions, which is much better for small k than an existing 0 (n(3.2) log n) time algorithm, where n max {vertical bar P vertical bar,vertical bar Q vertical bar}.

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

largest common point set
point set matching

approximate string matching
computational
geometry
congruence
pattern matching


Discrete time model of a multi-cell dc/dc converter: Non linear approach By using a non linear discrete time model, this paper shows how to predict bifurcations in a two cells chopper and analyses the road to chaos. Equilibrium points and their stability are investigated in an analogical way to determine the nature of the bifurcations. The global behaviour is studied by using bifurcation diagrams showing collisions between fixed points and borderlines. The border collision bifurcations have their origin in the saturations of the PWM modulator. (c) 2006 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

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