Embedded Memories Fault-Tolerant Pre- and Post-Silicon Optimization This paper proposes a structured method for scaling both the supply voltage as well as the body bias voltage for CMOS embedded static memory with the aim of achieving a controllable and dynamic probability of failure with minimum power consumption for each memory block. The target error probability is managed according to the time varying error tolerance attributes of the application using the memory at a certain instant in time. This approach enables system designers to abstract the concepts of power awareness, yield and reliability as design tradeoffs-that incorporate application knowledge-early in the design cycle. The paper develops a formal theoretical and practical foundation based on the underlying device statistics upon which both system and circuit designers can investigate error aware design.

embedded memory
low power
process variation
sram
wireless


A tabu search algorithm for parallel machine total tardiness problem In this study, we consider the problem of scheduling a set of independent jobs with sequence dependent setups on a set of uniform parallel machines such that total tardiness is minimized. Jobs have non-identical due dates and arrival times. A tabu search (TS) approach is employed to attack this complex problem. In order to obtain a robust search mechanism, several key components of TS such as candidate list strategies, tabu classifications, tabu tenure and intensification/diversification strategies are investigated. Alternative approaches to each of these issues are developed and extensively tested on a set of problems obtained from the literature. The results obtained are considerably better than those reported previously and constitute the best solutions known for the benchmark problems as to date. Scope and purpose Several surveys on parallel machine scheduling with due date related objectives (Oper. Res. 38(1) (1990) 22; EJOR 38 (1989) 156; Oper. Res. 42 (1994) 1025) reveal that the NP-hard nature of the problem renders it a challenging area for many researchers who studied various versions. However, most of these studies make the assumption that jobs are available at the beginning of the scheduling period, which is an important deviation form reality. In this study, as well as distinct due dates and ready times, features such as sequence dependent setup times and different processing rates for machines are incorporated into the classical model. These enhancements approach the model to the actual practice at the expense of complicating the problem further. For this complex problem, we present a tabu search (TS) algorithm to minimize total tardiness and provide the best solutions known for a set of benchmark problems.

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

scheduling
parallel machines
total tardiness problem
sequence dependent setup times
tabu search


Object-based assessment of burn severity in diseased forests using high-spatial and high-spectral resolution MASTER airborne imagery Forest ecosystems are subject to a variety of disturbances with increasing intensities and frequencies, which may permanently change the trajectories of forest recovery and disrupt the ecosystem services provided by trees. Fire and invasive species, especially exotic disease-causing pathogens and insects, are examples of disturbances that together could pose major threats to forest health. This study examines the impacts of fire and exotic disease (sudden oak death) on forests, with an emphasis on the assessment of post-fire burn severity in a forest where trees have experienced three stages of disease progression pre-fire: early-stage (trees retaining dried foliage and fine twigs), middle-stage (trees losing fine crown fuels), and late-stage (trees falling down). The research was conducted by applying Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) to MASTER airborne images that were acquired immediately following the fire for rapid assessment and contained both high-spatial (4m) and high-spectral (50 bands) resolutions. Although GEOBIA has gradually become a standard tool for analyzing high-spatial resolution imagery, high-spectral resolution data (dozens to hundreds of bands) can dramatically reduce computation efficiency in the process of segmentation and object-based variable extraction, leading to complicated variable selection for succeeding modeling. Hence, we also assessed two widely used band reduction algorithms, PCA (principal component analysis) and MNF (minimum noise fraction), for the delineation of image objects and the subsequent performance of burn severity models using either PCA or MNF derived variables. To increase computation efficiency, only the top 5 PCA and MNF and top 10 PCA and MNF components were evaluated, which accounted for 10% and 20% of the total number of the original 50 spectral bands, respectively. Results show that if no band reduction was applied the models developed for the three stages of disease progression had relatively similar performance, where both spectral responses and texture contributed to burn assessments. However, the application of PCA and MNF introduced much greater variation among models across the three stages. For the early-stage disease progression, neither band reduction algorithms improved or retained the accuracy of burn severity modeling (except for the use of 10 MNF components). Compared to the no-band-reduction scenario, band reduction led to a greater level of overestimation of low-degree burns and underestimation of medium-degree burns, suggesting that the spectral variation removed by PCA and MNF was vital for distinguishing between the spectral reflectance from disease-induced dried crowns (still retaining high structural complexity) and fire ash. For the middle-stage, both algorithms improved the model R2 values by 237%, while the late-stage models had comparable or better performance to those using the original 50 spectral bands. This could be explained by the loss of tree crowns enabling better signal penetration, thus leading to reduced spectral variation from canopies. Hence, spectral bands containing a high degree of random noise were correctly removed by the band reduction algorithms. Compared to the middle-stage, the late-stage forest stands were covered by large piles of fallen trees and branches, resulting in higher variability of MASTER imagery. The ability of band reduction to improve the model performance for these late-stage forest stands was reduced, because the valuable spectral variation representing the actual late-stage forest status was partially removed by both algorithms as noise. Our results indicate that PCA and MNF are promising for balancing computation efficiency and the performance of burn severity models in forest stands subject to the middle and late stages of sudden oak death disease progression. Compared to PCA, MNF dramatically reduced image spectral variation, generating larger image objects with less complexity of object shapes. Whereas, PCA-based models delivered superior performance in most evaluated cases suggesting that some key spectral variability contributing to the accuracy of burn severity models in diseased forests may have been removed together with true spectral noise through MNF transformations.

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

forest disease
interacting disturbances
pca (principal component analysis)
mnf (minimum noise fraction)


Ripple: A Robust and Effective Routability-Driven Placer The significant mismatch between the objective of wirelength and routing congestion makes the routability issue even more important in placement. In this paper, we describe a routability-driven placer called Ripple. Each step, including global placement, legalization, and detailed placement, is made to trade-off between routability and wirelength. We propose a robust and effective flow by using cell inflation to relieve routing congestion. Cell inflation has traditionally been used to deal with congestion and we will discuss how this technique can be used easily and robustly in the global placement. Besides, unlike many previous works that focus on different types of swapping strategies, we analyze and propose some simple and effective approaches when considering routability in the legalization and detailed placement steps. Experimental results show that Ripple is particularly effective in improving routability. When compared to the top results in the ISPD 2011 Contest and SimPLR, Ripple can obtain the smallest overflow and half-perimeter wirelength on average, while the congestion hot spots are also distributed sparsely in Ripple.

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


software engineering in east and south europe (seese'08) East and South European countries are going through a process of intensive changes and ICT plays an important role in supporting these changes. Most of the East and South European countries have a tradition of high quality education, in particular in natural and traditional technical sciences and thus have a good potential to take the new challenges. Today there is a strong need for advances and excellence in Software Engineering education and research, which are crucial for effective development of software industry in the region.

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


Modified NSGA-II Algorithm for Multiobjective Optimization of Compact High-Efficiency Square Horns High efficiency, compactness, light weight and low return loss are of high importance in antennas, especially in space applications. In this contribution a modified nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is applied to the design of Horn antennas for discrete lens applications to achieve a Pareto-optimal solution. Horn design is aimed not only towards higher possible efficiency but also towards large band and compactness. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 21:174-181, 2011.

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

nsga-ii
pareto optimization
horn antenna


Distributed and Centralized Schemes for Channel Sensing Order Setting in Multi-user Cognitive Radio Networks Channel sensing order setting is crucial for efficient channel exploration and exploitation in cognitive radio (CR) networks. This paper investigates the sensing order setting problem in multi-channel multi-user CR networks for both distributed scenario and centralized scenario. As the optimal solution is too complicated, two suboptimal greedy search algorithms with much less computational complexities are proposed. The channel availability, channel achievable rate, multi-user diversity and collisions among CR users are considered comprehensively in our proposed methods. For the distributed scenario, a novel potential function is proposed to represent the relative advantage of a channel used by a user among multi channels and multi users, based on which each user can get its own sensing order. For the centralized scenario, a sensing matrix is obtained by a coordinator for all the users. It is shown that, CR users average throughput increases and collision probability decreases with the number of channels due to increased transmission opportunities. The total network throughput increases with the number of user pairs due to multi-user diversity. Simulation results validate the efficacy of the proposed schemes in elevating CR users throughput and decreasing the probability of collision, and show the performance improvement of the proposed schemes by comparisons with existing works.

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

cognitive radio networks
channel sensing order
greedy search


On Computing the Prediction Sum of Squares Statistic in Linear Least Squares Problems with Multiple Parameter or Measurement Sets The prediction sum of squares is a useful statistic for comparing different models. It is based on the principle of leave-one-out or ordinary cross-validation, whereby every measurement is considered in turn as a test set, for the model parameters trained on all but the held out measurement. As for linear least squares problems, there is a simple well-known non-iterative formula to compute the prediction sum of squares without having to refit the model as many times as the number of measurements. We extend this formula to cases where the problem has multiple parameter or measurement sets. We report experimental results on the fitting of a warp between two images, for which the number of deformation centres is automatically selected, based on one of the proposed non-iterative formulae.

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

press
cross-validation
registration
image warp
deformation centre
thin-plate spline


An efficient character input scheme with a gyro sensor of smartphone on ubiquitous cluster computing Recently, smartphones have rapidly become popular and research has been actively conducted on methods of making the character inputs that are most frequently used more convenient and faster. However, although many character input schemes have been developed, time is required for users to learn character input methods and typing errors frequently occur. In addition, many touches and movements are required for character inputs and the touch recognition elements of touch screens that are not high pressure types involve great inconvenience for disabled persons or patients who cannot use their fingers properly, as they cannot input the appropriate characters. Therefore, we propose a virtual keyboard using a gyro sensor (VG), which is an efficient character input scheme, for protection active media. As characters are inputted by tilting the gyro sensor embedded in the smartphone in eight directions, the VG resolves the inconvenience related to character inputs of many previous push methods.

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

smartphone
gyro sensor
protection active media

secure information
smart device
character input method
touch screen


TRACTABILITY AND LEARNABILITY ARISING FROM ALGEBRAS WITH FEW SUBPOWERS A constraint language Gamma on a finite set A has been called polynomially expressive if the number of n-ary relations expressible by there exists Lambda-atomic formulas over Gamma is bounded by exp(O(n(k))) for some constant k. It has recently been discovered that this property is characterized by the existence of a (k + 1)-ary polymorphism satisfying certain identities; such polymorphisms are called k-edge operations and include Mal'cev and near-unanimity operations as special cases. We prove that if Gamma is any constraint language which, for some k > 1, has a k-edge operation as a polymorphism, then the constraint satisfaction problem for (the closure of Gamma under there exists Lambda-atomic expressibility) is globally tractable. We also show that the set of relations definable over G using quantified generalized formulas is polynomially exactly learnable using improper equivalence queries.

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

constraint satisfaction
learnability
polymorphism
polynomially expressive
few subpowers


Reinforcement learning for symbolic expression induction We propose a neural network method for the generation of symbolic expressions using reinforcement learning. Usually, the symbolic form expressed in terms of a calculus (propositional, first-order, lambda, etc.) is deemed comprehensible by humans and it is necessary as far as the acceptance of neural networks is concerned. According to the proposed method, a human decides on the kind and number of primitive functions which, with the appropriate composition (in the mathematical sense), can represent a mapping between two domains. The appropriate composition is achieved by an agent which tries many compositions and receives a reward depending on the quality of the composed function. Naturally, the learning agent (which in our case is a recurrent neural net) must perform the credit assignment task. Results are encouraging concerning the derivation of simple arithmetic expressions. (C) 2000 IMACS/Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

symbolic/subsymbolic processing
rule extraction


Reduced order modeling of a two-dimensional flow with moving shocks The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the ability of proper orthogonal decomposition, in combination with domain decomposition, to produce accurate reduced order models (ROMs) for two-dimensional high-speed flows with moving shock waves. To demonstrate this ability, a blunt body flow with quasi-steady shock motion is considered. The blunt body flow contains a strong bow shock that is moved via a change in inlet Mach number and angle of attack. Accuracy is quantified by comparing surface pressures obtained from the ROMs with those from the full order simulation under the same free stream conditions. The order reduction, and computational performance of the ROM is also quantified relative to the full order simulation. The robustness of the ROM to varying flow parameters is explored. A non-Galerkin quasi-implicit steady state implementation is considered. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

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

proper orthogonal decomposition
reduced order modeling
moving shock waves
domain decomposition


REM sleep behavior disorder Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia manifested by vivid, often frightening dreams associated with simple or complex motor behavior during REM sleep. The polysomnographic features of RBD include increased electromyographic tone +/? dream enactment behavior during REM sleep. Management with counseling and pharmacologic measures is usually straightforward and effective. In this review, the terminology, clinical and polysomnographic features, demographic and epidemiologic features, diagnostic criteria, differential diagnosis, and management strategies are discussed. Recent data on the suspected pathophysiologic mechanisms of RBD are also reviewed. The literature and our institutional experience on RBD are next discussed, with an emphasis on the RBDneurodegenerative disease association and particularly the RBD-synucleinopathy association. Several issues relating to evolving concepts, controversies, and future directions are then reviewed, with an emphasis on idiopathic RBD representing an early feature of a neurodegenerative disease and particularly an evolving synucleinopathy. Planning for future therapies that impact patients with idiopathic RBD is reviewed in detail.

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

rem sleep behavior disorder
parasomnia
synucleinopathy
neurodegenerative disease


Efficient belief propagation for higher-order cliques using linear constraint nodes Belief propagation over pairwise-connected Markov random fields has become a widely used approach, and has been successfully applied to several important computer vision problems. However, pairwise interactions are often insufficient to capture the full statistics of the problem. Higher-order interactions are sometimes required. Unfortunately, the complexity of belief propagation is exponential in the size of the largest clique. In this paper, we introduce a new technique to compute belief propagation messages in time linear with respect to clique size for a large class of potential functions over real-valued variables. We discuss how this technique can be generalized to still wider classes of potential functions at varying levels of efficiency. Also, we develop a form of nonparametric belief representation specifically designed to address issues common to networks with higher-order cliques and also to the use of guaranteed-convergent forms of belief propagation. To illustrate these techniques, we perform efficient inference in graphical models where the spatial prior of natural images is captured by 22 cliques. This approach shows significant improvement over the commonly used pairwise-connected models, and may benefit a variety of applications using belief propagation to infer images or range images, including stereo, shape-from-shading, image-based rendering, segmentation, and matting.

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

higher-order cliques
non-pairwise cliques
factor graphs
continuous markov random fields


The status of information technology in Iranian hospital libraries A comparative study of managers' attitude Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to compare the attitude of the managers of libraries located at Iran, Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences Universities' training hospitals, on the status of information technology (IT) in the mentioned libraries. Design/methodology/approach - This study employed a researcher-made questionnaire. The managers of 40 hospital libraries of Iran, Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Universities formed the population of the research. To analyze the collected data, the statistical software SPSS (version 17) was used. Findings - Results showed that 12.5 per cent of Tehran, 15.6 per cent of Iran and 25 per cent of Shahid Beheshti Universities library managers agreed, to a very large extent, on the application and development of IT and its tools and 93.7 per cent of the managers from all three hospital libraries deemed the application of IT most necessary. The managers believed that the greatest advantage of IT is concerned with the reduction of human efforts (59.4 per cent), and 100 per cent of the managers acknowledged the need for further promotion of their skills in a wide variety of IT issues. In total, 16.1 per cent at Tehran, 12.9 per cent at Iran and 29 per cent at Shahid Beheshti University considerably approved of formal education for the promotion of their librarians' skills. Originality/value - This study is a step towards acknowledging the contribution, status, and value of hospital libraries to the health sector by the library managers in theory and practice, in the shadow of considering their librarians as network experts, information media and system designers, and technology experts.

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

iran
universities
medical sciences
hospital libraries
librarians
information technology
managers


Impact of momentum bias on forecasting through knowledge discovery techniques in the foreign exchange market To an increasing extent since the late 1980s, software learning methods including neural networks (NN) and case based reasoning (CBR) have been used for prediction in financial markets and other areas. In the past, the prediction of foreign exchange rates has focused on isolated techniques, as exemplified by the use of time series models including regression models or smoothing methods to identify cycles and trends. At best, however, the use of isolated methods can only represent fragmented models of the causative agents, which underlie business cycles. Experience with artificial intelligence applications since the early 1980s points toward a multistrategy approach to discovery and prediction. This paper investigates the impact of momentum bias on forecasting financial markets through knowledge discovery techniques. Different modes of bias are used as input into learning systems using implicit knowledge representation (NNs) and CBR. The concepts are examined in the context of predicting movements in the Japanese yen.

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

forecasting
foreign exchange
knowledge discovery
case based reasoning


Environmental protection of inkjet-printed Ag conductors Electrically conductive silver nanoparticle ink patterns were fabricated using the inkjet printing method. Two different polymer films were used as the substrate materials. The patterns were exposed to humidity and salt fog and the electrical performance (sheet resistance and RF performance) as well as mechanical endurance (adhesion) were measured before and after the environmental tests. The electrical properties of the printed structures remained good in all the measurable samples. The adhesion between the ink and a substrate material appeared to be a greater challenge in harsh environments. Protection capabilities of one dip coated and one hot laminated barrier materials were evaluated during the environmental tests. The results showed that there is a need for environmental protection in printed electronics. Especially the laminated barrier films can offer a potential solution for shielding printed electronics in harsh environments as they can provide good mechanical protection, and can easily be integrated in roll-to-roll process.

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

printed electronics
inkjet
silver nanoparticle ink
environmental
protection
barrier


Controlling structural failure modes during an impact in the presence of uncertainties A methodology to enforce a given structural dynamic behavior during an impact while accounting for uncertainty is presented. The approach is based on locating structural fuses that weaken the structure locally and help enforce a deformation mode. The problem of enforcing the crushing of a tube impacting a rigid wall is chosen. In order to find the positions of the fuses, the method identifies distinct structural dynamic behaviors using designs of experiments and clustering techniques. The changes in behavior are studied with respect to variations of the fuse positions and random parameters, such as the thickness. Based on the probabilistic distributions, a measure of the likelihood of occurrence of global buckling is defined. The positions of the fuses are defined using an optimization problem in terms of the likelihood of global buckling and the amount of absorbed energy in the tube. A first formulation of the problem considers variability in the tube's thickness only. A second formulation also accounts for uncertainties in the positions of the fuses.

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

structural fuses
uncertainties
global buckling
clustering


using pca to improve evolutionary cellular automata algorithms The difficulty of designing cellular automatons' transition rules to perform a particular problem has severely limited their applications. Using a genetic algorithm to evolve cellular automata for fining these rules, is a good solution. Conventional evolutionary methods use random test configurations for calculating fitness values of each transition rule. In this paper, we use Principal Component Analysis to build better test configurations. By emphasizing on diversity between test instances in a test plan, we can evaluate rules better and faster as well as increase their accuracy. In this paper, we propose two models based on this idea. Experimental results on density classification and synchronization tasks prove that our methods are more efficient than the conventional one.

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 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

principal component analysis
evolutionary cellular automata

genetic algorithms
improvement in test strategies


Heckel's law: conclusions from the user interface design of a music appliance-the bassoon In this paper, we look at the user interface of a successful musical appliance. We discover that the user interface is difficult and inconsistent. The appliance is very hard to use, yet, people are willing to spend hundreds of hours learning it. This phenomenon cannot be wholly explained by saying that the experience of using the appliance is, in itself, enjoyable. My proposition (Heckel's law) is that user interface design is not of primary importance as a factor in the adoption of an appliance.

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


A new SVM-based active feedback scheme for image retrieval Relevance feedback has emerged as a powerful tool to boost the retrieval performance in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). Support vector machine (SVM) active learning is one popular and successful technique for relevance feedback in CBIR. Despite the success, for conventional SVM active learning, the users are usually not so patience to label a large number of training instances in the relevance feedback round. To overcome this limitation, a new SVM-based active feedback using ensemble multiple classifiers is proposed in this paper. Firstly, we select the most informative images by using active learning method for user to label, and quickly learn a boundary that separates the images that satisfy the user?s query concept from the rest of the dataset. Then, a set of moderate accurate one-class SVM classifiers are trained separately by using different sub-features vectors. Finally, we compute the weight vector of component SVM classifiers dynamically by using the parameters for positive and negative samples, and combine the results of the component classifiers to form an output code as a hypothesized solution to the overall image retrieval problem. Experiments on large databases show that the proposed algorithms are significantly more effective than the state-of-the-art approaches.

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

relevance feedback
support vector machine
active learning

content-based image retrieval
ensemble classifiers
output codes


A new method for in situ measurement of parameters and degradation processes in modern nanoscale programmable devices This paper presents a new method and results from measurement of internal parameters of programmable nanoscale circuits, namely Xilinx FPGA devices and especially Zynq SoC devices designed on 28nm TSMCs technology and older 45nm Spartan 6 device as well as Xilinx Virtex product lines. The method utilizes a new undersampling approach for frequency measurement and an easy way of processing BRAM data streams. The proposed flexible circuits have been used in various measurements of timing parameters and delays in FPGAs, including measurements or detection of the aging issues. The paper presents results of measurements under various core voltage values as performed on selected Xilinx FPGA platforms, including key results about limited usability of the latest 28nm devices under accelerated conditions and possibility of studying or mitigating aging effects in FPGAs. The paper presents rare results of experiments, real measurements and data available from current as well as previous technology nodes and it attempts to uncover new facts and areas of the latest high-end technologies, including the area of aging and degradation processes in general. The new methodology, presented approach and results can also be used in various dependable systems, including selected aerospace, medical, automotive or transportation ones. It is also directly and easily applicable to modern processor and multicore systems.

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

reliability of digital systems
28 nm technology
nanoscale xilinx fpga


Parametric location-scale and scale trend tests based on Levene's transformation In case of heteroscedasticity classical tests for trend in location do not control the type I error rate and have a reduced power. Since increasing locations are often accompanied by an increase in variability and apparent heteroscedasticity indicates that there are treatment differences, it is appropriate to consider an alternative involving trends in location as well as in scale. As a location-scale trend test we use the sum of a location and a scale trend test statistic. The investigated scale trend test is based on Levene's transformations. According to our simulation study we suggest to construct the tests using the principle of Bartholomew's likelihood ratio test. The different tests are applied to the data of a biomedical study.

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

multiple contrast test
bartholomew's test
levene's transformation
location-scale trend test


A semi-automatic framework for highway extraction and vehicle detection based on a geometric deformable model Road extraction and vehicle detection are two of the most important steps of traffic flow analysis from multi-frame aerial photographs. The traditional way of deriving traffic flow trajectories relies on manual vehicle counting from a sequence of aerial photographs. It is tedious and time-consuming work. To improve this process, this research presents a new semi-automatic framework for highway extraction and vehicle detection from aerial photographs. The basis of the new framework is a geometric deformable model. This model refers to the minimization of an objective function that connects the optimization problem with the propagation of regular curves. Utilizing implicit representation of two-dimensional curve, the implementation of this model is capable of dealing with topological changes during curve deformation process and the output is independent of the position of the initial curves. A seed point propagation framework is designed and implemented. This framework incorporates highway extraction, tracking, and linking into one procedure. Manually selected seed points can be automatically propagated throughout a whole highway network. During the process, road center points are also extracted, which introduces a search direction for solving possible blocking problems. This new framework has been successfully applied to highway network extraction and vehicle detection from a large orthophoto mosaic. In this research, vehicles on the extracted highway network were detected with an 83% success rate.

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


Are Changes of the Cell Membrane Structure Causally Involved in the Aging Process? Lipid peroxidation is recognized by proliferation, wounding, and aging. The connecting link between these different events is a change in cell wall structure, which activates membrane bound phospholipases. These cleave phospholipids. Thus liberated polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are substrates for lipoxygenases, which accept equally well linoleic acid and arachidonic acid and generate lipid hydroperoxides (LOOHs). If the amount of free PUFAs exceeds a certain amount, lipoxygenases commit suicide. The consequence is liberation of free iron ions that react with LOOHs by formation of radicals. These start a chain reaction. LOO radicals produced in the course of this process attack proteins, nucleic acids, and also double bonds of all unsaturated compounds by epoxidation. Morever LOOHs are decomposed to toxic epoxy acids and ????-unsaturated aldehydes. Both species react with glutathione. The resulting products seem to induce apoptosis. Since the products generated by wounding or aging are formed by decomposition of LOOHs the investigation of the aging processes can be simplified by studying the physiological action of artificially generated lipid peroxidation products derived from pure PUFAs. Degradation products of LOOHs are generated by thermal decompositon of fat-containing PUFAs. These products are induced into the body by adsorption in the intestine. They are at least partly incorporated in low density lipoproteins (LDLs). Primarily investigations seem to indicate that an overload of a diet rich in PUFAs induces only after two days an increase in oxidized LDL/PUFAs for a factor up to two in young people and for a factor of more than two in old individuals.

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


Generalizing the Wilcoxon rank-sum test for interval data We propose an adaption of Wilcoxon's two-sample rank-sum test to interval data. Our method is also applicable to quantized data. It leads to interval-valued p-values that are computed at a very low computational cost. Interpretation of this test is straightforward.

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

statistical hypothesis test
interval-valued imprecise data
bipolar decision


Assessment of sliver polygons in geographical vector data As positional error is a major issue in the assessment of spatial data quality, its propagation has been studied widely in map overlaying. However, few studies deal with a manifest consequence of positional error in map overlaying, namely sliver polygons. Sliver polygons are generally treated as awkward by-products that need to be removed quickly. Nevertheless, as they represent spurious areas, their nature and properties carry useful information, for example, for land use/cover assessment. Therefore, next to sliver removal, there is a need for intelligent detection and eventually further analysis of sliver polygons. This article proposes a general, semi-automated method for the assessment of slivers in vector polygon layers. A case study in Flanders (Belgium) illustrates a possible application in area estimation evaluation of land use allocation classes.

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

positional error
sliver
vector polygon
area estimation
land use


Role of Vestibular Signals in the Caudal Part of the Frontal Eye Fields in Pursuit Eye Movements in Three-Dimensional Space Abstract: For accurate visual information about objects of interest moving slowly in three-dimensional (3D) space, primates with binocular fields use both frontal smooth-pursuit (frontal-pursuit) and vergence eye movements (i.e., depth pursuit) to maintain the images of the objects precisely on the foveae of left and right eyes. Moreover, during head or whole-body movement, both frontal- and depth-pursuit systems must interact with the vestibular system to minimize slip of the retinal mages that degrades image quality considerably. The caudal part of the frontal eye fields (FEF) contains many frontal-pursuit neurons. Previous studies have shown that a majority of pursuit neurons there discharge for both frontal pursuit and vergence and carry pursuit-in-3D signals. To understand how vestibular inputs interact with pursuit-in-3D signals, three different experiments that examined the nature of vestibular signals in the caudal FEF are described in this review. A majority of caudal FEF pursuit neurons responded to whole-body rotation with preferred directions similar to frontal-pursuit directions and carried frontal gaze (eye-in-space) velocity signals. They were activated in association with adaptive pursuit eye movements induced by cross-axis pursuit-vestibular interactions. During fore/aft and right/left translation in complete darkness, they were also modulated with preferred directions of many neurons similar to pursuit-preferred directions. Previous studies showed that caudal FEF pursuit neurons also receive visual signals about target motion. Taken together, these results suggest that the caudal FEF coordinates its various inputs to provide signals for accurate eye-movement-in-space commands.

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

smooth pursuit
vestibulo-ocular reflex
semicircular canal
otolith


TWINS: Efficient time-windowed in-network joins for sensor networks We propose an efficient in-network join algorithm which supports a time windowed join. We devise three optimization rules (Delay Rule, Synopsis Rule, Avoid Rule) and combine three rules using the compact representations called WBF to process a time-windowed join effectively. We conduct extensive experiments with synthetic and real-life data.

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 B O O O O O O O O O O

query processing
time-windowed join
sensor network


An Efficient Curve-Scanline Intersection Locator Design for 2D Graphics Rendering This paper presents an efficient intersection locator design used to generate the intersection information of curves and scan-lines required for the two-dimensional (2D) graphics rasterization process. The conventional method of calculating the intersection point first approximates the curve with enough number of line segments and then solves the two simultaneous equations of each line segment and scan-line. By extending the adaptive-forward-difference (AFD) algorithm to choose the proper successive sampling point of the curve, the proposed design can not only locate the intersection points precisely, but more importantly, it can avoid the use of complex functional units like multipliers and dividers which are typically used in solving simultaneous equations. In addition, our design also reuses the functional units of the locator for the computation of the initial coefficients of AFD algorithm.The intersection information generated by our locator can lead to over 99.6% accuracy. Our experimental results show that the proposed design requires about 18.1k gates, and can run at 150MHz with 90nm technology. The proposed locator is suitable for embedded dedicated 2D graphics systems.

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

openvg
vector graphics
bzier curve
adaptive-forward-difference
forward-difference


T-Core: a framework for custom-built model transformation engines A large number of model transformation languages and tools have emerged since the early 2000s. A transformation engineer is thus left with too many choices for the language he use to perform a specific transformation task. Furthermore, it is currently not possible to combine or reuse transformations implemented in different languages. We therefore propose T-Core, a framework where primitive transformation constructs can be combined to define and encapsulate reusable model transformation idioms. In this context, the transformation engineer is free to use existing transformation building blocks from an extensible library or define his own transformation units. The proposed primitive transformation operators are the result of deconstructing different existing transformation languages. Reconstructing these languages offers a common basis to compare their expressiveness, provides a framework for inter-operating them, and allows the transformation engineer to design transformations with the most appropriate constructs for the task at hand.

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

domain-specific model transformation
transformation library
reengineering


An intelligent framework for simulating robot-assisted surgical operations In this paper, a system based on several intelligent techniques, including speech recognition, natural language processing and linear planning is described. These techniques have been employed to generate a sequence of operations understandable by the control system of a robot that is to perform a semi-automatic surgical task. Thus, a system has been implemented that translates some surgeon's natural language into robot-executable commands. A robotic simulator has then been implemented in order to test the planned sequence in a virtual environment.

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

natural language processing
linear planning


Some structural properties of SAT The following four conjectures about structural properties of SAT are studied in this paper. (1) SAT is an element of P-SPARSE boolean AND NP; (2) SAT is an element of SRTDtt; (3) SAT is an element of P-tt(bAPP); (4) FPttSAT = FPlogSAT It is proved that some pairs of these conjectures imply P = NP, for example, if SAT is an element of P-SPARSE boolean AND NP and SAT is an element of P-tt(bAPP), or if SAT is an element of SRTDtt and SAT is an element of P-tt(bAPP), then P = NP. This improves previous results in literature.

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

non-adaptive search reducible to decision


Quantitative robust uncertainty principles and optimally sparse decompositions In this paper we develop a robust uncertainty principle for finite signals in C(N) which states that, for nearly all choices T, Omega subset of {0,,,,, N - 1} such that vertical bar T vertical bar + vertical bar Omega vertical bar asymptotic to (log N)(-1/2) . N, there is no signal f supported on T whose discrete Fourier transform (f) over cap is supported on Omega. In fact, we can make the above uncertainty principle quantitative in the sense that if f is supported on T, then only a small percentage of the energy (less than half, say) of (f) over cap is concentrated on Omega. As an application of this robust uncertainty principle (QRUP), we consider the problem of decomposing a signal into a sparse superposition of spikes and complex sinusoids [GRAPHICS] We show that if a generic signal f has a decomposition (eel, C12) using spike and frequency locations in T and Omega, respectively, and obeying vertical bar T vertical bar +vertical bar Omega vertical bar <= Const . (log N)(-1/2) . N, then (alpha(1), alpha(2)) is the unique sparsest possible decomposition (all other decompositions have more nonzero terms). In addition, if vertical bar T vertical bar + vertical bar Omega vertical bar <= Const . (log N)(-1) . N, then the sparsest (alpha(1), alpha(2)) can be found by solving a convex optimization problem. Underlying our results is a new probabilistic approach which insists on finding the correct uncertainty relation, or the optimally sparse solution for nearly all subsets but not necessarily all of them, and allows us to considerably sharpen previously known results [9], [10]. In fact, we show that the fraction of sets (T, Omega) for which the above properties do not hold can be upper bounded by quantities like N(-alpha) for large values of alpha. The QRUP (and the application to finding sparse representations) can be extended to general pairs of orthogonal bases Phi(1), Phi(2) of C(N). For nearly all choices Gamma(1), Gamma(2) subset of {0,..., N - 1} obeying vertical bar Gamma(1)vertical bar + vertical bar Gamma(2)vertical bar asymptotic to mu(Phi(1), Phi(2))(-2) . (log N)(-m) where m <= 6, there is no signal f such that Phi(1)f is supported on Gamma(1) and Phi(2)f is supported on Gamma(2) where mu(Phi(1), Phi(2)) is the mutual coherence between Phi(1) and Phi(2).

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

uncertainty principle
convex optimization

applications of uncertainty principles
random matrices
eigenvalues of random matrices
sparsity
trigonometric expansion
duality in optimization
basis pursuit
wavelets
linear programming


View-invariant motion trajectory-based activity classification and recognition Motion trajectories provide rich spatio-temporal information about an object's activity. The trajectory information can be obtained using a tracking algorithm on data streams available from a range of devices including motion sensors, video cameras, haptic devices, etc. Developing view-invariant activity recognition algorithms based on this high dimensional cue is an extremely challenging task. This paper presents efficient activity recognition algorithms using novel view-invariant representation of trajectories. Towards this end, we derive two Affine-invariant representations for motion trajectories based on curvature scale space (CSS) and centroid distance function (CDF). The properties of these schemes facilitate the design of efficient recognition algorithms based on hidden Markov models (HMMs). In the CSS-based representation, maxima of curvature zero crossings at increasing levels of smoothness are extracted to mark the location and extent of concavities in the curvature. The sequences of these CSS maxima are then modeled by continuous density (HMMs). For the case of CDF, we first segment the trajectory into subtrajectories using CDF-based representation. These subtrajectories are then represented by their Principal Component Analysis (PCA) coefficients. The sequences of these PCA coefficients from subtrajectories are then modeled by continuous density hidden Markov models (HMMs). Different classes of object motions are modeled by one Continuous HMM per class where state PDFs are represented by GMMs. Experiments using a database of around 1750 complex trajectories (obtained from UCI-KDD data archives) subdivided into five different classes are reported.

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

activity recognition
hidden markov models
centroid distance function
curvature scale space

affine-invariant trajectory descriptors
trajectory modeling


Performance evaluation of service differentiating Internet servers Differentiated service approach has been proposed as a potential solution to provide Quality of Services (QoS) in the next generation Internet. The ultimate goal of end-to-end service differentiation can be achieved by complementing the network-level QoS with the service differentiation at the Internet servers. In this paper, we have presented a detailed study of the performance of service differentiating web servers (SDIS). Various aspects, such as admission control, scheduling, and task assignment schemes for SDIS, have been evaluated through real workload traces. The impact of these aspects has been quantified in the simulation-based study. Under high system utilization, a service differentiating server provides significantly better services to high priority tasks compared to a traditional Internet server. A combination of selective early discard and priority-based task scheduling and assignment is required to provide efficient service differentiation at the servers. The results of these studies could be used as a foundation for further studies on service differentiating Internet servers.

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

service differentiating internet servers


The Newton radius of codes For a binary linear code C of minimum distance d, if t > (d - 1)/2, then there are errors of weight t which are not uniquely correctable. However, in many cases there are also errors of weight t which are uniquely correctable. The Newton radius of a code is defined to be the largest weight of a uniquely correctable error. Bounds and exact values of the Newton radius are given for several classes of codes.

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

covering radius
error correction
reed-muller codes
simplex codes


Improved stability of a class of switched neutral systems via Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals and an average dwell-time scheme This article is concerned with the stability analysis for a class of switched neutral systems with mixed time-varying delays. The upper bound of derivative of the discrete time-varying delay is not restricted to one. A delay-dependent criterion of exponential stability under switching signals with an average dwell time is developed by employing free weighting matrices. The criterion is given in the form of linear matrix inequality. A state decay estimation for the switched system is explicitly given by considering the individual rate of decay of state for each subsystem. Two simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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

switched neutral systems
exponential stability
average dwell time

time-varying delays
lyapunov-krasovskii functionals


Bringing clinical pharmacogenomics information to pharmacists: a qualitative study of information needs and resource requirements We used qualitative inquiries to elicit pharmacogenomics information needs and resource requirements of pharmacists. Managing medications for patients with genotypes that impact those medications requires incorporating complex information about genotypes, phenotypes, severity, concomitant medications, guidelines, and evidence to make an informed decision. Pharmacists value concise but thorough information from sources they trust. Pharmacists seek information about the implication of the variant, other drugs affected by the variant, and recommendations for treating that patient.

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

pharmacogenomics
information needs
pharmacists

genomics
needs assessment
qualitative inquiry


The evaluation of a social adaptive website for cultural events In this paper, we present an evaluation of a social adaptive website in the domain of cultural events, iCITY DSA, which provides information about cultural resources and events that promote the cultural heritage in the city of Turin. Using this evaluation, our objective was to investigate the actual usage of a social adaptive website, in an effort to discover the real behavior of users, the unforeseen correlations among user actions and the consequent interactive behavior, the accuracy of both system and social recommendations and their impact on the users themselves, and the role of tagging in the user modeling process. The major contributions of the paper are manifold: insights into user interactions with social adaptive systems; guidelines for future designs; evaluation of the tagging activity and tag meanings in relation to the application domain and thus their impact on the representation of the user model; and a demonstration of how a combination and interplay of evaluation methodologies (e.g., quantitative and qualitative) can enhance our comprehension of evaluation data.

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

evaluation
social adaptive systems
cultural events

tag-based user model
social recommenders


Local Minima of Quadratic Functionals and Control of Hydro-electric Power Stations We consider a control problem for a cascade of hydro-electric power stations, where some of the stations have reversible turbines. Our aim was to optimize the profit of power production satisfying restrictions on the water level in the reservoirs. From the mathematical point of view, this consists in minimizing an infinite-dimensional quadratic functional subject to cone constraints. Sufficient conditions of optimality for the abstract problem are derived and are then specialized for our problem. Noteworthy, the restrictions imposed on the power stations problem are in the form of control constraints and pure state constraints. The particular case of one power station is analyzed in detail, showing that reversible turbines always improve the profit.

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

sufficient conditions
pure state constraints


Comparing registration methods for mapping brain change using tensor-based morphometry Measures of brain changes can be computed from sequential MRI scans, providing valuable information on disease progression for neuroscientific studies and clinical trials. Tensor-based morphometry (TBM) creates maps of these brain changes, visualizing the 3D profile and rates of tissue growth or atrophy. In this paper, we examine the power of different nonrigid registration models to detect changes in TBM, and their stability when no real changes are present. Specifically, we investigate an asymmetric version of a recently proposed Unbiased registration method, using mutual information as the matching criterion. We compare matching functionals (sum of squared differences and mutual information), as well as large-deformation registration schemes (viscous fluid and inverse-consistent linear elastic registration methods versus Symmetric and Asymmetric Unbiased registration) for detecting changes in serial MRI scans of 10 elderly normal subjects and 10 patients with Alzheimers Disease scanned at 2-week and 1-year intervals. We also analyzed registration results when matching images corrupted with artificial noise. We demonstrated that the unbiased methods, both symmetric and asymmetric, have higher reproducibility. The unbiased methods were also less likely to detect changes in the absence of any real physiological change. Moreover, they measured biological deformations more accurately by penalizing bias in the corresponding statistical maps.

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

image registration
unbiased nonlinear registration
information theory
tensor-based morphometry
computational anatomy


Penalized weighted least-squares approach to sinogram noise reduction and image reconstruction for low-dose X-ray computed tomography Reconstructing low-dose X-ray computed tomography (CT) images is a noise problem. This work investigated a penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) approach to address this problem in two dimensions, where the WLS considers first- and second-order noise moments and the penalty models signal spatial correlations. Three different implementations were studied for the PWLS minimization. One utilizes a Markov random field (MRF) Gibbs functional to consider spatial correlations among nearby detector bins and projection views in sinogram space and minimizes the PWLS cost function by iterative Gauss-Seidel algorithm. Another employs Karhunen-Loeve (KL) transform to de-correlate data signals among nearby views and minimizes the PWLS adaptively to each KL component by analytical calculation, where the spatial correlation among nearby bins is modeled by the same Gibbs functional. The third one models the spatial correlations among image pixels in image domain also by a MRF Gibbs functional and minimizes the PWLS by iterative successive over-relaxation algorithm. In these three implementations, a quadratic functional regularization was chosen for the MRF model. Phantom experiments showed a comparable performance of these three PWLS-based methods in terms of suppressing noise-induced streak artifacts and preserving resolution in the reconstructed images. Computer simulations concurred with the phantom experiments in terms of noise-resolution tradeoff and detectability in low contrast environment. The KL-PWLS implementation may have the advantage in terms of computation for high-resolution dynamic low-dose CT imaging.

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

low-dose x-ray computed tomography
penalized weighted least-squares


sybilproof reputation mechanisms Due to the open, anonymous nature of many P2P networks, new identities - or sybils - may be created cheaply and in large numbers. Given a reputation system, a peer may attempt to falsely raise its reputation by creating fake links between its sybils. Many existing reputation mechanisms are not resistant to these types of strategies.Using a static graph formulation of reputation, we attempt to formalize the notion of sybilproofness. We show that there is no symmetric sybilproof reputation function. For nonsymmetric reputations, following the notion of reputation propagation along paths, we give a general asymmetric reputation function based on flow and give conditions for sybilproofness.

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

reputation system
types
flow
links
graph
general
sybils
propagation
reputation

network strategies peer-to-peer ident functional anonymity


Control of two manipulation points of a cooperative transportation system with two car-like vehicles following parametric curve paths This paper presents a new path-following control law of a transportation system. The law makes the two manipulation points follow their parametric curve paths. It is possible to specify the movement and rotation of the carrier quantitatively. Asymptotic stability is guaranteed by Lyapunovs second method. The validity of the new control law has been verified experimentally.

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

cooperative transportation
lyapunovs second method

nonholonomic system
differential geometry
chained form
path-following


Mine simulation for educational purposes: A case study This paper presents a new simulation-based computer program that provides an interactive and visual environment for teaching and learning of mining engineering related subjects. An actual open pit magnesite mine was selected and whole simulation data were obtained from this mine in order to create a simulation application. The program represents this open pit mine in detail using more than hundred variables, 14 windows, and several modules. It is believed that, with its all components, this educational tool can be used for several mining-related subjects such as drilling and blasting, excavation and haulage, size reduction and magnetic separation at universities to provide fundamental information to the students and anyone dealing with mining engineering related subjects. It may also be used for mining related departments such as geology and geophysics for giving brief information about mining. 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 23:286293, 2015; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21598

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


A SOA Architecture to Improve the Tailorability and Extensibility of e-Learning Systems In this paper we describe a new architecture of the so-called Learning Management Systems based on the integration of third-party tolos accesible as Web Services. This idea has already been considered as a promising way to build up and extend e-learning systems. Nonetheless, existing proposals lead to a very "soft" integration of LMSs and third-party tools, which is not suitable for learning contexts. Basically, LMSs can include third-party tools but they have no control over them. Therefore, LMSs cannot alter the behavior of these tools not supervise what users (e. g. students) do with them. To overcome this limitation we have proposed a new architecture for LMSs that allow a "hard" integration of third-party tools, allowing the LMS to have tighter control over the tool and manage different issues of it (e. g. events, permissions, sessions).

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

extensibility
hard integration
learning management systems
tailorability
web services


Advance Bandwidth Scheduling Algorithms in Dedicated Networks An increasing number of high performance research network testbeds and production networks have the capability of provisioning dedicated channels for high speed data transfer in support of large scale scientific applications. Each dedicated channel in these networks typically consists of one or more physical links that are shared by multiple applications in both time and bandwidth through in advance reservation. The design of efficient bandwidth scheduling algorithms is critical to maximizing the utilization of dedicated network resources and meeting diverse end-to-end transport performance requirements. The topology of a dedicated network is represented by a graph, where each link maintains a list of residual bandwidths specified as segmented constant functions of time. Given a graph with an aggregated time-bandwidth table combining the reservation information on all links, designated source, and destination vertices, and a specified data size, we formulate and investigate five bandwidth scheduling problems to minimize the data transfer end time under different path and bandwidth constraints. variable path with variable bandwidth (VPVB), which computes the widest (highest bandwidth) path in each time slot; fixed path with variable bandwidth (FPVB), which computes a fixed path with varying bandwidths across different time slots; variable path with fixed bandwidth (VPFB), which computes one path in each time slot with the same bandwidth; fixed path with fixed bandwidth (FPFB), which computes a fixed path with a constant bandwidth; and multiple fixed paths with fixed bandwidths (MFPFB), which computes multiple concurrent fixed paths with constant bandwidths. Among these problems, VPVB represents the most flexible scenario where the network resources are fully utilized and the minimal transfer end time is achieved, while FPFB imposes the most stringent transport conditions by fixing both path and bandwidth. We design an optimal algorithm for each of these scheduling problems. VPVB is solved using an extension of the classical Dijkstra's algorithm, and FPVB is solved using Maximum Permutation Algorithm, which tries all possible permutations of throughputs at different time slots to obtain the minimal transfer end time. The algorithm for VPFB, FPFB, and MFPFB are based on Adjacent Time Slots Search, which finds the minimum transfer end time by examining the possibility of data transfer in any number of contiguous time slots. All these algorithms are of polynomial or pseudo polynomial time complexity with respect to the network size and the total number of time slots in a bandwidth reservation table.

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


A computer attitude scale for computer science freshmen and its educational implications Abstract The successful integration of computers in educational environments depends, to a great extent, on students' attitudes towards them. Widely used computer attitude scales (CASs) focus on the beliefs of typical computer users and do not reveal the more refined attitudes of groups that use computers extensively and develop unique relations with them. This study presents the development and validation of a CAS especially designed for computer science freshmen (CASF). The scale consists of five factors, namely, self-confidence in previous knowledge, hardware usage anxiety, computer engagement, fears of long-lasting negative consequences of computer use and evaluation of positive consequences of computers in personal and social life. Using an analytic computer experience construct, the scale's components were related to multiple aspects of students' computer experience. CASF responses can inform a variety of instructional decisions and classroom management strategies for the first phase of the students' studies.

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

computer attitude scale
computer experience
computer science freshmen


A study of loading history effect for thermoviscoelastic solid propellant grains The results of an investigation on solid propellant grains considering loading history effect are presented. Traditionally, the thermal loading history effect of solid propellant grains was not considered for simplifying the analytical task, and a higher safety factor was inevitable for structural integrity. But this does not mean that the thermal loading history effect is not useful and could be neglected arbitrarily, and this effect usually plays a very important role for some critical design. In order to simulate the timetemperature-dependent behavior of thermoviscoelastic and incompressible polymer materials, concepts of timetemperature shift principle, cumulative damage theory and reduced integration were used. In addition, five different types of thermal loading history assumption were performed using the finite element method for discussing the thermal loading history effect. Results show that the thermal loading history effect is important for structural integrity of solid propellant grains, and improper negligence may cause structural failure of missile systems.

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

loading history
cumulative damage
thermoviscoelastic
finite element method

shift factor
reduced time
relaxation modulus


Dual-sparsity regularized sparse representation for single image super-resolution Row nonlocal similarity regularization term with l1-norm constraint is explored. Dual-sparsity regularized sparse representation model is presented for SISR. Iterative shrinkage algorithm is extended to solve dual l1-norm constraints model.

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

the column nonlocal similarity prior
single image super-resolution
the row nonlocal similarity prior
l1-norm constraint


Metric sensing and control of a quadrotor using a homography-based visual inertial fusion method The 1-SVD method is shown to be superior over the traditional 2-SVD approach. Robustness of the LK algorithm is improved using a transformed binary image. A visual inertial fusion method is proposed to estimate metric speed and distance. Closed-loop flight proves our approach is suitable for general flight of a MAV.

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

optic flow
homography
micro aerial vehicles


TurboPixels: Fast Superpixels Using Geometric Flows We describe a geometric-flow-based algorithm for computing a dense oversegmentation of an image, often referred to as superpixels. It produces segments that, on one hand, respect local image boundaries, while, on the other hand, limiting undersegmentation through a compactness constraint. It is very fast, with complexity that is approximately linear in image size, and can be applied to megapixel sized images with high superpixel densities in a matter of minutes. We show qualitative demonstrations of high-quality results on several complex images. The Berkeley database is used to quantitatively compare its performance to a number of oversegmentation algorithms, showing that it yields less undersegmentation than algorithms that lack a compactness constraint while offering a significant speedup over N-cuts, which does enforce compactness.

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

image segmentation
image labeling
perceptual grouping


Enhanced exhaustive search attack on randomized BSD type countermeasure We propose a new analysis technique against a class of countermeasure using randomized binary signed digit (BSD) representations. We also introduce some invariant properties between BSD representations. The proposed analysis technique can directly recover the secret key from power measurements without information for algorithm because of the invariant properties of BSD representation. Thus the proposed attack is applicable to all countermeasures using BSD representations. Finally, we give the simulation results against some countermeasures using BSD representation such as Ha-Moon method, Ebeid-Hasan method, and the method of Agagliate et al. The results show that the proposed attack is practical analysis method.

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

elliptic curve cryptosystem
side channel attacks
spa
dpa
ha-moon countermeasure
ebeid-hasan countermeasure
agagliate et al.'s countermeasure


Breaking Pomykala-Barabasz Threshold Proxy Signature Scheme In 2006, Pomykala and Barabasz proposed an elliptic curve based threshold proxy signature scheme with known signers. They claimed that their scheme was relatively simple in construction, had the properties of unforgeability and non-repudiation, and admitted the proactive security. Later, Li and Hu pointed out that the scheme of Pomykala and Barabasz was insecure against the conspiracy attack. And then, they proposed an improved scheme. In this paper, we not only show that the threshold proxy signature scheme of Pomykala and Barabasz is universal forgeable, but also show that the improvement of Li and Hu suffers from the rogue key attack.

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

threshold proxy signature scheme
rogue key attack

elliptic curve cryptosystems
secret sharing


Biological and Clinical Relevance of Anti-Prothrombin Antibodies Anti-prothrombin (anti-PT) antibodies are recently identified antibodies directed toward a phospholipid-binding protein (prothrombin), which deserve attention for the reported clinical and pathogenic relevance in antiphospholipid syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We have recently carried out a longitudinal study on the predictive value of anti-PT antibodies in SLE showing that they have a higher diagnostic accuracy for thrombosis than anti-?2-GPI and anticardiolipin antibodies, and, along with LAC activity, are the best predictors of thromboembolic events in SLE patients

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

prothrombin
systemic lupus erythematosus
predictive value

anti-prothrombin antibody
detection methods


Probabilistic rebound Turing machines This paper introduces a probabilistic rebound Turing machine (PRTM), and investigates the fundamental property of the machine. We first prove a sublogarithmic lower space bound on the space complexity of this model with bounded errors for recognizing specific languages. This lower bound strengthens a previous lower bound for conventional probabilistic Turing machines with bounded errors. We then show, by using our lower space bound and an idea in the proof of it, that

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

rebound automaton
space hierarchy
closure property


Inhibition of Cyclooxygenase-2 Multiple lines of evidence suggest that cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), an inducible form of COX, represents a potential pharmacologic target to prevent cancer. Key data suggesting a causal relationship between increased COX-2 activity and carcinogenesis and possible mechanisms of action of COX-2 in this context will be discussed. The possibility that COX-2 represents a pharmacological target for preventing upper aerodigestive cancers (head and neck, lung) will be emphasized. Importantly, clinical trials have been initiated to assess the chemopreventive properties of selective COX-2 inhibitors.

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

cyclooxygenase-2
prostaglandins
chemoprevention
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs


Personalized finance advisory through case-based recommender systems and diversification strategies We introduced a novel framework for recommendation of asset allocation strategies. We evaluated the effectiveness of CBRS recommendation strategies in a special and not yet evaluated domain. We proposed a greedy diversification algorithm able to diversify the investment strategies over time. We evaluated the effectiveness of the framework through an extensive ex-post evaluation.

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

case-based reasoning
personalization
investment portfolios
diversity


A matrix grammar approach for automatic distributed network resource management Network resource management is critical to ensure the security and optimal performance of distributed networks and information systems. Existing technologies are not capable of managing large-scale network resources because of a lack of reusability and scalability. This paper presents a matrix grammar approach for automatic distributed network resource management to alleviate these problems. A matrix grammar is proposed using WMI, CIM, and SNMP to manage network resources, and provides a generic mechanism to describe what needs to be managed and how to manage it. A scalable distributed multi-agent architecture for automatic network resource management is proposed, at its core lies a management automation engine consisting of a matrix analyzer and a recipe processor. The proposed solution has been implemented in software and applied in industrial products that achieve good technical and industrial results. It has good extensibility, scalability, and enables network management automation and software reusability.

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

network management
matrix grammar
wmi
cim
snmp
distributed networks


Wide coverage natural language processing using kernel methods and neural networks for structured data Convolution kernels and recursive neural networks are both suitable approaches for supervised learning when the input is a discrete structure like a labeled tree or graph. We compare these techniques in two natural language problems. In both problems, the learning task consists in choosing the best alternative tree in a set of candidates. We report about an empirical evaluation between the two methods on a large corpus of parsed sentences and speculate on the role played by the representation and the loss function.

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

convolution kernels
recursive neural networks
natural language


Transparent boundary conditions for MHD simulations in stratified atmospheres In this paper we discuss a method of deriving artificial nonreflecting boundary conditions for systems of conservation laws. We focus on an application from solar physics. The governing equations are the equations of ideal compressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), which are solved in a gravitationally stratified atmosphere. We derive the necessary equations, discuss implementational aspects, and show the effectiveness and efficiency of our boundary conditions in test calculations. (C) 2001 Academic Press.

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

solar physics
conservation laws
transparent boundary conditions

mhd equations
open boundaries
far-field linearization


Computer-aided diagnosis system for the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome from chest radiographs A computer-aided diagnosis system is proposed for the detection of the ARDS. The system is based on chest radiograph analysis using texture features. An automatic selection of intercostal regions is used for the analysis. A combination of statistical and spectral features is extracted. An SVM classifier is used to achieve the ARDS detection.

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

acute respiratory distress syndrome (ards)


Influence of data dimensionality on the quality of forecasts given by a multilayer perceptron One of the phenomena that can be observed when using neural networks for time series prediction is that the quality of the forecasts obtained is correlated with the dimensionality of the data. Higher data dimensionality leads, in most cases, to higher prediction errors. This phenomenon is connected by some authors to the decrease in variance of the distances between the data points, which occurs when the lengths of the predicted vectors increase. In this paper, a proof is given that the variance of the distances between data points also decreases with the so-called correlation dimension of the data. Therefore, a drop in forecast quality might be expected not only when the lengths of the data vectors are increased, but also when using vectors of the same length to represent data of increasing dimensionality. We also present some experimental results that illustrate the dependence between data dimensionality and the variance of the distances between the data points, and the forecast error obtained when using a multilayer perceptron to predict future values of some time series. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

correlation dimension
data dimensionality
neural networks
multilayer perceptron
time series prediction


Numerical simulation of clarifier-thickener units treating ideal suspensions with a flux density function having two inflection points We consider a nonconvex conservation law modelling the settling of particles in ideal clarifier-thickener units. The flux function of this conservation law has an explicit spatial dependence that is discontinuous. Previous works by two of the authors, together with collaborators, have been aimed at providing a firm rigorous ground of mathematical (global existence and uniqueness) and numerical analysis for clarifier-thickener models. Although the results of these works are briefly summarized herein, the chief goal of this paper is to present a number of numerical simulations of practical interest and to draw some conclusions from them. In contrast to previous papers we consider here flux density functions with two inflection points, which result in solutions exhibiting a richer structure than for flux density functions having one inflection point. The relevance of the "two inflection point" case comes from experimental observations. In addition, we include here several numerical simulations in which the feed rate and overflow and underflow bulk rates vary with time. Time dependent situations have high practical value, but have been very little studied in the literature. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

continuous sedimentation
clarifier-thickener
discontinuous flux
finite difference method


a study on workload-aware wavelet synopses for point and range-sum queries In this paper we perform an extensive theoretical and experimental study on common synopsis construction algorithms, with emphasis on wavelet based techniques, that take under consideration query workload statistics. Our goal is to compare, "expensive" quadratic time algorithms with "cheap" near-linear time algorithms, particularly when the latter are not optimal and/or not workload-aware for the problem at hand. Further, we present the first known algorithm for constructing wavelet synopses for a special class of range-sum query workloads. Our experimental results, clearly justify the necessity for designing workload-aware algorithms, especially in the case of range-sum queries.

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


Anomalous diffusion modeling by fractal and fractional derivatives This paper makes an attempt to develop a fractal derivative model of anomalous diffusion. We also derive the fundamental solution of the fractal derivative equation for anomalous diffusion, which characterizes a clear power law. This new model is compared with the corresponding fractional derivative model in terms of computational efficiency, diffusion velocity, and heavy tail property. The merits and distinctions of these two models of anomalous diffusion are then summarized. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

heavy tail
anomalous diffusion
fractal derivative
fractional derivative
power law