New insights into the stability of alkenes and alkynes, fluoro-substituted or not: a DFT, G4, QTAIM and GVB study Many undergraduate organic chemistry books do not agree with the order of relative stability of alkenes towards hydrogenation reactions. Although they ascribe the stability of alkenes to the number and spatial position of the alkyl groups attached to the vinyl carbon atoms, results from the quantum theory of atoms in molecules indicate that the influence of an alkyl substituent on the stability of unsaturated hydrocarbons arises from the slight removal of electron density of the p bond, not from donation of their charge density to unsaturated carbon atoms as stated in many text books. There is an inverse relation between delocalization index-the number of shared electrons between two atoms, or Wiberg bond index of C-C bond-and the number of methyl groups attached to the vinyl carbon atoms. Electron withdrawing groups (EWGs) attached to unsaturated carbon atoms of alkenes and alkynes have two different behaviors: slight EWGs (alkyl groups) stabilize unsaturated carbon atoms while the strong EWG destabilizes the unsaturated carbon atoms. Generalized valence bond theory was also used to study the ambiguous behavior of fluorine substituents bonded to vinyl carbon atoms.

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


The variational iteration method: A highly promising method for solving the system of integro-differential equations This paper applies He's variational iteration method for solving two systems of Volterra integro-differential equations. The solution process is illustrated and various physically relevant results are obtained. Comparison of the obtained results with exact solutions shows that the used method is an effective and highly promising method for various classes of both linear and nonlinear integro-differential equations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

variational iteration method
system
volterra

integro-differential equation
approximate solution


Intelligent computing methods in Air Traffic Flow Management This research presents the application of intelligent computing models in Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM). Firstly, multi-agent system in grid computing environment is applied to deal with the problem of ATFM synchronization. The developed system consists of software agents, which are implemented in a Computational Grid platform for congestions identification, conflicts resolution and agreements negotiation among the participating airports. A metric criterion, called Agents Balancing Standard (ABS), is used as a basic index to measure the effectiveness of reducing both the amount of communication among agents and the delay of flights. Secondly, a brief discussion about the Meta-Level Control model is introduced in ATFM issues to improve the efficiency of communication among the agents. The system is developed to analyze the traffic flow information received, identify its importance and process it in the most adequate order.

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

air traffic flow management
intelligent computing

meta-level control
multi-agent system
real time traffic synchronization
reinforcement learning


Improved Approximation Algorithms for the Facility Location Problems with Linear/Submodular Penalties We consider the facility location problem with submodular penalties (FLPSP) and the facility location problem with linear penalties (FLPLP), two extensions of the classical facility location problem (FLP). First, we introduce a general algorithmic framework for a class of covering problems with submodular penalties, extending the recent result of Geunes et al. (Math Program 130:85106, 2011) with linear penalties. This framework leverages existing approximation results for the original covering problems to obtain corresponding results for their counterparts with submodular penalties. Specifically, any LP-based \(\alpha \)-approximation for the original covering problem can be leveraged to obtain an \(\left( 1-e^{-1/\alpha }\right) ^{-1}\)-approximation algorithm for the counterpart with submodular penalties. Consequently, any LP-based approximation algorithm for the classical FLP (as a covering problem) can yield, via this framework, an approximation algorithm for the counterpart with submodular penalties. Second, by exploiting some special properties of submodular/linear penalty function, we present an LP rounding algorithm which has the currently best \(2\)-approximation ratio over the previously best \(2.375\) by Li et al. (Theoret Comput Sci 476:109117, 2013) for the FLPSP and another LP-rounding algorithm which has the currently best \(1.5148\)-approximation ratio over the previously best \(1.853\) by Xu and Xu (J Comb Optim 17:424436, 2008) for the FLPLP, respectively.

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

approximation algorithm
facility location problem
lp rounding


Solving state estimation in power systems by an interior point method A linear programming formulation is employed to solve the static state estimation problem in power systems using the primaldual predictorcorrector algorithm. This has been selected because it has emerged as an efficient algorithm that makes the direction search toward the optimal point easy. The technique was applied successfully into several power systems when simultaneous gross errors were considered. Results are presented showing that this algorithm exhibits a good performance under critical measurement errors.

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

weighted absolute value
interior point methods


algorithms and estimators for accurate summarization of internet traffic Statistical summaries of traffic in IP networks are at the heart of network operation and are used to recover information on the traffic of arbitrary subpopulations of flows. It is therefore of great importance to collect the most accurate and informative summaries given the router's resource constraints. Cisco's sampled NetFlow, based on aggregating a sampled packet stream into flows, is the most widely deployed such system. We observe two sources of inefficiency in current methods. Firstly, a single parameter (the sampling rate) is used to control utilization of both memory and processing/access speed, which means that it has to be set according to the bottleneck resource. Secondly, the unbiased estimators are applicable to summaries that in effect are collected through uneven use of resources during the measurement period (information from the earlier part of the measurement period is either not collected at all and fewer counter are utilized or discarded when performing a sampling rate adaptation). We develop algorithms that collect more informative summaries through an even and more efficient use of available resources. The heart of our approach is a novel derivation of unbiased estimators that use these more informative counts. We show how to efficiently compute these estimators and prove analytically that they are superior (have smaller variance on all packet streams and subpopulations) to previous approaches. Simulations on Pareto distributions and IP flow data show that the new summaries provide significantly more accurate estimates. We provide an implementation design that can be efficiently deployed at routers.

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

measurement network use streams design collect traffic netflow sampling control implementation summarization data flow internet effect resource

simulation
efficiency
sketches
network management
computation
router
access
constraint
informal
rate-adaptation
method
systems
subpopulation queries
ip flows
memorialized
process
data streams
distributed
algorithm


Interference and Outage in Clustered Wireless Ad Hoc Networks In the analysis of large random wireless networks, the underlying node distribution is almost ubiquitously assumed to be the homogeneous Poisson point process. In this paper, the node locations are assumed to form a Poisson cluster process on the plane. We derive the distributional properties of the interference and provide upper and lower bounds for its distribution. We consider the probability of successful transmission in an interference-limited channel when fading is modeled as Rayleigh. We provide a numerically integrable expression for the outage probability and closed-form upper and lower bounds. We show that when the transmitter-receiver distance is large, the success probability is greater than that of a Poisson arrangement. These results characterize the performance of the system under geographical or MAC-induced clustering. We obtain the maximum intensity of transmitting nodes for a given outage constraint, i.e., the transmission capacity (of this spatial arrangement) and show that it is equal to that of a Poisson arrangement of nodes. For the analysis, techniques from stochastic geometry are used, in particular the probability generating functional of Poisson cluster processes, the Palm characterization of Poisson cluster processes, and the Campbell-Mecke theorem.

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

interference
poisson cluster processes
transmission capacity
wireless networks


Risk-sensitive planning support for forest enterprises: The YAFO model A modular structured decision tool for forest enterprises. Financially optimized felling scenarios by nonlinear programming techniques. Sensitivity for risks due to natural hazards and timber price fluctuations. Risk analysis with Monte-Carlo simulation. Consideration of different grading options on single stand level.

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

economic optimization
risk integration
operational planning
forest management planning
long-term objectives


On a comparison between Mahalanobis distance and Choquet integral: The Choquet-Mahalanobis operator Mahalanobis distance can be used in problems where variables are not independent. The presence of the covariance matrix in this expression permits us to represent the dependence between the variables. Fuzzy measures and Choquet integrals have a similar purpose. In this paper we compare these two expressions. To do so in the proper setting, we introduce a Choquet integral based distance. Then, we consider probability-density functions based on these two distances. In particular, we review the Gaussian distribution, which is based on the Mahalanobis distance and introduce another distribution based on the Choquet distance. Then, we introduce an operator that generalizes the Choquet integral and the Mahalanobis distance. It is the Choquet-Mahalanobis integral. Some propositions are also proven establishing equivalences and links between the Choquet-Mahalanobis integral, the Choquet integral, and the Mahalanobis distance. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

aggregation operators
choquet-mahalanobis distance


Genetic evolutionary algorithm for static traffic grooming to SONET over WDM optical networks In recent years, minimization of SONET-ADMs (Synchronous Optical NETwork-Add-Drop Multiplexers) in WDN (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) optical networks has gained a lot of attention in both the research and commercial arenas. This motivates the research presented in this article. The enhanced searching capability of genetic evolutionary algorithm has been exploited for this purpose. The individuals (chromosomes) have been represented by different sequence of the calls in the traffic matrix. A simple algorithm that minimizes the number of required ADMs based on the shortest path and a possible alternate shortest path has been applied. Some good chromosomes based on some intuitive reasoning have been introduced in the initial population to enhance the convergence of the proposed genetic evolutionary algorithm. The distinguished feature of the proposed algorithm is in introducing the catalyst to direct the convergence of genetic evolutionary algorithm towards its solution. However, the catalyst has been kept small enough to be able to bias the solution. To establish the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, the simulation results are compared with that of presented in literature with same network configuration and traffic matrix. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

wdm optical networks
static traffic grooming
genetic evolutionary algorithm


Multiphase modelling of pouring glass over the spout lip of an industrial float in the flat glass forming process This paper describes the numerical modelling of the three-phase flow that is established when pouring molten glass onto a till bath (float) under a non-reactive atmosphere. Discharged front the furnace. the glass is spouted over a lip onto the bath, where it floats and spreads out in the form of a long ribbon. beading to the flat glass forming process. Numerically. the physical modelling Must consider a multiphase problem with three immiscible phases: glass. till and air. The simulation of this complex free-surface flow involves the solution Of the Navier-Stokes Set of equations for all the phases simultaneously, using a volume-of-fluid formulation that introduces a marker function convected by the flow to identify each phase. The evolution Of the interphase is tracked over time with the implementation Of a continuous Surface force algorithm. A general purpose, well-tested commercial code, FLUENT, is employed for the computations. Firstly, a two-dimensional model considering the symmetry plan(,, Of the float is developed to fit accurate physical and numerical parameters. The high complexity of the interphases in addition to great differences between the physical properties of the phases has required extensive tests to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the solutions. Afterwards, a complete three-dimensional model is built to simulate the pouring process in a real geometry and predict the behaviour of the industrial facility when the operating conditions are modified. Typical flow phenomena inside the till bath, such as till Currents, wet back flow or even the equilibrium thickness, are also obtained as a promising result of the numerical modelling. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

multiphase modelling
equilibrium thickness
flat glass

float manufacturing
volume of fluid (vof)
continuum surface force (csf)


Managing encryption and key publication independently in digital rights management systems Secure distribution of digital goods is now a significantly important issue for protecting publishers' copyrights. In this paper, we study a useful primitive for constructing a secure and efficient digital rights management system (DRM) where a server which encrypts digital content and one which issues the corresponding decryption key works independently, and existing schemes lack this property. We first argue the desired property necessary of an encryption scheme for constructing an efficient DRM, and formally define an encryption scheme as split encryption scheme containing such property. Also, we show that an efficient split encryption scheme can be constructed from any identity-based scheme. More precisely, we show an equivalence result implying that a split encryption scheme for some system parameter setting and an identity-based encryption scheme have the same primitives but for different uses. Since currently there is no identity-based encryption scheme which is based on well-known computational assumption and/or provably secure in the standard model (i.e. without the random oracle model), by reasonably tuning the system parameter, we show another construction of split encryption which is secure against chosen ciphertext attacks in the standard model assuming that decision Diffie-Hellman problem is hard to solve.

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

copyright protection
semantic security
adaptive attacks


Weak signal identification with semantic web mining Use web mining for an environmental scanning. Use latent semantic indexing to identify semantic textual patterns. Use weak signal maximization approach to identify weak signals. Support strategic decision making by technological forecasting.

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

weak signal
latent semantic indexing
web mining


More discussions for granger causality and new causality measures Granger causality (GC) has been widely applied in economics and neuroscience to reveal causality influence of time series. In our previous paper (Hu etal., in IEEE Trans on Neural Netw, 22(6), pp. 829844, 2011), we proposed new causalities in time and frequency domains and particularly focused on new causality in frequency domain by pointing out the shortcomings/limitations of GC or Granger-alike causality metrics and the advantages of new causality. In this paper we continue our previous discussions and focus on new causality and GC or Granger-alike causality metrics in time domain. Although one strong motivation was introduced in our previous paper (Hu etal., in IEEE Trans on Neural Netw, 22(6), pp. 829844, 2011) we here present additional motivation for the proposed new causality metric and restate the previous motivation for completeness. We point out one property of conditional GC in time domain and the shortcomings/limitations of conditional GC which cannot reveal the real strength of the directional causality among three time series. We also show the shortcomings/limitations of directed causality (DC) or normalize DC for multivariate time series and demonstrate it cannot reveal real causality at all. By calculating GC and new causality values for an example we demonstrate the influence of one of the time series on the other is linearly increased as the coupling strength is linearly increased. This fact further supports reasonability of new causality metric. We point out that larger instantaneous correlation does not necessarily mean larger true causality (e.g., GC and new causality), or vice versa. Finally we conduct analysis of statistical test for significance and asymptotic distribution property of new causality metric by illustrative examples.

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


A meanvariance model to optimize the fixed versus open appointment percentages in open access scheduling systems Although healthcare quality may improve with short-notice scheduling and subsequently higher patient show-up rates, the variability in patient flow may negatively impact the service design. This study demonstrates how to select the percentage for short-notice or open appointments in an open access scheduling system subject to two quality performance metrics. Specifically, we develop a meanvariance model and an efficient solution procedure to help clinic administrators determine the open appointment percentage subject to increasing the average number of patients seen while also reducing the variability. Our numerical results indicate that for cases with high patient demand and high patient no-show rates for fixed appointments, one or more Pareto optimal percentages of open appointments significantly decrease the variability in the number of patients seen with only a negligible decrease in the expected number of patients seen. While our method provides a useful tool for clinic administrators, it also presents a modeling foundation for open access scheduling with quality management objectives to smooth patient flow and improve capacity utilization.

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

open access scheduling
meanvariance model

appointment scheduling
health care policy
service operations


Optimizing performances of switched current memory cells through a heuristic Optimally designing switched current (SI) memory cells is a hard task. In addition, it is usually limited to the design of ideal cells. Thus, in this paper we deal with optimizing these cells and precisely real ones using a heuristic. Since SI class AB grounded gate memory cells are well known to be improved cells, we applied the proposed heuristic to design this kind of cells. Also, besides maximizing performances and minimizing famous error sources, we focus on optimally sizing transistors forming switches and bias sources. The optimization procedure, developed with help of C++ software, allows automatic design of the cell. It is also highlighted in the followings.

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

switched current memory cells
heuristic
optimization

class ab grounded gate lie
conception aided method


The possible role of HSPs on Behet's disease: A bioinformatic approach Current evidence lends increasing support to immunoinflammatory mechanisms as one of the prime pathogenic processes involved in the development and progression of Behet's disease (BD). It has been observed that most human beings have cellular and humoral reactions against microbial heat shock proteins (HSPs). The observation that eukaryotic and prokaryotic HSPs have high sequence similarity promoted the hypothesis that HSPs might be potential candidates for molecular mimicry and could act as potentially dangerous autoantigens. In this study, using bioinformatics tools, we examined the hypothesis that HSPs (evolutionarily conserved proteins), which are present in pathogenic and commensal organisms and their hosts, provide the stimulus that initiates BD in susceptible individuals. In this regards, the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the human HSP 60kDa and bacterial HSP 60kDa deposited in the NCBI and PDB databases were subjected to analysis using bioinformatics tools, including The CLC Sequence Viewer and MEGA softwares. These data showed that the sequence homology between bacterial and self HSPs (leading to cross-reactivity and molecular mimicry phenomenon) may be associated with the development of the disease; and suggesting that microbial HSPs, which cross-react with host tissues and elicit significant immune responses are possible pathogenetic agents involved in the development and progression of BD.

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

autoimmunity
behet's disease
bioinformatics analysis
heat shock protein (hsp)
immunoinformatics


join point selectors One of the main issues in modern aspect-oriented programming languages and frameworks is the expressiveness of the pointcut language or mechanism. The expressiveness of pointcut languages directly impacts pointcut quality, a property that can be decisive for the effectiveness of aspect implementations. In this paper we propose join point selectors as a simple extension mechanism for enriching current pointcut languages with constructs that play the role of "new primitive pointcuts". Join point selectors allow the creation of pointcuts with greater semantic value. Although similar mechanisms can be found in some existing approaches, the underlying concept has not yet been clearly defined nor fully explored. We present a simple architecture for adding join point selectors to an existing aspect-oriented framework. We show examples of usage of join point selectors to enhance the quality of pointcuts and make aspect development easier. We also show how join point selectors can be used as framework-specific selectors, which allow aspects to cross the boundary of a given framework while still respecting the modularity of that framework.

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

extensibility
semantic pointcuts
aspect-oriented programming
aop


On the bursty evolution of Blogspace We propose two new tools to address the evolution of hyperlinked corpora. First, we define time graphs to extend the traditional notion of an evolving directed graph, capturing link creation as a point phenomenon in time. Second, we develop definitions and algorithms for time-dense community tracking, to crystallize the notion of community evolution. We develop these tools in the context of Blogspace, the space of weblogs (or blogs). Our study involves approximately 750 K links among 25 K blogs. We create a time graph on these blogs by an automatic analysis of their internal time stamps. We then study the evolution of connected component structure and microscopic community structure in this time graph. We show that Blogspace underwent a transition behavior around the end of 2001, and has been rapidly expanding, not just in metrics of scale but also in metrics of community structure and connectedness. By randomizing link destinations in Blogspace, but retaining sources and timestamps, we introduce a concept of randomized Blogspace. Herein, we observe similar evolution of a giant component, but no corresponding increase in community structure. Having demonstrated the formation of micro-communities over time, we then turn to the ongoing activity within active communities. We extend recent work of Kleinberg (2002) to discover dense periods of "bursty" intra- community link creation. Furthermore, we find that the blogs that give rise to these communities are significantly more enduring than an average blog.

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


A comparison of software-based techniques intended to increase the reliability of embedded applications in the presence of EMI Corruption of the instruction pointer in an embedded computer system has been shown to be a common failure mode in the presence of electromagnetic interference, and previous investigators have suggested that the use of techniques such as Function Tokens (FT) and NOP Fills (NF) can reduce the impact of such failures. In this paper, both a statistical analysis and empirical tests of code from an embedded application are used to assess and compare these techniques. Two main results are presented. First, it is demonstrated that claims about the effectiveness of FT may neither be well founded nor generally applicable; specifically, it is concluded that rather than increasing system reliability, the use of FT will have the opposite effect. Second, it is demonstrated that NF may be easily applied in most embedded applications, and that the use of this approach can have a positive impact on system reliability.

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

software prevention
instruction pointer corruption
function token
nop fill


A new technique to reduce cross terms in the Wigner distribution A new method for time-frequency representation (TFR) of a signal, which combines the FourierBessel (FB) expansion and the WignerVille distribution (WVD) has been presented in this paper. The FB expansion decomposes a multicomponent signal into a number of monocomponent signals, and then the WVD technique is applied on each component of the composite signal to analyze its time-frequency distribution (TFD). The simulation results show that the proposed technique based on the FB decomposition is a powerful tool for analyzing multicomponent nonstationary signals and for obtaining the TFR of the signal without introducing cross terms.

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

multicomponent nonstationary signals
wigner distribution

fourierbessel expansion
time-frequency representation


Novel mean-shift based histogram equalization using textured regions This paper presents a novel mean-shift based histogram equalization method called the MSHE method. The key insight of the proposed MSHE method is that the basis of histogram equalization could be based on textured regions in an image, while impact of smoother regions should be suppressed. Using a mean-shift based approach, the sets of textured regions in an image are determined by finding regions which have a high density of edge concentration. In addition, a new cost function is presented to balance the image quality and contrast enhancement effect for search termination in the proposed algorithm. Based on three typical test images, experimental results show that our proposed MSHE method is quite competitive with the previous eleven methods, such as the HE, BBHE, DSIHE, POHE, RSWHE, DHE, BPDHE, SRHE, GHE, FHE, and THShap. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

contrast enhancement
cost function
histogram equalization
textured regions


dsPIG: a tool to predict imprinted genes from the deep sequencing of whole transcriptomes Dysregulation of imprinted genes, which are expressed in a parent-of-origin-specific manner, plays an important role in various human diseases, such as cancer and behavioral disorder. To date, however, fewer than 100 imprinted genes have been identified in the human genome. The recent availability of high-throughput technology makes it possible to have large-scale prediction of imprinted genes. Here we propose a Bayesian model (dsPIG) to predict imprinted genes on the basis of allelic expression observed in mRNA-Seq data of independent human tissues.

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

prediction of imprinted genes
bayesian model

transcriptome deep sequencing
mrna-seq
analysis of allelic expression


DDFS's mathematical approach designing considerations This paper presents different methods for designing Direct Digital Frequency Synthesis (DDFS) circuits to recognize their advantages and disadvantages, and to identify which type is the best for different applications. DDFS is a very popular technique for generating stable frequencies with extremely precise resolution and fast switching speeds.

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


Remote plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition of ZnO for thin film electronic applications This paper describes a systematic approach to analyze the simultaneous impact of various reactant plasma parameters of remote plasma enhanced ALD (PEALD) on the ZnO thin film properties. Particular emphasis is placed on the film stoichiometry which affects the electrical properties of the thin film. Design of Experiment (DOE) is used to study the impact of the oxygen plasma parameters such as the RF power, pressure and plasma time to realize semiconductor quality of ZnO thin film. Based on the optimized plasma condition, staggered bottom-gate TFTs were fabricated and its electrical characteristics were measured.

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

atomic layer deposition (ald)
thin film transistor


Hierarchical document categorization with k-NN and concept-based thesauri ? In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, which incorporates the relationships of concept-based thesauri into the document categorization using the k-NN classifier (k-NN). k-NN is one of the most popular document categorization methods because it shows relatively good performance in spite of its simplicity. However, it significantly degrades precision when ambiguity arises, i.e., when there exist more than one candidate category to which a document can be assigned. To remedy the drawback, we employ concept-based thesauri in the categorization. Employing the thesaurus entails structuring categories into hierarchies, since their structure needs to be conformed to that of the thesaurus for capturing relationships between categories. By referencing various relationships in the thesaurus corresponding to the structured categories, k-NN can be prominently improved, removing the ambiguity. In this paper, we first perform the document categorization by using k-NN and then employ the relationships to reduce the ambiguity. Experimental results show that this method improves the precision of k-NN up to 13.86% without compromising its recall.

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


Introducing mechanistic kinetics to the Lagrangian Gibbs energy calculation The Gibbs free energy minimum is usually calculated with the method of Lagrangian multipliers with the mass balance conditions as the necessary subsidiary conditions. Solution of the partial derivatives of the Lagrangian function provides the equilibrium condition of zero affinity for all stoichiometric equilibrium reactions in the multi-phase system. By extension of the stoichiometric matrix, reaction rate constraints can be included in the Gibbsian calculation. Zero affinity remains as the condition for equilibrium reactions, while kinetic reactions receive a non-zero affinity value, defined by an additional Lagrange multiplier. This can be algorithmically connected to a known reaction rate for each kinetically constrained species in the system. The presented method allows for several kinetically controlled reactions in the multi-phase Gibbs energy calculation. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

gibbs energy minimization
lagrange multipliers
kinetic constraints
process modeling


Detection of Human-Robot Collision Using Kinetic In this work, a system capable of detecting human-robot potential collisions is presented. It is intended to assist a robotic arm on its movement around the working area. By detecting risk zones, it prevents the robot from interfering with the surgeons work. To accomplish this, it is necessary to place both the robot and the surgeon on a coordinate system. The tracking of the robot is achieved by detecting color labels that were placed on the robot's joints. On the other hand, the physician's position is obtained using Kinect's depth stream. The output of the system will be used by the robot to define risk zones and to avoid them by modifying its trajectory.

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

human-robot potential collisions
tracking with kinect


Analysis of modal characteristics and thermal effects on photonic crystal fiber laser In this paper, thermo-optics effects on fiber lasers based on index-guiding photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) are studied. The modal characteristics of the PCF lasers are discussed in terms of the thermal effects. Modal analysis of PCF has been done with help of plane wave expansion and supercell lattice methods. The thermal analysis is performed by obtaining the effective index of fundamental mode and core confinement factor (CCF) when the fiber laser was pumped. The results show that PCF laser structure has negligible modal sensitivity to thermal load in comparison to conventional fiber laser. Analyzing the mode performance of the fiber laser under thermal load shows that the assumed PCF laser at 80W/m pump power show ?500 rise in temperature and 0.34% propagation constant variation in fundamental mode index and 0.04% CCF variation in fundamental mode.

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

index-guiding photonic crystal fiber
double clad fiber lasers
plane wave expansion method
thermo optic effects


High-performance remote access to climate simulation data: a challenge problem for data grid technologies In numerous scientific disciplines, terabyte and petabyte-scale data collections are emerging as critical community resources. A new class of data grid infrastructure is required to support management, transport, distributed access to, and analysis of these datasets by potentially thousands of users. Researchers who face this challenge include the climate modeling community, which performs long-duration computations accompanied by frequent output of very large files that must be further analyzed. We describe the Earth System Grid-I prototype, which brings together advanced analysis, replica management, data transfer, request management, and other technologies to support high-performance, interactive analysis of replicated data. We present performance results that demonstrate our ability to manage the location and movement of large datasets from the users desktop. We report on experiments conducted over SciNET at SC2000, where we achieved peak performance of 1.55 Gb/s and sustained performance of 512.9 Mb/s for data transfers between Texas and California. Finally, we describe the development of the next-generation Earth System Grid-II (ESG-II) project. Important issues for ESG-II include security requirements for production environments, efficient data filtering and transport, metadata services for discovery of relevant climate datasets, and sophisticated request or workflow management for complex tasks.

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

grid computing
globus toolkit
gridftp
earth system grid


A new method for random vibration analysis of stochastic truss structures A new method called the random factor method (RFM) for the natural frequency, mode shape and random vibration analysis of stochastic truss structures is presented in this paper. Using the RFM, the structural physical parameters and geometry can be considered as random variables. The structural stiffness and mass matrices can then, respectively, be described by the product of two parts corresponding to the random factors and the deterministic matrix. The structural natural frequencies, mode shapes and random response can be expressed as the function of the random factors. By means of the random variable's functional moment method and the algebra synthesis method, computational expressions for the mean value, standard deviation and variation coefficient of the dynamic characteristics, mean square value of the stationary random displacement and stress response are developed. The influences of the randomness of the structural parameters on the dynamic characteristics, structural displacement and stress responses are demonstrated using a truss structure and Monte-Carlo simulations illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method.

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

random factor method
random vibration
dynamic characteristics
truss structures


f-Value: measuring an article's scientific impact The f-value is a new indicator that measures the importance of a research article by taking into account all citations received, directly and indirectly, up to depth n. The f-value considers all information present in a Citation Graph in order to produce a ranking of the articles. Apart from the mathematical equation that calculates the f-value, we also present the corresponding algorithm with its implementation, plus an experimental comparison of f-value with two known indicators of an article's scientific importance, namely, the number of citations and the Page Rank for citation analysis. Finally, we discuss the similarities and differences among the indicators.

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

citation analysis
citation graph
page rank


A framework for the functional verification of SystemC models The problems of error simulation, error model evaluation, and test generation are faced considering the peculiar features of SystemC. In particular, error simulation are considered in the perspective of the transaction level modelling (TLM) capabilities of this emerging system level design language to obtain a coherent, environment for functional verification. The error simulation is accomplished without any modification of the native simulation engine, thus avoiding the problem of upgrading the error simulator together with the language simulation engine. Moreover, error modelling and error simulation tasks are orthogonalized in this approach. With the support of this environment, a test pattern generation algorithm for SystemC descriptions of systems made of interacting Finite State Machines (FSMs) is developed. The approach is based on the definition of the transitions, that represent ordered sets of statements executed within one clock cycle. Through different state sequence paths enumeration strategies, interesting behaviors of the system are obtained.

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


Model-based performance evaluation of distributed checkpointing protocols A large number of distributed checkpointing protocols have appeared in the literature. However, to make informed decisions about which protocol performs best for a given environment, one must use an objective measure for comparing them. Obviously, a distributed checkpointing protocol could be the best in a specific environment, but not in another environment. This paper presents an objective measure, called overhead ratio, for evaluating distributed checkpointing protocols. This measure extends previous evaluation schemes by incorporating several additional parameters that are inherent in distributed environments. In particular, we take into account the rollback propagation of the protocol, which impacts the length of the recovery process, and therefore the expected program run-time in executions that involve failures and recoveries. Using the objective measure as an evaluation technique, the paper also analyses several known protocols and compares their overhead ratios. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

distributed checkpoint/restart
performance analysis
markov models


Enumeration of words by the sum of differences between adjacent letters We consider the sum u of differences between adjacent letters of a word of n letters, chosen uniformly at random from a given alphabet. This paper obtains the enumerating generating function for the number of such words with respect to the sum u, as well as explicit formulas for the mean and variance of u.

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

k-ary words
statistics
generating functions
kernel method
chebyshev polynomials


Sketching Uncertainty into Simulations In a variety of application areas, the use of simulation steering in decision making is limited at best. Research focusing on this problem suggests that most user interfaces are too complex for the end user. Our goal is to let users create and investigate multiple, alternative scenarios without the need for special simulation expertise. To simplify the specification of parameters, we move from a traditional manipulation of numbers to a sketch-based input approach. Users steer both numeric parameters and parameters with a spatial correspondence by sketching a change onto the rendering. Special visualizations provide immediate visual feedback on how the sketches are transformed into boundary conditions of the simulation models. Since uncertainty with respect to many intertwined parameters plays an important role in planning, we also allow the user to intuitively setup complete value ranges, which are then automatically transformed into ensemble simulations. The interface and the underlying system were developed in collaboration with experts in the field of flood management. The real-world data they have provided has allowed us to construct scenarios used to evaluate the system. These were presented to a variety of flood response personnel, and their feedback is discussed in detail in the paper. The interface was found to be intuitive and relevant, although a certain amount of training might be necessary.

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

emergency/disaster management
interaction design
uncertainty visualization
sketch
based steering
ensemble simulation steering
integrated visualization system


A least-squares/penalty method for distributed optimal control problems for Stokes equations The purpose of this paper is to construct an unconstrained optimal control problem by using a least-squares approach for the constrained distributed optimal control problem associated with incompressible Stokes equations. The constrained equations are reformulated to the equivalent first-order system by introducing vorticity, and then the least-squares functional corresponding to the system is enforced via a penalty term to the objective functional. The existence of a solution of the unconstrained optimal control problem is proved, and the convergence of this solution to that of unpenalized one is demonstrated as the penalty parameter tends to zero. Finite element approximations with error estimates are studied, and the relevant computational experiments are presented.

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


Geo/G/1 discrete time retrial queue with Bernoulli schedule This paper studies discrete time Geo/G/1 retrial queues with Bernoulli schedule in which the blocked customers either join the infinite waiting space with probability ? or leave the server and enter the retrial orbit with probability ). The customers in the retrial orbit will retry their service after a random amount of time. First, the analytic formula for the generating function of the joint distribution of the numbers of customers in the waiting space and the retrial orbit in steady state is derived. It is shown that a stochastic decomposition law holds for the retrial queues under study. That is, the total number of customers in system is distributed as a sum of two independent random variables. Second, recursive formulas for the marginal steady state probabilities of the numbers of customers in the waiting space and in the retrial orbit was developed. Since a regular two-level priority Geo/G/1 queue (one without retrials) with Bernoulli schedule and head-of-line priority discipline is a special case of the studied retrial systems, the recursive formulas developed can be used to compute the marginal steady state probabilities of numbers of customers in the priority and non-priority groups for this case. Furthermore, a relationship between a continuous time M/G/1 retrial queue with Bernoulli schedule and its discrete time counterpart is established so that the recursive formulas can also be applied to a continuous time system. Last, several special cases are studied and some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the use of the recursive formulas.

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

bernoulli schedule
retrial queues
stochastic decomposition

discrete-time queues
generating functions
priority queues
recursive computation


Efficient Background Subtraction and Shadow Removal for Monochromatic Video Sequences This letter presents a new method for background subtraction and shadow removal for grayscale video sequences. The background image is modeled using robust statistical descriptors, and a noise estimate is obtained. Foreground pixels are extracted, and a statistical approach combined with geometrical constraints are adopted to detect and remove shadows.

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

background subtraction
monochromatic video sequences
shadow removal


MULTIPLE ROUTE GENERATION USING SIMULATED NICHE BASED PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION This research presents an optimization technique for multiple routes generation using simulated niche based particle swarm optimization for dynamic online route planning, optimization of the routes and proved to be an effective technique. It effectively deals with route planning in dynamic and unknown environments cluttered with obstacles and objects. A Simulated niche based particle swarm optimization (SN-PSO) is proposed using modified particle swarm optimization algorithm for dealing with online route planning and is tested for randomly generated environments, obstacle ratio, grid sizes, and complex environments. The conventional techniques perform well in simple and less cluttered environments while their performance degrades with large and complex environments. The SN-PSO generates and optimizes multiple routes in complex and large environments with constraints. The traditional route optimization techniques focus on good solutions only and do not exploit the solution space completely. The SN-PSO is proved to be an efficient technique for providing safe, short, and feasible routes under dynamic constraints. The efficiency of the SN-PSO is tested in a mine field simulation with different environment configurations and successfully generates multiple feasible routes.

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

particle swarm optimization
swarm intelligence


Tight bounds for prefetching and buffer management algorithms for parallel I/O systems The I/O performance of applications in multiple-disk systems can be improved by overlapping disk accesses. This requires the use of appropriate prefetching and buffer management algorithms that ensure the most useful blocks are accessed and retained in the buffer. in this paper, we answer several fundamental questions on prefetching and buffer management for distributed-buffer parallel I/O systems. First, we derive and prove the optimality of an algorithm, P-min, that minimizes the number of parallel I/Os. Second, we analyze P-con, an algorithm that always matches its replacement decisions with those of the well-known demand-paged MIN algorithm. We show that P-con can become fully sequential in the worst case. Third, we investigate the behavior of on-line algorithms for multiple-disk prefetching and buffer management. We define and analyze P-Iru, a parallel version of the traditional LRU buffer management algorithm. Unexpectedly, we find that the competitive ratio of P-Iru is independent of the number of disks. Finally, we present the practical performance of these algorithms on randomly generated reference strings. These results confirm the conclusions derived from the analysis on worst case inputs.

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

algorithms
prefetching
buffer management
competitive ratio

parallel i/o
caching
multiple-disk systems
external memory


Linking PCA and time derivatives of dynamic systems Low dimensional approximate descriptions of the high dimensional phase space of dynamic processes are very useful. Principal component analysis (PCA) is the most used technique to find the low dimensional subspace of interest. Here, it will be shown that mean centering of the process data across time followed by PCA yields valuable information about the time derivatives of the model function underlying the data. The advantage of PCA is that it can be used when the process model is not (fully) known and enough process measurements are available. The idea is illustrated with an example of a distributed parameter system. More specifically, the binary adsorption of benzene and toluene on charcoal in a packed bed filter for air cleaning is considered. It is shown that with the information gained about time derivatives, sensor locations for monitoring this process can be found. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
dynamic systems


Pavement Layer Data Repository Using a Spatiotemporal Block Model Historical and in-service pavement layer data along with pavement maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (MR&R) history is critical information for developing a reliable and accurate pavement performance model that is indispensably necessary for the support of a pavement management system. The conventional homogeneous segmentation method for pavement layer data repository has the problem of excessive segmentation, which may result in inefficient data storage and incomplete data. To address this issue, a spatiotemporal block model is proposed to eliminate the need of homogeneous segmentation, and thus avoid the excessive segmentation and the creation of tiny pavement segments. Three time factors are defined for each pavement layer block to maintain the temporal information of a pavement layer structure. A depth-first-search (DFS)-based cluster searching algorithm is used for reconstruction and visualization of pavement structures as well as for data manipulation. A case study is presented to demonstrate the application developed using the proposed model and algorithms. The computing time and merits of the proposed methodology are also discussed. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CP.19435487.0000186. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

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

data collection
spatial data collection
highway and road structures


Integrating guidance into relational reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning, and Q-learning in particular, encounter two major problems when dealing with large state spaces. First, learning the Q-function in tabular form may be infeasible because of the excessive amount of memory needed to store the table, and because the Q-function only converges after each state has been visited multiple times. Second, rewards in the state space may be so sparse that with random exploration they will only be discovered extremely slowly. The first problem is often solved by learning a generalization of the encountered examples ( e. g., using a neural net or decision tree). Relational reinforcement learning (RRL) is such an approach; it makes Q-learning feasible in structural domains by incorporating a relational learner into Q-learning. The problem of sparse rewards has not been addressed for RRL. This paper presents a solution based on the use of "reasonable policies" to provide guidance. Different types of policies and different strategies to supply guidance through these policies are discussed and evaluated experimentally in several relational domains to show the merits of the approach.

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


The impact of small world on innovation: An empirical study of 16 countries This paper investigates the impact of small world properties and the size of largest component on innovation performance at national level. Our study adds new evidence to the limited literature on this topic with an empirical investigation for the patent collaboration networks of 16 main innovative countries during 19752006. We combine small world network theory with statistical models to systematically explore the relationship between network structure and patent productivity. Results fail to support that the size of largest component enhances innovative productivity significantly, which is not consistent with recent concerns regarding positive effects of largest component on patent output. We do find that small-world structure benefits innovation but it is limited to a special range after which the effects inversed and shorter path length always correlates with increased innovation output. Our findings extend the current literature and they can be implicated for policy makers and relevant managers when making decisions for technology, industry and firm location.

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


A new approach for scheduling independent tasks with multiple modes Heuristic algorithms for scheduling tasks with multiple modes and minimizing the schedule length involve in general two distinct phases, task mode assignment and then task scheduling. We propose a novel approach where these two features are managed in an integrated mechanism with mode assignment embedded in scheduling. The problem is first reformulated as a special single-mode task scheduling problem, and then is modeled as a graph interval T-coloring. Finally, a tabu-like metaheuristic is proposed for this latter graph coloring problem, and the performance of our approach is compared to known multi-mode scheduling heuristics.

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

independent task scheduling
multi-mode
graph model
interval t-coloring


Bio-inspired auto-adaptive SIP overload controller In this article, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) overload control solution is proposed. It considers all the types of SIP requests. This is really what a SIP load is composed of, in an industrial environment. So far, the specialized literature considered INVITE messages only. So, we think that SIP servers are required to be dynamically adaptive to the diversity of the incoming load content. In the latter, the rate of a given SIP message type may be more or less than the other message types, depending on the services provided by the SIP server. Sometimes, it also depends on the time of the day. The auto-adaptation ability of the proposed overload control mechanism is designed after the immune system metaphor. The solution is validated through load tests and compared with a well known SIP overload control algorithm. Test load arrival patterns have been chosen to simulate three different service packages known in the SIP industry world as: Hosted Private Branch Exchange, Prepaid Calling Card Service, and Call-Shop Service.

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

bio-inspired algorithms
artificial immune systems
auto-adaptive network applications


Coordination in decentralized assembly systems with uncertain component yields ? The literature on assembly systems with random component yields has focused on centralized systems, where a single decision maker chooses all components production quantities and incurs all the costs. We consider a decentralized setting where the component suppliers choose their production quantities based solely on their own cost/reward structure, and the assembly firm makes ordering decisions based on its own cost/reward structure. When the suppliers control their inputs but the outputs exhibit random yields, coordination in such systems becomes quite complex. In such situations, incentive alignment control mechanisms are needed so that the suppliers will choose production quantities as in the centralized system case. One such mechanism is to penalize the supplier with the worse delivery performance. We analyze the conditions under which system coordination is achieved while respecting participation constraints. Further, we determine the optimal component ordering policy for the assembly firm and derive the optimal coordinating penalties.

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

inventory
game theory
supply chain coordination


Causal knowledge-based design of EDI controls: an explorative study This paper proposes a causal knowledge-based expert system (CAKES) for modeling and designing electronic data interchange (EDI) controls. The case base of CAKES incorporates environmental, EDI control and EDI implementation factors. The primary reason for designing EDI controls is to promote consideration of the complex causal relationships that exist among various environments and EDI controls. A better understanding of industry, organization, and system characteristics is a necessary prerequisite to design, since it is difficult even for EDI experts to cognitively predict the causal effect of one control on the others. A fuzzy cognitive map is used for building a causal knowledge-base for the design. Initially, structural equation models (SEMs) are used to identify the relevant relationships among the components and to indicate their direction and strength. A casual inference in control design is possible, among environments, EDI controls and EDI implementation, through the CAKES-EDI.

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


A fault detection and diagnosis technique for multivariate processes using a PLS-decomposition of the measurement space A new statistical monitoring technique based on partial least squares (PLS) is proposed for fault detection and diagnosis in multivariate processes that exhibit collinear measurements. A typical PLS regression (PLSR) modeling strategy is first extended by adding the projections of the model outputs to the latent space. Then, a PLS-decomposition of the measurements into four terms that belongs to four different subspaces is derived. In order to online monitor the PLS-projections in each subspace, new specific statistics with non-overlapped domains are combined into a single index able to detect process anomalies. To reach a complete diagnosis, a further decomposition of each statistic was defined as a sum of variable contributions. By adequately processing all this information, the technique is able to: i) detect an anomaly through a single combined index, ii) diagnose the anomaly class from the observed pattern of the four component statistics with respect to their respective confidence intervals, and iii) identify the disturbed variables based on the analysis of the main variable contributions to each of the four subspaces. The effectiveness observed in the simulated examples suggests the potential application of this technique to real production systems. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

process monitoring
fault diagnosis
fault isolation
contribution analysis


Nonhuman Primate Neuroimaging and the Neurobiology of Psychostimulant Addiction Neuroimaging techniques have led to significant advances in our understanding of the neurobiology and treatment of drug addiction in humans. The capability to conduct parallel studies in nonhuman primates and human subjects provides a powerful translational approach to link findings in human and animal research. A significant advantage of nonhuman primate models is the ability to use drug-nave subjects in longitudinal designs that document the neurobiological changes that are associated with chronic drug use. Moreover, experimental therapeutics can be evaluated in subjects with well-documented histories of drug exposure. The in vivo distribution and pharmacokinetics of drug binding in brain have been related to the time-course of behavioral effects associated with the addictive properties of stimulants. Importantly, the characterization of drug interactions with specific protein targets in brain has identified potential targets for medication development. Neuroimaging has proven especially useful in studying the dynamic changes in neuronal function that may be associated with environmental variables. Last, neuroimaging has been used effectively in nonhuman primates to characterize both transient and long-lasting changes in brain chemistry associated with chronic drug exposure. Although there is some evidence to suggest neurotoxicity in humans with long histories of stimulant use, parallel studies in nonhuman primates have not identified consistent long-term changes in such neurochemical markers. Collectively, the results of these studies of nonhuman primates have enhanced our understanding of the neurobiological basis of stimulant addiction and should have a significant impact on efforts to develop medications to treat stimulant abuse.

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

nonhuman primates
neuroimaging
stimulants


Deeper model endgame analysis A reference model of Fallible Endgame Play has been implemented and exercised with the chess-engine WILHELM. Past experiments have demonstrated the value of the model and the robustness of decisions based on it: experiments agree well with a Markov Model theory. Here, the reference model is exercised on the well-known endgame KBBKN. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A clipped latent variable model for spatially correlated ordered categorical data We propose a model for a point-referenced spatially correlated ordered categorical response and methodology for inference. Models and methods for spatially correlated continuous response data are widespread, but models for spatially correlated categorical data, and especially ordered multi-category data, are less developed. Bayesian models and methodology have been proposed for the analysis of independent and clustered ordered categorical data, and also for binary and count point-referenced spatial data. We combine and extend these methods to describe a Bayesian model for point-referenced (as opposed to lattice) spatially correlated ordered categorical data. We include simulation results and show that our model offers superior predictive performance as compared to a non-spatial cumulative probit model and a more standard Bayesian generalized linear spatial model. We demonstrate the usefulness of our model in a real-world example to predict ordered categories describing stream health within the state of Maryland.

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

ordinal
benthic ibi
generalized linear mixed models


A cooperative virtual prototyping system for mechatronic solution elements based assembly In order to catch up with the steps of rapidly changing markets, the product development period of modern mechatronic products has to be as short as possible. However, mechatronic engineering is based on the interaction of mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, and computer science. Therefore, inefficient communication between the engineers who come from different domains becomes a manifest obstruction for accelerating the design of mechatronic products. Nevertheless, innovations in the field of virtual prototyping offer some potential solutions to this problem. In this paper, we present a cooperative virtual prototyping system, which utilizes the concept of solution elements and virtual reality techniques to facilitate assembling and analyzing virtual mechatronic prototypes in a multi-disciplinary workgroup.

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

virtual prototyping
assembly
virtual reality


Reliable Decentralized Control of Fuzzy Discrete-Event Systems and a Test Algorithm A framework for decentralized control of fuzzy discrete-event systems (FDESs) has been recently presented to guarantee the achievement of a given specification under the joint control of all local fuzzy supervisors. As a continuation, this paper addresses the reliable decentralized control of FDESs in face of possible failures of some local fuzzy supervisors. Roughly speaking, for an FDES equipped with n local fuzzy supervisors, a decentralized supervisor is called k-reliable (1 <= k <= n) provided that the control performance will not be degraded even when n-k local fuzzy supervisors fail. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of k-reliable decentralized supervisors of FDESs is proposed by introducing the notions of (M) over tilde (uc)-controllability and k-reliable coobservability of fuzzy language. In particular, a polynomial-time algorithm to test the k-reliable coobservability is developed by a constructive methodology, which indicates that the existence of k-reliable decentralized supervisors of FDESs can be checked with a polynomial complexity.

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

decentralized supervisory control
discrete-event systems (dess)
fuzzy automata
fuzzy systems
reliable control


A study on the web-based intelligent self-diagnosis medical system U-Health is a representative realization method of ubiquitous IT and it is being embossed as an industry that can make our lives abundant. Through the u-Health, the diagnosis will go beyond the restriction of space, which is based on hospital, and be positioned as a universal value in a daily life by combining diagnosis and life naturally. The researcher would like to suggest systematical and intelligent medical diagnosis expert system that can give the effect same as the help from real experts with health check helper and scientific and objective knowledge that fit to the age and environment of changing. The system proposed in this paper suggests synthetic preventive health care methods by analyzing life style, food and nutritions beyond just finding the name of disease. This is intelligent medical expert system that suggests pre- and post-care and appropriate cure after analyzing ones own health condition on the basis of knowledge.

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

u-health
healthcare
self-diagnosis medical system
cbr
rbr


Learning ELM-Tree from big data based on uncertainty reduction A challenge in big data classification is the design of highly parallelized learning algorithms. One solution to this problem is applying parallel computation to different components of a learning model. In this paper, we first propose an extreme learning machine tree (ELM-Tree) model based on the heuristics of uncertainty reduction. In the ELM-Tree model, information entropy and ambiguity are used as the uncertainty measures for splitting decision tree (DT) nodes. Besides, in order to resolve the over-partitioning problem in the DT induction, ELMs are embedded as the leaf nodes when the gain ratios of all the available splits are smaller than a given threshold. Then, we apply parallel computation to five components of the ELM-Tree model, which effectively reduces the computational time for big data classification. Experimental studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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

big data classification
decision tree
extreme learning machine
uncertainty reduction


A low-latency high-throughput soft-output signal detector for spatial multiplexing MIMO systems This paper presents a low latency, high throughput soft-output signal detector for a 44 64-QAM spatial-multiplexing MIMO system. To achieve high data-level parallelism and accurate soft information, the detector adopts a channel-adaptive node perturbation technique to generate a list of candidate vectors around an initial linear estimation. The detection algorithm provides a large range and convenient performance-complexity trade-off by adjusting the node perturbation parameter. A partial-parallel pipelined VLSI architecture is developed to implement the algorithm with high throughput, low processing latency, while offering the flexibility to support run-time performance tuning. Moreover, a fast and hardware-friendly node enumeration scheme is developed to further reduce the processing delay by exploiting the geometric property of the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation. The detector was synthesized using Synopsys Design Compiler with a 65nm CMOS standard cell library. The core area is 0.58mm2 with 290K gates. The peak throughput is 3Gb/s at 500MHz clock frequency with a latency of 20ns. Compared to other reported soft-output MIMO detectors, this is a latency reduction of 71%. The corresponding energy consumption is 33pJ per bit detection.

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


Text classification using graph mining-based feature extraction A graph-based approach to document classification is described in this paper. The graph representation offers the advantage that it allows for a much more expressive document encoding than the more standard bag of words/phrases approach, and consequently gives an improved classification accuracy. Document sets are represented as graph sets to which a weighted graph mining algorithm is applied to extract frequent subgraphs, which are then further processed to produce feature vectors (one per document) for classification. Weighted subgraph mining is used to ensure classification effectiveness and computational efficiency; only the most significant subgraphs are extracted. The approach is validated and evaluated using several popular classification algorithms together with a real world textual data set. The results demonstrate that the approach can outperform existing text classification algorithms on some dataset. When the size of dataset increased, further processing on extracted frequent features is essential.

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

text classification
graph representation
graph mining
feature extraction


A LagrangianEulerian finite element algorithm for advection-diffusion-reaction problems with phase change This paper presents a particle-based LagrangianEulerian algorithm for the solution of the unsteady advection-diffusion-reaction heat transfer equation with phase change. The algorithm combines a Lagrangian formulation for the advection + reaction problem with the Eulerian-based heat source method for the diffusion + phase change problem. The coupling between the Lagrangian and Eulerian subproblems is achieved with a phase change detector scheme based on a local latent heat balance and a consistent/conservative interpolation technique between Lagrangian particles and the Eulerian grid. This technique makes use of an auxiliary (finer) Eulerian grid that provides a simple and efficient method of tracking internal heterogeneities (e.g.phase boundaries), allows the use of higher order integration quadratures, and facilitates the implementation of multiscale techniques. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared against one- and two-dimensional benchmark problems, i.e.pure rigid-body advection, isothermal and non-isothermal phase change, two-phase advective heat transfer and chemical reactions coupled with diffusion and advection. The numerical results confirm that the proposed solution method is accurate, oscillation-free and useful for and applicable to a wide range of fully coupled problems in science and engineering.

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

phase change
heat source method
interpolation


Interior penalty DG methods for Maxwell's equations in dispersive media In this paper, we develop a fully-discrete interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for solving the time-dependent Maxwell's equations in dispersive media. The model is described by a vector integral-differential equation. Our scheme is proved to be unconditionally stable and achieve optimal error estimates in both L(2) norm and energy norm. The scheme is implemented and numerical results supporting our analysis are presented. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

discontinuous galerkin method
dispersive media


autonomous navigation through the city for the blind Autonomous navigation in the city has become a necessity for people with visual disabilities, due to the fact that they now enjoy a higher degree of social insertion. As such, several technological solutions seek to assist with this autonomy. In this work, we present a study on the effect of the use of an easy-to-access, audio-based GPS software program on navigation through open spaces, and in particular on the stimulation of orientation and mobility skills in blind people. Results show that the use of the audio-based GPS software allowed blind users to be able to get to various destinations without the need for prior information on the environment, favoring the navigation of blind people in unfamiliar contexts, stimulating the use of different orientation and mobility skills, and finally providing help to users that habitually navigate spaces in the city only in the company of other people.

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

people who are blind
mobile technology
assistive technology


Maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraphs of class II graphs A graph G is class II, if its chromatic index is at least ? + 1. Let H be a maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraph of G. The paper proves best possible lower bounds for |E(H)|/|E(G)|, and structural properties of maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraphs. It is shown that every set of vertex-disjoint cycles of a class II graph with ??3 can be extended to a maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraph. Simple graphs have a maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraph such that the complement is a matching. Furthermore, a maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraph of a simple graph is always class I. 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory

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

maximum ?-edge-colorable subgraph
2-factor
edge-chromatic number


Unifying the proper cores and dominance cores of cooperative fuzzy games The purpose of this paper is to investigate the equalities of different types of proper cores and dominance cores for the general worth function \(v\) without assuming it to be nonnegative. The different sufficient conditions are provided in this paper to guarantee the equalities of different proper cores and dominance cores for this general situation.

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


Scheduling manufacturing systems in an agile environment Producing customized products to respond to changing markets in a short time and at a low cost is one of the goals in agile manufacturing. To achieve this goal customized products can be produced using an assembly-driven product differentiation strategy. The successful implementation of this strategy lies in efficient scheduling of the system. However, little research has been done in addressing the scheduling issues related to assembly-driven product differentiation strategies in agile manufacturing. In this paper, scheduling problems associated with the assembly-driven product differentiation strategy in a general flexible manufacturing system are defined, formulated, and solved. The manufacturing system consists of two stages: machining and assembly. At the machining stage, multiple identical machines produce parts. These parts are then assembled at the assembly stage to form customized products. The products to be produced in the system are characterized by their assembly sequences that are represented by different digraphs. The scheduling problem is to determine the sequence of products to be produced in the system so that the maximum completion time (makespan) is minimized for any given number of machines at the machining stage. The scheduling problems discussed in this paper have not been solved in the literature. The originality of the paper lies in defining and formulating the problems in the context of agile manufacturing and developing optimal and near-optimal for solving them. The heuristic algorithm solves the scheduling problem in two steps. First, an optimal aggregate schedule is determined by solving a two-machine flowshop problem. Next, the optimal aggregate schedule is decomposed by solving a simple integer programming formulation model. The computational experiment shows that the heuristics provide optimal and near-optimal solutions to the scheduling problems.

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

agile manufacturing scheduling
assembly-driven product differentiation


Crime travel demand and bank robberies - Using CrimeStat III to model bank robbery trips A crime travel demand model was applied to 258 bank robberies that occurred in Baltimore County, Maryland, between 1993 and 1997 to understand the likely travel patterns of bank robbers. The data are assigned to both origin and destination traffic analysis zones, and a predictive model is developed to understand the correlates of the zones where offenders live and those of the zones where the bank robberies occurred. The results support the hypothesis of a vehicle trip from a poorer, denser neighborhood to a nearby bank that was located in a commercial area on a major arterial. Plausible travel routes are analyzed, and an escape route scenario is developed. The results have implications for policing and provide insights into the likely escape routes that bank robbers would use.

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

crime travel demand modeling
crime trips
journey to crime


Geographical gaps in the Portuguese broadband access. Rethinking the role of public funding after years of trade liberalisation Digital information flows are influencing and interacting with real places in a very complex and dynamic way. The main objective of this article is to present a detailed study concerning Portugal, with the purpose of questioning the effective role of broadband Internet access in decreasing regional disparities or, to the contrary, as an unanticipated contribution to the aggravation of territorial inequalities. To answer this question, the paper will present selected cartographic analyses, showing the spatial extent of the most recent broadband technological solutions available in Portugal (DSL technology, coaxial cable, fibre-optic cable, WiFi access or 3G/UMTS technology). Market failures originating in pro-competitive policies between private operators may lead to a rethink of the role of public funding after years of trade liberalisation.

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


Multi-camera tracking using a Multi-Goal Social Force Model Tracking across non-overlapping cameras is a challenging open problem in video surveillance. In this paper, we propose a novel target re-identification method that models movements in non-observed areas with a modified Social Force Model (SFM) by exploiting the map of the site under surveillance. The SFM is developed with a goal-driven approach that models the desire of people to reach specific interest points (goals) of the site such as exits, shops, seats and meeting points. These interest points work as attractors for people movements and guide the path predictions in the non-observed areas. We also model key regions that are potential intersections of different paths where people can change the direction of motion. Finally, the predictions are linked to the trajectories observed in the next camera view where people reappear. We validate our multi-camera tracking method on the challenging i-LIDS dataset from the London Gatwick airport and show the benefits of the Multi-Goal Social Force Model.

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

multi-camera tracking
trajectory propagation
london gatwick airport dataset


Effects of asymmetry in an output function on the pinning of rotating waves in a ring neural oscillator with asymmetric bidirectional coupling and self-coupling Pinning of rotating waves in a ring of asymmetric sigmoidal neurons is studied. A ring has asymmetric bidirectional coupling and self-coupling. There are multiple pinned states with unsaturated neurons at wave fronts. Pinning conditions depend on whether coupling is excitatory or inhibitory.

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

ring neural network
ring oscillator
traveling wave
self-coupling