A new image flux conduction model and its application to selective image smoothing In this paper, a discrete image flux conduction equation which is completely new in this field is proposed, The new approach starts with formulating a discrete image flux conduction equation based on the concept of heat conduction theory, Based on this discrete equation, the status change at a time point can be directly computed from its spatial neighborhood. To more accurately estimate an image flux, we have used an orthogonal wavelet basis to approximate the gradient of the intensity at each point. Since the proposed approach is discrete by nature, it is not necessary to formulate a continuous PDE to fit the discrete image data set. Furthermore, introduction of different numerical methods to solve the PDE can also be avoided. Since the proposed approach does not require that a PDE be solved, it is therefore more efficient and accurate than the conventional methods. Experimental results obtained using both synthetic signals and real images have demonstrated that the proposed model could effectively handle the selective image smoothing problem.

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


The maximum weight hierarchy matching problem We study the problem of fusing several reports about a group of objects into a single summary report, which best represents the received reports. A report is a list of labels associated with a group of objects, as reported by some identification device. Reports do not associate which object in the group has been given a specific label, the labels used in each report may be given in various levels of specificity and the information in the reports may be erroneous. Each label used in a report is accompanied by a weight, which provides a confidence measure for the label. The MAXIMUM WEIGHT HIERARCHY MATCHING problem seeks a consistent interpretation of the received reports by matching the labels of each object across the reports. such that the total weight of elements used in the matching is maximized. In this paper we prove that this problem is NP-hard and develop all 0.632OPT approximation algorithm, where OPT is the optimal solution. The algorithm shows robust performance in Monte-Carlo simulations. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V

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

group fusion
hierarchical attributes fusion
combinatorial optimization
np-hard
monte-carlo simulation


Solution of PDEs-electrically coupled systems with electrical analogy This paper presents an approach to solve coupled systems where electrical/mechanical devices, whose behaviour is governed by a PDE or a system of PDEs, are connected together through an electrical circuit. In an earlier paper [1], it had been shown that PDEs can be modeled by an electrical equivalent circuit generated from the complete set of equations arising from the Finite Element Method (FEM). In this paper, the approach is extended to solve a system of PDEs. The approach allows the simulation of coupled systems with circuit simulation tools alone since the resultant system becomes an electrical circuit after an application of electrical analogy. The coupled system is solved by directly replacing PDE devices with the equivalent circuits. Further, a special circuit simulation technique, viz. multiport decomposition is used in order to solve a large coupled system. A sequential as well as a parallel simulator is built for coupled problems based on the proposed approach. A circuit with 100 linear PDE devices (the equivalent circuit contains 8 million nodes) has been simulated using the parallel simulator in less than 1h. We have achieved a speedup of 5 over the sequential simulator using 8 processors on distributed memory architecture. The characteristic of pn junction diode (driftdiffusion equation) is analyzed by our circuit simulator to show that the proposed approach can be used to build a circuit-cum-device simulator.

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

system of pdes
fem
electrical circuit
circuit simulator


Two-stage flexible-choice problems under uncertainty A significant input-data uncertainty is often present in practical situations. One approach to coping with this uncertainty is to describe the uncertainty with scenarios. A scenario represents a potential realization of the important parameters of the problem. In this paper we apply a recent approach, called flexibility, to solving two-stage flexible-choice problems. The first stage represents the present, where a decision maker must plan ahead to make a decision to hedge against uncertainty in the second stage, which represents the uncertain future, and is described as a set of scenarios. When one of the future scenarios is realized, a decision maker is willing to pay some recourse cost to augment the earlier solution to be more suitable for the realized scenario. Since all of the future scenarios are known, it is reasonable to presume that their desired solutions are also known. Thus, the aim of a decision maker is to find a solution in the present that is as easy as possible to adapt to solutions in the future. In this paper we study the problem where feasible solutions of the first stage are all p-element subsets of some finite set, and the solutions of the second stage are fixed p-element subsets. We present computational complexity results and algorithms for two versions of the two-stage flexible-choice problem. We formally define both problems, i.e., the sum-flexibility problem and the max-flexibility problem. For the sum-flexibility problem we describe an exact polynomial-time algorithm for the 3-scenario version, and we show non-approximability for the 4-scenario version. For the max-flexibility problem we show that the 3-scenario version is NP NP -hard, but approximable within a constant performance guarantee. Additionally, we prove non-approximability for the 4-scenario version of the problem.

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

complexity theory
uncertainty modeling
combinatorial optimization
decision analysis
network flows


Energy optimisation of hybrid off-grid system for remote telecommunication base station deployment in Malaysia Cellular network operators are always seeking to increase the area of coverage of their networks, open up new markets and provide services to potential customers in remote rural areas. However, increased energy consumption, operator energy cost and the potential environmental impact of increased greenhouse gas emissions and the exhaustion of non-renewable energy resources (fossil fuel) pose major challenges to cellular network operators. The specific power supply needs for rural base stations (BSs) such as cost-effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and reliability can be satisfied by taking advantage of the technological advances in renewable energy. This study investigates the possibility of decreasing both operational expenditure (OPEX) and greenhouse gas emissions with guaranteed sustainability and reliability for rural BSs using a solar photovoltaic/diesel generator hybrid power system. Three key aspects have been investigated: (i) energy yield, (ii) economic factors and (iii) greenhouse gas emissions. The results showed major benefits for mobile operators in terms of both environmental conservation and OPEX reduction, with an average annual OPEX savings of 43% to 47% based on the characteristics of solar radiation exposure in Malaysia. Finally, the paper compares the feasibility of using the proposed approach in a four-season country and compares the results against results obtained in Malaysia, which is a country with a tropical climate.

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

mobile base station
energy efficiency
off-grid hybrid energy systems
cost-effectiveness
environmental impacts
homer


Novel Time and Frequency Synchronization Techniques for OFDM Systems in Double Selective Fading Channel OFDM receiver performance is affected by the time offset and the carrier frequency offset, as these two parameters have sever effect on the signal reception quality. In this paper, two novel schemes for time estimation (TE) and frequency estimation (FE) are proposed to overcome the time and carrier frequency offset problem, and therefore improve the performance of the OFDM reception. The proposed techniques are based on the fact that, using the correlation of constant amplitude zero auto correlation sequence with a unity peak to average power ratio gives a sharp time metric peak. The proposed timing symbol based on this fact introduces a TE technique that has a sharp peak at the correct time instant and no side lobes. In addition, the proposed FE technique is based on the same training symbol and it takes place in two steps. The first step is the fine FE technique, which depends on calculating the phase difference between the cyclic prefix and the preamble tail. It is referred to as fractional FE. The second step is the coarse offset FE and it is referred to as integer FE. The coarse offset FE is based on FFT and it has less mean square error than other methods.

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

frame synchronization
frequency offset compensation


Multiquadric collocation method with integral formulation for boundary layer problems Singularly perturbed boundary value problems often have solutions with very thin layers in which the solution changes rapidly. This paper concentrates on the case where theses layers occur near the boundary, although our method can be applied to problems with interior layers. One technique to deal with the increased resolution requirements in these layers is the use of domain transformations. A coordinate stretching based transform allows to move collocation points into the layer, a requirement to resolve the layer accurately. Previously, such transformations have been studied in the context of finite-difference and spectral collocation methods. In this paper, we use radial basis functions (RBFs) to solve the boundary value problem. Specifically, we present a collocation method based on multiquadric (MQ) functions with an integral formulation combined with a coordinate transformation. We find that our scheme is ultimately more accurate than a recently proposed adaptive MQ scheme. The RBF scheme is also amenable to adaptivity. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

multiquadric
integral formulation
boundary layer

boundary layer problems
high-order discretizations
spectral accuracy


Mining gene-sample-time microarray data: a coherent gene cluster discovery approach Extensive studies have shown that mining microarray data sets is important in bioinformatics research and biomedical applications. In this paper, we explore a novel type of gene-sample-time microarray data sets that records the expression levels of various genes under a set of samples during a series of time points. In particular, we propose the mining of coherent gene clusters from such data sets. Each cluster contains a subset of genes and a subset of samples such that the genes are coherent on the samples along the time series. The coherent gene clusters may identify the samples corresponding to some phenotypes (e.g., diseases), and suggest the candidate genes correlated to the phenotypes. We present two efficient algorithms, namely the Sample-Gene Search and the Gene-Sample Search, to mine the complete set of coherent gene clusters. We empirically evaluate the performance of our approaches on both a real microarray data set and synthetic data sets. The test results have shown that our approaches are both efficient and effective to find meaningful coherent gene clusters.

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


RIE lag in diffractive optical element etching In this study, the pattern of a 4 mm diameter diffractive optical element with linewidth ranging from 12 to 0.5 ?m was adopted. With the SiO2 layer as the etch hard mask, silicon was etched based on HBr chemistry with additions of O2 and SF6. The effects of O2 content on the sidewall anisotropy, etch rate, and etch selectivity over the SiO2 mask were also examined. The RIE lag, where etching of a small trench (hole) lags behind a large trench (hole), was investigated to produce an optimum aspect ratio for each zone of the diffractive optical element. The regression relation of the etch depth versus zone width was determined as a guideline for the feasibility of this method.

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

diffractive optical elements
anisotropic etching


matching attack patterns to security vulnerabilities in software-intensive system designs Fortifying software applications from attack is often an effort that occurs late in the software development process. Applying patches to fix vulnerable applications in the field is a common approach to securing applications. Abstract representations of attacks such as attack trees and attack nets can be used for identifying potential threats before a system is released. We have constructed attack patterns that can illuminate security vulnerabilities in a software-intensive system design. Matching our attack patterns to vulnerabilities in the design phase may stimulate security efforts to start early and to become integrated with the software process. The intent is that our attack patterns can be used to effectively encode software vulnerabilities in vulnerability databases. A case study of our approach with undergraduate students in a security course indicated that our attack patterns can provide general descriptions of vulnerabilities. The students were able to accurately map the patterns to vulnerabilities in a system design.

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


Beyond Skill Rating: Advanced Matchmaking in Ghost Recon Online Player satisfaction is particularly difficult to ensure in online games, due to interactions with other players. In adversarial multiplayer games, matchmaking typically consists in trying to match together players of similar skill level. However, this is usually based on a single-skill value, and assumes the only factor of "fun" is the game balance. We present a more advanced matchmaking strategy developed for Ghost Recon Online, an upcoming team-focused first-person shooter (FPS) from Ubisoft (Montreal, QC, Canada). We first show how incorporating more information about players than their raw skill can lead to more balanced matches. We also argue that balance is not the only factor that matters, and present a strategy to explicitly maximize the players' fun, taking advantage of a rich player profile that includes information about player behavior and personal preferences. Ultimately, our goal is to ask players to provide direct feedback on match quality through an in-game survey. However, because such data were not available for this study, we rely here on heuristics tailored to this specific game. Experiments on data collected during Ghost Recon Online's beta tests show that neural networks can effectively be used to predict both balance and player enjoyment.

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

game balance
matchmaking
neural networks
player satisfaction


Epidemic control in a hierarchical social network The phenomenon of epidemic spreading in a population with a hierarchical structure of interpersonal interactions is described and investigated numerically. The SIR model with incubation time is used. In our model the localization of individuals in different social groups, the effectiveness of different interpersonal interactions and the mobility of a contemporary community are taken into account. The influence of different control methods on the spreading process is investigated as a function of different initial conditions. The cost-effectiveness of mass preventive random vaccinations, target vaccinations and sick leaves are compared. A critical range of vaccinations, sufficient for suppressing of an epidemic is calculated. The results of numerical calculations are similar to the solutions of the master equation for the spreading process.

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


Enhancing Hardware Assisted Test Insertion Capabilities on Embedded Processors using an FPGA-based Agile Test Support Co-processor With software defects reducing profits in many fields, it is worthwhile to consider moving key defect reducing strategies from one development area into another. However, inadequate tool support has compromised attempts to transfer Agile methodologys successes from business systems to embedded system development. We outline the advantages of adding an Agile test support (ATS) co-processor to provide low overhead hardware-assisted test insertion capabilities into testing frameworks for test-first (Agile) and test-last hardware-software design philosophies. We propose the development of an ATS FPGA co-processor using an extension to the eXtreme Programming Inspired (XPI) embedded lifecycle. The performance of a prototype ATS co-processor is compared to the existing instruction watch (low overhead) and data watch (high overhead) debug hardware present on Analog Devices ADSP-BF5XX Blackfin processors.

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

test driven development (tdd)
extreme programming inspired (xpi)
automated test insertion
agile test support co-processor
agile embedded system development


A Sigma-Delta ADC design automation tool with embedded performance estimator A system-level design automation tool for designing discrete time, switched-capacitor, Sigma-Delta analog-to-digital converters is presented. The presented work utilizes a performance estimator based on EKV models. The design automation tool takes advantage of high level analytical single-bit and multibit models of the building blocks. With the contribution of the performance estimator module, the tool provides an extensive design environment for designing Sigma-Delta analog-to-digital converters. Developed models and their effects are presented with examples. Design examples for 0.5 and 0.35 ? m technologies are provided for proving the flexibility of the design automation tool.

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


Broadcasting info-pages to sensors: efficiency versus energy conservation In sensor networks applied to monitoring applications, individual sensors may perform preassigned or on-demand tasks, or missions. Data updates (info-pages) may be sent to sensors from a command center, via a time-division broadcast channel. Sensors are normally put in sleep mode when not actively listening, in order to conserve energy in their batteries. Hence, a schedule is required that specifies when sensors should listen for updates and when they should sleep. The performance of such a schedule is evaluated based on data-related costs and sensor-related costs. Data-related costs reflect the obsoleteness of current sensor data, or the delay while sensors wait for updated instructions. Sensor-related costs reflect the energy that sensors consume while accessing the broadcast channel and while switching between the active and sleeping modes (rebooting). Our goal is a schedule with the minimum total cost. Previous related work has explored data-related costs, but listening cost has been addressed only under the assumption that the rebooting operation is free. This paper formulates a new cost model, which recognizes the cost of sensor rebooting. We derive an optimal schedule for the single-sensor setting. We proceed to consider schedules of multiple sensors; we formulate a mathematical program to find an optimal fractional schedule for this setting and provide a solution to the lower bound. Several heuristics for scheduling multiple sensors are introduced and analyzed, and various tradeoffs among the cost factors are demonstrated.

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

scheduling
broadcasting
sensor networks
energy conservation


Acute Vestibular Neuritis: Prognosis Based upon Bedside Clinical Tests (Thrusts and Heaves) Abstract: We compared bedside tests of vestibulo-ocular function (head thrust and head heave signs) with caloric testing results in 68 patients with acute vestibular neuritis seen at onset and in follow-up for one year. The head thrust and head heave signs each were strong predictors of a decreased probability of recovery, and if both were present, there was a trend for a slower recovery and a further decrease in the probability of recovery. If the head thrust sign was absent, recovery was assured. Our results suggest that careful bedside testing of semicircular canal (head thrust maneuver) and otolith (head heave maneuver) function provides useful information for predicting prognosis in patients with acute vestibular neuritis.

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

acute vestibular neuritis
semicircular canal

vertigo
vestibulo-ocular reflex
otolith function


PARAMETERIZED 2-TUPLE LINGUISTIC MOST PREFERRED OWA OPERATORS AND THEIR APPLICATION IN DECISION MAKING The most preferred OWA (MP-OWA) operator is a new method to aggregate preference information with crisp numbers, whose weights are related with the frequency of the most preferred assessment to each criteria. However, people are usually not able to estimate their preference degrees with crisp number, since they have a vague knowledge about the preference assessment. In this paper, we propose a 2-tuple linguistic MP-OWA (LMP-OWA) operator. It is useful because it can be used to make decision with linguistic preference relations, and the weighting vector is not only connected to the maximum frequency of the assessment to the criteria, but also to the assessment values. Meanwhile, we introduce the parameterized 2-tuple LMP-OWA operator and the parameterized 2-tuple LMP-OWA operator with power function, which provide multiple aggregation results for decision makers to select. The paper ends up with an example of decision making with linguistic preference relations in movie recommender system.

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 B I O O O O O O B I

mp-owa operator
2-tuple linguistic representation model


An extensible simulation environment and movement metrics for testing walking behavior in agent-based models Human movement is a significant ingredient of many social, environmental, and technical systems, yet the importance of movement is often discounted in considering systems complexity. Movement is commonly abstracted in agent-based modeling (which is perhaps the methodological vehicle for modeling complex systems), despite the influence of movement upon information exchange and adaptation in a system. In particular, agent-based models of urban pedestrians often treat movement in proxy form at the expense of faithfully treating movement behavior with realistic agency. There exists little consensus about which method is appropriate for representing movement in agent-based schemes. In this paper, we examine popularly-used methods to drive movement in agent-based models, first by introducing a methodology that can flexibly handle many representations of movement at many different scales and second, introducing a suite of tools to benchmark agent movement between models and against real-world trajectory data. We find that most popular movement schemes do a relatively poor job of representing movement, but that some schemes may well be good enough for some applications. We also discuss potential avenues for improving the representation of movement in agent-based frameworks.

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

agent-based modeling
trajectory measurement


A Three-dimensional Stress Recovery Procedure for Composite Materials A three-dimensional stress recovery procedure is described in this paper. As usual, in the finite element method, we suppose to know a good approximation of the nodal values of the displacements; starting from the nodal displacements, we evaluate the strain components at Gauss points of a 27-node prismatic element, then the stress components at the same points. Stresses are finally projected to corner nodes with a smoothing procedure. The repeated application of such a procedure to a set of adjacent elements allows the construction of the stress field in a finite region of any deformed body. The proposed method finds its most natural application in the field of composite materials as shown in the numerical applications which reveal a good concordance of results with an equivalent three-dimensional finite element analysis.

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

three-dimensional stress recovery
layered beam


toward a more rational patent search paradigm Patent searching is an information retrieval specialty that operates under precise and stringent conditions, with different strategies and endpoints needed for different purposes. Specialized products for patent information have emphasized analytics and results presentation, while methods of selecting dependable results have not kept pace with burgeoning volume, complexity and media technology. Exceptional vocabulary, curious grammatical constructions, and regulatory and legal requirements inherent in patent information content have implications for keyword-based data retrieval and natural language algorithms. The need for caution in restricting large results sets may benefit from collateral rather than strict hierarchical query structure.

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

patent semantics
collateral serial search
search type
restriction


developing spatially-aware content management systems for dynamic, location-specific information in mobile environments Current location-aware information systems lack an effective method of maintaining and updating dynamic, location-specific content. We have developed a design for representing location-specific content that balances flexibility and comprehensibility. We have developed a web-based content management system that implements this design. The system provides an easy-to-use interface to tie any form of media-such as text, pictures, audio, or video-to a location.This work is directly applicable to various forms of location-aware systems, such as tourist information, campus guides, and vehicular on-board navigation. Our work enhances these systems by providing a greater range of content and a more dynamic information base than is currently available in extant systems. We describe how our design allows end-users to easily contribute spatial data to these systems, while simultaneously providing structure to their contributions. Mobile users, utilizing WLAN hotspots in common, real-world environments, can greatly benefit from and easily contribute to location-aware information systems driven by spatially-aware content management systems.

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

user-driven information systems
mobile computing
location-aware applications
context-aware services


Using simulated Terrestrial Laser Scanning to analyse errors in high-resolution scan data of irregular surfaces Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) is increasingly being used to collect mm-resolution surface data from a broad range of environments. When scanning complex surfaces, interactions between the surface topography, laser footprint and scanner precision can introduce errors into the point cloud. Quantification of these errors is, however, limited by the availability of independent measurement techniques. This research presents simulated TLS as a new approach to error quantification. Two sets of experiments are presented. The first set demonstrates that simulated TLS is able to reproduce real TLS data from a plane and a pebble. The second set uses simulated TLS to assess a methodology developed for the collection and processing of field TLS data. Simulated TLS data is collected from surfaces up to ?1m2 created from regular arrays of uniform spheres (sphere diameters of 10 to 100mm) and irregular arrays of mixed spheres (median sphere diameters of 16 to 94mm). These data were analysed to (i) assess the effectiveness of the processing methodology at removing erroneous points; (ii) quantify the magnitude of errors in a digital surface model (DSM) interpolated from the processed point cloud; and (iii) investigate the extent to which the interpolated DSMs retained the geometric properties of the original surfaces. The processing methodology was found to be effective, especially on data from coarser surfaces, with the retained points typically having an inter-quartile range (IQR) of point errors of ?2mm. DSM errors varied as a function of sphere size and packing, with DSM errors having an IQR of ?2mm for the regular surfaces and ?4mm for the irregular surfaces. Finally, whilst in the finer surfaces point and DSM errors were a substantial proportion of the sphere diameters, geometrical analysis indicated that the DSMs still reproduced properties of the original surface such as semivariance and some percentiles of the surface elevation distribution.

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 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 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


A State Task Network model for scheduling operations in cascaded continuous processing units The paper proposes a mathematical model based on State Task Network representation for generating optimal schedule for a sequence of n continuous processing units responsible for processing in products. Each product line has fixed capacity storage tanks before and after every unit. Each unit can process only one product line at any point of time. However, the inputs for all the product lines arrive simultaneously at the input side of the first unit, thus giving rise to the possibility of spillage. There can be multiple intermediate upliftments of the finished products. An optimal schedule Of the units attempts to balance among spillage, changeover and upliftment failures. The paper develops an MINLP model for the problem. The model has been linearized using standard linearization techniques and the resulting MILP model can Output, in reasonable time, optimal schedule for 2 weeks for a 3-unit 3-product scenario encountered by the authors. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

scheduling
linearization
state task network

mixed integer optimization
continuous chemical process


Designing interfaces for explicit preference elicitation: a user-centered investigation of preference representation and elicitation process Two problems may arise when an intelligent (recommender) system elicits users' preferences. First, there may be a mismatch between the quantitative preference representations in most preference models and the users' mental preference models. Giving exact numbers, e.g., such as "I like 30 days of vacation 2.5 times better than 28 days" is difficult for people. Second, the elicitation process can greatly influence the acquired model (e.g., people may prefer different options based on whether a choice is represented as a loss or gain). We explored these issues in three studies. In the first experiment we presented users with different preference elicitation methods and found that cognitively less demanding methods were perceived low in effort and high in liking. However, for methods enabling users to be more expressive, the perceived effort was not an indicator of how much the methods were liked. We thus hypothesized that users are willing to spend more effort if the feedback mechanism enables them to be more expressive. We examined this hypothesis in two follow-up studies. In the second experiment, we explored the trade-off between giving detailed preference feedback and effort. We found that familiarity with and opinion about an item are important factors mediating this trade-off. Additionally, affective feedback was preferred over a finer grained one-dimensional rating scale for giving additional detail. In the third study, we explored the influence of the interface on the elicitation process in a participatory set-up. People considered it helpful to be able to explore the link between their interests, preferences and the desirability of outcomes. We also confirmed that people do not want to spend additional effort in cases where it seemed unnecessary. Based on the findings, we propose four design guidelines to foster interface design of preference elicitation from a user view.

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


Knowledge-based biomedical word sense disambiguation: an evaluation and application to clinical document classification Background Word sense disambiguation (WSD) methods automatically assign an unambiguous concept to an ambiguous term based on context, and are important to many text-processing tasks. In this study we developed and evaluated a knowledge-based WSD method that uses semantic similarity measures derived from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) and evaluated the contribution of WSD to clinical text classification. Methods We evaluated our system on biomedical WSD datasets and determined the contribution of our WSD system to clinical document classification on the 2007 Computational Medicine Challenge corpus. Results Our system compared favorably with other knowledge-based methods. Machine learning classifiers trained on disambiguated concepts significantly outperformed those trained using all concepts. Conclusions We developed a WSD system that achieves high disambiguation accuracy on standard biomedical WSD datasets and showed that our WSD system improves clinical document classification. Data sharing We integrated our WSD system with MetaMap and the clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System, two popular biomedical natural language processing systems. All codes required to reproduce our results and all tools developed as part of this study are released as open source, available under .

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

word sense disambiguation
semantic similarity
natural language processing


Sensor9k : A testbed for designing and experimenting with WSN-based ambient intelligence applications Ambient Intelligence systems are typically characterized by the use of pervasive equipment for monitoring and modifying the environment according to users needs, and to globally defined constraints. Our work describes the implementation of a testbed providing the hardware and software tools for the development and management of AmI applications based on wireless sensor and actuator networks, whose main goal is energy saving for global sustainability. A sample application is presented that addresses temperature control in a work environment, through a multi-objective fuzzy controller taking into account users preferences and energy consumption.

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

wireless sensor and actuator networks
ambient intelligence

probabilistic reasoning
energy efficiency


A study of the backup reprovisioning problem for FIPP p-cycles on WDM networks As networks grow in size and complexity, both the probability and the impact of failures increase. The pre-allocated backup bandwidth cannot provide 100% protection guarantee when multiple failures occur in a network. In this article, we focus on how to recover the protecting capabilities of FIPP (Failure-independent path-protecting) p-cycles against the subsequent links failure on WDM networks, after recovering the working paths affected by the failure of link. Two recovering policies are designed to recover the protecting capabilities of the FIPP p-cycles if possible, unless there is no sufficient network resource. They are Cycle Recovery Policy and Path Recovery Policy. In addition, a Cycle Adjust algorithm is proposed and used to recover the affected cycles. The simulation results of the proposed methods are also given.

O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 survey of fuzzy implication algebras and their axiomatization ? Fuzzy implication algebras are important in fuzzy logic. Studies on FI-algebras are reviewed. Axiomatization of FI-algebras and their important subclasses are shown. The relationships between FI-algebras and other fuzzy algebras are discussed.

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

non-classical logics
fuzzy implication algebra
regular fuzzy implication algebra
heyting type fuzzy implication algebras
pfi-algebra
bck-algebra


Engineering a New Algorithm for Distributed Shortest Paths on Dynamic Networks We study the problem of dynamically updating all-pairs shortest paths in a distributed network while edge update operations occur to the network. We consider the practical case of a dynamic network in which an edge update can occur while one or more other edge updates are under processing. A node of the network might be affected by a subset of these changes, thus being involved in the concurrent executions related to such changes.

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 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 networks
dynamic algorithms
concurrent update
experimental analysis


Explicit substitution - On the edge of strong normalization We use the recursive path ordering (RPO) technique of semantic labelling to show the preservation of strong normalization (PSN) property for several calculi of explicit substitution. PSN states that if a term M is strongly normalizing under ordinary beta-reduction (using 'global' substitutions), then it is strongly normalizing if the substitution is made explicit ('local'). There are different ways of making global substitution explicit and PSN is a quite natural and desirable property for the explicit substitution calculus. Our method for proving PSN is very general and applies to several known systems of explicit substitutions, both with named variables and with De Bruijn indices: lambda v of Lescanne et al., lambda s of Kamareddine and Rios and lambda x of Rose and Bloo. We also look at two small extensions of the explicit substitution calculus that allow to permute substitutions. For one of these extensions PSN fails (using the counterexample in Mellies 1995). For the other we can prove PSN using our method, thus showing the subtlety of the subject and the generality of our method. One of the key ideas behind our proof is that, for lambda x the set of terms of the explicit substitution calculus, we look at the set lambda x( (rpo) on labelled terms, such that any infinite lambda x-reduction path starting from an A is an element of lambda x( (rpo)-descending sequence. The well-founded order >(rpo) is defined by using a technique similar to semantic labelling. (C) 1999-Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A Perception Correlated Comparison Method for Dynamic Meshes There are multiple areas of computer graphics where triangular meshes are being altered in order to reduce their size or complexity, while attempting to preserve the original shape of the mesh as closely as possible. Recently, this area of research has been extended to cover even a dynamic case, i.e., surface animations which are compressed and simplified. However, to date very little effort has been made to develop methods for evaluating the results, namely the amount of distortion introduced by the processing. Even the most sophisticated compression methods use distortion evaluation by some kind of mean squared error while the actual relevance of such measure has not been verified so far. In this paper, we point out some serious drawbacks of the existing error measures. We present results of the subjective testing that we have performed, and we derive a new measure called Spatiotemporal edge difference (STED) which is shown to provide much better correlation with subjective opinions on mesh distortion.

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


Analysis of a model of two overflow traffic components with different serving intensities This paper seeks to provide the analysis of a model of two overflow traffic components that originated from several Poisson traffics served by a common primary trunk group. Overflow parts of two of them are served in a secondary trunk group, but with changed and different serving intensities. The general solution of the system was obtained by generating function techniques, and call losses, time losses and traffic losses were defined based on state probability and solved numerically. In order to illustrate specific characteristics of the analyzed model, loss values were compared with the losses in a corresponding system with averaged serving intensity for which there is a much simpler explicit solution.

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

overflow traffic
different serving intensities
generating function techniques
losses


authoring transformations by direct manipulation for adaptable multimedia presentations In this paper, we present a method for authoring generic and adaptable multimedia presentations. This method relies on document transformations. For the currently available tools, designing the XML content and the transformation sheets is a tedious and error prone experience. We propose a framework based on an incremental transformation process. Incremental transformation processors represent a better alternative to help in the design of both the content and the transformation sheets. We believe that such authoring tools are a first step toward fully interactive transformation-based authoring environments. In this paper, we focus on the authoring of transformation sheets by direct manipulation. In particular, we study the authoring of transformations for the XSLT language defined at the World Wide Web Consortium.

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

document model
incremental transformations


Business processes oriented heterogeneous systems integration platform for networked enterprises Supply chains, dynamic alliances, e-business, extended enterprises, and virtual organizations are typical networked enterprises which are formed based on partner companies' core competencies. Different partners have different infrastructures: the interoperability among heterogeneous systems is the solid foundation for the networked enterprise to work seamlessly and effectively. Due to the distributed and heterogeneous characteristics of different partner companies, it is a big challenge to implement a satisfying and cost effective solution in the networked enterprise. Aiming at the problems of system integration and cross-system interoperability, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides a new integration pattern and relative system infrastructure. The key for the development and implementation of SOA is services encapsulation and orchestration of applications through certain mechanism to operate a complex business. However, cross infrastructures services access protection and relative services orchestration are still the bottleneck for the SOA implementation. This paper develops a business processes oriented heterogeneous systems integration platform with relative methodology for networked enterprises integration. The platform is a space distributed and management centralized platform for networked enterprises. The service access agent (SAA) mechanism is developed to realize cross-domains identity authentication, service authorization, and information transmission security. Every Web service or SAA in the platform has a unique ID. The interoperating process only relies on IDs, which endows the platform with a loose coupling feature. Aiming at service orchestration, a graphic service process modelling method is developed, with which the developed process model can link atom Web services and form a complex service. The Java based service orchestration tool provides an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) independent service orchestration and deployment. Those services that are results of orchestration can be orchestrated as an atom service in another orchestrating process. Thus, the platform can support orchestration decomposition. The structure approach of the business process modelling based platform implementation is developed, which provides a guideline for platform installation, services modelling, service encapsulation, service orchestration, and service deployment. Two cases are provided to illustrate the usage of the platform in industries. The development of this platform is an open source project. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

system integration
business process
integration platform
networked enterprise


An extended method of time-dependent fundamental solutions for inhomogeneous heat conduction In this paper, the method of time-dependent fundamental solutions is extended to solving transient heat conduction problems in inhomogeneous media. The solution of the problem under investigation is split into two parts, namely the particular and homogenous solutions. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in that an approximation of the particular solution is derived by using the fundamental solutions of the associated eigenvalue equations. Numerical results for one- and two-dimensional geometries are presented to verify the efficacy of the proposed method. The effects of the numbers of source and collocation points, the eigenvalues and the parameter T on the accuracy of the numerical solution are also investigated.

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

transient heat conduction
inhomogeneous heat conduction


teaching inheritance concepts with java In teaching object-oriented programming, teaching inheritance is the most challenging and at the same time the most crucial aspect. The interplay of dynamic binding, late-bound self-reference, subtype polymorphism and method redefinition is so complex that it is difficult for instructors to design a gentle, step-by-step introduction. Should polymorphism be introduced first? Or is code reuse better suited as an introductory motivation? The Java Programming Language adds a further aspect to this discussion: when should named interfaces be introduced? Most textbooks follow the historical development of the mechanism and cover interfaces after the discussion of abstract classes. In this paper a different approach is described: interfaces are introduced long before and in isolation from inheritance; and the discussion of inheritance is explicitly split into its two major constituents, namely subtype polymorphism and implementation inheritance. We applied this novel approach in the two introductory courses on software development (SD1 and SD2) in the newly created Bachelor of Science in Informatics curriculum at the University of Hamburg, Germany. This experience report reflects on the design rationale behind this new approach.

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


Multisymplecticity of the centred box scheme for a class of Hamiltonian PDEs and an application to quasi-periodically solitary waves y=Abstract-In this paper, the multisymplectic integrator for a class of Hamiltonian PDEs depending explicitly on time and spatial variables (nonautonomous Hamiltonian PDEs) is defined, and the multisymplecticity of the centred box scheme for this kind of Hamiltonian PDEs is proven. We give an application of the result to (periodic) quasi-periodic variable coefficient Korteweg-de Vries (qpKdV) equation, which is known to have a physical application in the propagation of surface waves in straits or channels with quasi-periodic varying depth and width in the time direction. We derive a multisymplectic scheme for a qpKdV equation in terms of the multisymplecticity of the centred box scheme, then make use of it to simulate numerically the (periodically) quasi-periodically solitary wave of the equation. Numerical experiments are presented in illustration of the multisymplectic scheme of qpKdV equation stemming the centred box discretization. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

multisymplecticity
centred box scheme
hamiltonian pdes
nonautonomous

quasi-periodic kdv equation
quasi-periodically solitary wave


Robust learning with infinite additional information The present work investigates Gold-style algorithmic learning from input-output examples where the learner has access to oracles as additional information. This access is required to be robust in the sense that a single learning algorithm has to succeed with every oracle which meets a given specification. The first main result considers oracles of the same Turing degree: Robust learning with any oracle from a given degree does not achieve more than learning without any additional information. The further work considers learning from function oracles which describe the whole class of functions to be learned in one of the following five ways: as a list of all functions in this class, a predictor for this class, a one-sided classifier accepting just the functions in this class, an identifier for the class or a martingale succeeding on this class. It is shown that for learning in the limit (Ex), lists are the most powerful additional information, the powers of predictors and classifiers are incomparable and identifiers and martingales are of no help at all. Similar results are obtained for the criteria of predicting the next value, finite, Popperian and finite Popperian learning. Lists are omniscient for the criterion of predicting the next value and also identifiers ate helpful at this criterion. So it turns out that algorithms to predict the next value can much better exploit robustly oracles than algorithms which give explanations (Ex-learning). For Ex-learning none of these five types of help is omniscient, that is, some classes cannot be Ex-learned with any of these types of additional information. The class REC of all recursive functions is Ex-learnable with the help of a list, a predictor or a classifier. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

inductive inference
learning of recursive functions
robust access to oracles
transactions between learning models


Identification of a constitutive model for the simulation of time-dependent interlaminar debonding processes in composites ? Time-dependent interlaminar debonding processes in polymer-based laminates are studied in this paper. A viscoplastic constitutive law is introduced to model the behaviour of the resin-enriched interfaces between adjacent plies; details concerning the formulation and the finite element implementation of the interface law are given. To calibrate the model, namely to identify model parameters, a fully numerical approach is proposed: this approach is centred on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and on an approximate methodology to compute the sensitivity of the structural response to model parameters. First, results are presented concerning parameter identification at the constitutive level; at this stage numerical results are compared with pseudo-experimental data in order to assess the capability of the proposed approach to identify each model parameter that affects the nonlinear branch of the interface behaviour. Hence, results of the identification procedure for finite element simulations of delamination growth in standard tests are discussed.

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

delamination
parameter identification
kalman filter


Determining membership with 2 simultaneous queries Alice and Bob are playing a cooperative game in which Alice must devise a scheme to store n elements in an array from a universe U of size m . Her goal is to store in such a way that for every x?U x ? U Bob can observe the values of two positions (dependent on x) in the array and determine whether x is in the array or not. Alice may share her storage scheme with Bob and they win if such an arrangement is made. The question is how large can the universe U be in terms of n so that Alice and Bob can win? In this paper we give upper and lower bounds on this question for general n and the special case when n=3 n = 3 . We also pose conjectures and further questions for research.

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

searching
sorting
information retrieval
cell-probe


Projected event-capturing time-stepping schemes for nonsmooth mechanical systems with unilateral contact and Coulombs friction This work addresses the problem of the numerical time-integration of nonsmooth mechanical systems subjected to unilateral contacts, impacts and Coulombs friction. The considered systems are the space-discretized continuous systems obtained by using a Finite Element Method (FEM) approach or the multi-body systems, or a mix of them as in flexible multibody dynamics. Up to now, two main numerical schemes are available for this purpose: the MoreauJean scheme which solves the constraints at the velocity level together with a Newton impact law and the SchatzmanPaoli scheme which directly considers the constraints at the position level. In both schemes, the position and velocity constraints are not both satisfied in discrete time. A first attempt to improve the time simulation is made by directly using the GearGuptaLeimkuhler (GGL) approach for Differential Algebraic Equations (DAE), that solves, in discrete time, the constraints on both position and velocity levels. This obtained direct projection scheme succeeds in solving in discrete time both position and velocity constraints, but introduces some chattering at contact after a finite accumulation of impacts. A second new scheme is proposed that improves the direct projected scheme by combining several steps of activation and projection to avoid the chattering effect. The stability and the local order of the scheme will be discussed. The usefulness of the scheme is demonstrated on several academic examples and is illustrated on an industrial application: the modeling and simulation of an electrical circuit breaker.

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

flexible multibody dynamics
unilateral contact
impact
coulombs friction

computational contact mechanics
gearguptaleimkuhler (ggl) technique


Fast realization of root MUSIC using multi-taper real polynomial rooting ? Efficient implementation of root music using real polynomial rooting is developed. 2N?2 groups of low order real polynomial are used for determining DOA. Polynomial coefficients are computed by the multi-taper FFT.

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


visual web mining Analysis of web site usage data involves two significant challenges: firstly the volume of data, arising from the growth of the web, and secondly, the structural complexity of web sites. In this paper we apply Data Mining and Information Visualization techniques to the web domain in order to benefit from the power of both human visual perception and computing we term this Visual Web Mining. In response to the two challenges, we propose a generic framework, where we apply Data Mining techniques to large web data sets and use Information Visualization methods on the results. The goal is to correlate the outcomes of mining Web Usage Logs and the extracted Web Structure by visually superimposing the results. We design several new information visualization diagrams.

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

frequent access patterns
visual data exploration
web usage mining


Notes on Implicit finite difference approximation for time fractional diffusion equations [Comput. Math. Appl. 56 (2008) 11381145] ? In a recent paper [Diego A. Murio, Implicit finite difference approximation for time fractional diffusion equations, Comput. Math. Appl. 56 (2008) 11381145], the author has proposed an unconditional stable implicit difference scheme for solving time fractional diffusion equations. In this paper, we show that the method of stability analysis by the author is not accurate, so we analyze the stability by using a correct method.

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

finite difference approximation
time fractional diffusion

implicit method
fractional differentiation
unconditional stability


an ant colony optimization approach to the multiple-choice multidimensional knapsack problem In this paper, we present an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach to solve the multiple-choice multidimensional knapsack problem (MMKP). This problem concerns many real life problems, and is hard to solve due to its strong constraints and NP-hard property. The ACO approach given in this paper follows the algorithmic scheme of max-min ant system, but has some new features with respect to the characteristics of the MMKP. First, a single-group-oriented solution construction method is proposed, which allows ants to generate solutions efficiently. Second, some Lagrangian dual information obtained from a Lagrangian relaxation of MMKP is integrated into ACO. In addition, we develop a novel repair operator, with which the possible infeasible solutions generated by ants can be fixed. The proposed approach has been tested on a number of MMKP instances. Computational results show that it is able to produce competitive solutions in comparison with existing algorithms.

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

ant colony optimization
lagrangian relaxation


A printing technology combining screen-printing with a wet-etching process for the gate electrodes of organic thin film transistors on a plastic substrate We have developed a practical printing technology for the gate electrode of organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) by combining screen-printing with a wet-etching process using nano-silver (Ag) ink as a conducting material. An Ag film was deposited onto a PVP (polyvinylphenol)-coated PC (polycarbonate) plastic substrate by screen-printing with nano-Ag ink, where Ag content of 20wt.% was mixed using a terpineol solvent. Subsequently, the film was cured at 200C for 60min, and then finally wet-etched through patterned positive photo-resist masks. The screen-printed Ag electrode exhibited a minimum line width of ?5?m, a thickness of ?65nm, and a resistivity of ?10?6?cm, producing good geometrical and electrical characteristics for a gate electrode. Additionally, it also provided good step coverage with the PVP dielectric layer, and consequently leakage current between the gate and source/drain electrodes was eliminated. Moreover, the electrical characteristic of the screen-printed Ag electrode was not significantly changed even after a bending test in which the Ag electrodes were bent with a bending radius of 6mm and 2500 iterations of cyclic bending. OTFTs with the screen-printed Ag electrode produced a saturation mobility of 0.13cm2/Vs and a current on/off ratio of 1.79106, being comparable to those of an OTFT with a thermally evaporated Al gate electrode.

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

organic thin film transistor (otft)
screen-printing
wet-etching
nano-silver ink


Viruses and Diabetes Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is a multifactorial disease. Besides a genetic predisposition environmental factors have been implicated in the pathogenesis of ? cell destruction. Among these environmental factors viruses have been the focus of many studies. Some viruses are diabetogenic in animals, and others have been implicated as triggers in human IDDM by temporal and geographical association between IDDM and viral infections, serological evidence of infection in recently diagnosed diabetic patients, and the isolation of viruses from the pancreas of affected individuals. We discuss possible pathomechanisms of viral infections in ? cell destruction and review the studies on involvement of enteroviruses, retroviruses, rubella viruses, cytomegaloviruses, and Epstein-Barr viruses in human IDDM. We also report on studies of diabetogenic viruses in animal models as well as on viral infections protecting from IDDM. Some of the difficulties in linking viral infections to IDDM will be illustrated with data from a transgenic mouse model in which IDDM can be precipitated by infections with certain strains of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV). Emerging treatment concepts that do not rely on defining the initiating autoantigens but involve self-reactive regulatory lymphocytes such as oral antigen administration, as well as DNA vaccines, will be discussed briefly.

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

viral infection
enterovirus
coxsackie virus
retrovirus
rubella virus
cytomegalovirus
epstein-barr virus
regulatory t-cells
oral tolerance


Per-spectral and adjacency spectral characterizations of a complete graph removing six edges ? Cmara and Haemers (2014) investigated when a complete graph with some edges deleted is determined by its adjacency spectrum (DAS for short). They claimed: for any m?6 m ? 6 and every large enough n n one can obtain graphs which are not DAS by removing m m edges from a complete graph Kn K n . Let Gn G n denote the set of all graphs obtained from a complete graph Kn K n by deleting six edges. In this paper, we show that all graphs in Gn G n are uniquely determined by their permanental spectra. However, we show that for each n?7 n ? 7 or n=5 n = 5 there is just one pair of nonisomorphic cospectral graphs in Gn G n , and for n=4 n = 4 or 6 all graphs in Gn G n are DAS.

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

characteristic polynomial
permanental polynomial
permanental spectrum


Multivariate normalized Powell-Sabin B-splines and quasi-interpolants We present the construction of a multivariate normalized B-spline basis for the quadratic C-1-continuous spline space defined over a triangulation in R-s (s >= 1) with a generalized Powell-Sabin refinement. The basis functions have a local support, they are nonnegative, and they form a partition of unity. The construction can be interpreted geometrically as the determination of a set of s-simplices that must contain a specific set of points. We also propose a family of quasi-interpolants based on this multivariate Powell-Sabin B-spline representation. Their spline coefficients only depend on a set of local function values. The multivariate quasi-interpolants reproduce quadratic polynomials and have an optimal approximation order. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

multivariate powell-sabin splines
normalized quadratic b-splines
quasi-interpolation
spline approximation


Static consistency checking of web applications with WebDSL Modern web application development frameworks provide web application developers with high-level abstractions to improve their productivity. However, their support for static verification of applications is limited. Inconsistencies in an application are often not detected statically, but appear as errors at run-time. The reports about these errors are often obscure and hard to trace back to the source of the inconsistency. A major part of this inadequate consistency checking can be traced back to the lack of linguistic integration of these frameworks. Parts of an application are defined with separate domain-specific languages, which are not checked for consistency with the rest of the application. Examples include regular expressions, query languages and XML-based languages for definition of user interfaces. We give an overview and analysis of typical problems arising in development with frameworks for web application development, with Ruby on Rails, Lift and Seam as representatives. To remedy these problems, in this paper, we argue that domain-specific languages should be designed from the ground up with static verification and cross-aspect consistency checking in mind, providing linguistic integration of domain-specific sub-languages. We show how this approach is applied in the design of WebDSL, a domain-specific language for web applications, by examining how its compiler detects inconsistencies not caught by web frameworks, providing accurate and clear error messages. Furthermore, we show how this consistency analysis can be expressed with a declarative rule-based approach using the Stratego transformation language. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

web application development
linguistic integration
consistency checking
verification

domain-specific language
static analysis


Classification of 10m-resolution SPOT data using a combined Bayesian Network Classifier-shape adaptive neighborhood method A hybrid inversion method that combines a Bayesian Network Classifier (BNC) with shape adaptive neighborhoods (SANs) is proposed for the classification of 10-m resolution remote sensing images. BNC uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) to describe variable relationships. We define feature bands and land use/cover types as the feature and class variables, respectively, and describe them as nodes in the DAG. BNC only uses the posterior probability of the class node, and predicts the class with the highest posterior probability. A SAN, containing spectral, textural, and shape features, is used to study the Bayesian network structure, in contrast to methods which only use spectral features. The classification results of the proposed SAN-BNC are compared with those of the spectral-based Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC), the SAN-based MLC, and the SAN-based Support Vector Machine (SVM) using Guangzhou as a case study. Our results show that BNC and SVM have superior inference abilities relative to MLC. Ten meter resolution images will furnish better classification results using the proposed SAN-BNC procedure.

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

bayesian network classifier
maximum likelihood classifier
remote sensing
classification

shape adaptive neighborhood
fisher optimal division


An unexpected meeting of four seemingly unrelated problems: graph testing, DNA complex screening, superimposed codes and secure key distribution This paper discusses the relation among four problems: graph testing, DNA complex screening, superimposed codes and secure key distribution. We prove a surprising equivalence relation among these four problems, and use this equivalence to improve current results on graph testing. In the rest of this paper, we give a lower bound for the minimum number of tests on DNA complex screening model.

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


Heuristic approaches for the optimal wiring in large scale robotic skin design This paper faces the problem of optimizing the wiring and the connections in a tactile skin for robots. The robotic skin is a device composed of a network of tactile sensors, whose wiring can be very complex: the control of this complexity is a key problem. In the considered robotic skin, skin elements are grouped into skin patches, which output tactile data that have to be read by a micro-controller. The logical connections between the sensors must be defined in order to route signals through the network. A finite set of micro-controllers is given and a set of constraints is imposed on the given assignment and routing. The considered problem has a combinatorial nature and it can be formulated as a Minimum Constrained Spanning Forest problem with costs on arcs that cannot be a priori defined as they are solution-dependent. The problem is NP-hard. The paper introduces a mathematical formulation and then proposes a Multi-Start Heuristic algorithm and an Ant Colony Optimization approach whose effectiveness is evaluated through experimental tests performed on both real and synthetically generated instances.

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 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

robotic skin design
constrained spanning forest


Stereo-PIV measurement of turbulence characteristics in a flow mixer Three-component, turbulent flow measurements are performed using stereo PIV technique, in a cylindrical, stirred, water-flow mixer, with commercially available HR-100 as the impeller, which has three identical blades, separated by 120 with each other. The flow is analyzed at twelve axisymmetric, vertical planes, with the regular angular interval of 10, so that the 12 planes cover the whole 120 separation between any two of the impeller blades. The results show that the turbulence mixing below the impeller is much higher than that above it, as the bulk fluid motion convects down the turbulence produced at the bladewater interfaces. Moreover, vortices with high level of turbulence, overwhelmingly dominated by the tangential velocity fluctuations, are created near the tips of the blades and convected downward, with their turbulence gradually dissipating with time. When these vortices are connected throughout the domain, they constitute three disconnected, helical arcs, each of which is connected to the tip of a blade and extends downward in the opposite direction to the rotation of the impeller. The arcs rotate with the same angular velocity of the impeller. The mean velocity and turbulence statistics of the flow are discussed at each of the alternate measurement planes.

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


Hospital information systemsPast, present, future ? This article about the state of the art of hospital information systems and about future directions was written in 1984 by the late Peter Reichertz. It now serves as a companion paper to a paper with the same title, written by Reinhold Haux 20 years later (this issue). In that paper Reinhold Haux starts where Peter Reichertz ended. The original text of Peter Reichertz has been retyped and the figures redrawn. Possible errors may have resulted from this process.

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


Geometrically local isotropic independence and numerical analysis of the Mahalanobis metric in vector space The Mahalanobis metric was proposed by extending the Mahalanobis distance to provide a probabilistic distance for a non-normal distribution. The Mahalanobis metric equation is a nonlinear second order differential equation derived from the geometrically local isotropic independence equation, which was proposed to define normal distributions in a manifold. We explain the equations and show experimental results of calculating the Mahalanobis metric by the NewtonRaphson method. We add error to an original probability density function and calculate the Mahalanobis metric to investigate the effect on the solution of error in a probability density function. This paper is an extended version of numerical analysis of Mahalanobis metric in vector space (Track 2 IBM Best Student Paper Award in ICPR08; Son, J., Inoue, N., Yamashita, Y., 2008. Numerical analysis of Mahalanobis metric in vector space. In: Proc. 19th Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition (CDROM)).

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


requirements for the design of a handwriting recognition based writing interface for children This paper describes how the design of a novel writing interface for children was informed by requirements gathering. The derivation of a set of system requirements from observations of children using early prototypes of the interface and from modelling the system is described, and then two methods of gathering further requirements by surveying children are outlined. The relative advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. The children were not able to contribute to the full range of requirements necessary for a complete system, but they contributed fun requirements that the observational work failed to identify. A model of the child's relationship to interactive systems is used to discuss why this is the case.

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

children
requirements
handwriting recognition
design


Enhanced PLL based SRF control method for UPQC with fault protection under unbalanced load conditions SRF, EPLL based SRF control strategy used in SAF, PAF for generating references. Sine PWM, modulated hysteresis current control technique is used for gate pulse generation for UPQC. A primary bypass breaker is placed in the primary side to give protection to primary windings. A protection circuit is connected across the series transformer to protect the secondary of series transformer. Experimental results obtained from a model of 1.5kVA, along with a theoretical analysis.

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

modulated hysteresis current controller
power quality


"Follow the Sun" Workflow in Global Software Development Follow the sun (FTS) has interesting appeal-hand off work at the end of every day from one site to the next, many time zones away, in order to speed up product development. Although the potential effect on "time to market" can be profound, at least conceptually, FTS has enjoyed few documented industry successes because it is acknowledged to be extremely difficult to implement. In order to address this "FTS challenge," we provide here a conceptual foundation and formal definition of FTS. We then analyze the conditions under which FT'S can be successful in reducing duration in software development. We show that handoff efficiency is paramount to successful FTS practices and that duration can be reduced only when lower within-site coordination and improved personal productivity outweigh the corresponding increase in cross-site coordination. We also develop 12 research propositions based on fundamental issues surrounding FTS, such as calendar efficiency, development method, product architecture and handoff efficiency, within-site coordination, cross-site coordination, and personal productivity. We combine the conceptual analysis with a description of our FTS exploratory comparative field studies and draw out their key findings and learning. The main implication of this paper is that understanding calendar efficiency, handoff efficiency, within-site coordination, and cross-site coordination is necessary to evaluation-if FTS is to be successful in reducing software development duration.

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

calendar-efficient software development
global coordination
round-the-clock development
software handoff efficiency
24-hour development


The role of Internet service providers in cases of child pornography and child prostitution Over the last two decades, the victimization of children via the Internet and the protection of those children have become a major focus of attention for parents and the criminal justice system as a whole. When President Clinton signed the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998, new responsibilities to aid in the fight against child victimization were placed upon all US electronic communication services and remote computing service providers. Specifically, as stated in Title X (Sec. 604) of the Act, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must report to law enforcement any knowledge of facts or circumstances from which a violation of specified offenses involving child victimization or child pornography is apparent. This new level of responsibility has placed much media attention on the ISPs and their abilities to aid law enforcement in their efforts against child abuse. This study was an attempt to explore the partnership between ISPs and US law enforcement, and to identify the extent to which specific crimes of child pomography and child prostitution are reported to law enforcement by those service providers. Results of this study suggested that the majority of the law enforcement agencies utilized in this study did not report any cases of child abuse referred to them through ISPs and in those cases that were reported to law enforcement, the overwhelming majority were cases of child pornography.

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

child abuse
child pornography
child prostitution
law enforcement


object projection views in the dynamic relational model User views in a relational database obtained through a single projection ("projection views") are considered in a new framework. Specifically, such views where each tuple in the view represents an object ("object projection views") are studied using the dynamic relational model of [V1,V2], which captures the evolution of the database through consecutive updates. Attribute sets which yield object projection views are characterized using the static and dynamic functional dependencies satisfied by the database. Object projection views are then described using the static and dynamic fd's "inherited" from the original database, and the notion of age-closure [V1]. Finally, the impact of dynamic constraints on the view update problem is studied in a limited context. The paper demonstrates that new, useful information about views can be obtained by looking at the evolution of the database as captured by the dynamic relational model.

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

yield framework views dynamic evolution context object paper model database user update

project
attributes
relation
functional dependency
constraint
informal
relational database
age


Self-configuration of network services with biologically inspired learning and adaptation This paper proposes a self-organizing scheme based on ant metaheuristics to optimize the operation of multiple classes of managed elements on an Operations Support Systems (OSSs) for mobile pervasive communications. Ant metaheuristics are characterized by learning and adaptation capabilities against dynamic environment changes and uncertainties. As an important division of swarm agent intelligence, it distinguishes itself from centralized management schemes due to its features of robustness and scalability. We have successfully applied ant metaheuristics to the network service configuration process, which is simply redefined as: the managed elements represented as graphic nodes, and ants traverse by selecting nodes with the minimum cost constraints until the eligible network elements are located along near-optimal paths-the located elements are those needed for the configuration or activation of a particular product and service. Although the configuration process is non-transparent to end users, the negotiated SLAs between users and providers affect the overall process. This proposed self-organized learning and adaptation scheme using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is evaluated by simulation in Java. A performance comparison is also made with a class of Genetic Algorithm known as PBIL. Finally, the simulation results show the scalability and robustness capability of autonomous ant-like agents able to adapt to dynamic networks.

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

ant colony optimization (aco)
genetic algorithm (ga)
operations support systems (osss)
quality of service (qos)
pervasive computing environment (pce)
autonomic


Boosting Na?ve Bayes text classification using uncertainty-based selective sampling This paper presents adaptive boosting with uncertainty-based selective sampling (AdaBUS), a variant of the AdaBoost algorithm for boosting the Na?ve Bayes (NB) text classification. Although the boosting technique has been shown to effectively improve the accuracy of machine-learning-based classifiers, boosting does not work well with NB text classification owing to the low variance in the accuracy of its base classifier. In this study, we propose boosting the NB text classifier by combining the AdaBoost boosting algorithm with uncertainty-based selective sampling. Experiments using the popular Reuters-21578 document collection showed that the proposed algorithm effectively improves classification accuracy.

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

machine learning
na?ve bayes learning
active learning
uncertainty


Price determination for an EOQ model for deteriorating items under perfect competition The problem of price determination for an EOQ model under perfect competition is of central importance in the field of inventory control and management, especially for such kind of models which study the dynamics of the market economy over time. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze and compute the price of a unit item of inventory for an EOQ model for deteriorating items under the perfect competition as an important market structure. Along with the optimization technique, the marginal revenue and marginal cost approach has been employed to determine the price of a unit item of inventory. The present work is presumably believed to provide theoretical as well as applicable insight for marketing experts and inventory managers engaged in this field.

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

perfect competition
marginal revenue and marginal cost
price determination

eoq with deteriorating items
stock-dependent demand