Effect of OCR error correction on Arabic retrieval Arabic documents that are available only in print continue to be ubiquitous and they can be scanned and subsequently OCRed to ease their retrieval. This paper explores the effect of context-based OCR correction on the effectiveness of retrieving Arabic OCR documents using different index terms. Different OCR correction techniques based on language modeling with different correction abilities were tested on real OCR and synthetic OCR degradation. Results show that the reduction of word error rates needs to pass a certain limit to get a noticeable effect on retrieval. If only moderate error reduction is available, then using short character n-gram for retrieval without error correction is not a bad strategy. Word-based correction in conjunction with language modeling had a statistically significant impact on retrieval even for character 3-grams, which are known to be among the best index terms for OCR degraded Arabic text. Further, using a sufficiently large language model for correction can minimize the need for morphologically sensitive error correction.

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


A simulation optimization method for vehicles dispatching among multiple container terminals An online strategy with reduced empty traveling and global balancing is proposed. A linear evaluation function is established for real-time dispatching empty vehicles. Two berths model is established with ships arriving at different time. Different factors are introduced into the evaluation function by linear combination.

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

container terminal
online dispatching
event-driven simulation
evolution algorithm


User requirements for geo-collaborative work with spatio-temporal data in a web-based virtual globe environment Web-based tools developed in the last couple of years offer unique opportunities to effectively support scientists in their effort to collaborate. Communication among environmental researchers often involves not only work with geographical (spatial), but also with temporal data and information. Literature still provides limited documentation when it comes to user requirements for effective geo-collaborative work with spatio-temporal data. To start filling this gap, our study adopted a User-Centered Design approach and first explored the user requirements of environmental researchers working on distributed research projects for collaborative dissemination, exchange and work with spatio-temporal data. Our results show that system design will be mainly influenced by the nature and type of data users work with. From the end-users' perspective, optimal conversion of huge files of spatio-temporal data for further dissemination, accuracy of conversion, organization of content and security have a key role for effective geo-collaboration.

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

user-centered design
cartographic animation
google earth
groupware


A multipopulation cultural algorithm for the electrical generator scheduling problem The electrical generator maintenance scheduling problem has been tackled by a variety of traditional optimisation techniques over the years. This paper proposes a method to solve the maintenance scheduling problem, called the parallel co-operating cultural algorithm (PARCA). In the proposed model, a variety of selection mechanisms, operators, communication methods, and local search procedures are applied to each solution generated by genetic operators and parameters as explained in the sequel. Our cultural algorithm framework combines the weak search method with the knowledge representation scheme for collecting and reasoning knowledge about individual experience. (C) 2002 IMACS. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Partial redundancy elimination for access expressions by speculative code motion We present a new memory access optimization for Java to perform aggressive code motion for speculatively optimizing memory accesses by applying partial redundancy elimination (PRE) techniques. First, to reduce as many barriers as possible and to enhance code motion, we perform alias analysis to identify all the regions in which each object reference is not aliased. Secondly, we find all the possible barriers. Finally, we perform code motions in three steps. For the first step, we apply a non-speculative PRE algorithm to move load instructions and their following instructions in the backwards direction of the control flow graph. For the second step, we apply a speculative PRE algorithm to move some of them aggressively before the conditional branches. For the third step, we apply our modified version of a non-speculative PRE algorithm to move store instructions in the forward direction of the control flow graph and to even move some of them after the merge points. We implemented our new algorithm in our production-level Java just-in-time compiler. Our experimental results show that our speculative algorithm improves the average (maximum) performance by 13.1% (90.7%) for jBYTEmark and 1.4% (4.4%) for SPECjvm98 over the fastest algorithm previously described, while it increases the average (maximum) compilation time by 0.9% (2.9%) for both benchmark suites. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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

java
partial redundancy elimination
alias analysis
memory access


On Improving the Reliability and Performance of the YAFFS Flash File System In this paper, we propose three techniques to improve the performance of YAFFS (Yet Another Flash File System), while enhancing the reliability of the system. Specifically, we first propose to manage meta-data and user data separately on segregated blocks. This modification not only leads to the reduction of the mount time but also reduces the garbage collection time. Second, we tailor the wear-leveling to the segregated meta-data and user data blocks. That is, worn out blocks between the segregated blocks are swapped, which leads to more evenly worn out blocks increasing the lifetime of the system. Finally, we devise an analytic model to predict the expected garbage collection time. By accurately predicting the garbage collection time, the system can perform garbage collection at more opportune times when the user's perceived performance may not be negatively affected. Performance evaluation results based on real implementations show that our modifications enhance performance and reliability without incurring additional overheads. Specifically, the YAFFS with our proposed techniques outperforms the original YAFFS by six times in terms of mount speed and five times in terms of benchmark performance, while reducing the average erase count of blocks by 14%.

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

file system
mount speed
performance evaluation
garbage collection


Smart-Context: A Context Ontology for Pervasive Mobile Computing This paper addresses context in intelligent context-aware systems to support personalised service provision and cooperative computing. Context processing, context modelling, ontology, and OWL are introduced and a context reasoning ontology presented. Context implementation reduces to a decision problem which is characterised as one of selecting from a number of potential options based on the relationship between the values that describe the input and the solution, the modelling school of decision analysis attempts to construct an explicit model of such relationships, usually in the form of decision trees. An overview of decision trees with parametric design considerations is presented. Comparisons with related research are drawn and an evaluation and simulation of Smart-Context is presented. RDF/S with OWL and Jena provide an effective basis for autonomous decision making using processing rules, and the issue is one of implementation in adaptable and tractable solutions. A conclusion with open research questions is presented with consideration of potential directions for future research.

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


How Was Your Day? Evaluating a Conversational Companion The "How Was Your Day"(HWYD) companion is an embodied conversational agent that can discuss work-related issues, entering free-form dialogues while discussing issues surrounding a typical work day. The open-ended nature of these interactions requires new models of evaluation. Here, we describe a paradigm and methodology for evaluating the main aspects of such functionality in conjunction with overall system behavior, with respect to three parameters: functional ability (i.e., does it do the "right"thing conversationally), content (i.e., does it respond appropriately to the semantic context), and emotional behavior (i.e., given the emotional input from the user, does it respond in an emotionally appropriate way). We demonstrate the functionality of our evaluation paradigm as a method for both grading current system performance, and targeting areas for particular performance review. We show correlation between, for example, automatic speech recognition performance and overall system performance (as is expected in systems of this type), but beyond this, we show where individual utterances or responses, indicated as positive or negative, characterize system performance, and demonstrate how our combination evaluation approach highlights issues (both positive and negative) in the companion system's interaction behavior.

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

companions
embodied conversational agents
appropriateness of dialogue


Energy-efficient data dissemination schemes for nearest neighbor query processing Indexing provides for selective tuning but suffers from the drawback that, in order to conserve battery power, the client has to wait for and tune to the index segment. In Location-Aware Mobile Services (LAMSs), it is important to reduce the query response time since a late query response may contain out-of-date information. In this paper, we present a broadcast-based spatial query processing scheme designed to support Nearest Neighbor (NN) query processing. With the proposed schemes, broadcast data items are sorted sequentially based on their locations and the clients can selectively tune to the desired data item without the need for an index segment. For the purpose of selective tuning, we present the Exponential Sequence Scheme (ESS) and Cluster-Based Fibonacci Sequence Scheme (CFS) schemes. The ESS and CFS schemes attempt to conserve battery power. The performance of Our schemes is investigated in relation to various environmental variables such as the distributions of data objects, the average speed of the clients, and the size of the service area. The resulting latency and tuning time are close to the optimum values, as our analysis and simulation results indicate.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 computing
location-aware mobile services
wireless data broadcasting
nearest neighbor search


Novel and efficient RNA secondary structure prediction using hierarchical folding Algorithms for prediction of RNA secondary structure - the set of base pairs that form when an RNA molecule folds - are valuable to biologists who aim to understand RNA structure and function. Improving the accuracy and efficiency of prediction methods is an ongoing challenge, particularly for pseudoknotted secondary structures, in which base pairs overlap. This challenge is biologically important, since pseudoknotted structures play essential roles in functions of many RNA molecules, such as splicing and ribosomal frameshifting. State-of-the- art methods, which are based on free energy minimization, have high run-time complexity (typically Theta(n(5)) or worse), and can handle (minimize over) only limited types of pseudoknotted structures. We propose a new approach for prediction of pseudoknotted structures, motivated by the hypothesis that RNA structures fold hierarchically, with pseudoknot-free (non-overlapping) base pairs forming first, and pseudoknots forming later so as to minimize energy relative to the folded pseudoknot-free structure. Our HFold algorithm uses two-phase energy minimization to predict hierarchically formed secondary structures in O(n(3)) time, matching the complexity of the best algorithms for pseudoknot-free secondary structure prediction via energy minimization. Our algorithm can handle a wide range of biological structures, including kissing hairpins and nested kissing hairpins, which have previously required Theta(n(6)) time.

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


performance-driven placement of cell based ic's The increasingly important role of the interconnect in the timing performance of present and future integrated circuit technologies underscores the need to reconsider conventional physical design CAD tools, and devise new ways to influence performance during layout. Interconnects are not perfect conductors, they introduce parasitic elements that load the logic gates and distort the temporal properties of the design as viewed by the logic designer. Cell placement that minimizes wirelength as the sole objective does not solve the problem, leaving a margin for performance improvement that has not been fully exploited. This paper presents a novel approach to performance-driven placement, combining timing analysis and physical design to dynamically optimize the performance of the chip during placement. The ideas are embodied in a program named Allegro, and preliminary results tested on Sea-of-Gate designs are encouraging.

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

role
embodied
physical design
influence
technologies
design
performance
layout
placement
temporal
interconnect
logic
timing
paper
future
tools

time analysis
optimality
object
combinational
integrability
circuits


pivoted table index for querying product-property-value information The query for triple information on product -attribute (property)-value is one of the most frequent queries in e-commerce. Storing the triple, schema vertically is effective for avoidance of sparse data and schema evolution. However, conventional horizontal schema often shows better query performance when properties are queried as groups clustered by product. Therefore, we propose vertical schema as a primary table structure for the triple information in RDBMS and a pivoted table index created from the basic vertical table. This index is beneficial to performance of the frequent pattern query on the group properties associated with each product class.

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


The changing environment of offices: A challenge for furniture design The intention of this paper is to place in context the importance of end-user research in a time of great uncertainty about the impact of the workplace revolution on employees. It aims to anticipate what the future holds and how designers may respond accordingly. The paper focuses on a research project which examined the responses of office users to various aspects of interior environment. Conclusions refer to the value of end-user research in establishing significant environmental factors and highlights the need for designers to respond to privacy, storage and appearance of furniture in workplaces.

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

design research
evaluation
human factors
research methods
user behaviour


Modeling for pavement roughness using the ANFIS approach The term present serviceability was adopted to represent the momentary ability of pavement to serve traffic, and the performance of the pavement was represented by its serviceability history in conjunction with its load application history. Serviceability was found to be influenced by longitudinal and transverse profile as well as the extent of cracking and patching. The amount of weight that should be assigned to each element in the determination of overall serviceability is a matter of subjective opinion. In this study, an Adaptive Neural-Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) method is used in modeling the International Roughness Index (IRI) of flexible pavements. Data from the LTPP IMS database, namely, age, cumulative Equivalent Single Axle Loads (ESALs), and Structure Number (SN) were used in the modeling. Results showed that the ANFIS model is successful for the estimation of IRI, and this model can be easily applied in different regions. The model can be further developed by combining expert judgment and newly measured data.

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

structure number
equivalent single axle loads

adaptive neural-based fuzzy inference system


A flexible semi-definite programming approach for source localization problems In this paper, a new semi-definite programming approach is devised for approximating nonlinear estimation problems. The main idea is to include the noise components as parameters of interests, which increases the flexibility in the convex optimization formulation. Using the source localization as an illustration, we develop semi-definite relaxation (SDR) positioning algorithms using angle-of-arrival, time-of-arrival and time-difference-of-arrival measurements. Numerical examples are included to show the effectiveness of the proposed SDR approach.

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


CLOVES: A cluster-and-search heuristic to solve the vehicle routing problem with delivery and pick-up This paper addresses the vehicle routing problem with sequence-constrained delivery and pick-up (VRPDP). We propose a multi-phase constructive heuristic that clusters nodes based on proximity, orients them along a route using shrink-wrap algorithm and allots vehicles using generalized assignment procedure. We employ genetic algorithm for an intensive final search. Trials on a large number of test-problems have yielded encouraging results.

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

vehicle routing problem
genetic algorithm


Domain adaptation of statistical machine translation with domain-focused web crawling In this paper, we tackle the problem of domain adaptation of statistical machine translation (SMT) by exploiting domain-specific data acquired by domain-focused crawling of text from the World Wide Web. We design and empirically evaluate a procedure for automatic acquisition of monolingual and parallel text and their exploitation for system training, tuning, and testing in a phrase-based SMT framework. We present a strategy for using such resources depending on their availability and quantity supported by results of a large-scale evaluation carried out for the domains of environment and labour legislation, two language pairs (EnglishFrench and EnglishGreek) and in both directions: into and from English. In general, machine translation systems trained and tuned on a general domain perform poorly on specific domains and we show that such systems can be adapted successfully by retuning model parameters using small amounts of parallel in-domain data, and may be further improved by using additional monolingual and parallel training data for adaptation of language and translation models. The average observed improvement in BLEU achieved is substantial at 15.30 points absolute.

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

statistical machine translation
domain adaptation
web crawling


Robustness-based design optimization under data uncertainty This paper proposes formulations and algorithms for design optimization under both aleatory (i.e., natural or physical variability) and epistemic uncertainty (i.e., imprecise probabilistic information), from the perspective of system robustness. The proposed formulations deal with epistemic uncertainty arising from both sparse and interval data without any assumption about the probability distributions of the random variables. A decoupled approach is proposed in this paper to un-nest the robustness-based design from the analysis of non-design epistemic variables to achieve computational efficiency. The proposed methods are illustrated for the upper stage design problem of a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) vehicle, where the information on the random design inputs are only available as sparse point data and/or interval data. As collecting more data reduces uncertainty but increases cost, the effect of sample size on the optimality and robustness of the solution is also studied. A method is developed to determine the optimal sample size for sparse point data that leads to the solutions of the design problem that are least sensitive to variations in the input random variables.

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

robust design
multi-objective optimization


Subdivision elements for large deformation of liquid capsules enclosed by thin shells This paper presents a numerical method for studying the large deformation of a liquid capsule enclosed by a thin shell in a simple shear flow. An implicit immersed boundary method is employed for calculating the hydrodynamics and fluidstructure interaction effects. A thin-shell model for computing the forces acting on the shell middle surface during the deformation is described within the framework of the KirchhoffLove theory of thin shells. This thin-shell model takes full account of finite-deformation kinematics which allows thickness stretching as well as large deflections and bending strains. The interpolation of the reference and deformed surfaces of the shell is accomplished through the use of Loop's subdivision surfaces. The resulting limit surface is C1-continuous which significantly improves the ability of the method in simulating capsules enclosed by hyperelastic thin shells with different physical properties. The present numerical technique has been validated by several examples including an inflation of a spherical shell and deformations of spherical, oblate spheroidal and biconcave capsules in the shear flow. In addition, different types of motion such as tank-treading, tumbling and transition from tumbling to tank-treading have been studied over a range of shear rates and viscosity ratios.

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

navierstokes equations
membrane capsules
red blood cells
subdivision surface


Relation mining experiments in the pharmacogenomics domain The mutual interactions among genes, diseases, and drugs are at the heart of biomedical research, and are especially important for the pharmacological industry. The recent trend towards personalized medicine makes it increasingly relevant to be able to tailor drugs to specific genetic makeups. The pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics knowledge base (PharmGKB) aims at capturing relevant information about such interactions from several sources, including curation of the biomedical literature. Advanced text mining tools which can support the process of manual curation are increasingly necessary in order to cope with the deluge of new published results. However, effective evaluation of those tools requires the availability of manually curated data as gold standard. In this paper we discuss how the existing PharmGKB database can be used for such an evaluation task in a way similar to the usage of gold standard data derived from proteinprotein interaction databases in one of the recent BioCreative shared tasks. Additionally, we present our own considerations and results on the feasibility and difficulty of such a task.

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


EXUDATES DETECTION AND CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM OF DIABETIC PATIENTS' RETINA IMAGES The chronic hyperglycemia of diabetes is associated with long-term damage, dysfunction, and failure of different organs, especially the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and blood vessels. The regular examination of diabetic patients can potentially reduce the risk of vision impairment and in the last instance blindness. Early diabetic retinopathy detection enables application of laser therapy treatment in order to prevent or delay loss of vision. The diagnostics and detection of diabetic retinopathy is performed by specialized ophthalmologists manually and represents expensive procedure. Automatic exudates detection and retina images classification would be helpful for reducing diabetic retinopathy screening costs and encouraging regular examinations. We proposed the automated algorithm that applies mathematical modeling which enables light intensity levels emphasis, easier exudates detection, efficient and correct classification of retina images. The proposed algorithm is robust to various appearance changes of retinal fundus images which are usually processed in clinical environments.

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


High-order nodal discontinuous Galerkin particle-in-cell method on unstructured grids We present a high-order particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithm for the simulation of kinetic plasmas dynamics. The core of the algorithm utilizes an unstructured grid discontinuous Galerkin Maxwell field solver combining high-order accuracy with geometric flexibility. We introduce algorithms in the Lagrangian framework that preserve the favorable properties of the field solver in the PIC solver. Fast full-order interpolation and effective search algorithms are used for tracking individual particles on the general grid and smooth particle shape functions are introduced to ensure low noise in the charge and current density. A pre-computed levelset distance function is employed to represent the geometry and facilitates complex particleboundary interaction. To enforce charge conservation we consider two different techniques, one based on projection and one on hyperbolic cleaning. Both are found to work well, although the latter is found be too expensive when used with explicit time integration. Examples of simple plasma phenomena, e.g., plasma waves, instabilities, and Landau damping are shown to agree well with theoretical predictions and/or results found by other computational methods. We also discuss generic well known problems such as numerical Cherenkov radiation and grid heating before presenting a few two-dimensional tests, showing the potential of the current method to handle fully relativistic plasma dynamics in complex geometries.

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

high-order methods
discontinuous galerkin methods
particle-in-cell
plasma physics
maxwell equations


Expectation-maximization technique for fibro-glandular discs detection in mammography images Breast cancer is among the leading causes of death in women worldwide. Mammography is the most effective imaging method for detecting no-palpable early-stage breast cancer. Understanding the nature of data in mammography images is very important for developing a model that fits well the data. Statistical distributions are widely used on the modelling of the data. Gamma distribution is more suitable than Gaussian distribution for modelling the data in mammography images. In this paper, we will use Gamma distribution to model the data in mammography images. The histogram of images can be seen as a mixture of Gamma distributions. Thresholds are selected at the valleys of a multi-modal histogram. The estimation of thresholds is based on the statistical parameters of the histogram. The expectation-maximization technique with gamma distribution (EMTG) is therefore developed to estimate the statistical histogram parameters. The experimental results on mammography images using this technique showed improvement in the accuracy in detection of the fibro-glandular discs. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

statistical modelling
expectation-maximization
thresholding
fibro-glandular disc


students create game-based online learning environment that teaches java programing This paper examines current Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) and their educational value. It provides details of a project at Auburn University where students are attempting to create an Educational MMORPG that teaches Java programming. The game allows students to play the role of a computer scientist, and use programming skills to interact with in-game objects. Throughout the paper are examples of why Java is an excellent choice for MMORPG development. This paper also serves as a jump-start for other students who are interested in creating an Educational MMORPG.

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

e-learning
online community
game-based learning
educational video games
educational multi-media
online world
dimension d
java-education
edutainment
virtual world


A Genetic Algorithm for the Routing and Carrier Selection Problem In this paper we present new evolutionary approach for solving the Routing and Carrier Selection Problem (RCSP). New encoding scheme is implemented with appropriate objective function. This approach in most cases keeps the feasibility of individuals by using specific representation and modified genetic operators. The numerical experiments were carried out on the standard data sets known from the literature and results were successful comparing to two other recent heuristic for solving RCSP

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

vehicle routing problems
evolutionary computation
combinatorial optimization


Correlation of the two-prime Sidel'nikov sequence Motivated by the concepts of Sidel'nikov sequences and two-prime generator (or Jacobi sequences) we introduce and analyze some new binary sequences called two-prime Sidelnikov sequences. In the cases of twin primes and cousin primes equivalent 3 modulo 4 we show that these sequences are balanced. In the general case, besides balancedness we also study the autocorrelation, the correlation measure of order k and the linear complexity profile of these sequences showing that they have many nice pseudorandom features.

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

two-prime generator
sidel'nikov sequences
(auto-) correlation
cryptography
pseudorandomness


a web-based system for interactive visualization of scientific concepts Information visualization is valuable in learning abstract ideas and new concepts. The existing technology for publishing online papers is lacking in terms of user interaction as well as dynamic visualization of abstract concepts. Currently, the presentation of electronic documents does not fully exploit what the current technology is able to offer. Often, the visualization techniques employed are static 2-D illustrations.We propose a web-based system that allows authors of electronic documents to create their own interactive 3-D visualizations. Our target audience includes researchers from various fields. The proposed system allows researchers to share their ideas with other users in an interactive 3D virtual environment over the Internet.

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

vrml
simulation
animation
web-based visualization


A maximum a posteriori estimate for the source separation problem with statistical knowledge about the mixing matrix In the blind source separation (BSS) problem, nothing is supposed about the mixing matrix entries. When a prior knowledge about their values is available, the BSS algorithms can be optimized considering this information. We obtain the maximum a posteriori estimate of the source separation problem for prewhitened observed signals and prior statistical knowledge about the mixing matrix for the real, linear, instantaneous case. As new information is included in the formulation of the problem, the variance of classical BSS algorithms can be reduced. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

source separation
maximum a posteriori estimate

independent component analysis
gram-charlier expansions


Developing usable Web sites - a review and model The number and range of organisations developing a Web site is growing rapidly. Many of these Web sites are developed in-house, even though the skills and resources required for developing a successful site may not be available. It is argued that some of the limitations, in terms of resources and skills, inherent in the small-scale, in-house development environment can be overcome through the adoption of an informal Web site development model and suitable usability methods. Presents an informal development model synthesised from a review of development case studies and published Web research literature. This model identifies the main stages and tasks of development. A review of information gathering and usability methods currently being employed is integrated into the model. The importance of understanding user and information provider needs is discussed. A number of common usability methods are then examined in greater detail. The appropriateness of the model and methods for the small-scale, in-house development environment is considered.

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

world wide web
user studies
human-computer interaction


Fabrication of optical microresonators using proton beam writing Proton beam writing is a high-resolution direct write lithographic technique capable of producing three dimensional, high aspect ratio structures with smooth and vertical sidewalls. In this work, the fabrication of high quality SU-8 optical microdisk resonator with a Q factor of 104 is demonstrated. Simulations carried out using finite difference time domain (FDTD) are in good agreement with experimental results. By introducing rhodamine B laser dye into a SU-8 resist spiral microdisk cavity lasing was achieved with threshold pump fluence of 127?J/mm2 when pumped with a 532nm pulsed Nd:YAG laser.

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

optical microresonator
laser cavity
fdtd simulations


Dynamic load balancing by diffusion in heterogeneous systems The distributed environments constitute a major option for the future development of high-performance computing. In order to be able to efficiently execute parallel applications on such systems, one should ensure a fair utilization of the available resources. Here, we address a number of aspects regarding the generalization of the diffusion algorithms for the case when the processors have different relative speeds and the communication parameters have different values. Although some work has been done in this direction, we propose complementary results and we investigate other variants than those commonly used. In a first step, we discuss general aspects of the generalized diffusion. Bounds are formulated for the convergence factor and an explicit expression is given for the migration flow generated by such algorithms. It is shown that this flow has an important property, that is a scaled projection of all other balancing flows. In the second part, a variant of generalized diffusion is investigated. Complexity results are formulated and it is shown that this algorithm theoretically converges faster than the hydrodynamic algorithm. Comparative tests between different variants of generalized diffusion algorithms are performed. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc.

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

dynamic load balancing
generalized diffusion

heterogeneous environments
balancing flow
adaptive computations


ON DETERMINISTIC CD-SYSTEMS OF RESTARTING AUTOMATA Three variants of determinism are introduced for CD-systems of restarting automata, called strict determinism, global determinism, and local determinism. In mode=1 globally deterministic CD-systems of restarting automata are of the same expressive power as nonforgetting deterministic restarting automata of the same type, which corresponds to the situation for nondeterministic CD-systems. On the other hand, for the various types of restarting automata without auxiliary symbols, strictly deterministic CD-systems of restarting automata are strictly less expressive than the corresponding deterministic types of nonforgetting restarting automata. Further, globally deterministic CD-systems of restarting automata can be simulated by locally deterministic CD-systems of restarting automata of the same type. In fact, we conjecture that, for all types of restarting automata without auxiliary symbols, the latter are strictly more expressive than the former, but they are strictly less expressive than the corresponding nondeterministic CD-systems of restarting automata.

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

restarting automaton
cd-system
language classes
simulation


Two-dimensional range search based on the Voronoi diagram This paper studies the two-dimensional range search problem, and constructs a simple and efficient algorithm based on the Voronoi diagram. In this problem, a set of points and a query range are given, and we want to enumerate all the points which are inside the query range as quickly as possible. In most of the previous researches on this problem, the shape of the query range is restricted to particular ones such as circles, rectangles and triangles, and the improvement on the worst-case performance has been pursued. On the other hand, the algorithm proposed in this paper is designed for a general shape of the query range in the two-dimensional space, and is intended to accomplish a good average-case performance. This performance is actually observed by numerical experiments. In these experiments, we compare the execution time of the proposed algorithm with those of other representative algorithms such as those based on the bucketing technique and the k-d tree. We can observe that our algorithm shows the better performance in almost all the cases.

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


An Anticorrelation Kernel for Subsystem Training in Multiple Classifier Systems We present a method for training support vector machine (SVM)-based classification systems for combination with other classification systems designed for the same task. Ideally, a new system should be designed such that, when combined with existing systems, the resulting performance is optimized. We present a simple model for this problem and use the understanding gained from this analysis to propose a method to achieve better combination performance when training SVM systems. We include a regularization term in the SVM objective function that aims to reduce the average class-conditional covariance between the resulting scores and the scores produced by the existing systems, introducing a trade-off between such covariance and the system's individual performance. That is, the new system "takes one for the team", falling somewhat short of its best possible performance in order to increase the diversity of the ensemble. We report results on the NIST 2005 and 2006 speaker recognition evaluations (SREs) for a variety of subsystems. We show a gain of 19% on the equal error rate (EER) of a combination of four systems when applying the proposed method with respect to the performance obtained when the four systems are trained independently of each other.

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

multiple classifier systems
speaker recognition

system combination
ensemble diversity
support vector machines
kernel methods


The inverted pendulum model of bipedal standing cannot be stabilized through direct feedback of force and contractile element length and velocity at realistic series elastic element stiffness Control of bipedal standing is typically analyzed in the context of a single-segment inverted pendulum model. The stiffness K (SE) of the series elastic element that transmits the force generated by the contractile elements of the ankle plantarflexors to the skeletal system has been reported to be smaller in magnitude than the destabilizing gravitational stiffness K (g) . In this study, we assess, in case K (SE) + K (g) < 0, if bipedal standing can be locally stable under direct feedback of contractile element length, contractile element velocity (both sensed by muscle spindles) and muscle force (sensed by Golgi tendon organs) to alpha-motoneuron activity. A theoretical analysis reveals that even though positive feedback of force may increase the stiffness of the muscle-tendon complex to values well over the destabilizing gravitational stiffness, dynamic instability makes it impossible to obtain locally stable standing under the conditions assumed.

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

human bipedal standing
motor control
feedback control
muscle spindle
golgi tendon organ


Efficient inclusion for a class of XML types with interleaving and counting Inclusion between XML types is important but expensive, and is much more expensive when unordered types are considered. We prove here that inclusion for XML types with interleaving and counting can be decided in polynomial time in the presence of two important restrictions: no element appears twice in the same content model, and Kleene star is only applied to disjunctions of single elements. Our approach is based on the transformation of each such content model into a set of constraints that completely characterizes the generated language. We then reduce inclusion checking to constraint implication. We exhibit a quadratic algorithm to perform inclusion checking on a RAM machine.

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

regular expressions
subtyping
xml schema


A Note on Limited-Trial Chase-Like Algorithms Achieving Bounded-Distance Decoding For the decoding of a binary linear block code of minimal Hamming distance d over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, a soft-decision decoder achieves bounded-distance (BD) decoding if its squared error-correction radius is equal to d. A Chase-like algorithm outputs the best (most likely) codeword in a list of candidates generated by a conventional algebraic binary decoder in a few trials. It is of interest to design Chase-like algorithms that achieve BD decoding with as least trials as possible. In this paper, we show that Chase-like algorithms can achieve BD decoding with only O(d(1/2+epsilon)) trials for any given positive number epsilon.

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

reliability-order-based decoding algorithm (robda)


Automatic detection of handwriting forgery using a fractal number estimate of wrinkliness We investigate the detection of handwriting forged by novices. To facilitate document examination it is important to develop an automated system to identify forgeries, or at least to identify those handwritings that are likely to be forged. Because forgers often carefully copy or trace genuine handwriting, we hypothesize that good forgeries - those that retain the shape and size of genuine writing - are usually written more slowly and are therefore wrinklier (less smooth) than genuine writing. From online handwriting samples we find that the writing speed of the good forgeries is significantly slower than that of the genuine writings. From corresponding offline samples we find that the wrinkliness of the good forgeries is significantly greater than that of the genuine writings, showing that this feature can help identify candidate forgeries from scanned documents. Using a total of eight handwriting distance features, including the wrinkliness feature, we train a neural network to achieved 89% accuracy on detecting forged handwriting on test samples from ten writers.

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


A Framework for Resource Allocation in Multi-Service Multi-Rate Overlay Networks Based on Microeconomic Theory A significant issue in overlay multicasting is designing self-organizing mechanisms that can be able to utilize the natural selfishness of users in such a way that leads to maximization of the total utility of the system. We present a competitive economical system including dynamic algorithms for joining and leaving in which a number of services are provided to the users by a number of origin servers. Each offered service can be considered as a commodity and the servers and the users who relay the services to their downstream nodes can thus be considered as producers of the economy. Also, the users can be viewed as consumers in the economy. On joining to the network, each user is provided with a budget and tries to get hold of the services. We use Walrasian equilibrium to show existence of market-clearing prices. The system is proved to be scalable and experimental results confirm that our proposed mechanism works near-optimal.

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

overlay network
resource sharing
microeconomics
producerconsumer theory


Application of Hes methods to nonlinear chemistry problems In this paper, Hes variational iteration method (VIM) and homotopy perturbation method (HPM) are implemented for solving analytically two systems of ordinary differential equations that often appear in chemical applications. In both methods, the initial approximations can be freely chosen with possible unknown constants which can be determined by imposing the boundary and initial conditions. The solution procedure is of utter simplicity, and the obtained solution is of high accuracy.

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

variational iteration method (vim)
homotopy perturbation method (hpm)
adomian decomposition method (adm)
kinetic problems


Modulating ectopic gene expression levels by using retroviral vectors equipped with synthetic promoters The human cytomegalovirus and elongation factor 1? promoters are constitutive promoters commonly employed by mammalian expression vectors. These promoters generally produce high levels of expression in many types of cells and tissues. To generate a library of synthetic promoters capable of generating a range of low, intermediate, and high expression levels, the TATA and CAAT box elements of these promoters were mutated. Other promoter variants were also generated by random mutagenesis. Evaluation using plasmid vectors integrated at a single site in the genome revealed that these various synthetic promoters were capable of expression levels spanning a 40-fold range. Retroviral vectors were equipped with the synthetic promoters and evaluated for their ability to reproduce the graded expression demonstrated by plasmid integration. A vector with a self-inactivating long terminal repeat could neither reproduce the full range of expression levels nor produce stable expression. Using a second vector design, the different synthetic promoters enabled stable expression over a broad range of expression levels in different cell lines.

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


Zarathustra and beyond: exploring culture and values online Illusions of control and fantasies of power are important themes in human history and culture. The first objective of this paper is to explore Zarathustran fantasies in the information society, and our dreams of God-like control and mastery over ourselves and the Universe. This paper does not try to be faithful to Nietzschean philosophical concepts of Zarathustra, but instead explore cultural themes, which can be related to a mythology of God-like control and omniscient perception. It draws together strands from science fiction, anthropology, philosophy, technology development, systems engineering, socio-technical systems, finance and e-business to set out how we have fallen for the technocultural illusions we have created. The paper then shifts gear, and in an attempt to address these technocultural problems, identifies an intellectual trajectory centred on an anthropological perspective. Using examples from e-business and Schwartzs universal model of human values, applied into a technocultural context, the paper shows how it is possible to create meaningful systems of organisation that utilise advanced technologies to help provide a deeply value-laden cultural system. Our world is changing fundamentally and dramatically, and we desperately need new approaches to help us understand these transitions. The papers primary contribution is to critique both human-centred thinking, and mechanistic, Taylorist views of organisation and technology. It stimulates debate concerning the relationship between technology and culture as it is worked out in the information society. Shifting the perspective from humans as social, functioning creatures, this paper offers a new human-centred approach based upon humans as cultural, valuing beings.

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

culture
values
systems engineering
anthropology
information society

integral systems
systems failure
socio-technical systems
information systems development
complexity
philosophy of technology


Heat treatment modelling using strongly continuous semigroups Two methods for solving thermal wave model are derived based on semigroups theory. We examine changes in tissue temperature by applying different heat sources. Closed form analytical solution is given. This simulation benefits to medical therapy to find the best heating strategy.

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

semigroup theory
thermal therapy
temperature control


An Eigenvalue Based Approach for Assessing the Decomposability of Interdependent Design Project Tasks The Concurrent engineering process is characterized by executing a large number of interdependent project tasks. One effective way of managing such tasks is to decompose them into groups. However, not all tasks are decomposable. Without the need to apply a decomposition method, this paper describes a simple, quantitative approach to test whether an underlying pattern of relationships exists between interdependent project tasks, such that they may be rearranged into groups. In addition, a grouping efficiency index is introduced to predict how good the best possible decomposition is. The proposed approach and the grouping index are applied to simple hypothetical projects and a sample project adapted from the literature. Both the approach and the grouping index are proved to be powerful yet very easy to use.

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

concurrent engineering
design project tasks
decomposition


Sex Steroid Regulation of Microglial Cell Activation Multiple sclerosis (MS) occurs more commonly in females than males. However, the mechanisms resulting in gender differences in MS are unknown. Several studies have suggested that sex steroids influence the development and severity of MS. For example, pregnancy influences MS symptoms, with remission in the third trimester of gestation, followed by exacerbation in the postpartum period. In addition, oral contraceptives containing female sex steroids have been associated with a lower risk of developing MS and decreased disability. Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an autoimmune disorder initiated by T cells reactive against central nervous system (CNS) antigens. EAE is characterized by inflammation and demyelination of the CNS, and by remittent paralysisfeatures consistent with MS. Recent studies have suggested that female sex steroids may modulate EAE, at least in part, through effects on T cells. For example, sex steroids shift T cells toward a Th2 phenotype in vitro, and cytokines produced by Th2 cells generally suppress EAE. Activated microglia also are believed to contribute to MS pathology; perhaps due in part to production of nitric oxide (NO) and TNF-?, molecules which can be toxic to CNS cells, including oligodendrocytes. We are currently investigating the role of sex steroids in modulating microglial cell function in relation to MS. It is hoped that elucidation of the mechanisms by which sex steroids modulate CNS inflammation will lead to future therapies in the treatment of MS.

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


Evaluation of IgG Antibody Response against Rickettsia conorii and Rickettsia slovaca in Patients with DEBONEL/TIBOLA The aim of the study was to determine the IgG antibody response to spotted fever group Rickettsia (SFGR) R. conorii and R. slovaca, and its specificity and sensitivity in patients with DEBONEL/TIBOLA. A prospective study of 31 patients with DEBONEL was carried out from January 2001 to May 2004. The SFGR serology testing (IgG IFA) for the diagnosis of DEBONEL/TIBOLA showed 61% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The R. slovaca antigen allowed the diagnoses in 18 of the 31 patients (58%), and 17 patients (55%) were diagnosed with this disease using R. conorii antigen. Therefore, using R. slovaca as antigen did not improve the sensitivity of the assay

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

rickettsia conorii
rickettsia slovaca
igg

debonel/tibola
indirect immunofluorescence assay (ifa)
spain


Peer-to-Peer Streaming Capacity Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems provide a scalable way to stream content to multiple receivers over the Internet. The maximum rate achievable by all receivers is the capacity of a P2P streaming session. We provide a taxonomy of sixteen problem formulations, depending on whether there is a single P2P session or there are multiple concurrent sessions, whether the given topology is a full mesh graph or an arbitrary graph, whether the number of peers a node can have is bounded or not, and whether there are nonreceiver relay nodes or not. In each formulation, computing P2P streaming capacity requires the computation of an optimal set of multicast trees, with an exponential complexity, except in three simplest formulations that have been recently solved with polynomial time algorithms. These solutions, however, do not extend to the other more general formulations. In this paper, we develop a family of constructive, polynomial-time algorithms that can compute P2P streaming capacity and the associated multicast trees, arbitrarily accurately for seven formulations, to a factor of 4-approximation for two formulations, and to a factor of log of the number of receivers for two formulations. The optimization problem is reformulated in each case so as to convert the combinatorial problem into a linear program with an exponential number of variables. The linear program is then solved using a primal-dual approach. The algorithms combine an outer loop of primal-dual update with an inner loop of smallest price tree construction, driven by the update of dual variables in the outer loop. We show that when the construction of smallest price tree can be carried out arbitrarily accurately in polynomial time, so can the computation of P2P streaming capacity. We also develop several efficient algorithms for smallest price tree construction. Using the developed algorithms, we investigate the impact of several factors on P2P streaming capacity using topologies derived from statistics of uplink capacities of Internet hosts.

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

internet content distribution
multicast tree
network degree bound
peer-to-peer network
primal-dual


Affective Learning: Empathetic Agents with Emotional Facial and Tone of Voice Expressions Empathetic behavior has been suggested to be one effective way for Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) to provide feedback to learners' emotions. An issue that has been raised is the effective integration of parallel and reactive empathy. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of ECAs' emotional facial and tone of voice expressions combined with empathetic verbal behavior when displayed as feedback to students' fear, sad, and happy emotions in the context of a self-assessment test. Three identical female agents were used for this experiment: 1) an ECA performing parallel empathy combined with neutral emotional expressions, 2) an ECA performing parallel empathy displaying emotional expressions that were relevant to the emotional state of the student, and 3) an ECA performing parallel empathy by displaying relevant emotional expressions followed by emotional expressions of reactive empathy with the goal of altering the student's emotional state. Results indicate that an agent performing parallel empathy displaying emotional expressions relevant to the emotional state of the student may cause this emotion to persist. Moreover, the agent performing parallel and then reactive empathy appeared to be effective in altering an emotional state of fear to a neutral one.

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

computers and education
intelligent agents
user interfaces


a wearable system for supporting pit-crew and audiences on motorbike races Motorbike racing is one of the most popular motorsports and many fans visit circuits to watch races. However, since audiences and pit crews can only obtain limited information, it is difficult for them to get detailed information about teams except for high ranking teams and few popular teams. To solve this problem, we have already presented an information browsing system for pit crews who used wearable computers. This paper describes an extension to the system. We also applied our system to racing audiences. Since our system can provide various information such as detailed ranking tables and favorite teams, it can make supporting the teams more advantageous and entertain audiences much more.

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


Shape-based detail-preserving exaggeration of extremely accurate 3D faces We present an approach to automatically exaggerate the distinctive features of extremely detailed 3D faces. These representations comprise several million triangles and capture skin detail down to the pores. Despite their high level of realism, their size makes visualization difficult and real-time mesh manipulation infeasible. The premise of our methodology is to first remove the detail to obtain low resolution shape information, then perform shape-based exaggeration on a low resolution model and finally reapply the detail onto the exaggeration to recover the original resolution. We also present the results of applying this methodology to a small set of faces.

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

high resolution
morphable model
detail reconstruction


Three theorems regarding testing graph properties Property testing is a relaxation of decision problems in which it is required to distinguish YES-instances (i.e., objects having a predetermined property) from instances that are far from any YES-instance. We presents three theorems regarding testing graph properties in the adjacency matrix representation. More specifically, these theorems relate to the project of characterizing graph properties according to the complexity of testing them (in the adjacency matrix representation). The first theorem is that there exist monotone graph properties in NP for which testing is very hard (i.e., requires to examine a constant fraction of the entries in the matrix). The second theorem is that every graph property that can be tested making a number of queries that is independent of the size of the graph can be so tested by uniformly selecting a set of vertices and accepting iff the induced subgraph has some fixed graph property (which is not necessarily the same as the one being tested). The third theorem refers to the framework of graph partition problems, and is a characterization of the subclass of properties that can be tested using a one-sided error tester making a number of queries that is independent of the size of the graph. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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


Weighted Quasi-Variational Inequalities in Non-pivot Hilbert Spaces and Applications The paper is devoted to the introduction of weighted quasi-variational inequalities in non-pivot Hilbert spaces. In the first part, we show some existence and regularity results for solutions to such weighted quasi-variational inequalities. The second part concerns the study of a new traffic equilibrium model, where weights and elastic demand occur. A weighted quasi-variational formulation for equilibrium conditions is provided. The general existence and regularity results obtained, in the first part, allow us to show the existence and the continuity of weighted elastic traffic equilibrium solutions. Finally, an example is provided.

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

weighted elastic traffic equilibrium problem


Equivalent power output and parametric optimum design of a PEM fuel cell-based hybrid system A new model of the PEM fuel cell hybrid system is proposed. The main irreversible losses in the hybrid system are considered. The characteristic curves of the hybrid system are represented. Some of the key parameters are optimally designed. The performance between the hybrid system and the single PEM fuel cell is compared.

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

three-heat-source heat pump
performance evaluation
parametric optimization


Self-tuning caching: the Universal Caching algorithm A cache replacement policy is normally suited to a particular class of applications, or limited to a set of fixed criteria for evaluating the cache-worthiness of an object. We present Universal Caching as a mechanism to capture the generality of the most adaptive algorithms, while depending on a very limited set of basic criteria for cache-replacement decisions. Our testing was limited to Web workloads, where we tested the Universal Caching policy using real-world traces from both the server-side and client-side proxies. Using a self-tuning mechanism, combined with a generalization of the criteria employed in GD-* Web caching, Universal Caching was able to consistently outperform any other fixed choice of algorithm we tested. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Closed and convex fuzzy sets In this paper, we establish a characterization theorem for closed fuzzy sets, and give two weak conditions that a closed fuzzy set is a convex fuzzy set. We also present some results for convex fuzzy sets, strictly convex fuzzy sets, and closed fuzzy sets. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

membership functions
various kinds of fuzzy sets


Multidisciplinary design optimization of tool head for heavy duty CNC vertical turning mill Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method to carry out the design optimization of the tool head system in the heavy-duty machine tool where closed hydrostatic guideways with multiple pockets are employed. Design/methodology/approach - A more accurate method of pressure calculation for closed hydrostatic guideways is introduced. Then, a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) model is formulated for design of a tool head system, which minimizes the highest pocket pressure under some constraints from machining accuracy and vibration resistance requirements as well as constraints from ballscrew design specifications. Finally, a metamodel-based design space alternation (DSA) strategy is proposed to solve the optimization problem. Findings - The results show that the maximum pocket pressure in a tool head system can be reduced over 47 percent with a proper design while all the constraints are satisfied. As a consequence, the tool head system can safely work under the maximum output pressure of oil supply system. Originality/value - This paper introduces a more accurate method of pressure calculation for multi-pocket closed hydrostatic guideways, develops a metamodel-based MDO model for the tool head system, and proposes a DSA strategy to solve the MDO 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

hydrostatics
machine tools
computer numerical control
optimum design


structural methods for the synthesis of speed-independent circuits Most existing tools for the synthesis of asynchronous circuits from Signal Transition Graphs (STGs) derive the reachability graph for the calculation of logic equations. This paper presents novel methods exclusively based on the structural analysis of the underlying Petri net. This methodology can be applied to any STG that can be covered by State Machines and, in particular, to all live and safe free-choice STGs. Significant improvements with regard to existing structural methods are provided. The new techniques have been implemented in an experimental tool that has been able to synthesize specifications with over 1027 markings, some of them being non-free choice.

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

asynchronous circuits
live
methodology
analysis
tool
graph
logic
synthesis
paper
tools
reachability
circuits

structure
method
experimentation
signaling
transit
state machine


A comparative assessment of ensemble learning for credit scoring Both statistical techniques and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have been explored for credit scoring, an important finance activity. Although there are no consistent conclusions on which ones are better, recent studies suggest combining multiple classifiers, i.e., ensemble learning, may have a better performance. In this study, we conduct a comparative assessment of the performance of three popular ensemble methods, i.e., Bagging, Boosting, and Stacking, based on four base learners, i.e., Logistic Regression Analysis (LRA), Decision Tree (DT), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Experimental results reveal that the three ensemble methods can substantially improve individual base learners. In particular, Bagging performs better than Boosting across all credit datasets. Stacking and Bagging DT in our experiments, get the best performance in terms of average accuracy, type I error and type II error.

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

credit scoring
ensemble learning
bagging
boosting
stacking


Properties of h-convex functions related to the Hermite-Hadamard-Fejer inequalities In this paper we prove the Hermite-Hadamard-Fejer inequalities for an h-convex function and we point out the results for some special classes of functions. Also, some generalization of the Hermite-Hadamard inequalities and some properties of functions H and F which are naturally joined to the h-convex function are given. Finally, applications on p-logarithmic mean and mean of the order p are obtained. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

convex function
h-convex function
hermite-hadamard-fejer inequalities
mean of order p
p-logarithmic mean


Generation of quadrilateral meshes on free-form surfaces Meshing is one of the main steps of the finite element method. Free-form surfaces are widely used but their meshing process is still not straightforward. Moreover, quadrilateral elements are less used because quadrilateral meshes are generated with more difficulty than triangular ones. Here, a new method is introduced to mesh free-form surfaces with quadrilateral elements. At first, a triangular mesh is used to generate each quadrilateral element by merging two adjacent triangles. For this purpose, a frontal method is used. Then the remaining triangles are eliminated by moving one of them towards another one in order to create a quadrilateral element. Next, the mesh is optimized by topologic operators which eliminate mesh singularities. A specific node repositioning scheme is used to further improve the shape of the elements. Ultimately, the goal is to obtain a mesh with the largest number of nodes belonging to four adjacent elements. Various topological operators are described. Some of them are complex and effectively move singularities across the quadrilateral mesh to improve it. Finally, examples illustrate the behaviour and the efficiency of the approach described.

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


VCells: Simple and Efficient Superpixels Using Edge-Weighted Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations VCells, the proposed Edge-Weighted Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations (EWCVTs)-based algorithm, is used to generate superpixels, i.e., an oversegmentation of an image. For a wide range of images, the new algorithm is capable of generating roughly uniform subregions and nicely preserving local image boundaries. The undersegmentation error is effectively limited in a controllable manner. Moreover, VCells is very efficient with core computational cost at O(K root n(c) center dot N) in which K, n(c), and N are the number of iterations, superpixels, and pixels, respectively. Extensive qualitative discussions are provided, together with the high-quality segmentation results of VCells on a wide range of complex images. The simplicity and efficiency of our model are demonstrated by complexity analysis, time, and accuracy evaluations.

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

superpixels
centroidal voronoi tessellations

k-means
image-segmentation
image labeling
clustering


Thoughts on non-locality and quantum mechanics The debate about the non-locality of quantum mechanics is old, but still lively. Numerous people use non-locality as (bad) shorthand for quantum entanglement. But some have a long-standing commitment to the validity of this characterization. This paper examines two separate streams in this debate. The first is the arguments of Stapp, and especially his recent paper where he simplifies his contractual argument in the Hardy situation to argue for the non-locality of quantum mechanics. He has maintained his contention that an analysis of a Hardy-type correlation between two spatially separated observers proves that quantum mechanics itself is non-local, without any additional assumption of realism or hidden variables. In the second section, I try to carefully examine the Bell argument in the CHSH variant to see where the difference between the quantum and classical situations differ. Asher Peres was one of the great physicists of the late 20th century, especially for his intense concern with the fundamental nature of quantum mechanics. His courage in devoting his life to an area many considered "philosophical" (i.e. non-physical) paved the way for the rest of us to reveal our interests and confusions about this area. I am not sure that he would agree with everything in this paper, but I offer it as a tribute to him.

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

quantum measurement
locality
counterfactuals
correlations


crosscutting techniques in program specification and analysis We present three aspect-oriented constructs ( formats, scopes , and defaults ) that, in combination with a specification language based on abstract sets of objects, enable the modular application of multiple arbitrarily precise (and therefore arbitrarily unscalable) analyses to scalably verify data structure consistency properties in sizable programs. Formats use a form of field introduction to group together the declarations of all of the fields that together comprise a given data structure. Scopes and defaults enable the developer to state certain data structure consistency properties once in a single specification construct that cuts across the preconditions and postconditions of the procedures in the system. Standard approaches, in contrast, scatter and duplicate such properties across the preconditions and postconditions. We have implemented a prototype implementation, specification, analysis, and verification system based on these constructs and used this system to successfully verify a range of data structure consistency properties in several programs.Most previous research in the field of aspect-oriented programming has focused on the use of aspect-oriented concepts in design and implementation. Our experience indicates that aspect-oriented concepts can also be extremely useful for specification, analysis, and verification.

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

crosscutting concerns
program verification
static analysis tools
aspect-oriented programming


On the derivatives of second and third degree rational Bezier curves In this note, an estimate of Floater on the derivatives of rational Bezier curves is improved when the degree of the curve is 2 or 3. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Making music in a group: synchronization and shared experience To consider the full impact of musical learning on the brain, it is important to study the nature of everyday, non-expert forms of musical behavior alongside expert instrumental training. Such informal forms of music making tend to include social interaction, synchronization, body movements, and positive shared experiences. Here, I propose that when designing music intervention programs for scientific purposes, such features may have advantages over instrumental training, depending on the specific research aims, contexts, and measures. With reference to a selection of classroom approaches to music education and to the shared affective motion experience (SAME) model of emotional responses to music, I conclude that group learning may be particularly valuable in music pedagogy.

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

music
pedagogy
group learning
social
synchronization
shared experience


Crosstalk noise reduction in synthesized digital logic circuits As CMOS technology scales into the deep submicrometer regime, digital noise Js becoming a metric of importance comparable to area, timing, and power, for analysis and design of CMOS VLSI systems. Noise has two detrimental effects in digital circuits: First, it can destroy logical information carried by a circuit net. Second, it causes delay uncertainty: Noncritical paths might become critical because of noise. As a result, circuit speed becomes limited by noise, primarily because of capacitive coupling between wires. Most design approaches address the crosstalk noise problem at the layout generation stage, or via postlayout corrections. With continued scaling, too many circuit nets require corrections for noise, causing a design convergence problem. This work suggests to consider noise at the gate-level netlist generation stage. The paper presents a simplified analysis of on-chip crosstalk models, and demonstrates the significance of crosstalk between local wires within synthesized circuit blocks. A design flow is proposed for automatically synthesizing CMOS circuits that have improved robustness to noise effects, using standard tools, by limiting the range of gate strengths available in the cell library. The synthesized circuits incur a penalty in area/power, which can be partially recovered in a single postlayout corrective iteration. Results of design experiments indicate that delay uncertainty is the most important noise-related concern in synthesized static CMOS logic. Using a standard synthesis methodology, critical path delay differences up to 18% of the clock cycle time have been observed in functional blocks of microprocessor circuits. By using the proposed design flow, timing uncertainty was reduced to below 3%, with area and power penalties below 20%.

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

crosstalk
delay uncertainty
noise
synthesis

noise management
signal integrity
timing verification


Part logistics in the automotive industry: Decision problems, literature review and research agenda We structure the field of part logistics in the automotive industry. All relevant process steps and belonging decision problems are described. We survey the relevant literature. Important future research needs are identified.

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

automotive industry
part logistics
survey


Implicitly balanced solution of the two-phase flow equations coupled to nonlinear heat conduction This paper presents the solution of the two-phase flow equations coupled to nonlinear heat conduction using the Jacobian-free NewtonKrylov (JFNK) method which employs a physics-based preconditioner. Computer simulations will demonstrate that the implicitly balanced solution obtained from the JFNK method is more accurate than traditional approaches that employ operator splitting and linearizing. Results will also indicate that by employing a physics-based preconditioner the implicitly balanced solution can provide a more accurate solution for the same amount of computer time compared to the traditional approach for solving these equations. Finally, convergence plots will show that as the transient time lengthens, the implicitly balanced solution can maintain this higher level of accuracy at much larger time steps.

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


Simultaneous study on energy consumption and emission generation for an ethylene plant under different start-up strategies Chemical plant start-ups are very critical dynamic operations, which normally consume huge amount of energy and also generate large quantities of off-spec products for flaring, causing significant and intensive air emissions. Many studies have been individually conducted on energy savings or emission reductions under plant normal conditions. However, quantitative studies on simultaneous energy consumption and emission generation for chemical plant start-ups are still lacking. In this study, plant-wide dynamic simulations are employed to investigate energy consumption and emission generation for an ethylene plant under different start-up strategies. Dynamic modeling and simulations for two start-up designs associated with three start-up operating procedures are performed. Based on plant-wide dynamic simulations, dynamic profiles of energy consumption and emission generation during the plant start-up are obtained and analyzed. Details of energy accounting on cooling and heating duties of key distillation towers, auxiliary heat exchanger duties, and power consumption for compressor system are provided for each start-up case. Through comprehensive analysis, the most desirable start-up solution is identified. This virtual study not only characterizes the emission generation during the plant start-up, supporting flare minimization activities that benefits environmental sustainability, but also enhances critical research on energy and raw material savings during the plant start-up that will benefit the industrial sustainability. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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

plant start-up
plant-wide dynamic simulation
emission reduction
energy saving


a uniform parallel optimization method for data mining grid Grid is a new solution to computationally and data intensive computing problems. Since the distributed knowledge discovery process is both data and computational intensive, the Grid is a natural platform for deploying a high performance data mining service. In order to improve the performance of data mining applications, an effective method is task parallelization. Existing mechanisms of data mining parallelization are based on NOW or SMP, it is necessary to develop new parallel mechanism for grid feature. In this paper, we present a framework for high performance DDM applications in Computational Grid environments called Data Mining Grid, with the function for decomposing data mining application into subtasks and then combine those subtasks to form directed acyclic graph. This kind of parallel mechanism decomposes application according to the actual computation power of each node in dynamic Grid environment.

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

knowledge discovery in database
grid computing
performance optimization
distributed computing


comparing the end to end latency of an immersive collaborative environment and a video conference Latency in a communication system can result in confusing a conversation through loss of causality as people exchange verbal and non-verbal nuances. This paper compares true end-to-end latencies across an immersive virtual environment and a video conference link using the same approach to measure both. Our approach is to measure end-to-end latency through filming the movements of a participant and their remote representation through synchronised cameras. We also compare contemporary and traditional immersive display and capture devices, whilst also measuring event latency taken from log files. We compare an immersive collaborative virtual environment to a video conference as both attempt to reproduce different aspects of the face-to- face meeting, the former favouring appearance and the latter attention. Results inform not only the designers of both approaches but also set the requirements for future developments for 3D video which has the potential to faithfully reproduce both appearance and attention.

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

carl moore
toby duckworth
david roberts
robin wolff and john o'hare


An adaptive fuzzy logic based secure routing protocol in mobile ad hoc networks In ad hoc networks, designing a secure routing protocol is critical. The FLSL (Fuzzy Logic Based Security-Level Routing Protocol) routing protocol is proposed in this paper. The basic idea of FLSL is to utilize the "local multicast" mechanism and the Security-Level to select the highest Security-Level route. The proposed algorithm of Security-Level is an adaptive fuzzy logic based algorithm that can adapt itself with the dynamic conditions of mobile hosts. Simulations show that the FLSL routing protocol can improve security of mobile ad hoc networks. The FLSL routing protocol is feasible to the weak security character of MANETs (mobile ad hoc networks). (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy numbers
analysis
fuzzy system model