Distributed simulation platform to design advanced RFID based freight transportation systems RFID systems, known to improve supply chains performances, are little implemented so far in industry, particularly in the field of transport, due to the high economic investment it requests in comparison to other existing solutions. However, their benefits may be theoretically proved by using a distributed simulation platform to support the design and test of any technical solution and organizational approach devoted to optimize RFID-based logistics systems. This paper deals with the development of this simulation platform, based on Generalized Discrete Event Specification (G-DEVS) models and HLA (High Level Architecture) standard. The different partner's components of the networked logistics enterprise are described. The proposed solution is applied to a freight transportation system and emulates the behaviour of the various components (RFID coupled to geolocation and mobile technology) required to optimize the products routing. The behaviour of the main components is G-DEVS formalized including the logistics supplier server, the smart product and the vehicle onboard device to interface the products with a centralized server. Delivery scenarios are then elaborated and simulated to check the behaviour and the intensity of communication network use between distributed G-DEVS models and other simulation components. The strength of the approach lies in the interoperability of the platform to simulate scenarios including discrete event models, real software and hardware devices all linked via an HLA connection. From these results, a discussion is given to validate or reject the conceptual choices about logistics components behaviour and their network bandwidth requirement regarding GSM, GPRS, Bluetooth and RFID networks theoretical capacities. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

logistics
rfid
distributed simulation
hla


Directional texture transfer for video Texture transfer is a method that copies the texture of a reference image to a target image. This technique has an advantage in that various styles can be expressed according to the reference image, in a single framework. However, in this technique, it is not easy to control the effect of each style. In addition, when this technique is extended to processing video images, maintaining temporal coherence is very difficult. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that transfers the texture of a reference image to a target video while retaining the directionality of the target video. The algorithm maintains the temporal coherency of the transferred texture, and controls the style of the texture transfer.

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 O O O 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 B I

example-based rendering
video processing


Degree of contribution (DoC) feature selection algorithm for structural brain MRI volumetric features in depression detection Accurate detection of depression at an individual level using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) remains a challenge. Brain volumetric changes at a structural level appear to have importance in depression biomarkers studies. An automated algorithm is developed to select brain sMRI volumetric features for the detection of depression.

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

feature selection
depression detection
volumetric features
degree of contribution


The Controller Placement Problem Network architectures such as Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) move the control logic off packet processing devices and onto external controllers. These network architectures with decoupled control planes open many unanswered questions regarding reliability, scalability, and performance when compared to more traditional purely distributed systems. This paper opens the investigation by focusing on two specific questions: given a topology, how many controllers are needed, and where should they go? To answer these questions, we examine fundamental limits to control plane propagation latency on an upcoming Internet2 production deployment, then expand our scope to over 100 publicly available WAN topologies. As expected, the answers depend on the topology. More surprisingly, one controller location is often sufficient to meet existing reaction-time requirements (though certainly not fault tolerance requirements).

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

performance
controller placement
latency

design
algorithms
sdn
software-defined networks
openflow


delay, cost and infrastructure tradeoff of epidemic routing in mobile sensor networks This paper studies the delay, cost and infrastructure tradeoff of epidemic routing in mobile sensor networks. We consider a mobile sensor network with M mobiles and B static base stations. The mobile sensors collect information when moving around and need to report the information to the base stations. Three different epidemic routing schemes --- target epidemic routing, uncontrolled epidemic routing and controlled epidemic routing --- are analyzed in this paper. For each of the three schemes, we characterize the scaling behaviors of the delay, which is defined to be the average number of time slots required to deliver a message, and the cost, which is defined to be the average number of transmissions required to deliver a message, in terms of the number of mobiles ( M ) and the number of base stations ( B ). These scaling results reveal the fundamental tradeoff among delay, cost and infrastructure in mobile sensor networks.

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


Predicting uncertain behavior of press unit in a paper industry using artificial bee colony and fuzzy Lambda-Tau methodology As the industrial systems are growing complex these-days and data related to the system performance are recorded/collected from various resources under various practical constraints. If the collected data are used as such in the analysis, then they have high range of uncertainties occurred in the analysis and hence performance of the system cannot be done up to desired levels. Thus the main objective of the present work is to remove the uncertainties in the data up to a desired degree of accuracy by utilizing the uncertain, vague and limited data. For analysis of this, an artificial bee colony based Lambda-Tau (ABCBLT) methodology has been used in which expression of the reliability parameters are computed by using Lambda-Tau methodology and their membership functions are formulated by solving a nonlinear optimization problem with artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm. A time varying failure rate has been used in the analysis instead of constant failure rate. A new RAM-Index has been proposed for ranking the systems' components based on its performance. The technique has been demonstrated through a case study of press unit of a paper industry, situated in Northern part of India, producing 200 tons of paper per day. The results computed by the proposed approach are compared with the Lambda-Tau methodology and concluded that they have a reduced region of prediction in comparison of existing technique region, i.e. uncertainties involved in the analysis are reduced. Thus, it may be a more useful analysis tool to assess the current system conditions and involved uncertainties. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

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

ram analysis
lambda-tau methodology
fuzzy membership function
repairable systems


Hybrid object-based approach for land use/land cover mapping using high spatial resolution imagery Traditionally, remote sensing has employed pixel-based classification techniques to deal with land use/land cover (LULC) studies. Generally, pixel-based approaches have been proven to work well with low spatial resolution imagery (e. g. Landsat or System Pour L'Observation de la Terre sensors). Now, however, commercially available high spatial resolution images (e. g. aerial Leica ADS40 and Vexcel UltraCam sensors, and satellite IKONOS, Quickbird, GeoEye and WorldView sensors) can be problematic for pixel-based analysis due to their tendency to oversample the scene. This is driving research towards object-based approaches. This article proposes a hybrid classification method with the aim of incorporating the advantages of supervised pixel-based classification into object-based approaches. The method has been developed for medium-scale (1: 10,000) LULC mapping using ADS40 imagery with 1 m ground sampling distance. First, spatial information is incorporated into a pixel-based classification (AdaBoost classifier) by means of additional texture features (Haralick, Gabor, Law features), which can be selected 'ad hoc' according to optimal training samples ('Relief-F' approach, Mahalanobis distances). Then a rule-based approach sorts segmented regions into thematic CORINE Land Cover classes in terms of membership class percentages (a modified Winner-Takes-All approach) and shape parameters. Finally, ancillary data (roads, rivers, etc.) are exploited to increase classification accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed hybrid approach allows the extraction of more LULC classes than conventional pixel-based methods, while improving classification accuracy considerably. A second contribution of this article is the assessment of classification reliability by implementing a stability map, in addition to confusion matrices.

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

hybrid classification
texture
lulc
corine land cover
ads40
stability map


browsing within time-driven multimedia documents We present the software design and the interfaces of an interactive browser for time-driven multimedia objects. Time-driven multimedia objects may have as their main resource voice or animation sequences. Several important application environments such as training systems, home entertainment systems, do-it-yourself manuals may involve time-driven multimedia objects and they may be implemented with such browsing interfaces. Such applications may be implemented using easy to replicate optical disks such as CD-ROMs, and distributed to a large user community.

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

training
voice
applications
entertainment
home
systems
environments
software design
multimedia
browser
interfaces
distributed
animation
user
resource

interaction communities replication object optic browse timing documentation sequence


Higher order volume-preserving schemes for charged particle dynamics A class of higher order numerical methods for advancing the charged particles in a general electromagnetic field is developed based on processing technique. By taking the volume-preserving methods as the kernel, the processed methods are still volume-preserving, and preserve the conservative quantities for the Lorenz force system. Moreover, this class of numerical methods are explicit and are more efficient compared with other higher order composition methods. Linear stability analysis is given by applying the numerical methods to the test equation. It is shown that the newly constructed higher order methods have the better stability property. This allows the use of larger step sizes in their implementation.

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

lorentz force equation
higher order schemes
volume-preserving integrator
effective order


Simultaneous homographic and comparametric alignment of multiple exposure-adjusted pictures of the same scene An approach is presented that can simultaneously align multiple exposure-adjusted pictures of the same scene both in their spatial coordinates as well as in their pixel values. The approach is featureless and produces an image mosaic at a common spatial and exposure reference and also addresses the misalignment problem common to methods that compose mosaics from only pair-wise registered image pairs. The objective function considered minimizes the sum of the collective variance over pixels of a global coordinate grid on which to create the final image. The models employed relate images spatially by homographic transformations and tonally by comparametric functions. The importance of performing joint spatial and tonal registration on exposure-adjusted images is emphasized by providing two examples in which spatial-only registration fails. A discussion describing the performance between pair-wise and simultaneous registration under both spatial-only and joint registration procedures 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

comparametric equation
domain and range registration
dynamic range map
exposure adjustment
homography
perspective projection
simultaneous alignment


comparative analysis of the des cryptographic processor's architecture (abstract only) On this article the DES algorithm and comparative analysis of the DES cryptographic processor's architecture were considered. As the criteria of comparision the performance of the processor's work and equipment volume were taken.

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


A symbolic semantics for abstract model checking In this paper we present a symbolic semantics of value-passing concurrent processes where classical branching is replaced by separate relations of non-deterministic branch and alternative choice. The obtained symbolic graph is finite for regular processes and can suitably be interpreted over abstract values to effectively compute a safe abstract model for full mu -calculus model checking. The representation of non-determinism and alternative choice in symbolic transitions allows to achieve more precise approximations of the two dual next modalities. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


River run: an interactive GIS and dynamic graphing website for decision support and exploratory data analysis of water quality parameters of the lower Cape Fear river To visualize the water quality of the Lower Cape Fear River basin a Decision Support System (DSS) web site was developed which incorporates dynamic graphing and Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Together, these two software packages enable users to interact with water quality variables in order to investigate the spatial and temporal complexity of the data. The result of this research is that graphing and GIS technology are capable of being implemented over the Internet and that complex water quality data can be successfully disseminated using this medium. However, there remains a need to seamlessly link the graphing and GIS software which will make the visualization tools much more successful at communicating the complex spatial and temporal data.

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

gis
decision support system
water quality

interactive mapping
dynamic visualization


on approximate range counting and depth We improve the previous results by Aronov and Har-Peled (SODA'05) and Kaplan and Sharir (SODA'06) and present a randomized data structure of O(n) expected sizewhich can answer 3D approximate halfspace range counting queries in O(log n/k) expected time, where k is the actual value of the count. This is the first optimal method for the problem in the standard decision tree model; moreover, unlike previous methods, the new method is Las Vegas instead of Monte Carlo.In addition, we describe new results for several related problems, includingapproximate Tukey depth queries in 3D, approximate regression depthqueries in 2D, and approximate linear programming with violations inlow dimensions.

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

approximation
approximate counting
computational geometry
data depth


Medial axis computation for planar free-form shapes We present a simple, efficient, and stable method for computing-with any desired precision-the medial axis of simply connected planar domains. The domain boundaries are assumed to be given as polynomial spline curves. Our approach combines known results from the field of geometric approximation theory with a new algorithm from the field of computational geometry. Challenging steps are (1) the approximation of the boundary spline such that the medial axis is geometrically stable, and (2) the efficient decomposition of the domain into base cases where the medial axis can be computed directly and exactly. We solve these problems via spiral biarc approximation and a randomized divide & conquer algorithm. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

planar shape
stability
divide & conquer
randomized algorithm
numerical robustness


Handling imperfect user statements in real-life decision analysis Using established techniques from operations research (linear programming) and well-known measures of probability and value, we present a computational representation and evaluation of imperfect, imprecise user statements in decision analysis. The presentation starts with the structure of a decision problem and a model of the situation is discussed. The courses of action are represented by consequence sets in the decision structure. Statements could have an interval form to reflect the translation of the imperfect input data. Statistical decision theory is utilized to discriminate between alternatives. Dealing with imprecise statements means encountering decision situations where different alternatives are to prefer in different parts of the consistent solution space to the constraints. Consequently, selection rules based on traditional admissibility are not enough to indicate preferred choices. New admissibility concepts and a procedure for analyzing such situations are discussed. An algorithm for optimizing bilinear functions that does not even require LP is presented.

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

decision analysis
decision theory
admissibility

uncertain reasoning
bilinear optimization


A volume flexible economic production lot-sizing problem with imperfect quality and random machine failure in fuzzy-stochastic environment An economic production lot size (EPLS) model for an item with imperfect quality is developed by considering random machine failure. Breakdown of the manufacturing machines is taken into account by considering its failure rate to be random (continuous). The production rate is treated as a decision variable. It is assumed that some defective units are produced during the production process. Machine breakdown resulting in idle time of the respective machine which leads to additional cost for loss of manpower is taken into account. It is assumed that the production of the imperfect quality units is a random variable and all these units are treated as scrap items that are completely wasted. The models have been formulated as profit maximization problems in stochastic and fuzzy-stochastic environments by considering some inventory parameters as imprecise in nature. In a fuzzy-stochastic environment, using interval arithmetic technique, the interval objective function has been transformed into an equivalent deterministic multi-objective problem. Finally, multi-objective problem is solved by Global Criteria Method (GCM). Stochastic and fuzzy-stochastic problems and their significant features are illustrated by numerical examples. Using the result of the stochastic model, sensitivity of the nearer optimal solution due to changes of some key parameters are analysed.

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

imperfect quality
random machine failure


GPELab,

a

Matlab

toolbox

to

solve

GrossPitaevskii

equations

II:

Dynamics

and

stochastic

simulations

GPELab

is

a

free

Matlab

toolbox

for

modeling

and

numerically

solving

large

classes

of

systems

of

GrossPitaevskii

equations

that

arise

in

the

physics

of

BoseEinstein

condensates.

The

aim

of

this

second

paper,

which

follows

(Antoine

and

Duboscq,

is

to

first

present

the

various

pseudospectral

schemes

available

in

GPELab

for

computing

the

deterministic

and

stochastic

nonlinear

dynamics

of

GrossPitaevskii

equations

(Antoine,

etal.,

Next,

the

corresponding

GPELab

functions

are

explained

in

detail.

Finally,

some

numerical

examples

are

provided

to

show

how

the

code

works

for

the

complex

dynamics

of

BEC

problems.

Program

title:

GPELab

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

URL:

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Matlab.

Computer:

PC,

Mac.

Operating

system:

Windows,

Mac

OS,

Linux.

Has

the

code

been

vectorized

or

parallelized?:

Yes

RAM:

Megabytes

Classification:

Catalogue

identifier

of

previous

version:

Journal

reference

of

previous

version:

Comput.

Phys.

Comm.

Does

the

new

version

supersede

the

previous

version?:

Yes

Nature

of

problem:

Simulation

of

dynamical

solutions

for

a

class

of

systems

(multi-components)

of

time-dependent

GrossPitaevskii

equations

in

and

This

program

is

particularly

well

designed

for

the

simulation

of

the

dynamics

of

BoseEinstein

condensates

as

well

as

the

computation

of

ground

states.

Solution

method:

We

use

spectral

schemes

in

space

and

splitting/relaxation

scheme

in

time.

Reasons

for

new

version:

To

include

dynamic

simulations.

Summary

of

revisions:

It

is

now

possible

to

do

dynamical

simulations

with

the

code.

Running

time:

From

a

few

seconds

for

simple

problems

to

a

few

minutes

for

more

complex

situations

on

a

medium

computer.

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

boseeinstein condensates
nonlinear dynamics

nonlinear schrdinger equation
grosspitaevskii equation
stochastic dynamics
computational schemes
numerical simulation


describing differences between databases We study the novel problem of efficiently computing the update distance for a pair of relational databases. In analogy to the edit distance of strings, we define the update distance of two databases as the minimal number of set-oriented insert, delete and modification operations necessary to transform one database into the other. We show how this distance can be computed by traversing a search space of database instances connected by update operations. This insight leads to a family of algorithms that compute the update distance or approximations of it. In our experiments we observed that a simple heuristic performs surprisingly well in most considered cases.Our motivation for studying distance measures for databases stems from the field of scientific databases. There, replicas of a single database are often maintained at different sites, which typically leads to (accidental or planned) divergence of their content. To re-create a consistent view, these differences must be resolved. Such an effort requires an understanding of the process that produced them. We found that minimal update sequences of set-oriented update operations are a proper and concise representation of systematic errors, thus giving valuable clues to domain experts responsible for conflict resolution.

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


ROBIN: A novel personal recommendation model based on information propagation In this paper, we propose a novel personal recommendation model, called ROBIN. ROBIN employs Information Propagation and the EM method to implement the recommendation task. Experiment results show that ROBIN achieves good performance.

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

data analysis
data mining
recommendation system
performance evaluation


a methodology for the objective evaluation of the user/system interfaces of the madam system using software engineering principles The application of software engineering principles to the objective evaluation of an information storage and retrieval system in terms of user/system interactions will be discussed within this paper. Nine software engineering characteristics are addressed as potential candidates for evaluating the MADAM system.

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

methodology
storage
retrieval
interfaces
paper
evaluation
software engineering

interaction applications systems object informal user


Development of hybrid boundary node method in two-dimensional elasticity As a truly meshless method, the Hybrid Boundary Node Method (HBNM) does not require a boundary element mesh, either for the purpose of interpolation of the solution variables or for the integration of energy. It has been applied to solve the potential problems. This paper presents a further development of the HBNM to the 2D elastic problems. In this paper, the hybrid displacement variational formulations have been coupled with the Moving Least Squares (MLS) approximation. The rigid body movement method is employed to solve the hyper-singular integrations. The boundary layer effect, which is the main drawback of the original HBNM, has been circumvented by an adaptive integration scheme. In the present method, the source points of the fundamental solution are arranged directly on the boundary. Thus, the uncertain scale factor taken in the Regular Hybrid Boundary Node Method (RHBNM) can be avoided. The parameters that influence the performance of this method are studied through several numerical examples and the known analytical solutions. The treatment of singularity and further integration has been given by a series of effective approaches. The computation results obtained by the present method are shown that good convergence and high accuracy with a small node number are achievable.

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

meshless method
hybrid boundary node method
adaptive integration
moving least squares
elasticity


Parallel molecular dynamics simulation: implementation of PVM for a lipid membrane This paper describes a parallel algorithm for Molecular Dynamics simulation of a lipid membrane using the isothermal-isobaric ensemble. A message-passing paradigm is adopted for interprocessor communications using PVM3 (Parallel Virtual Machine). A data decomposition technique is employed for the parallelization of the calculation of intermolecular forces. The algorithm has been tested both on distributed memory architecture (DEC Alpha 500 workstation dusters) and shared memory architecture (SGI Powerchallenge with 20 R10000 processors) for a dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) lipid bilayer consisting of 32 DPPC molecules and 928 water molecules. For each architecture, we measure the execution time with average work load, and the optimal number of processors for the current simulation. Some dynamical quantities are presented for a 2 ns simulation obtained with 5 processors on DEC Alpha 500 workstations. Our results show that the code is extremely efficient on 5-8 processors, and a useful addition to other major computational resources. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

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

lipid simulation
parallel and distributed processing


inferring applications at the network layer using collective traffic statistics In this paper, we propose a novel technique for inferring the distribution of application classes present in the aggregated traffic flows between endpoints, which exploits both the statistics of the traffic flows, and the spatial distribution of those flows across the network. Our method employs a two-step supervised model, where the bootstrapping step provides initial (inaccurate) inference on the traffic application classes, and the graph-based calibration step adjusts the initial inference through the collective spatial traffic distribution. In evaluations using real traffic flow measurements from a large ISP, we show how our method can accurately classify application types within aggregate traffic between endpoints, even without the knowledge of ports and other traffic features. While the bootstrap estimate classifies the aggregates with 80\% accuracy, incorporating spatial distributions through calibration increases the accuracy to 92\%, i.e., roughly halving the number of errors.

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

graph-based calibration
two-step model
application identification


A note on the validity of statistical bootstrapping for estimating the uncertainty of tensor parameters in diffusion tensor images Diffusion tensors are estimated from magnetic resonance images (MRIs) that are diffusion-weighted, and those images inherently contain noise. Therefore, noise in the diffusion-weighted images produces uncertainty in estimation of the tensors and their derived parameters, which include eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and the trajectories of fiber pathways that are reconstructed from those eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Although repetition and wild bootstrap methods have been widely used to quantify the uncertainty of diffusion tensors and their derived parameters, we currently lack theoretical derivations that would validate the use of these two bootstrap methods for the estimation of statistical parameters of tensors in the presence of noise. The aim of this paper is to examine theoretically and numerically the repetition and wild bootstrap methods for approximating uncertainty in estimation of diffusion tensor parameters under two different schemes for acquiring diffusion weighted images. Whether these bootstrap methods can be used to quantify uncertainty in some diffusion tensor parameters, such as fractional anisotropy (FA), depends critically on the morphology of the diffusion tensor that is being estimated. The wild and repetition bootstrap methods in particular cannot quantify uncertainty in the principal direction (PD) of isotropic (or oblate) tensor. We also examine the use of bootstrap methods in estimating tensors in a voxel containing multiple tensors, demonstrating their limitations when quantifying the uncertainty of tensor parameters in those locations. Simulation studies are also used to understand more thoroughly our theoretical results. Our findings raise serious concerns about the use of bootstrap methods to quantify the uncertainty of fiber pathways when those pathways pass through voxels that contain either isotropic tensors, oblate tensors, or multiple tensors.

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

bootstrap
diffusion tensor
principal direction


Branch-and-price and beam search algorithms for the Variable Cost and Size Bin Packing Problem with optional items In the Variable Cost and Size Bin Packing Problem with optional items, a set of items characterized by volume and profit and a set of bins of different types characterized by volume and cost are given. The goal consists in selecting those items and bins which optimize an objective function which combines the cost of the used bins and the profit of the selected items. We propose two methods to tackle the problem: branch-and-price as an exact method and beam search as a heuristics, derived from the branch-and-price. Our branch-and-price method is characterized by a two level branching strategy. At the first level the branching is performed on the number of available bins for each bin type. At the second level it consists on pairs of items which can or cannot be loaded together. Exploiting the branch-and-price skeleton, we then present a variegated beam search heuristics, characterized by different beam sizes. We finally present extensive computational results which show a high accuracy of the exact method and a very good efficiency of the proposed heuristics.

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


Demand-driven frequent itemset mining using pattern structures Frequent itemset mining aims at discovering patterns the supports of which are beyond a given threshold. In many applications, including network event management systems, which motivated this work, patterns are composed of items each described by a subset of attributes of a relational table. As it involves an exponential mining space, the efficient implementation of user preferences and mining constraints becomes the first priority for a mining algorithm. User preferences and mining constraints are often expressed using patterns' attribute structures. Unlike traditional methods that mine all frequent patterns indiscriminately, we regard frequent itemset mining as a two-step process: the mining of the pattern structures and the mining of patterns within each pattern structure. In this paper, we present a novel architecture that uses pattern structures to organize the mining space. In comparison with the previous techniques, the advantage of our approach is two-fold: (i) by exploiting the interrelationships among pattern structures, execution times for mining can be reduced significantly; and (ii) more importantly, it enables us to incorporate high-level simple user preferences and mining constraints into the mining process efficiently. These advantages are demonstrated by our experiments using both synthetic and real-life datasets.

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

association rule mining
database integration
data mining


Dual-mode floating-point adder architectures Most modern microprocessors provide multiple identical functional Units to increase performance. This paper presents dual-mode floating-point adder architectures that support one higher precision addition and two parallel lower precision additions. A double precision floating-point adder implemented with the improved single-path algorithm is modified to design a dual-mode double precision floating-point adder that supports both one double precision addition and two parallel single precision additions. A similar technique is used to design a dual-mode quadruple precision floating-point adder that implements the two-path algorithm. The dual-mode quadruple precision floating-point adder supports one quadruple precision and two parallel double precision additions. To estimate area and worst-case delay, double, quadruple, dual-mode double, and dual-mode quadruple precision floating-point adders are implemented in VHDL Using the improved single-path and the two-path floating-point addition algorithms. The correctness of all the designs is tested and verified through extensive Simulation. Synthesis results show that dual-mode double and dual-Mode quadruple precision adders designed with the improved single-path algorithm require roughly 26% more area and 10% more delay than double and quadruple precision adders designed with the same algorithm. Synthesis results obtained for adders designed with the two-path algorithm show that dual-mode double and dual-mode quadruple precision adders requires 33% and 35% more area and 13% and 18% more delay than double and quadruple precision adders, respectively. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

quadruple precision
double precision
single precision
adder

floating-point
computer arithmetic
dual-mode
hardware designs


Hiding data reversibly in an image via increasing differences between two neighboring pixels This paper proposes a simple, efficient method that, based on increasing the differences between two neighboring pixels, losslessly embeds a message into a host image. The point at which the number of pixel differences in the image is at a maximum is selected to embed the message. The selected difference is increased by I or left unchanged if the embedded bit is "1" or "0", respectively. On the other hand, differences larger than the selected difference are increased by 1. Increasing a difference is done by adding I to or subtracting I from the pixel if its value is larger or smaller than its preceding pixel, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve a high payload capacity while the image distortion of the stego-image remains minimal.

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

information hiding
steganography
reversible data hiding


Design of computer controlled combustion engines Globalization and growing new markets, as well as increasing emission and fuel consumption requirements, force the car manufacturers and their suppliers to develop new engine control strategies in shorter time periods. This can mainly be reached by development tools and an integrated hardware and software environment enabling rapid implementation and testing of advanced engine control algorithms. The structure of a rapid control prototyping (RCP) system is explained, which allows fast measurement signal evaluation, and rapid prototyping of advanced engine control algorithms. A hardware-in-the-loop simulator for diesel engine control design is illustrated, simulation results for a 40 tons truck are presented. Providing efficient engine models for the proposed development tools, a dynamic local linear neural network approach is explained and applied for modelling the NO, emission characteristics of a 1.9 1 direct injection diesel engine. Furthermore the application of a RCP system is exemplified by the application of combustion pressure based closed-loop ignition timing control for a SI engine. Experimental results are shown for a 1.0 1 SI engine on a dynamic engine test stand. (C) 2003 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 B I O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

computer-aided control system design
computer-aided testing
identification
engine modelling
learning systems
feedforward control


text genre classification with genre-revealing and subject-revealing features Subject or prepositional content has been the focus of most classification research. Genre or style, on the other hand, is a different and important property of text, and automatic text genre classification is becoming important for classification and retrieval purposes as well as for some natural language processing research. In this paper, we present a method for automatic genre classification that is based on statistically selected features obtained from both subject-classified and genre classified training data. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms a direct application of a statistical learner often used for subject classification. We also observe that the deviation formula and discrimination formula using document frequency ratios also work as expected. We conjecture that this dual feature set approach can be generalized to improve the performance of subject classification as well.

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

idf
subject categories
tf
statistical method


Inverse Rendering of Faces with a 3D Morphable Model In this paper, we present a complete framework to inverse render faces with a 3D Morphable Model (3DMM). By decomposing the image formation process into geometric and photometric parts, we are able to state the problem as a multilinear system which can be solved accurately and efficiently. As we treat each contribution as independent, the objective function is convex in the parameters and a global solution is guaranteed. We start by recovering 3D shape using a novel algorithm which incorporates generalization error of the model obtained from empirical measurements. We then describe two methods to recover facial texture, diffuse lighting, specular reflectance, and camera properties from a single image. The methods make increasingly weak assumptions and can be solved in a linear fashion. We evaluate our findings on a publicly available database, where we are able to outperform an existing state-of-the-art algorithm. We demonstrate the usability of the recovered parameters in a recognition experiment conducted on the CMU-PIE database.

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

face shape
texture and illumination analysis


A necessary condition for Constructive Negation in Constraint Logic Programming Stuckey (1995) has presented a sound and complete procedure for Constructive Negation in Constraint Logic Programming, together with a sufficient condition, called admissible closure, which guarantees an effective implementation. In this paper we analyze this condition and relate it to the decidability of the underlying constraint structure. We prove that the admissible closure condition is also necessary to guarantee the existence of an effective implementation of Constructive Negation. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

automatic theorem proving
programming languages
formal semantics


Noise determination in differential pair-based second generation current conveyors The aim of this paper is to give simple design guidelines for the noise evaluation in differential pair-based second generation current conveyors (CCIIs). Input noise voltage and current have been expressed in terms of some well known constants and MOS g(m) values, so allowing a very fast estimation of the noise level. The presented theory has been verified, as an example, on two fabricated low voltage low power CCII topologies. Theoretical values, simulations and on chip measurements are also shown and their good agreement confirms the validity of the presented idea.

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

current-mode circuits
feedback
analog circuit modelling


Two-stage stochastic programming supply chain model for biodiesel production via wastewater treatment This paper presents a two-stage stochastic programming model used to design and manage biodiesel supply chains. This is a mixed-integer linear program and an extension of the classical two-stage stochastic location-transportation model. The proposed model optimizes not only costs but also emissions in the supply chain. The model captures the impact of biomass supply and technology uncertainty on supply chain-related decisions; the tradeoffs that exist between location and transportation decisions; and the tradeoffs between costs and emissions in the supply chain. The objective function and model constraints reflect the impact of different carbon regulatory policies, such as carbon cap, carbon tax, carbon cap-and-trade, and carbon offset mechanisms on supply chain decisions. We solve this problem using algorithms that combine Lagrangian relaxation and L-shaped solution methods, and we develop a case study using data from the state of Mississippi. The results from the computational analysis point to important observations about the impacts of carbon regulatory mechanisms as well as the uncertainties on the performance of biocrude supply chains.

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

stochastic programming
carbon regulatory mechanisms

lagrangian relaxation with multi-cut l-shaped algorithm


ECHOS: Edge capacity hosting overlays of nano data centers In this paper we propose a radical solution to data hosting and delivery for the Internet of the future. The current data delivery architecture is "network centric", with content stored in data centers connected directly to Internet backbones. This approach has multiple drawbacks among which complexity of deploying data centers, power consumption, and lack of scalability are the most critical ones. We propose a totally innovative and orthogonal approach to traditional data centers, through what we call "nano" data centers, which are essentially boxes deployed at the edge of the network (e. g., in home gateways, set-top-boxes, etc.) that cooperate in a peer-to-peer manner. Unlike traditional peer-to-peer clients, however, our nano data centers operate under a common management authority, e. g., the ISP who installs and maintains the set-top-boxes, and can thus cooperate more effectively and achieve a higher aggregate performance. Nano data centers are, therefore, better suited for providing guaranteed quality to new emerging applications such as online gaming, interactive IPTV and VoD, and user generated content.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
data center
peer-to-peer
set-top-box


First-

and

second-row

transition

metal

oxa-aza

macrocyclic

complexes:

a

DFT

study

of

an

octahedral

conformation

A

theoretical

study

of

structures

of

the

l,17-tetraoxa-2,6,12,16-tetraaza-cycloeicosane

ligand

coordinated

to

and

transition

metals

ions

was

carried

out

with

the

method.

Complexes

were

fully

optimized

in

C-s

symmetry

with

the

metal

ions

coordinated

either

to

nitrogen

or

oxygen

atoms

For

all

the

cases

performed

in

this

work,

was

always

more

stable

than

Considering

each

row

it

is

possible

to

see

that

the

binding

energy

increases

with

the

atomic

number.

The

cation

binding

energies

increase

in

the

following

order:

In

addition,

it

was

observed

the

preference

of

and

complexes

for

a

tetrahedral

arrangement,

while

complexes

had

a

preference

for

the

octahedral

arrangement.

From

the

orbital

representation

results,

it

was

seen

that

unsymmetrical

orbitals

may

influence

the

susceptibility

over

metal

ions

orientation

toward

heteroatoms

orbitals.

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

charge decomposition analysis
covalent interactions
ionic interactions
oxa-aza macrocycles
transition metal cations


Magnetron sputtered vs. thermally evaporated gold contacts in phthalocyanine-based thin film devices Sandwich-type ITO/phthalocyanine/Au cells, where top gold contact was deposited by either thermal evaporation or magnetron sputtering, have been fabricated. Comparison of electrical characteristics of these cells revealed important distinctions, which are associated with the deposition method.

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

organic semiconductors
phthalocyanines
interfaces
metallic contacts


automatic management of operating-system resources One of the attractive features of functional programming languages is that they provide automatic management of the store, in the form of garbage collection. However, the benefits of automatic resource management can be applied to other resources as well. Scsh, a systems-programming dialect of Scheme, provides automatic resource management for operating-systems structures, notably processes, I/O channels, and signal events. This kind of automatic management extends the benefits of garbage collection---modularity, robustness, simplicity, and clarity---to new sets of objects in programming, and also gives us hints as to how operating systems should be structured from the perspective of functional programming languages.

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

resource management
management
scheme
functional programming

program
structure
signaling
event
language
collect
operating system
object
process
modular
feature
resource
robust
systems programming


Instability phenomena during the conical expansion of circular cylindrical shells Pushing a conical die into a tube is a forming process that is suitable for changing the shape of a thin cylindrical tube into that of a conical shell. The degree of expansion that is achievable without destroying the tube is limited by two mechanisms: (a) loss of global stability due to elasto-plastic Concertina buckling of the straight part of the tube, and (b) diffuse necking caused by local loss of material stability in the conical part of the tube. The former mechanism is characterized by a periodic buckling pattern, that is similar to the one observed in typical crash elements, while the latter mechanism leads to the formation of periodic necks and subsequent failure by strain localization and rupture. In this study experimental evidence for both kinds of instabilities is presented along with corresponding simulation results obtained with the finite element method. For long tube specimens Concertina buckling was found to be the dominant instability mode while for short tube specimens failure by necking and rupture occurred. The critical circumferential strain for the onset of necking at the expanding tube end was markedly higher than the one expected from uniaxial tension results. This finding is attributed to the supporting effect of the tube sections that are subjected to lower strains.

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

instability
finite element method
necking
concertina buckling


Development of level set method with good area preservation to predict interface in two-phase flows A two-step conservative level set method is proposed in this study to simulate the gas/water two-phase flow. For the sake of accuracy, the spatial derivative terms in the equations of motion for an incompressible fluid flow are approximated by the coupled compact scheme. For accurately predicting the modified level set function, the dispersion-relation-preserving advection scheme is developed to preserve the theoretical dispersion relation for the first-order derivative terms shown in the pure advection equation cast in conservative form. For the purpose of retaining its long-time accurate Casimir functionals and Hamiltonian in the transport equation for the level set function, the time derivative term is discretized by the sixth-order accurate symplectic Runge-Kutta scheme. To resolve contact discontinuity oscillations near interface, nonlinear compression flux term and artificial damping term are properly added to the second-step equation of the modified level set method. For the verification of the proposed dispersion-relation-preserving scheme applied in non-staggered grids for solving the incompressible flow equations, three benchmark problems have been chosen in this study. The conservative level set method with area-preserving property proposed for capturing the interface in incompressible fluid flows is also verified by solving the dambreak, Rayleigh-Taylor instability, bubble rising in water, and droplet falling in water problems. Good agreements with the referenced solutions are demonstrated in all the investigated problems. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

conservative level set method
coupled compact scheme
casimir
hamiltonian
area preservation

dispersion-relation-preserving
sixth-order accurate
symplectic runge-kutta


The proper generalized decomposition: a powerful tool for model reduction One of my best scientific meetings was with Paco Chinesta some years ago. This close partnership has started when he visited Grenoble. He asked me: Can you solve quickly Fokker-Planck equation describing microscopic behaviour of complex fluids?. This question was the beginning of a discovery in the world of the kinetic theory microscopic descriptions. It was also the starting point of the development of efficient numerical techniques reducing simulation costs. Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic was the first release of our attempts. POD and other derived techniques using a priori model reduction was the second release. Finally a development of a powerful technique was the main achievement of these works, now known as Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD). With Paco, we established many collaborations with highly recognized scientists, allowing the proposal of new numerical strategies. Among them I would mention Elias Cueto, Antonio Falco, Etienne Prulire, David Ryckelynck and many others that deserve my acknowledgments. In this paper Im going to present first the general framework related to the purpose of a fine microscopic description. Then, some details of one of the developed numerical techniques (the PGD) will be presented. Finally, many examples in the kinetic theory description will be addressed for illustrating the possibilities of this powerful technique for solving problems never until now solved.

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

suspension kinetic theory
multidimensional problems
proper generalized decomposition (pgd)


"Best K": critical clustering structures in categorical datasets The demand on cluster analysis for categorical data continues to grow over the last decade. A well-known problem in categorical clustering is to determine the best K number of clusters. Although several categorical clustering algorithms have been developed, surprisingly, none has satisfactorily addressed the problem of best K for categorical clustering. Since categorical data does not have an inherent distance function as the similarity measure, traditional cluster validation techniques based on geometric shapes and density distributions are not appropriate for categorical data. In this paper, we study the entropy property between the clustering results of categorical data with different K number of clusters, and propose the BKPlot method to address the three important cluster validation problems: (1) How can we determine whether there is significant clustering structure in a categorical dataset? (2) If there is significant clustering structure, what is the set of candidate "best Ks"? (3) If the dataset is large, how can we efficiently and reliably determine the best Ks?.

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


Multiple Testing in Statistical Analysis of Systems-Based Information Retrieval Experiments High-quality reusable test collections and formal statistical hypothesis testing together support a rigorous experimental environment for information retrieval research. But as Armstrong et al. [2009b] recently argued, global analysis of experiments suggests that there has actually been little real improvement in ad hoc retrieval effectiveness over time. We investigate this phenomenon in the context of simultaneous testing of many hypotheses using a fixed set of data. We argue that the most common approaches to significance testing ignore a great deal of information about the world. Taking into account even a fairly small amount of this information can lead to very different conclusions about systems than those that have appeared in published literature. We demonstrate how to model a set of IR experiments for analysis both mathematically and practically, and show that doing so can cause p-values from statistical hypothesis tests to increase by orders of magnitude. This has major consequences on the interpretation of experimental results using reusable test collections: it is very difficult to conclude that anything is significant once we have modeled many of the sources of randomness in experimental design and analysis.

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

information retrieval
test collections
experimental design
statistical analysis

experimentation
measurement
theory
effectiveness evaluation


Constructing CSCW: The First Quarter Century As an established field of research, Computer Supported Cooperative Work or CSCW is now well beyond its first quarter century of existence. It is an appropriate time to take stock: What has been achieved, and what issues remain as challenges for the field?This introductory article will assess what has become of the field, its position as a research field in the wider context of technology development, and its complex physiognomy.

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


Ontology- and behavior-aware discovery of Web service compositions Web service discovery is one of the key issues in the emerging area of Service-oriented Computing. In this paper, we present a complete composition-oriented, ontology-based methodology for discovering semantic Web services, which exploits functional and behavioral properties contained in OWL-S service advertisements to satisfy functional and behavioral client queries. To this aim, we build on top of the results contained in two recent articles, where we presented (1) a suitable data structure (viz. a dependency hypergraph) to collect functional information of services, and (2) a suitable notion of behavioral equivalence for Web services. We also discuss the architecture and the main implementation choices of the matchmaking system applying such a methodology.

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

owl-s ontologies
petri nets
behavioral equivalences


An axiomatic approach of the discrete Choquet integral as a tool to aggregate interacting criteria The most often used operator to aggregate criteria in decision making problems is the classical weighted arithmetic mean,In many problems however, the criteria considered interact and a substitute to the weighted arithmetic mean has to be adopted, We show that, under rather natural conditions, the discrete Choquet integral is an adequate aggregation operator that extends the weighted arithmetic mean by the taking into consideration of the interaction among criteria, The axiomatic that supports the Choquet integral is presented and an intuitive approach is proposed as well.

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


Automated short proof generation for projective geometric theorems with Cayley and bracket algebras: I. Incidence geometry In this paper we establish the Cayley expansion theory on factored and shortest expansions of typical Cayley expressions in two- and three-dimensional projective geometry. We set up a group of Cayley factorization formulae based on the classification of Cayley expansions. We continue to establish three powerful simplification techniques in bracket computation. On top of the Cayley expansions and simplifications, together with a set of elimination rules, we design an algorithm that can produce extremely short proofs in two- and three-dimensional projective geometry. The techniques developed here can be immediately applied to other symbolic computation tasks involving brackets.

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

cayley algebra
bracket algebra
automated theorem proving
projective incidence geometry


Texture and objects: Interruption of same-object effect in human vision The present research examines the relationship between texture processing and object processing in human vision. Recent computational studies have suggested a difference between the stages of processing. Texture processing can be performed by using statistical parameterization of the response of primary spatial filters. Object processing requires more complex and elaborate computation at a higher stage than texture processing. Our psychophysical experiments are conducted to clarify the relationship of the stages of texture processing and object processing, by focusing on same-object effect which facilitates and speeds attention shifts within the same object and also costs and delays attention shifts if the attention focus moves from one object to another. Texture is composed of lines parallel to, perpendicular to or inside of elongated rectangles used as objects. The same-object effect is measured with reaction time in a cued detection task. Vertical rectangles are used in xperiment 1 and horizontal ones are used in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 shows that the texture lines interrupt the same-object effect and that the interruption is nearly equal if texture lines are added both to the background and the inside of the objects. Experiment 2 yields the result same as Experiment 1. The interruption of the same-object effect by adding texture lines suggests that texture processing affects object processing.

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


Lead-like, drug-like or "pub-like": how different are they? Academic and industrial research continues to be focused on discovering new classes of compounds based on HTS. Post-HTS analyses need to prioritize compounds that are progressed to chemical probe or lead status. We report trends in probe, lead and drug discovery by examining the following categories of compounds: 385 leads and the 541 drugs that emerged from them; "active" (152) and "inactive" (1488) compounds from the Molecular Libraries Initiative Small Molecule Repository (MLSMR) tested by HTS; "active" (46) and "inactive" (72) compounds from Nature Chemical Biology (NCB) tested by HTS; compounds in the drug development phase (I, II, III and launched), as indexed in MDDR; and medicinal chemistry compounds from WOMBAT, separated into high-activity (5,784 compounds with nanomolar activity or better) and low-activity (30,690 with micromolar activity or less). We examined Molecular weight (MW), molecular complexity, flexibility, the number of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, LogP-the octanol/water partition coefficient estimated by ClogP and ALOGPS), LogSw (intrinsic water solubility, estimated by ALOGPS) and the number of Rule of five (Ro5) criteria violations. Based on the 50% and 90% distribution moments of the above properties, there were no significant difference between leads of known drugs and "actives" from MLSMR or NCB (chemical probes). "Inactives" from NCB and MLSMR were also found to exhibit similar properties. From these combined sets, we conclude that "Actives" (569 compounds) are less complex, less flexible, and more soluble than drugs (1,651 drugs), and significantly smaller, less complex, less hydrophobic and more soluble than the 5,784 high-activity WOMBAT compounds. These trends indicate that chemical probes are similar to leads with respect to some properties, e.g., complexity, solubility, and hydrophobicity.

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

chemical probes
druglike
leadlike
mlsmr
molecular complexity
wombat

combinatorial chemistry
computer chemistry
database filtering
drug research
hydrogen bonds
lead discovery
mlscn
property distribution
pub-like
pubchem
"rule of 5" test


Toward a sociogenetic solution: Examining language formation processes through SWARM modeling Creole languages are often a point of contention for theoretical linguistics. Broadly defined, creoles result from an amalgamation of two or more languages, when speakers of differing mother tongues need rudimentary communication during economic or social transactions. Creolization occurs if the "invented" system becomes the native language of the speech community. There are several hypotheses for how biological linguistic properties and social contact each bear on the formation of creoles; however, until recently, no reliable method for testing these complex interactions existed. Implementing SWARM 2.1.1, the current model consists of a multiagent population drawn from historical records of Surinamese sugar cane plantations. Each agent in this artificial society is endowed with a demographic profile and linguistic parameters. Three experiments using the SWARM model are described. The results provide viable motivation for advancing a "sociogenetic" solution for the emergence of prototypical creole languages.

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

language contact
pidgins and creoles
language acquisition


UML formal semantics: lessons learned The article below presents the insights gained during a number of years of research dedicated to the formalisation of the Unified Modeling Language.

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

compositional semantics
multiple system views
all-encompassing uml semantics
formal model-driven system development


computing frobenius maps and factoring polynomials A new probabilistic algorithm for factoring univariate polynomials over finite fields is presented whose asymptotic running time improves upon previous results. To factor a polynomial of degree n over F q , the algorithm uses O (( n 2 + n log q )(log n ) 2 log log n ) arithmetic operations in F q . The main technical innovation is a new way to compute Frobenius and trace maps in the ring of polynomials modulo the polynomial to be factored.

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

operability
innovating
traces
timing
finite field
computation
probabilistic algorithm


Open issues on TCP for mobile computing We discuss the design principles of TCP within the context of heterogeneous wired/wireless networks and mobile networking. We identify three shortcomings in TCP's behavior: (i) the protocol's error detection mechanism, which does not distinguish different types of errors and thus does not suffice for heterogeneous wired/wireless environments, (ii) the error recovery, which is not responsive to the distinctive characteristics of wireless networks such as transient or burst errors due to handoffs and fading channels, and (iii) the protocol strategy, which does not control the tradeoff between performance measures such as goodput and energy consumption, and often entails a wasteful effort of retransmission and energy expenditure. We discuss a solution-framework based on selected research proposals and the associated evaluation criteria for the suggested modifications. We highlight an important angle that did not attract the required attention so far: the need for new performance metrics, appropriate for evaluating the impact of protocol strategies on battery-powered devices. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

congestion control
wireless links
energy efficiency


Local asymptotic coding and the minimum description length Local asymptotic arguments imply that parameter selection via the minimum description length (MDL) resembles a traditional hypothesis test, A common approximation for MDL estimates the cost of adding a parameter at about (1/2)log n bits for a model fit to n observations, While accurate for parameters which are large on a standardized scale, this approximation overstates the parameter cost near zero, We find that encoding the parameter produces a shorter description length when the corresponding estimator is about two standard errors away from zero, as in a traditional statistical hypothesis test.

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

bic
model selection
two-part code
universal code


On network entropy and bio-interactome applications Networks represent a main methodological instrument in systems biology applications. In particular, modularity is widely investigated in the attempt to elucidate the regulative and correlative nature of gene and protein associations, respectively. However, modular maps are only approximate representations due to two main factors. First, the resolution spectrum that has to be covered is wide and method-dependent. Second, the randomness underlying network dynamics and influencing them through fluctuations and system perturbations, is difficult to measure. We investigate both aspects by an application to the yeast protein interactome network, and suggest that a non-extensive characterization of entropy may play a role for elucidating both random and biological variation.

protein interactome networks
non-extensive entropy
multiresolution analysis


a recurrent decentralized key management architecture for wireless sensor network Wireless sensor networks increasingly become viable solutions to many challenging problems and will successively be deployed in many areas in the future. However, deploying such an open infrastructure without security in mind has often proved to be unreasonably dangerous. In this paper, we propose a new decentralized recurrent key management architecture for wireless senor networks, covering aspects of key refreshment and en-route cryptograpy. It features a balance between security and energy consumption by minimizing communication overheads between nodes. Key refreshment uses a new recurrent update algorithm while en-route cryptography allows intermediary nodes to further encrypt or not the data based on specific rules. The keying protocols involved uses only symmetric cryptographic. The analysis of the proposed security architecture demonstrates its capability to satisfy the desired security aspects while still being a lightweight solution. Moreover, compared with a system that uses public-key data encryption, the energy consumption of the algorithm is tens of times lower.

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

security
wireless sensor network
key refreshment
encryption


Functional epoxy polymer for direct nano-imprinting of micro-optical elements This work presents a functional resist for the direct fabrication of micro-optical elements with UV-enhanced substrate conformal imprint lithography (UV-SCIL). This functional resist is based on a UV-curable epoxy polymer where TiO2 nanoparticles are enclosed. Adding these particles to the polymer raises the refractive index of the functional resist with raising particle content from 1.52 up to 1.64 at a wavelength of 633nm. Therefore, the refractive index can be matched for many micro-optical applications. Here, multilevel Fresnel lenses from a 200mm silica substrate are transferred into the functional resist by UV-SCIL with nanometer resolution and high structure fidelity.

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

scil
uv polymers
soft imprint lithography
refractive index matching


using transparent compression to improve ssd-based i/o caches Flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) offer superior performance over hard disks for many workloads. A prominent use of SSDs in modern storage systems is to use these devices as a cache in the I/O path. In this work, we examine how transparent, online I/O compression can be used to increase the capacity of SSD-based caches, thus increasing the costeffectiveness of the system. We present FlaZ , an I/O system that operates at the block-level and is transparent to existing file-systems. To achieve transparent, online compression in the I/O path and maintain high performance, FlaZ , provides support for variable-size blocks, mapping of logical to physical blocks, block allocation, and cleanup. FlaZ , mitigates compression and decompression overheads that can have a significant impact on performance by leveraging modern multicore CPUs. We implement FlaZ , in the Linux kernel and evaluate it on a commodity server with multicore CPUs, using TPC-H, PostMark, and SPECsfs. Our results show that compressed caching trades off CPU cycles for I/O performance and enhances SSD efficiency as a cache by up to 99\%, 25\%, and 11\% for each workload, respectively.

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

solid state disk caches
i/o performance
online block-level compression
evaluation


Generating all minimal integral solutions to ANDOR systems of monotone inequalities: Conjunctions are simpler than disjunctions ? We consider monotone ?,? ? , ? -formulae ? ? of m m atoms, each of which is a monotone inequality of the form fi(x)?ti f i ( x ) ? t i over the integers, where for i=1,,m i = 1 , , m , fi:Zn?R f i : Z n ? R is a given monotone function and ti t i is a given threshold. We show that if the ? ? -degree of ? ? is bounded by a constant, then for linear, transversal and polymatroid monotone inequalities all minimal integer vectors satisfying ? ? can be generated in incremental quasi-polynomial time. In contrast, the enumeration problem for the disjunction of m m inequalities is NP-hard when m m is part of the input. We also discuss some applications of the above results in disjunctive programming, data mining, matroid and reliability theory.

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

dualization
hypergraph transversals
generation algorithms
monotone systems of inequalities
linear inequalities
transversal inequalities
polymatroid inequalities


a clustering entropy-driven approach for exploring and exploiting noisy functions Linear, Gaussian, fitness proportional, clustering, and Rosca entropies are succinct measures of diversity that have been applied to balance exploration and exploitation in evolutionary algorithms. In previous studies, an entropy-driven approach using linear entropy explicitly balances and/or searches optimal solutions for the selected unimodal and multimodal functions excluding noisy functions. This paper investigates the reasons for such an exception and introduces a clustering entropy-driven approach to solve the problem. Such an approach provides a coarse-grained diversity measure that filters the noise of functions, varies cluster size and categorizes individuals at the genotype level. The experimental results show that the clustering entropy-driven approach further improves the searching results of noisy functions by one more degree.

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

exploration cluster exploitation entropy


Estimation-Theoretic Approach to Delayed Decoding of Predictively Encoded Video Sequences Current video coders employ predictive coding with motion compensation to exploit temporal redundancies in the signal. In particular, blocks along a motion trajectory are modeled as an auto-regressive (AR) process, and it is generally assumed that the prediction errors are temporally independent and approximate the innovations of this process. Thus, zero-delay encoding and decoding is considered efficient. This paper is premised on the largely ignored fact that these prediction errors are, in fact, temporally dependent due to quantization effects in the prediction loop. It presents an estimation-theoretic delayed decoding scheme, which exploits information from future frames to improve the reconstruction quality of the current frame. In contrast to the standard decoder that reproduces every block instantaneously once the corresponding quantization indices of residues are available, the proposed delayed decoder efficiently combines all accessible (including any future) information in an appropriately derived probability density function, to obtain the optimal delayed reconstruction per transform coefficient. Experiments demonstrate significant gains over the standard decoder. Requisite information about the source AR model is estimated in a spatio-temporally adaptive manner from a bit-stream conforming to the H.264/AVC standard, i.e., no side information needs to be sent to the decoder in order to employ the proposed approach, thereby compatibility with the standard syntax and existing encoders is retained.

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

delayed decoding
motion trajectory
predictive coding

differential pulse code modulation
estimation-theoretic prediction


Evaluation and design: a knowledge-based approach aim of this communication is to describe how aiding-design tools can evaluate designed solutions to help users make the best choices, avoid design mistakes and reduce the design time-cycle. First, we will compare the two main methods for aiding design behaviour simulation tools and domain knowledge simulation tools-and look at their advantages and drawbacks. We will focus on tools based on knowledge because of their 'interactivity' and for their ability to represent domain knowledge and show how they can be extended to evaluate designed solutions. We will then concentrate on an aiding-design tool based on constraints and see how a solution can be evaluated using an evaluation function. As such a tool has already been developed as part of a European project to help metallurgists design and evaluate heat treatment operations, we end with the presentation of a real example.

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

evaluation of solutions
interactive aiding design
application


A Formal Model for the Requirements Diagrams of SysML There are several notations to build a model: textual, graphical and mathematical. There are several notations to build a model: textual, graphical and by using mathematics. The Object Management Group (OMG) has developed a graphical notation to model systems called SysML (system modeling language); this notation includes the modeling of the system requirements. In this paper a precise model of the requirements diagrams of SysML is presented. This model is made using a modeling language called Alloy, which has been used to formally specify UML diagrams.

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


The multiple vehicle pickup and delivery problem with LIFO constraints Approach a new pickup and delivery problem with LIFO and time constraints. Propose two formulations for the problem, together with several set of valid inequalities to improve them. Design an efficient branch and cut solution method to solve the problem to optimality. Develop a fast tabu search heuristic to find feasible solutions within short running times. Evaluate the performance of the proposed solution methods through a comprehensive computational study.

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

pickup and delivery
lifo constraints
branch and cut

vehicle routing
mixed-integer programming


A real-time computer vision system for vehicle tracking and traffic surveillance Increasing congestion on freeways and problems associated with existing detectors have spawned an interest in new vehicle detection technologies such as video image processing. Existing commercial image processing systems work well in free-flowing traffic, but the systems have difficulties with congestion, shadows and lighting transitions. These problems stem from vehicles partially occluding one another and the fact that vehicles appear differently under various lighting conditions. We are developing a feature-based tracking system for detecting vehicles under these challenging conditions. Instead of tracking entire vehicles, vehicle features are tracked to make the system robust to partial occlusion. The system is fully functional under changing lighting conditions because the most salient features at the given moment are tracked. After the features exit the tracking region, they are grouped into discrete vehicles using a common motion constraint. The groups represent individual vehicle trajectories which can be used to measure traditional traffic parameters as well as new metrics suitable for improved automated surveillance. This paper describes the issues associated with feature based tracking, presents the real-time implementation of a prototype system, and the performance of the system on a large data set.

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

traffic surveillance
vehicle tracking
video image processing


Characteristics of habituation to motion in a virtual environment Immersion in a virtual environment is known to produce symptoms similar to those of motion sickness. With repeated immersions, these symptoms are generally reduced in prevalence and severity. We aimed to quantify this habituation by immersing 70 people on ten occasions each. Ten participants were exposed every day, ten every 2days, and so on up to every 7days. The participants played a PC racing game, viewed through a head mounted display, for 20min. They rated various motion sickness symptoms both before and after exposure, and rated their level of malaise at 1-min intervals during immersion. After completion of the ten trials, all sets of participants reported a marked reduction in the prevalence and severity of the symptoms. The habituation which occurred was of a similar nature in all of the participant groups regardless of exposure interval, indicating that the number of exposures is a more important factor than the time interval between them.

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

visually induced motion sickness (vims)
ocular symptoms
nausea


branching and merging in the repository Two of the most complex operations version control software allows a user to perform are branching and merging. Branching provides the user the ability to create a copy of the source code to allow changes to be stored in version control but outside of the trunk. Merging provides the user the ability to copy changes from a branch to the trunk. Performing a merge can be a tedious operation and one that may be error prone. In this paper, we compare file revisions found on branches with those found on the trunk to determine when a change that is applied to a branch is moved to the trunk. This will allow us to study how developers use merges and to determine if merges are in fact more error prone than other commits.

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 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


using spatial and temporal contrast for fluent robot-human hand-overs For robots to get integrated in daily tasks assisting humans, robot-human interactions will need to reach a level of fluency close to that of human-human interactions. In this paper we address the fluency of robot-human hand-overs. From an observational study with our robot HERB, we identify the key problems with a baseline hand-over action. We find that the failure to convey the intention of handing over causes delays in the transfer, while the lack of an intuitive signal to indicate timing of the hand-over causes early, unsuccessful attempts to take the object. We propose to address these problems with the use of spatial contrast, in the form of distinct hand-over poses, and temporal contrast, in the form of unambiguous transitions to the hand-over pose. We conduct a survey to identify distinct hand-over poses, and determine variables of the pose that have most communicative potential for the intent of handing over. We present an experiment that analyzes the effect of the two types of contrast on the fluency of hand-overs. We find that temporal contrast is particularly useful in improving fluency by eliminating early attempts of the human.

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