The laryngectomee substitute voice: Image processing of endoscopic recordings by fusion with acoustic signals Objectives. The most radical cancer therapy of the throat is the total excision of the larynx which postoperatively results in the loss of voice. A widely-used method of voice rehabilitation is the insertion of a silicone valve, which establishes an unidirectional connection between trachea and esophagus. Thus, during exhalation, air (an be directed from the trachea into the esophagus. This air stream excites tissue vibrations of the esophagus and the hypo-pharynx which act as a substitute voice generator. Purpose of the current study is to present a technique for visualizing the dynamics of the substitute voice generating element. Methods. Digital high speed videos of the vibrating tissue are simultaneously recorded with the emitted acoustic signal. The high speed sequences are directly evaluated by a three-step knowledge based algorithm. It considers correlation between image and acoustic data, information about the gray value of each pixel, and continuity of tissue vibration. The temporal properties of an image series are investigated by evaluating the time dependent gray value at each pixel position. Results: The applicability of the algorithm is exemplarily demonstrated using the data of one male patient. It enables the identification of the regions within an image series which are mainly responsible for the acoustic signal. Additionally, the dynamics of tissue vibrations are visualized. The main propagation direction can be clearly identified. Conclusions: The new methodology summarizes the information about endoscopic and acoustic recordings of substitute voice into a single image. The results allow a first estimation of tissue velocity and elastic properties of oscillating tissue.

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


Hand written character feature extraction using non-linear feedforward neural networks In this paper, an artificial neural network is proposed for feature extraction of hand written characters. The learning algorithm is developed based on a proposed modified Sammon's stress for our feedforward neural networks, which can not only minimize intra class pattern distances but also preserve interclass distances in the output feature space. The proposed feature extraction method tries to calculate rough classes using a Competitive Learning neural network, which is an unsupervised neural network. Then the proposed neural network was used with modified Sammon's stress to perform feature extraction using information obtained by means of a Competitive Learning Network. The features thus obtained were compared with a standard PCA neural network and a neural network using Sammon's stress in terms of their classification accuracy. Two numerical criteria were used for performance evaluation of the features - the normalized classification error rate and modified Sammon's stress. It is found that proposed modified Sammon's stress provides features that are more efficient based on these two numerical criteria.

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 B I O O O O O O O O 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

unsupervised neural networks
sammon's stress
hand-written character recognition
lms algorithm


anisotropic resizing of model with geometric textures Model resizing is a useful technique for model reuse. Introduced by Kraevoy et al., non-homogeneous model resizing is able to preserve important geometric features during anisotropic scaling. However, many practical objects contain various geometric textures. Different from similar objects without geometric textures, such objects seem as if extremely difficult to resize even if the underlying surfaces are relatively simple. In this paper, we present an automatic model resizing method based on geometric texture transfer. Geometric textures are separated from the underlying surfaces and reproduced on the non-homogenously scaled surfaces using geometric texture synthesis. By utilizing the natural correspondence between the surfaces before and after resizing, surfaces with multiple geometric textures can be resized and geometric texture recovered automatically. Experimental results show that our method effectively and automatically preserves geometric textures during the model resizing process.

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


Impaired Cerebromicrovascular Perfusion: Summary of Evidence in Support of Its Causality in Alzheimer's Disease After nearly a century of inquiry, the cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains to be found. In this review, basic and clinical evidence is presented that assembles and hypothetically explains most of the key pathologic events associated with the development of AD. These pathologic events are triggered in AD by impaired cerebral perfusion originating in the microvasculature that affects the optimal delivery of glucose and oxygen and results in an energy metabolic breakdown of brain cell biosynthetic and synaptic pathways. We propose that two factors must be present before cognitive dysfunction and neurodegeneration is expressed in the AD brain

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

cerebral hypoperfusion
vascular risk factor
aging
alzheimer pathogenesis
energy metabolism
cerebral blood flow


Low-Power Multimedia System Design by Aggressive Voltage Scaling Mobile multimedia systems are growing in complexity and scalability and, correspondingly, in their implementation challenges. By design, these systems have built-in error resilience that has been exploited in many different compression and transmission schemes mainly as a quality tradeoff. This paper proposes a paradigm shift in utilizing error resilience in an application-aware method for reducing the power consumption of memories in such systems by aggressively scaling the supply voltage beyond what is currently considered as "safe" operating conditions while maintaining performance. Results on H. 264 decoders show that power savings of more than 40% are possible.

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


Modelling energy consumption of network transfers and virtual machine migration ? Energy consumption of virtual machine migration is related to network transfer. We propose a model for energy consumption of network transfer. On the top of the network transfer model we build a model for VM migration. We increase accuracy of existing VM migration models up to 24%.

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

energy consumption
virtual machine migration


A comprehensive framework for enhancing security in InfiniBand Architecture The InfiniBand Architecture ( IBA) is a promising communication standard for building clusters and system area networks. However, the IBA specification has left out security aspects, resulting in potential security vulnerabilities, which could be exploited with moderate effort. In this paper, we view these vulnerabilities from three classical security aspects - confidentiality, authentication, and availability - and investigate the following security issues. First, as groundwork for secure services in IBA, we present partition-level and queue-pair-level key management schemes, both of which can be easily integrated into IBA. Second, for confidentiality and authentication, we present a method to incorporate a scalable encryption and authentication algorithm into IBA, with little performance overhead. Third, for better availability, we propose a stateful ingress filtering mechanism to block denial-of-service ( DoS) attacks. Finally, to further improve the availability, we provide a scalable packet marking method tracing back DoS attacks. Simulation results of an IBA network show that the security performance overhead due to encryption/authentication on network latency ranges from 0.7 percent to 12.4 percent. Since the stateful ingress filtering is enabled only when a DoS attack is active, there is no performance overhead in a normal situation.

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

infiniband architecture
authentication
encryption
availability
dos


A polynomial algorithm testing partial confluence of basic semi-Thue systems We give a polynomial algorithm solving the problem "is S partially confluent on the rational set R?" for finite, basic, noetherian semi-Thue systems. The algorithm is obtained by a polynomial reduction of this problem to the equivalence problem for deterministic 2-tape finite automata, which has been shown to be polynomially decidable in Friedman and Greibach (1982).

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

semi-thue systems
two-tape finite automata


On Latin Hypercube sampling for efficient uncertainty estimation of satellite rainfall observations in flood prediction With the advent of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) in 2009, satellite rainfall measurements are expected to become globally available at spacetime scales relevant for flood prediction of un-gauged watersheds. For uncertainty assessment of such retrievals in flood prediction, error models need to be developed that can characterize the satellite's retrieval error structure. A full-scale assessment would require a large number of Monte Carlo (MC) runs of the satellite error model realizations, each passed through a hydrologic model, in order to derive the probability distribution in runoff. However, for slow running hydrologic models this can be computationally expensive and sometimes prohibitive. In this study, Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) was implemented in a satellite rainfall error model to explore the degree of computational efficiency that could be achieved with a complex hydrologic model. It was found that the LHS method is particularly suited for storms with moderate rainfall. For assessment of errors in time to peak, peak runoff, and runoff volume no significant computational advantage of LHS over the MC method was observed. However, the LHS was able to produce the 80% and higher confidence limits in runoff simulation with the same degree of reliability as MC, but with almost two orders of magnitude fewer simulations. Results from this study indicate that a LHS constrained sampling scheme has the potential to achieve computational efficiency for hydrologic assessment of satellite rainfall retrievals involving: (1) slow running models (such as distributed hydrologic models and land surface models); (2) large study regions; and (3) long study periods; provided the assessment is confined to analysis of the large error bounds of the runoff distribution.

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

hydrologic assessment
latin hypercube sampling

satellite rainfall estimation
retrieval uncertainty
monte carlo simulation


Morphological erosions and openings: Fast algorithms based on anchors Several efficient algorithms for computing erosions and openings have been proposed recently. They improve on van Herk's algorithm in terms of number of comparisons for large structuring elements. In this paper we introduce a theoretical framework of anchors that aims at a better understanding of the process involved in the computation of erosions and openings. It is shown that the knowledge of opening anchors of a signal f is sufficient to perform both the erosion and the opening of f. Then we propose an algorithm for one-dimensional erosions and openings which exploits opening anchors. This algorithm improves on the fastest algorithms available in literature by approximately 30% in terms of computation speed, for a range of structuring element sizes and image contents.

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

mathematical morphology
efficient algorithm
granulometry


A multichannel approach to fingerprint classification Fingerprint classification provides an important indexing mechanism in a fingerprint database. An accurate and consistent classification can greatly reduce fingerprint matching time for a large database. We present a fingerprint classification algorithm which is able to achieve an accuracy better than previously reported in the literature. We classify fingerprints into five categories: whorl, right loop, left loop, arch, and tented arch. The algorithm uses a novel representation (FingerCode) and is based on a two-stage classifier to make a classification. It has been tested on 4,000 images in the NIST-4 database. For the five-class problem, a classification accuracy of 90 percent is achieved (with a 1.8 percent rejection during the feature extraction phase). For the four-class problem (arch and tented arch combined into one class), we are able to achieve a classification accuracy of 94.8 percent (with 1.8 percent rejection). By incorporating a reject option at the classifier, the classification accuracy can be increased to 96 percent for the five-class classification task, and to 97.8 percent for the four-class classification task after a total of 32.5 percent of the images are rejected.

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

biometrics
gabor filters
neural networks


Integrated color, texture and shape information for content-based image retrieval Feature extraction and the use of the features as query terms are crucial problems in content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems. The main focus in this paper is on integrated color, texture and shape extraction methods for CBIR. We have developed original CBIR methodology that uses Gabor filtration for determining the number of regions of interest (ROIs), in which fast and effective feature extraction is performed. In the ROIs extracted, texture features based on thresholded Gabor features, color features based on histograms, color moments in YUV space, and shape features based on Zernike moments are then calculated. The features presented proved to be efficient in determining similarity between images. Our system was tested on postage stamp images and Corel photo libraries and can be used in CBIR applications such as postal services.

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

image retrieval
feature extraction
zernike moments


Ordered weighted enhancement of preference modeling in the reference point method for multiple criteria optimization The reference point method is an interactive technique for multiple criteria optimization problems. It is based on the optimization of the scalarizing achievement function built as the augmented maxmin aggregation of individual outcomes with respect to the given reference levels. Actually, the worst individual achievement is optimized, but regularized with the term representing the average achievement. In order to avoid inconsistencies caused by the regularization, we apply the ordered weighted averages (OWA) with monotonic weights to combine all the individual achievements. Further, following the concept of the weighted OWA (WOWA), we incorporate the importance weighting of several achievements into the RPM. We show that the resulting WOWA RPM can be quite effectively implemented as an extension of the original constraints and criteria with simple linear inequalities.

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

multicriteria decision making
aggregation methods


Fitting a random effects model to ordinal recurrent events using existing software The continuation ratio model is a direct generalisation of the more familiar binary logistic model. Tn this paper, it is proposed to model ordinal recurrent events by generalising the logistic-normal model for binary recurrent events in a similar manner. This new model is implemented in the statistical software package SABRE.

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

binary recurrent events
ordinal recurrent events
sabre

continuation ratios
normal random effects
residual heterogeneity


the dcc curation lifecycle model The scientific record and the documentary heritage are increasingly created in digital form. The UK based Digital Curation Centre supports institutions who store, manage and preserve such data to help ensure its enhancement and continuing long-term use. The DCC (Digital Curation Centre) Curation Lifecycle Model provides a generic graphical high-level overview of the stages required for successful curation and preservation of digital material from initial conceptualisation. The model can be used to plan curation and preservation activities, to ensure sustainability of repository content or other digital material, within an organisation or consortium. It will help to ensure that all necessary stages are undertaken, each in the correct sequence. The model enables granular functionality to be mapped against it to define roles and responsibilities, and build a framework of standards and technologies to implement. It can help with the process of identifying additional steps which may be required, or actions which are not required by certain situations or disciplines, and of ensuring that processes and policies are adequately documented. Digital Curation Centre staff developed the model before undertaking a period of public consultation, which was recently completed. The newly ratified model will shortly be used by the DCC to ensure that information, services and advisory material cover all areas of the lifecycle. Domain-specific variations of the model will be developed, with greater levels of granularity, to help ensure that advice and information are easily accessible from the website. One planned utilisation is the development of domain specific standards frameworks within the DCC DIFFUSE Standards Frameworks, to help practitioners identify which standards they should be using and where they would be appropriately implemented. This poster will present the DCC Curation Lifecycle Model, incorporating the results of the public consultation period held during December 2007 to February 2008.

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

sustainability
standards
digital curation

repositories
models
digital preservation


Feature selection via neighborhood multi-granulation fusion Feature selection is an important data preprocessing technique, and has been widely studied in data mining, machine learning, and granular computing. However, very little research has considered a multi-granulation perspective. In this paper, we present a new feature selection method that selects distinguishing features by fusing neighborhood multi-granulation. We first use neighborhood rough sets as an effective granular computing tool, and analyze the influence of the granularity of neighborhood information. Then, we obtain all feature rank lists based on the significance of features in different granularities. Finally, we obtain a new feature selection algorithm by fusing all individual feature rank lists. Experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively select a discriminative feature subset, and performs as well as or better than other popular feature selection algorithms in terms of classification performance.

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

granular computing
feature selection
neighborhood rough sets


Defining and optimizing algorithms for neighbouring particle identification in SPH fluid simulations Lagrangian particle methods such as smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) are very demanding in terms of computing time for large domains. Since the numerical integration of the governing equations is only carried out for each particle on a restricted number of neighbouring ones located inside a cut-off radius r(c), a substantial part of the computational burden depends on the actual search procedure; it is therefore vital that efficient methods are adopted for such a search. The cut-off radius is indeed much lower than the typical domain's size; hence, the number of neighbouring particles is only a little fraction of the total number. Straightforward determination of which particles are inside the interaction range requires the computation of all pair-wise distances, a procedure whose computational time would be unpractical or totally impossible for large problems. Two main strategies have been developed in the past in order to reduce the unnecessary computation of distances: the first based on dynamically storing each particle's neighbourhood list (Verlet list) and the second based on a framework of fixed cells. The paper presents the results of a numerical sensitivity study on the efficiency of the two procedures as a function of such parameters as the Verlet size and the cell dimensions. An insight is given into the relative computational burden; a discussion of the relative merits of the different approaches is also given and some suggestions are provided on the computational and data structure of the neighbourhood search part of SPH codes. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Information systems as a discipline in the making: comparing EJIS and MISQ between 1995 and 2008 This paper aims to shed light on the dynamics of information systems (IS) as a discipline in the making. We use the ideas of the sociologist Abbott to propose three different stages of a discipline's development: differentiation, competition, and absorption. These stages reflect how disciplines go through different cycles and how they acquire, consolidate or lose elements of knowledge. We map these stages using citation and co-citation analyses of two main IS academic journals (EJIS and MISQ) from 1995 to 2008. Our results indicate that IS is currently in a stage of absorption, with research being consolidated around the theme of 'IS acceptance'. Dominant models and frameworks related to this theme are predictive and thus lend themselves usable for positivistic and quantitative research. In this stage there is also a healthy degree of variety in IS including dormant elements which could reignite. Implications derived from our findings aim to help in the consolidation and extension of knowledge about IS in both academia and practice. European Journal of Information Systems (2012) 21, 479-495. doi:10.1057/ejis.2011.58: published online 10 January 2012

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

information systems
disciplines
ejis
misq


Restart particle swarm optimization with velocity modulation: a scalability test Large scale continuous optimization problems are more relevant in current benchmarks since they are more representative of real-world problems (bioinformatics, data mining, etc.). Unfortunately, the performance of most of the available optimization algorithms deteriorates rapidly as the dimensionality of the search space increases. In particular, particle swarm optimization is a very simple and effective method for continuous optimization. Nevertheless, this algorithm usually suffers from unsuccessful performance on large dimension problems. In this work, we incorporate two new mechanisms into the particle swarm optimization with the aim of enhancing its scalability. First, a velocity modulation method is applied in the movement of particles in order to guide them within the region of interest. Second, a restarting mechanism avoids the early convergence and redirects the particles to promising areas in the search space. Experiments are carried out within the scope of this Special Issue to test scalability. The results obtained show that our proposal is scalable in all functions of the benchmark used, as well as numerically very competitive with regards to other compared optimizers.

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

continuous optimization
scalability
particle swarm optimization


The optimization design of EWMA charts for monitoring environmental performance Aimed at reducing the loss in the process of controlling environmental pollution, this paper proposes an optimization design of EWMA charts for monitoring and evaluating the environmental performance. By using Rayleigh distribution to approximate probability distribution of the random process with mean shifts, the parameters of the EWMA charts for non-normal data will be determined such that the overall mean of Taguchis loss function (ML) is minimized. Based on these optimal parameters, ML-EWMA charts are constructed for monitoring environmental pollution processes. Then further analysis has been performed to compare the optimization of the ML-EWMA charts and the conventional EWMA charts in terms of their expected losses, the results of which show that ML-EWMA charts in this paper are significantly superior to the conventional EWMA charts as far as the overall loss of ML is concerned. Finally, a numeric example is illustrated to show the application of optimization design of EWMA charts for non-normal environmental data. The optimization design method proposed in this paper can reduce the loss greatly in environmental control and the general idea can be applied in other control charts.

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

ewma charts
taguchis loss function
optimization design


REACT: Rate Adaptation using Coherence Time in 802.11 WLANs The channel coherence time in indoor WLANs normally exceeds multiple frame transmission times. in light of this, we propose a new rate adaptation scheme, termed as the Rate Adaptation using Coherence Time (REACT), that has the following key features. First, without exchanging RTS and CTS frames, the receiver in REACT informs the transmitter of the improved channel condition via altering the ACK transmission rate, so that the transmitter increases the data rate for subsequent data frames. This enables the transmitter to adapt to the time-varying channel conditions while inducing the marginal overhead. Second, the transmitter in REACT can identify the reasons of frame losses by exploiting the feedback from the receiver and the estimated coherence time. Frame losses are assumed to be caused only by collisions for the duration of the coherence time after receiving an ACK frame with the altered bit rate. The coherence time is also used to enhance the adaptive RTS probing, so that the REACT can prevent the transmitter from decreasing its bit rate when collisions occur. Extensive simulations reveal that REACT consistently performs better than the other rate adaptation schemes (ARF, CARA, RRAA, and RBAR) in all the testing scenarios. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Updating of uncertain joint models using the Lack-Of-Knowledge theory We simulated a nonlinear multiple bolted joint with uncertain parameters. We develop a LOK model by using a linear model with the LOK theory. An updating of the LOK model is performed with the simulated data of the nonlinear model. The modeling of nonlinear uncertainties with a LOK model shows its efficiency.

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

lack-of-knowledge theory
model updating
aeronautical joint modeling
fastener
simple model


multimedia analysis and composition cloud service Consumers increasingly desire to create and consume multimedia seamlessly from any of their devices wherever they happen to be. To meet this demand, multimedia services such as analysis and composition are increasingly moving to the cloud. This trend is enabling multimedia capabilities that can be accessed through mobile and social network applications as well as web browsers. In this paper, we discuss the architecture of a multimedia analysis and composition cloud service. We show examples of how this architecture can be used to provide browser-based multimedia applications, mobile applications, and social network applications, while comparing the advantages of each access method.

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

image composition
automatic layout
photobook
image analysis
digital photography


A meta-heuristic algorithm for heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problems with two-dimensional loading constraints The two-dimensional loading heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem (2L-HFVRP) is a variant of the classical vehicle routing problem in which customers are served by a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles. These vehicles have different capacities, fixed and variable operating costs, length and width in dimension, and two-dimensional loading constraints. The objective of this problem is to minimize transportation cost of designed routes, according to which vehicles are used, to satisfy the customer demand. In this study, we proposed a simulated annealing with heuristic local search (SA_HLS) to solve the problem and the search was then extended with a collection of packing heuristics to solve the loading constraints in 2L-HFVRP. To speed up the search process, a data structure was used to record the information related to loading feasibility. The effectiveness of SA_HLS was tested on benchmark instances derived from the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem (2L-CVRP). In addition, the performance of SA_HLS was also compared with three other 2L-CVRP models and four HFVRP methods found in the literature.

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

routing
packing
simulated annealing
heterogeneous fleet


Tracing the origins of the semantic web The Semantic Web has been criticized for not being semantic. This article examines the questions of why and how the Web of Data, expressed in the Resource Description Framework (RDF), has come to be known as the Semantic Web. Contrary to previous papers, we deliberately take a descriptive stance and do not start from preconceived ideas about the nature of semantics. Instead, we mainly base our analysis on early design documents of the (Semantic) Web. The main determining factor is shown to be link typing, coupled with the influence of online metadata. Both factors already were present in early web standards and drafts. Our findings indicate that the Semantic Web is directly linked to older artificial intelligence work, despite occasional claims to the contrary. Because of link typing, the Semantic Web can be considered an example of a semantic network. Originally network representations of the meaning of natural language utterances, semantic networks have eventually come to refer to any networks with typed (usually directed) links. We discuss possible causes for this shift and suggest that it may be due to confounding paradigmatic and syntagmatic semantic relations.

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

semantic networks
semantic web
semantics


Analysis of dynamic cerebral autoregulation using an ARX model based on arterial blood pressure and middle cerebral artery velocity simulation The study aimed to model the cerebrovascular system, using a linear ARX model based on data simulated by a comprehensive physiological model, and to assess the range of applicability of linear parametric models. Arterial blood pressure (ABP) and middle cerebral arterial blood flow velocity (MCAV) were measured from 11 subjects non-invasively, following step changes in ABP, using the thigh cuff technique. By optimising parameters associated with autoregulation, using a non-linear optimisation technique, the physiological model showed a good performance (r=0.83 +/- 0.14) in fitting MCAV. An additional five sets of measured ABP of length 236 +/- 154s were acquired from a subject at rest. These were normalised and rescaled to coefficients of variation (CV = SD/mean) of 2% and 10% for model comparisons. Randomly generated Gaussian noise with standard deviation (SD) from 1% to 5% was added to both ABP and physiologically simulated MCAV (SMCAV), with 'normal' and 'impaired' cerebral autoregulation, to simulate the real measurement conditions. ABP and SMCAV were fitted by ARX modelling, and cerebral autoregulation was quantified by a 5s recovery percentage R5% of the step responses of the ARX models. The study suggests that cerebral autoregulation can be assessed by computing the R5% of the step response of an ARX model of appropriate order, even when measurement noise is considerable.

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

system identification
physiological simulation
fir filter
non-linear optimisation


Color image enhancement via chromaticity diffusion A novel approach for color image denoising is proposed in this paper. The algorithm is based on separating the color data into chromaticity and brightness, and then processing each one of these components with partial differential equations or diffusion flows. In the proposed algorithm, each color pixel is considered as an n-dimensional vector. The vectors' direction, a unit vector, gives the chromaticity, while the magnitude represents the pixel brightness. The chromaticity is processed with a system of coupled diffusion equations adapted from the theory of harmonic maps in liquid crystals. This theory deals with the regularization of vectorial data, while satisfying the intrinsic unit norm constraint of directional data such as chromaticity. Both isotropic and anisotropic diffusion flows are presented for this n-dimensional chromaticity diffusion flow. The brightness is processed by a scalar median filter or any of the popular and well established anisotropic diffusion flows for scalar image enhancement. We present the underlying theory, a number of examples, and briefly compare with the current literature.

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

brightness
chromaticity
color image denoising
harmonic maps
isotropic and anisotropic diffusion
liquid crystals
partial differential equations


Mapping of nomadic multimedia applications on the ADRES reconfigurable array processor This paper introduces the mapping of MPEG video decoders on ADRES, IMECs new coarse-grain reconfigurable and fully C-programmable array processor that targets nomadic devices. ADRES is a flexible template that allows the instantiation of many different processor versions. An XML-based architecture description language allows a designer to easily generate different processor instances with full compiler support by specifying different values for the communication topology, the number and size of local register files and functional units and supported instruction set. ADRES supports a VLIW-like programming model with a pure VLIW mode for legacy code, and a (coarse-grain reconfigurable) array mode with very high parallelism for the processing of compute intensive loops. We demonstrate the mapping of two video decoders MPEG-2 and AVC, and discuss the performance trade-offs for two critical kernels: IDCT and integer transform. As a result, an ADRES based system can perform AVC decoding in CIF resolution with less then 50MHz on a 44 array processor.

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

coarse-grain reconfigurable arrays
dresc
processor architecture
dsp
h.264
reconfigurable computing


Artificial boundary conditions for the numerical simulation of unsteady acoustic waves We construct non-local artificial boundary conditions (ABCs) for the numerical simulation of genuinely time-dependent acoustic waves that propagate from a compact source in an unbounded unobstructed space. The key property used for obtaining the ABCs is the presence of lacunae, i.e., sharp aft fronts of the waves, in wave-type solutions in odd-dimension spaces. This property can be considered a manifestation of the Huygens principle. The ABCs are obtained directly for the discrete formulation of the problem. They truncate the original unbounded domain and guarantee the complete transparency of the new outer boundary for all the outgoing waves. A central feature of the proposed ABCs is that the extent of their temporal non-locality is fixed and limited, and it does not come at the expense of simplifying the original model. It is rather a natural consequence of the existence of lacunae, which is a fundamental property of the corresponding solutions. The proposed ABCs can be built for any consistent and stable finite-difference scheme. Their accuracy can always be made as high as that of the interior approximation, and it will not deteriorate even when integrating over long time intervals. Besides, the ABCs are most flexible from the standpoint of geometry and can handle irregular boundaries on regular grids with no fitting/adaptation needed and no accuracy loss induced. Finally, they allow for a wide range of model settings. In particular, not only one can analyze the simplest advective acoustics case with the uniform background flow, but also the case when the waves source (or scatterer) is engaged in an accelerated motion.

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

time-dependent sound waves
unbounded domains
non-deteriorating method
long-term computation
limited temporal non-locality


A tool supported engineering process for developing control applications Engineers in industrial and control sector continuously face problems on developing modem distributed industrial control applications. The latest standard in this domain, the IEC61499, defines a methodology to be used by system designers to construct distributed industrial control applications. New generation Engineering Support Systems (ESSs) are required to support the whole development process. In this paper, a process that introduces new and enhances already defined phases of the IEC61499 development process is presented. Model Driven Development has been adopted and two meta-models have been defined: a Unified Modelling Language (UML) based one that is used in the analysis phase and an IEC61499 based for the design phase. A set of transformation rules, formally defined by means of UML's Object Constraint Language, is defined to ameliorate the transformation process between the two metamodels. The proposed development process is supported by a prototype ESS, namely CORFU ESS, which is used to present a case study. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

distributed control applications
function block
control application development process


brand consciousness as a driving design force This paper describes a recent interactive project which used slide projectors (instead of video projection or computer screens) to best fulfill the brand specific communication needs of an installation. It discuss why brand issues matter as well as how the design of systems, both physical systems and content there within, can address those issues.

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


The choice of vantage objects for image retrieval Suppose that we have a matrix of dissimilarities between n images of a database. For a new image, we would like to select the most similar image of our database. Because it may be too expensive to compute the dissimilarities for the new object to all images of our database, we want to find p?n vantage objects (Pattern Recognition 35 (2002) 69) from our database in order to select a matching image according to the least Euclidean distance between the vector of dissimilarities between the new image and the vantage objects and the corresponding vector for the images of the database. In this paper, we treat the choice of suitable vantage objects. We suggest a loss measure to assess the quality of a set of vantage objects: For every image, we select a matching image from the remaining images of the database by use of the vantage set, and we average the resulting dissimilarities. We compare two classes of choice strategies: The first one is based on a stepwise forward selection of vantage objects to optimize the loss measure. The second is to choose objects as representative as possible for the whole range of the database.

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

cross-validation
leave-one-out
shape similarity


Economic and economic statistical designs of the synthetic X chart using loss functions This paper proposes the economic and economic statistical designs of the synthetic X chart. In the economic design, the optimal chart parameters that minimize the expected cost function are obtained, while in the economic statistical design, the optimal chart parameters are obtained by minimizing the expected cost function, subject to constraints on the in-control average run length (ARL0) and the out-of-control average run length (ARL1). A small increase in cost is incurred when the statistical constraints are added to the economic design, however, a significant improvement in statistical performance is attained. The sensitivity of the optimal cost and the chart parameters for different loss functions and input parameters is investigated. The effects of misspecification of the type of the loss function, and the Taguchi loss coefficient, as well as the risk aversion coefficient of the loss function, are also investigated. In addition, effects of the process capability index are studied. Based on numerical studies, comparisons are made between the synthetic X , Shewhart X , and EWMA charts.

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

economic and economic statistical models


A novel multi-view image coding scheme based on view-warping and 3D-DCT Efficient compression of multi-view images and videos is an open and interesting research issue that has been attracting the attention of both academic and industrial world during the last years. The considerable amount of information produced by multi-camera acquisition systems requires effective coding algorithms in order to reduce the transmitted data while granting good visual quality in the reconstructed sequence. The classical approach of multi-view coding is based on an extension of the H.264/AVC standard, still based on motion prediction techniques. In this paper we present a novel approach that tries to fully exploit the redundancy between different views of the same scene considering both texture and geometry information. The proposed scheme replaces the motion prediction stage with a 3D warping procedure based on depth information. After the warping step, a joint 3D-DCT encoding of all the warped views is provided, taking advantage of the strong correlation among them. Finally, the transformed coefficients are conveniently quantized and entropy coded. Occluded regions are also taken into account with ad-hoc interpolation and coding strategies. Experimental results performed with a preliminary version of the proposed approach show that at low bitrates it outperforms the H.264 MVC coding scheme on both real and synthetic datasets. Performance at high bitrates are also satisfactory provided that accurate depth information is available.

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

multi-view image coding
3d-dct
multi-view plus depth
3dtv
3d spatial prediction
disparity compensation
hole filling


A BEM solution of steady-state flow problems in discrete fracture networks with minimization of core storage A boundary element method (BEM) solution for the problem of the fluid flow in a three-dimensional discrete fracture network (DFN) is proposed. A DFN is an assembling of polygons which resemble the fractures in a rock mass. The position, extension, orientation and transmissivity of each fracture of the network are excluded by specific statistical distributions. For a single problem, a significant number of DFNs has to be generated and the fluid flow has to be assessed in each of them in the context of a Monte-Carlo procedure. Even for relatively small domains, a DFN may include a large number of fractures. As a consequence, in order to solve the whole problem with standard finite-element method (FEM) codes, a big amount of core memory and large input data files are required. The main advantage of the proposed solution is mainly the minimization of the core memory. This is attained by handling the flow quantities in such a way the equation system of the overall network is never assembled. Only a relation per each fracture among nodal fluxes and heads of the traces (i.e., intersections among fractures) is defined and stored in a random access file. This relation is obtained by means of the application of the BEM to each single fracture of the network. Both constant and quadratic element representations are used in order to define the relevant nodal quantities. The use of constant elements allows to avoid the direct treatment of the points of flux discontinuity. No special care is applied to the discretization of the boundary of each fracture. The overall problem is solved by means of an iterative procedure, by retrieving the necessary coefficients from the random access file. The results are in acceptable agreement with the ones provided by a commercial FEM code. We remark that saving core memory without special care in the discretization of the DFN makes the solution competitive, especially when dealing with networks with a high number of fractures. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

boundary element method
discrete fracture network

fractured media
relaxation procedure
steady-state fluid flow


RESRES: The story behind the paper Research in software engineering: An analysis of the literature This article is a background report describing a comprehensive study of research in the three computing disciplines Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information Systems. Findings relate to research topics, approaches, methods, reference disciplines, and levels of analysis. The article informally describes the process used and the research products produced.

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

computing research
literature search
research taxonomy


Annotation Propagation in Image Databases Using Similarity Graphs The practicality of large-scale image indexing and querying methods depends crucially upon the availability of semantic information. The manual tagging of images with semantic information is in general very labor intensive, and existing methods for automated image annotation may not always yield accurate results. The aim of this paper is to reduce to a minimum the amount of human intervention required in the semantic annotation of images, while preserving a high degree of accuracy. Ideally, only one copy of each object of interest would be labeled manually, and the labels would then be propagated automatically to all other occurrences of the objects in the database. To this end, we propose an influence propagation strategy, SW-KProp, that requires no human intervention beyond the initial labeling of a subset of the images. SW-KProp distributes semantic information within a similarity graph defined on all images in the database: each image iteratively transmits its current label information to its neighbors, and then readjusts its own label according to the combined influences of its neighbors. SW-KProp influence propagation can be efficiently performed by means of matrix computations, provided that pairwise similarities of images are available. We also propose a variant of SW-KProp which enhances the quality of the similarity graph by selecting a reduced feature set for each prelabeled image and rebuilding its neighborhood. The performances of the SW-KProp method and its variant were evaluated against several competing methods on classification tasks for three image datasets: a handwritten digit dataset, a face dataset and a web image dataset. For the digit images, SW-KProp and its variant performed consistently better than the other methods tested. For the face and web images, SW-KProp outperformed its competitors for the case when the number of prelabeled images was relatively small. The performance was seen to improve significantly when the feature selection strategy was applied. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.2.4 [Database Management]: Systems-Multimedia databases

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

classification
feature selection
image annotation
neighborhood

algorithms
iterative method
linear system


Inference about clustering and parametric assumptions in covariance matrix estimation Selecting an estimator for the covariance matrix of a regression's parameter estimates is an important step in hypothesis testing. From less to more robust estimators, the choices available to researchers include Eicker/White heteroskedasticity-robust estimator, clusterrobust estimator, and multi-way cluster-robust estimator. The rationale for choosing a less robust covariance matrix estimator is that tests conducted using this estimator can have better power properties. This motivates tests that examine the appropriate level of robustness in covariance matrix estimation. In this paper, we propose a new robustness testing strategy, and show that it can dramatically improve inference about the proper level of robustness in covariance matrix estimation. In an empirically relevant example, namely the placebo treatment application of Bertrand, Duflo and Mullainathan (2004), the power of the proposed robustness testing strategy against the null hypothesis "no clustering" is 0.82 while the power of the existing robustness testing approach against the same null is only 0.04. We also show why the existing clustering test and other applications of the White (1980) robustness testing approach often perform poorly, which to our knowledge has not been well understood. The insight into why this existing testing approach performs poorly is also the basis for the proposed robustness testing strategy. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cluster-robust
heteroskedasticity-robust
size, finite samples


advanced remote inspection and download of 3d shapes Shape inspection options in most of the current online shape repositories provide limited information on the shape of a desired model. In addition, stored models can be downloaded only at the original level of detail (LOD). In this paper, we present our application that combines remote interactive inspection of a digital shape with real-time simplification. Simplification is parameterised, is performed in real-time and the results are again available for inspection. We have embedded the application in a shape repository whereby, having found a suitable simplification, users can download the model at that LOD.

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

java3d
multiresolution triangulation
multiresolution download
remote 3d shape inspection


A theoretical study of some new analogues of the anti-cancer drug camptothecin The enzyme topoisomerase I (topo I), which is essential for cell replication, transiently causes a DNA single strand break and makes a complex with it. The anti-cancer agent camptothecin (CPT) binds to the topo I-DNA complex and stabilizes it, preventing resealing of the broken DNA strand and cell growth. Considering the structural factors of CPT that are believed to be involved in stabilizing the topo I-DNA complex via hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions, designs of two new analogues of CPT (topo I inhibitors) have been suggested. The molecular geometries of CPT, two of its analogues and certain other related molecules included in the study were fully optimized in both gas phase and aqueous media at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level of density functional theory. Solvation effects of aqueous media were treated using the polarizable continuum model (PCM). Net CHelpG charges and surface molecular electrostatic potentials (MEP) near the atomic sites of the molecules were studied. Structural analogy and surface MEP values suggests that the two new CPT analogues studied here would be potent topoisomerase I inhibitors.

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

camptothecin (cpt)
8-oxoguanine derivatives
dft calculation


Complex dynamics through fuzzy chains This paper gives a new contribution to characterize a class of complex systems build as arrays of coupled fuzzy logic based chaotic oscillators and investigates their dynamical features. Different spatio-temporal dynamics have been reproduced using interconnected fuzzy chaotic cells in order to study the effects, due to the variation of some parameters and network topologies, in the collective behavior and to highlight the synchronization capability of the complex fuzzy systems under consideration. The synchronization characteristics have been focused by, defining a behavioral index.

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


Testing polynomials over general fields In this work we fill the knowledge gap concerning testing polynomials over finite fields. As previous works show, when the cardinality of the field, q, is sufficiently larger than the degree bound, d, then the number of queries sufficient for testing is polynomial or even linear in d. On the other hand, when q = 2 then the number of queries, both sufficient and necessary, grows exponentially with d. Here we study the intermediate case where 2 = 1). Then the number of queries performed by the test grows like l.q(2l+1), where l = [d+1/q-q/p]. Furthermore, q(Omega(l)) queries are necessary when q = O( d). The test itself provides a unifying view of the tests for these two extremes: it considers random a. ne subspaces of dimension l and verifies that the function restricted to the selected subspaces is a polynomial of degree at most d. Viewed in the context of coding theory, our result shows that Reed - Muller codes over general fields ( usually referred to as generalized Reed - Muller (GRM) codes) are locally testable. In the course of our analysis we provide a characterization of small-weight words that span the code. Such a characterization was previously known only when the field size is a prime or is sufficiently large, in which case the minimum-weight words span the code.

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


Multiuser-based shadow watermark extraction system A new watermarking scheme having the ability of sharing secret with multi-users is proposed. It splits the original watermark into two shares and embeds one share into the cover image to increase the security. A polarization procedure is performed to establish a polarity stream from the cover image. The second share and the polarity stream are used to generate a master key and several normal keys. In this system, only the super-user can reveal the genuine watermark directly. Other users possess the normal keys can obtain shadow watermarks merely. By combining the shadow watermarks together, the real watermark can be recovered.

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


Efficient and Secure Protocols for Privacy-Preserving Set Operations Many applications require performing set operations without publishing individual datesets. In this article, we address this problem for five fundamental set operations including set intersection, cardinality of set intersection, element reduction, overthreshold set-union, and subset relation. Our protocols are obtained in the universally composable security framework, in the assumption of the probabilistic polynomial time bounded adversary, which actively controls a fixed set of t parties and the assumption of an authenticated broadcast channel. Our constructions utilize building blocks of nonmalleable NonInteractive Zero-Knowledge (NIZK) arguments, which are based on a (t + 1, N)-threshold version (N is the number of parties in the protocol) of the boneh-goh-nissim (BGN) cryptosystem whose underlying group supports bilinear maps, in the assumption that the public key and shares of the secret key have been generated by a trusted dealer. The previous studies were all based on the stand-alone model with the same assumptions on the adversary, broadcast channel, and key generation. For the first four operations, we propose protocols that improve the previously known results by an O(N) factor in the computation and communication complexities. For the subset relation, our protocol is the first one secure against the active adversary. Our constructions of NIZK have independent interest in that, though also mentioned as building blocks, the previous work did not illustrate how to construct them. We construct these NIZK with an additional nonmalleable property, the same complexity as claimed in the previous work, and also an improvement on the communication complexity.

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

algorithms
bilinear groups
cryptographic protocol
noninteractive zero-knowledge argument
privacy preservation


Dynamically generated commitment protocols in open systems Agent interaction is a fundamental part of any multiagent system. Such interactions are usually regulated by protocols, which are typically defined at design-time. However, in many situations a protocol may not exist or the available protocols may not fit the needs of the agents. In order to deal with such situations agents should be able to generate protocols at runtime. In this paper we develop a three-phase framework to enable agents to create a commitment protocol dynamically. In the first phase one of the agents generates candidate commitment protocols, by considering its goals, its abilities and its knowledge about the other agents services. We propose two algorithms that ensure that each generated protocol allows the agent to reach its goals if the protocol is enacted. The second phase is ranking of the generated protocols in terms of their expected utility in order to select the one that best suits the agent. The third phase is the negotiation of the protocol between agents that will enact the protocol so that the agents can agree on a protocol that will be used for enactment. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach using a case study.

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


Approximate moment matrix decomposition in wavelet Galerkin BEM We present an improvement to the wavelet Galerkin BEM in [J. Tausch, A variable order wavelet method for the sparse representation of layer potentials in the non-standard form, J. Numer. Math. 12 (3) (2004) 233254]. In the non-standard form representation of integral operators the number of wavelets in every level determines the efficiency of the underlying Galerkin scheme. In order to increase this number, the partial singular value decomposition (PSVD) of the moment matrix is employed. Since the resulting wavelets do not exactly satisfy the conventional vanishing moment condition, i.e. a certain number of polynomial moments of the wavelets are zero, we introduce the concept of quasi-vanishing moment. For integral equations of the second kind we prove that the asymptotic convergence of the full Galerkin scheme can be retained by controlling the cut-off for singular values in the PSVD appropriately. Numerical results show that our improvement can largely decrease the time and memory usage while preserving the optimal convergence rate of the method.

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

matrix compression
quasi-vanishing moments
non-standard form


Pooling through lateral transshipments in service parts systems We study the inventory management problem of a service center operating in a decentralized service parts network. The service centers collaborate through inventory and service pooling, and through sharing information on the inventory status. Upon demand arrival, a service center may request a part from the other center, in which case a payment is made. Under this competitive and collaborative environment, we first characterize the optimal operating policy of an individual service center. Through computational analysis we identify the conditions under which pooling is most beneficial to the service center, and make an assessment of different pooling strategies which are commonly adopted in practice and in the literature. Finally, we analyze the effect of interaction between the centers on the benefit of pooling.

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

lateral transshipment
optimal control of queueing networks


design guidelines for mobile group recommender systems to handle inaccurate or missing location data Today's group recommender systems do not consider unavailable, inaccessible, or incomplete user information of one ore more members within a group. This is a problem for mobile group recommender system, because changed user behaviour or technical limitations of mobile services let user may not be willing or able to disclose all information, which are part of a user profile in a mobile environment. For location information, as one of the most important type of user information for an ad-hoc mobile recommendation service, this can lead to inaccurate, or missing location information. Inaccurate or missing location information has an impact on different parts of building group recommendations. This impact reduces the quality of recommendations, which is a key-challenge of recommender systems. Therefore, design guidelines are needed to address the problem of missing or inaccurate location information in mobile group recommender systems. This work describes the approach of building and validating those design guidelines and gives a first idea of impacts.

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


Depolarizing, GABA-mediated synaptic responses and their possible role in epileptiform events; Simulation studies Synaptic transmission controlled by the release of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA is generally considered to be the mechanism by which glutamate-mediated excitation is kept under control in the human hippocampus and neocortex. Until recently, epilepsy was thought of as a simple imbalance of neuronal excitation and inhibition. This theory of epileptogenesis has been challenged by the finding that GABA does not always inhibit neuronal activity. Although in adult brain GABA usually induces hyperpolarization of cell membranes, in juvenile brain GABA is depolarizing, bringing the neuronal membrane closer to firing threshold, often enabling action potentials to be triggered. Somewhat surprisingly, GABA-mediated synaptic responses in adult brain tissue can sometimes be excitatory, too. Cohen et al. [I. Cohen, V. Navarro, S. Clemenceau, M. Baulac, R. Miles, On the origin of interictal activity in human temporal lobe epilepsy in vitro, Science 298 (2002) 14181421] discovered a subpopulation of excitatory projection cells that exhibited depolarizing GABA responses in slices from epileptic adult subiculum. While most subicular pyramidal cells displayed hyperpolarized behavior in response to GABA, some actually fired bursts of action potentials, in synchrony with the interneurons; the GABA released by the interneurons was only depolarizing for this subset of excitatory cells. These results suggest that it is the interaction between excitatory projection cells depolarized by GABA and interneurons that initiates epileptiform events, at least in subiculum. Interneurons usually seem to provide an inhibitory shield around excitatory neurons. However, when connected to projection cells responding abnormally to GABA with depolarization, they may promote paroxysmal synchronizations. A summary of some recent theories and results is presented on possible causes and effects of depolarizing, GABA-mediated synaptic responses in the cerebrum. Special attention is focused on the hippocampal/parahippocampal formation, especially the subicular complex. The subiculum seems to be of particular interest because of its strategic output location to neocortex, and because of the spontaneous, interictal-like activity observed almost exclusively there in slices from patients suffering mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Simulation results follow, starting from a commonly known GENESIS computer model of a small part of CA3. This CA3 was re-modeled to more closely resemble a small, subiculum-like structure, with a complement of fast-spiking interneurons and three types of projection cells: strong-bursting, weak-bursting, and regular-spiking. Parametric studies of the effects of increasing EGABAA, E GABA A , the GABA reversal potential of certain GABAA receptors, simulate the sometimes excitatory impact of GABAergic signaling. The effects of GABAB receptor impairment in this setting are also briefly considered. Results presented here reinforce experimental evidence that the subiculum has the right stuff to play a significant role in epileptiform events.

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


A compositional semantics of UML-RSDS This paper provides a semantics for the UML-RSDS (Reactive System Development Support) subset of UML, using the real-time action logic (RAL) formalism. We show how this semantics can be used to resolve some ambiguities and omissions in UML semantics, and to support reasoning about specifications using the B formal method and tools. We use 'semantic profiles' to provide precise semantics for different semantic variation points of UML. We also show how RAL can be used to give a semantics to notations for real-time specification in UML. Unlike other approaches to UML semantics, which concentrate on the class diagram notation, our semantic representation has behaviour as a central element, and can be used to define semantics for use cases, state machines and interactions, in addition to class diagrams.

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


A formal relationship between program slicing and partial evaluation A formal relationship between program slicing and partial evaluation is established. It is proved that for terminating programs, a residual program produced by partial evaluation is semantically equivalent to a conditioned slice.

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


game theoretic golog under partial observability We present the agent programming language POGTGolog, which combines explicit agent programming in Golog with game-theoretic multi-agent planning in a special kind of partially observable stochastic games (POSGs). The approach allows for partially specifying a high-level control program for a system of multiple agents, and for optimally filling in missing details by viewing it as a generalization of a special POSG and computing a Nash equilibrium.

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


completion time multiple branch prediction for enhancing trace cache performance The need for multiple branch prediction is inherent to wide instruction fetching. This paper presents a completion time multiple branch predictor called the Tree-based Multiple Branch Predictor (TMP) that builds on previous single branch prediction techniques. It employs a tree structure of branch predictors, or tree-node predictors, and achieves accurate multiple branch prediction by leveraging the high accuracies of the individual branch predictors. A highly-efficient TMP design uses the 2-bit saturating counters for the tree-node predictors. To achieve higher prediction rate, the TMP employs two-level schemes for the tree-node predictors resulting in a three-level TMP design. Placing the TMP at completion time reduces the critical latency in the front-end of the pipeline; the resultant longer update latency does not significantly impact the overall performance. In this paper the TMP is applied to a trace cache design and shown to be very effective in increasing its performance. Results: A realistic-size TMP (72KB) can predict 1, 2, 3, and 4 consecutive blocks with compounded prediction accuracies of 96\%, 93\%, 87\%, and 82\%, respectively. The block-based trace cache with this TMP achieves 4.75 IPC for SPECint95 on an idealized machine, which is a 20\% performance improvement over the original design [1]. This improved performance is 8\% above that of a conventional I-cache design with perfect single branch prediction.

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

branch prediction
tree
cache
structure
latency
performance
design
instruction
paper
update
predict

place traces efficiency size timing critic effect blocking scheme completeness


Network classless time protocol based on clock offset optimization Time synchronization is critical in distributed environments. A variety of network protocols, middleware and business applications rely on proper time synchronization across the computational infrastructure and depend on the clock accuracy. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is the current widely accepted standard for synchronizing clocks over the Internet. NTP uses a hierarchical scheme in order to synchronize the clocks in the network. In this paper we present a novel non-hierarchical peer-to-peer approach for time synchronization termed CTP-Classless Time Protocol. This approach exploits convex optimization theory in order to evaluate the impact of each clock offset on the overall objective function. We define the clock offset problem as an optimization problem and derive its optimal solution. Based on the solution we develop a distributed protocol that can be implemented over a communication network, prove its convergence to the optimal clock offsets and show its properties. For compatibility, CTP may use the packet format and number of measurements used by NTP. We also present methodology and numerical results for evaluating and comparing the accuracy of time synchronization schemes. We show that the CTP outperforms hierarchical schemes such as NTP in the sense of clock accuracy with respect to a universal clock.

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

classless time protocol (ctp)
estimation
one-way delay
network management
utc


Retrieval of machine-printed Latin documents through Word Shape Coding This paper reports a document retrieval technique that retrieves machine-printed Latin-based document images through word shape coding. Adopting the idea of image annotation, a word shape coding scheme is proposed, which converts each word image into a word shape code by using a few shape features. The text contents of imaged documents are thus captured by a document vector constructed with the converted word shape code and word frequency information. Similarities between different document images are then gauged based on the constructed document vectors. We divide the retrieval process into two stages. Based on the observation that documents of the same language share a large number of high-frequency language-specific stop words, the first stage retrieves documents with the same underlying language as that of the query document. The second stage then re-ranks the documents retrieved in the first stage based on the topic similarity. Experiments show that document images of different languages and topics can be retrieved properly by using the proposed word shape coding scheme.

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

multilingual document retrieval
document image analysis
language identification


Real or natural number interpretation and their effect on complexity ? Interpretation methods have been introduced in the 70s by Lankford [1] in rewriting theory to prove termination. Actually, as shown by Bonfante et al. [2], an interpretation of a program induces a bound on its complexity. However, Lankford's original analysis depends deeply on the Archimedean property of natural numbers. This goes against the fact that finding a real interpretation can be solved by Tarski's decision procedure over the reals (as described by Dershowitz in [3]), and consequently interpretations are usually chosen over the reals rather than over the integers. Doing so, one cannot use anymore the (good) properties of the natural (well-)ordering of N used to bound the complexity of programs. We prove that one may take benefit from the best of both worlds: the complexity analysis still holds even with real numbers. The reason lies in a deep algebraic property of polynomials over the reals. We illustrate this by two characterizations, one of polynomial time and one of polynomial space.

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

implicit computational complexity
term rewriting
polynomial interpretation
algebraic geometry


Complex organizational knowledge structures for new product development teams When a new product development team faces challenges, such as the cross-functional knowledge conversion task, both simple and existing organizational structures are comprised of various management methods and knowledge characteristics, analogous to a fully armed military force. However, these features are not arranged in order of priority. Each step within the knowledge conversion process of new product development may not require such a full depot of management methods and keynotes. Therefore, this study adopted Blacklers perspective to examine the suitable organizational knowledge structure for cross-functional knowledge conversion within new product development teams. This study found that the continual steps of socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization in the new product development teams knowledge conversion process were positively related to various organizational knowledge structures based on a survey of 107 Taiwanese high-technology small and medium-sized enterprises new product development teams not merely a simple structure for all steps. Thus, these results confirm that complex structures are required to perform knowledge conversion. Socialization requires knowledge characteristics from both the communication-intensive organization and the symbolic-analyst-dependent organization. Externalization requires elements of knowledge from the communication-intensive organization, the symbolic-analyst-dependent organization, and knowledge-routinized organization. Combination requires features from the knowledge-routinized organization, and internalization requires characteristics from the expert-dependent organization. In addition, this study attempted to integrate the knowledge features from communication-intensive organization and symbolic-analyst-dependent organization structures for the socialization and externalization stages. This effort concentrated on solving novel and irregular problems through a simplification of the complex organizational structures which make the new product developments knowledge conversion run smoother.

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

organizational knowledge structure
new product development team
knowledge conversion
taiwanese
complex


An electronic voting mechanism for fighting bribery and coercion This paper proposes an electronic voting scheme that can be implemented on the current Internet without any secure channel. Under the long-term private key assumption, this scheme not only satisfies most important security requirements proposed before, such as fairness, eligibility, uniqueness, accuracy, anonymity and so on, but also prevents bribery and coercion. Furthermore, the scheme offers voters mobility and convenience so they can securely and easily cast their vote from any location and on any device using a stable Internet connection, which has a potential for raising voter turnout rates and facilitating the voting process.

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


Modeling context in mobile distributed systems with the UML Context-awareness plays an important role in mobile distributed systems since it enables the adaptation of mobile devices to the users. However, one of the major challenges is the preservation of the users privacy. Many different approaches of modeling the context of the user exist, but the incorporation of privacy restrictions into context models, which makes the protection of privacy apparent, is missing. This paper presents the Context Modeling Profile (CMP), a lightweight UML (Unified Modeling Language) extension, as a visual language for context models in mobile distributed systems. The resulting models embody metainformation of the context, i.e. source and validity of context information, and reflect privacy restrictions. The profile provides several well-formedness rules for context models and supports the development of context-aware mobile applications through an adequate visual modeling language. A case study is used to illustrate the approach.

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

context modeling
mobile distributed systems


Probabilistic logic with minimum perplexity: Application to language modeling Any statistical model based on training encounters sparse configurations. These data are those that have not been encountered (or seen) during the training phase. This inherent problem is a big challenge to many scientific communities. The statistical estimation of rare events is usually performed through the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion. However, it is well-known that the ML estimator is sensitive to extreme values that is therefore non-reliable. To answer this challenge, we propose a novel approach based on probabilistic logic (PL) and the minimal perplexity criterion. In our approach, configurations are considered as probabilistic events such as predicates related through logical connectors. Our method was applied to estimate word trigram probability values from a corpus. Experimental results conducted on several test sets show that the PL method with minimal perplexity has outperformed both the Absolute Discounting, and the Good-Turing Discounting techniques.

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

word trigrams
statistical language model
maximum likelihood estimation
sparseness problem
entropy maximization


Interval-valued probability density estimation based on quasi-continuous histograms: Proof of the conjecture The sensitivity of histogram computation to the choice of a reference interval and number of bins can be attenuated by replacing the crisp partition on which the histogram is built by a fuzzy partition. This involves replacing the crisp counting process by a distributed (weighted) voting process. The counterpart to this low sensitivity is some confusion in the count values: a value of 10 in the accumulator associated with a bin can mean 10 observations in the bin or 40 observations near the bin. This confusion can bias the statistical decision process based on such a histogram. In a recent paper, we proposed a method that links the probability measure associated with any subset of the reference interval with the accumulator values of a fuzzy partition-based histogram. The method consists of transferring counts associated with each bin proportionally to its interaction with the considered subset. Two methods have been proposed which are called precise and imprecise pignistic transfer. Imprecise pignistic transfer accounts for the interactivity of two consecutive cells in order to propagate, in the estimated probability measure, counting confusion due to fuzzy granulation. Imprecise pignistic transfer has been conjectured to include precise pignistic transfer. The present article proposes a proof of this conjecture. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

quasi-continuous histograms
imprecise probability
capacity


Modeling and Control Strategies of Fuzzy Logic Controlled Inverter System for Grid Interconnected Variable Speed Wind Generator Today, variable speed operation of a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is becoming popular in the wind power industry (PI). A variable speed wind turbine (VSWT)-driven PMSG, in general, is connected to the grid using a fully controlled frequency converter (FC). Along with the generator side converter, the FC necessitates the grid side inverter system that has a great impact on the stability issue of the VSWT-PMSG, especially in the case of network disturbance. The well-known cascaded- controlled inverter system has widely been reported in much of the literature, where multiple PI controllers are used in inner and outer loops. However, a fuzzy logic controller deals well with the nonlinearity of the power system, compared to a PI controller. This paper presents a simple fuzzy logic controlled inverter system for the control of a grid side inverter system, which suits well for VSWT-PMSG operation in a wide operating range. This is one of the salient features of this paper. Detailed modeling and control strategies of the overall system are demonstrated. Both dynamic and transient performances of VSWT-driven PMSG are analyzed to show the effectiveness of the control strategy, where simulation has been done using PSCAD/EMTDC.

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

permanent magnet synchronous generator (pmsg)