Query: MIMO Wireless Linear Precoding

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Introduction to Space-Time Wireless Communications <=SEP=> published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 521 82615 2 hardback Contents List of figures page xiv List of tables xxii Preface xxiii List of abbreviations xxvi List of symbols xxix vii viii Contents 2.6 Polarization and field diverse channels 27 2.7 Antenna array topology 28 2.8 Degenerate channels 29 2.9 Reciprocity and its implications 31 3 ST channel and signal models

A quasi-orthogonal space-time block code <=SEP=> It has been shown that a complex orthogonal design that provides full diversity and full transmission rate for a space–time block code is not possible for more than two antennas. Previous attempts have been concentrated in generalizing orthogonal designs which provide space–time block codes with full diversity and a high transmission rate. In this work, we design rate one codes which are quasi-orthogonal and provide partial diversity. The decoder of the proposed codes works with pairs of transmitted symbols instead of single symbols.

Space-Time block codes from orthogonal designs <=SEP=> We introduce space–time block coding , a new paradigm for communication over Rayleigh fading channels using multiple transmit antennas. Data is encoded using a space–time block code and the encoded data is split inton streams which are simultaneously transmitted usingn transmit antennas. The received signal at each receive antenna is a linear superposition of the n transmitted signals perturbed by noise. Maximumlikelihood decoding is achieved in a simple way through decoupling of the signals transmitted from different antennas rather than joint detection. This uses the orthogonal structure of the space–time block code and gives a maximum-likelihood decoding algorithm which is based only on linear processing at the receiver. Space–time block codes are designed to achieve the maximum diversity order for a given number of transmit and receive antennas subject to the constraint of having a simple decoding algorithm. The classical mathematical framework of orthogonal designs is applied to construct space–time block codes. It is shown that space–time block codes constructed in this way only exist for few sporadic values ofn. Subsequently, a generalization of orthogonal designs is shown to provide space–time block codes for both real and complex constellations for any number of transmit antennas. These codes achieve the maximum possible transmission rate for any number of transmit antennas using any arbitrary real constellation such as PAM. For an arbitrary complex constellation such as PSK and QAM, space–time block codes are designed that achieve1=2 of the maximum possible transmission rate for any number of transmit antennas. For the specific cases of two, three, and four transmit antennas, space–time block codes are designed that achieve, respectively, all, 3=4, and 3=4 of maximum possible transmission rate using arbitrary complex constellations. The best tradeoff between the decoding delay and the number of transmit antennas is also computed and it is shown that many of the codes presented here are optimal in this sense as well.

Space-Time Codes for High Data Rate Wireless Communications <=SEP=> Space-time codes (STC) are a class of signaling techniques, offering coding and diversity gains along with improved spectral efficiency. These codes exploit both the spatial and the temporal diversity of the wireless link by combining the design of the error correction code, modulation scheme and array processing. STC are well suited for improving the downlink performance, which is the bottleneck in asymmetric applications such as downstream Internet. Three original contributions to the area of STC are presented in this dissertation. First, the development of analytic tools that determine the fundamental limits on the performance of STC in a variety of channel conditions. For trellis-type STC, transfer function based techniques are applied to derive performance bounds over Rayleigh, Rician and correlated fading environments. For block-type STC, an analytic framework that supports various complex orthogonal designs with arbitrary signal cardinalities and array configurations is developed. In the second part of the dissertation, the Virginia Tech Space-Time Advanced Radio (VT-STAR) is designed, introducing a multi-antenna hardware laboratory test bed, which facilitates characterization of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel and validation of various space-time approaches. In the third part of the dissertation, two novel space-time architectures paired with iterative processing principles are proposed. The first scheme extends the suitability of STC to outdoor wireless communications by employing iterative equalization/decoding for time dispersive channels and the second scheme employs iterative interference cancellation/decoding to solve the error propagation problem of Bell-Labs Layered Space-Time Architecture (BLAST). Results show that remarkable energy and spectral efficiencies are achievable by combining concepts drawn from space-time coding, multiuser detection, array processing and iterative decoding.

Haplogroup Prediction from Y-STR Values Using an Allele-Frequency Approach <=SEP=> A new approach to predicting the Y-chromosome haplogroup from a set of Y-STR marker values is presented and compared to other approaches. The method has been implemented in an Excel-based program, where an arbitrary number of STR markers may be input and a “goodness of fit” score for 10 haplogroups (E3a, E3b, G, I1a, I1b, I1c, J2, N3, R1a, and R1b) is returned. This method has been applied to 101 R1b haplotypes and 50 I1a haplotypes (all having 37 STR markers available), and the distribution of results is presented. In the case of I1a, the results are compared with the predictions of another method.

Extremely Low-Profile, Single-Arm, Wideband Spiral Antenna Radiating a Circularly Polarized Wave <=SEP=> The antenna characteristics are described of a single-arm spiral (SAS) antenna. A balun circuit, required for a conventional two-arm balanced-mode spiral (TAS), is not necessary for feeding this SAS. First, the radiation pattern of an SAS having a disc/ground-plane is investigated. When the radius of the disc is smaller than the radius of the first-mode active region on the spiral and the spacing between the disc and spiral plane is small, the SAS is found to radiate a circularly polarized (CP) bidirectional beam, whose radiation pattern is almost symmetric with respect to the antenna axis normal to the spiral plane. Second, from a practical standpoint, the CP bidirectional beam is transformed into a CP unidirectional beam by placing a conducting cavity behind an SAS with a disc. It is revealed that the SAS has a good VSWR (less than 2) and a good axial ratio (less than 3 dB) over a design frequency range of 3 GHz to 10 GHz, where a cavity/antenna height of 7 mm (0.07 wavelength at the lowest design frequency) is chosen. The frequency response of the gain for the SAS is found to be similar to that for a conventional TAS, and the radiation efficiency for the SAS is slightly larger than that for the TAS. It is concluded that the SAS with a small disc backed by a cavity realizes a circularly polarized, low-profile, wideband antenna with a simple feed system that does not require a balun circuit.

A design of miniaturization LPDA antenna with ultra wideband <=SEP=> This paper designed a Log-periodic miniaturization antenna working in 8GHz to 18GHz. It satisfies the characteristic of high gain, good radiation pattern, and a large proportion of the size reduction which other antenna don't possess. The lengthwise is 80mm, it reduces more than 50% of the transverse dimension with the original specification. A “mountain” terminal loaded design is used to shrink size of antenna under the premise of guaranteeing directivity of antenna. By optimizing backward feeding structure and antenna array to improve antenna performance. The final result is superior to other same type antenna distinctly.

Learning styles and performance in the introductory programming sequence <=SEP=> This paper reports on the implication of different preferred learning styles on students' performance in the introductory programming sequence and on work in progress on how to accommodate these different styles.Students were given a learning styles preference test and then their preferred learning styles were compared to their performance on the exam and the practical programming part of the introductory programming module. There were significant differences in performance between groups of students.This result could lead one to two possible conclusions. One might be that some students' learning styles are more suited to learning programming than others.An alternative explanation is that our current methods of teaching advantage students with certain learning preference styles. We are at present in the process of testing this second assumption by providing students with a wider range of learning materials. We will then see if student performance is improved by using our current results as a baseline for comparison

Human facial expressions as adaptations: Evolutionary questions in facial expression research. <=SEP=> The importance of the face in social interaction and social intelligence is widely recognized in anthropology. Yet the adaptive functions of human facial expression remain largely unknown. An evolutionary model of human facial expression as behavioral adaptation can be constructed, given the current knowledge of the phenotypic variation, ecological contexts, and fitness consequences of facial behavior. Studies of facial expression are available, but results are not typically framed in an evolutionary perspective. This review identifies the relevant physical phenomena of facial expression and integrates the study of this behavior with the anthropological study of communication and sociality in general. Anthropological issues with relevance to the evolutionary study of facial expression include: facial expressions as coordinated, stereotyped behavioral phenotypes, the unique contexts and functions of different facial expressions, the relationship of facial expression to speech, the value of facial expressions as signals, and the relationship of facial expression to social intelligence in humans and in nonhuman primates. Human smiling is used as an example of adaptation, and testable hypotheses concerning the human smile, as well as other expressions, are proposed.

A Comparison Between Single-Phase Quasi-  $Z$-Source and Quasi-Switched Boost Inverters <=SEP=> The properties of a single-phase quasi Z-source inverter (qZSI) and a single-phase quasi-switched boost inverter (qSBI), both of which are single-stage buck-boost inverters, are investigated and compared. For the same operating conditions, qSBI has the following advantages over qZSI: 1) Three capacitors are saved; 2) the current rating on both of its switches and diodes is lower; 3) its boost factor is higher with an equivalent parasitic effect; and 4) its efficiency is higher. However, qSBI has one more active switch and one more diode than Z-source/ qZSIs. In addition, the capacitor voltage stress of qSBI is higher than that of qZSI. The dc and ac component circuit analysis, impedance design with low-frequency and high-frequency ripples, component stresses, and power loss calculation are presented. A prototype based on a TMS320F28335 DSP is built in order to compare the operating principle of qSBI and qZSI.

Panel 1 : Terms used in qualitative <=SEP=> A broad base of medical and scientific knowledge is needed if medicine is to maintain its identity as a discipline founded on scientific knowledge. However, interpretive action must also be included in medical knowledge. In my first article, 1 I investigated the nature of clinical knowledge in medicine, exposed some of the shortcomings of quantitative research methods, and briefly introduced qualitative methods as an approach for improved understanding. Here, I shall discuss how scientific quality can be maintained when qualitative research methods are applied. I present some overall standards, describe specific challenges met when the medical researcher uses qualitative research methods, and subsequently propose guidelines for qualitative inquiry in medical research. I do not intend to provide comprehensive guidance for the inexperienced qualitative researcher, who must be prepared to acquire basic skills of qualitative research from the relevant literature. Some of the specific terms that I use are presented in panel 1. Standards Qualitative research methods involve the systematic collection, organisation, and interpretation of textual material derived from talk or observation. It is used in the exploration of meanings of social phenomena as experienced by individuals themselves, in their natural context. Qualitative research is still regarded with scepticism by the medical community, accused of its subjective nature and the absence of facts. Although the adequacy of guidelines has been vigorously debated within this cross-disciplinary field, 6,7 scientific standards, criteria, and checklists do exist. 3,8–11 However, as Chapple and Rogers 12 point out, medical researchers often encounter difficulties when they try to apply guidelines designed by social scientists, which deal with issues important in their own discipline, but which are not necessarily generically valid as scientific standards. Hamberg and colleagues, 13 for example, claim that the established criteria for scientific rigour in quantitative research cannot be applied to qualitative studies. Referring to Lincoln and Guba, 2 they suggest alternative criteria: credibility, dependability, confirmability, and trans-ferability. They admit that these criteria correspond with traditional ones in some ways, comparing credibility with internal validity, confirmability with objectivity, and transferability with generalisability. Mays and Pope, 7 however, maintain that qualitative research can be assessed with reference to the same broad criteria as quantitative research, albeit used in a different way. Referring to Hammersley, 14 they suggest that validity and relevance are essential. Neither of these criteria are straightforward to assess though, and each requires judgments to be made. To improve validity, Mays and Pope …

A Neural Schema Architecture for Autonomous Robots <=SEP=> As autonomous robots become more complex in their behavior, more sophisticated software architectures are required to support the ever more sophisticated robotics software. These software architectures must support complex behaviors involving adaptation and learning, implemented, in particular, by neural networks. We present in this paper a neural based schema [2] software architecture for the development and execution of autonomous robots in both simulated and real worlds. This architecture has been developed in the context of adaptive robotic agents, ecological robots [6], cooperating and competing with each other in adapting to their environment. The architecture is the result of integrating a number of development and execution systems: NSL, a neural simulation language; ASL, an abstract schema language; and MissionLab, a schema-based mission-oriented simulation and robot system. This work contributes to modeling in Brain Theory (BT) and Cogniti ve Psychology, with applications in Distributed Artificial Intell igence (DAI), Autonomous Agents and Robotics. Areas: Robotics, Agent-oriented programming, Neural Nets

Seed priming to alleviate salinity stress in germinating seeds. <=SEP=> Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that affect crop production in arid and semiarid areas. Seed germination and seedling growth are the stages most sensitive to salinity. Salt stress causes adverse physiological and biochemical changes in germinating seeds. It can affect the seed germination and stand establishment through osmotic stress, ion-specific effects and oxidative stress. The salinity delays or prevents the seed germination through various factors, such as a reduction in water availability, changes in the mobilization of stored reserves and affecting the structural organization of proteins. Various techniques can improve emergence and stand establishment under salt conditions. One of the most frequently utilized is seed priming. The process of seed priming involves prior exposure to an abiotic stress, making a seed more resistant to future exposure. Seed priming stimulates the pre-germination metabolic processes and makes the seed ready for radicle protrusion. It increases the antioxidant system activity and the repair of membranes. These changes promote seed vigor during germination and emergence under salinity stress. The aim of this paper is to review the recent literature on the response of plants to seed priming under salinity stress. The mechanism of the effect of salinity on seed germination is discussed and the seed priming process is summarized. Physiological, biochemical and molecular changes induced by priming that lead to seed enhancement are covered. Plants' responses to some priming agents under salinity stress are reported based on the best available data. For a great number of crops, little information exists and further research is needed.

Signal quality measures for pulse oximetry through waveform morphology analysis. <=SEP=> Pulse oximetry has been extensively used to estimate oxygen saturation in blood, a vital physiological parameter commonly used when monitoring a subject's health status. However, accurate estimation of this parameter is difficult to achieve when the fundamental signal from which it is derived, the photoplethysmograph (PPG), is contaminated with noise artifact induced by movement of the subject or the measurement apparatus. This study presents a novel method for automatic rejection of artifact contaminated pulse oximetry waveforms, based on waveform morphology analysis. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to a manually annotated gold standard. The creation of the gold standard involved two experts identifying sections of the PPG signal containing good quality PPG pulses and/or noise, in 104 fingertip PPG signals, using a simultaneous electrocardiograph (ECG) signal as a reference signal. The fingertip PPG signals were each 1 min in duration and were acquired from 13 healthy subjects (10 males and 3 females). Each signal contained approximately 20 s of purposely induced artifact noise from a variety of activities involving subject movement. Some unique waveform morphology features were extracted from the PPG signals, which were believed to be correlated with signal quality. A simple decision-tree classifier was employed to arrive at a classification decision, at a pulse-by-pulse resolution, of whether a pulse was of acceptable quality for use or not. The performance of the algorithm was assessed using Cohen's kappa coefficient (κ), sensitivity, specificity and accuracy measures. A mean κ of 0.64 ± 0.22 was obtained, while the mean sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 89 ± 10%, 77 ± 19% and 83 ± 11%, respectively. Furthermore, a heart rate estimate, extracted from uncontaminated sections of PPG, as identified by the algorithm, was compared with the heart rate derived from an uncontaminated simultaneous ECG signal. The mean error between both heart rate readings was 0.49 ± 0.66 beats per minute (BPM), in comparison to an error value observed without using the artifact detection algorithm of 7.23 ± 5.78 BPM. These results demonstrate that automated identification of signal artifact in the PPG signal through waveform morphology analysis is achievable. In addition, a clear improvement in the accuracy of the derived heart rate is also evident when such methods are employed.

Modeling Ambiguity, Subjectivity, and Diverging Viewpoints in Opinion Question Answering Systems <=SEP=> Product review websites provide an incredible lens into the wide variety of opinions and experiences of different people, and play a critical role in helping users discover products that match their personal needs and preferences. To help address questions that can't easily be answered by reading others' reviews, some review websites also allow users to pose questions to the community via a question-answering (QA) system. As one would expect, just as opinions diverge among different reviewers, answers to such questions may also be subjective, opinionated, and divergent. This means that answering such questions automatically is quite different from traditional QA tasks, where it is assumed that a single 'correct' answer is available. While recent work introduced the idea of question-answering using product reviews, it did not account for two aspects that we consider in this paper: (1) Questions have multiple, often divergent, answers, and this full spectrum of answers should somehow be used to train the system, and (2) What makes a 'good' answer depends on the asker and the answerer, and these factors should be incorporated in order for the system to be more personalized. Here we build a new QA dataset with 800 thousand questions—and over 3.1 million answers—and show that explicitly accounting for personalization and ambiguity leads both to quantitatively better answers, but also a more nuanced view of the range of supporting, but subjective, opinions.

Accurate vertical road profile estimation using v-disparity map and dynamic programming <=SEP=> Detecting obstacles on the road is crucial for the advanced driver assistance systems. Obstacle detection on the road can be greatly facilitated if we have a vertical road profile. Therefore, in this paper, we present a novel method that can estimate an accurate vertical road profile of the scene from the stereo images. Unlike conventional stereo-based road profile estimation methods that heavily rely on a parametric model of the road surface, our method can obtain a road profile for an arbitrary complicated road. To this end, an energy function that includes the stereo matching fidelity and spatio-temporal smoothness of the road profile is presented, and thus the road profile is extracted by maximizing the energy function via dynamic programming. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Dual wideband CPW-fed split-ring monopole antenna for WLAN applications <=SEP=> This paper presents a dual wideband CPW-fed monopole antenna based on split-ring elements for WLAN (2.4/5 GHz) applications. The proposed split-ring monopole antenna (SRMA) has a compact novel design which provides 13.8% and 55.5% impedance bandwidth at operational frequency bands. Moreover, the antenna exhibits good radiation pattern with predicted gains of 4–6 dBi in the related bands. The analysis and design of the proposed microstrip antenna have been carried out by means of Ansoft HFSS and an antenna prototype was then constructed and tested. Numerical analyses using the simulator and measurement results are also presented in this paper.

Machine learning in the Internet of Things: A semantic-enhanced approach <=SEP=> Novel Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services rely on an intelligent understanding of the environment leveraging data gathered via heterogeneous sensors and micro-devices. Though increasingly effective, Machine Learning (ML) techniques generally do not go beyond classification of events with opaque labels, lacking machine-understandable representation and explanation of taxonomies. This paper proposes a framework for semantic-enhanced data mining on sensor streams, amenable to resource-constrained pervasive contexts. It merges an ontology-based characterization of data distributions with non-standard reasoning for a fine-grained event detection. The typical classification problem of ML is treated as a resource discovery by exploiting semantic matchmaking. Outputs of classification are endowed with computer-processable descriptions in standard Semantic Web languages, while explanation of matchmaking outcomes motivates confidence on results. A case study on road and traffic analysis has allowed to validate the proposal and achieve an assessment with respect to state-of-the-art ML algorithms.

Architecture and Implementation of a Java Package for Multiple Input Devices ( MID ) <=SEP=> A major difficulty in writing Single Display Groupware (co-present collaborative) applications is getting input from multiple devices. We introduce MID, a Java package that addresses this problem and offers an architecture to access advanced events through Java. In this paper, we describe the features, architecture and limitations of MID. We also briefly describe an application that uses MID to get input from multiple mice: KidPad.

Series WP-1207 A Source of Bias in Public Opinion Stability <=SEP=> A long acknowledged but seldom addressed problem with political communication experiments concerns the use of captive participants. Study participants rarely have the opportunity to choose information themselves, instead receiving whatever information the experimenter provides. Druckman and his co-authors relax this assumption in the context of an over-time framing experiment focused on opinions about health care policy. Their results dramatically deviate from extant understandings of over-time communication effects. Allowing individuals to choose information for themselves—a common situation on many political issues—leads to the preeminence of early frames and the rejection of later frames. Instead of opinion decay, they find dogmatic adherence to opinions formed in response to the first frame to which participants were exposed (i.e., staunch opinion stability). The effects match those that occur when early frames are repeated multiple times. The results suggest that opinion stability may often reflect biased information seeking. Moreover, the findings have implications for a range of topics including the micro-macro disconnect in studies of public opinion, political polarization, normative evaluations of public opinion, the role of inequality considerations in the debate about health care, and perhaps most importantly, the design of experimental studies of public opinion. *The authors thank Cengiz Erisen, Larry Jacobs, Jon Krosnick, Heather Madonia, Leslie McCall, Spencer Piston, David Sterrett, and seminar participants in Northwestern’s Applied Quantitative Methods Workshop for helpful comments and advice.

Choice of intra-articular injection in treatment of knee osteoarthritis: platelet-rich plasma, hyaluronic acid or ozone options <=SEP=> This study was performed to compare the efficacy of treatment in three groups of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) given an intra-articular injection of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), hyaluronic acid (HA) or ozone gas. A total of 102 patients with mild–moderate and moderate knee OA who presented at the polyclinic with at least a 1-year history of knee pain and VAS score ≥4 were randomly separated into three groups. Group 1 (PRP group) received intra-articular injection of PRP × 2 doses, Group 2 (HA group) received a single dose of HA, and Group 3 (Ozone group) received ozone × four doses. Weight-bearing anteroposterior–lateral and Merchant’s radiographs of both knees were evaluated. WOMAC and VAS scores were applied to all patients on first presentation and at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months. At the end of the 1st month after injection, significant improvements were seen in all groups. In the 3rd month, the improvements in WOMAC and VAS scores were similar in Groups 1 and 2, while those in Group 3 were lower (p < 0.001). At the 6th month, while the clinical efficacies of PRP and HA were similar and continued, the clinical effect of ozone had disappeared (p < 0.001). At the end of the 12th month, PRP was determined to be both statistically and clinically superior to HA (p < 0.001). In the treatment of mild–moderate knee OA, PRP was more successful than HA and ozone injections, as the application alone was sufficient to provide at least 12 months of pain-free daily living activities. Therapeutic study, Level I.

Polyphonic Music Modelling with LSTM-RTRBM <=SEP=> Recent interest in music information retrieval and related technologies is exploding. However, very few of the existing techniques take advantage of the recent advancements in neural networks. The challenges of developing effective browsing, searching and organization techniques for the growing bodies of music collections call for more powerful statistical models. In this paper, we present LSTM-RTRBM, a new neural network model for the problem of creating accurate yet flexible models of polyphonic music. Our model integrates the ability of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) in memorizing and retrieving useful history information, together with the advantage of Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) in high dimensional data modelling. Our approach greatly improves the performance of polyphonic music sequence modelling, achieving the state-of-the-art results on multiple datasets.

Improving the effectiveness of peer feedback for learning <=SEP=> The present study examined the effectiveness of (a) peer feedback for learning, more specifically of certain characteristics of the content and style of the provided feedback, and (b) a particular instructional intervention to support the use of the feedback. A quasi-experimental repeated measures design was adopted. Writing assignments of 43 students of Grade 7 in secondary education showed that receiving ‘justified’ comments in feedback improves performance, but this effect diminishes for students with better pretest performance. Justification was superior to the accuracy of comments. The instructional intervention of asking assessees to reflect upon feedback after peer assessment did not increase learning gains significantly. 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Reference-Aware Language Models <=SEP=> We propose a general class of language models that treat reference as explicit stochastic latent variables. This architecture allows models to create mentions of entities and their attributes by accessing external databases (required by, e.g., dialogue generation and recipe generation) and internal state (required by, e.g. language models which are aware of coreference). This facilitates the incorporation of information that can be accessed in predictable locations in databases or discourse context, even when the targets of the reference may be rare words. Experiments on three representative applications show our model variants outperform models based on deterministic attention.

Cluster analysis using data mining approach to develop CRM methodology to assess the customer loyalty <=SEP=> Data mining (DM) methodology has a tremendous contribution for researchers to extract the hidden knowledge and information which have been inherited in the data used by researchers. This study has proposed a new procedure, based on expanded RFM model by including one additional parameter, joining WRFM-based method to K-means algorithm applied in DM with K-optimum according to Davies– Bouldin Index, and then classifying customer product loyalty in under B2B concept. The developed methodology has been implemented for SAPCO Co. in Iran. The result shows a tremendous capability to the firm to assess his customer loyalty in marketing strategy designed by this company in comparing with random selection commonly used by most companies in Iran. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rationale for the RBAC96 family of access control models <=SEP=> A family of role-based access control (RBAC) models, referred to here as the RBAC96 models, was recently published by the author and his colleagues. This paper gives our rationale for the major decisions in developing these models and discusses alternatives that were considered.

Characterizing affective instability in borderline personality disorder. <=SEP=> OBJECTIVE
This study sought to understand affective instability among patients with borderline personality disorder by examining the degree of instability in six affective domains. The authors also examined the subjective intensity with which moods are experienced and the association between instability and intensity of affect.


METHOD
In a group of 152 patients with personality disorders, subjective affective intensity and six dimensions of affective instability were measured. The mean scores for lability and intensity for each affective domain for patients with borderline personality disorder were compared with those of patients with other personality disorders through analyses that controlled for other axis I affective disorders, age, and sex.


RESULTS
Greater lability in terms of anger and anxiety and oscillation between depression and anxiety, but not in terms of oscillation between depression and elation, was associated with borderline personality disorder. Contrary to expectation, the experience of an increase in subjective affective intensity was not more prominent in patients with borderline personality disorder than in those with other personality disorders.


CONCLUSIONS
By applying a finer-grained perspective on affective instability than those of previous personality disorder studies, this study points to patterns of affective experience characteristic of patients with borderline personality disorder.

Document dewarping via text-line based optimization <=SEP=> This paper presents a new document image dewarping method that removes geometric distortions in camera-captured document images. The proposed method does not directly use the text-line which has been the most widely used feature for the document dewarping. Instead, we use the discrete representation of text-lines and text-blocks which are the sets of connected components. Also, we model the geometric distortions caused by page curl and perspective view as the generalized cylindrical surfaces and camera rotation respectively. With these distortion models and the discrete representation of the features, we design a cost function whose minimization yields the parameters of the distortion model. In the cost function, we encode the properties of the pages such as text-block alignment, linespacing, and the straightness of text-lines. By describing the text features using the sets of discrete points, the cost function can be easily defined and efficiently solved by Levenberg–Marquadt algorithm. Experiments show that the proposed method works well for the various layouts and curved surfaces, and compares favorably with the conventional methods on the standard dataset. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Discipline and practices of TDD: (test driven development) <=SEP=> This panel brings together practitioners with experience in Agile and XP methodologies to discuss the approaches and benefits of applying Test Driven Development (TDD). The goal of TDD is clean code that works. The mantra of TDD is: write a test; make it run; and make it right. Open questions to be addressed by the panel include: - How are TDD approaches to be applied to databases, GUIs, and distributed systems? What are the quantitative benchmarks that can demonstrate the value of TDD, and what are the best approaches to solve the ubiquitous issue of scalability.