Boolean Satisfiability Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Stringent emission regulations combined with customer demands for improved fuel economy and performance have forced the automotive industry to consider more advanced powertrain configurations than standard port-fuel injected gasoline engines. Modern state-of-the-art powertrain systems may combine several power sources (internal combustion engines, electric motors, fuel cells, etc.) and various exhaust aftertreatment devices (catalytic converters, lean NOx traps, particulate filters, etc.) in addition to conventional engine subsystems such as turbochargers and exhaust gas recirculation. The determination of the way in which these systems need to be operated to meet driver's torque demand, performance and fuel economy expectations while satisfying federal emission regulations is a complex and a multiobjective optimal control problem. This paper reviews some of the approaches to this problem in the context of two case studies

- by
- •
- Applied Mathematics, Multiobjective Optimization, Automotive Industry, Fuel Cell
- by Susy Harrigan
- •
- Family Therapy, Ethics, Early Intervention, Schizophrenia

We present a first-hand account of a fully impotent, testosteronesuppressed prostate cancer patient who has satisfying, multiorgasmic sex using a strap-on dildo. We use his narrative to examine dildos as an alternative to erectile dysfunction treatments for men, such as this patient, who find selective inhibitors of PDE-5 ineffective and surgical intervention unacceptable. We explore what conditions allowed this man to progress from suspicious distrust of the dildo to full acceptance. In terms of making a dildo acceptable to other patients, we contrast offering it to them as a penile prosthesis in a formal medical setting versus treating it as a toy in fantasy sex play. Last, we present a neurobiological hypothesis involving sensory integration to help explain why sex with the strap-on dildo can be satisfying to a male.

- by Richard Wassersug
- •
- Psychology, Play Therapy, Prostate Cancer, Erectile dysfunction

Measurement errors make power analysis attacks difficult to mount when only a single power trace is available: the statistical methods that make DPA attacks so successful are not applicable since they require many (typically thousands) of traces. Recently it was suggested by to use algebraic methods for the single-trace scenario, converting the key recovery problem into a Boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem, then using a SAT solver. However, this approach is extremely sensitive to noise (allowing an error rate of well under 1% at most), and the question of its practicality remained open. In this work we show how a single-trace side-channel analysis problem can be transformed into a pseudo-Boolean optimization (PBOPT) problem, which takes errors into consideration. The PBOPT instance can then be solved using a suitable optimization problem solver. The PBOPT syntax provides for a more expressive input specification which allows a very natural representation of measurement errors. Most importantly, we show that using our approach we are able to mount successful and efficient single-trace attacks even in the presence of realistic error rates of 10%-20%. We call our new attack methodology Tolerant Algebraic Side-Channel Analysis (TASCA). We show practical attacks on two real ciphers: Keeloq and AES.

- by Avishai Wool
- •
- SAT Solver Design, Optimization Problem, Power Analysis, Measurement Error

Purpose -Utilizing data envelopment analysis (DEA), this paper seeks to examine the performance of 20 Indian B-Schools, separating their profitability and marketability. The technique allows one to identify those management institutions which are able to utilize their resources in a most efficient way such that the overall goals of the organization are satisfied and total outcome maximized. If a management institution means to be effective in developing professionals who are going to be competent leaders and managers, then it would be useful to know the performance of the management institutes. However, measuring the performance of management institutes has received very little attention compared with other industries because it is difficult to measure its output. Design/methodology/approach -A DEA model is used to evaluate the relative efficiency of a group of decision-making units (DMUs) in their use of multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs where the form of production is neither known nor specified as in the case of parametric approach. Findings -The paper ranks management institutes from various points of stakeholders. The main findings are how much of the benefit from ranking of the B-Schools is credited because of its efficiency in converting the inputs to outputs. Does the ranking of any institution depend on scale of operations (scale efficiency) or is it only based on technical efficiency? Technical efficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and/or usage of excessive amounts of inputs. Practical implications -As Indian management schools widely publicize job offers with six figure salaries, managerial value addition, national ranking etc. provide an important impression about the management institutions. However, the reported results of experiments on input and output measures do not seem to differ between the ten best run institutes and the next ten institutes in terms of scale efficiency. Originality/value -The paper is one of the few written from the Indian perspective.

- by roma Performance
- •
- Data Analysis, TQM, Business and Management, Profitability

We establish the conditions under which it is possible to construct signal sets satisfying the properties of being geometrically uniform and matched to additive quotient groups. Such signal sets consist of subsets of signal spaces... more

- by Edson Donizete De Carvalho and +3
- •
- Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Sciences, Boolean Satisfiability
- by J. Wielenga and +1
- •
- Nursing, Neonatal Nursing, Social Support, Adolescent

This article distinguishes between hedonic and eudaimonic approaches to wellness, with the former focusing on the outcome of happiness or pleasure and the latter focusing not so much on outcomes as on the process of living well. We present a model of eudaimonia that is based in self-determination theory, arguing that eudaimonic living can be characterized in terms of four motivational concepts: (1) pursuing intrinsic goals and values for their own sake, including personal growth, relationships, community, and health, rather than extrinsic goals and values, such as wealth, fame, image, and power;

- by Veronika Huta and +1
- •
- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Happiness Studies, Self Determination Theory
- by Jennifer Arlen
- •
- Corporate Governance, STOCK EXCHANGE, Boolean Satisfiability

The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) has gained widespread popularity and acceptance, yet little is known about its effectiveness as a basis for health behavior intervention. A systematic review was conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of TTM interventions in facilitating health-related behavior change. Thirty-five electronic databases, catalogues, and internet resources were searched for relevant studies. In addition, the bibliographies of retrieved references were scanned for further relevant publications and authors were contacted for further information where necessary. Thirty-seven randomized controlled trials, targeting seven health-related behaviors, satisfied the inclusion criteria. Overall, the methodological quality of trials was variable, and there was limited evidence for the effectiveness of stage-based interventions as a basis for behavior change or for facilitating stage progression, irrespective of whether those interventions were compared with other types of intervention or with no intervention or usual care controls. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

- by Ian Watt
- •
- Psychology, Health Psychology, Health Behavior, Transtheoretical Model

Women in contemporary Western society have increased options, resources, and opportunities to access a greater array of tourism and leisure choices. Yet the freedoms women have to consume these choices, and to access satisfying leisure and travel experiences, may be constrained by their social and gendered location as females. Leisure-based research has shown that women tend to be more highly and intensely constrained in their leisure pursuits, particularly when these activities are undertaken out of the home or in the outdoors. Little research, however, has explored how constraints impact on women's experiences in a tourism context, especially when they travel "solo." This article presents results of a qualitative, exploratory study of 40 Australian women's experiences of solo travel. In-depth interviews with these women reveal that constraints do exist and exert influence on their lives and travel experiences in a myriad of ways. Four interlinking categories of constraint were identified through a grounded approach to data analysis: sociocultural, personal, practical, and spatial. Further definition of these categories evolved, depending on where the women were situated in their travel experience (i.e., "pretravel" or "during travel"). The women's solo travel constraints will be presented and defined in this article, and practical implications for the tourism industry will also be discussed.

- by Erica Wilson
- •
- Data Analysis, Tourism, Boolean Satisfiability, Exploratory Study

Addressing forest sustainability requires negotiation and integration of individual forest management plans of multiple small non-industrial forest owners (NIPF). Recently, Portuguese forest policy prescribed the creation of Areas for Forest Intervention (AFI/ZIF)-forest areas encompassing at least 1 Â 10 3 ha and 50 NIPF-to address those requirements. Yet, the development of forest management plans for AFI is targeting multiple objectives in the framework of multiple-ownership. This is not trivial as conflict is prone to arise and negotiation is needed to satisfy individual and collective goals and constraints. This paper is prompted by the need to identify methods and tools that may be used to support forest management planning in the framework of an AFI. Emphasis is on the need of specific tools and methods that can support AFI management planning, in order to mitigate conflicts and achieve a consensual plan. This paper thus presents a review of methods and tools used to support group decision-making in forest management planning. It further discusses the potential of hybrid approaches for collaborative planning that may take advantage of the integrated functionality of both quantitative and qualitative decision support methods and tools. Published by Elsevier B.V.

- by Helena Martins
- •
- Decision Making, Forest Ecology And Management, Biological Sciences, Forest Policy

The University of the South Pacific was created in 1968 to serve12 small island countries, Fiji has been the host of the largest campus, and has also been the USP's largest funder and beneficiary. This paper will explore the recent developments in tertiary education in Fiji and the policy challenges at the national and regional levels. Analyzing the process which led to the announcement of the establishment of a national public university scheduled for 2010, this paper will nurture the debate on the relevancy of settling a national university in campus countries of regional universities.

- by Opeti Pulotu
- •
- Higher Education, Small islands, South Pacific, Tertiary Education
- by chammie sorila
- •
- Information Systems, Human Computer Interaction, Design, Theory

Airport expansion projects often require the presence and movement of construction labor and equipment near critical airport traffic areas. This close proximity between construction activities and airport operations needs to be carefully considered during the planning of construction site layouts in order to minimize and eliminate all potential construction-related hazards to aviation safety. This paper presents the development of a multiobjective optimization model for planning airport construction site layouts that is capable of minimizing construction-related hazards and minimizing site layout costs, simultaneously. The model incorporates newly developed optimization functions and metrics that enable: ͑1͒ maximizing the control of hazardous construction debris near airport traffic areas; ͑2͒ minimizing site layout costs including the travel cost of construction resources and the cost of debris control measures on airport sites; and ͑3͒ satisfying all operational safety constraints required by the federal aviation administration as well as other practical site layout constraints. The model is implemented using a multiobjective genetic algorithm and an application example is analyzed to demonstrate the use of the model and its capabilities in optimizing construction site layouts in airport expansion projects.

- by Ahmed Khalafallah
- •
- Civil Engineering, Multiobjective Optimization, Building, Minimum Travel Cost

Abstmct-Product development based on customer preferences with applications of innovative technologies is a key to obtaining a larger market share and faster sales growth for organizations in high-tech products market. The purpose of this paper is to develop series of product development strategies designed for different innovation levels and recommend the strategic approach for organizations frequently introducing new products. The strategies are developed from three viewpoints: level of product improvement, scope of product change, and speed of product change. Level of product improvement shows level of technology application differences for products. Scope of product change explains the affected area of product categories required to be modified due to the innovative product introduction to the same market. Speed of product change indicates speed of technology transmission to the same or other product categories in the same target market after innovative products are introduced to the market. The each strategy allocated by the three factors is effective method for designing their products to satisfy target customers' expectations. The factors are strategically generated by the analysis of current competitive innovative market condition.

Solid tumours account for 90% of all cancers. Gene therapy represents a potential new modality for their treatment. Up to now, several approaches have been developed, but the most efficient ones are the viral vector based gene therapy systems. However, viral vectors suffer from several deficiencies: firstly most vectors currently in use require intratumoural injection to elicit an effect. This is far from ideal as many tumours are inaccessible and many may have already spread to other parts of the body, making them difficult to locate and inject gene therapy vectors into. Second, because of cell heterogeneity within a given cancer, the vectors do not efficiently enter and kill every cancer cell. Third, hypoxia, a prevalent characteristic feature of most solid tumours, reduces the ability of the viral vectors to function and decreases viral gene expression and production. Consequently, a proportion of the tumour is left unaffected, from which tumour regrowth occurs. Thus, cancer gene therapy has yet to realise its full potential. The facultative or obligate anaerobic bacteria have been shown to selectively colonise and regerminate in solid tumours when delivered systemically. Among them, the clostridial spores were easy to produce, stable to store and safe to use as well as having extensive oncolytic ability. However, research in animals and humans has shown that oncolysis was almost always interrupted sharply at the outer rim of the viable tumour tissue where the blood supply was sufficient. These clostridial spores, though, could serve as "Trojan horse" for cancer gene therapy. Indeed, various spores harbouring genes for cancerstatic factors, prodrug enzymes, or proteins or cytokines had endowed with additional tumour-killing capability. Furthermore, combination of these "Trojan horses" with conventional chemotherapy or radiation therapies often significantly perform better, resulting in the "cure" of solid tumours in a high percentage of animals. It is, thus, not too difficult to predict the potential outcomes for the use of clostridial spores as "Trojan horse" vectors for oncolytic therapy when compared with viral vector-mediated cancer therapy for it be replication-deficient or competent. However, to move the "Trojan horse" to a clinic, though, additional requirements need to be satisfied (i) target tumours only and not anywhere else, and (ii) be able to completely kill primary tumours as well as metastases. Current technologies are in place to achieve these goals.

- by Jozef ANNE
- •
- Bioinformatics, Genetics, Microbiology, Physiology

Three dimensional object extraction and recognition (OER) from LIDAR data has been an area of major interest in photogrammetry for quite a long time. However, most of the existing methods for automatic object extraction and recognition from LIDAR data are just based on the range information and employ parametric methods and object’s vagueness behaviour is basically neglected. Thus, these methods do not take into account the extraction and recognition complexities and may fail to reach a satisfied reliability level in complex situations. In this paper a novel approach based on the following strategies is formulated and implemented: (a) for a more comprehensive definition of the objects, information fusion concept is utilized, i.e., object’s descriptive components such as 3D structural and textural (ST) information are automatically extracted from first/last rang and intensity information of LIDAR data and simultaneously fed into the evaluation process, (b) for a more realistic expres...

- by Farhad Samadzadegan
- •
- Fuzzy Logic, Recognition, LiDAR, Region growing

Due to CMOS technology scaling, devices are getting smaller, faster, and operating at lower supply voltages. The reduced capacitances and power supply voltages and the increased chip density to perform more functionality result in increasing the soft errors and making them one of the essential design constraints at the same level as delay and power. Even though the impact of process variations on the performance and the power consumption has been investigated by many researchers, its impact on soft errors has not been paid enough attention. This impact is investigated in this paper for 65-nm CMOS technology. The soft error yield is defined in this paper similar to the timing yield and the power yield. This paper shows that the soft error yield of the sense-amplifier based flip flop (SA-FF) is very poor. Therefore, soft error mitigation techniques are required when using this flip-flop topology. The semi-dynamic flip-flop (SD-FF) exhibits the best soft error yield behavior with a very high performance at the expense of large power requirement. Finally, some design insights are proposed to guide flip-flops designers to select the best flip-flop topology that satisfies their specific circuit soft error rate constraints.

- by mai elmasry
- •
- Engineering, Power Consumption, Process Variation, Comparative Analysis

Laboratory housing conditions have significant physiological and psychological effects on rodents, raising both scientific and humane concerns. Published studies of rats, mice and other rodents were reviewed to document behavioural and psychological problems attributable to predominant laboratory housing conditions. Studies indicate that rats and mice value opportunities to take cover, build nests, explore, gain social contact, and exercise some control over their social milieu, and that the inability to satisfy these needs is physically and psychologically detrimental, leading to impaired brain development and behavioural anomalies (e.g. stereotypies). To the extent that space is a means to gain access to such resources, spatial confinement likely exacerbates these deficits. Adding environmental 'enrichments' to small cages reduces but does not eliminate these problems, and I argue that substantial changes in housing and husbandry conditions would be needed to further reduce them.

- by Camilo Andres Rodriguez Parra
- •
- Zoology, Animal Behavior, Housing, Animal Welfare

The aim of this research is to understand the experience of the football sector on the use of artificial turf (satisfaction, safety, sporting feature, or the advantages and disadvantages). The study was conducted on a random selection of 627 male participants (404 amateur/semi-professional footballers, 101 coaches and 122 referees) that regularly train/compete on artificial turf in Spanish football leagues. The

- by Jose Felipe 02
- •
- Mechanical Engineering, Perception, Consumer Behavior, Soccer

An N-particle system with mean field interaction is considered.

- by Shui Feng
- •
- Statistics, Boolean Satisfiability, Markov Process
- by Mark Klock
- •
- Marketing, Law and Economics, Behavioral Economics, Financial Markets
- by Shane Brown and +1
- •
- Social Sciences, Curriculum Design, Engineering Education, Social Learning Theory

We propose a novel unifying framework for relational distance based learning where learning examples are stored in a relational database. The framework is tailored to and fully supports relational algebra representations. We define relational distances whose building blocks are distances between tuples of relations and distances between sets. Unlike all existing distance-based relational systems our framework is not limited to a single relational distance measure, instead it offers a variety among which the user can choose or combine the ones that best match the requirements of the problem at hand, or even define new ones if the existing do not satisfy the application requirements. Moreover to what amounts to model selection the most appropriate relational distance measure can be automatically selected via means of an inner cross validation. We study the properties of the relational distance and show how these are related to the properties of its constituent parts. We evaluate our framework in the context of the classification task. We perform a series of experiments on a number of well known classification datasets used in relational learning, analyze the relative performance of the different relational distance measures induced, and try to highlight their similarities and differences. The experiments show that our framework competes favorably and in some cases is better than state of the art systems used in relational learning. We believe that the fact that the framework is completely defined on the basis of relational algebra and relational algebra operators has the potential to make it, and thus relational learning, much more accessible to the large community of relational databases.

- by Melanie Hilario
- •
- Relational Database, Model Selection, Cross Validation, relational Learning
- by Colleen Seifert
- •
- Cognitive Psychology, Research Methodology, Planning, Problem Solving

This paper presents and illustrates a reliability analysis method developed with a focus on Controller-Area-Network-based automotive systems. The method considers the effect of faults on schedulability analysis and its impact on the reliability estimation of the system, and attempts to integrate both to aid system developers. We illustrate the method by modeling a simple distributed antilock braking system, and showing that even in cases where the worst case analysis deems the system unschedulable, it may be proven to satisfy its timing requirements with a sufficiently high probability. From a reliability and cost perspective, this paper underlines the tradeoffs between timing guarantees, the level of hardware and software faults, and per-unit cost.

- by Sasikumar Punnekkat
- •
- Engineering, Timing Analysis, Scheduling, Distributed System

With the emergence of the World Wide Web, analyzing and improving Web communication has become essential to adapt the Web content to the visitors’ expectations. Web communication analysis is traditionally performed by Web analytics software, which produce long lists of page-based audience metrics. These results suffer from page synonymy, page polysemy, page temporality, and page volatility. In addition, the metrics contain little semantics and are too detailed to be exploited by organization managers and chief editors, who need summarized and conceptual information to take high-level decisions. To obtain such metrics, we propose to classify the Web site pages into categories representing the Web site topics and to aggregate the page hits accordingly. In this paper, we show how to compute and visualize these metrics using OLAP tools. To solve the page-temporality issue, we propose to classify the versions of the pages using automatic classifiers.

- by Gianluca Bontempi
- •
- Ontology, Semantics, Linguistics, Volatility

We developed a series of balloon experiments parachuting a 1:1 scale mock-up of the Huygens probe from an altitude just over 30 km to simulate at planetary scale the ÿnal part of the descent of the probe through Titan's lower atmosphere. The terrestrial atmosphere represents a natural laboratory where most of the physical parameters meet quite well the bulk condition of Titan's environment, in terms of atmosphere composition, pressure and mean density ranges, though the temperature range will be far higher.

Due to broadcast nature of wireless radio services such as encryption in pervasive networks such that it transmission, security services are of paramount importance to sufficiently protects information while minimizing the energy protect information exchanged in a wireless network. However, cost. We trade off energy consumption with the strength of providing security services increases the computation and hence energy consumption due to cryptographic algorithms. Energy security servcs The str of secrityoservice n be 1 p. Keeratiwintakorn is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, security requirements, and utilize different security algorithms King Mongkut's Institute of Technology, North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand based on transmission packet size to further minimize energy (corresponding author to provide phone: ±66 2 9132500; fax: ±66 2 913 2500 consumption of wireless devices. The level adjustment and the

- by Phongsak Keeratiwintakorn
- •
- Energy, Energy Consumption, Wireless Network, Information Exchange

An OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) home gateway system manages the integration of heterogeneous home networks protocols and devices to develop ubiquitous applications. Wired and wireless heterogeneous home networks have different QoS concerns. For instance, jitter and latency are important concerns in web phones, while packet loss ratio is important in on-line video. This study adopts UPnP QoS specification version 1.0 to design an adaptive QoS management mechanism based on the RMD (Resource Management in DiffServ) architecture. This study monitors real-time network traffic, and adaptively controls the bandwidth, to satisfy the minimum but most important quality for each application in home network congestion. Simulation results indicate that the average jitter, latency and packet loss are reduced by 0.1391 ms, 0.0066 s, and 5.43%, respectively. The packet loss ratio is reduced by 4.53%, and the throughput is increased by 1.2% in high definition video stream; the packet loss ratio is reduced by 1.89% for standard definition video stream, and in VoIP (Voice over IP) the jitter and latency are reduced to 0.0407 ms and 0.0209 s, respectively.

- by Hwan Jin Kim
- •
- Engineering, Technology, Computer Networks, Service Quality

This work shows that it is possible to exploit text and image content characteristics of logo and trademark images in Web pages for enhancing the performance of retrievals on the Web. Searching for important (authoritative) Web pages and images is a desirable feature of many Web search engines and is also taken into account. State-of-the-art methods for assigning higher ranking to important Web pages, over other Web pages satisfying the query selection criteria, are considered and evaluated. PicASHOW exploits this idea in retrieval of important images on the Web using link information alone. WPicASHOW (Weighted PicASHOW), is a weighted scheme for co-citation analysis incorporating within the link analysis method of PicASHOW the text and image content of the queries and of the Web pages. The experimental results demonstrate that Web search methods utilizing content information (or combination of content and link information) perform significantly better than methods using link information alone.

- by Epimenidis Voutsakis
- •
- Web search, Image Retrieval, Link analysis, Feature Extraction

The intention of the NETLANDER mission is to establish for the first time a Network of stations on the surface of Mars. Four identical surface modules are equipped with science payloads dedicated to study the atmosphere and geosphere of Mars at four different landing locations spread over the two hemispheres. The mission duration will be one Martian year. The surface modules and their sensitive electronics compartments have to withstand a wide range of hostile conditions on Mars. Further constraints are given during flight, where heat can be exchanged only across small interfaces. The purpose of the NETLANDER thermal control system is to maintain the electronics and battery temperatures within a narrow band. Contrasting demands of reduced heat leaks and effective dump of surplus heat require new technologies and advanced design concepts to be satisfied under strict mass limits imposed. Recently, the first thermal test model with the original thermal equipment has been completed and tested. The model includes a high performance insulation combined with an innovative loop heat pipe system integrated into a one-to-one lander-structure. The paper describes the design and development activities as well as the ground test campaign performed in simulated Martian environment. (N. Schneider).

- by R. Nadalini
- •
- Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, System Integration, Control system

This paper presents a new method to restore a particular type of degradation related to ancient document images. This degradation, referred to as "bleed-through", is due to the paper porosity, the chemical quality of the ink, or the conditions of digitalization. It appears as marks degrading the readability of the document image. Our purpose consists then in removing these marks to improve readability. The proposed method is based on a recursive unsupervised segmentation approach applied on the decorrelated data space by the principal component analysis. It generates a binary tree that only the leaves images satisfying a certain condition on their logarithmic histogram are processed. Some experiments, done on real ancient document images provided by the archives of "Chatillon-Chalaronne" illustrate the effectiveness of the suggested method.

- by Fadoua Drira and +1
- •
- Principal Component Analysis, Binary Tree, Boolean Satisfiability, Unsupervised Classification

A resource allocation framework is presented for spectrum underlay in cognitive radio networks. We consider both interference constraints for primary users and quality of service (QoS) constraints for secondary users. Specifically, interference from secondary users to primary users is constrained to be below a tolerable limit. Also, signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of each secondary user is maintained higher than a desired level for QoS insurance. We propose admission control algorithms to be used during high network load conditions which are performed jointly with power control so that QoS requirements of all admitted secondary users are satisfied while keeping the interference to primary users below the tolerable limit. If all secondary users can be supported at minimum rates, we allow them to increase their transmission rates and share the spectrum in a fair manner. We formulate the joint power/rate allocation with proportional and max-min fairness criteria as optimization problems. We show how to transform these optimization problems into a convex form so that their globally optimal solutions can be obtained. Numerical results show that the proposed admission control algorithms achieve performance very close to that of the optimal solution. Also, impacts of different system and QoS parameters on the network performance are investigated for the admission control, and rate/power allocation algorithms under different fairness criteria.

- by Ekram Hossain
- •
- Distributed Computing, Resource Allocation, Cognitive radio, Optimization Problem

With the profession of radiology experiencing workforce shortages among radiologists and radiological technologists many radiological groups were beginning to hire ancillary personnel to fill efficiency gaps in practices. Many academic... more

- by Brad Short
- •
- Patient Safety, Medicine, Social Responsibility, United States
- by Arzad Kherani
- •
- Computer Science, Signal Processing, Congestion Control, Queueing theory

Larry Laudan has written an iconoclastic book, one based on the premise that the criminal law should promote the search for the truth. He examines the ways in which existing legal rules and procedures advance or thwart that purpose, and proposes numerous changes in them that would enhance their truth-finding tendencies, or that would at least reduce the tendency of criminal trials to produce error (understood as either false convictions or false acquittals). By calling his book ''iconoclastic,'' I do not mean to suggest that it is shrill or polemical. Laudan does in numerous places express openly his astonishment or dismay at what judges and legal scholars say on behalf of features of the criminal law that, in his view, confound the search for the truth in criminal cases. But for the most part his book is closely and carefully argued. What he says is likely to upset much of the legal establishment, and judging from the overall quality of his arguments, one would hope that it would do so. It is a book that should profoundly alter the ways in which many of us are used to thinking about the criminal law. Laudan recognizes that the criminal law may have to do more than help us to discern the truth in individual cases. Its truth-seeking features may have to be subordinated to other values, particularly the rights of criminal defendants. But for most of his book, Laudan brackets that possible subordination and considers the criminal trial as a truth-seeking process. To say that he finds fault with it as such would be something of an understatement. Not only are many of the criminal law's core concepts and evidentiary rules shown to frustrate the search for the truth, Laudan reveals how some of the former are ones concerning which judges and legal scholars not only disagree (which is not surprising), but appear utterly confused (which is). Consider in this regard the standard of proof in criminal cases, according to which the state must demonstrate the guilt of defendants ''beyond a reasonable doubt'' (Laudan's acronym for this is BARD). Most contemporary accounts of BARD construe it as a ''target mental state of the juror'' (p. 51) according to which the prosecution is to be understood as having satisfied the BARD standard if jurors are firmly

- by Richard Lippke
- •
- Law, Philosophy, Philosophy of Criminal Law, Boolean Satisfiability

Conventional methods for road and airport pavement analyses, such as BISAR and GAMES, were developed based on a cylindrical coordinate system. Because of the loading symmetry due to the assumption that a circular uniformly distributed load is acting on the pavement surface, it was useful to use a cylindrical coordinate system. However, depending on the magnitude of the tire load, several research reports on tire-pavement contact stresses have shown that the contact patch is predominantly rectangular and not circular in shape. Based on this observation and the fact that it may be difficult for most multi-layer linear elastic software packages to make use of the field measured tire-pavement contact stresses, which are rectangular in shape, this paper presents the development of a method for pavement structural analysis considering both uniform and non-uniform loads acting over a rectangular area. In this approach, three components of displacements, which satisfy Navier's equations, are expressed using Neuber-Papkovich functions.Worked examples for vertical and horizontal loads acting over rectangular area are presented in this paper. In order to verify the validity of the solutions obtained, the results are compared with those obtained from freeware GAMES software, which analyses loads acting over a circular area and is widely used in Japan and South Africa and a number of institutions in Australia, Europe and US.

- by James Maina
- •
- Civil Engineering, Linear Elasticity, Numerical Analysis, South Africa

We present practical algorithms for constructing partitions of graphs into a fixed number of vertex-disjoint subgraphs that satisfy particular degree constraints. We use this in particular to find k-cuts of graphs of maximum degree ∆ that cut at least a k−1 k (1 + 1 2∆+k−1) fraction of the edges, improving previous bounds known. The partitions also apply to constraint networks, for which we give a tight analysis of natural local search heuristics for the maximum constraint satisfaction problem. These partitions also imply efficient approximations for several problems on weighted bounded-degree graphs. In particular, we improve the best performance ratio for the weighted independent set problem to 3 ∆+2 , and obtain an efficient algorithm for coloring 3-colorable graphs with at most 3∆+2 4 colors.

- by Hoong Lau
- •
- Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Local Search

Today, it can be maintained that the customer is a ‘king’ as he will buy only the products that satisfy his needs and wants. The companies of today are facing new challenges: global business and local operation, standardization, and individualization of products, demanding customers and fierce competition. The company wants to achieve shorter product development time, lower costs, high quality of the product, and finally, customer satisfaction. In order to achieve the set goals, the company has to take into account the customers wants and needs during the new-product-development process. This article presents the mode of description of processes that allow recognition of suitable natural systems and their transformation into technical systems and a model for management of development process. The phases of quality functions deployment (QFD) during the new product development process along with the location for collecting customer needs and wants are presented. A detailed description...

- by Joze Duhovnik
- •
- Business, Computer Science, Concurrent Engineering, Customer Satisfaction
- by Ahmed Gamal
- •
- Physics, Mathematical Economics, Optimal Control, Boolean Satisfiability

In this paper we prove the existence of a fixed point for several classes of mappings (mappings admitting a center, nonexpansive mappings, asymptotically nonexpansive mappings) defined on the closed convex subsets of a Banach space satisfying some proximinality conditions. In particular, we derive a sufficient condition, more general than weak star compactness, such that if C is a bounded closed convex subset of 1 satisfying this condition, then every nonexpansive mapping T : C → C has a fixed point.

- by Enrique Llorens-Fuster and +1
- •
- Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics, Fixed Point Theory, Mathematical Model
- by Christian Borgs
- •
- Random Walk, Social Choice, Explicit Knowledge, Recommender System

Background The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) has been increasing. We evaluated uptake rates and outcomes of faecal immunochemical test (FIT) and Guaiac test (gFOBT) kits as part of a two-step CRC screening. Methods A 3-year CRC screening program for a defined population of construction workers was conducted. Those satisfying the inclusion criteria were provided with gFOBT or FIT kits. Individuals testing positive were invited for a colonoscopy. Results A total of 909 faecal testing kits were distributed. Age range was 53-60 years. Compliance rate was higher for FIT (58.3%) as compared to gFOBT (46.7%) (p = 0.0006). FIT detected adenomatous polyps and CRC in 37.5 and 25%, respectively, whereas; gFOBT detected 23.5 and 18%. Colonoscopies were normal in 53 and 25% tested positive by gFOBT and FIT, respectively (p = 0.016).

- by Colm O'Morain
- •
- Occupational Health, Colorectal cancer, Irish medical history, Cost effectiveness

The biggest producers and exporters of agricultural products have been adopting the genetic engineering in order to improve the factors productivity and the firms profits In the last decade, the United States of America (US) and the European Union (EU) have established a high divergent regulation on production, distribution and consumption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Apparently, the EU´s complex legislative framework related to GMOs was intend to satisfy the European consumers which are concerned about food safety and whish to make more informed choice about the food they eat. The aim of this paper is to understand the potential motivations behind the different policies on GM products adopted by US and EU.

- by José Caetano
- •
- European Union, Food Security, Genetic Engineering, Legislation

A ballistic calculation of a full quantum mechanical system is presented to study 2D nanoscale devices. The simulation uses the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) approach to calculate the transport properties of the devices. While most available software uses the finite difference discretization technique, our work opts to formulate the NEGF calculation using the finite element method (FEM). In calculating a ballistic device, the FEM gives some advantages. In the FEM, the floating boundary condition for ballistic devices is satisfied naturally. This paper gives a detailed finite element formulation of the NEGF calculation applied to a double-gate MOSFET device with a channel length of 10 nm and a body thickness of 3 nm. The potential, electron density, Fermi functions integrated over the transverse energy, local density of states and the transmission coefficient of the device have been studied. We found that the transmission coefficient is significantly affected by the top of the barrier between the source and the channel, which in turn depends on the gate control. This supports the claim that ballistic devices can be modelled by the transport properties at the top of the barrier. Hence, the full quantum mechanical calculation presented here confirms the theory of ballistic transport in nanoscale devices.

- by Oka Kurniawan
- •
- Engineering, Quantum Mechanics, Finite element method, Finite Element
- by Axel Jessner
- •
- Masers, Dust (Astronomy & Astrophysics), Magnetic field, Electromagnetic Waves

Nowadays, information and communication technologies are incorporating extremely rapidly to the individual's education and training. This trend lead the European academic research to focus on key terms like open distance learning or lifelong learning. In this context, there are a large number of past and actual projects and researches concerning the content, methodologies, technologies and new pedagogical challenges - all parts of so-called e- learning environments. There are a lot of achievements from this work but there is still a significant work left for the process of building a reliable and efficient learning process capable of satisfying the end user needs and meet the necessary requirements imposed by the educational organizations (content, standardization, measurement tools, ratings, etc.). This article reveals the components of an e-learning environment, the present trends in this research field and some conclusions.

- by Razvan Zota
- •
- Lifelong Learning, Information and Communication technology, User needs, New Economy