An illustration of variable precision rough set theory : The gender classification of the European barn swallow (Hirundo rustica)

This paper introduces a new technique in the investigation of object classification and illustrates the potential use of this technique for the analysis of a range of biological data, using avian morphometric data as an example. The nascent variable precision rough sets (VPRS) model is introduced and compared with the decision tree method ID3 (through a ‘leave n out’ approach), using the same dataset of morphometric measures of European barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) and assessing the accuracy of gender classification based on these measures. The results demonstrate that the VPRS model, allied with the use of a modern method of discretization of data, is comparable with the more traditional non-parametric ID3 decision tree method. We show that, particularly in small samples, the VPRS model can improve classification and to a lesser extent prediction aspects over ID3. Furthermore, through the ‘leave n out’ approach, some indication can be produced of the relative importance of the different morphometric measures used in this problem. In this case we suggest that VPRS has advantages over ID3, as it intelligently uses more of the morphometric data available for the data classification, whilst placing less emphasis on variables with low reliability. In biological terms, the results suggest that the gender of swallows can be determined with reasonable accuracy from morphometric data and highlight the most important variables in this process. We suggest that both analysis techniques are potentially useful for the analysis of a range of different types of biological datasets, and that VPRS in particular has potential for application to a range of biological circumstances.

Towards a set of priorities for bird conservation and research in Australia : the perceptions of ornithologists

Australian delegates at the Australasian Ornithological Conference (2007) were surveyed by questionnaire to determine their perceived research and conservation priorities for Australian birds (n = 134). Respondents were honours or postgraduate students (37.4%), academics (26.2%), wildlife managers (6.5%), land managers (6.5%), environmental consultants (5.6%), independent wildlife researchers (5.6%) or had ‘other’ occupations not relevant to birds or their management (12.1%). Respondents rated their priorities on a predetermined set of issues, and were invited to add additional priorities. ‘Conservation of threatened species’ was considered the highest priority, followed by ‘Conservation of birds and biodiversity in general’, ‘Monitoring’, ‘Management’ and ‘Working with communities’. ‘Animal welfare/rights’ was regarded as comparatively less important. Eight of 11 conservation strategies were regarded as of high importance, these included habitat protection and rehabilitation, threat abatement, research, advocacy and education. This study documents the view of the ornithological community with respect to priority issues facing birds and could potentially feed into government and other policies aimed at conserving and understanding Australia’s birds.

Influence of heat on biological activity and concentration of oleocanthal : a natural anti-inflammatory agent in virgin olive oil

The olive oil phenolic oleocanthal is a natural nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory compound that irritates the oral pharynx in a dose-dependent manner. It has been proposed that the biological activity of oleocanthal is partially responsible for the beneficial health effects of the Mediterranean diet. Virgin
olive oil containing oleocanthal is often added as an ingredient in a number of cooked dishes, and therefore it is of great importance to understand how best to preserve the putative health-promoting benefits of this compound, as olive oil phenolics are subject to degradation upon heating in general. One extra virgin olive oil containing 53.9 mg/kg oleocanthal was heated at various temperatures (100, 170, and 240 °C) for set time periods (0, 1, 5, 20, 60, and 90 min). Oleocanthal concentrations were quantified using HPLC, and its biological activity was determined with a taste bioassay measuring the intensity of throat irritation. Results demonstrated that oleocanthal was heat stable compared with other olive oil phenolics, with a maximum loss of 16% as determined by HPLC analysis. However, there was a significant decrease of up to 31% (p < 0.05) in the biological activity of oleocanthal as determined by the taste bioassay. Although there was minimal degradation of leocanthal concentration, there was a significant decrease in the biological activity of oleocanthal upon extended heating time, indicating a possible loss of the putative health -benefiting properties of oleocanthal. Alternatively, the difference in the concentration and biological activity of oleocanthal after heat treatment could be a result of an oleocanthal antagonist forming, decreasing or masking the biological activity of oleocanthal.

Wireless broadcast encryption based on smart cards

Wireless broadcasting is an efficient way to broadcast data to a large number of users. Some commercial applications of wireless broadcasting, such as satellite pay-TV, desire that only those users who have paid for the service can retrieve broadcast data. This is often achieved by broadcast encryption, which allows a station securely to broadcast data to a dynamically changing set of privileged users through open air. Most existing broadcast encryption schemes can only revoke a pre-specified number of users before system re-setup or require high computation, communication and storage overheads in receivers. In this paper, we propose a new broadcast encryption scheme based on smart cards. In our scheme, smart cards are used to prevent users from leaking secret keys. Additionally, once an illegally cloned smart card is captured, our scheme also allows tracing of the compromised smart card by which illegal smart cards are cloned, and can then revoke all cloned smart cards. The new features of our scheme include minimal computation needs of only a few modular multiplications in the smart card, and the capability to revoke up to any number of users in one revocation. Furthermore, our scheme is secure against both passive and active attacks and has better performance than other schemes.

Programmer friendly and efficient distributed shared memory integrated into a distributed operating system

Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) provides programmers with a shared memory environment in systems where memory is not physically shared. Clusters of Workstations (COWs), an often untapped source of computing power, are characterised by a very low cost/performance ratio. The combination of Clusters of Workstations (COWs) with DSM provides an environment in which the programmer can use the well known approaches and methods of programming for physically shared memory systems and parallel processing can be carried out to make full use of the computing power and cost advantages of the COW. The aim of this research is to synthesise and develop a distributed shared memory system as an integral part of an operating system in order to provide application programmers with a convenient environment in which the development and execution of parallel applications can be done easily and efficiently, and which does this in a transparent manner. Furthermore, in order to satisfy our challenging design requirements we want to demonstrate that the operating system into which the DSM system is integrated should be a distributed operating system. In this thesis a study into the synthesis of a DSM system within a microkernel and client-server based distributed operating system which uses both strict and weak consistency models, with a write-invalidate and write-update based approach for consistency maintenance is reported. Furthermore a unique automatic initialisation system which allows the programmer to start the parallel execution of a group of processes with a single library call is reported. The number and location of these processes are determined by the operating system based on system load information. The DSM system proposed has a novel approach in that it provides programmers with a complete programming environment in which they are easily able to develop and run their code or indeed run existing shared memory code. A set of demanding DSM system design requirements are presented and the incentives for the placement of the DSM system with a distributed operating system and in particular in the memory management server have been reported. The new DSM system concentrated on an event-driven set of cooperating and distributed entities, and a detailed description of the events and reactions to these events that make up the operation of the DSM system is then presented. This is followed by a pseudocode form of the detailed design of the main modules and activities of the primitives used in the proposed DSM system. Quantitative results of performance tests and qualitative results showing the ease of programming and use of the RHODOS DSM system are reported. A study of five different application is given and the results of tests carried out on these applications together with a discussion of the results are given. A discussion of how RHODOS’ DSM allows programmers to write shared memory code in an easy to use and familiar environment and a comparative evaluation of RHODOS DSM with other DSM systems is presented. In particular, the ease of use and transparency of the DSM system have been demonstrated through the description of the ease with which a moderately inexperienced undergraduate programmer was able to convert, write and run applications for the testing of the DSM system. Furthermore, the description of the tests performed using physically shared memory shows that the latter is indistinguishable from distributed shared memory; this is further evidence that the DSM system is fully transparent. This study clearly demonstrates that the aim of the research has been achieved; it is possible to develop a programmer friendly and efficient DSM system fully integrated within a distributed operating system. It is clear from this research that client-server and microkernel based distributed operating system integrated DSM makes shared memory operations transparent and almost completely removes the involvement of the programmer beyond classical activities needed to deal with shared memory. The conclusion can be drawn that DSM, when implemented within a client-server and microkernel based distributed operating system, is one of the most encouraging approaches to parallel processing since it guarantees performance improvements with minimal programmer involvement.

A rough set approach for selecting clustering attribute

A few of clustering techniques for categorical data exist to group objects having similar characteristics. Some are able to handle uncertainty in the clustering process while others have stability issues. However, the performance of these techniques is an issue due to low accuracy and high computational complexity. This paper proposes a new technique called maximum dependency attributes (MDA) for selecting clustering attribute. The proposed approach is based on rough set theory by taking into account the dependency of attributes of the database. We analyze and compare the performance of MDA technique with the bi-clustering, total roughness (TR) and min–min roughness (MMR) techniques based on four test cases. The results establish the better performance of the proposed approach.

Orientation-specific attentional set effects

The thesis is a theoretical and experimental exploration of visual attention: when and how does knowing a feature of something we are about to see help us to see that thing? Attentional benefits occurred under short inspection times with high distraction intensity, and long inspection times with low distraction intensity.

The efficiency of improved ranked set sampling methods

Ranked set sampling is a desirable sampling technique where the ranking of the sample observations does not require the actual measurement. This thesis develops new ranked set sampling techniques and determines the sampling characteristics required to best estimate the required population parameters, such as mean and variance.

Contracting-agency analysis of the association between firm risk, investment opportunity set, corporate governance and firm performance

Tests the efficiency of corporate controls (board monitoring and incentive contracts) for growth or risk firms. By exploring the implications of controls and studying their interactive effects on firm performance, this study demonstrates how and why different firms use corporate governance controls to align managers' and shareholders' interests.

Vision-based target tracking and surveillance with robust set-valued state estimation

Tracking a target from a video stream (or a sequence of image frames) involves nonlinear measurements in Cartesian coordinates. However, the target dynamics, modeled in Cartesian coordinates, result in a linear system. We present a robust linear filter based on an analytical nonlinear to linear measurement conversion algorithm. Using ideas from robust control theory, a rigorous theoretical analysis is given which guarantees that the state estimation error for the filter is bounded, i.e., a measure against filter divergence is obtained. In fact, an ellipsoidal set-valued estimate is obtained which is guaranteed to contain the true target location with an arbitrarily high probability. The algorithm is particularly suited to visual surveillance and tracking applications involving targets moving on a plane.

A robust set-valued state estimation approach to the problem of vision based SLAM for mobile robots

The problem of visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is examined in this paper using ideas and algorithms from robust control and estimation theory. Using a stereo-vision based sensor, a nonlinear measurement model is derived which leads to nonlinear measurements of the landmark coordinates along with optical flow based measurements of the relative robot-landmark velocity. Using a novel analytical measurement transformation, the nonlinear SLAM problem is converted into the linear filter is guaranteed stable and the ALAM state estimation error is bounded within an ellipsoidal set. No similar results are available for the commonly employed extended Kalman filter which is known to exhibit divergent and inconsistency characteristics in practice.

Computing the numerical scale of the linguistic term set for the 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation model

When using linguistic approaches to solve decision problems, we need the techniques for computing with words (CW). Together with the 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation models (i.e., the Herrera and Mart´ınez model and the Wang and Hao model), some computational techniques for CW are also developed. In this paper, we define the concept of numerical scale and extend the 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation models under the numerical scale.We find that the key of computational techniques
based on linguistic 2-tuples is to set suitable numerical scale with
the purpose of making transformations between linguistic 2-tuples
and numerical values. By defining the concept of the transitive
calibration matrix and its consistent index, this paper develops an optimization model to compute the numerical scale of the linguistic term set. The desired properties of the optimization model are also presented. Furthermore, we discuss how to construct the transitive calibration matrix for decision problems using linguistic preference relations and analyze the linkage between the consistent index of the transitive calibration matrix and one of the linguistic preference relations. The results in this paper are pretty helpful to complete the fuzzy 2-tuple representation models for CW.

The resident assessment instrument-minimum data set 2.0 quality indicators : a systematic review

Background
The Resident Assessment Instrument-Minimum Data Set (RAI-MDS) 2.0 is designed to collect the minimum amount of data to guide care planning and monitoring for residents in long-term care settings. These data have been used to compute indicators of care quality. Use of the quality indicators to inform quality improvement initiatives is contingent upon the validity and reliability of the indicators. The purpose of this review was to systematically examine published and grey research reports in order to assess the state of the science regarding the validity and reliability of the RAI-MDS 2.0 Quality Indicators (QIs).

Methods
We systematically reviewed the evidence for the validity and reliability of the RAI-MDS 2.0 QIs. A comprehensive literature search identified relevant original research published, in English, prior to December 2008. Fourteen articles and one report examining the validity and/or reliability of the RAI-MDS 2.0 QIs were included.

Results
The studies fell into two broad categories, those that examined individual quality indicators and those that examined multiple indicators. All studies were conducted in the United States and included from one to a total of 209 facilities. The number of residents included in the studies ranged from 109 to 5758. One study conducted under research conditions examined 38 chronic care QIs, of which strong evidence for the validity of 12 of the QIs was found. In response to these findings, the 12 QIs were recommended for public reporting purposes. However, a number of observational studies (n=13), conducted in "real world" conditions, have tested the validity and/or reliability of individual QIs, with mixed results. Ten QIs have been studied in this manner, including falls, depression, depression without treatment, urinary incontinence, urinary tract infections, weight loss, bedfast, restraint, pressure ulcer, and pain. These studies have revealed the potential for systematic bias in reporting, with under-reporting of some indicators and over-reporting of others.

Conclusion
Evidence for the reliability and validity of the RAI-MDS QIs remains inconclusive. The QIs provide a useful tool for quality monitoring and to inform quality improvement programs and initiatives. However, caution should be exercised when interpreting the QI results and other sources of evidence of the quality of care processes should be considered in conjunction with QI results.

Minimal force jump within human and assistive robot cooperation

When an assistant robotic manipulator cooperatively performs a task with a human and the task is required to be highly reliable, then fault tolerance is essential. To achieve the fault tolerance force within the human robot cooperation, it is required to map the effects of the faulty joint of the robot into the manipulator’s healthy joints’ torque space and the human force. The objective is to optimally maintain the cooperative force within the human robot cooperation. This paper aims to analyze the fault tolerant force within the cooperation and two frameworks are proposed. Then they have been validated through a fault scenario. Finally, the minimum force jump which is the optimal fault tolerance has been achieved.