Merge Operations Research Articles

Relative role of merging and two-handed operation on command selection speed

This paper examines the influence of two interface characteristics on command selection speed: the integration of command selection with direct manipulation (merging), and two-handed operation. We compared four interaction techniques representing combinations of these characteristics (Marking Menu, Two-handed Tool Palette, Toolglass, and Control Menu). Results suggest that the one-handed techniques selected for the present study produced a speed advantage over two-handed techniques, whereas the influence of merging was task dependent. A follow-up study examining Bimanual Marking Menu suggests that the performance of two-handed techniques may be reduced due to a split in visual attention required for certain techniques. Taken together, these findings have important implications for the design of command selection mechanisms for pen-based interfaces.

Missing labels

This paper examines the nature of labels created by External and Internal Merge operations. The standard minimalist assumption is that in External Merge structures, one of the merged elements projects as the label, and in Internal Merge structures, the Probe does. However, these two options do not exhaust all the possibilities. For External Merge of α and β, the options that do not violate Inclusiveness are: ( i) Project α, ( ii) Project β, ( iii) Project Both α and β, and ( iv) Project Neither α nor β. For Internal Merge, the options are: ( i) Project Probe, ( ii) Project Goal, ( iii) Project Both Probe and Goal, and (iv) Project Neither Probe nor Goal. The proposal I defend in this paper, both on theoretical and empirical grounds, is that all these possibilities are in fact attested. I focus on the following, previously unattested, ones: Project Both in External Merge, and Project Goal and Project Both in Internal Merge structures.

THE QSM ALGORITHM AND ITS APPLICATION TO SOFTWARE BEHAVIOR MODEL INDUCTION

This article presents a novel application of grammatical inference techniques to the synthesis of behavior models of software systems. This synthesis is used for the elicitation of software requirements. This problem is formulated as a deterministic finite-state automaton induction problem from positive and negative scenarios provided by an end user of the software-to-be. A query-driven state merging (QSM) algorithm is proposed. It extends the Regular Positive and Negative Inference (RPNI) and blue-fringe algorithms by allowing membership queries to be submitted to the end user. State merging operations can be further constrained by some prior domain knowledge formulated as fluents, goals, domain properties, and models of external software components. The incorporation of domain knowledge both reduces the number of queries and guarantees that the induced model is consistent with such knowledge. The proposed techniques are implemented in the ISIS tool and practical evaluations on standard requirements engineering test cases and synthetic data illustrate the interest of this approach.

Clustering over Multiple Evolving Streams by Events and Correlations

In applications of multiple data streams such as stock market trading and sensor network data analysis, the clusters of streams change at different time because of the data evolution. The information of evolving cluster is valuable to support corresponding online decisions. In this paper, we present a framework for Clustering Over Multiple Evolving sTreams by CORrelations and Events, which, abbreviated as COMETCORE, monitors the distribution of clusters over multiple data streams based on their correlation. Instead of directly clustering the multiple data streams periodically, COMET-CORE applies efficient cluster split and merge processes only when significant cluster evolution happens. Accordingly, we devise an event detection mechanism to signal the cluster adjustments. The coming streams are smoothed as sequences of end points by employing piecewise linear approximation. At the time when end points are generated, weighted correlations between streams are updated. End points are good indicators of significant change in streams, and this is a main cause of cluster evolution event. When an event occurs, through split and merge operations we can report the latest clustering results. As shown in our experimental studies, COMET-CORE can be performed effectively with good clustering quality.

Merge Operation Effect On Image Compression Using Fractal Technique

Fractal image compression gives some desirable properties like fast decoding image, and very good rate-distortion curves, but suffers from a high encoding time. In fractal image compression a partitioning of the image into ranges is required. In this work, we introduced good partitioning process by means of merge approach, since some ranges are connected to the others. This paper presents a method to reduce the encoding time of this technique by reducing the number of range blocks based on the computing the statistical measures between them . Experimental results on standard images show that the proposed method yields minimize (decrease) the encoding time and remain the quality results passable visually.

Evaluation of Effects of Ramp Metering on Merging Operations

Merging on motorways represents one of the most difficult and dynamic maneuvers of all driving subtasks. Merging operations at uncontrolled ramp junctions have been extensively investigated. With the rapid implementation of ramp metering techniques, many junctions are now operated under ramp metering control. Little research has been done to investigate the possible effects of ramp metering on the merging operation. The research described in this paper focuses on the comparisons of merging operations under both metered and unmetered scenarios. Time series data of the merging process were collected with the Transportation Research Group instrumented vehicle and video cameras at a tapered motorway merge site. The data included accurate vehicle speed measured by laser speedometer, leading and following headway measured by radar, and driver's eye movement derived from an in-car camera. Following a comprehensive analysis of the data, it was found that merging operations under ramp control could be significantly different from free merging. Merging maneuvers may become more difficult as a result of ramp control. The equity implications of such effects are discussed. It is believed that the understanding gained from this research will be useful for the design and operation of ramp metering.

WATER FLOW-LIKE ALGORITHM FOR OBJECT GROUPING PROBLEMS

ABSTRACT This paper presents a novice heuristic algorithm, Water Flow-like Algorithm (WFA), for solving discrete optimization problems, particularly the bin packing problems. WFA simulates solution agents as water flows traversing the terrain mapped from the objective function. Governed by the gravitation force, water flows from higher attitudes to lower ones. Driven by the fluid momentum, water flows adjust their compositions and directions against the landforms by splitting into and merging from other flows. Water flows are allowed to move upward to higher attitudes once they possess enough momentum to overcome the potential barrier. Mostly, at least one flow can travel to the lowest region of the terrain under the consideration. In the atmosphere, some water of a flow will evaporate and return to the ground by precipitation. Inspired by the water flowing of the nature, WFA is designed as an optimization algorithm performing the water flow splitting, merging, and dropping (precipitation) operations to traverse the solution space. The number of solution agents deployed is dynamically changing. WFA is an evolutionary algorithm involving four water flow operations: splitting and moving, merging, evaporation, and precipitation. The computational flow and the four operations are extensively discussed. In addition to general operations of WFA, specific operations for bin packing problems are presented. A designed problem and a benchmark problem from OR-Lib are used to test WFA and to compare results with other methods, such as GA, POS, and EM. Numerical results show that WFA outperforms others in solving these BPPs.

An Efficient Data Structure for Maxplus Merge in Dynamic Programming

Dynamic programming is a useful technique to handle slicing floorplan, technology mapping, and buffering problems, where many maxplus merge operations of solution lists are needed. Shi proposed an efficient O(nlogn) time algorithm to speed up the merge operation. Based on balanced binary search trees, his algorithm showed superb performance with the most unbalanced sizes of merging solution lists. The authors propose in this paper a more efficient data structure for the merge operations. With parameters to adjust adaptively, their algorithm works better than Shi's under all cases, unbalanced, balanced, and mix sizes. Their data structure is also simpler

Statistical analysis of event-related potential elicited by verb-complement merge in Brazilian Portuguese

An interesting fact about language cognition is that stimulation involving incongruence in the merge operation between verb and complement has often been related to a negative event-related potential (ERP) of augmented amplitude and latency of ca. 400 ms - the N400. Using an automatic ERP latency and amplitude estimator to facilitate the recognition of waves with a low signal-to-noise ratio, the objective of the present study was to study the N400 statistically in 24 volunteers. Stimulation consisted of 80 experimental sentences (40 congruous and 40 incongruous), generated in Brazilian Portuguese, involving two distinct local verb-argument combinations (nominal object and pronominal object series). For each volunteer, the EEG was simultaneously acquired at 20 derivations, topographically localized according to the 10-20 International System. A computerized routine for automatic N400-peak marking (based on the ascendant zero-cross of the first waveform derivative) was applied to the estimated individual ERP waveform for congruous and incongruous sentences in both series for all ERP topographic derivations. Peak-to-peak N400 amplitude was significantly augmented (P < 0.05; one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test) due to incongruence in derivations F3, T3, C3, Cz, T5, P3, Pz, and P4 for nominal object series and in P3, Pz and P4 for pronominal object series. The results also indicated high inter-individual variability in ERP waveforms, suggesting that the usual procedure of grand averaging might not be considered a generally adequate approach. Hence, signal processing statistical techniques should be applied in neurolinguistic ERP studies allowing waveform analysis with low signal-to-noise ratio.

Schema and constraints-based matching and merging of Topic Maps

In this paper, we propose a multi-strategic matching and merging approach to find correspondences between ontologies based on the syntactic or semantic characteristics and constraints of the Topic Maps. Our multi-strategic matching approach consists of a linguistic module and a Topic Map constraints-based module. A linguistic module computes similarities between concepts using morphological analysis, string normalization and tokenization and language-dependent heuristics. A Topic Map constraints-based module takes advantage of several Topic Maps-dependent techniques such as a topic property-based matching, a hierarchy-based matching, and an association-based matching. This is a composite matching procedure and need not generate a cross-pair of all topics from the ontologies because unmatched pairs of topics can be removed by characteristics and constraints of the Topic Maps. Merging between Topic Maps follows the matching operations. We set up the MERGE function to integrate two Topic Maps into a new Topic Map, which satisfies such merge requirements as entity preservation, property preservation, relation preservation, and conflict resolution. For our experiments, we used oriental philosophy ontologies, western philosophy ontologies, Yahoo western philosophy dictionary, and Wikipedia philosophy ontology as input ontologies. Our experiments show that the automatically generated matching results conform to the outputs generated manually by domain experts and can be of great benefit to the following merging operations.

Statistical analysis of event-related potential elicited by verb-complement merge in Brazilian Portuguese

An interesting fact about language cognition is that stimulation involving incongruence in the merge operation between verb and complement has often been related to a negative event-related potential (ERP) of augmented amplitude and latency of ca. 400 ms - the N400. Using an automatic ERP latency and amplitude estimator to facilitate the recognition of waves with a low signal-to-noise ratio, the objective of the present study was to study the N400 statistically in 24 volunteers. Stimulation consisted of 80 experimental sentences (40 congruous and 40 incongruous), generated in Brazilian Portuguese, involving two distinct local verb-argument combinations (nominal object and pronominal object series). For each volunteer, the EEG was simultaneously acquired at 20 derivations, topographically localized according to the 10-20 International System. A computerized routine for automatic N400-peak marking (based on the ascendant zero-cross of the first waveform derivative) was applied to the estimated individual ERP waveform for congruous and incongruous sentences in both series for all ERP topographic derivations. Peak-to-peak N400 amplitude was significantly augmented (P < 0.05; one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test) due to incongruence in derivations F3, T3, C3, Cz, T5, P3, Pz, and P4 for nominal object series and in P3, Pz and P4 for pronominal object series. The results also indicated high inter-individual variability in ERP waveforms, suggesting that the usual procedure of grand averaging might not be considered a generally adequate approach. Hence, signal processing statistical techniques should be applied in neurolinguistic ERP studies allowing waveform analysis with low signal-to-noise ratio.

Crosstalk-free conjugate networks for optical multicast switching

High-speed photonic switching networks can switch optical signals at the rate of several terabits per second. However, they suffer from an intrinsic crosstalk problem when two optical signals cross at the same switch element. To avoid crosstalk, active connections must be node disjoint in the switching network. In this paper, a sequence of decomposition and merge operations, called conjugate transformation, performed on each switch element to tackle this problem, is proposed. The network resulting from this transformation is called the conjugate network. By using the numbering schemes of networks, the authors prove that if the route assignments in the original network are link disjoint, their corresponding ones in the conjugate network would be node disjoint. Thus, traditional nonblocking switching networks can be transformed into crosstalk-free optical switches in a routine manner. Furthermore, it has been shown that crosstalk-free multicast switches can also be obtained from existing nonblocking multicast switches via the same conjugate transformation.

Markovian analysis of a discrete material manufacturing system with merge operations, operation-dependent and idleness failures

This paper examines a discrete material manufacturing system consisting of three machines that are subject to breakdown and one buffer of finite capacity. It is assumed that the buffer has two immediate preceding machines performing the same operations and one immediate succeeding machine receiving material from the buffer. When the buffer reaches its own capacity, one of the two preceding machines has priority over the other to dispose its processed part into the buffer. It is also assumed that there is a new way of the machines reaching failure, by allowing the machines to fail not only when they are operational but also when are either blocked or starved. The latter gives rise to the possibility of modeling the production of more than one part types. The model is solved analytically by developing a recursive algorithm that generates the transition matrix for any value C of the intermediate buffer capacity. Then various performance measures of the system (e.g., throughput) can be easily evaluated. Numerical results for the throughput are also given and these are compared against simulation. The proposed model may be used as a decomposition block to solve large flow lines with merge/split operations (for example, flow lines with quality inspections and rework loops) and multiple part types.

Toward Quantitative Measures for the Semantic Quality of Polygon Generalization

Map generalization changes the semantics and geometry of map objects according to the context defined by users. How to evaluate and ensure the quality of generalization has become a major issue in contemporary digital cartography. The change in semantics after generalization has been studied much less than the other two aspects (geometry and topology). This research investigates the effect of generalization operations on the semantics of map objects. A set of quantitative measures for semantic change is put forward. A case study of a land-use map is implemented to illustrate the practical usefulness of these proposed measures, with a merging operation as an example of polygon generalization. The results indicate that these measures are not only sound in theory but also meaningful in practice.

A Database-Centric Virtual Chemistry System

We describe an Oracle database application for general use within virtual chemistry. The application functions as a central hub and repository for chemical data with interfaces to external calculators. It deals with the general problems of merging data from disparate sources and with scheduling of computational tasks for parallel or sequential execution in a mixed environment. The central database is used for the storage of input, intermediary, and final data as well as for job control. A calculation job is split into distinct tasks, or units of work, which are put in a queue. Tasks are dequeued and handled by specialized calculators. These calculators are in-house or commercial programs for which adaptor modules for connection to the database must be written. Tasks are handled in a transactional fashion, so that uncompleted or failed tasks are left in the queue. This makes the system stable to many types of disturbances. Sorting, filtering, and merging operations are handled by the database itself. Usage is very general, but some specific examples are (1) as a back end for a chemical property calculator Web page, (2) in an automated quantitative structure-activity relationship system, and (3) in virtual screens.

Cost of Capital and Valuation of Merging and Acquisition Operations

Most often, value analyses of companies involved in Merging and Acquisition operations have shown a strong divergence between the stand-alone theoretical value of the company object of acquisition and the price paid. This divergence (acquisition premium) is difficult to explain by theoretical analysis, even considering revenue and cost synergies. The general practice tends to relate the premium paid to intangible aspects that cannot be explained with a financial formula. In this article, however, I show how most of the effects of an acquisition can be evaluated by financial analysis, even if it implies a deeper analysis than a simple net present value of synergies cash flow. In particular, possible approaches with the use of cost of capital corrections that evaluate the effect on the value of the acquiring company, consequent to its risk profile variation, were considered. Preface Value analyses of companies involved in Merging and Acquisition operations (hereafter also indicated as M&A operations) have shown strong divergences between the stand-alone theoretical values of the company object of acquisition (hereafter also called the target) evaluated on the basis of expected cash flows or stock price multiples, or both, and the paid price. These differences (hereafter, for simplicity defined as acquisition premiums) can be only partially explained with the revenue/cost synergies granted by the M&A operation. They instead could be explained with other effects pursued by the acquirer, such as the attempt to modify the market competitive equilibrium or its risk profile. These kinds of effects can be difficult to numerically quantify but could represent the main drivers of the operation. With this premise, the objective of this article is to formulate possible approaches in the process of evaluating M&A operations, with particular reference to the effects of the operation for the acquirer.

Iterative shrinking method for clustering problems

Agglomerative clustering generates the partition hierarchically by a sequence of merge operations. We propose an alternative to the merge-based approach by removing the clusters iteratively one by one until the desired number of clusters is reached. We apply local optimization strategy by always removing the cluster that increases the distortion the least. Data structures and their update strategies are considered. The proposed algorithm is applied as a crossover method in a genetic algorithm, and compared against the best existing clustering algorithms. The proposed method provides best performance in terms of minimizing intra-cluster variance.

The fidelity of the tag-antitag system: Characterization of the stringent temperature for robustness in the excess limit

The importance of DNA microarrays and Tag-Antitag (TAT) systems in biotechnology and DNA computing has prompted the development of various approaches for high-fidelity design, including analytical methods based on an ensemble average error probability per conformation, or computational incoherence (e). Although system biasing for dilute input has been reported to allow the attainment of high fidelity, recently a sharp pseudo-phase transition from the low-error e-behavior predicted for dilute inputs, to a high-error e-behavior was predicted to accompany an asymmetric (i.e., single-tag) excess input. This error-response, likely to be the critical test of TAT system robustness for DNA-based computing applications that employ multiple merge operations and/or non-linear amplification, is here examined more closely, via derivation of an approximate closed-form expression, e$_{e(i)}$ for the single-tag, excess input. The temperature-dependence of this expression is characterized, and applied to derive an expression for a novel TAT system error-parameter, T$^{†}_i$ which defines the temperature of minimal e$_{e(i)}$. T$^{†}_i$ is taken to provide a more precise definition of the stringent reaction temperature previously discussed conceptually in the literature. A similar analysis is also undertaken for a uniform excess multi-tag input, which indicates the absence of an accompanying pseudo-phase transition in e. The validity of e$_{e(i)}$ is discussed via simulation, with comparison to the predictions of the general model. Applicability of T$^{†}_i$ to both TAT system design and selection of a reaction temperature optimally robust to an asymmetric excess input is discussed.

Merging workflows: A new perspective on connecting business processes

This paper describes the concept of workflow merge and methods for merging business processes. We grouped merges in four categories according to the type of merge: sequential, parallel, conditional, and iterative, and describe the corresponding algorithms for performing these operations. We give results that allow us to determine whether a merge operation is sound. It is shown that to avoid invalid merges, one should choose merge points between which a sub-workflow, called a merge region, is well structured. These findings can provide useful guidance for future workflow merge research. We also raise issues of more complex merge problems, such as merge conflicts, semantic ambiguities and workflow splits.

Knowledge accumulation and resolution of data inconsistencies during the integration of microbial information sources

The Internet has emerged as an ever-increasing environment of multiple heterogeneous and autonomous data sources that contain relevant but overlapping information on microorganisms. Microbiologists might therefore seriously benefit from the design of intelligent software agents that assist in the navigation through this information-rich environment, together with the development of data mining tools that can aid in the discovery of new information. These applications heavily depend upon well-conditioned data samples that are correlated with multiple information sources, hence, accurate database merging operations are desirable. Information systems designed for joining the related knowledge provided by different microbial data sources are hampered by the labeling mechanism for referencing microbial strains and cultures that suffers from syntactical variation in the practical usage of the labels, whereas, additionally, synonymy and homonymy are also known to exist amongst the labels. This situation is even complicated by the observation that the label equivalence knowledge is itself fragmentarily recorded over several data sources which can be suspected of providing information that might be both incomplete and incorrect. This paper presents how extraction and integration of label equivalence information from several distributed data sources has led to the construction of a so-called integrated strain database, which helps to resolve most of the above problems. Given the fact that information retrieved from autonomous resources might be overlapping, incomplete, and incorrect, much energy was spent into the completion of missing information, the discovery of new associations between information objects, and the development and application of tools for error detection and correction. Through a thorough evaluation of the different levels of incompleteness and incorrectness encountered within the incorporated data sources, we have finally given proof of the added value of the integrated strain database as a necessary service provider for the seamless integration of microbial information sources.