Results on catalytic and evolution-communication P systems

In this paper we give several improved universality results for two important classes of P systems: P systems with catalysts and evolution-communication P systems. First, the result from Reference,¹⁴⁾ stating that six catalysts ensure the universality, has been improved in two ways: using bistable catalysts and using moving catalysts. Specifically, the universality can be reached with one bistable catalyst and 2 usual catalysts (using five membranes), as well as with one moving catalyst and three membranes, or with two moving catalysts and only two membranes. The second part of the paper deals with evolution-communication P systems, and we also give improved universality results for this type of systems, in terms of the weight of symport/antiport rules, number of membranes, or number of catalysts. Shankara Narayanan Krishna: She is an Assistant Professor in Dept. Computer Science & Engg, IIT Bombay, India. Her research interests are Natural Computing and Formal Methods. Andrei Paun, Ph.D.: He obtained his bachelor degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Bucharest, Romania. He obtaind his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, at University of Western Ontario, Canada, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Sheng Yu, with the thesis “Unconventional Models of Computation: DNA and Membrane Computing”. After graduation he received a postdoctoral felloship from NSERC, Canada and after six months he accepted an assistant professor position in US at Louisiana Tech University.     

P transducers

We introduce in this paper four classes of P transducers: arbitrary, initial, isolated arbitrary, isolated and initial. The first two classes are universal, they can compute the same word functions as Turing machines, the latter two are incomparable with finite state sequential transducers, generalized or not. We study the effect of the composition, and show that iteration increases the power of these latter classes, also leading to a new characterization of recursively enumerable languages. The “Sevilla carpet” of a computation is defined for P transducers, giving a representation of the control part for these P transducers. Gabriel Ciobanu, Ph.D.: He has graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics, “A.I.Cuza” University of Iasi, and received his Ph.D. from the same university. He is a senior researcher at the Institute of Computer Science of the Romanian Academy. He has wide-ranging interests in computing including distributed systems and concurrency, computational methods in biology, membrane computing, and theory of programming (semantics, formal methods, logics, verification). He has published around 90 papers in computer science and mathematics, a book on programming semantics and a book on network programming. He is a co-editor of three volumes. He has visited various universities in Europe, Asia, and North America, giving lectures and invited talks. His webpage is http://www.info.uaic.ro/gabriel Gheorghe Păun, Ph.D.: He has graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Bucharest, in 1974 and received his Ph.D. from the same university in 1977. Curently he works as senior researcher in the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, as well as a Ramon y Cajal researcher in Sevilla University, Spain. He has repeatedly visited numerous universities in Europe, Asia, and North America. His main research areas are formal language theory and its applications, computational linguistics, DNA computing, and membrane computing (a research area initiated by him). He has published over 400 research papers (collaborating with many researchers worldwide), has lectured at over 100 universities, and gave numerous invited talks at recognized international conferences. He has published 11 books in mathematics and computer science, has edited about 30 collective volumes, and also published many popular science books and books on recreational mathematics (games). He is on the editorial boards of fourteen international journals in mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, and was/is involved in the program/steering/organizing commitees for many recognized conferences and workshops. In 1997 he was elected a member of the Romanian Academy. Gheorghe Ştefănescu, Ph.D.: He received his B.Sc./M.Sc./Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Bucharest. Currently, he is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bucharest and a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he was a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy and has held visiting positions in The Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. His current research focuses on formal methods in computer science, particularly on process and network algebras, formal methods for interactive, real-time, and object-oriented systems. Some of his results may be found in his book on “Network Algebra,” Springer, 2000.     

On some operations on strings suggested by gene assembly in ciliates

We define three operations on strings and languages suggested by the process of gene assembly in hypotrichous ciliates. This process is considered to be a prine example of DNA computing in vivo. This paper is devoted to some computational aspects of these operations from a formal language point of view. The closure of the classes of regular and context-free languages under these operations is settled. Then, we consider theld-macronuclear language of a given languageL, which consists of allld-macronuclear strings obtained from the strings ofL by iteratively applying the loop-direct repeat-excision. Finally, we discuss some open problems and further directions of research. Rudolf Freund: He received his master and doctor degree in computer science from the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, in 1980 and 1982, respectively. In 1986, he received his master degree in mathematics and physics from the University Vienna, Austria. In 1988 he joined the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, where he became an Associate Professor in September 1995. He has given various lectures in theoretical computer science, especially on formal languages and automata. His research interests include array and graph grammars, regulated rewritung, infinite words, syntactic pattern recognition, neural networks, and especially models and systems for biological computing. In these fields he is author of more than sixty scientific papers. Carlos Martín-Vide: He is Professor and Head of the Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain. His specialities are formal language theory and mathematical linguistics. His last volume edited is Where Mathematics, Computer Science, Linguistics and Biology Meet (Kluwer, 2001, with V. Mitrana). He published 150 papers in conference proceedings and journals such as: Acta Informatica, BioSystems. Computational Linguistics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence, Information Processing Letters, Information Sciences, International Journal of Computer Mathematics, New Generation Computing, Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen, and Theoretical Computer Science. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Grammars (Kluwer), and the chairman of the 1st International PhD School in Formal Languages and Applications (2001–2003). Victor Mitrana, Ph.D.: He is Professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Bucharest. He received his MSc and PhD from the University of Bucharest in 1986 and 1993, respectively. In 1999 he was awarded with the “Gheorghe Lazar” Prize for Mathematics of the Romanian Academy. His research interests include: formal language theory and applications, combinatorics on words, computational models inspired from biology, mathematical linguistics. In these areas, he published three books, more than 100 papers, and edited two books. He is an associate editor of “The Korean Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics” and an editor of “Journal of Universal Computer Science”.     

A Prolog simulator for deterministic P systems with active membranes

In this paper we propose a new way to represent P systems with active membranes based on Logic Programming techniques. This representation allows us to express the set of rules and the configuration of the P system in each step of the evolution as literals of an appropriate language of first order logic. We provide a Prolog program to simulate, the evolution of these P systems and present some auxiliary tools to simulate the evolution of a P system with active membranes using 2-division which solves the SAT problem following the techniques presented in Reference.¹⁰ Andrés Cordón-Franco: He is a member of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sevilla (Spain). He is also a member of the research group on Natural Computing of the University of Seville. His research interest includes Mathematical Logic, Logic in Computer Science, and Membrane Computing, both from a theoretical and from a practical (software implementation) point of view. Miguel A. Gutiérrez-Naranjo: He is an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Department at University of Sevilla, Spain. He is also a member of the Research Group on Natural Computing of the University of Seville. His research interest includes Machine Learning, Logic Programming and Membrane Computing, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Mario J. Pérez-Jiménez, Ph.D.: He is professor of Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at University of Seville, where he is the head of the Group of Research on Natural Computing, He has published 8 books of Mathematics and Computation, and more than 90 scientific articles in prestigious scientific journals. He is member of European Molecular Computing Consortium. Fernando Sancho-Caparrini: He is a member of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sevilla (Spain). He is also a member of the research group on Natural Computing of the University of Seville. His research interest includes Complex Systems, DNA Computing, Logic in Computer Science, and Membrane Computing, both from a theoretical and from a practical point of view.     

Automatic diatom identification using contour analysis by morphological curvature scale spaces

A method for automatic identification of diatoms (single-celled algae with silica shells) based on extraction of features on the contour of the cells by multi-scale mathematical morphology is presented. After extracting the contour of the cell, it is smoothed adaptively, encoded using Freeman chain code, and converted into a curvature representation which is invariant under translation and scale change. A curvature scale space is built from these data, and the most important features are extracted from it by unsupervised cluster analysis. The resulting pattern vectors, which are also rotation-invariant, provide the input for automatic identification of diatoms by decision trees and k-nearest neighbor classifiers. The method is tested on two large sets of diatom images. The techniques used are applicable to other shapes besides diatoms. Andrei C. Jalba received his B.Sc. (1998) and M.Sc. (1999) in Applied Electronics and Information Engineering from “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Romania. He recently obtained a Ph.D. degree at the Institute for Mathematics and Computing Science of the University of Groningen, where he now is a postdoctoral researcher. His research interests include computer vision, pattern recognition, image processing, and parallel computing. Michael Wilkinson obtained an M.Sc. in astronomy from the Kapteyn Laboratory, University of Groningen (RuG) in 1993, after which he worked on image analysis of intestinal bacteria at the Department of Medical Microbiology, RuG. This work formed the basis of his Ph.D. at the Institute of Mathematics and Computing Science (IWI), RuG, in 1995. He was appointed as researcher at the Centre for High Performance Computing (also RuG) working on simulating the intestinal microbial ecosystem on parallel computers. During that time he edited the book “Digital Image Analysis of Microbes” (John Wiley, UK, 1998) together with Frits Schut. After this he worked as a researcher at the IWI on image analysis of diatoms. He is currently assistant professor at the IWI. Jos B.T.M. Roerdink received his M.Sc. (1979) in theoretical physics from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Following his Ph.D. (1983) from the University of Utrecht and a 2-year position (1983--1985) as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Diego, both in the area of stochastic processes, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. There he worked from 1986-1992 on image processing and tomographic reconstruction. He was appointed associate professor (1992) and full professor (2003), respectively, at the Institute for Mathematics and Computing Science of the University of Groningen, where he currently holds a chair in Scientific Visualization and Computer Graphics. His current research interests include biomedical visualization, neuroimaging and bioinformatics. Micha Bayer graduated from St. Andrews University, Scotland, with an M.Sc. in Marine Biology in 1994. He obtained his Ph.D. in Marine Biology from there in 1998, and then followed this up with two postdoctoral positions at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, first on the ADIAC and then on the DIADIST project. In both of these projects he was responsible for establishing the collections of diatom training data to be used for the pattern recognition systems. From 2002–2003 he was enrolled for an M.Sc. in information technology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and is now working as a grid developer at the National e-Science Centre at Glasgow University. Stephen Juggins is a senior lecturer at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle. His research focuses on the use of diatoms for monitoring environmental change and on the analysis of ecological and palaeoecological data. He has worked in Europe, North America and Central Asia on problems of river water quality, historical lake acidification, coastal eutrophication and Quaternary climate change.     

Hierarchies of parallel rewriting P systems — A survey

The paper is about some families of rewriting P systems, where the application of evolution rules is extended from the classical sequential rewriting to the parallel one (as, for instance, in Lindenmayer systems). As a result, consistency problems for the communication of strings may arise. Three variants of parallel rewriting P systems (already present in the literature) are considered here, together with the strategies they use to face the communication problem, and some parallelism methods for string rewriting are defined. We give a survey of all known results about each variant and we state some relations among the three variants, thus establishing hierarchies of parallel rewriting P systems. Various open problems related to the subject are also presented. Danicla Besozzi: She is assistant professor at the University of Milano. She received her M.S. in Mathematics (2000) from the University of Como and Ph.D. in Computer Science (2004) from the University of Milano. Her research interests cover topics in Formal Language Theory, Molecular Computing, Systems Biology. She is member of EATCS (European Association for Theoretical Computer Science) and EMCC (European Molecular Computing Consortium). Giancarlo Mauri: He is full professor of Computer Science at the University of Milano-Bicocca. His research interests are mainly in the area of theoretical computer science, and include: formal languages and automata, computational complexity, computational learning theory, soft computing techniques, cellular automata, bioinformatics and molecular computing. On these subjects, he published more than 150 scientific papers in international journals, contributed volumes and conference proceedings. Claudio Zandron: He received Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Milan, Italy, in 2001. Since 2002 he is assistant professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. He is member of the EATCS (European Association for Theoretical Computer Science) and of EMCC (European Molecular Computing Consortium). His research interests are Molecular Computing (DNA and Membrane Computing) and Formal Languages.     

Minimizing evolution-communication P systems and automata

Evolution-communication P systems are a variant of P systems allowing both rewriting rules and symport/antiport rules, thus having separated the rewriting and the communication. The purpose of this paper is to solve an open problem stated in Reference,¹⁾ namely generating the family of Turing computable sets of vectors of natural numbers instead of the family of Turing computable sets of natural numbers. The same construction also reduces the 3-membrane non-cooperative case and the 2-membrane 1-catalyst case to the 2-membrane non-cooperative case. Also, EC P automata are introduced and it is proved that 2-membrane EC P automata with a promoter can accept all recursively enumerable languages. Finally, a definition of an extended system is given, and its universality is proved using the rules of more restricted types. Artiom Alhazov: He has graduated from Mathematics and Computer Science, State University of Moldova in 2001, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Chişinăm, Moldova, and Tarragona, Spain. He has won prizes at 3 National Olympiads in Informatics and in Mathematics (1995 and 1996), participated at 8th International Olympiad in Informatics (Veszprem, Hungary, 1996). He has experience in programming and teaching, and has published 18 papers, mostly in Membrane Computing. His interests are Origami, Mathematics, Programming, Theoretical Computer Science, Formal Linguistics and Biocomputing.     

On the suitability of Biological structure determination by electron microscopy to Grid Computing

The present contribution describes a potential application of Grid Computing in Bioinformatics. High resolution structure determination of biological specimens is critical in BioSciences to understanding the biological function. The problem is computational intensive. Distributed and Grid Computing are thus becoming essential. This contribution analyzes the use of Grid Computing and its potential benefits in the field of electron microscope tomography of biological specimens. Jose-Jesus Fernandez, Ph.D.: He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Granada, Spain, in 1992 and 1997, respectively. He was a Ph.D. student at the Bio-Computing unit of the National Center for BioTechnology (CNB) from the Spanish National Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), Madrid, Spain. He became an Assistant Professor in 1997 and, subsequently, Associate Professor in 2000 in Computer Architecture at the University of Almeria, Spain. He is a member of the supercomputing-algorithms research group. His research interests include high performance computing (HPC), image processing and tomography. Jose-Roman Bilbao-Castro: He received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Almeria in 2001. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the BioComputing unit of the CNB (CSIC) through a Ph.D. CSIC-grant in conjuction with Dept. Computer Architecture at the University of Malaga (Spain). His current research interestsinclude tomography, HPC and distributed and grid computing. Roberto Marabini, Ph.D.: He received the M.Sc. (1989) and Ph.D. (1995) degrees in Physics from the University Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) and University of Santiago de Compostela, respectively. He was a Ph.D. student at the BioComputing Unit at the CNB (CSIC). He worked at the University of Pennsylvania and the City University of New York from 1998 to 2002. At present he is an Associate Professor at the UAM. His current research interests include inverse problems, image processing and HPC. Jose-Maria Carazo, Ph.D.: He received the M.Sc. degree from the Granada University, Spain, in 1981, and got his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the UAM in 1984. He left for Albany, NY, in 1986, coming back to Madrid in 1989 to set up the BioComputing Unit of the CNB (CSIC). He was involved in the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology as Deputy General Director for Research Planning. Currently, he keeps engaged in his activities at the CNB, the Scientific Park of Madrid and Integromics S.L. Immaculada Garcia, Ph.D.: She received her B.Sc. (1977) and Ph.D. (1986) degrees in Physics from the Complutense University of Madrid and University of Santiago de Compostela, respectively. From 1977 to 1987 she was an Assistant professor at the University of Granada, from 1987 to 1996 Associate professor at the University of Almeria and since 1997 she is a Full Professor and head of Dept. Computer Architecture. She is head of the supercomputing-algorithms research group. Her research interest lies in HPC for irregular problems related to image processing, global optimization and matrix computation.     

Classifying the subjects of the Russian Federation on the basis of analysis of results of Gallup polling

The problem of processing of Gallup poll results by cluster analysis methods is considered. The aim of these polls, performed in different subjects of the Russian Federation, is to extract main characteristics of the regions. Demyanov Egor A. Born 1982. Graduated from the Moscow State University in 2004. Post-graduate student of the same university. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of two publications. Djukova Elena V. Born 1945. Graduated from the Moscow State University in 1967. Received candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1979, Doctoral degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher. Moscow State University, lecturer. Moscow Pedagogical University, lecturer. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of 76 papers. Peskov Nikolai V. Born 1978. Graduated from the Moscow State University in 2000. Received candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 2004. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of 17 papers. Inyakin Andrey S. Born 1978. Graduated from the Moscow State University in 2000. Received candidate’s degree in 2006. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of 16 papers.     

GigaE PM: a high performance communication facility using a Gigabit Ethernet

A high performance communication facility, called theGigaE PM, has been designed and implemented for parallel applications on clusters of computers using a Gigabit Ethernet. The GigaE PM provides not only a reliable high bandwidth and low latency communication, but also supports existing network protocols such as TCP/IP. A reliable communication mechanism for a parallel application is implemented on the firmware on a NIC while existing network protocols are handled by an operating system kernel. A prototype system has been implemented using an Essential Communications Gigabit Ethernet card. The performance results show that a 58.3 μs round trip time for a four byte user message, and 56.7 MBytes/sec bandwidth for a 1,468 byte message have been achieved on Intel Pentium II 400 MHz PCs. We have implemented MPICH-PM on top of the GigaE PM, and evaluated the NAS parallel benchmark performance. The results show that the IS class S performance on the GigaE PM is 1.8 times faster than that on TCP/IP. Shinji Sumimoto: He is a Senior Researcher of Parallel and Distributed System Software Laboratory at Real World Computing Partnership, JAPAN. He received BS degree in electrical engineering from Doshisha University. His research interest include parallel and distributed systems, real-time systems, and high performance communication facilities. He is a member of Information Processing Society of Japan. Hiroshi Tezuka: He is a Senior Researcher of Parallel and Distributed System Software Laboratory at Real World Computing Partnership, JAPAN. His research interests include real-time systems and operating system kernel. He is a member of the Information Processing Society of Japan, and Japan Society for Software Science and Technology. Atsushi Hori, Ph.D.: He is a Senior Researcher of Parallel and Distributed System Software Laboratory at Real World Computing Partnership, JAPAN. His current research interests include parallel operating system. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Waseda University, and received Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. He worked as a researcher in Mitsubishi Research Institute from 1981 to 1992. Hiroshi Harada: He is a Senior Researcher of Parallel and Distributed System Software Laboratory at Real World Computing Partnership, JAPAN. His research interests include distributed/parallel systems and distributed shared memory. He received BS degree in physics from Science University of Tokyo. He is a member of ACM and Information Processing Society of Japan. Toshiyuki Takahashi: He is a Researcher at Real World Computing Partnership since 1998. He received his B.S. and M.S. from the Department of Information Sciences of Science University of Tokyo in 1993 and 1995. He was a student of the Information Science Department of the University of Tokyo from 1995 to 1998. His current interests are in meta-level architecture for programming languages and high-performance software technologies. He is a member of Information Processing Society of Japan. Yutaka Ishikawa, Ph.D.: He is the chief of Parallel and Distributed System Software Laboratory at Real World Computing Partnership, JAPAN. He is currently temporary retirement from Electrotechnical Laboratory, MITI. His research interests include distributed/parallel systems, object-oriented programming languages, and real-time systems. He received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering from Keio University. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, ACM, Information Processing Society of Japan, and Japan Society for Software Science and Technology.     

Life sciences grid in EUROGRID and GRIP projects

In this paper we describe deployment of most important life sciences applications on the grid. The build grid is heterogenous and consist of systems of different architecture as well as operating systems and various middleware. We have used UNICORE infrastructure as framework for development dedicated user interface to the number of existing computational chemistry codes and molecular biology databases. Developed solution allows for access to the resources provided with UNICORE as well as Globus with exactly the same interface which gives access to the general grid functionality such as single login, job submission and control mechanism. Jarosław Wypychowski: He is a student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Warsaw University, Poland. He is involved in the development of grid tools. He has been working as programmer in the private company. Jarosław Pytliński, M.Sc.: He received his M.Sc. in 2002 from Department of Mathematic and Computer Science of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. His thesis on “Quantum Chemistry Computations in Grid Environment” was distincted in XIX Polish Contest for the best M.Sc. Thesis of Computer Science. He also worked in Laboratory of High Performance Systems at UCI, Torun. His interests are Artificial Intelligence and GRID technology. Łukasz Skorwider, M.Sc.: He is programmer in the private pharmaceutical company. He obtained M.Sc. degree from the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science N. Copernicus University. As graduate student he was involved in the development of grid tools for drug design. His private and professional interest is Internet technology. Mirosław Nazaruk, M.Sc.: He is a senior computer and network administrator at ICM Warsaw University. He provides professional support for the users of the high performance facilities located at the ICM. He obtained M.Sc. in Computer Science from Warsaw University in 1991. Before joining ICM, he was a member of technical staff at Institute of Applied Mathematics, Warsaw University. Krzysztof Benedyczak: He is a student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, N. Copernicus University, Torun, Poland. He is involved in the development of grid tools. Michał Wroński: He is a student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, N. Copernicus University, Torun, Poland. He is involved in the development of grid tools. Piotr Bała, Ph.D.: He is an adiunkt at Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science N. Copernicus University, Torun, Poland, and tightly cooperates with ICM, Warsaw University. He obtained Ph.D. in Physics in 1993 in Institute of Physics, N. Copernicus University and in 2000 habilitation in physics. From 2001 he was appointed director of Laboratory of Parallel and Distributed Processing at Faculty of Mathematics, N. Copernicus University. His main research interest is development and application of Quantum-Classical Molecular Dynamics and Approximated Valence Bond method to study of enzymatic reactions in biological systems. In the last few years, he has been involved in development of parallel and grid tools for large scale scientific applications.     

On Semismooth Newton’s Methods for Total Variation Minimization

In [2], Chambolle proposed an algorithm for minimizing the total variation of an image. In this short note, based on the theory on semismooth operators, we study semismooth Newton’s methods for total variation minimization. The convergence and numerical results are also presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. The research of this author is supported in part by Hong Kong Research Grants Council Grant Nos. 7035/04P and 7035/05P, and HKBU FRGs. The research of this author is supported in part by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong. This work was started while the author was visiting Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The research of this author is supported in part by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme and the National Science Foundation of China (No. 60572114). Michael Ng is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Hong Kong Baptist University. As an applied mathematician, Michael’s main research areas include Bioinformatics, Data Mining, Operations Research and Scientific Computing. Michael has published and edited 5 books, published more than 140 journal papers. He is the principal editor of the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, and the associate editor of SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. Liqun Qi received his B.S. in Computational Mathematics at Tsinghua University in 1968, his M.S, and Ph.D. degree in Computer Sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 and 1984, respectively. Professor Qi has taught in Tsinghua University, China, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, University of New South Wales, Australia, and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is now Chair Professor of Applied Mathematics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Qi has published more than 140 research papers in international journals. He established the superlinear and quadratic convergence theory of the generalized Newton method, and played a principal role in the development of reformulation methods in optimization. Professor Qi’s research work has been cited by the researchers around the world. According to the authoritative citation database ISIHighlyCited.com, he is one of the world’s most highly cited 300 mathematicians during the period from 1981 to 1999. Yu-Fei Yang received the B.Sc., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from Hunan University, P. R. China, in 1987, 1994 and 1999, respectively. From 1999 to 2001, he stayed at the University of New South Wales, Australia as visiting fellow. From 2002 to 2005, he held research associate and postdoctoral fellowship positions at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently professor in the College of Mathematics and Econometrics, at Hunan University, P. R. China. His research interests includes optimization theory and methods, and partial differential equations with applications to image analysis. Yu-Mei Huang received her M.Sc. in Computer science from Lanzhou University in 2000. She is now pursuing her doctoral studies in computational mathematics in Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests are in image processing and numerical linear algebra.     

A classification algorithm based on the complete decision tree

Application of decision trees in problems of classification by precedents is considered. A new model of classifier (which is called the complete decision tree) is proposed and compared with other recognition algorithms based on constructing decision trees. Elena V. Djukova born 1945. Graduated from Moscow State University in 1967. Candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1979. Doctoral degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher. Moscow State University, lecturer. Moscow Pedagogical University, lecturer. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of 76 papers. Nikolai V. Peskov born 1978. Graduated from Moscow State University in 2000. Candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 2004. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of seventeen papers.     

Edge-Forming Methods for Image Zooming

The article is concerned with edge-forming methods to be applied as a post-process for image zooming. Image zooming via standard interpolation methods often produces the so-called checkerboard effect, in particular, when the magnification factor is large. In order to remove the artifact and to form reliable edges, a nonlinear semi-discrete model and its numerical algorithm are suggested along with anisotropic edge-forming numerical schemes. The algorithm is analyzed for stability and choices of parameters. For image zooming by integer factors, a few iterations of the algorithm can form clear and sharp edges for gray-scale images. Various examples are presented to show effectiveness and efficiency of the newly-suggested edge-forming strategy. The work of this author is supported in part by NSF grant DMS–0312223. Youngjoon Cha received his B.Sc. (1988) and M.Sc. (1990) from Mathematics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea; and Ph.D. (1996) from Mathematics, Purdue University, working on mathematical epidemiology, under a guidance of Prof. Fabio Milner. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Purdue University, and Seoul National University, South Korea, from 1996 to 1997 and from 1997 to 1998, respectively. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics, Sejong University, South Korea. His research interests include image processing, mathematical and numerical modeling for waves, and mathematical epidemiology. Seongjai Kim received his B.Sc. (1988) and M.Sc. (1990) from Mathematics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea; and Ph.D. (1995) from Mathematics, Purdue University, working on computational fluid dynamics, under a guidance of Prof. Jim Douglas, Jr. After two years of post-doctoral research on seismic inversion at Rice University, he worked for Shell E&P Tech. Co., Houston, for a year and the Department of Mathematics, University of Kentucky, for seven years. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Mississippi State University. His research interests are in mathematical and numerical modeling for wave propagation in highly heterogeneous media, seismology, and image processing for challenging images.     

Constructing irreducible coverings of a Boolean matrix

A polynomial delay algorithm for searching for irreducible coverings of a Boolean matrix is constructed. A similar result is obtained for the problem of constructing maximal conjunctions of a monotone Boolean function specified by its conjunctive normal form. Elena V. Djukova born 1945. Graduated from Moscow State University in 1967. Candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1979. Doctoral degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher. Moscow State University, lecturer. Moscow Pedagogical University, lecturer. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of 76 papers. Andrey S. Inyakin born 1978. Graduated from Moscow State University in 2000. Candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 2000. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of sixteen papers.     

Mobile geoinformation systems

The geoinformation system for handheld computers (PDAs) makes it possible to solve a wide range of geographically dispersed data (GDD) processing problems. The developed program software (PS) based on effective models and GDD processing methods has allowed significantly increasing the GDD processing rate in PDAs. Yurii G. Vasin was born in 1940 and graduated from Gor’kii State University in 1962. He received his doctoral (doctor of science) degree in 1988 and was a recipient of the Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1990. He is the director of the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics of the State University of Nizhni Novgorod. His scientific interests include theoretical and applied computer science, pattern recognition and image processing, and information technologies, and he is the author of more than 100 publications. Sergei V. Zherzdev was born in 1976 and graduated from the State University of Nizhni Novgorod in 1999. He is a software engineer at the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics of the State University of Nizhni Novgorod. His scientific interests include theoretical and applied computer science and data compression techniques. He is the author of 7 publications. Andrei A. Egorov was born in 1982 and graduated from the State University of Nizhni Novgorod in 2006. He is a programmer at the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics of the State University of Nizhni Novgorod, and his scientific interests include hierarchical structures of data storage on mobile platforms. He is the author of 2 inventions and 7 publications.     

Construction and Application of Hybrid Wavelet and Other Parametric Orthogonal Transforms

We introduce new methods for construction and implementation of various parametric and hybrid orthogonal transforms, including generalized Haar-like, Daubechies, and Coiflet wavelet transforms. The corresponding fast algorithms of computations are briefly discussed and the variance properties of these transforms in analyzing 1-st order Markov processes are investigated. The designed hybrid transforms can be useful in various specific signal processing applications where combining properties of Hadamard and wavelet transforms may be of particular benefit. We also present some numerical results pertaining to image zonal and threshold coding using these hybrid transforms and compare their efficacy with those of traditional orthogonal transforms.Hakob Sarukhanyan received his M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Yerevan State University in 1973, and his Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees in Technical Sciences from the National Armenian Academy of Sciences (NAAS) in 1982 and 1999 accordingly. He has worked as a faculty in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Yerevan State University in 1968–73, and as a junior and senior researcher in the Laboratory of Image Processing Systems at the Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems (IIAP) of the NAAS in 1973–93. He has been the Head of the above Laboratory since 1993 and has been elected a member of the Doctoral Council at IIAP in 2000. He has been a visiting professor at the Tampere Institute of Technology, Finland, in 1999–2001. He is a recipient of research grants from various European funding agencies as well as from the US Civilian and Research Foundation (sponsored by the NSF and the US Department of State). His main research interests are in construction of Hadamard matrices and their applications in wireless communications, combinatorics theory, and fast orthogonal transforms for image processing. He is the author of more than 70 scientific publications in major scientific media.Arthur Petrosian received his M.S. Summa Cum Laude degree in Mathematics from Moscow State University in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Institute for Problems of Informatics & Automation of the National Armenian Academy of Sciences in 1989. He was a visiting scientist at the Institute of General and Physical Chemistry at Belgrade University, Yugoslavia (1991), an NIH supported postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1992–93), and a research instructor at the Medical College of Ohio, Toledo (1993–94). He joined Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center as an Assistant Professor in 1994, and was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas Tech University in 1995. He was promoted to the Associate Professor level at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in 2000. While at Texas Tech, he received a number of research grant awards to conduct research in EEG signal processing and in biomedical signal/image compression, including from the Federal Administration on Aging, Alzheimers Association, and the US Civilian and Research Foundation (sponsored by the NSF and the US Department of State, to promote cooperative research between the wavelet theory groups in United States and ex-USSR). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a past member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is currently a Scientific Review Administrator in the Surgery, Biomedical Imaging, and Bioengineering integrated review group at the National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services.     

Increasing the efficiency of combinatorial logical data analysis in recognition and classification problems

Problems of increasing the efficiency of combinatorial logical data analysis in recognition problems are examined. A technique for correct conversion of initial information for reduction of its dimensionality is proposed. Results of testing this technique for problems of real medical prognoses are given. Djukova Elena V. Born 1945. Graduated from Moscow State University in 1967. Candidate’s degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1979. Doctoral degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher. Moscow State University, lecturer. Moscow Pedagogical University, lecturer. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical method of pattern recognition. Author of 70 papers. Peskov Nikolai V. Born 1978. Graduated from Moscow State University in 2000. Candidate’s degree in 2004. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of ten papers. Inyakin Andrey S. Born 1978. Graduated from Moscow State University in 2000. Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, junior researcher. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical methods of pattern recognition. Author of ten papers. Sakharov Aleksei A. Born 1980. Graduated from Moscow State University in 2003. Moscow Pedagogical University, graduate student. Scientific interests: discrete mathematics and mathematical method of pattern recognition. Author of three papers.     

A productivity benchmarking case study using Bayesian credible intervals

A productivity benchmarking case study is presented. Empirically valid evidence exists to suggest that certain project factors, such as development type and language type, influence project effort and productivity and a comparison is made taking into account these and other factors. The case study identifies a reasonably comparable set of data that was taken from a large benchmarking data repository by using the factors. This data set was then compared with the small data set presented by a company for benchmarking. The study illustrates how productivity rates might be misleading unless these factors are taken into account. Further, rather than simply giving a ratio for the company's productivity performance against the benchmark, the study shows how confidence about the company's performance can be expressed in terms of Bayesian confidence (credible) intervals for the ratio of the arithmetic means of the two data sets. John Moses is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing at the University of Sunderland and has received a BSc. degree in Applied Mathematics and Computing Science (Hons.) from the University of Sheffield, an MSc. in Operational Research (White Fish Authority prize in O.R.) from the University of Hull and a PhD. in Computer Science from the University of Sunderland in 1997. He has over seven years experience in commercial computing, working as a systems and operational research analyst in the steel, water, plastics and printing industries. John Moses has twenty years experience teaching and has lectured at the Universities of Teesside, Humberside and Sunderland. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, the British Computer Society and the Operational Research Society. His research interests are in software measurement and prediction systems for software development. Malcolm Farrow graduated in 1976 with first class honours in Statistics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He then had an industrial studentship at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne with Alcan Lynemouth Ltd and got his PhD in 1979 for work on time series problems associated with the control of aluminium reduction cells. From 1979 he was a lecturer at the University of Hull, moving to Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) in 1981 and then Sunderland in 1984. Dr. Farrow became a Chartered Statistician in 1993 when this qualification was introduced by the Royal Statistical Society. In 2005 he became a Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Norman Parrington graduated from Kings College, University of London with a degree in history. This naturally led him into a career as a computer programmer and systems analyst with the UK Government. He progressed to a Masters in Computing Science at the then North Staffordshire Polytechnic (now Staffordshire University) and thereafter worked for the UK Government procurement Agency as a compiler and operating system specialist. After three years Norman joined the UK Civil service as a Lecturer and three years later joined the University of Sunderland (then Sunderland polytechnic) where he has been for 22 years, currently occupying the post of Associate Dean where his responsibilities include Postgraduate programme Development. Normans major academic interests lie in the areas of software testing and software tools he has had more than 50 journal and conference papers published in these areas. He has co-authored two books “Understanding Software Testing” and “IT Training in Singapore” Professor Peter Smith is Dean of the School of Computing and Technology at the University of Sunderland, UK. Peter joined the University of Sunderland (then Sunderland Polytechnic) as a student in 1975. He graduated in 1978 with a BSc (Hons) Combined Studies in Science, in the subjects Mathematics and Computing. After graduating, he stayed in the University to study for a PhD in Computer Simulation. He then joined the staff of the Polytechnic as a Lecturer in Computing. His research interests are in the areas of expert systems, software engineering and computers in manufacturing and he has published over 200 papers on these subjects. He is particularly interested in developing novel techniques which can be applied for the solution of real business and industrial problems. He is also author of three textbooks on Knowledge Engineering and Software Engineering. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Mathematician and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. Peter has spoken at conferences around the world, including several invited conference addresses. He has also managed a large number of collaborative research projects, funded by the European Union, the UK Department of Trade and Industry and several industrial partners.     

Estimating the number of clusters using a windowing technique

Clustering is the process of partitioning a set of patterns into disjoint and homogeneous meaningful groups (clusters). A fundamental and unresolved issue in cluster analysis is to determine how many clusters are present in a given set of patterns. In this paper, we present the z-windows clustering algorithm, which aims to address this problem using a windowing technique. Extensive empirical tests that illustrate the efficiency and the accuracy of the propsoed method are presented. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Basilis Boutsinas. Received his diploma in Computer Engineering and Informatics in 1991 from the University of Patras, Greece. He also conducted studies in Electronics Engineering at the Technical Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece, and Pedagogics at the Pedagogical Academy of Lamia, Greece. He received his PhD on Knowledge Representation from the University of Patras in 1997. He has been an assistant professor in the Department of Business Administration at the University of Patras since 2001. His primary research interests include data mining, business intelligence, knowledge representation techniques, nonmonotonic reasoning, and parallel AI. Dimitris K. Tasoulis received his diploma in Mathematics from the University of Patras, Greece, in 2000. He attained his MSc degree in 2004 from the postgraduate course “Mathematics of Computers and Decision Making” from which he was awarded a postgraduate fellowship. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in the same course. His research activities focus on data mining, clustering, neural networks, parallel algorithms, and evolutionary computation. He is coauthor of more than ten publications. Michael N. Vrahatis is with the Department of Mathematics at the University of Patras, Greece. He received the diploma and PhD degree in Mathematics from the University of Patras in 1978 and 1982, respectively. He was a visiting research fellow at the Department of Mathematics, Cornell University (1987–1988) and a visiting professor to the INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Bologna, Italy (1992, 1994, and 1998); the Department of Computer Science, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1999); the Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA (2000); and the Collaborative Research Center “Computational Intelligence” (SFB 531) at the Department of Computer Science, University of Dortmund, Germany (2001). He was a visiting researcher at CERN (European Organization of Nuclear Research), Geneva, Switzerland (1992) and at INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique), France (1998, 2003, and 2004). He is the author of more than 250 publications (more than 110 of which are published in international journals) in his research areas, including computational mathematics, optimization, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, and artificial intelligence. His research publications have received more than 600 citations. He has been a principal investigator of several research grants from the European Union, the Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, and the Hellenic Ministry of Industry, Energy, and Technology. He is among the founders of the “University of Patras Artificial Intelligence Research Center” (UPAIRC), established in 1997, where currently he serves as director. He is the founder of the Computational Intelligence Laboratory (CI Lab), established in 2004 at the Department of Mathematics of University of Patras, where currently he serves as director.