Intelligent product search with soft-boundary preference relaxation

This paper proposes a novel method for preference relaxation in online product search, which enables consumers to make quality choices without suffering from the commonly experienced information overload. In online shopping scenarios that involve multi-attribute choice tasks, it can be difficult for consumers to process the vast amounts of information available and to make satisfactory buying decisions. In such situations consumers are likely to eliminate potentially good choices early on, using hard-constraint filtering tools. Our approach uses edge sets to identify the alternatives on the soft boundary and the principle of alternative domination to suppress the alternatives on this boundary that are irrelevant. We demonstrate how our approach outperforms existing methods for product search in a set of simulations using two sets of 2650 car advertisements and 1813 digital cameras gathered from a popular online store.     

Die Mikroflora des Sauerteiges

Zusammenfassung Es wurden Ermittlungen über das Vitaminbedürfnis der an der Sauerteiggdrung beteiligten Milchsäurebakterien der UntergattungenThermobacterium, Streptobacterium andBetabacterium angestellt.Von den überprüften Sauerteigbakterien waren 54 Stämme aus sog. Reinzuchtsauerteigen und 49 Stämme aus Sauerteigen isoliert worden. Alle Sauerteigbakterien erwiesen sich biotin-, vitamin B₆-, vitamin B₁₂-, pyridoxamin- und pyridoxalautotroph. Ohne Ausnahme besteht bei den Sauerteigbakterien ein Bedürfnis an Pantothensäure und Nicotinsäure. Die Bedürftigkeit der Sauerteigbakterien an Folsäure, Vitamin B₂ und Vitamin B₁ ist von Art zu Art wechselnd.Das Vitaminbedürfnis der verschiedenen Gruppen von Sauerteigbakterien steht weitgehend in Übereinstimmung mit dem Bedürfnis der jeweils zum Vergleich herangezogenen Milchsäurebakterien definierter Art. Die Befunde geben somit eine Bestätigung der anhand des Zuckerspektrums vorgenommenen Zuordnung der Sauerteigbakterien zu den ArtenLactobacillus aeidophilus, L. casei, L. plantarum, L. fareiminis, L. brevis, L. brevis var. lindneri, L. fermentum undL. fructivorans.

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The microflora of sourdoughV. Communication: The vitamin requirement of lactic acid bacteria (Genus lactobacillus Beijerinck) of sourdough starter and sourdough

Summary Research was carried out on the vitamin requirements of lactic acid bacteria of the subgeneraThermobacterium, Streptobacterium andBetabacterium, which have a part in the sourdough fermentation. Of the investigated sourdough bacteria 54 strains were isolated from the Reinzuchtsauer (a starter culture) and 49 strains from sourdough. All sourdough bacteria were biotin-, vitamin B₆-, vitamin B₁₂-, pyridoxamine-and pyridoxal-autotroph. All sourdough bacteria showed a requirement for pantothenic acid and nicotinic acid. The requirement of sourdough bacteria for folic acid, vitamin B₂ and vitamin B₁ varied from species to species. The vitamin requirements of the different species of sourdough bacteria mostly agree with the requirements of reference strains of lactic acid bacteria (ATCC-strains, DSM-strains) with which they were compared. The results are therefore a confirmation for having assigned the sourdough bacteria from their sugar fermentation reactions to the speciesLactobacillus acidophilus, L. casei, L. plantarum, L. farciminis, L. brevis, L. fermentum, L. fructivorans andL. brevis var. lindneri.

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Nr. 4470 der Veröffentlichungen der Bundesforschungsanstalt für Getreide- und Kartoffelverarbeitung, Detmold

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Diese Untersuchungen wurden ermöglicht durch eine finanzielle Förderung seitens des Bundesministeriums für Forschung und Technologie im Rahmen des Programmes Biologie und Technik     

Flicker sensitivity measured with intermittent stimuli: II. Comparison between temporal gradient detection and the "De Lange" curves.

The threshold gradient for perception of a linear change in luminance with time has been measured as a function of the stimulus duration. These data are compared with the "De Lange" curves representing the flicker sensitivity measured with intermittent presentation of the stimulus as a function of the stimulus duration. For this purpose it is necessary to take into account the fact that a linear luminance gradient, being a relatively low-frequency signal, is affected less by the low-pass filter supposedly situated in the visual system than by a sinusoidal signal (flicker) of the same duration.     

A family of similarity measures between two strings

We present a class of similarity measures for quantitatively comparing two strings, that is, two linearly ordered sets of elements. The strings can be of different lengths, the elements come from a single alphabet, and an element may appear any number of times. The limiting values of each measure are 0, when two completely different strings are compared, and 1, when the two strings are identical. Applications of similarity measures are numerous in nonnumerical computations, such as in heuristic search processes in associative networks, in pattern recognition and classification, in game playing programs, and in music and text analysis. We offer a number of feasible measures from among which some are discarded on plausibility grounds. One can select the measure most adequate for one's needs on the basis of a few characteristic examples of strings compared and by considering the specific requirements of the application at hand.     

Split-sum correlator simplifies range computations in GPS receiver

A novel correlator architecture for handling the satellite-to-receiver time skew in a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver is presented. The correlator's signal integration and numerically-controlled oscillator updates are referenced to receiver time epochs rather than satellite epochs as in traditional architectures. To avoid straddling navigation data bits, the correlation is split into two parts. The technique was successfully implemented and integrated into a field programmable gate array-based multichannel software GPS receiver     

设计与制造之间的界面优化

分辨率增强技术（RET）设计流程中聚集了各式各样的点工具和方法。当前对深亚波长可制造性（DFM）设计的要求迫使设计与制造行业必须建立十分密切的合作关系。同时也促使EDA行业提供一种平台，以促进这些行业间的密切交流。合理利用这一平台将会对产能和品质产生直接的影响。     

Vortex matter in superconductor/ferromagnet hybrids

Vortex pinning in type-II superconducting films can be effectively controlled by combining these films with different ferromagnetic nanostructures. In this article an overview is presented of different types of ferromagnetic pinning centers. The investigated hybrid structures consist of Pb films that are deposited on top of arrays of ferromagnetic dots with in-plane magnetization (IMP) or out-of-plane magnetization (OPM), ferromagnetic films with IPM or OPM that contain arrays of submicron holes (antidots), or continuous films with OPM and a magnetic domain structure. Interesting effects such as field-polarity dependent vortex pinning and the dependence of the pinning strength on the domain structure of the ferromagnet are observed. Our experiments demonstrate that vortex pinning in superconductors is strongly influenced by the magnetic properties of the different ferromagnetic pinning centers.     

Software release management for component‐based software

Software release management is the process through which software is made available to and obtained by its users. Until now, this process has been relatively straightforward. However, the emergence of component‐based software is complicating software release management. Increasingly, software is constructed via the assembly of pre‐existing, independently produced, and independently released components. Both developers and users of such software are affected by these complications. Developers need to accurately document the complex and changing dependencies among the components constituting the software. Users must be involved in locating, retrieving, and assembling components in order to appropriately bring the software into their particular environment. In this paper, we introduce the problem of release management for component‐based software and discuss SRM, a prototype software release management tool we have developed that supports both developers and users in the software release management process. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ISO 9000 versus CMM: Standardization and certification of IS development

A growing number of software developers use standards as a basis for their quality systems. Some of them go one step further and have their quality systems certified. In this paper, two well-known quality standards, ISO 9000 and the CMM, are compared. It is concluded that both standards are useful but there is a growing need for more specific standards.     

Providing adaptive QoS to layered video over wireless local area networks through real-time retry limit adaptation

Robust streaming of video over 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs) poses many challenges, including coping with packets losses caused by network buffer overflow or link erasures. In this paper, we propose a novel error protection method that can provide adaptive quality-of-service (QoS) to layered coded video by utilizing priority queueing at the network layer and retry-limit adaptation at the link layer. The design of our method is motivated by the observation that the retry limit settings of the MAC layer can be optimized in such a way that the overall packet losses that are caused by either link erasure or buffer overflow are minimized. We developed a real-time retry limit adaptation algorithm to trace the optimal retry limit for both the single-queue (or single-layer) and multiqueue (or multilayer) cases. The video layers are unequally protected over the wireless link by the MAC with different retry limits. In our proposed transmission framework, these retry limits are dynamically adapted depending on the wireless channel conditions and traffic characteristics. Furthermore, the proposed priority queueing discipline is enhanced with packet filtering and purging functionalities that can significantly save bandwidth by discarding obsolete or un-decodable packets from the buffer. Simulations show that the proposed cross-layer protection mechanism can significantly improve the received video quality.