We build personalized relevance parameterization method (prep-ad) based on artificial intelligence (ai) techniques to compute Alzheimer's disease (ad) progression for patients at the mild cognitive impairment (mci) stage. Expressions of ad related genes, mini mental state examination (mmse) scores, and hippocampal volume measurements of mci patients are obtained from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (adni) database. In evaluation of cognitive changes under pharmacological therapies, patients are grouped based on available clinical measurements and the type of therapy administered, namely donepezil monotherapy and polytherapy of donepezil with memantine. Average leave one out cross validation (loocv) error rates are calculated for prep-ad results as less than 8 percent when mmse scores are used to compute disease progression for a 60 month period, and 3 percent with hippocampal volume measurements for 12 months. Statistical significance is calculated as p = 0.003 for using ad related genes in disease progression and as for the results computed by prep-ad. These relatively small average loocv errors and p-values suggest that our prep-ad methods employing gene expressions, mmse scores and hippocampal volume loss measurements can be useful in supporting pharmacologic therapy decisions during early stages of ad.

To explore the impact of pharmacologic therapies on cognitive changes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, we develop an artificial intelligence (AI) based personalized relevance parameterization method, called PReP-AD-PH. Expressions of genes, which are effective in AD related protein biomarkers, and mini mental state examination (MMSE) scores of AD patients in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage are inputs for PReP-AD-PH. In this study, AD patients in MCI stage are split into two groups, such that the first group has 81 patients given monotherapy with cholinesterase inhibitor (ChEI) donepezil and the second with 70 patients received combinational therapy with donepezil and memantine. PReP-AD-PH computes parameters characterizing the cognitive changes in AD patients with MCI. Using a leave-one-out-cross-validation (LOOCV) based algorithm, we measure an average LOOCV error rate of 6.53% for patients received donepezil monotherapy, and 8.05% for those under combinational therapy. Cumulative distribution of LOOCV error rates of PReP-AD-PH results points out that AI based computation methods can be useful in assisting clinicians with pharmacologic therapy decisions for AD patients with MCI.

Our Genomic Relevance Parameterization (GReP) model aims to explore a possible relationship between gene expression values from breast cancer patients and mathematical tumor growth modeling parameters calculated using data from clinical and preclinical measurements. We introduce two methods to relate genomic information and the tumor growth measurements. One method explores the impact of exponentiation of gene expression values, whereas the other utilizes the correlation between co-regulated genes and the growth parameters. As inputs to our GReP model, we used patient tumor volume measurements and genomic information for 74 breast cancer related genes from the I-SPY 1 TRIAL. We performed a preliminary validation of GReP model using experimental data from literature including MDA-MB-231 cell line, MDA-MB-231 cell line with CXCL12 gene over-expressed, and the MDA MB-231 sub-cell lines 1834 and 4175. Tumor growth curves generated by GReP model, for the initial exponential phase of tumor growth, closely match the pre-clinical data reported in the literature. These promising results show that it may be possible to build tools combining clinical information and genomic data to model cancerous tumor growth.

We present a differential evolution based topology control mechanism, called TCM-DE, for the decision making process of evolutionary and autonomous systems that adaptively reconfigures spatial configuration in MANETs. We introduce quantitative metrics to evaluate performance of our TCM-DE with respect to uniform distribution, total terrain covered by communication areas of all nodes, and distance traveled by each node until a desired network topology is reached. Voronoi tessellation for configurations of mobile nodes is used to create two uniformity metrics. Physical relocation of mobile nodes is a power consuming task. Therefore, minimizing the average distance each node travels (ADT) until the network reaches a desired distribution is an important indicator for the performance of MANET nodes. Another important performance metric is the network area coverage (NAC) achieved by all nodes. NAC is used to measure the speed of network convergence and the efficiency of node deployment. Experimental results from our simulation software shows that TCM-DE performs well with respect to NAC, ADT, and Voronoi-based uniformity evaluation techniques.

We present a force-based genetic algorithm for self-spreading mobile nodes uniformly over a geographical area. Wireless mobile nodes adjust their speed and direction using a genetic algorithm, where each mobile node exchanges its genetic information of speed and direction encoded in its chromosomes with the neighboring nodes. Simulation experiments show encouraging results for the performance of our force-based genetic algorithm with respect to normalized area coverage..

This research aims for an establishment of a global center that will advance the knowledge in real-time human and goods transport. The focus of this paper is an approach for addressing the performance and feasibility issues with respect to a reliable and distributed traffic data communication networ

A set of graph augmentation algorithms is introduced to model a class of timing faults in timed-EFSM models. It is shown that the test sequences generated based on our models can detect 1 -clock andn-clock timing faults and incorrect timer setting faults in an implementation under test (IUT). It is proven that the size of the augmented graph resulting from our augmentation algorithms is on the same order of magnitude as that of the original specification.

The existing naming schemes for pooling resources are suitable only for static networks. We propose dynamic survivable resource pooling (DSRP) that provides a survivable naming scheme to the pool users in mobile ad-hoc networks. DSRP dynamically places the name servers (NSs) on a virtual backbone (VB): a highly distributed, scalable, and survivable mesh network formed and maintained through one-hop beacons. In this paper, DSRP focuses on pooling resources such as servers and services that are common in robotics and battlefield applications. It provides an abstraction of all the functionally equivalent servers, whereby the client can access these servers as a single entity, termed server pool. A distributed backbone mesh of NSs is used to propagate service registrations, requests, and replies.

The current SCTP specification is not aware of QoS provided by a network. As a result, it is unable to support preferential treatment of the individual streams. We introduce the concept of dividing an association into subflows (SFs) so that the modified SCTP can support different levels of QoS. We define the necessary modifications to the current SCTP for this capability: namely, new data and SACK chunk formats to implement congestion control for each SF. To avoid the problem of false sharing, we modify SCTP such that each SF has its own congestion control mechanism. Using analytic models, we show that the modified SCTP is expected to perform better than the original SCTP. We verify these results through simulation experiments, where we observed that modified SCTP is able to take advantage of the diff-serv network and provides a better throughput.

Reliable server pooling (RSP) allows a pool of redundant information sources to be viewed as a single transport endpoint and, therefore, it is able to provide persistent connections and balanced traffic for different applications. The Internet Engineering Task Force RSerPool Working Group has proposed an architecture to implement the RSP; it defines an overlay network providing an upper layer protocol or an application with a range of reliability services, from simple server selection to a fully automatic session-failover capability. The simulation experiments conducted in both wired and wireless environments show that the current version of the RSerPool works well in fixed and relatively reliable environments, but its performance worsens rapidly as the networks become more unreliable or mobile. The issues we have identified in wireless mobile ad hoc networks include network partition, high signaling overhead, difficulty in synchronization among name servers, and excessive aggressiveness in handling failures. Alternative design options for the RSP in wireless and mobile environments are introduced and evaluated.

A formal description of an implementation under test (IUT), such as its VHDL behavior description, is required to automatically generate feasible test sequences for the IUT. Although finite-state machines (FSMs) can be used to describe the control structures of communication protocols, the data portion can only be modeled by extended finite-state machines (EFSMs). However, infeasible paths due to the conflicts among the condition and action variables of EFSMs complicate the test generation process. We introduce a method enabling the automatic generation of realizable test sequences from a class of EFSMs. Algorithms to detect and eliminate conflicts caused by the interdependences among the variables of a class of EFSM models are presented. After all conflicts are eliminated from the EFSM graph, the existing FSM-based automated test generation methods can be used to generate feasible test sequences. Recently, these algorithms have been implemented as a software package called INDEEL. This methodology is applied to generate feasible tests for protocols such as ACA and MIL-STD 188-220. Current applications include IETF protocols and ASAP.

The reliable server pooling is a framework to handle session failures and increase the system's availability by providing several reliability services: from simple server selection to a full session-failover capability. In the IETF RSerPool, servers with equivalent functionality are pooled together; when a particular server becomes unavailable, a client application can transparently switched over to another server in the pool. Extensive simulation experiments identified two main shortcomings of the RSerPool in wireless mobile networks: the inaccuracy of the failure-detection mechanism for pooled servers, and high overhead of finding name servers. We introduce and evaluate alternative mechanisms that tackle these problems.

The reliable server pooling allows redundant information sources to be viewed as a single transport endpoint, and therefore is able to provide persistent connections and balanced traffic. The IETF RSerPool Working Group has proposed an architecture to implement the reliable server pooling. We conducted a number of simulation experiments with the current definitions of the RSerPool protocols to quantify their performance in both wired and wireless environments. The simulation results show that the RSerPool works well in fixed and relatively reliable environments, but its performance worsens rapidly as the networks become more unreliable or mobile. The issues we identified in wireless mobile ad-hoc networks include network partitioning, high signaling overhead, and excessive aggressiveness in handling failures. These problems are partly due to the heavy reliance of the RSerPool architecture on the reliability of the underlying network,, which is unlikely to be guaranteed in a wireless mobile ad-hoc environment.

We present a new model for testing real-time protocols with multiple timers, which captures complex timing dependencies by using simple linear expressions involving timer-related variables. This new modeling technique, combined with the algorithms to eliminate inconsistencies, allows generation of feasible test sequences without compromising their fault coverage. The model is specifically designed for testing to avoid performing full reachability analysis, and to control the growth of the number of test scenarios. Based on extended finite state machines, it is applicable to languages such as SDL, VHDL, and Estelle. The technique models a realistic testing framework in which each I/O exchange takes a certain time to realize and timers can be arbitrarily started or stopped. A software tool implementing this technique is used to generate test cases for the US Army wireless standard MIL-STD 188-220.

Dynamic fault reconfiguration in an MIMD environment with a multistage interconnection network is considered. The near neighbor class of problems, which involve fundamental parallel processing algorithms such as partial differential equations and low level image processing algorithms, are chosen as the target application in such an environment. It is shown that dynamic fault reconfiguration can be achieved efficiently without any additional or modified hardware in case of (permanently) faulty processors. Two types of multistage networks are considered: general multistage networks (such as Benes networks) and the Omega network. The communication time of the system with faulty processors is minimized by rearranging the order in which the fault-free processors communicate with each other. For any number of faults, a reconfigured system with a general multistage network is shown to require an increase from four to five data transfers for each iteration of the near neighbor problem. For the Omega network, many faults can be handled by six data transfers, but in some cases up to 10 data transfers are necessary. In order to minimize the computation time of the system with faults, the data points of faulty processors are distributed equally and in parallel among the remaining processors. The technique used for parallel data distribution is called Uniform Data Distribution.

An approach for conformance testing of protocols specified as a collection of communicating finite state machines (FSMs) with two parts, pruning and a guided random walk procedure, is presented. First the protocol is pruned to various sets of machines; each set provides only one service. This significantly reduces the test sequence length. Then a guided random walk procedure that attempts to cover all transitions in the component FSMs is used. The results of applying the procedure to the full-duplex alternating bit protocol and the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) adaptation layer convergence protocol are presented. For the ATM adaptation layer, 99% of component FSMs' edges can be covered in a test with 11692 input steps. Previous approaches cannot generate conformance tests for standard protocols (such as ATM adaptation layer) specified as a collection of communicating FSMs.>

A method for generating test sequences for checking the conformance of a protocol implementation to its specification is described. A rural Chinese postman tour problem algorithm is used to determine a minimum-cost tour of the transition graph of a finite-state machine. It is shown that, when the unique input/output sequence (UIO) is used in place of the more cumbersome distinguishing sequence, both the controllability and observability problems of the protocol testing problem are addressed, providing an efficient method for computing a test sequence for protocol conformance testing.>

The four major methods of conformance test generation reported in the literature are reviewed: transition tours; distinguishing sequences; characterizing sequences; and unique input/output sequences. These methods are used to test the control portion of a protocol specification. The conformance testing concepts developed in the standards world are summarized. Their relationship with the four formal methods is discussed.>

Dynamic reconfiguration techniques are presented for a two-dimensional systolic array for the singular value decomposition (SVD) of a matrix. Extra computation time is not required, since idle time inherent in the array is exploited. This scheme does not require additional spare processors and is easily implemented in VLSI. Only minor hardware and communication time increases within each processing element are required.>

A test sequence is given for the test access port (TAP) controller portion of the boundary-scan architecture proposed by the Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) and IEEE Working Group P1149.1 as an industry-standard design-for-testability technique. The resulting test sequence, generated by using a technique based on Rural Chinese Postman tours and unique input/output sequences, is of minimum cost (time) and rigorously tests the specified functional behavior of the controller. The test sequence can be used for detecting design faults for conformance testing or for detecting manufacture-time/run-time defects/faults.>

A procedure for checking safety properties of communication protocols is presented. A protocol is specified as a collection of communicating finite-state machines (FSMs). Two novel algorithms used in this procedure are described. The first algorithm does incremental composition and reduction of FSMs. It uses three heuristic rules which reduce the number of states in the global FSM by one to two orders of magnitude while maintaining its observational equivalence. The second algorithm checks whether the behavior of one FSM is a subset of another FSM's behavior. This procedure has been applied to the ISDN Q.931 and alternating bit protocols.>

The near-neighbor problem is characterized by many iterations of a parallel matrix operation in which each matrix element is recomputed as a function of itself and its immediately adjacent near neighbors. Several highly parallel computer systems have been designed with the near-neighbor class of problems as the target application. As the number of processors in evolving parallel computer systems increases, the capability of fault tolerance to processor failures becomes more important. The authors show how fault tolerance can be efficiently achieved on an MIMD (multiple-instruction, multiple-data-stream) computer system for the near-neighbor problem by task redistribution. The techniques discussed minimize the extra data transfers and/or the extra computation in the system with faulty processors and links.>