Publications

Reynolds, R & Stoianoff, NP 2003, Intellectual Property: Text and Essential Cases, 1, The Federation Press, Australia.
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This text written with Associate Professor Natalie Stoianoff of UOW, has been set at the prescribed text at the University of SYdney, Melbourne University, the Australian National University, Macquarie University, University of Adelaide, Newcastle University, University of New England, University of Tasmania, Charles Darwin University, University of Wollongong and UTS. In addition, it is a recommended text at most other Australian Law Schools and has been widely adopted and favourably reviewed by the profession. The text takes a istinctive approach to the teaching of the subject by focussing on the discursive practices of Australian intellectual property law. As European and US law turn more to their constitutional underpinnings to understand the understand the function of IP law, Australian courts continue ti patrol the proper boundaries of property rights. This has given Australian IP law a very particular character. The distinctiveness of this approach is recognised by His Honour Mr Justice Gummow of the High Court of Australia who wrote the foreword to the first edition of the text. Such acclaim is particularly appreciated as Justice Gummow is considered one of the leading intellectual forces on the High Court in the profession and in academia. As an academic at the university of Sydney, Justice Gummow was also one of the founding fathers of IP studies in Australia.

Chen, Q, Zhang, C, Zhang, S & Li, C 2003, 'Verifying the Purchase Request in SET Protocol' in Web Technologies and Applications, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 263-274.
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Ruta, D & Gabrys, B 2003, 'Set Analysis of Coincident Errors and Its Applications for Combining Classifiers' in Pattern Recognition and String Matching, Springer US, pp. 647-671.
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Stoianoff, NP & Kaidonis, MA 2003, 'Rehabilitation of Mining Sites: Tax, Accounting and Serving the Environment' in Milne, J, Deketelaere, K, Kreiser, L & Ashiabor, H (eds), Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation. International and Comparative Perspectives: Volume I, Richmond Law & Tax Ltd, Richmond, UK, pp. 241-253.
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Historically, taxation policy has been used by the Australian Federal Government 10 encourage environmental responsibility in the natural resources industry. These taxation policies are consistent with a recent DECO' report (the DECO 2001 Report] which urges the US!! of environmentally related taxes by member countries to 'provide an incentive to polluters to modify their production and consumption behaviour' Whilst the DECO recognizes a range of economic instruments, such as 'tradable emission permits ... performance bonds, non-compliance fees',3 in this paper, we consider taxation policies for companies specifically related to rehabilitation of mining sites. These policies have manifested into fiscal instruments in the nature of tax concessions but are often referred to as tax expenditures, The effectiveness of such fiscal instruments in complementing environmental policies can be measured according to the criteria provided by the DECOin an earlier report, Taxation and the Enviromnent Complementary Policies (the DECO 1993 Report).i In that report the OECD points out that tax policies and environmental policies ought to be 'mutually reinforcing'.

Zhang, C & Zhang, Z 2003, 'An Agent-based Soft Computing Society with Applications in Financial Investment Planning' in Yu, X & Kacprzyk, J (eds), Applied Decision Support with Soft Computing, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 99-126.
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Cao, L & Dai, R 2003, 'Agent-Oriented Approach for Dealing with Open Giant Intelligent Systems', Moshi Shibie yu Rengong Zhineng - Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 75-81.

Cao, L & Dai, R 2003, 'On Metasynthesis and Decision Making', Jisuanji Yanjiu yu Fazhan - Journal of Computer Research and Development, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 531-537.

CAO, LB & DAI, RW 2003, 'AGENT-ORIENTED METASYNTHETIC ENGINEERING FOR DECISION MAKING', International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making, vol. 02, no. 02, pp. 197-215.
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Decision making plays a more and more important role in present society, especially in dealing with open complex giant systems, such as macroeconomic decision making. A feasible and effective approach for dealing with the increasingly remarkable decision making problems, in particular open complex giant systems, is to construct a Hall for Workshop of Metasynthetic Engineering (HWME), which is essentially an open giant intelligent decision support system in itself. On the other hand, the emergent agent technology is proposed and popularized as a new computing paradigm for building complex software systems. In this paper, we first briefly introduce the principle of metasynthetic engineering and the HWME in terms of decision support, and propose the network-based hierarchical model of an HWME. Furthermore, we discusse the design idea of agent-oriented metasynthetic engineering for decision support systems. We discuss the design scheme, the framework and the working mechanism of an HWME based on intelligent agents in Java which took the macroeconomic decision making as an instance. In addition, we further examine the fundamental problem of designing agent-oriented open giant intelligent decision support systems. The suitability and challenges of the present agent-oriented abstractions for open giant intelligent systems are further analyzed. Then, we propose the concept of societal abstraction for agent-oriented open giant intelligent systems, which is based on the following hypothesis: a unified mechanism — societal interactions, organizational schemes and component patterns, and multi-agent society. Our preliminary study reveals that the agent-oriented metasynthetic engineering is valid and powerful for decision making of open complex giant systems.

Cao, LB & Dai, RW 2003, 'Human-computer-cooperated intelligent information system based on multi-agents', Zidonghua Xuebao/Acta Automatica Sinica, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 86-94.
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The Hall for Workshop of Metasynthctic Engineering C HWME) is an engineering technology proposed for coping with open complex giant systems. In this paper we describe the implementation of a human-computer-cooperated intelligent information system with HWME and multi-agents. We propose a layered model, a system structure over the network, and a distributed computing model-an n-tier client/agent/server-nested Requester-Mediator-Provider-for building the system. Furthermore, we discuss the framework and working mechanisms of an agent-based system of HWME, which is designed for macroeconomic decision-support based on intelligent information agents in Java. Our system implementation shows that an agent-oriented HWME system over the Internet may exhibit better performance in terms of handling open complex problems.

Celedon, JC, Wright, RJ, Litonjua, AA, Sredl, D, Ryan, L, Weiss, ST & Gold, DR 2003, 'Day care attendance in early life, maternal history of asthma, and asthma at the age of 6 years', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, vol. 167, no. 9, pp. 1239-1243.
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Among children not selected on the basis of a parental history of atopy, day care attendance in early life is inversely associated with asthma at school age. We examined the relation between day care in the first year of life and asthma, recurrent wheezing, and eczema at the age of 6 years and wheezing in the first 6 years of life among 453 children with parental history of atopy followed from birth. Among all study participants, day care in the first year of life was inversely associated with eczema (odds ratio [OR] = 0.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.1-0.8). Day care attendance in early life was associated with a decreased risk of asthma (OR = 0.3, 95% CI = 0.1-0.7) and recurrent wheezing (OR = 0.3, 95% CI = 0.1-0.9) at the age of 6 years and with a decreased risk of any wheezing after the age of 4 years only among children without maternal history of asthma. Among children with maternal history of asthma, day care in early life had no protective effect on asthma or recurrent wheezing at the age of 6 years but was instead associated with an increased risk of wheezing in the first 6 years of life. Our findings suggest that maternal history of asthma influences the relation between day care-related exposures and childhood asthma.

Chen, JC, Chang, WR, Shih, TS, Chen, CJ, Chang, WP, Dennerlein, JT, Ryan, LM & Christiani, DC 2003, 'Predictors of whole-body vibration levels among urban taxi drivers', ERGONOMICS, vol. 46, no. 11, pp. 1075-1090.
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To identify a set of important WBV predictors that could be used to develop a statistical instrument for exposure assessment in a large epidemiologic study, a total of 432 WBV measures were taken from a sample of 247 male drivers in Taipei City, Taiwan. In accordance with the ISO 2631-1 (1997) methods, we measured the frequency-weighted vertical acceleration (z-axis) over drivers' seat surface, under conditions representing different types of rides (vacant vs. short vs. long) assigned to random destinations. Mixed effect models were used to analyse the WBV data including repeated measures. For this group of urban taxi drivers regularly exposed to WBV of low intensity (mean = 0.31 ms-2, ranging from 0.17 to 0.55 ms -2 r.m.s.), our analyses indicated that average driving speed was the primary predictor (p < 0.0001). As average driving speed increased, measured vertical acceleration increased in a quadratic-linear manner (p < 0.0001). Other WBV predictors, after adjusting for the effects of other covariates, included automobile manufacturer (p = 0.02), engine size (p = 0.04), body weight (p = 0.002), age (p = 0.02), use of seat cushion (p = 0.03), and traffic period (p = 0.02). Our study suggests that a similar statistical approach could be employed in future studies to improve the quality and efficiency of WBV exposure assessment in professional drivers.

Chen, YC, Guo, YLL, Su, HJJ, Hsueh, YM, Smith, TJ, Lee, MS, Chao, SC, Lee, JYY & Christiani, DC 2003, 'Arsenic methylation and skin cancer risk in southwestern Taiwan', JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 241-248.
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Arsenic is a known carcinogen, but data are especially lacking on the health effects of low-level exposure, and on the health significance of methylation ability We conducted a case-control study (76 cases and 224 controls from 1996 to 1999) in southwestern Taiwan to explore the association among primary and secondary arsenic methylation index (PMI and SMI, respectively), cumulative arsenic exposure (CAE), and the risk of skin cancer. As compared with the controls, the skin cancer group reported more sun exposure (P = 0.02) and had a lower BMI (P = 0.03), as well as lower education level (P = 0.01). Skin cancer patients and controls were similar with regard to age, gender, smoking and alcohol consumption. Given a low SMI (≤5), CAE > 15 mg/L-year was associated with an increased risk of skin cancer (OR, 7.48; 95% CI, 1.65-33.99) compared to a CAE ≤ 2 mg/L-year. Given the same level of PMI, SMI, and CAE, men had a higher risk of skin cancer (OR, 4.04; 95% CI, 1.46-11.22) when compared to women. Subjects with low SMI and high CAE have a substantially increased risk of skin cancer. Males in all strata of arsenic exposure and methylation ability had a higher risk of skin cancer than women.

Chen, YC, Su, HJJ, Guo, YLL, Hsueh, YM, Smith, TJ, Ryan, LM, Lee, MS & Christiani, DC 2003, 'Arsenic methylation and bladder cancer risk in Taiwan', CANCER CAUSES & CONTROL, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 303-310.
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Objective: The mechanism of arsenic detoxification in humans remains unclear. Data are especially lacking for low-level arsenic exposure. We hypothesize that arsenic methylation ability, defined as the ratios of monomethylarsonic acid (MMA(V))/inorganic

Chen, YC, Xu, LL, Guo, YLL, Su, HJJ, Hsueh, YM, Smith, TJ, Ryan, LM, Lee, MS, Chaor, SC, Lee, JYY & Christiani, DC 2003, 'Genetic polymorphism in p53 codon 72 and skin cancer in southwestern Taiwan', JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND HEALTH PART A-TOXIC/HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 201-211.
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The Pro/Pro polymorphism of p53 codon 72 has been reported to be related to bladder and lung cancer, but its relationship with skin cancer is unclear. We assessed the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the p53 codon 72, Pro/Pro polymorphism, cumulative arsenic exposure, and the risk of skin cancer in a hospital-based case-control study in southwestern Taiwan. From 1996 to 1999, 93 newly-diagnosed skin cancer patients at the National Cheng-Kung University (NCKU) Hospital and 71 community controls matched on residence were recruited in southwestern Taiwan. The genotype of p53 codon 72 (Arg/Arg, Arg/Pro, or Pro/Pro) was determined for all subjects by polymerase chain reaction-restricted fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). A questionnaire was administered to each subject for collection of demographic information, personal habits, disease history, diet information, and other relevant questions. The Pro/Pro (homozygous) genotype was more frequent in skin cancer patients (cases, 20%; controls, 12%; P = 0.37). Subjects with the susceptible genotype Pro/Pro and heterozygous (intermediate) genotype Pro/Arg had 2.18 and 0.99 times risk of skin cancer than the wild type Arg/Arg (95% confidence interval, 0.74-4.38; 95% confidence interval, 0.44-2.21), respectively. Compared with subjects with 18.5 < BMI < 23, subjects with BMI > 18.5 had 5.78 times risk of skin cancer (95% confidence interval, 1.06 to 31.36) after adjusting for other risk factors. There was no interaction between BMI and genotype, but the sample size was small. The risk of skin cancer did not significantly vary by tumor cell-type. The risk of skin cancer is increased in individuals with the Pro/Pro genotype. Larger, confirmatory studies are needed to clarify the role of constitutional polymorphisms in p53 and skin cancer risk.

Cucchiara, R 2003, 'Improving data prefetching efficacy in multimedia applications', Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 159-178.
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Cucchiara, R, Grana, C, Piccardi, M & Prati, A 2003, 'Detecting moving objects, ghosts, and shadows in video streams', IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 25, no. 10, pp. 1337-1342.
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Dai, R & Cao, L 2003, 'Internet----An Open Complex Giant System', Science in China Series E: Technological Sciences, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 289-296.

Duty, S, Silva, M, Barr, D, Brock, J, Ryan, L, Chen, Z, Herrick, R, Christiani, D & Hauser, R 2003, '', Epidemiology, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 269-277.
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Duty, SM, Silva, MJ, Barr, DB, Brock, JW, Ryan, L, Chen, ZY, Herrick, RF, Christiani, DC & Hauser, R 2003, 'Phthalate exposure and human semen parameters', EPIDEMIOLOGY, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 269-277.
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Duty, SM, Singh, NP, Silva, MJ, Barr, DB, Brock, JW, Ryan, L, Herrick, RF, Christiani, DC & Hauser, R 2003, 'The relationship between environmental exposures to phthalates and DNA damage in human sperm using the neutral comet assay', ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES, vol. 111, no. 9, pp. 1164-1169.
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Phthalates are industrial chemicals widely used in many commercial applications. The general population is exposed to phthalates through consumer products as well as through diet and medical treatments. To determine whether environmental levels of phthalates are associated with altered DNA integrity in human sperm, we selected a population without identified sources of exposure to phthalates. One hundred sixty-eight subjects recruited from the Massachusetts General Hospital Andrology Laboratory provided a semen and a urine sample. Eight phthalate metabolites were measured in urine by'using high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry, data were corrected for urine dilution by adjusting for specific gravity. The neutral single-cell microgel electrophoresis assay (comet assay) was used to measure DNA integrity in sperm. VisComet image analysis software was used to measure comet extent, a measure of total comet length (micrometers); percent DNA in tail (tail%), a measure of the proportion of total DNA present in the comet tail; and tail distributed moment (TDM), an integrated measure of length and intensity (micrometers). For an interquartile range increase in specific gravity-adjusted monoethyl phthalate (MEP) level, the comet extent increased significantly by 3.6 μm [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.74-6.47]; the TDM also increased 1.2μm (95% CI, -0.05 to 2.38) but was of borderline significance. Monobutyl, monobenzyl, monomethyl, and mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalates were not significantly associated with comet assay parameters. In conclusion, this study represents the first human data to demonstrate that urinary MEP, at environmental levels,is associated with increased DNA damage in sperm.

Edmonson, JH, Ryan, LM, Falkson, CI, Hicks, DG & Blum, RH 2003, 'Phase II Study of Ifosfamide+Doxorubicin in Patients With Advanced Synovial Sarcomas (E1793): A Trial of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group', Sarcoma, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 9-11.
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Purpose Because we had observed in the synovial sarcoma subgroup of a broad phase III advanced soft tissue sarcoma study a significantly greater objective regression rate from ifosfamide+doxorubicin (88%) than from doxorubicin alone (20%) (P = 0.02), the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) decided to further assess this two drug combination in a subsequent Phase II study.Patients Between 1994 and 1999, twelve adult patients with advanced synovial sarcomas were enrolled to receive, as their initial chemotherapy, ifosfamide 7.5 gm/m2 plus doxorubicin 60 mg/m2, given intravenously over two consecutive days every 3 weeks.Methods Each day for 2 days doxorubicin 30 mg/m2 was infused over 5 min through a running i.v., followed by ifosfamide 3750 mg/m2 over 4 h. Continuous i.v. fluid was infused at 300 mL/h for 3 h on day 1, before chemotherapy was begun; then the infusion was continued at 100 mL/h for a total of 3 days. Mesna 750 mg/m2 was given 15 min before ifosfamide and at 4 and 8 h after ifosfamide on days 1 and 2 of each treatment cycle. Filgrastim (G-CSF) 5 μg/kg was given subcutaneously each day for 14 days beginning on day 3 of each tre...

Golden, CM, Ryan, LM & Holmes, LB 2003, 'Chorionic villus sampling: A distinctive teratogenic effect on fingers?', BIRTH DEFECTS RESEARCH PART A-CLINICAL AND MOLECULAR TERATOLOGY, vol. 67, no. 8, pp. 557-562.
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BACKGROUND: An increased frequency of major limb malformations, especially terminal transverse limb defects, have been described in several studies of birth defects in children who had been exposed to the prenatal diagnosis procedure known as chorionic villus sampling (CVS). Vascular disruption has been proposed as the mechanism behind the fetal effect. We postulate that this mechanism is more likely to affect one or two middle fingers, rather than all five fingers. A recent report of the frequency of defects in any or all fingers in an unexposed control population enabled us to assess whether CVS is associated with an increased frequency of defects involving one or two fingers, as well as terminal transverse limb defects. METHODS: The frequency of limb-reduction defects affecting one or more fingers or toes, including those with constriction rings and tissue loss, in published studies of 20,236 children who had been exposed to CVS was compared with the frequency in 161,252 newborn infants who had not been exposed to CVS. Children with recognized genetic disorders were excluded. RESULTS: Several aspects of the limb deficiencies were more common in the CVS-exposed infants than in unexposed controls. The former were more likely to have: 1) any type of limb deficiency involving one or more fingers (p < .001); 2) absence/ hypoplasia of two fingers (p < .001); and 3) absence/hypoplasia of all five fingers (p = .015). The absence of the distal portion of the third finger was a distinctive type of limb-reduction defect in CVS-exposed infants. CONCLUSIONS: The occurrence of deficiencies in one or two fingers, including those designated as 'amniotic band deformities,' are as common as terminal transverse limb defects in CVS-exposed infants, and both are much more common than in unexposed infants. The absence of the distal portion of the third finger, with tapering and stiff joints, appears to be a distinctive effect of exposure to CVS. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Hamlett, A, Ryan, L, Serrano-Trespalacios, P & Wolfinger, R 2003, 'Mixed models for assessing correlation in the presence of replication', JOURNAL OF THE AIR & WASTE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 442-450.
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The need to assess correlation in settings where multiple measurements are available on each of the variables of interest often arises in environmental science. However, this topic is not covered in introductory statistics texts. Although several ad hoc approaches can be used, they can easily lead to invalid conclusions and to a difficult choice of an appropriate measure of the correlation. Lam et al. approached this problem by using maximum likelihood estimation in cases where the replicate measurements are linked over time, but the method requires specialized software. We reanalyze the data of Lam et al. using PROC MIXED in SAS and show how to obtain the parameter estimates of interest with just a few lines of code. We then extend Lam et al.’s method to settings where the replicate measurements are not linked. Analysis of the unlinked case is illustrated with data from a study designed to assess correlations between indoor and outdoor measurements of benzene concentration in the air. © 2003 Air and Waste Management Association.

Hauser, R, Chen, ZY, Pothier, L, Ryan, L & Altshul, L 2003, 'The relationship between human semen parameters and environmental exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls and p,p '-DDE', ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES, vol. 111, no. 12, pp. 1505-1511.
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LI, H, LI, J, TAN, SH & NG, S-K 2003, 'DISCOVERY OF BINDING MOTIF PAIRS FROM PROTEIN COMPLEX STRUCTURAL DATA AND PROTEIN INTERACTION SEQUENCE DATA', Biocomputing 2004, pp. 312-323.
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Unravelling the underlying mechanisms of protein interactions requires knowledge about the interactions' binding sites. In this paper, we use a novel concept, binding motif pairs, to describe binding sites. A binding motif pair consists of two motifs each derived from one side of the binding protein sequences. The discovery is a directed approach that uses a combination of two data sources: 3-D structures of protein complexes and sequences of interacting proteins. We first extract maximal contact segment pairs from the protein complexes' structural data. We then use these segment pairs as templates to sub-group the interacting protein sequence dataset, and conduct an iterative refinement to derive significant binding motif pairs. This combination approach is efficient in handling large datasets of protein interactions. From a dataset of 78,390 protein interactions, we have discovered 896 significant binding motif pairs. The discovered motif pairs include many novel motif pairs as well as motifs that agree well with experimentally validated patterns in the literature.

Li, J, Liu, H, Downing, JR, Yeoh, AE-J & Wong, L 2003, 'Simple rules underlying gene expression profilesof more than six subtypes of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)patients', Bioinformatics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 71-78.
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Abstract Motivations and Results: For classifying gene expression profiles or other types of medical data, simple rules are preferable to non-linear distance or kernel functions. This is because rules may help us understand more about the application in addition to performing an accurate classification. In this paper, we discover novel rules that describe the gene expression profiles of more than six subtypes of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. We also introduce a new classifier, named PCL, to make effective use of the rules. PCL is accurate and can handle multiple parallel classifications. We evaluate this method by classifying 327 heterogeneous ALL samples. Our test error rate is competitive to that of support vector machines, and it is 71% better than C4.5, 50% better than Naive Bayes, and 43% better than k-nearest neighbour. Experimental results on another independent data sets are also presented to show the strength of our method. Availability: Under http://sdmc.lit.org.sg/GEDatasets/, click on Supplementary Information. Contact: jinyan@lit.a-star.edu.sg * To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Li, J, Liu, H, Ng, S & Wong, L 2003, 'Discovery Of Significant Rules For Classifying Cancer Diagnosis Data', Bioinformatics, vol. 19, no. NA, pp. 0-0.
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Methods and Results: We introduce a new method to discover many diversified and significant rules from high dimensional profiling data. We also propose to aggregate the discriminating power of these rules for reliable predictions. The discovered rules ar

Li, Y, Ryan, L, Bellamy, S & Satten, GA 2003, 'Inference on clustered survival data using imputed frailties', JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 640-662.
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Li, Y, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 2003, 'Cooperative strategy for web data mining and cleaning', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 443-460.
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While the Internet and World Wide Web have put a huge volume of low-quality information at the easy access of an information gathering system, filtering out irrelevant information has become a big challenge. In this paper, a Web data mining and cleaning strategy for information gathering is proposed. A data-mining model is presented for the data that come from multiple agents. Using the model, a data-cleaning algorithm is then presented to eliminate irrelevant data. To evaluate the data-cleaning strategy, an interpretation is given for the mining model according to evidence theory. An experiment is also conducted to evaluate the strategy using Web data. The experimental results have shown that the proposed strategy is efficient and promising. © 2003 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Li, YF, Zhang, CQ & Zhang, SC 2003, 'Cooperative strategy for Web data mining and cleaning', APPLIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 443-460.
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LIPMAN, J, BOUSTEAD, P & JUDGE, J 2003, 'NEIGHBOR AWARE ADAPTIVE POWER FLOODING (NAAP) IN MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKS', International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, vol. 14, no. 02, pp. 237-252.
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This paper introduces Neighbor Aware Adaptive Power flooding, an optimized flooding mechanism used in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETS) that employs several mechanisms (neighbor coverage, power control, neighbor awareness and local optimization) to limit the broadcast storm problem, reduce duplicate packet reception and lower power consumption in both transmission and reception. Upon receiving an optimized broadcast, a relay determines a new set of possible relays (to continue the flood) based upon local neighbor information and the previous optimized broadcast. Additionally, neighboring relays only consider the shared neighbors they are closest to. A relay may perform local optimization (to reduce power consumption and isolate broadcasts) by substituting one high power broadcast with two or more low power broadcasts, thereby introducing additional hops, We show that compared to blind flooding and multipoint relaying, NAAP in a static environment greatly reduces the problems associated with the broadcast storm problem, duplicate packet reception and power consumption.

Lohstroh, PN, Chen, JG, Ba, JM, Ryan, LM, Xu, XP, Overstreet, JW & Lasley, BL 2003, 'Bone resorption is affected by follicular phase length in female rotating shift workers', ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES, vol. 111, no. 4, pp. 618-622.
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Stressors as subtle as night work or shift work can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, and changes in reproductive hormone profiles can adversely affect bone health. This study was conducted to determine if stresses associated with the disruption of regular work schedule can induce alterations in ovarian function which, in turn, are associated with transient bone resorption. Urine samples from 12 rotating shift workers from a textile mill in Anqing, China, were collected in 1996-1998 during pairs of sequential menstrual cycles, of which one was longer than the other (28.4 vs. 37.4 days). Longer cycles were characterized by a prolonged follicular phase. Work schedules during the luteal-follicular phase transition (LFPT) preceding each of the two cycles were evaluated. All but one of the shorter cycles were associated with regular, forward phase work shift progression during the preceding LFPT. In contrast, five longer cycles were preceded by a work shift interrupted either by an irregular shift or a number of 'off days.' Urinary follicle-stimulating hormone levels were reduced in the LFPT preceding longer cycles compared with those in the LFPT preceding shorter cycles. There was greater bone resorption in the follicular phase of longer cycles than in that of shorter cycles, as measured by urinary deoxypyridinoline. These data confirm reports that changes in work shift can lead to irregularity in menstrual cycle length. In addition, these data indicate that there may be an association between accelerated bone resorption in menstrual cycles and changes of regularity in work schedule during the preceding LFPT.

Mezzetti, M, Ibrahim, JG, Bois, FY, Ryan, LM, Ngo, L & Smith, TJ 2003, 'A Bayesian compartmental model for the evaluation of 1,3-butadiene metabolism', JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY SERIES C-APPLIED STATISTICS, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 291-305.
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We propose a Bayesian model for physiologically based pharmacokinetics of 1,3-but-adiene (BD). BD is classified as a suspected human carcinogen and exposure to it is common, especially through cigarette smoke as well as in urban settings. The main aim of the methodology and analysis that are presented here is to quantify variability in the rates of BD metabolism by human subjects. A three-compartmental model is described, together with informative prior distributions for the population parameters, all of which represent real physiological variables. The model is described in detail along with the meanings and interpretations of the associated parameters. A four-compartment model is also given for comparison. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are described for fitting the model proposed. The model is fitted to toxicokinetic data obtained from 133 healthy subjects (males and females) from the four major racial groups in the USA, with ages ranging from 19 to 62 years. Subjects were exposed to 2 parts per million of BD for 20 min through a face mask by using a computer-controlled exposure and respiratory monitoring system. Stratification by ethnic group results in major changes in the physiological parameters. Sex and age were also tested but not found to have a significant effect.

Okuno, S, Ryan, LM, Edmonson, JH, Priebat, DA & Blum, RH 2003, 'Phase II trial of gemcitabine in patients with advanced sarcomas (E1797)', Cancer, vol. 97, no. 8, pp. 1969-1973.
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AbstractBACKGROUNDThe current study was conducted to evaluate the antitumor activity and toxicity of gemcitabine in patients with advanced sarcoma.METHODSTwenty‐five patients with advanced sarcomas, who previously were untreated for metastatic disease, were treated on an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Phase II study. Patients ranged in age from 27 to 79 years, with a median age of 59 years. The most common histology was leiomyosarcoma (54%). The grades of the tumors were high in 40%, moderate in 24% and low in 12%. Gemcitabine was given at a dose of 1250 mg/m2 as a 30‐minute infusion weekly for 3 weeks followed by 1 week of rest.RESULTSOne of the 25 patients (4%) (90% confidence interval [90% CI], 0–18%) achieved a partial response lasting 8 months. The estimated overall median survival was 15 months. The 1‐year estimated survival rate was 63% (90% CI, 47–84%). The estimated median progression‐free survival (PFS) was 13 months with a 1‐year PFS rate of 56% (90% CI, 41–76%). Grade 3–4 toxicities (by CTC criteria) were observed in all 25 patients. No lethal toxicity (Grade 5) related to treatment was found.CONCLUSIONSThe results of the current study demonstrated that gemcitabine given at this schedule and dose in this population of patients with advanced sarcoma had limited activity. Cancer 2003;97:1969–73. © 2003 American Cancer Society.DOI 10.1002/cncr.11290

Piccardi, M & Jan, T 2003, 'Recent advances in computer vision', Industrial Physicist, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 18-21.
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The advances in computer vision, which is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on providing computers with the functions typical of human vision is discussed. Computer vision has produced important application in fields such as robotics, biomedicine, industrial automation and satellite observation of Earth. The basic idea behind the use of computer vision in HCIs is that it can be instructed more naturally by human gestures than by using keyboard or mouse. The potentiality of computer vision in improving plant and public safety is attracting increasing attention in security concious community.

Ronnenberg, AG, Wang, XB, Xing, HX, Chen, CZ, Chen, DF, Guang, WW, Guang, AQ, Wang, LH, Ryan, L & Xu, XP 2003, 'Low preconception body mass index is associated with birth outcome in a prospective cohort of Chinese women', JOURNAL OF NUTRITION, vol. 133, no. 11, pp. 3449-3455.
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Low maternal prepregnancy BMI is associated with adverse birth outcomes, but the BMI at which risk increases is not well defined. We assessed whether the relationship between prepregnancy BMI and birth outcomes is influenced by the extent to which mothers were underweight in a prospective study in Anhui, China. The women (n = 575) were 20-34 y old, married, nulliparous and nonsmokers. All measures of infant growth increased with increasing maternal BMI until a plateau was reached at a BMI of 22-23 kg/m2. Infants born to the 27% of women who were severely underweight before pregnancy (BMI ≤ 5 18.5 kg/m2) were at increased risk for fetal growth deficits associated with infant morbidity. Compared with a normal BMI, being severely underweight was associated with mean (± SEM) reductions of 219 ± 40 g in infant birthweight and 6.7 ± 1.3% in the birthweight ratio and an 80% increase in risk of intrauterine growth restriction [odds ratio (OR) 1. 8; 95% CI: 1.0, 3.3; P = 0.05]. Being severely underweight was also associated with smaller infant head circumference and lower ponderal index. Being moderately underweight (18.5 < BMI < 19.8 kg/m2) was not significantly associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Gestational age and risk of preterm birth were not associated with maternal BMI. More than half of the women in this study were underweight before pregnancy. Although being moderately underweight was not associated with increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, being severely underweight was an important risk factor for reduced fetal growth.

Roy, J, Lin, XH & Ryan, LM 2003, 'Scaled marginal models for multiple continuous outcomes', BIOSTATISTICS, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 371-383.
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In studies that involve multivariate outcomes it is often of interest to test for a common exposure effect. For example, our research is motivated by a study of neurocognitive performance in a cohort of HIV-infected women. The goal is to determine whether highly active antiretroviral therapy affects different aspects of neurocognitive functioning to the same degree and if so, to test for the treatment effect using a more powerful one-degree-of-freedom global test. Since multivariate continuous outcomes are likely to be measured on different scales, such a common exposure effect has not been well defined. We propose the use of a scaled marginal model for testing and estimating this global effect when the outcomes are all continuous. A key feature of the model is that the effect of exposure is represented by a common effect size and hence has a well-understood, practical interpretation. Estimating equations are proposed to estimate the regression coefficients and the outcome-specific scale parameters, where the correct specification of the within-subject correlation is not required. These estimating equations can be solved by repeatedly calling standard generalized estimating equations software such as SAS PROC GENMOD. To test whether the assumption of a common exposure effect is reasonable, we propose the use of an estimating-equation-based score-type test. We study the asymptotic efficiency loss of the proposed estimators, and show that they generally have high efficiency compared to the maximum likelihood estimators. The proposed method is applied to the HIV data.

Ryan, L 2003, 'Epidemiologically based environmental risk assessment', STATISTICAL SCIENCE, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 466-480.
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Environmental health research aims to discover and understand the links between environmental exposure and disease and to inform the regulatory community so that society can be protected against cancer, birth defects and other adverse health effects associated with chemical, industrial and other exposures. Statistical science has a critical role to play in terms of providing the appropriate tools to design and analyze the studies needed to address the questions of interest, as well as quantifying risks and characterizing uncertainty. Recent years have seen some dramatic changes in the way that environmental risk assessment is accomplished. One such change is a move away from a traditional reliance on toxicological studies in animals to incorporate more epidemiological data. This shift has been facilitated by scientific advances that now allow researchers to accurately characterize human exposures in a variety of settings, as well as to measure genetic and other biomarkers that reflect subtle health effects and variations in susceptibility. This article will use a high profile case study to highlight some of the challenging statistical issues arising from this shifting emphasis from animal based toxicology to environmental epidemiology in the risk assessment world. Among the topics to be discussed are the uses of biologically based models and biomarkers, as well as the role of Bayesian methods to characterize uncertainty due to population heterogeneity, unmeasured confounders, exposure measurement error and model uncertainty.

Stark, PC, Burge, HA, Ryan, LM, Milton, DK & Gold, DR 2003, 'Fungal levels in the home and lower respiratory tract illnesses in the first year of life', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, vol. 168, no. 2, pp. 232-237.
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The association between home dampness and lower respiratory symptoms in children has been well documented. Whether fungal exposures contribute to this association is uncertain. In a prospective birth cohort of 499 children of parents with asthma/allergies, we examined in-home fungal concentrations as predictors of lower respiratory illnesses (LRI) (croup, pneumonia, bronchitis, and bronchiolitis) in the first year. In multivariate analyses, we found a significant increased relative risk (RR) between LRI and high levels (more than the 90th percentile) of airborne Penicillium (RR = 1.73, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23, 2.43), dust-borne Cladosporium (RR = 1.52; CI, 1.02, 2.25), Zygomycetes (RR = 1.96; CI, 1.35, 2.83), and Alternaria (RR = 1.51; CI, 1.00, 2.28), after controlling for sex, presence of water damage or visible mold/mildew, born in winter, breastfeeding, and being exposed to other children through siblings. In a multivariate analysis, the RR of LRI was elevated in households with any fungal level at more than the 90th percentile (RR = 1.86; CI, 1.21, 2.88). Exposure to high fungal levels increased the risk of LRI in infancy, even for infants with nonwheezing LRI. Actual mechanisms remain unknown, but fungi and their components (glucans, mycotoxins, and proteins) may increase the risk of LRI by acting as irritants or through increasing susceptibility to infection.

Yan, X, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 2003, 'Toward databases mining: Pre-processing collected data', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 545-561.
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This paper presents a new means of selecting quality data for mining multiple data sources. Traditional data-mining strategies obtain necessary data from internal and external data sources and pool all the data into a huge homogeneous dataset for discovery. In contrast, our data-mining strategy identifies quality data from (internal and external) data sources for a mining task. A framework is advocated for generating quality data. Experimental results demonstrate that application of this new data collecting technique can not only identify quality data, but can also efficiently reduce the amount of data that must be considered during mining. © 2003 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Yan, XW, Zhang, CQ & Zhang, SC 2003, 'Toward databases mining: Pre-processing collected data', APPLIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 545-561.
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Yeap, BY, Catalano, PJ, Ryan, LM & Davidian, M 2003, 'Robust two-stage approach to repeated measurements analysis of chronic ozone exposure in rats', JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 438-454.
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A robust two-stage approach is used to reanalyze the repeated measurements from an experiment of airway responsiveness in rats randomized to long-term exposure at four ozone doses. The concentration-response data generated for each rat may be represented as a hierarchical nonlinear model encompasing the sources of variation within and between individual profile for each rat, the conditional modeling approach can assess the adequacy of an assumed mean model, a fundamental advantage not intrinsic to marginal techniques. The two-stage population inference is based on the estimated individual parameters, thus maintaining an intuitive appeal to the toxicologists who traditionally have fitted a separate curve for each animal and then applied ANOVA to the summary statistics. However, we formally adjust the standard errors for the extra variability due to the initial estimation of the individual parameters and also allow for their within-rat correlation. The robust two-stage method appropriately down weights the a berrant responses arising sporadically within individualsand, more importantly, the rats which may be outlying relative to the usual population variation. The true effect of chronic ozone exposure, including a significant gender interaction, may be masked by a few rats which exert undue influence on the population estimates in a nonrobust analysis.

Zhang, C, Zhang, S & Webb, GI 2003, 'Identifying approximate itemsets of interest in large databases', Applied Intelligence, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 91-104.
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This paper presents a method for discovering approximate frequent itemsets of interest in large scale databases. This method uses the central limit theorem to increase efficiency, enabling us to reduce the sample size by about half compared to previous approximations. Further efficiency is gained by pruning from the search space uninteresting frequent itemsets. In addition to improving efficiency, this measure also reduces the number of itemsets that the user need consider. The model and algorithm have been implemented and evaluated using both synthetic and real-world databases. Our experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the approach.

Zhang, C, Zhang, S & Zhang, Z 2003, 'Temporal constraint satisfaction in matrix method', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 135-154.
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Constraint satisfaction is a challenging problem in Interval Algebra (IA). So there are many efforts to attack this problem. After building a matrix method to deal with temporal reasoning problems, we develop basic techniques for applying the matrix method to constraint satisfaction in this paper. Thus, the propagating rules and the algorithms of 3- and path-consistency are studied. If our matrix method is used, then the temporal constraint satisfaction problem can be transformed into a problem that can be effectively solved. © 2003 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Zhang, S & Zhang, C 2003, 'A Probabilistic Data Model and Its Semantics', Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 237-256.
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As database systems are increasingly being used in advanced applications, it is becoming common that data in these applications contain some elements of uncertainty. These arise from many factors, such as measurement errors and cognitive errors. As such, many researchers have focused on defining comprehensive uncertainty data models of uncertainty database systems. However, existing uncertainty data models do not adequately support some applications. Moreover, very few works address uncertainty tuple calculus. In this paper we advocate a probabilistic data model for representing uncertain information. In particular, we establish a probabilistic tuple calculus language and its semantics to meet the corresponding probabilistic relational algebra.

Zhang, S & Zhang, C 2003, 'Discovering associations in very large databases by approximating', Acta Cybernetica, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 155-177.
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Mining association rules has posed great challenge to the research community. Despite efforts in designing fast and efficient mining algorithms, it remains a time consuming process for very large databases. In this paper, we adopt a slightly different approach to this problem, which can mine approximate association rules quickly. By considering the database as a set of records that are randomly appended, we can apply the central limit theorem to estimate the size of a random subset of the database, and discover both positive and negative association rules by generating all possible useful itemsets from the random subset. However, because of approximation errors, it is possible for some valid rules to be missed, while other invalid rules may be generated. To deal with this problem, we adopt a two phase approach. First, we discover all promising approximate rules from a random sample of the database. Second, these approximate results are used as heuristic information in an efficient algorithm that requires only one-pass of the database to validate rules that have support and confidence close to the desired support and confidence values. We evaluated the proposed technique, and our experimental results demonstrate that the approach is efficient and promising.

Zhang, S, Wu, X & Zhang, C 2003, 'Multi-database Mining', IEEE Computational Intelligence Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5-13.

Zhang, S, Zhang, C & Qin, Z 2003, 'Modeling Temporal Semantics of Data', Asian Journal of Information Technology, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 25-36.
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Recently, many temporal query languages, such as TCAL and TQuel have been proposed for temporal databases. However, there are still some limitations such as the inadequacy on operating data with temporal elements and handling the semantics of time `NOW in these temporal query languages. After defining a new temporal relational algebra, in this paper we build a tuple calculus language based on gap-interval for temporal databases. This tuple calculus is designed to support time query, non-time query, and general temporal query. In particular, the semantics of time `NOW is well implemented in this language; and the first temporal-normalform of relations under the extended operators is closure in our temporal query language.

Zhang, S, Zhang, C & Yan, X 2003, 'Post-mining: maintenance of association rules by weighting', Information Systems, vol. 28, no. 7, pp. 691-707.
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This paper proposes a new strategy for maintaining association rules in dynamic databases. This method uses weighting technique to highlight new data. Our approach is novel in that recently added transactions are given higher weights. In particular, we look at how frequent itemsets can be maintained incrementally. We propose a competitive model to 'promote' infrequent itemsets to frequent itemsets, and to 'degrade' frequent itemsets to infrequent itemsets incrementally. This competitive strategy can avoid retracing the whole data set. We have evaluated the proposed method. The experiments have shown that our approach is efficient and promising. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Zhang, S, Zhang, C & Yang, Q 2003, 'Data preparation for data mining', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 375-381.
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Data preparation is a fundamental stage of data analysis. While a lot of low-quality information is available in various data sources and on the Web, many organizations or companies are interested in how to transform the data into cleaned forms which can be used for high-profit purposes. This goal generates an urgent need for data analysis aimed at cleaning the raw data. In this paper, we first show the importance of data preparation in data analysis, then introduce some research achievements in the area of data preparation. Finally, we suggest some future directions of research and development

Zhang, S, Zhang, C & Yang, Q 2003, 'Data preparation for data mining', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 375-381.
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Data preparation is a fundamental stage of data analysis. While a lot of low-quality information is available in various data sources and on the Web, many organizations or companies are interested in how to transform the data into cleaned forms which can be used for high-profit purposes. This goal generates an urgent need for data analysis aimed at cleaning the raw data. In this paper, we first show the importance of data preparation in data analysis, then introduce some research achievements in the area of data preparation. Finally, we suggest some future directions of research and development. © 2003 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Zhang, Z, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 2003, 'An agent-based hybrid framework for database mining', Applied Artificial Intelligence, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 383-398.
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While knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) is defined as an iterative sequence of the following steps: data pre-processing, data mining, and post data mining, a significant amount of research in data mining has been done, resulting in a variety of algorithms and techniques for each step. However, a single data-mining technique has not been proven appropriate for every domain and data set. Instead, several techniques may need to be integrated into hybrid systems and used cooperatively during a particular data-mining operation. That is, hybrid solutions are crucial for the success of data mining. This paper presents a hybrid framework for identifying patterns from databases or multi-databases. The framework integrates these techniques for mining tasks from an agent point of view. Based on the experiments conducted, putting different KDD techniques together into the agent-based architecture enables them to be used cooperatively when needed. The proposed framework provides a highly flexible and robust data-mining platform and the resulting systems demonstrate emergent behaviors although it does not improve the performance of individual KDD techniques. © 2003 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Zhang, ZL, Zhang, CQ & Zhang, SC 2003, 'An agent-based hybrid framework for database mining', APPLIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, vol. 17, no. 5-6, pp. 383-398.
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Cao, L, Li, C, Zhang, C & Dai, R 1970, 'Open Giant Intelligent Information Systems and Its Multiagent-Oriented System Design', Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practise, International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, CSREA Press, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 816-822.
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Open giant intelligent information system has been studied as a new field of complex intelligent information systems. In this paper, we mainly discuss about system design of this type of complex software systems. We first introduce system complexities, and then we discusse the applicability of multiagent-based approach for building open giant intelligent information system. A multiagent system computing model based on multiagent society frameworks and agent component patterns is proposed for constructing multiagent-oriented open giant intelligent systems. Then, we present a case study taking macroeconomic decision making as an instance of open giant intelligent information system. We discuss its system structure, decision-making mechanism, and system experiments. Our work shows multiagent-oriented open giant intelligent system on the basis of methodology of metasynthesis works well and effectively.

Cao, L, Luo, C, Li, C, Zhang, C & Dai, RW 1970, 'Open Giant Intelligent Information Systems and Its Agent-Oriented Abstraction Mechanism', Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Knowledge Systems Institute, San Francisco, California, USA, pp. 85-89.

Cao, LB, Luo, D, Luo, C & Zhang, CQ 1970, 'Systematic engineering in designing architecture of telecommunications business intelligence system', DESIGN AND APPLICATION OF HYBRID INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, 3rd International Conference on Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS 03), I O S PRESS, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, pp. 1084-1093.

Chen, Q, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 1970, 'Verifying the Payment Authorization in SET Protocol', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Hong Kong, pp. 914-918.
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The Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol is a protocol designed to conduct safe business over Internet. We present formal verification of the Payment Authorization in SET by using ENDL (extension of non-monotonic logic) [1]. The analysis uncovers some subtle defects that may incur malicious attacks. To overcome these vulnerabilities, some feasible countermeasures are proposed accordingly. © Springer-Verlag 2003.

Chen, Q, Zhang, C, Zhang, S & Li, C 1970, 'Web Technologies and Applications', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), Asia Pacific Web Conference, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Xi'an, China, pp. 263-274.
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The Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol has been jointly developed by Visa and MasterCard toward achieving secure online-transactions. This paper presents formal verification of the Purchase Request phase of SET, by using ENDL (extension of nonmonotonic logic). The analysis unveils some potential flaws. To overcome these vulnerabilities, some feasible countermeasures are proposed accordingly during the validation. Also, the modelling of Purchase Request is described to implement the mechanically model checking instead of manual verification. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.

Cheng, X, Dantong Ouyang & Zhang, C 1970, 'A general model-based diagnosis', IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, ITI 2003. 25th International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces, Univ. Zagreb, Cavtat, Croatia, pp. 627-632.
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A general method for model-based diagnosis is developed, which can handle multiple faulty modes, and will enable users to analyze the completeness of the system model, and to choose the observation subset appropriately, in order to have small diagnostic space with the right solutions in. The existent consistency-based diagnosis and abductive diagnosis are special cases of this method. The relationship between the diagnostic procedure and corresponding prime implication is analyzed for implementation. © 2003 SRCE University Computing Centre.

Cheng, X, Dantong Ouyang & Zhang, C 1970, 'A logic framework with algebraic extension', IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, ITI 2003. 25th International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces, Univ. Zagreb, Cavtat, Croatia, pp. 633-638.
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We propose a many-sorted general framework to incorporate algebraic computation with logical reasoning, which equally encompasses following systems as special cases: lattice-valued fuzzy logic, operator fuzzy logic, operator fuzzy logic for belief, operator fuzzy logic for argumentation, fuzzy logic, probabilistic logic, annotated logic, language of signed formulas, autoepistemic logic. © 2003 SRCE University Computing Centre.

Chunsheng Li, Chengqi Zhang & Mei Wang 1970, 'An agent-based curve-digitizing system for well-logging data management', Proceedings ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, IEEE Comput. Soc, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 656-660.
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Chunsheng Li, Chengqi Zhang, Mei Wang & Qingfeng Song 1970, 'An approach to digitizing and managing well-logging parameter graphs with agent-based perspective', IEEE/WIC International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology, 2003. IAT 2003., 2003 IEEE/WIC International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology, IEEE Comput. Soc, Halifax, Canada, pp. 11-17.
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The curves on well-logging parameter graph are very important to reservoir description. But how to keep the parameter graphs permanently and use the data implied in those curves efficiently are still open problems in petroleum industry. In this paper, we contribute an approach to digitizing well log curves and storing the digitized information into Oracle database or data file server with multi-agent perspective. We employed Gaia methodology and open agent architecture to analyze and design the system. According to the characteristics of the well-logging parameter graphs, we implement the SCTR (Scanning, Compressing, Tracing, and Rectifying) algorithms with four agents to digitize well log curves. Two data management agents are developed for operating database and data files in uniform agent communication language. The experimental results show that this approach is effective. © 2003 IEEE.

Gunes, H, Piccardi, M & Jan, T 1970, 'Performance evaluation of an automated classifier of female facial beauty', CISST'03: PROCEEDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON IMAGING SCIENCE, SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY, VOLS 1 AND 2, International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems and Technology (CISST 03), C S R E A PRESS, LAS VEGAS, NV, pp. 652-656.

He, S, Wu, Q, Liu, D & Zheng, L 1970, 'A Distributed and Parallel Edge Detection Scheme within Spiral Architecture', Proceedings of the Third IASTED International Conference on Visualisation, Imaging and Image Processing, IASTED International Conference on Visualisation, Imaging and Image Processing, ACTA Press, Benalmadena, Spain, pp. 371-375.

He, X, Wu, Q, Hintz, T & Wang, H 1970, 'Faster and more accurate edge detection on Spiral Architecture', Proceedings of the International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CISST, International Conference Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CSREA Press, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 186-191.
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In this paper, a parallel and distributed algorithm on Spiral Architecture for edge- detection is proposed. The proposed algorithm is based on Master-Slave model. The master node uniformly separates an image using a Spiral Multiplication and sends each slave node a sub-image. Each slave node performs edge detection on the sub-image based on the gradient of image brightness function. Image noise is suppressed by a convolution with Gaussian kerne! before edge points are detected. The gradient consists of three components in three diagonal directions. This detection scheme guarantees a well-balancing load among the slave nodes. Its processing speed is greatly reduced through simultaneous and parallel processes on sub-images. Its accuracy is enhanced by a better approximation of the gradient component.

Hintz, T & Wu, Q 1970, 'Image compression on Spiral Architecture', Proceedings of the International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CISST, International Conference Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CSREA Press, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 201-204.
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Spiral Architecture is a new and powerful approach to a general-purpose machine vision system. Earlier research on the Spiral Architecture focused on the properties of undistorted translation, rotation and scaling. The research reported here uses the properties of the pixel address labelling scheme. The property of interest is the physical proximity of the hexagonal pixels with neighbouring addresses. Rectangular systems may, for instance, have vertical physically adjacent pixels but the address distance is the length of a scan line. It is demonstrated that in the Spiral Architecture, unlike the rectangular system, many images have the property that neighbouring pixels have similar intensities thus giving opportunities for better compression.

Jan, T, Piccardi, M & Gunes, H 1970, 'Suspicious behavior assessment for visual surveillance using neural network classifiers', CISST'03: PROCEEDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON IMAGING SCIENCE, SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY, VOLS 1 AND 2, International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems and Technology (CISST 03), C S R E A PRESS, LAS VEGAS, NV, pp. 657-661.

Jan, T, Piccardi, M & Hintz, T 1970, 'Neural network classifiers for automated video surveillance', 2003 IEEE XIII Workshop on Neural Networks for Signal Processing (IEEE Cat. No.03TH8718), 2003 IEEE XIII Workshop on Neural Networks for Signal Processing (IEEE Cat. No.03TH8718), IEEE, Toulouse, France, pp. 729-739.
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n automated visual surveillance applications, detection of suspicious human behaviors is of great practical importance. However due to random nature of human movements, reliable classification of suspicious human movements can be very difficult. Artificial neural network (ANN) classifiers can perform well however their computational requirements can be very large for real time implementation. In this paper, a data-based modeling neural network such as modified probabilistic neural network (MPNN) is introduced which partitions the decision space nonlinearly in order to achieve reliable classification, however still with acceptable computations. The experiment shows that the compact MPNN attains good classification performance compared to that of other larger conventional neural network based classifiers such as multilayer perceptron (MLP) and self organising map (SOM).

Kaidonis, MA & Stoianoff, NP 1970, 'The Polluter Pays Principle and Rehabilitation of Mining Sites: Facing Responsibilities or Transferring the Cost', Fourth Annual Global Conference on Environmental Taxation Issues, Experience and Potential, Sydney, New South Wales.

Li, C, Song, Q, Wang, M & Zhang, C 1970, 'Sctr: An approach to digitizing well-logging graph', IASTED International Conference on Computer Graphics and Imaging, Sixth IASTED International Conference on Computer Graphics and Imaging, ACTA Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, pp. 285-288.
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The curves on well-logging parameter graph are very important because they imply very useful information of crude oil and natural gas reservoirs. But most of well-logging parameter graphs were drawn on the paper before computers were widely used in oilfield. For permanently keeping and efficiently using the data implied in those curves, the well-logging parameter graphs must be digitized and stored in computers first. According to the characteristics of well-logging parameter graphs, we contribute a SCTR (Scanning, Compressing, Tracing, and Rectifying) approach to digitizing well-logging curves. We employed Line Adjacency Graph (LAG) data structure to develop the image-compressing algorithm, which compresses image file with great efficiency. The digitizing algorithms based on centimeter grid of coordinates are proposed. They not only digitize the well-logging parameter graph, but also rectify perfectly the distortion of the original well-logging parameter graph. The experimental results show that the SCTR approach in the system works effectively.

Li, C, Zhang, C & Cao, L 1970, 'Theoretical Evaluation of Ring-Based Architectural Model for Middle Agents in Agent-Based System', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), International Symposium on Foundations of Intelligent Systems, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Maebashi City, Japan, pp. 603-607.
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003. Ring-based architectural model is usually employed to promote the scalability and robustness of agent-based systems. However there are no criteria for evaluating the performance of ring-based architectural model. In this paper, we introduce an evaluation approach to comparing the performance of ring-based architectural model with other ones. In order to evaluate ring-based architectural model, we proposed an application-based information-gathering system with middle agents, which are organized with ring-based architectural model and solve the matching problem between service provider agents and requester agents. We evaluate the ring-based architectural model with performance predictability, adaptability, and availability. We demonstrate the potentials of ring-based architectural model by the results of evaluation.

LI, C, ZHANG, C & WANG, MEI 1970, 'AN AGENT-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR WELL-LOGGING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT', Active Media Technology, Proceedings of the Second International Conference, WORLD SCIENTIFIC, Chongqing, China, pp. 114-119.
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In this paper, we contribute a framework based on multi-agent technique to manage large amounts of well-logging parameter graph information and store the data into Oracle database. We employed the idea of Gaia to design the framework, which consists of three levels, namely, role model level, agent type level and agent instance level. Four agent types, which correspond to the four roles, are proposed. We design the architectural model of agent instances with Open Agent Architecture. The experimental results show that all agents in the system can work cooperatively.

Li, C, Zhang, C & Zhang, Z 1970, 'A Ring-Based Architectural Model for Middle Agents in Agent-Based System', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Hong Kong, pp. 94-98.
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In agent-based systems, the performance of middle agents not only relies on the matchmaking algorithms employed by them, but also the architecture that organizes them with suitable organizational structure and coordination mechanism. In this paper, we contribute a framework and develop a couple of middle agents with logical ring organizational structure to match requester agents with service provider agents. The middle agent is of the features of proliferation and self-cancellation according to the sensory input from its environment. The token-based coordination mechanism of middle agents is designed. Two kinds of middle agents, namely, host and duplicate, are designed for promoting the scalability and robustness of agent-based systems. We demonstrate the potentials of the architecture by case study. © Springer-Verlag 2003.

Li, C, Zhang, C, Chen, Q & Zhang, Z 1970, 'A Scalable and Robust Framework for Agent-Based Heterogeneous Database Operation', Proceedings 2003 International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technologies and Internet Commerce - IAWTIC 2003, International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technologies, and Internet Commerce, University of Canberra, Vienna, Austria, pp. 260-271.

Li, CM, Brown, I, Stevens, C, Mansfield, JW, Boureau, T, Hienonen, E, Romantschuk, M & Taira, S 1970, 'The HRP pilus of Pseudomonas syringae', PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE AND RELATED PATHOGENS: BIOLOGY AND GENETICS, 6th International Conference on Pseudomonas Syringae Pathovars and Related Pathogens, SPRINGER, MARATEA, ITALY, pp. 285-292.

Lin, L, Ling, H, Lu, J, Zhang, C, Song, L & Xue, H 1970, 'Case-based Reasoning Integrating with Direct-Case-Linkage for Tacit Knowledge Management', Proceedings of the Seventh Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, pp. 1724-1733.

Lipman, J, Boustead, P, Chicharo, J & Judge, J 1970, 'Resource aware information dissemination in ad hoc networks', The 11th IEEE International Conference on Networks, 2003. ICON2003., The 11th IEEE International Conference on Networks, 2003. ICON2003., IEEE, Sydney, AUSTRALIA, pp. 591-596.
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Qiang Wu, Xiangjian He & Hintz, T 1970, 'Enhanced affine invariant shape description by ESPRIT', 3rd International Symposium on Image and Signal Processing and Analysis, 2003. ISPA 2003. Proceedings of the, 3rd International Symposium on Image and Signal Processing and Analysis, 2003. ISPA 2003., IEEE, Rome, Italy, pp. 593-598.
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Qimei Hu, Xiangjian He & Qiang Wu 1970, 'Concurrent edge detection with Spiral Architecture on Linux', Proceedings ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, IEEE Comput. Soc, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 524-528.
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© 2003 IEEE. Edge detection is an essential tool in image analysis. It is a process of identifying significant discontinuities in light intensities in order to form an outline of the object of interest. Spiral Architecture provides powerful computational power as a method of image data representation. Gaussian multi-scale theory was employed as the mathematical model for edge detection. The parallel processing algorithm was implemented in the form of a master-slave model. Spiral Architecture enables an image to be uniformly partitioned and distributed to slave processors after spiral multiplication. Concurrent processing is facilitated by inter-process communication and socket interface programming tools of Linux operating system.

Ruta, D & Gabrys, B 1970, 'Physical field models for pattern classification', Soft Computing - A Fusion of Foundations, Methodologies and Applications, 1st International Conference on Computing in an Imperfect World (SOFT-WARE 2002), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, BELFAST, NORTH IRELAND, pp. 126-141.
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Speer, N, Merz, P, Spieth, C & Zell, A 1970, 'Clustering gene expression data with memetic algorithms based on minimum spanning trees', The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., IEEE, Canberra, Australia, pp. 181-198.
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With the invention of microarray technology, researchers are capable of measuring the expression levels of ten thousands of genes in parallel at various time points of the biological process. During the investigation of gene regulatory networks and general cellular mechanisms, biologists are attempting to group genes based on the time-depending pattern of the obtained expression levels. In this paper, we propose a new memetic algorithm - a genetic algorithm combined with local search-based on a tree representation of the data - a minimum spanning tree minus; for clustering gene expression data. The combination of both concepts is shown to find near-optimal solutions quickly. Due to the minimum spanning tree representation of the data, our algorithm is capable of finding clusters of different shapes. We show that our approach is superior in solution quality compared to classical clustering methods.

Stoianoff, NP 1970, 'Biological Resources and Benefit Sharing - the intersection between Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property', International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Congress, Tokyo, Japan.

Wang, J, Zhang, C, Wu, X, Qi, H & Wang, J 1970, 'SVM-OD: a New SVM Algorithm for Outlier Detection', Foundations and New Directions in Data Mining Workshop Notes, IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, IEEE, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 203-209.

Wu, Q, He, X & Hintz, T 1970, 'A triple-diagonal gradient-based edge detection', IASTED International Conference on Computer Graphics and Imaging, IASTED International Conference on Computer Graphics and Imaging, ACTA Press, Honolulu, USA, pp. 244-249.
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Gradient-based edge detection is a straightforward method to identity the edge points in the original grey-level image. It is consistent with the intuition that in the human vision system the edge points always appear where the change of grey-level is greatest within their neighbourhood. In this paper, triple-diagonal gradient-based edge detection is introduced. It is based on the features of Spiral Architecture and computes the gradients in three diagonal directions instead of approximating the gradient in one direction only as the traditional methods do. Essentially, it improves the accuracy for locating edge points. As a result, it does not need any supplementary processing to enhance the edge map.

Wu, Q, He, X & Hintz, T 1970, 'Edge map improvement on Spiral Architecture', Proceedings of the International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CISST, International Conference Imaging Science, Systems and Technology, CSREA Press, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 179-185.
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Edge map is considered as an important entity containing most of object features in an image. Many computer vision systems rely on the use of the boundary line information to perform the object recognition tasks. However, with the exception of images acquired from highly restricted environment, common edge detectors do not guarantee the production of continuous boundaries of objects. In this paper, a local processing based edge-linking algorithm is proposed. We set a criterion involving multiple properties of the pixel to find the best candidate points for edge linking. In addition, this algorithm is implemented on Spiral Architecture.

Wu, Q, He, X, Hintz, T & Ye, Y 1970, 'Complete Image Partitioning on Spiral Architecture', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Japan, pp. 304-315.
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Uniform image partitioning has been achieved on Spiral Architecture, which plays an important role in parallel image processing on many aspects such as uniform data partitioning, load balancing, zero data exchange between the processing nodes et al. However, when the number of partitions is not the power of seven like 49, each sub-image except one is split into a few fragments which are mixed together. We could not tell which fragments belong to which sub-image. It is an unacceptable flaw to parallel image processing. This paper proposes a method to resolve the problem mentioned above. From the experimental results, it is shown that the proposed method correctly identifies the fragments belonging to the same sub-image and successfully collects them together to be a complete sub-image. Then, these sub-images can be distributed into the different processing nodes for further processing. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.

Xiaowei Yan, Chengqi Zhang & Shichao Zhang 1970, 'Identifying frequent terms in text databases by association semantics', Proceedings ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, ITCC 2003. International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, IEEE Comput. Soc, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 672-675.
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© 2003 IEEE. Existing information retrieval methods are mainly based on either term similarity or latent semantics. To reduce irrelevant information searched, this paper presents a new approach for information retrieval by applying the methodology of association rule mining to a text database. Association semantics among terms of a document and a query are considered, such that the semantic similarity between the document and query may be reduced if they are somewhat irrelevant.

Yan, X, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 1970, 'A Database-Independent Approach of Mining Association Rules with Genetic Algorithm', Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Hong Kong, China, pp. 882-886.
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Apriori-like algorithms for association rules mining rely upon the minimum support and the minimum confidence. Users often feel hard to give these thresholds. On the other hand, genetic algorithm is effective for global searching, especially when the searching space is so large that it is hardly possible to use deterministic searching method. We try to apply genetic algorithm to the association rules mining and propose an evolutionary method. Computations are conducted, showing that our ARMGA model can be used for the automation of the association rule mining systems, and the ideas given in this paper are effective. © Springer-Verlag 2003.

Yan, X, Zhang, C & Zhang, S 1970, 'A Database-Independent Strategy for Confidence Determination', Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Knowledge Systems Institute, San Francisco, California, USA, pp. 621-625.

Yan, XW, Zhang, CQ, Zhang, SC & Qin, ZX 1970, 'Indexing by conditional association semantics', INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ORGANIZATIONS: TRENDS, ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS, VOLS 1 AND 2, International Conference of the Information-Resources-Management-Association, IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 691-693.
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Prevailing information retrieval methods are based on either term similarity or latent semantics. Terms are considered independently. This paper presents a new strategy for information retrieval, i.e., indexing by conditional association semantics. In our approach, the conditional association semantics of terms will be considered during semantics indexing.

Zhang, ZL & Zhang, CQ 1970, 'Building agent-based hybrid intelligent systems', DESIGN AND APPLICATION OF HYBRID INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, 3rd International Conference on Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS 03), IOS PRESS, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, pp. 799-808.
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Many complex problems including financial investment planning, foreign exchange trading, knowledge discovery from large/multiple databases require hybrid intelligent systems that integrate many intelligent techniques including expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. However, hybrid intelligent systems are difficult to develop because they have a large number of parts or components that have many interactions. On the other hand, agents offer a new and often more appropriate route to the development of complex systems, especially in open and dynamic environments. In this paper, it is argued that agent technology is well snited for constructing hybrid intelligent systems (especially loosely coupled hybrid intelligent systems) through a successful case study. A great number of heterogeneous computing techniques/packages are easily integlated into the experimental system under a unifying agent framework, which implies that agent technology can greatly facilitate the construction of hybrid intelligent systems