A Priority-Based Negotiations Approach for Handling Inconsistencies in Multi-Perspective Software Requirements

Inconsistency of multi-perspective requirements specifications is a pervasive issue during the requirements process. However, managing inconsistency is not just a pure technical problem. It is always associated with a process of interactions and competitions among corresponding stakeholders. The main contribution of this paper is to present a negotiations approach to handling inconsistencies in multi-perspective software requirements. In particular, the priority of requirements relative to each perspective plays an important role in proceeding negotiation over resolving inconsistencies among different stakeholders. An algorithm of generating negotiation proposals and an approach to evaluating proposals are also presented in this paper, respectively.     

Testing serial correlation in semiparametric varying coefficient partially linear errors-in-variables model

The authors propose a V _{N, p} test statistic for testing finite-order serial correlation in a semiparametric varying coefficient partially linear errors-in-variables model. The test statistic is shown to have asymptotic normal distribution under the null hypothesis of no serial correlation. Some Monte Carlo experiments are conducted to examine the finite sample performance of the proposed V _{N, p} test statistic. Simulation results confirm that the proposed test performs satisfactorily in estimated size and power. This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 10871217 and 40574003; the Science and Technology Project of Chongqing Education Committee under Grant No. KJ080609; the Doctor's Start-up Research Fund under Grant No. 08-52204; and the Youth Science Research Fund of Chongqing Technology and Business University under Grant No. 0852008.     

Remarks on Network Community Properties

This paper discusses a popular community definition in complex network research in terms of the conditions under which a community is minimal, that is, the community cannot be split into several smaller communities or split and reorganized with other network elements into new communities. The result provides a base on which further optimization computation of the quantitative measure for community identification can be realized.     

Inverse Center Location Problem on a Tree

This paper discusses the inverse center location problem restricted on a tree with different costs and bound constraints. The authors first show that the problem can be formulated as a series of combinatorial linear programs, then an O（｜V｜^2 log ｜V｜） time algorithm to solve the problem is presented. For the equal cost case, the authors further give an O（｜V｜） time algorithm.     

Designing a Hybrid Intelligent Mining System for Credit Risk Evaluation

In this study, a novel hybrid intelligent mining system integrating rough sets theory and support vector machines is developed to extract efficiently association rules from original information table for credit risk evaluation and analysis. In the proposed hybrid intelligent system, support vector machines are used as a tool to extract typical features and filter its noise, which are different from the previous studies where rough sets were only used as a preprocessor for support vector machines. Such an approach could reduce the information table and generate the final knowledge from the reduced information table by rough sets. Therefore, the proposed hybrid intelligent system overcomes the difficulty of extracting rules from a trained support vector machine classifier and possesses the robustness which is lacking for rough-set-based approaches. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid intelligent system is illustrated with two real-world credit datasets.     

DESIGN METHODOLOGY OF NETWORKED SOFTWARE EVOLUTION GROWTH BASED ON SOFTWARE PATTERNS

Recently,some new characteristics of complex networks attract the attentions of scientistsin different fields,and lead to many kinds of emerging research directions.So far,most of the researchwork has been limited in discovery of complex network characteristics by structure analysis in large-scalesoftware systems.This paper presents the theoretical basis,design method,algorithms and experiment results ofthe research.It firstly emphasizes the significance of design method of evolution growth for networktopology of Object Oriented(OO)software systems,and argues that.the selection and modulationof network models with various topology characteristics will bring un-ignorable effect on the processof design and implementation of OO software systems.Then we analyze the similar discipline of“negation of negation and compromise”between the evolution of network models with different topologycharacteristics and the development of software modelling methods.According to the analysis of thegrowth features of software patterns,we propose an object-oriented software network evolution growthmethod and its algorithms in succession.In addition,we also propose the parameter systems for OOsoftware system metrics based on complex network theory.Based on these parameter systems,it cananalyze the features of various nodes,links and local-world,modulate the network topology and guidethe software metrics.All these can be helpful to the detailed design,implementation and performanceanalysis.Finally.we focus on the application of the evolution algorithms and demonstrate it by a casestudy.Comparing the results from our early experiments with methodologies in empirical software engi-neering,we believe that the proposed software engineering design method is a computational softwareengineering approach based on complex network theory.We argue that this method should be greatlybeneficial for the design,implementation,modulation and metrics of functionality,structure and per-formance in large-scale OO software complex system.     

Web Services Composing by Multiagent Negotiation

Composing web services is gained daily attention in Service Oriented Computing. It includes the dynamic discovery, interaction and coordination of agent-based semantic web services. The authors first follow Function Ontology and Automated Mechanism Design for service agents aggregating. Then the problem is formulated but it is ineffective to solve it from the traditional global view. Because the complexity is NP-complete and it is dii~cult or even impossible to get some personal information. This paper provides a multi-agent negotiation idea in which each participant negotiates under the condition of its reservation payoff being satisfied. Numerical experiment is given and well evaluates the negotiation.     

A multiyear lags input-holding-output model on education with excluding idle capital

This paper develops a multi-year lag Input-Holding-Output (I-H-O) Model on education with exclusion of the idle capital to address the reasonable education structure in support of a sustainable development strategy in China. First, the model considers the multiyear lag of human capital because the lag time of human capital is even longer and more important than that of fixed capital. Second, it considers the idle capital resulting from the output decline in education, for example, student decrease in primary school. The new generalized Leonitief dynamic inverse is deduced to obtain a positive solution on education when output declines as well as expands. After compiling the 2000 I-H-O table on education, the authors adopt modifications-by-step method to treat nonlinear coefficients, and calculate education scale, the requirement of human capital, and education expenditure from 2005 to 2020. It is found that structural imbalance of human capital is a serious problem for Chinese economic development. This research was supporting by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60874119, Innovation Funds of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Research Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences in colleges under Grant No. 06BJY102, Key project in Jiangxi Soft Science Project under Grant No. [2006]188, Jiangxi Research Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences in colleges under Grant No. 03JJ01, and Henan Research Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences in colleges under Grant No. 2008-ZD-002.     

A characteristic set method for solving boolean equations and applications in cryptanalysis of stream ciphers*

This paper presents a characteristic more efficient and has better properties than the set method for solving Boolean equations, which is general characteristic set method. In particular, the authors give a disjoint and monic zero decomposition algorithm for the zero set of a Boolean equation system and an explicit formula for the number of solutions of a Boolean equation system. The authors also prove that a characteristic set can be computed with a polynomial number of multiplications of Boolean polynomials in terms of the number of variables. As experiments, the proposed method is used to solve equations from cryptanalysis of a class of stream ciphers based on nonlinear filter generators. Extensive experiments show that the method is quite effective.     

New results about the relationship between optimally weighted least squares estimate and linear minimum variance estimate

The optimally weighted least squares estimate and the linear minimum variance estimate are two of the most popular estimation methods for a linear model. In this paper, the authors make a comprehensive discussion about the relationship between the two estimates. Firstly, the authors consider the classical linear model in which the coefficient matrix of the linear model is deterministic, and the necessary and sufficient condition for equivalence of the two estimates is derived. Moreover, under certain conditions on variance matrix invertibility, the two estimates can be identical provided that they use the same a priori information of the parameter being estimated. Secondly, the authors consider the linear model with random coefficient matrix which is called the extended linear model; under certain conditions on variance matrix invertibility, it is proved that the former outperforms the latter when using the same a priori information of the parameter. This research is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 60232010, 60574032, and the Project 863 under Grant No. 2006AA12A104.     

TWO-STAGE ESTIMATION FOR SEEMINGLY UNRELATED NONPARAMETRIC REGRESSION MODELS

This paper is concerned with the estimating problem of seemingly unrelated （SU） non- parametric regression models. The authors propose a new method to estimate the unknown functions, which is an extension of the two-stage procedure in the longitudinal data framework. The authors show the resulted estimators are asymptotically normal and more efficient than those based on only the individual regression equation. Some simulation studies are given in support of the asymptotic results. A real data from an ongoing environmental epidemiologie study are used to illustrate the proposed procedure.     

Symmetry in world trade network

Symmetry of the world trade network provides a novel perspective to understand the world-wide trading system. However, symmetry in the world trade network (WTN) has been rarely studied so far. In this paper, the authors systematically explore the symmetry in WTN. The authors construct WTN in 2005 and explore the size and structure of its automorphism group, through which the authors find that WTN is symmetric, particularly, locally symmetric to a certain degree. Furthermore, the authors work out the symmetric motifs of WTN and investigate the structure and function of the symmetric motifs, coming to the conclusion that local symmetry will have great effect on the stability of the WTN and that continuous symmetry-breakings will generate complexity and diversity of the trade network. Finally, utilizing the local symmetry of the network, the authors work out the quotient of WTN, which is the structural skeleton dominating stability and evolution of WTN. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 70371070; Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project under Grant No. S30504; and Key Project for Fundamental Research of STCSM under Grant No. 06JC14057.     

On the complexity of the normal bases via prime Gauss period over finite fields

A formula on the complexity of the normal bases generated by prime Gauss period over finite fields is presented in terms of cyclotomic numbers. Then, the authors determine explicitly the complexity of such normal bases and their dual bases in several cases where the related cyclotomic numbers have been calculated. Particularly, the authors ˉnd several series of such normal bases with low complexity. This research is supported by the National Fundamental Science Research Program 973 of China under Grant No. 2004 CB3180000 and the State Key Lab. (Information Security) of China.     

Estimation on semivarying coefficient models with different degrees of smoothness

Semivarying coefficient models are frequently used in statistical models. In this paper, under the condition that the coefficient functions possess different degrees of smoothness, a two-step method is proposed. In the case, one-step method for the smoother coefficient functions cannot be optimal. This drawback can be repaired by using the two-step estimation procedure. The asymptotic mean-squared error for the two-step procedure is obtained and is shown to achieve the optimal rate of convergence. A few simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the proposed estimation methods. This research is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10871072 and Shanxi's Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 2007011014.     

Recognition of Structure Similarities in Proteins

Protein fold structure is more conserved than its amino acid sequence and closely associated with biological function, so calculating the similarity of protein structures is a fundamental problem in structural biology and plays a key role in protein fold classification, fold function inference, and protein structure prediction. Large progress has been made in recent years in this field and many methods for considering structural similarity have been proposed, including methods for protein structure comparison, retrieval of protein structures from databases, and ligand binding site comparison. Most of those methods can be available on the World Wide Web, but evaluation of all the methods is still a hard problem. This paper summarizes some popular methods and latest methods for structure similarities, including structure alignment, protein structure retrieval, and ligand binding site alignment.     

PRE-IMAGE ENTROPY OF NONAUTONOMOUS DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS*

The authors define and study topological pre-image entropy for the non-autonomous discrete dynamical systems given by a sequence {fi}i=1^∞ of continuous self-maps of a compact topological space. The basic properties and the invariant with respect to equiconjugacy of pre-image entropy for the non-autonomous discrete dynamical systems are obtained.     

Cluster Synchronization in a Complex Dynamical Network with Two Nonidentical Clusters

This paper further investigates cluster synchronization in a complex dynamical network with two-cluster. Each cluster contains a number of identical dynamical systems, however, the subsystems composing the two clusters can be different, i.e., the individual dynamical system in one cluster can differ from that in the other cluster. Complete synchronization within each cluster is possible only if each node from one cluster receives the same input from nodes in other cluster. In this case, the stability condition of one-cluster synchronization is known to contain two terms： the first accounts for the contribution of the inner-cluster coupling structure while the second is simply an extra linear term, which can be deduced by the ＂same-input＂ condition. Applying the connection graph stability method, the authors obtain an upper bound of input strength for one cluster if the first account is known, by which the synchronizability of cluster can be scaled. For different clusters, there are different upper bound of input strength by virtue of different dynamics and the corresponding cluster structure. Moreover, two illustrative examples are presented and the numerical simulations coincide with the theoretical analysis.     

Stochastic differential equations and stochastic linear quadratic optimal control problem with Lévy processes

In this paper, the authors first study two kinds of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) with Lévy processes as noise source. Based on the existence and uniqueness of the solutions of these SDEs and multi-dimensional backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) driven by Lévy processes, the authors proceed to study a stochastic linear quadratic (LQ) optimal control problem with a Lévy process, where the cost weighting matrices of the state and control are allowed to be indefinite. One kind of new stochastic Riccati equation that involves equality and inequality constraints is derived from the idea of square completion and its solvability is proved to be sufficient for the well-posedness and the existence of optimal control which can be of either state feedback or open-loop form of the LQ problems. Moreover, the authors obtain the existence and uniqueness of the solution to the Riccati equation for some special cases. Finally, two examples are presented to illustrate these theoretical results. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) under Grant No. 2007CB814904, the Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10671112 and Shandong Province under Grant No. Z2006A01, and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China under Grant No. 20060422018.     

The projective plane crossing numbers of circular graphs*

The authors give an upper bound for the projective plane crossing number of a circular graph. Also, the authors prove the projective plane crossing numbers of circular graph C （8, 3） and C （9, 3） are 2 and 1, respectively.