SIGACT EC Nominations and More

NOMINATIONS for SIGACT Executive Committee
ACM will hold elections in spring 2012 for the next SIGACT Executive Committee to take office July 1 to serve a three-year term. We are seeking nominations for candidates for the SIGACT chair and four at-large positions. Vice-chair and Secretary/Treasurer will be chosen later from the at-large positions. Details in the SIGACT Bylaws http://www.acm.org/sigs/bylaws-contents/act_bylaws/

You are welcome to nominate others or yourselves. All candidates must be SIGACT and ACM Professional members and must be willing to serve if elected. Please send names of your nominee(s) to the nominating committee chair (fortnow@eecs.northwestern.edu).

Current SIGACT EC: Cynthia Dwork, Lance Fortnow (Chair), Richard Ladner (Past Chair), Anna Lysyanskaya (Secretary/Treasurer), Michael Mitzenmacher (Vice-Chair), Michael Saks

Nominations Committee: Lance Fortnow (Chair), Anna Lysyanskaya, Eva Tardos

NSF Grants
A reminder that the NSF CCF core programs "medium size" deadline is coming up Sept 30. Medium-size grants are for 500k-1.2m spread over a period of 3-4 years, and typically involve teams of 2-3 researchers (though single-researcher proposals are allowed).  So this is a great chance to get together with colleagues at your and/or other institutions and put together a proposal!

See http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11557/nsf11557.htm for all the details.

Note that in addition to the primary benefit of obtaining funds for your research, a robust submission of quality proposals also helps TCS demonstrate its vitality to the NSF.

SIGACT Founder Patrick Fischer is Dead at 75
Patrick Fischer, who founded SIGACT and the STOC conference, passed away last Friday, August 26.
http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2011/08/patrick-fischer-1935-2011.html

STOC 2012 Call for Papers
Deadline for submissions is November 2
http://www.stoc2012.org

STOC 2011 Videos
Videos of the talks from the STOC 2011 conference is now available on the ACM DL. All SIGACT members have full access.
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1993636&preflayout=flat#prox

Award Nominations
Gödel Prize and Knuth Prize calls will be posted soon.
SIGACT Distinguished Service Prize http://db.tt/DRLCqbV
ACM Awards http://awards.acm.org/html/award_nominations.cfm

As always you can keep up with the latest news from SIGACT at
http://facebook.com/sigact and http://twitter.com/sigact

[DMANET] Deadline Extension: eL&mL 2012 || January 30 - February 4, 2012 - Valencia, Spain

INVITATION:

=================
Please consider to contribute to and/or forward to the appropriate
groups the following opportunity to submit and publish original
scientific results in eL&mL 2012.
The submission deadline is extended to September 16, 2011.
In addition, authors of selected papers will be invited to submit
extended article versions to one of the IARIA Journals:
http://www.iariajournals.org
=================

============== eL&mL 2012 | Call for Papers ===============

CALL FOR PAPERS, TUTORIALS, PANELS

eL&mL 2012: The Fourth International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and
On-line Learning

January 30 - February 4, 2012 - Valencia, Spain

General page: http://www.iaria.org/conferences2012/eLmL12.html

Call for Papers: http://www.iaria.org/conferences2012/CfPeLmL12.html

- regular papers
- short papers (work in progress)
- posters
- ideas

Submission page: http://www.iaria.org/conferences2012/SubmiteLmL12.html

Submission deadline: September 16, 2011

Sponsored by IARIA, www.iaria.org

Extended versions of selected papers will be published in IARIA
Journals: http://www.iariajournals.org

Please note the Poster Forum and Work in Progress options.

The topics suggested by the conference can be discussed in term of
concepts, state of the art, research, standards, implementations,
running experiments, applications, and industrial case studies. Authors
are invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under
review in any other conference or journal in the following, but not
limited to, topic areas.

All tracks are open to both research and industry contributions, in
terms of Regular papers, Posters, Work in progress,
Technical/marketing/business presentations, Demos, Tutorials, and Panels.

Before submission, please check and conform with the Editorial rules:
http://www.iaria.org/editorialrules.html

eL&mL 2012 Topics (topics and submission details: see CfP on the site)

Learning-oriented devices and networks
Mobility (IEEE 802.11 standards, engineering, smart devices); Mobile
communications; Hardware/software systems for mobile communications;
Evolution from 3G to 4G and beyond; Mobile networking; Wireless
networking; Wireless access (WPAN, WLAN, WLL); Mobile IP, VoIP, IPTV,
etc.; Satellite technologies for e-learning; Next generation of mobile
technology; User-oriented device interfaces; Adaptable student/device
interaction; Wearable devices

Learning-oriented technologies
Architecture of learning technology systems; Informal learning;
Formal/informal exploratory and serendipitous learning; Advanced uses of
multimedia and hypermedia; Integrated learning and educational
environments; Remote and wireless teaching technologies;
Anytime/anywhere e-learning and wearable network devices; Adaptive
e-learning and intelligent applications/tools; Agents technology;
Intelligent tutoring systems; Training e-learning teachers; Practical
uses of authoring tools; Application of metadata and virtual reality

Tools and platforms
eL&mL learning tools (basic infrastructure, content management,
cross-media publishing, social & cooperative learning, lecture
recording); Tools and architectures for mobile/ubiquitous e-learning;
SOA for e-learning; Web 2.0 and social computing for learning;
Ontologies and semantic Web standards for e-learning; Adaptive and
personalized educational hypermedia; Peer-to-Peer learning applications;
Social software for collaborative learning; Socially intelligent agents;
e-Learning platforms, portals and virtual learning environments;
Embedded systems education; Wearable computers and education; Multimedia
environment for teaching; Web-based learning, including Wikis and Blogs;
Learning content management systems

On-line learning
Content engineering (authoring, standards, metadata, process models);
Internet based systems; Navigational aspects for on-line learning;
Virtual spaces for learning communities; Internet supported ubiquitous
learning; Mobile eLearning applications; Pervasive eLearning scenarios;
Multi-agent technology applications in Web-based education; Semantic
social networks; Community discovering in social learning systems;
Social structure exploitation in e-learning

Mobile learning, teaching, and training
Advanced teaching and learning technologies for mobile learners;
Advanced software and hardware systems for mobile learning and teaching;
Virtual mobile learning environments; Adaptive learning strategies
Advanced curriculum and courseware for mobile learning and training;
Security issues of mobile learning; Learning management systems for
mobile learning; Ontologies and pedagogical models; Testing, assessment
and quality issues of mobile learning; Faculty and professional
development on mobile teaching and learning Infrastructure,
administrative and organizational issue of mobile learning; Applications
of mobile technology in open, distance, and corporate education;
National and international projects, strategies, and policies on mobile
learning

Hybrid learning
Didactics of eL&mL (informal learning, ambient and augmented learning,
cooperative learning); Teacher-centric and student-centric approaches;
Self-learning integrated methodology; Learner autonomy; Interactive
hybrid learning; Assessment strategy for hybrid learning; Collaborative
learning/groupware; Content management for hybrid learning; Digital
libraries for hybrid learning; Effective content development experiences
in hybrid; earning; Improved flexibility of learning process;
Institutional policies; Instructional design issues; Organizational
framework for hybrid learning; Outcome based teaching and learning;
Pedagogical issues

Challenging technical aspects
Tutoring eLearning applications and services; Teaching eLearning
methodologies and technologies; National and international projects on
e-learning; e-Learning industry and universities programs; Application
of instructional design theories; Reflection in learning software and
hardware; Social impact metrics on distance learning; Methodologies and
processes for education; Curriculum projects and experiences; Educating
the educators; Simulated communities; Online mentoring; Cultural,
social, and gender issues; Personalization; Corporate training

Assessing eL&mL
Organization of eL&mL (quality management, learning networks); Cost
models for eLearning; E-market place for higher education; Evaluation of
eLearning; Social benefits of eLearning; eLearning effectiveness and
outcomes; Global trends in eLearning

Education in developing regions
National/international strategies; Evaluation of learning technology
systems; Emerging and best practices; Managing quality in eLearning;
Standards related activities

Committee:
http://www.iaria.org/conferences2012/ComeLmL12.html
====================
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[DMANET] CFP Pervasive Communication Security, Social Networking and Social Engineering

SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED

Call for Papers

Pervasive Communication Security, Social Networking and Social Engineering Workshop

In conjunction with

The International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications(ICNC 2012)
Maui, Hawaii, USA
January 30 - February 2, 2012
http://www.conf-icnc.org/

Contact Information:
Narasimha Shashidhar, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA
karpoor@shsu.edu
Lei Chen, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA
chen@shsu.edu

Scope:

The future of communication relies on the ability of communication systems to blend into the user's environment with the goal of supporting social and collaborative communication and computation. To this end, providing confidentiality and integrity of communicated data are desired key security features in a pervasive communication system. Users need to be able to trust the communication systems and find out how trustworthy their peers are. As the communication and associated systems become more pervasive, these privacy issues are amplified. These security requirements result in many challenges in the research and development of pervasive systems. The aim of this workshop is to enable researches, scientists, and engineers in the community to exchange and share ideas and experience, and demonstrate latest research outcomes on all areas of security, trust and privacy in pervasive communication systems. This workshop solicits original work in various aspects of, but not limited to, the following topics:

· Decentralized, scalable social networking
· Privacy-aware, personally controlled social networking
· Availability and resilience
· Community based secure communication
· Data confidentiality and integrity
· Anonymity and Pseudonymity
· New approaches to trust and reputation
· New attack paradigms
· Social engineering, Spam and Phishing
· Context aware services and applications
· Scalable and efficient authentication and key management solutions
· Designing appropriate reputation systems for various situations
· Utilizing communities to build trust
· Managing privacy of personal information

Submission Guidelines

Please follow the author instructions at http://www.conf-icnc.org/author.htm
For submission: Workshop papers should be submitted via EDAS at the conference page:
http://edas.info/N10987. In addition, please send a pdf file of your paper to karpoor@shsu.edu

Important dates

Submission deadline Sep 14, 2011
Notification of acceptance Sept. 30, 2011
Submission of camera-ready version and Registration Oct. 20, 2011
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[DMANET] CfP --- ECCO 2012, April 26-28, 2012, in Antalya, Turkey

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 25th Conference of the ECCO (European Chapter on Combinatorial
Optimization)
April 26 - 28, 2012

www.eccoxxv.org
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2012

Venue: IC Green Palace Hotel, Antalya, Turkey.
----------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission for abstracts starts:
August 30, 2011
Deadline for abstract submission:
February 1, 2012
Notification of acceptance:
February 10, 2012
Deadline for early registration:
March 10, 2012
Deadline for author registration (for inclusion in the program):
March 20, 2012

-----------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS OF INTEREST include but are not limited to

- applications of combinatorial optimization in logistics and supply
chain management, manufacturing, energy
production and distribution, telecommunications, game theory,
bioinformatics, health informatics, healthcare,
finance, discrete and hybrid dynamical systems, data mining, machine
learning, and other fields,

- exact solution algorithms, approximation algorithms, heuristics, and
meta-heuristics for combinatorial
optimization problems,

- graph theory and network flows,

- integer programming, global optimization, stochastic integer
programming, multi-objective programming.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Authors are invited to submit an abstract of their paper in English by
February 1, 2012 online. (www.eccoxxv.org)
Participants of ECCO 2012 are cordially invited for submitting papers
for the special issue on Advances in Combinatorial Optimization and
Related Topics of the journal Optimization.
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/02331934.asp)

-----------------------------------------------------------
PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Jacek BLAZEWICZ, Poznan University of Technology, Poland

Domingos Moreira CARDOSO, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Van-Dat CUNG, Grenoble INP, France

Alain HERTZ, École Polytechnique Montréal, QC, Canada

Refail KASIMBEYLI (Co-Chair), Izmir University of Economics, Turkey

Silvano MARTELLO, University of Bologna, Italy

Xiaoling SUN, Fudan University, China

Paolo TOTH, University of Bologna, Italy

Gerhard-Wilhelm WEBER (Co-Chair), Middle East Technical
University, Turkey

The invited plenary speakers will be announced.

-----------------------------------------------------------
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

from Izmir University of Economics, Turkey:

Deniz Tursel Eliiyi
Ugur Eliiyi
Refail Kasimbeyli (Co-chair)
Erdinc Oner
Arslan Ornek (Co-chair)
Ozgur Ozpeynirci
Selin Ozpeynirci
Zeynep Sargut

from Middle East Technical University, Turkey:

Basak Akteke-Ozturk
Sinan Gurel
Yesim Aydin Son
Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber (Co-Chair)
Kasirga Yildirak

from Suleyman Demirel University, Turkey:

Zeynep Alparslan Gok
Ahmet Tokgozlu

from Vestel Corporation

Gurkan Ustunkar

-----------------------------------------------------------
For additional information, please contact Zeynep Sargut, at
zeynep.sargut@ieu.edu.tr or
Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, at gweber@metu.edu.tr

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Postdoctoral position in computing research

The Aalto University Department of Information and Computer Science is
inviting applications for a postdoctoral researcher position in one of
several areas of computing research including:

- Machine Learning and Algorithmic Data Analysis
- Computational Methods for Grids and Clouds
- Constructing and Solving Large Constraint Models
- Discrete Computational Methods

The closing date for applications is 15 September 2011. The position will
be
filled for two years maximum and starting at the earliest 1 January 2012.

Further details of the post and the application procedure is available at

http://ics.tkk.fi/en/vacancies/

---

Aalto University is a newly created research university resulting from th
e
merger of three Finnish universities: Helsinki University of Technology T
KK,
the Helsinki School of Economics, and the University of Art and Design
Helsinki. The new university was launched in January 2010, and opens up a

new world of possibilities for multidisciplinary education and research.
For
further information, see www.aalto.fi/en/.

[DMANET] Postdoctoral position in computing research

The Aalto University Department of Information and Computer Science is
inviting applications for a postdoctoral researcher position in one of
several areas of computing research including:

- Machine Learning and Algorithmic Data Analysis
- Computational Methods for Grids and Clouds
- Constructing and Solving Large Constraint Models
- Discrete Computational Methods

The closing date for applications is 15 September 2011. The position
will be filled for two years maximum and starting at the earliest 1
January 2012.

Further details of the post and the application procedure is available
at http://ics.tkk.fi/en/vacancies/

---

Aalto University is a newly created research university resulting from
the merger of three Finnish universities: Helsinki University of
Technology TKK, the Helsinki School of Economics, and the University of
Art and Design Helsinki. The new university was launched in January
2010, and opens up a new world of possibilities for multidisciplinary
education and research. For further information, see www.aalto.fi/en/.
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* update of the replies received and to communicate it
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Conference on Computational Complexity 2012: Call for Papers

CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY: CALL FOR PAPERS

Submission Deadline: Thursday, December 8, 2011, 19:59 EST

      

PURPOSE AND SCOPE:

The conference seeks original research papers in all areas of computational complexity theory, studying the absolute and relative power of computational models under resource constraints. We also encourage results from other areas of computer science and mathematics motivated by topics in complexity theory. The following list of sample topics is not exhaustive: 

Complexity classes, Algebraic complexity, Proof complexity, Interactive and probabilistic proof systems, Circuit complexity, Kolmogorov complexity, Logic and descriptive complexity, Average case complexity, Reducibility and completeness, Communication complexity, Complexity in other concrete computational models, Cryptographic complexity, Complexity of optimization and inapproximability, Complexity and learning, Complexity and coding theory, Pseudorandomness and derandomization, Complexity and sub-linear computation, Quantum computation

      

CONFERENCE LOCATION AND DATES:

The 2012 conference will be held from June 26th to June 29th, 2012, in Porto, Portugal, and is organized in association with the 2012 Alan Turing Year. In order to defray the costs of attending an overseas conference, some travel awards are available for students from US institutions. More information about travel and local arrangements will be made available on the conference webpage in due time. 

 

SPONSORS:

The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee for Mathematical Foundations of Computing in cooperation with the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) and the European Association of Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS). The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides student travel support through award CCF-1143914.

SUBMISSIONS:

Papers must be submitted electronically, and received by December 8th, 2011, 19:59 EST, for consideration. The submission server will be active a few weeks before the submission deadline. Notification of acceptance will be sent by February 17th, 2012, and final camera-ready copies of accepted papers will be due around mid-March 2012.

Submission format: 

A submission should consist of a title page (containing the title, author names and affiliations, and an abstract of 1-2 paragraphs summarizing the paper's contributions), a body of no more than 10 pages, a bibliography, and possible appendices. The paper should be in single-column format, use at least 11-point font, and have standard margins and spacing between lines. Submissions deviating from these guidelines risk summary rejection without consideration of their merits.

The body of the paper should (i) explain what the major contributions are, (ii) convey why they are interesting, (iii) discuss how they relate to prior work, and (iv) present the main ideas behind them. Authors are expected to include all ideas necessary for an expert to fully verify the central claims in the paper, and may use appendices to substantiate technical claims as needed. The appendices will be read at the discretion of the Program Committee. (Authors may, if they prefer, simply attach a copy of the full paper as the appendix.)

All submissions will be treated as confidential, and will only be disclosed to the committee and their chosen sub-referees. The instructions for the format of final copies will be communicated to the authors of accepted papers.

Simultaneous submission policy: 

Material which has been previously published in a journal or another conference proceedings, or which is scheduled for publication prior to July, 2012, will not be considered for acceptance.  Simultaneous submission of the same or essentially the same material to another conference with published proceedings is not allowed.

Online posting: 

Authors are encouraged to post full versions of their submissions in a freely accessible on-line repository such as the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity or the arXiv. It is hoped that authors of accepted papers will make full versions of their papers, with proofs, available by the camera-ready deadline. (This should be done in a manner consistent with the IEEE Copyright Policy.)

Presenting the work: 

Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their work at the conference. The program committee will determine time allocations for presentations (between 15 and 45 minutes). Conference proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society. Publication in the conference proceedings does not preclude subsequent journal publication.

Ronald V. Book Prize for Best Student Paper: 

This award will be given to the best paper written solely by one or more students. An abstract is eligible if all authors are full-time students at the time of submission. This should be indicated in the submission registration message or cover letter. The program committee may decline to make the award or may split it among several papers.

Best Paper Award: 

This award will be given to the best paper submitted to the conference. This will be awarded by the program committee. The program committee may decline to make the award or may split it among several papers.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

Eric Allender, Rutgers University

Boaz Barak, Microsoft Research New England

Irit Dinur, Weizmann Institute

Nicola Galesi, University of Rome "La Sapienza"

Venkatesan Guruswami (chair), Carnegie Mellon University

Neeraj Kayal, Microsoft Research India

Julia Kempe, Univ. of Paris 7 and Tel Aviv University

Hartmut Klauck, Nanyang Technological University

Rahul Santhanam, University of Edinburgh

Rocco Servedio, Columbia University

Amir Yehudayoff, Technion

Local Arrangement Chair: Luis Antunes (Porto University)

Publicity Chair: Richard Beigel (Temple University)

Conference website: computationalcomplexity.org

[DMANET] PhD program in OR at the Univ. of Bologna

It is online the final call for applications for PhD positions in OR at the University of Bologna:

http://www.unibo.it/Portale/Ricerca/Dottorati+di+ricerca/bandiXXVII.htm

(look for "Automatica e Ricerca Operativa")

deadline September 8th, 2011

The OR group (http://www.or.deis.unibo.it) is especially looking for Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming as a topic and additional support for foreign students (besides that granted by the Italian Ministry of Education) might be provided.

For additional information feel free to contact:

Prof. Andrea Lodi
DEIS, University of Bologna
Viale Risorgimento 2
40136 Bologna, Italy
phone: +39 051 2093029
fax: +39 051 2093073
e-mail: andrea.lodi@unibo.it

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[DMANET] PhD/PostDoc position in Bioinformatics (Computational Phylogenetics), FSU Jena

The Chair for Bioinformatics, Institute of Computer Science at the
Friedrich-Schiller University Jena offers the following position:

PostDoc/PhD students as a research associate (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter)

This position is part of the computational phylogenetics research
activities of the chair. A particular focus of the position will be
supertree methods. We want to develop new computational techniques,
models, and algorithms for the phylogenetic analysis of molecular
biology data. Besides developing algorithms, we also focus on their
implementation, evaluation, and algorithm engineering.

Applicants for this project must have or be about to obtain a Master's
degree or a qualification equivalent to the German Diploma in
bioinformatics, computer science, or mathematics. The applicant should
have an very good background in algorithmics. Introductory course level
knowledge or better in biology and molecular biology is required, and so
is basic knowledge in (computational) phylogenetics. Good programming
skills are required, and experience in software design would be helpful.

Salary is according to Entgeltgruppe 13 TV-L, either a full position
(for PostDocs) or 3/4 position (for PhD students). This position is a
temporary appointment.

Handicapped applicants will be given preference in case of equal
qualifications.

Please send your application with the usual documents (CV, list of
publications, copies of certificates, preferred via email) until
September 19th 2011 to:

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Böcker

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Informatik
Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2
07743 Jena, Germany

Am Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik, Institut für Informatik der
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena ist zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt
die Stelle eines

Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiters (Post-Doktorand oder Doktorand)

zu besetzen. Thematischer Fokus der Stelle ist die algorithmische
Phylogenetik und insbesondere Supertree-Methoden. Wir wollen neue
Modelle und Algorithmen entwickeln, um molekularbiologische Daten
phylogenetisch analysieren zu können. Neben der Entwicklung solcher
Algorithmen ist dabei auch ihre Implementierung, Evaluierung sowie
Algorithm Engineering von Interesse.

Bewerber müssen über ein abgeschlossenes Diplom- oder Master-Studium in
den Bereichen Bioinformatik, Informatik oder Mathematik verfügen, oder
ein solches Studium in nächster Zukunft abschließen. Notwendig sind sehr
gute Kenntnisse in Bereich Algorithmik sowie Grundkenntnisse in den
Bereichen Biologie und Molekularbiologie, sowie Grundkenntnisse in
(algorithmischer) Phylogenetik. Die Projektarbeit erfordert gute
Programmierkenntnisse, Erfahrung im Bereich Software Design ist
wünschenswert.

Die Vergütung erfolgt gemäß Entgeltgruppe 13 TV-L, es handelt sich um
eine volle Stelle (für Post-Doktoranden) bzw. 3/4 Stelle (für
Doktoranden). Die Möglichkeit zur wissenschaftlichen Qualifikation wird
geboten. Die Stelle ist befristet.

Beiträge zur Lehre der Studiengänge Bioinformatik (Diplom, B.Sc., M.Sc.)
werden erwartet.

Schwerbehinderte werden bei gleicher Eignung, Befähigung und fachlicher
Qualifikation bevorzugt berücksichtigt.

Bewerbungen mit den üblichen Unterlagen (Lebenslauf, Publikationsliste,
Zeugniskopien) sind bis zum 19.09.2011 (vorzugsweise via EMail)
einzureichen bei:

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Böcker

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Informatik
Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2
07743 Jena, Germany

--
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Boecker, Lehrstuhl fuer Bioinformatik
Currently visiting: Biomathematics Research Centre
PB 4800, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Office 616, Phone +64 3 3642987 ext 8876, Fax +64 3 3642587
http://bio.informatik.uni-jena.de/

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[DMANET] Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Position in Optimization at the University of Edinburgh

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Position
University of Edinburgh
School of Mathematics

Applications are invited for a 2-year Postdoctoral Research Fellow
position in Optimization and Stochastics in the School of Mathematics
at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The successful
candidate will join the Edinburgh Research Group in Optimization
(http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/ERGO/ ) and participate in the project
"Mathematics for Vast Digital Resources". The project is funded by
EPSRC, and led by Prof. Jacek Gondzio, Dr. Peter Richtarik and Dr.
Burak Buke.

The ideal candidate will be an enthusiastic and creative individual
with a Ph.D. in Operational Research, Mathematics or a related field
and will have strong publication record. Individuals with a joint
background/experience in stochastic programming and large-scale
optimization are particularly encouraged to apply.

The proposed start date for the position is January 1, 2012; however,
it can be shifted to a mutually agreed date. Only complete electronic
applications will be considered; a CV, a two-page research plan and at
least three references (PDF files preferred) should be submitted. This
can be done at http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/ using the job reference
number 3014768. The closing date for receipt of applications and
letters of reference is September 20, 2011. Interviews of shortlisted
candidates will take place in October 2011.

For informal enquiries please contact any of the three project members:

Dr Burak Buke, b.buke@ed.ac.uk
Prof Jacek Gondzio, j.gondzio@ed.ac.uk
Dr Peter Richtarik, peter.richtarik@ed.ac.uk

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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[DMANET] PhD/PostDoc position in Bioinformatics (Computational Mass Spectrometry), FSU Jena

The Chair for Bioinformatics, Institute of Computer Science at the
Friedrich-Schiller University Jena offers the following position:

PostDoc/PhD students as a research associate (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter)

This position is part of the project Identifying the Unknowns: Towards
structural elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry,
funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The key objective of this
project is to develop computational methods to "identify the unknowns"
using mass spectrometry, that is, compounds that cannot be found in any
database. For this, we will develop new computational techniques,
models, and algorithms for the interpretation of MS fragmentation data
from small molecules. Besides developing algorithms, we also focus on
their implementation, evaluation, and algorithm engineering. A
particular focus of the position is the analysis of experimental data
(case studies) with the developed methods.

Applicants for this project must have or be about to obtain a Master's
degree or a qualification equivalent to the German Diploma in
bioinformatics, computer science, or mathematics. The applicant should
have an very good background in algorithmics. Introductory course level
knowledge or better in biology and molecular biology is required. Basic
knowledge in (computational) mass spectrometry is helpful. Good
programming skills are required, and experience in software design would
be helpful.

Salary is according to Entgeltgruppe 13 TV-L, either a full position
(for PostDocs) or 3/4 position (for PhD students). This position is a
temporary appointment.

Handicapped applicants will be given preference in case of equal
qualifications.

Please send your application with the usual documents (CV, list of
publications, copies of certificates, preferred via email) until
September 19th 2011 to:

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Böcker

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Informatik
Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2
07743 Jena, Germany

Am Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik, Institut für Informatik der
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena ist zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt
die Stelle eines

Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiters (Post-Doktorand oder Doktorand)

zu besetzen. Die Stelle ist Teil des von der DFG geförderten Projekts
Identifying the Unknowns: Massenspektrometrische Identifikation kleiner
Moleküle. Im Rahmen dieses Projektes sollen informatische Methoden
entwickelt werden, um unbekannte Substanzen durch Massenspektrometrie zu
identifizieren, die in keiner Datenbank gefunden werden können. Wir
wollen für diese Aufgabe neue Modelle und Algorithmen entwickeln, um MS
Fragmentierungsdaten kleiner Moleküle interpretieren zu können. Neben
der Entwicklung solcher Algorithmen ist auch ihre Implementierung,
Evaluierung sowie Algorithm Engineering. Ein besonderer Fokus wird auf
die Anwendung der entwickelten Methoden auf Messdaten (Fallstudien) gelegt.

Bewerber müssen über ein abgeschlossenes Diplom- oder Master-Studium in
den Bereichen Bioinformatik, Informatik oder Mathematik verfügen, oder
ein solches Studium in nächster Zukunft abschließen. Notwendig sind sehr
gute Kenntnisse in Bereich Algorithmik sowie Grundkenntnisse in den
Bereichen Biologie und Molekularbiologie. Grundkenntnisse in
(algorithmischer) Massenspektrometrie wären wünschenswert. Die
Projektarbeit erfordert gute Programmierkenntnisse, Erfahrung im Bereich
Software Design ist wünschenswert.

Die Vergütung erfolgt gemäß Entgeltgruppe 13 TV-L, es handelt sich um
eine volle Stelle (für Post-Doktoranden) bzw. 3/4 Stelle (für
Doktoranden). Die Möglichkeit zur wissenschaftlichen Qualifikation wird
geboten. Die Stelle ist befristet.

Beiträge zur Lehre der Studiengänge Bioinformatik (Diplom, B.Sc., M.Sc.)
werden in geringen Umfang erwartet.

Schwerbehinderte werden bei gleicher Eignung, Befähigung und fachlicher
Qualifikation bevorzugt berücksichtigt.

Bewerbungen mit den üblichen Unterlagen (Lebenslauf, Publikationsliste,
Zeugniskopien) sind bis zum 19.09.2011 (vorzugsweise via EMail)
einzureichen bei:

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Böcker

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Informatik
Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2
07743 Jena, Germany

--
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Boecker, Lehrstuhl fuer Bioinformatik
Currently visiting: Biomathematics Research Centre
PB 4800, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Office 616, Phone +64 3 3642987 ext 8876, Fax +64 3 3642587
http://bio.informatik.uni-jena.de/

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* addressed to DMANET but to the original sender. The
* original sender, however, is invited to prepare an
* update of the replies received and to communicate it
* via DMANET.
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Call for papers JSC-ISSAC 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

JOURNAL OF SYMBOLIC COMPUTATION

SPECIAL ISSUE FOR ISSAC 2011

DEADLINE: October 20th, 2011

Guest Editors: Ioannis Z. Emiris, Eric Schost

The International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation
(ISSAC) is the premier annual conference to present and discuss new
developments and original research results in all areas of symbolic
mathematical computation. This special issue is related to topics
discussed in the context of the ISSAC 2011 Conference, held in San
Jose, California.

IMPORTANT DATES:
- submission: 20th of October, 2011
- notification of acceptance / rejection: early April 2012
- camera ready version: May 2012
- issue ready: July 2012

All areas of computer algebra and symbolic computation are of
interest. These include, but are not limited to:

Algorithmic aspects: Exact and symbolic linear, polynomial and
differential algebra. Symbolic-numeric, homotopy, and series methods.
Computational geometry, group theory, number theory, quantifier
elimination and logic. Summation, recurrence equations, integration,
ODE & PDE. Theoretical and practical aspects, including algebraic
complexity, and techniques for important special cases.

Software aspects: Design of packages and systems, data representation.
Parallel and distributed algebraic computing, considerations for
modern hardware. User-interface issues, and use with systems for,
e.g., digital libraries, courseware, simulation and optimization,
automated theorem-proving, computer-aided design, and automatic
differentiation.

Application aspects: Applications that stretch the current limits of
computer algebra, use it in new ways, or apply it in situations with
broad impact, in particular to the natural sciences, life sciences,
engineering, economics and finance, and education.

The submission is open to contributions not necessarly related to
papers included in the proceedings of ISSAC 2011. Papers must not
duplicate work already published or submitted for publication
elsewhere. Improved or extended versions of papers included in the
proceedings of ISSAC 2011 are welcome; in that case, a cover letter
should explain what are the new ideas compared to the related ISSAC
2011 proceedings paper.

All the papers will be refereed according to the JSC standards.
Papers submissions should follow the guidelines for JSC submssions
(see www4.ncsu.edu/~hong/jsc.htm) and should be submitted to easychair
at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=jscissac11

The introduction of the paper must explicitly address the following
questions in succinct and informal manner:
- What is the problem?
- Why is the problem important?
- What has been done so far on the problem?
- What is the main contribution of the paper on the problem?
- Why is the contribution original?
- Why is the contribution non-trivial?

When feasible, all the main definitions, theorems and algorithms
should be illustrated by simple but meaningful examples.

Post Doc Positions Available

[[[ Apologies for multiple copies of this message ]]]

Post-Doc Positions Available

Embedded System Research Unit
Center for Information and Communication Technology
Fondazione Bruno Kessler
Trento, Italy

Deadlines: Sep 27, 2011

The Embedded System Research Unit (http://es.fbk.eu) of the
Information and Communication Technology Center of the Bruno Kessler
Foundation, Trento, Italy, is seeking candidates for Post-Doc
positions, to be hosted according to the call of proposal "Trentino -
The Trentino programme of research, training and mobility of
post-doctoral researchers", to be funded by the Autonomous Province of
Trento, see:

http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/in_evidenza/pagina70.html

Applications are invited in the broad field of formal verification and
planning. Topics of interest include:

- Model Checking
- Safety Analysis
- Schedulability
- Planning and Run-time Monitoring

Project proposals may have a duration of between two and three years,
and its yearly cost must not exceed 50.000 Euro.

Candidate Profile
=================

The ideal candidate should have a PhD degree in computer science,
mathematics or electronic engineering, combine solid theoretical
background and software development skills, and have some degree of
autonomy.

The candidate should be able to work in a collaborative environment,
with a strong commitment to reaching research excellence and achieving
assigned objectives.

In depth previous experience in at least one of the following areas
will be considered favorably:

- Symbolic Model Checking
- Propositional Satisfiability
- Satisfiability Modulo Theory
- Requirements Analysis
- Constraint Solving and Optimization
- Monitoring and Diagnosability
- Software Verification
- Safety Analysis (FTA, FMEA)

We draw attention on the following requirements stated in the call for
proposal.

(1) The proposing researcher must have a PhD, obtained in Italy or
abroad no more than three years before the deadline of this call.

(2) The proposing researcher must not have had any working
relationship (including any fellowship, scholarship, research
grant, contract, cooperation) with any research organizations
which have their registered office or operating centres inside
Trento Province, longer than 30 days on the whole, during the two
years before the deadline of this call.

Applications and Inquiries
==========================

Potential candidates should express their interest and/or inquire for
further information by sending email to <jobs[at]fbk[dot]eu>.

Applications should contain a statement of interest, with a Curriculum
Vitae, and the names of three reference persons. PDF format is
strongly encouraged.

Emails will be automatically processed and should have

'RIF: ES/postdoc'

as subject.

Potential candidates will be interviewed in order to define the
objectives of the research activities and to obtain the endorsement of
the hosting institution. If successful, they will be required to
complete the application through the PAT site by September 27th, 2011.

The applications will be evaluated by an independent team of experts.

The Embedded System Research Unit
=================================

The Embedded Systems Unit consists of about 15 persons, including
researchers, post-Doc, PhD students, and programmers. The Unit carries
out research, tool development and technology transfer in the fields
of design and verification of embedded systems.

Current research directions include:

* Satisfiability Modulo Theory, and its application to the
verification of hardware, embedded critical software, and hybrid
systems (Verilog, SystemC, C/C++, StateFlow/Simulink)

* Model Based Planning and Scheduling of aerospace domains using model
checking and satisfiability modulo theory techniques

* Formal Requirements Analysis based on techniques for temporal logics
(consistency checking, vacuity detection, input determinism,
cause-effect analysis, realizability and synthesis)

* Model-based engineering and formal verification of aerospace systems
using model checking techniques, on-board reasoning systems for
autonomous vehicles using planning techniques

* Formal Safety Analysis, based on the integration of traditional
techniques (e.g. Fault-tree analysis, FMEA) with symbolic
verification techniques

The unit develops and maintains several tools:

* the NuSMV symbolic model checker (http://nusmv.fbk.eu)

* the MathSAT SMT solver (http://mathsat.fbk.eu)

* the Formal Safety Analysis Platform FSAP (http://fsap.fbk.eu)

* the Requirements Analysis Tool RAT (http://rat.fbk.eu)

* the Software Model Checker Kratos (http://es.fbk.eu/tools/kratos)

The unit is currently involved in several research projects, funded by the European Union, the European Space Agency, the European Railway Agency, as well as in industrial technology transfer projects. The projects aim at applying research results to key application domains such as space, avionics, railways, hardware design and mobile embedded applications.

A list of past and present projects, the unit has been involved in,
include:

- MISSA (http://es.fbk.eu/index.php?n=Projects.MISSA)
- COCONUT (http://es.fbk.eu/index.php?n=Projects.COCONUT)
- EURAILCHECK (https://es.fbk.eu/projects/eurailcheck/)
- OMC-ARE (https://es.fbk.eu/index.php?n=Projects.OMCARE)
- COMPASS (http://compass.informatik.rwth-aachen.de)

The Embedded Systems (ES) Unit is part of the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) Center of Fondazione Bruno Kessler
(FBK), formerly Istituto Trentino di Cultura, a private non-profit
research centre established by the government of Autonomous Province
of Trento (PAT) in 1976. The institute, through its ICT Center, is
active in the areas of Information Technology, Microsystems, and
Physical Chemistry of Surfaces and Interfaces. Today, FBK is an
internationally recognized research institute, collaborating with
industries, universities, and public and private laboratories in Italy
and abroad. The institute's applied and basic research activities aim
at resolving real-world problems, driven by the need for technological
innovation in society and industry.

Location
========

Trento is a lively town of about 100.000 inhabitants, located 130 km
south of the border between Italy and Austria. It is well known for
the beauty of its mountains and lakes, and it offers the possibility
to practice a wide range of sports. Trento enjoys a rich cultural and
historical heritage, and it is the ideal starting point for day trips
to famous towns such as Venice or Verona, as well as to enjoy great
naturalistic journeys. Detailed information about Trento and its
region can be found at
http://www.trentino.to/home/index.html?_lang=en.

Links
=====

Autonomous Province of Trento, University and Scientific Research:
http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/

Call for applications:
http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/in_evidenza/pagina70.html

Submission site (not yet active):
http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/bandi_ricerca

Fondazione Bruno Kessler: http://www.fbk.eu/ Center for Information
Technology: http://cit.fbk.eu/ Embedded Systems Research Unit:
https://es.fbk.eu/

Contact Persons
===============

* Alessandro Cimatti
mailto: <cimatti[at]fbk[dot]eu>
http://es.fbk.eu/people/cimatti

[DMANET] AOR - Call for papers: Special volume on Electoral Systems in Memory of Bruno Simeone

Dear Colleagues,

we would like to announce the Call for Papers for the special volume of Annals of Operations Research on:

Mathematical Modeling of Electoral Systems - Analysis, Evaluation, Optimization
in Memory of Bruno Simeone (1945-2010).

The deadline for submission is February 28, 2012.

The call for paper is available at

http://rutcor.rutgers.edu/ANOR.html

Best Regards,
Isabella Lari, Federica Ricca, and Friedrich Pukelsheim

------------------------------------
Dr. Federica Ricca
Dip. di Scienze Statistiche
Sapienza, Università di Roma
P.le Aldo Moro, 5
00185 - Roma
Tel: +39 06 49910474
Fax: +39 06 4959241
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* Contributions to be spread via DMANET are submitted to
*
* DMANET@zpr.uni-koeln.de
*
* Replies to a message carried on DMANET should NOT be
* addressed to DMANET but to the original sender. The
* original sender, however, is invited to prepare an
* update of the replies received and to communicate it
* via DMANET.
*
* DISCRETE MATHEMATICS AND ALGORITHMS NETWORK (DMANET)
* http://www.zaik.uni-koeln.de/AFS/publications/dmanet/
*
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First CFP: "Pattern Recognition" - special issue on "S parse representation for event recognition in video surveill ance"

Apologies for cross-posting…

 

**********************************************************************************

Pattern Recognition: special issue on “Sparse representation for event recognition in video surveillance”,

Submission deadline: March 15, 2012

**********************************************************************************

 

Introduction

Understanding and interpreting object behaviours based on video analysis has witnessed tremendous progress in the last twenty years. However, the performance of finished systems still needs to be significantly improved, and many challenges remain to be solved. One of these challenges is that there is a gap between the primitive information directly extracted from images and semantic representations. To bridge this gap, a number of approaches based on features (e.g. SIFT, HoG and SURF) have been reported to address the coherence between the extracted features and their semantic interpretations. Unfortunately, due to feature redundancy and complexity, these primitive features do not always lead to consistent or semantically meaningful representations.

In recent years, sparse signal representation has proven to be an effective tool for representing and compressing images. It has been demonstrated that optimal decomposition of the signals using appropriately designed bases (e.g. wavelets, Fourier coefficients or spatio-temporal words) can lead to less ambiguity/uncertainty and computational complexity in image interpretation and representation. In spite of its success, sparsity analysis still has limitations in terms of computational efficiency and interpretation accuracy. As a result, continuous efforts are currently being made towards adaptive sparsity transformations of morphological data such as extracted events in video surveillance.

The primary purpose of this special issue is to organise a collection of recently developed analysis techniques based on sparse representations for understanding/interpreting video analysis of object behaviours. This includes object detection and tracking, segmentation, spatial and temporal features extraction, human body modelling and synthesis, event recognition, behaviour learning and applications. This special issue is intended to be an international forum for researchers to report the recent developments in this field in an original research paper style.

Topics

The topics include, but are not limited to:

l  Sparse representation for event search and retrieval

l  Sparse learning in motion trajectory analysis

l  Object detection and tracking using sparse inference  

l  Sparse representation for crowd behaviour analysis

l  Occlusion and segmentation errors handling

l  Sparse representation for 2D/3D articulated human body modelling

l  Sparsity analysis for modelling and learning object behaviours

l  Sparse interpretations of object behaviours

 

Paper submission

Before submission, authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/328/authorinstructions.  

Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript (6-15 pages in the Pattern Recognition publication format) through the journal manuscript tracking system at the web site: http://ees.elsevier.com/pr/, indicating that their contribution is for the special issue “Sparse representation for event recognition in video surveillance.” Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed according to the peer review policy of Pattern Recognition.

Important Dates

Manuscript Due	March 15, 2012
First Round of Reviews	June 15, 2012
Second round of Reviews	September 1, 2012
Notification of Acceptance	September 15, 2012
Tentative Publication Date	(Approx.) Mid-year 2013

Guest Editors

      Huiyu Zhou, PhD, Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom. E-mail: H.Zhou@ecit.qub.ac.uk. 

      Jianguo Zhang, PhD, School of Computing, University   of Dundee, United Kingdom. E-mail: jgzhang@computing.dundee.ac.uk.

      Liang Wang, PhD, National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Beijing, China. E-mail: wangliang@nlpr.ia.ac.cn.

      Zhengyou Zhang, PhD, Microsoft Research, Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way, Redmond WA, USA. E-mail: zhang@microsoft.com.

      Lisa M. Brown, PhD, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY USA. E-mail: lisabr@us.ibm.com.

 

First CFP: "Pattern Recognition" - special issue on "S parse representation for event recognition in video surveill ance"

Apologies for cross-posting…

 

**********************************************************************************

Pattern Recognition: special issue on “Sparse representation for event recognition in video surveillance”,

Submission deadline: March 15, 2012

**********************************************************************************

 

Introduction

Understanding and interpreting object behaviours based on video analysis has witnessed tremendous progress in the last twenty years. However, the performance of finished systems still needs to be significantly improved, and many challenges remain to be solved. One of these challenges is that there is a gap between the primitive information directly extracted from images and semantic representations. To bridge this gap, a number of approaches based on features (e.g. SIFT, HoG and SURF) have been reported to address the coherence between the extracted features and their semantic interpretations. Unfortunately, due to feature redundancy and complexity, these primitive features do not always lead to consistent or semantically meaningful representations.

In recent years, sparse signal representation has proven to be an effective tool for representing and compressing images. It has been demonstrated that optimal decomposition of the signals using appropriately designed bases (e.g. wavelets, Fourier coefficients or spatio-temporal words) can lead to less ambiguity/uncertainty and computational complexity in image interpretation and representation. In spite of its success, sparsity analysis still has limitations in terms of computational efficiency and interpretation accuracy. As a result, continuous efforts are currently being made towards adaptive sparsity transformations of morphological data such as extracted events in video surveillance.

The primary purpose of this special issue is to organise a collection of recently developed analysis techniques based on sparse representations for understanding/interpreting video analysis of object behaviours. This includes object detection and tracking, segmentation, spatial and temporal features extraction, human body modelling and synthesis, event recognition, behaviour learning and applications. This special issue is intended to be an international forum for researchers to report the recent developments in this field in an original research paper style.

Topics

The topics include, but are not limited to:

l  Sparse representation for event search and retrieval

l  Sparse learning in motion trajectory analysis

l  Object detection and tracking using sparse inference  

l  Sparse representation for crowd behaviour analysis

l  Occlusion and segmentation errors handling

l  Sparse representation for 2D/3D articulated human body modelling

l  Sparsity analysis for modelling and learning object behaviours

l  Sparse interpretations of object behaviours

 

Paper submission

Before submission, authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/328/authorinstructions.  

Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript (6-15 pages in the Pattern Recognition publication format) through the journal manuscript tracking system at the web site: http://ees.elsevier.com/pr/, indicating that their contribution is for the special issue “Sparse representation for event recognition in video surveillance.” Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed according to the peer review policy of Pattern Recognition.

Important Dates

Manuscript Due	March 15, 2012
First Round of Reviews	June 15, 2012
Second round of Reviews	September 1, 2012
Notification of Acceptance	September 15, 2012
Tentative Publication Date	(Approx.) Mid-year 2013

Guest Editors

      Huiyu Zhou, PhD, Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom. E-mail: H.Zhou@ecit.qub.ac.uk. 

      Jianguo Zhang, PhD, School of Computing, University   of Dundee, United Kingdom. E-mail: jgzhang@computing.dundee.ac.uk.

      Liang Wang, PhD, National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Beijing, China. E-mail: wangliang@nlpr.ia.ac.cn.

      Zhengyou Zhang, PhD, Microsoft Research, Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way, Redmond WA, USA. E-mail: zhang@microsoft.com.

      Lisa M. Brown, PhD, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY USA. E-mail: lisabr@us.ibm.com.