The Graph Coloring Problem (GCP) is a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem that has many practical applications. Degree of SATURation (DSATUR) and Recursive Largest First (RLF) are well known as typical solution construction algorithms for GCP. It is necessary to update the vertex degree in the subgraph induced by uncolored vertices when selecting vertices to be colored in both DSATUR and RLF. There is an issue that the higher the edge density of a given graph, the longer the processing time. The purposes of this paper are to propose a degree updating method called Adaptive Degree Updating (ADU for short) that improves the issue, and to evaluate the effectiveness of ADU for DSATUR and RLF on DIMACS benchmark graphs as well as random graphs having a wide range of sizes and densities. Experimental results show that the construction algorithms with ADU are faster than the conventional algorithms for many graphs and that the ADU method yields significant speed-ups relative to the conventional algorithms, especially in the case of large graphs with higher edge density.

A branching program is a well-studied model of computation and a representation for Boolean functions. It is a directed acyclic graph with a unique root node, some accepting nodes, and some rejecting nodes. Except for the accepting and rejecting nodes, each node has a label with a variable and each outgoing edge of the node has a label with a 0/1 assignment of the variable. The satisfiability problem for branching programs is, given a branching program with n variables and m nodes, to determine if there exists some assignment that activates a consistent path from the root to an accepting node. The width of a branching program is the maximum number of nodes at any level. The satisfiability problem for width-2 branching programs is known to be NP-complete. In this paper, we present a satisfiability algorithm for width-2 branching programs with n variables and cn nodes, and show that its running time is poly(n)·2(1-µ(c))n, where µ(c)=1/2O(c log c). Our algorithm consists of two phases. First, we transform a given width-2 branching program to a set of some structured formulas that consist of AND and Exclusive-OR gates. Then, we check the satisfiability of these formulas by a greedy restriction method depending on the frequency of the occurrence of variables.

Given a set of n disjoint intervals on a line and an integer k, we want to find k points in the intervals so that the minimum pairwise distance of the k points is maximized. Intuitively, given a set of n disjoint time intervals on a timeline, each of which is a time span we are allowed to check something, and an integer k, which is the number of times we will check something, we plan k checking times so that the checks occur at equal time intervals as much as possible, that is, we want to maximize the minimum time interval between the k checking times. We call the problem the k-dispersion problem on intervals. If we need to choose exactly one point in each interval, so k=n, and the disjoint intervals are given in the sorted order on the line, then two O(n) time algorithms to solve the problem are known. In this paper we give the first O(n) time algorithm to solve the problem for any constant k. Our algorithm works even if the disjoint intervals are given in any (not sorted) order. If the disjoint intervals are given in the sorted order on the line, then, by slightly modifying the algorithm, one can solve the problem in O(log n) time. This is the first sublinear time algorithm to solve the problem. Also we show some results on the k-dispersion problem on disks, including an FPTAS.

In the online removable knapsack problem, a sequence of items, each labeled with its value and its size, is given one by one. At each arrival of an item, a player has to decide whether to put it into a knapsack or to discard it. The player is also allowed to discard some of the items that are already in the knapsack. The objective is to maximize the total value of the knapsack. Iwama and Taketomi gave an optimal algorithm for the case where the value of each item is equal to its size. In this paper we consider a case with an additional constraint that the capacity of the knapsack is a positive integer N and that the sizes of items are all integral. For each positive integer N, we design an algorithm and prove its optimality. It is revealed that the competitive ratio is not monotonic with respect to N.

In this paper, we address the problem of finding a representation of a subtree distance, which is an extension of a tree metric. We show that a minimal representation is uniquely determined by a given subtree distance, and give an O(n2) time algorithm that finds such a representation, where n is the size of the ground set. Since a lower bound of the problem is Ω(n2), our algorithm achieves the optimal time complexity.

To solve the problem of metamerism in the color reproduction process, various spectral reflectance reconstruction methods combined with neural network have been proposed in recent years. However, these methods are generally sensitive to initial values and can easily converge to local optimal solutions, especially on small data sets. In this paper, we propose a spectral reflectance reconstruction algorithm based on the Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) and an improved Sparrow Search Algorithm (SSA). In this algorithm, to solve the problem that BPNN is sensitive to initial values, we propose to use SSA to initialize BPNN, and we use the sine chaotic mapping to further improve the stability of the algorithm. In the experiment, we tested the proposed algorithm on the X-Rite ColorChecker Classic Mini Chart which contains 24 colors, the results show that the proposed algorithm has significantly better performance compared to other algorithms and moreover it can meet the needs of spectral reflectance reconstruction on small data sets. Code is avaible at https://github.com/LuraZhang/spectral-reflectance-reconsctuction.

Given a graph G=(V, E), where V and E are vertex and edge sets of G, and a subset VNT of vertices called a non-terminal set, a spanning tree with a non-terminal set VNT, denoted by STNT, is a connected and acyclic spanning subgraph of G that contains all vertices of V where each vertex in a non-terminal set is not a leaf. On general graphs, the problem of finding an STNT of G is known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we show that if G is a circular-arc graph then finding an STNT of G is polynomially solvable with respect to the number of vertices.

Service mining aims to use process mining for the analysis of services, making it possible to discover, analyze, and improve service processes. In the context of Web services, the recording of all kinds of events related to activities is possible, which can be used to extract new information of service processes. However, the distributed nature of the services tends to generate large-scale service event logs, which complicates the discovery and analysis of service processes. To solve this problem, this research focus on the existing large-scale service event logs, a hybrid genetic service mining based on a trace clustering population method (HGSM) is proposed. By using trace clustering, the complex service system is divided into multiple functionally independent components, thereby simplifying the mining environment; And HGSM improves the mining efficiency of the genetic mining algorithm from the aspects of initial population quality improvement and genetic operation improvement, makes it better handle large service event logs. Experimental results demonstrate that compare with existing state-of-the-art mining methods, HGSM has better characteristics to handle large service event logs, in terms of both the mining efficiency and model quality.

A vertex subset I of a graph G is called a k-path vertex cover if every path on k vertices in G contains at least one vertex from I. The K-PATH VERTEX COVER RECONFIGURATION (K-PVCR) problem asks if one can transform one k-path vertex cover into another via a sequence of k-path vertex covers where each intermediate member is obtained from its predecessor by applying a given reconfiguration rule exactly once. We investigate the computational complexity of K-PVCR from the viewpoint of graph classes under the well-known reconfiguration rules: TS, TJ, and TAR. The problem for k=2, known as the VERTEX COVER RECONFIGURATION (VCR) problem, has been well-studied in the literature. We show that certain known hardness results for VCR on different graph classes can be extended for K-PVCR. In particular, we prove a complexity dichotomy for K-PVCR on general graphs: on those whose maximum degree is three (and even planar), the problem is PSPACE-complete, while on those whose maximum degree is two (i.e., paths and cycles), the problem can be solved in polynomial time. Additionally, we also design polynomial-time algorithms for K-PVCR on trees under each of TJ and TAR. Moreover, on paths, cycles, and trees, we describe how one can construct a reconfiguration sequence between two given k-path vertex covers in a yes-instance. In particular, on paths, our constructed reconfiguration sequence is shortest.

Manufacturers are coping with increasing pressures in quality, cost and efficiency as more and more industries are moving from traditional setup to industry 4.0 based digitally transformed setup due to its numerous playbacks. Within the manufacturing domain organizational structures and processes are complex, therefore adopting industry 4.0 and finding an optimized re-engineered business process is difficult without using a systematic methodology. Authors have developed Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and Business Process Optimization (BPO) methods but no consolidated methodology have been seen in the literature that is based on industry 4.0 and incorporates both the BPR and BPO. We have presented a consolidated and systematic re-engineering and optimization framework for a manufacturing industry setup. The proposed framework performs Evolutionary Multi-Objective Combinatorial Optimization using Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). An example process from an aircraft manufacturing factory has been optimized and re-engineered with available set of technologies from industry 4.0 based on the criteria of lower cost, reduced processing time and reduced error rate. At the end to validate the proposed framework Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is used for simulations and perform comparison between AS-IS and TO-BE processes as it is widely used standard for business process specification. The proposed framework will be used in converting an industry from traditional setup to industry 4.0 resulting in cost reduction, increased performance and quality.

Numerous variable tap-length algorithms can be found in some literature and few strategies are derived from a basic theoretical formula. Thus, some algorithms lack of theoretical depth and their performance are unstable. In view of this point, the novel variable tap-length algorithm which is based on the mixed error cost function is presented in this letter. By analyzing the mixed expectation of the prior and the posterior error, the novel variable tap-length strategy is derived. The proposed algorithm has a more valid proximity to the optimal tap-length and a good convergence ability by the performance analysis. It can solve many deficiencies comprising large fluctuations of the tap-length, the high complexity and the weak steady-state ability. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm equips good performance.

In this paper, we propose a new training framework named the INmfCA algorithm for nonparallel voice conversion (VC) systems. To train conversion models, traditional VC frameworks require parallel corpora, in which source and target speakers utter the same linguistic contents. Although the frameworks have achieved high-quality VC, they are not applicable in situations where parallel corpora are unavailable. To acquire conversion models without parallel corpora, nonparallel methods are widely studied. Although the frameworks achieve VC under nonparallel conditions, they tend to require huge background knowledge or many training utterances. This is because of difficulty in disentangling linguistic and speaker information without a large amount of data. In this work, we tackle this problem by exploiting NMF, which can factorize acoustic features into time-variant and time-invariant components in an unsupervised manner. The method acquires alignment between the acoustic features of a source speaker's utterances and a target dictionary and uses the obtained alignment as activation of NMF to train the source speaker's dictionary without parallel corpora. The acquisition method is based on the INCA algorithm, which obtains the alignment of nonparallel corpora. In contrast to the INCA algorithm, the alignment is not restricted to observed samples, and thus the proposed method can efficiently utilize small nonparallel corpora. The results of subjective experiments show that the combination of the proposed algorithm and the INCA algorithm outperformed not only an INCA-based nonparallel framework but also CycleGAN-VC, which performs nonparallel VC without any additional training data. The results also indicate that a one-shot VC framework, which does not need to train source speakers, can be constructed on the basis of the proposed method.

With the rapid increase in the number of CPU cores, software that can utilize these many cores is required. A lock-free algorithm based on compare-and-swap (CAS) operations is one of the concurrency control methods to implement such multi-threading software. A multi-word CAS (MwCAS) operation is an extension of a CAS operation to swap multiple words atomically. However, we noticed that the performance of the existing MwCAS implementation is limited because of garbage collection even if in a low-contention environment. To achieve high performance in low-contention workloads, we propose a new MwCAS algorithm without garbage collection. Experimental results show that our approach is three to five times faster than implementation with garbage collection in low-contention workloads. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method is also superior in a high-contention environment.

The existing research on Amdahl's law is limited to multi/many-core processors, and cannot be applied to the important parallel processing architecture of coarse-grained reconfigurable arrays. This paper studies the relation between the multi-level parallelism of block cipher algorithms and the architectural characteristics of coarse-grain reconfigurable arrays. We introduce the key variables that affect the performance of reconfigurable arrays, such as communication overhead and configuration overhead, into Amdahl's law. On this basis, we propose a performance model for coarse-grain reconfigurable block cipher array (CGRBA) based on the extended Amdahl's law. In addition, this paper establishes the optimal integer nonlinear programming model, which can provide a parameter reference for the architecture design of CGRBA. The experimental results show that: (1) reducing the communication workload ratio and increasing the number of configuration pages reasonably can significantly improve the algorithm performance on CGRBA; (2) the communication workload ratio has a linear effect on the execution time.

This paper evaluates the bluetooth low energy (BLE) positioning systems using the sparse-training data through the comparison experiments. The sparse-training data is extracted from the database including enough data for realizing the highly accurate and precise positioning. First, we define the sparse-training data, i.e., the data collection time and the number of smartphones, directions, beacons, and reference points, on BLE positioning systems. Next, the positioning performance evaluation experiments are conducted in two indoor environments, that is, an indoor corridor as a one-dimensionally spread environment and a hall as a twodimensionally spread environment. The algorithms for comparison are the conventional fingerprint algorithm and the hybrid algorithm (the authors already proposed, and combined the proximity algorithm and the fingerprint algorithm). Based on the results, we confirm that the hybrid algorithm performs well in many cases even when using sparse-training data. Consequently, the robustness of the hybrid algorithm, that the authors already proposed for the sparse-training data, is shown.

Millimeter wave synthetic aperture interferometric radiometers (SAIR) are very powerful instruments, which can effectively realize high-precision imaging detection. However due to the existence of interference factor and complex near-field error, the imaging effect of near-field SAIR is usually not ideal. To achieve better imaging results, a new fully connected imaging network (FCIN) is proposed for near-field SAIR. In FCIN, the fully connected network is first used to reconstruct the image domain directly from the visibility function, and then the residual dense network is used for image denoising and enhancement. The simulation results show that the proposed FCIN method has high imaging accuracy and shorten imaging time.

Because processes run concurrently in multitask systems, the size of the state space grows exponentially. Therefore, it is not straightforward to formally verify that such systems enjoy desired properties. Real-time constrains make the formal verification more challenging. In this paper, we propose the following to address the challenge: (1) a way to model multitask real-time systems as observational transition systems (OTSs), a kind of state transition systems, (2) a way to describe their specifications in CafeOBJ, an algebraic specification language, and (3) a way to verify that such systems enjoy desired properties based on such formal specifications by writing proof scores, proof plans, in CafeOBJ. As a case study, we model Fischer's protocol, a well-known real-time mutual exclusion protocol, as an OTS, describe its specification in CafeOBJ, and verify that the protocol enjoys the mutual exclusion property when an arbitrary number of processes participates in the protocol*.

Syndrome is a crucial principle of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Formula classification is an effective approach to discover herb combinations for the clinical treatment of syndromes. In this study, a local search based firefly algorithm (LSFA) for parameter optimization and feature selection of support vector machines (SVMs) for formula classification is proposed. Parameters C and γ of SVMs are optimized by LSFA. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of herbs in formula classification is adopted as a feature. LSFA searches for well-performing subsets of features to maximize classification accuracy. In LSFA, a local search of fireflies is developed to improve FA. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed LSFA-SVM algorithm outperforms other classification algorithms on different datasets. Parameters C and γ and the features are optimized by LSFA to obtain better classification performance. The performance of FA is enhanced by the proposed local search mechanism.

Real-time and scalable multicast services are of paramount importance to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. To realize these services, the multicast algorithm should, on the one hand, ensure the maximum delay of a multicast session not exceeding its upper delay bound. On the other hand, the algorithm should minimize session costs. As an emerging networking paradigm, Software-defined Networking (SDN) can provide a global view of the network to multicast algorithms, thereby bringing new opportunities for realizing the desired multicast services in IIoT environments. Unfortunately, existing SDN-based multicast (SDM) algorithms cannot meet the real-time and scalable requirements simultaneously. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on SDM algorithm design for IIoT environments. To be specific, the paper first converts the multicast tree construction problem for SDM in IIoT environments into a delay-bounded least-cost shared tree problem and proves that it is an NP-complete problem. Then, the paper puts forward a shared tree (ST) algorithm called SDM4IIoT to compute suboptimal solutions to the problem. The algorithm consists of five steps: 1) construct a delay-optimal shared tree; 2) divide the tree into a set of subpaths and a subtree; 3) optimize the cost of each subpath by relaxing the delay constraint; 4) optimize the subtree cost in the same manner; 5) recombine them into a shared tree. Simulation results show that the algorithm can provide real-time support that other ST algorithms cannot. In addition, it can achieve good scalability. Its cost is only 20.56% higher than the cost-optimal ST algorithm. Furthermore, its computation time is also acceptable. The algorithm can help to realize real-time and scalable multicast services for IIoT applications.

Betweenness centrality is one of the most significant and commonly used centralities, where centrality is a notion of measuring the importance of nodes in networks. In 2001, Brandes proposed an algorithm for computing betweenness centrality efficiently, and it can compute those values for all nodes in O(nm) time for unweighted networks, where n and m denote the number of nodes and links in networks, respectively. However, even Brandes' algorithm is not fast enough for recent large-scale real-world networks, and therefore, much faster algorithms are expected. The objective of this research is to theoretically improve the efficiency of Brandes' algorithm by introducing graph decompositions, and to verify the practical effectiveness of our approaches by implementing them as computer programs and by applying them to various kinds of real-world networks. A series of computational experiments shows that our proposed algorithms run several times faster than the original Brandes' algorithm, which are guaranteed by theoretical analyses.