Employee performance appraisal is an effective way to determine the performance of the employees in an organization. A study conducted on companies in Thailand revealed that majority of the companies do not use computer-based employee appraisal system. In the traditional appraisal system, the paper-based appraisal system causes a lot of manual work, is time-consuming, not secure, not flexible, difficult to analyze the performance and see the trend of performance improvement of the employee. We have developed a web-based performance appraisal system, which provides a secure and easy way to perform the appraisal. In our system, the competencies are flexible and can be customized according to the specific job responsibility. Our system is goal-orientated as it calculates the objective scores. The system is connected to the database which is easily accessible. The first stage of our system is the 'Selection Stage' in which the managers and employees can select the competencies and objectives that they want to evaluate for performance appraisal according to the job positions. The second stage is the 'Appraisal/Evaluation Stage' where managers can rate the employees according to different priority levels of competencies and objectives. Moreover, at this stage, employees can perform self-evaluation and 360-degree evaluation for their colleagues, subordinates and managers. The final stage is the 'Development Planning Stage' where the managers and employees can compare their appraisal results, discuss and plan for future training or further steps for reaching the objectives and improving employee's competencies. From user testing, the system was found to be more efficient compared to the traditional appraisal system in the issues like: help evaluate the true abilities of employees, help employees understand organizational goals, and provide fast and effective feedback. The users found the system easy to understand and use and were more satisfied with the overall effectiveness of the system.

This paper shows the effectiveness of a cinematographic camera for controlling 3D video by measuring its effects on viewers with several typical camera works. 3D free-viewpoint video allows us to set its virtual camera on arbitrary positions and postures in 3D space. However, there have been neither investigations on adaptability nor on dependencies between the camera parameters of the virtual camera (i.e., positions, postures, and transitions) nor the impressions of viewers. Although camera works on 3D video based on expertise seems important for making intuitively understandable video, it has not yet been considered. When applying camera works to 3D video using the planning techniques proposed in previous research, generating ideal output video is difficult because it may include defects due to image resolution limitation, calculation errors, or occlusions as well as others caused by positioning errors of the virtual camera in the planning process. Therefore, we conducted an experiment with 29 subjects with camera-worked 3D videos created using simple annotation and planning techniques to determine the virtual camera parameters. The first point of the experiment examines the effects of defects on viewer impressions. To measure such impressions, we conducted a semantic differential (SD) test. Comparisons between ground truth and 3D videos with planned camera works show that the present defects of camera work do not significantly affect viewers. The experiment's second point examines whether the cameras controlled by planning and annotations affected the subjects with intentional direction. For this purpose, we conducted a factor analysis for the SD test answers whose results indicate that the proposed virtual camera control, which exploits annotation and planning techniques, allows us to realize camera working direction on 3D video.

In mobile computing environments, cache invalidation techiniques are widely used. However, theses techniques require a large-sized invalidation report and show low cache utilization under high server update rate. In this paper, we propose a new cache-level cache invalidation technique called TTCI (Timestamp Tree-based Cache Invalidation technique) to overcome the above two problems. TTCI also supports selective tuning for a cache-level cache invalidation. We show in our experiment that our technique requires much smaller size of cache invalidation report and improves cache utilization.

In this letter, we propose an enhanced method for inter-layer motion prediction in scalable video coding (SVC). For inter-layer motion prediction, the use of refined motion data in the Fine Granular Scalability (FGS) layer is proposed instead of the conventional use of motion data in the base quality layer to reduce the inter-layer redundancy efficiently. Experimental results show that the proposed method enhances coding efficiency without increasing the computational complexity of the decoder.

A comparison among the possible nonlinear photonic interactions for scalable nanometer networks and quantum gates as well as for coherence retention in solids is made theoretically, and then numerical plottings are given, on the basis of the dipole length estimated from our µ-PL (microphotoluminescence) spectra of GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum dots (QDs) having a pair of 0.3 meV splittings. Furthermore, prospective device concepts based on these nonlinear multipolar interactions are given.

The present paper introduces an integrated construction of binary sequences having a zero-correlation zone. The cross-correlation function and the side-lobe of the auto-correlation function of the proposed sequence set is zero for the phase shifts within the zero-correlation zone. The proposed method enables more flexible design of the binary zero-correlation zone sequence set with respect to its member size, length, and width of zero-correlation zone. Several previously reported sequence construction methods of binary zero-correlation zone sequence sets can be explained as special cases of the proposed method.

Service differentiation is one of the key issues in the current Internet. In this paper, we focus on a recent proposal for proportional loss rate differentiation which employs a single FIFO queue, an AQM algorithm for computing the packet drop probability, and a counter-based packet dropping routine for achieving the intended proportional loss rate differentiation among classes. It is first shown that, when the target dropping probability of a class is large, the counter-based packet dropping routine may yield a significant amount of error between the target and measured drop probabilities for the class, and subsequently, fails to maintain the loss rate ratios between classes as intended. To avoid this problem, a new compensatory packet dropping routine is developed in this paper. Then, a series of simulation experiments are conducted using the ns-2 simulator to assess the performances of the two dropping routines under various congestion conditions and quality spacings between classes. The simulation results show that, unlike the counter-based dropping routine, the proposed compensatory dropping routine is effective in keeping the loss rate ratios between classes closely on target regardless of the degree of congestion and quality spacing between classes, while the two dropping routines perform similarly in terms of throughput and queueing delay in the bottleneck link. In addition, such robustness of the proposed routine is achieved without any additional control parameter or computational effort compared to the counter-based routine.

This paper proposes to use eye movements to characterize the performance of individuals in reviewing software documents. We design and implement a system called DRESREM, which measures and records eye movements of document reviewers. Based on the eye movements captured by eye tracking device, the system computes the line number of the document that the reviewer is currently looking at. The system can also record and play back how the eyes moved during the review process. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system we conducted an experiment to analyze 30 processes of source code review (6 programs, 5 subjects) using the system. As a result, we have identified a particular pattern, called scan, in the subject's eye movements. Quantitative analysis showed that reviewers who did not spend enough time on the scan took more time to find defects on average.

This paper proposes a very simple method of eliminating the gain and offset errors caused by mismatches of elements, such as capacitors, for a high-speed CMOS pipelined ADC with a 1.5-bit architecture. The gain and offset errors in a bit-block due to capacitor mismatch are analog-to-digital (A-D) converted without correcting errors, but by exchanging capacitors at every clock. The obtained results are digital codes at the output of the ADC, and they contain positive and negative errors in turn. The two consecutive codes are then added in digital form, thus canceling the errors. This results in the two-fold oversampling operation. As the distortion component arises when the input signal frequency increases, a front-end SHA is used to completely eliminate distortion up to the Nyquist frequency. The behavioral simulation of a 14-bit ADC reveals that this CMOS pipelined ADC with a 1.5-bit bit-block architecture, even without a front-end SHA, has more than 70 dB of spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) for up to an 8 MHz input signal when each of the upper three bit-blocks has gain and offset errors of +0.8% when the clock frequency is 102.4 MHz. Using an SHA in front further improves the SFDR to 95 dB up to the signal frequency bandwidth of 25.6 MHz.

In this paper, we shall describe about a basic theory based on the concept of set-valued operators, suitable for available operation of extremely complicated large-scale network systems. Fundamental conditions for availability of system behaviors of such network systems are clarified in a form of fixed point theorem for system of set-valued operators. Here, the proof of this theorem is accomplished by the concept of Hausdorff's ball measure of non-compactness.

In this paper, we show the analysis of price changes in artificial double auction markets consisting of multi-agents who learn from past experiences based on the Genetic Programming (GP) and its applications. For simplicity, we focus on the double auction in an electricity market. Agents in the market are allowed to buy or sell items (electricity) depending on the prediction of situations. Each agent has a pool of individuals (decision functions) represented in tree structures to decide bid price by using the past result of auctions. A fitness of each individual is defined by using successful bids and a capacity utilization rate of production units for a production of items, and agents improve their individuals based on the GP to get higher return in coming auctions. In simulation studies, changes of bid prices and returns of bidders are discussed depending on demand curves of customers and the weight between an average profit obtained by successful bids and the capacity utilization rate of production units. The validation of simulation studies is examined by comparing results with classical models and price changes in real double auction markets. Since bid prices bear relatively large changes, we apply an approximate method for a control by forcing agents stabilize the changes in bid prices. As a result, we see the stabilization scheme of bid prices in double auction markets is not realistic, then it is concluded that the market contains substantial instability.

We design M(≥3)-phase spreading sequences of Markov chains optimal in terms of bit error probabilities in asynchronous SSMA (spread spectrum multiple access) communication systems. To this end, we obtain the distributions of the normalized MAI (multiple access interference) for such systems and find a necessary and sufficient condition that the distributions become independent of the phase shifts.

This study initiates a systematic evaluation of web search engine performance using queries written in Thai. Statistical testing indicates that there are some significant differences in the performance of search engines. In addition to compare the search performance, an analysis of the returned results is carried out. The analysis of the returned results shows that the majority of returned results are unique to a particular search engine and each system provides quite different results. This encourages the use of metasearch techniques to combine the search results in order to improve the performance and reliability in finding relevant documents. We examine several metasearch models based on the Borda count and Condorcet voting schemes. We also propose the use of Evolutionary Programming (EP) to optimize weight vectors used by the voting algorithms. The results show that the use of metasearch approaches produces superior performance compared to any single search engine on Thai queries.

This paper describes the distortion properties created by self-phase modulation in super wideband FM converted 40 AM/30 64-QAM CATV and super-high-frequency RF converted 8 BS/12 CS TV signal transmission based on the optical SSB modulation scheme.

We recorded time series data of calls of Japanese tree frogs (Hyla japonica; Nihon-Ama-Gaeru) and examined the dynamics of the experimentally observed data not only through linear time series analysis such as power spectra but also through nonlinear time series analysis such as reconstruction of orbits with delay coordinates and different kinds of recurrence plots, namely the conventional recurrence plot (RP), the iso-directional recurrence plot (IDRP), and the iso-directional neighbors plot (IDNP). The results show that a single frog called nearly periodically, and a pair of frogs called nearly periodically but alternately in almost anti-phase synchronization with little overlap through mutual interaction. The fundamental frequency of the calls of a single frog during the interactive calling between two frogs was smaller than when the same frog first called alone. We also used the recurrence plots to study nonlinear and nonstationary determinism in the transition of the calling behavior. Moreover, we quantified the determinism of the nonlinear and nonstationary dynamics with indices of the ratio R of the number of points in IDNP to that in RP and the percentage PD of contiguous points forming diagonal lines in RP by the recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). Finally, we discuss a possibility of mathematical modeling of the calling behavior and a possible biological meaning of the call alternation.

This paper addresses a discrete-time consensus problem with non-linear performance functions over dynamically changing communication topologies. Each agent has a performance value based on its internal information state and exchanges the performance value with other agents to achieve consensus. We derive sufficient conditions for a global consensus using algebraic graph theory.

In this paper, a novel decentralized adaptive neural network controller is proposed for a class of large-scale nonlinear systems with unknown nonlinear, nonaffine subsystems and unknown nonlinear interconnections. The stability of the closed loop system is guaranteed by introducing a robust adaptive bound based on Lyapunov stability analysis. A radial-basis function type neural network is used in the paper. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, we performed some simulation studies. The results of simulation become very promising.

There are several methods for generating multi-fractal time series, but the origin of the multi-fractality is not discussed so far. This paper deals with the multi-fractality analysis of time series in an artificial stock market generated by multi-agent systems based on the Genetic Programming (GP) and its applications to feature extractions. Cognitive behaviors of agents are modeled by using the GP to introduce the co-evolutionary (social) learning as well as the individual learning. We assume five types of agents, in which a part of the agents prefer forecast equations or forecast rules to support their decision making, and another type of the agents select decisions at random like a speculator. The agents using forecast equations and rules usually use their own knowledge base, but some of them utilize their public (common) knowledge base to improve trading decisions. For checking the multi-fractality we use an extended method based on the continuous time wavelet transform. Then, it is shown that the time series of the artificial stock price reveals as a multi-fractal signal. We mainly focus on the proportion of the agents of each type. To examine the role of agents of each type, we classify six cases by changing the composition of agents of types. As a result, in several cases we find strict multi-fractality in artificial stock prices, and we see the relationship between the realizability (reproducibility) of multi-fractality and the system parameters. By applying a prediction method for mono-fractal time series as counterparts, features of the multi-fractal time series are extracted. As a result, we examine and find the origin of multi-fractal processes in artificial stock prices.

This paper presents a new analysis of power complementary filters using the state-space representation. Our analysis is based on the bounded-real Riccati equations that were developed in the field of control theory. Through this new state-space analysis of power complementary filters, we prove that the sum of the controllability/observability Gramians of a pair of power complementary filters is represented by a constant matrix, which is given as a solution to the bounded-real Riccati equations. This result shows that power complementary filters possess complementary properties with respect to the Gramians, as well as the magnitude responses of systems. Furthermore, we derive new theorems on a specific family of power complementary filters that are generated by a pair of invertible solutions to the bounded-real Riccati equations. These theorems show some interesting relationships of this family with respect to the Gramians, zeros, and coefficients of systems. Finally, we give a numerical example to demonstrate our results.

This paper presents efficient applications of invariants to harmonic balance (HB) methods using Grobner base. The Grobner base is a powerful tool based on ideal theory. Using the Grobner base, we can obtain the solutions of the HB equation. However, its computation is very time-consuming when the equation has equivalent different solutions based on symmetries of the system. We show that invariants enable to transpose the equivalent different solutions to a unique solution. The bifurcation diagram of the invariant is simpler than the original bifurcation diagram, and its computation is considerably decreased. Further, we can obtain the relation among the amplitudes of each frequency component using the invariants. We propose a method for finding the circuit parameters using the amplitude relation.