Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2007

Brigham Young University

Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 30 of 138

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Regional Body Composition In College-Aged Caucasians From Anthropometric Measures, Robert T. Davidson, Cameron B. Ritchie Dec 2007

Regional Body Composition In College-Aged Caucasians From Anthropometric Measures, Robert T. Davidson, Cameron B. Ritchie

Faculty Publications

Quantitating fat and lean tissue in isolated body regions may be helpful or required in obesity and health-outcomes research. However, current methods of regional body composition measurement require specialized, expensive equipment such as that used in computed tomography or dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Simple body size or circumference measurement relationships to body composition have been developed but are limited to whole-body applications. We investigated relationships between body size measurements and regional body composition. Methods Using DEXA technology we determined the fat and lean tissue composition for six regions of the body in predominantly Caucasian, college-aged men (n = 32) …

Go to article

Digital Germany: Virtual Archives, Powerful Portals, Wise Wikis, Richard Hacken Dec 2007

Digital Germany: Virtual Archives, Powerful Portals, Wise Wikis, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

Presented in the Winter 2006-2007 issue of the Global Resources Newsletter, the German-North American Resources Partnership issue. Online portals and digital gateways into focused subject and area studies are both boons and blessings. For German Studies but even more extensively, for all disciplines relevant to the German-North American Resources Partnership this past year has seen explosive growth in the preparation, expansion, proofing, and proclamation of virtual libraries, scholarly digital projects, and multidisciplinary portals. German digital scholarship has reached a maturity that calls for the types of systematic registry and centralized access that are vital to researchers from Aachen to Zzyzx.

Go to article

The Effect Of Contact Length On Adhesion Between Carbon Nanotubes On Silicon Dioxide, Robert C. Davis, Kaylee Mcelroy, Aaron R. Hopkins Dec 2007

The Effect Of Contact Length On Adhesion Between Carbon Nanotubes On Silicon Dioxide, Robert C. Davis, Kaylee Mcelroy, Aaron R. Hopkins

Faculty Publications

The force of adhesion was measured for single walled carbon nanotubes grown over lithographically defined silicon dioxide trenches. We varied contact lengths between the nanotubes and silicon dioxide from 230 to 850 nm. Suspended nanotubes were pushed vertically into the trenches with an atomic force microscope tip, causing them to slip along the surface. Previous work done at shorter contact lengths found that tension was constant with contact length [J. D. Whittaker et al., Nano Lett. 6, 953 (2006)]. This study finds that when the nanotube contact length approaches 1 µm, the tension at which nanotubes slip begins to increase …

Go to article

Collecting, Organizing, And Managing Resources For Teaching Educational Games The Wiki Way, David Wiley, Shelley Henson, Brett Shelton Dec 2007

Collecting, Organizing, And Managing Resources For Teaching Educational Games The Wiki Way, David Wiley, Shelley Henson, Brett Shelton

Faculty Publications

As a reaction to the growing number of teachers using games in their curricula and the corresponding increase in university courses aimed at teaching the design of effective instructional games, we introduced a panel at the recent Games, Learning and Society presentation in Madison, Wisconsin, in June 2006. This panel brought together a community of interested parties involved with teaching educational game design. We collaborated with attendees before the panel convened so that we could introduce resources such as syllabi, collections of readings, and discussions of theory in a wiki environment to which participants could contribute during the session. After …

Go to article

Outcomes Of Religious And Spiritual Adaptations To Psychotherapy: A Meta-Analytic Review, Timothy B. Smith, Jeremy Bartz, P. Scott Richards Nov 2007

Outcomes Of Religious And Spiritual Adaptations To Psychotherapy: A Meta-Analytic Review, Timothy B. Smith, Jeremy Bartz, P. Scott Richards

Faculty Publications

The use of spiritually oriented psychotherapies has increased dramatically during the past decade. This article reports a meta-analysis of 31 outcome studies of spiritual therapies conducted from 1984 to 2005 with clients suffering from a variety of psychological problems. Across the 31 studies, the random-effects weighted average effect size was 0.56. This finding provides some empirical evidence that spiritually oriented psychotherapy approaches may be beneficial to individuals with certain psychological problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress, eating disorders). Recommendations for future research in this domain are offered.

Go to article

Electronic Resource Management Systems: Learning From Experience, Jared L. Howland Nov 2007

Electronic Resource Management Systems: Learning From Experience, Jared L. Howland

Faculty Publications

PDF of Powerpoint Presentation. This presentation was given at the XXVII Annual Charleston Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. It discusses Electronic Resource Management Systems selection and implementation.

Go to article

The Approach Of The Black Death In Switzerland And The Persecution Of Jews, 1348–1349, Albert Winkler Nov 2007

The Approach Of The Black Death In Switzerland And The Persecution Of Jews, 1348–1349, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

When the Black Death approached the Swiss states in 1348, the news of the approaching pestilence traveled faster than the Plague. This gave the Swiss time to react and try to prevent its arrival. The Swiss did not know what caused the Black Death, but they feared that the Jews were poisoning water wells in order to cause the plague. At Chillon and elsewhere, Jews were tortured for confessions, which were clearly worthless. In a climate of fear and severe prejudice, Jews were killed in numerous communities including Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Kyburg by being burned to death. Execution by …

Go to article

Undergraduate Use Of Federated Searching: A Survey Of Preferences And Perceptions Of Value-Added Functionality, C. Jeffrey Belliston, Jared L. Howland, Brian C. Roberts Nov 2007

Undergraduate Use Of Federated Searching: A Survey Of Preferences And Perceptions Of Value-Added Functionality, C. Jeffrey Belliston, Jared L. Howland, Brian C. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Randomly selected undergraduates at Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University-Idaho and Brigham Young University-Hawaii, all private universities sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, participated in a study that investigated four questions regarding federated searching: (1) Does it save time? (2) Do undergraduates prefer it? (3) Are undergraduates satisfied with the results they get from it? (4) Does it yield higher quality results than non-federated searching? Federated searching was, on average, 11% faster than non-federated searching. Undergraduates rated their satisfaction with the citations gathered by federated searching 17% higher than their satisfaction using non-federated search methods. A …

Go to article

Analyzing Gene Relationships For Down Syndrome With Labeled Transition Graphs, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Eric G. Mercer, Neha Rungta, Quinn O. Snell, Randall J. Roper Nov 2007

Analyzing Gene Relationships For Down Syndrome With Labeled Transition Graphs, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Eric G. Mercer, Neha Rungta, Quinn O. Snell, Randall J. Roper

Faculty Publications

The relationship between changes in gene expression and physical characteristics associated with Down syndrome is not well understood. Chromosome 21 genes interact with nonchromosome 21 genes to produce Down syndrome characteristics. This indirect influence, however, is difficult to empirically define due to the number, size, and complexity of the involved gene regulatory networks. This work links chromosome 21 genes to non-chromosome 21 genes known to interact in a Down syndrome phenotype through a reachability analysis of labeled transition graphs extracted from published gene regulatory network databases. The analysis provides new relations in a recently discovered link between a specific gene …

Go to article

Template Use And The Effectiveness Of Knowledge Transfer, Robert J. Jensen, Gabriel Szulanski Nov 2007

Template Use And The Effectiveness Of Knowledge Transfer, Robert J. Jensen, Gabriel Szulanski

Faculty Publications

This paper is a direct empirical examination of the fundamental claim that use of templates enhances the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. We explore the effect of template use through an eight-year, in-depth field investigation of Rank Xerox (now Xerox Europe). The field investigation covers three sequential transfer efforts in 15 western European countries. The investigation reveals a naturally occurring, repeated-treatment quasi experiment that allows us to test the hypothesis that the use of templates enhances the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. "Observation" in this experiment measure the extent of adoption and performance of the practice at the recipient units. The "treatment" …

Go to article

Measurement And Evaluation Of Blade Passage Frequency Fluctuations (A), Cole V. Duke, Scott D. Sommerfeldt, Kent L. Gee, Connor R. Duke Nov 2007

Measurement And Evaluation Of Blade Passage Frequency Fluctuations (A), Cole V. Duke, Scott D. Sommerfeldt, Kent L. Gee, Connor R. Duke

Faculty Publications

In the active control of tonal noise from cooling fans, one factor that can limit the achievable attenuation is fluctuation of the blade passage frequency in time. Large fluctuations in a short time can hinder the algorithm from converging to the optimal solution. Some fans have steadier speeds than others, which can be due to unsteady driving mechanisms or the physical structure of the fan. Environmental effects, such as back pressure and unsteady blade loading, can also cause the fan speed to fluctuate. The shifting in the blade passage frequency will be measured using a zero-crossing technique to track the …

Go to article

Comparison Of A Low Carbohydrate And Low Fat Diet For Weight Maintenance In Overweight Or Obese Adults Enrolled In A Clinical Weight Management Program, James D. Lecheminant, Cheryl A. Gibson, Debra K. Sullivan, Sandra Hall, Rik Washburn, Mary C. Vernon, Chelsea Curry, Elizabeth Stewart, Eric C. Westman, Joseph E. Donnelly Nov 2007

Comparison Of A Low Carbohydrate And Low Fat Diet For Weight Maintenance In Overweight Or Obese Adults Enrolled In A Clinical Weight Management Program, James D. Lecheminant, Cheryl A. Gibson, Debra K. Sullivan, Sandra Hall, Rik Washburn, Mary C. Vernon, Chelsea Curry, Elizabeth Stewart, Eric C. Westman, Joseph E. Donnelly

Faculty Publications

Background: Recent evidence suggests that a low carbohydrate (LC) diet may be equally or more effective for short-term weight loss than a traditional low fat (LF) diet; however, less is known about how they compare for weight maintenance. The purpose of this study was to compare body weight (BW) for participants in a clinical weight management program, consuming a LC or LF weight maintenance diet for 6 months following weight loss. Methods: Fifty-five (29 low carbohydrate diet; 26 low fat diet) overweight/obese middle-aged adults completed a 9 month weight management program that included instruction for behavior, physical activity (PA), and …

Go to article

Polarization Rotation Correction In Radiometry: An Error Analysis, David G. Long, Derek Hudson, Jeffrey R. Piepmeier Nov 2007

Polarization Rotation Correction In Radiometry: An Error Analysis, David G. Long, Derek Hudson, Jeffrey R. Piepmeier

Faculty Publications

Yueh proposed a method of using the third Stokes parameter TU to correct brightness temperatures such as Tv and Th for polarization rotation. This paper presents an extended error analysis of the estimation of Tv , Th, and TQ equiv Tv - Th by Yueh's method. In order to carry out the analysis, we first develop a forward model of polarization rotation that accounts for the random nature of thermal radiation, receiver noise, and (to first order) calibration. Analytic formulas are then derived for the bias, standard deviation (STD), and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of estimated TQ, Tv , and Th, …

Go to article

The Impact Of Maternal Relationship Quality On Emerging Adults’ Prosocial Tendencies: Indirect Effects Via Regulation Of Prosocial Values, Carolyn Mcnamara Barry, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Stephanie D. Madsen, Larry J. Nelson Oct 2007

The Impact Of Maternal Relationship Quality On Emerging Adults’ Prosocial Tendencies: Indirect Effects Via Regulation Of Prosocial Values, Carolyn Mcnamara Barry, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Stephanie D. Madsen, Larry J. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Studies document that parents serve as children’s primary socialization agents, particularly for moral development and prosocial behavior; however, less is known regarding parental influences on prosocial outcomes during the transition to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to investigate how mother–child relationship quality was related to prosocial tendencies via emerging adults’ regulation of prosocial values. Participants included 228 undergraduate students (ranging from 18 to 25 years; 90% European American) and their mothers (ranging from 38 to 59 years) from four locations across the United States. Path analyses using structural equation modeling revealed that mother–child relationship quality was related to …

Go to article

Looking On The Bright Side: The Role Of Identity Status And Gender On Positive Orientations During Emerging Adulthood, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Carolyn Mcnamara Barry, Jason S. Carroll, Stephanie D. Madsen, Larry J. Nelson Oct 2007

Looking On The Bright Side: The Role Of Identity Status And Gender On Positive Orientations During Emerging Adulthood, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Carolyn Mcnamara Barry, Jason S. Carroll, Stephanie D. Madsen, Larry J. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Emerging adulthood has been characterized as an age of possibilities that involves heightened identity exploration and risk-taking. Although some scholars have investigated the relation between identity status and risk behaviors in emerging adulthood, less attention has been paid to the relation between identity status and prosocial orientations. Thus, the current study examined how emerging adults’ engagement in positive behaviors (i.e., prosocial tendencies, internalization of values, religiosity) varied as a function of identity status and gender. Results indicated that emerging adults who were in identity diffusion reported fewer prosocial tendencies, lower scores on internalization of values and lower religiosity, but emerging …

Go to article

The Association Of Racial Attitudes And Spiritual Beliefs In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Timothy B. Smith, Christopher R. Stones, Christopher E. Peck, Anthony V. Naidoo Oct 2007

The Association Of Racial Attitudes And Spiritual Beliefs In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Timothy B. Smith, Christopher R. Stones, Christopher E. Peck, Anthony V. Naidoo

Faculty Publications

Previous research has investigated the complex association between religious beliefs and racism. Many studies have found that fundamentalist religious beliefs are positively associated with racial prejudice among European and European American populations. However, few studies have examined whether this association is found in other cultures or whether the association also characterizes spiritual beliefs. Data from 493 South African university students from three racial backgrounds revealed significant differences among the groups. A positive association between fundamentalism and racial prejudice was found among participants, but general spiritual beliefs were negatively associated with racist attitudes. The results emphasize the need to address contextual …

Go to article

Spiritual Interventions In Psychotherapy: Evaluations By Highly Religious Clients, Jennifer S. Martinez, Timothy B. Smith, Sally H. Barlow Oct 2007

Spiritual Interventions In Psychotherapy: Evaluations By Highly Religious Clients, Jennifer S. Martinez, Timothy B. Smith, Sally H. Barlow

Faculty Publications

Spiritual and religious interventions in psychotherapy have increasingly received research attention, particularly with highly religious clients. This study examined client opinions about and experiences with religious interventions in psychotherapy. A sample of 152 clients at a counseling center of a university sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) completed a survey with ratings of specific religious interventions with regards to appropriateness, helpfulness, and prevalence. Out-of-session religious interventions were considered more appropriate by clients than in-session religious interventions, but in-session interventions were rated as more helpful. Specific interventions considered both appropriate and helpful by the LDS participants …

Go to article

Spilling: Expanding Hand Held Interaction To Touch Table Displays, Jeffrey Clement, Dan R. Olsen Jr., Aaron Pace Oct 2007

Spilling: Expanding Hand Held Interaction To Touch Table Displays, Jeffrey Clement, Dan R. Olsen Jr., Aaron Pace

Faculty Publications

We envision a nomadic model of interaction where the personal computer fits in your pocket. Such a computer is extremely limited in screen space. A technique is described for “spilling” the display of a hand held computer onto a much larger table top display surface. Because our model of nomadic computing frequently involves the use of untrusted display services we restrict interactive input to the hand held. Navigation techniques such as scrolling or turning the display can be expressed through the table top. The orientation and position of the hand held on the table top is detected using three conductive …

Go to article

A Data-Dependent Distance Measure For Transductive Instance-Based Learning, Jared Lundell, Dan A. Ventura Oct 2007

A Data-Dependent Distance Measure For Transductive Instance-Based Learning, Jared Lundell, Dan A. Ventura

Faculty Publications

We consider learning in a transductive setting using instance-based learning (k-NN) and present a method for constructing a data-dependent distance “metric” using both labeled training data as well as available unlabeled data (that is to be classified by the model). This new data-driven measure of distance is empirically studied in the context of various instance-based models and is shown to reduce error (compared to traditional models) under certain learning conditions. Generalizations and improvements are suggested.

Go to article

Adtrees For Sequential Data And N-Gram Counting, Robert Van Dam, Dan A. Ventura Oct 2007

Adtrees For Sequential Data And N-Gram Counting, Robert Van Dam, Dan A. Ventura

Faculty Publications

We consider the problem of efficiently storing n-gram counts for large n over very large corpora. In such cases, the efficient storage of sufficient statistics can have a dramatic impact on system performance. One popular model for storing such data derived from tabular data sets with many attributes is the ADtree. Here, we adapt the ADtree to benefit from the sequential structure of corpora-type data. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach on a portion of the well-known Wall Street Journal corpus from the Penn Treebank and show that our approach is exponentially more efficient than the naïve approach to …

Go to article

Robust Multi-Modal Biometric Fusion Via Multiple Svms, Jonathan Dinerstein, Sabra Dinerstein, Dan A. Ventura Oct 2007

Robust Multi-Modal Biometric Fusion Via Multiple Svms, Jonathan Dinerstein, Sabra Dinerstein, Dan A. Ventura

Faculty Publications

Existing learning-based multi-modal biometric fusion techniques typically employ a single static Support Vector Machine (SVM). This type of fusion improves the accuracy of biometric classification, but it also has serious limitations because it is based on the assumptions that the set of biometric classifiers to be fused is local, static, and complete. We present a novel multi-SVM approach to multi-modal biometric fusion that addresses the limitations of existing fusion techniques and show empirically that our approach retains good classification accuracy even when some of the biometric modalities are unavailable.

Go to article

Psodascript: Applying Advanced Language Constructs To Open-Source Phylogenetic Search, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Jonathan Krein, Quinn O. Snell, Adam R. Teichert Oct 2007

Psodascript: Applying Advanced Language Constructs To Open-Source Phylogenetic Search, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Jonathan Krein, Quinn O. Snell, Adam R. Teichert

Faculty Publications

Due to the immensity of phylogenetic tree space for large data sets, researches must rely on heuristic searches to infer reasonable phylogenies. By designing meta-searches which appropriately combine a variety of heuristics and parameter settings, researchers can significantly improve the performance of heuristic searches. Advanced language constructs in the open-source PSODA project—including variables, mathematical and logical expressions, conditional statements, and user-defined commands—give researchers a better framework for the exploration and exploitation of phylogenetic meta-search algorithms. PSODA’s approach to scripting meta-search algorithms is unique among open-source packages and addresses several limitations of other phylogenetic applications.

Go to article

Sending States’ Transnational Interventions In Politics, Culture, And Economics: The Historical Example Of Italy, Mark I. Choate Oct 2007

Sending States’ Transnational Interventions In Politics, Culture, And Economics: The Historical Example Of Italy, Mark I. Choate

Faculty Publications

This article uses archival evidence to study in depth the historical policies of Italy, as a classic sending state. Most of the mass migrations of a century ago came from multinational empires, but Italy was a recently formed independent state. Ambitious to benefit from emigration while assisting and protecting emigrants, Italy reached out to “Italians abroad” in several ways. For example, the state opened a low‐cost channel for remittances through a non‐profit bank; promoted Italian language education among Italian families abroad; supported Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad; and subsidized religious missionary work among emigrants. Italy’s historical example of political innovation …

Go to article

Psoda: Better Tasting And Less Filling Than Paup, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Mark Ebbert, Quinn O. Snell Oct 2007

Psoda: Better Tasting And Less Filling Than Paup, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Mark Ebbert, Quinn O. Snell

Faculty Publications

PSODA is an open-source phylogenetic search application that implements traditional parsimony and likelihood search techniques as well as advanced search algorithms. PSODA is compatible with PAUP and the search algorithms are competitive with those in PAUP. PSODA also adds a basic scripting language to the PAUP block, making it possible to easily create advanced meta-searches. Additionally, PSODA provides a user-friendly GUI with real-time graphing visualizations and phylogeny viewer, and a multiple sequence alignment algorithm PSODA is freely available from the PSODA web site: http://csl.cs.byu.edu/psoda.

Go to article

Using Parsimony To Guide Maximum Likelihood Searches, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Timothy O'Connor, Quinn O. Snell, Kenneth Sundberg Oct 2007

Using Parsimony To Guide Maximum Likelihood Searches, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Timothy O'Connor, Quinn O. Snell, Kenneth Sundberg

Faculty Publications

The performance of maximum likelihood searches can be boosted by using the most parsimonious tree as a starting point for the search. The time spent in performing the parsimony search to find this starting tree is insignificant compared to the time spent in the maximum likelihood search, leading to an overall gain in search time. These parsimony boosted maximum likelihood searches lead to topologies with scores statisitically similar to the unboosted searches, but in less time.

Go to article

Effects Of Placement, Attachment, And Weight Classification On Pedometer Accuracy, Susan V. Graser, William J. Vincent, Robert P. Pangrazi Oct 2007

Effects Of Placement, Attachment, And Weight Classification On Pedometer Accuracy, Susan V. Graser, William J. Vincent, Robert P. Pangrazi

Faculty Publications

The purpose was to determine if waist placement of the pedometer affected accuracy in normal, overweight, and obese children, when attaching the pedometer to the waistband or a belt. Methods: Seventy-seven children (ages 10-12 years) wore 5 pedometers on the waistband of their pants and a belt at the following placements: navel (NV), anterior midline of the right thigh (AMT), right side (RS), posterior midline of the right thigh (PMT), and middle of the back (MB). Participants walked 100 steps on a treadmill at 80 m · min–1. Results: The RS, PMT, and MB sites on the waistband and the …

Go to article

Ecological Interfaces For Improving Mobile Robot Teleoperation, Michael A. Goodrich, Curtis W. Nielsen, Robert W. Ricks Oct 2007

Ecological Interfaces For Improving Mobile Robot Teleoperation, Michael A. Goodrich, Curtis W. Nielsen, Robert W. Ricks

Faculty Publications

Navigation is an essential element of many remote robot operations including search and rescue, reconnaissance, and space exploration. Previous reports on using remote mobile robots suggest that navigation is difficult due to poor situation awareness. It has been recommended by experts in human–robot interaction that interfaces between humans and robots provide more spatial information and better situational context in order to improve an operator’s situation awareness. This paper presents an ecological interface paradigm that combines video, map, and robotpose information into a 3-D mixed-reality display. The ecological paradigm is validated in planar worlds by comparing it against the standard interface …

Go to article

Using A Mini-Uav To Support Wilderness Search And Rescue: Practices For Human-Robot Teaming, Julie A. Adams, Brian G. Buss, Joseph L. Cooper, Michael A. Goodrich, Curtis Humphrey, Ron Zeeman Sep 2007

Using A Mini-Uav To Support Wilderness Search And Rescue: Practices For Human-Robot Teaming, Julie A. Adams, Brian G. Buss, Joseph L. Cooper, Michael A. Goodrich, Curtis Humphrey, Ron Zeeman

Faculty Publications

Wilderness Search and Rescue can benefit from aerial imagery of the search area. Mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can potentially provide such imagery, provided that the autonomy, search algorithms, and operator control unit are designed to support coordinated human-robot search teams. Using results from formal analyses of the WiSAR problem domain, we summarize and discuss information flow requirements for WiSAR with an eye toward the efficient use of mUAVs to support search. We then identify and discuss three different operational paradigms for performing field searches, and identify influences that affect which human-robot team paradigm is best. Since the likely location of …

Go to article

A Utile Function Optimizer, James Carroll, Christopher K. Monson, Kevin Seppi Sep 2007

A Utile Function Optimizer, James Carroll, Christopher K. Monson, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

We recast the problem of unconstrained continuous evolutionary optimization as inference in a fixed graphical model. This approach allows us to address several pervasive issues in optimization, including the traditionally difficult problem of selecting an algorithm that is most appropriate for a given task. This is accomplished by placing a prior distribution over the expected class of functions, then employing inference and intuitively defined utilities and costs to transform the evolutionary optimization problem into one of active sampling. This allows us to pose an approach to optimization that is optimal for each expressly stated function class. The resulting solution methodology …

Go to article

Parallel Pso Using Mapreduce, Andrew Mcnabb, Christopher K. Monson, Kevin Seppi Sep 2007

Parallel Pso Using Mapreduce, Andrew Mcnabb, Christopher K. Monson, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

In optimization problems involving large amounts of data, such as web content, commercial transaction information, or bioinformatics data, individual function evaluations may take minutes or even hours. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) must be parallelized for such functions. However, large-scale parallel programs must communicate efficiently, balance work across all processors, and address problems such as failed nodes. We present MapReduce Particle Swarm Optimization (MRPSO), a PSO implementation based on the MapReduce parallel programming model. We describe MapReduce and show how PSO can be naturally expressed in this model, without explicitly addressing any of the details of parallelization. We present a benchmark …

Go to article

Next Last