141 research outputs found
A Logical Model and Data Placement Strategies for MEMS Storage Devices
MEMS storage devices are new non-volatile secondary storages that have
outstanding advantages over magnetic disks. MEMS storage devices, however, are
much different from magnetic disks in the structure and access characteristics.
They have thousands of heads called probe tips and provide the following two
major access facilities: (1) flexibility: freely selecting a set of probe tips
for accessing data, (2) parallelism: simultaneously reading and writing data
with the set of probe tips selected. Due to these characteristics, it is
nontrivial to find data placements that fully utilize the capability of MEMS
storage devices. In this paper, we propose a simple logical model called the
Region-Sector (RS) model that abstracts major characteristics affecting data
retrieval performance, such as flexibility and parallelism, from the physical
MEMS storage model. We also suggest heuristic data placement strategies based
on the RS model and derive new data placements for relational data and
two-dimensional spatial data by using those strategies. Experimental results
show that the proposed data placements improve the data retrieval performance
by up to 4.0 times for relational data and by up to 4.8 times for
two-dimensional spatial data of approximately 320 Mbytes compared with those of
existing data placements. Further, these improvements are expected to be more
marked as the database size grows.Comment: 37 page
Progressive Processing of Continuous Range Queries in Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Networks
In this paper, we study the problem of processing continuous range queries in
a hierarchical wireless sensor network. Contrasted with the traditional
approach of building networks in a "flat" structure using sensor devices of the
same capability, the hierarchical approach deploys devices of higher capability
in a higher tier, i.e., a tier closer to the server. While query processing in
flat sensor networks has been widely studied, the study on query processing in
hierarchical sensor networks has been inadequate. In wireless sensor networks,
the main costs that should be considered are the energy for sending data and
the storage for storing queries. There is a trade-off between these two costs.
Based on this, we first propose a progressive processing method that
effectively processes a large number of continuous range queries in
hierarchical sensor networks. The proposed method uses the query merging
technique proposed by Xiang et al. as the basis and additionally considers the
trade-off between the two costs. More specifically, it works toward reducing
the storage cost at lower-tier nodes by merging more queries, and toward
reducing the energy cost at higher-tier nodes by merging fewer queries (thereby
reducing "false alarms"). We then present how to build a hierarchical sensor
network that is optimal with respect to the weighted sum of the two costs. It
allows for a cost-based systematic control of the trade-off based on the
relative importance between the storage and energy in a given network
environment and application. Experimental results show that the proposed method
achieves a near-optimal control between the storage and energy and reduces the
cost by 0.989~84.995 times compared with the cost achieved using the flat
(i.e., non-hierarchical) setup as in the work by Xiang et al.Comment: 41 pages, 20 figure
Assessment of the Prognostic Factors for a Local Recurrence of Rectal Cancer: the Utility of Preoperative MR Imaging
OBJECTIVE: To determine the utility of MR imaging in evaluating the prognostic factors for a local recurrence of rectal cancer following a curative resection.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The preoperative MR images obtained from 17 patients with a local recurrence and 54 patients without a local recurrence, who had undergone a curative resection, were independently evaluated by three radiologists. The following findings were analyzed: the direct invasion of the perirectal fat by the primary rectal carcinoma, involvement of the perirectal lymph nodes, perirectal spiculate nodules, perivascular encasement, and an enlargement of the pelvic wall lymph nodes. The clinical and surgical profiles were obtained from the patients' medical records. The association of a local recurrence with the MR findings and the clinicosurgical variables was statistically evaluated.
RESULTS: Of the MR findings, the presence of perivascular encasement (p = 0.001) and perirectal spiculate nodules (p = 0.001) were found to be significant prognostic factors for a local recurrence. Of the clinicosurgical profiles, the presence of a microscopic vascular invasion (p = 0.005) and the involvement of the regional lymph nodes (p = 0.006) were associated with a local recurrence. Logistic regression analysis showed that the presence of perirectal spiculate nodules was an independent predictor of a local recurrence (odds ratio, 7.382; 95% confidence interval, 1.438, 37.889; p = 0.017).
CONCLUSION: The presence of perirectal spiculate nodules and perivascular encasement on the preoperative MR images are significant predictors of a local recurrence after curative surgery for a rectal carcinoma. This suggests that preoperative MR imaging can provide useful information to help in the planning of preoperative adjuvant therapy.ope
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