If E is a set of matroids, then Ex(E ) denotes the set of matroids that have no minor isomorphic to a member of E . If E ′ ⊆ E , we say that E ′ is superfluous if Ex(E − E ′)− Ex(E ) contains only finitely many 3-connected matroids. We determine the superfluous subsets of six well-known collections of excluded minors. Dedicated, with affection, to “Mathematician, gone 60, left fox with leg trou...

Querying databases with preferences is an important research problem. Among various approaches to querying with preferences, the skyline framework is one of the most popular. A well known deficiency of that framework is that all attributes are of the same importance in skyline preference relations. Consequently, the size of the results of skyline queries may grow exponentially with the number o...

I endors have offered cash discounts for \ / many years to encourage prompt payy ment of invoices or accounts. Under such an arrangement, the seller receives payment without delay while the buyer minimizes both cash outflow and operating costs or expenses. Because these discounts can substantially reduce routine operating expenses in areas like patient care and ancillary supplies, hospitals sho...

The theory of competing causes involves assessing a cause of failure, such as death due to heart disease or cancer, in the presence of other competing causes. In this paper, we develop a fundamental economic model for examining the degree and order of importance in a competing cause framework. In particular, we demonstrate the usefulness of Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory in economics by...

A novel procedure for the estimating the response sensitivity to input parameters of a complex FE model is presented. The method is specifically directed toward problems involving high-dimensional input parameter spaces, as they are encountered during uncertainty analysis with complex, refined FEmodels. In these cases one is commonly faced with thousands of uncertain parameters and traditional ...

Quality of web sites has major impact on sales and on overall customer satisfaction in business today. Measuring the quality of web site from the users’ perspective, will give a fast and early feedback to the firm and will enable it to take corrective action and improve its operations. This paper reports on a study investigating the ranking given by the users to various factors of web site qual...

The Pratt index is a useful and practical strategy for day-today researchers when ordering predictors in a multiple regression analysis. The purposes of this study are to introduce and demonstrate the use of the Pratt index to assess the relative importance of predictors for a random intercept multilevel model.

This study was designed to determine the roles of STAT proteins in defence against mycobacterial infection. Airborne infection of STAT4 knockout (KO) mice with a Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain induced large granulomas with massive neutrophil infiltration over time, while that in STAT6 KO mice did not. The STAT4 KO mice succumbed to mycobacterial infection by the 80th day after infection. Com...

Feature selection plays an important role in finding relevant or irrelevant features in classification. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been used as conventional methods for classifiers to adaptively evolve solutions for classification problems. In this paper, we explore the use of feature selection in modular GA-based classification. We propose a new feature selection technique, Relative Importa...

1In the February issue of The FASEB Journal, Rayment and colleagues report on experiments addressing the mechanism by which ADP elicits relaxation of coronary smooth muscle (1). Based on measurements of protein expression, receptor binding assays, and classical receptor blocking, the authors show that the action of adenosine via A2A-receptors contributes significantly to the relaxatory response...