special preparation of subjects or restrictive assumptions. The principal contribution of this paper is the development of a modified particle filter for search in high dimensional configuration spaces. It uses a continuation principle, based on annealing, to introduce the influence of narrow peaks

of the method are its ability to model surfaces of arbitrary topological type and to recover sharp features such as creases and corners. The method has proven to be effective, as demonstrated by a number of examples using both simulated and real data. A key ingredient in the method, and a principal contribution

) that allow for the possibility of exogenous variables integrated of order one. The paper calculates critical values that are very much more accurate than those available previously. The principal contributions of the paper are a set of data files that contain estimated asymptotic quantiles obtained from

Despite the importance to researchers, managers, and policy makers of how information technology (IT) contributes to organizational performance, there is uncertainty and debate about what we know and don’t know. A review of the literature reveals that studies examining the association between

passes; the first pass transforms an underestimate of the set of negative conclusions into an (intermediate) overestimate; the second pass transforms the overestimate into a new underestimate; the composition of the two passes is monotonic. The principal contributions of this work are (1

Majority of collision avoidance methods does not consider the vehicle constraints mentioned. They assume a pointlike and omni directional vehicle with no acceleration constraints. The main contribution of this work is a scheme to consider the exact shape and kinematics, as well as the effects

Regulators often attempt to socialize insurance costs by limiting premium differences between low and high-risk policyholders. Some insurance programs such as Social Security socialize program costs through compulsory, non risk-based contributions for the vast majority of workers. Voluntary

cost benefit analysis of green building ever conducted. It demonstrates conclusively that sustainable building is a cost-effective investment, and its findings should encourage communities across the country to “build green.” In August 2000, Governor Davis issued Executive Order D-16-00, establishing sustainable building as a primary goal for state construction and tasking the State and Consumer Services Agency with its implementation. Our agency established the Sustainable Building Task Force, a unique partnership among more than 40 governmental agencies, whose combined building, environmental, and fiscal expertise has produced outstanding results, including funding for this report. Since its inception, the Sustainable Building Task Force has worked diligently to incorporate green building principles into California’s capital outlay process. Our many successes include: Building the first LEED Gold state owned office building in the country, the Education Headquarters Building, which is saving taxpayers $500,000 a year in energy costs alone; Including sustainable building performance standards, such as energy efficiency, in over $2 billion of state construction and renovation contracts;

e searching, zooming, selection of points, and display of data values on factor maps. The user interface is simple and homogeneous among all the programs; this contributes to making the use of ADE-4 very easy for nonspecialists in statistics, data analysis or computer science. Keywords

Both authors made an equal contribution to this study