Abstract
Recent research in high-quality audio coding seeks not only improved coding gains but also new functionalities, such as easy semantic access to compressed audio material and audio modification in the compressed domain. These objectives imply the decomposition of the audio signal into several components of specific semantic value, such as sinusoidal components, that take advantage of selective coding and parametrization tools. In this paper we presume an MDCT based audio coding environment and present a new technique combining spectral envelope normalization with accurate subtraction of sinusoidal components in the MDCT frequency domain. It is shown how a parametrization of L stationary sinusoids in the complex ODFT spectrum can lead to the effective subtraction in the real MDCT spectrum, of 3L spectral lines. A demonstration of the implementation of the technique is available on the Internet.

Abstract
In this paper we address the problem of organized collective agency, and propose a deontic/action modal logic for that purpose. We argue that once we want to attribute obligations (permissions or other deontic notions) to a set of agents, we need to consider a new agent-that we called institutionalized agent, and specify how he interacts with the external world: how the obligations flow from the institutionalized agent to the real agents that support him, and how the actions of the latter count as actions of the former. But an agent may act in many qualities (roles), and it is essential to know in which quality an agent has acted, or intends to act, for three main reasons: to know the effects of the act, its deontic qualification, and authentication issues. Thus, we extend the "sees to it" action operator with an explicit index that states the quality (role) in which the agent has acted. We also show how to associate obligations to roles, and illustrate flow this can be used to express the desired flow of obligations.

Abstract
This paper sketches a reverse engineering discipline which combines formal and semi-formal methods. Central to the former is denotational semantics, expressed in the ISO/IEC 13817-1 standard specification language (VDM-SL). This is strengthened with algebra of programming, which is applied in "reverse order" so as to reconstruct formal specifications from legacy code. The latter include code slicing, a "shortcut" which trims down the complexity of handling the formal semantics of all program variables at the same time. A key point of the approach is its constructive style. Reverse calculations go as far as absorbing auxiliary variables, introducing mutual recursion (if applicable) and reversing semantic denotations into standard generic programming schemata such as cata/paramorphisms. The approach is illustrated for a small piece of code already studied in the code-slicing literature: Kernighan and Richtie's word count C programming "bagatelle".

Abstract
This paper addresses the extraction of parametric information in an audio coder that uses the MDCT filter bank. The computation of the filter bank is reformulated as a function of the Odd-DFT, in order to allow the estimation of the frequency, the phase and the magnitude of stationary sinusoids. Closed expression delivering accurate estimates are derived and explained, and their implementation and accuracy are illustrated in a Web page that includes a demonstration Matlab M-file.

Abstract
This paper presents the requirements for an information system supporting the cooperation in networks of enterprises. First, these networks are characterised, focusing on the variable coupling of the participating enterprises and on the consequent needs of co-operation. Departing from those needs, the concept of an information system based on an architecture of agents is presented. A generic infrastructure to implement the system is outlined, including the main interaction scenarios. The next steps of this research work end the paper.

Abstract
When facing the need to select the most appropriate algorithm to apply on a new data set, data analysts often follow an approach which can be related to test-driving cars to decide which one to buy: apply the algorithms on a sample of the data to quickly obtain rough estimates of their performance. These estimates are used to select one or a few of those algorithms to be tried out on the full data set. We describe sampling-based landmarks (SL), a systematization of this approach, building on earlier work on landmarking and sampling. SL are estimates of the performance of algorithms on a small sample of the data that are used as predictors of the performance of those algorithms on the full set. We also describe relative landmarks (RL), that address the inability of earlier landmarks to assess relative performance of algorithms. RL aggregate landmarks to obtain predictors of relative performance. Our experiments indicate that the combination of these two improvements, which we call Sampling-based Relative Landmarks, are better for ranking than traditional data characterization measures. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001.