Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reduced noise effect in nonlinear model estimation using multiscale representation

Nonlinear process models are widely used in various applications. In the absence of fundamental models, it is usually relied on empirical models, which are estimated from measurements of the process variables. Unfortunately, measured data are usually corrupted with measurement noise that degrades the accuracy of the estimated models. Multiscale wavelet-based representation of data has been shown to be a powerful data analysis and feature extraction tool. In this paper, these characteristics of multiscale representation are utilized to improve the estimation accuracy of the linear-in-the-parameters nonlinear model by developing a multiscale nonlinear (MSNL) modeling algorithm. The main idea in this MSNL modeling algorithm is to decompose the data at multiple scales, construct multiple nonlinear models at multiple scales, and then select among all scales the model which best describes the process. The main advantage of the developed algorithm is that it integrates modeling and feature extraction to improve the robustness of the estimated model to the presence of measurement noise in the data. This advantage of MSNL modeling is demonstrated using a nonlinear reactor model.
Internet as a Growing and Dynamic Network: An Economic View

The past few decades have witnessed renewed interest and research efforts on the part of the scientific community. After spending decades to disassemble nature, focusing the attention on its components, scientists have shifted their attention on complex networks. These basic structures constitute a wide range of systems in nature and society, but their design is irregular, evolves dynamically over time and their components can fit in a large multiplicity of alternative ways. Nevertheless, the most recent studies of networks have made remarkable progresses by investigating some critical issues of structure and dynamics, thereby improving the understanding of the topology and the growth processes of complex networks. From an economic point of view, networks are especially interesting because they can be considered as a problem of allocation of a critical resource, information, under multiple constraints. They can also be viewed as forms of poliarchies that reproduce, for many aspects, the market paradigm, with surprising properties of self-organization and resilience, which go much beyond the characteristics that are generally attributed to general equilibrium structures. In this paper we first address the major results achieved in the study of complex network and then focus our attention on two specific, highly dynamic and complex networks: Internet and the World Wide Web.
Gesture recognition on smart cameras

Gesture recognition is a feature in human-machine interaction that allows more natural interaction without the use of complex devices. For this reason, several methods of gesture recognition have been developed in recent years. However, most real time methods are designed to operate on a Personal Computer with high computing resources and memory. In this paper, we analyze relevant methods found in the literature in order to investigate the ability of smart camera to execute gesture recognition algorithms. We elaborate two hand gesture recognition pipelines. The first method is based on invariant moments extraction and the second on finger tips detection. The hand detection method used for both pipeline is based on skin color segmentation. The results obtained show that the un-optimized versions of invariant moments method and finger tips detection method can reach 10 fps on embedded processor and use about 200 kB of memory.
A graph based object description for information retrieval in digital image and video libraries

Search algorithms for objects of interest (OOIs) related to shape similarity in a video or image library have been implemented by various research groups. This work focuses on the search of a sample object (a car) in video sequences and images related to the shape similarity. We also investigate a new description for cars, using relational graphs. The goal of this study is to investigate the shape matching method based on a relational graph of objects, with respect to its accuracy, efficiency and scalability. The aim is to annotate the images where an OOI is present. Then, text-based querying can be performed to extract images of the OOI from a pre-processed database. The graph-based description of the object, with its meaningful parts, provides an efficient way to obtain high-level semantics from low-level features. The hierarchical segmentation increases the object detection accuracy in transformed and occluded images.
Simulation of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

A three-dimensional, three-phase reservoir simulator was developed to study the behavior of fully or partially fractured reservoirs. It is also demonstrated, that when a fractured reservoir is subject to a relatively large rate of pressure drop and/or it composed of relatively large blocks, the pseudo steady-state pressure concept gives large errors as compared with transient fromulation. In addition, when gravity drainage and imbibitum processes, which is the most important mechanism in the fractured reservoirs, are represented by a ''lumped parameter'' even larger errors can be produced in exchange flow between matrix and fractures. For these reasons, the matrix blocks are gridded and the transfer between matrix and fractures are calculated using pressure and diffusion transient concept. In this way the gravity drainage is also calculated accurately. As the matrix-fracture exchange flow depends on the location of each matrix grid relative to the GOC and/or WOC in fracture, the exchange flow equation are derived and given for each possible case. The differential equation describing the flow of water, oil, and gas within the matrix and fracture system, each of which may contain six unknowns, are presented. The two sets of equations are solved implicitly for pressure water, and gas stauration inmore » both matrix and fractures. The first twenty two years of the history of Haft Kel field was successfully matched with this model and the results are included. « less
A distributed multichannel demand-adaptive P2P VoD system with optimized caching and neighbor-selection

We design a distributed multi-channel P2P Video-on-Demand (VoD) system using "plug-and-play" helpers. Helpers are heterogenous "micro-servers" with limited storage, bandwidth and number of users they can serve simultaneously. Our proposed system has the following salient features: (1) it jointly optimizes over helper-user connection topology, video storage distribution and transmission bandwidth allocation; (2) it minimizes server load, and is adaptable to varying supply and demand patterns across multiple video channels irrespective of video popularity; and (3) it is fully distributed and requires little or no maintenance overhead. The combinatorial nature of the problem and the system demand for distributed algorithms makes the problem uniquely challenging. By utilizing Lagrangian decomposition and Markov chain approximation based arguments, we address this challenge by designing two distributed algorithms running in tandem: a primal-dual storage and bandwidth allocation algorithm and a "soft-worst-neighbor-choking" topology-building algorithm. Our scheme provably converges to a near-optimal solution, and is easy to implement in practice. Packet-level simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves minimum sever load under highly heterogeneous combinations of supply and demand patterns, and is robust to system dynamics of user/helper churn, user/helper asynchrony, and random delays in the network.
Effective Teaching and Learning in a High‐tech Environment

SUMMARY Effective teaching and learning empowers a student to take a deep approach to learning which results in the desirable outcomes of: holistic appreciation; knowledge that is active; communication and team work skills; problem‐solving and critical thinking abilities; and lifelong learning attitudes. This article examines the application and potential of the technology concerned with computer mediated learning in these areas which are indicative of effective teaching and learning. Technology can be incorporated into pedagogical strategies, and to a certain extent can substitute for tried and tested conventional practices, and can apparently achieve similar outcomes. The two main areas where technology offers enhanced learning capabilities are simulated or mimetic representations of the real world where experiential learning is possible, and in collaborative learning strategies that use web‐based communication facilities. Technology is lacking in the area of artificial intelligence, particularly where .
View generation for 3D-TV using image reconstruction from irregularly spaced samples

Three-dimensional television (3D-TV) will become the next big step in the development of advanced TV systems. One of the major challenges for the deployment of 3D-TV systems is the diversity of display technologies and the high cost of capturing multi-view content. Depth image-based rendering (DIBR) has been identified as a key technology for the generation of new views for stereoscopic and multi-view displays from a small number of views captured and transmitted. We propose a disparity compensation method for DIBR that does not require spatial interpolation of the disparity map. We use a forward-mapping disparity compensation with real precision. The proposed method deals with the irregularly sampled image resulting from this disparity compensation process by applying a re-sampling algorithm based on a bi-cubic spline function space that produces smooth images. The fact that no approximation is made on the position of the samples implies that geometrical distortions in the final images due to approximations in sample positions are minimized. We also paid attention to the occlusion problem. Our algorithm detects the occluded regions in the newly generated images and uses simple depth-aware inpainting techniques to fill the gaps created by newly exposed areas. We tested the proposed method in the context of generation of views needed for viewing on SynthaGramTM auto-stereoscopic displays. We used as input either a 2D image plus a depth map or a stereoscopic pair with the associated disparity map. Our results show that this technique provides high quality images to be viewed on different display technologies such as stereoscopic viewing with shutter glasses (two views) and lenticular auto-stereoscopic displays (nine views).
Evaluating consumer health information websites: The importance of collecting observational, user-driven data

The internet is an increasingly popular source of consumer health information (CHI). Worldwide, millions of people regularly visit CHI websites to seek answers to medical issues, either for themselves or their loved ones. As CHI websites play such a vital role in people's health behaviour, the evaluation of these sites has often been addressed in scholarly studies. The vast majority of these studies have focused on evaluation methods for assessing the quality of CHI websites (expert testing). While this emphasis on quality is understandable — health information needs to be accurate and up-to-date — calls are increasingly made to not only ensure the quality of information on CHI websites, but to also focus on the usability of these sites. This paper offers a review of the usability studies that have so far been conducted regarding CHI websites. We will discuss the potential of, in particular, observational user-driven research for CHI websites, by discussing the methodological drawbacks of the existing usability studies. In addition, we will examine the role of user characteristics in the evaluation of CHI web sites. The results of our review indicate that observational user research, when conducted properly, may offer valuable insights that complement those gained by means of expert testing.
A decade of DOBIS/LIBIS at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Library in Saudi Arabia

The paper gives an account of the implementation of DOBIS/LIBIS at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Library in Saudi Arabia during the period from 1981 to 1991. The local modifications and enhancements made to DOBIS programs to improve the functioning of various subsystems are described, as well as details of how DOBIS/LIBIS processes Arabic information.
Hardware architecture for fast camera effects

Current commercial graphics cards do not offer fast enough special hardware to render camera effects like motion blur or depth of field. Even the pixel shader, which is useful in many rendering algorithms, is unable to support these effects. This paper presents a hardware structure, which provides fast rendering capability for realizing filtering effects, including also depth of field and motion blur.
Knowledge of the Environment and Spatial Cognition: JRS as a Technique for Improving Comparisons between Social Groups

In this paper we compare the sketch-map technique with a spatial modelling task based on a set of eight separate items. The aim of the comparison is to verify, thanks to a special spatial reconstruction set, Jeu de reconstruction spatiale (JRS), whether the difficulties often encountered by unskilled persons when asked to draw a sketch map can be avoided. If so, the JRS could help to improve comparisons between different social groups. Thirty university students majoring in geography and twenty-one unskilled staff members were asked to represent the centre of Strasbourg both by drawing a sketch and with the JRS. The results show that, on one hand, the difference between the two groups regarding the number of items mentioned is smaller with the JRS than with the sketch map. On the other hand, in both groups, the same proportion of respondents increased the number of urban elements produced in the second trial with the JRS. This was not the case with the sketch map. Also, the JRS is more stable than the sketch map from one trial to the next. Furthermore, the respondents preferred the JRS to the sketch map. However, the JRS is more suggestive than the sketch map, but only for elements which are more rarely represented (railway tracks, etc). Thus, in terms of scientific research, the JRS makes it possible to improve comparisons between social groups. In terms of applications, it offers interesting possibilities for promoting citizen participation in urban planning.
Tutorial On Advances In Morphological Image Processing And Analysis

This paper reviews some recent advances in the theory and applications of morphological image analysis. In applications, we show how the morphological filters can be used to provide simple and systematic algorithms for image processing and analysis tasks as diverse as nonlinear image filtering; noise suppression; edge detection; region filling; skeletonization; coding; shape representation, smoothing, and recognition. In theory, we summarize the represen-tation of a large class of translation-invariant nonlinear filters (including morphological, median, order-statistics, and shape recognition filters) as a minimal combination of morphological erosions or dilations; these results provide new realizations of these filters and lead to a unified image alge-bra.
Predicting Queueing Delays

This paper investigates the possibility of predicting each customer's waiting time in queue before starting service in a multiserver service system with the first-come first-served service discipline, such as a telephone call center. A predicted waiting-time distribution or an appropriate summary statistic such as the mean or the 90th percentile may be communicated to the customer upon arrival and possibly thereafter in order to improve customer satisfaction. The predicted waiting-time distribution may also be used by the service provider to better manage the service system, e.g., to help decide when to add additional service agents. The possibility of making reliable predictions is enhanced by exploiting information about system state, including the number of customers in the system ahead of the current customer. Additional information beyond the number of customers in the system may be obtained by classifying customers and the service agents to which they are assigned. For nonexponential service times, the elapsed service times of customers in service can often be used to advantage to compute conditional-remaining-service-time distributions. Approximations are proposed to convert the distributions of remaining service times into the distribution of the desired customer waiting time. The analysis reveals the advantage from exploiting additional information.
Aerosol Arctic Campaign at ALOMAR (69N, 16E, Norway) in June-July 2002

The GOA Aerosol Arctic Campaign 2002 was carried out during the months of June and July at ALOMAR (Arctic Lidar Observatory for Middle Atmosphere Research). Aerosol measurements at this latitude are scarce, so the aim of this campaign is the characterization of the Arctic aerosols. Two instruments, the Cimel photometer at the AERONET network and the EPP-3000 spectrometer, are used for the measurements. This work is focuses on the Cimel data. These data show a low aerosol optical thickness (AOT), with an average value of 0.135 at 440 nm. The AOT decreases strongly with wavelength, so the /spl Aring/ngstro/spl uml/m parameter /spl alpha/(440,670,870) presents high values, with an average of 1.61 for a log-log fit at these three wavelengths.
Recent advances in VLSI layout

The current status of VLSI layout and directions for future research are addressed, with emphasis on the authors' own work. Necessary terminology and definitions and, whenever possible, a precise formulation of the problems are provided. Placement and floorplanning for both the sea-of-gates and building-block designs are examined. The former emphasizes the connectivity specification, whereas the latter must also consider module shape and size. Global routing based on a method of successive cuts on a chip is discussed. This is a hierarchical top-down approach that is useful for both of the above designs. A two-dimensional detailed routing problem and the rip-up and rerouting problem are also discussed. The field of computational geometry and its application to layout-in particular, to gridless routing and compaction-are reviewed, and layout engines are considered. >
Signature verification revisited: promoting practical exploitation of biometric technology

Despite research over a long period, biometric approaches to authenticating personal identity have not met with the degree of success in practical applications originally predicted. This paper discusses approaches to biometric testing, focusing particularly on automatic signature verification, and addresses some of the important issues which might help to promote the introduction of practical systems in the future. Examples associated with the adoption of an explicitly flexible approach to signature verification are used to illustrate the discussion, and it is argued that there is still considerable potential for practical exploitation of this type of technology.
Design and Control of a Powered Hip Exoskeleton for Walking Assistance

The wearable powered exoskeleton is a human-robot cooperation system that integrates the strength of a robot with human intelligence. This paper presents the research results into a powered hip exoskeleton (PH-EXOS) designed to provide locomotive assistance to individuals with walking impediments. The Bowden cable actuated exoskeleton has an anthropomorphic structure with six degrees of freedom (DOF) in order to match the human hip anatomy and enable natural interaction with the user. The mechanical structure, the actuation system, and the interaction kinematics of PH-EXOS are optimized to achieve preferable manoeuvrability and harmony. For the control of the exoskeleton, a real-time control system is established in xPC target environment based on Matlab/RTW. A Cascaded PID controller is developed to perform the trajectories tracking tasks in passive control mode. Besides, based on the pressure information on the thigh, a fuzzy adaptive controller is developed to perform walking assistance tasks in active control mode. Preliminary treadmill walking experiments on a healthy subject were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed device and control approaches in reducing walking effort.
A conceptual understanding of bodily orientation in Mandarin: A quantitative corpus perspective

Abstract The present study investigates the conceptualization of our bodily orientation in a quantitative corpus-based approach. Specifically, we identify correlated target domains with respect to each spatial dimension and clarify to what extent the physical symmetry of the spatial dimension plays a role in the metaphorical conceptualization. Based on the symbolic nature of constructions, we examine the correlation patterns of the NPs and the locatives in Mandarin Locative Construction “zai4 + NP + (zhi1) + LOCATIVE” through three major statistical analyses, i.e., covarying collexeme analysis, hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis. The results show that only FRONT/BACK dimension displays symmetrical metaphorical extension to similar metaphorical domains. The distributional patterns of the locatives have far-reaching implications for the embodiment of conceptual metaphors. It is concluded that the (a)symmetry of metaphorical patterns along each spatial dimension may be attributed to our recurring (a)symmetrical daily interaction and bodily experiences with the surrounding physical environment.
Content Generation and Social Network Interaction within Academic Library Facebook Pages

The use of Facebook to share resources and engage patrons continues to gain acceptance within academic libraries. While many studies have analyzed the types of content academic libraries share on Facebook, there has not yet been a full examination of how this content is generated. This article examined the posting methods, the user responses, and the types of organizations followed on 28 academic library Facebook pages. User response was found to be inversely related to the popularity of a posting method. Pages from a library's home institution and from other libraries were the two types of sites most frequently followed.
A Case Study On The Verification of Cache Coherence Protocols

Abstract This article presents a case study on verifying formally a multiprocessor system with shared memory using the model-checking technique. The system consists of a set of processors where each processor has its own cache, the shared main memory and the bus. The RTL (Register Transfer Level) design of the system is described in a Verilog-HDL code, and the behaviour is specified by a set of CTL (Computation Tree Logic) properties. We establish the effect of data width upon the reachability analysis. We successfully verify a set of critical safety and liveness properties for the system design. The experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods. The verification results manifest the relationship between the state space, BDD (Binary Decision Diagram) size, and the verification time when the data width and the number of processors increase.
High-resolution inline video-AOI for printed circuit assemblies

We enhance an existing in-circuit, inline tester for printed circuit assemblies (PCA) by video-based automatic optical inspection (Video-AOI). Our definition of video is that we continuously capture images of a moving PCA, such that each PCA component is contained in multiple images, taken under varying viewing conditions like angle, time, camera settings or lighting. This can then be exploited for an efficient detection of faults. The first part of our paper focuses on the parameters of such a Video-AOI system and shows how they can be determined. In the second part, we introduce techniques to capture and preprocess a video of a PCA, so that it can be used for inspection.