Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ALGORITHMIC METHODS OF QUASI-OPTIMAL FILTER SYNTHESIS

The aim of the work is to create and to refine methods of algorithmic filter synthesis allowing designing quasi-optimal filters in cases when statistical characteristics of effective signal and interference – non-stationary stochastic processes – are unknown and application of classic synthesis methods, e.g. Kalman-Busy method, is impossible. Paper presents the basics of algorithmic quasi-optimal filter synthesis, the essence of which is the for-mulation of the filter synthesis task in the form of searching optimization and its solution with application of simplex search methods. Examples of algorithmic quasi-optimal filter synthesis are presented. Parameters of quasi-optimal filter transfer function found by algorithmic method correspond to theoretical parameters calculated on the basis of sta-tistical characteristics of input signals.
A 2.2 GHz CMOS VCO with inductive degeneration noise suppression

A 1.4 V, 9 mA monolithic LC-tank voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) fabricated in a standard 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS process is presented. The VCO is tunable between 2.0 GHz and 2.37 GHz, and displays a phase noise between -140 dBc/Hz and -138 dBc/Hz at a 3 MHz offset frequency across the whole tuning range. This low phase noise is achieved through the use of an on-chip LC filter and an off-chip low frequency inductor, which totally remove the noise of the tail current source. The phase noise improvement due to the off-chip inductor is between 2 dB and 6 dB, increasing with higher oscillation frequencies.
Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on Open component ecosystems

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 1st International Workshop on Open Component Ecosystem -- IWOCE 2009, whose goal is to gather together both researchers and practitioners active in open source software engineering, software composition, algorithms, constraint programming, and model-driven engineering to discuss, debate, exchange ideas, and outline common solutions to the problem of static and dynamic component aggregations in software ecosystems. Over the last years, the composition of software parts is increasingly considered a crucial operation to build and maintain large software systems. The continuous and independent evolution of readily available components suggested that open platforms can better accommodate and manage them as normally happens in systems like open source software distributions, Eclipse, and J2EE, just to mention a few. The critical mass represented by such software components requires organizations, such as companies, research groups, and open source communities, to collaborate on custom software development, implementation and shared services. Such infrastructures can be regarded as ecosystems, i.e., collections of software projects that possibly belong to organizations, developed in parallel by the organizations, and able to integrate each other at assembly time, during the configuration, and/or dynamically after the deployment. The capability of modeling, analyzing, and predicting the component behavior during these stages is intrinsically difficult and requires techniques, algorithms, and methods which are both expressive and computationally convenient in order to be engineered and conveyed in practical projects. Moreover, when analyzing software ecosystems, exploration and visualization cannot be neglected because of the large amounts of information that are available about the ecosystem. The call for papers attracted 6 submissions from Canada, Europe, and the United States. The program committee accepted 5 papers that cover some of the central topics of IWOCE, focusing in particular on component ecosystem deployment, configuation and modeling.
Message passing and bulk transport on heterogenous multiprocessors

The decade of symmetric multiprocessors is about to end. Due to physical limitations, individual cores cannot be made any faster and adding cores won’t work anymore (dark silicon). Operating systems face the next big paradigm shift: systems are getting faster by exploiting specialized hardware leading to the era of asymmetric processors and heterogeneous systems. An ever growing count and the diversity of cores yields new challenges regarding scheduling and resource management. Multiple physical address spaces within single machines let them appear as a cluster-like system. Today’s commodity operating systems are not well designed to deal with heterogeneity and asymmetric processors. Many attempts have been made to tackle the challenges of heterogeneous hardware, most of which treat available co-processors like devices or independent execution environments rather than equivalent processors. Thus, true support of a multi-architecture system is rarely seen, despite the fact that such hardware already exists. Examples are, systems like the OMAP44xx SoC or Intel’s Xeon Phi co-processor. In this thesis we will elaborate the arising challenges introduced by heterogeneous system architectures. We ported the Barrelfish research operating system to the Xeon Phi execution environment and explored the impact on performance and system design imposed by the emerging hardware characteristics such as different instruction set architectures, multiple physical address spaces and asymmetric cores. Based on our proposed software framework, we demonstrate a parallel, heterogeneous execution of an OpenMP program using our implementation of a message passing based OpenMP library and show why more threads do not necessary imply a better performance.
Computer security: Investigating the impact that security specific education has on users’ behaviour

A lack in end-user awareness in computer security issues provides the rationale for this investigation. The research considers whether or not the provision of an educational package addressing computer security issues will improve awareness and transform behaviour of end-users in assessing and enacting appropriate responses in computer security situations. A group of twenty participants was studied in detail using a mixed methods research approach. The participants were drawn from a cross section of computer end-users, from elementary to advanced levels of computer literacy. Outcomes include a positive response to the provision of material, however human · factors were found to be equally important in affecting the way the end-users assess and react in computer security environments. Package interactivity, empowerment for endusers to prioritise and make their own assessments was found to be critical factors.
Combining User Workflow and System Functions in Product Development

This research addresses two aspects of multi disciplinary product development; understanding what the customer needs and translating this knowledge effectively into a transparent system architecture. A clear overview and understanding of this architecture can be obtained by using function models. How to make an effective translation from the customer needs to function models is not trivial. The approach taken in this research is to discuss, develop, negotiate, align and model the intended users’ workflow of the system. Multiple stakeholders (e.g. buyer, user, marketers, application experts, architects, designers and third party suppliers) should participate in this process. The user workflow is systematically mapped to a system function model. The contributions of this paper can be divided in two. First a systematic and easily applicable design method to capture and validate user requirements in a multi disciplinary design process using explicit workflow models is proposed. Secondly a systematic method of translating user workflow models to system function models will be given.Copyright © 2010 by ASME
Consciousness as a process of queries and answers in architectures based on in situ representations

Functional or access consciousness can be described as an ongoing dynamic process of queries and answers. Whenever we have an awareness of an object or its surroundings, it consists of the dynamic process that answers (implicit) queries like "What is the color or shape of the object? " or "What surrounds this object? " The process of queries and answers is based on a computational architecture that integrates grounding of representations with cognitive productivity. The human brain may be unique in combining grounding and productivity. Because representations have to remain grounded in combinatorial structures underlying the productivity of cognition, they have to remain in situ. Hebbian neuronal assemblies are an example of in situ conceptual representations, although the latter are not just associative. To obtain productivity, in situ representations are embedded in specialized neuronal "blackboards" by which (temporal) combinatorial structures can be formed. In situ representations interact in these blackboards. This interaction initiates the (implicit) query and answer process underlying functional consciousness. In this process, an in situ representation, dominating one blackboard, could begin to dominate other blackboards as well. Viewed in this way, human consciousness derives from the unique ability of the human brain to combine grounding and cognitive productivity.
A new vector quantization scheme using interblock correlation: address-vector quantizer

A vector quantization scheme called the address vector quantizer (A-VQ) is proposed. It is based on exploiting the interblock correlation to encode a group of blocks together by using an address-codebook. The address-codebook consists of a set of address code vectors each of which represents a combination of blocks, and each of its elements is the address of a LBG-codebook entry representing a vector-quantized block. The address-codebook consists of two regions: the active (addressable) region and the inactive (nonaddressable) region. During the encoding process the code vectors in the address-codebook are reordered adaptively in order to bring the most probable address code vectors into the active region. During the encoding of an address combination the active region of the address-codebook is checked. If such an address combination exists its index is transmitted to the receiver; otherwise the address of each block is transmitted individually. The technique was simulated on a digital computer and its performance was evaluated on several images outside the training sequence. The bit rate achieved was very close to the bit rate obtained from the entropy of the training data. <<ETX>>
A Study of One- and Two-Finger Scrolling Gestures on TouchPads

We compared three scrolling gestures on notebook computer touchpads. One-finger scrolling uses linear strokes in a scroll zone. Two-finger scrolling uses linear two-finger strokes anywhere on the touchpad. ChiralMotion™ scrolling uses continuous one-finger circular motion, initiated in a scroll zone. In a document scrolling experiment on equal-sized touchpads, ChiralMotion scrolling was fastest, followed by two-finger linear scrolling and one-finger linear scrolling. To assess the impact of touchpad size we included a fourth condition using two-finger linear scrolling on a larger touchpad, and this condition gave faster performance than the three conditions using the equal-sized, smaller touchpads. In follow-up questionnaires, users indicated a preference for ChiralMotion scrolling over the other two gestures, independent of touchpad size.
A class of switching turbo decoders against severe SNR mismatch

In mobile communication applications, the fading channel characteristics may vary very rapidly, resulting in a severe SNR mismatch in the receiver. On one hand, the performance of Log-MAP-based turbo decoder degrades significantly in the presence of large SNR underestimation errors. On the other hand, the very robust Max-Log-MAP-based turbo decoder has a SNR loss of about 0.5 dB relative to the former decoder in the absence of SNR mismatch. In this work, we propose a class of switching turbo decoders each specified by a parameter S, which can be selected to compromise the performance without SNR mismatch for the robustness against severe SNR mismatch. Our simulation results demonstrate that by choosing a proper value of S, it is possible to obtain a switching turbo decoder which is not only robust against severe SNR mismatch but also performs reasonably well compared to the Log-MAP-based turbo decoder without SNR mismatch. In addition, the switching operation can be easily implemented by turning off all the correction term related operations in the Log-MAP component decoder. In order to further increase the robustness of the decoder, an auto-switching decoder is also proposed, which will automatically switch from Log-MAP to MAX-Log-MAP. Finally, it is anticipated that the proposed scheme can be fruitfully applied to the serial concatenated convolutional codes, which are even more sensitive to SNR mismatch than the turbo codes.
A CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier with single-ended voltage output and improved temperature performance

An all-MOS, four-quadrant analog multiplier with single-ended voltage output and good temperature performance is presented. It is based on a linear MOS transconductor with extended operation range to four quadrants and on a linear MOS resistor. The temperature behavior of the multiplier is improved by a factor of 10. The multiplier was realized using a 3- mu m p-well self-aligned contact CMOS (SACMOS) process. A linearity better than 1% for each of the input voltages of 5 V/sub p-p/, a bandwidth from DC to 1.2 MHz, and output noise 73 dB below full scale were achieved. The active chip area is 210 mil/sup 2/ and power consumption is 6 mW. A new approach for implementing a temperature-independent analog multiplier is proposed. >
Formation and agreement problems for synchronous mobile robots with limited visibility

Discusses fundamental formation and agreement problems for autonomous, synchronous robots with limited visibility. Each robots is a mobile processor that, at each discrete time instant, observes the relative positions of those robots that are within distance V of itself, computes its new position using the given algorithm, and then moves to that position. The main difference between this work and many of the previous ones is that, here, the visibility of the robots is assumed to be limited to within distance V, for some constant V>0. The problems the authors discuss include the formation of a single point by the robots and agreement on a common x-y coordinate system and the initial distribution, and they present algorithms for these problems, except for the problem of agreement on direction (a subproblem of agreement on a coordinate system), which is not solvable even for robots with unlimited visibility. The discussions the authors present indicate that the correctness proofs of the algorithms for robots with limited visibility can be considerably more complex than those for robots with unlimited visibility.
3D scalp extraction and reconstruction of MRI brain images: 3D scalp extraction and reconstruction of MRI brain images

A new scalp extraction method for Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) brain images in 3D was proposed for the requirements of image guided surgery on fast and accurate positioning in craniotomy.Firstly,anisotropic diffusion filtering was used to reduce noises,and the brain parenchyma image was got by the medical software of BrainSuite3.Afterwards,the brain parenchyma was removed and the threshold of scalp from non-brain-image was calculated.Thirdly,outside surface was extracted by mathematical morphology.Finally,combined with the gray value of scalp,the scalp was reconstructed by Marching Cube(MC) algorithm.The experiments show that this method can extract scalp effectively and the precision reaches sub-pixel's level by connecting threshold,mathematical morphology and MC algorithm.
Comparison between Decision Making Method for Success Right or Wrong of Software Development Project

For a purpose of improvement of project management, we should determine the success right or wrong of project objectively and quantitatively. On the other hand, a decision of success right or wrong of software development projects has been evaluated subjectively by a questionnaire for stakeholders concerned. Furthermore, the study of definition of project success right or wrong and quantitative decision techniques is not found. Recently, gathering of the attribute data about software development projects in Japan has been performed by the IPA/SEC (Software Engineering Centre of the Information-Technology Promotion Agency Japan). Therefore, we developed the diagnostic technique to judge the success right or wrong on a project by a discriminant analysis based on the actual data of IPA/SECs in the precedent study. Also, we tried to develop the diagnostic technique of success right or wrong of project based on the “Success degree estimation mode” in this study. In this paper, we would like to propose the result of comparison between the effectiveness of these diagnostic techniques of the project.
A rainbow net simulator with a dependability application

The authors present an efficient rainbow net (RN) implementation that capitalizes on RN's multiple modeling paradigms, thus yielding a natural and convenient way of expressing system behavior models. A powerful extension to Petri nets, RNs are a modeling technique that combines graphical and state variable based specification for discrete event simulation. RNs were designed especially for dependability modeling. Previous modeling techniques suffer from an explosion in the number of states required to model realistically-sized systems. The efficacy of the RN simulator is demonstrated by a dependability analysis of an n-modular redundant system. This model is shown to be constant in specification complexity, linear in simulation space, and polynomial in simulation time. <<ETX>>
A BLENDED MODEL FOR NON-TRADITIONAL TEACHING AND LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS

This paper suggests a model for teaching and learning mathematics which is based on mathematical phenomenon and on three blended means: technological pedagogical models, representations of mathematical content, and learning contexts. This model moves the student towards deep mathematical learning because of the rich mathematical representations and technological pedagogical tools. Students are motivated to learn mathematics because of the diverse contexts in which they learn (formal, authentic, historical, and virtual) and which add fun to mathematics learning. In the paper, an example is given on how to realize the model in preparing a teaching unit on the golden ratio.
Presynaptic nicotinic modulation of neurotransmitter release in the central nervous system.

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Ionization growth in carbon dioxide

Current growth measurements have been carried out in carbon dioxide for E/N (electric field/gas number density) values between 84*10-17 and 166*10-17 V cm2 and N values between 4.5*1017 and 220*1017 cm-3. Ionization and attachment coefficients have been obtained which agree with the results of other workers at the lower pressures while the higher pressure results provide new data for carbon dioxide. The results of sparking potential measurements indicate Paschen's Law is obeyed and secondary ionization coefficients have been calculated. A decrease in the initial photoelectric current with increasing E/N and N has been observed.
Knowledge Integration Research: Knowledge Integration for Problem Solving in the Development of Complex Aerospace Systems

The development of complex products requires widespread knowledge interactions among a significant number of individuals and teams designing numerous interrelated components. Increasing product complexity typically leads to a corresponding increase in the types and sources of knowledge that need to be tapped during development, and a common strategy for managing product complexity is to outsource parts and components to external suppliers. As a result, the knowledge required for development is increasingly specialized and distributed across multiple boundaries spanning large-scale organizational networks, thus requiring the subsequent integration of this knowledge in order to accomplish the development task. A framework for knowledge integration in the development of complex systems in a large-scale organizational context is proposed in this thesis using an extensive review of the pertinent literature. The framework consists of the main channels, strategies, practices and mechanisms most commonly used to transfer, share and apply knowledge in the course of complex technical problem solving. The framework is progressively refined using empirical data collected through several rounds of interviews and a questionnaire instrument administered across three major aircraft programs in the defense aerospace industry. We find that knowledge integration in routine problem solving situations is most efficiently and effectively accomplished through extensive transfer and sharing of codified information using formal mechanisms such as information systems, while knowledge integration for major non-routine troubleshooting events requires extensive integration of individual expertise and know-how through both formal and informal advice sharing as well as direct assistance across internal and external organizational boundaries. A principal contribution of this research is in demonstrating how different characteristics of the engineering artifact defined in terms of product complexity, architecture and technology newness, and different aspects of problem solving including problem type and novelty, drive the knowledge integration process and the organizational system. We conclude that permeability of cross-program boundaries, direct relationships with functional groups and rich tacit knowledge flow from suppliers are critical for countering rampant firefighting in complex product development. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
A constraint-based limits-modelling approach to investigate manufacturing-machine design capability

Manufacturers purchase processing machinery, tailor made to handle a specific, limited product range. However, during the life span of the machines, these products are likely to change. The manufacturer often calls on the original equipment supplier to assess the ability of the machines to process either a variant of their existing range or even to consider the handling of a totally new product. In the UK such equipment manufacturers tend to be small concerns, employing 80 staff or less, and with such limited resources that there is not the expertise or time available to perform any in-depth analysis of how well the design operates or what constraints there are that may stop it reaching the new performance requirement. In the past this has led to the manufacturers purchasing new equipment, which puts a high financial burden on companies wishing to introduce new products into already highly competitive market sectors. This paper presents an approach to investigating the manufacturing capability of a machine. The methodology, based on limits modelling, utilizes the capability of a constraint environment to model multiple variations of a design and compare their performances against a range of failure modes. This process allows a variety of graphical visual representation techniques to be created to illustrate and compare the limiting conditions for all machines. (c) 2007 Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved.