On a service-oriented approach for an engineering knowledge desktop
Increasingly, manufacturing companies are shifting their focus from selling products to providing services. As a result, when designing new products, engineers must increasingly consider the life cycle costs in addition to any design requirements. To identify possible areas of concern, designers are required to consult existing maintenance information from identical products. However, in a large engineering company, the amount of information available is significant and in wide range of formats. This paper presents a prototype knowledge desktop suitable for the design engineer. The Engineering Knowledge Desktop analyses and suggests relevant information from ontologically marked-up heterogeneous web resources. It is designed using a Service-Oriented Architecture, with an ontology to mediate between Web Services. It has been delivered to the user community for evaluation.

title: Knowledge Management for a Large Service-Oriented Corporation
abstract: The design and maintenance of complex engineering systems such as a jet engine generates a significant amount of documentation. Increasingly, aerospace manufacturers are shifting their focus from selling products to providing services. As a result, when designing new products, engineers must increasingly consider the engine's complete life-cycle as part of the design process. To identify possible areas of concern, engineers must obtain knowledge gained from the entire life of similar engines. However, because of the size and distributed nature of the company's operation, engineers often do not have access to front-line maintenance data. In addition, the large number of documents accrued makes it impossible for them to be examined thoroughly. This paper presents a prototype knowledge-based document repository for such an application. It searches and analyzes distributed document resources, and provides engineers with a summary view of the underlying knowledge. The aim is to allow engineers to incorporate maintenance issues into the initial design. Unlike existing document repositories and digital libraries, our approach is knowledge-based, where users browse summary reports instead of following suggested links. To test the validity of our proposed architecture, we have developed and deployed a working prototype.

title: Real-Time Adaptive Hand Motion Recognition Using a Sparse Bayesian Classifier
abstract: An approach to increase adaptability of a recognition system, which can recognise 10 elementary gestures and be extended to sign language recognition, is proposed. In this work, recognition is done by firstly extracting a motion gradient orientation image from a raw video input and then classifying a feature vector generated from this image to one of the 10 gestures by a sparse Bayesian classifier. The classifier is designed in a way that it supports online incremental learning and it can be thus re-trained to increase its adaptability to an input captured under a new condition. Experiments show that the accuracy of the classifier can be boosted from less than 40% to over 80% by re-training it using 5 newly captured samples from each gesture class. Apart from having a better adaptability, the system can work reliably in real-time and give a probabilistic output that is useful in complex motion analysis.

title: Workflow-enabled distributed component-based information architecture for digital medical imaging enterprises
abstract: Few information systems today offer a flexible means to define and manage the automated part of radiology processes, which provide clinical imaging services for the entire healthcare organization. Even fewer of them provide a coherent architecture that can easily cope with heterogeneity and inevitable local adaptation of applications and can integrate clinical and administrative information to aid better clinical, operational, and business decisions. We describe an innovative enterprise architecture of image information management systems to fill the needs. Such a system is based on the interplay of production workflow management, distributed object computing, Java and Web techniques, and in-depth domain knowledge in radiology operations. Our design adapts the approach of "4+1" architectural view. In this new architecture, PACS and RIS become one while the user interaction can be automated by customized workflow process. Clinical service applications are implemented as active components. They can be reasonably substituted by applications of local adaptations and can be multiplied for fault tolerance and load balancing. Furthermore, the workflow-enabled digital radiology system would provide powerful query and statistical functions for managing resources and improving productivity. This paper will potentially lead to a new direction of image information management. We illustrate the innovative design with examples taken from an implemented system.

title: Fast analytical approach to finding steady-state waveforms for power electronics circuits using orthogonal polynomial basis functions
abstract: This paper describes a general analytical procedure for steady-state waveform analysis of power electronics circuits using orthogonal polynomials. The proposed method exploits the time-domain piecewise property of power electronics circuits as well as the orthogonality of certain polynomials in order to maximize the accuracy and computational efficiency. This new analytical approach can provide a fast means to obtain improved and more robust solutions of steady-state waveforms of power electronics circuits

title: Movement-based interactive dance performance
abstract: Movement-based interactive dance has recently attracted great interest in the performing arts. While utilizing motion capture technology, the goal of this project was to design the necessary real-time motion analysis engine, staging, and communication systems for the completion of a movement-based interactive multimedia dance performance. The movement analysis engine measured the correlation of dance movement between three people wearing similar sets of retro-reflective markers in a motion capture volume. This analysis provided the framework for the creation of an interactive dance piece, Lucidity, which will be described in detail. Staging such a work also presented additional challenges. These challenges and our proposed solutions will be discussed. We conclude with a description of the final work and a summary of our future research objectives.

title: Spurious modulation on current-mode controlled DC/DC converters: an explanation for intermittent chaotic operation
abstract: We explain the mechanism that causes "intermittent" instability and chaos in a current-mode controlled switching converter. The circuit model used to study the phenomenon incorporates a coupling process through which a spurious signal is coupled to the current sensing and ramp compensation circuitry, resulting in a modulation of the compensation slope which causes the system to become unstable intermittently. We describe a way to find the parameter boundaries where intermittent chaotic operation emerges.