Direct solution of the parametric Stochastic Distribution Control problem
The Stochastic Distribution Control (SDC) problem is a generalised form of the minimum variance control problem where non-Gaussian noise distributions are encountered. The problem has been previously solved using two alternative approaches. When it is assumed that the output Probability Distribution Function (PDF) is measurable, then a parameterized controller is obtained. If on the other hand this assumption is removed (which corresponds to most practical cases), then the controller found is no longer parameterisable (i.e. it is a control action sequence). Both these approaches have thus far been solved using local Newtonian methods. In this paper a third alternative is presented which combines the desirable features of the previous two methods by finding a parameterized controller, without having to assume that the output PDF is directly measurable at the same time. In addition, global direct search algorithms are used to avoid convergence to local solutions. The approach is demonstrated on a SISO nonlinear system corrupted by non-Gaussian input noise.

title: Novel Parameter Identification by Using a High-Gain Observer With Application to a Gas Turbine Engine
abstract: In this study, a novel identification technique, that is high-gain observer-based identification approach, is proposed for systems with bounded process and measurement noises. For system parameters with abnormal changes, an adaptive change detection and parameter identification algorithm is next presented. The presented technique and algorithm are finally applied to the parameter identification of the gas turbine engine by using the recorded input data from the engine test-bed. The identified parameters and the response curves are desirable. The simulations have proved the effectiveness of the proposed procedure compared with the previous identification approach.

title: Minimum entropy control of nonlinear ARMA systems over a communication network
abstract: In this paper, the entropy concept has been utilized to characterize the uncertainty of the tracking error for nonlinear ARMA stochastic systems over a communication network, where time delays in the communication channels are of random nature. A recursive optimization solution has been developed. In addition, an alternative algorithm is also proposed based on the probability density function of the tracking error, which is estimated by a neural network. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed approach.

title: An Intelligent Mill Load Switching Control of the Pulverizing System for an Alumina Sintering Process
abstract: This paper proposes an intelligent switching control strategy for the pulverizing system for an alumina sintering process. The control strategy consists of a coordinating controller, a proportional-integral (PI) controller, a rule-based reasoning controller and a switching mechanism. The practical application to a pulverizing system in an alumina sintering process has shown that when the hot air temperature is low and varies frequently, this control strategy ensures that the mill load and the temperature of the mill outlet are both within their required ranges, and also controls the mill load at the level corresponding to the maximum mill output. Moreover, it has been observed that the proposed control strategy can avoid the fault operating condition and effectively reduce the unit energy consumption.

title: Descriptor observer approaches for multivariable systems with measurement noises and application in fault detection and diagnosis
abstract: In this paper, new descriptor observer design approaches are presented for multivariable systems with measurement noises. If the system matrix is stable, the proposed modified proportional and derivative observer technique allows us not only to decouple the measurement noise in any forms completely, but also obtain accurate estimations of both system states and measurement noises. If the system is detectable and the noise is bounded, it has been shown that two design parameters can provide more degrees of freedom. In this context, the derivative gain parameter is chosen to reduce the amplification of the noise, and the proportional gain is then selected to guarantee the stability of the error dynamics. For systems with both measurement output noises and input disturbances, a modified proportional, derivative and integral observer is constructed to asymptotically estimate states, input disturbances, and output noises at the same time. The applications of the proposed observers for systems with actuator and sensor faults are also discussed. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the design procedures, and the simulation results show the satisfactory tracking performance.

title: Advances in stochastic distribution control
abstract: Stochastic distribution control systems aims at the controller design so as to realize a shape control of the distributions of certain random variables in the process. Once the probability density functions (PDFs) of these variables are used to describe their distributions, the control task is to obtain control signals so that the output PFDs of the system are made to follow their target PDFs. In this paper, a survey of the recent developments on the research of stochastic distribution control systems will be made.

title: A Composite Method to Extract Eye Contour
abstract: An eye contour extraction method which combines a simplied version of Active Shape Model(ASM) with a gradient method is proposed. Considering the large amount of calculations required by ASM, it is only used to extract eyelids. As iris is considered to have some more regular shape, the detection of iris is done by the simple but fast gradient method, which is improved by introducing gradient value to the weight matrix. Our detection method has been implemented in the C programming language and experimental results shows good accuracy and efficiency.

title: Implementing a scalable ASC processor
abstract: Previous papers (Walker et al. (2001); Wu et al. (2002)) have described our implementation of a small prototype processor and control unit for associative computing, called the ASC processor. That initial prototype was implemented on an Altera education board using an Altera FLEX 10K FPGA, and was limited to an unrealistic 4 processing elements (PE). This paper describes a more complete implementation - a scalable ASC processor that can scale up to 52 PE on an Altera APEX 20KE board, or further on larger FPGA. This paper also proposes extensions to support multiple control units and control parallelism.

title: On Covering a Bipartite Graph with Cycles
abstract: We conjectured in [H. Wang,  (1999), pp. 115--121] that, for each integer $k\geq 2$, there exists N(k) such that if G=(V1,V2;E) is a bipartite graph with $|V_1|=|V_2|=n\geq N(k)$ and d(x)+d(y)\geq n+k$ for each pair of nonadjacent vertices x and y of G with $x\in V_1$ and $y\in V_2$, then for any k independent edges e1, . . ., ek of G, there exist k vertex-disjoint cycles C1, . . . ,Ck in G such that $e_i\in E(C_i)$ for all $i\in\{1,\ldots ,k\}$ and $V(C_1\cup\cdots \cup C_k)=V(G)$. This conjecture is also verified for k=2 in [H. Wang,  (1999), pp. 115--121]. We prove this conjecture for k=3 in this paper.

title: A Scalable Pipelined Associative SIMD Array with Reconfigurable PE Interconnection Network for Embedded Applications
abstract: This paper describes the FPGA implementation of a specialized SIMD processor array for embedded applications. An alternative to traditional SoC or MPSoC architectures, this array combines the massive parallelism inherent in SIMD architectures with the search capabilities of associative computing, producing a SIMD Processor Array System on a Chip (PASoC) well suited for applications such as data mining and bioinformatics. This paper first describes the architecture of the system, and then the pipelining of the processing elements and the addition of a reconfigurable interconnection network. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief description of a string-matching algorithm that can be used for the applications cited above.

title: Inferno: a functional simulation infrastructure for modeling microarchitectural data speculations
abstract: This paper presents key insights and design rationales behind Inferno, a functional simulation construction framework developed at Intel to support execution-driven cycle-accurate performance modeling and simulation of advanced microarchitectural data speculation techniques for future processor designs and explorations. Inferno divides the task of functional simulation into three essential components, namely: (1) context manager of in-flight speculatively executed instructions, (2) stateless emulator of instruction semantics, and (3) a high speed functional simulator capable of booting OS and running large-scale system workloads. These building block components work together in concert via a set of well-architected functional model convergence APIs. With a novel abstraction called speculative domain, the context manager serves effectively as a relational database about the in-flight instructions and on-going speculations. Through a set of functional model usage APIs, the context manager enables performance models to express arbitrary microarchitectural data speculation scenarios. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of providing a functional model with modular construction, proper abstraction and expressive APIs for speculative state management. Inferno is such a functional model construction framework and has significantly improved productivity in modeling a variety of sophisticated data speculation microarchitecture techniques.