The C-loss function for pattern classification

This paper presents a new loss function for neural network classification, inspired by the recently proposed similarity measure called Correntropy. We show that this function essentially behaves like the conventional square loss for samples that are well within the decision boundary and have small errors, and L₀ or counting norm for samples that are outliers or are difficult to classify. Depending on the value of the kernel size parameter, the proposed loss function moves smoothly from convex to non-convex and becomes a close approximation to the misclassification loss (ideal 0–1 loss). We show that the discriminant function obtained by optimizing the proposed loss function in the neighborhood of the ideal 0–1 loss function to train a neural network is immune to overfitting, more robust to outliers, and has consistent and better generalization performance as compared to other commonly used loss functions, even after prolonged training. The results also show that it is a close competitor to the SVM. Since the proposed method is compatible with simple gradient based online learning, it is a practical way of improving the performance of neural network classifiers.     

New trends on e-Procurement applying semantic technologies: Current status and future challenges

The present paper introduces and reviews existing technology and research works in the field of e-Procurement. More specifically this survey aims to collect those relevant approaches that have tackled the challenge of delivering more advanced and intelligent e-Procurement management systems due to its relevance in the industry to afford more timely, adaptable and flexible decisions in purchasing processes. Although existing tools and techniques have demonstrated their ability to manage e-Procurement processes as a part of a supply management system there is a lack of interoperability among tools, tangled dependencies between processes or difficulties to exploit existing data and information to name a few that are preventing a proper use of the new dynamic and data-based environment. On the other hand semantic-based technologies emerge to provide the adequate building blocks to represent domain-knowledge and elevate the meaning of information resources through a common and shared data model (RDF) with a formal query language (SPARQL) and accessible via the Internet Protocols. In this sense the Linked Data effort has gained momentum to apply the principles of the aforementioned initiative to boost the re-use of information and data across different tools and processes. That is why authors review both existing open issues in the context e-Procurement with special focus on public procurement and semantic-based approaches to address them. To do so a preliminary research study is conducted to assess the state of the art in the context of e-Procurement and semantic-based systems. Afterwards main drawbacks of existing e-Procurement systems are presented to narrow down in semantic-based approaches applied to this field. Once the current status in both areas is reviewed, authors purpose the use and creation of an e-Procurement index to evaluate the quality of service of procurement systems. In this light the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to set up an initial weight for each indicator in the index and to perform a first comparison between traditional and semantic-based approaches. Finally some discussion, conclusions and future challenges are also outlined.     

Sustainability in Web server systems

The exponential growth of Internet during the last decade leads us to make more efforts in the researching and developing of sustainable Web servers in order to decrease the global energy demand. In this paper, we cover, as a first step, a proper review of the literature related to the energy efficiency research in Web server systems to depict the state of the art to plan further contributions as more research in sustainable Web systems. We also propose and implement an energy metric that permits to establish a relation between the Quality of Service (QoS) obtained by the system and the power it consumes.     

Comparison of relative viscosity measurement of polyvinylpyrrolidone in water by glass capillary viscometer and differential dual‐capillary viscometer

The relative viscosity (RV) of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) with different molecular weights was measured with a glass capillary viscometer and with a differential dual‐capillary viscometer in water at different concentrations. For the differential dual‐capillary viscometer, RV increases with a decreasing flow rate, especially for high molecular weight PVP at a 1% concentration. A good agreement in the RV between the two methods can be obtained for PVP with different molecular weights and at various concentrations if an appropriate flow rate is selected for the differential dual‐capillary viscometer. Special precaution is needed when using the differential dual‐capillary viscometer to measure the viscosity of a pure solvent. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 1312–1315, 2002     

Online FPS games: effect of router buffer and multiplexing techniques on subjective quality estimators

First Person Shooters are a genre of online games in which users demand a high interactivity, because the actions and the movements are very fast. They usually generate high rates of small packets which have to be delivered to the server within a deadline. When the traffic of a number of players shares the same link, these flows can be aggregated in order to save bandwidth. Certain multiplexing techniques are able to merge a number of packets, in a similar way to voice trunking, creating a bundle which is transmitted using a tunnel. In addition, the headers of the original packets can be compressed by means of standard algorithms. The characteristics of the buffers of the routers which deliver these bundled packets may have a strong influence on the network impairments (mainly delay, jitter and packet loss) which determine the quality of the game. A subjective quality estimator has been used in order to study the mutual influence of the buffer and multiplexing techniques. Taking into account that there exist buffers which size is measured in terms of bytes, and others measured in packets, both kinds of buffers have been tested, using different sizes. Traces from real game parties have been merged in order to obtain the traffic of 20 simultaneous players sharing the same Internet access. The delay and jitter produced by the buffer of the access router have been obtained using simulations. In general, the quality is expected to be reduced as the background traffic grows, but the results show an anomalous region in which the quality rises with the background traffic amount. Small buffers present better subjective quality results than bigger ones. When the total traffic amount gets above the available bandwidth, the buffers measured in bytes add to the packets a fixed delay, which grows with buffer size. They present a jitter peak when the offered traffic is roughly the link capacity. On the other hand, buffers which size is measured in packets add a smaller delay, but they increase packet loss for gaming traffic. The obtained results illustrate the need of knowing the characteristics of the buffer in order to make the correct decision about traffic multiplexing. As a conclusion, it would be interesting for game developers to identify the behaviour of the router buffer so as to adapt the traffic to it.     

Morphology and thermomechanical properties of recycled PET–organoclay nanocomposites

Recycled PET/organoclay nanocomposites were prepared by melt intercalation process with several amounts (1, 3, and 5 wt %) of clay modified with quaternary ammonium salt (DELLITE 67G) dispersed in a recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) (rPET) matrix. The resultant mechanical properties (modulus and yield strength) of the nanocomposites were found to be different from those of rPET. Wide angle X‐ray scattering (WAXS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) measurements have shown that although complete exfoliation was not achieved, delaminated clay platelets could be observed. Thermal analysis did not show significant changes in the thermal properties from those of recycled PET. Mechanical testing showed that nanocomposite properties were superior to the recycled PET in terms of strength and elasticity modulus. This improvement was attributed to nanoscale effects and strong interaction between the rPET matrix and the clay interface, as revealed by WAXS and TEM. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 1839–1844, 2007     

Evolutionary robustness analysis for multi-objective optimization: benchmark problems

This paper presents a new approach to robustness analysis in multi-objective optimization problems aimed at obtaining the most robust Pareto front solutions and distributing the solutions along the most robust regions of the optimal Pareto set. A new set of test problems accounting for the different types of robustness cases is presented in this study. Non-dominated solutions are classified according to their degree of robustness and are distributed along the Pareto front according to specific algorithm parameter values. Verification of the proposed method is carried out using the developed test problems and artificial and real world benchmark test problems present in the literature.     

Mobile digcovery: discovering and interacting with the world through the Internet of things

The application of Internet-enabled devices in the real world for the development of Smart Cities, environmental monitoring, bus tracking, and parking requires scalability, extensibility, and integration of emerging resources to reach a suitable ecosystem for data acquisition and interaction with citizens. Internet of things needs to offer efficient support for global communications and access to services and information. It needs to enable homogeneous and seamless machine-to-machine communication for different solutions and applications. This work presents an homogeneous and suitable mechanism for global resource discovery, device access for deployed smart objects in different scenarios, and sensors and devices from end users (participative sensing). The integration of legacy and sensors already available from smart buildings and smart objects is presented. For this purpose, a resolution infrastructure called “digcovery” is defined for maximizing efficiency and sustainability of deployments. Digcovery architecture offers the framework to allow users to register/include their own sensors into a common infrastructure and access/discover the available resources through mobile digcovery. Mobile digcovery exploits the context-awareness, geo-location, and identification technologies available in mobile platforms such as smartphones to discover, interact, and access the resources through its ElasticSearch engine.     

Synthesis of UHMW-PE by a Highly Active Homogeneous System: η5-(C5H5)2Ti(η1-OC(O)C6H5)2/MAO

Summary The complex ⁵-(C₅H₅)₂Ti (¹-OC(O)C₆H₅)₂ was synthesized and activated with MA0 for ethylene polymerization. The resultant polymer is UHMW-PE with a viscosimetric molecular weight of Mv = 6.8 x 10⁶ to 0.7 x 10⁶ g/mol dependent on the temperature of the reaction. The effects of the Al/Ti molar ratio and temperature of the reaction on the catalytic activity and polymer properties were studied.     

PI regulation for a class of bioreactors: stability and performance

Stability and performance features of linear PI compensation for continuous bioreactors are studied in this paper. First, it is established that conventional PI control can be represented as the combination of an I/O inverse dynamics feedback with a modeling error dynamic estimator. Then, the analysis of the closed‐loop dynamics carried out with singular perturbation tools shows that PI control can recover the stability and performance induced by exact I/O inverse dynamics feedback controller. The theoretical results are illustrated via a typical numerical example. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.