A Web-based flood forecasting system for Shuangpai region

Traditional flood forecasting and operation of reservoirs in China are based on manual calculations by hydrologists or through standalone computer programs. The main drawbacks of these methods are long forecasting time due to time-consuming nature, individual knowledge, lack of communication, absence of experts, etc. A Web-based flood forecasting system (WFFS), which includes five main modules: real-time rainfall data conversion, model-driven hydrologic forecasting, model calibration, precipitation forecasting, and flood analysis, is presented in this paper. The WFFS brings significant convenience to personnel engaged in flood forecasting and control and allows real-time contribution of a wide range of experts at other spatial locations in times of emergency. The conceptual framework and detailed components of the proposed WFFS, which employs a multi-tiered architecture, are illustrated. Multi-tiered architecture offers great flexibility, portability, reusability and reliability. The prototype WFFS has been developed in Java programming language and applied in Shuangpai region with a satisfactory result.     

Efficient FPGA implementation and verification of difference expansion based reversible watermarking with improved time and resource utilization

This paper presents Xilinx System Generator (XSG) model design for realization of reversible watermarking algorithm using Difference Expansion (DE) approach in System-On-Chip (SoC) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) environment. The reversible watermarking is verified by taking a (4 × 4) sized test image and is applicable for larger sizes of cover images. The outcomes of the result demonstrate that the proposed structural design allows combining MATLAB-Simulink and XSG during graphical user interface for image processing applications. The superiority of the algorithm is justified by using comparative analysis with some well-known methods in both software and hardware environments. The method provides effectively higher PSNR at higher embedding capacity. It is also found that the method requires less time and hardware resources with throughput of 13.516 Mb/s at operational frequency of 80 MHz for real time implementation using FPGA.     

Bayesian network based general correspondence retrieval method for depth sensing with single-shot structured light

This study reinvestigated one of the most fundamental problems in structure light depth sensing field: correspondence retrieval of features between patterns and images. We formulate the global optimum correspondence retrieval by maximizing a conditional probability of correspondence given observed features, which is depicted by a Bayesian network. Different from traditional “code-only” based correspondence retrieval methods, the proposed Bayesian network based method exploits the positional correlations of correspondences of neighboring features, namely, the correspondences of poorly detected features are estimated with the aid of the correspondences of well detected features. The method performs especially well on challenging scenes with rich depth variations, abrupt depth changes, edges, etc. Experiments show that the proposed method increase the correspondence accuracy by about 40% on challenging scenes, compared with traditional “code-only” based correspondence retrieval methods.     

Predator–prey optimization based clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Neural Computing and Applications - Grouping the sensor nodes into clusters is an effective way to organize wireless sensor networks and to prolong the networks’ lifetime. This paper presents...     

A novel sine augmented scaled sine cosine algorithm for frequency control issues of a hybrid distributed two-area power system

Neural Computing and Applications - In this research article, a novel approach is proposed by considering the sine augmented scaled sine cosine (SAS-SCA) Algorithm for the load frequency control of...     

Design of an Ultra-Compact and Highly-Sensitive Temperature Sensor Using Photonic Crystal Based Single Micro-Ring Resonator and Cascaded Micro-Ring Resonator

Silicon - In the present report, a photonic crystal based micro-ring resonator (MRR) structure is proposed which is very compact in size and has very fast response and is employed for temperature...     

Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 phase relations: Thermodynamics and phase equilibria in the systems Bi2O3 – TiO2, Na2O – TiO2, and Na2O – Bi2O3 – TiO2

The lead-free piezoelectric material sodium bismuth titanate (NBT, Na_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃) has attracted considerable attention owing to its promising dielectric, piezoelectric, and electrical properties. However, the literature on the binary subsystems is contradictory and there are only limited data for the ternary system. The present work surveys all of the reports of the binary subsystems Bi₂O₃ – TiO₂ and Na₂O – TiO₂ and synthesizes these data into inclusive revised versions. The compatibilities for the ternary system Na₂O – Bi₂O₃ – TiO₂ were determined experimentally, thus enabling the construction of a complete isothermal section at 800 °C. The compatibilities associated with the problematic binary subsystem Na₂O – Bi₂O₃, which experiences extreme volatilisation, were determined through the generation of the absent standard-state thermodynamic functions for the relevant binary and ternary phases, thus providing a full suite of thermodynamic data for this system. The thermodynamic stability diagrams for Na₂O, Bi₂O₃, and TiO₂ thus were calculated. The isothermal section also addresses the contradictions in the literature concerning the formation of solid solutions of Bi₁₂TiO_20-x / Bi_12-xTi_1+xO_20+0.5x, pyrochlore (Bi₂Ti₂O₇ / Na_wBi_2-xTi_2-yO_7-z), BTO (Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ / Na_xBi₄Ti₃O_12+0.5x), and NBT (Na_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃ / Bi_1±xNa_xTiO_3.5±x). Further, it was observed that the congruent melting point of NBT, which was determined to be 1225 °C, was preceded by the onset of gradual structural destabilization at 940 °C. Also, the NBT rhombohedral → tetragonal phase transformation was observed at an onset temperature of ∼250 °C. The present work thus provides platform data for the fabrication and reactivities of materials in the ternary system Na₂O – Bi₂O₃· TiO₂ and its binary subsystems.     

Design optimization of the quantization and a pipelined 2D-DCT for real-time applications

The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is one of the most widely used techniques for image compression. Several algorithms are proposed to implement the DCT-2D. The scaled SDCT algorithm is an optimization of the DCT-1D, which consists in gathering all the multiplications at the end. In this paper, in addition to the hardware implementation on an FPGA, an extended optimization has been performed by merging the multiplications in the quantization block without having an impact on the image quality. A simplified quantization has been performed also to keep higher the performances of the all chain. Tests using MATLAB environment have shown that our proposed approach produces images with nearly the same quality of the ones obtained using the JPEG standard. FPGA-based implementations of this proposed approach is presented and compared to other state of the art techniques. The target is an an Altera Cyclone II FPGA using the Quartus synthesis tool. Results show that our approach outperforms the other ones in terms of processing-speed, used resources and power consumption. A comparison has been done between this architecture and a distributed arithmetic based architecture.     

A recursive maximum a posteriori estimator

Kalman Filter (KF) is the optimal state estimator for linear dynamical systems in the presence of zero mean white Gaussian noise. It is a minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimator. In the present work a recursive maximum a posteriori estimator (RMAPE) has been developed from basic principles of estimation. This estimator may be used for realtime state estimation of linear dynamical systems in presence of zero mean white Gaussian noise. It is further shown here that the KF can be derived from this RMAPE algorithm, i.e. this work shows an alternative method way to derive the KF. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Simulation studies of inverted pendulum based on PID controllers

The inverted pendulum problem is one of the most important problems in control theory and has been studied excessively in control literatures. When a control system have more than two PID controllers, the adjustment of PID parameters is not an easy problem. In this paper, PID controllers are applied to the stabilization and tracking control of three types of inverted pendulum. The way how to design the PID controllers is given step by step in this paper. Simulation results prove that the way to design of PID controllers is very simple and effective. The system design not only can realize stabilization and tracking control of three types of inverted pendulum, but also have robustness to outer large and fast disturbances.