Solving the small sample size problem in face recognition using generalized discriminant analysis

The goal of face recognition is to distinguish persons via their facial images. Each person's images form a cluster, and a new image is recognized by assigning it to the correct cluster. Since the images are very high-dimensional, it is necessary to reduce their dimension. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) has been shown to be effective at dimension reduction while preserving the cluster structure of the data. It is classically defined as an optimization problem involving covariance matrices that represent the scatter within and between clusters. The requirement that one of these matrices be nonsingular restricts its application to datasets in which the dimension of the data does not exceed the sample size. For face recognition, however, the dimension typically exceeds the number of images in the database, resulting in what is referred to as the small sample size problem. Recently, the applicability of LDA has been extended by using the generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) to circumvent the nonsingularity requirement, thus making LDA directly applicable to face recognition data. Our experiments confirm that LDA/GSVD solves the small sample size problem very effectively as compared with other current methods.     

Power management in networked devices

Networks are one of the most significant developments in computing and a hallmark of modern society. However, along with increasing efficiency and productivity, both at home and in the workplace, networks have costs. One cost is the additional energy that electronic devices consume when attached to networks. Power management, a standard feature of modern PCs, was primarily developed to increase battery lifetime in laptop PCs, which historically were not network-connected when using battery power. Today, however, many laptops are connected to a network - typically a Wi-Fi network - as are the majority of desktop computers. Three key drivers of energy use are induced consumption by devices prevented by network connections from entering low-power states, increasing link data rates that inherently consume more energy for the network interfaces, and proliferation of network-connected displays that actively update and display data when no one is present.     

A direct numerical simulation of transition phenomena in a mixed convection channel flow

This study intends to provide an increased understanding of the laminar-turbulent transition phenomena for the buoyancy-assisted heated vertical channel flow during the early transient stage. The spectral method with weak formulation is applied in the direct numerical simulation. Initial disturbances consist of the finite-amplitude two-dimensional TS wave and a pair of three-dimensional oblique waves for the K-type disturbances. The results from the harmonic energy competitions of different wave modes show that for the buoyancy-assisted heated flow, the (k_x=1, k_z=1) or (1,1) and (1,0) modes would gain energy immediately and start to rise at almost the same rate. This phenomenon is different from that of the buoyancy-opposed flow, where the (1,1) mode decays slowly in the beginning until other modes gain enough energy and then it begins to grow quickly and overtakes the (1,0) mode after a short time period. These different transition patterns match with the experimental results that the flow transition is supercritical and subcritical for the buoyancy-assisted and -opposed flows, respectively. Buoyancy-assisted heated flow transition follows the general trend of an isothermal flow in the beginning, but the thermal-buoyant force is crucial in accelerating the instability and also causing notable differences during the subsequent transition process. All of the results for the vortex structures development, kinetic energy budget of the disturbances, flow visualization by tagged fluid particles, and the local temperature fluctuations are consistent in pointing to a clear pattern for the buoyancy-assisted heated flow transition.     

Itemset trees for targeted association querying

Association mining techniques search for groups of frequently co-occurring items in a market-basket type of data and turn these groups into business-oriented rules. Previous research has focused predominantly on how to obtain exhaustive lists of such associations. However, users often prefer a quick response to targeted queries. For instance, they may want to learn about the buying habits of customers that frequently purchase cereals and fruits. To expedite the processing of such queries, we propose an approach that converts the market-basket database into an itemset tree. Experiments indicate that the targeted queries are answered in a time that is roughly linear in the number of market baskets, N. Also, the construction of the itemset tree has O(N) space and time requirements. Some useful theoretical properties are proven.     

Contractor Prebid Planning Principles

Planning is an essential function of project management. Yet, many small- and medium-sized contractors do a relatively poor job of operational planning. Better prebid plans will reduce costs, shorten schedules, and improve labor productivity. Unfortunately, the published literature offers little guidance for smaller contractors on what constitutes effective planning. Most papers describe planning as a macrolevel process for owners. Most emphasize scope definition for industrial projects. This paper describes a microlevel planning process for contractors. It consists of eight steps which are: (1) assess contract risks; (2) develop a preliminary execution plan; (3) develop site layout plans; (4) identify the sequences that are essential-to-success; (5) develop detailed operational plans; (6) develop proactive strategies to assure construction input into design; (7) revise the preliminary plan; and (8) communicate and enforce the plan. The entire process is illustrated with a case study project and is fully illustrated with figures which show how to integrate the work of multiple contractors, keep key resources (crews or equipment) fully engaged with no downtime, provide time buffers so the work of follow on crews can be efficiently done, expedite the schedule using multiple work stations and concurrent work, ways to communicate the work plan to the superintendent and foremen, and how to assess the feasibility of various work methods. The steps are easy to understand and implement. They will yield immediate positive results.     

Emergency department status boards: user-evolved artefacts for inter- and intra-group coordination

Large, easily viewed status boards are commonly used in some healthcare settings such as emergency departments, operating theaters, intensive care units, and inpatient wards. Because these artefacts were developed by front-line users, and have little to no supervisory or regulatory control, they offer valuable insights into the theories of work and hazard held by those users. Although the status boards case were locally developed over many years for within-group coordination, they have also become useful for between-group coordination across organizational boundaries. In this paper, we compare and contrast the use of such status boards in two disparate settings: a US emergency department, and a UK pediatric ward, and note striking similarities in their form and usage, despite the large differences in setting.     

Supporting multiple-input,multiple-output custom functions in configurable processors

Configurable processors have emerged as a promising solution for high performance embedded systems. Many of these processors extend a RISC core with configurable functional units that execute dual-input, single-output (DISO) custom functions. Although studies have shown that supporting multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) custom functions can lead to significant speedups, mechanisms to efficiently achieve this have not been adequately addressed. The underlying reason is that a custom function is normally invoked by a single instruction, which usually transfers only two inputs and one output. Attempts to transfer more inputs and outputs in one instruction are impeded by the instruction length and the register file’s R/W ports. This paper proposes a simple extension to transfer multiple inputs and outputs of the custom functions using repeated instructions. While transferring the inputs and outputs may take a few extra cycles, our experiments show that the MIMO extension can still achieve an average 51% increase in speedup compared to a DISO extension and an average 27% increase in speedup compared to a multiple-input, single-output (MISO) extension.     

Perception and Planning Architecture for Autonomous Ground Vehicles

By combining smart sensors and traversability grids with a JAUS-based component and messaging architecture, DARPA Grand Challenge finalist team CIMAR quickly developed a robust autonomous ground vehicle (AGV), a custom-built off-road vehicle. Key components included six smart sensors for detecting environmental conditions and reporting a priori data, a smart arbiter for fusing data from multiple smart sensors, and a reactive driver for providing real-time navigation planning and obstacle avoidance