Shock coupled fourth-order diffusion for image enhancement

In this paper a shock coupled fourth-order diffusion filter is proposed for image enhancement. This filter converges at a faster rate while preserving and enhancing edges, ramps and textures present in the images. The proposed filter diffuses with varying magnitudes in the directions normal to the level-curve and along it. The magnitude of the directional diffusion is controlled by a diffusion function, meant to provide a good response in the direction along the level-curves, than across them. The proposed filter can still preserve the planar approximation of the image, thereby avoiding the discrepancy caused due to the staircase effect, as in the second-order counterparts. The anisotropic property of the filter is thoroughly studied, analyzed and demonstrated with perspective and quantitative results. The performance of the proposed filter is compared with the state-of-the-art methods for image enhancement. The quantitative and perspective measures provided endorse the capability of the method to enhance various kinds of images.     

Mining methodologies from NLP publications: A case study in automatic terminology recognition

The task of reviewing scientific publications and keeping up with the literature in a particular domain is extremely time-consuming. Extraction and exploration of methodological information, in particular, requires systematic understanding of the literature, but in many cases is performed within a limited context of publications that can be manually reviewed by an individual or group. Automated methodology identification could provide an opportunity for systematic retrieval of relevant documents and for exploring developments within a given discipline. In this paper we present a system for the identification of methodology mentions in scientific publications in the area of natural language processing, and in particular in automatic terminology recognition. The system comprises two major layers: the first layer is an automatic identification of methodological sentences; the second layer highlights methodological phrases (segments). Each mention is categorised in four semantic categories: Task, Method, Resource/Feature and Implementation. Extraction and classification of the segments is formalised as a sequence tagging problem and four separate phrase-based Conditional Random Fields are used to accomplish the task. The system has been evaluated on a manually annotated corpus comprising 45 full text articles. The results for the segment level annotation show an F-measure of 53% for identification of Task and Method mentions (with 70% precision), whereas the F-measures for Resource/Feature and Implementation identification were 61% (with 67% precision) and 75% (with 86% precision) respectively. At the document-level, an F-measure of 72% (with 81% precision) for Task mentions, 60% (with 81% precision) for Method mentions, 74% (with 78% precision) for the Resource/Feature and 79% (with 81% precision) for the Implementation categories have been achieved. We provide a detailed analysis of errors and explore the impact that the particular groups of features have on the extraction of methodological segments.     

Soft computing methods applied to combination of one-class classifiers

The paper shows the possibilities of generalizing the two-class classification into multi-class classification by means of a fuzzy inference system. Fuzzy combiner harnesses the support values from classifiers to provide final response having no other restrictions on their structure. We compare proposed combination methods with ECOC and two variations of decision templates, based on Euclidean and symmetric distance. The effectiveness of the proposed combination method based on the fuzzy logic theory is also evaluated via computer experiments carried out on benchmark datasets.     

Efficient registration of optical and infrared images via modified Sobel edging for plant canopy temperature estimation

Automatic optical and infrared (IR) image registration is a crucial requirement in the estimation of plant canopy temperature. The latter is used to compute the plant water stress status which can potentially be applied to an automated control system for optimal crop irrigation management. Due to the nature of image sources and plant scene, it is difficult to find enough common features between the pair of images to register them using a simple method. In this paper an improved registration algorithm is described, where a modified Sobel edge detector is adopted and a variable resolution scheme is applied. The algorithm can improve the registration efficiency considerably compared to our previous developed registration method. Experiment results show that the modified algorithm can achieve the same registration accuracy and a better success rate compared to that from the original algorithm with a substantial reduction of computational complexity.     

Energy management of a hybrid photovoltaic system

This work describes a new control strategy for active energy flow in a hybrid photovoltaic (PV) system. The method introduces an online energy management by a hierarchical fuzzy controller between energy sources that consist of a photovoltaic panel (PVP), the battery and the load. The fuzzy logic controller has been developed for power splitting between PVP and battery, and it makes decision to choose the switching chain rules and corresponding controller. Simulation test results illustrate improvement in the operation's efficiency of online state of the switches and the battery's state of charge (SOC) has been maintained at a reasonable level. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical and experimental characterization of antenna positioning in a dual-radio mesh router

This paper investigates the influence of the position of the antennas in a dual-radio mesh router by characterizing the router components from an electromagnetic point of view. Since the behavior of a wireless router equipped with multiple devices and antennas can be affected by mutual coupling among several close conducting bodies, numerical and experimental tests are carried out to provide some suggestions for an accurate positioning of the antennas. A reference configuration is implemented in an electromagnetic Computer-Aided Design (CAD) simulator. The most significant numerical results are validated by performing a campaign of measurements in anechoic chamber and deploying a testbed for the derivation of the experimental values of throughput, return loss, power density, and directivity.     

“Growing Smarter Over Time”: An Emergence Model for Administrating a New Media Writing Studio

This article reports on efforts to create an administrative structure for learning and teaching multimodal composing that depends not on the leadership of a new media writing expert but on the collaboration of relative novices organized according to principles of emergent learning. Based on four years’ experience in a grant-funded program that supports new media composing in multiple disciplines, I report on the benefits of a bottom-up, emergent approach while raising questions about the long-term sustainability of such an approach. I conclude by describing efforts to create more top-down support for new media composing, while remaining committed to serving the teachers and students who are the real agents of change.