Structural health monitoring system based on multi-agent coordination and fusion for large structure

In practical applications of structural health monitoring technology, a large number of distributed sensors are usually adopted to monitor the big dimension structures and different kinds of damage. The monitored structures are usually divided into different sub-structures and monitored by different sensor sets. Under this situation, how to manage the distributed sensor set and fuse different methods to obtain a fast and accurate evaluation result is an important problem to be addressed deeply. In the paper, a multi-agent fusion and coordination system is presented to deal with the damage identification for the strain distribution and joint failure in the large structure. Firstly, the monitoring system is adopted to distributedly monitor two kinds of damages, and it self-judges whether the static load happens in the monitored sub-region, and focuses on the static load on the sub-region boundary to obtain the sensor network information with blackboard model. Then, the improved contract net protocol is used to dynamically distribute the damage evaluation module for monitoring two kinds of damage uninterruptedly. Lastly, a reliable assessment for the whole structure is given by combing various heterogeneous classifiers strengths with voting-based fusion. The proposed multi-agent system is illustrated through a large aerospace aluminum plate structure experiment. The result shows that the method can significantly improve the monitoring performance for the large-scale structure.     

Parallel chaos optimization algorithm with migration and merging operation

Chaos optimization algorithm (COA) utilizes the chaotic maps to generate the pseudo-random sequences mapped as the decision variables for global optimization applications. A kind of parallel chaos optimization algorithm (PCOA) has been proposed in our former studies to improve COA. The salient feature of PCOA lies in its pseudo-parallel mechanism. However, all individuals in the PCOA search independently without utilizing the fitness and diversity information of the population. In view of the limitation of PCOA, a novel PCOA with migration and merging operation (denoted as MMO-PCOA) is proposed in this paper. Specifically, parallel individuals are randomly selected to be conducted migration and merging operation with the so far parallel solutions. Both migration and merging operation exchange information within population and produce new candidate individuals, which are different from those generated by stochastic chaotic sequences. Consequently, a good balance between exploration and exploitation can be achieved in the MMO-PCOA. The impacts of different one-dimensional maps and parallel numbers on the MMO-PCOA are also discussed. Benchmark functions and parameter identification problems are used to test the performance of the MMO-PCOA. Simulation results, compared with other optimization algorithms, show the superiority of the proposed MMO-PCOA algorithm.     

Word length and lexical activation: Longer is better.

Many models of spoken word recognition posit the existence of lexical and sublexical representations, with excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms used to affect the activation levels of such representations. Bottom-up evidence provides excitatory input, and inhibition from phonetically similar representations leads to lexical competition. In such a system, long words should produce stronger lexical activation than short words, for 2 reasons: Long words provide more bottom-up evidence than short words, and short words are subject to greater inhibition due to the existence of more similar words. Four experiments provide evidence for this view. In addition, reaction-time-based partitioning of the data shows that long words generate greater activation that is available both earlier and for a longer time than is the case for short words. As a result, lexical influences on phoneme identification are extremely robust for long words but are quite fragile and condition-dependent for short words. Models of word recognition must consider words of all lengths to capture the true dynamics of lexical activation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement and Identification of the Parameters of SPICE-Models of a Bipolar Transistor

A method of measuring and identifying the static parameters of a bipolar transistor is considered. The characteristic of the transistor, from which the parameters of the model are determined, is chosen depending on what group the calculated parameters belong to. The characteristics are measured in such a way that the equations of the model describing them can be reduced to the simplest form.     

一种新的线性分布参数系统辨识方法

本文应用块脉冲函数（ＢＰＦ）将含有未知参数的线性分布参数系统偏微分方程转换为矩阵方程，通过最小二乘法辨识线性分布参数系统的参数，辨识结果表明，ＢＰＦ辨识法具有原理简捷，实现方便，辨识精度高等优点。     

存在噪声和未建模动态系统传递函数的渐近无偏估计

存在未建模动态时，如何去除系统传递函数估计中噪声引起的偏差是系统辨识关心的重要问题。本文将我们已提出的ＢＥＬＳ方法进行推广得出：当系统未建模动态可用－ＦＩＲ模型描述时，应用本文的方法可得到系统传递函数的无偏辨识，而不需知道有关噪声和未建模动态概率分布函数的先验知识。     

ATMOSPHERIC DEPOSITION OF CHEMICAL SPECIES TO POLAR SNOW

Particles and gases can deposit from the atmosphere to polar snow by several mechanisms. Dry deposition can be considered to consist of three steps: aerodynamic transport from the free atmosphere to the viscous sublayer near the surface, boundary layer transport across the sublayer, and interactions with the surface. The particle dry deposition mass flux is dominated by the largest particles present in a size distribution. Wet deposition includes in-cloud and below-cloud scavenging, where the former refers to uptake of particles during nucleation of cloudwater as well as scavenging of particles and gases by existing droplets and ice crystals. Of all the wet deposition mechanisms, nucleation scavenging is often the most important mechanism for particles in the polar regions. Finally, incorporation of particles and gases into fog droplets and subsequent settling of the fog to the snow surface can be an important removal process in regions of frequent fog. For Summit, Greenland, the total deposition of MSA, SO₄^2-, Na⁺, K⁺, and Ca²⁺ during May 24-July 13, 1993 was dominated by wet deposition: this mechanism accounted for an average of 62% of the total deposition for these species. Fog and dry deposition accounted for 21% and 17% of the total, respectively. These results suggest that all three mechanisms may need to be considered when estimating total deposition of certain chemical species to polar snow.     

模糊数学识别火山岩岩性

针对火岩地层岩性识别成功率低的状况，应用模糊数学原理，建立模糊数学识别火山岩岩性模式，识别和划分火山岩地层岩性，以便进一步深入研究火山岩油气藏储层，选择8个反映火山岩岩性测井参数，确定阈值；利用所建立的火山岩岩性识别模式，对火山岩岩性进行分类；依据最大隶属原则，识别火山岩岩性，应用实地研究资料，识别10种火山岩岩性，并与岩心鉴定统计分析结果对比，一致性达85％。表明该方法识别火山岩岩性精度较高，在地质上具有很好的应用前景。     

"Interactive use of lexical information in speech perception": Correction to Connine and Clifton.

Reports an error in "Interactive use of lexical information in speech perception" by Cynthia M. Connine and Charles Clifton (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1987[May], Vol 13[2], 291-299). In the aforementioned article, Figures 1 and 2 were inadvertently transposed. The figure on p. 294 is actually Figure 2, and the figure on p. 296 is actually Figure 1. The captions are correct as they stand. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1987-23984-001.) Two experiments are reported that demonstrate contextual effects on identification of speech voicing continua. Experiment 1 demonstrated the infuence of lexical knowledge on identification of ambiguous tokens from word–nonword and nonword–word continua. Reaction times for word and nonword responses showed a word advantage only for ambiguous stimulus tokens (at the category boundary); no word advantage was found for clear stimuli (at the continua endpoints). Experiment 2 demonstrated an effect of a postperceptual variable, monetary payoff, on nonword–nonword continua. Identification responses were influenced by monetary payoff, but reaction times for bias-consistent and bias-inconsistent responses did not differ at the category boundary. An advantage for bias-consistent responses was evident at the continua endpoints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pheromone Disruption of Argentine Ant Trail Integrity

Disruption of Argentine ant trail following and reduced ability to forage (measured by bait location success) was achieved after presentation of an oversupply of trail pheromone, (Z)-9-hexadecenal. Experiments tested single pheromone point sources and dispersion of a formulation in small field plots. Ant walking behavior was recorded and digitized by using video tracking, before and after presentation of trail pheromone. Ants showed changes in three parameters within seconds of treatment: (1) Ants on trails normally showed a unimodal frequency distribution of walking track angles, but this pattern disappeared after presentation of the trail pheromone; (2) ants showed initial high trail integrity on a range of untreated substrates from painted walls to wooden or concrete floors, but this was significantly reduced following presentation of a point source of pheromone; (3) the number of ants in the pheromone-treated area increased over time, as recruitment apparently exceeded departures. To test trail disruption in small outdoor plots, the trail pheromone was formulated with carnuba wax-coated quartz laboratory sand (1 g quartz sand/0.2 g wax/1 mg pheromone). The pheromone formulation, with a half-life of 30 h, was applied by rotary spreader at four rates (0, 2.5, 7.5, and 25 mg pheromone/m²) to 1- and 4-m² plots in Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii. Ant counts at bait cards in treated plots were significantly reduced compared to controls on the day of treatment, and there was a significant reduction in ant foraging for 2 days. These results show that trail pheromone disruption of Argentine ants is possible, but a much more durable formulation is needed before nest-level impacts can be expected. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.