Error estimation and model adaptation for a stochastic‐deterministic coupling method based on the Arlequin framework

The paper deals with the issue of accuracy for multiscale methods applied to solve stochastic problems. It more precisely focuses on the control of a coupling, performed using the Arlequin framework, between a deterministic continuum model and a stochastic continuum one. By using residual‐type estimates and adjoint‐based techniques, a strategy for goal‐oriented error estimation is presented for this coupling and contributions of various error sources (modeling, space discretization, and Monte Carlo approximation) are assessed. Furthermore, an adaptive strategy is proposed to enhance the quality of outputs of interest obtained by the coupled stochastic‐deterministic model. Performance of the proposed approach is illustrated on 1D and 2D numerical experiments. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Light adaptation in motion direction judgments

We examined the time course of light adaptation in the visual motion system. Subjects judged the direction of a two-frame apparent-motion display, with the two frames separated by a 50-ms interstimulus interval of the same mean luminance. The phase of the first frame was randomly determined on each trial. The grating presented in the second frame was phase shifted either leftward or rightward by pi/2 with respect to the grating in the first frame. At some variable point during the first frame, the mean luminance of the pattern increased or decreased by 1-3 log units. Mean luminance levels varied from scotopic or low mesopic to photopic levels. We found that the perceived direction of motion depended jointly on the luminance level of the first frame grating and the time at which the shift in average luminance occurs. When the average luminance increases from scotopic or mesopic to photopic levels at least 0.5 s before the offset of the first frame, motion in the 3pi/2 direction is perceived. When average luminance decreases to low mesopic or scotopic levels, motion in the pi/2 direction is perceived if the change occurs 1.0 s or more before first frame offset, depending on the size of the luminance step. Thus light adaptation in the visual motion system is essentially complete within 1 s. This suggests a rapid change in the shape (biphasic or monophasic) of the temporal impulse response functions that feed into a first-order motion mechanism.     

Re-engineering cities: a framework for adaptation to global change

Urban areas are expected to continue their rapid growth in the twenty-first century. Globally, cities are major sources of greenhouse gases emissions and their high population densities make them potential focal points of vulnerability to global environmental change. Moreover, their reach, in terms of flows of materials and resources, extends far outside their borders. Evidently, it is no longer tenable to consider urban systems to be static artefacts constructed in a stable environment, nor continue to divorce them from the global context that influences many of the climatic and socio-economic changes within cities. Furthermore, the uncertainty in the future climatic and socio-economic conditions poses significant challenges for planners. A framework is proposed for analysing urban systems with evidence-based tools over extended time scales. This forms the basis of a manifesto for future challenges and research directions for this critical subject area, which ultimately will help engineers and urban planners to better understand the areas for which they are responsible and to develop adaptation strategies that can tackle the challenges posed by long-term global change and lead to more sustainable cities.     

Global 2D digital image correlation for motion estimation in a finite element framework: a variational formulation and a regularized,pyramidal, multi‐grid implementation

In this study, the inverse problem of reconstructing the in‐plane (2D) displacements of a monitored surface through a sequence of two‐dimensional digital images, severely ill‐posed in Hadamard's sense, is deeply investigated. A novel variational formulation is presented for the continuum 2D digital image correlation problem, and critical issues such as semi‐coercivity and solution multiplicity are discussed by functional analysis tools. In the framework of a Galerkin, finite element discretization of the displacement field, a robust implementation for 2D digital image correlation is outlined, aiming to attenuate the spurious oscillations which corrupt the deformation scenario, especially when very fine meshes are adopted. Recourse is made to a hierarchical family of grids linked by suitable restriction and prolongation operators and defined over an image pyramid. Multi‐grid cycles are performed ascending and descending along the pyramid, with only one Newton iteration per level irrespective of the tolerance satisfaction, as if the problem were linear. At each level, the conventional least‐square matching functional is herein enriched by a Tychonoff regularization provision, preserving the solution against an unstable response. The algorithm is assessed on the basis of both synthetic and truly experimental image pairs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of fractal analysis in image motion estimation

The motion estimation, as a key technique, affects the effect of image processing. However, many matching criteria based on the similarity of image grey value probably lead to the inaccurate motion estimation. In order to improve the performance of motion estimation, a novel image matching criterion is proposed on the basis of the fractal theory. The proposed criterion not only considers the grey-level similarity of the same object, but also takes into account the invariance of the fractal dimension of the same object. Therefore, the optimal and accurate matching between anchor object and reference objects can be better ensured. The experimental results show that the estimated motion vector of the proposed method is more approximate to the true motion vector than that of the traditional methods. What is more, the peak signal-to-noise ratio value of the image is improved by the proposed criterion. Meantime, the computational complexity is increased slightly.     

一种快速实现H.264运动估计的方法

本文提出一种快速实现H.264运动估计的算法。该算法利用视频图像中存在大量空/时域冗余这一特点,在运动估计过程中引入预判空间相关性和时域稳定性的方法,节省了大量不必要的计算步骤。试验结果表明,该算法运动估计时间仅为JM84的30.3%,峰值信噪比(PSNR)仅降低1.1%,码率平均增加3.95%。     

Development of a production cost estimation framework to support product family design

The main task of a product family designer is to decide the right components/design variables to share among products to maintain economies of scale with minimum sacrifice in the performance of each product in the family. The decisions are usually based on several criteria, but production cost is of primary concern. Estimating the production cost of a family of products involves both estimating the production cost of each product in the family and the costs incurred by common and variant components/design variables in the family. To estimate these costs consistently and accurately, we propose a production cost estimation framework to support product family design based on activity-based costing (ABC), which consists of three stages: (1) allocation, (2) estimation, and (3) analysis. In the allocation stage, the production activities and resources needed to produce the entire products in a family are identified and classified with an activity table, a resource table, and a production flow. To help allocate product data for production, a product family structure is represented by a hierarchical classification of products that form the product family. In the estimation stage, production costs are estimated with cost estimation methods selected based on the type of information available. In the analysis stage, components/design variables possible for product family design are investigated with resource sharing methods through activity analysis. As an example, the proposed framework is applied to estimate the production cost of a family of cordless power screwdrivers that share different components within the family.     

一种相似性框架下基于非线性扩散过程的剩余寿命估计模型

剩余寿命(residual life,RL)估计是预测与健康管理(prognostics and health management,PHM)的关键环节。目前,传统的基于相似性的RL估计模型仅利用失效设备的退化数据,忽略截断设备和运行设备的退化数据,难以保证RL的估计精度。针对该问题,在相似性框架下提出一种新的基于扩散过程的RL估计模型。首先基于扩散过程对截断设备进行退化建模和RL估计,然后通过比较参考设备(失效设备与截断设备)和运行设备间的相似性,同时利用参考设备与运行设备的退化数据实现运行设备的RL估计。最后仿真实验验证该文模型优于传统的基于相似性的模型。研究结果表明:该文模型能够显著提高运行设备RL的估计精度,具有潜在的工程应用价值。     

Regional cardiac motion and strain estimation in three-dimensional echocardiography: a validation study in thick-walled univentricular phantoms

Automatic quantification of regional left ventricular deformation in volumetric ultrasound data remains challenging. Many methods have been proposed to extract myocardial motion, including techniques using block matching, phase-based correlation, differential optical flow methods, and image registration. Our lab previously presented an approach based on elastic registration of subsequent volumes using a B-spline representation of the underlying transformation field. Encouraging results were obtained for the assessment of global left ventricular function, but a thorough validation on a regional level was still lacking. For this purpose, univentricular thick-walled cardiac phantoms were deformed in an experimental setup to locally assess strain accuracy against sonomicrometry as a reference method and to assess whether regions containing stiff inclusions could be detected. Our method showed good correlations against sonomicrometry: r(2) was 0.96, 0.92, and 0.84 for the radial (ε(RR)), longitudinal (ε(LL)), and circumferential (ε(CC)) strain, respectively. Absolute strain errors and strain drift were low for ε(LL) (absolute mean error: 2.42%, drift: -1.05%) and ε(CC) (error: 1.79%, drift: -1.33%) and slightly higher for ε(RR) (error: 3.37%, drift: 3.05%). The discriminative power of our methodology was adequate to resolve full transmural inclusions down to 17 mm in diameter, although the inclusion-to-surrounding tissue stiffness ratio was required to be at least 5:2 (absolute difference of 39.42 kPa). When the inclusion-to-surrounding tissue stiffness ratio was lowered to approximately 2:1 (absolute difference of 22.63 kPa), only larger inclusions down to 27 mm in diameter could still be identified. Radial strain was found not to be reliable in identifying dysfunctional regions.     

Use of fourier and hartley transforms in motion estimation: A comparative study

A comparison between the use of Fourier and Hartley transforms for motion estimation of multiple moving objects in image sequences is presented. The spectrum of the two transforms show that the temporal frequencies at the peaks (of the spectrum) is related to the velocity of the moving objects. The analysis shows that the Hartley technique is faster and requires less memory space than the Fourier technique. However, it gives the velocity of the moving objects but not the direction. The Fourier spectrum, on the other hand, gives the velocity and direction. An efficient implementation is possible by using the Hartley transform to estimate the temporal frequencies of the peaks and hence the velocities. The fast Fourier transform is then used to compute the spectrum at those peaks. The direction is easily found from the Fourier spectrum by reversing the sign of the temporal frequency corresponding to the peak.     

基于二维模型的火炮冲击运动计算

当前火炮后坐与复进冲击运动计算基于一维准定常理论,导致制退机液压阻力求解偏离实际较大,并且无法反映制退机内流场分布与流体流动特性。在实际结构下的制退机二维模型基础上,通过MATLAB与FLUENT协同仿真技术,实现了火炮后坐、复进冲击完整过程的数值模拟。将仿真结果与试验结果进行对比,验证了该方法的可行性和有效性,为改进火炮后坐与复进运动计算提供了一种新思路。     

Regularized learning framework in the estimation of reflectance spectra from camera responses

For digital cameras, device-dependent pixel values describe the camera's response to the incoming spectrum of light. We convert device-dependent RGB values to device- and illuminant-independent reflectance spectra. Simple regularization methods with widely used polynomial modeling provide an efficient approach for this conversion. We also introduce a more general framework for spectral estimation: regularized least-squares regression in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHS). Obtained results show that the regularization framework provides an efficient approach for enhancing the generalization properties of the models.     

Strain gradient theory based on a new framework of non-local model

A new framework of non-local model for the strain energy density is proposed in this paper. The global strain energy density of the representative volume element is treated as a non-local variable and can be obtained through a special integral of the local strain energy density. The local strain energy density is assumed to be dependent on both the strain and the rotation-gradient. As a result of the non-local model, a new strain gradient theory is derived directly, in which the first and second strain gradients, as well as the triadic and tetradic stress, are introduced in the context of work conjugate. For power law hardening materials, size effects in thin metallic wire torsion and ultra-thin cantilever beam bend are investigated. It is found that the result predicted by the theoretical model is well consistent with the experimental data for the thin wire torsion. On the other hand, the calculation result for the micro-cantilever beam bend clearly shows the size effect.     

Parameter estimation in a thermoelastic composite problem via adjoint formulation and model reduction

Advances in nondestructive material characterization are providing a wealth of information that could be exploited to gain insight into general aspects of material performance and, in particular, discover relationships between microstructure and thermo‐mechanical properties in polycrystalline and other complex composite materials. In order to facilitate the integration of such measurements into existing models, as well as inform new physics‐based predictions, we developed a C++/MPI computational framework for sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation. The framework utilizes a micro‐mechanical modeling based on fast Fourier transforms, direct and adjoint formulations, and Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling techniques. We illustrate the characteristics of this framework and demonstrate its utility by computing the residual stresses arising from thermal expansion of an elastic composite and using data from simulated experiments. We show that the availability of nondestructive 3‐D measurements is crucial to reduce the uncertainty in predictions, emphasizing the importance of an integrated experimental/modeling/data analysis approach for improved material characterization and design. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种用于MPEG-4形状编码的快速运动估计算法

提出了一种新的形状快速运动估计算法,用于加快MPEG-4视频对象的形状编码过程。该算法充分利用了邻近形状块的运动向量之间的相关性、边界形状块的匹配特性。与MPEG-4验证模型中的形状运动估计算法以及现有的改进算法相比,该算法大大提高了形状运动估计的速度,而形状的编码效率并没有降低。