European Community policy and the market

Abstract This paper starts with some reflections on the policy considerations and priorities which are shaping European Commission (EC) research programmes. Then it attempts to position the current projects which seek to capitalise on information and communications technologies for learning in relation to these priorities and the apparent realities of the marketplace. It concludes that while there are grounds to be optimistic about the contribution EC programmes can make to the efficiency and standard of education and training, they are still too technology driven.     

一种自适应子融合集成多分类器方法

融合集成方法已经广泛应用在模式识别领域,然而一些基分类器实时性能稳定性较差,导致多分类器融合性能差,针对上述问题本文提出了一种新的基于多分类器的子融合集成分类器系统。该方法考虑在度量层融合层次之上通过对各类基多分类器进行动态选择,票数最多的类别作为融合系统中对特征向量识别的类别,构成一种新的自适应子融合集成分类器方法。实验表明,该方法比传统的分类器以及分类融合方法识别准确率明显更高,具有更好的鲁棒性。     

Explanation and prediction: an architecture for default and abductive reasoning

Although there are many arguments that logic is an appropriate tool for artificial intelligence, there has been a perceived problem with the monotonicity of classical logic. This paper elaborates on the idea that reasoning should be viewed as theory formation where logic tells us the consequences of our assumptions. The two activities of predicting what is expected to be true and explaining observations are considered in a simple theory formation framework. Properties of each activity are discussed, along with a number of proposals as to what should be predicted or accepted as reasonable explanations. An architecture is proposed to combine explanation and prediction into one coherent framework. Algorithms used to implement the system as well as examples from a running implementation are given.     

Three Process Perspectives: Organizations, Teams, and People

This paper provides the author's personal views and perspectives on software process improvement. Starting with his first work on technology assessment in IBM over 20 years ago, Watts Humphrey describes the process improvement work he has been directly involved in. This includes the development of the early process assessment methods, the original design of the CMM, and the introduction of the Personal Software Process (PSP)^SM and Team Software Process (TSP){^SM}. In addition to describing the original motivation for this work, the author also reviews many of the problems he and his associates encountered and why they solved them the way they did. He also comments on the outstanding issues and likely directions for future work. Finally, this work has built on the experiences and contributions of many people. Mr. Humphrey only describes work that he was personally involved in and he names many of the key contributors. However, so many people have been involved in this work that a full list of the important participants would be impractical.     

基于复小波噪声方差显著修正的SAR图像去噪

提出了一种基于复小波域统计建模与噪声方差估计显著性修正相结合的合成孔径雷达(Synthetic Aperture Radar,SAR)图像斑点噪声滤波方法。该方法首先通过对数变换将乘性噪声模型转化为加性噪声模型,然后对变换后的图像进行双树复小波变换(Dualtree Complex Wavelet Transform,DCWT),并对复数小波系数的统计分布进行建模。在此先验分布的基础上,通过运用贝叶斯估计方法从含噪系数中恢复原始系数,达到滤除噪声的目的。实验结果表明该方法在去除噪声的同时保留了图像的细节信息,取得了很好的降噪效果。     

How do children do mathematics with LOGO?

Abstract  This paper considers some results of a study designed to investigate the kinds of mathematical activity undertaken by children (aged between 8 and 11) as they learned to program in LOGO. A model of learning modes is proposed, which attempts to describe the ways in which children used and acquired understanding of the programming/mathematical concepts involved. The remainder of the paper is concerned with discussing the validity and limitations of the model, and its implications for further research and curriculum development.     

Editorial: Special issue on recent advances in hybrid control theory and applications

正The demands of a rapidly advancing technology for faster and more accurate controllers have always had a strong influence on the progress of automatic control theory.In recent years control problems have been arising with increasing frequency in widely different areas,which cannot be addressed using conventional control techniques.The principal reason for this is the fact that a highly competitive economy is forcing systems to operate in regimes where     

Information for Authors

正Aim The Journals of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE(A/B/C)areedited by the international board of distinguished Chinese andforeign scientists,and are aimed to present the latest devel-opments and achievements in scientific research in China andoverseas to the world’s scientific circles,especially to stimulateand promote academic exchange between Chinese and for-eign scientists everywhere.     

Enhancing a leaf radiative transfer model to estimate concentrations and in vivo specific absorption coefficients of total carotenoids and chlorophylls a and b from single-needle reflectance and transmittance

The relative concentrations of different pigments within a leaf have significant physiological and spectral consequences. Photosynthesis, light use efficiency, mass and energy exchange, and stress response are dependent on relationships among an ensemble of pigments. This ensemble also determines the visible characteristics of a leaf, which can be measured remotely and used to quantify leaf biochemistry and structure. But current remote sensing approaches are limited in their ability to resolve individual pigments. This paper focuses on the incorporation of three pigments—chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and total carotenoids—into the LIBERTY leaf radiative transfer model to better understand relationships between leaf biochemical, biophysical, and spectral properties.Pinus ponderosa and Pinus jeffreyi needles were collected from three sites in the California Sierra Nevada. Hemispheric single-leaf visible reflectance and transmittance and concentrations of chlorophylls a and b and total carotenoids of fresh needles were measured. These data were input to the enhanced LIBERTY model to estimate optical and biochemical properties of pine needles. The enhanced model successfully estimated reflectance (RMSE = 0.0255, BIAS = 0.00477, RMS%E = 16.7%), had variable success estimating transmittance (RMSE = 0.0442, BIAS = 0.0294, RMS%E = 181%), and generated very good estimates of carotenoid concentrations (RMSE = 2.48 µg/cm², BIAS = 0.143 µg/cm², RMS%E = 20.4%), good estimates of chlorophyll a concentrations (RMSE = 10.7 µg/cm², BIAS = − 0.992 µg/cm², RMS%E = 21.1%), and fair estimates of chlorophyll b concentrations (RMSE = 7.49 µg/cm², BIAS = − 2.12 µg/cm², RMS%E = 43.7%). Overall root mean squared errors of reflectance, transmittance, and pigment concentration estimates were lower for the three-pigment model than for the single-pigment model. The algorithm to estimate three in vivo specific absorption coefficients is robust, although estimated values are distorted by inconsistencies in model biophysics. The capacity to invert the model from single-leaf reflectance and transmittance was added to the model so it could be coupled with vegetation canopy models to estimate canopy biochemistry from remotely sensed data.     

Mr. Twinn’s bombes

This article discusses the history and design of the special versions of the bombe key-finding machines used by Britain’s Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) during World War II to attack the Enigma traffic of the Abwehr (the German military intelligence service). These special bombes were based on the design of their more numerous counterparts used against the traffic of the German armed services, but differed from them in important ways that highlight the adaptability of the British bombe design, and the power and flexibility of the diagonal board. Also discussed are the changes in the Abwehr indicating system that drove the development of these machines, the ingenious ways in which they were used, and some related developments involving the bombes used by the U.S. Navy’s cryptanalytic unit (OP-20-G).     

一种面向查询的多文档摘要方法

面向查询的多文档摘要技术有两个难点 第一,为了保证摘要与查询密切相关,容易造成摘要内容重复,不够全面;第二,原始查询难以完整描述查询意图,需进行查询扩展,而现有查询扩展方法多依赖于外部语义资源。针对以上问题,该文提出一种面向查询的多文档摘要方法,利用主题分析技术识别出当前主题下的子主题,综合考虑句子所在的子主题与查询的相关度以及子主题的重要度两方面因素来选择摘要句,并根据词语在子主题之间的共现信息,在不使用任何外部知识的情况下,进行查询扩展。在DUC2006评测语料上的实验结果表明,与Baseline系统相比,该系统取得了更高的ROUGE评价值,基于子主题的查询扩展方法则进一步提高了摘要的质量。     

CONFLUENT POSSIBILITY DISTRIBUTIONS AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS

Possibilistic distributions admit both measures of uncertainty and (metric) distances defining their information closeness. For general pairs of distributions these measures and metrics were first introduced in the form of integral expressions. Particularly important are pairs of distributions p and q which have consonant ordering—for any two events x and y in the domain of discourse p(x)⪋ p(y) if and only if q(x) ⪋ q(y). We call such distributions confluent and study their information distances.

This paper presents discrete sum form of uncertainty measures of arbitrary distributions, and uses it to obtain similar representations of metrics on the space of confluent distributions. Using these representations, a number of properties like additivity. monotonicity and a form of distributivity are proven. Finally, a branching property is introduced, which will serve (in a separate paper) to characterize axiomatically possibilistic information distances.     

How Client Capabilities,Vendor Configuration,and Location Impact BPO Outcomes

Despite the increasing use of onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), a comprehensive literature review [38] finds that there has been limited empirical research on BPO outcomes. This article responds to the call for research by developing and testing a conceptual model for BPO outcomes using data from 50 firms publicly traded in the U.S., including 38 firms in the Forbes Global 2000. We find that client firm capabilities, vendor configuration, and country location lead to interesting tradeoffs in the BPO quality, cost, and time outcomes. For example, while multi-sourcing offers advantages such as risk mitigation, client firms encounter reduced BPO time benefits when they use multiple vendors. While onshore BPO can lead to an improved quality, higher onshore labor costs result in lower BPO cost savings. And while offshore destinations such as India offer lower labor costs, time zone differences lead to reduced BPO time benefits.     

Ethical and legal issues for writing researchers in an age of media convergence

With the convergence of digital media into ever-widening social and technological networks for creation and distribution, the contexts for writing and the study of writing and writers have certainly changed. Researchers must navigate a dense matrix of ethical and legal issues in all phases of research when studying the ever-changing processes and products of digital communications. In this article, I draw from numerous sources to articulate a few of the challenges facing digital writing researchers in this age of convergence, focusing on issues of representation (researcher, participant, third-party), issues of informed consent, and issues of copyright and fair use.     

Software malpractice — a distasteful experience

A sequence of events is described, leading to the severe deterioration of an initially well conceived and cleanly implemented compiler. It is shown how an initial “optimization” implanted a latent bug in the compiler, how the bug was subsequently activated through innocent compiler modification, and how the compiler then deteriorated because of the incompetent correction of the bus manifestation. This exceedingly negative case history is presented in the hope of conveying to the reader a better feeling for the complex problems inherent to industrial software production and maintenance. The difficulty in proposing any constructive (and complete!) software engineering methodology is known and acknowledged; the study of an episode such as described in this paper might help put the difficulties, with which we are confronted, into better perspective.     

Critical evaluation and thermodynamic optimization of the Al–Ce,Al–Y,Al–Sc and Mg–Sc binary systems

New critical evaluations and optimizations of the Al–Ce, Al–Y, Al–Sc and Mg–Sc systems are presented. The Modified Quasichemical Model is used for the liquid phases which exhibit a high degree of short-range ordering. A number of solid solutions in the binary systems are modelled using the Compound Energy Formalism. All available and reliable experimental data such as enthalpies of mixing in liquid alloys, heats of formation of intermetallic phases, phase diagrams, etc. are reproduced within experimental error limits. It is shown that the Modified Quasichemical Model reproduces the partial enthalpy of mixing data in the liquid alloys better than the Bragg–Williams random mixing model which does not take short-range ordering into account.     

Thermodynamic assessment of the Ca–Zn,Sr–Zn,Y–Zn and Ce–Zn systems

Published experimental thermodynamic and phase diagram data for the Ca–Zn, Sr–Zn, Y–Zn and Ce–Zn systems have been critically evaluated to provide assessed thermodynamic parameters for the different phases of the systems. The parameters allow all thermodynamic properties and phase boundaries for each system to be calculated within reasonable error limits. Because a strong compound-forming tendency and pronounced minimum in the enthalpy of mixing curve is observed for the liquid phase of all the systems, the Modified Quasichemical Model (MQM) in the pair approximation has been used throughout the assessment work to treat short-range ordering in the liquid.     

A systematic method for 3D mapping of mangrove forests based on Shuttle Radar Topography Mission elevation data, ICEsat/GLAS waveforms and field data: Application to Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta, Colombia

Mangrove forests are found within the intertropical zone and are one of the most biodiverse and productive wetlands on Earth. We focus on the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) in Colombia, the largest coastal lagoon–delta ecosystem in the Caribbean area with an extension of 1280 km², where one of the largest mangrove rehabilitation projects in Latin America is currently underway. Extensive man-made hydrological modifications in the region caused hypersaline soil (> 90 g kg^− 1) conditions since the 1960s triggering a large dieback of mangrove wetlands (~ 247 km²). In this paper, we describe a new systematic methodology to measure mangrove height and aboveground biomass by remote sensing. The method is based on SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) elevation data, ICEsat/GLAS waveforms (Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite/Geoscience Laser Altimeter System) and field data. Since the locations of the ICEsat and field datasets do not coincide, they are used independently to calibrate SRTM elevation and produce a map of mangrove canopy height. We compared height estimation methods based on waveform centroids and the canopy height profile (CHP). Linear relationships between ICEsat height estimates and SRTM elevation were derived. We found the centroid of the canopy waveform contribution (CWC) to be the best height estimator. The field data was used to estimate a SRTM canopy height bias (− 1.3 m) and estimation error (rms = 1.9 m). The relationship was applied to the SRTM elevation data to produce a mangrove canopy height map. Finally, we used field data and published allometric equations to derive an empirical relationship between canopy height and biomass. This relationship was used to scale the mangrove height map and estimate aboveground biomass distribution for the entire CGSM. The mean mangrove canopy height in CGSM is 7.7 m and most of the biomass is concentrated in forests around 9 m in height. Our biomass maps will enable estimation of regeneration rates of mangrove forests under hydrological rehabilitation at large spatial scales over the next decades. They will also be used to assess how highly disturbed mangrove forests respond to increasing sea level rise under current global climate change scenarios.     

CCD camera modeling and simulation

In this paper we propose a modeling of an acquisition line made up of a CCD camera, a lens and a frame grabber card. The purpose of this modeling is to simulate the acquisition process in order to obtain images of virtual objects. The response time has to be short enough to permit interactive simulation. All the stages are modelised: in the first phase, we present a geometric model which supplies a point to point transformation that provides, for a space point in the camera field, the corresponding point on the plane of the CCD sensor. The second phase consists of modeling the discrete space which implies passing from the continous known object view to a discrete image, in accordance with the different orgin of the contrast loss. In the third phase, the video signal is reconstituted in order to be sampled by the frame grabber card. The practical results are close to reality when compared to image processing. This tool makes it possible to obtain a short computation time simulation of a vision sensor. This enables interactivity either with the user or with software for the design/simulation of an industrial workshop equipped with a vision system. It makes testing possible and validates the choice of sensor placement and image processing and analysis. Thanks to this simulation tool, we can control perfectly the position of the object image placed under the camera and in this way, we can characterise the performance of subpixel accuracy determining methods for object positioning.