On the Verge of a Building

By the theory of Christopher Alexander, the famous architecture theorist, function of the verge of building and the pattern of its realization are illustrated. The selectable pattern for architecture design and drawing is discussed.     

Measurement of the Kernels of a Non-linear System of Finite Order†

A method of measuring the Volterra kernels of a finite-order non-linear system is presented. The kernels are obtained individually as a multi-dimensional impulse response. The multi-dimensional kernel transforms also can be obtained by the method described. As an extension, a technique of obtaining the Volterra kernels from a multi-dimensional step response is presented. This technique is useful for non-linear systems which can be considered to be of a given finite order for only a limited range of input amplitudes.     

Lesions of the superficial type, with a

ity (≥ 9), high Ki-67 labeling index (≥ 42), and positivity of MUC1, cathepsin D, and MMP-7 showed a significantly high incidence of lymph node metastasis. Multivariate analysis revealed that hig     

Transient simulations of the electrophoretic motion of a cylindrical particle through a 90° corner

The trajectory of a cylindrical particle driven by electrophoresis was transiently simulated as the particle moves through a 90° corner. A variety of system parameters were tested to determine their impact on the particle motion. The zeta potential, channel width, and particle aspect ratio were shown to have a minimal effect on the particle motion. Conversely, the initial vertical position of the particle and initial angle with respect to the horizontal had a significant impact on the particle motion. The presence of the 90° corner acts to reduce the initial distribution of angles to the vertical of 90° to less than 30°, demonstrating the possibility of using a corner as a passive control element as part of a larger microfluidic system. However, the reduction in angle is limited to the area near the corner posing a limitation on this means of control.     

Distributed identification of the lineality space of a cone

A distributed approach is described for solving lineality (or linearity) space (LS) problems with large cardinalities and a large number of dimensions. The LS solution has applications in engineering, science, and business, and includes a subset of solutions of the more general extended linear complementarity problem (ELCP). A parallel MATLAB framework is employed and results are computed on an 8-node Rocks based cluster computer using Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) and the MPICH2 Message Passing Interface (MPI). Results show that both approaches perform comparably when solving distributed LS problems. This indicates that when deciding which parallel approach to use, the implementation details particular to the method are the decisive factors, which in this investigation give MPICH2 MPI the advantage.

On a reduction of the interval coloring problem to a series of bandwidth coloring problems

Given a graph G=(V,E) with strictly positive integer weights ω _i on the vertices i∈V, an interval coloring of G is a function I that assigns an interval I(i) of ω _i consecutive integers (called colors) to each vertex i∈V so that I(i)∩I(j)=∅ for all edges {i,j}∈E. The interval coloring problem is to determine an interval coloring that uses as few colors as possible. Assuming that a strictly positive integer weight δ _ij is associated with each edge {i,j}∈E, a bandwidth coloring of G is a function c that assigns an integer (called a color) to each vertex i∈V so that |c(i)−c(j)|≥δ _ij for all edges {i,j}∈E. The bandwidth coloring problem is to determine a bandwidth coloring with minimum difference between the largest and the smallest colors used. We prove that an optimal solution of the interval coloring problem can be obtained by solving a series of bandwidth coloring problems. Computational experiments demonstrate that such a reduction can help to solve larger instances or to obtain better upper bounds on the optimal solution value of the interval coloring problem.     

Does the level of detail of UML diagrams affect the maintainability of source code?: a family of experiments

Although the UML is considered to be the de facto standard notation with which to model software, there is still resistance to model-based development. UML modeling is perceived to be expensive and not necessarily cost-effective. It is therefore important to collect empirical evidence concerning the conditions under which the use of UML makes a practical difference. The focus of this paper is to investigate whether and how the Level of Detail (LoD) of UML diagrams impacts on the performance of maintenance tasks in a model-centric approach. A family of experiments consisting of one controlled experiment and three replications has therefore been carried out with 81 students with different abilities and levels of experience from 3 countries (The Netherlands, Spain, and Italy). The analysis of the results of the experiments indicates that there is no strong statistical evidence as to the influence of different LoDs. The analysis suggests a slight tendency toward better results when using low LoD UML diagrams, especially if used for the modification of the source code, while a high LoD would appear to be helpful in understanding the system. The participants in our study also favored low LoD diagrams because they were perceived as easier to read. Although the participants expressed a preference for low LoD diagrams, no statistically significant conclusions can be drawn from the set of experiments. One important finding attained from this family of experiments was that the participants minimized or avoided the use of UML diagrams, regardless of their LoD. This effect was probably the result of using small software systems from well-known domains as experimental materials.     

Adaptive music retrieval–a state of the art

With the development of more and more sophisticated Music Information Retrieval approaches, aspects of adaptivity are becoming an increasingly important research topic. Even though, adaptive techniques have already found their way into Music Information Retrieval systems and contribute to robustness or user satisfaction they are not always identified as such. This paper attempts a structured view on the last decade of Music Information Retrieval research from the perspective of adaptivity in order to increase awareness and promote the application and further development of adaptive techniques. To this end, different approaches from a wide range of application areas that share the common aspect of adaptivity are identified and systematically categorized.     

Algorithms for the Determination of Cutsets in a Hypergraph

Given a hypergraph,this paper provides three algorithms for finding all its minimal cutsets,minimal link cutsets and the least cutsets.The result not only set up a new studying field on cutsets of hypergraph,but also lay a foundation of analyzing the performance of multibus systems.The algorithm for determining all the least cutsets in a hypergaph is polynomial complex and more efficient than that in [2].     

Computation of the Maximal Degree of the Inverse of a Cubic Automorphism of the Affine Plane with Jacobian 1 via Gröbner Bases

In this paper we propose to compute the maximal degree of the inverse of a cubic automorphism of the affine plane with Jacobian 1 via Gröbner Bases. This degree is equal to 9 and we give coefficients of the inverse.     

On the order of stable compensators for a class of time-delay system

The stabilization using a stable compensator does not introduce additional unstable zeros into the closed-loop transfer function beyond those of the original plant, so it is a desirable compensator, the price is that the compensator‘s order will go up. This note considered the order of stable compensators for a class of time-delay systems. First, it is shown that for single-loop plants with at most one real fight-half plane zero, a special upper bound for the minimal order of a strongly stabilizing compensator can be obtained in terms of the plant order; Second, it is shown that approximate unstable pole-zero cancellation does not occur,and the distances between distinct unstable zeroes are bounded below by a positive constant, then it is possible to find an upper bound for the minimal order of a strongly stabilizing compensator.     

Mind Reading — Neuroimaging as a gaze into the innermost of the psyche

Neuroscience, broadly speaking the endeavor of understanding nerve system functioning and its relation to perception, feeling, thinking, and behavior, is one of the leading fields in contemporary research. However, in order to determine the legal implications of neuroscience it is necessary in the first place to reflect on what it means to carry out an experiment with human subjects, particularly to transfer a finding from a laboratory setting to the real life world of people. This reflection will be done in the first part of this article. In its second part, this article explains basic methodological and experimental issues of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) research, particularly the nature of the data that are generated with this technique which is considered the most important to investigate human brain function nowadays. The concluding section relates these issues to legally salient questions of neuroscience research.     

Some Considerations about the Kohau Rongorongo Script in the Light of a Statistical Analysis of the ‘Santiago Staff’

Abstract

This paper deals with the distributional analysis of a recurring pattern on the Easter Island artifact known as the ‘Santiago Staff’ (‘SS’ from now on). It has been claimed that the pattern known as “X?YZ,” arguably to be found in a repetitive fashion in a “recital of pairings,” conveys a model of procreation in line with the Old Rapanui sacral chants, thus giving a clue to a possible decipherment of the SS's document. According to Steven R. Fischer, the scholar who retrieved the pattern in question, the formula “X?YZ” consists of, “X”: the “copulator” God, “?”: the superlinear corresponding to the old Rapanui phrase “copulated with,” “Y”: the “copulatee” Goddess and finally, “Z”: the issue of their “copulation.” Under this assumption, and bearing in mind that Fischer did not offer any sort of count with regard to his claim, the structure “X?YZ” has been tested and replicated to “Atua-Mata-Riri,” viewed by some researchers to be a bilingual for the understanding of the alleged schematized pattern. The evidence encountered so far supports the view that the hypothesis cannot be true for all the KRR text of the ‘SS,’ specifically for sequences other than the “X?YZ” type, leaving many doubts in the minds of epigraphers and suggesting flaws in the method of decipherment. To the most evident degree, the message encrypted in the ‘SS,’ i.e., text I, is still resisting decoding by the scholars.     

Dynamics of quantum correlation for a qubit–qutrit system in the presence of the dephasing environments

We analytically study the dynamic behaviors of quantum correlation measured by three kinds of measures including quantum discord (QD), geometric quantum discord (GQD) and one-norm GQD for a qubit–qutrit system under the influence of dephasing environments with Ohmic-like spectral densities at nonzero temperature. It is shown that the similar evolution behaviors may be obtained for sub-Ohmic and Ohmic reservoirs. By properly choosing the system’s initial states and reservoir temperature, quantum correlation can take on some interesting results, such as the frozen and double sudden transition as well as the “revival” phenomenon, etc. Meanwhile, the remarkable similarities and differences among these correlation measures are also analyzed in detail and some significant results are presented. Our results provide some important information for the application of quantum correlation in hybrid qubit–qutrit systems in quantum information.     

Boosting the decay of solutions of the linearised Korteweg-de Vries–Burgers equation to a predetermined rate from the boundary

The aim of this article is to extend recent results on the boundary feedback controllability of the Korteweg-de Vries equation to the Korteweg-de Vries–Burgers equation which is posed on a bounded domain. In the first part of the paper, it is proven that all the sufficiently small solutions can be steered to zero at any desired exponential rate by means of a suitably constructed boundary feedback controller. In the second part, an observer is proposed when a type of boundary measurement is available while there is no full access to the medium.     

An object-oriented implementation of a solver of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation using the CUDA technology

We present a set of C++ classes which allow one to use the graphics card processor?s cores for quantum ab initio simulations, i.e. a direct solving of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, gaining the benefits from the parallel architecture of the graphical processor units. We use the Chebyshev polynomial and FFT algorithm. The solution is based on NVIDIA CUDA technology. The speed-up factor in the test runs of our classes performed using the graphics card processor can even be of order of 300 in comparison with the test runs using only the single core of CPU. Not only the Schrödinger equation can be integrated using the presented solver. With only small changes it can be used for solving the nonlinear Gross–Pitaevskii equation of BEC?s dynamics, the heat equation, the diffusion equation or other parabolic partial differential equations of second order.¹Program summaryProgram title: QnDynCUDACatalogue identifier: AELE_v1_0Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AELE_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen?s University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.htmlNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 101 359No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 3 165 228Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: C++, C for CUDAComputer: Graphics card with CUDA technology recommendedOperating system: No limits (tested on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Linux)Has the code been vectorized or parallelized?: Yes, number of processors used – one CPU core and all CUDA cores of the selected processor of graphics cardRAM: Dependent on user?s parameters, typically between several tens of megabytes and several gigabytes (this concerns also the graphics card?s memory)Supplementary material: Test input and output files (approx. 3.4 Gigabytes) are availableClassification: 2.7, 6.5Nature of problem: Solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.Solution method: FFT and Chebyshev polynomial algorithm, CUDA technology.Running time: Every test example included in the distribution package takes approximately an hour or so if the GPU is engaged and a day or so if only CPU is used.