Belief Revision by Sets of Sentences

The aim of this paper is to extend the system of belief revision developed by Alchourron,Gaerdenfors and Makinson(AGM)to a more general framework.This extension enables a treatment of revision not only by single sentences but also by any sets of entences,especially by infinite sets.The extended revision and contraction operators will be called general ones,respectively.A group of postulates for each operator is provided in such a way that it coincides with AGM‘s in the limit case.A notion of the nice-ordering partition is introduced to characterize the general contraction opeation.A computation-oriented approach is provided for belief revision operations.     

Determination of zeros of polynomials by synthetic division †

An algorithm is introduced for finding zeros of polynomials with real as well as complex coefficients. Based on the geometrical and functional properties of polynomials, the method can determine accurate distinct and repeated zeros of polynomials. The convergence of Newton's method plays an important role in this method. It has been found that the region of convergence by Newton's method is adequate. The important feature of this procedure is the obtaining of zeros of polynomials by combining Newton's method, synthetic division and functional properties of polynomials. The algorithm has been tested on many examples and numerical calculations have produced a greater degree of accuracy.     

The Study of RAIM Performance by Simulation

1 Introduction Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite based navigation system. One concern of GPS users is system integrity, which is the ability of the system to provide timely warnings to users when the system should not be used for navigation. GPS integrity is very important in civil aviation in order to guarantee the flight safety. RAIM is a technique used to provide a measure of the trust which can be placed in the correctness of the information supplied by the total system[…     

Image Analysis of Particle Size by Feret Box

0　IntroductionThe determination and measurement of the size of particles is carried out in many fields ofstudy.There are certain relationship between the shape and size.In the fields of geology,metallurgy,agriculture,medicine and aggregates engineering,the range of size of particlesis infinitely large,therefore,the size determination is more complex.In image analysis methods,most popular determinations of particle size,such as equivalentcircle diameter,Feret diameter,chord distribution,maxim…     

Prediction of the PPARα agonism of fibrates by combined MM-docking approaches

Fibrates are peroxisome proliferator-activated alpha receptor (PPARα) activators derived from fibric acid and are the most clinically used therapeutics in the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. Long standing studies on these drugs have accumulated a large body of experimental data about their biological activity and, more recently, on the molecular mechanism mediating their PPARα agonism. An immense interest for the discovery of new fibrates with improved potency and PPARα selectivity has stimulated many investigations toward a deeper understanding of structure-activity relationships controlling their activity. The present study aimed at investigating the binding properties of a set of 23 fibrates, characterized by similar carboxylic heads but differing in the size and orientation of the hydrophobic portion, using computational approaches. We combined standard docking and molecular mechanics approaches to better describe the adaptation of the protein target to the bound ligand. The agonist potencies were then regressed against the calculated binding energies to elaborate predictive model equations. The obtained models were characterized by good performances realizing a fair trade-off between accuracy and computational costs. The best model was obtained with a regression procedure allowing automatic generation of a training subset from the whole set of trials and filtering out outliers, thus highlighting the importance of regression strategies.     

Efficient Computation of Zero-dimensional Gröbner Bases by Change of Ordering

We present an efficient algorithm for the transformation of a Gröbner basis of a zero-dimensional ideal with respect to any given ordering into a Gröbner basis with respect to any other ordering. This algorithm is polynomial in the degree of the ideal. In particular the lexicographical Gröbner basis can be obtained by applying this algorithm after a total degree Gröbner basis computation: it is usually much faster to compute the basis this way than with a direct application of Buchberger's algorithm.     

Testing Hardy’s ladder proof of nonlocality by joint measurements of qubits

We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to test Hardy’s ladder proof of nonlocality with two qubits (two-level atoms) dispersively coupled to a driven cavity. First, we find that the required nonmaximally entangled two-qubit pure state can be prepared by only one-step two-qubit operation from the ground state $|00\rangle $ | 00 〉 , assisted by two single-qubit gates. Next, we perform two single-qubit operations to encode the local information into the prepared nonmaximally entangled state. Finally, the nonlocal correlations between the two qubits can be directly detected by the joint measurement of the two-qubit register in one of selected computational basis, implemented by probing the steady-state transmitted spectra of the driven cavity. Consequently, the Hardy’s ladder proof of nonlocality can be effectively tested. The feasibility of our proposal with the current experimental technology is also analyzed.     

Analysis of a class of non-linear discrete-time systems by the Volterra series†

The discrete form of the Volterra series is used to evaluate the response of a class of non-linear discrete-time systems described by an ordinary nonlinear difference equation with zero initial conditions. Recurrence relations for the Volterra kernels are developed in the time domain and in the transform domain as well.     

Accelerating the Computation of PageRank by λ2 Extrapolation

In order to improve the running performance of standard PageRank algorithm, a new extrapolation algorithm is proposed, which exploits the second eigenvalue λ2 of web page hyperlink probabilistic matrix. Experiments indicate that the new algorithm with , λ2-extrapolation can significantly outperform the standard PageRank. Compared with the standard PageRank algorithm, both the number of iterations up to the desired tolerances and the clock time used by computing importance scores of pages in the new algorithm are reduced effectively.     

Injection molding of 3D microstructures by μPIM

Micro powder injection molding (PIM) is a potential manufacturing process for microstructured components used in Microsystems Technology (MST). In this paper, the replication of 316L stainless steel microstructure by PIM was studied. The feedstock comprised of 316L stainless steel and a wax-based binder enhanced with low-density polyethylene to improve green strength for demolding. The feedstock was characterized to enable the selection of suitable processing parameters. The effects of melt temperature, mold temperature and packing pressure on the filling, microstructure replication and demolding were discussed. The results show that 316L stainless steel microstructures could be successfully replicated through the PIM route.The authors would like to thank ADEKA Fine Chemicals (Japan) for supplying the binder and Mr. Ho Meng Kwong for technical assistance.     

Evaluation of Embedded Operating System by a Software Method

In this paper, software faults are emulated by Software Implemented Fault Injection （SWIFI） to evaluate embedded operating system. The method is based on the fact that the source codes of the operating system arc mapped into the code segment in the target memory and it is easy to inject kinds of faults in the memory by SWIFI. Faults are emulated by injecting faults at assembly level instead of source code bevel. Using the software faults emulated by this method, the dependability of an embedded operating system is studied. The experimental results show that software faults have many effects on the software behavior and dependability, and to increase the dependability of software, exclusion of software faults is very important.     

Multimodality image registration by maximization of quantitative–qualitative measure of mutual information

This paper presents a novel image similarity measure, referred to as quantitative–qualitative measure of mutual information (Q-MI), for multimodality image registration. Conventional information measures, e.g., Shannon's entropy and mutual information (MI), reflect quantitative aspects of information because they only consider probabilities of events. In fact, each event has its own utility to the fulfillment of the underlying goal, which can be independent of its probability of occurrence. Thus, it is important to consider both quantitative (i.e., probability) and qualitative (i.e., utility) measures of information in order to fully capture the characteristics of events. Accordingly, in multimodality image registration, Q-MI should be used to integrate the information obtained from both the image intensity distributions and the utilities of voxels in the images. Different voxels can have different utilities, for example, in brain images, two voxels can have the same intensity value, but their utilities can be different, e.g., a white matter (WM) voxel near the cortex can have higher utility than a WM voxel inside a large uniform WM region. In Q-MI, the utility of each voxel in an image can be determined according to the regional saliency value calculated from the scale-space map of this image. Since the voxels with higher utility values (or saliency values) contribute more in measuring Q-MI of the two images, the Q-MI-based registration method is much more robust, compared to conventional MI-based registration methods. Also, the Q-MI-based registration method can provide a smoother registration function with a relatively larger capture range. In this paper, the proposed Q-MI has been validated and applied to the rigid registrations of clinical brain images, such as MR, CT and PET images.     

Optimal approximation of linear sys-tems by artificial immune response

1 Introduction Optimal approximation of linear system models is an important task in the simulation and controller design for complex dynamic systems[1]. In the attempts at solving the model approximation problem, numerous methods have been proposed[2―7]…     

Automatic Georeferencing of Images Acquired by UAV’s

This paper implements and evaluates experimentally a procedure for automatically georeferencing images acquired by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) in the sense that ground control points (GCP) are not necessary. Since the camera model is necessary for georeferencing, this paper also proposes a completely automatic procedure for collecting corner pixels in the model plane image to solve the camera calibration problem, i.e., to estimate the camera and the lens distortion parameters. The performance of the complete georeferencing system is evaluated with real flight data obtained by a typical UAV.     

Optimum approximation of high-order systems by low-order models†

A method has been proposed for the determination of optimum low-order models for a high-order system which minimize a specified error criterion for a given order of the model. The method is based on the pattern-search algorithm of Hooke and Jeeves. Starting from an approximate first or second-order model, an optimum model of that order is determined, and the process is continued with the order increasing progressively. As an example of the application of the method, optimum second-order models of a seventh-order system have been obtained using a number of different criteria for optimization. A third and a fourth-order optimum model have then been derived for a given criterion.     

Solving SAT by Algorithm Transform of Wu s Method

Recently algorithms for solving propositional satisfiability problem, or SAT,have aroused great interest,and more attention has been paid to transformation problem solving.The commonly used transformation is representation transform,but since its intermediate computing procedure is a black box from the viewpoint of the original problem,this approach has many limitations.In this paper,a new approach called algorithm transform is proposed and applied to solving SAT by Wu‘s method,a general algorithm for solving polynomial equations.B y establishing the correspondence between the primitive operation in Wu‘s method and clause resolution is SAT,it is shown that Wu‘s method,when used for solving SAT,,is primarily a restricted clause resolution procedure.While Wu‘s method introduces entirely new concepts.e.g.characteristic set of clauses,to resolution procedure,the complexity result of resolution procedure suggests an exponential lower bound to Wu‘s method for solving general polynomial equations.Moreover,this algorithm transform can help achieve a more efficient implementation of Wu‘s method since it can avoid the complex manipulation of polynomials and can make the best use of domain specific knowledge.     

Direct Rapid Prototyping of Metal Parts by Hybrid of Plasma Deposition and Milling Machine

1 Introduction Layered manufacturing is the key technology of rapid prototyping (RP) technology, and it allows to fabricate three-dimensional parts layer-by-layer[1]. Material is added layer-by-layer in contrast to removing material in machining processes[2]. However, most of the commercially available materials such as photo-polymers, powders, paper, wax, plastic materials, and even rubber, are only suitable for making concept models, visual prototypes, and some limited functional prototypes…     

Identification of Experimental Trends by the L χ-Transformation Methods

Identification of experimental trends by the integral L -transformation (the generalization of Carson transformation) methods is investigated. Identification algorithms for determining the analytical expression of trend are designed. Examples are given.