Adaptive Feedback Synchronization of a General Complex Dynamical Network With Delayed Nodes

In the past decade, complex networks have attracted much attention from various fields of sciences and engineering. Synchronization is a typical collective behavior of complex networks that has been extensively investigated in recent years. To reveal the dynamical mechanism of synchronization in complex networks with time delays, a general complex dynamical network with delayed nodes is further studied. Based on a suitable model, we investigate the adaptive feedback synchronization and obtain several novel criteria for globally exponentially asymptotic synchronization. In particular, our hypotheses and the proposed adaptive controllers for network synchronization are very simple and can be readily applied in practical applications. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed synchronization criteria.     

Offline signature verification with generated training samples

It is often difficult to obtain sufficient signature samples to train up a signature verification system. An elastic matching method to generate additional samples is proposed to expand the limited training set so that a better estimate of the statistical variations can be obtained. The method differs from existing ones in that it is more suitable for the generation of signature samples. Besides this, a set of peripheral features, which is useful in describing both the internal and external structures of signatures, is employed to represent the signatures in the verification process. Results showed that the additional samples generated by the proposed method could reduce the error rate from 15.6% to 11.4%. It also outperformed another existing method which estimates the class covariance matrix through optimisation techniques. Results also demonstrated that the peripheral features are useful for signature verification.     

Physical properties of isobutylene based block copolymers

Physical, mechanical and thermal properties of a new class of isobutylene based model block copolymers are studied and contrasted with those of traditional thermoplastic elastomers based on polydienes and saturated polydienes (polyolefins) such as Kraton (or Vector) and Kraton G block copolymers. Melt state rheological and dynamic mechanical measurements confirm that thermodynamic interactions between polystyrene (S) and polyisobutylene (iB) or poly‐p‐tert‐butylstyrene (tbS) and iB are comparable to, if not larger than, those between S and polybutadiene (B) or S and ethylene/butene‐1 copolymer (EB). Physical properties for the S‐iB‐S and tbS‐iB‐tbS block copolymers, particularly the injection‐moldability and cut‐growth characteristics, are found to be considerably different from those found for the S‐B‐S and S‐EB‐S systems. We attribute this behavior to the longer entanglement chain length of iB compared with those for B and EB.     

Property rights implications of publicprivate joint ventures: a comment

Wong, K. C. and Walker, A. (2000) Construction Management and Economics, 18 (2), 131-138 have argued that co-operative joint venture arrangements (with state enterprises in the People's Republic of China) reduce the dissipation of rent under public ownership, which leads to an apparent transfer of shares from the public institution to the private developer. This proposition is challenged, and it is demonstrated using economic analysis that co-operative joint ventures between Hong Kong and China are a feasible option for developers and public institutions.     

An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (2002-2006)

This paper summarizes a survey of publications in the field of systems and software engineering from 2002 to 2006. The survey is an ongoing, annual event that identifies the top 15 scholars and institutions over a 5-year period. The rankings are calculated based on the number of papers published in TSE, TOSEM, JSS, SPE, EMSE, IST, and Software. The top-ranked institution is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, and the top-ranked scholar is Magne Jørgensen of Simula Research Laboratory, Norway.     

Segmentation and recognition of Chinese bank check amounts

This paper describes a system for the recognition of legal amounts on bank checks written in the Chinese language. It consists of subsystems that perform preprocessing, segmentation, and recognition of the legal amount. In each step of the segmentation and recognition phases, a list of possible choices are obtained. An approach is adopted whereby a large number of choices can be processed effectively and efficiently in order to achieve the best recognition result. The contribution of this paper is the proposal of a grammar checker for Chinese bank check amounts. It is found to be very effective in reducing the substitution error rate. The recognition rate of the system is 74.0%, the error rate is 10.4%, and the reliability is 87.7%. Received June 9, 2000 / Revised January 10, 2001