Intelligent process analytics for CRM

Many organisations use decision models in their processes such as tables or trees to provide decision support to their operational divisions. For example, in fault management, customer contact centre operators usually use a decision model in the form of prescribed interviews. Based on the answers given by customers, the operator navigates through the decision model to reach an assessment of the problem. In order to achieve customer satisfaction and operational excellence, it is very important to constantly monitor the performance of a decision model not only on an overall level, but also on the level of individual decisions. In this paper we present a configurable business process analytics tool, known as the intelligent Universal Service Management System, that constantly monitors decision data and is capable of optimising the decisions based on high-level business objectives. We explain the various features of the software and show how it can be used to optimise decision processes. We also show how we can easily provide a customised version to monitor the performance of provision processes.     

Fault detection for control of wastewater treatment plants.

Interest in real-time model-based control is increasing as more and more facilities are being asked to meet stricter effluent requirements while at the same time minimizing costs. It has been identified that biological process models and automated process control technologies are being used at wastewater treatments plants throughout the world and that great potential for optimising biotreatment may exist with the integration of these two technology areas. According to our experience, wastewater treatment plants are indeed looking for ways to successfully integrate their modelling knowledge into their process control structure; however, there are practical aspects of this integration that must be addressed if the benefits of this integration are to be realised. This paper discusses the practical aspects of monitoring, filtering and analysing real sensor data with an aim to produce a reliable real-time data stream that might be used within a model-based control structure. Several real case study examples are briefly discussed in this paper.     

Comparison of total and faecal coliforms as faecal indicator in eutrophicated surface water.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of total coliforms (TC) and faecal coliforms (FC) using a membrane filtration method for precise monitoring of faecal pollution in Korean surface water. The samples were collected in Korea from both main rivers and their tributaries. Presumptive TC * FC were enumerated. The ratios of presumptive FC to TC were not constant, but varied widely, and TC were difficult to enumerate because of overgrowth by background colonies. For FC this was not the case. Seven hundred and three purified strains of presumptive TC * FC and their background colonies were biotyped using API 20E. Among 272 presumptive TC, non-faecal related species, Aeromonas hydrophila dominated (34.6%) and E. coli accounted for only 5.1%. In contrast, E. coli made up 89% of the 209 presumptive FC. Furthermore, of 164 background colonies on Endo Agar LES, 54.9% was A. hydrophila, while background colonies on m-FC Agar were few (58 strains), and despite their atypical colony appearance, most of them were biotyped as enteric bacteria. These results reveal that the detection of FC rather than TC using m-FC Agar is more appropriate for faecal pollution monitoring in eutrophicated surface water located in a temperate region.     

Corrected Sum Rule, Generalized Virial Identity and Elementary Excitation Spectrum of Bose–Einstein Condensates at Any Trapped Atom Number

Using a corrected sum rule and a generalized virial identity, we study the analytical expression for entire modes of the collective elementary excitation spectrum in a trapped Bose–Einstein condensate at any atom number. Explicit analytical formulas for the spectrum are obtained for the harmonic traps with both spherical symmetry and axial symmetry using the gaussian approximation for the N-body ground-state wave function of the condensate. These formulas give the simple dependence of all energy levels on the atom numbers, their interaction strength and trap geometry parameters.     

Minimax estimation of deterministic parameters in linear models with a random model matrix

We consider the problem of estimating an unknown deterministic parameter vector in a linear model with a random model matrix, with known second-order statistics. We first seek the linear estimator that minimizes the worst-case mean-squared error (MSE) across all parameter vectors whose (possibly weighted) norm is bounded above. We show that the minimax MSE estimator can be found by solving a semidefinite programming problem and develop necessary and sufficient optimality conditions on the minimax MSE estimator. Using these conditions, we derive closed-form expressions for the minimax MSE estimator in some special cases. We then demonstrate, through examples, that the minimax MSE estimator can improve the performance over both a Baysian approach and a least-squares method. We then consider the case in which the norm of the parameter vector is also bounded below. Since the minimax MSE approach cannot account for a nonzero lower bound, we consider, in this case, a minimax regret method in which we seek the estimator that minimizes the worst-case difference between the MSE attainable using a linear estimator that does not know the parameter vector, and the optimal MSE attained using a linear estimator that knows the parameter vector. For analytical tractability, we restrict our attention to the scalar case and develop a closed-form expression for the minimax regret estimator.     

Second harmonic generation from a ferroelectric film

We derive an expression for transmittivity (T_SHG) of second harmonic generation (SHG) signals from a ferroelectric (FE) film. Intensities of up and down fields in the medium are investigated in relation to T_SHG. The derivations are made based on undepletion of input fields and nonlinear wave equation derived from the Maxwell equations. We present two cases: film without mirrors and with partial mirrors. Expressions for the newly derived nonlinear susceptibility coefficients of SHG for real crystal symmetry [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 19 (2002) 2007] are used to get more realistic results. Variations in T_SHG with respect to film thickness are illustrated.     

Evaluation and optimization of package processing and design through solder joint profile prediction

Solder joints are generated using a variety of methods to provide both mechanical and electrical connection for applications such as flip-chip, wafer level packaging, fine pitch, ball-grid array, and chip scale packages. Solder joint shape prediction has been incorporated as a key tool to aid in process development, wafer level and package level design and development, assembly, and reliability enhancement. This work demonstrates the application of an analytical model and the Surface Evolver software in analyzing a variety of solder processing methods and package types. Bump and joint shape prediction was conducted for the design of wafer level bumping, flip-chip assembly, and wafer level packaging. The results from the prediction methodologies are validated with experimentally measured geometries at each level of design.     

Analytic models for the latency and steady-state throughput of TCP Tahoe, Reno, and SACK

Continuing the process of improvements made to TCP through the addition of new algorithms in Tahoe and Reno, TCP SACK aims to provide robustness to TCP in the presence of multiple losses from the same window. In this paper we present analytic models to estimate the latency and steady-state throughput of TCP Tahoe, Reno, and SACK and validate our models using both simulations and TCP traces collected from the Internet. In addition to being the first models for the latency of finite Tahoe and SACK flows, our model for the latency of TCP Reno gives a more accurate estimation of the transfer times than existing models. The improved accuracy is partly due to a more accurate modeling of the timeouts, evolution of cwnd during slow start and the delayed ACK timer. Our models also show that, under the losses introduced by the droptail queues which dominate most routers in the Internet, current implementations of SACK can fail to provide adequate protection against timeouts and a loss of roughly more than half the packets in a round will lead to timeouts. We also show that with independent losses SACK performs better than Tahoe and Reno and, as losses become correlated, Tahoe can outperform both Reno and SACK.     

The First Template‐Free Growth of Crystalline Silicon Microtubes

A simple template‐free high‐temperature evaporation method was developed for the growth of crystalline Si microtubes for the first time. As‐grown Si microtubes were characterized using X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and room‐temperature photoluminescence. The lengths of the Si tubes can reach several hundreds of micrometers; some of them have lengths on the order of millimeters. Each tube has a uniform outer diameter along its entire length, and the typical outer diameter is ≈ 2–3 μm. Most of the tubes have a wall thickness of ≈ 400–500 nm, though a considerable number of them exhibit a very thin wall thickness of ≈ 50 nm. Room‐temperature photoluminescence measurement shows the as‐synthesized Si microtubes have two strong emission peaks centered at ≈ 589 nm and ≈ 617 nm and a weak emission peak centered at ≈ 455 nm. A possible mechanism for the formation of these Si tubes is proposed. We believe that the present discovery of the crystalline Si microtubes will promote further experimental studies on their physical properties and smart applications.     

Optimal pilot waveform assisted modulation for ultrawideband communications

Ultrawideband (UWB) transmissions induce pronounced frequency-selective fading effects in their multipath propagation. Multipath diversity gains can be collected to enhance performance, provided that the underlying channel can be estimated at the receiver. To this end, we develop a novel pilot waveform assisted modulation (PWAM) scheme that is tailored for UWB communications. We select our PWAM parameters by jointly optimizing channel estimation performance and information rate. The resulting transmitter design maximizes the average capacity, which is shown to be equivalent to minimizing the mean-square channel estimation error, and thereby achieves the Crame/spl acute/r-Rao lower bound. Application of PWAM to practical UWB systems is promising because it entails simple integrate-and-dump operations at the frame rate. Equally important, it offers a flexible UWB channel estimator, capable of striking desirable rate-performance tradeoffs depending on the channel coherence time.