Inductive database languages: requirements and examples

Inductive databases (IDBs) represent a database perspective on Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD). In an IDB, the KDD application can express both queries capable of accessing and manipulating data, and queries capable of generating, manipulating, and applying patterns allowing to formalize the notion of mining process. The feature that makes them different from other data mining applications is exactly the idea of looking at the support for knowledge discovery as an extension of the query process. This paper draws a list of desirable properties to be taken into account in the definition of an IDB framework. They involve several dimensions, such as the expressiveness of the language in representing data and models, the closure principle, the capability to provide a support for an efficient algorithm programming. These requirements are a basis for a comparative study that highlights strengths and weaknesses of existing IDB approaches. The paper focuses on the SQL-based ATLaS language/system, on the logic-based LDL++{\mathcal{LDL}++} language/system, and on the XML-based KDDML language/system.     

CRM<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ba</Emphasis> a CRM extension for the documentation of standing buildings

Exploring the connections between successive phases and overlapping layers from different ages in an ancient building is paramount for its understanding and study. Archaeologists and cultural heritage experts are always eager to unveil the hidden relations of an archaeological building to reconstruct its history and for its interpretation. This paper presents CRMba, a CIDOC CRM extension developed to facilitate the discovery and the interpretation of archaeological resources through the definition of new concepts required to describe the complexity of historic buildings. The CRMba contributes to solving the datasets interoperability issue by exploiting the use of the CIDOC CRM to overcome data fragmentation, to investigate the semantics of building components, of functional spaces and of the construction phases of historic buildings and complexes, making explicit their physical and topological relations through time and space. The approach used for the development of the CRMba makes the model valid for the documentation of different kinds of buildings, across periods, styles and conservation state.     

Conversion matrix extraction by commercial CAD software for the stability design of autonomous circuits

In this article a method to extract the conversion matrix of a nonlinear circuit by commercial CAD simulators is proposed. As an example, the conversion matrix, computed from a harmonic balance simulation, is used to control the stability of oscillators under large‐signal conditions. This allows the suppression of possible spurious frequencies or the intentional generation of spurious signals (e.g. at subharmonic frequency). © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2010.     

Data pre-processing through reward–punishment editing

The nearest neighbor (NN) classifier represents one of the most popular non-parametric classification approaches and has been successfully applied in several pattern recognition problems. The two main limitations of this technique are its computational complexity and its sensitivity to the presence of outliers in the training set. Though the first problem has been partially overcome thanks to the availability of inexpensive memory and high processing speeds, the second one still persists, and several editing and condensing techniques have been proposed, aimed at selecting a proper set of prototypes from the training set. In this work, an editing technique is proposed, based on the idea of rewarding the patterns that contribute to a correct classification and punishing those that provide a wrong one. The analysis is carried out both at local and at global level, by analyzing the training set at different scales. A score is calculated for each pattern, and the patterns whose score is lower than a predefined threshold are edited out. An extensive experimentation has been conducted on several classification problems both to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed technique with respect to other editing approaches and to investigate the advantage of using reward–punishment editing in combination with condensing techniques or as a pre-processing stage when classifiers different from the NN are adopted.     

Chemotaxonomy of wormwood (Artemisia absinthum L.)

Summary A series of essential oils obtained from samples ofArtemisia absinthium L. from various geographical origins and collected at different heights were analysed by means of glass-capillary gas chromatography. The main components were identified by means of GC, GC-MS, IR,¹HNMR and¹³CNMR.Several chemotypes were detected: in the western Alpine arc (Italy) the most important chemotype, above 1,000 m., was acis-epoxy-ocimene type, while at lower levels a-thujone type predominated.Plants originating from France could be divided into a chrysanthenyl acetate and a saßinyl acetate chemotype; plants from Siberia, Rumania and some from Valle d'Aosta belonged to a mixed type.

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Chemotaxonomie von Wermut (Artemisia absinthum L.)I. Zusammensetzung des ätherischen Öls einiger Chemotypen

Zusammenfassung Die ätherischen Öle des Wermuts, aus mehreren Herkunften und aus verschiedenen Höhen, wurden durch Capillargaschromatographie bestimmt und durch MS, IR,¹HNMR,¹³CNMR identifiziert.Dabei konnten verschiedene Chemotypen festgestellt werden. In den Westalpen ist der cis-Epoxycimen Typ über 1000 m der wichtigste Typ, während der-Thujon-Typ in niedrigeren Zonen vorherrscht.Französische Muster gehörten zu den Chrysanthenylacetat-und Sabinylacetat-Chemotypen, Muster aus Sibirien, Rumänien und dem Aostatal dagegen zu einem gemischten Typ.

     

A Praline‐Like Flexible Interlayer with Highly Mounted Polysulfide Anchors for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

The development of lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries is dogged by the rapid capacity decay arising from polysulfide dissolution and diffusion in organic electrolytes. To solve this critical issue, a praline‐like flexible interlayer consisting of high‐loading titanium oxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles and relatively long carbon nanofibers is fabricated. TiO₂ nanoparticles with a size gradient occupy both the external and internal of carbon fiber and serve as anchors that allow the chemical adsorption of polysulfides through a conductive nanoarchitecture. The porous conductive carbon backbone helps in the physical absorption of polysulfides and provides redox reaction sites to allow the polysulfides to be reused. More importantly, it offers enough mechanical strength to support a high load TiO₂ nanoparticle (79 wt%) that maximizes their chemical role, and can accommodate the large volume changes. Significant enhancement in cycle stability and rate capability is achieved for a readily available sulfur/multi‐walled carbon nanotube composite cathode simply by incorporating this hierarchically nanostructured interlayer. The design and synthesis of interlayers by in situ integration of metal oxides and carbon fibers via a simple route offers the potential to advance Li–S batteries for practical applications in the future.     

Computational and experimental approaches assess the interactions between bovine beta-lactoglobulin and synthetic compounds of pharmacological interest

Extending a previous investigation, the ability of binding to the model calycin beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) was evaluated both in silico and in vitro for several fluorine-containing (semi-)synthetic molecules of pharmacological and pharmaceutical interest (antibiotics, vastatins, steroid drugs). Simulation procedures included molecular docking according to a Montecarlo-simulated annealing protocol and molecular dynamics; heteronuclear NMR and denaturant gradient gel electrophoresis were the selected experimental techniques. For the tested drugs, ranking of the binding affinity was consistently assessed by computation and by experiment. The affinity for BLG increased in the sequence: 5-fluorosalycilic acid相似文献   

An integrated CMOS telephone line adapter

A novel fully CMOS circuit for electronic telephone line adaption is described. In the on-hook state the circuit operates in micropower condition, dissipates only 5 A, and is capable of generating the supply voltage required for retention of data stored on external RAM. In the off-hook state the circuit is boosted into the normal operation mode and is able to drive external bipolar transistors to synthesize the line impedance. The dc and the ac line impedances are set with external components, thus permitting the fulfillment of different PTT specifications. The circuit also performs line signal extraction and transmission, both for voice and DTMF. The dc line voltage is monitored, and a supervision block generates a precise reset signal when the line voltage drops out. The circuit has been integrated in a CMOS P-well 3-m double-poly single-metal technology; the silicon area is 6 mm².     

Analysis of composite connections in unbraced frames subjected to wind and gravity loading

A comparison between a simplified and an advanced method of elastoplastic analysis is made for unbraced frames with composite connections. The advanced method implements a mechanical model to represent the composite node in unbraced frames, which allows considering the behavior of each component of the composite connection individually. This method includes the determination of a moment-rotation curve for loading-unloading-reloading, considering gravity and wind loading. Physical and geometrical nonlinearities are taken into account in the analysis. In the simplified method an appropriate analysis for practical purposes is implemented, on which the connections are considered semirigid for unloading and flexible for loading, after yielding by gravity loads. Second order effects are included using the P-Δ procedure. Finally, a comparison is made between the two methods attempting to transform both methods in a useful tool for composite connection design.