Numerical simulation of a nonlinearly coupled Schrödinger system: A linearly uncoupled finite difference scheme

This article describes a finite difference scheme which is linearly uncoupled in computation for a nonlinearly coupled Schrödinger system. This numerical scheme is proved to preserve the original conservative properties. Using the discrete energy analysis method, we also prove that the scheme is unconditionally stable and second-order convergent in discrete _L2$L_2$-norm based on some preliminary estimations. The results show that the new scheme is efficiency.     

Strategic advantages of interoperability for global manufacturing using CNC technology

In the domain of manufacturing, computer numerically controllers (CNC) technology is a major contributor to the production capacity of the enterprises. The advances in CNC technology coupled with enhancements in computing systems have provided the basis to re-examine the way in which computer-aided systems (CAx) can be used to enable global manufacturing. Interoperability of the various components of the CAx chain is therefore a major prerequisite for manufacturing enterprises for becoming strategically agile and consequently globally competitive. Being interoperable, resources can be utilized interchangeably in a plug-and-produce manner. Over the last 8 years the eminence of a STEP standard for machining entitled STEP-NC (numerical control) has become a well-known vehicle for research to improve the level of information availability at the CNC machine tool. In this paper, the authors introduce the background to the evolution of CNC manufacturing over the last 50 years and the current standards available for programming. A review of the literature in interoperable CNC manufacturing is then provided relating to milling, turn–mill and other NC processes. The major part of the paper provides a strategic view of how interoperability can be implemented across the CAx chain with a range of standards used to regulate the flow of information. Finally, the paper outlines the advantages and major issues for future developments in interoperability, identifying future key requirements and limiting factors.     

Selective sampling for approximate clustering of very large data sets

A key challenge in pattern recognition is how to scale the computational efficiency of clustering algorithms on large data sets. The extension of non‐Euclidean relational fuzzy c‐means (NERF) clustering to very large (VL = unloadable) relational data is called the extended NERF (eNERF) clustering algorithm, which comprises four phases: (i) finding distinguished features that monitor progressive sampling; (ii) progressively sampling from a N × N relational matrix R_N to obtain a n × n sample matrix R_n; (iii) clustering R_n with literal NERF; and (iv) extending the clusters in R_n to the remainder of the relational data. Previously published examples on several fairly small data sets suggest that eNERF is feasible for truly large data sets. However, it seems that phases (i) and (ii), i.e., finding R_n, are not very practical because the sample size n often turns out to be roughly 50% of n, and this over‐sampling defeats the whole purpose of eNERF. In this paper, we examine the performance of the sampling scheme of eNERF with respect to different parameters. We propose a modified sampling scheme for use with eNERF that combines simple random sampling with (parts of) the sampling procedures used by eNERF and a related algorithm sVAT (scalable visual assessment of clustering tendency). We demonstrate that our modified sampling scheme can eliminate over‐sampling of the original progressive sampling scheme, thus enabling the processing of truly VL data. Numerical experiments on a distance matrix of a set of 3,000,000 vectors drawn from a mixture of 5 bivariate normal distributions demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed sampling method. We also find that actually running eNERF on a data set of this size is very costly in terms of computation time. Thus, our results demonstrate that further modification of eNERF, especially the extension stage, will be needed before it is truly practical for VL data. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Detailed Real-Time Urban 3D Reconstruction from Video

The paper presents a system for automatic, geo-registered, real-time 3D reconstruction from video of urban scenes. The system collects video streams, as well as GPS and inertia measurements in order to place the reconstructed models in geo-registered coordinates. It is designed using current state of the art real-time modules for all processing steps. It employs commodity graphics hardware and standard CPU’s to achieve real-time performance. We present the main considerations in designing the system and the steps of the processing pipeline. Our system extends existing algorithms to meet the robustness and variability necessary to operate out of the lab. To account for the large dynamic range of outdoor videos the processing pipeline estimates global camera gain changes in the feature tracking stage and efficiently compensates for these in stereo estimation without impacting the real-time performance. The required accuracy for many applications is achieved with a two-step stereo reconstruction process exploiting the redundancy across frames. We show results on real video sequences comprising hundreds of thousands of frames.     

On scheduling and clustering in hierarchical TH-PPM UWB wireless ad hoc networks

Ultra wideband (UWB) systems are considered as the key wireless infrastructure platforms for efficient short-range communications. In particular, the UWB based mobile computing systems are envisioned to be attractive solutions to various ad hoc networking applications. However, due to UWB’s unique physical characteristics, the traditional resource management schemes for ad hoc networks cannot be applied to UWB based systems directly. In this paper, we consider the bandwidth scheduling problem in a UWB based hierarchical wireless ad hoc network, which is typically used in an enterprise-scale mobile computing environment. Based on the mathematical analysis and the computer simulations, it is demonstrated that our proposed scheduling scheme exhibits close-to-optimal performance governed by the proportional fairness (PF) constraint. Moreover, a novel self-organized clustering method is designed to improve the system throughput while meeting the PF constraint. Simulation results suggest that the proposed clustering method is effective under various system configurations.

A survey on the history of transaction management: from flat to grid transactions

Transactions have been around since the Seventies to provide reliable information processing in automated information systems. Originally developed for simple ‘debit-credit’ style database operations in centralized systems, they have moved into much more complex application domains including aspects like distribution, process-orientation and loose coupling. The amount of published research work on transactions is huge and a number of overview papers and books already exist. A concise historic analysis providing an overview of the various phases of development of transaction models and mechanisms in the context of growing complexity of application domains is still missing, however. To fill this gap, this paper presents a historic overview of transaction models organized in several ‘transaction management eras’, thereby investigating numerous transaction models ranging from the classical flat transactions, via advanced and workflow transactions to the Web Services and Grid transaction models. The key concepts and techniques with respect to transaction management are investigated. Placing well-known research efforts in historical perspective reveals specific trends and developments in the area of transaction management. As such, this paper provides a comprehensive, structured overview of developments in the area.     

Feature extraction for man-made objects segmentation in aerial images

This paper describes a new aerial image segmentation algorithm by level set. The non-subsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) is selected to represent the image features for the classification of man-made object. NSCT can avoid pseudo-Gibbs phenomena around singularities during the process of image denoising, owing to the properties of shift-invariant. NSCT also enriches the set of basis functions which makes it possible to extract some critical signal features. The optimization of basis selection is applied in the NSCT to ensure the decomposition based on the maximum information content. Another kind of feature named RMS_error is also extracted from fBm model. Then a modified Mumford-Shah model which comprises the NSCT features and RMS_error features extracted from the aerial images is built to segment the aerial image by a necessary level set evolution. At last the proposed method is proven to be effective by the results of experiments.     

Automatic composition of broadcast sports video

This study examines an automatic broadcast soccer video composition system. The research is important as the ability to automatically compose broadcast sports video will not only improve broadcast video generation efficiency, but also provides the possibility to customize sports video broadcasting. We present a novel approach to the two major issues required in the system’s implementation, specifically the camera view selection/switching module and the automatic replay generation module. In our implementation, we use multi-modal framework to perform video content analysis, event and event boundary detection from the raw unedited main/sub-camera captures. This framework explores the possible cues using mid-level representations to bridge the gap between low-level features and high-level semantics. The video content analysis results are utilized for camera view selection/switching in the generated video composition, and the event detection results and mid-level representations are used to generate replays which are automatically inserted into the broadcast soccer video. Our experimental results are promising and found to be comparable to those generated by broadcast professionals.     

Applications of thick Sacrificial-Layer of zinc in LIGA process

Sacrificial-Layer technology is widely used in the microfabrication field of SLIGA. In this paper, thick sacrificial layers of zinc techniques are studied. A movable structure with aspect ratio of 25 has been fabricated by using zinc sacrificial layer through LIGA technique. Compared with conventional metal sacrificial layers of titanium or copper, the thickness of zinc layer can grow up to more than 10 μm. The adhesion of different seed layers and the physiognomy of sacrificial layer are also focused in this paper.