Superpipelined high-performance optical-flow computation architecture

Optical-flow computation is a well-known technique and there are important fields in which the application of this visual modality commands high interest. Nevertheless, most real-world applications require real-time processing, an issue which has only recently been addressed. Most real-time systems described to date use basic models which limit their applicability to generic tasks, especially when fast motion is presented or when subpixel motion resolution is required. Therefore, instead of implementing a complex optical-flow approach, we describe here a very high-frame-rate optical-flow processing system. Recent advances in image sensor technology make it possible nowadays to use high-frame-rate sensors to properly sample fast motion (i.e. as a low-motion scene), which makes a gradient-based approach one of the best options in terms of accuracy and consumption of resources for any real-time implementation. Taking advantage of the regular data flow of this kind of algorithm, our approach implements a novel superpipelined, fully parallelized architecture for optical-flow processing. The system is fully working and is organized into more than 70 pipeline stages, which achieve a data throughput of one pixel per clock cycle. This computing scheme is well suited to FPGA technology and VLSI implementation. The developed customized DSP architecture is capable of processing up to 170 frames per second at a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. We discuss the advantages of high-frame-rate processing and justify the optical-flow model chosen for the implementation. We analyze this architecture, measure the system resource requirements using FPGA devices and finally evaluate the system’s performance and compare it with other approaches described in the literature.     

Effect of the centrifugal forces on the finite element eigenvalue solution of a rotating blade: a comparative study

In this study, the effect of the centrifugal forces on the eigenvalue solution obtained using two different nonlinear finite element formulations is examined. Both formulations can correctly describe arbitrary rigid body displacements and can be used in the large deformation analysis. The first formulation is based on the geometrically exact beam theory, which assumes that the cross section does not deform in its own plane and remains plane after deformation. The second formulation, the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF), relaxes this assumption and introduces modes that couple the deformation of the cross section and the axial and bending deformations. In the absolute nodal coordinate formulation, four different models are developed; a beam model based on a general continuum mechanics approach, a beam model based on an elastic line approach, a beam model based on an elastic line approach combined with the Hellinger–Reissner principle, and a plate model based on a general continuum mechanics approach. The use of the general continuum mechanics approach leads to a model that includes the ANCF coupled deformation modes. Because of these modes, the continuum mechanics model differs from the models based on the elastic line approach. In both the geometrically exact beam and the absolute nodal coordinate formulations, the centrifugal forces are formulated in terms of the element nodal coordinates. The effect of the centrifugal forces on the flap and lag modes of the rotating beam is examined, and the results obtained using the two formulations are compared for different values of the beam angular velocity. The numerical comparative study presented in this investigation shows that when the effect of some ANCF coupled deformation modes is neglected, the eigenvalue solutions obtained using the geometrically exact beam and the absolute nodal coordinate formulations are in a good agreement. The results also show that as the effect of the centrifugal forces, which tend to increase the beam stiffness, increases, the effect of the ANCF coupled deformation modes on the computed eigenvalues becomes less significant. It is shown in this paper that when the effect of the Poisson ration is neglected, the eigenvalue solution obtained using the absolute nodal coordinate formulation based on a general continuum mechanics approach is in a good agreement with the solution obtained using the geometrically exact beam model.     

Direct electron crystallographic determination of zeolite zonal structures

The prospect for improving the success of ab initio zeolite structure investigations with electron diffraction data is evaluated. First of all, the quality of intensities obtained by precession electron diffraction at small hollow cone illumination angles is evaluated for seven representative materials: ITQ-1, ITQ-7, ITQ-29, ZSM-5, ZSM-10, mordenite, and MCM-68. It is clear that, for most examples, an appreciable fraction of a secondary scattering perturbation is removed by precession at small angles. In one case, ZSM-10, it can also be argued that precession diffraction produces a dramatically improved 'kinematical' data set. There seems to no real support for application of a Lorentz correction to these data and there is no reason to expect for any of these samples that a two-beam dynamical scattering relationship between structure factor amplitude and observed intensity should be valid. Removal of secondary scattering by the precession mode appears to facilitate ab initio structure analysis. Most zeolite structures investigated could be solved by maximum entropy and likelihood phasing via error-correcting codes when precession data were used. Examples include the projected structure of mordenite that could not be determined from selected area data alone. One anomaly is the case of ZSM-5, where the best structure determination in projection is made from selected area diffraction data. In a control study, the zonal structure of SSZ-48 could be determined from selected area diffraction data by either maximum entropy and likelihood or traditional direct methods. While the maximum entropy and likelihood approach enjoys some advantages over traditional direct methods (non-dependence on predicted phase invariant sums), some effort must be made to improve the figures of merit used to identify potential structure solutions.     

Cooperation coordination in virtual enterprises

Coordination of activities is a determinant element in virtual enterprises. Proper coordination policies supported by flexible coordination mechanisms are necessary to ensure the cooperation among partner enterprises. This paper presents the PRODNET approach to support coordination in virtual enterprises. The adopted model considers on flexibility and configurability as the key aspects to cope with the large diversity of expectable scenarios and operating policies in the virtual enterprise environment. A workflow based approach for coordination is described and especial emphasis is put on a multi-level coordination view. The developed software modules that support the coordination mechanisms are presented, and finally some directions for further research are given.     

Simple multichannel system for the measurement of the net water flux across biological tissues

This paper describes the development of a simple system for measurement of net water movement through biological membrane barriers. The system is based on the detection of a water meniscus inside a polyethylene tube, which reflects the water movement inside one hemichamber of a modified Ussing chamber containing a membrane barrier. The detection device consists of a commercial computer-controlled flat bed scanner and specifically developed software. This system allows one to perform a relatively high number of individual experiments per physical unit. It is a flexible and affordable device, which allows comparatively more information per unit to be obtained than previously described methods.     

Stochastic automata-based estimators for adaptively compressing files with nonstationary distributions.

This correspondence shows that learning automata techniques, which have been useful in developing weak estimators, can be applied to data compression applications in which the data distributions are nonstationary. The adaptive coding scheme utilizes stochastic learning-based weak estimation techniques to adaptively update the probabilities of the source symbols, and this is done without resorting to either maximum likelihood, Bayesian, or sliding-window methods. The authors have incorporated the estimator in the adaptive Fano coding scheme and in an adaptive entropy-based scheme that "resembles" the well-known arithmetic coding. The empirical results obtained for both of these adaptive methods are obtained on real-life files that possess a fair degree of nonstationarity. From these results, it can be seen that the proposed schemes compress nearly 10% more than their respective adaptive methods that use maximum-likelihood estimator-based estimates.     

Cryptography Regulations for E-commerce and Digital Rights Management.

Strong encryption is an urgent need for e-commerce development, as it allows the privacy and secure transactions of the financial data. International regulations must allow the spreading of e-commerce and the associated encryption products, in order to establish a secure e-commerce environment that customers can trust and allowing an international deployment of e-commerce solutions without restrictions.     

A comparison of directed formulations for the capacitated minimal spanning tree problem

In this paper, we compare linear integer programming directed formulations for the capacitated minimal spanning tree (CMST) problem. This problem is directly related to network design and consists of finding the cheapest way to link a set of terminals at different locations with a central node (a computer site, for instance). The present work focuses on a single commodity flow formulation presented in [3,4]. This formulation includes two sets of variables and, hence, it also must include coupling constraints between the two sets of variables. These coupling constraints can be defined in several ways. The main result of this work establishes that when the strongest form of the coupling constraints is used in the flow formulation (as in [4]), the equivalent formulation using only theX _ij variables satisfies the so-called multistar constraints. These constraints are shown to be stronger than the weakest form of the generalized subtour breaking constraints and, hence, our result improves on the characterization given in [5] for the flow formulation presented in [4]. For certain parameters, the multistar constraints induce facets of the non-directed CMST polytope (see [2]). We also show that it is not possible to compare the linear relaxations of a formulation that involves the multistar constraints with one that involves the generalized subtour breaking constraints.     

Definition of Risk Indicators for Reservoirs Management Optimization

An alternative procedure for drought risk assessment and for the mitigation of drought risk is proposed in the paper. An analysis of the relationship between failure of water supply systems and reservoir volumes for the urban area of Firenze in central Tuscany, in central Italy, is performed. Long term simulations are carried out using the software package WEAP. A simplified model of the water resources system is built to assess the threshold values and the management rules. The probability to have definite degree of shortage in the water supply system is evaluated in function of the volume stored in the reservoir at the beginning of the month with Monte Carlo simulations. The reservoir levels and volumes are simulated using time series of the period 1970–2005. Four scenarios (i.e. normal, pre-alert, alert and emergency) associated with different levels of severity of drought are defined. Threshold values are identified considering the probability to assure a given fraction of the demand in a certain time horizon, and are calibrated with an optimization method, which try to minimize the water shortages, especially the heavier. The critical situations are assessed month by month in order to evaluate optimal management rules during the year and avoid conditions of total water shortage.