An extended divide-and-conquer algorithm for a generalized class of multibody constraints

An extension to the divide-and-conquer algorithm (DCA) is presented in this paper to model constrained multibody systems. The constraints of interest are those applied to the system due to the inverse dynamics or control laws rather than the kinematically closed loops which have been studied in the literature. These imposed constraints are often expressed in terms of the generalized coordinates and speeds. A set of unknown generalized constraint forces must be considered in the equations of motion to enforce these algebraic constraints. In this paper dynamics of this class of multibody constrained systems is formulated using a Generalized-DCA. In this scheme, introducing dynamically equivalent forcing systems, each generalized constraint force is replaced by its dynamically equivalent spatial constraint force applied from the appropriate parent body to the associated child body at the connecting joint without violating the dynamics of the original system. The handle equations of motion are then formulated considering these dynamically equivalent spatial constraint forces. These equations in the GDCA scheme are used in the assembly and disassembly processes to solve for the states of the system, as well as the generalized constraint forces and/or Lagrange multipliers.     

Modeling and robust discrete LQ repetitive control of electrically driven robots

Discrete linear quadratic control has been efciently applied to linear systems as an optimal control.However,a robotic system is highly nonlinear,heavily coupled and uncertain.To overcome the problem,the robotic system can be modeled as a linear discrete-time time-varying system in performing repetitive tasks.This modeling motivates us to develop an optimal repetitive control.The contribution of this paper is twofold.For the frst time,it presents discrete linear quadratic repetitive control for electrically driven robots using the mentioned model.The proposed control approach is based on the voltage control strategy.Second,uncertainty is efectively compensated by employing a robust time-delay controller.The uncertainty can include parametric uncertainty,unmodeled dynamics and external disturbances.To highlight its ability in overcoming the uncertainty,the dynamic equation of an articulated robot is introduced and used for the simulation,modeling and control purposes.Stability analysis verifes the proposed control approach and simulation results show its efectiveness.     

Adiabatic quantum optimization with qudits

Most realistic solid state devices considered as qubits are not true two-state systems. If the energy separation of the upper energy levels from the lowest two levels is not large, then these upper states may affect the evolution of the ground state over time and therefore cannot be neglected. In this work, we study the effect of energy levels beyond the lowest two energy levels on adiabatic quantum optimization in a device with a double-well potential as the basic logical element. We show that the extra levels can be modeled by adding additional ancilla qubits coupled to the original logical qubits, and that the presence of upper levels has no effect on the final ground state. We also study the influence of upper energy levels on the minimum gap for a set of 8-qubit spin glass instances.     

Comparative evaluation of text classification techniques using a large diverse Arabic dataset

A vast amount of valuable human knowledge is recorded in documents. The rapid growth in the number of machine-readable documents for public or private access necessitates the use of automatic text classification. While a lot of effort has been put into Western languages—mostly English—minimal experimentation has been done with Arabic. This paper presents, first, an up-to-date review of the work done in the field of Arabic text classification and, second, a large and diverse dataset that can be used for benchmarking Arabic text classification algorithms. The different techniques derived from the literature review are illustrated by their application to the proposed dataset. The results of various feature selections, weighting methods, and classification algorithms show, on average, the superiority of support vector machine, followed by the decision tree algorithm (C4.5) and Naïve Bayes. The best classification accuracy was 97 % for the Islamic Topics dataset, and the least accurate was 61 % for the Arabic Poems dataset.     

Data-Intensive Cloud Computing: Requirements, Expectations, Challenges, and Solutions

Data-intensive systems encompass terabytes to petabytes of data. Such systems require massive storage and intensive computational power in order to execute complex queries and generate timely results. Further, the rate at which this data is being generated induces extensive challenges of data storage, linking, and processing. A data-intensive cloud provides an abstraction of high availability, usability, and efficiency to users. However, underlying this abstraction, there are stringent requirements and challenges to facilitate scalable and resourceful services through effective physical infrastructure, smart networking solutions, intelligent software tools, and useful software approaches. This paper analyzes the extensive requirements which exist in data-intensive clouds, describes various challenges related to the paradigm, and assess numerous solutions in meeting these requirements and challenges. It provides a detailed study of the solutions and analyzes their capabilities in meeting emerging needs of widespread applications.     

Human eye sclera detection and tracking using a modified time-adaptive self-organizing map

This paper investigates the use of time-adaptive self-organizing map (TASOM)-based active contour models (ACMs) for detecting the boundaries of the human eye sclera and tracking its movements in a sequence of images. The task begins with extracting the head boundary based on a skin-color model. Then the eye strip is located with an acceptable accuracy using a morphological method. Eye features such as the iris center or eye corners are detected through the iris edge information. TASOM-based ACM is used to extract the inner boundary of the eye. Finally, by tracking the changes in the neighborhood characteristics of the eye-boundary estimating neurons, the eyes are tracked effectively. The original TASOM algorithm is found to have some weaknesses in this application. These include formation of undesired twists in the neuron chain and holes in the boundary, lengthy chain of neurons, and low speed of the algorithm. These weaknesses are overcome by introducing a new method for finding the winning neuron, a new definition for unused neurons, and a new method of feature selection and application to the network. Experimental results show a very good performance for the proposed method in general and a better performance than that of the gradient vector field (GVF) snake-based method.     

A high performance algorithm for static task scheduling in heterogeneous distributed computing systems

Effective task scheduling is essential for obtaining high performance in heterogeneous distributed computing systems (HeDCSs). However, finding an effective task schedule in HeDCSs requires the consideration of both the heterogeneity of processors and high interprocessor communication overhead, which results from non-trivial data movement between tasks scheduled on different processors. In this paper, we present a new high-performance scheduling algorithm, called the longest dynamic critical path (LDCP) algorithm, for HeDCSs with a bounded number of processors. The LDCP algorithm is a list-based scheduling algorithm that uses a new attribute to efficiently select tasks for scheduling in HeDCSs. The efficient selection of tasks enables the LDCP algorithm to generate high-quality task schedules in a heterogeneous computing environment. The performance of the LDCP algorithm is compared to two of the best existing scheduling algorithms for HeDCSs: the HEFT and DLS algorithms. The comparison study shows that the LDCP algorithm outperforms the HEFT and DLS algorithms in terms of schedule length and speedup. Moreover, the improvement in performance obtained by the LDCP algorithm over the HEFT and DLS algorithms increases as the inter-task communication cost increases. Therefore, the LDCP algorithm provides a practical solution for scheduling parallel applications with high communication costs in HeDCSs.     

A selective modified bentonite–porphyrin carbon paste electrode for determination of Mn(II) by using anodic stripping voltammetry

A novel voltammetric sensor based on chemically modified bentonite–porphyrin carbon paste electrode (MBPCE) has been introduced for the determination of trace amount of Mn(II) in wheat flour, wheat rice and vegetables. In this method Mn(II) gives well-defined voltammetric peak at the pH range of 3.5–7.5. For the preliminary screening purpose, the catalyst was prepared by modification of bentonite with porphyrin and characterized by thermogravimetric method (TG) and UV–vis spectroscopy. The detection limit (three times signal-to-noise) with 4 min accumulation is 1.07 × 10⁻⁷ mol L⁻¹ Mn(II). The peak currents increases linearly with Mn(II) concentration over the range of 6.0 × 10⁻⁷ to 5.0 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹ (r² = 0.9959). Statistical treatment of the results gave a relative standard deviation lower than 2.30%. The chemical and instrumental parameters have been optimized and the results showed that 1000-fold excess of the additive ions had not interferences on the determination of Mn(II).     

Priority-based rate control for service differentiation and congestion control in wireless multimedia sensor networks

In wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs) a sensor node may have different types of sensor which gather different kinds of data. To support quality of service (QoS) requirements for multimedia applications having a reliable and fair transport protocol is necessary. One of the main objectives of the transport layer in WMSNs is congestion control. We observe that the information provided may have different levels of importance and argue that sensor networks should be willing to spend more resources in disseminating packets carrying more important information. Some applications of WMSNs may need to send real time traffic toward the sink node. This real time traffic requires low latency and high reliability so that immediate remedial and defensive actions can be taken when needed. Therefore, similar to wired networks, service differentiation in wireless sensor networks is also an important issue. We present a priority-based rate control mechanism for congestion control and service differentiation in WMSNs. We distinguish high priority real time traffic from low priority non-real time traffic, and service the input traffic based on its priority. Simulation results confirm the superior performance of the proposed model with respect to delays, delay variation and loss probability.