Determination of sulfur dioxide in wine using a quartz crystal microbalance

A new method for the analysis of both total and bound SO(2) in wine is proposed, based on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and it is compared with the widely used Ripper method. The proposed method is faster than the Ripper's, and the instrumentation is either home-made or widely available. When both methods are applied to the same sample, the results obtained using the QCM method are bracketed in an interval less than one-tenth the size of that obtained using the Ripper method. Although the SO(2) concentrations found using the QCM method correlate well with the ones obtained with the Ripper method, the results are systematically higher, which can be explained as due to the absence of interferences known to affect the Ripper method.     

Interprocedural Array Region Analyses

Many program optimizations require exact knowledge of the sets of array elements that are referenced in or that flow between statements or procedures. Some examples are array privatization, generation of communications in distributed memory machines, or compile-time optimization of cache behavior in hierarchical memory machines. Exact array region analysis is introduced in this article. These regions exactly represent the effects of statements and procedures upon array variables. To represent the flow of these data, we also introduce two new types of array region analyses: in and out regions. The intraprocedural propagation is presented, as well as a general linear framework for interprocedural analyses, which handles array reshapes. The intra- and inter-procedural propagation of array regions is implemented in pips, the interprocedural parallelizer of fortran programs developed at École des mines de Paris.     

The musculoskeletal system complaints of office workers at a vehicle production factory

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of and factors contributing to musculoskeletal system complaints (MSC) in office workers of a vehicle production factory and absenteeism due to these complaints. A total of 86.2% (n = 333) of the workers completed the survey. Of the workers, 73 (21.9%) were women, and 260 (78.1%) were men, and the mean age was 36.9 ± 8.75 years. The majority of the personnel had more than one symptom with a prevalence of 80.8%. The most frequently observed discomfort was tension and pain in the back muscles (58.6%) and in the neck muscles (58.3%), followed by low back pain (41%) and shoulder pain (30.3%). Pain in the shoulders, neck, and the back and pain and numbness in the fingers were statistically significantly more prevalent in employees who spent more than 5 hours per day performing desk work. Furthermore, all of the complaints, excluding pain in the elbows and knees, were statistically significantly more common in the women. When each complaint and the effects of contributing risk factors were analyzed by logistic regression analysis, pain in the shoulders, neck, and back; pain that spread to the arms; and pain in the fingers were correlated with longer work hours and the female gender (p < 0.05). The number of employees who had used sick leave within the past year due to MSCs was 11.7%. In conclusion, duration of work hours, frequency of breaks, and gender were determined as the most important risk factors in computer users regarding MSCs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Preserving spatial information and overcoming variations in appearance for face recognition

Local feature-based approaches mainly aim to achieve robustness to variations in facial images by assuming that only some parts of the facial images may be affected. However, such approaches may lose spatial information. In this study, a compromise feature extraction scheme is studied which extracts local features while preserving spatial information. The proposed scheme exploits an ensemble of classifiers where each member is constructed using randomly selected design parameters including the size, number and location of sub-images for local feature extraction. Experiments conducted on FERET and ORL databases have shown that proposed scheme surpasses the local feature-based reference systems which focus on either local information or preserving spatial information.     

Three‐dimensional localization for the MagneBike inspection robot

The MagneBike inspection robot is a climbing robot equipped with magnetic wheels. The robot is designed to drive on three‐dimensional (3D) complexly shaped pipe structures; therefore it is necessary to provide 3D visualization tools for the user, who remotely controls the robot out of sight. The localization system is required to provide a 3D map of the unknown environment and the 3D location of the robot in the environment's map. The localization strategy proposed in this paper consists of combining 3D odometry with 3D scan registration. The odometry model is based on wheel encoders and a three‐axis accelerometer. Odometry enables the tracking of the robot trajectory between consecutive 3D scans and is used as a prior for the scan matching algorithm. The 3D scan registration facilitates the construction of a 3D map of the environment and refines the robot position computed with odometry. This paper describes in detail the implementation of the localization concept. It presents the lightweight, small‐sized 3D range finder that has been developed for the MagneBike. It also proposes an innovative 3D odometry model that estimates the local surface curvature to compensate for the absence of angular velocity inputs. The different tools are characterized in detail based on laboratory and field experiments. They show that the localization concepts reliably track the robot moving in the specific application environment. We also describe various techniques to optimize the 3D scanning process, which is time consuming, and to compensate for the identified limitations. These techniques are useful inputs for the future automatization of the robot's control and optimization of its localization process. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

PolyMAX,a Mobile WiMAX module for the ns-2 simulator with QoS and AMC support

In this paper, we present the PolyMAX module which enhances network simulator 2 (ns-2), the most popular network simulator used in academia, to provide one of the most complete simulation tools to evaluate the performance of Mobile WiMAX networks. PolyMAX is based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) module and our specific contributions consist on the design and implementation of the Quality of Service (QoS) classes and QoS management messages, the uplink access grant-request mechanisms, Adaptive Modulation and Coding, and a scheduler handling all five WiMAX QoS classes. We also present validation results for the different components of our module and typical WiMAX simulation scenarios illustrating its flexibility and some of its features. The PolyMAX module represents an important tool enabling researchers to easily implement their Mobile WiMAX scheduling and Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) algorithms and accurately evaluate their performance for realistic scenarios.     

Model‐based code generation for HLA federates

This paper addresses the problem of automated code generation for a High Level Architecture compliant federate application given its behavior model. The behavior model is a part of the architectural model of a federation that the federate can participate in. The federate behavior model is based on Live Sequence Charts, adopted as the behavioral specification formalism in the Federation Architecture Metamodel (FAMM). FAMM serves as a formal language for describing federation architectures. An objective is to help the testing of federation architecture by means of its prototype implementation early in the development lifecycle. A further objective is to help developers construct complete federate applications that are well modularized. The approach to achieve these objectives is aspect‐oriented in that the generated code, which handles the federate's interactions with a federation execution, serves as the base code, where the computation logic is to be weaved as an aspect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Packing spherical discrete elements for large scale simulations

We introduce a new geometric method to generate sphere packings with restricted overlap values. Sample generation is an important, but time-consuming, step that precedes a calculation performed with the discrete element method (DEM). At present, there does not exist any software dedicated to DEM which would be similar to the mesh software that exists for finite element methods (FEM). A practical objective of the method is to build very large sphere packings (several hundreds of thousands) in a few minutes instead of several days as the current dynamic methods do. The developed algorithm uses a new geometric procedure to position very efficiently the polydisperse spheres in a tetrahedral mesh. The algorithm, implemented into YADE-OPEN DEM (open-source software), consists in filling tetrahedral meshes with spheres. In addition to the features of the tetrahedral mesh, the input parameters are the minimum and maximum radii (or their size ratio), and the magnitude of authorized overlaps. The filling procedure is stopped when a target solid fraction or number of spheres is reached. Based on this method, an efficient tool can be designed for DEMs used by researchers and engineers. The generated packings can be isotropic and the number of contacts per sphere is very high due to its geometric procedure. In this paper, different properties of the generated packings are characterized and examples from real industrial problems are presented to show how this method can be used. The current C++ version of this packing algorithm is part of YADE-OPEN DEM [20] available on the web (https://yade-dem.org).     

Segmentation of the carotid intima-media region in B-mode ultrasound images

This paper proposes a new approach for the segmentation of both near-end and far-end intima-media regions of the common carotid artery in ultrasound images. The method requires minimal user interaction and is able to segment the near-end wall in arteries with large, hypoechogenic and irregular plaques, issues usually not considered previously due to the increased segmentation difficulty.     

Towards personality-based user adaptation: psychologically informed stylistic language generation

Conversation is an essential component of social behavior, one of the primary means by which humans express intentions, beliefs, emotions, attitudes and personality. Thus the development of systems to support natural conversational interaction has been a long term research goal. In natural conversation, humans adapt to one another across many levels of utterance production via processes variously described as linguistic style matching, entrainment, alignment, audience design, and accommodation. A number of recent studies strongly suggest that dialogue systems that adapted to the user in a similar way would be more effective. However, a major research challenge in this area is the ability to dynamically generate user-adaptive utterance variations. As part of a personality-based user adaptation framework, this article describes personage, a highly parameterizable generator which provides a large number of parameters to support adaptation to a user’s linguistic style. We show how we can systematically apply results from psycholinguistic studies that document the linguistic reflexes of personality, in order to develop models to control personage’s parameters, and produce utterances matching particular personality profiles. When we evaluate these outputs with human judges, the results indicate that humans perceive the personality of system utterances in the way that the system intended.