A-SATCHMORE: SATCHMORE with availability checking

We present an improvement of SATCHMORE, calledA-SATCHMORE, by incorporating availability checking into relevancy. Because some atoms unavailable to the further computation are also marked relevant, SATCHMORE suffers from a potential explosion of the search space. Addressing this weakness of SATCHMORE, we show that an atom does not need to be marked relevant unless it is available to the further computation and no non-Horn clause needs to be selected unless all its consequent atoms are marked availably relevant, i.e., unless it is totally availably relevant. In this way,A-SATCHMORE is able to further restrict the ues of non-Horn clauses (therefore to reduce the search space) and makes the proof more goal-oriented. Our theorem prover,A-SATCHMORE, can be simply implemented in PROLOG based on SATCHMORE. We discuss how to incorporate availability cheeking into relevancy, describe our improvement and present the implementation. We also prove that our theorem prover is sound and complete, and provide examples to show the power of our availability approach. This research is supported in part by the Japanese Ministry of Education and the Artificial Intelligence Research Promotion Foundation. Lifeng He, Ph.D: He received the B. E. degree from Northwest Institute of Light Industry, China, in 1982, the M. S. and Ph.D. degrees in AI and computer science from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1994 and 1997, respectively. He currently works at the Institute of Open System in Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include automated reasoning, theorem proving, logic programming, knowledge bases, multi-agent cooperation and modal logic. Yuyan Chao, M. S.: She received the B. E. degree from Northwest Institute of Light Industry, China, in 1984, and the M. S. degree from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1997. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human Information, Nagoya University. Her research interests include image processing, graphic understanding, CAD and theorem proving. Yuka Shimajiri, M. S.: She currently works as a Assistant Professor in Department of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. She received her B.Eng. and M.Eng. from the Nagoya Institute of Technology in 1994 and 1996, respectively. Her current research interests include logic programming and automated deduction. She is a member of IPSJ and JSAI. Hirohisa Seki, Ph.D.: He received the B. E., M. E. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Tokyo in 1979, 1981 and 1991 respectively. He joined the Central Research Laboratory of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in 1981. From 1985 to 1989, he was with the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology (ICOT). Since 1992, he has been an Associate Professor in the Department of AI and Computer Science at Nagoya Institute of Technology. His current research interests include logic programming, deductive databases and automated deduction. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, IPSJ and JSAI. Hidenori Itoh, Ph.D.: He received the B. S. degree from Fukui University, in 1969, the M. S. degree and Ph.D degree from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1971 and 1974, respectively. From 1974 to 1985, he worked at Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Laboratories, developing operating systems. From 1985 to 1989, he was with the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, developing knowledge base systems. Since 1989, he has become a professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. His current research interests include image processing, parallel computing, fuzzy logic and knowledge processing.     

Continuous measurements of bronchial exposure induced by radon decay products during inhalation

The deposition of radon decay products is not equal in each of the respiratory regions and as the presence of radon has been linked with an increase in lung cancer risk, it is important to calculate the deposition of radon decay products in each of the respiratory regions. Recently, many studies on the deposition of radon in respiratory regions have been simulated using wire screens. The systems and equipment used in those studies are not suitable for field measurements as their dimensions are relatively massive, nor can they measure continuously. We developed a continuous bronchial dosimeter (CBD) which is suitable for field measurements. It was designed with specifications that allow it to be remain compact. The CBD simulates the deposition of radon decay products in the different respiratory regions by the use of a combination of wire screens. Deposition in the simulated regions of the lung can be continuously estimated in various environments. The ratio of activities deposited in a simulated nasal cavity (N) and tracheobronchial (TB) regions was calculated from the results of simultaneous measurements using CBD-R (reference), CBD-N (nasal), and CBD-TB (tracheobronchial) measurement units. After aerosols were injected into the radon chamber, the ratio of N and TB depositions decreased. This results indicate that the CBD gave a good response to changes in the environment. It was found that the ratio of N and TB deposition also varied with time in each actual environment.     

Cooperative control of multiple neural networks for an indoor blimp robot

We report on the cooperative control of multiple neural networks for an indoor blimp robot. In our research group, the indoor blimp robot has been studied to achieve various flying robot applications. The objective of this article is to propose a robust controller that can adapt to mechanical accidents such as the breakdown of propellers. In our proposed method, each propeller thrust is independently calculated by a small neural network. We confirm the advantage of the proposed method against the control by a single large neural network. This work was presented in part at the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 31–February 2, 2008     

Multi-channel higher-order local autocorrelation for object detection on satellite images

ABSTRACT

An automatic object-detection method is necessary to facilitate the efficient analysis of satellite images consisting of multispectral images. Considering that the relationship between spectrums is important for discriminating objects in multispectral images. This paper proposes a feature extraction method that can capture both spatial and spectral relationships of the multispectral images. Moreover, image preprocessing and dimensionality reduction procedures are introduced for stable feature extraction. In this study, we conducted experiments for detecting two types of objects by using Landsat 8 images. The proposed method improved the detection performance relative to other image features.     

Emergence and stability of key currency in artificial international trade

In this research, we tackled the emergence and stability of key currency when economic strength countries was equal. We propose an artificial international market model with currency credibility as the standard selected for payment. We constructed multiple markets based on the X-Economy System. Through simulations, we found the possibility that key currency could emerge in a symmetric situation, and market and the specialization of production could be stabilized by foreign exchange trade.     

Characterizations of J-lossless time-varying systems via the chain scattering approach

In this paper, via the chain scattering formalism, we derive the inequality condition for a bounded I/O operator which is associated with a finite-dimensional linear time-varying system to be lossless or J-lossless. The characterizations for J-losslessness apply to a J-lossless time-varying system which is either exponentially stable, anti-stable or one with a uniform stable/anti-stable decomposition of its state space. Uniform time-varying realizations are considered as they are required for the proof of the necessity of the state space characterizations. The results provide an extension to the state space characterizations of linear time-invariant J-lossless systems which belong to RL _∞. The characterizations for (J,J′)-lossless LTV systems are also derived. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anti-angiogenic effect of an insertional fusion protein of human basic fibroblast growth factor and ribonuclease-1

Human pancreatic ribonuclease-1 (RNase1) does not exhibit its cytotoxicity unless it is artificially internalized into the cytosol. Furthermore, once it encounters the cytosolic RNase inhibitor (RI), the activity of RNase1 is seriously reduced. To achieve the cellular targeting of RNase1 and the blocking of RI binding simultaneously, the basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) sequence was inserted into RNase1 at the RI binding site using a gene fusion technique. The effect of this fusion protein, CL-RFN89, on the angiogenesis, which was accelerated by FGF-FGF receptor interaction, was investigated. It was shown by using fluorescein-labeled CL-RFN89, that the binding to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was dependent on the existence of the FGF receptors. In addition, CL-RFN89 inhibited the cellular growth of HUVECs in vitro and also inhibited the tube formation, using a three-dimensional tube formation assay. Furthermore, this fusion protein was shown to prevent in vivo tumor cell-induced angiogenesis, using the mouse dorsal air sac assay. These results demonstrated that CL-RFN89 inhibits angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo and that it can be expected to be a potent antiangiogenic agent.     

Performance of seawater-mixed concrete in the tidal environment

Compressive strength, mineralogy, chloride ingress, and corrosion of steel bars embedded in concrete made with seawater and tap water are summarized here based on the several long-term exposure investigations under tidal environment. Seawater-mixed concrete shows earlier strength gain. After 20 years of exposure, no significant difference in the compressive strength of concrete is observed for concrete mixed with seawater and tap water. The initial amount of chloride (due to the use of seawater) may cause the initiation of corrosion at the locations of the steel bars having voids/gaps at the steel-concrete interface immediately after casting concrete. The use of seawater results in the formation of deeper corrosion pits compared to the same with tap water.     

Elimination of glycidyl palmitate in diolein by treatment with activated bleaching earth

In this study, activated bleaching earth (ABE) was used to eliminate glycidyl esters from both triacyl- and diacylglycerol oils. To investigate the mechanism, glycerol dioleate containing glycidyl palmitate (GP) was treated with ABE and the fate of the GP was monitored by analyzing the feed, treated, and ABE-absorbed oils using a gas-liquid chromatograph equipped with a flame-ionized detector. GP was completely removed from both the treated and absorbed oils. This indicates that this treatment is useful for GE removal from diacylglycerol oil, although it was not achieved by absorption of GE on ABE but rather by modification of GP. The results of composition analysis demonstrate that GP is transformed to glycerol monopalmitate, glycerol palmitate oleate, and glycerol dipalmitate at a recovery rate of 99.1 ± 1.3 %. An increase in glycerol monooleate and trace amounts of free glycerol and fatty acids were also observed after treatment. The transformation is proposed to involve a ring-opening reaction of GP with water contained in the ABE and in the bulk oil followed by an interesterification reaction among the resultant monopalmitate and the glycerol dioleate of the bulk oil. All the generated compounds were simple acylglycerols and glycerol. Therefore, ABE treatment could be useful for GE removal during the manufacture of edible oils.     

A parallel program for an urban-traffic analization and its evaluation

In this paper, we describe the traffic simulation system which analyzes a traffic flow in a road network. The system is constructed and operated on the parallel computer AP1000. A database of a road network is implemented with the object-oriented programming technique. Elements of a road network are regarded as objects, and vehicles which move on the lanes are regarded as attributive data. The database is divided into sub-databases and assigned to each processor. The system calculates the behavior of vehicles in parallel. Sending and receiving data among the objects are carried out with message passing on the communication network. Moreover, we show the results of the vehicles behavior, and evaluate the parallel efficiency.