An integrated life-cycle model for software maintenance

An integrated life-cycle model is presented for use in a software maintenance environment. The model represents information about the development and maintenance of software systems, emphasizing relationships between different phases of the software life cycle. It provides the basis for automated tools to assist maintenance personnel in making changes to existing software systems. The model is independent of particular specification, design, and programming languages because it represents only certain `basic' semantic properties of software systems: control flow, data flow, and data structure. The software development processes by which one phase of the software life cycle is derived from another are represented by graph rewriting rules, which indicate how various components of a software system have been implemented. This approach permits analysis of the basic properties of a software system throughout the software life cycle. Examples are given to illustrate the integrated software life-cycle model during evolution     

Multi-level zero-inflated poisson regression modelling of correlated count data with excess zeros

Count data with excess zeros relative to a Poisson distribution are common in many biomedical applications. A popular approach to the analysis of such data is to use a zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression model. Often, because of the hierarchical study design or the data collection procedure, zero-inflation and lack of independence may occur simultaneously, which render the standard ZIP model inadequate. To account for the preponderance of zero counts and the inherent correlation of observations, a class of multi-level ZIP regression model with random effects is presented. Model fitting is facilitated using an expectation-maximization algorithm, whereas variance components are estimated via residual maximum likelihood estimating equations. A score test for zero-inflation is also presented. The multi-level ZIP model is then generalized to cope with a more complex correlation structure. Application to the analysis of correlated count data from a longitudinal infant feeding study illustrates the usefulness of the approach.     

A model-based approach to form tolerance evaluation using non-uniform rational B-splines

Tolerance evaluation is critical to quality assurance in modern manufacturing. In contrast to traditional measurement which relies on specific hard gauges, coordinate measuring machines provide more flexibility for dimensional measurement and tolerance evaluations. To fully automate CMM inspection and tolerance evaluation, CAD/CMM integration is an important key. Although the subject of CAD-directed inspection has been widely researched, CAD model-based tolerance evaluation has received less attention. This paper presents a CAD model-based approach for evaluating general form tolerances using non-uniform rational B-splines. Unlike classical methods which construct substitute geometric features from the measurement data, this method evaluates form tolerances by comparing the measurement data with a nominal CAD model. Non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) is used to represent general form features since NURBS offers a common format for modeling different form features. With this unified database, a general best-fit algorithm is developed that can be applied to the evaluation of various form tolerances. Computer simulations have been performed on different form features to study the robustness and efficiency of the algorithm. Application to the profile analysis of turbo charger housing and turbine blade die segments are also presented.     

Suprathermal plasma analyzer for the measurement of low-energy electron distribution in the ionosphere

It is commonly believed that an energy transfer from thermal to suprathermal electrons (相似文献   

Benzodithiophene Hole‐Transporting Materials for Efficient Tin‐Based Perovskite Solar Cells

Developing efficient interfacial hole transporting materials (HTMs) is crucial for achieving high‐performance Pb‐free Sn‐based halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, a new series of benzodithiophene (BDT)‐based organic small molecules containing tetra‐ and di‐triphenyl amine donors prepared via a straightforward and scalable synthetic route is reported. The thermal, optical, and electrochemical properties of two BDT‐based molecules are shown to be structurally and energetically suitable to serve as HTMs for Sn‐based PSCs. It is reported here that ethylenediammonium/formamidinium tin iodide solar cells using BDT‐based HTMs deliver a champion power conversion efficiency up to 7.59%, outperforming analogous reference solar cells using traditional and expensive HTMs. Thus, these BDT‐based molecules are promising candidates as HTMs for the fabrication of high‐performance Sn‐based PSCs.     

多病床非典病房的气流分布研究

到2003年8月7日止，在全球34个国家和地区相继出现了严重急性呼吸系统综合症(SARS或者非典)，其中，共报告有8422例疑似案例，916例死亡案例。2002年11月到2003年6月间的非典流行中，医院医护人员受感染情况最为严重，世界范围内20％的感染群体为医护人员，香港地区22％的确诊案例为医护人员。因此，为减少交叉感染，加强有关工程控制，特别是在非典病房里进行通风设计是非常必要的。本文总结了非典病房气流分布的最新研究。这项研究由非典特工队于2003年4～7月间完成。非典特工队是由香港工程师协会组织，来自7个专家协会的工程师组成的研究小组。在对香港治疗非典医院的现有空调系统进行了解后，非典特工队首先运用计算流体力学模拟确定了在6个床位的病房里减少交叉感染和改善污染物稀释的通风设计；接着，对新设计在香港大学屋宇设备实验室里的全尺寸非典病房里进行了测试。测试表明，新设计方案在这个接近现实的全尺寸非典病房里运行良好。采用床头回风口回风设计可有效地对病人产生的含病毒颗粒进行局部捕获。根据这项研究，作者提出了原则性的设计建议。2003年里，香港政府和医院管理局医院采纳了非典特工队提出的设计基本原理建造了1200多个床位的可用于非典治疗的新病房。另外，气流分布是复杂的紊流过程，送风格栅结构如导流器或散流器的微小改动以及送风参数如风速、温度和风向的微小变化都会引起气流的改变。适当的设计对于减少病人间、病人与医护人员之间的交叉感染以及有效稀释和排除含病菌颗粒都是至关重要的。     

Brain surface conformal parameterization using Riemann surface structure

In medical imaging, parameterized 3-D surface models are useful for anatomical modeling and visualization, statistical comparisons of anatomy, and surface-based registration and signal processing. Here we introduce a parameterization method based on Riemann surface structure, which uses a special curvilinear net structure (conformal net) to partition the surface into a set of patches that can each be conformally mapped to a parallelogram. The resulting surface subdivision and the parameterizations of the components are intrinsic and stable (their solutions tend to be smooth functions and the boundary conditions of the Dirichlet problem can be enforced). Conformal parameterization also helps transform partial differential equations (PDEs) that may be defined on 3-D brain surface manifolds to modified PDEs on a two-dimensional parameter domain. Since the Jacobian matrix of a conformal parameterization is diagonal, the modified PDE on the parameter domain is readily solved. To illustrate our techniques, we computed parameterizations for several types of anatomical surfaces in 3-D magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain, including the cerebral cortex, hippocampi, and lateral ventricles. For surfaces that are topologically homeomorphic to each other and have similar geometrical structures, we show that the parameterization results are consistent and the subdivided surfaces can be matched to each other. Finally, we present an automatic sulcal landmark location algorithm by solving PDEs on cortical surfaces. The landmark detection results are used as constraints for building conformal maps between surfaces that also match explicitly defined landmarks.     

A method for the design of MRI radiofrequency coils based on triangular and pulse basis functions.

This paper presents a numerical technique for the design of an RF coil for asymmetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. The formulation is based on an inverse approach where the cylindrical surface currents are expressed in terms of a combination of sub-domain basis functions: triangular and pulse functions. With the homogeneous transverse magnetic field specified in a spherical region, a functional method is applied to obtain the unknown current coefficients. The current distribution is then transformed to a conductor pattern by use of a stream function technique. Preliminary MR images acquired using a prototype RF coil are presented and validate the design method.     

Adaptive Resource Allocation for Service-Based Systems

Due to its major advantages, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been adopted in various distributed systems, such as web services, grid computing systems, utility computing systems and cloud computing systems. These systems are referred as service-based systems (SBS). In order to effectively use these systems in various applications, one major challenge which must be addressed is to manage the quality of services (QoS) to satisfy users’ requirements. In SBS, multiple services are often hosted by the same server and compete for the limited system resources of the server, such as CPU-time, memory and network bandwidth. In addition, service compositions, resource status of servers, workflow priorities and QoS requirements are usually dynamically changing in runtime. Hence, it is necessary to have effective techniques to allocate the system resources to each service provided by a server in order to satisfy the QoS requirements of multiple workflows in SBS. In this paper, a resource allocation approach is presented to adaptively allocating the system resources of servers to their services in runtime in order to satisfy one of the most important QoS requirements, the throughput, of multiple workflows in SBS.