A Bayesian solution to the multiple composite hypothesis testing for fault diagnosis in dynamic systems

This paper is concerned with model-based isolation and estimation of additive faults in discrete-time linear Gaussian systems. The isolation problem is stated as a multiple composite hypothesis testing on the innovation sequence of the Kalman filter (KF) that considers the system operating under fault-free conditions. Fault estimation is carried out, after isolating a fault mode, by using the Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) criterion. An explicit solution is presented for both fault isolation and estimation when the parameters of the fault modes are assumed to be realizations of specific random variables (RV).     

On the possible patterns of inputs for block sorting in the Burrows-Wheeler transformation

Block sorting in the Burrows-Wheeler transformation is to sort all of the n circular shifts of a string of length n lexicographically. We introduce a notion called the width of a sequence of n strings of length n and show that the values of widths are very different between the two types of sequences of strings; (1) a sequence of n randomly generated strings of length n, and (2) the sequence of n circular shifts of a randomly generated string of length n.     

Performance of SOR methods on modern vector and scalar processors

The building-cube method (BCM) is a new generation algorithm for CFD simulations. The basic idea of BCM is to simplify the algorithm in all stages of flow computation to achieve large-scale simulations. Calculation of a pressure field using the Successive Over Relaxation (SOR) method consumes most of the total execution time required for BCM. In this paper, effective implementations on modern vector and scalar processors are investigated. NEC SX-9 and Intel Nehalem-EX are the latest vector and scalar processors. Those processors have much higher peak performances than their previous-generation processors. However, their memory bandwidth improvement cannot catch up with the performance improvement of processors. This is the so-called memory wall problem. In our paper, we discuss optimization techniques for implementation of the SOR method based on architectural characteristics of these modern processors, and evaluate their effects on the sustained performances of these processors for BCM.     

Technique for anisotropic extension of organic crystals: application to temperature dependence of electrical resistance

We have developed a technique for the anisotropic extension of fragile molecular crystals. The pressure medium and the instrument, which extends the pressure medium, are both made from epoxy resin. Since the thermal contraction of our instrument is identical to that of the pressure medium, the strain applied to the pressure medium has no temperature dependence down to 2 K. Therefore, the degree of extension applied to the single crystal at low temperatures is uniquely determined from the degree of extension in the pressure medium and thermal contractions of the epoxy resin and the single crystal at ambient pressure. Using this novel instrument, we have measured the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of metallic, superconducting, and insulating materials. The experimental results are discussed from the viewpoint of the extension (compression) of the lattice constants along the parallel (perpendicular) direction.     

Accumulation of triosephosphate isomerase, with sequence homology to Beta amyloid peptides, in vessel walls of the newborn piglet hippocampus

We investigated whether beta-amyloid (Abeta)-like immunoreactivity was seen in the brains of newborn piglets. The immunoreactivity for Abeta(1-42) and Abeta(1-40) proteins, but not Abeta precursor protein, was present in CD68-positive perivascular cells of the hippocampus and in parts of the meninges. It was colocalized with immunoreactivity for receptor for advanced glycation end product and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. The protein with a molecular mass of 27 kDa, which was recognized by the Abeta antibodies, was identified as triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) with sequence homology to Abeta peptides by N-terminal amino acid sequencing, mass fingerprint analysis using matrix-associated laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, and Western blotting. Western blotting assay also revealed that detectable expression of Abeta proteins were not seen in the piglet brains. These findings indicate that TPI with sequence homology to Abeta peptides accumulates in perivascular cells of the microglia/macrophage lineage located around arterial vessels of the newborn piglet hippocampus.     

Robust loss functions for boosting

Boosting is known as a gradient descent algorithm over loss functions. It is often pointed out that the typical boosting algorithm, Adaboost, is highly affected by outliers. In this letter, loss functions for robust boosting are studied. Based on the concept of robust statistics, we propose a transformation of loss functions that makes boosting algorithms robust against extreme outliers. Next, the truncation of loss functions is applied to contamination models that describe the occurrence of mislabels near decision boundaries. Numerical experiments illustrate that the proposed loss functions derived from the contamination models are useful for handling highly noisy data in comparison with other loss functions.     

An FPGA implementation of real-time K-means clustering for color images

K-means clustering is a very popular clustering technique, which is used in numerous applications. In the k-means clustering algorithm, each point in the dataset is assigned to the nearest cluster by calculating the distances from each point to the cluster centers. The computation of these distances is a very time-consuming task, particularly for large dataset and large number of clusters. In order to achieve high performance, we need to reduce the number of the distance calculations for each point efficiently. In this paper, we describe an FPGA implementation of k-means clustering for color images based on the filtering algorithm. In our implementation, when calculating the distances for each point, clusters which are apparently not closer to the point than other clusters are filtered out using kd-trees which are dynamically generated on the FPGA in each iteration of k-means clustering. The performance of our system for 512 × 512 and 640 × 480  pixel images (24-bit full color RGB) is more than 30 fps, and 20–30 fps for 756 × 512 pixel images in average when dividing to 256 clusters.

A high-resolution transmission electron microscope study of a zinc oxide varistor

Investigations were made of varistor microstructure, the morphology of Bi₂O₃ at multiple ZnO grain junctions, Bi₂O₃/ZnO grain boundaries and ZnO/ZnO grain boundaries (especially whether Bi₂O₃ is present or not at the ZnO/ZnO grain boundary) by means of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and X-ray microanalysis in the scanning transmission electron microscope. Bi₂O₃ at multiple ZnO grain junctions consists of small particles of 0.1m in diameter, and they are vitrified to some extent. It is suggested that bismuth ions dissolve into ZnO grains over a 30 nm range from a Bi₂O₃/ZnO grain boundary; however, there is no bismuth at ZnO/ZnO grain boundaries.     

Basic constructs of the SIM operating system

The basic constructs of SIMPOS (Sequential Inference Machine Programming and Operating System) are explained. SIMPOS is an operating system for a super-personal computer (SIM), based on logic programming language (a modified Prolog, called KL0). Our design principle is simplicity both in concept and structure. The entire system will be constructed using these basic constructs.