Incorporating diverse information sources in handwriting recognition postprocessing

This article describes the proposed implementation of a new model for the linguistic postprocessing component of the Human Language Technology (HLT) project. The model was designed for handwriting recognition applications but can be used for other text recognition problems and speech recognition. We demonstrate here that the current implementation (the POS model) fails to incorporate new sources of information such as word n-grams, and further handles the recognizer's scores incorrectly. We propose an alternative approach (the SSS model) which remedies these shortcomings. We also show that the SSS algorithm has a direct interpretation as a Hidden Markov Model whose states correspond to words that have been tagged with their parts of speech, and whose observations are discretized recognizer confidences. The HMM interpretation has the added advantage that the approach can be naturally extended to handle error recovery of the recognizer. Preliminary results indicate that the SSS model is successful in selecting the truth path over alternate paths. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A deep learning based approach for predicting the demand of electric vehicle charge

The Journal of Supercomputing - Predicting the demand for Electric Vehicle charging energy is essential to increase utilization for the company, reduce costs for both car owners and the company and...     

Two-dimensional numerical study of temperature field in an anode supported planar SOFC: Effect of the chemical reaction

In the present work the effect of the chemical reaction on the temperature field in an anode supported planar SOFC is numerically studied by the aid of a two-dimensional mathematical model. For the model development the mass transport phenomena, the energy conservation, the species flow governed by Darcy’s law and the electrochemistry are coupled. The finite difference method is used to solve numerically the system of the equations.The temperature field within each component of the SOFC (interconnection, cathode, anode and electrolyte) is calculated via the mathematical model which is implemented in FORTRAN language. The model results demonstrate the effect of different expressions of the chemical heat source, expressed in terms of enthalpy and entropy, on the temperature field and the location of the higher temperatures that occur within the SOFC during its operation.     

The effect of urban morphology on urban heat island in the city of Biskra in Algeria

The objective of this study is to assess the impact of urban morphology upon the air temperature variation of urban condition in hot and dry climate of Biskra city in the south east of Algeria. A set of field measurement is performed using thermocouple equipments. A total of five measuring stations, representing different urban morphologies, are chosen in the city centre of Biskra to assess quantitatively the level of UHI and to investigate the overall impact of urban forms on this urban heat island. The results show that UHI phenomenon is becoming the character of the urban micro-climate in the city of Biskra.     

Band-gap properties of 2D photonic crystal made by silica matrix doped with magnetic nanoparticles

We present a study of the band gaps of a variety of two-dimensional photonic crystal made by \(\text {SiO}_{2}/\text {ZrO}_{2}\) and \(\text {SiO}_{2}/\text {TiO}_{2}\) matrix doped with magnetic nanoparticles as function of the filling factor parameter for different refractive index contrasts. The results obtained are useful for better designs of magneto photonic crystal devices.     

Delay-efficient MAC protocol with traffic differentiation and run-time parameter adaptation for energy-constrained wireless sensor networks

This paper presents an asynchronous cascading wake-up MAC protocol for heterogeneous traffic gathering in low-power wireless sensor networks. It jointly considers energy/delay optimization and switches between two modes, according to the traffic type and delay requirements. The first mode is high duty cycle, where energy is traded-off for a reduced latency in presence of realtime traffic (RT). The second mode is low duty cycle, which is used for non-realtime traffic and gives more priority to energy saving. The proposed protocol, DuoMAC, has many features. First, it quietly adjusts the wake-up of a node according to (1) its parent’s wake-up time and, (2) its estimated load. Second, it incorporates a service differentiation through an improved contention window adaptation to meet delay requirements. A comprehensive analysis is provided in the paper to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol in comparison with some state-of-the-art energy-delay efficient duty-cycled MAC protocols, namely DMAC, LL-MAC, and Diff-MAC. The network lifetime and the maximum end-to-end packet latency are adequately modeled, and numerically analyzed. The results show that LL-MAC has the best performance in terms of energy saving, while DuoMAC outperforms all the protocols in terms of delay reduction. To balance the delay/energy objectives, a runtime parameter adaptation mechanism has been integrated to DuoMAC. The mechanism relies on a constrained optimization problem with energy minimization in the objective function, constrained by the delay required for RT. The proposed protocol has been implemented on real motes using MicaZ and TinyOS. Experimental results show that the protocol clearly outperforms LL-MAC in terms of latency reduction, and more importantly, that the runtime parameter adaptation provides additional reduction of the latency while further decreasing the energy cost.     

Characterization of Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted by Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Roots and Their Attractiveness to Wireworms

Root volatile organic compounds (VOCs), their chemistry and ecological functions have garnered less attention than aboveground emitted plant VOCs. We report here on the identification of VOCs emitted by barley roots (Hordeum vulgare L.). Twenty nine VOCs were identified from isolated 21-d-old roots. The detection was dependent on the medium used for root cultivation. We identified 24 VOCs from 7-d-old roots when plants were cultivated on sterile Hoagland gelified medium, 33 when grown on sterile vermiculite, and 34 on non-sterile vermiculite. The major VOCs were fatty acid derived compounds, including hexanal, methyl hexanoate, (E)-hex-2-enal, 2-pentylfuran, pentan-1-ol, (Z)-2-(pentenyl)-furan, (Z)-pent-2-en-1-ol, hexan-1-ol, (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol, (E)-hex-2-en-1-ol, oct-1-en-3-ol, 2-ethylhexan-1-ol (likely a contaminant), (E)-non-2-enal, octan-1-ol, (2E,6Z)-nona-2,6-dienal, methyl (E)-non-2-enoate, nonan-1-ol, (Z)-non-3-en-1-ol, (E)-non-2-en-1-ol, nona-3,6-dien-1-ol, and nona-2,6-dien-1-ol. In an olfactometer assay, wireworms (larvae of Agriotes sordidus Illiger, Coleoptera: Elateridae) were attracted to cues emanating from barley seedlings. We discuss the role of individual root volatiles or a blend of the root volatiles detected here and their interaction with CO₂ for wireworm attraction.     

Struggling against selfishness and black hole attacks in MANETs

Since mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are infrastructureless and multi‐hop by nature, transmitting packets from any node to another usually relies on services provided by intermediate nodes. This reliance introduces a new vulnerability; one node could launch a Black Hole DoS attack by participating in the routing protocol and including itself in routes, then simply dropping packets it receives to forward. Another motivation for dropping packets in self‐organized MANETs is resource preservation. Some solutions for detecting and isolating packet droppers have been recently proposed, but almost all of them employ the promiscuous mode monitoring approach (watchdog (WD)) which suffers from many problems, especially when employing the power control technique. In this paper we propose a novel monitoring approach that overcomes some WD's shortcomings, and improves the efficiency in detection. To overcome false detections due to nodes mobility and channel conditions we propose a Bayesian technique for the judgment, allowing node redemption before judgment. Finally, we suggest a social‐based approach for the detection approval and isolation of guilty nodes. We analyze our solution and asses its performance by simulation. The results illustrate a large improvement of our monitoring solution in detection versus the WD, and an efficiency through our judgment and isolation techniques as well. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis of (B-C-N) Nanomaterials by Arc Discharge Using Heterogeneous Anodes

In spite of the current prevalence of the CVD-based processes,the electric arc remains an interesting process for the synthesis of carbon nanoforms,thanks to its versatility,robustness and easiness.It also allows performing in-situ substitution of carbon atoms by hetero-elements in the graphene lattice.Our work aims to establish a correlation between the plasma properties,type and chemical composition (and the substitution rate) of the obtained single-wall carbon nanotubes.The plasma was characterized by optical emission spectroscopy and the products were analyzed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and core level Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy (EELS).Results show that a high boron content leads to a plasma temperature decrease and hinders the formation of nanotubes.This effect can be compensated by increasing the arc current and/or yttrium content.The optimal conditions for the synthesis of boron-and/or nitrogen-substituted nanotubes correspond to a high axial plasma temperature associated to a strong radial gradient.EELS analysis confirmed that the boron incorporates into the graphenic lattice.