Adaptive content-based music retrieval system

This paper presents a tunable content-based music retrieval (CBMR) system suitable the for retrieval of music audio clips. The audio clips are represented as extracted feature vectors. The CBMR system is expert-tunable by altering the feature space. The feature space is tuned according to the expert-specified similarity criteria expressed in terms of clusters of similar audio clips. The main goal of tuning the feature space is to improve retrieval performance, since some features may have more impact on perceived similarity than others. The tuning process utilizes our genetic algorithm. The R-tree index for efficient retrieval of audio clips is based on the clustering of feature vectors. For each cluster a minimal bounding rectangle (MBR) is formed, thus providing objects for indexing. Inserting new nodes into the R-tree is efficiently performed because of the chosen Quadratic Split algorithm. Our CBMR system implements the point query and the n-nearest neighbors query with the O(logn) time complexity. Different objective functions based on cluster similarity and dissimilarity measures are used for the genetic algorithm. We have found that all of them have similar impact on the retrieval performance in terms of precision and recall. The paper includes experimental results in measuring retrieval performance, reporting significant improvement over the untuned feature space.     

Automatic domain modeling for human–robot interaction

Intelligent Service Robotics - This paper introduces an approach to automatic domain modeling for human–robot interaction. The proposed approach is symbolic and intended for semantically...     

An upgraded artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for constrained optimization problems

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm developed by Karaboga is a nature inspired metaheuristic based on honey bee foraging behavior. It was successfully applied to continuous unconstrained optimization problems and later it was extended to constrained design problems as well. This paper introduces an upgraded artificial bee colony (UABC) algorithm for constrained optimization problems. Our UABC algorithm enhances fine-tuning characteristics of the modification rate parameter and employs modified scout bee phase of the ABC algorithm. This upgraded algorithm has been implemented and tested on standard engineering benchmark problems and the performance was compared to the performance of the latest Akay and Karaboga’s ABC algorithm. Our numerical results show that the proposed UABC algorithm produces better or equal best and average solutions in less evaluations in all cases.     

Cooperative controllers for highways based on human experience

The AUTOPIA program has been working on the development of intelligent autonomous vehicles for the last 10 years. Its latest advances have focused on the development of cooperative man?uvres based on communications involving several vehicles. However, so far, these man?uvres have been tested only on private tracks that emulate urban environments. The first experiments with autonomous vehicles on real highways, in the framework of the grand cooperative driving challenge (GCDC) where several vehicles had to cooperate in order to perform cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), are described. In this context, the main challenge was to translate, through fuzzy controllers, human driver experience to these scenarios. This communication describes the experiences deriving from this competition, specifically that concerning the controller and the system implemented in a Citröen C3.     

Advanced LMI based analysis and design for Acrobot walking

This article aims to further improve previously developed design for Acrobot walking based on partial exact feedback linearisation of order 3. Namely, such an exact system transformation leads to an almost linear system where error dynamics along trajectory to be tracked is a 4-dimensional linear time-varying system having three time-varying entries only, the remaining entries being either zero or one. In such a way, exponentially stable tracking can be obtained by quadratically stabilising a linear system with polytopic uncertainty. The current improvement is based on applying linear matrix inequalities (LMI) methods to solve this problem numerically. This careful analysis significantly improves previously known approaches. Numerical simulations of Acrobot walking based on the above-mentioned LMI design are demonstrated as well.     

Effect of selenium on lipid alternations in pigment-forming yeasts

The work deals with lipid modifications of pigment-forming yeasts Rhodotorula and Sporobolomyces growing under presence of selenium. This metal in the medium significantly prolonged lag-phase of all cultures and enlarged yeast cells. Total, neutral, and membrane yeast lipids (phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylserine, and phosphatidylinositol) consisted of predominantly palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids. Selenium activated fatty acid unsaturation mainly in phosphatidylcholine due to elevated levels of linoleic and linolenic acids. Because biosynthesis of C18 unsaturated fatty acids in Rhodotorula and Sporobolomyces species may be associated with phosphatidylcholine moieties, selenium might be involved to the induction of membranebound fatty acid Δ¹² and Δ¹⁵ desaturases in red yeasts. Oppositely, neutral lipids (primarily triacylglycerols) did not show such intensive changes in fatty acid composition as their polar counterparts. These observations could be applied for preparation of selenized red yeasts containing carotenoid pigments with enhanced accumulation of linoleic and linolenic acids.     

Thermal Analysis and Cone Calorimeter Study of Engineered Wood with an Emphasis on Fire Modelling

Fire Technology - Engineered wood products (EWPs) are a group of materials having a very similar chemical composition but having different and non-uniform thermo-physical properties throughout...     

Water management for food production: Strategy plan

This paper attempts to discover the real bottleneck of many irrigation projects: the complex of technical and nontechnical constraints which oppose the integrated and stable utilization of available soil and water resources. The efficiency of irrigation water use is the basic problem of intensive agriculture. Irrigation projects are, in the initial stage of operation, required to serve short-term objectives, such as to reach local self-sufficiency in food production. Their operation should, in the long run, nevertheless be based on a water-use concept and should reflect the desirable development of agriculture resulting from the need for further intensification and diversification of production. The establishment of the Water Management Strategy Plan for the Kirindi Oya Irrigation and Settlement Project in Sri Lanka is an example of the integrated approach to water resources development and management. This plan has been established on the basis of a multidisciplinary system analysis and simulation/optimization of the hydraulic and agricultural performance of the irrigation system.     

The Effect of an Fe-doped GaN Buffer on off-State Breakdown Characteristics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on Si Substrate

An Fe-doped GaN buffer layer was employed in the growth of AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) on Si substrates. In order to investigate the effects of an Fe-doped GaN buffer on OFF-state breakdown characteristics, HEMT devices with an Fe-doped GaN buffer on Si substrates were fabricated along with conventional devices utilizing an unintentionally doped GaN buffer on Si substrates. The device characteristics were compared. While HEMT devices with the conventional structure showed an extremely unstable OFF-state breakdown behavior due to punchthrough to the Si substrate, it was demonstrated that an Fe-doped GaN buffer layer on a Si substrate successfully suppressed the premature failure caused by Si-induced breakdown. As a result, the AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with an Fe-doped GaN buffer on Si substrates exhibited much more consistent and enhanced breakdown voltages, when compared with the conventional devices. Consequently, it is highly desirable that AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on Si substrates have an Fe-doped GaN buffer layer in order to achieve stable and robust OFF-state breakdown characteristics     

Homogenization of liquids in tanks stirred by multiple impellers

The process of homogenization of liquids in a tall vessel equipped with a multiple impeller was studied. Up to four standard Rushton turbines and/or six pitched-blade turbines were used. The mixing time in the system was measured by the conductivity method. A continuous time history of the tracer concentration at several points in the system was recorded. The data were interpreted by means of an adapted cell model of the flow within the stirred vessel with several impellers based on the assumption of well mixed cells and intercellular flow of liquid. The liquid transfer flow rate between the cells, as a parameter of the model, was calculated from experimental data. A good agreement between the time dependence of concentration obtained experimentally and that calculated from theory was obtained. A direct relationship between the flow numbers between cells and those of impellers was established.