EKLT: Asynchronous Photometric Feature Tracking Using Events and Frames

International Journal of Computer Vision - We present EKLT, a feature tracking method that leverages the complementarity of event cameras and standard cameras to track visual features with high...     

Problems of operation and main reasons for failure of membranes in tertiary treatment systems.

This paper presents the results of the long-term operation and monitoring of membrane fouling at several full-scale MF/RO water recycling facilities operated by Agbar in Spain. It was demonstrated that membranes give very reliable treatment enabling the production of high-grade recycled water, well disinfected and with the removal of all priority substances. The high organic and salt concentrations of raw wastewater combined to extremely high variations justified the implementation of sand filtration to protect MF/RO membranes. Membrane autopsy was used to better understand the predominant fouling mechanisms and optimise down-stream operation and membrane cleaning strategy. The main membrane pathologies are described with recommendation of an adequate cleaning strategy.     

Parallel simulated annealing applied to long term transmissionnetwork expansion planning

The simulated annealing optimization technique has been successfully applied to a number of electrical engineering problems, including transmission system expansion planning. The method is general in the sense that it does not assume any particular property of the problem being solved, such as linearity or convexity. Moreover, it has the ability to provide solutions arbitrarily close to an optimum (i.e. it is asymptotically convergent) as the cooling process slows down. The drawback of the approach is the computational burden: finding optimal solutions may be extremely expensive in some cases. This paper presents a parallel simulated annealing (PSA) algorithm for solving the long-term transmission network expansion planning problem. A strategy that does not affect the basic convergence properties of the sequential simulated annealing algorithm have been implemented and tested. The paper investigates the conditions under which the parallel algorithm is most efficient. The parallel implementations have been tested on three example networks: a small 6-bus network; and two complex real-life networks. Excellent results are reported in the test section of the paper: in addition to reductions in computing times, the PSA algorithm proposed in the paper has shown significant improvements in solution quality for the largest of the test networks     

Structure-affinity relationships for the binding of actinomycin D to DNA

Molecular models of the complexes between actinomycin D and 14 different DNA hexamers were built based on the X-ray crystal structure of the actinomycin-d(GAAGCTTC)2 complex. The DNA sequences included the canonical GpC binding step flanked by different base pairs, nonclassical binding sites such as GpG and GpT, and sites containing 2,6-diamino-purine. A good correlation was found between the intermolecular interaction energies calculated for the refined complexes and the relative preferences of actinomycin binding to standard and modified DNA. A detailed energy decomposition into van der Waals and electrostatic components for the interactions between the DNA base pairs and either the chromophore or the peptidic part of the antibiotic was performed for each complex. The resulting energy matrix was then subjected to principal component analysis, which showed that actinomycin D discriminates among different DNA sequences by an interplay of hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions. The structure-affinity relationships for this important antitumor drug are thus rationalized and may be used to advantage in design of novel sequence-specific DNA-binding agents.