Instrumentation-Driven Validation of Dataflow Applications

Dataflow modeling offers a myriad of tools for designing and optimizing signal processing systems. A designer is able to take advantage of dataflow properties to effectively tune the system in connection with functionality and different performance metrics. However, a disparity in the specification of dataflow properties and the final implementation can lead to incorrect behavior that is difficult to detect. This motivates the problem of ensuring consistency between dataflow properties that are declared or otherwise assumed as part of dataflow-based application models, and the dataflow behavior that is exhibited by implementations that are derived from the models. In this paper, we address this problem by introducing a novel dataflow validation framework (DVF) that is able to identify disparities between an application’s formal dataflow representation and its implementation. DVF works by instrumenting the implementation of an application and monitoring the instrumentation data as the application executes. This monitoring process is streamlined so that DVF achieves validation without major overhead. We demonstrate the utility of our DVF through design and implementation case studies involving an automatic speech recognition application, a JPEG encoder, and an acoustic tracking application.     

Engineering Sensor Arrays Using Aggregation‐Induced Emission Luminogens for Pathogen Identification

Lacking rapid and reliable pathogen diagnostic platforms, inadequate or delayed antimicrobial therapy could be made, which greatly threatens human life and accelerates the emergence of antibiotic‐resistant pathogens. In this contribution, a series of simple and reliable sensor arrays based on tetraphenylethylene (TPE) derivatives are successfully developed for detection and discrimination of pathogens. Each sensor array consists of three TPE‐based aggregation‐induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) that bear cationic ammonium group and different hydrophobic substitutions, providing tunable logP (n‐octanol/water partition coefficient) values to enable the different multivalent interactions with pathogens. On the basis of the distinctive fluorescence response produced by the diverse interaction of AIEgens with pathogens, these sensor arrays can identify different kinds of pathogens, even normal and drug‐resistant bacteria, with nearly 100% accuracy. Furthermore, blends of pathogens can also be identified accurately. The sensor arrays exhibit rapid response (about 0.5 h), high‐throughput, and easy‐to‐operate without washing steps.     

Privacy-preserving photo sharing framework cross different social network

With rapid developments of digital photography and social networks,users of photo-sharing-supported social networking applications can easily forward photos across different social networks at the cost of their growing privacy concerns.To address this problem,a privacy-preserving photo sharing framework was proposed,which could apply to extended control and privacy invasion tracing.In extended control scheme,the following users on a dissemination chain was restrained by each user’s privacy policy.Then several privacy areas of photos were encrypted and the access control polices were bound to the uploaded photos,so that any privacy areas on the photos could be hidden away from unwanted viewers even across different social networks.On this basis,the behaviors of users were record by tracing scheme of privacy invasion,the integrality of records was protected by using nested signature algorithm.The correctness,security and performance of overhead of the scheme are then thoroughly analyzed and evaluated via detailed simulations.     

Pillar[5]arene-Modified Gold Nanorods as Nanocarriers for Multi-Modal Imaging-Guided Synergistic Photodynamic-Photothermal Therapy

Supramolecular approaches have opened up vast possibilities to construct versatile materials, especially those with stimuli-responsiveness and integrated functionalities of multi-modal diagnosis and synergistic therapeutics. In this study, a hybrid theranostic nanosystem named TTPY-Py⊂CP5@AuNR is constructed via facile host–guest interactions, where TTPY-Py is a photosensitizer with aggregation-induced emission and CP5@AuNR represents the carboxylatopillar[5]arene (CP5)-modified Au nanorods. TTPY-Py⊂CP5@AuNR integrates the respective advantages of TTPY-Py and CP5@AuNR such as the high performance of reactive oxygen species generation and photothermal conversion, and meanwhile shows fluorescence responses to both temperature and pH stimuli. The successful modification of CP5 macrocycles on AuNRs surfaces can eliminate the cytotoxicity of AuNRs and enable them to serve as the nanocarrier of TTPY-Py for further theranostic applications. Significantly, in vitro and in vivo evaluations demonstrate that this supramolecular nanotheranostic system possesses multiple modalities including intensive fluorescence imaging (FLI), photoacoustic imaging (PAI), efficient photodynamic therapy (PDT), and photothermal therapy (PTT), indicating its great potential for FLI-PAI imaging-guided synergistic PDT-PTT therapy. Moreover, TTPY-Py can be released upon activation by the acidic environment of lysosomes and then specifically light up mitochondria. This study demonstrates a new strategy for the design of versatile nanotheranostics for accurate tumor imaging and cancer therapies.     

Tensor-based methods for high-power amplifier identification and predistortion linearization

Aligned with the recent revolution of smart cities concept, a lot of work has been done to support the education process in direct or indirect way. In countries like Lebanon, in which the choice of school does not depend on the residence location, parents are becoming more and more selective in the quality of schools they are choosing for their children. This fact may lead parents to choose a modern and good school even if it is far from their residence. On the other hand, and even if the school was close enough, the traffic congestion would make the on-feet journey of the kid to the school very risky. Driving children to school is a solution. However, it consumes a lot of time and effort each day in the morning and the afternoon. Hence, school buses are commonly used by all schools to take the student from and to his home. Nevertheless, waiting the bus each day to arrive is an exhausting and a time-wasting mission. In this paper we present a smart transportation system for school buses that helps in saving parents’ time, by avoiding waiting school buses in the morning and then in the afternoon to return kids back, especially with the increasing traffic jams at these hours. The proposed mobile and web application is designed to help parents, school and the bus to communicate automatically and easily via the application in order to detect kids’ arrival time. The bus application side will notify parents few minutes before its approaching to their homes. Furthermore, the system will allow parents to inform the school and hence the bus application side about the absence of their kid. The system has been efficiently and dynamically designed and implemented so it can be hosted and used by any school administration without the need to any major modifications. It has been tested on a summer school to prove its efficiency and marked an important positive feedback from the school and the parents’ sides.     

Operator dependence of 3-D ultrasound-based computational fluid dynamics for the carotid bifurcation

The association between vascular wall shear stress (WSS) and the local development of atherosclerotic plaque makes estimation of in vivo WSS of considerable interest. Three-dimensional ultrasound (3DUS) combined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides a potentially valuable tool for acquiring subject-specific WSS, but the interoperator and intraoperator variability associated with WSS calculations using this method is not known. Here, the accuracy, reproducibility and operator dependence of 3DUS-based computational fluid dynamics were examined through a phantom and in vivo studies. A carotid phantom was scanned and reconstructed by two operators. In the in vivo study, four operators scanned a healthy subject a total of 11 times, and their scan data were processed by three individuals. The study showed that with some basic training, operators could acquire accurate carotid geometry for flow reconstructions. The variability of measured cross-sectional area and predicted shear stress was 8.17% and 0.193 N/m/sup 2/ respectively for the in vivo study. It was shown that the variability of the examined parameters was more dependent on the scan operators than the image processing operator. The range of variability of geometrical and flow parameters reported here can be used as a reference for future in vivo studies using the 3DUS-based CFD approach.     

Numerical Optimization of an Active Voltage Controller for High-Power IGBT Converters

Feedback control of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) in the active region can be used to regulate the device switching trajectory. This facilitates series connection of devices without the use of external snubber networks. Control must be achieved across the full active region of the IGBT and must balance a number of conflicting system goals including diode recovery. To date, the choice of control parameters has been a largely empirical process. This paper uses accurate device models and formalized optimization procedures to evaluate IGBT active voltage controllers. A detailed optimization for the control of IGBT turn-on is presented in this paper     

Fair content dissemination in participatory DTNs

Thanks to advances in the computing capabilities and added functionalities of modern mobile devices, creating and consuming digital media on the move has never been so easy and popular. Most of the DTN routing protocols proposed in the literature to enable content sharing have been exploiting users’ mobility patterns, in order to maximise the delivery probability, while minimising the overall network overhead (e.g., number of message replicas in the system, messages’ path length). Common to all these protocols has been the assumption that devices are willing to participate in the content distribution network; however, because of battery constraints, participation cannot be taken for granted, especially if the very same subset of devices are continuously selected as content carriers, simply because of their mobility properties. Indeed, we demonstrate that state-of-the-art DTN routing protocols distribute load in a highly unfair manner, with detrimental effects on delivery once the assumption of unconditional participation is lifted. To overcome this limitation, we propose a load-balancing mechanism whereby nodes maintain local estimates of network workload, and use them to direct traffic towards the least loaded portion of the network. We implement the mechanism on top of a source-based DTN routing protocol, and demonstrate, by means of simulation using a variety of real mobility traces, that high delivery is now achieved without compromising fairness.     

Investigation de la gestion de qualité de service dans le réseau UMTS

Bit rate announced for the future standards of telecommunication, as well as the level of integration reached are, as many factors, determining for the establishment of new applications in mobile terminals. Nowadays, mobile video streaming services are possible. Mobile users expect to receive multimedia traffic with some performance guarantees, so we must ensure the necessary quality of service during the video transmission. This paper aims at investigating quality of service issue inUmts network. More specifically, we explore the main challenge of quality of service management to dynamically optimize the distribution of load inUmts networks. Our investigation is organized in the following way. We formalize the optimization problem which is based on the graph theory and modellingUmts network as well as mobile users and applications to be used. The simulation of our optimization model show a clear improvement of the quality of service perceived by anUmts user in terms of bit rate, blocking and connection drop.     

Name‐Based Autoconfiguration for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

In a mobile ad hoc network, difficulties exist in supporting address autoconfiguration and naming resolution due to the lack of centralized servers. This letter presents a novel approach, called name‐based autoconfiguration (NBA), which uses host names to determine IP addresses and provides address autoconfiguration and name resolution as a single protocol.