Optimizing content placement in a peer-assisted VoD architecture

Recently, a new peer-assisted architecture to build content delivery systems has been presented. This architecture is based on the use of the storage capacity of end-users’ set-top boxes (STBs), connected in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner in order to help the content servers in the delivery process. In these systems, the contents are usually split into a set of smaller pieces, called sub-streams, which are randomly injected at the STBs. The present paper is focused on Video on Demand (VoD) streaming and it is assumed that the STB-based content delivery system is deployed over the global Internet, where the clients are distributed over different ISP networks. In this scenario, three different strategies are studied for increasing the percentage of data uploaded by peers, in order to offload the content servers as much as possible. First of all, a new mechanism is presented which determines which sub-stream has to be placed at which STB by a Non-Linear Programming (NLP) formulation. A different strategy for reducing the content server load is to take advantage of the available bandwidth in the different ISP networks. In this sense, two new mechanisms for forwarding the VoD requests to different ISP networks are presented. Finally, the present paper also shows that in some situations the available uplink bandwidth is associated with STBs that do not have the required sub-streams. Regarding this concern, a new mechanism has been designed that dynamically re-allocates some streams, which are being transmitted from specific STBs, to different STBs, in order to find the necessary resources to start new streaming sessions.     

基于ICA的非线性自适应特征融合的人耳识别

针对单一特征的人耳识别对旋转角度鲁棒性差的问题,提出一种非线性自适应特征融合的方法.首先提取人耳的2种具有互补性质的独立成分特征,然后将它们加权串联形成高维融合特征;最后通过核主元分析方法实现非线性降维.实验结果表明,当人耳有姿态旋转时,融合特征较单一特征的识别率有显著提升,且文中方法比传统的串联融合的识别结果更好.     

创造性思维培养与表现——刍议创意素描教学

创意素描教学,就是要培养学生创造性思维能力,掌握创意设计的理念和方法,通过对学生创造性思维的培养,从具象到抽象、从写实到意象的训练,学生无限的创造力一定会大大激发出来。     

Broadband system to increase bitrate in train communication networks

MVB (Multifunction Vehicle Bus), defined in IEC 61375, has been broadly adopted as the communication standard between embedded control systems on-board modern trains. In this work a new method to take advantage of the full bandwidth of the channel using an OFDM technique is described. With this new method it is possible to share the physical medium between standard MVB traffic and new OFDM traffic. A 90 Mbps theoretical bitrate can be achieved. The results of this work have been validated in a test bench including standard MVB nodes transmitting on a line similar to a real vehicle bus.     

Differential evolution solution to the SLAM problem

A new solution to the Simultaneous Localization and Modelling problem is presented in this paper. The algorithm is based on the stochastic search for solutions in the state space to the global localization problem by means of a differential evolution algorithm. This non linear evolutive filter, called Evolutive Localization Filter (ELF), searches stochastically along the state space for the best robot pose estimate. The set of pose solutions (the population) focuses on the most likely areas according to the perception and up to date motion information. The population evolves using the log-likelihood of each candidate pose according to the observation and the motion errors derived from the comparison between observed and predicted data obtained from the probabilistic perception and motion model.The proposed SLAM algorithm operates in two steps: in the first step the ELF filter is used at local level to re-localize the robot based on the robot odometry, the laser scan at a given position and a local map where only a low number of the last scans have been integrated. In the second step, the aligned laser measures and the corrected robot poses are used to detect whether the robot is revisiting a previously crossed area (i.e., a cycle in the robot trajectory exists). Once a cycle is detected, the Evolutive Localization Filter is used again to estimate the accumulated residual drift in the detected loop and then to re-estimate the robot poses in order to integrate the sensor measures in the global map of the environment.The algorithm has been tested in different environments to demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness and computational efficiency of the proposed approach.     

Activity recognition and intensity estimation in youth from accelerometer data aided by machine learning

Physical activity monitoring for youth is an area of increasing scientific and public health interest due to the high prevalence of obesity and downward trend in physical activity. However, accurate assessment of such activity remains a challenging problem because of the complex nature in which certain activities are performed. In this study, we formulated the issue as a machine learning problem—using a diverse set of 19 physical activities commonly performed by youth—via two approaches: activity recognition and intensity estimation. With the aid of training data, we implemented a distance metric learning method called DML-KNN that utilizes time-frequency features and is capable of effectively classifying both continuous and intermittent movement in youth subjects. Four different time-frequency feature extraction methods were then systematically evaluated. Our results show that the DML-KNN method performed competitively, especially when using features extracted by the Tamura method for intensity estimation, and by the Square Coefficient method for activity recognition.     

Efficient identity-based online/offline encryption and signcryption with short ciphertext

The technique of online/offline is regarded as a promising approach to speed up the computation of encryption, because the most part of computation, such as pairing over points on elliptic curve and exponentiation in groups, can be pre-computed in the offline phase without knowing the message to be encrypted and/or recipient’s identity. The online phase only requires light computation, such as modular multiplication. In this paper, we propose two novel identity-based online/offline schemes: a full secure identity-based online/offline encryption scheme and an identity-based online/offline signcryption scheme. Compared to the other schemes in the literature, our schemes achieve the shortest ciphertext size in both offline and online phases and demonstrate the best performance in offline computation. Our schemes are applicable to devices with limited computation power. They are proven secure in the random oracle model.     

ADSL传输技术概述

介绍ADSL传输技术使用情况及与ISDN等的比较。