Data reconciliation in a smart home sensor network

This paper describes a data-driven approach to sensor data validation. The data originates from a network of sensors embedded in an indoor environment such as an office, home, factory, public mall or airport. Data analysis is performed to automatically detect events and classify activities taking place within the environment. Sensor failure and in particular intermittent failure, caused by electrical interference, undermines the inference processes. PCA and CCA are compared for detecting intermittent faults and masking such failures. The fault detection relies on models built from historical data. As new sensor observations are collected the model is updated and compared to that previously estimated, where a difference is indicative of a failure.     

On the evaluation and improvement of Arabic WordNet coverage and usability

Built on the basis of the methods developed for Princeton WordNet and EuroWordNet, Arabic WordNet (AWN) has been an interesting project which combines WordNet structure compliance with Arabic particularities. In this paper, some AWN shortcomings related to coverage and usability are addressed. The use of AWN in question/answering (Q/A) helped us to deeply evaluate the resource from an experience-based perspective. Accordingly, an enrichment of AWN was built by semi-automatically extending its content. Indeed, existing approaches and/or resources developed for other languages were adapted and used for AWN. The experiments conducted in Arabic Q/A have shown an improvement of both AWN coverage as well as usability. Concerning coverage, a great amount of named entities extracted from YAGO were connected with corresponding AWN synsets. Also, a significant number of new verbs and nouns (including Broken Plural forms) were added. In terms of usability, thanks to the use of AWN, the performance for the AWN-based Q/A application registered an overall improvement with respect to the following three measures: accuracy (+9.27 % improvement), mean reciprocal rank (+3.6 improvement) and number of answered questions (+12.79 % improvement).     

Optimal radio resources and transmission formats assignment in OFDMA systems

The problem of assigning radio resources and transmission formats to users in the downlink of an OFDMA network is addressed. In particular, a single cell environment with a realistic interference model and a margin adaptive approach is considered, i.e., the aim is of minimizing the total transmission power while maintaining a certain given rate for each user. The computational complexity issues of the problem are discussed, and an approximation analysis is presented. Heuristic approaches, based on rounding techniques and graph models, are also proposed. Computational experiences show that, in a comparison with a commercial state-of-the-art optimization solver and with alternatives from the literature, the proposed algorithms are effective in terms of solution quality and CPU times.     

An Integrated CAD Methodology for Yield Enhancement of VLSI CMOS Circuits Including Statistical Device Variations

In this paper a novel CAD methodology for yield enhancement of VLSI CMOS circuits including random device variations is presented. The methodology is based on a preliminary characterization of the technological process by means of specific test chips for accurate mismatch modeling. To this purpose, a very accurate position-dependent parameter mismatch model has been formulated and extracted. Finally a CAD tool implementing this model has been developed. The tool is fully integrated in an environment of existing commercial tools and it has been experimented in the STMicroelectronics Flash Memory CAD Group.As an example of application, a bandgap reference circuit has been considered and the results obtained from simulations have been compared with experimental data. Furthermore, the methodology has been applied to the read path of a complex Flash Memory produced by STMicroelectronics, consisting of about 16,000 MOSFETs. Measurements of electrical performances have confirmed the validity of the methodology, and the accuracy of both the mismatch model and the simulation flow.     

On the intersubject generalization ability in extracting kinematic information from afferent nervous signals

In the recent past, many efforts have been carried out in order to evaluate the feasibility of implementing closed-loop controlled neuroprostheses based on the processing of sensory electroneurographic (ENG) signals. The success of these techniques mostly relies on the development of processing algorithms capable of extracting the necessary kinematic information from these signals. Soft-computing algorithms can be very useful when dealing with the complexity of the neuromuscular system because of their generalization ability and model-free structure. In this paper, these techniques were used to extract angular position information from the ENG signals recorded from muscle afferents in animal model using cuff electrodes. Specifically, a genetic algorithm-based dynamic nonsingleton fuzzy logic system (named GA-DNSFLS) was developed and tested on different types of angular trajectories (characterized by small or large angular excursions). In particular, two different Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK)-like structures were used in the consequent part of the neuro-fuzzy model in order to verify which one could improve the generalization abilities (intrasubject and intersubject). The results showed that the GA-DNSFLS was able to reconstruct the trajectories giving interesting results in terms of correlation between the actual and the predicted trajectories for small excursion movements during intrasubject and intersubject tests. Particularly, one of the TSK models showed better results in terms of intersubject generalization. The simulations conducted with the large excursion movements led in some cases to interesting results but further experiments are necessary in order to analyze this point more in deep.     

TCP Performance in Optical Packet-switched Networks

Optical packet assembly is a key function to support inter-working between TCP/IP networks and optical packet-switched networks. It is characterized by the assembly delay and by the segment aggregation needed to form an optical packet. These counter-balancing aspects depend on several environment variables, such as the TCP parameters, the access link speed, the optical packet size whose effects are studied in this paper. Performance evaluations are obtained by extensive simulations in terms of send rate of TCP flows, fairness, efficiency, and assembly delay. Some guidelines in the design of optical packets that take into account the results presented are given.     

A new method for the analysis of integrated transmission lines

A flexible and efficient technique for the analysis of transmission lines is described. The transmission line is considered as the union of « elementary waveguides », where the medium is uniformly stratified. The modes are determined by matching the field at the interfaces using a procedure that leads to a linear eigenvalue problem involving a limited number of variables.     

Energy service companies in European countries: Current status and a strategy to foster their development

Although the European Commission and the Member States of the European Union (EU)¹ have promoted a number of policy initiatives to foster the Energy Services Company (ESCO) industry, a recent survey of ESCO businesses in Europe has indicated that major differences exist in the development of the ESCO business among the various countries. In some countries a large number of ESCOs have been successfully operating for a number of years, while in other countries only a few ESCOs have recently started to operate. This difference could be explained by several factors, such as different levels of support offered to ESCOs by national and regional energy authorities, local market structures and rules, and variation in the definitions, roles and activities of ESCOs. This paper reviews and analyses the development and the current status of ESCO industries in the EU and the New Accession Countries. Based on the review and the analysis, a long-term strategy to foster the development of ESCOs in Europe is formulated. The strategic actions recommended build on successful experience in Europe and are proposed with an eye to existing and planned legislative measures, such as the proposed Energy Service Directive and the deployment of the Kyoto flexible mechanisms.     

Bioinspired Security Analysis of Wireless Protocols

Fraglets represent an execution model for communication protocols that resembles the chemical reactions in living organisms. The strong connection between their way of transforming and reacting and formal rewriting systems makes a fraglet program amenable to automatic verification. Grounded on past work, this paper investigates feasibility of adopting fraglets as model for specifying security protocols and analysing their properties. In particular, we give concrete sample analyses over a secure RFID protocol, showing evolution of the protocol run as chemical dynamics and simulating an adversary trying to circumvent the intended steps. The results of our analysis confirm the effectiveness of the cryptofraglets framework for the model and analysis of security properties and eventually show its potential to identify and uncover protocol flaws.     

Toward automatic phenotyping of developing embryos from videos.

We describe a trainable system for analyzing videos of developing C. elegans embryos. The system automatically detects, segments, and locates cells and nuclei in microscopic images. The system was designed as the central component of a fully automated phenotyping system. The system contains three modules 1) a convolutional network trained to classify each pixel into five categories: cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus membrane, nucleus, outside medium; 2) an energy-based model, which cleans up the output of the convolutional network by learning local consistency constraints that must be satisfied by label images; 3) a set of elastic models of the embryo at various stages of development that are matched to the label images.