Research on the group decision-making about emergency event based on network technology

In order to improve decision-making efficiency about emergency event, this paper proposes a novel concept, i.e., Agile-Delphi Method, which is an integration of agile decision and Delphi Method implicating that the decision-makers instantly deliver, respond, treat, and utilize information via Delphi process while conducting group decision-making about emergency event. The paper details the mechanism of group decision-making about emergency event based on network technology and Agile-Delphi Method. Finally, the paper conducts an empiric analysis taking the “111 event”, i.e., the liquid ammonia spill event happened on November 1, 2006 in a phosphorus chemical company in China, as an example.     

Embedding multi-dimensional meshes into twisted cubes

The twisted cube is an important variant of the most popular hypercube network for parallel processing. In this paper, we consider the problem of embedding multi-dimensional meshes into twisted cubes in a systematic way. We present a recursive method for embedding a family of disjoint multi-dimensional meshes into a twisted cube with dilation 1 and expansion 1. We also prove that a single multi-dimensional mesh can be embedded into a twisted cube with dilation 2 and expansion 1. Our work extends some previously known results.     

Real-time foveation filtering using nonlinear Mipmap interpolation

In recent years, several techniques have been proposed to simulate the gaze effect of the Human Visual System (HVS). It is believed that this effect is due to the foveation filtering. Current techniques to simulate the foveation filtering in computer graphics are either slow or suffer from artifacts and limitations. In this paper, we present a new approach of foveation filtering based on the Mipmap Pyramid of the current view by considering the relationship between the Gaussian kernel and Mipmap level. Due to the nonlinear Mipmap interpolation under the Bilateral Filtering scheme, we are able to simulate the foveation filtering more naturally and efficiently than in previous work. Moreover, a detail enhancement method based on the Cornsweet illusion is proposed to augment the gazing effect. We demonstrate our new approach with a variety of examples and provide comparisons with recent approaches.     

An improved ant colony optimization algorithm for solving a complex combinatorial optimization problem

This paper presents an improved ant colony optimization algorithm (IACO) for solving mobile agent routing problem. The ants cooperate using an indirect form of communication mediated by pheromone trails of scent and find the best solution to their tasks guided by both information (exploitation) which has been acquired and search (exploration) of the new route. Therefore the premature convergence probability of the system is lower. The IACO can solve successfully the mobile agent routing problem, and this method has some excellent properties of robustness, self-adaptation, parallelism, and positive feedback process owing to introducing the genetic operator into this algorithm and modifying the global updating rules. The experimental results have demonstrated that IACO has much higher convergence speed than that of genetic algorithm (GA), simulated annealing (SA), and basic ant colony algorithm, and can jump over the region of the local minimum, and escape from the trap of a local minimum successfully and achieve the best solutions. Therefore the quality of the solution is improved, and the whole system robustness is enhanced. The algorithm has been successfully integrated into our simulated humanoid robot system which won the fourth place of RoboCup2008 World Competition. The results of the proposed algorithm are found to be satisfactory.     

A new approach to the prediction of passenger flow in a transit system

A non-linear model is proposed for predicting the rate of passenger flow in a transit system, and its chaotic characteristic is observed. Using wavelets analysis, the passenger flow data for a whole day are decomposed in a multi-scale way to obtain decomposition sequences. Subsequently, a neural network approach is used to predict the sequences. Finally the passenger flow value can be predicted when the predicted sequences are reconstructed. Results show that the present approach is a feasible method for passenger flow prediction.     

A novel thermo-pneumatic peristaltic micropump with low temperature elevation on working fluid

This work presents a novel thermo-pneumatic peristaltic micropump with low temperature elevation on working fluid. The proposed device, which consists of two separate zones for air-heating and fluid-squeezing, is realized by using micromachining techniques. Also, the device can be operated by using a small and simple actuation circuitry with low applied voltages. Under similar operational conditions, the proposed micropump shows similar fluid-pumping performance when compared with the conventional design of thermo-pneumatic micropumps. However, for the proposed design, the temperature elevation on the fluid-pumping area is as small as about 2.0 K, which is less than 8% of that generated by the conventional design. Furthermore, by applying higher voltages, larger flow rate can be achieved with relatively small increase in temperature elevation. Due to low temperature elevation on working fluid, the proposed device is suitable for the applications such as DNA chips or protein chips. In addition, because of its small size and simple actuation scheme, potentially the proposed device can be integrated into the devices for point-of-care applications.