A new analytical approach to predict spacing selection in lamellar and rod eutectic systems

The Jackson and Hunt (JH) theory has been modified to relax the assumption of isothermal solid/liquid interface used in their treatment. Based on the predictions of this modified theory, the traditional definitions of regular and irregular eutectics are revised. For regular eutectics, the new model identifies a range of spacing within the limits defined by the minimum undercooling of the α and β phases. For the irregular Al-Si eutectic system, two different spacing selection mechanisms were identified: (1) for a particular growth rate, a nearly isothermal interface can be achieved at a unique minimum spacing λ _I ; (2) the average spacing (λ _av >λ _I ) is essentially dictated by the undercooling of the faceted phase. Based on the modified theoretical model, a semiempirical expression has been developed to account for the influence of the temperature gradient, which is dominant in the irregular Al-Si system. The behavior of the Fe-Fe₃C eutectic is also discussed. The theoretical calculations have been found to be in good agreement with the published experimental measurements.     

Combined Particle Image Velocimetry/Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence for Integral Modeling of Buoyant Jets

Combined particle image velocimetry and planar laser induced fluorescence is an efficient measurement approach for laboratory studies in environmental hydraulics. The coupling of the two well-known techniques enables synchronized planar measurements of flow velocity and concentration in an area yielding both their mean distribution as well as turbulence covariance. In this paper, the merits and limitations of the combination are first discussed. An example of experimental setup is then briefly described. Finally, an application is demonstrated for the integral modeling of an inclined round buoyant jet that takes full advantage of the capability of the combined approach.     

A customer-to-carrier interface for trouble administration

This paper describes a customer-to-carrier trouble administration service based on the Network Management Forum (NMF) service management concept. Implementing a trouble administration gateway for direct on-line submission and interaction of trouble tickets is being realized through a standard interface known in industry as Electronic Bonding. This interface supports connectivity between an ISO/ITU-T Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) manager and multiple agents. A Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) project, described herein, enables a customer, acting in a manager role, to track trouble reports across public carrier networks.     

Data-intensive architecture for scientific knowledge discovery

This paper presents a data-intensive architecture that demonstrates the ability to support applications from a wide range of application domains, and support the different types of users involved in defining, designing and executing data-intensive processing tasks. The prototype architecture is introduced, and the pivotal role of DISPEL as a canonical language is explained. The architecture promotes the exploration and exploitation of distributed and heterogeneous data and spans the complete knowledge discovery process, from data preparation, to analysis, to evaluation and reiteration. The architecture evaluation included large-scale applications from astronomy, cosmology, hydrology, functional genetics, imaging processing and seismology.     

Engineering presentation of the stochastic interpolation framework and its applications

The paper is an engineering exposition of the Stochastic Interpolation Framework, a novel mathematical approach to data regularization, which recovers a function from input data that is a representation of this data. The framework is an area-based method that comprises a two-step procedure: de-convolution and convolution, involving row-stochastic matrices. Varying the extent of convolution with respect to de-convolution in the framework obtains a gamut of functional recovery ranging from interpolation to approximation, to peak sharpening. Construction of the row stochastic matrices is achieved by means of a mollifier, a positive function which serves as the generator of the row space of these matrices. The properties of the recovered function will depend on the choice of this mollifier. For example, only if the mollifier is differentiable so is the recovered function, and the framework can obtain derivatives anywhere in the domain. The mollifier can be a probability distribution function. Thus, the framework connects interpolation to statistical analysis. Two novel applications in image analysis illustrate the potential of the framework for security applications: as an alternative method of lossy image compression, and as an alternative method to zoom-up an image.     

Web prefetching through efficient prediction by partial matching

In this work we propose a prediction by partial matching technique to anticipate and prefetch web pages and files accessed via browsers. The goal is to reduce the delays necessary to load the web pages and files visited by the users. Since the number of visited web pages can be high, tree-based and table-based implementations can be inefficient from the representation point of view. Therefore, we present an efficient way to implement the prediction by partial matching as simple searches in the observation sequence. Thus, we can use high number of states in long web page access histories and higher order Markov chains at low complexity. The time-evaluations show that the proposed PPM implementation is significantly more efficient than previous implementations. We have enhanced the predictor with a confidence mechanism, implemented as saturating counters, which classifies dynamically web pages as predictable or unpredictable. Predictions are generated selectively only from web pages classified as predictable, improving thus the accuracy. The experiments show that the prediction by partial matching of order 4 with a history of 500 web pages is the optimal.     

Mucocutaneous reactions to antineoplastic agents

Mucocutaneous reaction patterns in patients receiving cancer therapy are not only variable, but in many instances identical patterns are produced by different pathologic mechanisms. For example, patients with leukemia or lymphoma may present with nodular skin lesions that may represent malignant infiltration, septic emboli, vasculitis, or a drug eruption. The most banal skin eruption may signal an impending or ongoing catastrophe. If one is able to make some clinical evaluation regarding the likelihood of a drug being responsible for the mucocutaneous eruption, it may help avoid further clinical or laboratory investigation and patient discomfort. Unfortunately, only a few antineoplastic agents have "characteristic" skin manifestations. If, however, these are kept in mind they may be helpful in the diffential diagnosis of mucocutaneous eruptions occurring in patients treated with cancer chemotherapeutic agents.