A new hybrid and dynamic fusion of multiple experts for intelligent porch system

Intelligent porch research is an important issue in smart home development; however, such a field was rarely investigated in the literature. This investigation proposes a new hybrid and dynamic fusion of multiple experts for the intelligent porch system. First, a new hybrid priority tree with decision fusion (HPTD-fusion) is proposed to eliminate the problems of tag-based authentication outdoors. The HPTD-fusion first verifies the vocal entrance code (VEC), and subsequently the remaining experts are performed in the cases of AND, OR or majority voting for decision fusion. Second, the post-mapping dynamic weighted fusion (PMDW-fusion) scheme is presented to adapt the indoor porch audio-visual environment. The PMDW-fusion dynamically assigns the higher weight to experts with higher performance, and then sums all participating experts for score fusion. The experimental results demonstrate that FRR and FAR can reach up to 0.18 and 0.19, respectively, when the system is tested in the outdoor environment. Furthermore, the indoor recognition accuracy can be increased to 86.1% using the proposed fusion scheme. The experiments have verified the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed system. Restated, the contribution of this work is to develop a novel intelligent porch system incorporating a natural and unobtrusive method for identity recognition. The proposed system has been installed and tested in a real-world environment in the Technologies for Ubiquitous Computing and Humanity (TOUCH) Center at National Cheng Kung University.     

Gram-negative anaerobic bacilli: Their role in infection and patterns of susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. II. Little-known Fusobacterium species and miscellaneous genera

Twenty infrequently reported species of gram-negative anaerobic bacilli other than Fusobacterium nucleatum, Fusobacterium necrophorum, and members of the genus Bacteroides were studied with regard to their role in infection and their susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. In addition, the literature regarding the recovery of these organisms from both the normal flora and infections of humans was reviewed. During a six-year period at the Wadsworth Clinical Anaerobic Bacteriology Research Laboratory (Veterans Administration Wadsworth Medical Center, Los Angeles, Calif.), 39 (6%) of 679 specimens obtained from anaerobic infections yielded "other gram-negative anaerobic bacilli" (OGNAB). Fusobacterium naviforme, Fusobacterium gonidiaformans, Fusobacterium varium, Fusobacterium mortiferum, and Fusobacterium russii were the most commonly isolated OGNAB. Most of the OGNAB tested were resistant to erythromycin, and most strains, except for F. varium, were susceptible to beta-lactam antibiotics and clindamycin. Chloramphenicol and metronidazole were active against all strains of OGNAB tested. Certain Fusobacterium species are undoubtedly previously unrecognized members of the normal flora of the oropharynx, upper respiratory tract, or urogenital tract and may be present in infections derived from these floras.     

Using Finite-Element Method to Simulate Wave Transformations in Surf Zone

In this study, a finite element method proposed by Hsu et al. in 2003 is extended to develop a numerical model for the simulation of wave transformation in the surf zone. The governing equation is the elliptic mild-slope equation including the energy dissipation of wave breaking. At the open boundaries with varying depth, the reflected waves caused by shoaling are adopted to the radiation boundary conditions. The rationality of the present numerical model is examined through the cases of offshore parallel breakwater problems. The results of calculation are in good agreement with experimental results.     

The constrained longest common subsequence problem

This paper considers a constrained version of longest common subsequence problem for two strings. Given strings S₁, S₂ and P, the constrained longest common subsequence problem for S₁ and S₂ with respect to P is to find a longest common subsequence lcs of S₁ and S₂ such that P is a subsequence of this lcs. An O(rn²m²) time algorithm based upon the dynamic programming technique is proposed for this new problem, where n, m and r are lengths of S₁, S₂ and P, respectively.     

An interactive agent-based system for concept-based web search

Search engines are useful tools in looking for information from the Internet. However, due to the difficulties of specifying appropriate queries and the problems of keyword-based similarity ranking presently encountered by search engines, general users are still not satisfied with the results retrieved. To remedy the above difficulties and problems, in this paper we present a multi-agent framework in which an interactive approach is proposed to iteratively collect a user's feedback from the pages he has identified. By analyzing the pages gathered, the system can then gradually formulate queries to efficiently describe the content a user is looking for. In our framework, the evolution strategies are employed to evolve critical feature words for concept modeling in query formulation. The experimental results show that the framework developed is efficient and useful to enhance the quality of web search, and the concept-based semantic search can thus be achieved.     

Oscillation in nonlinear difference equations

In this paper, we shall discuss oscillatory behavior of the solutions of difference equations, including the self-adjoint second-order linear equation and the discrete version of the nonlinear wave equation. Our work is to give sufficient conditions such that every nontrivial solution of the equations oscillates.     

Using mega-fuzzification and data trend estimation in small data set learning for early FMS scheduling knowledge

Provided with plenty of data (experience), data mining techniques are widely used to extract suitable management skills from the data. Nevertheless, in the early stages of a manufacturing system, only rare data can be obtained, and built scheduling knowledge is usually fragile. Using small data sets, this research's purpose is improving the accuracy of machine learning for flexible manufacturing system (FMS) scheduling. The study develops a data trend estimation technique and combines it with mega-fuzzification and adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS). The results of the simulated FMS scheduling problem indicate that learning accuracy can be significantly improved using the proposed method involving a very small data set.     

Electrostatic actuation of three-dimensional MEMS mirrors using sidewall electrodes

We propose and demonstrate electrostatic sidewall-electrodes actuation of three-dimensional (3-D) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) gimbal mirrors. The linearity of the mirror angle dependence on actuation voltage is improved with the sidewall-electrodes actuation. In addition, the undesired spring-softening effect commonly found in electrostatic actuation, where the mirror resonance frequency decreases with increased tilt angle, is significantly reduced. Sidewall actuation enables superior performance of 3-D MEMS mirrors including large pull-in angles, reduced actuation voltages, improved device reliability, and fast switching times.     

The super-connected property of recursive circulant graphs

In a graph G, a k-container C_k(u,v) is a set of k disjoint paths joining u and v. A k-container C_k(u,v) is k∗-container if every vertex of G is passed by some path in C_k(u,v). A graph G is k∗-connected if there exists a k∗-container between any two vertices. An m-regular graph G is super-connected if G is k∗-connected for any k with 1?k?m. In this paper, we prove that the recursive circulant graphs G(2^m,4), proposed by Park and Chwa [Theoret. Comput. Sci. 244 (2000) 35-62], are super-connected if and only if m≠2.     

DISCRETIZED SUB‐OPTIMAL TRACKER FOR NONLINEAR CONTINUOUS TWO‐DIMENSIONAL SYSTEMS

The discretized quadratic sub‐optimal tracker for nonlinear continuous two‐dimensional (2‐D) systems is newly proposed in this paper. The proposed method provides a novel methodology for indirect digital redesign for nonlinear continuous 2‐D systems with a continuous performance index. This includes the following features: (1) the 2‐D optimal‐linearization approach of the nonlinear 2‐D Roesser's model (RM), (2) the dynamic programming‐based discretized quadratic optimal tracker for linear continuous 2‐D systems, (3) the steady‐state discretized quadratic sub‐optimal tracker for linear continuous 2‐D systems, and (4) the discretized quadratic sub‐optimal tracker for nonlinear continuous 2‐D systems. Illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.