STIFF-MUD DIE TROUBLES1

This paper illustrates faulty and cracked ware in consequence of improperly adjusted dies for stiff-mud products.     

Diagnosis and epidural hematoma by brain scan and perfusion study: case report

By using the arterial and venous phases of an anterior cerebral perfusion study, which showed downward displacement of the sagittal sinus, and the finding of a "rim" on the delayed scans, the specific diagnosis of epidural hematoma was established.     

Electro-winning of chromium from chromic oxide by chlorination in fused salt and subsequent electrolysis

The electro-winning of chromium from chromic oxide after chlorination in a carbon-containing fused sodium chloride flux is described. Only low values of current efficiency (based on the reaction Cr³⁺ + 3e ← Cr) can be attained. The effects of concentration of chromic and chromous chlorides in the melt, of current density and of melt temperature are reported. The conclusion is reached that the major factor responsible for the low current efficiency is the re-solution of deposited metal by anodic chlorine.     

Electrosynthesis in systems of two immiscible liquids and a phase transfer catalyst. V. The anodic chlorination of naphthalene

The anodic chlorination of naphthalene in a water/methylene chloride emulsion and using tetrabutylammonium ion as the phase transfer catalyst is demonstrated; in conditions where the aqueous phase is saturated NaCl, the organic yield of 1-chloronaphthalene is 56% and the current yield is 33% after the passage of 2.33 F mol^–1 of naphthalene. It is shown, however, that when the aqueous phase also contains zinc chloride so that the species transferred is [(C₄H₉)₄N⁺]₂ZnCl ₄ ^–– , the yields can be increased to 92% and 49% respectively. The mechanism of these chlorinations is discussed.     

An Integrated Approach to High Integrity Software Verification

Using automated reasoning techniques, we tackle the niche activity of proving that a program is free from run-time exceptions. Such a property is particularly valuable in high integrity software, for example, safety- or security-critical applications. The context for our work is the SPARK Approach for the development of high integrity software. The SPARK Approach provides a significant degree of automation in proving exception freedom. Where this automation fails, however, the programmer is burdened with the task of interactively constructing a proof and possibly also having to supply auxiliary program annotations. We minimize this burden by increasing the automation, through an integration of proof planning and a program analysis oracle. We advocate a ‘cooperative’ integration, where proof-failure analysis directly constrains the search for auxiliary program annotations. The approach has been successfully tested on industrial data.     

Linear Regression and Adaptive Appearance Models for Fast Simultaneous Modelling and Tracking

This work proposes an approach to tracking by regression that uses no hard-coded models and no offline learning stage. The Linear Predictor (LP) tracker has been shown to be highly computationally efficient, resulting in fast tracking. Regression tracking techniques tend to require offline learning to learn suitable regression functions. This work removes the need for offline learning and therefore increases the applicability of the technique. The online-LP tracker can simply be seeded with an initial target location, akin to the ubiquitous Lucas-Kanade algorithm that tracks by registering an image template via minimisation.     

Speech separation using speaker-adapted eigenvoice speech models

We present a system for model-based source separation for use on single channel speech mixtures where the precise source characteristics are not known a priori. The sources are modeled using hidden Markov models (HMM) and separated using factorial HMM methods. Without prior speaker models for the sources in the mixture it is difficult to exactly resolve the individual sources because there is no way to determine which state corresponds to which source at any point in time. This is solved to a small extent by the temporal constraints provided by the Markov models, but permutations between sources remains a significant problem. We overcome this by adapting the models to match the sources in the mixture. We do this by representing the space of speaker variation with a parametric signal model-based on the eigenvoice technique for rapid speaker adaptation. We present an algorithm to infer the characteristics of the sources present in a mixture, allowing for significantly improved separation performance over that obtained using unadapted source models. The algorithm is evaluated on the task defined in the 2006 Speech Separation Challenge [Cooke, M.P., Lee, T.-W., 2008. The 2006 Speech Separation Challenge. Computer Speech and Language] and compared with separation using source-dependent models. Although performance is not as good as with speaker-dependent models, we show that the system based on model adaptation is able to generalize better to held out speakers.     

Synchronizations in Team Automata for Groupware Systems

Team automata have been proposed in Ellis (1997) as a formal framework for modeling both the conceptual and the architectural level of groupware systems. Here we define team automata in a mathematically precise way in terms of component automata which synchronizeon certain executions of actions.At the conceptual level, our model serves as a formal framework in whichbasic groupware notions can be rigorously defined and studied.At the architectural level, team automata can be used as building blocksin the design of groupware systems.     

Knowledge conceptualization tool

Knowledge acquisition is one of the most important and problematic aspects of developing knowledge-based systems. Many automated tools have been introduced in the past, however, manual techniques are still heavily used. Interviewing is one of the most commonly used manual techniques for a knowledge acquisition process, and few automated support tools exist to help knowledge engineers enhance their performance. The paper presents a knowledge conceptualization tool (KCT) in which the knowledge engineer can effectively retrieve, structure, and formalize knowledge components, so that the resulting knowledge base is accurate and complete. The KCT uses information retrieval technique to facilitate conceptualization, which is one of the human intensive activities of knowledge acquisition. Two information retrieval techniques employing best-match strategies are used: vector space model and probabilistic ranking principle model. A prototype of the KCT was implemented to demonstrate the concept. The results from KCT are compared with the outputs from a manual knowledge acquisition process in terms of amount of information retrieved and the process time spent. An analysis of the results shows that the process time to retrieve knowledge components (e.g., facts, rules, protocols, and uncertainty) of KCT is about half that of the manual process, and the number of knowledge components retrieved from knowledge acquisition activities is four times more than that retrieved through a manual process     

An application of expert systems techniques to the on-line control and fault diagnosis of a mixing process

An application of expert hierarchical control is described in this paper. The control is implemented in a two-level configuration, where the lower layer performs direct regulation control and the upper layer performs supervisory functions. In the regulation layer, a rule-based controller performs the regulation task, where the controller is constructed upon causal relations between subsystems. The control action is inferred from the measurement of both controlled and noncontrolled variables. In the supervisory layer, the main function is a fault diagnosis system which diagnoses faults on-line. The diagnosis is based upon reasoning from the structure of the system and the functions of its components, and efficient diagnosis is achieved by dividing the system into several subsystems. The overall technique has been successfully implemented on a pilot scale mixing process under on-line computer control.