Semilinear Duhem model for rate-independent and rate-dependent hysteresis

The classical Duhem model provides a finite-dimensional differential model of hysteresis. In this paper, we consider rate-independent and rate-dependent semilinear Duhem models with provable properties. The vector field is given by the product of a function of the input rate and linear dynamics. If the input rate function is positively homogeneous, then the resulting input-output map of the model is rate independent, yielding persistent nontrivial input-output closed curve (that is, hysteresis) at arbitrarily low input frequency. If the input rate function is not positively homogeneous, the input-output map is rate dependent and can be approximated by a rate-independent model for low frequency inputs. Sufficient conditions for convergence to a limiting input-output map are developed for rate-independent and rate-dependent models. Finally, the reversal behavior and orientation of the rate-independent model are discussed.     

Multiplication by integer constants

Methods are given for finding a sequence of ‘add’, ‘subtract’ and ‘shift’ instructions to multiply the contents of a register by an integer constant. Each method generalizes the previous one and requires only a few intermediate or scratch registers. A variation of the last method is used in the PL.8 compiler and uses an unnoticeable amount of the overall compile time. Some statistics roughly indicating the effectiveness of the methods are presented.     

Robust controller synthesis using the maximum entropy design equations

This note presents an application of the optimality conditions obtained in [1] for dynamic compensation in the presence of state-, control-, and measurement-dependent noise. By solving these equations, which represent a fundamental generalization of standard steady-state LQG theory, a series of increasingly robust control designs is obtained for the example considered in [2].     

Direct Adaptive Dynamic Compensation for Minimum Phase Systems With Unknown Relative Degree

We consider parameter-monotonic direct adaptive control for single-input-single-output minimum-phase linear time-invariant systems with knowledge of the sign of the high-frequency gain (first nonzero Markov parameter) and an upper bound on the magnitude of the high-frequency gain. The first part of the paper is devoted to fixed-gain analysis of single-parameter high-gain-stabilizing controllers. Two novel fixed-gain dynamic compensators are presented for stabilizing minimum-phase systems. One compensator stabilizes systems with arbitrary-but-known relative degree, while the other utilizes a Fibonacci series construction to stabilize systems with unknown-but-bounded relative degree. Next, we provide a general treatment of parameter-monotonic adaptive control, including a result that guarantees state convergence to zero. This result is then combined with the high-gain-stabilizing controllers to yield parameter-monotonic direct adaptive dynamic compensation for minimum-phase systems with either arbitrary-but-known or unknown-but-bounded relative degree     

Lyapunov-stable adaptive stabilization of non-linear time-varying systems with matched uncertainty

This paper considers direct adaptive stabilization of multi-input non-linear time-varying systems with full-state feedback and state-and-time-dependent uncertainty. The novel result of this paper is a single-parameter adaptive controller that yields a Lyapunov-stable closed-loop system. We demonstrate the controller on a non-linear spring-mass-damper, a three-degree-of-freedom Mathieu equation, and a 4th-order non-linear time-varying system.     

Evaluating the usability of natural language query languages and interfaces to Semantic Web knowledge bases

The need to make the contents of the Semantic Web accessible to end-users becomes increasingly pressing as the amount of information stored in ontology-based knowledge bases steadily increases. Natural language interfaces (NLIs) provide a familiar and convenient means of query access to Semantic Web data for casual end-users. While several studies have shown that NLIs can achieve high retrieval performance as well as domain independence, this paper focuses on usability and investigates if NLIs and natural language query languages are useful from an end-user's point of view. To that end, we introduce four interfaces each allowing a different query language and present a usability study benchmarking these interfaces. The results of the study reveal a clear preference for full natural language query sentences with a limited set of sentence beginnings over keywords or formal query languages. NLIs to ontology-based knowledge bases can, therefore, be considered to be useful for casual or occasional end-users. As such, the overarching contribution is one step towards the theoretical vision of the Semantic Web becoming reality.     

Dynamic Network User Equilibrium with State-Dependent Time Lags

This paper recasts the Friesz et al. (1993) measure theoretic model of dynamic network user equibrium as a controlled variational inequality problem involving Riemann integrals. This restatement is done to make the model and its foundations accessible to a wider audience by removing the need to have a background in functional analysis. Our exposition is dependent on previously unavailable necessary conditions for optimal control problems with state-dependent time lags. These necessary conditions, derived in an Appendix, are employed to show that a particular variational inequality control problem has solutions that are dynamic network user equilibria. Our analysis also shows that use of proper flow propagation constraints obviates the need to explicitly employ the arc exit time functions that have complicated numerical implementations of the Friesz et al. (1993) model heretofore. We close by describing the computational implications of numerically determining dynamic user equilibria from formulations based on state-dependent time lags.     

A survey of approaches to automatic schema matching

Schema matching is a basic problem in many database application domains, such as data integration, E-business, data warehousing, and semantic query processing. In current implementations, schema matching is typically performed manually, which has significant limitations. On the other hand, previous research papers have proposed many techniques to achieve a partial automation of the match operation for specific application domains. We present a taxonomy that covers many of these existing approaches, and we describe the approaches in some detail. In particular, we distinguish between schema-level and instance-level, element-level and structure-level, and language-based and constraint-based matchers. Based on our classification we review some previous match implementations thereby indicating which part of the solution space they cover. We intend our taxonomy and review of past work to be useful when comparing different approaches to schema matching, when developing a new match algorithm, and when implementing a schema matching component. Received: 5 February 2001 / Accepted: 6 September 2001 Published online: 21 November 2001