Approximate data instance matching: a survey

Approximate data matching is a central problem in several data management processes, such as data integration, data cleaning, approximate queries, similarity search and so on. An approximate matching process aims at defining whether two data represent the same real-world object. For atomic values (strings, dates, etc), similarity functions have been defined for several value domains (person names, addresses, and so on). For matching aggregated values, such as relational tuples and XML trees, approaches alternate from the definition of simple functions that combine values of similarity of record attributes to sophisticated techniques based on machine learning, for example. For complex data comparison, including structured and semistructured documents, existing approaches use both structure and data for the comparison, by either considering or not considering data semantics. This survey presents terminology and concepts that base approximated data matching, as well as discusses related work on the use of similarity functions in such a subject.     

Nanocrystal Memory Cell Integration in a Stand-Alone 16-Mb nor Flash Device

We report on the full process integration of nanocrystal (NC) memory cells in a stand-alone 16-Mb NOR Flash device. The Si NCs are deposited by chemical vapor deposition on a thin tunnel oxide, whose surface is treated with a low thermal budget process, which increases NC density and minimizes oxide degradation. The device fabrication has been obtained by means of conventional Flash technology, which is integrated with the CMOS periphery with high- and low-voltage transistors and charge pump capacitors. The memory program and erase threshold voltage distributions are well separated and narrow. The voltage distribution widths are related to NC sizes and dispersion, and bigger NCs can induce a cell reliability weakness. An endurance issue is also related to the use of an oxide/nitride/oxide dielectric which acts as a charge trapping layer, causing a shift in the program/erase window and a distribution broadening during cycling.     

Effect of Ni addition and cryogenic hardening on the mechanical and tribological properties of self-lubricating steels produced by MIM

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the relation between mechanical properties and tribological behaviour of self-lubricating steels produced by in-situ dissociation of SiC. Literature shows that an increase in the mechanical strength of these materials lowers their friction coefficient and wear rates. These works have studied steels with mechanical strength up to 800?MPa, but it is unclear if this trend continues with further increments of mechanical strengths. To tackle this question, self-lubricating steels with Ni and Mo were sintered, half of the samples with 8 wt-% Ni were treated cryogenically hardened. Results show that this trend does not escalate with mechanical strength, furthermore, when ductility is low, graphite reservoirs are not easily accessed, and lubrication is incomplete. Also, plastic deformation allows to better distribute the load of the counter body at the surface, which reduces the wear rates of the specimens and the counter bodies.     

Calculation of the Critical Field and the Nernst Effect in Cuprate Superconductors

A recent experiment which measured the Nernst effect, the diamagnetic signal and the H _c2 field was interpreted as a support to the scenario which the pseudogap has the pair condensate without long-range phase coherence. We present here calculations which qualitatively reproduces the onset of the Nernst signal temperature T _ν (ρ) and T _c (ρ) as function of the doping level ρ. Together with our previous calculations to the magnetization and H _c2, we conclude that the phase separation scenario supports also the new Nernst effect experiments. This work has been partially supported by CAPES and CNPq.     

Simultaneously All-Optical Inverted and Noninverted Wavelength Conversion Employing Ultra-Small Silicon-on-Insulator Waveguide

We propose single-to-dual all-optical wavelength conversion based on stimulated Raman effect on silicon waveguides. Simulation results of non-return-to-zero (NRZ) pseudorandom bit sequence (2⁷–1 code) at 10, 50, and 200-Gbit/s rates of conversion in an ultra-small silicon-on-insulator waveguide are presented. The main goal in the proposed scheme is that the converted signal can be obtained simultaneously inverted, at the 1550 nm channel (down-conversion) and non-inverted, at the 1846 nm channel (up-conversion), for original signal fixed at 1686 nm.     

Effects of kappa opioid agonists on the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in rhesus monkeys.

The study examined the effects of the kappa opioid agonists U50,488 and ethylketocyclazocine (EKC) on cocaine discrimination in rhesus monkeys trained to discriminate cocaine (0.4 mg/kg) from saline. Administration of U50,488 and EKC alone produced primarily saline-appropriate responding. Kappa agonist pretreatments produced variable effects on cocaine discrimination across monkeys, attenuating the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in some monkeys, but either having no effect on cocaine discrimination or enhancing the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in other monkeys. The effects of kappa agonists on cocaine discrimination were reversed by pretreatment with the opioid antagonist naloxone (1.0 mg/kg). These results indicate that kappa agonists do not consistently block the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in rhesus monkeys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Technical,economic, and regulatory analysis of the implementation of micro-cogeneration technology in the Brazilian manufacturing sector

Small-scale distributed power generation offers environmental benefits through the improvement of global energy efficiency, in addition to increasing the reliability of the power supply. In this study, the technical and economic viability of the implementation of micro-cogeneration technology in the manufacturing sector was studied in light of the Brazilian regulatory situation. The thermal efficiency potential for the manufacturing sector is introduced for further exploration by decision-makers. This study also investigated the behavior of micro-cogeneration in distributed generation through the Brazilian Energy Compensation System. The technical viability was studied by simulating a Brayton cycle with the operation parameters of a 100 kW micro-turbine. This simulation allowed an estimation of the avoided cost of natural gas compared to an industrial process without cogeneration. Rate projections were performed by linear regression during the system’s depreciation period. The economic evaluation was performed using the following indicators: net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and discounted payback. Finally, a sensitivity study was performed to project how the micro-cogeneration efficiency and the Brazilian regulations can address future variations of natural gas and electricity rates. Given the conditions of this study, the increase in energy prices favors micro-cogeneration; however, the economic viability is affected if the system operates below 70% of heat use in industrial processes, which reduces the effect of public policies toward the incentive to cogenerate.     

Best of SBAC-PAD 2012

This special issue presents new trends in computer architecture and in parallel and distributed systems. It is based on the best papers of the 24th International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing, which was held in New York, NY, USA on October 24–26, 2012 in the Columbia University. The authors were invited to provide extended versions of the papers presented in the conference, taking into account suggestions by the double-blinded peer review process and comments gathered during the conference.     

Motivational counseling reduces future police charges in court referred youth

By the age of 18, between 16 and 27% of adolescents in the U.S. have been arrested for an offense and by the age of 23 this increases to a staggering 25–41%. Most youth that get into legal trouble have a substance abuse problem and many youth report high risk driving behaviors. Adjudication of adolescents for an offense may provide an opportunity to provide a secondary prevention program for such high risk behaviors. In this regard the primary aim of the present study was to test two hypotheses: (1) that interventions involving group motivational interviewing would decrease future legal charges beyond those achieved by the combination of sanctions and remedial actions otherwise mandated by the court; and (2) that the addition of a trauma room exposure to the group MI intervention would increase the effectiveness of MI in decreasing these future legal charges.     

Formal verification of wastewater treatment processes using events detected from continuous signals by means of artificial neural networks. Case study: SBR plant

This paper proposes a modular architecture for the analysis and the validation of wastewater treatment processes. An algorithm using neural networks is used to extract the relevant qualitative patterns, such as “apexes”, “knees” and “steps”, from the signals acquired in the reaction tanks. These patterns, which show changes in the signals trend, are mapped to events in the process and logged using an appropriate XML format. The logs, in turn, are considered traces of the execution of a manufacturing process and validated using tools commonly applied for the Verification of Business Processes. The system has been applied to the data collected from a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) for municipal wastewater treatment, equipped with probes for the on-line acquisition of signals such as pH, oxidation--reduction potential (ORP) and dissolved oxygen (DO). A SBR has turned out to be a suitable case study since the commonly acknowledged criteria for monitoring the biological processes (nitrification and denitrification) can be expressed in the form or qualitative constraints, which are easily translated into formal rules. The process logs, hence, are matched against these rules, which act as filters and quality classifiers.