On the ambiguation of Polish notation

In this paper we study an alternative way of treating Polish notation. Instead of proving unique reading for a well-behaved set of terms, we interpret any string of the alphabet in a monoid that extends, in a specifiable sense, the given algebra of functions.     

A residualizing semantics for the partial evaluation of functional logic programs

Recent proposals for multi-paradigm declarative programming combine the most important features of functional, logic and concurrent programming into a single framework. The operational semantics of these languages is usually based on a combination of narrowing and residuation. In this paper, we introduce a non-standard, residualizing semantics for multi-paradigm declarative programs and prove its equivalence with a standard operational semantics. Our residualizing semantics is particularly relevant within the area of program transformation where it is useful, e.g., to perform computations during partial evaluation. Thus, the proof of equivalence is a crucial result to demonstrate the correctness of (existing) partial evaluation schemes.     

Prosody Evaluation as a Diagnostic Process: Subjective vs. Objective Measurements

A set of perception experiments, using reiterant and lexicalised speech, was designed to perform a diagnostic of the relative implication of prosody in the segmentation and hierarchisation of speech. Both natural and synthetic intonation were evaluated. Then, two distance measures—correlation and root-mean-square distance on the acoustic parameters (F0, syllabic duration and intensity)—were applied to match the perception results. This objective vs. subjective comparison underlines which acoustic cues are used by listeners to judge the adequacy of prosody in performing a given function such as demarcation. Results can be summarized by a scale of the perceptual distance between two demarcation functions. This study also points out the ability of listeners to retrieve pertinent information on the basis of pure prosodic stimuli.     

Dissymmetric warfare versus asymmetric warfare

This paper presents two concepts: asymmetric warfare and dissymmetric warfare. NATO and US Military operations in recent wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan are analysed by means of comparison with old Chinese strategic thinking. No‐Loss‐Strategy and virtual warfare as well as the transformation from asymmetric to dissymmetric and from dissymmetric to asymmetric warfare are reflected upon.     

Oil Spill Dispersant Effectiveness Protocol. II: Performance of Revised Protocol

The current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protocol for testing the effectiveness of dispersants for use in treating oil spills on the open water, the swirling flask test (SFT), has been found to give widely varying results in the hands of different testing laboratories. Part I addressed the sources of the ambiguities in the EPA SFT and the development of a new test referred to as the baffled flask test (BFT). In this part of the series, further experiments were conducted for estimating the repeatability of three operators in determining the effectiveness of 18 dispersants by both the EPA SFT and the BFT methods. Overall statistical analysis of the results indicated that the coefficient of variation by the BFT was only 7.8% compared to 21.9% for the EPA SFT. The mean percent effectiveness of the EPA SFT was only 19.7% as compared to 64.6% for the BFT. Proposed selection criteria for screening of dispersants for listing on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule have been developed.     

One-Order-Statistic Conditional Estimators of Shape Parameters of Limited and Pareto Distributions and Scale Parameters of Type II Asymptotic Distributions of Smallest and Largest Values

One-order-statistic estimators are derived for the shape parameter K of the limited distribution function F1(x, ?, K) = 1 - (? - x)K and the Pareto distribution function F2(y, ?, K) = 1 - (y - ?)-K, given the location parameters ? and ?, respectively. Similar estimators are derived for the scale parameters v1 and Vn, of the Type II asymptotic distributions of smallest and largest values, F3(w, v1, K) = 1 - exp[-(w/v1)-K] and F4(z, vn K) = exp [-(z/vn)-K], given the shape parameter K and assuming the location parameter is zero. The one-order-statistic estimators are K?|? = -1/Cmn 1n(? - xmn) for the limited distribution, K?|? = 1/Cmn 1n(ymn - ?) for the Pareto distribution, ?1|K = Cmn-1/K Wmn and ?n|K = Cmn-1/K Zn-m+1,n for the Type II distributions of smallest and largest values, where Xmn, Ymn, Wmn, Zmn are the mth order statistics of samples of size n from the respective distributions and Cmn is the coefficient for a one-order-statistic estimator of the scale parameter of an exponential distribution, which has been tabled in an earlier paper. It is shown that exact confidence bounds can be easily derived for these parameters using exact confidence bounds for the scale parameter of the exponential distribution. Use of the estimators is illustrated by numerical examples.     

Stability regions of Schur andG-stable polynomials

The paper presents a unified approach to calculation, for a given, nominal,G-stable polynomial, a corresponding stability region in the space of perturbed coefficientsOn leave from Institute of Electrical Engineering, 04-703 Warsaw, ul. Pozaryskiego 28, Poland.     

测试与最后工序之融合

目前,半导体工业正以飞快速度不断发展变化。面对成本压力和新封装技术,制造业和设备供货商们在设备能力、工艺和自动控制方面持续不断地加以更新和改进。在测试与最后工序领域中,成功的自动化解决方案是使测试与最后工序相结合,即从根本上转变它的设计形式而大幅度提高效率。它不仅包括大量已封装好的独立组件及高平行性的测试系统,也包括合并高速的最后工序系统。     

Automatic detection and quantification of tree-in-bud (TIB) opacities from CT scans

This study presents a novel computer-assisted detection (CAD) system for automatically detecting and precisely quantifying abnormal nodular branching opacities in chest computed tomography (CT), termed tree-in-bud (TIB) opacities by radiology literature. The developed CAD system in this study is based on 1) fast localization of candidate imaging patterns using local scale information of the images, and 2) M?bius invariant feature extraction method based on learned local shape and texture properties of TIB patterns. For fast localization of candidate imaging patterns, we use ball-scale filtering and, based on the observation of the pattern of interest, a suitable scale selection is used to retain only small size patterns. Once candidate abnormality patterns are identified, we extract proposed shape features from regions where at least one candidate pattern occupies. The comparative evaluation of the proposed method with commonly used CAD methods is presented with a dataset of 60 chest CTs (laboratory confirmed 39 viral bronchiolitis human parainfluenza CTs and 21 normal chest CTs). The quantitative results are presented as the area under the receiver operator characteristics curves and a computer score (volume affected by TIB) provided as an output of the CAD system. In addition, a visual grading scheme is applied to the patient data by three well-trained radiologists. Interobserver and observer-computer agreements are obtained by the relevant statistical methods over different lung zones. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CAD system can achieve high detection rates with an overall accuracy of 90.96%. Moreover, correlations of observer-observer (R(2)=0.8848, and observer-CAD agreements (R(2)=0.824, validate the feasibility of the use of the proposed CAD system in detecting and quantifying TIB patterns.     

Evaluation of Diffusion Barrier Between Lead-Free Solder Systems and Thermoelectric Materials

The intermetallic compound SnTe rapidly formed at interfaces between p-type bismuth telluride (Bi_0.5Sb_1.5Te₃) thermoelectric materials and lead-free solders. The intermetallic compound influences the mechanical properties of the joints and the reliability of the thermoelectric modules. Various lead-free solder alloys, Sn-3.5Ag, Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu, Sn-0.7Cu, and Sn-2.5Ag-2Ni, were used to investigate the interfacial reactions. The results thus obtained show that Ag and Cu preferentially diffused into the Te-rich phase in Bi_0.5Sb_1.5Te₃, so layers of Ag-Te and Cu-Te compounds could not form an effective diffusion barrier. Electroless nickel-phosphorus was plated at the interfaces to serve as a diffusion barrier, and the (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ compound formed instead of SnTe. Furthermore, the intermetallic compound NiTe formed between nickel- phosphorus and Bi_0.5Sb_1.5Te₃ and also served as a diffusion barrier. A plot of thickness as a function of annealing time yielded the growth kinetics of the intermetallic compounds in the thermoelectric material systems. The activation energy for the growth of the NiTe intermetallic compound is 111 kJ/mol.