Globilization and regional scenarios: EU and mediterranean from marginalization to co-development

Despite globalization a progressively increasing economic and financial concentration in the cores of the world economy (e.g. EU) as well as the rise of new socioeconomic marginalization of peripheries (e.g. Maghreb and Mashraq) has been observed since the early 1980s. Marginalization has produced its own models of specialization in production which reflect in various countries and regions the needs of the cores economy forces. A regional strategy for regional co-operation, so called co-development, is advanced to overcome the current economic and social problems faced by marginalized regions in relation to world economic trends.     

Algorithms for Fuzzy Segmentation

Fuzzy segmentation is an effective way of segmenting out objects in pictures containing both random noise and shading. This is illustrated both on mathematically created pictures and on some obtained from medical imaging. A theory of fuzzy segmentation is presented. To perform fuzzy segmentation, a ‘connectedness map’ needs to be produced. It is demonstrated that greedy algorithms for creating such a connectedness map are faster than the previously used dynamic programming technique. Once the connectedness map is created, segmentation is completed by a simple thresholding of the connectedness map. This approach is efficacious in instances where simple thresholding of the original picture fails. Received: 22 October 1998?Received in revised form: 22 November 1998?Accepted: 2 December 1998     

Optical Characterization of Tb<Superscript>3+</Superscript>:BaHfO<Subscript>3</Subscript> Thin Films by Means of Photoacoustic Spectroscopy

In this work, the synthesis and optical characterization of Al₂O₃/Tb³⁺:BaHfO₃/Al₂O₃ heterostructure, grown by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis technique are reported. The X-ray diffraction patterns corroborate that the scintillator layer structure corresponds to perovskite structure, while the elemental chemical composition of it is close to the optimal stoichiometry, but showing barium vacancies. The empirical determination of the optical bandgap energy, achieved by means of the photoacoustic spectroscopy technique, set a principal direct band gap in 3.8 eV, but evidencing the existence of a larger indirect bandgap also. The photoluminescent spectroscopy measurements show that the heterostructure has an intense fluorescent response, congruent to the principal emission lines of trivalent terbium, as was intended to.     

Effects of Conformal Nanoscale Coatings on Thermal Performance of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes

The high aspect ratio and the porous nature of spatially oriented forest‐like carbon nanotube (CNT) structures represent a unique opportunity to engineer a novel class of nanoscale assemblies. By combining CNTs and conformal coatings, a 3D lightweight scaffold with tailored behavior can be achieved. The effect of nanoscale coatings, aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) and nonstoichiometric amorphous silicon carbide (a‐SiC), on the thermal transport efficiency of high aspect ratio vertically aligned CNTs, is reported herein. The thermal performance of the CNT‐based nanostructure strongly depends on the achieved porosity, the coating material and its infiltration within the nanotube network. An unprecedented enhancement in terms of effective thermal conductivity in a‐SiC coated CNTs has been obtained: 181% compared to the as‐grown CNTs and Al₂O₃ coated CNTs. Furthermore, the integration of coated high aspect ratio CNTs in an epoxy molding compound demonstrates that, next to the required thermal conductivity, the mechanical compliance for thermal interface applications can also be achieved through coating infiltration into foam‐like CNT forests.     

On unscented Kalman filtering with state interval constraints

This paper addresses the state-estimation problem for nonlinear systems for the case in which prior knowledge is available in the form of interval constraints on the states. Approximate solutions to this problem are reviewed and compared with new algorithms. All the algorithms investigated are based on the unscented Kalman filter. Two illustrative examples of chemical processes are discussed. Numerical results suggest that the use of constrained unscented filtering algorithms improves the accuracy of the state estimates compared to the unconstrained unscented filter, especially when a poor initialization is set. Moreover, it is shown that the constrained filters that enforce the state interval constraint on both the state estimate and error covariance yield more accurate state estimates than the methods that enforce such constraint only on the state estimates.     

An integrated symbolic/connectionist architecture for parsing italian sentences containing pp-attachment ambiguities

This paper describes a hybrid (symbolic/connectionist) system that performs PP-attachment disambiguation by taking advantage of three distinguishing features of neutral networks: distributed representation, functional compositionality, and inductive learning. The connectionist part of the system follows all the steps performed by the symbolic parser, and drives the parser's behavior by inducing a bias towards the most semantically plausible attachment choices. The sentence to be parsed is read one word at a time. When the symbolic parser has more than one production to apply, the connectionist module has already developed an inner representation of the sentence and a distribution of probabilities over the possible choices. The parser continues its work according to such a distribution.     

Investigating the differential activation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors

The vascular endothelial growth factors are key mediators of angiogenesis and are also related to several physiological processes such as monocyte chemotaxis, dendritic cell development, hematopoietic stem cell survival, and many others. PlGF, VEGF, VEGFB, VEGFC and VEGFD were identified as members of the vascular endothelial growth factor family. They act by differential activation of three receptors: Flt-1, KDR and Flt-4. PlGF and VEGFB only activate Flt-1. VEGF activates both Flt-1 and KDR. VEGFC and VEGFD activate KDR and Flt-4. The available three dimensional structures of VEGF and PlGF, in complex with the domain-2 of Flt-1, show that both proteins bind in a very similar way to Flt-1 receptor. Here we construct the three dimensional model of the domain-2 of KDR receptor using the same domain of Flt-1 as template. We also construct the model complexes VEGF/KDR, VEGFB/Flt-1, VEGFB/KDR and PlGF/KDR. Molecular dynamics simulations with explicit solvent are carried out on eleven molecular systems: unbound VEGF, VEGF/Flt-1_D2, VEGF/KDR_D2, unbound PlGF, PlGF/Flt-1_D2, PlGF/KDR_D2, unbound VEGFB, VEGFB/Flt-1_D2, VEGFB/KDR_D2, unbound Flt-1_D2 and unbound KDR_D2. We analyze protein–protein interactions, shape complementarity, charge complementarity and hydrogen bonds. As a coarse estimation of the desolvation penalties, we assume a correlation to the number of hydrogen bonds with solvent molecules that are lost upon complex formation. The results herein are consistent with the experimental selectivity profile (VEGF being able to activate both Flt-1 and KDR receptors while VEGFB and PlGF being only able to activate Flt-1), and provide a collection of evidences sustaining the complementarity of polar interactions as the main responsible for protein recognition and selectivity.     

Backward Coupling in Bounded Free-Choice Nets Under Markovian and Non-Markovian Assumptions

In this paper, we show how to design a perfect sampling algorithm for stochastic Free-Choice Petri nets by backward coupling. For Markovian event graphs, the simulation time can be greatly reduced by using extremal initial states, namely blocking marking, although such nets do not exhibit any natural monotonicity property. Another approach for perfect simulation of non-Markovian event graphs is based on a (max,plus) representation of the system and the theory of (max,plus) stochastic systems. We also show how to extend this approach to one-bounded free choice nets to the expense of keeping all states. Finally, experimental runs show that the (max,plus) approach needs a larger simulation time than the Markovian approach.

Performance and energy consumption estimation for commercial off-the-shelf component system design

Nowadays, component-based embedded real- time systems have been used to improve the system development as well as to keep cost down through the reuse of embedded software applications. Besides, the use of semi-formal models has been widely adopted in the embedded real-time system component and system life cycle due to their friendly and intuitive notations. However, the ever more complex systems of today require modeling methods that allow early detection of potential problems in the initial phases of development. This paper presents the mapping process of UML state machine diagram into a time Petri net with energy constraints so as to estimate execution time and energy consumption in early phases of the embedded real-time component development life cycle. The estimates obtained from the model show that the proposed approach is indeed a good approximation to the respective measures obtained from the real hardware platform.