Unifying Instance-Based and Rule-Based Induction

Several well-developed approaches to inductive learning low exist, but each has specific limitations that are hard to overcome. Multi-strategy learning attempts to tackle this problem combining multiple methods in one algorithm. This article describes a unification of two widely-used empirical approaches: rule induction and instance-based learning. In the new algorithm, instances are treated as maximally specific rules, and classification is oerformed using a best-match strategy. Rules are learned by gradually generalizing instances until no improvement in apparent accuracy is obtained. Theoretical analysis shows this approach to be efficient. It is implemented in the RISE 3.1 system. In an extensive empirical study, RISE consistently achieves higher accuracies than state-of-the-art representatives of both its parent approaches (PEBLS and CN2), as well as a decision tree learner (C4.5). Lesion studies show that eachoof RISE's components is essential to this performance. Most significantly, in 14 of the 30 domains studied, RISE is more accurate than the best of PEBLS and CN2, showing that a significant synergy can be obtained by combining multiple empirical methods.     

Dynamic Memory Instruction Bypassing

Reducing the latency of load instructions is among the most crucial aspects to achieve high performance for current and future microarchitectures. Deep pipelining impacts load-to-use latency even for loads that hit in cache. In this paper we present a dynamic mechanism which detects relations between address producing instructions and the loads that consume these addresses and uses this information to access data before the load is even fetched from the I-Cache. This mechanism is not intended to prefetch from outside the chip but to move data from L1 and L2 silently and ahead of time into the register file, allowing the bypassing of the load instruction (hence the name). An average performance improvement of 22.24% is achieved in the SPECint95 benchmarks.     

Supporting model-driven development using a process-centered software engineering environment

The adoption of Model-Driven Development (MDD) is increasing and it is widely recognized as an important approach for building software systems. In addition to traditional development process models, an MDD process requires the selection of metamodels and mapping rules for the generation of the transformation chain which produces models and application code. In this context, software process tasks should be performed in a specific sequence, with the correct input artifacts to produce the output ones. However, existing support tools and transformation engines for MDD do not have a process-centered focus that addresses different kinds of software process activities, such as application modeling and testing to guide the developers. Furthermore, they do not enable process modeling nor the (semi) automated execution of activities during process enactment. The MoDErNE (Model Driven Process-Centered Software Engineering Environment) uses process-centered software engineering environment concepts to improve MDD process specification and enactment by using a metamodeling foundation. In MoDErNE, a software process model may be enacted several times in different software projects. This paper details the MoDErNE environment, its approach and architecture and also the case studies through which the tool was evaluated.     

Solid-state laser pumping by light guides

What we believe to be novel pumping schemes for lamp-pumped solid-state lasers are proposed. Based on the refractive and total internal reflection principles, curved fused-silica light guides of rectangular cross sections are used to couple the pump radiation from an arc lamp into a laser crystal. The performances of light-guide pumping schemes are analyzed through a nonsequential ray-trace program and are compared to that of a single elliptical cavity. Improved pump radiation distribution around the laser crystal was registered. The light-guide cavities also permit tailoring the pump flux distribution within the active medium. A lamp-pumped Nd:YAG laser by a light-guide cavity was built and tested. An overall laser efficiency of 1.1% was measured.     

Linear program-based algorithm for the optimal design of wastewater treatment systems

This paper presents a new approach for the optimal design of distributed wastewater treatment networks with multiple contaminants. It consists of a two-stage solution strategy. In the first stage, a decomposition method is employed that replaces the general non-linear program (NLP) by a succession of linear programs, one for each treatment unit. In the second stage, the resulting network is used as a starting point for the solution of the general NLP by a local optimization solver. The decomposition process considers a specific substructure, where it is assumed that the wastewater streams go through the treatment units in sequence. To consider all combinations, the two-stage solution strategy is applied as many times as the number of possible sequences. This allows considering multiple and structurally different starting points, thus increasing the probability of finding global optimal solutions. The results have shown that the proposed approach can find better solutions than other approach reported in the literature, however with a drawback of being more demanding computationally. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Cold deformation effect on the microstructures and mechanical properties of AISI 301LN and 316L stainless steels

As austenitic stainless steels have an adequate combination of mechanical resistance, conformability and resistance to corrosion they are used in a wide variety of industries, such as the food, transport, nuclear and petrochemical industries. Among these austenitic steels, the AISI 301LN and 316L steels have attracted prominent attention due to their excellent mechanical resistance. In this paper a microstructural characterization of AISI 301LN and 316L steels was made using various techniques such as metallography, optical microscopy, scanning electronic microscopy and atomic force microscopy, in order to analyze the cold deformation effect. Also, the microstructural changes were correlated with the alterations of mechanical properties of the materials under study. One of the numerous uses of AISI 301LN and 316L steels is in the structure of wagons for metropolitan surface trains. For this type of application it is imperative to know their microstructural behavior when subjected to cold deformation and correlate it with their mechanical properties and resistance to corrosion. Microstructural analysis showed that cold deformation causes significant microstructural modifications in these steels, mainly hardening. This modification increases the mechanical resistance of the materials appropriately for their foreseen application. Nonetheless, the materials become susceptible to pitting corrosion.     

Multispectral synthesis of daylight using a commercial digital CCD camera

Performance of multispectral devices in recovering spectral data has been intensively investigated in some applications, as in spectral characterization of art paintings, but has received little attention in the context of spectral characterization of natural illumination. This study investigated the quality of the spectral estimation of daylight-type illuminants using a commercial digital CCD camera and a set of broadband colored filters. Several recovery algorithms that did not need information about spectral sensitivities of the camera sensors nor eigenvectors to describe the spectra were tested. Tests were carried out both with virtual data, using simulated camera responses, and real data obtained from real measurements. It was found that it is possible to recover daylight spectra with high spectral and colorimetric accuracy with a reduced number of three to nine spectral bands.     

Tearing as a test for mechanical characterization of thin adhesive films

Thin adhesive films have become increasingly important in applications involving packaging, coating or for advertising. Once a film is adhered to a substrate, flaps can be detached by tearing and peeling, but they narrow and collapse in pointy shapes. Similar geometries are observed when peeling ultrathin films grown or deposited on a solid substrate, or skinning the natural protective cover of a ripe fruit. Here, we show that the detached flaps have perfect triangular shapes with a well-defined vertex angle; this is a signature of the conversion of bending energy into surface energy of fracture and adhesion. In particular, this triangular shape of the tear encodes the mechanical parameters related to these three forms of energy and could form the basis of a quantitative assay for the mechanical characterization of thin adhesive films, nanofilms deposited on substrates or fruit skin.     

Two-digit number comparison: Decade-unit and unit-decade produce the same compatibility effect with number words.

This study explored the processing of 2-digit number words by examining the unit-decade compatibility effect in Spanish. Participants were required to choose the larger of 2-digit number words presented in verbal notation. In compatible trials the decade and unit comparisons led to the same response (e.g., 53–68) while in incompatible trials the decade and unit comparisons led to different responses (e.g., 59–74). Participants were slower on compatible trials as compared to incompatible trials. In Experiments 2 and 3, we evaluated whether the reverse compatibility effect in Spanish was only due to a pure left-to-right encoding which favours the decade processing in this language (decade-unit order). When participants processed 2-digit number words presented in reverse form (in the unit-decade order), the same reverse compatibility effect was found. This pattern of results suggests that participants have learnt a language-dependent process for analysing written numbers which is used irrespective of the specific arrangement of units and decades in the comparison task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)