Tracking control for boundary controlled parabolic PDEs with varying parameters: Combining backstepping and differential flatness

The combination of backstepping-based state-feedback control and flatness-based trajectory planning and feedforward control is considered for the design of an exponentially stabilizing tracking controller for a linear diffusion-convection-reaction system with spatially and temporally varying parameters and nonlinear boundary input. For this, in a first step the backstepping transformation is utilized to determine a state-feedback controller, which transforms the original distributed-parameter system into an appropriately chosen exponentially stable distributed-parameter target system of a significantly simpler structure. In a second step, the flatness property of the target system is exploited in order to determine the feedforward controller, which allows us to realize the tracking of suitably prescribed trajectories for the system output. This results in a systematic procedure for the design of an exponentially stabilizing tracking controller for the considered general linear diffusion-convection-reaction system with varying parameters, whose applicability and tracking performance is evaluated in simulation studies.     

Stabilizing switching design for switched linear systems: A state-feedback path-wise switching approach

This paper addresses the problem of switching stabilization for discrete-time switched linear systems. Based on the abstraction-aggregation methodology, we propose a state-feedback path-wise switching law, which is a state-feedback concatenation from a finite set of switching paths each defined over a finite time interval. We prove that the set of state-feedback path-wise switching laws is universal in the sense that any stabilizable switched linear system admits a stabilizing switching law in this set. We further develop a computational procedure to calculate a stabilizing switching law in the set.     

A comment on “Using locally estimated geodesic distance to optimize neighborhood graph for isometric data embedding”

A geodesic distance-based approach to build the neighborhood graph for isometric embedding is proposed to deal with the highly twisted and folded manifold by Wen et al. [Using locally estimated geodesic distance to optimize neighborhood graph for isometric data embedding, Pattern Recognition 41 (2008) 2226-2236]. This comment is to identify the error in their example and the ineffectiveness of their algorithm.     

A genetic algorithm with gene rearrangement for K-means clustering

In this paper, a new clustering algorithm based on genetic algorithm (GA) with gene rearrangement (GAGR) is proposed, which in application may effectively remove the degeneracy for the purpose of a more efficient search. A new crossover operator that exploits a measure of similarity between chromosomes in a population is also presented. Adaptive probabilities of crossover and mutation are employed to prevent the convergence of the GAGR to a local optimum. Using the real-world data sets, we compare the performance of our GAGR clustering algorithm with K-means algorithm and other GA methods. An application of the GAGR clustering algorithm in unsupervised classification of multispectral remote sensing images is also provided. Experiment results demonstrate that the GAGR clustering algorithm has high performance, effectiveness and flexibility.     

Combining feature spaces for classification

In this paper we offer a variational Bayes approximation to the multinomial probit model for basis expansion and kernel combination. Our model is well-founded within a hierarchical Bayesian framework and is able to instructively combine available sources of information for multinomial classification. The proposed framework enables informative integration of possibly heterogeneous sources in a multitude of ways, from the simple summation of feature expansions to weighted product of kernels, and it is shown to match and in certain cases outperform the well-known ensemble learning approaches of combining individual classifiers. At the same time the approximation reduces considerably the CPU time and resources required with respect to both the ensemble learning methods and the full Markov chain Monte Carlo, Metropolis-Hastings within Gibbs solution of our model. We present our proposed framework together with extensive experimental studies on synthetic and benchmark datasets and also for the first time report a comparison between summation and product of individual kernels as possible different methods for constructing the composite kernel matrix.     

Stable local dimensionality reduction approaches

Dimensionality reduction is a big challenge in many areas. A large number of local approaches, stemming from statistics or geometry, have been developed. However, in practice these local approaches are often in lack of robustness, since in contrast to maximum variance unfolding (MVU), which explicitly unfolds the manifold, they merely characterize local geometry structure. Moreover, the eigenproblems that they encounter, are hard to solve. We propose a unified framework that explicitly unfolds the manifold and reformulate local approaches as the semi-definite programs instead of the above-mentioned eigenproblems. Three well-known algorithms, locally linear embedding (LLE), laplacian eigenmaps (LE) and local tangent space alignment (LTSA) are reinterpreted and improved within this framework. Several experiments are presented to demonstrate the potential of our framework and the improvements of these local algorithms.     

Embedding a fault-free hamiltonian cycle in a class of faulty generalized honeycomb tori

Generalized honeycomb torus (GHT) is recognized as an attractive alternative to existing torus interconnection networks in parallel computing systems. Assume that m and d are integers with m ? 2 and d ? 8. This paper addresses the fault-tolerant hamiltonicity of GHT(m, 2d, d) with fault set F = {(w, y), (x, y)}, where w < x, w + y is even and x + y is odd. We show that such a faulty GHT is hamiltonian by presenting a systematic method for constructing a fault-free hamiltonian cycle. This result reveals another appealing feature of GHTs.     

Design of DL-based certificateless digital signatures

Public-key cryptosystems without requiring digital certificates are very attractive in wireless communications due to limitations imposed by communication bandwidth and computational resource of the mobile wireless communication devices. To eliminate public-key digital certificate, Shamir introduced the concept of the identity-based (ID-based) cryptosystem. The main advantage of the ID-based cryptosystem is that instead of using a random integer as each user’s public key as in the traditional public-key systems, the user’s real identity, such as user’s name or email address, becomes the user’s public key. However, all identity-based signature (IBS) schemes have the inherent key escrow problem, that is private key generator (PKG) knows the private key of each user. As a result, the PKG is able to sign any message on the users’ behalf. This nature violates the “non-repudiation” requirement of digital signatures. To solve the key escrow problem of the IBS while still taking advantage of the benefits of the IBS, certificateless digital signature (CDS) was introduced. In this paper, we propose a generalized approach to construct CDS schemes. In our proposed CDS scheme, the user’s private key is known only to the user himself, therefore, it can eliminate the key escrow problem from the PKG. The proposed construction can be applied to all Discrete Logarithm (DL)-based signature schemes to convert a digital signature scheme into a CDS scheme. The proposed CDS scheme is secure against adaptive chosen-message attack in the random oracle model. In addition, it is also efficient in signature generation and verification.     

An improved lossless data hiding scheme based on image VQ-index residual value coding

Copyright protection and information security have become serious problems due to the ever growing amount of digital data over the Internet. Reversible data hiding is a special type of data hiding technique that guarantees not only the secret data but also the cover media can be reconstructed without any distortion. Traditional schemes are based on spatial, discrete cosine transformation (DCT) and discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) domains. Recently, some vector quantization (VQ) based reversible data hiding schemes have been proposed. This paper proposes an improved reversible data hiding scheme based on VQ-index residual value coding. Experimental results show that our scheme outperforms two recently proposed schemes, namely side-match vector quantization (SMVQ)-based data hiding and modified fast correlation vector quantization (MFCVQ)-based data hiding.     

A system-level model for a silicon thermal flow sensor

A system-level model with lumped parameters for a thermal flow sensor is presented. The model is built with 13 circuit cells consisting of thermal resistors and thermal capacitors in SPICE. The circuit cell originates from the heat conduction equation using the Finite Differential Method, including the 2-D thermal conduction cell, the convection cell, and the thermal capacity in the chip. Based on the thermal model of the flow sensor, the 2-D temperature distribution of the chip can be calculated with SPICE in both the constant power mode (CP) and constant temperature difference mode (CTD). As an example, the system level model of the thermal anemometer in the CTD mode was established in PSPICE. Wind tunnel test was carried out to verify the system model, and show a reasonable agreement with the simulation results, with an error less than 8%.