Synthesis of N-methylglucamine modified macroporous poly(GMA-co-TRIM) and its performance as a boron sorbent

A chelating polymeric sorbent was developed by functionalizing poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate), poly(GMA-co-TRIM), with N-methylglucamine (MG) via a simple post-grafting route. The resulting well-defined millimeter-sized spheres of poly(GMA-co-TRIM)–MG had permanent macropore structures and low swelling degree, with accessible ligands of 1.84 mmol/g. The boron adsorption behavior of the sorbent was studied in batch mode by varying different parameters like the pH value, the initial concentration of boron and the adsorption time under noncompetitive conditions. It was found that the sorbent always maintained the high capacity between pH 2.6 and 8.6, in which the optimum pH was 7.5. The adsorption behavior of the sorbent obeyed the Langmuir isotherm well. The adsorption capacity of the sorbent for boron was in the same level as that of a commercially available N-methylglucamine-type polystyrene resin. However, it adsorbed boron more quickly. The sorbent also showed good durability and reusability through the fixed-bed adsorption tests. The study on the separation of boron from brine of salt lake showed a high selectivity of the sorbent, though the capacity for boron decreased due to the interference of diverse ions in brine.     

Nonlinear multiobjective model-predictive control scheme for wastewater treatment process

A nonlinear multiobjective model-predictive control (NMMPC) scheme, consisting of self-organizing radial basis function (SORBF) neural network prediction and multiobjective gradient optimization, is proposed for wastewater treatment process (WWTP) in this paper. The proposed NMMPC comprises a SORBF neural network identifier and a multiple objectives controller via the multi-gradient method (MGM). The SORBF neural network with concurrent structure and parameter learning is developed as a model identifier for approximating on-line the states of WWTP. Then, this NMMPC optimizes the multiple objectives under different operating functions, where all the objectives are minimized simultaneously. The solution of optimal control is based on the MGM which can shorten the solution time. Moreover, the stability and control performance of the closed-loop control system are well studied. Numerical simulations reveal that the proposed control strategy gives satisfactory tracking and disturbance rejection performance for WWTP. Experimental results show the efficacy of the proposed method.     

Sliding mode control for Markov jump linear uncertain systems with partly unknown transition rates

In this paper, based on sliding mode control approach, the robust stabilisation problem for a class of continuous-time Markovian jump linear uncertain systems with partly unknown transition rates is investigated. The transition rate matrix under consideration covers completely known, boundary known and completely unknown elements. By making use of linear matrix inequalities technique, sufficient conditions are presented to derive the linear switching surface and guarantee the stochastic stability of sliding mode dynamics. Then a sliding mode control law is designed to drive the state trajectory of the closed-loop system to the specified linear switching surface in finite time in spite of the existing uncertainties and unknown transition rates. Finally, an example is given to verify the validity of the theoretical results.     

Multi-label core vector machine with a zero label

Multi-label core vector machine (Rank-CVM) is an efficient and effective algorithm for multi-label classification. But there still exist two aspects to be improved: reducing training and testing computational costs further, and detecting relevant labels effectively. In this paper, we extend Rank-CVM via adding a zero label to construct its variant with a zero label, i.e., Rank-CVMz, which is formulated as the same quadratic programming form with a unit simplex constraint and non-negative ones as Rank-CVM, and then is solved by Frank–Wolfe method efficiently. Attractively, our Rank-CVMz has fewer variables to be solved than Rank-CVM, which speeds up training procedure dramatically. Further, the relevant labels are effectively detected by the zero label. Experimental results on 12 benchmark data sets demonstrate that our method achieves a competitive performance, compared with six existing multi-label algorithms according to six indicative instance-based measures. Moreover, on the average, our Rank-CVMz runs 83 times faster and has slightly fewer support vectors than its origin Rank-CVM.     

Graph regularized multiset canonical correlations with applications to joint feature extraction

Multiset canonical correlation analysis (MCCA) is a powerful technique for analyzing linear correlations among multiple representation data. However, it usually fails to discover the intrinsic geometrical and discriminating structure of multiple data spaces in real-world applications. In this paper, we thus propose a novel algorithm, called graph regularized multiset canonical correlations (GrMCCs), which explicitly considers both discriminative and intrinsic geometrical structure in multiple representation data. GrMCC not only maximizes between-set cumulative correlations, but also minimizes local intraclass scatter and simultaneously maximizes local interclass separability by using the nearest neighbor graphs on within-set data. Thus, it can leverage the power of both MCCA and discriminative graph Laplacian regularization. Extensive experimental results on the AR, CMU PIE, Yale-B, AT&T, and ETH-80 datasets show that GrMCC has more discriminating power and can provide encouraging recognition results in contrast with the state-of-the-art algorithms.     

Mapping streaming applications on multiprocessors with time-division-multiplexed network-on-chip

This paper addresses mapping of streaming applications (such as MPEG) on multiprocessor platforms with time-division-multiplexed network-on-chip. In particular, we solve processor selection, path selection and router configuration problems. Given the complexity of these problems, state of the art approaches in this area largely rely on greedy heuristics, which do not guarantee optimality. Our approach is based on a constraint programming formulation that merges a number of steps, usually tackled in sequence in classic approaches. Thus, our method has the potential of finding optimal solutions with respect to resource usage under throughput constraints. The experimental evaluation presented in here shows that our approach is capable of exploring a range of solutions while giving the designer the opportunity to emphasize the importance of various design metrics.     

Hierarchical representation of video sequences for annotation

Video annotation is an important issue in video content management systems. Rapid growth of the digital video data has created a need for efficient and reasonable mechanisms that can ease the annotation process. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical clustering based system for video annotation. The proposed system generates a top-down hierarchy of the video streams using hierarchical k-means clustering. A tree-based structure is produced by dividing the video recursively into sub-groups, each of which consists of similar content. Based on the visual features, each node of the tree is partitioned into its children using k-means clustering. Each sub-group is then represented by its key frame, which is selected as the closest frame to the centroids of the corresponding cluster, and then can be displayed at the higher level of the hierarchy. The experiments show that very good hierarchical view of the video sequences can be created for annotation in terms of efficiency.