Semantic weak signal tracing

The weak signal concept according to Ansoff has the aim to advance strategic early warning. It enables to predict the appearance of events in advance that are relevant for an organization. An example is to predict the appearance of a new and relevant technology for a research organization. Existing approaches detect weak signals based on an environmental scanning procedure that considers textual information from the internet. This is because about 80% of all data in the internet are textual information. The texts are processed by a specific clustering approach where clusters that represent weak signals are identified. In contrast to these related approaches, we propose a new methodology that investigates a sequence of clusters measured at successive points in time. This enables to trace the development of weak signals over time and thus, it enables to identify relevant weak signal developments for organization’s decision making in strategic early warning environment.     

从假性紫罗兰酮合成β-紫罗兰酮中主要副产物(I)的分离鉴定

假性紫罗兰酮在浓硫酸及 - 2 0°C低温条件下反应 ,主要生成 β-紫罗兰酮 ,少量的 α-及 γ-紫罗兰酮 ,同时生成副产物 ( I)及 ( II)。用 IR、1H NMR及 MS光谱分析方法 ,对副产物 ( I)进行了结构鉴定 ,结构为 3,4,4a,5 ,8,8a-六氢 - 2 ,5 ,5 ,8a-四甲基 - 2 H - 1 -苯并吡喃     

Estimation of rheological parameters using velocity measurements

In the present investigation, we develop a method for estimating rheological parameters of viscoelastic fluids using velocity measurement in a square straight channel. It is believed that a somewhat complicated patterns of secondary flows due to the non-zero second normal stress difference are more useful than the simple viscometric flows traditionally adopted in the determination of rheological parameters. The inverse problem of determining the rheological parameters from a set of velocity measurements is solved using a conjugate gradient method. When applied to a general constitutive equation encompassing the UCM model, the Oldroyd-B model and the PTT model, the present method is found to yield a reasonably accurate estimation of five rheological parameters simultaneously even with noisy velocity measurements.     

改进的蚁群算法在溶质运移参数识别问题中的应用

非饱和土壤水分和溶质运移参数(扩散率、导水率和水动力弥散系数)取值范围较大,往往跨越几个数量级。采用传统离散化蚁群算法求解此类问题,所需节点较多,这会造成算法收敛时间较长。该文在传统蚁群算法基础上,对蚂蚁搜索路径进行改进,改进后的蚁群算法寻优路径由参数精度位数(整数位和小数位)、参数个数以及0–9十个数字构成,并将路径解码公式修改为具有判别参数正负功能的解码公式。采用改进的连续蚁群算法对非饱和溶质运移参数识别优化模型进行求解。数值模拟表明相同迭代次数下改进的蚁群算法比传统蚁群算法耗时少,算法计算时间与迭代次数满足线性关系,含水率和溶质浓度实测值与计算值吻合较好、相关性较高。     

PRIVACY LEAKAGE IN HEALTH SOCIAL NETWORKS

Members of health social networks may be susceptible to privacy leaks by the amount of information they leave behind. The threat to privacy increases when members of these networks reuse their pseudonyms in other social networks. The risk of re‐identifying users from such networks requires quantitative estimates to evaluate its magnitude. The estimates will enable managers and members of health social communities to take corrective measures. We introduce a new re‐identification attack, the social network attack, that takes advantage of the fact that users reuse their pseudonyms. To demonstrate the attack, we establish links between MedHelp and Twitter (two popular social networks) based on matching pseudonyms. We used Bayesian networks to model the re‐identification risk and used stylometric techniques to identify the strength of the links. On the basis of our model 7‐11. 8% of the MedHelp members in the sample population who reused their pseudonyms in Twitter were re‐identifiable compared with 1% who did not. The risk estimates were measured at the 5% risk threshold. Our model was able to re‐identify users with a sensitivity of 41% and specificity of 96%. The potential for re‐identification increases as more data is accumulated from these profiles, which makes the threat of re‐identification more serious.     

13C-NMR分析技术在改性聚苯醚剖析中的应用

应用^13C核磁共振分析技术，参照Sadtler标准^13C核磁共振谱图，对国外公司的五种改性聚苯醚样品进行了剖析。结果表明，有两种改性聚苯醚样品系由聚苯醚、聚苯乙烯和磷酸三苯酯组成，该类材料具有优良的阻燃性能；有两种系由聚苯醚、聚苯乙烯和聚顺丁二烯共混而成，具有较强的冲击性能；有一种系由聚苯醚、聚苯乙烯和聚乙烯构成，具有突出的润滑性能和耐磨性能。     

Autonomous tactile perception: A combined improved sensing and Bayesian nonparametric approach

In recent years, autonomous robots have increasingly been deployed in unknown environments and required to manipulate or categorize unknown objects. In order to cope with these unfamiliar situations, improvements must be made both in sensing technologies and in the capability to autonomously train perception models. In this paper, we explore this problem in the context of tactile surface identification and categorization. Using a highly-discriminant tactile probe based upon large bandwidth, triple axis accelerometer that is sensitive to surface texture and material properties, we demonstrate that unsupervised learning for surface identification with this tactile probe is feasible. To this end, we derived a Bayesian nonparametric approach based on Pitman–Yor processes to model power-law distributions, an extension of our previous work using Dirichlet processes Dallaire et al. (2011). When tested against a large collection of surfaces and without providing the actual number of surfaces, the tactile probe combined with our proposed approach demonstrated near-perfect recognition in many cases and achieved perfect recognition given the right conditions. We consider that our combined improvements demonstrate the feasibility of effective autonomous tactile perception systems.     

Bootstrapping a robot’s kinematic model

We present a system that is able to autonomously build a 3D model of a robot’s hand, along with a kinematic model of the robot’s arm, beginning with very little information. The system starts by using exploratory motions to locate and centre the robot’s hand in the middle of its field of view, and then progressively builds the 3D and kinematic models. The system is flexible, and easy to integrate with different robots, because the model building process does not require any fiducial markers to be attached to the robot’s hand. To validate the models built by the system we perform a number of experiments. The results of the experiments demonstrate that the hand model built by the system can be tracked with a precision in the order of 1 mm, and that the kinematic model is accurate enough to reliably position the hand of the robot in camera space.     

Esterification of acrylic acid with methanol by reactive chromatography: Experiments and simulations

The esterification of acrylic acid with methanol using Amberlyst 15 as a stationary phase has been investigated using a chromatographic reactor. Several experimental runs at various operating conditions have been conducted on a batch column. A classical reactive chromatography model including lumped kinetics, a linear driving force transport model and a heterogeneous kinetic model for the catalytic reaction has been developed. The additional dispersion of concentration fronts due to density gradient effects has been accounted for in the model. The model parameters have been determined in a fast and reliable way by directly fitting the batch column experiments. In general, a good agreement between experimental and calculated results is obtained. The evaluation of the covariance of the fitted model parameters reveals important insights about the system behavior.Based on the detailed batch column model, a complete model of a simulated-moving-bed reactor has been implemented and its optimal point of operation for the synthesis of methyl acrylate from acrylic acid has been determined. Particularly when considering the low-operating temperature, we can regard this process as a possible competition for current technologies.     

Modeling for soft sensor systems and parameters updating online

Soft sensor technology is an important means to estimate important process variables in real-time. Modeling for soft sensor system is the core of this technology. Most nonlinear dynamic modeling methods integrate the processes of building the dynamic and static relationships between secondary and primary variables, which limits the estimation accuracy for primary variables. To avoid the problem, a kind of soft sensor model consisting of a dynamic model in cascade with a static one is proposed. The model identification and update online are conducted in substep way. In order to improve the model update efficiency, two improved Gauss–Newton recursive algorithms, which avoid nonsingular covariance matrix, are proposed for time-invariant and time-variant soft sensor systems. The uniform convergence for dynamic model parameter and the existence of estimation deviations for static model parameters are proved for time-invariant soft sensor system. The parameters of time-variant soft sensor system would be boundedly convergent. Case study confirms that, on the basis of the proposed model and recursive algorithms, the dynamic and static characteristics of soft sensor system can be described efficiently, and the primary variables are ensured to be estimated accurately.