基于背景和前景交互传播的图像显著性检测

为了更精确地提取图像中的显著性区域,提出一种新的基于背景和前景交互传播的图像显著性检测计算模型。通过建立一个新的模型来寻找图像中的显著性元素,用一种交互式特征传播方法来扩散显著性特征。采用不同参数对图像进行分割,得到多个尺度下的超像素;在单一尺度下通过背景和前景交互传播获得超像素的显著值;对多个显著值进行加权平均融合,并采用平滑机制进行优化得到最终显著图。在公开图像数据库进行的试验结果表明,该模型提高了对图像显著目标大小的适应性,不仅较好地抑制了噪声,还使得显著目标更均匀地凸显出来,结果优于同类的算法。     

Effect of tube diameter on two‐phase flow patterns in mini tubes

The effect of tube diameter on two‐phase flow patterns was investigated in circular tubes with inner diameters of 0.6, 1.2, 1.7, 2.6, and 3.4 mm using air and water. The gas and liquid superficial velocity ranges were 0.01–50 and 0.01–3 m/s, respectively. The gas and liquid flow rates were measured and the two‐phase flow pattern images were recorded using high‐speed CMOS camera. The flow patterns observed were dispersed bubbly, bubbly, slug, slug‐annular, wavy‐annular, stratified, and annular flows. These flow patterns were not observed in all the test diameters, but were found to be unique to particular tube diameters, confirming the effect of tube diameter on the flow pattern. The data obtained were compared to existing experimental data and flow regime transition maps which show generally reasonable overall agreement at the larger diameters, but significant differences were observed with the smaller diameter tubes.     

Selective laser sintering/melting (SLS/SLM) of pure Al,Al–Mg,and Al–Si powders: Effect of processing conditions and powder properties

Selective laser sintering/melting (SLS/SLM) processing difficulties of aluminium powders had been attributed to issues associated with laser–materials interaction only while neglecting the role of powder properties. This study provides a wholistic understanding of factors that influence the development of SLS/SLM processing window, densification, and microstructure of pure Al, Al–Mg, and Al–Si powders, fabricated in single and multiple layer parts by exploring the roles of processing and material parameters. It was demonstrated that similarities existing in the SLS/SLM processing maps of the powders could be attributed to similarities in their packing densities with the alloying addition of magnesium and silicon having no predominant effect on their processing maps’ boundaries. Rather, alloying addition has significant effect on the nature of the evolved surface morphology of SLS/SLM processed aluminium powders in their processing windows. In addition, the flow and solidification behaviour of the melt pool of the powders during single layer scan was strongly influenced by the particle morphology and oxygen content of the powders as well as applied energy density. The energy density in the range of 12–16 J/mm² was found to be the threshold below which SLS was predominant and above which SLM occurred for the investigated powders. Moreover, successful oxide disruption phenomena which is necessary for inter-particulate coalescence in multi-layered SLS/SLM processed aluminium powders are found to be mainly controlled by the amount of oxide in the as-received powder, the degree of the uniformity of the distribution of the surface oxide film covering the aluminium particles, the nature of thermal mismatch existing between the oxide film and the parent aluminium particle which was dependent on the phase present in the oxide film. Al–12 wt% Si powder is hereby affirmed as a suitable candidate material for SLS/SLM process due to its low thermal expansion and uniform distribution of its surface oxide films as well as the mullite phase in its oxide film.     

Topological entropy of continuous transitive maps on the real line

The topological entropy of a continuous transitive map f : ? → ? is studied. We find lower bounds for the topological entropy of f and prove that transitive real maps can have finite entropy.     

Blind Source Separation and Equiprobabilistic Topographic Maps

Recently, a number of heuristic techniques have been devised in order to overcome some of the limitations of the Blind Source Separation (BSS) algorithms that are rooted in the theory of Independent Component Analysis (ICA). They are usually based on topographic maps and designed to separate mixtures of signals with either sub-Gaussian or super-Gaussian source densities. In the sub-Gaussian case, the coordinates of the winning neurons in the topographic map represent the estimates of the source signal amplitudes. In the super-Gaussian case, one relies on the topographic map's ability to detect the source directions in mixture space which, in turn, correspond to the column vectors of the mixing matrix in the linear case. We will introduce a new topographic map-based heuristic for super-Gaussian BSS. It relies on the tendency of the mixture samples to cluster around the source directions. We will demonstrate its performance on linear and mildly non-linear mixtures of speech signals, including the case where there are less mixtures than sources to be separated (non-square BSS).     

Linking learning goals and educational resources through interactive concept map visualizations

Concept browsing interfaces can help educators and learners to locate and use learning resources that are aligned with recognized learning goals. The Strand Map Service enables users to navigate interactive visualizations of related learning goals and to request digital library resources aligned with learning goals. These interfaces are created using a programmatic Web service interface that dynamically generates interactive visual components. Preliminary findings suggest that these library interfaces appear to help users stay focused on the scientific content of their information discovery task, as opposed to focusing on the mechanics of searching.     

Multimedia displays for conceptual discovery: information seeking with strand maps

This article explores the use of a multimedia search interface for digital libraries based on strand maps developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As semantic-spatial displays, strand maps provide a visual organization of relevant conceptual information that may promote the use of science content during digital library use. A study was conducted to compare users' cognitive processes during information seeking tasks when using a multimedia strand maps interface, versus the textual search interface currently implemented in the Digital Library for Earth System Education. Quantitative and qualitative data from think-aloud protocols revealed that students were more likely to engage with science content (e.g., analyzing the relevance of science concepts with regard to task needs) during search when using the strand maps interface compared to those using textual searching. In contrast, students using a textual search interface engaged more frequently with surface-level information (e.g., the type of a resource regardless of its science content) during search and retrieval. As a multimedia search interface for digital libraries, strand maps appear to be promising tools to promote conceptual discovery and learning through content-based processes that promote learner engagement with relevant science knowledge.     

On Common Fixed Point of Noncompatible Mapping Pairs

In this paper, two common fixed point theorems for noncompatible maps in a metric space have been proved under the condition of without taking completeness of the space or continuity of the mapings into account. The related common point theorems were improved.     

LIFE PREDICTION OF CROSS-PLY METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES UNDERGOING THERMOMECHANICAL FATIGUE

A life prediction model that was originally developed for the axial loading of unidirectional metal matrix composites (MMCs) undergoing combined thermal and mechanical loading is extended to the axial loading of cross-ply MMCs by adding an internally initiated matrix fatigue damage term. This new term accounts for the growth of cracks that initiate at the location where fibre–matrix separation occurs in the transversely-oriented plies. A comparison of the model predictions to experimental data on SCS-6/Timetal 21S shows that the model reasonably accounts for the dependence of applied stress, temperature and environment, as well as cyclic frequency. The dominant damage accumulation process for cross-ply MMCs with weak fibre–matrix bonds is described by this internally initiated matrix fatigue damage process for most stress–temperature cycle combinations. However, the fibre-dominated damage accumulation process operates under in-phase TMF when both stress and temperature are high. Environment-enhanced matrix fatigue is the dominant damage accumulation process under isothermal fatigue when stress is low and temperature is high.     

Neural navigation interfaces for Information Retrieval: Are they more than an appealing idea?

Neural networks have recently been proposed for the construction of navigation interfaces for Information Retrieval systems. In this paper, we give an overview of some current research in this area. Most of the cited approaches use (variants) of the well-known Kohonen network. The Kohonen network implements a topology-preserving dimensionality-reducing mapping, which can be applied for information visualization. We identify a number of problems in the application of Kohonen networks for Information Retrieval, most notably scalability, reliability and retrieval effectiveness. To solve these problems we propose to use the Growing Cell Structures network, a variant of the Kohonen network which shows a more flexible adaptation to the domain structure.This network was tested on two standard test-collections, using a combined recall and precision measure, and compared to traditional IR methods such as the Vector Space Model and various clustering algorithms. The network performs at a competitive level of effectiveness, and is suitable for visualization purposes. However, the incremental training procedures for the networks result in a reliability problem, and the approach is computationally intensive. Also, the utility of the resulting maps for navigation will need further improvement.