Automating application software generation

Many approaches have been proposed to enhance software productivity and reliability. These approaches typically fall into three categories: the engineering approach, the formal approach and the knowledge-based approach. But the optimal gain in software productivity cannot be obtained if one relies on only one of these approaches. This paper describes the work in knowledge-based software engineering conducted by the authors for the past 10 years. The final goal of the research is to develop a paradigm for software engineering which integrates the three approaches mentioned above. A knowledge-based tool which can support the whole process of software development is provided in this paper.     

Non‐reflecting artificial boundaries for transient scalar wave propagation in a two‐dimensional infinite homogeneous layer

This paper presents an exact non‐reflecting boundary condition for dealing with transient scalar wave propagation problems in a two‐dimensional infinite homogeneous layer. In order to model the complicated geometry and material properties in the near field, two vertical artificial boundaries are considered in the infinite layer so as to truncate the infinite domain into a finite domain. This treatment requires the appropriate boundary conditions, which are often referred to as the artificial boundary conditions, to be applied on the truncated boundaries. Since the infinite extension direction is different for these two truncated vertical boundaries, namely one extends toward x →∞ and another extends toward x→‐ ∞, the non‐reflecting boundary condition needs to be derived on these two boundaries. Applying the variable separation method to the wave equation results in a reduction in spatial variables by one. The reduced wave equation, which is a time‐dependent partial differential equation with only one spatial variable, can be further changed into a linear first‐order ordinary differential equation by using both the operator splitting method and the modal radiation function concept simultaneously. As a result, the non‐reflecting artificial boundary condition can be obtained by solving the ordinary differential equation whose stability is ensured. Some numerical examples have demonstrated that the non‐reflecting boundary condition is of high accuracy in dealing with scalar wave propagation problems in infinite and semi‐infinite media. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability analysis and antiwindup design of uncertain discrete-time switched linear systems subject to actuator saturation

This paper investigates the stability analysis and antiwindup design problem for a class of discrete-time switched linear systems with time-varying norm-bounded uncertainties and saturating actuators by using the switched Lyapunov function approach.Supposing that a set of linear dynamic output controllers have been designed to stabilize the switched system without considering its input saturation,we design antiwindup compensation gains in order to enlarge the domain of attraction of the closed-loop system in the presence of saturation.Then,in terms of a sector condition,the antiwindup compensation gains which aim to maximize the estimation of domain of attraction of the closed-loop system are presented by solving a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequality(LMI)constraints.A numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

Enzymic adaptations in leaf-feeding insects to host-plant allelochemicals

Herbivorous insects have the capacity to develop behavioral, physiological, and biochemical resistance mechanisms in response to chemical selection pressures. Among natural insect-plant associations, there are several cases of target-site insensitivity to and enhanced metabolism of plant allelochemicals. There are also known instances of physiological defenses such as extra rapid excretion or storage of toxic compounds. Multiple defenses seem to be prevalent in natural insect-plant interactions that involve toxic compounds, possibly reflecting the long time these interactions have had to evolve compared to insect-synthetic insecticide interactions. Synthetic insecticides were introduced about 45 years ago. Until recently they have been used as single-active-component preparations. As such, they have been and are very effective in producing insect populations with enhanced detoxification ability and target-site insensitivity. Most insecticide-resistant insect populations have one major defense mechanism. This feature makes the synthetic insecticides very useful tools for studies of insect defenses against toxic chemicals. Information gained from studies with insecticides can shed light on the capabilities of insects to adapt to toxicants in their environment. In assessing the validity of work with synthetic insecticides for natural systems, the fundamental differences between these substances and allelochemicals, and in their presentation to the insects, must, however, be considered. The prevalence of multiple defenses and reliance on modified physiological processes in natural interactions may reflect different properties of the natural chemicals in being generally highly biodegradable and often less acutely toxic than synthetic insecticides. In many cases, the plant allelochemicals are presented to the insects as mixtures. It is, however, to be expected that pest insects will evolve effective multiple defenses against synthetic insecticides. About 20% of all resistant populations have already developed multiple defenses, in most cases combinations of enhanced metabolism and target-site insensitivity. This implies that current crop protection practices need to be modified to ensure the continued usefulness of synthetic insecticides. To achieve this, it is important to study intensively not only insect-insecticide interactions but also the interactions operating in natural insect-plant associations.     

Dynamics of fluid circulation in coupled free and heterogeneous porous domains

Fluid flow in coupled free and porous domain, particularly when the porous medium is heterogeneous, is encountered in many hydro-environmental conditions, e.g., leakage from underground pipe, combined groundwater lake-subsurface interactions. One of the most difficult problems in the study of coupled flow behaviour has been the development of a universally applicable modelling scheme for combining the flow regimes. This is because the free/porous interfacial properties (e.g., shear-stress; velocity slip) that govern the coupled flow behaviour are difficult to determine experimentally under hydro-environmental conditions. On the other hand, the implications of various forms of heterogeneity in the porous media properties can be very different on the fluid-flow behaviour. Difficulties may also arise in direct coupling of the model equations that govern the fluid flow in the individual regions (e.g., Navier-Stokes for free-flow region and the Darcy's equation for the porous flow region). Consequently, models of coupled free and porous flow for hydro-environmental conditions are not very well developed at the moment. While there are some indications that fluids in coupled free and porous domains may circulate (i.e., development of flow cells), there is a lack of appropriate 3D analysis on how heterogeneities in porous media may affect such flow patterns. In this paper, we aim to analyse how porous media heterogeneity affects the dynamics of flow circulation in the porous side of a coupled free and porous domain. For this purpose, we analyse flow patterns in several model domains made up of two porous layers with differing permeabilities. The governing model equations are discretised and solved using the standard finite volume method on a staggered cell-centred mesh. The temporal discretisation is done using the explicit method. An in-house graphical user interface (GUI) has been created specifically to aid in the visualisation of otherwise complex flow patterns. The GUI contains many post-processing options and provides a comprehensive tool for the analysis of hydrodynamics and contaminant motion (not discussed in this paper) in coupled free and porous flow domains. This GUI is described in this paper briefly. The effects of altering the aspect ratio (i.e., multi-scale) of the domain on the coupled flow pattern have also been discussed.     

Total curvature variation fairing for medial axis regularization

We present a new fairing method for planar curves, which is particularly well suited for the regularization of the medial axis of a planar domain. It is based on the concept of total variation regularization. The original boundary (given as a closed B-spline curve or several such curves for multiply connected domains) is approximated by another curve that possesses a smaller number of curvature extrema. Consequently, the modified curve leads to a smaller number of branches of the medial axis. In order to compute the medial axis, we use the state-of-the-art algorithm from [1] which is based on arc spline approximation and a domain decomposition approach. We improve this algorithm by using a different decomposition strategy that allows to reduce the number of base cases from 13 to only 5. Moreover, the algorithm reduces the number of conic arcs in the output by approx. 50%.     

Word的高级应用——制作表单

通过实例,详细讲解用Word的窗体工具建立表单,以解决行政部门制作电子文档的空白表格时,让填写的人员方便、快捷地填写内容,又不随意修改(破坏)原有格式和原文。     

Mining e-Learning domain concept map from academic articles

Recent researches have demonstrated the importance of concept map and its versatile applications especially in e-Learning. For example, while designing adaptive learning materials, designers need to refer to the concept map of a subject domain. Moreover, concept maps can show the whole picture and core knowledge about a subject domain. Research from literature also suggests that graphical representation of domain knowledge can reduce the problems of information overload and learning disorientation for learners. However, construction of concept maps typically relied upon domain experts in the past; it is a time consuming and high cost task. Concept maps creation for emerging new domains such as e-Learning is even more challenging due to its ongoing development nature. The aim of this paper is to construct e-Learning domain concept maps from academic articles. We adopt some relevant journal articles and conference papers in e-Learning domain as data sources, and apply text-mining techniques to automatically construct concept maps for e-Learning domain. The constructed concept maps can provide a useful reference for researchers, who are new to the e-Leaning field, to study related issues, for teachers to design adaptive learning materials, and for learners to understand the whole picture of e-Learning domain knowledge.     

Chinese-based research on subject-covered information retrieval supervised by textual semantic domain

By means of analysis of artificial intervention in ready-retrieved text, training set used to compare with new texts from large-scale real texts corpus is provided. It is based on the data-originated presentation of training set that a special formula to calculate semantic cohesion between new texts and training set is devised. The semantic cohesion of new text is the average value of semantic evaluation of all elements involved, and semantic evaluation of an element depends on its semantic relevance with the training set and on the semantic ratio of its domain to synonymous domain. In terms of empirical verification a conclusion is drawn that semantic cohesion is the key measurement standard of textual retrieval. Despite the advantages of textual retrieval, limitations of formula-raised condition and analyst＇s accomplishments make the analysis involved in this paper imperfect.     

Template-based quadrilateral meshing

Generating quadrilateral meshes is a highly non-trivial task, as design decisions are frequently driven by specific application demands. Automatic techniques can optimize objective quality metrics, such as mesh regularity, orthogonality, alignment and adaptivity; however, they cannot make subjective design decisions. There are a few quad meshing approaches that offer some mechanisms to include the user in the mesh generation process; however, these techniques either require a large amount of user interaction or do not provide necessary or easy to use inputs. Here, we propose a template-based approach for generating quad-only meshes from triangle surfaces. Our approach offers a flexible mechanism to allow external input, through the definition of alignment features that are respected during the mesh generation process. While allowing user inputs to support subjective design decisions, our approach also takes into account objective quality metrics to produce semi-regular, quad-only meshes that align well to desired surface features.