Maturation ponds, rock filters and reedbeds in the UK: statistical analysis of winter performance.

Wastewater treatment technologies suitable for serving large populations are generally reliable and reasonably cost-effective, yet they are almost always financially inappropriate for small communities (< 2,000 p.e.). Comparative cost data suggests that waste stabilization ponds should be an attractive option for small communities, yet perceptions relating to land costs, climate and effluent quality have limited their application in the UK. This paper details typical UK land costs, climate and winter performance data for a pilot-scale waste stabilization pond with various upgrading technologies: system A, two tertiary maturation ponds in series; B, two tertiary maturation ponds in series followed by a reed bed channel; C, a control rock filter; D, an aerated rock filter; and E, a constructed wetland. System D was found to perform best, closely followed by system B.     

Recovering spectral data from natural scenes with an RGB digital camera and colored filters

Many spectral‐recovery methods using RGB digital cameras assume the underlying smoothness of illuminant and reflectance spectra, and apply low‐dimensional linear models. The aim of the present work was to test whether a direct‐mapping method could be used instead of a linear‐models approach to recover spectral radiances and reflectances from natural scenes with an RGB digital camera and colored filters. In computer simulations, a conventional RGB digital camera with up to three colored filters was used to image scenes drawn from a hyperspectral image database. Three measures were used to evaluate recovery with the direct‐mapping method: goodness‐of‐fit, root‐mean‐square error, and a color‐difference metric. It was found that with two and three filters both spectral radiances and reflectances could be recovered sufficiently accurately for many practical applications. With little increase in computational complexity, an RGB camera and a few colored filters can provide significantly better recovery of natural scenes than an RGB camera alone. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 352–360, 2007     

A General Approach to Midpoint Theory and Aggregation of Quasimetrics

Many fields in applied sciences, like Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, use aggregation methods to provide new generalized metrics from a collection of old ones. Thus, the problem of merging by means of a function a collection of generalized metrics into a single one has been recently studied in depth. Moreover, the mipoint sets for a generalized metric involving fuzzy sets have shown a great potential in medical diagnosis and decision making since it models the concept of “compromise” or “middle way” between two positions. Joining these facts, the aim of this paper is to provide a general framework for the study of midpoint sets for quasimetrics via aggregation theory. In particular, we determine the properties that an aggregation function must satisfy to characterize the midpoint set for a quasimetric generated by means of the fusion of a collection of quasimetrics in terms of the midpoint sets for each of the quasimetrics that are merged. In fact, this study generalizes the results for metrics in this context that are retrieved as a particular case of the exposed theory. Finally, some particular results for generalized metrics defined for fuzzy sets are proved.     

Simultaneous algorithm for trajectory planning

This paper addresses the solution of smooth trajectory planning for industrial robots in environments with obstacles using a direct method, creating the trajectory gradually as the robot moves. The presented method deals with the uncertainties associated with the lack of knowledge of kinematic properties of intermediate via‐points since they are generated as the algorithm evolves looking for the solution. Several cost functions are also proposed, which use the time that has been calculated to guide the robot motion. The method has been applied successfully to a PUMA 560 robot and four operational parameters (execution time, computational time, distance travelled and number of configurations) have been computed to study the properties and influence of each cost function on the trajectory obtained. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Incremental Learning of Skills in a Task-Parameterized Gaussian Mixture Model

Programming by demonstration techniques facilitate the programming of robots. Some of them allow the generalization of tasks through parameters, although they require new training when trajectories different from the ones used to estimate the model need to be added. One of the ways to re-train a robot is by incremental learning, which supplies additional information of the task and does not require teaching the whole task again. The present study proposes three techniques to add trajectories to a previously estimated task-parameterized Gaussian mixture model. The first technique estimates a new model by accumulating the new trajectory and the set of trajectories generated using the previous model. The second technique permits adding to the parameters of the existent model those obtained for the new trajectories. The third one updates the model parameters by running a modified version of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm, with the information of the new trajectories. The techniques were evaluated in a simulated task and a real one, and they showed better performance than that of the existent model.     

Stability analysis in spanwise-periodic double-sided lid-driven cavity flows with complex cross-sectional profiles

Three-dimensional linear instability analyses are presented of steady two-dimensional laminar flows in the lid-driven cavity defined by [15] and further analyzed in the present volume [1], as well as in a derivative of the same geometry. It is shown that in both of the geometries considered three-dimensional BiGlobal instability leads to deviation of the flow from the two-dimensional solution; the analysis results are used to define low- and high-Reynolds number solutions by reference to the flow physics. Critical conditions for linear global instability and neutral loops are presented in both geometries.     

Quantitative Evaluation of Register Pressure on Software Pipelined Loops

Software Pipelining is a loop scheduling technique that extracts loop parallelism by overlapping the execution of several consecutive iterations. One of the drawbacks of software pipelining is its high register requirements, which increase with the number of functional units and their degree of pipelining. This paper analyzes the register requirements of software pipelined loops. It also evaluates the effects on performance of the addition of spill code. Spill code is needed when the number of registers required by the software pipelined loop is larger than the number of registers of the target machine. This spill code increases memory traffic and can reduce performance. Finally, compilers can apply transformations in order to reduce the number of memory accesses and increase functional unit utilization. The paper also evaluates the negative effect on register requirements that some of these transformations might produce on loops.