Abstract: Markov games are a generalization of Markov
decision process to a multi-agent setting. Two-player zero-sum
Markov game framework offers an effective platform for designing
robust controllers. This paper presents two novel controller design
algorithms that use ideas from game-theory literature to produce
reliable controllers that are able to maintain performance in presence
of noise and parameter variations. A more widely used approach for
controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high
computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. Our approach
generates an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a
simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the
unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown
environment, and in our formulation this environment corresponds to
the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed
controller architectures attempt to improve controller reliability by a
gradual mixing of algorithmic approaches drawn from the game
theory literature and the Minimax-Q Markov game solution
approach, in a reinforcement-learning framework. We test the
proposed algorithms on a simulated Inverted Pendulum Swing-up
task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.
Abstract: In this paper, a self starting two step continuous block
hybrid formulae (CBHF) with four Off-step points is developed using
collocation and interpolation procedures. The CBHF is then used to
produce multiple numerical integrators which are of uniform order
and are assembled into a single block matrix equation. These
equations are simultaneously applied to provide the approximate
solution for the stiff ordinary differential equations. The order of
accuracy and stability of the block method is discussed and its
accuracy is established numerically.
Abstract: Over the past decades, automatic face recognition has become a highly active research area, mainly due to the countless application possibilities in both the private as well as the public sector. Numerous algorithms have been proposed in the literature to cope with the problem of face recognition, nevertheless, a group of methods commonly referred to as appearance based have emerged as the dominant solution to the face recognition problem. Many comparative studies concerned with the performance of appearance based methods have already been presented in the literature, not rarely with inconclusive and often with contradictory results. No consent has been reached within the scientific community regarding the relative ranking of the efficiency of appearance based methods for the face recognition task, let alone regarding their susceptibility to appearance changes induced by various environmental factors. To tackle these open issues, this paper assess the performance of the three dominant appearance based methods: principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis and independent component analysis, and compares them on equal footing (i.e., with the same preprocessing procedure, with optimized parameters for the best possible performance, etc.) in face verification experiments on the publicly available XM2VTS database. In addition to the comparative analysis on the XM2VTS database, ten degraded versions of the database are also employed in the experiments to evaluate the susceptibility of the appearance based methods on various image degradations which can occur in "real-life" operating conditions. Our experimental results suggest that linear discriminant analysis ensures the most consistent verification rates across the tested databases.
Abstract: This paper study the behavior of the solution at the crack edges for an elliptical crack with developing cusps, Ω in the plane elasticity subjected to shear loading. The problem of finding the resulting shear stress can be formulated as a hypersingular integral equation over Ω and it is then transformed into a similar equation over a circular region, D, using conformal mapping. An appropriate collocation points are chosen on the region D to reduce the hypersingular integral equation into a system of linear equations with (2N+1)(N+1) unknown coefficients, which will later be used in the determination of shear stress intensity factors and maximum shear stress intensity. Numerical solution for the considered problem are compared with the existing asymptotic solution, and displayed graphically. Our results give a very good agreement to the existing asymptotic solutions.
Abstract: In this paper, a three dimensional autonomous chaotic system is considered. The existence of Hopf bifurcation is investigated by choosing the appropriate bifurcation parameter. Furthermore, formulas for determining the direction of the Hopf bifurcation and the stability of bifurcating periodic solutions are derived with the help of normal form theory. Finally, a numerical example is given.
Abstract: Machine-understandable data when strongly
interlinked constitutes the basis for the SemanticWeb. Annotating
web documents is one of the major techniques for creating metadata
on the Web. Annotating websites defines the containing data in a
form which is suitable for interpretation by machines. In this paper,
we present a new approach to annotate websites and documents by
promoting the abstraction level of the annotation process to a
conceptual level. By this means, we hope to solve some of the
problems of the current annotation solutions.
Abstract: Photovoltaic (PV) systems provides a viable means of
power generation for applications like powering residential
appliances, electrification of villages in rural areas, refrigeration and
water pumping. Photovoltaic-power generation is reliable. The
operation and maintenance costs are very low. Since Myanmar is a
land of plentiful sunshine, especially in central and southern regions
of the country, the solar energy could hopefully become the final
solution to its energy supply problem in rural area.
Abstract: The selection of appropriate requirements for product
releases can make a big difference in a product success. The selection
of requirements is done by different requirements prioritization
techniques. These techniques are based on pre-defined and
systematic steps to calculate the requirements relative weight.
Prioritization is complicated by new development settings, shifting
from traditional co-located development to geographically distributed
development. Stakeholders, connected to a project, are distributed all
over the world. These geographically distributions of stakeholders
make it hard to prioritize requirements as each stakeholder have their
own perception and expectations of the requirements in a software
project. This paper discusses limitations of the Analytical Hierarchy
Process with respect to geographically distributed stakeholders-
(GDS) prioritization of requirements. This paper also provides a
solution, in the form of a modified AHP, in order to prioritize
requirements for GDS. We will conduct two experiments in this
paper and will analyze the results in order to discuss AHP limitations
with respect to GDS. The modified AHP variant is also validated in
this paper.
Abstract: A kind of singularly perturbed boundary value problems is under consideration. In order to obtain its approximation, simple upwind difference discretization is applied. We use a moving mesh iterative algorithm based on equi-distributing of the arc-length function of the current computed piecewise linear solution. First, a maximum norm a posteriori error estimate on an arbitrary mesh is derived using a different method from the one carried out by Chen [Advances in Computational Mathematics, 24(1-4) (2006), 197-212.]. Then, basing on the properties of discrete Green-s function and the presented posteriori error estimate, we theoretically prove that the discrete solutions computed by the algorithm are first-order uniformly convergent with respect to the perturbation parameter ε.
Abstract: The present study addresses problems and solutions
related to new functional food production. Wheat (Triticum aestivum
L) bran obtained from industrial mill company “Dobeles
dzirnavieks”, was used to investigate them as raw material like
nutrients for Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12. Enzymatic hydrolysis of
wheat bran starch was carried out by α-amylase from Bacillus
amyloliquefaciens (Sigma Aldrich). The Viscozyme L purchased
from (Sigma Aldrich) were used for reducing released sugar.
Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 purchased from (Probio-Tec® CHR
Hansen) was cultivated in enzymatically hydrolysed wheat bran
mash. All procedures ensured the number of active Bifidobacterium
lactis Bb-12 in the final product reached 105 CFUg-1. After enzymatic
and bacterial fermentations sample were freeze dried for analysis of
chemical compounds. All experiments were performed at Faculty of
Food Technology of Latvia University of Agriculture in January-
March 2013. The obtained results show that both types of wheat bran
(enzymatically treated and non-treated) influenced the fermentative
activity and number of Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 viable in wheat
bran mash. Amount of acidity strongly increase during the wheat
bran mash fermentation. The main objective of this work was to
create low-energy functional enzymatically and bacterially treated
food from wheat bran using enzymatic hydrolysis of carbohydrates
and following cultivation of Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12.
Abstract: Factoring Boolean functions is one of the basic operations in algorithmic logic synthesis. A novel algebraic factorization heuristic for single-output combinatorial logic functions is presented in this paper and is developed based on the set theory paradigm. The impact of factoring is analyzed mainly from a low power design perspective for standard cell based digital designs in this paper. The physical implementation of a number of MCNC/IWLS combinational benchmark functions and sub-functions are compared before and after factoring, based on a simple technology mapping procedure utilizing only standard gate primitives (readily available as standard cells in a technology library) and not cells corresponding to optimized complex logic. The power results were obtained at the gate-level by means of an industry-standard power analysis tool from Synopsys, targeting a 130nm (0.13μm) UMC CMOS library, for the typical case. The wire-loads were inserted automatically and the simulations were performed with maximum input activity. The gate-level simulations demonstrate the advantage of the proposed factoring technique in comparison with other existing methods from a low power perspective, for arbitrary examples. Though the benchmarks experimentation reports mixed results, the mean savings in total power and dynamic power for the factored solution over a non-factored solution were 6.11% and 5.85% respectively. In terms of leakage power, the average savings for the factored forms was significant to the tune of 23.48%. The factored solution is expected to better its non-factored counterpart in terms of the power-delay product as it is well-known that factoring, in general, yields a delay-efficient multi-level solution.
Abstract: Aggregation behavior of sodium salicylate and sodium cumene sulfonate was studied in aqueous solution at different temperature. Specific conductivity and relative viscosity were measured at different temperature to find minimum hydrotropic concentration. The thermodynamic parameters (free energy, enthalpy and entropy) were evaluated in the temperature range of 30°C-70°C. The free energy decreased with increase in temperature. The aggregation was found to be exothermic in nature and favored by positive value of entropy.
Abstract: Software organizations are constantly looking for
better solutions when designing and using well-defined software
processes for the development of their products and services.
However, while the technical aspects are virtually easier to arrange,
many software development processes lack more support on project
management issues. When adopting such processes, an organization
needs to apply good project management skills along with technical
views provided by those models. This research proposes the
definition of a new model that integrates the concepts of PMBOK
and those available on the OPEN metamodel, helping not only
process integration but also building the steps towards a more
comprehensive and automatable model.
Abstract: Sensor networks are often deployed in unattended
environments, thus leaving these networks vulnerable to false data
injection attacks in which an adversary injects forged reports into the
network through compromised nodes, with the goal of deceiving the
base station or depleting the resources of forwarding nodes. Several
research solutions have been recently proposed to detect and drop such
forged reports during the forwarding process. Each design can provide
the equivalent resilience in terms of node compromising. However,
their energy consumption characteristics differ from each other. Thus,
employing only a single filtering scheme for a network is not a
recommendable strategy in terms of energy saving. It's very important
the threshold determination for message authentication to identify. We
propose the recursive contract net protocols which less energy level of
terminal node in wireless sensor network.
Abstract: Leptospirosis occurs worldwide (except the
poles of the earth), urban and rural areas, developed and
developing countries, especially in Thailand. It can be
transmitted to the human by rats through direct and indirect
ways. Human can be infected by either touching the infected rats
or contacting with water, soil containing urine from the infected
rats through skin, eyes and nose. The data of the people who
are infected with this disease indicates that most of the
patients are adults. The transmission of this disease is studied
through mathematical model. The population is separated into human
and rat. The human is divided into two classes, namely juvenile
and adult. The model equation is constructed for each class. The
standard dynamical modeling method is then used for
analyzing the behaviours of solutions. In addition, the
conditions of the parameters for the disease free and endemic
states are obtained. Numerical solutions are shown to support the
theoretical predictions. The results of this study guide the way to
decrease the disease outbreak.
Abstract: The photochemical and photo-Fenton oxidation of 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol was performed in a batch reactor, at room temperature, using UV radiation, H2O2 as oxidant, and Fenton-s reagent. The effect of the oxidative agent-s initial concentration was investigated as well as the effect of the initial concentration of Fe(II) by following the target compound degradation, the total organic carbon removal and the chloride ion production. Also, from the kinetic analysis conducted and proposed reaction scheme it was deduced that the addition of Fe(II) significantly increases the production and the further oxidation of the chlorinated intermediates.
Abstract: The human head representations usually are based on
the morphological – structural components of a real model. Over the
time became more and more necessary to achieve full virtual models
that comply very rigorous with the specifications of the human
anatomy. Still, making and using a model perfectly fitted with the
real anatomy is a difficult task, because it requires large hardware
resources and significant times for processing. That is why it is
necessary to choose the best compromise solution, which keeps the
right balance between the details perfection and the resources
consumption, in order to obtain facial animations with real-time
rendering. We will present here the way in which we achieved such a
3D system that we intend to use as a base point in order to create
facial animations with real-time rendering, used in medicine to find
and to identify different types of pathologies.
Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of reducing the
switching activity (SA) in on-chip buses through the use of a bus
binding technique in high-level synthesis. While many binding
techniques to reduce the SA exist, we present yet another technique for
further reducing the switching activity. Our proposed method
combines bus binding and data sequence reordering to explore a wider
solution space. The problem is formulated as a multiple traveling
salesman problem and solved using simulated annealing technique.
The experimental results revealed that a binding solution obtained
with the proposed method reduces 5.6-27.2% (18.0% on average) and
2.6-12.7% (6.8% on average) of the switching activity when compared
with conventional binding-only and hybrid binding-encoding
methods, respectively.
Abstract: The reliable results of an insulated oval duct
considering heat radiation are obtained basing on accurate oval
perimeter obtained by integral method as well as one-dimensional
Plane Wedge Thermal Resistance (PWTR) model. This is an extension
study of former paper of insulated oval duct neglecting heat radiation.
It is found that in the practical situations with long-short-axes ratio a/b
4.5% while t/R2
Abstract: By means of the idea of three-wave method, we obtain some analytic solutions for high nonlinear form of Benjamin-Bona- Mahony-Burgers (shortly BBMB) equations in its bilinear form.