Biologically motivated model for object detection and identification in real-world scenes

The classical computer vision methods can only weakly emulate some of the multi-level parallelisms in signal processing and information sharing that takes place in different parts of the primates’ visual system thus enabling it to accomplish many diverse functions of visual perception. One of the main functions of the primates’ vision is to detect and recognise objects in natural scenes despite all the linear and non-linear variations of the objects and their environment. The superior performance of the primates’ visual system compared to what machine vision systems have been able to achieve to date, motivates scientists and researchers to further explore this area in pursuit of more efficient vision systems inspired by natural models. In this paper building blocks for a hierarchical efficient object recognition model are proposed. Incorporating the attention-based processing would lead to a system that will process the visual data in a non-linear way focusing only on the regions of interest and hence reducing the time to achieve real-time performance. Further, it is suggested to modify the visual cortex model for recognizing objects by adding non-linearities in the ventral path consistent with earlier discoveries as reported by researchers in the neuro-physiology of vision.

Modelling the cabling of rope systems

This paper presents a theoretical model of the torsional characteristics of parallel multi-part rope systems. In such systems, the ropes may cable, or wrap around each other, depending on the combination of applied torque, rope tension, length and spacing between the rope parts. Cabling constitutes a failure that might be retrievable but as such can seriously affect the performance of the rope system. The torsional characteristics of the system are very different before and after cabling, and theoretical models are given for both situations. Laboratory tests were performed on both two and four rope systems, with measurements being made of torque at rotations from 0 to 360 deg. Tests were run with different rope spacings, tensions and lengths and the results compared with predictions from the theoretical model. The conclusion from the test results was that the theoretical model predicts both the pre- and post-cabling torsional behaviour with an acceptable level of accuracy.

Reliability in the whole life cycle of building systems

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to show that reliability analysis and its implementation will lead to an improved whole life performance of the building systems, and hence their life cycle costs (LCC). Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses reliability impacts on the whole life cycle of building systems, and reviews the up-to-date approaches adopted in UK construction, based on questionnaires designed to investigate the use of reliability within the industry. Findings – Approaches to reliability design and maintainability design have been introduced from the operating environment level, system structural level and component level, and a scheduled maintenance logic tree is modified based on the model developed by Pride. Different stages of the whole life cycle of building services systems, reliability-associated factors should be considered to ensure the system's whole life performance. It is suggested that data analysis should be applied in reliability design, maintainability design, and maintenance policy development. Originality/value – The paper presents important factors in different stages of the whole life cycle of the systems, and reliability and maintainability design approaches which can be helpful for building services system designers. The survey from the questionnaires provides the designers with understanding of key impacting factors.

How can a blind engineer access the curriculum?

The arrival of a student who is Blind in the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading has made it an interesting and challenging year for all. Visually impaired students have already graduated from other Schools of the University and the School of Systems Engineering has seen three students with visual impairment graduate recently with good degrees. These students could access materials - and do assessments - essentially by means of enlargement and judicious choice of options. The new student had previously been supported by a specialist college. She is a proficient typist and also a user of both Braille and JAWS screen reader, and she is doing a joint course in Cybernetics and Computer Science. The course requires mathematics which itself includes graphs, and also many diagrams including numerous circuit diagrams. The University bought proven equipment such as a scanner to process books into speech or Braille, and screen reading software as well as a specialist machine for producing tactile diagrams for educational use. Clearly it is also important that the student can access assessments and examinations and present answers for marking or feedback (by sighted staff). So the School also used innovative in-house tactile methods to represent diagrams. This paper discusses the success or otherwise of various modifications of course delivery and the way forward for the next three years.

Rethinking construction: the Generic Design and Construction Process Protocol

The complexity of construction projects and the fragmentation of the construction industry undertaking those projects has effectively resulted in linear, uncoordinated and highly variable project processes in the UK construction sector. Research undertaken at the University of Salford resulted in the development of an improved project process, the Process Protocol, which considers the whole lifecycle of a construction project whilst integrating its participants under a common framework. The Process Protocol identifies the various phases of a construction project with particular emphasis on what is described in the manufacturing industry as the ‘fuzzy front end’. The participants in the process are described in terms of the activities that need to be undertaken in order to achieve a successful project and process execution. In addition, the decision-making mechanisms, from a client perspective, are illustrated and the foundations for a learning organization/industry are facilitated within a consistent Process Protocol.

A comparative study of multilayered and single layered neural network based predictive controllers

The authors compare the performance of two types of controllers one based on the multilayered network and the other based on the single layered CMAC network (cerebellar model articulator controller). The neurons (information processing units) in the multi-layered network use Gaussian activation functions. The control scheme which is considered is a predictive control algorithm, along the lines used by Willis et al. (1991), Kambhampati and Warwick (1991). The process selected as a test bed is a continuous stirred tank reactor. The reaction taking place is an irreversible exothermic reaction in a constant volume reactor cooled by a single coolant stream. This reactor is a simplified version of the first tank in the two tank system given by Henson and Seborg (1989).

The technocratic totalitarianism of construction process improvement: a critical perspective

The current research agenda for construction process improvement is heavily influenced by the rhetoric of business process re-engineering (BPR). In contrast to the wider literature on BPR, there is little evidence of critical thought within the construction management research community. A postmodernist interpretation is advocated whereby the reality of management practice is defined by the dominant management discourse. The persuasiveness of BPR rhetoric is analysed with particular reference to the way in which it plays on the insecurity of modern managers. Despite the lip service given to ‘empowerment’ and ‘teamwork’, the dominant theme of the re-engineering movement is that of technocratic totalitarianism. From a critical perspective, it is suggested that BPR is imposed on construction organizations to ensure continued control by the industry's dominant power groups. Whilst industry leaders are fond of calling for ‘attitudinal and cultural improvement’, the language of the accepted research agenda continually reinforces the industry's dominant culture of ‘control and command’. Therefore, current research directions in process improvement perpetuate existing attitudes rather than facilitating cultural change. The concept of lean construction is seen to be the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.

Knowledge intensive processes characteristics and improvement: a banking best practice example

This paper identifies characteristics of knowledge intensive processes and a method to improve their performance based on analysis of investment banking front office processes. The inability to improve these processes using standard process improvement techniques confirmed that much of the process was not codified and depended on tacit knowledge and skills. This led to the use of a semi-structured analysis of the characteristics of the processes via a questionnaire to identify knowledge intensive processes characteristics that adds to existing theory. Further work identified innovative process analysis and change techniques that could generate improvements based on an analysis of their properties and the issue drivers. An improvement methodology was developed to harness a number of techniques that were found to effective in resolving the issue drivers and improving these knowledge intensive processes.

Should system dynamics be described as a 'hard' or 'deterministic' systems approach?

This paper explores the criticism that system dynamics is a ‘hard’ or ‘deterministic’ systems approach. This criticism is seen to have four interpretations and each is addressed from the perspectives of social theory and systems science. Firstly, system dynamics is shown to offer not prophecies but Popperian predictions. Secondly, it is shown to involve the view that system structure only partially, not fully, determines human behaviour. Thirdly, the field's assumptions are shown not to constitute a grand content theory—though its structural theory and its attachment to the notion of causality in social systems are acknowledged. Finally, system dynamics is shown to be significantly different from systems engineering. The paper concludes that such confusions have arisen partially because of limited communication at the theoretical level from within the system dynamics community but also because of imperfect command of the available literature on the part of external commentators. Improved communication on theoretical issues is encouraged, though it is observed that system dynamics will continue to justify its assumptions primarily from the point of view of practical problem solving. The answer to the question in the paper's title is therefore: on balance, no.

A linear optimization approach to the combined production planning model

Two fundamental processes usually arise in the production planning of many industries. The first one consists of deciding how many final products of each type have to be produced in each period of a planning horizon, the well-known lot sizing problem. The other process consists of cutting raw materials in stock in order to produce smaller parts used in the assembly of final products, the well-studied cutting stock problem. In this paper the decision variables of these two problems are dependent of each other in order to obtain a global optimum solution. Setups that are typically present in lot sizing problems are relaxed together with integer frequencies of cutting patterns in the cutting problem. Therefore, a large scale linear optimizations problem arises, which is exactly solved by a column generated technique. It is worth noting that this new combined problem still takes the trade-off between storage costs (for final products and the parts) and trim losses (in the cutting process). We present some sets of computational tests, analyzed over three different scenarios. These results show that, by combining the problems and using an exact method, it is possible to obtain significant gains when compared to the usual industrial practice, which solve them in sequence. (C) 2010 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improvements on the Porter`s Stemming Algorithm for Portuguese

The amount of textual information digitally stored is growing every day. However, our capability of processing and analyzing that information is not growing at the same pace. To overcome this limitation, it is important to develop semiautomatic processes to extract relevant knowledge from textual information, such as the text mining process. One of the main and most expensive stages of the text mining process is the text pre-processing stage, where the unstructured text should be transformed to structured format such as an attribute-value table. The stemming process, i.e. linguistics normalization, is usually used to find the attributes of this table. However, the stemming process is strongly dependent on the language in which the original textual information is given. Furthermore, for most languages, the stemming algorithms proposed in the literature are computationally expensive. In this work, several improvements of the well know Porter stemming algorithm for the Portuguese language, which explore the characteristics of this language, are proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm executes in far less time without affecting the quality of the generated stems.

Estudo da hidrodinâmica de um novo separador líquido-líquido: aplicação ao sistema óleo-bruto/água produzida

This work aims to use a different hydrodynamic condition applied to a new design of mixer-settler on treating wastewater produced by petroleum industry, called MDIF (Misturador-Decantador à Inversão de Fases/ Mixer-Settler based on Phase Inversion MSPI). The use of this different hydrodynamic behaviour is possible due to vertical disposition of the device and the principle of Phase Inversion that controls the MDIF, providing the generation (creation) of a cascade of drops, into an organic layer, that works as micro-decanters, thus making possible the formation of a bed of non-coalesced drops, called Bed Formation . The use of this new hydrodynamics condition allows to increase the residence time of the oil carrier drops, into an organic layer, and the device can treat a greater volume of wastewater. In view of to get this condition it is necessary to operate at high throughput (58,6 m3.m-2.h-1). By results, the condition of Bed Formation is the best one to be used when MSPI operates with throughput up to 58,6 m3.m-2.h-1. The results using the condition of Bed Formation show that increasing the height of the bed of non-coalesced drops and/or decreasing the volumetric ratio (O/A) an increase of the separation efficiency is detected