Response probability distribution of built-up vibro-acoustic systems

The vibro-acoustic response of built-up structures, consisting of stiff components with low modal density and flexible components with high modal density, is sensitive to small imperfections in the flexible components. In this paper, the uncertainty of the response is considered by modeling the low modal density master system as deterministic and the high modal density subsystems in a nonparametric stochastic way, i.e., carrying a diffuse wave field, and by subsequently computing the response probability density function. The master system's mean squared response amplitude follows a singular noncentral complex Wishart distribution conditional on the subsystem energies. For a single degree of freedom, this is equivalent to a chi-square or an exponential distribution, depending on the loading conditions. The subsystem energies follow approximately a chi-square distribution when their relative variance is smaller than unity. The results are validated by application to plate structures, and good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations is found. © 2012 Acoustical Society of America.

Outage probability of the gaussian MIMO free-space optical channel with PPM

Atmospheric effects can significantly degrade the reliability of free-space optical communications. One such effect is scintillation, caused by atmospheric turbulence, refers to random fluctuations in the irradiance and phase of the received laser beam. In this paper we inv stigate the use of multiple lasers and multiple apertures to mitigate scintillation. Since the scintillation process is slow, we adopt a block fading channel model and study the outage probability under the assumptions of orthogonal pulse-position modulation and non-ideal photodetection. Assuming perfect receiver channel state information (CSI), we derive the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) exponents for the cases when the scintillation is lognormal, exponential and gammagamma distributed, which cover a wide range of atmospheric turbulence conditions. Furthermore, when CSI is also available at the transmitter, we illustrate very large gains in SNR are possible (in some cases larger than 15 dB) by adapting the transmitted power. Under a long-term power constraint, we outline fundamental design criteria via a simple expression that relates the required number of lasers and apertures for a given code rate and number of codeword blocks to completely remove system outages. Copyright © 2009 IEEE.

N-gram posterior probability confidence measures for statistical machine translation: An empirical study

We report an empirical study of n-gram posterior probability confidence measures for statistical machine translation (SMT). We first describe an efficient and practical algorithm for rapidly computing n-gram posterior probabilities from large translation word lattices. These probabilities are shown to be a good predictor of whether or not the n-gram is found in human reference translations, motivating their use as a confidence measure for SMT. Comprehensive n-gram precision and word coverage measurements are presented for a variety of different language pairs, domains and conditions. We analyze the effect on reference precision of using single or multiple references, and compare the precision of posteriors computed from k-best lists to those computed over the full evidence space of the lattice. We also demonstrate improved confidence by combining multiple lattices in a multi-source translation framework. © 2012 The Author(s).

Probability-Matching Predictors for Extreme Extremes

A location- and scale-invariant predictor is constructed which exhibits good probability matching for extreme predictions outside the span of data drawn from a variety of (stationary) general distributions. It is constructed via the three-parameter {\mu, \sigma, \xi} Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD). The predictor is designed to provide matching probability exactly for the GPD in both the extreme heavy-tailed limit and the extreme bounded-tail limit, whilst giving a good approximation to probability matching at all intermediate values of the tail parameter \xi. The predictor is valid even for small sample sizes N, even as small as N = 3. The main purpose of this paper is to present the somewhat lengthy derivations which draw heavily on the theory of hypergeometric functions, particularly the Lauricella functions. Whilst the construction is inspired by the Bayesian approach to the prediction problem, it considers the case of vague prior information about both parameters and model, and all derivations are undertaken using sampling theory.

Estimation of the detection probability for Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis) with a passive acoustic method

Yangtze finless porpoises were surveyed by using simultaneous visual and acoustical methods from 6 November to 13 December 2006. Two research vessels towed stereo acoustic data loggers, which were used to store the intensity and sound source direction of the high frequency sonar signals produced by finless porpoises at detection ranges up to 300 m on each side of the vessel. Simple stereo beam forming allowed the separation of distinct biosonar sound source, which enabled us to count the number of vocalizing porpoises. Acoustically, 204 porpoises were detected from one vessel and 199 from the other vessel in the same section of the Yangtze River. Visually, 163 and 162 porpoises were detected from two vessels within 300 m of the vessel track. The calculated detection probability using acoustic method was approximately twice that for visual detection for each vessel. The difference in detection probabilities between the two methods was caused by the large number of single individuals that were missed by visual observers. However, the sizes of large groups were underestimated by using the acoustic methods. Acoustic and visual observations complemented each other in the accurate detection of porpoises. The use of simple, relatively inexpensive acoustic monitoring systems should enhance population surveys of free-ranging, echolocating odontocetes. (C) 2008 Acoustical Society of America.

semantic oriented ontology cohesion metrics for ontology-based systems

Ontologies play a core role to provide shared knowledge models to semantic-driven applications targeted by Semantic Web. Ontology metrics become an important area because they can help ontology engineers to assess ontology and better control project management and development of ontology based systems, and therefore reduce the risk of project failures. In this paper, we propose a set of ontology cohesion metrics which focuses on measuring (possibly inconsistent) ontologies in the context of dynamic and changing Web. They are: Number of Ontology Partitions (NOP), Number of Minimally Inconsistent Subsets (NMIS) and Average Value of Axiom Inconsistencies (AVAI). These ontology metrics are used to measure ontological semantics rather than ontological structure. They are theoretically validated for ensuring their theoretical soundness, and further empirically validated by a standard test set of debugging ontologies. The related algorithms to compute these ontology metrics also are discussed. These metrics proposed in this paper can be used as a very useful complementarity of existing ontology cohesion metrics.

Probability of Sediment Incipient Motion Under Complex Flows

Presented in this paper is a mathematical model to calculate the probability of the sediment incipient motion, in which the effects of the fluctuating pressure and the seepage are considered. The instantaneous bed shear velocity and the pressure gradient on the bed downstream of the backward-facing step flow are obtained according to the PIV measurements. It is found that the instantaneous pressure gradient on the bed obeys normal distribution. The probability of the sediment incipient motion on the bed downstream of the backward-facing step flow is given by the mathematical model. The predicted results agree well with the experiment in the region downstream of the reattachment point while a large discrepancy between the theory and experiment is seen in the region near the reattachment point. The possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.