Fuzzy-logic optical optimization of mainframe CPU and memory

The allocation of CPU time and memory resources is a familiar problem in organizations with a large number of users and a single mainframe. Usually the amount of resources allocated to a single user is based on the user's own statistics not on the statistics of the entire organization, therefore patterns are not well identified and the allocation system is prodigal. A fuzzy-logic-based algorithm to optimize the CPU and memory distribution among users based on their history is suggested. The algorithm works on heavy and light users separately since they present different patterns to be observed. The result is a set of rules generated by the fuzzy-logic inference engine that will allow the system to use its computing ability in an optimized manner. Test results on data taken from the Faculty of Engineering of Tel Aviv University demonstrate the capabilities of the new algorithm.     

Small Molecule Receptor Binding Inhibitors with In Vivo Efficacy against Botulinum Neurotoxin Serotypes A and E

Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) are the most poisonous substances in nature. Currently, the only therapy for botulism is antitoxin. This therapy suffers from several limitations and hence new therapeutic strategies are desired. One of the limitations in discovering BoNT inhibitors is the absence of an in vitro assay that correlates with toxin neutralization in vivo. In this work, a high-throughput screening assay for receptor-binding inhibitors against BoNT/A was developed. The assay is composed of two chimeric proteins: a receptor-simulating protein, consisting of the fourth luminal loop of synaptic vesicle protein 2C fused to glutathione-S-transferase, and a toxin-simulating protein, consisting of the receptor-binding domain of BoNT/A fused to beta-galactosidase. The assay was applied to screen the LOPAC1280 compound library. Seven selected compounds were evaluated in mice exposed to a lethal dose of BoNT/A. The compound aurintricarboxylic acid (ATA) conferred 92% protection, whereas significant delayed time to death (p < 0.005) was observed for three additional compounds. Remarkably, ATA was also fully protective in mice challenged with a lethal dose of BoNT/E, which also uses the SV2 receptor. This study demonstrates that receptor-binding inhibitors have the potential to serve as next generation therapeutics for botulism, and therefore the assay developed may facilitate discovery of new anti-BoNT countermeasures.     

Control of the Aero‐Electric Power Station—an exciting QFT application for the 21st century

The Aero‐Electric Power Station is the ultimate solar power station, utilizing the dry, hot air of Earth's desert zones. By spraying water at the top of e.g. a 1200 m tall chimney with a diameter of 400 m, the air is cooled by evaporation and flows downwards through turbines at the bottom, generating 380 MW of net electric power. The Aero‐Electric Power Station is still in the planning stage, and this paper belongs to a long series of feasibility studies. The current ‘truth’ model of the Aero‐Electric Power Station is a one‐dimensional partial differential equation model. The external slowly changing weather, defined as the mean air pressures, temperatures and humidity at the top and bottom of the tower, determines the optimal operating point, i.e. the optimal water spray flow and turbine velocity that give the largest net power. The gross power produced by the turbine is partly delivered to the grid and partly to pump sea water to spray water reservoirs. The reservoirs make it possible to use the pumping power and the spray flow rate as control. Wind changes cause significant deviations from the mean external air pressures, requiring closed loop regulation to keep the rotor velocity constant. The Aero‐Electric Power Station may be modelled as an uncertain, unstable irrational transfer function, with two disturbances (external air pressure deviations at top and bottom), two control variables (turbine power and spray flow), and one output (rotor velocity), without a cascaded structure, giving rise to a robust load sharing control problem. A robust linear feedback regulator is designed by QFT, in such a way that the load of regulation is shared between the two control inputs. A closed loop step response simulation for one operating condition, using the ‘truth’ model, demonstrates the design. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bicoherence analysis of new cardiovascular spectral components observed in heart-transplant patients: statistical approach for bicoherence thresholding

Following heart transplant (HT), the patient's heart functions under complete cardiac denervation. As a result, the variability in physiologic signals is extremely reduced. We have previously reported that in addition to the typical spectral components (of very low amplitude), part of the HT patients (above 50%) demonstrated unexpected additional peaks in their heart rate and blood pressure spectra. These peaks may be a result of the development of compensatory mechanism induced by loss of parasympathetic control, or of increased importance of nonlinear control interactions. It is important to quantify these strange, unexpected very-high frequency (VHF) peaks, to understand their origin and their contribution to cardiac control in transplant patients. In this paper, we chose to examine these VHF peaks by applying the bicoherence approach. The reduced signal to noise ratio, occurring in these patients, results, however, in an extremely noisy bicoherence. We, therefore, developed several statistical tools in order to distinguish between "true" bicoherence peaks (reflecting true phase coupling) and spurious peaks. The outcome of these methods was an efficient and sensitive bicoherence thresholding procedure, able to identify most of the spurious peaks. Applying these tools to the bicoherence of cardiovascular signals which display VHF peaks, revealed several significant bicoherence peaks. Interestingly, these peaks consisted of two different types. The first type of VHF peaks simply reflects nonlinear cardiac-respiratory coupling, imposed by nonsinusoidal breathing. The second type, however, is clearly not induced by the respiratory system. We believe that these type-2 VHF peaks reflect the evolution of a new, yet unexplained, compensatory mechanism.     

Silver halide photonic crystal fibers for the middle infrared

Photonic crystal fibers are normally holey silica fibers, which are opaque in the mid- and far-infrared. We have fabricated novel fibers by multiple extrusions of silver halide crystalline materials, which are highly transparent in the mid-infrared. These fibers are composed of two solid materials; The core consists of pure AgBr, and the cladding includes AgCl fiberoptic elements arranged in two concentric hexagonal rings around the core. Flexible fibers of outer diameter 1 mm and length of approximately 1 m were fabricated, and their optical properties were measured. These fibers exhibited core-clad behavior and would be extremely useful for IR laser power transmission, IR radiometry, and IR spectroscopy.     

Managing photons for quantum information processing

We study distinguishing information in the context of photonic quantum interference tailored for practical implementations of quantum information processing schemes. In particular, we consider the character of single-photon states optimized for multiple-source interference experiments and for experiments relying on Bell-state measurement and arrive at specific design criteria for photons produced by parametric down-conversion. Such states can be realistically implemented with available technology. We describe a novel method for characterizing the mode structure of single photons, and demonstrate it in the context of coherent light.     

An automated method for analysis of flow characteristics of circulating particles from in vivo video microscopy

The behavior of white and red blood cells, platelets, and circulating injected particles is one of the most studied areas of physiology. Most methods used to analyze the circulatory patterns of cells are time consuming. We describe a system named CellTrack, designed for fully automated tracking of circulating cells and micro-particles and retrieval of their behavioral characteristics. The task of automated blood cell tracking in vessels from in vivo video is particularly challenging because of the blood cells' nonrigid shapes, the instability inherent in in vivo videos, the abundance of moving objects and their frequent superposition. To tackle this, the CellTrack system operates on two levels: first, a global processing module extracts vessel borders and center lines based on color and temporal patterns. This enables the computation of the approximate direction of the blood flow in each vessel. Second, a local processing module extracts the locations and velocities of circulating cells. This is performed by artificial neural network classifiers that are designed to detect specific types of blood cells and micro-particles. The motion correspondence problem is then resolved by a novel algorithm that incorporates both the local and the global information. The system has been tested on a series of in vivo color video recordings of rat mesentery. Our results show that the synergy between the global and local information enables CellTrack to overcome many of the difficulties inherent in tracking methods that rely solely on local information. A comparison was made between manual measurements and the automatically extracted measurements of leukocytes and fluorescent microspheres circulatory velocities. This comparison revealed an accuracy of 97%. CellTrack also enabled a much larger volume of sampling in a fraction of time compared to the manual measurements. All these results suggest that our method can in fact constitute a reliable replacement for manual extraction of blood flow characteristics from in vivo videos.     

A study of some equation‐of‐state parameters of poly(methylhydrosiloxane‐co‐dimethylsiloxane) with some solvents by gas chromatography

Trace amount of methyl acetate, ethyl acetate, tert‐butyl acetate, pentane, hexane, and heptane were passed through the chromatographic column loaded with poly(methylhydrosiloxane‐co‐dimethylsiloxane) coated on Chromosorb W. The retention diagrams of the solvents on the copolymer were plotted by means of specific retention volumes at temperatures between 40 and 80°C by inverse gas chromatography technique. In this study, some thermodynamic interaction parameters such as Flory–Huggins polymer–solvent interaction parameter, equation‐of‐state polymer–solvent interaction parameter, effective exchange energy parameter, and weight fraction activity coefficients at infinite dilution of the solvent were determined. Then, the exchange enthalpy parameter and entropy parameter were determined by using a relation for the enthalpy interaction parameter of the equation‐of‐state theory, which is arranged for the inverse gas chromatography conditions. Later, the partial molar heat of sorption and the partial molar heat of mixing were obtained. The solubility parameter of this copolymer was determined as 6.64 (cal/cm³)^1/2 at room temperature. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 1627–1631, 2007     

Planning of sequential binomial tests for various risk ratios

The Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) is widely used in the field of reliability and quality control. This paper is a continuation and a significant extension of the authors' earlier paper; it is dedicated to various risk ratios (α/β) and will lead to the increased use of the Sequential Probability Ratio Test for practical and research needs. The sample number (SN) until the test stops is a random value, and its distribution tails can be extremely long relative to the average SN (ASN). This is not suitable for practical use; therefore, truncation is required, usually by a pair of lines whose intersection, denoted as the Truncation Apex (TA), determines the maximum SN (maxSN). The optimality of the test is determined by the minimality of the SN (by means of maxSN and ASN) for a given Operating Characteristic. Presented are formulas and an algorithm for the TA and other parameters of the optimal test stopping boundaries for various α/β. This methodology also shortens the test planning process. Displacement of the TA from the optimal location results in a significant increase in ASN. The study was implemented in the Israeli standard SI‐61123. Revision of IEC 61123 and IEC 61124 (for exponential distributed data), by this study, has been accepted to the work plan of TC‐56 of IEC. The proposed methodology can be the basis for the improvement of additional standards, for example, in ISO 8422:2006.