Study on emotion recognition and companion Chatbot using deep neural network

Multimedia Tools and Applications - With the development of technology, the importance of the research on speech emotion recognition and semantic analysis has increased. The research is primarily...     

Interblock memory for turbo coding

We investigate a binary code, which is implemented by serially concatenating a multiplexer, a multilevel delay processor, and a signal mapper to a binary turbo encoder. To achieve improved convergence behavior, we modify the binary code by passing only a fraction of the bits in the turbo code through the multilevel delay processor and the signal mapper. Two decoding methods are discussed and their performances are evaluated.     

Precipitation behavior of σ phase in fusion zone of dissimilar stainless steel welds during multi-pass GTAW process

The purpose of this study is to investigate the precipitation characteristics of σ phase in the fusion zone of stainless steel welds at various welding passes during a tungsten are welding (GTAW) process. The morphology, quantity, and chemical composition of the δ-ferrite and σ phase were analyzed using optical microscopy (OM), a ferritscope (FS), a X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), an electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA), and a wavelength dispersive spectrometer (WDS), respectively. Massive δ-ferrite was observed in the fusion zone of the first pass welds during welding of dissimilar stainless steels. The σ phase precipitated at the inner δ-ferrite particles and decreased δ-ferrite content during the third pass welding. The σ and δ phases can be stabilized by Si element, which promoted the phase transformation of σ→ϱ+λ₂ in the fusion zone of the third pass welds. It was found that the σ phase was a Fe−Cr−Si intermetallic compound found in the fusion zone of the third pass welds during multi-pass welding.     

Whole Genome Sequencing and Tn5-Insertion Mutagenesis of Pseudomonas taiwanensis CMS to Probe Its Antagonistic Activity Against Rice Bacterial Blight Disease

The Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas taiwanensis is a novel bacterium that uses shrimp shell waste as its sole sources of carbon and nitrogen. It is a versatile bacterium with potential for use in biological control, with activities including toxicity toward insects, fungi, and the rice pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv.oryzae (Xoo). In this study, the complete 5.08-Mb genome sequence of P. taiwanensis CMS was determined by a combination of NGS/Sanger sequencing and optical mapping. Comparison of optical maps of seven Pseudomonas species showed that P. taiwanensis is most closely related to P. putida KT 2400. We screened a total of 11,646 individual Tn5-transponson tagged strains to identify genes that are involved in the production and regulation of the iron-chelator pyoverdine in P. taiwanensis, which is a key anti-Xoo factor. Our results indicated that the two-component system (TCS) EnvZ/OmpR plays a positive regulatory role in the production of pyoverdine, whereas the sigma factor RpoS functions as a repressor. The knowledge of the molecular basis of the regulation of pyoverdine by P. taiwanensis provided herein will be useful for its development for use in biological control, including as an anti-Xoo agent.     

Efficient gel-state dye-sensitized solar cells adopting polymer gel electrolyte based on poly(methyl methacrylate)

We report an effective method to fabricate gel-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on the PMMA polymer gel electrolyte. In this approach, the liquid-state polymer electrolyte solution was prepared by simply mixing the traditional liquid-state electrolyte with the polymer gelator solution and was injected into the DSSC in its liquid state. The liquid-state polymer electrolyte was then converted to the gel state (i.e., in situ gelation) simply by evaporating a portion of solvents at elevated temperatures. With this approach, liquid electrolytes already well developed and optimized for DSSCs can be readily adopted. Filling in the liquid/solution state ensures effective penetration of the electrolyte into pores of TiO₂ nanoparticle electrodes for attaining good contact and interface properties. The in situ gelation by heating (solvent evaporation) much simplifies the process. The polymer gel electrolyte thus prepared exhibited high ion conductivity and diffusivity comparable to those of traditional liquid electrolytes. The gel-state DSSCs thus fabricated exhibited a high power-conversion efficiency of 8.03% and much improved stability compared to the traditional liquid DSSC.     

Synchronization of uncertain chaotic systems based on adaptive type-2 fuzzy sliding mode control

A novel direct adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy neural network (FNN) controller in which linguistic fuzzy control rules can be directly incorporated into the controller is developed to synchronize chaotic systems with training data corrupted by noise or rule uncertainties involving external disturbances, in this paper. By incorporating direct adaptive interval type-2 FNN control scheme and sliding mode approach, two non-identical chaotic systems can be synchronized based on Lyapunov stability criterion. Moreover, the chattering phenomena of the control efforts can be reduced and the external disturbance on the synchronization error can be attenuated. The stability of the proposed overall adaptive control scheme will be guaranteed in the sense that all the states and signals are uniformly bounded. From the simulation example, to synchronize two non-identical Chua’s chaotic circuits, it has been shown that type-2 FNN controllers have the potential to overcome the limitations of tpe-1 FNN controllers when training data is corrupted by high levels of uncertainty.     

基于TTA体系结构的嵌入式协处理器的设计与实现

本文基于TTA结构提出了一种嵌入式协处理器体系结构,并完成了其VLSI设计与实现.该协处理器具有双Cluster的运算内核,能够高效地支持多媒体应用中的数据密集型计算.为了充分发挥协处理器工作效率,本文还设计了具有流缓冲代理特征的流存储子系统,通过实现数据流存储访问机制以及计算资源与片外存储之间的低耦合结构,提高访存带宽.最后,基于该嵌入式协处理器,本文在0.18μm CMOS工艺下实现了一款多核SoC芯片,其工作主频为300MHz,实测功耗为910mW.     

The Clinical Significance of the Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 Receptor Polymorphism in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer with Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation

The insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) signaling pathway mediates multiple cancer cell biological processes. IGF1 receptor (IGF1R) expression has been used as a reporter of the clinical significance of non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). However, the association between IGF1R genetic variants and the clinical utility of NSCLC positive for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation is not clear. The current study investigated the association between the IGF1R genetic variants, the occurrence of EGFR mutations, and clinicopathological characteristics in NSCLC patients. A total of 452 participants, including 362 adenocarcinoma lung cancer and 90 squamous cell carcinoma lung cancer patients, were selected for analysis of IGF1R genetic variants (rs7166348, rs2229765, and rs8038415) using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR)genotyping. The results indicated that GA + AA genotypes of IGF1R rs2229765 were significantly associated with EGFR mutation in female lung adenocarcinoma patients (odds ratio (OR) = 0.39, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.17–0.87). Moreover, The GA + AA genotype IGF1R rs2229765 was significantly associated with EGFR L858R mutation (p = 0.02) but not with the exon 19 in-frame deletion. Furthermore, among patients without EGFR mutation, those who have at least one polymorphic A allele of IGF1R rs7166348 have an increased incidence of lymph node metastasis when compared with those patients homozygous for GG (OR, 2.75; 95% CI, 1.20–2.31). Our results showed that IGF1R genetic variants are related to EGFR mutation in female lung adenocarcinoma patients and may be a predictive factor for tumor lymph node metastasis in Taiwanese patients with NSCLC.     

Thermo-mechanical analysis and interfacial energy release rate estimation for metal-insulator-metal capacitor device

The metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor device is the most popular structure that has been massively used in system circuit designs in IC and PCB processes. The characteristics of system will be changed and electrical performances will be impaired if large deformations are resulted in MIM capacitor device. Therefore, the concerns of reliability for MIM capacitor devices are very important issues. For the purpose of realizing the probability of delamination of GaAs/Si₃N₄ interface in MIM capacitor device, the four-point bend experiment is employed to evaluate the critical energy release rate, which is an important index to determine the possibility of inducing interfacial delamination. Moreover, to validate the phenomenon of delamination in MIM capacitor device, the finite element analysis (FEA) and modified virtual crack closure technique (MVCCT) are adopted. Thermo-mechanical stress distributions in MIM capacitor device that under reliability test conditions can be illustrated. The results show that the maximum stress occurs at the layer of Si₃N₄ or its corresponding interfaces. These stress concentration areas are critical places to be fractured. Furthermore, the designs of experiments (DOE) analysis is also employed to have better geometric parameters in MIM capacitor device to reduce stresses. It is believed that this study will be useful design guideline to prevent the phenomenon of interfacial delamination and enhance the reliability.