Colon segmentation and colonic polyp detection using cellular neural networks and three-dimensional template matching

Abstract: In this study, an automatic three-dimensional computer-aided detection system for colonic polyps was developed. Computer-aided detection for computed tomography colonography aims at facilitating the detection of colonic polyps. First, the colon regions of whole computed tomography images were carefully segmented to reduce computational burden and prevent false positive detection. In this process, the colon regions were extracted by using a cellular neural network and then the regions of interest were determined. In order to improve the segmentation performance of the study, weights in the cellular neural network were calculated by three heuristic optimization techniques, namely genetic algorithm, differential evaluation and artificial immune system. Afterwards, a three-dimensional polyp template model was constructed to detect polyps on the segmented regions of interest. At the end of the template matching process, the volumes geometrically similar to the template were emhanced.     

A multi-agent system model of a diesel engine using rule induction

The proliferation of a multi-agent system (MAS) and ideas from Artificial Intelligence (AI)/distributed AI have changed the way systems, in general are controlled, and operation of a system (diesel engine) in particular is automated. In this paper a distributed multi-agent architecture for a diesel engine and the knowledge sources that handle electricity generation is developed. Electronic devices and components used for data handling are described. The sensed data are presented in fuzzy logic and calculated in entropy values and depicted in a decision hierarchy. A comparative performance assessment of the proposed multi-agent based system with an existing system is presented and discussed.     

A rule‐based approach to detect and prevent inconsistency in the domain‐engineering process

A medium‐sized domain‐engineering process can contain thousands of features that all have constraint dependency rules between them. Therefore, the validation of the content of domain‐engineering process is vital to produce high‐quality software products. However, it is not feasible to do this manually. This paper aims to improve the quality of the software products generated by the domain‐engineering process by ensuring the validity of the results of that process. We propose rules for two operations: inconsistency detection and inconsistency prevention. We introduce first‐order logic (FOL) rules to detect three types of inconsistency and prevent the direct inconsistency in the domain‐engineering process. Developing FOL rules to detect and prevent inconsistency in the domain‐engineering process directly without the need to the configuration process is our main contribution. We performed some experiments to test the scalability and applicability of our approach on domain‐engineered software product lines containing 1000 assets to 20000 assets. The results show that our approach is scalable and could be utilized to improve the domain‐engineering process.     

A stochastic neighborhood search approach for airport gate assignment problem

An appropriate and efficient gate assignment is of great importance in airports since it plays a major role in the revenue obtained from the airport operations. In this study, we have focused mainly on maximum gate employment, or in other words minimize the total duration of un-gated flights. Here, we propose a method that combines the benefits of heuristic approaches with some stochastic approach instead of using a purely probabilistic approach to top-down solution of the problem. The heuristic approaches are usually used in order to provide a fast solution of the problem and later stochastic searches are used in order to ameliorate the previous results of the heuristic approach whenever possible. The proposed method generates an assignment order for the whole planes that corresponds to assignment priority. The ordering process is followed by the allocation step. Since, in practice, each airport has its own physical architecture, there have been arisen many constraints mainly concerning airplane types and parking lots in this step. Sequentially handling the plane ordering and allocation phases provides us great modularity in handling the constraints. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology has been tried to be illustrated firstly on fictively generated flight schedule data and secondly on the real world data obtained from a real world application developed for ?stanbul Atatürk Airport.     

The beat goes on: Rhythmic modulation of cortical potentials by imagined tapping.

A frequency analysis was used to tag cortical activity from imagined rhythmic movements. Participants synchronized overt and imagined taps with brief visual stimuli presented at a constant rate, alternating between left and right index fingers. Brain potentials were recorded from across the scalp and topographic maps made of their power at the alternation frequency between left and right taps. Two prominent power foci occurred in each hemisphere for both overt and imagined taps, one over sensorimotor cortex and the other over posterior parietal cortex, with homologous foci in opposite hemispheres arising from oscillations 180° out of phase. These findings demonstrate temporal isomorphism at a neural level between overt and imagined movements and illustrate a new approach to studying covert actions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Energy profile of rollback-recovery strategies in high performance computing

Extreme-scale computing is set to provide the infrastructure for the advances and breakthroughs that will solve some of the hardest problems in science and engineering. However, resilience and energy concerns loom as two of the major challenges for machines at that scale. The number of components that will be assembled in the supercomputers plays a fundamental role in these challenges. First, a large number of parts will substantially increase the failure rate of the system compared to the failure frequency of current machines. Second, those components have to fit within the power envelope of the installation and keep the energy consumption within operational margins. Extreme-scale machines will have to incorporate fault tolerance mechanisms and honor the energy and power restrictions. Therefore, it is essential to understand how fault tolerance and energy consumption interplay. This paper presents a comparative evaluation and analysis of energy consumption of three different rollback-recovery protocols: checkpoint/restart, message logging and parallel recovery. Our experimental evaluation shows parallel recovery has the minimum execution time and energy consumption. Additionally, we present an analytical model that projects parallel recovery can reduce energy consumption more than 37% compared to checkpoint/restart at extreme scale.     

Anonymization of moving objects databases by clustering and perturbation

Preserving individual privacy when publishing data is a problem that is receiving increasing attention. Thanks to its simplicity the concept of k-anonymity, introduced by Samarati and Sweeney [1], established itself as one fundamental principle for privacy preserving data publishing. According to the k-anonymity principle, each release of data must be such that each individual is indistinguishable from at least k−1 other individuals.     

Effect of Different Surface Treatment Methods on the Friction and Wear Behavior of AISI 4140 Steel

In this study,the effects of various surface treatments on the friction and wear behavior of AISI 4140 steel have been evaluated.Sample surfaces of AISI 4140 steel were treated by quenching,carburizing,boronizing and plasma transferred arc (PTA) modification.The microstructural characteristics of surface treated steel samples were examined by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The mechanical properties of the samples including the surface roughness,microhardness,and abrasive and adhesive wear characteristics were also evaluated.Wear tests were applied by using a block-on-disc configuration under dry sliding conditions.The wear behavior and friction characteristics of the samples were determined as a function of sliding distance.Each sample group was compared with the other sample groups,and it was observed that the carburized samples demonstrated the lowest weight losses;however,PTA-treated samples demonstrated the lowest coefficient of friction in comparison to the other sample groups at the same sliding distance.     

汉维统计机器翻译中的形态学处理

针对汉语和维吾尔语语序差别(前者是主-谓-宾结构,后者是主-宾-谓结构)及形态差别较大的问题,通过编写调序规则将汉语调整为主-宾-谓结构,将维吾尔语单词切分为词干、词缀等更小的词素单元来训练统计模型,同时测试词素的切分粒度对翻译性能的影响.实验结果表明,对汉语句法结构的调整及以词干、词缀等更小的词素形式参与训练可以有效...     

Selective separation of cobalt and nickel by supported liquid membranes

The selective separation of cobalt from acidic media, containing both equimolar and nonequimolar mixtures of cobalt and nickel, was examined by supported liquid membranes using Alamine 336 as mobile carrier dissolved in various diluents. The membrane support was microporous hydrophobic polypropylene Celgard 2500 (25 μm thick, 0.209 × 0.054 μm pore size and 55% porosity). Acetic acid-Na acetate buffer was used for the adjustment of the feed pH which was critical. Various parameters were experimentally studied and the optimum conditions were determined.