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Microfluidic paper-based analytical devices ($\mu $ PADs) are a clean-room free, cost-effective, and self-pumping flow-based rapid prototyping technique, which is compatible with a varying range of fluids. Until now, $\mu $ PADs have been primarily fabricated using crayons, and plotting-machine and solid-ink printers. These devices can be easily employed for various detection schemes, such as electrical, electrochemical, and optical. The presence of a capillary effect in the chromatograph paper has made $\mu $ PADs independent of a passive device, such as pumps and valves. In this paper, an alternative and a novel method is proposed to achieve the $\mu $ PADs effortlessly using a 3-D printer (3DP), which has many advantages over the existing methods. For creating hydrophobic barriers for microchannel walls, polycaprolactone (PCL) filament was used with fused-deposition modeling (FDM) 3DP. PCL filaments were deposited on the chromatography paper followed by heating for determining the overall dimension and depth of the microchannel at which PCL melts and penetrates into this paper. The $\mu $ PADs are characterized and optimized for two parameters. First, fabrication parameters, such as heating temperature and time duration, were used for the creation of the hydrophobic barrier using a hot air oven. Second, the microchannel parameters, such as microchannel width, boundary thickness, chromatography paper grade, and microchannel source shape (rectangular, triangular, and circular) were used for the fluid-flow by measuring the time taken by fluid to travel a fixed length of the microchannel. After rigorous analysis, it was found that for the creation of the hydrophobic barrier, $\mu $ PADs heated between temperature 120°C to 150°C require 30 min. Under optimized conditions for the fluid flow, the chromatography paper grade 1441 with a triangular source microchannel was found to be best. This paper provides an alternate, simple, and optimized method toward the development of the application-specific $\mu $ PADs, such as the micro-viscometer, which, in turn, can be widely used to monitor various types of fluids including human bodily fluids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate a very challenging task of automatically generating presentation slides for academic papers. The generated presentation slides can be used as drafts to help the presenters prepare their formal slides in a quicker way. A novel system called PPSGen is proposed to address this task. It first employs the regression method to learn the importance scores of the sentences in an academic paper, and then exploits the integer linear programming (ILP) method to generate well-structured slides by selecting and aligning key phrases and sentences. Evaluation results on a test set of 200 pairs of papers and slides collected on the web demonstrate that our proposed PPSGen system can generate slides with better quality. A user study is also illustrated to show that PPSGen has a few evident advantages over baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As one of the most important unit in the papermaking industry, the high consistency (HC) refining system is confronted with challenges such as improving pulp quality, energy saving, and emissions reduction in its operation processes. In this correspondence, an optimal operation of HC refining system is presented using nonlinear multiobjective model predictive control strategies that aim at set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and specific energy (SE) consumption objective, respectively. First, a set of input and output data at different times are employed to construct the subprocess model of the state process model for the HC refining system, and then the Wiener-type model can be obtained through combining the mechanism model of Canadian Standard Freeness and the state process model that determines their structures based on Akaike information criterion. Second, the multiobjective optimization strategy that optimizes both the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality and SE consumption is proposed simultaneously, which uses NSGA-II approach to obtain the Pareto optimal set. Furthermore, targeting at the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and SE consumption objective, the sequential quadratic programming method is utilized to produce the optimal predictive controllers. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed methods can make the HC refining system provide a better performance of set-point tracking of pulp quality when these predictive controllers are employed. In addition, while the optimal predictive controllers orienting with comprehensive economic objective and SE consumption objective, it has been shown that they have significantly reduced the energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is vital for ensuring chip fabrication uniformity at nanometer scales. The emergence of a series of phenomenological CMP process models (Stine et al., 1997; Gbondo-Tugbawa, 2002; Xie, 2007; Vasilev, 2011) suggests that the existing model upgrade approach is largely based on a change in phenomenological model assumptions, demanding deep insights into complex process mechanisms and protracted period for accuracy improvements. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes a decoupling regression strategy for model upgrades. This strategy employs a data-driven approach to enhance the coupling relationships within the model, facilitating continuous improvement of simulation accuracy based on the existing model. It is capable of achieving improvements in model accuracy even in scenarios where modelers lack insight into complex process mechanisms. We validate our method by upgrading the Density Step Height (DSH) model to the Extend-DSH model to address poor erosion predictions at the 28nm node. Comparing model predictions with silicon data reveals that the Extend-DSH model aligns better with the measured data, reducing the root mean square error from 159.31Å to 6.89Å and increasing the coefficient of determination from -0.83561 to 0.6058, showcasing the effectiveness of the proposed chip-level CMP model upgrade method grounded in the decoupling regression strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of a comprehensive multi-pass analysis of visualization paper keywords supplied by authors for their papers published in the IEEE Visualization conference series (now called IEEE VIS) between 1990–2015. From this analysis we derived a set of visualization topics that we discuss in the context of the current taxonomy that is used to categorize papers and assign reviewers in the IEEE VIS reviewing process. We point out missing and overemphasized topics in the current taxonomy and start a discussion on the importance of establishing common visualization terminology. Our analysis of research topics in visualization can, thus, serve as a starting point to (a) help create a common vocabulary to improve communication among different visualization sub-groups, (b) facilitate the process of understanding differences and commonalities of the various research sub-fields in visualization, (c) provide an understanding of emerging new research trends, (d) facilitate the crucial step of finding the right reviewers for research submissions, and (e) it can eventually lead to a comprehensive taxonomy of visualization research. One additional tangible outcome of our work is an online query tool (http://keyvis.org/) that allows visualization researchers to easily browse the 3952 keywords used for IEEE VIS papers since 1990 to find related work or make informed keyword choices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Monitoring topographic variations in the engineered surface is crucial for quality engineers since the change in the surface finish is closely related to the performance of products. However, several challenging issues such as the existence of spatial autocorrelation within the surface, and changes of topographic features such as position and shape of peaks and valleys across defect-free surfaces make it difficult to monitor variations in the surface. In addition, existing monitoring approaches fail to detect local changes in the surface. In this article, we present a new approach for monitoring topographic variations in surfaces. We develop a residual-based separation deviation (RBSD) model to effectively identify local surface changes. Residuals are obtained through the fit surface prediction model, which characterizes the generic behavior of defect-free surfaces, and binarized by the RBSD model to distinguish the defective region where residuals are autocorrelated. A spatial randomness-based monitoring statistic is introduced to evaluate binary patterns in order to detect surface anomalies. Numerical simulation and a case study of the coated paper surface monitoring are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Note to Practitioners—An increasing number of optical measuring instruments provide quality engineers with surface topographic data of the product, and enable precise and accurate inspection of surface variations during the manufacturing process. However, spatial and arbitrary geometric features on topographic data often make monitoring the surface changes a challenging task. This article proposes a new monitoring approach for detecting topographic variations in the surface. We mathematically characterize the generic behavior of the surface under the normal process, and present a surface segmentation model to detect local variations in the surface. In practice, our approach is applicable to real-life paper surface variations monitoring. The proposed approach is expected to provide a new idea to practitioners who work on surface topography inspection in various fields as well as the pulp industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents selected aspects of a data platform to store agricultural data. It analyses the key user and system requirements for the data platform. The presented aspects were identified through a literature review, interviews and discussions with selected data experts and researchers and future users of the platform. The following issues of the data platform are discussed in the paper: architecture, data types, data source types, metadata, disciplinary interfaces, data sharing, data reusability, Open Science, FAIR data principles, and further data processing options. Part of the knowledge from this article was used in the design and implementation of the Institutional Data Repository called Data Management Platform (DaMP.) CZU (Czech University of Life Sciences Prague) (OPENAI, 2023). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of papers by Pawlikowski and his team, they warned about a deep crisis of credibility in simulation studies for the performance evaluation of telecommunication networks. The goal of this article is to revisit the investigation on simulation credibility and to extend the previous research in this area by presenting the results of a comprehensive survey of over 8370 IEEE publications (2007?2009) on telecommunication networks which appeared in the proceedings of IEEE Transactions on Communications (TC), IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TN), IEEE Infocom, IEEE ICC, and IEEE Globecom. These proceedings were selected based on their popularity and relevance to our study. Besides simulation credibility, we also report on the commonly used simulation tools and performance analysis methodology adopted by the authors of the surveyed papers. Our findings show that a significant number of authors did not provide information of the simulation tools used or, even when they did, there was not enough information about the CI or SE of simulation results presented in the surveyed papers. Thus, there is no significant change with respect to quality and credibility of the simulation studies revised and the deep crisis of credibility still remains. The research design most authors prefer is a hybrid one where both simulation and analytic methods are being used for network performance analysis. Finally, we provide guidelines for the best practice of using simulation tools for the performance evaluation of telecommunication networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The scientific world is becoming more open to the public and fellow researchers. Open access publishing is becoming accepted, even if some publishers are resisting. The next step is the open code and data paradigm, which was briefly discussed in the "From the Editor" column in the November 2018 issue of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (SPM) [1]. In this column, I follow up on this topic by sharing my experiences, best practices, and thoughts about reproducible research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The semi-supervised face recognition problem has become a popular research topic in recent years. However, one common and important situation, in which the unlabeled data is shallow, has rarely been considered in most existing works. In this paper, shallow data means there are only few images per identity. In the unlabeled shallow situation, the existing semi-supervised face recognition methods generally do not work well. Thus, how to effectively utilize the unlabeled shallow face data for improving face recognition performance is an important issue. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-supervised face recognition method, namely VirFace $^{\infty} $ , to enhance the face recognition performance effectively with the unlabeled shallow data. VirFace $^{\infty} $ consists of VirClass and VirDistribution components. In VirClass, we inject the unlabeled data as virtual classes into the feature space to enlarge the inter-class distance. In VirDistribution, we predict the distribution of each virtual class, namely virtual distribution, and then enhance the inter-class discriminativeness by enlarging the distances between the labeled features and the virtual distributions. To the best of our knowledge, we are among the first to tackle the face recognition problem on unlabeled shallow face data. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to electric arc furnace (EAF) modeling using a random differential equation based on the power balance equation. The proposed approach broadens and improves the model through the introduction of stochastic processes in place of existing coefficients. The paper presents a method which enables the estimation of EAF model coefficients with the help of measurement data - voltage and current waveforms recorded during the melting stage of an EAF work cycle. The estimation process is conducted with a Monte Carlo method and genetic algorithm, which is applied iteratively to each of the defined frames of the input signal. The estimated coefficients have been analyzed with respect to their time variability as well as the probability distributions of their values and increments. The results have been extensively visualized. Next, the identification of the stochastic processes representing the model coefficients has been carried out. Based on the previous results and autocorrelation functions, the density functions and parameters of discrete-time stochastic processes were identified. The paper presents solutions validated with statistical tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of aggressive driving behavior helps future research and practices in Intelligent Transport Systems. This paper tries to briefly explain the concepts related to aggressive driving behavior and introduces a system integrated with a novel machine learning algorithm for the recognition of trip-based aggressive driving behavior. The algorithm is a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) structured with Factor Analysis (FA), and Hierarchical Clustering (HC): common factors were extracted using FA, which is further applied to HC and GMM in the recognition of trip-based aggressive driving. The system is applied in a case study using data from the Shanghai Naturalistic Driving Study, for simulating data collection using the Advanced Driving Assistance System (ADAS) system in a real-traffic situation. Three behavior types (cautious, regular, and aggressive driving) were successfully clustered. For validity, the real aggressive driving behavior records were extracted based on the video, and the proposed system was compared with existing recognition methods. Results indicate that the accuracy of aggressive driving recognition of the system is higher than others (accuracy = 87%). This paper provides a reference in defining and determining aggressive driving, and a robust system for aggressive driving behavior recognition along with the trained algorithm, which can be used in real-world applications for improving driving safety with the applications in ADAS systems, auto-insurance industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-supervised learning has shown value for uncovering informative movement features for human activity recognition. However, there has been minimal exploration of this approach for affect recognition where availability of large labelled datasets is particularly limited. In this paper, we propose a P-STEMR (Parallel Space-Time Encoding Movement Representation) architecture with the aim of addressing this gap and specifically leveraging the higher availability of human activity recognition datasets for pain-level classification. We evaluated and analyzed the architecture using three different datasets across four sets of experiments. We found statistically significant increase in average F1 score to 0.84 for pain level classification with two classes based on the architecture compared with the use of hand-crafted features. This suggests that it is capable of learning movement representations and transferring these from activity recognition based on data captured in lab settings to classification of pain levels with messier real-world data. We further found that the efficacy of transfer between datasets can be undermined by dissimilarities in population groups due to impairments that affect movement behaviour and in motion primitives (e.g. rotation versus flexion). Future work should investigate how the effect of these differences could be minimized so that data from healthy people can be more valuable for transfer learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of adaptive steganography, most of the recent research works seek at designing cost functions that are evaluated against steganalysis methods. While those approaches have been successful, they rely on intuitive principles and ad-hoc costs associated with each pixel or Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficient. Beyond the empirical assessments, the insights one can get from such approaches are very limited. On the opposite, this paper presents an original method for steganography in JPEG images that exploits a statistical model of the DCT coefficients. Within the framework of hypothesis testing theory, we use a statistical model of covers to derive the analytical expression of the most powerful detector. The objective of the steganographer is to minimize the statistical performance of this “omniscient detector” which represents a “worst-case” scenario for security. This paper shows how this method allows designing effective steganography, in terms of both security and computational complexity, in the two main use cases: when having only one single JPEG image and when the uncompressed image is available, case also known as Side-Informed (SI). A wide range of numerical comparisons shows that the proposed method outperforms the current state-of-the-art especially against the latest and most accurate steganalysis approaches based on Deep Learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation agencies have an opportunity to leverage increasingly available trajectory datasets to improve their analyses and decision-making processes. However, this data is typically purchased from vendors, which means agencies must understand its potential benefits beforehand in order to properly assess its value relative to the cost of acquisition. While the literature concerned with trajectory data is rich, it is naturally fragmented and focused on technical contributions in niche areas, which makes it difficult for government agencies to assess its value across different transportation domains. To overcome this issue, this paper explores trajectory data from the perspective of a road transportation agency interested in acquiring trajectories to enhance its analysis. This paper provides a literature review illustrating applications of trajectory data in six areas of road transportation systems analysis: demand estimation, modeling human behavior, designing public transit, traffic performance measurement and prediction, environment, and safety. In addition, it visually explores 20 million GPS traces in Maryland, USA, illustrating the existing and suggesting new applications of trajectory data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The accurate prediction of where faults are likely to occur in code can help direct test effort, reduce costs, and improve the quality of software. Objective: We investigate how the context of models, the independent variables used, and the modeling techniques applied influence the performance of fault prediction models. Method: We used a systematic literature review to identify 208 fault prediction studies published from January 2000 to December 2010. We synthesize the quantitative and qualitative results of 36 studies which report sufficient contextual and methodological information according to the criteria we develop and apply. Results: The models that perform well tend to be based on simple modeling techniques such as Naive Bayes or Logistic Regression. Combinations of independent variables have been used by models that perform well. Feature selection has been applied to these combinations when models are performing particularly well. Conclusion: The methodology used to build models seems to be influential to predictive performance. Although there are a set of fault prediction studies in which confidence is possible, more studies are needed that use a reliable methodology and which report their context, methodology, and performance comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we delve into the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations as a cornerstone in investment strategies. The discourse takes the reader through a transformative journey, from understanding key pillars that needs to be addressed to truly succeed in ESG integration from setting the level of strategic ambition to it effectively into investment processes, focusing particularly on process integration and management. We explore key process steps in an investment process, such as strategic allocation, security selection, portfolio construction with a particular emphasis on risk assessment, stress testing and investment compliance. Specific examples are provided to elucidate how ESG considerations can be seamlessly incorporated into these critical steps to achieve fully aligned portfolios. Upon completion of the paper, readers can expect to gain a robust understanding of the ESG landscape, insights on how to integrate ESG considerations into their investment decisions and tools to future-proof their portfolios. The knowledge and skills acquired will be invaluable for asset managers, investors and other finance professionals looking to align their strategies with the emerging realities of the current investment landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an Adaboost algorithm based cutting data analysis for chatter detection. This offline chatter analysis uses the vibration data collected by accelerometers attached to the spindle housing. A comparison of the accuracy achieved with support vector machine, Random Forest, 1D Convolutional Neural Networks and Multilayer Perceptron algorithm is also made. In this paper, the accelerometer data are transformed into bandwidth. Time-accelerometer and time-spectral bandwidth learning models are built in order to realize chatter detection and automated machine learning. A comparison of the models is made. The results of cross validation indicate that an accuracy of 98% is achieved, which is made possible by using the bandwidth signals that are transformed from accelerometer data. Experimental results show that applying the Adaboost algorithm to analyze the spectral data transformed from vibration signals and using them to detect chatters has higher reliability and accuracy compared to other algorithms and analyzing other transform signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online retail market shows a sharp increase in traffic during holiday sales. The ability to distinguish customers who will likely purchase is critical for provisioning traffic and for providing cost-effective promotions. This paper uniquely studies the browsing and purchasing behaviors of online shoppers during a yearly sale event in China, the world’s largest online marketplace. Based on 31 million action logs gathered from wide residential areas, we characterize the steps leading to purchases and determine their precursors. We investigate the effect of time (e.g., date, time of date), environment (e.g., platform, viewed category), and action (e.g., session time, clicks, sequence) on purchases. Action cues from shopping behaviors can be used for early detection. While most shoppers start with strong intentions to purchase, yet the moment of ordering comes rather impulsively within 30 seconds to several minutes of browsing. The predictive accuracy reaches as a high AUC of 0.924. The findings in this paper provide an understanding of traffic during mega sale events that can help online shops plan and provide a better user experience for upcoming shopping festivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cox proportional hazards model is a popular semi-parametric model for survival analysis. In this paper, we aim at developing a federated algorithm for the Cox proportional hazards model over vertically partitioned data (i.e., data from the same patient are stored at different institutions). We propose a novel algorithm, namely VERTICOX, to obtain the global model parameters in a distributed fashion based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) framework. The proposed model computes intermediary statistics and exchanges them to calculate the global model without collecting individual patient-level data. We demonstrate that our algorithm achieves equivalent accuracy for the estimation of model parameters and statistics to that of its centralized realization. The proposed algorithm converges linearly under the ADMM framework. Its computational complexity and communication costs are polynomially and linearly associated with the number of subjects, respectively. Experimental results show that VERTICOX can achieve accurate model parameter estimation to support federated survival analysis over vertically distributed data by saving bandwidth and avoiding exchange of information about individual patients. The source code for VERTICOX is available at: https://github.com/daiwenrui/VERTICOX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an asset health index (HI) prediction methodology for high voltage transmission overhead lines (OHLs) using supervised machine learning and structured, unambiguous visual inspections. We propose a framework for asset HI predictions to determine the technical condition of individual OHL towers to improve grid reliability in a cost-effective manner. The paper focuses on asset HI prediction and the selection of the most parsimonious model. Based on the technical specifications and HI data, our methodology allows for the prediction of a HI for OHLs without HI data, and models asset aging behaviour. Technical specifications and the HI as defined in this paper are taken from the Estonian TSO periodical visual inspections implemented in 2018. The case study successfully demonstrates that the proposed methodology can predict tower HI values for a single OHL with nearly 80 percent accuracy without the need for additional measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical mechanical polishing/planarization (CMP) combines physical grinding and chemical reactions to planarize the wafer surface. The complex mechanism of CMP brings great challenges to the mechanism-based modeling process. The data-driven CMP modeling process is limited by insufficient datasets. At the same time, these two types of models generally have high computational complexity. In this paper, we introduce the group method of data handling (GMDH)-type polynomial network to build the CMP model to address the above challenges. We designed and manufactured the test chip using a 28nm process. The measurement data from the test chip shows that compared with the mechanism-based CMP model, the trained CMP model based on GMDH-type polynomial network has higher accuracy and lower computational complexity, with the average simulation speed being 115x faster. Experiments based on silicon data show that this modeling method has a small demand for data, and 20 randomly selected sets of data can meet the needs for modeling the current CMP process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network embedding has been widely employed in networked data mining applications as it can learn low-dimensional and dense node representations from the high-dimensional and sparse network structure. While most existing network embedding methods only model the proximity between two nodes regardless of the order of the proximity, this paper proposes to explicitly model multi-node proximities which can be widely observed in practice, e.g., multiple researchers coauthor a paper, and multiple genes co-express a protein. Explicitly modeling multi-node proximities is important because some two-node interactions may not come into existence without a third node. By proving that LINE(1st), a recent network embedding method, is equivalent to kernelized matrix factorization, this paper proposes coupled kernelized multi-dimensional array factorization (Cetera) which jointly factorizes multiple multi-dimensional arrays by enforcing a consensus representation for each node. In this way, node representations can be more comprehensive and effective, which is demonstrated on three real-world networks through link prediction and multi-label classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many applications of hyperspectral remote sensing involve automatic detection of solid targets. The design and applicability of such systems depend on their detection performance under various deployment scenarios; thus, it is useful to develop an accurate and realistic performance model. In this paper, we present a hyperspectral target detection performance prediction model for the common matched filter and normalized matched filter detection algorithms. A statistical model for hyperspectral data is discussed, which includes a replacement model for target pixels and a finite mixture of $t$ -elliptically contoured distributions for background materials. For this general input model, analytic forms for detector output distributions are not always available. The main contribution of this paper is to develop an efficient and robust performance simulation technique using Monte Carlo (MC) with importance sampling. Compared to standard MC, our simulation technique requires a substantially smaller sample size to obtain accurate performance estimates at low false alarm rates. The proposed technique is useful for predicting detection performance over a wide range of input models when analytic solutions are unavailable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a joint trajectory smoothing and tracking framework for a specific class of targets with smooth motion. We model the target trajectory by a continuous function of time (FoT), which leads to a curve fitting approach that finds a trajectory FoT fitting the sensor data in a sliding time-window. A simulation study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in tracking a maneuvering target, in comparison with the conventional filters and smoothers. Note to Practitioners—Estimation, such as automatically tracking and predicting the movement of an aircraft, a train, or a bus, plays a key role in our daily life. In this paper, we provide a new approach for the online estimation of the target trajectory function by means of fitting the time-series observation, which accommodates the lack of quantifiable knowledge about the target motion and of the statistical property of the sensor observation noise. The resulting trajectory function can be used to infer either the past or the present state of the target. Engineering-friendly strategies are provided for computationally efficient implementation. The proposed approach is particularly appealing to a broad range of real-world targets that move in smooth courses, such as passenger aircraft and ships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel hybrid model for learning discrete and continuous dynamics of car-following behaviors. Multiple modes representing driving patterns are identified by partitioning the model into groups of states. The model is visualizable and interpretable for car-following behavior recognition, traffic simulation, and human-like cruise control. The experimental results using the next generation simulation datasets demonstrate its superior fitting accuracy over conventional models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]