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The traditional predictive method cannot fully reflect the complex nonlinear characteristics and regularities of automobile and parts sales data, so the prediction precision is not high. The purpose of this paper is to propose the gray GM(1,1) nonlinear periodic predictive model by introducing the seasonal variation index to improve predictive accuracy of the single GM(1,1) model. Firstly, the paper analyzes concept of GM(1,1) and then proposes the gray GM(1,1) nonlinear periodic predictive model to forecast automobile parts sales. The model algorithm used gray theory and accumulated technology to generate new data and set up unified differential equations to find the fitting curve of automobile parts sales prediction by the seasonal variation index to remove random elements. Lastly, the gray GM(1,1) nonlinear periodic predictive model is used for empirical analysis; the result of example shows that the model proposed in the paper is feasible. The superiority of the proposed predictive model compared with the single gray GM(1,1) model is demonstrated. The reliability of this model is experienced by the accuracy test, which provides a theoretical guidance for the prediction of automobile part sales. And the average relative error is reduced by 8.52% compared with the single GM(1,1) model.

There is a growing interest in finding a global optimal path in transportation networks particularly when the network suffers from unexpected disturbance. This paper studies the problem of finding a global optimal path to guarantee a given probability of arriving on time in a network with uncertainty, in which the travel time is stochastic instead of deterministic. Traditional path finding methods based on least expected travel time cannot capture the network user’s risk-taking behaviors in path finding. To overcome such limitation, the reliable path finding algorithms have been proposed but the convergence of global optimum is seldom addressed in the literature. This paper integrates the K-shortest path algorithm into Backtracking method to propose a new path finding algorithm under uncertainty. The global optimum of the proposed method can be guaranteed. Numerical examples are conducted to demonstrate the correctness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

The traditional spectral analysis method is used to study the characteristics of bearing fault signals in frequency domain, which is reasonable and effective in general cases. However, it is proved that the fault signals have heavy tails in this paper, which are α stable distribution, and 1<α<2, and even the noises belong to α stable distribution. Then the conventional spectral analysis methods degenerate and even fail under α stable distribution environment. Several improved frequency spectral analysis methods are proposed employing fractional lower order covariation or fractional lower order covariance in this paper, including fractional lower order Blackman-Tukey covariation spectrum (FLOBTCS), fractional lower order periodogram covariation spectrum (FLOPCS), and fractional lower order welch covariation spectrum (FLOWCS). In order to suppress side lobe and improve resolution, we present novel fractional lower order autoregression (FLO-AR) and fractional lower order autoregressive moving average (FLO-ARMA) parameter model frequency spectrum methods, and the calculation steps are summarized. The proposed spectrum methods are compared with the existing methods based on second-order statistics under Gaussian and SαS distribution environments, and the results show that the new algorithms have better performance than the traditional methods. Finally, the improved methods are applied to estimate frequency spectrums of the normal and outer race fault signals, and it is demonstrated that they are effective for fault diagnosis.

Relative position of seismic source and sensors has great influence on locating accuracy, particularly in far field conditions, and the accuracy will decrease seriously due to limited calculation precision and prior velocity error. In order to improve the locating accuracy of far field sources by isometric placed sensors in a straight line, a new locating method with nonprior velocity is proposed. After exhaustive research, this paper states that the hyperbola which is used for locating will be very close to its asymptote when seismic source locates in far field of sensors; therefore, the locating problem with prior velocity is equivalent to solving linear equations and the problem with nonprior velocity is equivalent to a nonlinear optimization problem with respect to the unknown velocity. And then, this paper proposed a new locating method based on a one-variable objective function with respect to the unknown velocity. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method has faster convergence speed, higher accuracy, and better stability.

WOS: 000374093400001, Ordering and ranking fuzzy numbers and their comparisons play a significant role in decision-making problems such as social and economic systems, forecasting, optimization, and risk analysis problems. In this paper, a new method for ordering triangular fuzzy numbers using the Nagel point of a triangle is presented. With the aid of the proposed method, reasonable properties of ordering fuzzy numbers are verified. Certain comparative examples are given to illustrate the advantages of the new method. Many papers have been devoted to studies on fuzzy ranking methods, but some of these studies have certain shortcomings. The proposed method overcomes the drawbacks of the existing methods in the literature. The suggested method can order triangular fuzzy numbers as well as crisp numbers and fuzzy numbers with the same centroid point. An application to the fuzzy risk analysis problem is given, based on the suggested ordering approach., Anadolu University Scientific Research Projects Commission [1403F077], This study was supported by the Anadolu University Scientific Research Projects Commission under Grant no. 1403F077.

The sensor location problem (SLP) discussed in this paper is to find the minimum number and optimum locations of the flow counting points in the road network so that the traffic flows over the whole network can be inferred uniquely. Flow conservation system at intersections is formulated firstly using the turning ratios as the prior information. Then the coefficient matrix of the flow conservation system is proved to be nonsingular. Based on that, the minimal number of counting points is determined to be the total number of exclusive incoming roads and dummy roads, which are added to the network to represent the trips generated on real roads. So the task of SLP model based on turning ratios is just to determine the optimal sensor locations. The following analysis in this paper shows that placing sensors on all the exclusive incoming roads and dummy roads can always generate a unique network flow vector for any network topology. After that, a detection set composed of only real roads is proven to exist from the view of feasibility in reality. Finally, considering the roads importance and cost of the sensors, a weighted SLP model is formulated to find the optimal detection set. The greedy algorithm is proven to be able to provide the optimal solution for the proposed weighted SLP model.

Methods of utilizing independent component analysis (ICA) give little guidance about practical considerations for separating single-channel real-world data, in which most of them are nonlinear, nonstationary, and even chaotic in many fields. To solve this problem, a three-step method is provided in this paper. In the first step, the measured signal which is assumed to be piecewise higher order stationary time series is introduced and divided into a series of higher order stationary segments by applying a modified segmentation algorithm. Then the state space is reconstructed and the single-channel signal is transformed into a pseudo multiple input multiple output (MIMO) mode using a method of nonlinear analysis based on the high order statistics (HOS). In the last step, ICA is performed on the pseudo MIMO data to decompose the single channel recording into its underlying independent components (ICs) and the interested ICs are then extracted. Finally, the effectiveness and excellence of the higher order single-channel ICA (SCICA) method are validated with measured data throughout experiments. Also, the proposed method in this paper is proved to be more robust under different SNR and/or embedding dimension via explicit formulae and simulations.

Thresholding function is an important part of the wavelet threshold denoising method, which can influence the signal denoising effect significantly. However, some defects are present in the existing methods, such as function discontinuity, fixed bias, and parameters determined by trial and error. In order to solve these problems, a new wavelet thresholding function based on hyperbolic tangent function is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the basic properties of hyperbolic tangent function are analyzed. Then, a new thresholding function with a shape parameter is presented based on hyperbolic tangent function. The continuity, monotonicity, and high-order differentiability of the new function are theoretically proven. Finally, in order to determine the final form of the new function, a shape parameter optimization strategy based on artificial fish swarm algorithm is given in this paper. Mean square error is adopted to construct the objective function, and the optimal shape parameter is achieved by iterative search. At the end of the paper, a simulation experiment is provided to verify the effectiveness of the new function. In the experiment, two benchmark signals are used as test signals. Simulation results show that the proposed function can achieve better denoising effect than the classical hard and soft thresholding functions under different signal types and noise intensities.

This paper focuses on the filtering problems of nonlinear discrete-time stochastic dynamic systems, such as the model simplification, noise characteristics uncertainty, initial conditions uncertainty, or system parametric variation. Under these circumstances, the measurements of system have one sampling time random delay. A new method, that is, strong tracking filtering algorithm of randomly delayed measurements (STF/RDM) for nonlinear systems based on recursive operating by analytical computation and first-order linear approximations, is proposed; a principle of extended orthogonality is presented as a criterion of designing the STF/RDM, and through the residuals between available and predicted measurements, the formula of fading factor is obtained. Under the premise of using the extended orthogonality principle, STF/RDM proposed in this paper can adjust the fading factor online via calculating the covariance of residuals, and then the gain matrices of the STF/RDM adjust in real time to enhance the performance of the proposed method. Lastly, in order to prove that the performance of STF/RDM precedes existing EKF method, the experiment of tracking maneuvering aircraft is carried out.

The nearest neighbor is one of the most popular classifiers, and it has been successfully used in pattern recognition and machine learning. One drawback ofkNN is that it performs poorly when class distributions are overlapping. Recently, local probability center (LPC) algorithm is proposed to solve this problem; its main idea is giving weight to samples according to their posterior probability. However, LPC performs poorly when the value ofkis very small and the higher-dimensional datasets are used. To deal with this problem, this paper suggests that the gradient of the posterior probability function can be estimated under sufficient assumption. The theoretic property is beneficial to faithfully calculate the inner product of two vectors. To increase the performance in high-dimensional datasets, the multidimensional Parzen window and Euler-Richardson method are utilized, and a new classifier based on local probability centers is developed in this paper. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields stable performance with a wide range ofkfor usage, robust performance to overlapping issue, and good performance to dimensionality. The proposed theorem can be applied to mathematical problems and other applications. Furthermore, the proposed method is an attractive classifier because of its simplicity.

This paper presents two methods for dual-rate sampled-data nonlinear output-error systems. One method is the missing output estimation based stochastic gradient identification algorithm and the other method is the auxiliary model based stochastic gradient identification algorithm. Different from the polynomial transformation based identification methods, the two methods in this paper can estimate the unknown parameters directly. A numerical example is provided to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

By simplifying tolerance problem and treating faulty voltages on different test points as independent variables, integer-coded table technique is proposed to simplify the test point selection process. Usually, simplifying tolerance problem may induce a wrong solution while the independence assumption will result in over conservative result. To address these problems, the tolerance problem is thoroughly considered in this paper, and dependency relationship between different test points is considered at the same time. A heuristic graph search method is proposed to facilitate the test point selection process. First, the information theoretic concept of entropy is used to evaluate the optimality of test point. The entropy is calculated by using the ambiguous sets and faulty voltage distribution, determined by component tolerance. Second, the selected optimal test point is used to expand current graph node by using dependence relationship between the test point and graph node. Simulated results indicate that the proposed method more accurately finds the optimal set of test points than other methods; therefore, it is a good solution to minimize the size of the test point set. To simplify and clarify the proposed method, only catastrophic and some specific parametric faults are discussed in this paper.

In the machine learning based on kernel tricks, people often put one variable of a kernel function on the given samples to produce the basic functions of a solution space of learning problem. If the collection of the given samples deviates from the data distribution, the solution space spanned by these basic functions will also deviate from the real solution space of learning problem. In this paper a multikernel-like learning algorithm based on data probability distribution (MKDPD) is proposed, in which the parameters of a kernel function are locally adjusted according to the data probability distribution, and thus produces different kernel functions. These different kernel functions will generate different Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (RKHS). The direct sum of the subspaces of these RKHS constitutes the solution space of learning problem. Furthermore, based on the proposed MKDPD algorithm, a new algorithm for labeling new coming data is proposed, in which the basic functions are retrained according to the new coming data, while the coefficients of the retrained basic functions remained unchanged to label the new coming data. The experimental results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

In order to improve the effects of denoising, this paper introduces the basic principles of wavelet threshold denoising and traditional structures threshold functions. Meanwhile, it proposes wavelet threshold function and fixed threshold formula which are both improved here. First, this paper studies the problems existing in the traditional wavelet threshold functions and introduces the adjustment factors to construct the new threshold function basis on soft threshold function. Then, it studies the fixed threshold and introduces the logarithmic function of layer number of wavelet decomposition to design the new fixed threshold formula. Finally, this paper uses hard threshold, soft threshold, Garrote threshold, and improved threshold function to denoise different signals. And the paper also calculates signal-to-noise (SNR) and mean square errors (MSE) of the hard threshold functions, soft thresholding functions, Garrote threshold functions, and the improved threshold function after denoising. Theoretical analysis and experimental results showed that the proposed approach could improve soft threshold functions with constant deviation and hard threshold with discontinuous function problems. The proposed approach could improve the different decomposition scales that adopt the same threshold value to deal with the noise problems, also effectively filter the noise in the signals, and improve the SNR and reduce the MSE of output signals.

In this paper, an improved NSGA2 algorithm is proposed, which is used to solve the multiobjective problem. For the original NSGA2 algorithm, the paper made one improvement: joining the local search strategy into the NSGA2 algorithm. After each iteration calculation of the NSGA2 algorithm, a kind of local search strategy is performed in the Pareto optimal set to search better solutions, such that the NSGA2 algorithm can gain a better local search ability which is helpful to the optimization process. Finally, the proposed modified NSGA2 algorithm (MNSGA2) is simulated in the two classic multiobjective problems which is called KUR problem and ZDT3 problem. The calculation results show the modified NSGA2 outperforms the original NSGA2, which indicates that the improvement strategy is helpful to improve the algorithm.

Single-objection function cannot describe the characteristics of the complicated hydrologic system. Consequently, it stands to reason that multiobjective functions are needed for calibration of hydrologic model. The multiobjective algorithms based on the theory of nondominate are employed to solve this multiobjective optimal problem. In this paper, a novel multiobjective optimization method based on differential evolution with adaptive Cauchy mutation and Chaos searching (MODE-CMCS) is proposed to optimize the daily streamflow forecasting model. Besides, to enhance the diversity performance of Pareto solutions, a more precise crowd distance assigner is presented in this paper. Furthermore, the traditional generalized spread metric (SP) is sensitive with the size of Pareto set. A novel diversity performance metric, which is independent of Pareto set size, is put forward in this research. The efficacy of the new algorithm MODE-CMCS is compared with the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) on a daily streamflow forecasting model based on support vector machine (SVM). The results verify that the performance of MODE-CMCS is superior to the NSGA-II for automatic calibration of hydrologic model.

A Canonic-Signed-Digit-(CSD-) coded genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to find the optimal design of robustly stable infinite impulse response digital filter (IIR). Under the characteristics of the CSD structure, the circuit of the filter can be simplified and also the calculation speed can be raised to increase the hardware’s efficiency. However, the design of CSD has a big challenge: the CSD structure of the system parameters will be destroyed by an optimal design procedure. To solve this problem, in this research a CSD-coded GA is proposed so that the CSD structure can be maintained. Moreover, the robustly stable IIR filters design problem is included in this paper. The robustness of the IIR filters is achieved by ensuring that all poles of the filters are located inside a diskD(α,r)contained in the unit circle, in whichαis the center,ris the radius of the disk, and|α|+r<1. Consequently, in this paper, a new and more efficientD(α,r)-stability criterion will be derived and then embedded in GA for the design of robust IIR filters. It is worthwhile to note that to design an IIR filter simultaneously with CSD-structured parameters and robust stability is difficult and is not well explored so far. An example will be presented to show the efficiency of the proposed strategy for design of IIR filters.

This paper indicates that the filled function which appeared in one of the papers by Y. L. Shang et al. (2007) is also a tunneling function; that is, we prove that under some general assumptions this function has the characters of both tunneling function and filled function. A solution algorithm based on this T-F function is given and numerical tests from test functions show that our T-F function method is very effective in finding better minima.

This paper studies a production scheduling problem with deteriorating jobs, which frequently arises in contemporary manufacturing environments. The objective is to find an optimal sequence of the set of jobs to minimize the total weighted tardiness, which is an indicator of service quality. The problem belongs to the class of NP-hard. When the number of jobs increases, the computational time required by an optimization algorithm to solve the problem will increase exponentially. To tackle large-scale problems efficiently, a two-stage method is presented in this paper. We partition the set of jobs into a few subsets by applying a neural network approach and thereby transform the large-scale problem into a series of small-scale problems. Then, we employ an improved metaheuristic algorithm (called GTS) which combines genetic algorithm with tabu search to find the solution for each subproblem. Finally, we integrate the obtained sequences for each subset of jobs and produce the final complete solution by enumeration. A fair comparison has been made between the two-stage method and the GTS without decomposition, and the experimental results show that the solution quality of the two-stage method is much better than that of GTS for large-scale problems.

Degree constrained minimum spanning tree (DCMST) refers to constructing a spanning tree of minimum weight in a complete graph with weights on edges while the degree of each node in the spanning tree is no more thand(d≥ 2). The paper proposes an improved multicolony ant algorithm for degree constrained minimum spanning tree searching which enables independent search for optimal solutions among various colonies and achieving information exchanges between different colonies by information entropy. Local optimal algorithm is introduced to improve constructed spanning tree. Meanwhile, algorithm strategies in dynamic ant, random perturbations ant colony, and max-min ant system are adapted in this paper to optimize the proposed algorithm. Finally, multiple groups of experimental data show the superiority of the improved algorithm in solving the problems of degree constrained minimum spanning tree.

Temperature, especially temperature distribution, is one of the most fundamental and vital parameters for theoretical study and control of various industrial applications. In this paper, ultrasonic thermometry to reconstruct temperature distribution is investigated, referring to the dependence of ultrasound velocity on temperature. In practical applications of this ultrasonic technique, reconstruction algorithm based on least square method is commonly used. However, it has a limitation that the amount of divided blocks of measure area cannot exceed the amount of effective travel paths, which eventually leads to its inability to offer sufficient temperature information. To make up for this defect, an improved reconstruction algorithm based on least square method and multiquadric interpolation is presented. And then, its reconstruction performance is validated via numerical studies using four temperature distribution models with different complexity and is compared with that of algorithm based on least square method. Comparison and analysis indicate that the algorithm presented in this paper has more excellent reconstruction performance, as the reconstructed temperature distributions will not lose information near the edge of area while with small errors, and its mean reconstruction time is short enough that can meet the real-time demand.

Algorithms represent one of the fundamental issues in computer science, while asymptotic notations are widely accepted as the main tool for estimating the complexity of algorithms. Over the years a certain number of asymptotic notations have been proposed. Each of these notations is based on the comparison of various complexity functions with a given complexity function. In this paper, we define a new asymptotic notation, called “Weak Theta,” that uses the comparison of various complexity functions with two given complexity functions. Weak Theta notation is especially useful in characterizing complexity functions whose behaviour is hard to be approximated using a single complexity function. In addition, in order to highlight the main particularities of Weak Theta, we propose and prove several theoretical results: properties of Weak Theta, criteria for comparing two complexity functions, and properties of a new set of complexity functions (also defined in the paper) based on Weak Theta. Furthermore, to illustrate the usefulness of our notation, we discuss an application of Weak Theta in artificial intelligence.

A number of acceleration schemes for speeding up the time-consuming bilateral filter have been proposed in the literature. Among these techniques, the histogram-based bilateral filter trades the flexibility for achievingO(1) computational complexity using box spatial kernel. A recent study shows that this technique can be leveraged forO(1) bilateral filter with arbitrary spatial and range kernels by linearly combining the results of multiple-box bilateral filters. However, this method requires many box bilateral filters to obtain sufficient accuracy when approximating the bilateral filter with a large spatial kernel. In this paper, we propose approximating arbitrary spatial kernel using a fixed number of boxes. It turns out that the multiple-box spatial kernel can be applied in manyO(1) acceleration schemes in addition to the histogram-based one. Experiments on the application to the histogram-based acceleration are presented in this paper. Results show that the proposed method has better accuracy in approximating the bilateral filter with Gaussian spatial kernel, compared with the previous histogram-based methods. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed histogram-based bilateral filter is robust with respect to the parameters of the filter kernel.

This paper experimentally investigates the effect of nine chaotic maps on the performance of two Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) variants, namely, Random Inertia Weight PSO (RIW-PSO) and Linear Decreasing Inertia Weight PSO (LDIW-PSO) algorithms. The applications of logistic chaotic map by researchers to these variants have led to Chaotic Random Inertia Weight PSO (CRIW-PSO) and Chaotic Linear Decreasing Inertia Weight PSO (CDIW-PSO) with improved optimizing capability due to better global search mobility. However, there are many other chaotic maps in literature which could perhaps enhance the performances of RIW-PSO and LDIW-PSO more than logistic map. Some benchmark mathematical problems well-studied in literature were used to verify the performances of RIW-PSO and LDIW-PSO variants using the nine chaotic maps in comparison with logistic chaotic map. Results show that the performances of these two variants were improved more by many of the chaotic maps than by logistic map in many of the test problems. The best performance, in terms of function evaluations, was obtained by the two variants using Intermittency chaotic map. Results in this paper provide a platform for informative decision making when selecting chaotic maps to be used in the inertia weight formula of LDIW-PSO and RIW-PSO.

Bayesian network is an important theoretical model in artificial intelligence field and also a powerful tool for processing uncertainty issues. Considering the slow convergence speed of current Bayesian network structure learning algorithms, a fast hybrid learning method is proposed in this paper. We start with further analysis of information provided by low-order conditional independence testing, and then two methods are given for constructing graph model of network, which is theoretically proved to be upper and lower bounds of the structure space of target network, so that candidate sets are given as a result; after that a search and scoring algorithm is operated based on the candidate sets to find the final structure of the network. Simulation results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper is more efficient than similar algorithms with the same learning precision.

Predicting overbreak blocks is a valid way to protect constructors, safeties in the process of tunnel excavation. In this paper, a prediction method of the overbreak blocks in tunnels is developed in the frame of the wavelet neural network of geological statistics models. Geometrical parameters of structural plane are first obtained by field survey. Then, a statistical model can be deduced from the measured geometrical parameters on the basis of the geological statistics theory. Furthermore, the volumes and distribution of the overbreak blocks are calculated by the theory of wavelet neural network. Finally, the valid support measurements can be designed according to the prediction results for all overbreak blocks appeared in tunnel excavation, and the amount of overbreak blocks can also be predicted. The code with respect to the method has been developed by the fortran language. The method proposed in this paper has been used in a tunnel construction. The results show that there exists an approximate 10%~30% difference between the prediction and the real volume of overbreak blocks. Therefore, the method can be well used to predict the volumes distribution and the overbreak blocks, and the accordingly support measurements can be also given according to the prediction results.

The measurement error with normal distribution is universal in applications. Generally, smaller measurement error requires better instrument and higher test cost. In decision making based on attribute values of objects, we shall select an attribute subset with appropriate measurement error to minimize the total test cost. Recently, error-range-based covering rough set with uniform distribution error was proposed to investigate this issue. However, the measurement errors satisfy normal distribution instead of uniform distribution which is rather simple for most applications. In this paper, we introduce normal distribution measurement errors to covering-based rough set model, and deal with test-cost-sensitive attribute reduction problem in this new model. The major contributions of this paper are four-fold. First, we build a new data model based on normal distribution measurement errors. With the new data model, the error range is an ellipse in a two-dimension space. Second, the covering-based rough set with normal distribution measurement errors is constructed through the "3-sigma" rule. Third, the test-cost-sensitive attribute reduction problem is redefined on this covering-based rough set. Fourth, a heuristic algorithm is proposed to deal with this problem. The algorithm is tested on ten UCI (University of California - Irvine) datasets. The experimental results show that the algorithm is more effective and efficient than the existing one. This study is a step toward realistic applications of cost-sensitive learning., Comment: This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to the error of the title

Austempered ductile iron has emerged as a notable material in several engineering fields, including marine applications. The initial austenite carbon content after austenization transform but before austempering process for generating bainite matrix proved critical in controlling the resulted microstructure and thus mechanical properties. In this paper, support vector regression is employed in order to establish a relationship between the initial carbon concentration in the austenite with austenization temperature and alloy contents, thereby exercising improved control in the mechanical properties of the austempered ductile irons. Particularly, the paper emphasizes a methodology tailored to deal with a limited amount of available data with intrinsically contracted and skewed distribution. The collected information from a variety of data sources presents another challenge of highly uncertain variance. The authors present a hybrid model consisting of a procedure of a histogram equalizer and a procedure of a support-vector-machine (SVM-) based regression to gain a more robust relationship to respond to the challenges. The results show greatly improved accuracy of the proposed model in comparison to two former established methodologies. The sum squared error of the present model is less than one fifth of that of the two previous models.

Firstly, a genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA) optimized fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm (FCM) was proposed in this paper, which was developed to allow for a clustering analysis of the massive concrete cube specimen compression test data. Then, using an optimized error correction time series estimation method based on the wavelet neural network (WNN), a concrete cube specimen compressive strength test data estimation model was constructed. Taking the results of cluster analysis as data samples, the short-term accurate estimation of concrete quality was carried out. It was found that the mean absolute percentage error, e1, and the root mean square error, e2, for the samples were 6.03385% and 3.3682KN, indicating that the proposed method had higher estimation accuracy and was suitable for concrete compressive test data short-term quality estimations.

A new kind of generation method is proposed in this paper to acquire range images for complicated polyhedron in 3D space from a series of view angles. In the proposed generation method, concept of three-view drawing in mechanical cartography is introduced into the range image generation procedure. Negative and positive directions of x-, y-, and z-axes are selected as the view angles to generate the range images for complicated polyhedron in 3D space. Furthermore, a novel iterative operation of mathematical morphology is proposed to ensure that satisfactory range images can be generated for the polyhedron from all the selected view angles. Compared with the existing method based on single view angle and interpolation operation, structure features contained in surface of the complicated polyhedron can be represented more consistently with the reality by using the proposed multi-view-angle range images generation method. The proposed generation method is validated by using an experiment.

The temperature distribution in real-world industrial environments is often in a three-dimensional space, and developing a reliable method to predict such volumetric information is beneficial for the combustion diagnosis, the understandings of the complicated physical and chemical mechanisms behind the combustion process, the increase of the system efficiency, and the reduction of the pollutant emission. In accordance with the machine learning theory, in this paper, a new methodology is proposed to predict three-dimensional temperature distribution from the limited number of the scattered measurement data. The proposed prediction method includes two key phases. In the first phase, traditional technologies are employed to measure the scattered temperature data in a large-scale three-dimensional area. In the second phase, the Gaussian process regression method, with obvious superiorities, including satisfactory generalization ability, high robustness, and low computational complexity, is developed to predict three-dimensional temperature distributions. Numerical simulations and experimental results from a real-world three-dimensional combustion process indicate that the proposed prediction method is effective and robust, holds a good adaptability to cope with complicated, nonlinear, and high-dimensional problems, and can accurately predict three-dimensional temperature distributions under a relatively low sampling ratio. As a result, a practicable and effective method is introduced for three-dimensional temperature distribution.

Automated tool trajectory planning for spray painting robots is still a challenging problem, especially for a large complex curved surface. This paper presents a new method of trajectory optimization for spray painting robot based on exponential mean Bézier method. The definition and the three theorems of exponential mean Bézier curves are discussed. Then a spatial painting path generation method based on exponential mean Bézier curves is developed. A new simple algorithm for trajectory optimization on complex curved surfaces is introduced. A golden section method is adopted to calculate the values. The experimental results illustrate that the exponential mean Bézier curves enhanced flexibility of the path planning, and the trajectory optimization algorithm achieved satisfactory performance. This method can also be extended to other applications.

Retinex is a theory on simulating and explaining how human visual system perceives colors under different illumination conditions. The main contribution of this paper is to put forward a new convex optimization model for Retinex. Different from existing methods, the main idea is to rewrite a multiplicative form such that the illumination variable and the reflection variable are decoupled in spatial domain. The resulting objective function involves three terms including the Tikhonov regularization of the illumination component, the total variation regularization of the reciprocal of the reflection component, and the data-fitting term among the input image, the illumination component, and the reciprocal of the reflection component. We develop an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) to solve the convex optimization model. Numerical experiments demonstrate the advantages of the proposed model which can decompose an image into the illumination and the reflection components.

Multicomponent sinusoidal frequency modulated (SFM) signals are widely used in radar, acoustics, and biomedicine. The instantaneous frequency (IF) characterizes important physical parameters of the real applications. In this paper, a sinusoidal frequency modulation Fourier-Bessel (SFMFB) series is defined for IF estimation. It provides the signal decomposition on the Bessel function basis with a finer resolution, which proposes an extension of the performance and the applicability of the classic Fourier-Bessel transform (FBT). Based on the property analysis of the SFMFB series, an algorithm of IF estimation and signal separation is introduced. Unlike the existing estimation methods which apply sliding windows to make an instantaneous approximation, the proposed method uses the global data, which provides a longer period gain, therefore achieving a better estimation performance. Moreover, considering that most estimation methods are invalid in multicomponent separation, the individual signals are well separated by the proposed algorithm, which facilitates the further monocomponent analysis. A performance comparison between the proposed method, the FBT, and another recently proposed sinusoidal frequency modulation Fourier transform (SFMFT) is also provided. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods in estimation precision and computation load, and it is free of interference which exists in SFMFT.

In conventional stochastic computation, all the input streams are Bernoulli sequences (BSs), which may result in large random error. To reduce random error and improve computational accuracy, some other sequences have been reported as alternatives to BSs. However, these sequences only apply to the specific stochastic circuits, have difficulties in hardware generation, or have length constraints. To this end, new sequences without these disadvantages should be considered. This paper proposes the random error analysis method for stochastic computation based on autocorrelation sequence (AS), which is more general than the conventional one based on BS. The analysis results show that we can use the proper ASs as input streams of stochastic circuits to reduce random error. On the basis of that conclusion, we propose the random error reduction scheme based on maximal concentrated autocorrelation sequence (MCAS) and BS, both of which are ASs. MCAS and BS are applicable to any combinational stochastic circuit, are easily generated by hardware, and have no length constraints, which avoid the disadvantages of sequences in the previous work. Moreover, we apply the proposed random error reduction scheme into several typical stochastic circuits as case studies. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Minimal cut sets are the basis of reliability analysis using analytical techniques. At the present stage, minimal cut sets are mainly obtained by dealing with minimal path sets, which involves cumbersome steps and slower operational speed. The speed of reliability analysis is limited by that of calculating minimal cut sets. In consideration of the characteristics of microgrid, a hierarchical approach for fast calculating minimal cut sets is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an equivalent principle is proposed to convert topology structure into network node diagram; then grades of nodes are designated based on their original connection and the breadth-first search approach; afterwards, root-leaf matrices and selected matrix are created to specify the direction and order of the search. Next, all possible combinations of minimal cut sets are vertically traversed out by replacing root nodes with leaf nodes to achieve a more rapid access to minimal cut sets. Finally, taking the electrical structure of type A380 more electric aircraft as an example, mainstream methods are compared to show the correctness and advantage of our proposed method.

This paper addresses the least-squares centralized fusion estimation problem of discrete-time random signals from measured outputs, which are perturbed by correlated noises. These measurements are obtained by different sensors, which send their information to a processing center, where the complete set of data is combined to obtain the estimators. Due to random transmission failures, some of the data packets processed for the estimation may either contain only noise (uncertain observations), be delayed (randomly delayed observations), or even be definitely lost (random packet dropouts). These multiple random transmission uncertainties are modelled by sequences of independent Bernoulli random variables with different probabilities for the different sensors. By an innovation approach and using the last observation that successfully arrived when a packet is lost, a recursive algorithm is designed for the filtering estimation problem. The proposed algorithm is easily implemented and does not require knowledge of the signal evolution model, as only the first- and second-order moments of the processes involved are used. A numerical simulation example illustrates the feasibility of the proposed estimators and shows how the probabilities of the multiple random failures influence their performance.

This paper proposes an image watermarking method based on the fast discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithm for implementation in digital signal processor. A digital watermark can be effectively embedded and efficiently extracted without the host image. The keys in watermarking process include four frequency coefficients in DCT, two random permutation vectors, and a quantization matrix for normalizing the watermark and the host image. The fast DCT algorithm has been shown to reduce the complexity of two-dimensional image transformation so that embedding/decoding an image watermark can be completed in real time within 0.33 seconds. The quality of both watermarked image and extracted (retrieved) watermark remains excellent. It is shown that the watermarking method is efficient in and robust to data cropping, transmission loss, and compression/decompression.

Discrete cosine transform (DCT) has been an international standard in Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format to reduce the blocking effect in digital image compression. This paper proposes a fast discrete cosine transform (FDCT) algorithm that utilizes the energy compactness and matrix sparseness properties in frequency domain to achieve higher computation performance. For a JPEG image of8×8block size in spatial domain, the algorithm decomposes the two-dimensional (2D) DCT into one pair of one-dimensional (1D) DCTs with transform computation in only 24 multiplications. The 2D spatial data is a linear combination of the base image obtained by the outer product of the column and row vectors of cosine functions so that inverse DCT is as efficient. Implementation of the FDCT algorithm shows that embedding a watermark image of 32 × 32 block pixel size in a 256 × 256 digital image can be completed in only 0.24 seconds and the extraction of watermark by inverse transform is within 0.21 seconds. The proposed FDCT algorithm is shown more efficient than many previous works in computation.

In the case of low signal-to-noise ratio, for the frequency estimation of single-frequency sinusoidal signals with additive white Gaussian noise, the phase unwrapping estimator usually performs poorly. In this paper, an efficient and accurate method is proposed to address this problem. Different from other methods, based on fast Fourier transform, the sampled signals are estimated with the variances approaching the Cramer-Rao bound, followed with the maximum likelihood estimation of the frequency. Experimental results reveal that our estimator has a better performance than other phase unwrapping estimators. Compared with the state-of-the-art method, our estimator has the same accuracy and lower computational complexity. Besides, our estimator does not have the estimation bias.

In the received side, triaxial velocity sensors of MIMO array are used to solve the problem of coherent source direction-finding in this paper. A new velocity field smoothing algorithm is presented to decorrelate coherent sources. The identically oriented velocity sensors of whole array are divided into three subarrays. Then, the covariance matrices of the three subarrays are smoothed to restore the rank of source covariance matrix (SCM). Lastly, the cross-correlation coefficients of the SCM after smoothing processing are calculated to analyze the performance of decorrelation. The proposed decorrelation algorithm (1) does not need the information of locations of velocity vector sensors; (2) is suitable for arbitrary configuration array; and (3) has no loss of array effective aperture. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

The kinematic performance of mechanisms is affected by different uncertainty sources involved in the manufacturing and assembling cycle; among these are the geometric variations. It is known that the effects of these variations produce position errors which are not usually included in the design process. With this objective, a complementary method for the tolerance analysis of planar mechanisms that incorporate geometric variations is presented in this paper. The approach is based on Direct Linearization Method (DLM) that does not consider all the kinematically admissible solutions. DLM naturally minimizes a residual functional H; however it is possible to maximize the residual by means of a proposed complementary method called H-Based Residual Method (RMH). From the proposed methodology, local and global error domains can be defined to predict the maximum and minimum position errors caused by the input variations. DLM and RMH were applied in a four-bar mechanism with dimensional and angular variations to estimate positioning errors. The results show intervals where output positions were invariant with respect to angular variations of the crank. These computations were performed through a distance ratio established with the output deviations determined with nominal angular variations. Furthermore, domain errors were predicted for a set of positions generated by a multivariate normal random algorithm with 1000 combinations of input variations (links lengths). These domains delimited all solutions created in each position stage. It means that by applying the proposed methodology it is possible to estimate the geometric errors of any combination of variations.

A stochastic algorithm for obtaining feasible initial populations to the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows is presented. The theoretical formulation for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows is explained. The proposed method is primarily divided into a clustering algorithm and a two-phase algorithm. The first step is the application of a modifiedk-means clustering algorithm which is proposed in this paper. The two-phase algorithm evaluates a partial solution to transform it into a feasible individual. The two-phase algorithm consists of a hybridization of four kinds of insertions which interact randomly to obtain feasible individuals. It has been proven that different kinds of insertions impact the diversity among individuals in initial populations, which is crucial for population-based algorithm behavior. A modification to the Hamming distance method is applied to the populations generated for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows to evaluate their diversity. Experimental tests were performed based on the Solomon benchmarking. Experimental results show that the proposed method facilitates generation of highly diverse populations, which vary according to the type and distribution of the instances.

Sparse signals can be recovered from a reduced set of samples by using compressive sensing algorithms. In common compressive sensing methods the signal is recovered in the sparsity domain. A method for the reconstruction of sparse signals which reconstructs the missing/unavailable samples/measurements is recently proposed. This method can be efficiently used in signal processing applications where a complete set of signal samples exists. The missing samples are considered as the minimization variables, while the available samples are fixed. Reconstruction of the unavailable signal samples/measurements is preformed using a gradient-based algorithm in the time domain, with an adaptive step. Performance of this algorithm with respect to the step-size and convergence are analyzed and a criterion for the step-size adaptation is proposed in this paper. The step adaptation is based on the gradient direction angles. Illustrative examples and statistical study are presented. Computational efficiency of this algorithm is compared with other two commonly used gradient algorithms that reconstruct signal in the sparsity domain. Uniqueness of the recovered signal is checked using a recently introduced theorem. The algorithm application to the reconstruction of highly corrupted images is presented as well.

A fixed evolutionary mechanism is usually adopted in the multiobjective evolutionary algorithms and their operators are static during the evolutionary process, which causes the algorithm not to fully exploit the search space and is easy to trap in local optima. In this paper, a SPEA2 algorithm which is based on adaptive selection evolution operators (AOSPEA) is proposed. The proposed algorithm can adaptively select simulated binary crossover, polynomial mutation, and differential evolution operator during the evolutionary process according to their contribution to the external archive. Meanwhile, the convergence performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed with Markov chain. Simulation results on the standard benchmark functions reveal that the performance of the proposed algorithm outperforms the other classical multiobjective evolutionary algorithms.

This paper proposes a new kind of computational approach of three-dimensional (3D) braiding simulation based on matrix theory and symbol operation, which is suitable for batch integral calculation. The approach can be used to calculate braiding matrix at any step. Different braiding matrices fully reflect yarn carrier position changes. Using the braiding matrix calculation, the approach can provide data for storing yarn carrier paths, also termed braiding paths. The 3D braiding paths study was conducted to better visualization and thereby analyse the carrier’s movement characteristics and principles of operation. Finally, a program was designed to provide a reference for the mathematical model in further research.

Radar coincidence imaging (RCI) is a high-resolution staring imaging technique motivated by classical optical coincidence imaging. In RCI, sparse reconstruction methods are commonly used to achieve better imaging result, while the performance guarantee is based on the general assumption that the scatterers are located at the prediscretized grid-cell centers. However, the widely existing off-grid problem degrades the RCI performance considerably. In this paper, an algorithm based on variational sparse Bayesian learning (VSBL) is developed to solve the off-grid RCI. Applying Taylor expansion, the unknown true dictionary is approximated accurately to a linear model. Then target reconstruction is reformulated as a joint sparse recovery problem that recovers three groups of sparse coefficients over three known dictionaries with the constraint of the common support shared by the groups. VSBL is then applied to solve the problem by assigning appropriate priors to the three groups of coefficients. Results of numerical experiments demonstrate that the algorithm can achieve outstanding reconstruction performance and yield superior performance both in suppressing noise and in adapting to off-grid error.

Considering any connected network with unknown initial states for all nodes, the nearest-neighbor rule is utilized for each node to update its own state at every discrete-time step. Distributed function calculation problem is defined for one node to compute some function of the initial values of all the nodes based on its own observations. In this paper, taking into account uncertainties in the network and observations, an algorithm is proposed to compute and explicitly characterize the value of the function in question when the number of successive observations is large enough. While the number of successive observations is not large enough, we provide an approach to obtain the tightest possible bounds on such function by using linear programing optimization techniques. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the theoretical results.

Evaluating the reliability of Multistate Flow Network (MFN) is an NP-hard problem. Ordered binary decision diagram (OBDD) or variants thereof, such as multivalued decision diagram (MDD), are compact and efficient data structures suitable for dealing with large-scale problems. Two symbolic algorithms for evaluating the reliability of MFN, MFN_OBDD and MFN_MDD, are proposed in this paper. In the algorithms, several operating functions are defined to prune the generated decision diagrams. Thereby the state space of capacity combinations is further compressed and the operational complexity of the decision diagrams is further reduced. Meanwhile, the related theoretical proofs and complexity analysis are carried out. Experimental results show the following: (1) compared to the existing decomposition algorithm, the proposed algorithms take less memory space and fewer loops. (2) The number of nodes and the number of variables of MDD generated in MFN_MDD algorithm are much smaller than those of OBDD built in the MFN_OBDD algorithm. (3) In two cases with the same number of arcs, the proposed algorithms are more suitable for calculating the reliability of sparse networks.

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) has been used as a powerful date representation tool in real world, because the nonnegativity of matrices is usually required. In recent years, many new methods are available to solve NMF in addition to multiplicative update algorithm, such as gradient descent algorithms, the active set method, and alternating nonnegative least squares (ANLS). In this paper, we propose an inexact update method, with two parameters, which can ensure that the objective function is always descent before the optimal solution is found. Experiment results show that the proposed method is effective.