Numerical evaluation of spectral coverage and spectral resolution in coherent Raman scattering spectroscopy using a broadband fiber laser source

We theoretically investigate the feasibility of using a fiber laser source for high resolution and broadband coherent Raman scattering (CRS) spectroscopy/ imaging employing spectral focusing technique. To accomplish this task, we have developed a simulation tool where the laser pulse parameters can be imported directly from any pulse propagation software using split-step Fourier method to evaluate the spectral resolution and spectral coverage of CRS spectroscopy. Thus, the simulation tool can accommodate optical pulses of arbitrary shape and central wavelength, being also a user-friendly and versatile open-source software. We validate the numerical simulation tool by comparing its results with published theoretical and experimental data. We then use the tool to study the feasibility of using an all-fiber laser source for high resolution CRS spectroscopy in both the C-H window and the fingerprint region. This tool has a broad scope of applications in multiple fields where CRS spectroscopy is useful such as biomedicine, materials characterization, and biological imaging.Comunidad de MadridAgencia Estatal de Investigació

Applied regional monitoring of the vernal advancement and retrogradation (Green wave effect) of natural vegetation in the Great Plains corridor

The author has identified the following significant results. LANDSAT 2 has shown that digital data products can be effectively employed on a regional basis to monitor changes in vegetation conditions. The TV16 was successfully applied to an extended test site and the Great Plains Corridor in tests of the ability to assess green forage biomass on rangelands as an index to vegetation condition. A strategy for using TV16 on a regional basis was developed and tested. These studies have shown that: (1) for rangelands with good vegetative cover, such as most of the Great Plains, and which are not heavily infested with brush or undesirable weed species, the LANDSAT digital data can provide a good estimate (within 250 kg/ha) of the quantity of green forage biomass, and (2) at least five levels of pasture and range feed conditions can be adequately mapped for extended regions

Categorizing Non-Functional Requirements Using a Hierarchy in UML.

Non-functional requirements (NFRs) are a subset of requirements, the means by which software system developers and clients communicate about the functionality of the system to be built. This paper has three main parts: first, an overview of how non-functional requirements relate to software engineering is given, along with a survey of NFRs in the software engineering literature. Second, a collection of 161 NFRs is diagrammed using the Unified Modelling Language, forming a tool with which developers may more easily identify and write additional NFRs. Third, a lesson plan is presented, a learning module intended for an undergraduate software engineering curriculum. The results of presenting this learning module to a class in Spring, 2003 is presented

Proceedings of Plenary Session: The LACIE Symposium

A technology assessment of the LACIE data processing and information systems was discussed during the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment Symposium. Crop inventories of wheat yield in the United States as well as several other nations (such as the U.S.S.R., Canada, etc.) were discussed, along with the methodology involved in acquiring this data

BioSuite: a comprehensive bioinformatics software package (A unique industry-academia collaboration)

This article does not have an abstract

Reducing structural ambiguity in natural language software requirements specifications

Abstract. The ambiguity of natural language (NL) causes miscommunication and misunderstandings. Precision of language is particularly important in software development when handling requirements agreed between the customer and the provider. Software Requirements Specification (SRS) is a commonly used document type for specifying the requirements. A strict standard for how every SRS should be constructed does not exist, and thus it is often written in NL. However, some restricted languages can be used for specifying requirements. An example of such is Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS). In this thesis is presented an automated tool for reducing the structural ambiguity of requirements by converting NL into EARS form. Four different text datasets were used for testing the converter and they were compared before and after conversion and against each other. Both performance and ambiguity reduction of the tool were assessed using various measures. Since a standard ambiguity measurement was not available, a combination of sentence structure assessment, word occurrences against Zipf’s law, readability score and information complexity was used. The results suggest that the tool reduces structural ambiguity of sentences. The tool is successful in converting NL into the different EARS patterns and the converted sentences are less complicated and more readable, according to the results. This hints at the possibility of creating more automated tools that could be used to reduce ambiguity in NL SRS. It might not be possible to make people start using a restricted language, like EARS, for writing the documents, but with the help of automated converters, sentences could be mapped to more restricted forms to help with making better sense of them.Luonnollisen kielen rakenteellisen moniselitteisyyden vähentäminen ohjelmistojen vaatimusten määrittelyissä. Tiivistelmä. Luonnollisen kielen epämääräisyys aiheuttaa vaikeuksia kommunikoinnissa ja ymmärtämisessä. Kielen tarkkuus on erityisen tärkeää ohjelmistokehityksessä silloin kun käsitellään asiakkaan ja tarjoajan keskenään sopimia vaatimuksia ohjelmistolle. Ei ole olemassa tiukkaa standardia sille miten vaatimusten määrittelydokumentti pitäisi rakentaa, joten se usein kirjoitetaan luonnollisella kielellä. Siitä huolimatta joitain rajoitettuja kieliä voidaan käyttää yksittäisten vaatimusten määrittelyyn. Eräs esimerkki rajoitetusta kielestä on Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS). Tässä diplomityössä esitellään automatisoitu työkalu vähentämään rakenteista epämääräisyttä muuttamalla luonnollista kieltä EARS-muotoon. Neljää erilaista tekstiä käytettiin työkalun testaamiseen ja niitä verrattiin toisiinsa sekä ennen että jälkeen muuntamisen. Työkalun toimintaa ja epämääräisyyden vähentämistä mitattiin useilla metriikoilla. Epämääräisyyden mittaamiseen valittiin joukko kvantitatiivisia metriikoita: lauserakenteita analysoitiin, sanojen ilmiintyvyystiheyttä ja lausiden luettavuutta mitattiin ja informaation kompleksisuuttakin verrattiin muunnettujen ja muuntamattomien tekstien välillä. Tulosten perusteella esitelty työkalu vähentää lauseiden rakenteellista epämääräisyyttä. Se muuntaa onnistuneesti luonnollista kieltä EARS-muotoon ja tulosten mukaan muunnetut lauseet ovat vähemmän monimutkaisia ja luettavampia. Tämä viittaa siihen, että automatisoiduilla työkaluilla voisi olla mahdollista vähentää epämääräisyyttä luonnollisella kielellä kirjoitetuissa vaatimusten määrittelydokumenteissa. Vaikkei ihmisiä saataisikaan kirjoittamaan vaatimusten määrittelyjä rajoitetuilla kielillä, automatisoiduilla kielen muuntajilla lauseita voidaan uudelleenmuotoilla rajoitetumpiin muotoihin, jotta niistä saataisiin paremmin selvää

Research reports: 1990 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

Reports on the research projects performed under the NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program are presented. The program was conducted by The University of Alabama and MSFC during the period from June 4, 1990 through August 10, 1990. Some of the topics covered include: (1) Space Shuttles; (2) Space Station Freedom; (3) information systems; (4) materials and processes; (4) Space Shuttle main engine; (5) aerospace sciences; (6) mathematical models; (7) mission operations; (8) systems analysis and integration; (9) systems control; (10) structures and dynamics; (11) aerospace safety; and (12) remote sensin

Design of North Texas Pc Users Group Ecommerce Interface and Online Membership System

The North Texas PC Users Group is a non-profit that is struggling with their existing membership process. This thesis explores the analysis of a new membership process and discusses the resulting new architecture and system design to implement it. The implementation of this new business process will reduce the time to produce the standard monthly reports and foster future membership retention efforts. The new design supports Ecommerce instant transactions, online availability of reports for the Board of Directors, and the access control of a member-only online site. The research for this project included an analysis of the cost, benefits, and features needed for online credit card transactions by a small non-profit organization. The presented architectural design supports an n-tiered distributed application, over an underlying relational database which will ensure the membership information is safe, accurate, and timely while supporting future performance, scalability, and reliability needs

Towards A Formal And Scalable Approach For Quantifying Software Reliability At Early Development Stages

Problems which originate in early development stages can have a lasting influence on the reliability, safety, and cost of a software system. The requirements document, which is usually available at the requirements analysis stage, must be correct, unambiguous, and complete if the rest of the development effort is to succeed. The ability to identify faults in requirements and predict the reliability of a software system early in its development can help organizations make informative decisions about corrective actions and improve the system's quality in a cost-effective manner. A review of the literature reveals that existing approaches are unsuited to provide trustworthy reliability prediction either due to the ignorance of the requirements documents, or because of the informal and fairly sketchy way in detecting faults in requirements. This study explores the use of a preselected software reliability measurement for early software faults detection and reliability prediction. This measurement, originally a black-box testing technique, was broadly recognized for its ability to detect incomplete and ambiguous requirements, although no information was found in the literature about how to take advantage of its power. This study mathematically formalized the measurement to enhance its rigidity, repeatability and scalability and further extended it as an effective requirements faults detection technique. An automation-oriented algorithm was developed for quantifying the impact of the detected requirements faults on software reliability. The feasibility and scalability of the proposed approach for early faults detection and reliability prediction were examined using two real applications. The results clearly confirmed its feasibility and usefulness, particularly when no failure data is available and other methods are not applicable. The scalability barriers were also spotted in the approach. An empirical study was thus conducted to gain insight into the nature of the technical barriers. As an attempt to overcome the barrier, a set of rules was proposed based on the observed patterns. Finally, a preliminarily controlled experiment was conducted to evaluate the usability of the proposed rules. This study will enable software project stakeholders to effectively detect requirements faults and assess the quality of requirements early in development, and ultimately lead to improved software reliability if the identified faults are removed in time. Software project practitioners, regulators, and policy makers involved in the certification of software systems can benefit most from the techniques proposed in this study