110,325 research outputs found
Understanding requirements engineering process: a challenge for practice and education
Reviews of the state of the professional practice in Requirements Engineering (RE) stress that the RE process is both complex and hard to describe, and suggest there is a significant difference between competent and "approved" practice. "Approved" practice is reflected by (in all likelihood, in fact, has its genesis in) RE education, so that the knowledge and skills taught to students do not match the knowledge and skills required and applied by competent practitioners.
A new understanding of the RE process has emerged from our recent study. RE is revealed as inherently creative, involving cycles of building and major reconstruction of the models developed, significantly different from the systematic and smoothly incremental process generally described in the literature. The process is better characterised as highly creative, opportunistic and insight driven. This mismatch between approved and actual practice provides a challenge to RE education - RE requires insight and creativity as well as technical knowledge. Traditional learning models applied to RE focus, however, on notation and prescribed processes acquired through repetition. We argue that traditional learning models fail to support the learning required for RE and propose both a new model based on cognitive flexibility and a framework for RE education to support this model
PYRO-NN: Python Reconstruction Operators in Neural Networks
Purpose: Recently, several attempts were conducted to transfer deep learning
to medical image reconstruction. An increasingly number of publications follow
the concept of embedding the CT reconstruction as a known operator into a
neural network. However, most of the approaches presented lack an efficient CT
reconstruction framework fully integrated into deep learning environments. As a
result, many approaches are forced to use workarounds for mathematically
unambiguously solvable problems. Methods: PYRO-NN is a generalized framework to
embed known operators into the prevalent deep learning framework Tensorflow.
The current status includes state-of-the-art parallel-, fan- and cone-beam
projectors and back-projectors accelerated with CUDA provided as Tensorflow
layers. On top, the framework provides a high level Python API to conduct FBP
and iterative reconstruction experiments with data from real CT systems.
Results: The framework provides all necessary algorithms and tools to design
end-to-end neural network pipelines with integrated CT reconstruction
algorithms. The high level Python API allows a simple use of the layers as
known from Tensorflow. To demonstrate the capabilities of the layers, the
framework comes with three baseline experiments showing a cone-beam short scan
FDK reconstruction, a CT reconstruction filter learning setup, and a TV
regularized iterative reconstruction. All algorithms and tools are referenced
to a scientific publication and are compared to existing non deep learning
reconstruction frameworks. The framework is available as open-source software
at \url{https://github.com/csyben/PYRO-NN}. Conclusions: PYRO-NN comes with the
prevalent deep learning framework Tensorflow and allows to setup end-to-end
trainable neural networks in the medical image reconstruction context. We
believe that the framework will be a step towards reproducible researchComment: V1: Submitted to Medical Physics, 11 pages, 7 figure
Communications-Inspired Projection Design with Application to Compressive Sensing
We consider the recovery of an underlying signal x \in C^m based on
projection measurements of the form y=Mx+w, where y \in C^l and w is
measurement noise; we are interested in the case l < m. It is assumed that the
signal model p(x) is known, and w CN(w;0,S_w), for known S_W. The objective is
to design a projection matrix M \in C^(l x m) to maximize key
information-theoretic quantities with operational significance, including the
mutual information between the signal and the projections I(x;y) or the Renyi
entropy of the projections h_a(y) (Shannon entropy is a special case). By
capitalizing on explicit characterizations of the gradients of the information
measures with respect to the projections matrix, where we also partially extend
the well-known results of Palomar and Verdu from the mutual information to the
Renyi entropy domain, we unveil the key operations carried out by the optimal
projections designs: mode exposure and mode alignment. Experiments are
considered for the case of compressive sensing (CS) applied to imagery. In this
context, we provide a demonstration of the performance improvement possible
through the application of the novel projection designs in relation to
conventional ones, as well as justification for a fast online projections
design method with which state-of-the-art adaptive CS signal recovery is
achieved.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, parts of material published in IEEE ICASSP 2012,
submitted to SIIM
Discontinuous Galerkin approximations in computational mechanics: hybridization, exact geometry and degree adaptivity
Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretizations with exact representation of the geometry and local polynomial degree adaptivity are revisited. Hybridization techniques are employed to reduce the computational cost of DG approximations and devise the hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) method. Exact geometry described by non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) is integrated into HDG using the framework of the NURBS-enhanced finite element method (NEFEM). Moreover, optimal convergence and superconvergence properties of HDG-Voigt formulation in presence of symmetric second-order tensors are exploited to construct inexpensive error indicators and drive degree adaptive procedures. Applications involving the numerical simulation of problems in electrostatics, linear elasticity and incompressible viscous flows are presented. Moreover, this is done for both high-order HDG approximations and the lowest-order framework of face-centered finite volumes (FCFV).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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