40,646 research outputs found
Single-particle levitation system for automated study of homogeneous solute nucleation
We present an instrument that addresses two critical requirements for quantitative measurements of the homogeneous crystal nucleation rate in supersaturated aqueous solution. First, the need to perform repeated measurements of nucleation incubation times is met by automating experiments to enable programmable cycling of thermodynamic conditions. Second, the need for precise and robust control of the chemical potential in supersaturated aqueous solution is met by implementing a novel technique for regulating relative humidity. The apparatus levitates and weighs micron-sized samples in an electric field, providing access to highly supersaturated states. We report repeated observations of the crystal nucleation incubation time in a supersaturated aqueous sodium chloride droplet, from which we infer the nucleation rate
Reducing Spatial Data Complexity for Classification Models
Intelligent data analytics gradually becomes a day-to-day reality of today's businesses. However, despite rapidly
increasing storage and computational power current state-of-the-art predictive models still can not handle massive and noisy
corporate data warehouses. What is more adaptive and real-time operational environment requires multiple models to be
frequently retrained which fiirther hinders their use. Various data reduction techniques ranging from data sampling up to
density retention models attempt to address this challenge by capturing a summarised data structure, yet they either do
not account for labelled data or degrade the classification performance of the model trained on the condensed dataset. Our
response is a proposition of a new general framework for reducing the complexity of labelled data by means of controlled
spatial redistribution of class densities in the input space. On the example of Parzen Labelled Data Compressor (PLDC) we
demonstrate a simulatory data condensation process directly inspired by the electrostatic field interaction where the data are
moved and merged following the attracting and repelling interactions with the other labelled data. The process is controlled
by the class density function built on the original data that acts as a class-sensitive potential field ensuring preservation of
the original class density distributions, yet allowing data to rearrange and merge joining together their soft class partitions.
As a result we achieved a model that reduces the labelled datasets much further than any competitive approaches yet with
the maximum retention of the original class densities and hence the classification performance. PLDC leaves the reduced
dataset with the soft accumulative class weights allowing for efficient online updates and as shown in a series of experiments
if coupled with Parzen Density Classifier (PDC) significantly outperforms competitive data condensation methods in terms of
classification performance at the comparable compression levels
Development and validation of 'AutoRIF': Software for the automated analysis of radiation-induced foci
Copyright @ 2012 McVean et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: The quantification of radiation-induced foci (RIF) to investigate the induction and subsequent repair of DNA double strands breaks is now commonplace. Over the last decade systems specific for the automatic quantification of RIF have been developed for this purpose, however to ask more mechanistic questions on the spatio-temporal aspects of RIF, an automated RIF analysis platform that also quantifies RIF size/volume and relative three-dimensional (3D) distribution of RIF within individual nuclei, is required.
Results: A java-based image analysis system has been developed (AutoRIF) that quantifies the number, size/volume and relative nuclear locations of RIF within 3D nuclear volumes. Our approach identifies nuclei using the dynamic Otsu threshold and RIF by enhanced Laplacian filtering and maximum entropy thresholding steps and, has an application âbatch optimisationâ process to ensure reproducible quantification of RIF. AutoRIF was validated by comparing output against manual quantification of the same 2D and 3D image stacks with results showing excellent concordance over a whole range of sample time points (and therefore range of total RIF/nucleus) after low-LET radiation exposure.
Conclusions: This high-throughput automated RIF analysis system generates data with greater depth of information and reproducibility than that which can be achieved manually and may contribute toward the standardisation of RIF analysis. In particular, AutoRIF is a powerful tool for studying spatio-temporal relationships of RIF using a range of DNA damage response markers and can be run independently of other software, enabling most personal computers to perform image analysis. Future considerations for AutoRIF will likely include more complex algorithms that enable multiplex analysis for increasing combinations of cellular markers.This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund
Southern Hemisphere automated supernova search
The Perth Astronomy Research Group has developed an automated supernova search program, using the 61 cm PerthâLowell reflecting telescope at Perth Observatory in Western Australia, equipped with a CCD camera. The system is currently capable of observing about 15 objects per hour, using 3 min exposures, and has a detection threshold of 18thâ19th magnitude. The entire system has been constructed using lowâcost IBMâcompatible computers. Two original discoveries (SN 1993K, SN 1994R) have so far been made during automated search runs. This paper describes the hardware and software used for the supernova search program, and shows some preliminary results from the search system
Automated counter-terrorism
We present a holistic systems view of automated intelligence analysis for counter-terrorism with focus on the behavioural attributes of terrorist groups
Identifying how automation can lose its intended benefit along the development process : a research plan
Doctoral Consortium Presentation Š The Authors 2009Automation is usually considered to improve performance in virtually any domain. However it can fail to deliver the target benefit as intended by those managers and designers advocating the introduction of the tool. In safety critical domains this problem is of significance not only because the unexpected effects of automation might prevent its widespread usage but also because they might turn out to be a contributor to incident and accidents. Research on failures of automation to deliver the intended benefit has focused mainly on human automation interaction. This paper presents a PhD research plan that aims at characterizing decisions for those involved in development process of automation for safety critical domains, taken under productive pressure, to identify where and when the initial intention the automation is supposed to deliver can be lost along the development process. We tentatively call such decisions as drift and the final objective is to develop principles that will allow to identify and compensate for possible sources of drift in the development of new automation. The research is based on case studies and is currently entering Year 2
ReSHAPE: A Framework for Dynamic Resizing and Scheduling of Homogeneous Applications in a Parallel Environment
Applications in science and engineering often require huge computational
resources for solving problems within a reasonable time frame. Parallel
supercomputers provide the computational infrastructure for solving such
problems. A traditional application scheduler running on a parallel cluster
only supports static scheduling where the number of processors allocated to an
application remains fixed throughout the lifetime of execution of the job. Due
to the unpredictability in job arrival times and varying resource requirements,
static scheduling can result in idle system resources thereby decreasing the
overall system throughput. In this paper we present a prototype framework
called ReSHAPE, which supports dynamic resizing of parallel MPI applications
executed on distributed memory platforms. The framework includes a scheduler
that supports resizing of applications, an API to enable applications to
interact with the scheduler, and a library that makes resizing viable.
Applications executed using the ReSHAPE scheduler framework can expand to take
advantage of additional free processors or can shrink to accommodate a high
priority application, without getting suspended. In our research, we have
mainly focused on structured applications that have two-dimensional data arrays
distributed across a two-dimensional processor grid. The resize library
includes algorithms for processor selection and processor mapping. Experimental
results show that the ReSHAPE framework can improve individual job turn-around
time and overall system throughput.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables Submitted to International Conference
on Parallel Processing (ICPP'07
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