Process windows

We describe a method for formally representing the behaviour of complex processes by process windows. Each window covers a part of the system behaviour, i.e. a part of the underlying transition system, and is easier to understand and analyse than the complete transition system. Process windows can overlap and have shared states and transitions so that the complete system behaviour is the union of window behaviours. We demonstrate the advantage of such representations when dealing with complex system behaviours, and discuss potential applications in circuit design and process mining. As a motivational example we consider the problem of covering transition systems by marked graphs, or more generally choicefree Petri nets. The obtained windows correspond to choice-free behavioural scenarios of the system, wherein one window can take over, or wake up, after another window has become inactive. The corresponding wake-up conditions and wake-up markings can be derived automatically.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Three-dimensional laser window formation

The NASA Lewis Research Center has developed and implemented a unique process for forming flawless three-dimensional laser windows. These windows represent a major part of specialized, nonintrusive laser data acquisition systems used in a variety of compressor and turbine research test facilities. This report discusses in detail the aspects of three-dimensional laser window formation. It focuses on the unique methodology and the peculiarities associated with the formation of these windows. Included in this discussion are the design criteria, bonding mediums, and evaluation testing for three-dimensional laser windows

Cascaded Boundary Regression for Temporal Action Detection

Temporal action detection in long videos is an important problem. State-of-the-art methods address this problem by applying action classifiers on sliding windows. Although sliding windows may contain an identifiable portion of the actions, they may not necessarily cover the entire action instance, which would lead to inferior performance. We adapt a two-stage temporal action detection pipeline with Cascaded Boundary Regression (CBR) model. Class-agnostic proposals and specific actions are detected respectively in the first and the second stage. CBR uses temporal coordinate regression to refine the temporal boundaries of the sliding windows. The salient aspect of the refinement process is that, inside each stage, the temporal boundaries are adjusted in a cascaded way by feeding the refined windows back to the system for further boundary refinement. We test CBR on THUMOS-14 and TVSeries, and achieve state-of-the-art performance on both datasets. The performance gain is especially remarkable under high IoU thresholds, e.g. map@tIoU=0.5 on THUMOS-14 is improved from 19.0% to 31.0%

A Windows Phone 7 Oriented Secure Architecture for Business Intelligence Mobile Applications

This paper present and implement a Windows Phone 7 Oriented Secure Architecture for Business Intelligence Mobile Application. In the developing process is used a Windows Phone 7 application that interact with a WCF Web Service and a database. The types of Business Intelligence Mobile Applications are presented. The Windows mobile devices security and restrictions are presented. The namespaces and security algorithms used in .NET Compact Framework for assuring the application security are presented. The proposed architecture is showed underlying the flows between the application and the web service.Security, Secure Architecture, Mobile Applications, Business Intelligence, Web Service

A view through novel process windows

This mini-review discusses some of the recent work on novel process windows by the Micro Flow Chemistry and Process Technology group at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and their associates. Novel process windows consist of unconventional approaches to boost chemical production, often requiring harsh reaction conditions at short to very short time-scales. These approaches are divided into six routes: the use of high temperatures, high pressures, and high concentrations (or solvent-free), new chemical transformations, explosive conditions, and process simplification and integration. Microstructured reactors, due to their inherent safety, short time-scales, and the high degree of process control, are the means that make such extreme chemistry possible

The Timing, Intensity, and Composition of Interest Group Lobbying: An Analysis of Structural Policy Windows in the States

This is the first paper to statistically examine the timing of interest group lobbying. It introduces a theoretical framework based on recurring structural policy windows' and argues that these types of windows should have a large effect on the intensity and timing of interest group activity. Using a new database of all lobbying expenditures in the U.S. states ranging up to 25 years, the paper shows interest group lobbying increases substantially during one of these structural windows in particular--the budgeting process. Spikes in lobbying during budgeting are driven primarily by business groups. Moreover, even groups relatively unaffected by budgets lobby more intensely during legislative budgeting, consistent with the theory that these interests are attempting to have legislators attach (de)regulatory riders to the budget bills. Overall, the paper demonstrates that these structural policy windows largely determine lobbying expenditures.

Three-dimensional laser window formation for industrial application

The NASA Lewis Research Center has developed and implemented a unique process for forming flawless three-dimensional, compound-curvature laser windows to extreme accuracies. These windows represent an integral component of specialized nonintrusive laser data acquisition systems that are used in a variety of compressor and turbine research testing facilities. These windows are molded to the flow surface profile of turbine and compressor casings and are required to withstand extremely high pressures and temperatures. This method of glass formation could also be used to form compound-curvature mirrors that would require little polishing and for a variety of industrial applications, including research view ports for testing devices and view ports for factory machines with compound-curvature casings. Currently, sodium-alumino-silicate glass is recommended for three-dimensional laser windows because of its high strength due to chemical strengthening and its optical clarity. This paper discusses the main aspects of three-dimensional laser window formation. It focuses on the unique methodology and the peculiarities that are associated with the formation of these windows

Predicting progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia using neuropsychological data: a supervised learning approach using time windows

Background: Predicting progression from a stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment to dementia is a major pursuit in current research. It is broadly accepted that cognition declines with a continuum between MCI and dementia. As such, cohorts of MCI patients are usually heterogeneous, containing patients at different stages of the neurodegenerative process. This hampers the prognostic task. Nevertheless, when learning prognostic models, most studies use the entire cohort of MCI patients regardless of their disease stages. In this paper, we propose a Time Windows approach to predict conversion to dementia, learning with patients stratified using time windows, thus fine-tuning the prognosis regarding the time to conversion. Methods: In the proposed Time Windows approach, we grouped patients based on the clinical information of whether they converted (converter MCI) or remained MCI (stable MCI) within a specific time window. We tested time windows of 2, 3, 4 and 5 years. We developed a prognostic model for each time window using clinical and neuropsychological data and compared this approach with the commonly used in the literature, where all patients are used to learn the models, named as First Last approach. This enables to move from the traditional question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia somewhere in the future" to the question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia in a specific time window". Results: The proposed Time Windows approach outperformed the First Last approach. The results showed that we can predict conversion to dementia as early as 5 years before the event with an AUC of 0.88 in the cross-validation set and 0.76 in an independent validation set. Conclusions: Prognostic models using time windows have higher performance when predicting progression from MCI to dementia, when compared to the prognostic approach commonly used in the literature. Furthermore, the proposed Time Windows approach is more relevant from a clinical point of view, predicting conversion within a temporal interval rather than sometime in the future and allowing clinicians to timely adjust treatments and clinical appointments.FCT under the Neuroclinomics2 project [PTDC/EEI-SII/1937/2014, SFRH/BD/95846/2013]; INESC-ID plurianual [UID/CEC/50021/2013]; LASIGE Research Unit [UID/CEC/00408/2013

Accelerating biphasic biocatalysis through new process windows

Process intensification through continuous flow reactions has increased the production rates of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Catalytic reactions are accelerated through an unconventional and unprecedented use of a high‐performance liquid/liquid counter current chromatography system. Product generation is significantly faster than in traditional batch reactors or in segmented flow systems, which is exemplified through stereoselective phase‐transfer catalyzed reactions. This methodology also enables the intensification of biocatalysis as demonstrated in high yield esterifications and in the sesquiterpene cyclase‐catalyzed synthesis of sesquiterpenes from farnesyl diphosphate as high‐value natural products with applications in medicine, agriculture and the fragrance industry. Product release in sesquiterpene synthases is rate limiting due to the hydrophobic nature of sesquiterpenes, but a biphasic system exposed to centrifugal forces allows for highly efficient reactions