An Ada programming support environment

The toolset of an Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) being developed at North American Aircraft Operations (NAAO) of Rockwell International, is described. The APSE is resident on three different hosts and must support developments for the hosts and for embedded targets. Tools and developed software must be freely portable between the hosts. The toolset includes the usual editors, compilers, linkers, debuggers, configuration magnagers, and documentation tools. Generally, these are being supplied by the host computer vendors. Other tools, for example, pretty printer, cross referencer, compilation order tool, and management tools were obtained from public-domain sources, are implemented in Ada and are being ported to the hosts. Several tools being implemented in-house are of interest, these include an Ada Design Language processor based on compilable Ada. A Standalone Test Environment Generator facilitates test tool construction and partially automates unit level testing. A Code Auditor/Static Analyzer permits the Ada programs to be evaluated against measures of quality. An Ada Comment Box Generator partially automates generation of header comment boxes

Info-Clustering: A Mathematical Theory for Data Clustering

We formulate an info-clustering paradigm based on a multivariate information measure, called multivariate mutual information, that naturally extends Shannon's mutual information between two random variables to the multivariate case involving more than two random variables. With proper model reductions, we show that the paradigm can be applied to study the human genome and connectome in a more meaningful way than the conventional algorithmic approach. Not only can info-clustering provide justifications and refinements to some existing techniques, but it also inspires new computationally feasible solutions.Comment: In celebration of Claude Shannon's Centenar

Duality between Feature Selection and Data Clustering

The feature-selection problem is formulated from an information-theoretic perspective. We show that the problem can be efficiently solved by an extension of the recently proposed info-clustering paradigm. This reveals the fundamental duality between feature selection and data clustering,which is a consequence of the more general duality between the principal partition and the principal lattice of partitions in combinatorial optimization

Is fundamental frequency a cue to aspiration in initial stops?

One production and one perception experiment were conducted to investigate the interaction of consonant voicing and fundamental frequency at the onset of voicing (onset f0) in Cantonese, a tonal language. Consonantal voicing in English can affect onset f0 up to 100 ms after voicing onset, but existing research provides inconclusive information regarding the effects of voicing on f0 in tonal languages where f0 variability is constrained by the demands of the lexical tone system. Previous research on consonantal effects on onset f0 provides two contrasting theories: These effects may be automatic, resulting from physiological constraints inherent to the speech production mechanism or they may be controlled, produced as part of a process of cue enhancement for the perception of laryngeal contrasts. Results of experiment 1 showed that consonant aspiration affects onset f0 in Cantonese only within the first 10 ms following voicing onset, comparable to results for other tonal languages. Experiment 2 showed that Cantonese listeners can use differences in onset f0 to cue perception of the voicing contrast, but the minimum extent of f0 perturbation necessary for this is greater than is found in Cantonese production, and comparable to that observed in acoustic studies of nontonal languages. These results suggest that consonantal effects on onset f0 are at least partially controlled by talkers, but that their role in the perception of voicing/aspiration may be a consequence of language independent properties of audition rather than listeners' experience with the phonological contrasts of a specific language.published_or_final_versio

Reducing risk in pre-production investigations through undergraduate engineering projects.

This poster is the culmination of final year Bachelor of Engineering Technology (B.Eng.Tech) student projects in 2017 and 2018. The B.Eng.Tech is a level seven qualification that aligns to the Sydney accord for three year engineering degree and hence is internationally benchmarked. The enabling mechanism of these projects is the industry connectivity that creates real world projects and highlights the benefits of the investigation of process at the technologist level. The methodologies we use are basic and transparent, with enough depth of technical knowledge to ensure the industry partners gain from the collaboration process. The process we use minimises disconnect between the student and the industry supervisor while maintaining the academic freedom of the student and the commercial sensitivities of the supervisor. The general motivation for this approach is the reduction of the entry cost of industry to enable consideration of new technologies, and thereby reducing risk to core business and shareholder profits. The poster presents several images and interpretive dialogue to explain the positive and negative aspects of the student process

Nigella sativa thymoquinone-rich fraction greatly improves plasma antioxidant capacity and expression of antioxidant genes in hypercholesterolemic rats.

The antioxidant activities of the thymoquinone-rich fraction (TQRF) extracted from Nigella sativa and its bioactive compound, thymoquinone (TQ), in rats with induced hypercholesterolemia were investigated. Rats were fed a semipurified diet supplemented with 1% (w/w) cholesterol and were treated with TQRF and TQ at dosages ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 g/kg and 20 to 100 mg/kg body wt, respectively, for 8 weeks. The hydroxyl radical (OH ·)-scavenging activity of plasma samples collected from experimental rats was measured by electron spin resonance. The GenomeLab Genetic Analysis System was used to study the molecular mechanism that mediates the antioxidative properties of TQRF and TQ. Plasma total cholesterol and low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol levels were significantly decreased in the TQRF- and TQ-treated rats compared to untreated rats. Feeding rats a 1% cholesterol diet for 8 weeks resulted in a significant decrease in plasma antioxidant capacity, as measured by the capacity to scavenge hydroxyl radicals. However, rats treated with TQRF and TQ at various doses showed significant inhibitory activity toward the formation of OH · compared to untreated rats. Upon examination of liver RNA expression levels, treatment with TQRF and TQ caused the up-regulation of the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase 2 (GPX) genes compared to untreated rats (P < 0.05). In support of this, liver antioxidant enzyme levels, including SOD1 and GPX, were also apparently increased in the TQRF- and TQ-treated rats compared to untreated rats (P < 0.05). In conclusion, TQRF and TQ effectively improved the plasma and liver antioxidant capacity and enhanced the expression of liver antioxidant genes of hypercholesterolemic rats

Asymptotic behaviour of estimators of the parameters of nearly unstable INAR(1) models

A sequence of first-order integer-valued autoregressive type (INAR(1)) processes is investigated, where the autoregressive type coefficients converge to 1. It is shown that the limiting distribution of the joint conditional least squares estimators for this coefficient and for the mean of the innovation is normal. Consequences for sequences of Galton{Watson branching processes with unobservable immigration, where the mean of the offspring distribution converges to 1 (which is the critical value), are discussed