Idempotent Turing Machines

A function f is said to be idempotent if f(f(x)) = f(x) holds whenever f(x) is defined. This paper presents a computation model for idempotent functions, called an idempotent Turing machine. The computation model is necessarily and sufficiently expressive in the sense that not only does it always compute an idempotent function but also every idempotent computable function can be computed by an idempotent Turing machine. Furthermore, a few typical properties of the computation model such as robustness and universality are shown. Our computation model is expected to be a basis of special-purpose (or domain-specific) programming languages in which only but all idempotent computable functions can be defined

XQuery Streaming by Forest Transducers

Streaming of XML transformations is a challenging task and only very few systems support streaming. Research approaches generally define custom fragments of XQuery and XPath that are amenable to streaming, and then design custom algorithms for each fragment. These languages have several shortcomings. Here we take a more principles approach to the problem of streaming XQuery-based transformations. We start with an elegant transducer model for which many static analysis problems are well-understood: the Macro Forest Transducer (MFT). We show that a large fragment of XQuery can be translated into MFTs --- indeed, a fragment of XQuery, that can express important features that are missing from other XQuery stream engines, such as GCX: our fragment of XQuery supports XPath predicates and let-statements. We then rely on a streaming execution engine for MFTs, one which uses a well-founded set of optimizations from functional programming, such as strictness analysis and deforestation. Our prototype achieves time and memory efficiency comparable to the fastest known engine for XQuery streaming, GCX. This is surprising because our engine relies on the OCaml built in garbage collector and does not use any specialized buffer management, while GCX's efficiency is due to clever and explicit buffer management.Comment: Full version of the paper in the Proceedings of the 30th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2014

XML stream transformer generation through program composition and dependency analysis

AbstractXML stream transformation, which sequentially processes the input XML data on the fly, makes it possible to process large sized data within a limited amount of memory. Though being efficient in memory-use, stream transformation requires stateful programming, which is error-prone and hard to manage.This paper proposes a scheme for generating XML stream transformers. Given an attribute grammar definition of transformation over an XML tree structure, we systematically derive a stream transformer in two steps. First, an attribute grammar definition of the XML stream transformation is inferred by applying a program composition method. Second, a finite state transition machine is constructed through a dependency analysis. Due to the closure property of the program composition method, our scheme also allows modular construction of XML stream transformers.We have implemented a prototype XML stream transformer generator, called altSAX. The experimental results show that the generated transformers are efficient in memory consumption as well as in execution time

XML stream transformer generation through program composition and dependency analysis

AbstractXML stream transformation, which sequentially processes the input XML data on the fly, makes it possible to process large sized data within a limited amount of memory. Though being efficient in memory-use, stream transformation requires stateful programming, which is error-prone and hard to manage.This paper proposes a scheme for generating XML stream transformers. Given an attribute grammar definition of transformation over an XML tree structure, we systematically derive a stream transformer in two steps. First, an attribute grammar definition of the XML stream transformation is inferred by applying a program composition method. Second, a finite state transition machine is constructed through a dependency analysis. Due to the closure property of the program composition method, our scheme also allows modular construction of XML stream transformers.We have implemented a prototype XML stream transformer generator, called altSAX. The experimental results show that the generated transformers are efficient in memory consumption as well as in execution time

Athermal ω Phase and Lattice Modulation in Binary Zr-Nb Alloys

To further explore the potential of Zr-based alloys as a biomaterial that will not interfere with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the microstructural characteristics of Zr-xat.% Nb alloys (10 ≤ x ≤ 18), particularly the athermal ω phase and lattice modulation, were investigated by conducting electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements and transmission electron microscopy observations. The 10 Nb alloy and 12 Nb alloys had a positive temperature coefficient of electrical resistivity. The athermal ω phase existed in 10 Nb and 12 Nb alloys at room temperature. Alternatively, the 14 Nb and 18 Nb alloys had an anomalous negative temperature coefficient of the resistivity. The selected area diffraction pattern of the 14 Nb alloy revealed the co-occurrence of ω phase diffraction and diffuse satellites. These diffuse satellites were represented by gβ + q when the zone axis was [001] or [113], but not [110]. These results imply that these diffuse satellites appeared because the transverse waves consistent with the propagation and displacement vectors were q = * for the ζ~1/2 and directions. It is possible that the resistivity anomaly was caused by the formation of the athermal ω phase and transverse wave. Moreover, control of the athermal ω-phase transformation and occurrence of lattice modulation led to reduced magnetic susceptibility, superior deformation properties, and a low Young’s modulus in the Zr-Nb alloys. Thus, Zr-Nb alloys are promising MRI-compatible metallic biomaterials.Todai M., Fukunaga K., Nakano T.. Athermal ω Phase and Lattice Modulation in Binary Zr-Nb Alloys. Materials, 15, 6, 2318. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15062318

Cooperative Step Climbing Using Connected Wheeled Robots and Evaluation of Remote Operability

The present study evaluates the remote operability of step climbing using two connected robots that are teleoperated by individual operators. In general, a teleoperated robot is manipulated by an operator who is viewing moving images from a camera, which is one of the greatest advantages of such a system. However, robot teleoperation is not easy when a teleoperated robot is affected by the force from another robot or object. We constructed a step climbing system using two connected teleoperated robots. A theoretical analysis and the results of simulations clarified the correlations among the robot velocity, the manipulation time of the robots, and the height of the front wheels when climbing a step. The experimental results demonstrate the step climbing ability of the teleoperated robot system