Asynchrony in image analysis: using the luminance-to-response-latency relationship to improve segmentation

We deal with the probiem of segmenting static images, a procedure known to be difficult in the case of very noisy patterns, The proposed approach rests on the transformation of a static image into a data flow in which the first image points to be processed are the brighter ones. This solution, inspired by human perception, in which strong luminances elicit reactions from the visual system before weaker ones, has led to the notion of asynchronous processing. The asynchronous processing of image points has required the design of a specific architecture that exploits time differences in the processing of information. The results otained when very noisy images are segmented demonstrate the strengths of this architecture; they also suggest extensions of the approach to other computer vision problem

S.A.V.E.-Safety and Vitals Emitter

A series of devices created to assist in the location of those who have been affected by natural disasters. The devices utilize ultrasonic and infared signals to create a proximity and heat signature for those affected. Nexus Maximus IV The Challenge: Innovation for Refugees and Displaced Populations One of the great challenges of our time is how to help refugees and displaced populations, and how to prevent the causes in the first place. Every minute, 24 people around the world are forced to flee their homes. That’s 34,000 people a day who leave everything behind in the hope of finding safety and a better tomorrow. The impact of war, political, racial and religious conflict, and environmental crises of famine and climate change, have caused great suffering and there is a great opportunity to do better. The issues these populations and the countries who receive them face are diverse and complex. They include public health, housing/built environment, cultural integration, public safety, employment/economic and more. How can innovation address these challenges? How do we create the social systems and products to support a healthy, safe and integrated program for refugees? How do we address the physical, emotional, and social needs of refugees to restore hope and opportunity? The solutions may be as far ranging as the challenges, exploring the acute needs during a crisis, as well as the chronic needs of the permanently displaced; looking at immigration and adjustments to new cultures. We encourage participants to draw upon all disciplines, from health professions to architecture, engineering to design, ethics, communication and every way of thinking we have, to find better ways to innovate on physical solutions, processes, policies, systems, and more. Recap of poster presentations.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/nexusmaximus/1003/thumbnail.jp

A study of an integrated approach for strategy formulation and performance measurement in manufacturing enterprises.

Performance measurement quantifies the efficiency and effectiveness of action that helps organisations translate their strategies into results and fixes accountability to improve performance. This research identifies two problem statements: First, can integrating strategy formulation with measurement initiatives safeguard the performance goals in manufacturing enterprises? And second, how can manufacturing enterprises derive an integrated approach that meet their requirements and needs for strategy formulation (SF) and performance measurement (PM) system implementation? This work proposes an integrated paradigm that aligns the strategy-related performance measures to attain performance improvement in manufacturing enterprises. A two-stage empirical study was conducted, with 232 Hong Kong firms and 85 Shanghai firms participating in the study. The first stage surveys identified the common success factors, problem areas and strategy choices, and examined the relationship amongst corporate, marketing, technology and operational strengths and the `reactive/proactive' strategy choices. The subsequent personal interviews in Hong Kong complemented the survey findings by examining the impact of SF/PM efforts in manufacturing enterprises. There were two series of interviews. The first series acquired the managerial views on the decision criteria on the integration of strategy formulation and performance measures, with the aid of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. The second interview series derived several design elements and process considerations for aligning strategy formulation with performance measures. The empirical study used in this research provided important inputs and served as a foundation for development of a SF/PM Integration (SPI) model. In an attempt to integrate strategy formulation and performance measurement, the SPI model adopts the guiding principles embodied with the Business Excellence Models and stresses the results-oriented assessments on five categories of SF/PM criteria, namely leadership and constancy of purpose, management by process, people development, continuous improvement, and results orientation. Unlike that of the MBNQA and EQA, the point values for criteria and sub-elements of SPI model were generated collectively from the perspectives of industry practitioners in the manufacturing sectors. These were determined using the normalised weights obtained from the AHP analysis of empirical interview findings. They are taken together to calculate the overall performance index for an organisation. The process framework comprises five stages starting from strategy formulation to implementation and evaluation of an integrated performance measurement system. It encapsulates the requirements, critical processes and activities of strategy formulation and performance measures into the way they are being managed in organisations. The SPI model helps manufacturing enterprises to build a self-assessment platform for amalgamating strategies, plans and actions which can enable performance improvement. It can supplement any Business Excellence Models, and serves three important purposes. Firstly, it is a working tool for integrating SF and PM initiatives and guiding the implementation of performance measurement system in manufacturing enterprises. Secondly, using the model can help improve the effectiveness of management practices in relation to performance measures and self-assessment; and thirdly, using the model can facilitate information sharing of best practices within an organisation and benchmark performance against competitors and other organisations. Results of a post-evaluation survey affirmed that the model and processes could encourage organisational learning and provide a practical means for manufacturing enterprises to devise effective self-assessment and performance improvement. The novel contributions of the research are to identify the key SF/PM attributes, develop the self-assessment scoring method and the process framework accompanying the SPI model. Manufacturing enterprises must evolve a holistic performance measurement system matching their corporate mission, objectives and strategies. The SPI model provides them with a systems approach for building and integrating the capabilities of SF and PM to attain performance improvement goals, irrespective of their business nature and sizes

Swift Observations of X-ray supernovae

We present a result of X-ray supernovae (SNe) survey using the Swift satellite public archive. An automatic searching program was designed to search X-ray SNe among all of the Swift archival observations between November 2004 and February 2011. Using the C++ program, 24 X-ray detectable supernovae have been found in the archive and 3 of them were newly-discovered in X-rays which are SN 1986L, SN 2003lx, and SN 2007od. In addition, SN 2003lx is a Type Ia supernova which may be the second X-ray detectable Type Ia after SN 2005ke (Immler et al. 2006). Calibrated data of luminous type Ib/c supernovae was consistent to the X-ray emission model done by Chevalier & Fransson (1994). Statistics about the luminosities and hardness ratio have been done to purpose of getting the X-ray emission features of the X-ray supernovae. The results from this work help investigating the X-ray evolution of SNe and developing similar X-ray SNe surveys in various X-rays missions

SINR Analysis of Opportunistic MIMO-SDMA Downlink Systems with Linear Combining

Opportunistic scheduling (OS) schemes have been proposed previously by the authors for multiuser MIMO-SDMA downlink systems with linear combining. In particular, it has been demonstrated that significant performance improvement can be achieved by incorporating low-complexity linear combining techniques into the design of OS schemes for MIMO-SDMA. However, this previous analysis was performed based on the effective signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), assuming an interference-limited scenario, which is typically a valid assumption in SDMA-based systems. It was shown that the limiting distribution of the effective SIR is of the Frechet type. Surprisingly, the corresponding scaling laws were found to follow $\epsilon\log K$ with $0<\epsilon<1$, rather than the conventional $\log\log K$ form. Inspired by this difference between the scaling law forms, in this paper a systematic approach is developed to derive asymptotic throughput and scaling laws based on signal-to-interference-noise ratio (SINR) by utilizing extreme value theory. The convergence of the limiting distribution of the effective SINR to the Gumbel type is established. The resulting scaling law is found to be governed by the conventional $\log\log K$ form. These novel results are validated by simulation results. The comparison of SIR and SINR-based analysis suggests that the SIR-based analysis is more computationally efficient for SDMA-based systems and it captures the asymptotic system performance with higher fidelity.Comment: Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Communications, Beijing, May 19-23, 200