System Choice for Data Processing, Analysis and Applications in Defence

The design of a suitable system for image data processing, analysis and applications in Defence is governed by users' requirements during peace time and prehostility/hostility period. The users need timely information and image products for decision-making. The product specifications in terms of their scale, geometrical accuracy, information content, and turnaround time among other things are crucial for the design of systems. The systems are not complete without efficient software for information extraction and analysis and for aiding decision-making process. Usually, the base data is from high resolution remote sensing systems, both airborne and spaceborne, and also from conventional sources, like topomap and other intelligence gathering mechanisms. The database thus evolved is basic and vital for a decision support system. The sensors providing input to the database creation could be airborne high resolution camera systems, high resolution synthetic aperture radar systems and thermal imaging systems operating from a stand-off range of 50 to 100 km, or from high resolution spaceborne panchromatic optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery. High resolution stereo data from airborne and spaceborne sensors are also increasingly needed for image interpretation and analysis. The digital elevation data is another important information, derived from either existing topographic maps or high resolution space stereo imagery. The system also should cater to a large information archival/retrieval system and data dissimination system for the users spread far and wide. This may call for to and fro traffic between central operational system and units spread over different locations, preferably, through high speed satellite communication channels. Finally, the total system should have reliability, data security, adequate redundancy, user-friendliness and be efficient enough to provide timely information transfer for the decision makers. This paper discusses the various application requirements, data sources, software and packages for interpretation, approach to analysis, database needs and hardware systems

Automated Design of Steel Trusses

Designing an automated procedure for the optimal design of any structural system poses special challenges. Converting this methodology into a practical tool is even more challenging. In this research, a point-and-click software system is developed for the optimal design of roof truss systems. The starting point is a roof template containing minimal user input - outline of the truss, truss spacing, load information, and cost figures. A ground structure is constructed as the starting point of the design iterations. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used as the optimization tool to drive the design changes. Using the database of available sections, the member cross-sections are selected for the top and bottom chords, and the webs. In addition, the number and layout of the web members is also determined. The final design is obtained so that the truss has the lowest cost and also satisfies AISI-LRFD design specifications. Numerical experience using the developed methodology and the software system on an Intel-based PC running Microsoft Windows OS shows that optimal designs can be obtained in a few minutes

Maximum Resilience of Artificial Neural Networks

The deployment of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in safety-critical applications poses a number of new verification and certification challenges. In particular, for ANN-enabled self-driving vehicles it is important to establish properties about the resilience of ANNs to noisy or even maliciously manipulated sensory input. We are addressing these challenges by defining resilience properties of ANN-based classifiers as the maximal amount of input or sensor perturbation which is still tolerated. This problem of computing maximal perturbation bounds for ANNs is then reduced to solving mixed integer optimization problems (MIP). A number of MIP encoding heuristics are developed for drastically reducing MIP-solver runtimes, and using parallelization of MIP-solvers results in an almost linear speed-up in the number (up to a certain limit) of computing cores in our experiments. We demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of our approach by means of computing maximal resilience bounds for a number of ANN benchmark sets ranging from typical image recognition scenarios to the autonomous maneuvering of robots.Comment: Timestamp research work conducted in the project. version 2: fix some typos, rephrase the definition, and add some more existing wor

A Cost Based Approach to Design of Residential Steel Roof Systems

A comprehensive system for the design of residential steel roof truss systems is presented. The research involved three distinct stages. In the first stage, components of the truss systems were tested in order to determine their member properties subjected to axial force and bending moments. Finite element simulations of these tests were carried out to further verify the, calculations obtained using the AISI-LRFD code guidelines. The AlSI-LRFD code based design curves were used for the actual design, while the laboratory experiments and the finite element results provided additional checks and verification of the AlSI values. The second stage of the research involved the development of an integrated design system that would automatically design a roof truss given minimal input and using the design curves as the performance constraints. A design optimization scheme based on the genetic algorithm was adopted to handle sizing, shape and topology variables in the design problem. A software system was developed to design the lowest cost truss given the input parameters. The third stage of the research involved full-scale testing of typical, residential steel roofs designed using the developed software system. Roof trusses were loaded to failure. The full scale testing procedure established the factor of safety while validating the analysis and design procedures. Evaluation of the test results indicates that the present design system provides enough reserve strength for the structure to perform as predicted

Nonreciprocal Anderson Localization in Magneto-Optical Random Structures

We study, both analytically and numerically, disorder-induced localization of light in random layered structures with magnetooptical materials. The Anderson localization in such structures demonstrates nonreciprocal features in the averaged localization length and individual transmission resonances. We employ short-wavelength approximation where the localization effects are strong, and consider both the Faraday and Voigt magnetooptical geometries. In the Faraday geometry, the transmission is strongly nonreciprocal for the circularly polarized waves, whereas in the Voigt geometry, the nonreciprocity is much weaker, and it may appear only for the individual transmission resonances of the TM-polarized waves.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Staggered fermion matrix elements using smeared operators

We investigate the use of two kinds of staggered fermion operators, smeared and unsmeared. The smeared operators extend over a $4^4$ hypercube, and tend to have smaller perturbative corrections than the corresponding unsmeared operators. We use these operators to calculate kaon weak matrix elements on quenched ensembles at $\beta=6.0$, 6.2 and 6.4. Extrapolating to the continuum limit, we find $B_K(NDR, 2 GeV)= 0.62\pm 0.02(stat)\pm 0.02(syst)$. The systematic error is dominated by the uncertainty in the matching between lattice and continuum operators due to the truncation of perturbation theory at one-loop. We do not include any estimate of the errors due to quenching or to the use of degenerate $s$ and $d$ quarks. For the $\Delta I = {3/2}$ electromagnetic penguin operators we find $B_7^{(3/2)} = 0.62\pm 0.03\pm 0.06$ and $B_8^{(3/2)} = 0.77\pm 0.04\pm 0.04$. We also use the ratio of unsmeared to smeared operators to make a partially non-perturbative estimate of the renormalization of the quark mass for staggered fermions. We find that tadpole improved perturbation theory works well if the coupling is chosen to be \alpha_\MSbar(q^*=1/a).Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, uses eps

Charge Kondo effect toward a non-Fermi-liquid fixed point in the orbitally degenerate exchange model

We show that a Kondo-type model with an orbital degeneracy has a new non-Fermi-liquid fixed point. Near the fixed point the spin degrees of freedom are completely quenched, and the residual charge degrees of freedom lead to the multi-channel Kondo effect. Anomalous behavior appears in electric and thermal properties, but the magnetic susceptibility should show the local Fermi-liquid behavior. The non-Fermi-liquid fixed point becomes unstable against perturbations breaking the particle-hole symmetry. We derive these results using the third-order scaling for a spherically symmetric model with a fictitious spin. In contrast to the Coqblin-Schrieffer model, the present model respects different time-reversal properties of multipole operators.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 68 No.

Gene Expression Profiling of Bronchoalveolar Lavage Cells Preceding a Clinical Diagnosis of Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction.

BackgroundChronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD) is the main limitation to long-term survival after lung transplantation. Although CLAD is usually not responsive to treatment, earlier identification may improve treatment prospects.MethodsIn a nested case control study, 1-year post transplant surveillance bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples were obtained from incipient CLAD (n = 9) and CLAD free (n = 8) lung transplant recipients. Incipient CLAD cases were diagnosed with CLAD within 2 years, while controls were free from CLAD for at least 4 years following bronchoscopy. Transcription profiles in the BAL cell pellets were assayed with the HG-U133 Plus 2.0 microarray (Affymetrix). Differential gene expression analysis, based on an absolute fold change (incipient CLAD vs no CLAD) >2.0 and an unadjusted p-value ≤0.05, generated a candidate list containing 55 differentially expressed probe sets (51 up-regulated, 4 down-regulated).ResultsThe cell pellets in incipient CLAD cases were skewed toward immune response pathways, dominated by genes related to recruitment, retention, activation and proliferation of cytotoxic lymphocytes (CD8+ T-cells and natural killer cells). Both hierarchical clustering and a supervised machine learning tool were able to correctly categorize most samples (82.3% and 94.1% respectively) into incipient CLAD and CLAD-free categories.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that a pathobiology, similar to AR, precedes a clinical diagnosis of CLAD. A larger prospective investigation of the BAL cell pellet transcriptome as a biomarker for CLAD risk stratification is warranted