Self Similar Optical Fiber

This research proposes Self Similar optical fiber (SSF) as a new type of optical fiber. It has a special core that consists of self similar structure. Such a structure is obtained by following the formula for generating iterated function systems (IFS) in Fractal Theory. The resulted SSF can be viewed as a true fractal object in optical fibers. In addition, the method of fabricating SSF makes it possible to generate desired structures exponentially in numbers, whereas it also allows lower scale units in the structure to be reduced in size exponentially. The invention of SSF is expected to greatly ease the production of optical fiber when a large number of small hollow structures are needed in the core of the optical fiber. This dissertation will analyze the core structure of SSF based on fractal theory. Possible properties from the structural characteristics and the corresponding applications are explained. Four SSF samples were obtained through actual fabrication in a laboratory environment. Different from traditional conductive heating fabrication system, I used an in-house designed furnace that incorporated a radiation heating method, and was equipped with automated temperature control system. The obtained samples were examined through spectrum tests. Results from the tests showed that SSF does have the optical property of delivering light in a certain wavelength range. However, SSF as a new type of optical fiber requires a systematic research to find out the theory that explains its structure and the associated optical properties. The fabrication and quality of SSF also needs to be improved for product deployment. As a start of this extensive research, this dissertation work opens the door to a very promising new area in optical fiber research

Personalized Dialogue Generation with Diversified Traits

Endowing a dialogue system with particular personality traits is essential to deliver more human-like conversations. However, due to the challenge of embodying personality via language expression and the lack of large-scale persona-labeled dialogue data, this research problem is still far from well-studied. In this paper, we investigate the problem of incorporating explicit personality traits in dialogue generation to deliver personalized dialogues. To this end, firstly, we construct PersonalDialog, a large-scale multi-turn dialogue dataset containing various traits from a large number of speakers. The dataset consists of 20.83M sessions and 56.25M utterances from 8.47M speakers. Each utterance is associated with a speaker who is marked with traits like Age, Gender, Location, Interest Tags, etc. Several anonymization schemes are designed to protect the privacy of each speaker. This large-scale dataset will facilitate not only the study of personalized dialogue generation, but also other researches on sociolinguistics or social science. Secondly, to study how personality traits can be captured and addressed in dialogue generation, we propose persona-aware dialogue generation models within the sequence to sequence learning framework. Explicit personality traits (structured by key-value pairs) are embedded using a trait fusion module. During the decoding process, two techniques, namely persona-aware attention and persona-aware bias, are devised to capture and address trait-related information. Experiments demonstrate that our model is able to address proper traits in different contexts. Case studies also show interesting results for this challenging research problem.Comment: Please contact [zhengyinhe1 at 163 dot com] for the PersonalDialog datase

Computer assisted determination of acetabular cup orientation using 2D-3D image registration

Background: 2D-3D image-based registration methods have been developed to measure acetabular cup orientation after total hip arthroplasty (THA). These methods require registration of both the prosthesis and the CT images to 2D radiographs and compute implant position with respect to a reference. The application of these methods is limited in clinical practice due to two limitations: (1) the requirement of a computer-aided design (CAD) model of the prosthesis, which may be unavailable due to the proprietary concerns of the manufacturer, and (2) the requirement of either multiple radiographs or radiograph-specific calibration, usually unavailable for retrospective studies. In this paper, we propose a new method to address these limitations. Methods: A new formulation for determination of post-operative cup orientation, which couples a radiographic measurement with 2D-3D image matching, was developed. In our formulation, the radiographic measurement can be obtained with known methods so that the challenge lies in the 2D-3D image matching. To solve this problem, a hybrid 2D-3D registration scheme combining a landmark-to-ray 2D-3D alignment with a robust intensity-based 2D-3D registration was used. The hybrid 2D-3D registration scheme allows computing both the post-operative cup orientation with respect to an anatomical reference and the pelvic tilt and rotation with respect to the X-ray imaging table/plate. The method was validated using 2D adult cadaver hips. Results: Using the hybrid 2D-3D registration scheme, our method showed a mean accuracy of 1.0 ± 0.7° (range from 0.1°to2.0°) for inclination and 1.7 ± 1.2° (range from 0.0° to 3.9°) for anteversion, taking the measurements from post-operative CT images as ground truths. Conclusions: Our new solution formulation and the hybrid 2D-3D registration scheme facilitate estimation of post-operative cup orientation and measurement of pelvic tilt and rotatio

What drives technology innovation among the emerging Chinese enterprises?

In the light of rapid development of technology/knowledge intensive firms arising from the emerging economy of China in recent time, this paper is aimed at developing an analytical framework, based on the institutional theory and resource-based view, to evaluate the drivers and antecedents of technology innovation among Chinese emerging multinational enterprises (MNEs). Use of case study approach, the study examined two large Chinese enterprises in Wuhan and found that a linear sequential pattern of technology innovation did not apply. In contrast, two enterprises investigated tended to combine several types of innovation (strategic cost, organisational and operational innovation) to manage their internal capabilities and other organisational activities and routines to change, learn, adapt and create technology innovation. Our finding in this study also suggests that the key factor for Chinese firms to be innovative is more internally driven by several human resource management strategies that helped build technological capabilities effectively. Main implications of this study are that organisational human resource managers, technology and system designers should work together to design and develop enterprise management systems conducive to enhance both technology and human creativity for emerging Chinese multinational enterprises.<br /