International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems - Volume 9, issue 4

Authors: Howlett, Robert J. | Negoita, Mircea Gh.

Article Type: Editorial

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9401

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 261-261, 2005

Authors: Kusiak, Andrew | Burns, Alex | Milster, Ferman

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: A data mining approach was applied to analyze relationships among 54 parameters of a circulating fluidized-bed boiler. Knowledge was extracted from the data by machine learning algorithms. The extracted knowledge was used to determine ranges of process parameters (control signatures) that led to the increased efficiency of the combustion process. The research has shown that the efficiency can be predicted to the same degree of accuracy with and without the data describing the fuel composition or boiler demand levels. This discovery might have profound impact on the research directions in optimization of the energy production. Adjusting parameters of the control …system has led to improved efficiency of the combustion process. The proposed data mining approach is applicable to different types of burners and fuel types. It is well suited to perform tradeoff analysis between various performable measures, e.g., efficiency and emissions. Show more

Keywords: Power control, efficiency optimization, knowledge engineering, circulating fluidized boiler, machine learning

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9402

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 263-274, 2005

Authors: Kostek, Bozena | Wojcik, Jaroslaw

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This article describes experimental work carried out in attempt to improve the effectiveness of musical rhythm retrieval systems. The authors define basic notions in the area of hierarchical rhythm retrieval and describe a procedure for inducing rhythmic hypotheses in a given melody. Utilizing an approach commonly used in the data mining domain, an association rule model has been applied to estimate the rhythmic salience of sounds based on the physical attributes of duration, frequency and amplitude. On the basis of the knowledge obtained by the machine learning system, the authors propose five functions to rank sounds according to their tendency …to be located in accented positions in a melody. Adapted precision and recall measures were used to validate the proposed functions and conduct experimental verification. Conclusions derived from the results of the experiments have also been presented. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9403

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 275-284, 2005

Authors: Rose, John A.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The importance of DNA microarrays and Tag-Antitag (TAT) systems in biotechnology and DNA computing has prompted the development of various approaches for high-fidelity design, including analytical methods based on an ensemble average error probability per conformation, or computational incoherence (ε ). Although system biasing for dilute input has been reported to allow the attainment of high fidelity, recently a sharp pseudo-phase transition from the low-error ε -behavior predicted for dilute inputs, to a high-error ε -behavior was predicted to accompany an asymmetric (i.e., single-tag) excess input. This error-response, likely to be the critical test of TAT system robustness for …DNA-based computing applications that employ multiple merge operations and/or non-linear amplification, is here examined more closely, via derivation of an approximate closed-form expression, ε e ( i ) for the single-tag, excess input. The temperature-dependence of this expression is characterized, and applied to derive an expression for a novel TAT system error-parameter, T i † which defines the temperature of minimal ε e ( i ) . T i † is taken to provide a more precise definition of the stringent reaction temperature previously discussed conceptually in the literature. A similar analysis is also undertaken for a uniform excess multi-tag input, which indicates the absence of an accompanying pseudo-phase transition in ε . The validity of ε e ( i ) is discussed via simulation, with comparison to the predictions of the general model. Applicability of { T i † } to both TAT system design and selection of a reaction temperature optimally robust to an asymmetric excess input is discussed. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9404

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 285-292, 2005

Authors: Ursu, Marian F. | Virginas, Botond | Owusu, Gilbert | Voudouris, Chris

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper describes a solution to workforce allocation, modelled as a distributed system. The novelty of the solution resides in the fact that it is a natural and versatile formulation that combines an agent-based model with rule-based expressions of allocation strategies and multi-criteria optimisation expressions of allocation objectives. The problem space is structured on disjoint domains. Each domain has two agents: one in charge of its engineers and one in charge of its jobs. In the implemented system, agents have complete decision power over the allocation of their resources/requirements. However, the general solution is readily extendable towards the inclusion of …central agents with specialist roles. Workforce allocation is modelled here as an iterative communication process, based on a 4-step communication protocol, between workforce/engineers' agents, on one hand, and jobs agents, on the other. Choices (decisions) regarding the allocation are made locally, within each agent. A global allocation emerges from this interaction/communication. The paper describes the context of this solution (including the problem description), the general model and solution, and specific implementations. The latter illustrate the emergence of good global solutions from the distributed algorithm. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9405

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 293-301, 2005

Authors: Murthy, V.K.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In the pervasive computing environment consisting of peers (a generic name for clients, servers or agents), context-awareness plays an important role to offer personalized services for various applications, e.g., medical services, robotics, travel planning, security monitoring, and multi-player gaming. Accordingly, context management turns out to be an important issue in manipulating, acquiring information and reacting to the situation. In this paper, we describe a contract-based workflow paradigm to support long and short duration transactions in a context-aware pervasive computing environment. This paradigm provides for software contract that captures mutual obligations using program constructs such as “require [else]” for precondition and …“ensure [then]” for post condition, assertions, invariants needed in the pervasive computing environment. Such program constructs are essential to deal with the uncertain nature of connectivity of pervasive devices and networks, and the trial-error (subjunctive) nature of the processes and the programs used in E-commerce, robotics and multi-player gaming. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9406

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 303-314, 2005

Authors: Ong, M. | Ren, X. | Allan, G. | Kadirkamanathan, V. | Thompson, H.A. | Fleming, P.J.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Aero-engines are extremely reliable machines and operational failures are rare. However, currently great effort is being put into reducing the number of in-flight engine shutdowns, aborted take-offs and flight delays through the use of advanced engine health monitoring technology. This represents a benefit to society through reduced delays, reduced anxiety and reduced cost of ownership of aircraft. This is reflected in a change of emphasis within aero-engine companies where, instead of selling engines to customers, there is a fundamental shift to adoption of power-by-the-hour contracts. In these contracts, airlines make fixed regular payments based on the hours flown and the …engine manufacturer retains responsibility for maintaining the engine. To support this new approach, improvements in in-flight monitoring of engines are being introduced with the collection of much more detailed data on the operation of the engine. At the same time advances have been made in Internet technologies providing a worldwide network of computers that can be used to access and process that data. The explosion of available knowledge within those large datasets also presents its own problems and here it is necessary to work on advanced decision support systems to identify the useful information in the data and provide knowledge-based advice between individual aircraft, airline repair and overhaul bases, world-wide data warehouses and the engine manufacturer. This paper presents a practical framework in which to build such a system that is inherent in the emerging Grid computing paradigm that provides the necessary computing resources. A demonstrator system already developed and implemented in the UK E-Science Grid project, DAME, is introduced. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9407

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 315-326, 2005

Authors: Ranawana, Romesh | Palade, Vasile | Bandara, G.E.M.D.C.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The main challenge in handwritten character recognition involves the development of a method that can generate descriptions of the handwritten objects in a short period of time. Due to its low computational requirement, fuzzy logic is probably the most efficient method available for on-line character recognition. The most tedious task associated with using fuzzy logic for online character recognition involves the building of the rule-base that would describe the characters to be recognized. This problem is further complicated by the fact that different people write the same character in completely different ways. This paper describes a method that can be …used to automatically generate a database containing the fuzzy membership values that describe the characters written by different individuals. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9408

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 327-339, 2005

Authors: Kim, Dongwon | Kim, Nak-Hyun | Seo, Sam-Jun | Park, Gwi-Tae

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Practical biped walking robot is presented in this paper. The biped walking robot is a popular research area in robotics because of the high adaptability of a walking robot in an unstructured environment. However, lots of circumstances which have to be taken into account make the biped robot control a challenging task. For the stability of the biped walking robot, the zero moment point (ZMP) trajectory in the robot foot support area is a significant criterion. If the ZMP during walking can be measured, it is possible to realize stable walking and to stably control the biped robot by the …use of the measured ZMP. So actual ZMP data are measured in real time situations from practical biped walking robot and the obtained ZMP data are modeled by fuzzy system to explain empirical laws of the robot. By the simulation results, the fuzzy system can be effectively used to model practical biped walking robot. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9409

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 341-349, 2005

Authors: Gorodetsky, Vladimir | Karsaev, Oleg | Samoilov, Vladimir

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Situation is an abstraction that characterizes a complex system consisting of semi-autonomous objects striving to achieve certain particular goals (sequences of goals) and operating in a coordinated mode controlled by a meta-goal of the system on the whole. Situation and objects are discriminated by their “states” taking values from finite sets of classes' labels. Situation assessment, which is the topmost task in many practically important applications, is a classification task aimed at assessing the situation current state and assigning a class label to the situation. The paper covers certain key issues of the situation assessment problem. It analyses formal frameworks …proposed for specification of the situation models, and highlights a number of challenging problems associated with situation assessment, the most crucial of which is caused by the peculiarities of input data used for situation assessment, which are a superposition of asynchronous discrete streams of heterogeneous data received from multiple sources and having finite “life time”. The paper is focused on the approaches and algorithms intended for on-line updating of the situation assessment, on the situation assessment systems generic architecture and on the demonstration of the proposed techniques and architecture using a computer assurance system solving anomaly detection task. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2005-9410

Citation: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 351-365, 2005