Industry foundation classes based integration of architectural design and structural analysis

The numerous construction projects in China provide the best environment for the development of information technology applied in building design. Various commercial CAD/CAE software applications are purchased by design firms for multi-disciplinary design tasks. However, researches on integration and interoperability are seldom considered. This study pursues a breakthrough point of integration in the architectural and structural domains and expects further development in other aspects. A central building information modeling (BIM) framework based on the industry foundation classes (IFC) is proposed to handle the data exchange between IFC-compatible architectural models and structural models. A central XML(extensible markup language)-based unified finite element model (FEM) is proposed for model conversion among various commercial structural CAE software applications. In addition to bidirectional data interfaces among IFC-based BIM, XML-based FEM and various commercial FEMs, some other components such as visualization, calculation and model editing/check are also equipped into the prototype system.     

Model test for dynamic construction mechanical effect of large-span loess tunnel

It has been a focus of debate for a large time on construction methods for large-span loess tunnel. Reasonable construction method has much effect on stability of tunnel and construction schedule. Deformation and failure of surrounding rock are quite complex. Associating with the large-span loess tunnel of Zhengzhou—Xi’an high-speed passenger rail line in China, large scale model test with geometric proportion 1:20 is applied to study on dynamic mechanical behavior of various construction methods. They include full-face excavation with support and no support, and benching method with support. It is found that pre-deformation and stress accumulation take place ahead of working face. The effects of three construction methods are further studied, particularly in terms of tunnel displacement and stress changes. It is revealed that benching method transfers load to an unexcavated area, limits horizontal deformation, reduces stress concentration effectively, lengthens the distance between location of peak for stress concentration and working face, and consequently increases stability. The model test results not only supply theoretical foundation for determination of reasonable construction method, but also can act as reference for similar tunnel and underground engineering construction.     

Fusion of remote sensing images based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform and region segmentation

The purpose of remote sensing images fusion is to produce a fused image that contains more clear, accurate and comprehensive information than any single image. A novel fusion method is proposed in this paper based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) and region segmentation. Firstly, the multispectral image is transformed to intensity-hue-saturation (IHS) system. Secondly, the panchromatic image and the component intensity of the multispectral image are decomposed by NSCT. Then the NSCT coefficients of high and low frequency subbands are fused by different rules, respectively. For the high frequency subbands, the fusion rules are also unalike in the smooth and edge regions. The two regions are segregated in the panchromatic image, and the segmentation is based on particle swarm optimization. Finally, the fusion image can be obtained by performing inverse NSCT and inverse IHS transform. The experimental results are evaluated by both subjective and objective criteria. It is shown that the proposed method can obtain superior results to others.     

Efficient democratic group signatures with threshold traceability

Democratic group signature (DGS) is a group-oriented primitive with great flexibilities, i.e., no group manager, anonymity, and traceability. In a DGS scheme with (t, n)-threshold traceability, any subset of not less than t members can jointly reveal the identity of the signer while preserving security even in the presence of an active adversary can corrupt up to t − 1 group members. This paper proposes an efficient DGS scheme. We use publicly verifiable secret sharing (PVSS) to distribute the trapdoor via which the real signer is revealed. The computation cost and communication overhead of our DGS signatures are greatly reduced, compared with the existing work. For example, the size of the resulting signature contains only 2n + 1 elements of Z _q , except the PVSS output.     

Color image segmentation by edge linking and region grouping

A novel method toward color image segmentation is proposed based on edge linking and region grouping. Firstly, the edges extracted by the Canny detector are linked to form regions. Each of the end points of edges is connected by a direct line to the nearest pixel on another edge segment within a sub-window. A new distance is defined based on the feature that the edge tends to preserve its original direction. By sampling the lines to the image, the image is over-segmented to labeled regions. Secondly, the labeled regions are grouped both locally and globally. A decision tree is constructed to decide the importance of properties that affect the merging procedure. Finally, the result is refined by user’s selection of regions that compose the desired object. Experiments show that the method can effectively segment the object and is much faster than the state-of-the-art color image segmentation methods.     

An efficient threshold key-insulated signature scheme

To tackle the key-exposure problem in signature settings, this paper introduces a new cryptographic primitive named threshold key-insulated signature (TKIS) and proposes a concrete TKIS scheme. For a TKIS system, at least k out of n helpers are needed to update a user’s temporary private key. On the one hand, even if up to k−1 helpers are compromised in addition to the exposure of any of temporary private keys, security of the non-exposed periods is still assured. On the other hand, even if all the n helpers are compromised, we can still ensure the security of all periods as long as none of temporary private keys is exposed. Compared with traditional key-insulated signature (KIS) schemes, the proposed TKIS scheme not only greatly enhances the security of the system, but also provides flexibility and efficiency.     

Comparison of osteogenesis between two kinds of stem cells from goat combined calcium phosphate cement in tissue engineering

To explore the possible mechanism of osteogenesis for deciduous teeth stem cells (DTSCs) in vivo/ vitro, stem cells from goat deciduous teeth (SGDs) were firstly isolated, induced and transplanted into immunocompromised mice. The SGDs’s mineralization pattern and osteogenesis were compared with bone marrow messenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) from goats. SGDs have similar osteogenic differentiation pattern in vitro and bone-like tissue formation mechanism in vivo to BMMSCs; moreover SGDs have stronger alkaline phosphatase (ALP) gene expression and osteopontin (OPN) gene expression levels than BMMSCs; also SGDs can form more bone-like tissues than BMMSCs when cell-scaffold compounds are transplanted into immunocompromised mice. This pre-clinical study in a large-animal model confirms that DTSCs may be an appropriate source of stem cells in repairing bone defects with tissue engineering.     

Tool sequence optimization based on three logical modes of robot control via CPLEX optimization

Cluster tools have advantages of shorter cycle times, faster process development, and better yield for less contamination. The sequence of dual-arm cluster tools is a complex logistics process during the semiconductor production. Efficient use of cluster tools is naturally very significant to competitive fab operations. Generating an optimized sequence in a computationally efficient manner and assessing the quality of the requirements to improve the fab production are the key factors for semiconductor manufacturing productivity. The Petri net modeling is introduced to minimize the makespan of the process for the three different logical modes and select a better mode after comparing the makespan among the three logical modes. The tool sequence optimization problem is formulated as optimization firing transition sequences based on the Petri net and then the formulation is converted to be linearly solved by the branch-and-cut method in the standard commercial solver CPLEX. Special methods for the linear conversion are highlighted. Due to the limited calculation time requirement for the real production and the large scale of the problem, special methods for the efficiency tuning are applied according to the characteristics of the problem. Numerical testing is supported by one of the most advanced semiconductor enterprises and the computational results show significant improvement compared with the traditional manual sequence results.     

Three-dimensional numerical simulation of splat formation on substrates in plasma spraying

Plasma sprayed coatings are built up by the accumulation of splats formed by the impacting, spreading and solidifying of molten droplets on the substrate. A three-dimensional computational model including heat transfer and solidification is established to simulate the formation process of a single splat using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, FLUENT. The fluid flow and energy equations are discretized and solved according to typical finite volume method on an unstructured grid. A volume of fluid (VOF) tracking algorithm is used to track the droplet flow with free surface. In order to understand the splat formation mechanism, the process of splat formation caused by impacting and spreading of a molten nickel droplet on a polished mild steel surface is simulated. On this basis, the simulations of impact of a molten droplet on substrate with different conditions including the surface morphology, thermal conductivity, initial temperature of the substrate and the thermal contact resistance are presented. The results clearly show the effect of those parameters on the shape of the final splat and splash behaviors.     

Implementation of dynamic matrix control on field programmable gate array

High performance computer is often required by model predictive control (MPC) systems due to the heavy online computation burden. To extend MPC to more application cases with low-cost computation facilities, the implementation of MPC controller on field programmable gate array (FPGA) system is studied. For the dynamic matrix control (DMC) algorithm, the main design idea and the implemental strategy of DMC controller are introduced based on a FPGA’s embedded system. The performance tests show that both the computation efficiency and the accuracy of the proposed controller can be satisfied due to the parallel computing capability of FPGA.