Abstract

A river water quality management model under average climatic conditions may not be able to account for the extreme risk of low water quality which is more prominent under an increase in river water temperature and altered river flows. A modeling framework is developed to assess the risk of river low water quality extremes by integrating a statistical downscaling model based on Canonical Correlation Analysis, risk quantification model based on Frank Archimedean Copula function and multiple logistic regression model integrated with a river water quality simulation model, QUAL2 K. The results reveal that the combination of predicted decrease in low flows of approximately 57% and increase in maximum river water temperatures of approximately 1.2
C has shown an increase of about 46% in risk of low water quality conditions for the future scenarios along Tunga-Bhadra River, India. The extreme risk of low water quality is observed to increase by 50.6% for the period 2020– 2040 when compared with the current extreme conditions of 4.5% and average risk conditions of about 3% for the period 1988–2005. The study captured the occurrence of extremes of low water quality with evidence of a strong link between climate and water quality impairment events.

Abstract

There have been numerous attempts in explaining the general learning behaviours by various cognitive models. Multiple hypotheses have been put further to qualitatively argue the best-fit model for motor skill acquisition task and its variations. In this context, for a discrete sequence production (DSP) task, one of the most insightful models is Verweys Dual Processor Model (DPM). It largely explains the learning and behavioural phenomenon of skilled discrete key-press sequences without providing any concrete computational basis of reinforcement. Therefore, we propose a quantitative explanation for Verweys DPM hypothesis by experimentally establishing a general computational framework for motor skill learning. We attempt combining the qualitative and quantitative theories based on a best-fit model of the experimental simulations of variations of dual processor models. The fundamental premise of sequential decision making for skill learning is based on interacting model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) reinforcement learning (RL) processes. Our unifying framework shows the proposed idea agrees well to Verweys DPM and Fitts three phases of skill learning. The accuracy of our model can further be validated by its statistical fit with the human-generated data on simple environment tasks like the grid-world. There have been numerous attempts in explaining the general learning behaviours by various cognitive models. Multiple hypotheses have been put further to qualitatively argue the best-fit model for motor skill acquisition task and its variations. In this context, for a discrete sequence production (DSP) task, one of the most insightful models is Verweys Dual Processor Model (DPM). It largely explains the learning and behavioural phenomenon of skilled discrete key-press sequences without providing any concrete computational basis of reinforcement. Therefore, we propose a quantitative explanation for Verweys DPM hypothesis by experimentally establishing a general computational framework for motor skill learning. We attempt combining the qualitative and quantitative theories based on a best-fit model of the experimental simulations of variations of dual processor models. The fundamental premise of sequential decision making for skill learning is based on interacting model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) reinforcement learning (RL) processes. Our unifying framework shows the proposed idea agrees well to Verweys DPM and Fitts three phases of skill learning. The accuracy of our model can further be validated by its statistical fit with the human-generated data on simple environment tasks like the grid-world.

Abstract

This paper explores the effectiveness of deep features for doc- ument image segmentation. The document image segmentation problem is modelled as a pixel labeling task where each pixel in the document im- age is classified into one of the predefined labels such as text, comments, decorations and background. Our method first extracts deep features from superpixels of the document image. Then we learn an svm classifier using these features, and segment the document image. Fisher vector encoded convolutional layer features (fv-cnn) and fully connected layer features (fc-cnn) are used in our study. Experiments validate that our method is effective and yields better results for segmenting document images in comparison to the popular approaches on benchmark hand- written datasets.

Abstract

The popularity and applicability of mobile crowdsensing applications are continuously increasing due to the widespread of mobile devices and their sensing and processing capabilities. However, we need to offer appropriate incentives to the mobile users who contribute their resources and preserve their privacy. Blockchain technologies enable semi-anonymous multi-party interactions and can be utilized in crowdsensing applications to maintain the privacy of the mobile users while ensuring first-rate crowdsensed data. In this work, we propose to use blockchain technologies and smart contracts to orchestrate the interactions between mobile crowdsensing providers and mobile users for the case of spatial crowdsensing, where mobile users need to be at specific locations to perform the tasks. Smart contracts, by operating as processes that are executed on the blockchain, are used to preserve users’ privacy and make payments. Furthermore, for the assignment of the crowdsensing tasks to the mobile users, we design a truthful, cost-optimal auction that minimizes the payments from the crowdsensing providers to the mobile users. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed privacy preserving auction outperforms state-of-the-art proposals regarding cost by ten times for high numbers of mobile users and tasks.

Abstract

Finding whether a graph is k-connected, and the identification of its k-connected components is a fundamental problem in graph theory. For this reason, there have been several algorithms for this problem in both the sequential and parallel settings. Several recent sequential and parallel algorithms fork-connectivity rely on one or more breadth-first traversals of the input graph.While BFS can be made very efficient in a sequential setting,the same cannot be said in the case of parallel environments. A major factor in this difficulty is due to the inherent requirement to use a shared queue, balance work among multiple threads in every round, synchronization, and the like. Optimizing the execution of BFS on many current parallel architectures is therefore quite challenging. For this reason, it can be noticed that the time spent by the current parallel graph connectivity algorithms on BFS operations is usually a significant portion of their overall runtime.In this paper, we study how one can, in the context of algorithms for graph connectivity, mitigate the practical in efficiency of relying on BFS operations in parallel. Our technique suggests that such algorithms may not require a BFS of the input graph but actually can work with a sparse spanning subgraph of the input graph. The incorrectness introduced by not using a BFS spanning tree can then be offset by further post-processing stepson suitably defined small auxiliary graphs. Our experiments on finding the 2, and 3-connectivity of graphs on Nvidia K40c GPUs improve the state-of-the-art on the corresponding problems by a factor 2.2x, and 2.1x respectively

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to obtain the robust transistor sizing of the digital logic circuits by minimizing the leakage power keeping the other performance parameters such as propagation delays and area in the bound. To perform such action, Simulated Annealing based Multi-Objective Optimization algorithm has been implemented and further improved the reduction in leakage power using Gradient Descent (MO-SAGRAD).The algorithms are implemented in python and the performance parameters are computed using HSPICE tool at 45nm, 22nmtechnology nodes with Metal Gate High K PTM model cards. Toensure the unruffled functioning of the cells in the automotive applications, the temperature range has been taken between−55oCto125oCrespectively and the supply voltage range istaken as 0.95V to 1.05V for 45nm and 0.76V to 0.84V for22nm technology node. The Overall reduction in leakage power achieved in the logic cells is up to 58% without any penalty in the critical path delay.

Abstract

Nations have set-up Critical Information Infrastruc-ture (CII) protection centers to provide safety of organizations which are deemed to be critical for the nation. In this context,this paper proposes a framework to identify Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs). This framework has been adopted to identify the banks which are critical for Indian economy. Previously,Reserve Bank of India, the central bank of the country, has announced three banks as systemically important banks. The proposed approach, in this paper, considers a publicly available data set publishing the number (volume) and the amount (value)of financial transactions in the Indian domestic market involving all the banks. The proposed approach finds the individual ranks of each participating bank based on these two parameters.Finally, rank aggregation method combines these two rank lists(based on the value and the volume) to generate a final rank of the banks. Several rank aggregation methods have been compared in this context.

Abstract

Internationally, the cooling degree-days (CDD) and heating degree-days (HDD) have been commonly used as indicators of cooling and heating load occurring due to outdoor temperature. These indicators have also applied for classification of climate zones as referred in ASHRAE Standard 169-2013. As of now various base temperatures has been used in the different part of the world. Additionally, the analysis for base temperature had been done in 1980 by ASHRAE. This study aims to determine the base temperature for cities in India. The simulation approach has been used to identify base temperature using Energy Signature and Performance line method for 60 cities of India. The US-DOE developed 16 reference buildings which have been used for eight climate zones of India. These eight climate zones have been classified using the methodology of ASHRAE Standard 169–2013 on weather data of Indian cities. It was observed that the cooling base temperature is varying from 6.8 °C to 28.6 °C for the large hotel and 8.7–28.1 °C for office buildings while the heating base temperature is ranging from 13.8 °C to 21.4 °C for the large hotel and 10.4–18.7 °C respectively for different cities. The estimated base temperature for cooling and heating is 18 °C for India.

Abstract

Conditional von Neumann entropy is an intriguing concept in quantum information theory. In the present work, we examine the effect of global unitary operations on the conditional entropy of the system. We start with the set containing states with non-negative conditional entropy and find that some states preserve the non-negativity under unitary operations on the composite system. We call this class of states as Absolute Conditional von Neumann entropy Non Negative class (ACVENN). We are able to characterize such states for 2 ⊗ 2 dimensional systems. On a different perspective the characterization accentuates the detection of states whose conditional entropy becomes negative after the global unitary action. Interestingly, we show that this ACVENN class of states forms a set which is convex and compact. This feature enables the existence of hermitian witness operators. With these we can distinguish the unknown states which will have negative conditional entropy after the global unitary operation. We also show that this has immediate application in super dense coding and state merging as negativity of conditional entropy plays a key role in both these information processing tasks. Some illustrations followed by analysis are also provided to probe the connection of such states with absolutely separable (AS) states and absolutely local (AL) states.

Abstract

This contribution presents an efficient techniquefor the speech enhancement of a signal using Kepstrum basedapproach. In any speech enhancement system, the noise is beingsuppressed in spectral domain assuming the degraded componentare stationary or slowly varying for few frames of the signal.As conventional methods for noise elimination fails due to non-stationary properties of the speech signal, in this context, adistortion filter and speech remover filter are being introduced.The main focus of this paper is involved in developing a newspeech enhancement system based on speech characteristics andit’s modelling provide high quality and intelligibility on mobilesor embedded platforms that have two or more microphones.The proposed method was evaluated for machinery, babble, andcar noise types, using both objective and subjective measuresfor both quality and intelligibility of the enhanced speech.The results show significant improvements in comparison with single microphone speech enhancement, kepstrum and Distortion Correlation Filter methods