Abstract

In order to help architects and designers make early design decisions, an online tool (WinOpt) has been developed. WinOpt optimizes various components associated with the design of windows such as Azimuth Angle (angle with respect to North), Aspect Ratio, WWR (Window Wall Ratio), SHGC (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient) of glass used for windows, and various local shading strategies such as overhang and side fins. WinOpt performs annual energy simulations for a given location using EnergyPlus. It uses an optimization tool in the back end (GenOpt) to reduce the few million simulations to a few hundred, thus helping in making perfect rapid design decisions. WinOpt optimizes the design to minimize the operational energy for conditioned buildings and maximize thermal comfort for unconditioned buildings. It also has a parametric option where parametric simulations are performed for selected values for various input parameters. This can help the user understand the spectrum of design solutions. Since EnergyPlus can evaluate thermal comfort conditions besides energy consumption in a building, WinOpt can help in design decisions for low energy/ net zero energy buildings.

Abstract

We present various robust precoder designs for two-way relaying in a cognitive radio network, where a pair of cognitive (or secondary) transceiver nodes communicate with each other assisted by a set of cognitive two-way relays. The secondary nodes share the spectrum with a licensed primary user (PU) node while keeping the interference to the PU below a specified threshold. The PU node and the cognitive transceivers employ single transmit/receive antennas whereas the secondary relay nodes employ multiple transmit/receive antennas. The proposed precoder designs ensure robust performance in the presence of errors in the channel state information (CSI). Such robust designs are of significant interest since in practice it is very difficult to obtain perfect CSI. We consider CSI errors with two different types of characterization and corresponding robust designs. First, we consider robust relay precoder designs that are applicable when CSI errors have known first and second moments. Next, we consider robust designs that are applicable when the CSI error can be characterized in terms of spherical uncertainty region. We show that the proposed designs can be reformulated as convex optimization problems that can be solved efficiently. Through numerical simulations and comparisons we illustrate the performance of the proposed designs.

Abstract

Most of the existing vowel onset point (VOP) detection methods are developed for clean speech. In this chapter, we propose methods for detection of VOPs in the presence of speech coding and background noise conditions. VOP detection method for coded speech is based on the spectral energy between 500 and 2,500 Hz frequency band of the speech segments present in glottal closure region. In case of noisy speech, the proposed VOP detection method exploits the spectral energy at the formant locations of the speech segments present in glottal closure region. The proposed VOP detection methods are evaluated using objective measures and consonant vowel (CV) unit recognition experiments.

Abstract

In recent studies it has been shown that graph representation of protein structures is capable of capturing the 3-dimensional fold of the protein very well, thus providing a computationally efficient approach for protein structure analysis. Centrality measures are generally used to identify the relative importance of a node in the network. Here we demonstrate a novel application of centrality analysis: to identify tandemly repeated structural motifs in 3-d protein structures. This is done by analyzing the profile of various centrality measures in the repeat region. The comparative analysis of five centrality measures based on local connectivity, shortest paths, principal eigen spectra and feedback centrality is presented on proteins containing contiguous ankyrin structural motifs to identify which centrality measure best captures the repetitive pattern of ankyrin. We observe that principal eigen spectra of the adjacency matrix and Katz status index, both exhibit a distinct profile for the ankyrin motif capturing its characteristic anti-parallel helix-turn-helix fold. No such conserved pattern was observed in the repeat regions of equivalent random networks, suggesting that the conserved pattern arises from the 3d fold of the structural motif.

Abstract

Repetition of a structural motif within protein is associated with a wide range of structural and functional roles. In most cases the repeating units are well conserved at the structural level while at the sequence level, they are mostly undetectable suggesting the need for structure-based methods. Since most known methods require a training dataset, de novo approach is desirable. Here, we propose an efficient graph-based approach for detecting structural repeats in proteins. In a protein structure represented as a graph, interactions between inter- and intra-repeat units are well captured by the eigen spectra of adjacency matrix of the graph. These conserved interactions give rise to similar connections and a unique profile of the principal eigen spectra for each repeating unit. The efficacy of the approach is shown on eight repeat families annotated in UniProt, comprising of both solenoid and nonsolenoid repeats with …

Abstract

Tandem repetition of structural motifs in proteins is frequently observed across all forms of life. Topology of repeating unit and its frequency of occurrence are associated to a wide range of structural and functional roles in diverse proteins, and defects in repeat proteins have been associated with a number of diseases. It is thus desirable to accurately identify specific repeat type and its copy number. Weak evolutionary constraints on repeat units and insertions/deletions between them make their identification difficult at the sequence level and structure based approaches are desired. The proposed graph spectral approach is based on protein structure represented as a graph for detecting one of the most frequently observed structural repeats, Ankyrin repeat.

Abstract

Let S be a set of n points in the plane. We present a method where, using O(n log2 n) time and space, S can be pre-processed into a data structure such that given an axis-parallel query rectangle q, we can report the radius of the smallest enclosing disk of the points lying in S ∩ q in O(log6 n) time per query

Abstract

We revisit the problem of anonymous communication where nodes communicate without revealing their identity. We propose its use in the choosing of a node as an anonymous leader and subsequent communication to and from this leader such that its identity is not revealed. We give indistinguishability definitions for anonymous leader and prove it to be secure in an arbitrary reliable network.

Abstract

We present output sensitive techniques for the generalized reporting versions of the planar range maxima problem and the planar range convex hull problem. Our solutions are in the pointer machine model, for orthogonal range queries on a static point set. We solve the planar range maxima problem for two-sided, three-sided and four-sided queries. We achieve a query time of O(logn + c) using O(n) space for the two-sided case, where n denotes the number of stored points and c the number of colors reported. For the three-sided case, we achieve query time O(log2 n + clogn) using O(n) space while for four-sided queries we answer queries in O(log3 n + clog2 n) using O(nlogn) space. For the planar range convex hull problem, we provide a solution that answers queries in O(log2 n + clogn) time, using O(nlog2 n) space.

Abstract

We propose a supervised learning technique defining significant frequent patterns for associative regression. Assuming frequent patterns quantify correlations in dataset, we constrain the Generalized Iterative Scaling (GIS) convergence algorithm for Maximum Entropy (ME) models. We have used the combinations of ME parameters and GIS probabilities as discriminative weights to frequent patterns. The weighted frequent patterns then order the predictive analytics output. Experiments are conducted on sparse numeric datasets. Results suggest that condensed representations of frequent patterns allow parametric models suitable for class association rule mining.