This paper describes XRCE’s participation in Large Scale Visual Concept Detection and Annotation Task [16] and Photo Retrieval Task [17] of ImageCLEF 2009. Those tasks both use a new collection which is different and which is much larger than the ones used in past sessions. Moreover, new kinds of challenge to tackle were designed such as new categories to detect or new types of topic to deal wi...

Functionally graded plates whose material properties vary continuously through the thickness are modelled as exactly equivalent plates composed of up to four isotropic layers. Separate models are derived for analysis using classical plate theory, firstorder and higher-order shear deformation theory. For cases where Poisson’s ratio varies through the thickness, the integrations required to obtai...

Only a few intertemporal optimal consumption and portfolio problems in partial and general equilibrium can be solved explicitly. It is illustrated in the paper that perturbation theory is a powerful tool for deriving approximate analytical solutions for the desired optimal policies in problems where general state dynamics are admitted and a preference for robustness is present. Starting from th...

The instrumental variable (IV) method is one of the most renowned methods for parameter estimation. Its bigger advantage is that it is applicable for open-loop as well as for closed-loop systems. The main difficulty in closed-loop identification is due to the correlation between the disturbances and the control signal induced by the loop. In order to overcome this problem, additional excitation...

Several common flexible functional forms are evaluated for Texas agricultural production utilizing three procedures. Nested hypothesis tests indicate that the normalized quadratic is the marginally-preferred functional form followed by the generalized Leontief. Predictive accuracy results are ambiguous between the generalized Leontief and the normalized quadratic. Statistical performance favors...

In this paper, we consider a kind of higher-order neutral equation with distributed delay and variable parameter: (x(t) – p(t)x(t – σ ))(n) + f (x(t))x′(t) + g( ∫ 0 –r x(t + s)dα(s)) = q(t). By using the classical coincidence degree theory of Mawhin, sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions are established. Recent results in the literature are generalized and significantly ...

The well-known third list homomorphism theorem states that if a function h is both an instance of foldr and foldl , it is a list homomorphism. Plenty of previous works devoted to constructing list homomorphisms, however, overlook the fact that proving h is both a foldr and a foldl is often the hardest part which, once done, already provides a useful hint about what the resulting list homomorphi...

We present an active approach for discriminating different materials by impulsively contacting (hitting) them, and sensing and interpreting the resulting sounds. In theory, the angle of internal friction is diagnostic of material, but invariant over object shape. In our experiments, we observe that the angle of internal friction is not invariant over the frequency of the sound spectrum for whic...