Recent Patents on Computer Science - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2008

The field of epileptic seizure prediction is today highly relevant not only for elucidating underlying brain dynamical mechanisms but also from a technological (and medical industry) perspective. In this paper, a bird's eye view of the state-of-the-art in this truly cross-disciplinary research field is presented. It describes the chronological path of the major results achieved in recent years. Once the relevant background is depicted, some important patents concerning epilepsy and, in general, brain disorders treatment are analysed, paying special attention to a promising patent on seizure prediction and control. The advantages of the proposed scheme and some potential improvements on it are discussed giving then a final look to the possible future developments.

In this paper we survey the literature of both Knowledge Representation and Civil Engineering regarding the Applications of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Techniques to Civil and Structural Engineering. The reviewed works are analysed in terms of the scope, objectives and approach employed in the investigation, and compared to each other based on a preliminary analysis of the problems posed by the application fields. Recent patents considered here to complete the survey can be efficiently used in engineering applications, e.g. land development problems, engineering calculations or structural engineering projects (through the generation of a fuzzy implication operator). The conclusions of the review are fundamentally three: (1) the need for deeper investigations of the applicability of Artificial Intelligence approaches to Civil and Structural Engineering, especially in view of the new techniques and methods lately developed; (2) the need for new systematic analysis of the domain of Civil and Structural Engineering, in particular from an ontological point of view; (3) the expectation of the birth of a new discipline, as the junction of civil and structural engineering with artificial intelligence, whose specific AI point of view will be centred on Formal Ontology. For this new discipline we propose the name of Structurotics, that is intended to refer both to the novel applications based upon the above mentioned trends, and to the consequent theoretical investigations.

Quadratic Programming (QP) represents a special class of nonlinear programming where the objective function is quadratic and constraints are linear. QP can also be viewed as a generalization of linear programming. When real-world applications are considered, vagueness appears in a natural way, and hence it makes perfect sense to think of fuzzy quadratic programming problems. This way of problem modeling is applied in an increasing variety of practical fields. In the first part of the paper, a general history and the approach of fuzzy linear mathematical programming are introduced. In the second part, the fuzzy quadratic mathematical programming is presented. Finally, some techniques and numerical examples using fuzzy quadratic mathematical programming are reviewed.

Single-sensor technology is a popular imaging approach used in image-enabled consumer electronic devices such as digital still and video cameras, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and visual sensors for surveillance and automotive applications. Cameras make use of an electronic sensor (Charge Coupled Device - CCD - or Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor - CMOS) to acquire the spatial variations in light intensity and then use image processing algorithms to reconstruct a color picture from the data provided by the sensor. Acquisition of color images requires the presence of different sensors for different color channels. Manufacturers reduce the cost and complexity by placing a color filter array (CFA) on top of a single image sensor, which is basically a monochromatic device, to acquire color information of the true visual scene. Typical imaging pipelines implemented in single-sensor cameras are usually designed to find a trade-off between sub-optimal solutions (devoted to solve imaging acquisition) and technological problems (e.g., color balancing, thermal noise, etc.) in a context of limited hardware resources. In this paper, we review the existing patent solutions devoted to demosaicing and able to generate a color image from a single-sensor reading. Demosaicing solutions can be basically divided into four main categories: inter-channel (spectral) correlation, edge based, pattern based and iterative together with alternative techniques also present in literature. Discussion about pro and cons of each technique will be briefly reported.

Mobile telecommunications is nowadays one of the most successful technological fields nowadays. Since its introduction in the global market in the last decade of the previous century, it became a very important contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of developed and developing countries. In this market, a large number of powerful international telecommunications companies, often in harsh competition among them, are making huge investments, with the aim of achieving large revenues accordingly. The search for profit maximization and the legacy position of the former state-owned monopolistic companies may generate conflicts and unfair practices (e.g. abuse of monopolistic power, anticompetition strategies etc.). The National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) of the different countries have to arbitrate and establish market rules through regulatory processes. In this paper, the foundations of telecommunications regulation are reviewed, and the evolution of mobile call termination charges is studied for three countries with very different socioeconomic and politic situations. The Long Run Incremental Cost (LRIC) approach emerges as the method of choice to evaluate costs and appears to lead to quite similar results as markets enter the maturity stage.

Mixture of Gaussians is a widely used approach for background modeling to detect moving objects from static cameras. Numerous improvements of the original method developed by Stauffer and Grimson [1] have been proposed over the recent years and the purpose of this paper is to provide a survey and an original classification of these improvements. We also discuss relevant issues to reduce the computation time. Firstly, the original MOG are reminded and discussed following the challenges met in video sequences. Then, we categorize the different improvements found in the literature. We have classified them in term of strategies used to improve the original MOG and we have discussed them in term of the critical situations they claim to handle. After analyzing the strategies and identifying their limitations, we conclude with several promising directions for future research.

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