ALBERT

Description: Gas-liquid two-phase flow behavior in horizontal channel under heaving motion showed unique dynamic characteristics due to the complex nonlinear interaction. To further establish a description model and investigate the effects of heaving motion on horizontal gas-liquid flow, experiments in a wide range of vibration parameters and working conditions were carried out by combining vibration platform with two-phase flow loop. It was found that the flow regimes under heaving motion showed significant differences compared to the ones expected in steady state flow under the same working conditions. Increasing vibration parameters showed an obvious impact on fluctuation degree of gas-liquid interface by visualizing high-speed photographs. A method based on multi-scale entropy was applied to identify flow regimes and reveal the underlying dynamic characteristics by collecting signals of pressure-difference. The results indicated that the proposed method was effective to analyze gas-liquid two-phase flow transition in horizontal channel under heaving motion by incorporating information of flow condition and change rate of multi-scale entropy, which provided a reliable guide for flow pattern control design and safe operation of equipment. However, for slug-wave and boiling wave flow, an innovative method based on multi-scale marginal spectrum entropy showed more feasible for identification of transition boundary.

Description: Concept lattice has been successfully applied to various fields as an effective tool for data analysis and knowledge discovery, with attribute reduction being the key problem. This paper combines the intuitionistic fuzzy theory with the concept lattice theory and proposes one kind of concept lattice in intuitionistic fuzzy generalized consistent decision formal context. Furthermore, an approach to attribute a reduction in the discernibility matrix is proposed and investigated, making the discovery of implicit knowledge easier and the representation simpler in the data system and perfecting the theory of concept lattice. Moreover, this paper studies, in detail, the algorithms and case study of data analysis in the intuitionistic fuzzy generalized consistent decision formal context. The potential value of the method to deal with information discussed in this paper, especially the value of forecasting and decision-making, is expected in future.

Description: In this study, we developed a model of combined streamflow forecasting based on cross entropy to solve the problems of streamflow complexity and random hydrological processes. First, we analyzed the streamflow data obtained from Wudaogou station on the Huifa River, which is the second tributary of the Songhua River, and found that the streamflow was characterized by fluctuations and periodicity, and it was closely related to rainfall. The proposed method involves selecting similar years based on the gray correlation degree. The forecasting results obtained by the time series model (autoregressive integrated moving average), improved grey forecasting model, and artificial neural network model (a radial basis function) were used as a single forecasting model, and from the viewpoint of the probability density, the method for determining weights was improved by using the cross entropy model. The numerical results showed that compared with the single forecasting model, the combined forecasting model improved the stability of the forecasting model, and the prediction accuracy was better than that of conventional combined forecasting models.

Description: The randomness and fuzziness that exist in rolling bearings when faults occur result in uncertainty in acquisition signals and reduce the accuracy of signal feature extraction. To solve this problem, this study proposes a new method in which cloud model characteristic entropy (CMCE) is set as the signal characteristic eigenvalue. This approach can overcome the disadvantages of traditional entropy complexity in parameter selection when solving uncertainty problems. First, the acoustic emission signals under normal and damage rolling bearing states collected from the experiments are decomposed via ensemble empirical mode decomposition. The mutual information method is then used to select the sensitive intrinsic mode functions that can reflect signal characteristics to reconstruct the signal and eliminate noise interference. Subsequently, CMCE is set as the eigenvalue of the reconstructed signal. Finally, through the comparison of experiments between sample entropy, root mean square and CMCE, the results show that CMCE can better represent the characteristic information of the fault signal.

Description: Time-delay chaotic systems can have hyperchaotic attractors with large numbers of positive Lyapunov exponents, and can generate highly stochastic and unpredictable time series with simple structures, which is very suitable as a secured chaotic source in chaotic secure communications. But time-delay chaotic systems are generally designed and implemented by using analog circuit design techniques. Analog implementations require a variety of electronic components and can be difficult and time consuming. At this stage, we can now solve this question by using FPAA (Field-Programmable Analog Array). FPAA is a programmable device for implementing multiple analog functions via dynamic reconfiguration. In this paper, we will introduce two FPAA-based design examples: An autonomous Ikeda system and a non-autonomous Duffing system, to show how a FPAA device is used to design programmable analog time-delay chaotic systems and analyze Shannon entropy and Lyapunov exponents of time series output by circuit and simulation systems.

Description: Kernel adaptive filtering (KAF) is an effective nonlinear learning algorithm, which has been widely used in time series prediction. The traditional KAF is based on the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method, which has slow convergence speed and low filtering accuracy. Hence, a kernel conjugate gradient (KCG) algorithm has been proposed with low computational complexity, while achieving comparable performance to some KAF algorithms, e.g., the kernel recursive least squares (KRLS). However, the robust learning performance is unsatisfactory, when using KCG. Meanwhile, correntropy as a local similarity measure defined in kernel space, can address large outliers in robust signal processing. On the basis of correntropy, the mixture correntropy is developed, which uses the mixture of two Gaussian functions as a kernel function to further improve the learning performance. Accordingly, this article proposes a novel KCG algorithm, named the kernel mixture correntropy conjugate gradient (KMCCG), with the help of the mixture correntropy criterion (MCC). The proposed algorithm has less computational complexity and can achieve better performance in non-Gaussian noise environments. To further control the growing radial basis function (RBF) network in this algorithm, we also use a simple sparsification criterion based on the angle between elements in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). The prediction simulation results on a synthetic chaotic time series and a real benchmark dataset show that the proposed algorithm can achieve better computational performance. In addition, the proposed algorithm is also successfully applied to the practical tasks of malware prediction in the field of malware analysis. The results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm not only has a short training time, but also can achieve high prediction accuracy.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 563: A New Underwater Acoustic Signal Denoising Technique Based on CEEMDAN, Mutual Information, Permutation Entropy, and Wavelet Threshold Denoising Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080563 Authors: Yuxing Li Yaan Li Xiao Chen Jing Yu Hong Yang Long Wang Owing to the complexity of the ocean background noise, underwater acoustic signal denoising is one of the hotspot problems in the field of underwater acoustic signal processing. In this paper, we propose a new technique for underwater acoustic signal denoising based on complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN), mutual information (MI), permutation entropy (PE), and wavelet threshold denoising. CEEMDAN is an improved algorithm of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and ensemble EMD (EEMD). First, CEEMDAN is employed to decompose noisy signals into many intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). IMFs can be divided into three parts: noise IMFs, noise-dominant IMFs, and real IMFs. Then, the noise IMFs can be identified on the basis of MIs of adjacent IMFs; the other two parts of IMFs can be distinguished based on the values of PE. Finally, noise IMFs were removed, and wavelet threshold denoising is applied to noise-dominant IMFs; we can obtain the final denoised signal by combining real IMFs and denoised noise-dominant IMFs. Simulation experiments were conducted by using simulated data, chaotic signals, and real underwater acoustic signals; the proposed denoising technique performs better than other existing denoising techniques, which is beneficial to the feature extraction of underwater acoustic signal.

Description: In this paper, a new three-dimensional fractional-order Hopfield-type neural network with delay is proposed. The system has a unique equilibrium point at the origin, which is a saddle point with index two, hence unstable. Intermittent chaos is found in this system. The complex dynamics are analyzed both theoretically and numerically, including intermittent chaos, periodicity, and stability. Those phenomena are confirmed by phase portraits, bifurcation diagrams, and the Largest Lyapunov exponent. Furthermore, a synchronization method based on the state observer is proposed to synchronize a class of time-delayed fractional-order Hopfield-type neural networks.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 306: Balancing Non-Equilibrium Driving with Nucleotide Selectivity at Kinetic Checkpoints in Polymerase Fidelity Control Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20040306 Authors: Chunhong Long Jin Yu High fidelity gene transcription and replication require kinetic discrimination of nucleotide substrate species by RNA and DNA polymerases under chemical non-equilibrium conditions. It is known that sufficiently large free energy driving force is needed for each polymerization or elongation cycle to maintain far-from-equilibrium to achieve low error rates. Considering that each cycle consists of multiple kinetic steps with different transition rates, one expects that the kinetic modulations by polymerases are not evenly conducted at each step. We show that accelerations at different kinetic steps impact quite differently to the overall elongation characteristics. In particular, for forward transitions that discriminate cognate and non-cognate nucleotide species to serve as kinetic selection checkpoints, the transition cannot be accelerated too quickly nor retained too slowly to obtain low error rates, as balancing is needed between the nucleotide selectivity and the non-equilibrium driving. Such a balance is not the same as the speed-accuracy tradeoff in which high accuracy is always obtained at sacrifice of speed. For illustration purposes, we used three-state and five-state models of nucleotide addition in the polymerase elongation and show how the non-equilibrium steady state characteristics change upon variations on stepwise forward or backward kinetics. Notably, by using the multi-step elongation schemes and parameters from T7 RNA polymerase transcription elongation, we demonstrate that individual transitions serving as selection checkpoints need to proceed at moderate rates in order to sustain the necessary non-equilibrium drives as well as to allow nucleotide selections for an optimal error control. We also illustrate why rate-limiting conformational transitions of the enzyme likely play a significant role in the error reduction.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 387: Research on Weak Fault Extraction Method for Alleviating the Mode Mixing of LMD Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20050387 Authors: Lin Zhang Zhijian Wang Long Quan Compared with the strong background noise, the energy entropy of early fault signals of bearings are weak under actual working conditions. Therefore, extracting the bearings’ early fault features has always been a major difficulty in fault diagnosis of rotating machinery. Based on the above problems, the masking method is introduced into the Local Mean Decomposition (LMD) decomposition process, and a weak fault extraction method based on LMD and mask signal (MS) is proposed. Due to the mode mixing of the product function (PF) components decomposed by LMD in the noisy background, it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of the fault frequency. Therefore, the MS method is introduced to deal with the PF components that are decomposed by the LMD and have strong correlation with the original signal, so as to suppress the modal aliasing phenomenon and extract the fault frequencies. In this paper, the actual fault signal of the rolling bearing is analyzed. By combining the MS method with the LMD method, the fault signal mixed with the noise is processed. The kurtosis value at the fault frequency is increased by eight-fold, and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is increased by 19.1%. The fault signal is successfully extracted by the proposed composite method.