by Kong Siu-Kai. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 313-340.

This thesis provides a framework for describing a canonical evolutionary system. Populations of individuals are envisaged as traversing a search space structured by genetic and developmental operators under the influence of selection. Selection acts on individuals' phenotypic expressions, guiding the population over an evaluation landscape, which describes an idealised evaluation surface over the phenotypic space. The corresponding valuation landscape describes evaluations over the genotypic space and may be transformed by within generation adaptive (learning) or maladaptive (fault induction) local search. Populations subjected to particular genetic and selection operators are claimed to evolve towards a region of the valuation landscape with a characteristic local ruggedness, as given by the runtime operator correlation coefficient. This corresponds to the view of evolution discovering an evolutionarily stable population, or quasi-species, held in a state of dynamic equilibrium by the operator set and evaluation function. This is demonstrated by genetic algorithm experiments using the NK landscapes and a novel, evolvable evaluation function, The Tower of Babel. In fluctuating environments of varying temporal ruggedness, different operator sets are correspondingly more or less adapted. Quantitative genetics analyses of populations in sinusoidally fluctuating conditions are shown to describe certain well known electronic filters. This observation suggests the notion of Evolutionary Signal Processing. Genetic algorithm experiments in which a population tracks a sinusoidally fluctuating optimum support this view. Using a self-adaptive mutation rate, it is possible to tune the evolutionary filter to the environmental frequency. For a time varying frequency, the mutation rate reacts accordingly. With local search, the valuation landscape is transformed through temporal smoothing. By coevolving modifier genes for individual learning and the rate at which the benefits may be directly transmitted to the next generation, the relative adaptedness of individual learning and cultural inheritance according to the rate of environmental change is demonstrated.

Recent work on Drosophila limb development has indicated that short-range interactions between distinctly specified populations of cells (compartments) establish organizing centers at compartment boundaries. These organizing centers direct pattern formation and growth in the developing limbs. In the Drosophila wing imaginal disc, there are at least two such organizing centers, located at the anterior/posterior (A/P) and dorsal/ventral (D/V) compartment boundaries. The genetic hierarchies which establish these organizers are starting to be understood, and it also appears that the key mediators of some of the organizers have been identified. Thus Decapentaplegic (Dpp, a secreted signalling molecule of the TGF-B family) is the mediator of the A/P organizer, while Wingless (DWnt-l, a secreted molecule of the Wnt family) is a key mediator of the D/V organizer. In this thesis, several aspects of Wingless function in the wing imaginal disc are examined. Two regulatory mutations, spadeflag (spdfg) and Sternopleural (Sp), that affect Wingless expression in the wing imaginal disc are characterized. The analysis of the mutation spdfg, together with other data, identifies a role of Wingless as a localized mitogen in the developing wing hinge, and also indicates that cells in different regions of the wing disc respond very differently to the Wingless signal. The mutations spdfg and Sp are also among the tools used to examine the position of Wingless in the genetic hierarchy that establishes and mediates the activity of the D/V organizer. These experiments extend the evidence suggesting that Wingless mediates both short-range and long-range effects of the D/V organizer. Wg does so by controlling the expression domains of different target genes, including the acheate-scute genes, Distal-less and vestigial. Finally, the mechanism by which Wingless mediates the activity of the D/V organizer is examined. The results obtained suggest that Wingless functions as a long-range morphogen.

by Wai-kuen Lai. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

by Yeung Wai Leung. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-[259]). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

In this thesis, we also investigated various conversion techniques concerning how to improve the performance of multiplierless fast 1-D DCT, and row column 2-D DCT fast algorithms. We have explored a number of choices of conversion techniques having an impact on the performance of multiplierless fast DCT algorithms. Based on our analytical analysis, and experiment results, we have the following findings: (1) a transform based on a reversible inverse generally performs better than a version based on a traditional inverse; (2) a transform with a delayed uniform normalization step can achieve a much better performance; (3) a lifting structure transform can usually achieve better performance than its non-lifting structure version; (4) using an optimized configuration of non-zero digits to approximate the coefficients can help to achieve a much better performance than using a non-optimized configuration. / This thesis proposes effective methods to convert fast DCT algorithms, including 1-D DCT, row column 2-D DCT, and direct 2-D DCT, into their multiplierless versions. The basic conversion techniques used include: (1) to convert any butterfly structures in a DCT algorithm into lifting steps; (2) to use an optimized configuration of non-zero digits to approximate the coefficients so that multiplications can be converted into shift and add operations. We devised an effective algorithm based on the remainder theorem for finding an MSD representation, with minimum wordlength, of any float constant. As the approximation errors of different coefficients often affect the MSE of an approximated fast DCT algorithm differently, we developed an efficient search algorithm for finding an optimized configuration of non-zero digits for approximating each of the coefficients with an appropriate number of non-zero signed digits so that the approximated algorithm could achieve a minimum MSE. / When compared to those multiplierless fast 1-D DCT algorithms developed by others, the multiplierless 1-D DCT fast algorithms developed via our proposed conversion method can achieve similar or better performance in terms of MSE and PSNR. While the published methods were use to approximate only the kernels of the 1-D DCT fast algorithms with butterfly structures, our proposed methods can approximate both the kernels and the normalization steps of any 1-D DCT, row column 2-D DCT, and direct 2-D DCT fast algorithms. / Chan, Kwong Wing Raymond. / "February 2007." / Adviser: Lee Moon Chuen. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: B, page: 6172. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-117). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

No description available.

DC electrical surveying involves the injection of current into the earth, and the measurement of the electrical potential differences this produces. A number of electrode configurations such as the Schlumberger and Wenner arrays, dipole-dipole and pole-pole geometries are in common use for electrical surveying. New acquisition systems enable the convenient collection of data with a number of common configurations at the same time. It is found however that while the recovery of layered structure from electrical surveys can be effective, the sensitivity and resolving power of such systems in detecting the presence of anomalous three-dimensional (3-D) bodies is poor. This is mainly due to the dominance of conduction pathways through the layered earth compared to the influence of small 3-D conductivity anomalies.Theoretical relationships between the responses of various survey geometries to the layered earth may be established as is shown in this thesis, but their response to 3-D targets differs strongly. This thesis introduces a new procedure for anomalous target detection by the computation of an apparent resistivity residual using multi-electrode configuration survey data. This procedure, applicable to a variety of electrode geometries, reduces the dominance of the layered earth response and enhances the signal from 3-D structures.In the development and testing of this new apparent resistivity residual, numerically modelled data were used. In order to obtain suitable test data of high accuracy it was necessary to make improvements to modelling software. For this purpose, recently developed techniques in numerical modelling such as the biconjugate gradient method, new digital linear filters for computation of Hankel transforms, and spectral formalism were employed in an integral equation approach for the software developed in this thesis.The computed apparent ++ / resistivity residual was found to depend on the array type and dimensions, the nature of the anomalous zone, geological layer geometries, and resistivity contrasts of the layers involved. While the apparent resistivity residual signature requires some measure of interpretation, it is shown to enhance the resolution and detectability of 3-D targets in a layered environment.The presence of random noise produces some degradation in the performance of the residual technique, but a normalisation procedure has been developed to alleviate the problem. A preliminary field trial showed that survey profiles of apparent resistivity residual were able to locate a subsurface conductive anomaly in an area in Western Australia.A transitional zone is defined as a layer in the earth where resistivity varies as a continuous function of depth. A theoretical formulation for the electrical response of an earth structure composed of anomalous 3-D bodies in the presence of transitional layers is introduced. Tests on synthetic survey data showed that the apparent resistivity residual is an effective anomaly detector in transitional layer environments.A multi-system method of computing an apparent resistivity residual has been developed theoretically and tested on both synthetic and field data. This new approach when applied to resistivity profiling is more sensitive to, and gives greater resolution of, localised anomalies than is possible using conventional profiling procedures.

Blind Source Separation is a modern signal processing technique which recovers both the unknown sources and unknown mixing systems from only measured mixtures of signals. It has application in diverse fields such as communication, image processing, geological exploration and biomedical signal processing etc. This project studies the BSS problem, develop separation methods and reveal the potential for mechanical engineering applications. There are two models for blind source separation corresponding to the two ways that the sources are mixed, the instantaneous mixing model and the convolved mixing model. The author carried out a theoretical study of the first model by proposing an idea called Redundant Data Elimination which leads to geometric interpretation of the model, explains that circular distribution property is the reason why Gaussian signal mixtures can not be separated, and showed that this idea can improve separation accuracy for unsymmetrically distributed sources. This new idea enabled evaluation and comparison of two well-known algorithms and proposal of a simplified algorithm based on Joint Approximate Diagonalization of fourth order cumulant matrices, which is further developed by determining an optimized parameter value for separation convergence. Also based on the understanding from the RDE, an outlier spherical projection method is proposed to improve separation accuracy against outlier errors. Mechanical vibration or acoustic problems belong to the second model. After some theoretical study of the problem and the model, a novel application of the Blind Least Mean Square algorithm using Gray's variable norm as cost function is applied to engine vibration data to separate piston slap, fuel injection noise and cylinder pressure effects. Further, the algorithm is combined with a deflation algorithm for successive subtraction of recovered source responses from the measured mixture to enable the recovery of more sources. The algorithms are verified to be successful by simulation, and the separated engine sources are proved reasonable by analysing the engine operation and physical properties of the sources. The author also studied the relationship between these two models, the problems of different approaches for solving the model such as the frequency domain approach and the Bussgang approach, and sets out future research interests.

"Dissertation submitted, September 2003." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-172) / xvi, 172 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2004