Global Optimization in Any Minkowski Metric: A Permutation-Translation Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Multidimensional Scaling

It is well known that considering a non-Euclidean Minkowski metric in Multidimensional Scaling, either for the distance model or for the loss function, increases the computational problem of local minima considerably. In this paper, we propose an algorithm in which both the loss function and the composition rule can be considered in any Minkowski metric, using a multivariate randomly alternating Simulated Annealing procedure with permutation and translation phases. The algorithm has been implemented in Fortran and tested over classical and simulated data matrices with sizes up to 200 objects. A study has been carried out with some of the common loss functions to determine the most suitable values for the main parameters. The experimental results confirm the theoretical expectation that Simulated Annealing is a suitable strategy to deal by itself with the optimization problems in Multidimensional Scaling, in particular for City-Block, Euclidean and Infinity metrics.     

临近铁路深基坑开挖防护技术

考虑到周边建筑物安全及在动荷载下施工人员和机械设备的安全,选择了防护桩方案并进行了设计及计算,为临近铁路深基坑施工提供了参考。     

Weight measurement using image-based pose analysis

Image-based gait analysis as a means of biometric identification has attracted much research attention. Most of the existing methods focus on human identification, posture analysis and movement tracking. There have been few investigations on measuring the carried load based on the carrier＇s gait characteristics by automatic image processing. Nevertheless, this measurement is very useful in a number of applications, such as the study of the carried load on the postural development of children and adolescence. In this paper, we investigate how to automatically estimate the carried weight from a sequence of images. We present a method to extract human gait silhouette based on an observation that humans tend to minimize the energy during motion. We compute several angles of body leaning and determine the relationship of the carried weight, the leaning angles and the centroid location according to a human kinetic study. Our weight determination method has been verified successfully by experiments.