This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 8008, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The paper presents a digest of chosen technical work results shown by young researchers from different technical universities from this country during the SPIE-IEEE Wilga 2011 symposium on Photonics and Web Engineering. Topical tracks of the symposium embraced, among others, nanomaterials and nanotechnologies for photonics, sensory and nonlinear optical fibers, object oriented design of hardware, photonic metrology, optoelectronics and photonics applications, photonics-electronics co-design, optoelectronic and electronic systems for astronomy and high energy physics experiments, JET and pi-of-the sky experiments development. The symposium is an annual summary in the development of numerable Ph.D. theses carried out in this country in the area of advanced electronic and photonic systems. It is also a great occasion for SPIE, IEEE, OSA and PSP students to meet together in a large group spanning the whole country with guests from this part of Europe. A digest of Wilga references is presented [1-225].

It has been recognized that ontologies are a semantic version of world wide web and can be found in knowledge-based systems. A recent time survey of this field also suggest that practical artificial intelligence systems may be motivated by this research. Especially strong artificial intelligence as well as concept of homo computer can also benefit from their use. The main objective of this contribution is to present and review already created ontologies and identify the main advantages which derive such approach for knowledge management systems. We would like to present what ontological engineering borrows from metaphysics and what a feedback it can provide to natural language processing, simulations and modelling. The potential topics of further development from philosophical point of view is also underlined.

In this paper we discuss fundamental issues of the conceptual knowledge representation. The primary objective of this contribution is to show some similarities between formal concept analysis and other mathematical structures. These similarities induce a number of questions to be broached in further interdisciplinary research.

The paper presents a digest of the research results in the domain of accelerator science and technology in Europe, shown during the annual meeting of the EuCARD – European Coordination of Accelerator Research and Development. The conference concerns building of the research infrastructure, including in this advanced photonic and electronic systems for servicing large high energy physics experiments. There are debated a few basic groups of such systems like: measurement – control networks of large geometrical extent, multichannel systems for large amounts of metrological data acquisition, precision photonic networks of reference time, frequency and phase distribution.

This digest paper debates basic features of the terahertz band of frequencies. There are presented fundamental characteristics of the basic terahertz system consisting of a THz source, propagation media, transmission lines, THz signal processing, and detectors. Such a system finds research application, but also practical in two main areas: terahertz imaging – transmissive and reflective, and as a close range THz radar, but also as sensory systems mainly for molecular sensing. There were launched in this country a few THz research projects concerning the THz sources, detectors and their applications. Among these projects there is an infrastructural one called FOTEH, opened at the WUT. The details of this project are debated and the consequences of its realization in this country. The first part of the paper is an introduction debating THz band and comparing it with the photonics one. The second part presents the assumptions of the infrastructural FOTEH project on Photonics and Terahertz Technologies.

This digest paper debates basic features of the terahertz band of frequencies and compares it to the classical photonics. There are presented fundamental characteristics of the basic terahertz system consisting of a THz source, propagation media, transmission lines, THz signal processing, and detectors. Such a system finds research application, but also practical in two main areas: terahertz imaging - transmission and reflective, and as a close range THz radar, but also as sensory systems mainly for molecular sensing. There were launched in this country a few THz research projects concerning the THz sources, detectors and their applications. Among these projects there is an infrastructural one called FOTEH, opened at the WUT. The details of this project are debated and the consequences of its realization in this country. The first part of the paper is an introduction debating THz band and comparing it with the photonics one. The second part presents the assumptions of the infrastructural FOTEH project on Photonics and Terahertz Technologies. The project is expected to have impact on the development of photonics and relate fields in Poland.

The paper describes construction of a scalable, automatic measurement system to research GEM detectors. The testbench enables concurrent and precise measurements of many discharge current signals originating from the charges generated by the avalanche process in gas in the GEM micro-holes where the electric field gradient is high. We used Tektronix scopes MSO/DPO4104 and MSO/DPO5104 and Matlab to collect and process the data. Construction of the test-bench is presented in terms of hardware and software. The examples of lab condition measurements were presented. Analysis of these data enable the estimation of the quality of the GEM detector.

This paper presents the prototype detector readout electronics for the STS (Silicon Tracking System) at CBM (Compressed Baryonic Matter) experiment at FAIR, GSI (Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung GmbH) in Germany. The emphasis has been put on the strip detector readout chip and its interconnectivity with detector. Paper discusses the impact of the silicon strip detector and interconnection cable construction on the overall noise of the system and architecture of the TOT02 readout ASIC. The idea and problems of the double-sided silicon detector usage are also presented.

The paper presents black-box type, behavioral model of pulse reflection from the open end of a transmission line. Model allows for setting measurements limits of TDR-based systems dedicated for DSL line diagnosis. Two main factors responsible for shape deterioration of the signal propagating through the line are ohmic conductor losses and frequency-dependent parasitic resistance induced mostly by a skin effect. Formal analysis of a problem is complicated, as it requires solving a set of differential equations. Behavioral model presented in this paper allows for easy estimation of amplitude and rise time of a reflected pulse using compact, analytical function of line length and testing pulse width.

The radio telemetry is a well-known technique used within zoological research to exploit the behaviour of animal species. A usage of GPS for a frequent and precise position recording gives interesting possibility for a further enhancement of this method. We present our proposal of an architecture and design concepts of telemetry transmitter with GPS module, called GTAG, that is suited for study of the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus). The model group we study set particular constrains, especially the weight limit (9 g) and prevention of any power resources recharging technique. We discuss the aspect of physical realization and the energyconsumption issues. We have developed a reference implementation that has been already deployed during telemetry sessions and we evaluate the experience and compare the estimated performance of our device to a real data.

This paper is devoted to the design of the filter for voice signals on the background of acoustic noise. Nonparametric model of the voice signals is suggested. The results are confirmed by experimental processing of the voice signals.

The paper discusses the feasibility of porting the Data Acquisition System (DAQ) of the TOTEM experiment to alternative platforms. The three systems are considered: the Fiber Channel interface (DFi), a custom PCIebased solution and the Scalable Readout System (SRS). The author justifies the necessity of the TOTEM DAQ upgrade, followed by a brief description of the analysed platforms. The last part summarizes the obtained results of the study and points the solution for a further investigation.

This document presents a proposal of implementation of the Heapsort algorithm, which utilizes hardware features of modern Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chips, such as dual port random access memories (DP RAM), to implement efficient sorting of a data stream. The implemented sorter is able to sort one data record every two clock periods. This throughput does not depend on the capacity of the sorter (defined as number of storage cells in the sorter). The mean latency (expressed in sorting cycles - each equal to two clock periods) when sorting the stream of data is equal to the capacity of the sorter. Due to efficient use of FPGA resources (e.g. data are stored mainly in internal block RAMs), the complexity of the sorter is proportional to the logarithm of sorter capacity. Only the required RAM size is linearly proportional to the sorter capacity. The proposed sorter has been tested in simulations and synthesized for real FPGA chips to verify its correctness.

This paper presents analysis of processing method of the signal from Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detector acquired in our Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based readout system. We have found that simple processing of GEM signal received from the charge amplifier, sampled at 100MHz with 10-bit resolution, after low-pass filtering with 15 MHz cut-off frequency, provides accuracy similar to obtained by processing of the raw GEM signal sampled at 2.5 GHz frequency with 8-bit resolution. Even when 3 bits are lost due to long term instability of the detector and analog part of the system - resulting in 7-bit effective resolution, the reasonable accuracy is still preserved. Additionally we have analyzed computational power required to perform the real-time analysis of the GEM signal, taking into consideration resources offered by the FPGA chip used in the prototype platform.

The paper presents a new approach to reduction of influence of disturbances on performance of cyclic analog-to-digital converters (ADC). The approach is based on application of multidimensional estimation algorithms for simultaneous estimation of both input sample value and parameters of disturbances. Implementation of these algorithms is possible in a new class of adaptive cyclic ADCs whose digital parts permit to calculate iteratively output codes in form of binary words using simple mathematical operations. Estimation of parameters of disturbances enables their compensation and elimination of their influence on the conversion performance. Results of selected simulation experiments related to analysis of the efficiency of the proposed method in reduction of disturbances influence on final performance of adaptive cyclic ADCs are also presented and discussed in the paper.

In this paper a development of the DOOCS (Distributed Object Oriented Control System) controlled server program was described. The server supervises the devices working for the FLASH (Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg) accelerator located in DESY (ge. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron), Hamburg. In the first part, a basics of the devices' working rules were presented. Afterwards goals of the work and server project's assumptions were described. Next chapters present all the implementation details along with the trouble-free data acquisition, processing and representation. In the last chapter the final work effect - DOOCS server was described. The server was repeatedly tested and ran in DESY. It is important part of the clock distribution system (Master Oscillator).

This paper presents researches related to assimilate and coapt object-oriented paradigm to hardware design and hardware systems management. Considered systems are consist of reprogrammable hardware chips (FPGA). Classification of depicted approaches is proposed and discussed. At the end the paper introduces novel model for visualization, design, implementation and management of complex, highly adaptive hardware systems. Novel model of software framework managing such a modeled systems is described.

A novel approach to the Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detector readout is presented. Unlike commonly used methods, based on discriminators[2],[3] and analogue FIFOs[1], the method developed uses simultaneously sampling high speed ADCs and advanced FPGA-based processing logic to estimate the energy of every single photon. Such method is applied to every GEM strip signal. It is especially useful in case of crystal-based spectrometers for soft X-rays, where higher order reflections need to be identified and rejected[5].

Today's most sophisticated real-time control systems, such as the LHC or alike, are facing similar problem of processing terabits per second of raw data generated by the diagnostic systems - where in addition most of the data is useless and only generates an empty burden for computing modules. Many approaches have already been adopted to make the realtime control possible under such circumstances including: parallel computing, modularity and data mining. Furthermore many factors determine the real efficiency of the whole system including: transfer rates between components and modules, "slow" memories or architecture and frequency of computing units. This paper presents a concept of realization, architecture, and hardware implementation of a digital signal processing module utilizing modern technologies, standards and approaches in one single card.

The paper presents a brief overview of main results obtained by the author in a new direction of researches in the field of analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion theory and applications. The object of analysis in the work is a new type of converter - intelligent cyclic A/D converter (ICADC), whose particularity is transition to computing codes of samples using efficient iterative algorithms. This creates the possibility of adjustment of the parameters of the analogue and digital part (codes computing algorithm) of ICADC, which allows to improve the quality of conversion. In the paper there are discussed the developed methods of assessment and improvement of ICADC performance.

This work shows in details the design and performance of precise ink jet printing system which has been constructed for organic electronic technology analysis. The printing system was designed for laboratory investigation of inks and substrates compatibility. Printing system has been tested by its precision and abilities by fabrication electronic elements. PEDOT: PSS, Sun Tronic U6415, Nano silver based inks were tested. Glass, alumina ceramic, PEN foil and paper were tested as substrates. Printer was design in order to solve disadvantages of commercial systems. It has improved software with user friendly graphic interface, improved accuracy and precision. New drop watch solution has been develop. In the investigation, compatibility of materials and inks was tested. Methods of making inks and substrates compatible, by setting the substrate temperature, ink jet printhead voltage and geometry, were studied. Printed lines after sintering process become conductive. Ohmic resistance of lines was measured and their quality was evaluated.

In the contemporary FPGA market there is the wide assortment of structures, integrated development environments, and boards of different producers. The variety allows to fit resources to requirements of the individual designer. There is the need of standardization of the projects to make it useful in research laboratories equipped with different producers tools. Proposed solution is CII standardization of VHDL components. This paper contains specification of the universal communication environment for CII standard. The link can be used in different FPGA structures. Implementation of the link enables object oriented VHDL programming with the use of CII standardization. The whole environment contains FPGA environment and PC software. The paper contains description of the selected issues of FPGA environment. There is description of some specific solutions that enables environment usage in structures of different producers. The flexibility of different size data transmissions with the use of CII is presented. The specified tool gives the opportunity to use FPGA structures variety fully and design faster and more effectively.

The main objective of the energy market existence is reduction of the total cost of production, transport and distribution of energy, and so the prices paid by terminal consumers. Energy market contains few markets that are varying on operational rules, the important segments: the Futures Contract Market and Next Day Market are analyzed in presented approach. The computer system was developed to simulate the Polish Energy Market. This system use the multi-agent approach, where each agent is the separate shared library with defined interface. The software was used to compare strategies for players in energy market, where the strategies uses auto-regression, k-nearest neighbours, neural network and mixed algorithm, to predict the next price.

The paper broaches topics of selected knowledge discovery algorithms. Different implementations have been verified on parallel platforms, including graphics accelerators using CUDA technology, multi-core microprocessors using OpenMP and many graphics accelerators. Results of investigations have been compared in terms of performance and scalability. Different types of data representation were also tested. The possibilities of both platforms, using the classification algorithms: the k-nearest neighbors, support vector machines and logistic regression are discussed.

The paper describes an idea and realization of a smart plug-in to the Eclipse software environment. The plug-in is predicted for editing of the VHDL source code. It extends considerably the capabilities of the VEditor program, which bases on the open license. There are presented the results of the formatting procedures performed on chosen examples of the VHDL source codes. The work is a part of a bigger project of building smart programming environment for design of advanced photonic and electronic systems. The examples of such systems are quoted in references.

The purpose of this article is to describe the features, principles and process of encoding and decoding Reed-Solomon codes. The number and type of errors that can be corrected depends on the characteristics of Reed-Solomon codes. The paper is devoted to illustrate and to describe the ability of the working program to correct many errors in the text file. This program is developed by C++ programming language to test of applicability of developed algorithms. Thus, accuracy of programming algorithms has been tested. The article goes on to say about important of this program and to appreciate the necessity of digital encoding applications.

The prototype model of classification assumes that categories are stored in human mind as abstracted summary representations formed in the process of experiencing specimens. Classification of new exemplars is based on their similarity to the abstracted prototype. From studies using Michael Posner’s dot-pattern recognition paradigm, we selected several empirical observations, like category size effect, category breadth effect or prototype-exemplar similarity effect, and tested them on artificial neural networks. In this work we show that the properties of human categorization process can be very well simulated and observed on artificial neural networks.

In this work we present a contrast pattern kernel for strings. In this kernel, the feature extraction is based on contrast patterns, that are substrings (patterns) common for the positive class but rare for the negative one. The presented idea can be also illustrated as the extension of a spectrum kernel, investigated in previous work [11]. This extension consists on incorporating feature selection based on contrast patterns to the spectrum kernel. Therefore, presentation of contrast pattern kernel was referenced to the spectrum kernel and the results of tests done were compared with those obtained for the spectrum kernel. Kernels were tested on the data sets obtained from the Phospho.ELM database. These data incoroporate amino acids sequences to which specified enzymes (protein kinases) were assigned. The enzymes catalyze reaction of phosphorylation for these sequences.

In this paper we present analysis of Cepheids using data obtained by the Pi of the Sky detector located in Las Campanas Observatory in season 2006-2009. We have identified nearly 150 Cepheids classified as classical, overtone or population II Cepheids. The calculation of Fourier parameters of Cepheid light curves is described. In order to facilitate Fourier analysis we developed a new program capable to determine a variability period and calculate Fourier coefficients. Additional program allow for automatic classification of the variability type of Cepheid basing on neural network. Results of automatic classification of Cepheids based on a neural network are shown.

Finding interesting celestial objects among tens of thousands or even millions of recorded raw data is not an easy task to implement. In this paper we speed up this process with high level nvidia cuda C++ template library called Thrust, which makes our database with R interface much more efficient.

Although recent years bring massive astronomical surveys which have been extensivly searched, there are still many mysteries burried in the data. We attempt to extract objects with untypical emission lines. Especialy those with with weak and absent emission but without significant absorption. For that purpose we created database which contains quasars spectra for a quick access and peaks detection code in R environment what we describe in this article.

At the end of 2010 the new detector of the Pi of the Sky project was installed in the INTA El Arenosillo Observatory∗ near Huelva, Spain, at the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The robotic telescope consisting of 4 CCD cameras on one parallactic mount was installed in the telescope dome of the BOOTES experiment from IAA. It can monitor about 0.5 steradians of the sky (40x40 degrees) with 10 s time resolution. The device is fully autonomous, designed to work without human supervision. After successful installation it had to be tested and optimally positioned before it started taking data. In this paper we describe in details deteremination of the Pointing Model for the new detector.

In October 2010 Pi of the Sky set up a new system, consisting of 4 cameras installed on a new mount, in El Arenosillo, in southern Spain. It was followed by moving the prototype system from Las Campanas Observatory (central Chile) to San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile) in March 2011. In this paper our new sites, some details about observational conditions and first results in both observatories are described.

In recent years, a significant increase in usage of thermal imagining cameras can be observed in both public and commercial sector, due to the lower cost and expanding availability of uncooled microbolometer infrared radiation detectors. Devices present on the market vary in their parameters and output interfaces. However, all these thermographic cameras are only a source of an image, which is then analyzed in external image processing unit. There is no possibility to run users dedicated image processing algorithms by thermal imaging camera itself. This paper presents a concept of realization, architecture and hardware implementation of "Intelligent thermal imaging camera with network interface" utilizing modern technologies, standards and approach in one single device.

We present current status of the work on the second edition of the variable star catalogue. We used the data from the period from 2006 to 2007. Our catalogue contains about 1000 variable stars of different types. We determined periods for 34 variable stars, which already exists in the GCVS catalogue. For three of them we determined type of variability, previously unknown.

Dependence of coupling coefficient between dielectric resonator (DR) and rectangular waveguide versus geometrical parameters and permittivity of material is discussed in this paper. The coupling coefficient was estimated in terms of scattering matrix approximation calculated by finite element method. The method of improvement of dielectric resonator coupling with rectangular waveguide is proposed. Such effect was achieved by insertion of dielectric discontinuity perpendicular to DR's electrical field. It results in increasing of attenuation in band–stop filters and decreasing of insertion loss in band-pass filters. Thermal stabilization method for resonant frequency of composite dielectric resonator is discussed.

To ensure reliable communications,(an algorithm has been built for bit error detection and correction). To achieve this goal, special codeword combinations and their related parity codes are used as powerful detection and correction codes. All codeword combinations are divided into four main groups, where each code in a group has a common parity code. In this paper, we used the distance feature between special selected codeword combinations and unique combinations from a fixed set to improve the BER in digital communications systems. The results of using such algorithm show that 100% correction of two errors and 66% of three errors. The probability of detection is very high and up to 8 errors in different positions. All correction and detection processes are achieved with minimum number of transmitted bits representing 4- ary PAM symbols with compression ratio equals to 76% comparing to traditional distance parity check codes.

The paper presents an analysis of the tracking loop, its dynamic and sampling requirements when it is designed to be an essential part of the deeply coupled GNSS receiver. All the tracking loops of the GNSS receiver significantly influence final GNSS receiver performance. Robustness of the tracking process can be improved using deeply coupled architecture, when tracking loops inside of the GNSS receiver are supported with accelerations and velocities measured in INS.

Significant advance in the networks design led to the need of optimizing the future communication protocols with the aim to evaluate the network performance. The most common techniques include simulation, analytical models and analysis of empirical data. Accurate error process modelling is necessary for understanding the network behaviour and is essential in designing of error control protocols or real time applications. Discrete Markov models, mainly the Gilbert model, are commonly used for modelling the network error characteristics. This approach is based on the analysis of a communication on link. In this paper we present error model for packet loss and subsequent error description. The proposed model simulates the error performance of wireless communication link. The model is designed as two independent Markov chains, where the first one is used for packet generation and the second one generates correctly and incorrectly transmitted bits for received packets from the first chain. The statistical analyses of real communication on the wireless link are used for determination of model’s parameters. The obtained results generated by proposed model are compared with the real data collection. It is also designed and programmed generator for received traffic. First part of this generator is a generator for packet loss. Second part is a generator for bit error rate. Using the obtained parameters and the implementation of the generator, we collected generated traffic. The obtained results generated by proposed model are compared with the real data collection.

The paper describes the mechanism and design of the wireless device for activation of energy absorber for localization of blast energy in underground openings. The statistics shows that the greatest share of accidents with fatal results associate with explosions in coal mines due to aero-methane and/or air-coal media explosion. The other significant problem is terrorist or accidental explosions in underground structures. At present there are different protective systems to reduce the blast energy. One of the main parts of protective Systems is blast Identification and Registration Module. The works conducted at G. Tsu lukidze Mining Institute of Georgia enabled to construct the wireless system of explosion detection and mitigation of shock waves. The system is based on the constant control on overpressure. The experimental research continues to fulfill the system based on both threats, on the constant control on overpressure and flame parameters, especially in underground structures and coal mines. Reaching the threshold value of any of those parameters, the system immediately starts the activation. The absorber contains a pyrotechnic device ensuring the discharge of dispersed water. The operational parameters of wireless device and activation mechanisms of pyrotechnic element of shock wave absorber are discussed in the paper.

This paper is focused on selected aspects of designing and modeling of transmission parameters of plastic optical fibers (POFs), considered in the context of their potential applications in optical access networks and, specifically, in Fiber-To- The-Home (FTTH) systems. The survey of state-of-the-art solutions is presented and possibility of improving transmission properties of POFs by microstructurization is discussed on the basis of the first results of numerical modeling. In particular, the microstructured POF was designed supporting propagation of limited number of modes while keeping relatively large mode area and, simultaneously, significantly lowered bending losses.

Web applications became most popular medium in the Internet. Popularity, easiness of web application script languages and frameworks together with careless development results in high number of web application vulnerabilities and high number of attacks performed. There are several types of attacks possible because of improper input validation: SQL injection Cross-site scripting, Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), web spam in blogs and others. In order to secure web applications intrusion detection (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are being used. Intrusion detection systems are divided in two groups: misuse detection (traditional IDS) and anomaly detection. This paper presents data mining based algorithm for anomaly detection. The principle of this method is the comparison of the incoming HTTP traffic with a previously built profile that contains a representation of the “normal” or expected web application usage sequence patterns. The frequent sequence patterns are found with GSP algorithm. Previously presented detection method was rewritten and improved. Some tests show that the software catches malicious requests, especially long attack sequences, results quite good with medium length sequences, for short length sequences must be complemented with other methods.

The article presents a description of the basics of the wide-baseline stereo problem, and the examples of the most typical wide baseline stereo applications. Major problems that appear in the applications are identified and discussed, including the problem of the geometric distortions between the views and the problem of the varying illumination. The presentation of the problems is based mostly on the example of a simple, artificial wide-baseline scene.

This document presents a short description of the current stage of works on H.265/HEVC video coding standard, which is being prepared by the JCT-VC group in order to achieve a 50% reduction of the data rate needed for high quality video coding, as compared to the current H.264/AVC standard. The gain should be achieved by an inclusion of a few new coding techniques and improvements to each step of original H.264/AVC coding algorithm. The proposed changes also ought to broaden the range of possible standard applications.

Block based motion estimation (BBME) is a key technique for the reduction of inter-frame redundancy present in video sequences. Many fast BBME algorithms proposed within last three decades are able to obtain similar results as full search (FS) algorithm with only a fraction of computational resources required by FS. However, to be implemented in hardware, these fast algorithms require adaptation to some hardware-specific constraints. In this paper, adaptive and computationally scalable multi-path search algorithm (MPS), proposed previously, is tailored to hardware implementation. Motion vector generator module working according to the MPS algorithm is designed and synthesized for FPGA implementation. Performance and results of synthesis of original and modified version of MPS algorithm are compared.

The algorithms presented in this paper are focused on the analysis of 3D scene using structured light technique. The light pattern which was projected on the scene consisted of horizontal stripes of different colors. These colors corresponded to the symbols creating the de Bruijn sequence. The first plane objects of analysed 3D scene were human hands. In this paper the discussion concerning important features of the structured light pattern is made. The focus is made on the analysis of the pattern corresponding to the de Bruijn sequence. The algorithm for computing the depth map of 3D scene using triangulation method is proposed. The most important part of the algorithm for the depth map evaluation is related with the extraction of colors from the stripes of the projected light pattern. The discussion concerning proposed algorithms for color detection is made and the results of the tests on HD images are described. The implementation of proposed methods using parallel programming with openCL architecture enabled crating real-time application.

A system for simultaneous multi-obstacle recognition and tracking is proposed. Based on the novel Hierarchical Temporal Memory algorithm, it is design for application in vision problems but generally not constrained to it. Thanks to its modular and mostly parallel architecture it can be easily implemented in distributed environment attaining significant computation speed and thus it is suited for real-time processing tasks like visual data processing in mobile robotics. Derived from standard neural network paradigm the system can extract information concerning position, relative speed and type of an obstacle in a dynamically changing environment. It can be easily enhanced for basic prediction tasks.

Nowadays video coding systems are extremely efficient and data transmission channels have higher throughput. That is why the size of a coded sequence is not the only criterion of video encoder rating. The efficient usage of transmission resources is becoming very important problem what force us to look at the rate control algorithms. This paper presents test results of using basic rate control algorithms for multiview sequences. Also some modifications are proposed to make those algorithms more efficient in hardware implementations.

The primary objective of this article is to find new effective methods of diagnosis of urgent liver transplantation after Amanita phalloides intoxication amongst pediatric patients. The research was carried out using a medical database of pediatric patients who suffered from acute liver failure after amatoxin consumption. After data preprocessing and attribute selection steps, a two-phase experiment was conducted, which incorporated a wide variety of data mining algorithms. The results deliver two equivalent classification models with simple decision structure and reasonable quality of surgery prediction.

The effect of cell phone radiation on human health is the subject of recent interest and study, as a result of the enormous increase in cell phone usage throughout the world. Cell phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range, which some believe may be harmful to human health. Other digital wireless systems, such as data communication networks, produce similar radiation. The objective of this survey is to review the effects of cell phones on human health: A large body of research exists, both epidemiological and experimental, in non-human animals and in humans, of which the majority shows no definite causative relationship between exposure to cell phones and harmful biological effects in humans. This is often paraphrased simply as the balance of evidence showing no harm to humans from cell phones, although a significant number of individual studies do suggest such a relationship, or are inconclusive.

The problem of simulating electroencephalographic (EEG) signals for different stages of anesthesia is considered. Review of existing techniques for EEG simulation is made and the new technique for simulating the EEG using only preliminary definition of magnitudes of harmonic components for every frequency ranges is presented. During experimental part EEG signals for four stages of ether anesthesia were simulated.

This paper presents a system allowing to use a patient's mobile phone or PDA for storing of biomedical data, which then, during medical consultation or intervention may be used by the medical staff. The presented solution is aimed on providing both: reliable protection to sensitive patient's data, and easy access to information for authorized medical staff. In the presented system, data are stored in an encrypted form, and the encryption key is available only for authorized persons. The central authentication server verifies the current access rights of the person trying to obtain the information, before providing him or her with the key needed to access the patient's data. The key provided by the server is valid only for the particular device, which minimizes the risk of its misuse. For rare situations when no connection to the authentication server is available (e.g. intervention in the mountains or rural area), system assures an additional "emergency" method to access the encryption key in controlled, registered way. The system has been implemented in Java language and tested in the simulated environment provided by Sun Java Wireless Toolkit for CLDC.

This paper presents complete optimized architecture of Advanced Audio Coder quantization with Huffman coding. After that psychoacoustic model theory is presented and few algorithms described: standard Two Loop Search, its modifications, Genetic, Just Noticeable Level Difference, Trellis-Based and its modification: Cascaded Trellis-Based Algorithm.

Standardization of the diagnostic process of insomnia is a highly important task in clinical practice, epidemiological considerations and treatment outcomes assessment. In this paper we describe standard surveys relationships within cluster groups with the same insomnia degrees.

Insomnia generally is defined as a subjective report of difficulty falling sleep, difficulty staying asleep, early awakening, or nonrestorative sleep. It is one of the most common health complaints among the general population. in this paper we try to find relationships between different insomnia cases and predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors following by pharmacological treatment.

Precise knowledge of the spatial distributions of optical radiation in the biological medium is required in all cases of medical laser procedures, but for the low-energy interactions influencing the course of photochemical processes (biostimulation treatments) has not yet been precisely controlled. The variety of procedures and results of the trials will mobilize to look for unequivocal parameters of laser radiation, which both in vitro and in vivo will result in acceleration of cell proliferation and the expected therapeutic efficacy. There is a need to conduct objective diagnostic tests of tissues during treatment using a laser measuring system analyzing the status of the tissue (its optical properties) during therapeutic exposition. It is necessary to build an illuminator providing homogeneous distribution of spectral power density and spatial power density on the surface of the test. An illumination set is composed of a collection of over a dozen diodes LED emitting in therapeutic window of biological tissue (range 600-1000 nm). In this paper are presented the optical couplers enable the implementation of this purpose - conical coupler and MM planar fiber.

The paper presents a method of solving the problem of protein phosphorylation sites recognition. Six classifiers were created for prediction whether specified amino acid sequences represented as a 9-character strings react with given types of the kinase-enzymes. The method consists of three steps. Positions in the amino acid sequences significant for classification are found with the use of classification trees in the first step. Afterwards, the symbols composing the sequences are mapped to the real numbers domain using the Gini index method. The last step consists of creating the SVM classifiers as the final prediction models. The paper contains evaluation of the obtained results and the description of the methods applied to evaluate the quality of the classifiers.

This paper presents the concept of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Interferemetric SAR (InSAR) georeferencing algorithms dedicated for SAR based augmented Inertial Navigation Architecture (SARINA). The SARINA is a novel concept of the Inertial Navigation System (INS), which utilized the SAR radar as an additional sensor to provide information about the platform trajectory position and compensate an aircraft drift due to Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) errors, Global Positioning System (GPS) lack of integrity, etc.

In the context of augmented integrity Inertial Navigation System (INS), recent technological developments have been focusing on landmark extraction from high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images in order to retrieve aircraft position and attitude. The article puts forward a processing chain that can automatically detect linear landmarks on highresolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and can be successfully exploited also in the context of augmented integrity INS. The processing chain uses constant false alarm rate (CFAR) edge detectors as the first step of the whole processing procedure. Our studies confirm that the ratio of averages (RoA) edge detector detects object boundaries more effectively than Student T-test and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney (WMW) test. Nevertheless, all these statistical edge detectors are sensitive to violation of the assumptions which underlie their theory. In addition to presenting a solution to the previous problem, we put forward a new post-processing algorithm useful to remove the main false alarms, to select the most probable edge position, to reconstruct broken edges and finally to vectorize them. SAR images from the “MSTAR clutter” dataset were used to prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

The well-known and new estimates of the meteorological formations (MF) parameters for pulsed Doppler weather radars with arbitrary staggering of pulse repetition intervals are considered. Their statistical characteristics are determined and compared. The dependences of estimates accuracy on the training sample size, the power of MF, the type and level of interperiod correlation of signals reflected from MF are analyzed. There are proved the most effective on a number of criteria estimates of MF’s parameters and rational ways of their practical implementation.

This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the errors, caused by multipath effect of signal propagation. Multipath effect was modelled and analyzed on the basis of polarization characteristics of received signal.

Preliminary results of our investigations of Software Defined Noise Radar are presented; namely, results on the design and implementation of FPGA-based Noise Radar with digital generation of random signal and coherent reception of radar returns. Parallelization of computations in FPGA enabled realization of algorithm in time domain for evaluation of the cross-correlations, comparable with the frequency-domain algorithm in efficiency. Moreover, implementation of relay-type correlator algorithm enabled realizing of the cross-correlation algorithm which might operate much faster. We present comparison of performance and limitations of different considered designs. Digital correlator has been implemented in the Altera/Stratix evaluation board having 1 million gates and up to 300 MHz clock frequency. We also realized a software defined CW noise radar on the basis of RVI Development Board from ICTP M-LAB.

Meteorology plays an important role in aviation, as it enables to predict weather conditions and detect flight dangerous meteorological phenomena. Meteorological radar is used to detect the intensity and possible location of precipitation and dangerous zones in them. Doppler radar systems are able to measure the speed of scatteres that constitute meteorological formations and phenomena. The tasks of measurement accuracy increasing and reliability rise of hazardous meteorological phenomena detection become much more relevant after establishing new flight control system CNS ATM adopted by ICAO - the International Civil Aviation Organization.

One original structure of the CFAR detector and parameter estimator of moving marine targets in conditions of natural interference using Bistatic Forward Scattering Radar (FSR) are presented in this paper. The specific one dimensional MTI CFAR processor with K/M-L batch processor and parameter estimator for a marine target with unknown size are investigated on the base of real data records that have been obtained by the team of the Birmingham University using Forward Scattering Radar.

The paper describes experimental L-band ground reflectivity measurement using noise radar demonstrator working as a scatterometer. The radar ground return is usually described with a scattering coefficient, a quantity that is independent from the scatterometer system. To calculate the coefficient in a function of incidence angle, range profile values obtained after range compression were used. In order to improve dynamic range of the measurement, antenna cross-path interference was removed using lattice filter. The ground return was measured at L band both for HH and VV polarizations of radar wave as well as for HV and VH crosspolarizations using log-periodic antennas placed at a 10 m high mast directed towards a meadow surface. In the paper the theoretical considerations, noise radar setup, measurement campaign and the results are described.

The approach, when the waveforms of different types are exploited in the same radar (waveform diversity) requires new-generation sources of initial signals. For generating of different types of waveforms in the same radar we suggest using Arbitrary Waveform Generator, that allows output any type of pre-programmed signal in real time. We have carried out preliminary experimental tests of the stepped-delay mode of UHF-band radar evaluation kit. The series of experimental testing shows efficiency AWG application in radar with variety of sounding waveforms.

The paper contains description of chosen aspects of analysis and design of tailored optical fibers. By specialty optical fibers we understand here the fibers which have complex construction and which serve for the functional processing of optical signal rather than long distance transmission. Thus, they are called also instrumentation optical fibers. The following issues are considered: transmission properties, transformation of optical signal, fiber characteristics, fiber susceptibility to external reactions. The technology of tailored optical fibers offers a wider choice of the design tools for the fiber itself, and then various devices made from these fiber, than classical technology of communication optical fibers. The consequence is different fiber properties, nonstandard dimensions and different metrological problems. The price to be paid for wider design possibilities are bigger optical losses of these fibers and weaker mechanical properties, and worse chemical stability. These fibers find their applications outside the field of telecommunications. The applications of instrumentation optical fibers combine other techniques apart from the photonics ones like: electronic, chemical and mechatronic.

The paper presents influence of the HB1500 bow-tie optical fiber coating on the fiber angular sensitivity for dynamic stress induced by an acoustic wave. An experimental setup is explained and fiber parameters are presented, what is a step forward to predict and simulate behavior of optical fibers embedded in composite materials. Both sensitivities of the fiber (with and without coating) are compared versus the angle between the birefringence axis and the acoustic wave propagation direction. An influence of the fiber coating has also been experimentally examined.

Approaches to diagnostics and predictive maintenance of technological equipment are presented in the paper. Different techniques are analyzed using intelligent approaches to fault diagnosis. Results from application of passive and active thermography are presented. Active thermography is acknowledged as one of the most powerful tools for nondestructive control to localize cracks and defects in depth like metals, composite materials and polymers. An original stand for active thermography for defect localizations in the volume of the research sample – material or a detail is shown. The communication between the researcher and the controlling software is realized by the elaborated specialized humanmachine interface.

Structural and field emission investigation results of carbonaceous films containing Ni nanocrystllities are presented. These films were prepared by Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) method in which C60 and nickel acetate were evaporated from two separate sources and under with different technological conditions. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was applied to study their morphology and topography of films. SEM images in low angel backscattered electrons (LABE) and secondary electrons (SE) mode were analyze to obtain information on a composition of observed objects. Many different types of films were studied by SEM and a field emission was measured for them. Field emission was studied in a vacuum chamber where film was a cathode and anode was flat metallic element.

In this research the results of resistance changes for carbonaceous-palladium films taking place under the influence of gaseous surrounding with the contents of 1% H2, 99% N2 have been presented. The films were received by PVD method and their characteristics from the point of view of topography and morphology was done using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The films with different contents, surface topography and morphology were investigated from the point of view of resistance changes taking place under the influence of gaseous surrounding. These changes can be correlated with the changes of Pd contents.