Abstract: Trust management and Reputation models are
becoming integral part of Internet based applications such as CSCW,
E-commerce and Grid Computing. Also the trust dimension is a
significant social structure and key to social relations within a
collaborative community. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is
a difficult task in the context of distributed environment (information
across different geographical locations) and multidisciplinary
decisions are involved such as Virtual Organization (VO). To aid
team decision making in VO, Decision Support System and social
network analysis approaches are integrated. In such situations social
learning helps an organization in terms of relationship, team
formation, partner selection etc. In this paper we focus on trust
learning. Trust learning is an important activity in terms of
information exchange, negotiation, collaboration and trust
assessment for cooperation among virtual team members. In this
paper we have proposed a reinforcement learning which enhances the
trust decision making capability of interacting agents during
collaboration in problem solving activity. Trust computational model
with learning that we present is adapted for best alternate selection of
new project in the organization. We verify our model in a multi-agent
simulation where the agents in the community learn to identify
trustworthy members, inconsistent behavior and conflicting behavior
of agents.
Abstract: We have previously introduced an ultrasonic imaging
approach that combines harmonic-sensitive pulse sequences with a
post-beamforming quadratic kernel derived from a second-order
Volterra filter (SOVF). This approach is designed to produce images
with high sensitivity to nonlinear oscillations from microbubble
ultrasound contrast agents (UCA) while maintaining high levels of
noise rejection. In this paper, a two-step algorithm for computing the
coefficients of the quadratic kernel leading to reduction of tissue
component introduced by motion, maximizing the noise rejection and
increases the specificity while optimizing the sensitivity to the UCA
is presented. In the first step, quadratic kernels from individual
singular modes of the PI data matrix are compared in terms of their
ability of maximize the contrast to tissue ratio (CTR). In the second
step, quadratic kernels resulting in the highest CTR values are
convolved. The imaging results indicate that a signal processing
approach to this clinical challenge is feasible.
Abstract: This paper describes the Multilingual Virtual Simulated Patient framework. It has been created to train the social skills and testing the knowledge of primary health care medical students. The framework generates conversational agents which perform in serveral languages as virtual simulated patients that help to improve the communication and diagnosis skills of the students complementing their training process.
Abstract: A simple mobile engine-driven pneumatic paddy
collector made of locally available materials using local
manufacturing technology was designed, fabricated, and tested for
collecting and bagging of paddy dried on concrete pavement. The
pneumatic paddy collector had the following major components:
radial flat bladed type centrifugal fan, power transmission system,
bagging area, frame and the conveyance system. Results showed
significant differences on the collecting capacity, noise level, and fuel
consumption when rotational speed of the air mover shaft was varied.
Other parameters such as collecting efficiency, air velocity,
augmented cracked grain percentage, and germination rate were not
significantly affected by varying rotational speed of the air mover
shaft. The pneumatic paddy collector had a collecting efficiency of
99.33 % with a collecting capacity of 2685.00 kg/h at maximum
rotational speed of centrifugal fan shaft of about 4200 rpm. The
machine entailed an investment cost of P 62,829.25. The break-even
weight of paddy was 510,606.75 kg/yr at a collecting cost of 0.11
P/kg of paddy. Utilizing the machine for 400 hours per year
generated an income of P 23,887.73. The projected time needed to
recover cost of the machine based on 2685 kg/h collecting capacity
was 2.63 year.
Abstract: In the past few decades, researchers have witnessed a
paradigm shift in Human Resource Management-from individual
performance to organizational outcomes with the role of Human
resource (HR) managers becoming increasingly significant to the
organization. In such a context, it is important to examine HR
practices from a strategic perspective on the sustained competitive
advantage (SCA) of the organizations. The present study explores
how Indian organisations look at their human resources strategically
when faced with competitive environment. Also, it explores strategic
initiatives being taken to manage human resources within the
organisations and how these initiatives promote SCA in terms of
enhancing the overall customer-centric delivery of goods and
services.
Abstract: This paper discusses the designing of knowledge
integration of clinical information extracted from distributed medical
ontologies in order to ameliorate a machine learning-based multilabel
coding assignment system. The proposed approach is
implemented using a decision tree technique of the machine learning
on the university hospital data for patients with Coronary Heart
Disease (CHD). The preliminary results obtained show a satisfactory
finding that the use of medical ontologies improves the overall
system performance.
Abstract: A traffic light gives security from traffic congestion,reducing the traffic jam, and organizing the traffic flow. Furthermore,increasing congestion level in public road networks is a growingproblem in many countries. Using Intelligent Transportation Systemsto provide emergency vehicles a green light at intersections canreduce driver confusion, reduce conflicts, and improve emergencyresponse times. Nowadays, the technology of wireless sensornetworks can solve many problems and can offer a good managementof the crossroad. In this paper, we develop a new approach based onthe technique of clustering and the graphical possibilistic fusionmodeling. So, the proposed model is elaborated in three phases. Thefirst one consists to decompose the environment into clusters,following by the fusion intra and inter clusters processes. Finally, wewill show some experimental results by simulation that proves theefficiency of our proposed approach.KeywordsTraffic light, Wireless sensor network, Controller,Possibilistic network/Bayesain network.
Abstract: In this study, rotating flexible shaft-disk system
having flexible beams is considered as a dynamic system. After
neglecting nonlinear terms, torsional vibration of the shaft-disk
system and lateral and longitudinal vibration of the flexible beam are
still coupled through the motor speed. The system has three natural
frequencies; the flexible shaft-disk system torsional natural
frequency, the flexible beam lateral and longitudinal natural
frequencies. Eigenvalue calculations show that while the shaft speed
changes, torsional natural frequency of the shaft-disk system and the
beam longitudinal natural frequency are not changing but the beam
lateral natural frequency changes. Beam lateral natural frequency
stays the same as the nonrotating beam lateral natural frequency ωb
until the motor speed ωm is equal to ωb. After then ωb increases and
remains equal to the motor speed ωm until the motor speed is equal to
the shaft-disk system natural frequency ωT. Then the beam lateral
natural frequency ωb becomes equal to the natural frequency ωT and
stays same while the motor speed ωm is increased. Modal amplitudes
and phase angles of the vibrations are also plotted against the motor
speed ωm.
Abstract: Finding effective ways of improving university quality assurance requires, as well, a retraining of the staff. This article illustrates an Online Programme of Excellence Model (OPEM), based on the European quality assurance model, for improving participants- formative programme standards. The results of applying this OPEM indicate the necessity of quality policies that support the evaluators- competencies to improve formative programmes. The study concludes by outlining how faculty and agency staff can use OPEM for the internal and external quality assurance of formative programmes.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of preparation and control of orders on performance. The focused activities explored in this research are: procurement, production and distribution. These changes in performance were obtained through improvement of the supply chain. It is proved using all the company activities that it is possible to increase de efficiency and do services in an adequate way, placing the products in the market efficiently. For that, it was explored the importance of the supply chain, with privilege to the practical environment and the quantification of the obtained results.
Abstract: Car accident is one of the major causes of death in many countries. Many researchers have attempted to design and develop techniques to increase car safety in the past recent years. In spite of all the efforts, it is still challenging to design a system adaptive to the driver rather than the automotive characteristics. In this paper, the adaptive car safety system is explained which attempts to find a balance.
Abstract: For stable bipedal gait generation on the level floor,
efficient restoring of mechanical energy lost by heel collision at
the ground is necessary. Parametric excitation principle is one of
the solutions. We dealt with the robot-s total center of mass as
an inverted pendulum to consider the total dynamics of the robot.
Parametrically excited walking requires the use of continuous target
trajectory that is close to discontinuous optimal trajectory. In this
paper, we proposed the new target trajectory based on a position
in the walking direction. We surveyed relations between walking
performance and the parameters that form the target trajectory via
numerical simulations. As a result, it was found that our target
trajectory has the similar characteristics of a parametrically excited
inverted pendulum.
Abstract: In this paper we present a method of abrupt cut detection with a novel logic of frames- comparison. Actual frame is compared with its motion estimated prediction instead of comparison with successive frame. Four different similarity metrics were employed to estimate the resemblance of compared frames. Obtained results were evaluated by standard used measures of test accuracy and compared with existing approach. Based on the results, we claim the proposed method is more effective and Pearson correlation coefficient obtained the best results among chosen similarity metrics.
Abstract: This study presents a new approach based on Tanaka's
fuzzy linear regression (FLP) algorithm to solve well-known power
system economic load dispatch problem (ELD). Tanaka's fuzzy linear
regression (FLP) formulation will be employed to compute the
optimal solution of optimization problem after linearization. The
unknowns are expressed as fuzzy numbers with a triangular
membership function that has middle and spread value reflected on
the unknowns. The proposed fuzzy model is formulated as a linear
optimization problem, where the objective is to minimize the sum of
the spread of the unknowns, subject to double inequality constraints.
Linear programming technique is employed to obtain the middle and
the symmetric spread for every unknown (power generation level).
Simulation results of the proposed approach will be compared with
those reported in literature.
Abstract: Information sharing and exchange, rather than
information processing, is what characterizes information
technology in the 21st century. Ontologies, as shared common
understanding, gain increasing attention, as they appear as the
most promising solution to enable information sharing both at
a semantic level and in a machine-processable way. Domain
Ontology-based modeling has been exploited to provide
shareability and information exchange among diversified,
heterogeneous applications of enterprises.
Contextual ontologies are “an explicit specification of
contextual conceptualization". That is: ontology is
characterized by concepts that have multiple representations
and they may exist in several contexts. Hence, contextual
ontologies are a set of concepts and relationships, which are
seen from different perspectives. Contextualization is to allow
for ontologies to be partitioned according to their contexts.
The need for contextual ontologies in enterprise modeling
has become crucial due to the nature of today's competitive
market. Information resources in enterprise is distributed and
diversified and is in need to be shared and communicated
locally through the intranet and globally though the internet.
This paper discusses the roles that ontologies play in an
enterprise modeling, and how ontologies assist in building a
conceptual model in order to provide communicative and
interoperable information systems. The issue of enterprise
modeling based on contextual domain ontology is also
investigated, and a framework is proposed for an enterprise
model that consists of various applications.
Abstract: This paper presents a experiment to estimate the
influences of cutting conditions in microstructure changes of
machining austenitic 304 stainless steel, especially for wear insert. The
wear insert were prefabricated with a width of 0.5 mm. And the forces,
temperature distribution, RS, and microstructure changes were
measured by force dynamometer, infrared thermal camera, X-ray
diffraction, XRD, SEM, respectively. The results told that the different
combinations of machining condition have a significant influence on
machined surface microstructure changes. In addition to that, the
ANOVA and AOMwere used to tell the different influences of cutting
speed, feed rate, and wear insert.
Abstract: The extraction of meaningful information from image
could be an alternative method for time series analysis. In this paper,
we propose a graphical analysis of time series grouped into table
with adjusted colour scale for numerical values. The advantages of
this method are also discussed. The proposed method is easy to
understand and is flexible to implement the standard methods of
pattern recognition and verification, especially for noisy
environmental data.
Abstract: Heat-inducible gene expression vectors are useful for hyperthermia-induced cancer gene therapy, because the combination
of hyperthermia and gene therapy can considerably improve the therapeutic effects. In the present study, we developed an enhanced
heat-inducible transgene expression system in which a heat-shock
protein (HSP) promoter and tetracycline-responsive transactivator
were combined. When the transactivator plasmid containing the
tetracycline-responsive transactivator gene was co-transfected with
the reporter gene expression plasmid, a high level of heat-induced gene expression was observed compared with that using the HSP
promoter without the transactivator. In vitro evaluation of the
therapeutic effect using HeLa cells showed that heat-induced therapeutic gene expression caused cell death in a high percentage of
these cells, indicating that this strategy is promising for cancer gene therapy.
Abstract: In this paper, we present local image descriptor using
VQ-SIFT for more effective and efficient image retrieval. Instead of
SIFT's weighted orientation histograms, we apply vector quantization
(VQ) histogram as an alternate representation for SIFT features.
Experimental results show that SIFT features using VQ-based local
descriptors can achieve better image retrieval accuracy than the
conventional algorithm while the computational cost is significantly
reduced.
Abstract: This study examines the possibility to apply the theory of multidimensional accounting (momentum accounting) in a Brazilian Navy-s Services Provider Military Organization (Organização Militar Prestadora de Serviços - OMPS). In general, the core of the said theory is the fact that Accounting does not recognize the inertia of transactions occurring in an entity, and that occur repeatedly in some cases, regardless of the implementation of new actions by its managers. The study evaluates the possibility of greater use of information recorded in the financial statements of the unit of analysis, within the strategic decisions of the organization. As a research strategy, we adopted the case study. The results infer that it is possible to use the theory in the context of a multidimensional OMPS, promoting useful information for decision-making and thereby contributing to the strengthening of the necessary alignment of its administration with the current desires of the Brazilian society.