Abstract: This paper presents a mark-up approach to service creation in Next Generation Networks. The approach allows deriving added value from network functions exposed by Parlay/OSA (Open Service Access) interfaces. With OSA interfaces service logic scripts might be executed both on callrelated and call-unrelated events. To illustrate the approach XMLbased language constructions for data and method definitions, flow control, time measuring and supervision and database access are given and an example of OSA application is considered.
Abstract: The experimental and theoretical results of a ZVS
(Zero Voltage Switching) isolated flyback DC-DC converter using
multilayered coreless PCB step down 2:1 transformer are presented.
The performance characteristics of the transformer are shown which
are useful for the parameters extraction. The measured energy
efficiency of the transformer is found to be more than 94% with the
sinusoidal input voltage excitation. The designed flyback converter
has been tested successfully upto the output power level of 10W,
with a switching frequency in the range of 2.7MHz-4.3MHz. The
input voltage of the converter is varied from 25V-40V DC.
Frequency modulation technique is employed by maintaining
constant off time to regulate the output voltage of the converter. The
energy efficiency of the isolated flyback converter circuit under ZVS
condition in the MHz frequency region is found to be approximately
in the range of 72-84%. This paper gives the comparative results in
terms of the energy efficiency of the hard switched and soft switched
flyback converter in the MHz frequency region.
Abstract: Real-time measurement of applied forces, like tension, compression, torsion, and bending moment, identifies the transferred energies being applied to the bottomhole assembly (BHA). These forces are highly detrimental to measurement/logging-while-drilling tools and downhole equipment. Real-time measurement of the dynamic downhole behavior, including weight, torque, bending on bit, and vibration, establishes a real-time feedback loop between the downhole drilling system and drilling team at the surface. This paper describes the numerical analysis of the strain data acquired by the measurement tool at different locations on the strain pockets. The strain values obtained by FEA for various loading conditions (tension, compression, torque, and bending moment) are compared against experimental results obtained from an identical experimental setup. Numerical analyses results agree with experimental data within 8% and, therefore, substantiate and validate the FEA model. This FEA model can be used to analyze the combined loading conditions that reflect the actual drilling environment.
Abstract: Low oxygen content vanadium powder was
prepared by hydrogenation dehydrogenization (HDH). The
effect of purification treatment on hydrogen absorption kinetics
of dendritic vanadium was tested, and the effects of milling
technique on powder yield and grain size were studied. The
crystal phase, oxygen and nitrgen content, and grain size of
prepared powder were characterized and analyzed by X-ray
diffraction (XRD), oxygen and nitrogen analyzer and grain size
analyzer. The results show that the alkaline cleaning can
improve the hydrogen absorption of vanadium. The yield of
vanadium hydride powder can reach as high as 90% by 4h
ball-milling, The resultant product also have an oxygen content
less than 600μg/g, and the grain size is smaller than 37μm.
Meanwhile, the XRD results show that the phase of hydride
vanadium powder is mainly VH0.81. After a hydrogen
desorption treatment in vacuum at 700Ôäâ, the phase of the
powder converts into V and a little of V2H.
Abstract: This experiment was performed with the purpose of
investigating effect of additional blend of probiotics Saccharomyces
cerevisiae and Lactobacillus acidophilus on plasma fatty acid profiles
particularly conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in growing goats fed corn
silage, and selected the optimal levels of the probiotics for further study.
Twenty-four growing crossbred (Thai native x Anglo-Nubian) goats that
weighed (14.2 ± 2.3) kg, aged about 6 months, were purchased and
allocated to 4 treatments according to Randomized Complete Block
Design (RCBD) with 6 goats in each treatment. The blocks were made by
weight into heavy, medium, and light goats and each of the treatments
contained two goats from each of the blocks. In the mean time, ruminal
average pH unaffected, but the NH3-N and also plasma urea nitrogen
(p0.05) were raised, but propionic
proportion (p0.05) were reduced in
concurrent with raise of acetic proportion and resultantly C2:C3 ratio
(p>0.05). On plasma fatty acid profiles, total saturated fatty acids
(p>0.05) was increased, and contrasted with decrease of C15:0
(p0.05), and C18-C22 polyunsaturated fatty acids
(p
Abstract: In technological processes, in addition to the main
product, result a large amount of materials, called wastes, but due to
the possibilities of recovery, by means of recycling and reusing it can
fit in the category of by-products. These large amounts of dust from
the steel industry are a major problem in terms of environmental and
human health, landscape, etc. Solving these problems, the impressive
amounts of waste can be done through their proper management and
recovery for every type of waste. In this article it was watched the
capitalizing through pelleting and briquetting of small and powdery
waste aiming to obtain the sponge iron as raw material, used in blast
furnaces and electric arc furnaces. The data have been processed in
the Excel spreadsheet program, being presented in the form of
diagrams.
Abstract: In this paper we report a study aimed at determining
the most effective animation technique for representing ASL
(American Sign Language) finger-spelling. Specifically, in the study
we compare two commonly used 3D computer animation methods
(keyframe animation and motion capture) in order to ascertain which
technique produces the most 'accurate', 'readable', and 'close to
actual signing' (i.e. realistic) rendering of ASL finger-spelling. To
accomplish this goal we have developed 20 animated clips of fingerspelled
words and we have designed an experiment consisting of a
web survey with rating questions. 71 subjects ages 19-45 participated
in the study. Results showed that recognition of the words was
correlated with the method used to animate the signs. In particular,
keyframe technique produced the most accurate representation of the
signs (i.e., participants were more likely to identify the words
correctly in keyframed sequences rather than in motion captured
ones). Further, findings showed that the animation method had an
effect on the reported scores for readability and closeness to actual
signing; the estimated marginal mean readability and closeness was
greater for keyframed signs than for motion captured signs. To our
knowledge, this is the first study aimed at measuring and comparing
accuracy, readability and realism of ASL animations produced with
different techniques.
Abstract: Technological innovation capability (TIC) is
defined as a comprehensive set of characteristics of a firm that
facilities and supports its technological innovation strategies.
An audit to evaluate the TICs of a firm may trigger
improvement in its future practices. Such an audit can be used
by the firm for self assessment or third-party independent
assessment to identify problems of its capability status. This
paper attempts to develop such an auditing framework that
can help to determine the subtle links between innovation
capabilities and business performance; and to enable the
auditor to determine whether good practice is in place. The
seven TICs in this study include learning, R&D, resources
allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organization and
strategic planning capabilities. Empirical data was acquired
through a survey study of 200 manufacturing firms in the
Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta (HK/PRD) region. Structural
equation modelling was employed to examine the
relationships among TICs and various performance indicators:
sales performance, innovation performance, product
performance, and sales growth. The results revealed that
different TICs have different impacts on different
performance measures. Organization capability was found to
have the most influential impact. Hong Kong manufacturers
are now facing the challenge of high-mix-low-volume
customer orders. In order to cope with this change, good
capability in organizing different activities among various
departments is critical to the success of a company.
Abstract: The paper presents new results of a recent industry
supported research and development study in which an efficient
framework for evaluating practical and meaningful power system
reliability and quality indices was applied. The system-wide
integrated performance indices are capable of addressing and
revealing areas of deficiencies and bottlenecks as well as
redundancies in the composite generation-transmission-demand
structure of large-scale power grids. The technique utilizes a linear
programming formulation, which simulates practical operating
actions and offers a general and comprehensive framework to assess
the harmony and compatibility of generation, transmission and
demand in a power system. Practical applications to a reduced
system model as well as a portion of the Saudi power grid are also
presented in the paper for demonstration purposes.
Abstract: Experiments have been carried out at the Latvia
University of Agriculture Department of Food Technology. The aim
of this work was to assess the effect of sous vide packaging during
the storage time of salad with meat in mayonnaise at different storage
temperature. Samples were evaluated at 0, 1, 3, 7, 10, 15, 18, 25, 29,
42, and 52 storage days at the storage temperature of +4±0.5 ºC and
+10±0.5 ºC. Experimentally the quality of the salad with meat in
mayonnaise was characterized by measuring colour, pH and
microbiological properties. The sous vide packaging was effective in
protecting the product from physical, chemical, and microbial quality
degradation. The sous vide packaging significantly reduces microbial
growth at storage temperature of +4±0.5 ºC and +10±0.5 ºC.
Moreover, it is possible to extend the product shelf life to 52 days
even when stored at +10±0.5 ºC.
Abstract: We investigated this hypothesis that arterial CO2 pressure (PaCO2) drives ventilation (V.E) with a time delay duringrecovery from short impulse-like exercise (10 s) with work load of 200 watts. V.E and end tidal CO2 pressure (PETCO2) were measured continuously during rest, warming up, exercise and recovery periods. PaCO2 was predicted (PaCO2 pre) from PETCO2 and tidal volume (VT). PETCO2 and PaCO2 pre peaked at 20 s of recovery. V.E increased and peaked at the end of exercise and then decreased during recovery; however, it peaked again at 30 s of recovery, which was 10 s later than the peak of PaCO2 pre. The relationship between V. E and PaCO2pre was not significant by using data of them obtained at the same time but was significant by using data of V.E obtained 10 s later for data of PaCO2 pre. The results support our hypothesis that PaCO2 drives V.E with a time delay.
Abstract: We introduce a novel approach to measuring how
humans learn based on techniques from information theory and
apply it to the oriental game of Go. We show that the total amount
of information observable in human strategies, called the strategic
information, remains constant for populations of players of differing
skill levels for well studied patterns of play. This is despite the very
large amount of knowledge required to progress from the recreational
players at one end of our spectrum to the very best and most
experienced players in the world at the other and is in contrast to
the idea that having more knowledge might imply more 'certainty'
in what move to play next. We show this is true for very local
up to medium sized board patterns, across a variety of different
moves using 80,000 game records. Consequences for theoretical and
practical AI are outlined.
Abstract: The acoustic and articulatory properties of fricative speech sounds are being studied using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and acoustic recordings from a single subject. Area functions were derived from a complete set of axial and coronal MR slices using two different methods: the Mermelstein technique and the Blum transform. Area functions derived from the two techniques were shown to differ significantly in some cases. Such differences will lead to different acoustic predictions and it is important to know which is the more accurate. The vocal tract acoustic transfer function (VTTF) was derived from these area functions for each fricative and compared with measured speech signals for the same fricative and same subject. The VTTFs for /f/ in two vowel contexts and the corresponding acoustic spectra are derived here; the Blum transform appears to show a better match between prediction and measurement than the Mermelstein technique.
Abstract: This paper studies the effect of different compression
constraints and schemes presented in a new and flexible paradigm to
achieve high compression ratios and acceptable signal to noise ratios
of Arabic speech signals. Compression parameters are computed for
variable frame sizes of a level 5 to 7 Discrete Wavelet Transform
(DWT) representation of the signals for different analyzing mother
wavelet functions. Results are obtained and compared for Global
threshold and level dependent threshold techniques. The results
obtained also include comparisons with Signal to Noise Ratios, Peak
Signal to Noise Ratios and Normalized Root Mean Square Error.
Abstract: Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) emerged in the pursuit to improve our standard of living, and hence can manifest complex human behaviors such as communication, decision making, negotiation and self-organization. The Social Network Services (SNSs) have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. The domains of MAS and SNS have lots of similarities such as architecture, features and functions. Exploring social network users- behavior through multiagent model is therefore our research focus, in order to generate more accurate and meaningful information to SNS users. An application of MAS is the e-Auction and e-Rental services of the Universiti Cyber AgenT(UniCAT), a Social Network for students in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Kampar, Malaysia, built around the Belief- Desire-Intention (BDI) model. However, in spite of the various advantages of the BDI model, it has also been discovered to have some shortcomings. This paper therefore proposes a multi-agent framework utilizing a modified BDI model- Belief-Desire-Intention in Dynamic and Uncertain Situations (BDIDUS), using UniCAT system as a case study.
Abstract: This study aimed to explore future life orientation and
support that needed to accomplish it. A total of 258 participants are
Javanese high school student. The age of the sample ranges from 14
to 18 years old. Participants were asked about their future aspiration,
their reason of choosing them as important goals in their life, and
support that they need to accomplished their goals using open ended
questionnaire. The responses were categorized through content
analysis into four main categories. They are: (1) Self Fulfillment
(72.1%) (2) Parents and Family (16.7%) (3) Altruism (8.1%) (4)
Social and Economy Status (3.1%). Meanwhile, the categories for
support that they needed are shown as follows: (1) Affection Support
(64.7%) (2) Spiritual support (17.4%) (3) Material Support (10.9%)
(4) Guidance Support (7.0%). The research found that affection
support always gets the highest number in every future orientation
categories. It can be concluded that although Javanese adolescents
have different future orientation, they basically need affection
support.
Abstract: The grey oyster mushroom, Pleurotus sajor-caju
(PSC), is a common edible mushroom and is now grown
commercially around the world for food. This fungus has been
broadly used as food or food ingredients in various food products for
a long time. To enhance the nutritional quality and sensory attributes
of bakery-based products, PSC powder is used in the present study to
partially replace wheat flour in baked product formulations. The
nutrient content and sensory properties of rice-porridge and
unleavened bread (paratha) incorporated with various levels of PSC
powder were studied. These food items were formulated with either
0%, 2%, 4% or 6% of PSC powder. Results show PSC powder
recorded β-glucan at 3.57g/100g. In sensory evaluation, consumers
gave higher score to both rice-porridge and paratha bread containing
2-4% PSC compared to those that are not added with PSC powder.
The paratha containing 4% PSC powder can be formulated with the
intention in improving overall acceptability of paratha bread.
Meanwhile, for rice-porridge, consumers prefer the formulated
product added with 4% PSC powder. In conclusion, the addition of
PSC powder to partially wheat flour can be recommended for the
purpose of enhancing nutritional composition and maintaining the
acceptability of carbohydrate-based products.
Abstract: The emerging Semantic Web has been attracted many
researchers and developers. New applications have been developed on top of Semantic Web and many supporting tools introduced to improve its software development process. Metadata modeling is one of development process where supporting tools exists. The existing
tools are lack of readability and easiness for a domain knowledge expert to graphically models a problem in semantic model. In this paper, a metadata modeling tool called RDFGraph is proposed. This
tool is meant to solve those problems. RDFGraph is also designed to work with modern database management systems that support RDF and to improve the performance of the query execution process. The
testing result shows that the rules used in RDFGraph follows the W3C standard and the graphical model produced in this tool is properly translated and correct.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine current levels of physical activity determined via heart rate monitoring. A total of 176 children (85 boys, 91 girls) aged 5-13 years wore sealed Polar heart rate monitors for at least 10 hours per day on at least 3 days. Mean daily minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity was 65 ± 43 (mean ± SD) for boys and 54 ± 37 for girls. Daily minutes of vigorous-intensity activity was 31 ± 24 and 24 ± 21 for boys and girls respectively. Significant differences in physical activity levels were observed between school day and weekends, boys and girls, and among age and geographical groups. Only 36% of boys and 22% of girls met the New Zealand physical activity guideline. This research indicates that a large proportion of New Zealand children are not meeting physical activity recommendations.
Abstract: Stock portfolio selection is a classic problem in finance,
and it involves deciding how to allocate an institution-s or an individual-s
wealth to a number of stocks, with certain investment objectives
(return and risk). In this paper, we adopt the classical Markowitz
mean-variance model and consider an additional common realistic
constraint, namely, the cardinality constraint. Thus, stock portfolio
optimization becomes a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem
and it is difficult to be solved by exact optimization algorithms.
Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO), which mimics the molecular
interactions in a chemical reaction process, is a population-based
metaheuristic method. Two different types of CRO, named canonical
CRO and Super Molecule-based CRO (S-CRO), are proposed to solve
the stock portfolio selection problem. We test both canonical CRO
and S-CRO on a benchmark and compare their performance under
two criteria: Markowitz efficient frontier (Pareto frontier) and Sharpe
ratio. Computational experiments suggest that S-CRO is promising
in handling the stock portfolio optimization problem.