title: Improving MIMO systems performances by concatenating LDPC decoder to the STBC and MRC receivers

abstract: Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are commonly used in wireless communications to ensure high bit-rate and high capacity transmission. Space time block coding (STBC) is a technique used in MIMO to provide transmit diversity in communication over fading channels. Although STBC has full diversity gain, the coding gain need to be improved by using channel coding such as low density parity check (LDPC) codes or Turbo codes. This paper evaluates the performance of MIMO systems and the improvement obtained by concatenating LDPC codes. MIMO are based on spatially separated multiple transmitting and receiving antennas to provide diversity. This helps combatting the effect of multipath fading in wireless channels. For single-input multiple-output (SIMO) schemes, maximum ratio combining (MRC) receiver are used to handle redundantly the same information-bearing signal over two or more fading channel. The output of this receiver consist on soft decision metrics that can be fed to LDPC decoder for error correction. For MIMO and multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, space time block codes (STBC) are used to generate orthogonal signals to avoid interference between signal streams. These signals are transmitted at slightly different times to benefit from temporal diversity. LDPC codes are used in conjunction with STBC to improve the error capability. This paper investigates diversity coding for MIMO systems combined with LDPC soft decoding. Performances of the proposed scheme in terms of bit error rates are reported.


title: The Interactive Visualization Gap in Initial Exploratory Data Analysis

abstract: Data scientists and other analytic professionals often use interactive visualization in the dissemination phase at the end of a workflow during which findings are communicated to a wider audience. Visualization scientists, however, hold that interactive representation of data can also be used during exploratory analysis itself. Since the use of interactive visualization is optional rather than mandatory, this leaves a “visualization gap” during initial exploratory analysis that is the onus of visualization researchers to fill. In this paper, we explore areas where visualization would be beneficial in applied research by conducting a design study using a novel variation on contextual inquiry conducted with professional data analysts. Based on these interviews and experiments, we propose a set of interactive initial exploratory visualization guidelines which we believe will promote adoption by this type of user.


title: Lean tools and methods to support efficient knowledge creation

abstract: An integrated model consisting of three distinct elements; SECI modes, 'ba', and knowledge assets is proposed.Demonstrated how lean thinking conceptually fit with knowledge creation process.Proposed a set of ten lean thinking tools and methods to improve the efficiency of knowledge creation process.The correct and quick knowledge creation results in faster and improved quality products. Continuous innovation is a key ingredient in maintaining a competitive advantage in the current dynamic and demanding marketplace. It requires an organization to regularly update and create knowledge for the current generation, and reuse it later for the next generation of a product. In this regard, an integrated dynamic knowledge model is targeted to structurally define a practical knowledge creation process in the product development domain. This model primarily consists of three distinct elements; SECI (socialization-externalization-combination-internalization) modes, 'ba', and knowledge assets. The model involves tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge interplay in 'ba' to generate new knowledge during the four SECI modes and update the knowledge assets. It is believed that lean tools and methods can also promote learning and knowledge creation. Therefore, a set of ten lean tools and methods is proposed in order to support and improve the efficiency of the knowledge creation process. The approach first establishes a framework to create knowledge in the product development environment, and then systematically demonstrates how these ten lean tools and methods conceptually fit into and play a significant role in that process. Following this, each of them is analyzed and appropriately positioned in a SECI mode depending on best fit. The merits of each tool/method are discussed from the perspective of selecting the individual mode. The managerial implication is that correct and quick knowledge creation can result in faster development and improved quality of products.


title: An Algorithm for Projective Point Matching in the Presence of Spurious Points Abstract

abstract: Point matching is the task of finding correspondences between two sets of points such that the two sets of points are aligned with each other. Pure point matching uses only the location of the points to constrain the problem. This is a problem with broad practical applications, but it has only been well studied when the geometric transformation relating the two point sets is of a relatively low order. Here we present a heuristic local search algorithm that can find correspondences between point sets in two dimensions that are related by a projective transform. Point matching is a harder problem when spurious points appear in the sets to be matched. We present a heuristic algorithm which minimizes the effects of spurious points.


title: Off-line Handwritten Signature GPDS-960 Corpus

abstract: The current need for large databases to evaluate automatic biometric recognition systems has motivated the developing of the GPDS-960 corpus, an off-line handwritten signature database which contains 24 genuine signatures and 30 forgeries of 960 individuals. This paper describes the GPDS signature corpus, gives details about the acquisition protocols and presents preliminary verification results obtained using the GPDS data.


Four Principles of Memory Improvement : A Guide to Improving Learning Efficiency


title: Big Questions for Social Media Big Data: Representativeness, Validity and Other Methodological Pitfalls

abstract: Large-scale databases of human activity in social media have captured scientific and policy attention, producing a flood of research and discussion. This paper considers methodological and conceptual challenges for this emergent field, with special attention to the validity and representativeness of social media big data analyses. Persistent issues include the over-emphasis of a single platform, Twitter, sampling biases arising from selection by hashtags, and vague and unrepresentative sampling frames. The socio-cultural complexity of user behavior aimed at algorithmic invisibility (such as subtweeting, mock-retweeting, use of "screen captures" for text, etc.) further complicate interpretation of big data social media. Other challenges include accounting for field effects, i.e. broadly consequential events that do not diffuse only through the network under study but affect the whole society. The application of network methods from other fields to the study of human social activity may not always be appropriate. The paper concludes with a call to action on practical steps to improve our analytic capacity in this promising, rapidly-growing field.


title: Asymmetrical Hybrid Optical OFDM for Visible Light Communications With Dimming Control

abstract: This letter proposes an asymmetrical hybrid optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AHO-OFDM) scheme for dimmable visible light communication systems. In the proposed scheme, either asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) or pulse-amplitude-modulated discrete multitone (PAM-DMT) signal is inverted and then both the signals are combined for transmission, where pulsewidth modulation is no longer required for dimming control. The power of ACO-OFDM and PAM-DMT signals is adjusted so that the amplitude of the combined AHO-OFDM signal is asymmetrical, which could utilize all the available subcarriers as well as the entire dynamic range of light-emitting diodes with various dimming levels. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme could achieve a wide dimming range with a small throughput fluctuation.


Bootstrapping for Numerical Open


title: Joint MR-PET Reconstruction Using a Multi-Channel Image Regularizer

abstract: While current state of the art MR-PET scanners enable simultaneous MR and PET measurements, the acquired data sets are still usually reconstructed separately. We propose a new multi-modality reconstruction framework using second order Total Generalized Variation (TGV) as a dedicated multi-channel regularization functional that jointly reconstructs images from both modalities. In this way, information about the underlying anatomy is shared during the image reconstruction process while unique differences are preserved. Results from numerical simulations and in-vivo experiments using a range of accelerated MR acquisitions and different MR image contrasts demonstrate improved PET image quality, resolution, and quantitative accuracy.


title: ElasticTree: Saving Energy in Data Center Networks

abstract: Networks are a shared resource connecting critical IT infrastructure, and the general practice is to always leave them on. Yet, meaningful energy savings can result from improving a network's ability to scale up and down, as traffic demands ebb and flow. We present ElasticTree, a network-wide power1 manager, which dynamically adjusts the set of active network elements -- links and switches--to satisfy changing data center traffic loads. ::: ::: We first compare multiple strategies for finding minimum-power network subsets across a range of traffic patterns. We implement and analyze ElasticTree on a prototype testbed built with production OpenFlow switches from three network vendors. Further, we examine the trade-offs between energy efficiency, performance and robustness, with real traces from a production e-commerce website. Our results demonstrate that for data center workloads, ElasticTree can save up to 50% of network energy, while maintaining the ability to handle traffic surges. Our fast heuristic for computing network subsets enables ElasticTree to scale to data centers containing thousands of nodes. We finish by showing how a network admin might configure ElasticTree to satisfy their needs for performance and fault tolerance, while minimizing their network power bill.


title: Improving health information systems for decision making across five sub-Saharan African countries: Implementation strategies from the African Health Initiative

abstract: BackgroundWeak health information systems (HIS) are a critical challenge to reaching the health-related Millennium Development Goals because health systems performance cannot be adequately assessed or monitored where HIS data are incomplete, inaccurate, or untimely. The Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) Partnerships were established in five sub-Saharan African countries (Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) to catalyze advances in strengthening district health systems. Interventions were tailored to the setting in which activities were planned.Comparisons across strategiesAll five PHIT Partnerships share a common feature in their goal of enhancing HIS and linking data with improved decision-making, specific strategies varied. Mozambique, Ghana, and Tanzania all focus on improving the quality and use of the existing Ministry of Health HIS, while the Zambia and Rwanda partnerships have introduced new information and communication technology systems or tools. All partnerships have adopted a flexible, iterative approach in designing and refining the development of new tools and approaches for HIS enhancement (such as routine data quality audits and automated troubleshooting), as well as improving decision making through timely feedback on health system performance (such as through summary data dashboards or routine data review meetings). The most striking differences between partnership approaches can be found in the level of emphasis of data collection (patient versus health facility), and consequently the level of decision making enhancement (community, facility, district, or provincial leadership).DiscussionDesign differences across PHIT Partnerships reflect differing theories of change, particularly regarding what information is needed, who will use the information to affect change, and how this change is expected to manifest. The iterative process of data use to monitor and assess the health system has been heavily communication dependent, with challenges due to poor feedback loops. Implementation to date has highlighted the importance of engaging frontline staff and managers in improving data collection and its use for informing system improvement. Through rigorous process and impact evaluation, the experience of the PHIT teams hope to contribute to the evidence base in the areas of HIS strengthening, linking HIS with decision making, and its impact on measures of health system outputs and impact.


title: Implementation of Constant-Fraction-Discriminators (CFD) in sub-micron CMOS technologies

abstract: This paper presents the design and implementation of Constant-Fraction-Discriminators (CFD) suitable for multi-channel mixed-mode ICs. Issues related to area occupation, power consumption and timing accuracy are discussed in detail. The circuits have been designed targeting a 0.13µm CMOS process.


title: Non-invasive blood glucose detection system based on conservation of energy method.

abstract: The most common method used for minimizing the occurrence of diabetes complications is frequent glucose testing to adjust the insulin dose. However, using blood glucose (BG) meters presents a risk of infection. It is of great importance to develop non-invasive BG detection techniques. To realize high-accuracy, low-cost and continuous glucose monitoring, we have developed a non-invasive BG detection system using a mixed signal processor 430 (MSP430) microcontroller. This method is based on the combination of the conservation-of-energy method with a sensor integration module, which collects physiological parameters, such as the blood oxygen saturation (SPO2), blood flow velocity and heart rate. New methods to detect the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and BV are proposed, which combine the human body heat balance and characteristic signals of photoplethysmography as well dual elastic chambers theory. Four hundred clinical trials on real-time non-invasive BG monitoring under suitable experiment conditions were performed on different individuals, including diabetic patients, senior citizens and healthy adults. A multisensory information fusion model was applied to process these samples. The algorithm (we defined it as DCBPN algorithm) applied in the model combines a decision tree and back propagation neural network, which classifies the physiological and environmental parameters into three categories, and then establishes a corresponding prediction model for the three categories. The DCBPN algorithm provides an accuracy of 88.53% in predicting the BG of new samples. Thus, this system demonstrates a great potential to reliably detect BG values in a non-invasive setting.


title: Modeling Full-Envelope Aerodynamics of Small UAVs in Realtime

abstract: This paper focuses on full six degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) aerodynamic modeling of small UAVs at high angles of attack and high sideslip in maneuvers performed using large control surfaces at large deflections for aircraft with high thrust-to-weight ratios. Configurations such as this include many of the currently available propellerdriven RC-model airplanes that have control surfaces as large as 50% chord, deflections as high as 50 deg, and thrust-to-weight ratios near 2:1. Airplanes with these capabilities are extremely maneuverable and aerobatic, and modeling their aerodynamic behavior requires new thinking because using traditional stability derivative methods is not practical with highly nonlinear aerodynamic behavior and coupling in the presence of high propwash effects. The method described in this paper outlines a component-based approach capable of modeling these extremely maneuverable small UAVs in a full 6-DOF realtime environment over the full envelope that is defined in this paper to be the full ±180 deg range in angle of attack and sideslip. This method is the foundation of the aerodynamics model used in the RC flight simulator FS One. Piloted flight simulation results for four small RC/UAV configurations having wingspans in the range 826 mm (32.5 in) to 2540 mm (100 in) are presented to highlight results of the high-angle aerodynamics modeling approach. Maneuvers simulated include tailslides, knife edge flight, high-angle upright and inverted flight (“harriers”), rolling maneuvers at high angle (“rolling harriers”) and an inverted spin of a biplane (“blender”). For each case, the flight trajectory is presented together with time histories of aircraft state data during the maneuvers, which are discussed.


title: Hello! My name is... Buffy – Automatic naming of characters in TV video

abstract: We investigate the problem of automatically labelling appearances of characters in TV or film material. This is tremendously challenging due to the huge variation in imaged appearance of each character and the weakness and ambiguity of available annotation. However, we demonstrate that high precision can be achieved by combining multiple sources of information, both visual and textual. The principal novelties that we introduce are: (i) automatic generation of time stamped character annotation by aligning subtitles and transcripts; (ii) strengthening the supervisory information by identifying when characters are speaking; (iii) using complementary cues of face matching and clothing matching to propose common annotations for face tracks. Results are presented on episodes of the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.


title: Random number generation with LFSR based stream cipher algorithms

abstract: Random numbers have a wide range of usage area such as simulation, games of chance, sampling and computer science (cryptography, game programming, data transmission). In order to use random numbers in computer science, they must have three basic requirements. First, the numbers generated must be unpredictable. Second, the numbers generated should have good statistical properties. Finally, the generated number streams must not be reproduced. Random number generators (RNGs) have been developed to obtain random numbers with these properties. These random number generators are classified into true random number generators (TRNG) and pseudo random number generators (PRNG). One of the PRNGs used for generate random numbers is Stream Encryption algorithms. In this paper, random number generation of LFSR based stream encryption algorithms and their hardware implementations are presented. LFSR based stream encryption algorithms have been implemented on Altera's FPGA based 60-nm EP4CE115F29C7 development boards by using VHDL language. The obtained random numbers passed the NIST statistical tests, accepted as standard for cryptographic applications.


title: A survey of Ambient Assisted Living systems: Challenges and opportunities

abstract: As the research in Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) matures, we expect that data generated from AAL IoT devices will benefit from analysis by well established machine learning techniques. There is also potential that new research in ML and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used on data generated from the sensors used in AAL. In this paper we present a survey of the research in the related topics, identify its shortcomings and propose future work that will integrate these fields by collecting ambient sensor data and process the data by ML framework which can detect and classify activities.


title: Recognizing computational thinking patterns

abstract: End-user game design tools are effective in motivating and exposing students with no prior programming experience to computer science. However, while there is good evidence that these environments are effective motivators, the question remains what do students actually learn? For our purposes, using AgentSheets, we would like to know if students can apply the knowledge obtained from programming games to creating science simulations. Specifically, we want to better understand if students are able to recognize Computational Thinking Patterns (CTP) from their game programming experience. Computational Thinking Patterns are abstract programming patterns that enable agent interactions not only in games but also in science simulations. Students and teachers who participated in a game design summer institute were administered a Computational Thinking Pattern Quiz (CTP Quiz). This quiz tested the participants' ability to recognize and understand patterns in a context removed from game programming. We found that participants, for the most part, were able to understand and recognize the patterns in a variety of contexts


title: Verification, validation and predictive capability in computational engineering and physics

abstract: Developers of computer codes, analysts who use the codes, and decision makers who rely on the results of the analyses face a critical question: How should confidence in modeling and simulation be critically assessed? Verification and validation (V&V) of computational simulations are the primary methods for building and quantifying this confidence. Briefly, verification is the assessment of the accuracy of the solution to a computational model. Validation is the assessment of the accuracy of a computational simulation by comparison with experimental data. In verification, the relationship of the simulation to the real world is not an issue. In validation, the relationship between computation and the real world, i.e., experimental data, is the issue.


title: Understanding the Influence of Social Media in the Workplace: An Integration of Media Synchronicity and Social Capital Theories

abstract: Social media has deeply penetrated workplace, which has affected multiple aspects of employees' lives. This paper aims to investigate the influence of social media on employees' work performance and the underlying mechanism for how they create value at work. Based on media synchronicity and social capital theories, we propose that social media can promote work performance by stimulating trust among employees and offering a communication channel where explicit and implicit knowledge can be effectively transferred. The research model is tested using data collected from 105 Chinese software professionals. The results reveal that social media can enhance trust among employees. The direct effect on knowledge transfer was not significant but the impact was mediated by trust. Trust enhances knowledge exchange in the workplace with a stronger influence on the transfer of implicit knowledge rather than explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge transfer was significantly related to work performance, while explicit knowledge transfer did not significantly influence work performance. The theoretical and practical contributions of this study are discussed.


title: Are Molecular Vibration Patterns of Cell Structural Elements Used for Intracellular Signalling?

abstract: BACKGROUND:To date the manner in which information reaches the nucleus on that part within the three-dimensional structure where specific restorative processes of structural components of the cell are required is unknown. The soluble signalling molecules generated in the course of destructive and restorative processes communicate only as needed. HYPOTHESIS:All molecules show temperature-dependent molecular vibration creating a radiation in the infrared region. Each molecule species has in its turn a specific frequency pattern under given specific conditions. Changes in their structural composition result in modified frequency patterns of the molecules in question. The main structural elements of the cell membrane, of the endoplasmic reticulum, of the Golgi apparatus, and of the different microsomes representing the great variety of polar lipids show characteristic frequency patterns with peaks in the region characterised by low water absorption. These structural elements are very dynamic, mainly caused by the creation of signal molecules and transport containers. By means of the characteristic radiation, the area where repair or substitution services are needed could be identified; this spatial information complements the signalling of the soluble signal molecules. Based on their resonance properties receptors located on the outer leaflet of the nuclear envelope should be able to read typical frequencies and pass them into the nucleus. Clearly this physical signalling must be blocked by the cell membrane to obviate the flow of information into adjacent cells. CONCLUSION:If the hypothesis can be proved experimentally, it should be possible to identify and verify characteristic infrared frequency patterns. The application of these signal frequencies onto cells would open entirely new possibilities in medicine and all biological disciplines specifically to influence cell growth and metabolism. Similar to this intracellular system, an extracellular signalling system with many new therapeutic options has to be discussed.


title: Model-Based Threat Assessment for Avoiding Arbitrary Vehicle Collisions

abstract: This paper presents a model-based algorithm that estimates how the driver of a vehicle can either steer, brake, or accelerate to avoid colliding with an arbitrary object. In this algorithm, the motion of the vehicle is described by a linear bicycle model, and the perimeter of the vehicle is represented by a rectangle. The estimated perimeter of the object is described by a polygon that is allowed to change size, shape, position, and orientation at sampled time instances. Potential evasive maneuvers are modeled, parameterized, and approximated such that an analytical expression can be derived to estimate the set of maneuvers that the driver can use to avoid a collision. This set of maneuvers is then assessed to determine if the driver needs immediate assistance to avoid or mitigate an accident. The proposed threat-assessment algorithm is evaluated using authentic data from both real traffic conditions and collision situations on a test track and by using simulations with a detailed vehicle model. The evaluations show that the algorithm outperforms conventional threat-assessment algorithms at rear-end collisions in terms of the timing of autonomous brake activation. This is crucial for increasing the performance of collision-avoidance systems and for decreasing the risk of unnecessary braking. Moreover, the algorithm is computationally efficient and can be used to assist the driver in avoiding or mitigating collisions with all types of road users in all kinds of traffic scenarios.


title: Compact broadband transition from double-ridge waveguide to coaxial line for phased array feed

abstract: A new over-octave compact transition between double-ridge waveguide and coaxial line is considered. The transition includes an original waveguide-to-coaxial mode converter and modified impedance transformer. Very good performance is predicted theoretically and confirmed experimentally over a 3:1 bandwidth.


title: Soft-switching solid state transformer (S4T)

abstract: This paper presents a new topology for a fully bidirectional soft-switching solid state transformer (S4T). The minimal topology, featuring 12 main devices and a high-frequency transformer, does not use an intermediate DC voltage link, and provides sinusoidal input and output voltages. The S4T can be configured to interface with two-or multi-terminal DC, single-or multi-phase AC systems. An auxiliary resonant circuit creates zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) conditions for main devices from no-load to full-load, and helps manage interactions with circuit parasitic elements. The modularized structure allows series and/or parallel stacking of converter cells for high-voltage and high-power applications.


title: Predicting gender from footfalls using a seismic sensor

abstract: This paper deals with gender classification by analyzing footfalls captured by seismic sensor. Gender classification plays an important role in developing different applications like guided navigation system that helps the customer to find different shops in a big shopping mall or to find different departments in a hospital on the basis of their gender. We have tested different classifiers (SVM-Linear, SVM-RBF, Artificial Neural Network, Linear Discriminate Analysis, Logistic Regression and Naive Bayes) on our dataset, consisting of a total 8 hours of seismic data of male and female subjects. We achieved an accuracy and F1 score of 94.56% and 94.56% respectively for SVM Linear classifier. Our event detection technique locates a seismic event and extracts only the corresponding footsteps from the signal. It reduces the feature extraction time by 50%. We have also reported an experimental realization of a real time gender classification system. Experiments were carried out to find the minimum number of samples required to train the machine learning algorithm by maintaining a respectable prediction accuracy.


title: A3P: adaptive policy prediction for shared images over popular content sharing sites

abstract: More and more people go online today and share their personal images using popular web services like Picasa. While enjoying the convenience brought by advanced technology, people also become aware of the privacy issues of data being shared. Recent studies have highlighted that people expect more tools to allow them to regain control over their privacy. In this work, we propose an Adaptive Privacy Policy Prediction (A3P) system to help users compose privacy settings for their images. In particular, we examine the role of image content and metadata as possible indicators of users' privacy preferences. We propose a two-level image classification framework to obtain image categories which may be associated with similar policies. Then, we develop a policy prediction algorithm to automatically generate a policy for each newly uploaded image. Most importantly, the generated policy will follow the trend of the user's privacy concerns evolved with time. We have conducted an extensive user study and the results demonstrate effectiveness of our system with the prediction accuracy around 90%.


title: The WTO Trade Effect

abstract: This paper proposes to reexamine the trade effect of GATT/WTO based on non-parametric econometric techniques. Our estimation framework uses the simplest gravity model that explains bilateral trade volumes with country sizes and trade resistance, without imposing parametric assumptions typically made in gravity-type econometric models. Specifically, matching estimators coupled with permutation tests and signed-rank tests are employed to obtain point and interval estimates. While observable covariates (country sizes and determinants of trade resistance) are controlled for nonparametrically, unobservable selection bias is dealt with by a sensitivity analysis. The results suggest large GATT/WTO effects on trade in both cross-sectional and time-series dimensions, and the results hold regardless of the GATT/WTO indicators (defined by formal membership or de facto participation).


title: A Hybrid AC/DC Microgrid and Its Coordination Control

abstract: This paper proposes a hybrid ac/dc micro grid to reduce the processes of multiple dc-ac-dc or ac-dc-ac conversions in an individual ac or dc grid. The hybrid grid consists of both ac and dc networks connected together by multi-bidirectional converters. AC sources and loads are connected to the ac network whereas dc sources and loads are tied to the dc network. Energy storage systems can be connected to dc or ac links. The proposed hybrid grid can operate in a grid-tied or autonomous mode. The coordination control algorithms are proposed for smooth power transfer between ac and dc links and for stable system operation under various generation and load conditions. Uncertainty and intermittent characteristics of wind speed, solar irradiation level, ambient temperature, and load are also considered in system control and operation. A small hybrid grid has been modeled and simulated using the Simulink in the MATLAB. The simulation results show that the system can maintain stable operation under the proposed coordination control schemes when the grid is switched from one operating condition to another.


title: A Survey of Cross-Layer Designs in Wireless Networks

abstract: The strict boundary of the five layers in the TCP/IP network model provides the information encapsulation that enables the standardizing of network communications and makes the implementation of networks convenient in terms of abstract layers. However, the encapsulation results in some side effects, including compromise of QoS, latency, extra overload, etc. Therefore, to mitigate the side effect of the encapsulation between the abstract layers in the TCP/IP model, a number of cross-layer designs have been proposed. Cross-layer designs allow information sharing among all of the five layers in order to improve the wireless network functionality, including security, QoS, and mobility. In this article, we classify cross-layer designs by two ways. On the one hand, by how to share information among the five layers, cross-layer designs can be classified into two categories: non-manager method and manager method. On the other hand, by the organization of the network, cross-layer designs can be classified into two categories: centralized method and distributed method. Furthermore, we summarize the challenges of the cross-layer designs, including coexistence, signaling, the lack of a universal cross-layer design, and the destruction of the layered architecture.


title: IMPLEMENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF FIR FILTER USING TMS 320C6713 DSK Sandeep Kumar

abstract: In most of the applications, analog signals are produced in response to some physical phenomenon or activity. But it is quite difficult to process that analog signal; here comes the need to convert an analog signal to a digital signal. For this purpose specific digital signal processors (DSP’s) are developed. TMS 320C6713 is one of such type of processors that can be used to process or handle the signals in a variety of ways. In the current report, basically the architecture of this processor is studied. Along with the processor architecture, the hardware portion DSK (Digital Starter Kit) and the software portion CCS (Code Composer Studio) is also studied. Digital filters are very commonly found in everyday life and include a variety of applications. Mainly they are used for two major purposes: signal separation and signal restoration. Signal separation is needed when a signal has been contaminated with interference, noise, or other signals. Signal restoration is used when a signal has been distorted in some way. So, various programs have been analyzed in this work to implement efficiently those FIR filter structures on TMS 320C6713 DSK. Characteristics of FIR filters are studied in frequency domain.


title: PRODUCT FAMILY AND PLATFORM PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION

abstract: In this paper, a methodology is presented to determine the optimum number of product platforms to maximize overall product family profit with simplifying assumptions. This methodology is attempting to aid various manufacturing industries who are seeking ways to reduce product family manufacturing costs and development times through implementation of platform strategies. The methodology is based on a target market segment analysis, market leader’s performance vs. price position, and a two-level optimization approach for platform and variant designs. The proposed methodology is demonstrated for a hypothetical automotive vehicle family that attempts to serve seven different vehicle market segments. It is found that the use of three distinct platforms maximizes overall profit by pursuing primarily a horizontal leveraging strategy.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


Innovation in service firms explored: what, how and why?


title: Regret Analysis of the Finite-Horizon Gittins Index Strategy for Multi-Armed Bandits

abstract: I analyse the frequentist regret of the famous Gittins index strategy for multi-armed bandits with Gaussian noise and a finite horizon. Remarkably it turns out that this approach leads to finite-time regret guarantees comparable to those available for the popular UCB algorithm. Along the way I derive finite-time bounds on the Gittins index that are asymptotically exact and may be of independent interest. I also discuss some computational issues and present experimental results suggesting that a particular version of the Gittins index strategy is a modest improvement on existing algorithms with finite-time regret guarantees such as UCB and Thompson sampling.


title: Frontal lobes and human memory Insights from functional neuroimaging

abstract: The new functional neuroimaging techniques, PET and functional MRI (fMRI), offer sufficient experimental flexibility and spatial resolution to explore the functional neuroanatomical bases of different memory stages and processes. They have had a particular impact on our understanding of the role of the frontal cortex in memory processing. We review the insights that have been gained, and attempt a synthesis of the findings from functional imaging studies of working memory, encoding in episodic memory and retrieval from episodic memory. Though these different aspects of memory have usually been studied in isolation, we suggest that there is sufficient convergence with respect to frontal activations to make such a synthesis worthwhile. We concentrate in particular on three regions of the lateral frontal cortex-ventro-lateral, dorsolateral and anterior-that are consistently activated in these studies, and attribute these activations to the updating/maintenance of information, the selection/manipulation/monitoring of that information, and the selection of processes/subgoals, respectively. We also acknowledge a number of empirical inconsistencies associated with this synthesis, and suggest possible reasons for these. More generally, we predict that the resolution of questions concerning the functional neuroanatomical subdivisions of the frontal cortex will ultimately depend on a fuller cognitive psychological fractionation of memory control processes, an enterprise that will be guided and tested by experimentation. We expect that the neuroimaging techniques will provide an important part of this enterprise.


title: MEDX3DOM: MEDX3D for X3DOM

abstract: We present an implementation of MEDX3DOM a MEDX3D standard implemented into the X3DOM framework. We present the report of a work in progress of the implementation identifying the critical sections to be migrated into the new architecture, and possible extensions of the standard on the Web environment. Results for the early implementation are shown, where the visualization of medical datasets with advanced direct volume rendering algorithms are obtained under the X3DOM architecture with interactive frame rates and good image quality. An example of the HTML5/X3DOM document is presented with future.


Recent Advances in Handwriting Recognition


title: Extending drift-diffusion paradigm into the era of FinFETs and nanowires

abstract: This paper presents a feasibility study that the drift-diffusion model can capture the ballistic transport of FinFETs and nanowires with a simple model extension. For FinFETs, Monte Carlo simulation is performed and the ballistic mobility is calibrated to linear & saturation currents. It is validated that the calibrated model works over a wide range of channel length and channel stress. The ballistic mobility model is then applied to a nanowire with 5nm design rules. Finally, the technology scaling trend of the ballistic ratio is explored.


title: Mobile Attachment – Emotional Attachment Towards Mobile Devices and Services

abstract: In my thesis I address the topic of mobile attachment. I provide a theoretical framework for mobile attachment together with influencing factors that indicate user's emotional attachment (EA) to mobile devices and services. I investigate how the concept of user experience (UX) and EA are linked together and I outline how user behavior driven experience sampling can be exploited to measure mobile attachment. My research will result in design suggestions how the creation of EA to mobile devices and services can be facilitated.


title: A Latency and Coverage Optimized Data Collection Scheme for Smart Cities Based on Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

abstract: Using mobile vehicles as "data mules" to collect data generated by a huge number of sensing devices that are widely spread across smart city is considered to be an economical and effective way of obtaining data about smart cities. However, currently most research focuses on the feasibility of the proposed methods instead of their final performance. In this paper, a latency and coverage optimized data collection (LCODC) scheme is proposed to collect data on smart cities through opportunistic routing. Compared with other schemes, the efficiency of data collection is improved since the data flow in LCODC scheme consists of not only vehicle to device transmission (V2D), but also vehicle to vehicle transmission (V2V). Besides, through data mining on patterns hidden in the smart city, waste and redundancy in the utilization of public resources are mitigated, leading to the easy implementation of our scheme. In detail, no extra supporting device is needed in the LCODC scheme to facilitate data transmission. A large-scale and real-world dataset on Beijing is used to evaluate the LCODC scheme. Results indicate that with very limited costs, the LCODC scheme enables the average latency to decrease from several hours to around 12 min with respect to schemes where V2V transmission is disabled while the coverage rate is able to reach over 30%.


title: Wireless Communications with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Opportunities and Challenges

abstract: Wireless communication systems that include unmanned aerial vehicles promise to provide cost-effective wireless connectivity for devices without infrastructure coverage. Compared to terrestrial communications or those based on high-altitude platforms, on-demand wireless systems with low-altitude UAVs are in general faster to deploy, more flexibly reconfigured, and likely to have better communication channels due to the presence of short-range line-of-sight links. However, the utilization of highly mobile and energy-constrained UAVs for wireless communications also introduces many new challenges. In this article, we provide an overview of UAV-aided wireless communications, by introducing the basic networking architecture and main channel characteristics, highlighting the key design considerations as well as the new opportunities to be exploited.


title: Inductive logic programming

abstract: A new research area, Inductive Logic Programming, is presently emerging. While inheriting various positive characteristics of the parent subjects of Logic Programming and Machine Learning, it is hoped that the new area will overcome many of the limitations of its forebears. The background to present developments within this area is discussed and various goals and aspirations for the increasing body of researchers are identified. Inductive Logic Programming needs to be based on sound principles from both Logic and Statistics. On the side of statistical justification of hypotheses we discuss the possible relationship between Algorithmic Complexity theory and Probably-Approximately-Correct (PAC) Learning. In terms of logic we provide a unifying framework for Muggleton and Buntine’s Inverse Resolution (IR) and Plotkin’s Relative Least General Generalisation (RLGG) by rederiving RLGG in terms of IR. This leads to a discussion of the feasibility of extending the RLGG framework to allow for the invention of new predicates, previously discussed only within the context of IR.


title: A scale space approach for automatically segmenting words from historical handwritten documents

abstract: Many libraries, museums, and other organizations contain large collections of handwritten historical documents, for example, the papers of early presidents like George Washington at the Library of Congress. The first step in providing recognition/retrieval tools is to automatically segment handwritten pages into words. State of the art segmentation techniques like the gap metrics algorithm have been mostly developed and tested on highly constrained documents like bank checks and postal addresses. There has been little work on full handwritten pages and this work has usually involved testing on clean artificial documents created for the purpose of research. Historical manuscript images, on the other hand, contain a great deal of noise and are much more challenging. Here, a novel scale space algorithm for automatically segmenting handwritten (historical) documents into words is described. First, the page is cleaned to remove margins. This is followed by a gray-level projection profile algorithm for finding lines in images. Each line image is then filtered with an anisotropic Laplacian at several scales. This procedure produces blobs which correspond to portions of characters at small scales and to words at larger scales. Crucial to the algorithm is scale selection that is, finding the optimum scale at which blobs correspond to words. This is done by finding the maximum over scale of the extent or area of the blobs. This scale maximum is estimated using three different approaches. The blobs recovered at the optimum scale are then bounded with a rectangular box to recover the words. A post processing filtering step is performed to eliminate boxes of unusual size which are unlikely to correspond to words. The approach is tested on a number of different data sets and it is shown that, on 100 sampled documents from the George Washington corpus of handwritten document images, a total error rate of 17 percent is observed. The technique outperforms a state-of-the-art gap metrics word-segmentation algorithm on this collection.


title: Six Sigma process utilization in reducing door-to-balloon time at a single academic tertiary care center.

abstract: Abstract Background Rapid reperfusion in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is associated with lower mortality. Reduction in door-to-balloon (D2B) time for percutaneous coronary intervention requires multidisciplinary cooperation, process analysis, and quality improvement methodology. Methods Six Sigma methodology was used to reduce D2B times in STEMI patients presenting to a tertiary care center. Specific steps in STEMI care were determined, time goals were established, and processes were changed to reduce each step's duration. Outcomes were tracked, and timely feedback was given to providers. Results After process analysis and implementation of improvements, mean D2B times decreased from 128 to 90 minutes. Improvement has been sustained; as of June 2010, the mean D2B was 56 minutes, with 100% of patients meeting the 90-minute window for the year. Conclusion Six Sigma methodology and immediate provider feedback result in significant reductions in D2B times. The lessons learned may be extrapolated to other primary percutaneous coronary intervention centers.


title: Investigation of MPPT for PV applications by mathematical model

abstract: This paper will discuss the PV system as whole by emulating load and PV power supply in the lab conditions. The paper discussion would be based on the obtained results for Monocrystalline silicon PV cell module. The important point of interest would be the voltage open circuit, short circuit current, maximum power. The lab has been done in the Standard Testing Conditions (STC) to ensure a fair comparison under different conditions. This paper confirmed that as temperature increased the voltage open circuit decreases as well as power decreases, and when insolation increases the short circuit current increases makes the maximum power increases. Per unit value investigating whether temperature or insolation has a bigger impact on Pmax, and for these experimental conditions, it has been found that insolation affects the system. As well as the paper will focus on building a SIMULINK/Matlab Module to simulate PV cells under different environmental conditions and help in designing future PV systems. The work will be compared with lab-emulated data to be validated and address the accuracy of the obtained results with the real life results. The paper will study the integration of DC-DC Boost converter with open loop control feedback circuit (Fixed Duty Ratio). In addition, the paper will discuss three different approaches of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) which are P&O, RCC and INC. The performance of each one will be investigated and verified.


title: Creation of a 3D printed temporal bone model from clinical CT data.

abstract: PURPOSE ::: Generate and describe the process of creating a 3D printed, rapid prototype temporal bone model from clinical quality CT images. ::: ::: ::: MATERIALS AND METHODS ::: We describe a technique to create an accurate, alterable, and reproducible rapid prototype temporal bone model using freely available software to segment clinical CT data and generate three different 3D models composed of ABS plastic. Each model was evaluated based on the appearance and size of anatomical structures and response to surgical drilling. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: Mastoid air cells had retained scaffolding material in the initial versions. This required modifying the model to allow drainage of the scaffolding material. External auditory canal dimensions were similar to those measured from the clinical data. Malleus, incus, oval window, round window, promontory, horizontal semicircular canal, and mastoid segment of the facial nerve canal were identified in all models. The stapes was only partially formed in two models and absent in the third. Qualitative feel of the ABS plastic was softer than bone. The pate produced by drilling was similar to bone dust when appropriate irrigation was used. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: We present a rapid prototype temporal bone model made based on clinical CT data using 3D printing technology. The model can be made quickly and inexpensively enough to have potential applications for educational training.


title: Comparison of LQR and PID controller tuning using PSO for Coupled Tank System

abstract: Coupled Tank System is one of the widely used applications in industries. Like other process control, it require suitable controller to obtain the good system performances. Hence, this paper presents the study of Coupled Tank System using LQR and PID controller. Both controller parameters are tuned using Single-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The performance of the system is compared based on the transient response in term of of Rise Time (Tr), Settling Time (Ts), Steady State Error (ess) and Overshoot (OS). Simulation is conducted within MATLAB environment to verify the performances of the system. The result shows that both controller can be tuned using PSO, while LQR controller give slightly better results compared to PID controller.


title: Learning compiler design as a research activity

abstract: This article describes the application of a pedagogical model called “learning as a research activity” (D. Gil‐Perez and J. Carrascosa‐Alis, Science Education,Vol. 17 78, 1994, pp. 301‐315) to the design and implementation of a two‐semester course on compiler design for computer engineering students. In the new model, the classical pattern of classroom activity based mainly on one‐way knowledge transmission/reception of pre‐elaborated concepts is replaced by an active working environment that resembles that of a group of novice researchers under the supervision of an expert. The new model, rooted in the now commonly accepted constructivist postulates, strives for meaningful acquisition of fundamental concepts through problem solving‐‐which closely parallels the construction of scientific knowledge throughout history.


CHOICE AND THE INTERNET : FROM CLICKSTREAM TO


title: New Evaluation Method of Polishing Pad Property for Estimating Edge Roll-Off of Silicon Wafer

abstract: With the ever-growing demand for further increase in the integration density of semiconductor devices, silicon wafers as the substrates for most devices are required to be extremely flat. In particular, it is strongly required to suppress edge roll-off, which seriously deteriorates the surface flatness near the wafer edge during polishing process in the final stage of the wafer manufacturing. In this study, we investigate the properties of polishing pads required for decreasing edge roll-off and propose the evaluation method of the properties. Polishing experiments with silicon wafers and evaluation tests for polishing pads reveal that the proposed method can estimate the obtained edge surface flatness.


title: GeePS: scalable deep learning on distributed GPUs with a GPU-specialized parameter server

abstract: Large-scale deep learning requires huge computational resources to train a multi-layer neural network. Recent systems propose using 100s to 1000s of machines to train networks with tens of layers and billions of connections. While the computation involved can be done more efficiently on GPUs than on more traditional CPU cores, training such networks on a single GPU is too slow and training on distributed GPUs can be inefficient, due to data movement overheads, GPU stalls, and limited GPU memory. This paper describes a new parameter server, called GeePS, that supports scalable deep learning across GPUs distributed among multiple machines, overcoming these obstacles. We show that GeePS enables a state-of-the-art single-node GPU implementation to scale well, such as to 13 times the number of training images processed per second on 16 machines (relative to the original optimized single-node code). Moreover, GeePS achieves a higher training throughput with just four GPU machines than that a state-of-the-art CPU-only system achieves with 108 machines.


title: 24 Numerical Methods and Applications in Total Variation Image Restoration

abstract: Since their introduction in a classic paper by Rudin, Osher, and Fatemi (Physica D 60:259–268, 1992), total variation minimizing models have become one of the most popular and successful methodologies for image restoration. New developments continue to expand the capability of the basic method in various aspects. Many faster numerical algorithms and more sophisticated applications have been proposed. This chapter reviews some of these recent developments.


title: Saturation-preserving specular reflection separation

abstract: Specular reflection generally decreases the saturation of surface colors, which will be possibly confused with other colors that have the same hue but lower saturation. Traditional methods for specular reflection separation suffer this problem of hue-saturation ambiguity, producing over-saturated specular-free images quite often. We proposed a two-step approach to solve this problem. In the first step, we produce an over-saturated specular-free image by global chromaticity propagation from specular-free pixels to highlighted ones. Then we recover the saturation based on priors of the piecewise constancy of diffuse chromaticity as well as the spatial sparsity and smoothness of specular reflection. We achieve this through increasing the achromatic component of diffuse chromaticity, while the magnitudes of increments are determined by linear programming under the constraints derived from the priors. Experiments on both laboratory and natural images show that our method can separate the specular reflection while preserving the saturation of the underlying surface colors.


Understanding the Potential of Interpreter-based Optimizations for Python


title: A unified approach for schema matching, coreference and canonicalization

abstract: The automatic consolidation of database records from many heterogeneous sources into a single repository requires solving several information integration tasks. Although tasks such as coreference, schema matching, and canonicalization are closely related, they are most commonly studied in isolation. Systems that do tackle multiple integration problems traditionally solve each independently, allowing errors to propagate from one task to another. In this paper, we describe a discriminatively-trained model that reasons about schema matching, coreference, and canonicalization jointly. We evaluate our model on a real-world data set of people and demonstrate that simultaneously solving these tasks reduces errors over a cascaded or isolated approach. Our experiments show that a joint model is able to improve substantially over systems that either solve each task in isolation or with the conventional cascade. We demonstrate nearly a 50% error reduction for coreference and a 40% error reduction for schema matching.


title: The case for RAMClouds: scalable high-performance storage entirely in DRAM

abstract: Disk-oriented approaches to online storage are becoming increasingly problematic: they do not scale gracefully to meet the needs of large-scale Web applications, and improvements in disk capacity have far outstripped improvements in access latency and bandwidth. This paper argues for a new approach to datacenter storage called RAMCloud, where information is kept entirely in DRAM and large-scale systems are created by aggregating the main memories of thousands of commodity servers. We believe that RAMClouds can provide durable and available storage with 100-1000x the throughput of disk-based systems and 100-1000x lower access latency. The combination of low latency and large scale will enable a new breed of dataintensive applications.


title: Role of two novel two-component regulatory systems in development and phosphatase expression in Myxococcus xanthus

abstract: We have cloned a two-component regulatory system (phoR2-phoP2) of Myxococcus xanthus while searching for genes that encode proteins with phosphatase activity, where phoR2 encodes the histidine kinase and phoP2 encodes the response regulator. A second system, phoR3-phoP3, was identified and isolated by using phoP2 as a probe. These two systems are quite similar, sharing identities along the full-length proteins of 52% on the histidine kinases and 64% on the response regulators. The predicted structures of both kinases suggest that they are anchored to the membrane, with the sensor domains being located in the periplasmic space and the kinase domains in the cytoplasm. The response regulators (PhoP2 and PhoP3) exhibit a helix-loop-helix motif typical of DNA-binding proteins in the effector domains located in the C-terminal region. Studies on two single-deletion mutants and one double-deletion mutant have revealed that these systems are involved in development. Mutant fruiting bodies are not well packed, originating loose and flat aggregates where some myxospores do not reshape properly, and they remain as elongated cells. These systems are also involved in the expression of Mg-independent acid and neutral phosphatases, which are expressed during development. The neutral phosphatase gene is especially dependent on PhoP3. Neither PhoP2 nor PhoP3 regulates the expression of alkaline phosphatases and the pph1 gene.


title: Spaceborne MIMO Synthetic Aperture Radar for Multimodal Operation

abstract: In this paper, we introduce a novel multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) concept for multimodal operation. The proposed system employs waveforms based on the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique and digital beamforming (DBF) on receive. Thereby, it becomes feasible to maximize spatial degrees of freedom, which are necessary for the multimodal operation. The proposed MIMO SAR system produces multiple high-resolution wide-swath SAR imageries that are used for coherent postprocessing. Through this paper, we aim to open up a new perspective of using MIMO concept for a wide-swath SAR imaging with high resolution in interferometric and polarimetric modes, based on OFDM and DBF techniques. Therefore, this paper encompasses broad theoretical backgrounds and general system design issues as well as specific signal processing techniques and aspects.


title: On the collective classification of email "speech acts"

abstract: We consider classification of email messages as to whether or not they contain certain "email acts", such as a request or a commitment. We show that exploiting the sequential correlation among email messages in the same thread can improve email-act classification. More specifically, we describe a new text-classification algorithm based on a dependency-network based collective classification method, in which the local classifiers are maximum entropy models based on words and certain relational features. We show that statistically significant improvements over a bag-of-words baseline classifier can be obtained for some, but not all, email-act classes. Performance improvements obtained by collective classification appears to be consistent across many email acts suggested by prior speech-act theory.


title: Heuristic approach to online purchase prediction based on internet store visitors classification using data mining methods

abstract: Last years research gave some preliminary results in approaches to customer online purchase prediction. However, it still remains unclear what exact set of features of data instances should be incorporated in a model and is enough for prediction, what is the best data mining method (algorithm) to use, how stable over time could be such a model, whether a model is transferable from one online store to another. This study is focused on a heuristic approach to dealing with the problem under conditions of such theoretical and methodological diversity in order to find a quick and inexpensive first approximation to the solution or at least to find useful patterns and facts in the data.


title: Design of Phased Arrays of Series-Fed Patch Antennas With Reduced Number of the Controllers for 28-GHz mm-Wave Applications

abstract: New modified 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 series-fed patch antenna arrays with beam-steering capability are designed and fabricated for 28-GHz millimeter-wave applications. In the designs, the patches are connected to each other continuously and in symmetric 2-D format using the high-impedance microstrip lines. In the first design, 3-D beam-scanning range of ± 25° and good radiation and impedance characteristics were attained by using only one phase shifter. In the second one, a new mechanism is introduced to reduce the number of the feed ports and the related phase shifters (from default number 2 N to the reduced number N + 1 in the serial feed (here N = 3) and then the cost, complexity, and size of the design. Here, good scanning performance of a range of ± 20°, acceptable sidelobe level, and gain of 15.6 dB are obtained. These features allow to use additional integrated circuits to improve the gain and performance. A comparison to the conventional array without modification is done. The measured and simulated results and discussions are presented.


title: Measuring e-learning systems success: Implementing D & M is success model

abstract: Electronic learning (e-learning) has been widely used as a complement subject to traditional learning methods. Implementing e-learning is becoming one of many solutions in effecting the study process offered by higher educational institutions, such as Universitas Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Jakarta = UPNVJ and Sekolah Tinggi Teknologi Telematika Telkom (ST3 Telkom) Purwokerto, Central Java. The objective of this research is to measure the e-learning system success implemented by UPNVJ and ST3 Telkom Purwokerto and then compare the similarities and differences between of two. The modified DeLone & McLean Information Systems Success Model and part of Technology Acceptance Model are adopted in this study. The respondents are students who have been experience in using e-learning and are selected randomly from the Faculty of Computer Science of UPNVJ and from ST3 Telkom Purwokerto. The total respondents are 387, which consist of 215 students from UPNVJ and 172 from ST3 Telkom Purwokerto. For the results at UPNVJ, there are two hypotheses that were proven insignificant and at ST3 Telkom there are three hypotheses that were proven insignificant. Findings at UPNVJ show that the e-learning benefit can be explained by its independent variables by 53.8%%, and at ST3 Telkom by 60.6%. These percentages show that the predictors explained 53.8% for UPNVJ's e-learning benefit and 60.6% e-learning benefit for ST3 Telkom Purwokerto. These findings could be considered as novelties, because they are different from the original model.


abstract: Au et al. [2014] reported on a girl with a 590 Kb deletion within chromosome 1q41q42 and suggested that FBXO28 is a major gene contributing to the neurodevelopmental, epileptic, and dysmorphologic phenotype of patients with 1q41q42 microdeletion syndrome [Shaffer et al., 2007; Rosenfeld et al., 2011]. In our Clinical Genetics Unit, we are following up a boy carrying a de novo 286.6 Kb deletion on chromosome 1q42.11q42.12 in which the proximal breakpoint includes the last exon of the FBXO28 gene. The deletion, detected by array-CGH analysis and refined by quantitative PCR, does not include other genes of the smallest region of overlap that has been previously identified among patients with 1q41q42 microdeletions [Shaffer et al., 2007; Rosenfeld et al., 2011]. Moreover, it involves the same additional genes included in the deletion reported by Au et al. (DEGS1, NVL, MIR320B2, CNIH4, WDR26, MIR4742) with the exception of CNIH3. The array-CGH analysis was carried out using the Agilent Human Genome CGH Microarray Kit 244 A. The proximal breakpoint of the deletion mapped between nucleotides 224,340,896 and 224,349,658, while the distal breakpoint mapped between nucleotides 224,636,258 and 224,646,322 (NCBI Build 37.1, Fig. 1). No other abnormalities were observed, excluding well-known benign copy number variations. Real-time quantitative PCR assay targeting exon 4, exon 5, and three regions of the 3’UTR of the FBXO28 gene was used to further refine the proximal breakpoint of the rearrangement. The analysis was performed on a RotorGene 6000 (Corbett Research, Mortlake, Australia) as previously described [Vecchi et al., 2011]. DNA samples from two healthy subjects were used as negative controls. The analysis revealed a deletion of the exon 5 and the 3UTR of the FBXO28 gene, while the exon 4 quantification was comparable with those of controls (Fig. 2). The patient was referred to our Institution because of developmental delay, absent speech, and seizures. He is the second-born child of healthy, nonconsanguineous parents, with an unremarkable family history. He was born at gestational week 41 after an uncomplicated pregnancy. Birth weight was 3,700 g (50th–75th centile), length was 51 cm (50th centile) and head circumference was 37.3 cm (90th centile). At birth, bilateral camptodactyly and unilateral inguinal hernia were observed. Between 18 months and 3 years of age he had five episodes of generalized febrile seizures without the evidence of EEG abnormalities. Afebrile generalized tonic–clonic seizures appeared at 6 years and slow EEG anomalies on the anterior regions were observed. Seizures were completely controlled with Valproic acid therapy. The brain MRI detected mild enlargement of the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles and a multicystic pineal gland. Neurological evaluations detected mild hypertonia with brisk reflexes. Feeding difficulties and sleep disturbance were not reported. Physical examination at 10 years (Fig. 3) revealed a head circumference of 56 cm (>97th centile), frontal bossing, dolichocephaly, wide mouth, thin vermilion of the upper lip, widely spaced teeth, and gingival hyperplasia. Cutis marmorata, generalized joint laxity, camptodactyly of the 4th and 5th fingers, tapering fingers, hallux valgus, and thin and fragile nails of both fingers and toes were also observed. Weight was 25 kg (3rd centile) and height was 132 cm (10th–25th centile). He could speak less than 20 words. Our patient and the one described by Au et al. [2014] shared several characteristic features of the 1q41q42 microdeletion syndrome, including intellectually disability, language impairment, and epilepsy. Moreover, both patients had a distinctive facial phenotype that was already recognizable in some of the previously reported patients carrying larger 1q41q42 deletions; dysmorphic features included a slightly coarse face with widely spaced eyes, broad mouth, widely spaced teeth, and gingival hyperplasia. Cutis How to Cite this Article: Cassina M, Rigon C, Casarin A, Vicenzi V, Salviati L, Clementi M. 2015. FBXO28 is a critical gene of the 1q41q42 microdeletion syndrome.


title: Anthraquinones and Iridoids from Morinda officinalis

abstract: A new anthraquinone, 2,5,8-trihydroxy-1-methoxyanthraquinone (1), was isolated from the roots of Morinda officinalis together with two anthraquinones, 1,4-dihydroxyanthraquinone (2) and anthragallol-1,3-dimethylether (3), and two iridoids, ningpogenin (4) and monotropein methyl ester (5). The structure of 1 was elucidated by spectroscopic methods including 1D, 2D NMR, HR-MS, and IR. This is the first report of compounds 2–5 from the genus Morinda.


signal reconstruction from partial Fourier data


Hadoop - The Definitive Guide: MapReduce for the Cloud


title: Development of a robot balancing on a ball

abstract: This paper proposes a robot balanced on a ball. In contrast to an inverted pendulum with two wheels, such as the Segway Human Transporter, an inverted pendulum using a ball can traverse in any direction without changing its orientation, thereby enabling stable motion. Such robots can be used in place of the two-wheeled robots. The robot proposed in this paper is equipped with three omnidirectional wheels with stepping motors that drive the ball and two sets of rate gyroscopes and accelerometers as attitude sensors. The robot has a simple design; it is controlled with a 16-bit microcontroller and runs on Ni-MH batteries. It can not only stand still but also traverse on floor and pivot around its vertical axis. Inverted pendulum control is applied in two axes for attitude control, and commanded motions are converted into velocity commands for the three wheels. The mechanism, control method, and experimental results are described in this paper.


title: On the Personality Traits of GitHub Contributors

abstract: People's personality has the potential to explain the behavior in different situations. This understanding of the behavior is required to understand the intricacies of the team, which can then be used to optimize work performance. As an initial step towards optimizing work performance, in this paper, we explore the inferential power of the personality traits in explaining the behavior of contributors in various contexts of software development in GitHub. Analyses of 243 actively discussed projects showed that the contributors with extreme (high or low) levels of contributions are more neurotic compared to the contributors with medium-level of contributions. Analyses of 423 active contributors showed that contributors evolve as more conscientious, more extrovert and less agreeable over the years of participation. The findings of this study match our ideas and are promising for further explorations.


title: Lifecycle Management in the Smart City Context: Smart Parking Use-Case

abstract: Lifecycle management enables enterprises to manage their products, services and product-service bundles. IoT and CPS have made products and services smarter by closing the loop of data across different phases of lifecycle. Similarly, CPS and IoT empower cities with real-time data streams from heterogeneous objects. Yet, cities are smarter and more powerful when relevant data can be exchanged between different systems across different domains. From engineering perspective, smart city can be seen as a System of Systems composed of interrelated/interdependent smart systems and objects. To better integrate people, processes, and systems in the smart city ecosystem, this paper discusses the use of Lifecycle Management in the smart city context. Considering the differences between ordinary and smart service systems, this paper seeks better understanding of lifecycle aspects in the smart city context. For better understanding, some of the discussed lifecycle aspects are demonstrated in a smart parking use-case.


title: Elongation of labia minora in Uganda: including Baganda men in a risk reduction education programme

abstract: Okukyalira ensiko or ‘visiting the bush’ is how, in Uganda, the Baganda people name the practice of elongating the labia minora, which young girls start performing before menarche. As a mandatory rite of passage that identifies membership of the tribe, one of its main purposes is to enhance sexual pleasure for both male and female partners. The conditions in which it is practiced involve certain physical health risks. In this qualitative study carried out in Wakiso district, a semi-structured interview was conducted among 31 Baganda men, in order to understand their perceptions, attitudes and knowledge toward the way in which their daughters practise labia minora elongation. According to our results, men highly value this practice for its capacity to enhance sexual stimulation even though they are aware of its risks. Since genital stretching is likely to endure, the authors discuss the possibility of addressing Baganda men by health workers in an education programme aimed at minimising the risks attached ...


title: CloudFlow: Cloud-wide Policy Enforcement Using Fast VM Introspection

abstract: Government and commercial enterprises are increasingly considering cloud adoption. Clouds improve overall efficiency by consolidating a number of different clients' software virtual machines onto a smaller set of hardware resources. Unfortunately, this shared hardware also creates inherent side-channel vulnerabilities, which an attacker can use to leak information from a victim VM. Side-channel vulnerabilities are especially concerning when different principals are constrained by regulations. A classic example of these regulations are Chinese Wall policies for financial companies, which aim to protect the financial system from illicit manipulation by separating portions of the business with conflicting interests. Although efficient prevention of side channels is difficult within a single node, there is a unique opportunity within a cloud. This paper proposes a low-overhead approach to cloud wide information flow policy enforcement: identifying side channels which could potentially be used to violate a security policy through run-time introspection, and reactively migrating virtual machines to eliminate node-level side-channels. In this paper we describe CloudFlow-an information flow control extension for OpenStack. CloudFlow includes a novel, virtual machine introspection mechanism that is orders of magnitude faster than previous approaches. CloudFlow efficiently and transparently enforces information flow policies cloud-wide, including information leaks through undesirable side-channels. Additionally, CloudFlow has potential uses for cloud management and resource-efficient virtual machine scheduling.


title: Optimising the cutting of wood fibre plates in the hardboard industry

abstract: Hardboard companies transform eucalyptus trunks into rectangular wood fibre plates basically by means of processes of disintegration and reconstitution of wood fibres. Such plates called hardboards are then cut into ordered items (smaller rectangles) to satisfy customer demands. In this paper, we present approaches to generate cutting patterns that minimize the cost or waste of material, considering different particular constraints associated with longitudinal and transversal saws, head cuts, book rotation and item unloading stations of the cutting machine. The methods are based on dynamic programming recursive formulas combined with greedy constructive heuristics and the primal simplex algorithm. To illustrate the application of these approaches, a case study was carried out in a Brazilian hardboard company. The results show that the approaches are able to produce better solutions than the ones currently used by the company.


title: A Directional Feature with Energy based Offline Signature Verification Network

abstract: Signature used as a biometric is implemented in various systems as well as every signature signed by each person is distinct at the same time. So, it is very important to have a computerized signature verification system. In offline signature verification system dynamic features are not available obviously, but one can use a signature as an image and apply image processing techniques to make an effective offline signature verification system. Author proposes a intelligent network used directional feature and energy density both as inputs to the same network and classifies the signature. Neural network is used as a classifier for this system. The results are compared with both the very basic energy density method and a simple directional feature method of offline signature verification system and this proposed new network is found very effective as compared to the above two methods, specially for less number of training samples, which can be implemented practically.


title: MUSCLE: a multiple sequence alignment method with reduced time and space complexity

abstract: BackgroundIn a previous paper, we introduced MUSCLE, a new program for creating multiple alignments of protein sequences, giving a brief summary of the algorithm and showing MUSCLE to achieve the highest scores reported to date on four alignment accuracy benchmarks. Here we present a more complete discussion of the algorithm, describing several previously unpublished techniques that improve biological accuracy and / or computational complexity. We introduce a new option, MUSCLE-fast, designed for high-throughput applications. We also describe a new protocol for evaluating objective functions that align two profiles.ResultsWe compare the speed and accuracy of MUSCLE with CLUSTALW, Progressive POA and the MAFFT script FFTNS1, the fastest previously published program known to the author. Accuracy is measured using four benchmarks: BAliBASE, PREFAB, SABmark and SMART. We test three variants that offer highest accuracy (MUSCLE with default settings), highest speed (MUSCLE-fast), and a carefully chosen compromise between the two (MUSCLE-prog). We find MUSCLE-fast to be the fastest algorithm on all test sets, achieving average alignment accuracy similar to CLUSTALW in times that are typically two to three orders of magnitude less. MUSCLE-fast is able to align 1,000 sequences of average length 282 in 21 seconds on a current desktop computer.ConclusionsMUSCLE offers a range of options that provide improved speed and / or alignment accuracy compared with currently available programs. MUSCLE is freely available at http://www.drive5.com/muscle.


title: Lightweight secure communication for CoAP-enabled Internet of Things using delegated DTLS handshake

abstract: IETF CoRE working group proposed to use DTLS for supporting secure IoT services. In this paper, we examine problems that can happen when applying the DTLS protocol to IoT networks directly. To solve the problems, we separate the DTLS protocol into two; the handshake phase and the encryption phase. Our approach enhances performance in both device and network by using a way to delegate the DTLS handshake phase. We also present two scenarios (inbound and outbound) based on the properties of Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) enabled sensors. The proposed scheme supports secure end-to-end communication despite using delegation.


title: RELATIONSHIPS AMONG TEST ANXIETY, LOCUS OF CONTROL AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

abstract: This study is a correlational study designed to investigate the relationships among test anxiety, locus of control and students’ academic achievement. From a population of 498 students registered in the Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Technology, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria for 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 academic sessions, a sample of 364 student volunteers participated in the studies. Four research questions and three hypotheses tested at 0.05 alpha level were designed to guide the study. The instruments for data collection were College Students’ Test Anxiety Scale (CSTAS) and College Students’ Locus of Control Scale (CSLCS) validated by experts in relevant fields. Their reliability coefficients obtained through test-retest method and Pearson product moment correlation technique were 0.73 and 0.78 for CSTAS and CSLCS respectively. The data generated from these instruments were analyzed using SPSS. It was found that 28.57%, 18.13% and 53.30% of the student sample had low, high and moderate test anxiety respectively; there was a weak, but significant negative relationship between test anxiety and students’ academic achievement (r= - 0.22, p<0.05); a weak, but significant positive relationship was found between internal locus of control and students’ academic achievement (r= 0.191, p<0.05); there was a weak and insignificant negative relationship between external locus of control and students’ academic achievement (r= - 0.081, p<0.05). It was therefore recommended that students should start preparing for tests or examinations from the day a semester resumes rather than procrastinating studies until a test is at hand so as to avoid cramming and the attendant anxiety. The students must realize that hard work is a key to success and that success is determined by one’s attitude. They should purge themselves of the feeling that success in one’s life is a matter of luck.


title: Pulsed radiofrequency treatment in interventional pain management: mechanisms and potential indications—a review

abstract: BackgroundThe objective of this review is to evaluate the efficacy of Pulsed Radiofrequency (PRF) treatment in chronic pain management in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and well-designed observational studies. The physics, mechanisms of action, and biological effects are discussed to provide the scientific basis for this promising modality.MethodsWe systematically searched for clinical studies on PRF. We searched the MEDLINE (PubMed) and EMBASE database, using the free text terms: pulsed radiofrequency, radio frequency, radiation, isothermal radiofrequency, and combination of these. We classified the information in two tables, one focusing only on RCTs, and another, containing prospective studies. Date of last electronic search was 30 May 2010. The methodological quality of the presented reports was scored using the original criteria proposed by Jadad et al.FindingsWe found six RCTs that evaluated the efficacy of PRF, one against corticosteroid injection, one against sham intervention, and the rest against conventional RF thermocoagulation. Two trials were conducted in patients with lower back pain due to lumbar zygapophyseal joint pain, one in cervical radicular pain, one in lumbosacral radicular pain, one in trigeminal neuralgia, and another in chronic shoulder pain.ConclusionFrom the available evidence, the use of PRF to the dorsal root ganglion in cervical radicular pain is compelling. With regards to its lumbosacral counterpart, the use of PRF cannot be similarly advocated in view of the methodological quality of the included study. PRF application to the supracapular nerve was found to be as efficacious as intra-articular corticosteroid in patients with chronic shoulder pain. The use of PRF in lumbar facet arthropathy and trigeminal neuralgia was found to be less effective than conventional RF thermocoagulation techniques.


title: Effects-driven IT development: an instrument for supporting sustained participatory design

abstract: We present effects-driven IT development as an instrument for pursuing and reinforcing Participatory Design (PD) when it is applied in commercial information technology (IT) projects. Effects-driven IT development supports the management of a sustained PD process throughout design and organizational implementation. The focus is on the effects to be achieved by users through their adoption and use of a system. The overall idea is to (a) specify the purpose of a system as effects that are both measurable and meaningful to the users, and (b) evaluate the absence or presence of these effects during real use of the system. Effects are formulated in a user-oriented terminology, and they can be evaluated and revised with users in an iterative and incremental systems-development process that involves pilot implementations. In this paper we investigate the design, pilot implementation, and effects assessment of an electronic patient record. Effects concerning, among other things, clinicians' mental workload were specified and measured, but apart from the planned changes associated with these effects the pilot implementation also gave rise to emergent, opportunity-based, and curtailed changes. We discuss our experiences regarding conditions for making the specification of effects and their real-use evaluation central activities in IT projects.


A REVIEW OF COMMUNITY-BASED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT


title: Spoof resilient coordination for distributed multi-robot systems

abstract: As cyber-physical networks become increasingly equipped with embedded sensing, communication, computation, and actuation capabilities, they are made vulnerable to malicious attacks by increasing the number of access points which are available for attackers. A particularly pernicious attack is spoofing, in which a malicious agent spawns multiple identities or impersonates legitimate agents to gain a disproportionate advantage. Spoofing attacks can easily compromise otherwise attack-resilient algorithms and network structures that assume an upper bound on the number of malicious agents in the network. We generalize a class of resilient consensus strategies, known as Weighted Mean-Subsequence-Reduced (W-MSR) consensus, to further provide spoof resilience by incorporating a physical fingerprint analysis of signals received from neighboring agents. By comparing the physical fingerprints of received signals, legitimate agents can identify and isolate malicious agents that attempt spoofing attacks. We quantify the effects of delays in detecting spoofing and inexact detection due to noise in the received signals. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Our framework is applicable to a variety of problems involving multi-robot systems coordinating via wireless communication, including coverage, distributed estimation, and formation control.


title: Validity of four nutritional screening tools against subjective global assessment for inpatient adults in a low-middle income country in Asia

abstract: BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES ::: Hospital malnutrition is a common problem worldwide. This study aims to assess the validity of widely used nutritional screening tools for hospitalized adults in acute care settings in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. ::: ::: ::: SUBJECTS/METHODS ::: Participants in this study were 693 adult patients from six general public hospitals, in a multi-center survey undertaken in April and May, 2016. The criterion validity of the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST), Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS-2002) and Mini Nutrition Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF), modified MST (MST combined with low BMI), and BMI as independent tools were assessed using Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) or low BMI (<18.5 kg/m2) as the reference method. Area under curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated using the ROC curve method to determine the validity of screening tools. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: NRS-2002, modified MST (MST + low BMI), MUST, and BMI at 21 kg/m2 showed moderate/fair validity compared to the reference method (SGA or BMI). MST alone and MNA-SF showed poor validity due to low sensitivity (41.8 and 35.0% for MST and MNA-SF, respectively). ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSIONS ::: Based on specificity and sensitivity, the first choice for the most appropriate screening tool for use in Vietnam is the NRS-2002, following by the MST + BMI, MUST, and BMI alone at the cut-off value of 21 kg/m2. Further investigation on the feasibility and acceptability are required to determine the most appropriate screening tools for use within the Vietnamese context.


title: Nested Mini-Batch K-Means

abstract: A new algorithm is proposed which accelerates the mini-batch k-means algorithm of Sculley (2010) by using the distance bounding approach of Elkan (2003). We argue that, when incorporating distance bounds into a mini-batch algorithm, already used data should preferentially be reused. To this end we propose using nested mini-batches, whereby data in a mini-batch at iteration t is automatically reused at iteration t+1. ::: Using nested mini-batches presents two difficulties. The first is that unbalanced use of data can bias estimates, which we resolve by ensuring that each data sample contributes exactly once to centroids. The second is in choosing mini-batch sizes, which we address by balancing premature fine-tuning of centroids with redundancy induced slow-down. Experiments show that the resulting nmbatch algorithm is very effective, often arriving within 1% of the empirical minimum 100 times earlier than the standard mini-batch algorithm.


title: Visuospatial function in early Alzheimer's disease

abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia, accounting for 55% of all cases. AD patients gradually lose functional capacity, manifesting deficits in attention, language, temporal and direction orientation, mood, socialization and visuospatial function. The visuospatial function entails identification of a stimulus and its location. AD patients can present deficits in visuo-spatial skills during initial stages of the disease, but in the course of clinical evolution this function can become severely impaired. One of the neuropsychological tests indicated to evaluate the visuospatial function is the VOSP (The Visual Object and Space Perception Battery). Objectives: The aim of this preliminary study was to detect visuospatial dysfunction in early AD patients using the VOSP, and assess its sensitivity in a Brazilian sample. Results: Controls outperformed AD patients on all neuropsychological evaluations, except the Corsi block tapping task and cancellation task-errors. The AD patients performed significantly worse on all object perception and two space perception (Number Location and Cube Analyses) subtests of the VOSP. Conclusion: The AD patients demonstrated impaired visuospatial function in several aspects. The subtests of the VOSP were found to be sensitive for detecting this impairment in mild cases.


title: Policy compression for aircraft collision avoidance systems

abstract: One approach to designing the decision making logic for an aircraft collision avoidance system is to frame the problem as Markov decision process and optimize the system using dynamic programming. The resulting strategy can be represented as a numeric table. This methodology has been used in the development of the ACAS X family of collision avoidance systems for manned and unmanned aircraft. However, due to the high dimensionality of the state space, discretizing the state variables can lead to very large tables. To improve storage efficiency, we propose two approaches for compressing the lookup table. The first approach exploits redundancy in the table. The table is decomposed into a set of lower-dimensional tables, some of which can be represented by single tables in areas where the lower-dimensional tables are identical or nearly identical with respect to a similarity metric. The second approach uses a deep neural network to learn a complex non-linear function approximation of the table. With the use of an asymmetric loss function and a gradient descent algorithm, the parameters for this network can be trained to provide very accurate estimates of values while preserving the relative preferences of the possible advisories for each state. As a result, the table can be approximately represented by only the parameters of the network, which reduces the required storage space by a factor of 1000. Simulation studies show that system performance is very similar using either compressed table representation in place of the original table. Even though the neural network was trained directly on the original table, the network surpasses the original table on the performance metrics and encounter sets evaluated here.


title: Effects of different photobiomodulation dosimetries on temporomandibular dysfunction: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial

abstract: Changes involving temporomandibular joint, masticatory musculature, and associated structures characterize temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD). The analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect produced by photobiomodulation has contributed to pain relief and functional improvement. However, the parameters to be used have not yet been well established. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of three different photobiomodulation dosimetries in the treatment of patients with TMD. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 44 subjects divided into the groups 8 J/cm2 (n = 11), 60 J/cm2 (n = 11), 105 J/cm2 (n = 11), and control (n = 11). Pain, symptom severity, and joint mobility were evaluated before and after a ten-session protocol of photobiomodulation with AlGaAs laser (830 nm), at a power density of 30 mW/cm2. The mouth opening increased in the 8-J/cm2 group from 10.49 ± 4.68 to 15.40 ± 6.43 degrees, and in the right protrusion from 9.80 ± 4.2 to 12.56 ± 5.40 degrees after the intervention protocol (p < 0.05). All groups significantly decreased pain (p < 0.05). 830-nm laser photobiomodulation was effective in reducing TMD pain and symptoms at all doses tested. Only the doses of 8 J/cm2 were effective regarding maximal opening and protrusion of the mandible.


title: The use of unicycle robot control strategies for skid-steer robots through the ICR kinematic mapping

abstract: While decades of work and hundreds of research papers exist on unicycle robot control, the control of skid-steer robots is not yet as standardized due to the complexity of wheel slipping behavior. This work presents a method of utilizing the track or wheel Instantaneous Centers of Rotation (ICRs) on a skid-steer vehicle to map skid-steer dynamics to an equivalent time-varying model of unicycle dynamics. This allows for the direct implementation of existing unicycle, or Hilare type, robot trajectory controllers. Knowledge of ICR locations enables the calculation of required track or wheel speeds to create desired vehicle movement, similar to the kinematic relations resulting from the no-slip assumption of a unicycle robot. The algorithm requires no prior knowledge of vehicle dimensions or terrain parameters because ICR locations are estimated during robot operation using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). Simulation and experimental results for a wheeled skid-steer vehicle show good trajectory tracking performance.


title: Deliberation on Design Strategies of Automatic Harvesting Systems: A Survey

abstract: In Asia, decreasing farmer and labor populations due to various factors is a serious problem that leads to increases in labor costs, higher harvesting input energy consumption and less resource utilization. To solve these problems, researchers are engaged in providing long term and low-tech alternatives in terms of mechanization and automation of agriculture by way of efficient, low cost and easy to use solutions. This paper reviews various design strategies in recognition and picking systems, as well as developments in fruit harvesting robots during the past 30 years in several countries. The main objectives of this paper are to gather all information on fruit harvesting robots; focus on the technical developments so far achieved in picking devices; highlight the problems still to be solved; and discuss the future prospects of fruit harvesting robots.


title: Connecting Mobile Phones via Carrier-Grade Meshed Wireless Back-Haul Networks

abstract: Meshed wireless back-haul networks are seen as an affordable technology to bring Internet connectivity into rural and previously unconnected regions. To date, the main focus is to provide access to classical services such as theWWWor email. Access to such services requires the users to use a personal computer or a recent smart phone. Especially in developing regions, the prevailing end user device is a mobile phone. In order to connect mobile phones to an IP-based back-haul network, the network access points must provide a mobile phone air interface which is usually based on GSM or UMTS. In order to avoid dependence on a costly 3GPP infrastructure, we propose to deploy GSM or 3GPP nano cells in order to terminate the mobile phone protocols immediately at the mesh access points. Hence, the voice or data traffic can be carried over IP-based networks using open protocols such as SIP and RTP. In this paper we present a meshed wireless back-haul network with access points that have been equipped with GSM nano-cells. The voice traffic generated by the mobile phones is carried across the mesh in parallel to typical web or video traffic. In this paper we evaluate the QoS handling received by the voice calls across our multi-hop wireless testbed and show that our architecture can provide the resource isolation required to offer uninterrupted VoIP services in parallel to typical Internet traffic.


A Survey on Intelligent Poetry Generation: Languages, Features, Techniques, Reutilisation and Evaluation