Enabling the creation of domain-specific reference collections to support text-based information retrieval experiments in the architecture, engineering and construction industries

The increasing importance of text-based information retrieval (IR) developments in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries (AEC) and the lack of sharable testing resources to support these developments call for an approach that can be used to generate domain-specific reference collections. To address this need, the authors investigated the characteristics of the testing environment in AEC and ways to adapt dominant collection preparation methods for the domain. This paper presents the authors’ collection generation approach through the preparation process of the Taiwanese National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) collection. The collection’s Chinese-to-English translation instruments are also discussed as matching semantic/linguistic resources are highly valued in AEC’s text-based IR developments. The paper also includes a use case for the NCREE collection to show how a collection generated by the proposed approach could be applied to support research experiment and validation. The direct outputs, the NCREE collection and its translation instruments, are sharable and reusable testing resources, while mechanisms for seeking collections from other researchers are part of the extended research endeavors.     

On two mixed variational principles for thick laminated composite plates

The basic behavior of the shear deformation plate theories derived from the recently proposed Reissner's and Jing-Liao's functionals is studied in this paper. The difference between these two functionals is on the energy form of transverse normal stress. In Reissner's functional, the transverse normal stress has to be assumed as well as displacements and transverse shear. On the other hand, the independent variables in Jing-Liao's functional include only displacements and transverse shear. The comparison of these functionals is made through two examples, one with assumed transverse normal stress and the other without. It is found that for the cases studied in this paper Jing-Liao's functional provides a simpler, sometimes even better, alternative approach than Reissner's functional in formulating shear deformation theory of thick plates.     

Slanted Frame Arrangement on Multiple Frequency Carriers in TDD Based PRMA

Efficient utilization of radio resource is one of the most important issues in wireless systems. In existing TDD based PRMA protocol and its variations, a mobile terminal is assigned on one of the frequency carriers after completing a registration procedure. Since mobile terminals enter and leave the system in an unpredictable fashion, some of the frequency carriers may become heavily loaded while other frequency carriers are underutilized. The frequency carriers can be utilized more efficiently by allowing the mobile terminals to switch among the frequency carriers. To enable the mobile terminals to switch among the frequency carriers efficiently, this paper proposes to arrange the frame boundaries on the frequency carriers in a slanted fashion. A scheme is proposed to enable a mobile terminal to switch among different frequency carriers such that shorter time is required to obtain a slot at the beginning of a talk spurt or a burst of data. Simulations are performed to compare the performance of the proposed scheme with a scheme that does not allow mobile terminals to switch among frequency carriers. Our simulation results show that the proposed slanted frame arrangement scheme yields significantly lower mean request waiting time and packet dropping ratio.     

A new procedure for decoding cyclic and BCH codes up to actualminimum distance

The paper presents a new procedure for decoding cyclic and BCH codes up to their actual minimum distance. It generalizes the Peterson decoding procedure and the procedure of Feng and Tzeng (1991) using nonrecurrent syndrome dependence relations. For a code with actual minimum distance d to correct up to t=[(d-1)/2] errors, the procedure requires a (2t+1)×(2t+1) syndrome matrix with known syndromes above the minor diagonal and unknown syndromes and their conjugates on the minor diagonal. In contrast to previous procedures, this procedure is primarily aimed at solving for the unknown syndromes instead of determining an error-locator polynomial. Decoding is then accomplished by determining the error vector as the inverse Fourier transform of the syndrome vector (S₀, S₁, S_n-1). The authors show that with this procedure, all binary cyclic and BCH codes of length <63 (with one exception) can be decoded up to their actual minimum distance. The procedure incorporates an extension of their fundamental iterative algorithm and a majority scheme for confirming the true values computed for the unknown syndromes. The complexity of this decoding procedure is O(n³)     

Inhibitory effect of Antrodia camphorata constituents on the Helicobacter pylori-associated gastric inflammation

Helicobacter pylori infection plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer, and gastric cancer. Among the 13 chemical constituents isolated from fruiting bodies of Antrodia camphorata, methyl antcinate B (4), antcins K (10) and A (12) displayed potential anti-H. pylori activity with inhibition zones of 13, 12 and 10 mm, respectively, at a concentration of 0.2 mM. The isolates 4 and 10 exhibited a dose response inhibition of H. pylori adhesion and invasion to AGS cells in a range of concentrations between 0.005 and 0.02 mM, while 12 has moderate effect at relatively higher concentration. Furthermore, at these concentrations (0.005–0.02 mM) the isolates 4 and 10 also inhibited the H. pylori-induced nuclear factor (NF)-кB activation, and the subsequent release of interleukin (IL)-8 in AGS cells. These results open the possibility of considering A. camphorata a chemopreventive agent for peptic ulcer or gastric cancer, but this bioactivity should be confirmed in vivo in the future.     

A Multiband Inductor-Reuse CMOS Low-Noise Amplifier

This paper presents the design and implementation of a new multiband, multistandard CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) that reuses inductors for different frequency bands to minimize chip area. The idea is to adaptively reconfigure a CMOS transistor in either common source or common gate configuration to achieve narrow-band (NB) or wide-band (WB) input matching, respectively, while conveniently reusing input and load inductors for both bands. This architecture is suitable for 802.11 a/b/g and Public Safety Broadband (PSB) applications, where the NB configuration covers wireless local area network (WLAN) 802.11 b/g, while the WB configuration accommodates the PSB at 4.9 GHz and WLAN 802.11 a. Two versions of the proposed idea, a tapped-capacitor and a tapped-inductor input-matched LNA, have each been designed and fabricated in 0.13-mum CMOS and measurement results are demonstrated.     

QoS provisioning for multiple non‐real‐time services in cellular wireless networks

Future mobile services are expected to include various non‐voice oriented services. One important category of non‐voice oriented mobile services is non‐real‐time services. When a mobile user establishes a connection to access non‐real‐time service, the mobile user usually cares about whether the total time to complete its data transfer is within its time tolerance. In addition, different mobile users may have different bandwidth requirements and different tolerances in the total completion time. It is essential for wireless systems to provide various mobile users with different total completion times. In this paper, two quality‐of‐service (QoS) metrics, called stretch ratio and eligibility percentage, are employed at a connection level to present the degree of the length of the total completion time. We devise a measurement based call admission control scheme that provides multiple QoSs for various mobile users which have different requirements of stretch ratios, eligibility percentages, and bandwidths. Extensive simulation results show that the measurement based call admission control scheme not only provides various satisfactory QoSs for mobile users but also produces high throughput. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cancer-Targeting Nanoparticles for Combinatorial Nucleic Acid Delivery

Nucleic acids are a promising type of therapeutic for the treatment of a wide range of conditions, including cancer, but they also pose many delivery challenges. For efficient and safe delivery to cancer cells, nucleic acids must generally be packaged into a vehicle, such as a nanoparticle, that will allow them to be taken up by the target cells and then released in the appropriate cellular compartment to function. As with other types of therapeutics, delivery vehicles for nucleic acids must also be designed to avoid unwanted side effects; thus, the ability of such carriers to target their cargo to cancer cells is crucial. Classes of nucleic acids, hurdles that must be overcome for effective intracellular delivery, types of nonviral nanomaterials used as delivery vehicles, and the different strategies that can be employed to target nucleic acid delivery specifically to tumor cells are discussed. Additonally, nanoparticle designs that facilitate multiplexed delivery of combinations of nucleic acids are reviewed.     

Multiple Access Control in a Centralized Full-Duplex Cognitive Machine Type Network with RF Energy Harvesting

Wireless Personal Communications - Machine type communication connecting machines in the Internet of Things (IoT) brings massive traffic and rapidly increases the demand for radio spectrum in...