Adaptive user modelling in intelligent telephone and email assistants

With the burgeoning complexity and capabilities of modern information appliances and services, user modelling is becoming an increasingly important research area. Simple user profiles already personalise many software products and consumer goods such as digital TV recorders and mobile phones. A user model should be easy to initialise, and it must adapt in the light of interaction with the user. In many cases, a large amount of training data is needed to generate a user model, and adaptation is equivalent to retraining the system. This paper briefly outlines the user modelling problem and work done at BTexact on an intelligent personal assistant (IPA) which incorporates a user profile. We go on to describe FILUM, a more flexible method of user modelling, and show its application to the telephone assistant and email assistant components of the IPA, with tests to illustrate its usefulness.     

Study of a BGO calorimeter using electron and hadron beams from 1 to 50 GeV

A calorimeter of 25 bismuth germanate (BGO) crystals equipped with silicon photodiode readout has been tested at the CERN SPS in the energy range 1–50 GeV. The response for electrons has been shown to be linear in this energy range and the rms resolution obtained ( ) is approximately 1%, for E > 4 GeV. The electron/pion separation was found to be better than 1:500 in the energy range 1–20 GeV. Data on lateral and longitudinal shower development were compared with the results of a Monte Carlo simulation using the SLAC-EGS program and found to be in good agreement.     

Experimental abatement data of underflow baffles for removal of floatables in the CSOs of the Greater Montréal (Canada) area.

Underflow baffles have gained in popularity over the years as a viable mean to intercept floatables in Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). This choice was mainly justified by the extremely low capital cost (CAPEX) and operational cost (OPEX) of this solution, although the efficiency of underflow baffles has never been clearly proven. The only similar application to underflow baffles are scum boards in grit chambers and clarifier. However, the flow conditions at CSOs vary considerably from those in grit chambers and clarifier. For this reason, review of the behavior of floatables in a rapid flow is paramount. Only then can comprehensive design criteria for underflow baffles and overflow chambers be suggested. Pilot scale tests, performed in a 17 metres long basin at various flowrates, had already shown that a critical horizontal velocity for floatables (Vcr) may develop in the overflow chambers. In this follow up study, the fate of intercepted floatables was investigated. It appears from this latest data that permanent capture of floatables decreases rapidly with an increase in the horizontal velocity of the flow, no matter what the baffle depth. Baffle depth increases capture at lower velocities (0.17 m/s) but become irrelevant at higher velocities (0.61 m/s). This data suggests that capture efficiency of existing underflow baffles in overflow chambers can be, at best, very low whenever the horizontal velocity increases above 0.30 m/s or 1 ft/s.     

A probabilistic model for cleavage fracture with a length scale--parameter estimation and predictions of stationary crack experiments

This study presents a large experimental investigation in the transition temperature region on a modified A508 steel. Tests were carried out on single-edge-notch-bend specimens with three different crack depth over specimen width ratios to capture the strong constraint effect on fracture toughness. Three test temperatures were considered, covering a range of 85 °C. All specimens failed by cleavage fracture prior to ductile tearing. A recently proposed probabilistic model for the cumulative failure by cleavage was applied to the comprehensive sets of experimental data. This modified weakest link model incorporates a length scale, which together with a threshold stress reduce the scatter in predicted toughness distributions as well as introduces a fracture toughness threshold value. Model parameters were estimated by a robust procedure, which is crucial in applications of probabilistic models to real structures. The conformity between predicted and experimental toughness distributions, respectively, were notable at all the test temperatures.     

Luminescence from praseodymium doped AlN thin films deposited by RF magnetron sputtering and the effect of material structure and thermal annealing on the luminescence

Thin films of Praseodymium doped AlN are deposited on silicon (111) substrates at 77 K and 950 K by rf magnetron sputtering method. About 500–1000 nm thick films are grown at 100–200 watts RF power and 5–8 mTorr nitrogen, using a metal target of Al with Pr. X-rays diffraction results show that films deposited at 77 K are amorphous and those deposited at 950 K are crystalline. Cathodoluminescence studies are performed at room temperature and luminescence peaks are observed in a wide range from ultraviolet to infrared region. The most intense peak is obtained in green at 526 nm from amorphous films as a result from ³P₁→³H₅ transition. In crystalline films the intense peak was obtain in red at 648 nm as a result from ³P₀→³F₂ transition. Films are thermally activated at 1300 K for half an hour in a nitrogen atmosphere. Thermal activation enhances the intensity of luminescence. Two peaks at 488 nm and 505 nm merged after thermal activation, giving rise to a single peak at 495 nm.     

Life cycle cost analysis of alternative vehicles and fuels in Thailand

High crude oil prices and pollution problems have drawn attention to alternative vehicle technologies and fuels for the transportation sector. The question is: What are the benefits/costs of these technologies for society? To answer this question in a quantitative way, a web-based model (http://vehiclesandfuels.memebot.com) has been developed to calculate the societal life cycle costs, the consumer life cycle costs and the tax for different vehicle technologies. By comparing these costs it is possible to draw conclusions about the social benefit and the related tax structure. The model should help to guide decisions toward optimality, which refers to maximum social benefit. The model was applied to the case of Thailand. The life cycle cost of 13 different alternative vehicle technologies in Thailand have been calculated and the tax structure analyzed.     

Solving the trade-off between fairness and throughput: Token bucket and leaky bucket-based weighted fair queueing schedulers

In this article, we present two efficient weighted fair queueing (WFQ) scheduling algorithms leaned on the well-known token bucket and leaky bucket shaping/policing algorithms. The performance of the presented algorithms is compared to those of the state-of-the-art WFQ approximations such as weighted round robin (WRR) and the recently proposed bin sort fair queueing (BSFQ). Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithms provide a better fairness at a lower implementation complexity while simultaneously achieving a comparable network utilization.     

Results of a User Study on 2D Hurricane Visualization

We present the results from a user study looking at the ability of observers to mentally integrate wind direction and magnitude over a vector field. The data set chosen for the study is an MM5 (PSU/NCAR Mesoscale Model) simulation of Hurricane Lili over the Gulf of Mexico as it approaches the southeastern United States. Nine observers participated in the study. This study investigates the effect of layering on the observer's ability to determine the magnitude and direction of a vector field. We found a tendency for observers to underestimate the magnitude of the vectors and a counter‐clockwise bias when determining the average direction of a vector field. We completed an additional study with two observers to try to uncover the source of the counter‐clockwise bias. These results have direct implications to atmospheric scientists, but may also be able to be applied to other fields that use 2D vector fields.