Band formulas for calculating the numerator’s coefficients of the transfer function of a single-input system

Based on band matrices, a new formula for finding polynomial coefficients of the numerator of the transfer function for a linear single-input single-output system is derived. Its properties are studied for analyzing and synthesizing linear systems with many outputs, as a result of which a method is developed for the synthesis of the specified polynomial of zero dynamics (specified output) for a linear system with many outputs.     

Design of a hardware preprocessor for the ‘DIAS’ multilevel picture information system

DIAS is a multilevel-multiprocessor picture information system architecture. It receives many pictures simultaneously from its environment and ‘decides’ how to process them according to its built up experience.This paper deals with the hardware design of the image preprocessor for the DIAS system. Several details concerning the image acquisition are discussed, including a unique photoarray camera and a hardware preprocessor which act to acquire and reduce the amount of data provided to the Master-Planner processor of the DIAS structure. In particular, the image preprocessor receives the image data in parallel and generates a number of critical image parameters, such as average intensities of various picture regions, geographic locations of the informative picture regions, number of pixels, etc., appropriate for fast decision making by the Master-Planner processor. The internal circuitry and functions of the image preprocessor are presented as well as a simple VLSI realization.     

Design of 22-DOF pneumatically actuated upper body for child android ‘Affetto’

Child robots have been used in a lot of studies on human–robot social/physical interaction because they are suitable for safe and casual experiments. However, providing many compliant joints and lifelike exteriors to enhance their interaction potential is difficult because of the limited space available inside their bodies. In this paper, we propose an upper body structure that consists of slider crank and parallel mechanisms for linear actuators and serial mechanisms for rotary actuators. Such combinations of several joint mechanisms efficiently utilize the body space; in total, 22 degrees of freedoms were realized in an upper body space equivalent to that of an 80cm tall child. A pneumatic drive system was adopted in order to fully verify the behavioral performance of the body mechanism. The proposed redundant and compact upper body mechanism can be a platform for testing the effectiveness of future exteriors for the little child android ‘Affetto’, which was developed in order to integrate several key characteristics for achieving advanced human–robot interaction.     

Development and application of a model for analysis and design phases of Web-based system development

The major characteristics of Web systems that shall be taken into account can be summarized as follows: First, the implementation of Web systems shall have a beneficial effect. To meet the requirements of Internet business system, the Web systems shall enable businesses to provide customers with something valuable through the Internet and profit from this process in return[1]. Second, the way to express the contents on the Web matters. To express the contents, Web systems shall introduce mu…     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘a secure authentication scheme for telecare medical information system’ with nonce verification

In 2009, Xu et al. presented an improved smartcard based authentication scheme while using a security model previously applied by Bellare et al. to prove the security of their authentication methods. Later on, in 2012, Wu et al. pointed out number of authentication attacks in Xu et al. scheme. To address these issues, Wu et al. presented a Smartcard based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) scheme for Telecare Medical Information System (TMIS) facility. In this study, we prove that authentication scheme of Wu et al. is still vulnerable to impersonation attack, offline password guessing attack, forgery attack and many other attacks. Moreover, number of performance and verification issues are also outlined in the authentication scheme of Wu et al. To overcome these issues, an improved and enhanced 3FA Smartphone based authentication method is proposed on a Cloud Computing environment. The proposed scheme is further corroborated using Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic (BAN logic) nonce verification. The detailed BAN logic verification and further security analysis shows that the proposed authentication protocol is highly reliable and secure in terms of message verifications, message freshness and trustworthiness of its origin. Moreover, the comparative security, performance and feature analysis shows that the proposed work yields an even more improved and enhanced authentication framework as compared to Wu et al. authentication scheme.     

Use of machine learning techniques for educational proposes: a decision support system for forecasting students’ grades

Use of machine learning techniques for educational proposes (or educational data mining) is an emerging field aimed at developing methods of exploring data from computational educational settings and discovering meaningful patterns. The stored data (virtual courses, e-learning log file, demographic and academic data of students, admissions/registration info, and so on) can be useful for machine learning algorithms. In this article, we cite the most current articles that use machine learning techniques for educational proposes and we present a case study for predicting students’ marks. Students’ key demographic characteristics and their marks in a small number of written assignments can constitute the training set for a regression method in order to predict the student’s performance. Finally, a prototype version of software support tool for tutors has been constructed.     

Tuning of a decoupling controller for a 2×2 system using iterative feedback tuning

Iterative feedback tuning is used to tune a decoupling controller for a 2×2 multivariable system. The tuning is carried out in two steps. In the first step the coefficients of two proportional decoupling controllers are tuned, and in the second step two PD-controllers are tuned. The approach is evaluated on a nonlinear simulation model of a two-link manipulator. The evaluation is carried out using two different reference trajectories and also in the presence of friction. The resulting closed loop systems show satisfactory behavior in all three cases.     

The BLEND system Programme for the study of some ‘electronic journals’∗

The paper describes a 3-year experimental programme organized jointly by the two universities as the Birmingham and Loughborough Electronic Network Development (BLEND). The aims are to assess the cost, efficiency and subjective impact of such a system, and to explore and evaluate alternative forms of user communication through an eletronic journal and information network. Using a host computer at Birmingham University, a community of initially about 50 scientists (Loughborough Information Network Community (LINC)) will be connnected through the public telephone network to explore various types of electronic journal. The concept of the electronic journal involves using a computer to aid the normal procedures whereby an article is written, refereed, accepted and ‘published’. The subject of this experimental programme will be ‘Computer Human Factors’. Each member will contribute at least one research article and one shorter note in each year of the project, and will also use other forms of communication such as newsletter, annotated abstracts, workshop conferences, co-operative authorship, etc. Throughout the project relevant data will be gathered to enable the assessment of system and user performance, cost, usefulness and acceptability? ? This paper has been referred, accepted and archived (in electronic form only) in the BL R&DD experimental electronic journal Computer Human Factors. .     

Development of a simple model for batch and boundary information updation for a similar ship’s block model

In early 2000,large domestic shipyards introduced shipbuilding 3D computer-aided design (CAD) to the hull production design process to define manufacturing and assembly information.The production design process accounts for most of the man-hours (M/H) of the entire design process and is closely connected to yard production because designs must take into account the production schedule of the shipyard,the current state of the dock needed to mount the ship’s block,and supply information.Therefore,many shipyards are investigating the complete automation of the production design process to reduce the M/H for designers.However,these problems are still currently unresolved,and a clear direction is needed for research on the automatic design base of manufacturing rules,batches reflecting changed building specifications,batch updates of boundary information for hull members,and management of the hull model change history to automate the production design process.In this study,a process was developed to aid production design engineers in designing a new ship’s hull block model from that of a similar ship previously built,based on AVEVA Marine.An automation system that uses the similar ship’s hull block model is proposed to reduce M/H and human errors by the production design engineer.First,scheme files holding important information were constructed in a database to automatically update hull block model modifications.Second,for batch updates,the database’s table,including building specifications and the referential integrity of a relational database were compared.In particular,this study focused on reflecting the frequent modification of building specifications and regeneration of boundary information of the adjacent panel due to changes in a specific panel.Third,the rollback function is proposed in which the database (DB) is used to return to the previously designed panels.     

Development of a novel system to quantify the spatial–temporal parameters for crutch-assisted quadrupedal gait

Abstract

Patients with gait disorders often use bilateral crutches along with their own two legs. It is a kind of quadrupedalism. Crutch-assisted gait is usually described and evaluated qualitatively. In this study, we developed a system to quantify the spatial and temporal parameters for crutch-assisted quadrupedalism. Our system consists of walkway hardware and our originally developed software. We specifically extended the measurable area to 1200 mm × 4800 mm, large enough to measure crutch gait. Using our system, we could describe crutch gait precisely. Our system has a capability to evaluate differences between patients and changes within a patient.     

‘What a waste of time’: An examination of cybersecurity legitimacy

Managers who oversee cybersecurity policies commonly rely on managerial encouragement (e.g., rewards) and employee characteristics (e.g., attitude) to drive compliant behaviour. However, whereas some cybersecurity initiatives are perceived as reasonable by employees, others are viewed as a ‘waste of time’. This research introduces employee judgements of cybersecurity legitimacy as a new angle for understanding employee compliance with cybersecurity policies over time. Drawing on theory from the organisational legitimacy and cybersecurity literature, we conduct a three-wave survey of 529 employees and find that, for each separate wave, negative legitimacy judgements mediate the relationship between management support and compliance, as well as between cybersecurity inconvenience and compliance. Our results provide support for cybersecurity legitimacy as an important influence on employee compliance with cybersecurity initiatives. This is significant because it highlights to managers the importance of not simply expecting compliant employee behaviour to follow from the introduction of cybersecurity initiatives, but that employees need to be convinced that the initiatives are fair and reasonable. Interestingly, we did not find sufficient support for our expectation that the increased likelihood of a cybersecurity incident will moderate the legitimacy-policy compliance relationship. This result suggests that the legitimacy perceptions of employees are unyielding to differences in the risk characteristics of the cybersecurity incidents facing organisations.     

Application experience of component modeling in Transas Group’S training system development for cargo-ballast and technological operations

The paper examines the experience of mathematical model development for the Tech- Sim/LCHS 5000 Series training systems from Transas Group (Russia). It overviews the subject area and the problems solved during the training simulator development. The applicationspecific requirements to model fidelity and software implementation are analyzed. The objectoriented approach applied, its implementation using Rand Model Designer, and the features of standard component library are described. The actions required to enable the operation of the models developed in real-time simulation are discussed.     

Comments on ‘ Dynamic feedback methodology for interconnected control systems ’ and ‘ Dynamic multilevel optimization for a class of non-linear systems ’

The paper considers the Kalman-Bucy filter for a linear system when the measurement noise covariance matrix is singular. It is shown that the problem of infimizing the square of a linear functional of the state estimation error is the dual of the optimal singular linear regulator problem. Furthermore there is an optimal reduced-order Kalman-Bucy filter for minimization of the trace of the state error covariance matrix, when all extremal controls for a dual regulator have finite order of singularity, and no Luenberger observer is needed. The proof is constructive. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a reduced-order optimal estimator are derived.     

‘KRISP’: A represnetation for the semantic interpretation of texts

KRISP is a representation system and set of interpretation protocols that is used in the Sparser natural language understanding system to embody the meaning of texts and their pragmatic contexts. It is based on a denotational notion of semantic interpretation, where the phrases of a text are directly projected onto a largely pre-existing set of individuals and categories in a model, rather than first going through a level of symbolic representation such as a logical form. It defines a small set of semantic object types, grounded in the lambda calculus, and it supports the principle of uniqueness and supplies first class objects to represent partially-saturated relationships.KRISP is being used to develop a core set of concepts for such things as names, amounts, time, and modality, which are part of a few larger models for domains including Who's News and joint ventures. It is targeted at the task of information extraction, emphasizing the need to relate entities mentioned in new texts to a large set of pre-defined entities and those read about in earlier articles or in the same article.     

Citizens’ adoption of an electronic government system: towards a unified view

Sluggish adoption of emerging electronic government (eGov) applications continues to be a problem across developed and developing countries. This research tested the nine alternative theoretical models of technology adoption in the context of an eGov system using data collected from citizens of four selected districts in the state of Bihar in India. Analysis of the models indicates that their performance is not up to the expected level in terms of path coefficients, variance in behavioural intention, or the fit indices of the models. In response to the underperformance of the alternative theoretical models to explain the adoption of an eGov system, this research develops a unified model of electronic government adoption and tests it using the same data. The results indicate that the proposed research model outperforms all alternative models of technology adoption by explaining 77 % of variance in behavioural intention, with acceptable values of fit indices and significant relationships between each pair of hypothesised factors.     

Evaluation of the usefulness of ‘Marvin’; a computerized assessment tool for investigative interviewers of children

This study examined the usefulness of a computerized developmental assessment tool, designed to provide investigative interviewers with knowledge about children's understanding of spatial, temporal, numerical, and color terms that may be relevant to the forensic setting. Specifically, the effect of the computer program (compared to a standard verbal and no assessment) was examined on 4- to 5-year-old children's recall of an independent event and their enjoyment of the interview process. In addition, children's performance on the computerized and verbal developmental assessment was compared with their performance when recalling the independent event. Overall, the children rated the assessment conducted on computer more favorably than the verbal assessment. Further, the verbal assessment elicited responses that were more consistent with their responses about the event than the computerized assessment. However, there was no difference in the accuracy and detail of children's responses about the independent event, irrespective of whether the children received the computerized or verbal assessment, or no assessment. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Expert Identity construct in analysing prerequisites for expertise development: a case study of nuclear power plant operators’ on-the-job training

This article discusses how shifting the focus of research to the emotional side of human actions and cognition could create new perspectives on the problem of how to support the human operator in the control of rare disturbances. A new construct, Expert Identity, is described. A qualitative study of the specific problems with changing the operator generation at a nuclear power plant is presented. The results indicate that the current identity of the trainees is more or less still one of the trainees. The conceived demands of operator work and the perceived learning opportunities are characterised by a dichotomy: disturbances or other exceptional situations emerge as different from daily work. The key challenge and motive for the trainees in the development of expertise is to achieve not only an adequate degree of competence but also to construct confidence in being able to cope with potential disturbance situations.