Mechanical behaviour of cadmium-boron and cadmium-tungsten particulate composites

Mechanical behaviour of particulate composites of cadmium containing 0.6 to 3 m size particles of boron and tungsten (up to 30 vol %) were studied from –196 to 260° C (0.13 to 0.9T _m). The marked strengthening of cadmium by the presence of fine particles is attributed to significant grain size and texture strengthening effects as well as to dispersion hardening effects.     

Rotation-invariant discrimination between almost similar objects

A modified circular harmonic filter may be used for the rotation-invariant discrimination of a target from another object which contains the same pattern as the target. The method is illustrated by the experimental rotation-invariant detection of the letter F in the presence of the letter E.     

An investigation for determining the optimum length of chopsticks

Chopsticks are one of the most simple and popular hand tools ever invented by humans, but have not previously been investigated by ergonomists. Two laboratory studies were conducted in this research, using a randomised complete block design, to evaluate the effects of the length of the chopsticks on the food-serving performance of adults and children. Thirty-one male junior college students and 21 primary school pupils served as subjects for the experiment. The results showed that the food-pinching performance was significantly affected by the length of the chopsticks, and that chopsticks of about 240 and 180 mm long were optimal for adults and pupils, respectively. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested that families with children should provide both 240 and 180 mm long chopsticks. In addition, restaurants could provide 210 mm long chopsticks, considering the trade-offs between ergonomics and cost.     

Note on “Unrelated parallel-machine scheduling with deteriorating maintenance activities”

In this note, we prove that both problems studied by Cheng et al. [Cheng, T. C. E., Hsu, C.-J., & Yang, D.-L. (2011). Unrelated parallel-machine scheduling with deteriorating maintenance activities. Computers and Industrial Engineering, 60, 602–605] can be solved in O(n^m+3) time no matter what the processing time of a job after a maintenance activity is greater or less than its processing time before the maintenance activity, where m is the number of machines and n is the number of jobs.     

Recovery of online service: Perceived justice and transaction frequency

Recovery of online service is an issue in need of study. The current study empirically examines (1) the relationships among perceived justice, satisfaction with recovery of online service and repurchase intention of online service/failure encounters; and (2) the moderating effects of transaction frequency on these relationships. The current study collects 187 self-administered questionnaires to gather customers’ perceptions of actual online service/failure encounters. Research findings demonstrate that distributive justice, interactional justice and procedural justice can positively lead to satisfaction with recovery of online service and repurchase intention toward online service. These results further show that customers with low transaction frequency tend to focus more on interactional justice to establish their satisfaction with recovery of online service. On the other hand, customers with high transaction frequency focus more on procedural justice.     

Slip and fall event detection using Bayesian Belief Network

This paper proposes a method to detect slip-only events and fall events based on the motion activity measure and human silhouette shape variations. Here, we also apply the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to model the causality of the events before and after the fall and slip-only events. The motion measure is obtained by analyzing the energy of the motion active (MA) area in the integrated spatiotemporal energy (ISTE) map. Unlike the motion history image (MHI), the ISTE map can be applied to detect fall and slip-only events. The contributions of this study are: (a) proposing the ISTE map; (b) detecting the fall parallel to the optical axis; (c) application to non-fixed frame rate video; (d) identifying the slip-only event; and (e) using BBN to model the causality of the slip or fall events with other events. Early identification of a slip-only event can help prevent falls and injuries. In the experiments, we demonstrate that our method is effective in detecting both fall and slip-only events.     

Extending UML to model Web 2.0‐based context‐aware applications

Web 2.0 Mashups offer entirely new opportunities for context‐aware application (CAA) developers by integrating Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate interoperability among heterogeneous context‐aware systems. From a software engineering perspective, a visualized approach for Web 2.0‐based CAA modeling is crucial. Current CAA development, however, cannot provide a conceptual model for Web 2.0‐based CAA. Therefore, the development efficiency and potential for reuse are decreased. The UML is a general purpose modeling language with potential for use in many application domains. However, UML often lacks elements needed to model concepts in specific domains, such as Web 2.0‐based CAA modeling. To address the above issues, this study presents the Web 2.0‐based CAA UML profile, a UML profile for modeling Web 2.0‐based CAA. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.