Opinions and attitudes toward humanoid robots in the Middle East

Robotics is expected to boom in the near future, moving massively beyond traditional application areas, and extending to all parts of the globe. Thus, in order to enable effective international customization of robot designs, and in order to facilitate their smoother harmonious introduction to everyday life, it is important to study the opinions and attitudes toward robots in different regions of the world. Although there exists a small body of research covering the US, EU, and Asia, there is almost no research regarding attitudes toward robots in the Middle East, a region with its own marked cultural idiosyncrasies. Therefore, we brought Ibn Sina, an Arabic-language conversational android robot to Dubai’s Gitex, one of the most important exhibitions in the region, and performed a questionnaire-based empirical study with 355 subjects from 38 countries, which had seen the robot interacting, and most of which had also interacted directly with it. Many interesting findings are presented: First, a statistically significant ordering of preferred application areas for robots overall was found, as well as strong effects of the region of origin on the preferred applications. Furthermore, strong religion, age, and education effects were observed. Overall, the results together with a theoretical discussion of possible causes provide interesting insights on cultural acceptance of robots in this richly complex region, which potentially have strong implications to their wider deployment in the future in specific settings.     

Solubilization of methanol and ethanol in palm oil stabilized by medium‐ and long‐chain alkanols

Solubilization of methanol and ethanol in crude palm oil, refined, bleached and deodorized palm oil (RBD PO) and RBD palm olein (PO_L) was studied using medium‐ and long‐chain alkanols (C₄–C₁₂). Ternary phase diagrams were constructed to determine the solubilization (isotropic) region. The results showed that methanol and ethanol are solubilized to a greater extent in an unsaturated palm olein than the saturated CPO and RBD PO in the presence of long‐chain alkanols. The minima of the solubilization curves for dodecanol, decanol and octanol were 27%, 30% and 33% of alkanol respectively in the methanol system, whereas in the ethanol system, the minima for the same alkanols were found at 22%, 24% and 27%. The longer chain‐length alkanol (dodecanol) requires a lesser amount (21% and 32%) to achieve miscibility compared with 53% and 57% for butanol in mixtures containing 70:30 and 50:50 wt ratios respectively. The kinematic viscosity of the isotropic solutions increases with the chain‐length and percentage of alkanols. Solubilization using a PO_L/methanol/butanol system significantly reduced the kinematic viscosity of PO_L from 72.7 mm² s^?1 to the value allowable for No 2 diesel fuel (1.9–4.1 mm² s^?1) or about a 96% reduction from the initial kinematic viscosity of PO_L. © 2002 Society of Chemical Industry     

The Influence of Alkaline Surface Fibre Treatment on the Impact Properties of Sugar Palm Fibre-Reinforced Epoxy Composites

The aim of this study is to determine the impact properties of sugar palm fibre-reinforced epoxy polymer composite after introduce the alkaline treatment to the fibre. The fibre was treated by alkaline solution with 0.25 M and 0.5 M NaOH solution for 1 hour, 4 hours, and 8 hours soaking time. Hand lay up process was used to prepare the composite specimens with 10% volume fraction. The dimensions of the specimen used to carry out the test were adapted from ASTM D256 for Izod Impact testing. The higher impact strength of treated sugar palm fibre reinforced epoxy composite took place at 0.5 M NaOH solution with 8 hours soaking time, i.e., 60 J/m with improving by 12.85% from untreated composite.     

A data-mining approach to improving Polycythemia Vera diagnosis

This paper presents a data-mining approach to the extraction of new decision rules for Polycythemia Vera (PV) diagnosis, based on a reduced and optimized set of lab parameters. Ten laboratory and other clinical findings (eight parameters from the Polycythemia Vera Study Group (PVSG) criteria+sex and hematocrit (HCT)) on 431 PV patients from the original PVSG cohort, and records on 91 patients with other myeloproliferative disorders that can be easily misdiagnosed with PV, were included in this study. Significant differences were not found in the correctness of diagnostic classification of patients using either a trained artificial neural network (98.1%) or a support vector machine (95%) versus using PVSG diagnostic criteria, which are considered as a ‘gold-standard’ for the diagnosis of PV. Reducing the original parameters of our dataset to only four parameters: HCT, PLAT, SPLEEN and WBC, we still have obtained good classification results. New rules for improved differential diagnosis of PV are specified based on these four parameters. These rules may be used as a complement to the standard PVSG criteria, particularly in the differential diagnosis between PV and other myeloproliferative syndromes.     

Fundamental Issues in Networked Control Systems

This paper provides a survey on modeling and theories of networked control systems (NCS). In the first part, modeling of the different types of imperfections that affect NCS is discussed. These imperfections are quantization errors, packet dropouts, variable sampling/transmission intervals, variable transmission delays, and communication constraints. Then follows in the second part a presentation of several theories that have been applied for controlling networked systems. These theories include: input delay system approach, Markovian system approach, switched system approach, stochastic system approach, impulsive system approach, and predictive control approach. In the last part, some advanced issues in NCS including decentralized and distributed NCS, cloud control system, and co-design of NCS are reviewed.      

NanoMalaysia Programme (2011–2020): engine of growth for innovative Malaysia

Nanotechnology not only enables further technical and scientific advancement of existing technologies, but also creates new technology and imposes drastic impact on industries and economy. Moreover, through the implementation of nanotechnology initiatives, advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise to have a major impact on the society in the coming decades. Among the expected breakthroughs are an order of magnitude increase in device efficiency and emergence of entirely new phenomena in physics, chemistry and biology. Thus, many exciting prospects for new scientific knowledge, more efficient and higher quality products and technological innovations will soon be available and implemented. The NanoMalaysia Programme (2011–2020) with its strategic initiatives and action plans in various areas of nanotechnology in Malaysia is presented.