DE-BAR: Device Energy-Centric Backlight and Adaptive Region of Interest Mechanism for Wireless Mobile Devices

One of the main challenges in the smart-phone world is that they are battery constrained and the development of battery technologies have not kept pace with the required energy demand. In particular, there are still significant technological gaps on developing energy-aware solutions that would prolong the battery life of devices without affecting the quality of the distributed video/multimedia content. In this aspect, this paper proposes DE-BAR—a process based innovation that will provide a seamless battery saving mechanism, based on backlight and adaptive region of interest of the streamed multimedia content. This work intends to look at the nature of the video/multimedia content that is received in the device and adapts the energy consumption dynamically at three levels: Screen Colour, backlight and Intensity; and adaptive Region-of-Interest (RoI) based variation in the multimedia content. Notably, the work provides the mechanism for real-time adaptation. The colour intensity, number of RoI for the video sequence and the frame rate is decided by the spatial and temporal complexity of the video. The energy consumption is measured using an Arduino board while video quality is analyzed using extensive subjective tests. The results indicate that more than 50% energy could be saved in the device while retaining above average perceptual video quality.     

Antimicrobial activity of the surface coatings on TiAlZr implant biomaterial

This study is devoted to antimicrobial activity of new surface coatings on TiAlZr. Ti alloys such as TiAlZr are used as implant biomaterials, but, despite the good behavior of such alloys in simulated conditions, bacterial infections appear after the introduction of an implant into the body. The infections are typically caused by the adherence and colonization of bacteria on the surfaces of the implants. The study presents preparation and surface morphology characterization of coatings obtained via anodizing, as well as biomimetic coatings with hydroxyapatite and silver ions with and without antibiotic. The percentage inhibition of Escherichia coli bacteria growth was evaluated for each of the studied coating, and a Trojan-horse model of silver nanoparticles (nAg) antibacterial activity at interface was proposed. Such coatings could be more important taking into account that antibacterial treatments with antibiotics are becoming less effective due to their intensive use.     

Linear and Nonlinear Development of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis> = 0 Instability in Z-Pinch Equilibria with Axial Sheared Flows

The effect of sheared flows on the m = 0 instability development in a z-pinch is numerically investigated using a 2D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code. The behavior of both internal and free-boundary modes is studied by using two types of initial configurations: a diffuse Bennett equilibrium and a free-boundary parabolic equilibrium. It was found that sheared flows change the m = 0 development by reducing the linear growth rates, decreasing the saturation amplitude, and modifying the instability spectrum. Full stability can be obtained for supersonic plasma flows, but a larger shear is needed to obtain stabilization of free-boundary modes.     

Supplementation of the diet with the functional fiber PolyGlycoplex® is well tolerated by healthy subjects in a clinical trial

Background

This study was designed to evaluate the safety of PolyGlycopleX^® (PGX^®), a novel viscous dietary polysaccharide (fiber), when administered to Sprague Dawley^® rats in the diet for 90 days.

Methods

Groups of ten male and ten female rats each consumed PGX mixed in the diet at levels of 0, 1.25, 2.5 or 5.0% for 90 days, then evaluated for toxicological effects on parameters that included neuromotor activity, body weight, clinical chemistry, urinalysis, hematology, and histopathology.

Results

Mean body weight, mean feed consumption and food efficiency in the treated groups were generally comparable to controls for both male and female rats. No changes were noted in neuromotor behavior, and histopathological analysis revealed no significant changes between treated and control animals. There were no differences in mean organ weight, organ-to-body weight or organ-to-brain weight values between controls and treated animals. Decreased red blood cell count occurred in the high dose males and increases in aspartate and alanine aminotransferase enzyme levels and triglycerides, while significant decreases in serum sodium, potassium and chloride concentrations were observed in the females fed 5.0% PGX. However, the decreased mineral concentrations may be the result of significantly increased urinary volume in both males and females at the high dose, with a concomitant decrease in urinary specific gravity (males and females) and protein concentration (females). These results were within historical control values, did not correlate with any histopathological changes, and were not considered adverse.

Conclusion

The results indicate a no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for PGX at 5.0% of the diet, corresponding to an average daily intake of 3219 and 3799 mg/kg bw/day in male and female rats, respectively.     

Numerical methods for minimizing real functions unimodal on a set

Abstract An extension of the classical concept of unimodality was recently proposed in [4] and slightly modified in [5]. Here we present a numerical method based on the idea of bisection for determining the minimum points of a real unimodal function on a set. A serial and a parallel algorithm are given.     

Strategic decision-making in NPD projects according to risk: Application to satellites design projects

In this paper we present a method for making strategic decisions in New Product Development (NPD) projects based on risks. In NPD the complexity of the process depends both on the nature of the design problem and the difficulties associated with managing the project (activities, risks). To design a complex product several different teams, having different competencies, work on the project. Not one among them controls the entire process. The interactions between product subsystems in NPD often lead to technological arbitration between alternative solutions.     

Medicine expert system dynamic Bayesian Network and ontology based

The paper proposes an application framework to be used for medicine assisted diagnosis based on ontology and Bayesian Network (DBNO). There are two goals: (1) to separate the domain knowledge from the probabilistic information and (2) to create an intuitive user interface. The framework architecture has three layers: knowledge, uncertainty model and user interface. The contributions of the domain experts are decoupled, the ontology builder will create the domain concepts and relationships focusing on the domain knowledge only. The uncertainty model is Bayesian Network and the probabilities of the variables states are stored in a profile repository. The diagnostician will use the user interface feeded with the domain ontology and one uncertainty profile. The application was tested on a sample medicine model for the diagnose of heart disease.     

Growing triples on trees: an XML-RDF hybrid model for annotated documents

Since the beginning of the Semantic Web initiative, significant efforts have been invested in finding efficient ways to publish, store, and query metadata on the Web. RDF and SPARQL have become the standard data model and query language, respectively, to describe resources on the Web. Large amounts of RDF data are now available either as stand-alone datasets or as metadata over semi-structured (typically XML) documents. The ability to apply RDF annotations over XML data emphasizes the need to represent and query data and metadata simultaneously. We propose XR, a novel hybrid data model capturing the structural aspects of XML data and the semantics of RDF, also enabling us to reason about XML data. Our model is general enough to describe pure XML or RDF datasets, as well as RDF-annotated XML data, where any XML node can act as a resource. This data model comes with the XRQ query language that combines features of both XQuery and SPARQL. To demonstrate the feasibility of this hybrid XML-RDF data management setting, and to validate its interest, we have developed an XR platform on top of well-known data management systems for XML and RDF. In particular, the platform features several XRQ query processing algorithms, whose performance is experimentally compared.