Pedestrian navigation aids: information requirements and design implications

Recent years have seen an increased interest in navigational services for pedestrians. To ensure that these services are successful, it is necessary to understand the information requirements of pedestrians when navigating, and in particular, what information they need and how it is used. A requirements study was undertaken to identify these information requirements within an urban navigation context. Results show that landmarks were by far the most predominant navigation cue, that distance information and street names were infrequently used, and that information is used to enable navigation decisions, but also to enhance the pedestrians confidence and trust. The implications for the design of pedestrian navigation aids are highlighted.     

Secure push for mobile airline services

In this paper, we propose an architecture for secure push services for mobile users that supports common-of-the-shelf (COTS) WLAN base stations. The architecture focuses on the creation of flexible access networks based on easily deployable base stations. The push functionality is realized using client-initiated connections with SIP, and TLS or dTLS for security. The central building block of the distributed system is the edge proxy, which manages and implicitly authenticates all inbound connections, and performs privacy enhancement. The main driving force of our architecture has been airline services, but the system is applicable also for other service domains.     

Personalising speech-to-speech translation: Unsupervised cross-lingual speaker adaptation for HMM-based speech synthesis

In this paper we present results of unsupervised cross-lingual speaker adaptation applied to text-to-speech synthesis. The application of our research is the personalisation of speech-to-speech translation in which we employ a HMM statistical framework for both speech recognition and synthesis. This framework provides a logical mechanism to adapt synthesised speech output to the voice of the user by way of speech recognition. In this work we present results of several different unsupervised and cross-lingual adaptation approaches as well as an end-to-end speaker adaptive speech-to-speech translation system. Our experiments show that we can successfully apply speaker adaptation in both unsupervised and cross-lingual scenarios and our proposed algorithms seem to generalise well for several language pairs. We also discuss important future directions including the need for better evaluation metrics.     

Bioavailability Studies and in vitro Profiling of the Selective Excitatory Amino Acid Transporter Subtype 1 (EAAT1) Inhibitor UCPH‐102

Although the selective excitatory amino acid transporter subtype 1 (EAAT1) inhibitor UCPH‐101 has become a standard pharmacological tool compound for in vitro and ex vivo studies in the EAAT research field, its inability to penetrate the blood–brain barrier makes it unsuitable for in vivo studies. In the present study, per os (p.o.) administration (40 mg kg^?1) of the closely related analogue UCPH‐102 in rats yielded respective plasma and brain concentrations of 10.5 and 6.67 μm after 1 h. Three analogue series were designed and synthesized to improve the bioavailability profile of UCPH‐102, but none displayed substantially improved properties in this respect. In vitro profiling of UCPH‐102 (10 μm ) at 51 central nervous system targets in radioligand binding assays strongly suggests that the compound is completely selective for EAAT1. Finally, in a rodent locomotor model, p.o. administration of UCPH‐102 (20 mg kg^?1) did not induce acute effects or any visible changes in behavior.     

Bi-level optimization for a dynamic multiobjective problem

In this article, a bi-level optimization problem covering upper (design) and lower (operation) levels is defined and a solution procedure for bi-level optimization problems is presented. This is devised as a dynamic multiobjective optimization problem, i.e. the values of the control and state variables change over a predefined time horizon and several competing criteria are optimized simultaneously. Moreover, the interaction between the upper and lower levels is analysed. The benefits of bi-level dynamic multiobjective optimization are illustrated in detail by examining an industrial case in which the design of a paper mill (upper level) and the mill operation (lower level) are optimized at the same time. However, the problem definition and the solution procedure are not limited to any specific application but can be exploited in many different industrial areas.     

Atomic layer deposition of HfO2 thin films and nanolayered HfO2–Al2O3–Nb2O5 dielectrics

Smooth, 4–6-nm thick hafnium oxide films were grown by atomic layer deposition from HfI₄ or HfCl₄ and H₂O on SiO₂/Si(1 0 0) substrates at 300 °C. Non-uniform films were obtained on hydrogen-terminated Si(1 0 0). The stoichiometry of the films corresponded to that of HfO₂. The films contained small amounts of residual chlorine and iodine. The films deposited on SiO₂/Si(1 0 0) were amorphous, but crystallized upon annealing at 1000 °C. In order to decrease the conductivity, the HfO₂ films were mixed with Al₂O₃, and to increase the capacitance, the films were mixed with Nb₂O₅. The capacitance–voltage curves of the Hf–Al–O mixture films showed hysteresis. The capacitance–voltage curves of HfO₂ films and mixtures of Hf–Al–Nb–O were hysteresis free.     

Wet Chemical Treatment and Mg Doping of p-InP Surfaces for Ohmic Low-Resistive Metal Contacts

Manufacturing a low-resistive Ohmic metal contact on p-type InP crystals for various applications is a challenge because of the Fermi-level pinning via surface defects and the diffusion of p-type doping atoms in InP. Development of wet-chemistry treatments and nanoscale control of p-doping for InP surfaces is crucial for decreasing the device resistivity losses and durability problems. Herein, a proper combination of HCl-based solution immersion, which directly provides an unusual wet chemical-induced InP(100)c(2 × 2) atomic structure, and low-temperature Mg-surface doping of the cleaned InP before Ni-film deposition is demonstrated to decrease the contact resistivity of Ni/p-InP by the factor of 10 approximately as compared to the lowest reference value without Mg. Deposition of the Mg intermediate layer on p-InP and postheating of Mg/p-InP at 350 °C, both performed in ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) chamber, lead to intermixing of Mg and InP elements according to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Introducing a small oxygen gas background (O₂ ≈ 10⁻⁶ mbar) in UHV chamber during the postheating of Mg/p-InP enhances the indium outdiffusion and provides the lowest contact resistivity. Quantum mechanical simulations indicate that the presence of InP native oxide or/and metal indium alloy at the interface increases In diffusion.     

A new method for evaluating the subjective image quality of photographs: dynamic reference

The Dynamic Reference (DR) method has been developed for subjective image quality experiments in which original or undistorted images are unavailable. The DR method creates reference image series from test images. Reference images are presented to observers as a slide show prior to evaluating their quality. As the observers view the set of reference images, they determine the overall variation in quality within the set of test images. This study compared the performance of the DR method to that of the standardized absolute category rating (ACR) and paired comparison (PC) methods. We measured the performance of each method in terms of time effort and discriminability. The results showed that the DR method is faster than the PC method and more accurate than the ACR method. The DR method is especially suitable for experiments that require highly accurate results in a short time.     

Highly compatible wood thermoplastic composites from lignocellulosic material modified in ionic liquids: Preparation and thermal properties

A study of converting chemically modified wood into thermoplastic materials was undertaken to develop a new technology platform for the effective utilization of wood‐based lignocellulosic materials. Highly substituted benzoylated spruce thermomechanical pulp (TMP) and lauroylated spruce TMP were used as components for thermoplastic composites of poly(styrene) and poly(propylene). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) were used to characterize the interfacial morphology and thermal properties of the resultant composite filaments. The coupling of the interfacial morphology effort and that of torque analysis applied during processing indicated that the thorough modification of wood fibers by benzoylation and/or lauroylation reactions can improve the compatibility between the wood‐based lignocellulosic materials and poly(styrene) and poly(propylene). Thermal analysis showed that, with the addition of wood derivatives into poly(styrene) and poly(propylene) matrices, a slight decrease in their T_gs was observed. Furthermore, all of the prepared composites showed improved thermal stability, as revealed by TGA. The resultant thermoplastic wood composites exhibited good melting properties and were readily extruded into filaments or sheets. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Study on process parameters in metallocene polymerizations,I. Apparent viscosity and macro-scale mass transfer

A heat balance reaction calorimeter was used to obtain information about the most informative process parameters in polymerizations carried out with Et[Ind]₂ZrCl₂-methylaluminoxane catalyst. The viscosity of the reaction mixture was found to increase dramatically during the homopolymerization of ethylene, but it could be controlled through appropriate selection of the reaction mixture medium. The mass transfer between the gas and liquid phases was the rate-determining step for the polymerization when the reaction mixture-based Reynolds number was below 2.500. The limited mass transfer between the gas and liquid phases was caused by the intensive activity of the metallocene catalyst and the increased viscosity of the reaction mixture.