XML data update management in XML-enabled database

With the increasing demand for a proper and efficient XML data storage, XML-Enabled Database (XEnDB) has emerged as one of the popular solutions. It claims to combine the pros and limit the cons of the traditional Database Management Systems (DBMS) and Native XML Database (NXD). In this paper, we focus on XML data update management in XEnDB. Our aim is to preserve the conceptual semantic constraints and to avoid inconsistencies in XML data during update operations. In this current era when XML data interchange mostly occurs in a commercial setting, it is highly critical that data exchanged be correct at all times, and hence data integrity in XML data is paramount. To achieve our goal, we firstly classify different constraints in XML documents. Secondly, we transform these constraints into XML Schema with embedded SQL annotations. Thirdly, we propose a generic update methodology that utilizes the proposed schema. We then implement the method in one of the current XEnDB products. Since XEnDB has a Relational Model as the underlying data model, our update method uses the SQL/XML as a standard language. Finally, we also analyze the processing performance.     

Mobile service oriented architectures for NN-queries

The ever-increasing number of mobile device users has also raised the users’ expectation of mobile services accordingly. This phenomenon has given pressures to the mobile service providers to improve their services in order to stay competitive in the market. The service oriented approach is seen to be a promising scheme for mobile services. This paper presents mobile service oriented architectures for Nearest-Neighbor (NN) queries that are classified into five categories, namely (i) intermittent query mobile services, (ii) continuous query mobile services, (iii) context-aware mobile services, (iv) continuous moving object query mobile services, and (v) data broadcast mobile services. These services incorporate query, location and context-aware services, ontological context model, and broadcast. The proposed architectures are concerned with mobile services for clients on the move requesting services based on their current location, which is arguably the most important feature in a wireless environment. Furthermore, we also discuss the Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirement for mobile services in which request latency time is one of the most important parameters to consider. Some analytical models for query latency measurement are presented and the results are compared with the simulation experiments.     

Strategy for robot motion and path planning in robot taping

Covering objects with masking tapes is a common process for surface protection in processes like spray painting, plasma spraying, shot peening, etc. Manual taping is tedious and takes a lot of effort of the workers. The taping process is a special process which requires correct surface covering strategy and proper attachment of the masking tape for an efficient surface protection. We have introduced an automatic robot taping system consisting of a robot manipulator, a rotating platform, a 3D scanner and specially designed taping end-effectors. This paper mainly talks about the surface covering strategies for different classes of geometries. The methods and corresponding taping tools are introduced for taping of following classes of surfaces: Cylindrical/extended surfaces, freeform surfaces with no grooves, surfaces with grooves, and rotational symmetrical surfaces. A collision avoidance algorithm is introduced for the robot taping manipulation. With further improvements on segmenting surfaces of taping parts and tape cutting mechanisms, such taping solution with the taping tool and the taping methodology can be combined as a very useful and practical taping package to assist humans in this tedious and time costly work.     

Ontology as a Service (OaaS): a case for sub-ontology merging on the cloud

Cloud computing is a revolution in the information technology industry. It allows computing services provided as utilities. The traditional cloud services include Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Hardware/Infrastructure as a Service, and Database as a Service. In this paper, we introduce the notion of Ontology as a Service (OaaS), whereby the ontology tailoring process is a service in the cloud. This is particularly relevant as we are moving toward Cloud 2.0—multi-cloud providers to provide an interoperable service to customers. To illustrate OaaS, in this paper we propose sub-ontology extraction and merging, whereby multiple sub-ontologies are extracted from various source ontologies, and then these extracted sub-ontologies are merged to form a complete ontology to be used by the user. We use the Minimum extraction method to facilitate this. A walkthrough case study using the UMLS meta-thesaurus ontology is elaborated, and its performance in the cloud is also discussed.     

Rating Accessibility of Packaging: A Medical Packaging Example

Few previous work has been undertaken in understanding issues surrounding dexterity and access to packaging. Researchers had access to users who had known dexterity issues and had been advised by their doctor to decant their medication into bottles rather than use unit‐dose blister packaging. Hence, it was decided to use a range of techniques to understand this problem. It was further proposed to develop a methodology by which the relative performance of packaging could be assessed with respect to dexterity issues. In this study, there were three objectives to carry out: motion‐capture analysis, grip analysis and dexterity analysis when opening the blister packs. Motion capture was carried out on eight people aged 55 years and older, a classification of the grips used when opening blister packs was performed on 57 people aged 18 years and older, and a Purdue Pegboard test was administered to 54 people aged 18 years and older. It was found out that there were four common types of grips used, out of which two of the grips were used by more than 88% of participants. With the motion capture, it was found that each grip and their various associated techniques were compared with each other. Grip 2 utilized the least finger movement. Using the dexterity test results, it was corroborated that dexterity decreases with age, and an accessibility score was developed that can be used by pack designers and manufacturers to assess pack performance. Future work is proposed to develop this methodology further. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Direct Formation of Titanium Carbide via In Situ Carbothermal Reduction of TiO2/Carbon Cladding for Coating Application

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - In situ direct formation of titanium carbide (TiC) was realized via tungsten inert gas (TIG) arc surface cladding using titanium dioxide...     

Green isolation and physical modification of pineapple stem waste starch as pharmaceutical excipient

The waste of inedible parts of pineapple, particularly in tropical countries, contributes to environmental burden. This study aimed to utilize pineapple stem waste as a source of starch-based pharmaceutical excipient. The starch was isolated from pineapple stem waste using a simple process without applying harsh chemicals. The isolated starch (PSS) was then physically modified through gelatinization and spray drying to improve its physical properties. Starch characteristics were identified by FTIR, TGA, and XRD analysis. The SEM imaging showed morphological change with reduced surface roughness due to physical modification of the starch. Decreased crystallinity of modified starch (MPS) was confirmed by our XRD results: the peaks of A-type crystalline at 2θ of 13°, 15°, 18°, and 23° were present in PSS, yet mostly absent in MPS. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that MPS behaved differently from PSS and the degradation events occurred at lower temperature. When the starch was spray-dried without prior gelatinization process, the physicochemical characteristics of spray-dried starch resembled untreated starch. Moisture content in PSS (10.66%) decreased after gelatinization to 7.3%. Potential use of MPS was demonstrated by its powder flowability (Student’s t test, p?<?0.05), swelling capacity (Student’s t test, p?<?0.05), and compaction profile. In summary, our findings demonstrated that modified pineapple starch showed better physical characteristics and quite promising as a tablet binder and disintegrant.     

Metadata hiding for UAV video based on digital watermarking in DWT transform

As the advent of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been increased, the protection of the information within the transmitted or stored video has become a big challenge. Most known drone systems attach metadata of the recorded video in separate files or in the header of the video. Current techniques make the metadata unsecure and easy to get lost and removed as well as it occupies more storage and bandwidth. In this paper, an efficient method is proposed to hide the metadata of UAVs video using the technology of digital watermarking. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is used to implement the embedding of the information robustly. The middle frequencies coefficients reside on CH3 sub-band are utilized to hide the watermark bits. In addition, a new scrambling algorithm is proposed to secure the information before hiding. The adaption of the proposed video watermarking algorithm to hide the metadata of the UAV video is achieved. The experimental results prove the high performance of the proposed method. The method had unnoticeable impact on the video quality where the PSNR of 44 dB is attained. The experiments show that the method achieves high robustness under various attacks and provides enough capacity for metadata hiding of UAV video.     

Chemical speciation and toxicity of nickel species in natural waters from the Sudbury area (Canada)

Metal complexation properties of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in freshwaters are recognized but poorly understood. Here, we investigated the release of free nickel from Ni-DOC complexes using nickel-polluted freshwaters from Sudbury (Canada). We used the Competing Ligand Exchange Method with Chelex-100 as the competing ligand to measure the rate of free Ni2+ ion released by the dissociation of Ni-DOC complexes. The kinetic studies showed that the fastest kinetically distinguishable component representing approximately 30-95% of the total nickel had a dissociation rate coefficient similar to that reported for [Ni(H20)6]2+. High concentrations of Ca2+ and Mg2+ caused a larger amount of the DOC-bound nickel to be released as free Ni2+ ion. Growth inhibition of the freshwater alga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata was highly correlated with the Ni/DOC ratio, the free plus labile nickel concentration, and the dissociation rate coefficient. While the levels of metals were not sufficient to kill Daphnia magna, these test organisms were immobilized in the same samples that showed algal growth inhibition. Only one sample caused 22% death of Hydra attenuata. The algal toxicity tests were consistent with the kinetic speciation results and are consistent with the hypothesis that dissolved [Ni(H20)6]2+ plus other labile nickel species are toxic forms of Ni present.