Towards an analyzer (parser) in a machine translation system based on ideas from expert systems

GETA (Groupe d'études pour la traduction automatique) is a research team working basically in the domain of machine translation. GETA's software system, ARIANE-78, has been tested over various pairs of relatively unrelated languages. Being a product of the late seventies, the system misses out on some of the artificial intelligence technology, particularly that of the eighties. Nevertheless, GETA carries out some research related to artificial intelligence within a general effort to bring improvements to the current system. This paper reports on an effort to embed such work within the framework of an entirely new system based on ideas from expert systems, significantly departing from the methodology of the current system (and that of other currently implemented machine translation systems). The proposed architecture aims for total modularity and flexibility and some degree of intelligence.     

Asymmetric Sharpless epoxidation of 13S‐hydroxy‐ 9Z, 11E‐octadecadienoic acid (13S‐HODE)

The asymmetric Sharpless epoxidation of methyl 13S‐hydroxy‐9Z, 11E‐octadeca‐dienoate (13S‐HODE, 1 ) with tert‐butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) catalysed by titanium tetraisopropoxide {Ti(ⁱOPr)₄} in the presence of L(+)‐diisopropyl tartrate (L‐DIPT) gave methyl 13S‐hydroxy‐11S, 12S‐epoxy‐9Z‐octadecenoate 2 (erythro isomer) in 84% diastereomeric excess (de). The epoxidation of 1 with TBHP catalysed by Ti(ⁱOPr)₄ in the presence of D(‐)‐DIPT yielded methyl 13S‐hydroxy‐11RR12R‐epoxy‐9Z‐octadecenoate (threo isomer) 3 in 76% de.     

Support vector regression methodology for prediction of input displacement of adaptive compliant robotic gripper

The prerequisite for new versatile grippers is the capability to locate and perceive protests in their surroundings. It is realized that automated controllers are profoundly nonlinear frameworks, and a faultless numerical model is hard to get, in this way making it troublesome to control utilizing tried and true procedure. Here, a design of an adaptive compliant gripper is presented. This design of the gripper has embedded sensors as part of its structure. The use of embedded sensors in a robot gripper gives the control system the ability to control input displacement of the gripper and to recognize specific shapes of the grasping objects. Since the conventional control strategy is a very challenging task, soft computing based controllers are considered as potential candidates for such an application. In this study, the polynomial and radial basis function (RBF) are applied as the kernel function of Support Vector Regression (SVR) to estimate and predict optimal inputs displacement of the gripper according to experimental tests and shapes of grasping objects. Instead of minimizing the observed training error, SVR _poly and SVR _rbf attempt to minimize the generalization error bound so as to achieve generalized performance. The experimental results show that an improvement in predictive accuracy and capability of generalization can be achieved by the SVR approach compared to other soft computing methodology.     

Graft Copolymerization of Acrylamide onto Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) Fiber

Grafting of acrylamide (AAm) onto oil palm empty fruits bunch fiber using hydrogen peroxide as initiator and methyl acrylate as comonomer was investigated. The amount of comonomer needed to make grafting of acrylamide possible was determined. The percentage of poly(acrylamide) and the comonomer in the final graft copolymer was estimated by elemental analysis. Results obtained indicated that methyl acrylate facilitated the incorporation of acrylamide monomer onto OPEFB. The reactivity ratios for both monomers were determined by using Fineman–Ross plot. The effects of reaction temperature and period as well as amount of the initiator, solvent, monomer and comonomer on the percentage of grafting at fixed amount of comonomer (11 mmol) were studied. Maximum percentage of grafting was achieved when the amount of initiator and solvent 3.98×10⁻³ mol and 50 mL respectively. The optimum reaction temperature was 50 ^○C and the reaction period was 90 min. Highest percentage of grafting was 232% when 25.6 mmol of acrylamide was used under these optimum conditions. The presence of functional group in the grafted polymer is characterized by infrared spectroscopy and the surface morphology is observed by scanning electron microscopy. Thermoanalytic investigation on OPEFB and OPEFB-g-PAAM were carried out to evaluate the thermal stability and respective activation energy of the materials.     

Using a virtual environment to assess cognition in the elderly

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is essential if treatments are to be administered at an earlier point in time before neurons degenerate to a stage beyond repair. In order for early detection to occur tools used to detect the disorder must be sensitive to the earliest of cognitive impairments. Virtual reality technology offers opportunities to provide products which attempt to mimic daily life situations, as much as is possible, within the computational environment. This may be useful for the detection of cognitive difficulties. We develop a virtual simulation designed to assess visuospatial memory in order to investigate cognitive function in a group of healthy elderly participants and those with a mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Participants were required to guide themselves along a virtual path to reach a virtual destination which they were required to remember. The preliminary results indicate that this virtual simulation has the potential to be used for detection of early AD since significant correlations of scores on the virtual environment with existing neuropsychological tests were found. Furthermore, the test discriminated between healthy elderly participants and those with a MCI.     

Effect of scraped-surface tube cooler temperatures on the physical properties of palm oil margarine

The effects of scraped-surface tube cooler temperatures on the isothermal solid fat content (SFC) of palm oil margarine during processing and on margarine consistency (yield value, g/cm²), SFC, and polymorphic changes in storage were studied. SFC was measured in the mixing tank after leaving the tube cooler and the pin worker. The SFC at the tube cooler exit was proportional to the amount of cooling; a higher SFC was produced by more extreme cooling treatment. The SFC of all margarines were reduced in the pin worker, and the reduction was related to the initial SFC profile of palm oil. Margarine samples were stored at 28°C for 28 d and tested daily. Margarine processed at 25°C in the tube cooler had the highest consistency and the least change in SFC, but by the second week crystals had transformed into the β form. Uniform product consistency and SFC were observed in margarines processed at 20 and 15°C. These margarines retained the β′ crystal form for 3 and 4 wk, respectively. The best palm oil margarine was obtained with a tube cooler temperature of 15°C and a residence time of 1.8 min.     

Color image segmentation using adaptive unsupervised clustering approach

This paper presents the Region Splitting and Merging-Fuzzy C-means Hybrid Algorithm (RFHA), an adaptive unsupervised clustering approach for color image segmentation, which is important in image analysis and in understanding pattern recognition and computer vision field. Histogram thresholding technique is applied in the formation of all possible cells, used to split the image into multiple homogeneous regions. The merging technique is applied to merge perceptually close homogeneous regions and obtain better initialization for the Fuzzy C-means clustering approach. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed scheme could obtain promising segmentation results, with 12% average improvement in clustering quality and 63% reduction in classification error compared with other existing segmentation approaches.     

Self-generation of reward by logarithmic transformation of multiple sensor evaluations

Artificial Life and Robotics - Although the design of the reward function in reinforcement learning is important, it is difficult to design a system that can adapt to a variety of environments and...     

Eco‐friendly synthesis of silver nanoparticles and its larvicidal property against fourth instar larvae of Aedes aegypti

In this study, larvicidal activity of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesised using apple extract against fourth instar larvae of Aedes aegypti was determined. As a result, the AgNPs showed moderate larvicidal effects against Ae. aegypti larvae (LC₅₀  = 15.76 ppm and LC₉₀  = 27.7 ppm). In addition, comparison of larvicidal activity performance of AgNPs at high concentration prepared using two different methods showed that Ae. aegypti larvae was fully eliminated within the duration of 2.5 h. From X‐ray diffraction, the AgNP crystallites were found to exhibit face centred cubic structure. The average size of these AgNPs as estimated by particle size distribution was in the range of 50–120 nm. The absorption maxima of the synthesised Ag showed characteristic Ag surface plasmon resonance peak. This green synthesis provides an economic, eco‐friendly and clean synthesis route to Ag.Inspec keywords: silver, nanofabrication, X‐ray diffraction, zoology, particle size, nanoparticles, biomedical materials, nanomedicineOther keywords: time 2.5 h, size 50 nm to 120 nm, silver nanoparticle, larvicidal property, instar larvae, Aedes aegypti, larvicidal effect, larvicidal activity performance, X‐ray diffraction, nanoparticle particle size distribution, absorption maxima, silver surface plasmon resonance peak