E-business technologies for xRM: Exploring the readiness of public broadcasters

This paper examines the possibilities of enhancing relationship management between public service broadcasters and their stakeholders by harnessing the potential of newest e-business technologies and concepts, such as: social media, digital and interactive TV, and mobile computing. In order to facilitate adoption of relationship management strategy, a framework for leveraging relationship management is proposed. Evaluation was performed within the e-business system of a public broadcaster. This empirical study explored the readiness and expected benefits of relationship management implementation. The research results have indicated that a public broadcaster could achieve a higher level of social responsibility, improve business sustainability, and empower communication and collaboration with all the stakeholders by using emerging technologies for relationship management activities.     

Automatic heart sound detection in pediatric patients without electrocardiogram reference via pseudo-affine Wigner–Ville distribution and Haar wavelet lifting

Having in mind the availability of electronic stethoscopes, phonocardiograms (PCGs) have become popular for cardiovascular functionality monitoring and signal processing applications. Detection of fundamental heart sounds (HSs), S1s and S2s, is considered to be a crucial step in PCG analysis. Electrocardiogram (ECG), noted as a reference signal, is often synchronously recorded in order to simplify the S1/S2 detection process. Nevertheless, electronic stethoscopes are frequently used without additional ECG equipment. We propose a new algorithm for automatic fundamental HSs detection via: joint time-frequency representation based on pseudo affine Wigner–Ville distribution (PAWVD), Haar wavelet lifting scheme (Haar-LS), normalized average Shannon energy (NASE) and autocorrelation. The performance of the proposed algorithm was calculated on both normal (50) and pathological (75) PCG recordings, eight seconds long each, contributed by 125 different pediatric patients. The algorithm showed relatively high recall (90.41%) and precision (96.39%) rates of S1/S2 detection procedure in a variety of PCG signals, without ECG as a reference. Furthermore, it indicated the ability to overcome splitting within the S1/S2 heart sounds.     

Test suite oscillations

This paper proposes a set of new software test-diversity measures based on control oscillations of test suites. Oscillation Diversity uses conversion, inversion, and phase transformation to vary test suite amplitudes, frequencies, and phases. Resistance and inductance are defined as measures of diversification difficulty. The experimental results show correlation between some Oscillation Diversity measures and fault-detection effectiveness.     

Algorithm for tissue ischemia estimation based on electrical impedance spectroscopy

The purpose of this paper is to present an algorithm developed for real-time estimation of skeletal muscle ischemia, based on parameters extracted from in vivo obtained electrical impedance spectra. A custom impedance spectrometer was used to acquire data sets: complex impedance spectra measured at 27 frequencies in the range of 100 Hz-1 MHz, and tissue pH. Twenty-nine in vivo animal studies on rabbit anterior tibialis muscle were performed to gather data on the behavior of tissue impedance during ischemia. An artificial neural network (ANN) was used to quantitatively describe the relationship between the parameters of complex tissue impedance spectra and tissue ischemia via pH. The ANN was trained on 1249, and tested on 946 ischemic tissue impedance data sets. A correlation of 94.5% and a standard deviation of 0.15 pH units was achieved between the ANN estimated pH and measured tissue pH values.     

Development of a reference database for Ion Beam Analysis and future perspectives

Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) is a set of material characterization techniques using energetic ion beams. IBA provides information about composition and the depth profile of elements in the near-surface layers of a sample, from the energy spectra of backscattered primary particles, recoils, nuclear reaction products or emitted γ-radiation. All IBA methods presuppose knowledge of the differential cross-section data however, only for strict Rutherford scattering is the cross-section known exactly. In order to address the data needs of the IBA community, the IAEA initiated the Coordinated Research Project (CRP) “Development of a Reference Database for Ion Beam Analysis” in 2005 which will conclude in 2010. The project focuses on the measurement, assessment, evaluation and benchmarking of elastic scattering and reaction cross sections. Data measured in this work have been incorporated in the IBANDL database (http://www-nds.iaea.org/ibandl/), whereas the evaluated cross-sections (calculated from the fit to the data of a nuclear model) are made available to the community through the on-line calculator SigmaCalc (http://www-nds.iaea.org/sigmacalc/).A summary of the results of the CRP activity is presented, and ways to further develop nuclear data for IBA are indicated. In particular, a newly proposed CRP devoted to particle induced gamma-ray emission is described.     

Magnesium hydride: A homogeneous-catalysed synthesis and its use in hydrogen storage

Recent research in homogeneous catalysis has led to a new synthesis of magnesium hydride. A short review of the use of hydrogen as an energy source and problems associated with hydrogen storage is followed by a discussion of the preparation and properties of magnesium hydride.