A content search system considering the activity and context of a mobile user

People routinely carry mobile devices in their daily lives and obtain a variety of information from the Internet in many different situations. In searching for information (content) with a mobile device, a user’s activity (e.g., moving or stationary) and context (e.g., commuting in the morning or going downtown in the evening) often change, and such changes can affect the user’s degree of concentration on his or her mobile device’s display and information needs. Therefore, a search system should provide the user with an amount of information suitable for the current activity and a type of information suitable for the current context. In this study, we present the design and implementation of a content search system that considers a mobile user’s activity and context, with the goal of reducing the user’s operation load for content search. The proposed system switches between two kinds of content search systems according to the user’s activity: the location-based content search system is activated when the user is stationary (e.g., standing and sitting), while a menu-based content search system is activated when the user is moving (e.g., walking). Both systems present information according to user context. The location-based system presents detailed information via menus and a map according to location-based categories. The menu-based system presents only a few options to enable users to get content easily. Through user experiments, we confirmed that participants could get desired information more easily with this system than with a commercial search system.     

Relationship between a behavioral and several psychometric measures of test anxiety

Behavioral time-sampling was compared with various paper-and-pencil, self-report measures of test anxiety in an examination of the utility of the behavioral measure as an in situo index of test anxiety. The behavioral measure was significantly and positively correlated 0.45 with a paper-and pencil, self-report measure of "facilitative" test anxiety but not with measures of "debilitative" test anxiety (r = -0.15) or general anxiety (r = -0.33) for 12 males and 21 female undergraduates.     

Electric transfer function model of switched reluctance motors and model‐based current control design

This paper presents a current control design for switched reluctance motors (SRMs). The electric transfer characteristic of the motors is studied first. Their transfer function is shown to be expressible by a pure resistive component, which is not constant but varies depending on the motor current and speed. The current control design for SRMs follows the classical design technique used for DC machines, where the zeros of the PI controller cancel the poles of Ls+R. Because the transfer function of SRMs does not have any poles, an I controller is suitable for them. The integral gain should be adjusted in order to compensate the nonlinearity, that is, the variation in the equivalent resistor of the SRMs' transfer function. The values of the integral gain are tuned and tabulated for the motor speed and current. Simulation and experiment demonstrate that the current and speed of the SRMs present good responses without dependence on the motor speed and current. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 173(1): 51–59, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20987     

New high‐luminance 50‐ and 43‐in. ACPDPs with an improved panel structure

New 50‐ and 43‐in. ACPDPs, which have been developed and commercialized in 2001, show high luminance with improved cell structure and higher Xe‐content gas. The specific features of the cell structure are “T”‐shaped electrodes and waffle‐structured ribs, which are same as those of the previous model. Both the cell structure and gas conditions have been optimized. New green and blue phosphors have also been adopted. As a result, the luminous efficacy has been improved up to 1.8 lm/W by using a black stripe. The peak luminance of the 50‐ and 43‐in. PDPs have reached 900 and 1000 cd/m², respectively, while the power consumption of the 50‐in. PDP has been decreased to 380 W, which is 20% lower than that of our previous 50‐in. PDP.     

Toward effective supervision: An operant analysis and comparison of managers at work.

Examined whether the operant-based categories of behavior in the Operant Supervisory Taxonomy and Index (OSTI), developed by the present author and colleagues (see record 1986-21000-001), can distinguish between managers considered effective and marginally effective in motivating others. Using the OSTI, observers categorized the behaviors of 2 extreme groups of managers. The effective group was composed of 12 managers rated and ranked in the top 28% in terms of motivating others by their superiors; the marginal group was composed of 12 managers in the bottom 28%. Each manager was observed up to 20 times by trained observers, unaware of the managers' groupings. 465 30-min observations were made in a medical insurance firm over a 7-mo period. Results show that the effective managers spent significantly more time collecting performance information and used a particular method of monitoring (work sampling) that involved inspecting the work itself or watching persons conducting the work. No differences were found in the time spent providing performance consequences or the positiveness or negativeness of the consequences. Findings illustrate the advantages of explaining leader behavior from a general theoretical perspective. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frequency channel blocking scheme in mesh-topology millimeter-wave broad-band entrance networks

This paper proposes a novel frequency channel blocking (FCB) scheme in mesh-topology millimeter-wave broad-band entrance networks. In the FCB scheme, any frequency channel is determined to be blocked according to not only the network throughput, but also the newly defined fairness index. As the results, the FCB scheme yields better throughput and fairness performances with a little increase in computational complexity compared to the conventional scheme.     

Definitely not a breeze: Extending an operant model of effective supervision to teams.

To identify what leaders ought to do to orchestrate optimal team performance, an expanded model of effective supervision was tested in a setting combining realism, control, and clear-cut outcomes. The components of the empirically based operant model—monitoring and consequences—were extended to tasks requiring the integration of team efforts. A sailboat regatta was arranged, with series standings as the primary measure of supervisory effectiveness. Using the Operant Supervisory Team Taxonomy and Index, trained observers recorded skippers' (N?=?19) actions. As predicted, racing success correlated significantly (p?r?=?–.51 and –.47, respectively) during the actual races. The relationship between the model's two critical behaviors and an unfiltered measure of effectiveness has implications for the group and leadership literatures as well as for management practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of a High Capacity 16 QAM Digital Radio System in Multipath Fading

Multipath fading effects on a 200 Mbit/s 16 QAM digital radio system have been experimentally investigated. It was found that the outage probability can be accurately estimated using only the in-band frequency response without knowledge of the delay difference between two incident waves. New methods to evaluate the improvement factors for both space diversity reception and dynamic equalizing, which are required to combat multipath fading effects, were also proposed. In particular, the significance of noticing the delay dispersion sign was pointed out when attaining sufficient equalization effect. The validity of these evaluations was confirmed by simulation experiments and a field trial.     

The Performance of Fiber-Radio Road Vehicle Communication System with Macro-Diversity

This paper proposes a road-to-vehicle communication system based onfiber-radio extension link (FREx link). Since the proposedroad-to-vehicle communication system interconnects a cell controlstation with base stations by FREx link, optical fiber link noiseshould be taken into account to evaluate the system. This paperanalyzes the outage probability and frequency utilization efficiencyperformance of the fiber-radio road-to-vehicle communication systemwith macro-diversity. It also shows that the proposed system withmacro-diversity can improve performance, although it should bedesigned with the effect of optical fiber link noise in mind.