Exploring cell tower data dumps for supervised learning-based point-of-interest prediction (industrial paper)

Exploring massive mobile data for location-based services becomes one of the key challenges in mobile data mining. In this paper, we investigate a problem of finding a correlation between the collective behavior of mobile users and the distribution of points of interest (POIs) in a city. Specifically, we use large-scale cell tower data dumps collected from cell towers and POIs extracted from a popular social network service, Weibo. Our objective is to make use of the data from these two different types of sources to build a model for predicting the POI densities of different regions in the covered area. An application domain that may benefit from our research is a business recommendation application, where a prediction result can be used as a recommendation for opening a new store/branch. The crux of our contribution is the method of representing the collective behavior of mobile users as a histogram of connection counts over a period of time in each region. This representation ultimately enables us to apply a supervised learning algorithm to our problem in order to train a POI prediction model using the POI data set as the ground truth. We studied 12 state-of-the-art classification and regression algorithms; experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Algorithm and program for engineering analysis of foundation-slab settlement with allowance for nonuniform bed loading and heterogeneity of the mass

An algorithm is proposed for practical implementation of a scheme for analysis of the settlement of building foundations, which has been set forth in modern regulatory documents. Methods to account for a slab with a complex planform, nonuniform loading on the bed, and the actual heterogeneity of the soil bed, which can be assigned directly from survey data, are developed within the framework of this scheme. __________ Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 5, pp. 2–7, September–October, 2006.     

Sparking Nano-Metals on a Surface of Polyethylene Terephthalate and Its Application: Anti-Coronavirus and Anti-Fogging Properties

The nano-metal-treated PET films with anti-virus and anti-fogging ability were developed using sparking nano-metal particles of Ag, Zn, and Ti wires on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films. Ag nanoparticles were detected on the PET surface, while a continuous aggregate morphology was observed with Zn and Ti sparking. The color of the Ag-PET films changed to brown with increasing repeat sparking times, but not with the Zn-PET and Ti-PET films. The water contact angle of the nano-metal-treated PET films decreased with increasing repeat sparking times. The RT-PCR anti-virus test confirmed the high anti-virus efficiency of the nano-metal-treated PET films due to the fine particle distribution, high polarity, and binding of the nano-metal ions to the coronavirus, which was destroyed by heat after UV irradiation. A highly transparent, anti-fogging, and anti-virus face shield was prepared using the Zn-PET film. Sparking was an effective technique to prepare the alternative anti-virus and anti-fogging films for medical biomaterial applications because of their low cost, convenience, and fast processing.     

The impact of thermal processing on bioactive compounds in Australian native food products (bush tomato and Kakadu plum)

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of food processing on the survival of bioactive compounds in Australian bush food products. The lycopene, beta carotene, and ascorbic acid were detected from bush tomato sauce, bush tomato ketchup and Kakadu plum chilli and ginger sauce. The finished product samples were collected during real food production line at three interval times; beginning, middle and the end of the real time manufacturing processes. The bioactive contents from the three products were stable throughout the heating process. In another experiment, bush tomato sauce (16% dried bush tomato content), Kakadu plum sauce (70% Kakadu plum filtrate) were prepared in the laboratory. Bioactive contents (lycopene and beta carotene) in lab formulated bush tomato sauce increased by 48 and 14% respectively. In contrast, ascorbic acid content in the Kakadu plum sauce lost by 16.9%. The experiment suggested that heat processing increased the level of lycopene and betacarotene but minimised ascorbic acid content in processed Australian Bush food products.     

Experimental research into thermomechanical effects at linear and nonlinear deformation stages in rock salt specimens under cyclic loading

The authors discuss capabilities of taking information on mechanical processes in geomaterials under post-limiting elastic deformation based on variation in IR radiation intensity. Experimental results on recording of heat emission from specimens of rock salt exposed to cyclic loading by uniaxial compression are reported. It is concluded that thermomechanical effects are useful in recording of onset of failure activation in geomaterials under cyclic loading.     

Analysis and evaluation of V*-kNN: an efficient algorithm for moving kNN queries

The moving k nearest neighbor (MkNN) query continuously finds the k nearest neighbors of a moving query point. MkNN queries can be efficiently processed through the use of safe regions. In general, a safe region is a region within which the query point can move without changing the query answer. This paper presents an incremental safe-region-based technique for answering MkNN queries, called the V*-Diagram, as well as analysis and evaluation of its associated algorithm, V*-kNN. Traditional safe-region approaches compute a safe region based on the data objects but independent of the query location. Our approach exploits the knowledge of the query location and the boundary of the search space in addition to the data objects. As a result, V*-kNN has much smaller I/O and computation costs than existing methods. We further provide cost models to estimate the number of data accesses for V*-kNN and a competitive technique, RIS-kNN. The V*-Diagram and V*-kNN are also applicable to the domain of spatial networks and we present algorithms to construct a spatial-network V*-Diagram. Our experimental results show that V*-kNN significantly outperforms the competitive technique. The results also verify the accuracy of the cost models.     

Refinement of the engineering method used to calculate foundation settlements and tilts of high-rise buildings

A procedure for calculation of bed settlement beneath a slab foundation, which was previously formulated in conformity with schematic representations of regulatory documents and which takes into account the shape of the foundation, the load distribution, and inhomogeneity of the bed is presented. For simulation of the load on the bed of a high-rise building, a diagram of its deformation beneath the lower surface of a “rigid plate” is proposed. A successive-approximation procedure based on use of equilibrium equations of the slab is developed for calculation of the settlement. Determination of the settlements and tilts of the foundation of a specific high-rise building are discussed as an example. __________ Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 6, pp. 2–7, November–December, 2007.     

A large English–Thai parallel corpus from the web and machine-generated text

Language Resources and Evaluation - The primary objective of our work is to build a large-scale English–Thai dataset for training neural machine translation models. We construct...