Search results

Arthur Roberts,1–3 Alec Sithole,4 Marcos Sedghi,5 Charles A Walker,6,7 Theresa M Quinn,8 1Indiana Craniofacial Center, 2Department of Oral Pathology, Medicine and Radiology, Indiana University School of Dentistry, Indianapolis, IN, USA; 3Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Management, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; 4Department of Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics, Missouri Western State University, St Joseph, MO, 5Conservative Care Specialists Medical Group, Los Angeles, CA, 6Walker Pain Management Center, Jackson, TN, 7Bethel University, Paris, TN, 8Wisconsin Pain Solutions, Menomonee Falls, WI, USA Abstract: The periauricular percutaneous implantation of the Neuro-Stim System™ family of devices EAD, MFS, and BRIDGE is a procedure involving the use of a non-opiate, neuromodulation analgesic for relieving acute and chronic pain. It has been approved as a minimal-risk procedure by multiple governmental and institutional facilities. This retrospective report of findings will help quantify the incidence of clinically observed bleeding, localized dermatitis, and infections at the implantation sites of the electrode/needle arrays, dermatitis at the site of the generator, and patient syncope. A total of 1,207 devices, each producing up to 16 percutaneous punctures, for a total of 19,312 punctures were monitored for adverse effects, based on retrospective chart audits conducted at six clinical facilities over a 1-year period. Keywords: clinical risks and discomfort, percutaneous auricular neuro-stimulation, Neuro-Stim System™ devices, EAD, MFS, Bridge, neuromodulation, adverse effects

Polygonal meshes remain the primary representation for visualization of 3D data in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, architecture, geographic information systems, medical imaging, robotics, entertainment, and military applications. Because of its widespread use, it is desirable to compress polygonal meshes stored in file servers and exchanged over computer networks to reduce storage and transmission time requirements. 3D files encoded by OBJ format are commonly used to share models due to its clear simple design. Normally each OBJ file contains a large amount of data (e.g. vertices and triangulated faces) describing the mesh surface. In this research we introduce a novel algorithm to compress vertices and triangle faces called Geometry Minimization Algorithm (GM-Algorithm). First, each vertex consists of (x, y, z) coordinates that are encoded into a single value by the GM-Algorithm. Second, triangle faces are encoded by computing the differences between two adjacent vertex locations, and then coded by the GM-Algorithm followed by arithmetic coding. We tested the method on large data sets achieving high compression ratios over 90% while keeping the same number of vertices and triangle faces as the original mesh. The decompression step is based on a Parallel Fast Matching Search Algorithm (Parallel-FMS) to recover the structure of the 3D mesh. A comparative analysis of compression ratios is provided with a number of commonly used 3D file formats such as MATLAB, VRML, OpenCTM and STL showing the advantages and effectiveness of our approach.

El presente artículo reflexiona en torno al vínculo entre el arte y la tecnología desde una mirada comunicacional. En un primer momento, se problematiza acerca de la relación de las tecnologías con las prácticas artísticas entendiéndola como parte de un proceso histórico anterior a la informática e, incluso, a la fotografía, generalmente pensada como uno de los primeros momentos de tecnologización de lo artístico en el campo del arte visual. En un segundo momento, se retoman y analizan, desde este marco conceptual, dos experiencias artísticas que se construyen a partir del vínculo con softwares y hardwares. Se problematiza la relación con los públicos y la concepción del arte como un juego (Gadamer; 1991). La reflexión final aporta la dimensión política y complejiza la mirada acerca de la relación arte-tecnología. ; This article reflects on the link between art and technology from a communicational perspective. At first, it problematizes about the relationship of technology with artistic practices understood as part of a historical process which is previous than computer and even photography. We refer to the photography because it is generally considered the first articulation between visual art and technology. In a second stage, we take two artistic experiences that are constructed from the link between software and hardware. The article problematizes the relationship with the public and the conception of art as a game (Gadamer; 1991). The final reflection brings the political dimension to the complex relationship between art and technology. ; Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social

International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), 7(4), 2016 ; This paper proposed a concept of the Group Decision Support System (GDSS) to evaluate the performance of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Projects in Indonesian regional government agencies to overcome any possible inconsistencies which may occur in a decision-making process. By considering the aspect of the applicable legislation, decision makers involved to provide an assessment and evaluation of the ICT project implementation in regional government agencies consisted of Executing Parties of Government Institutions, ICT Management Work Units, Business Process Owner Units, and Society, represented by DPRD (Regional People's Representative Assembly). The contributions of those decision makers in the said model were in the form of preferences to evaluate the ICT project-related alternatives based on the predetermined criteria for the method of Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). This research presented a GDSS framework integrating the Methods of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Copeland Score. The AHP method was used to generate values for the criteria used as input in the calculation process of the TOPSIS method. Results of the TOPSIS calculation generated a project rank indicated by each decision maker, and to combine the different preferences of these decision makers, the Copeland Score method was used as one of the voting methods to determine the best project rank of all the ranks indicated by the desicion makers. ; http://thesai.org/Downloads/Volume7No4/Paper_44-The_Group_Decision_Support_System_to_Evaluate_the_Ict_Project_Performance.pdf

International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), 7(8), 2016 ; Illiterate and semi-literate people usually face different types of difficulties when they use the Internet, such as reading and recognising text. This research aims to develop and examine the influence of adopting a text-free user interface on the usability of a web-based government system with illiterate and semi-literate people. A number of steps have been followed in order to achieve this research goal. An extensive literature review has been carried out to explore the adoption of different concepts or representations of content to help illiterate/semi-literate people in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects. Then a consolidated framework is proposed and adopted in order to develop a text-free user interface. This can help in building a text-free user interface for a certain service here in Saudi Arabia. Cultural factors, education level, text-free icons, and usability guidelines have been considered in the above-mentioned framework. A prototype of a web-based government system after taking into account the above framework has been designed and developed. Usability testing and heuristic evaluation have been used as usability assessment methods in order to evaluate the system usability and its impact on the usability for illiterate people in Saudi Arabia. The results are encouraging as the achieved results of usability measures imply that adopting the consolidated framework has influenced the usability in this research. ; http://thesai.org/Downloads/Volume7No8/Paper_25-Influence_of_Adopting_a_Text_Free_User_Interface.pdf

From product maintenance and service point of view, high-value sophisticated computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools in modern manufacturing factories play important roles: they are manufacturing equipment, and on the other hand, they are also products supplied by equipment manufacturers. There is a trend that manufacturers are extending their responsibilities to the products use phase to meet customers' requirements for lifetime support and service. To ensure the effective performance and efficient maintenance of high-value machine tools, information and knowledge from their lifecycle should be collected and reused. However, in the research area of product service systems and related computerised maintenance systems, there is a lack of research work on how to integrate knowledge from different stakeholders into the maintenance and service planning process, which is important for modern digital manufacturing systems to reduce machine tools' downtime and improve their working performance. This project proposed a collaborative maintenance planning framework to connect different stakeholders and integrate their knowledge into the maintenance and service process. The potential of advanced content management systems (CMSs), which are widely used non-engineering sectors such as finance, business, publishing and government organisations, has been explored and tested for applications in the manufacturing engineering domain. The research realised that CMSs have several advantages compared with traditional engineering information systems, especially in managing dynamic and unstructured knowledge. A prototype maintenance and service planning system has been developed and evaluated using a real CNC machine tool.

The paper presents a detailed comparative study of the evolution in the direction and composition of exports of China and India between 1993 and 2010. The changes in the direction of exports is analyzed through country/commodity intersection by grouping countries together on the basis of income of which there are eight groups, and changes in the composition of exports is examined by employing the Revealed comparative advantage index and decomposing the growth in exports in terms of Intensive (existing products) and Extensive margins (new products) following the methodology of Amiti and Freund (2007). To analyze the country/commodity intersection and to compute the RCA index, the exports are classified into 5 main groups/categories: Product A group: Primary Products, Product B group: Natural Resource Intensive Products, Product C group: Unskilled Labour Intensive Products, Product D group: Technology Intensive Products, and Product E group: Human Capital Intensive Products and Sectors not classified according to factor intensity. The main findings of the study are: i) High income OECD plus non- OECD countries had dominant but declining shares in all the five product categories of exports of China and India, ii) China's comparative advantage has shifted from Unskilled labour intensive group to Technology intensive group, but India continues to have comparative advantage in exporting Primary and Unskilled labour intensive products and, iii) the growth in exports of China and India was mainly accounted for by high growth of Intensive margins rather than in Extensive margins.

Purpose. Evaluate the perceived effectiveness of key antismoking messages among highly disadvantaged smokers and assess the impact of nicotine dependence and cessation cognitions on message processing. Design. The experimental crossover trial, undertaken between March and December 2012, randomly exposed participants to two of three antismoking advertisements delivered via touchscreen computer. Setting. Welfare recipients were recruited from a community service organization in New South Wales, Australia. Subjects. Subjects were 354 smokers (79% response rate). Participants resided in government rental housing (52%), earned less than AUD$400/wk (72%), and received their primary income from government welfare (95%). Intervention. Three 30-second antismoking television advertisements representing common campaign themes: why to quit (graphic imagery), why to quit (personal testimonial), or how to quit. Measures. An 11-item scale assessed perceived effectiveness and message acceptance. An eight-item cessation cognitions index assessed motivations and readiness to quit, and the heaviness of smoking index was used to classify nicotine dependence. Analysis. Descriptive statistics, generalized linear mixed models, and multiple linear regression analyses are reported. Results. Why-to-quit advertisements were perceived as significantly more effective than the how-to-quit advertisement (all p < .0001). Smokers with positive cessation cognitions were more likely to accept antismoking messages (p = .0003) and perceive them as effective (p < .0001). Nicotine dependence level did not influence message acceptance (p = .7322) or effectiveness (p = .8872). Conclusion. Highly emotive advertisements providing good reasons to quit may be the most effective in promoting the antismoking message among groups with high smoking rates.

Changes to braille to produce a Unified English Braille (UEB) have caused grave concerns among some braillists. Proponents of UEB claim it will make braille easier to learn and produce and ensure uniformity of practice in the English-speaking world. Section 'Introduction' puts the controversy into its wider historical context, citing research showing braille has always been changing. Part A brings out some of braille's problems in relation to ink-print: quantity and complexity of braille signs, heavier demands on children and newly blind adults in learning their rules of use, the paper-space requirements and bulk of braille books, lower redundancy, lower reading speeds, limited/slower scanning strategies for accessing information, and difficulties with tools for reading and writing. Research is presented from a longitudinal investigation into the cognitive factors affecting the development of braille reading accuracy, comprehension, and speed. Part B argues that there is evidence underlining the need for early teaching to compensate for the absence of casual, unstructured learning available to sighted infants and for continuing the teaching of braille, especially speed of reading, beyond the Primary School Stage of education. It is inferred that contrary to claims that computer technology will render this unique tactile code obsolete, it is in fact making access to braille easier, faster, and cheaper. The code's flexibility and contribution to the personal, social, and economic independence of blind people are so important that it is vital that teachers, rehabilitation professionals, and psychologists recognise their roles in fostering the attainment of literacy through braille.

Following the 2013 Chelyabinsk event, the risks posed by asteroids attracted renewed interest, from both the scientific and policy‐making communities. It reminded the world that impacts from near‐Earth objects (NEOs), while rare, have the potential to cause great damage to cities and populations. Point estimates of the risk (such as mean numbers of casualties) have been proposed, but because of the low‐probability, high‐consequence nature of asteroid impacts, these averages provide limited actionable information. While more work is needed to further refine its input distributions (e.g., NEO diameters), the probabilistic model presented in this article allows a more complete evaluation of the risk of NEO impacts because the results are distributions that cover the range of potential casualties. This model is based on a modularized simulation that uses probabilistic inputs to estimate probabilistic risk metrics, including those of rare asteroid impacts. Illustrative results of this analysis are presented for a period of 100 years. As part of this demonstration, we assess the effectiveness of civil defense measures in mitigating the risk of human casualties. We find that they are likely to be beneficial but not a panacea. We also compute the probability—but not the consequences—of an impact with global effects ("cataclysm"). We conclude that there is a continued need for NEO observation, and for analyses of the feasibility and risk‐reduction effectiveness of space missions designed to deflect or destroy asteroids that threaten the Earth.

This article examines the career scripts held by individuals working in clusters by studying the careers seen as desirable and possible by 42 micro-nanotechnology and computer science researchers in the 'Minalogic' cluster, the French equivalent of Silicon Valley. We consider the links between the researchers' career scripts and their social positions and identify six discrete career scripts that we label organizational nomad, entrepreneurial, organizational extension, cloister, escape and conversion. Central social positions in the cluster are linked with boundaryless career scripts ( organizational nomad and entrepreneurial scripts), but individuals also use the resources associated with their central social positions to envisage both extending their careers and the range of tasks they undertake ( organizational extension script) within their employing organizations. Others − those holding peripheral social positions − may be unable to match the cluster's expectations, and so feel trapped in involuntary immobility ( cloister script), constrained to leave the cluster ( escape script) or to change their occupations or broaden their skill sets to advance their careers within it ( conversion script). Our article goes beyond simply using scripts as descriptions to propose a more comprehensive approach by highlighting the social dimension of career scripts. Our results qualify the supposed predominance of the boundaryless career notion by confronting it with the wider generic notion of the career script, so proposing a more complete description of how a cluster shapes individuals' career definitions and aspirations, as well as a more complex theorization of how those careers are influenced by the cluster context.

To make the right decisions regarding the purchase or sale of financial assets the definition of the nature of the securities market is required. Existing methods of evaluation of the state securities market does not fully take into account the probability distribution of the states and fuzzy-multiple description of the character of securities market. For the efficient operation of the securities market new methods of analysis and forecasting of its state are required. In this paper we propose a fuzzy-multiple algorithm to evaluate the character of the securities market. This algorithm contains the operations of fuzzy sets theory. The fuzzy of the character of the securities market manifests itself in the «blur» of the boundaries of its varieties. The expert system of a fuzzy conclusion is developed for an estimation of the character of the securities market. In this article the expert system of fuzzy inference was developed for a fuzzy assessment of the character of the securities market. As instrumental development environment a system of computer mathematics Mathcad was used. For the characteristics of the market RTS Index was used. Developed expert system allows to enter specific values of the input indicators to obtain an estimate of the character of the securities market. The use of this expert system allows system users to resolve uncertainty when making decisions, to navigate the situation on the securities market and make the right decisions regarding the purchase or sale of financial assets. Developed in the work of the expert system was applied for the case volatility market.

Two most challenging problems facing transportation planners and policymakers in many developing countries are rapid urban traffic growth and lack of financial and technical resources to conduct major planning studies, especially for assessing the impacts of new sites and land-uses. The conventional urban transportation planning process, which is data and time intensive, has been of little value due to many transportation related obstacles (inadequate database, lack of funds, inadequate technical expertise, etc.). Advances in computer technology, especially in the areas of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), offer new ways of dealing with the aforementioned problems. This paper presents a new methodology for conducting transportation planning studies in developing countries. Integrating TransCAD, well-known GIS software for transportation applications, and Excel, spreadsheet software, the new model starts by estimating an Origin-Destination (O-D) table from traffic counts at the base year. Then, a modified O-D table is obtained from a simple procedure before determining the new traffic assignment, taking into consideration the new sites and land uses. The model was developed and applied for conducting regional transportation planning in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. A flexible, yet vigorous transportation planning mechanism was needed to assist planners in their efforts to plan for transportation in that highly populated area with a poor and old highway network. The results of the verification work conducted after each step during the development of the model have been acceptable. Moreover, transportation experts who live and work in the area have conducted complete validation of the results.

Wireless mesh networking is rapidly gaining in popularity with a variety of users: from municipalities to enterprises, from telecom service providers to public safety and military organizations. This increasing popularity is based on two basic facts: ease of deployment and increase in network capacity expressed in bandwidth per footage; WMNs do not rely on any fixed infrastructure. Many efforts have been used to maximizing throughput of the network in a multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh network. Current approaches are purely based on either static or dynamic channel allocation approaches. In this paper, we use a hybrid multichannel multi radio wireless mesh networking architecture, where static and dynamic interfaces are built in the nodes. Dynamic Adaptive Channel Allocation protocol (DACA), it considers optimization for both throughput and delay in the channel allocation. The assignment of the channel has been allocated to be codependent with the routing problem in the wireless mesh network and that should be based on passage flow on every link. Temporal and spatial relationship rises to re compute the channel assignment every time when the pattern changes in mesh network, channel assignment algorithms assign channels in network. In this paper a computing path which captures the available path bandwidth is the proposed information and the proficient routing protocol based on the new path which provides both static and dynamic links. The consistency property guarantees that each node makes an appropriate packet forwarding decision and balancing the control usage of the network, so that a data packet will traverse through the right path.

The 3GPP is working towards the definition of service requirements and technical solutions to provide support for energy-efficient Machine Type Communications (MTC) in the forthcoming generations of cellular networks. One of the envisioned solutions consists in applying group management policies to clusters of devices in order to reduce control signaling and improve upon energy efficiency, e.g., multicast Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware updates. In this paper, a Multi-Radio Cooperative Retransmission Scheme is proposed to efficiently carry out multicast transmissions in MTC networks, reducing both control signaling and improving energy-efficiency. The proposal can be executed in networks composed by devices equipped with multiple radio interfaces which enable them to connect to both a cellular access network, e.g., LTE, and a short-range MTC area network, e.g., Low-Power Wi-Fi or ZigBee, as foreseen by the MTC architecture defined by ETSI. The main idea is to carry out retransmissions over the M2M area network upon error in the main cellular link. This yields a reduction in both the traffic load over the cellular link and the energy consumption of the devices. Computer-based simulations with ns-3 have been conducted to analyze the performance of the proposed scheme in terms of energy consumption and assess its superior performance compared to non-cooperative retransmission schemes, thus validating its suitability for energy-constrained MTC applications. ; Grant number : Government under grant SGR (2014-SGR-1551) Please add them to the Community "European Commission Funded Research". "Horizon 2020", Peer to Peer Smart Energy Distribution Networks (P2P-SmartTest) (646469)