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OpenSHS: Open Smart Home Simulator
No full textThis paper develops a new hybrid, open-source, cross-platform 3D smart home simulator, OpenSHS, for dataset generation. OpenSHS offers an opportunity for researchers in the field of Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and smart home simulation to test and evaluate their models. Following a hybrid approach, a OpenSHS combines advantages from both interactive and model-based approaches. This approach reduces the time and efforts required to generate simulated smart home datasets. We have designed a replication algorithm for extending and expanding a dataset. A small sample dataset produced, by OpenSHS, can be extended without affecting the logical order of the events. The replication provides a solution for generating large representative smart home datasets. We have built an extensible library of smart devices that facilitates the simulation of current and future smart home environments. Our tool divides the dataset generation process into three distinct phases: first design, the researcher designs the initial virtual environment by building the home, importing smart devices and creating contexts; second simulation, the participant simulates his/her context-specific events; and third aggregation, the researcher applies the replication algorithm to generate the final dataset. We conducted a study to asses the ease of use of our tool on the System Usability Scale (SUS)
Transcending borders between the acoustic and the electroacoustic: redefining boundaries through composition for sensor enhanced bass clarinet.
Get PDFThis paper explores the issues raised when writing for sensor enhanced bass clarinet and electronics. The metaphorical borders that exist between a digital interface and a traditional acoustic instrument are considered. The implications for the composer, the performer and the listener are discussed. The paper also considers other cultural borders that exist when combining traditional acoustic instruments with electronics. Transcending the symbolic borders between the acoustic and the electroacoustic is essential in order to produce a coherent, self-contained composition and performance. The paper examines strategies for achieving this. Another perceived border that arises in this context is that between a mainly noted-based approach to composition and a mainly texture-based approach. The ways in which these differences manifest themselves and become embedded into the compositional process are explored. Alternative approaches to notation are presented, in particular the adoption of a system which combines traditional Western notation with new ways of notating extended techniques and electroacoustic sounds. In order to break down the borders between these two systems, the notation of the electroacoustic part must mirror the properties of traditional notation in that it should be both prescriptive and representational. It must be intuitive to understand, and it must be transferable to other compositions in order to encourage the growth of new performance practices. The paper offers strategies for creating an electroacoustic language that compliments the output of the acoustic instrument. To achieve this, the gestural affordances of the traditional instrument must be mapped onto the digital environment in such a way as to exploit the existing skillset of the performer. The challenge is to create an interface mapped to a system of notation that works for the composer, the performer and by extension the listener. It should also be reusable in different contexts. This encourages the emergence of new musical languages. Borders between the traditional and the new are challenged and a new repertoire for the bass clarinet as an enhanced instrument emerges
Effective Task Migration to Reduce Execution Time in Mobile Cloud Computing
Get PDFWith the advancements of mobile technologies, different compute-intensive tasks are emerging rapidly. However, due to resource constraints, these tasks are facing challenges to execute on mobile devices. As a solution to this problem, cloud migration has been introduced to execute a task on the cloud and then to return the results to the user mobile device. In this paper, a cloud migration decision making algorithm for compute-intensive tasks has been proposed to determine the feasibility of execution on a cloud server instead of a mobile device. Furthermore, the performances between mobile and cloud executions have been investigated which shows that the task completion time can be minimised by 6-8 times when a cloud server is utilise
The GPR investigation of the Shakespeare family graves
Get PDFAs part of a multi‐disciplinary programme of archaeological investigation, GPR was used to investigate the Shakespeare family graves below the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, Warwickshire, England. Although William Shakespeare's place as perhaps one of the most famous individuals who has ever lived has been cemented in the annals of history, much of his life and death is still shrouded in mystery. As a result, a large number of myths and legends have grown up around his burial place. These included the suggestion of an unusually deep burial or the presence of a large family crypt beneath the chancel floor. A series of multi‐frequency surveys was carried out to establish the depth and structure of the graves and as much burial information as possible. Close survey (using a strategy developed and successfully applied in Westminster Abbey and other churches) was used in order to optimise the quality of patterning in the data. Within Holy Trinity, this strategy was validated by the detection of a known vault.
The use of multiple frequencies was critical in this investigation in order both to detect the graves and also to establish information about the graves. Too low a frequency may result in non‐detection because of the relatively low target resolution whereas too high a frequency risks insufficient depth penetration.
From this process a number of myths can now be discounted, including the presence of a large Shakespeare family vault or crypt. Instead, the GPR survey suggests that a simple, shallow, earth‐cut burial lies beneath William's tombstone. One story however concerning disturbance of William Shakespeare's grave in order to remove his skull does correspond with the evidence
Generalised Radio Resource Sharing Framework for Heterogeneous Radio Networks
Get PDFRecent years have seen a significant interest in quantitative measurements of licensed
and unlicensed spectrum use. Several research groups, companies and regulatory bodies
have conducted studies of varying times and locations with the aim to capture the over-
all utilisation rate of spectrum. The studies have shown that large amount of allocated
spectrum are under-utilised, and create the so called \spectrum holes", resulting in a
waste of valuable frequency resources. In order to satisfy the requirements of increased
demands of spectrum resources and to improve spectrum utilisation, dynamic spectrum
sharing (DSS) is proposed in the literature along with cognitive radio networks (CRNs).
DSS and CRNs have been studied from many perspectives, for example spectrum sensing
to identify the idle channels has been under the microscope to improve detection proba-
bility. As well as spectrum sensing, the DSS performance analysis remains an important
topic moving towards better spectrum utilisation to meet the exponential growth of
traffi�c demand. In this dissertation we have studied both techniques to achieve different
objectives such as enhancing the probability of detection and spectrum utilisation.
In order to improve spectrum sensing decisions we have proposed a cooperative spec-
trum sensing scheme which takes the propagation conditions into consideration. The
proposed location aware scheme shows an improved performance over conventional hard
combination scheme, highlighting the requirements of location awareness in cognitive
radio networks (CRNs).
Due to the exponentially growing wireless applications and services, traffi�c demand is
increasing rapidly. To cope with such growth wireless network operators seek radio
resource cooperation strategies for their users with the highest possible grade of service
(GoS). However, it is diffi�cult to fathom the potential benefits of such cooperation, thus
we propose a set of analytical models for DSS to analyse the blocking probability gain and
degradation for operators. The thesis focuses on examining the performance gains that
DSS can entail, in different scenarios. A number of dynamic spectrum sharing scenarios
are proposed. The proposed models focus on measuring the blocking probability of
secondary network operators as a trade-o� with a marginal increase of the blocking
probability of a primary network in return of monetary rewards. We derived the global
balance equation and an explicit expression of the blocking probability for each model.
The robustness of the proposed analytical models is evaluated under different scenarios
by considering varying tra�c intensities, different network sizes and adding reserved
resources (or pooled capacity). The results show that the blocking probabilities can
be reduced significantly with the proposed analytical DSS models in comparison to the
existing local spectrum access schemes.
In addition to the sharing models, we further assume that the secondary operator aims
to borrow spectrum bandwidths from primary operators when more spectrum resources
available for borrowing than the actual demand considering a merchant mode. Two
optimisation models are proposed using stochastic optimisation models in which the secondary operator (i) spends the minimum amount of money to achieve the target
GoS assuming an unrestricted budget or (ii) gains the maximum amount of pro�t to
achieve the target GoS assuming restricted budget. Results obtained from each model
are then compared with results derived from algorithms in which spectrum borrowings
were random. Comparisons showed that the gain in the results obtained from our pro-
posed stochastic optimisation model is significantly higher than heuristic counterparts.
A post-optimisation performance analysis of the operators in the form of analysis of
blocking probability in various scenarios is investigated to determine the probable per-
formance gain and degradation of the secondary and primary operators respectively.
We mathematically model the sharing agreement scenario and derive the closed form
solution of blocking probabilities for each operator. Results show how the secondary
and primary operators perform in terms of blocking probability under various offered
loads and sharing capacity.
The simulation results demonstrate that at most trading windows, the proposed opti-
mal algorithms outperforms their heuristic counterparts. When we consider 80 cells,
the proposed pro�t maximisation algorithm results in 33.3% gain in net pro�t to the
secondary operators as well as facilitating 2.35% more resources than the heuristic ap-
proach. In addition, the cost minimisation algorithm results in 46.34% gain over the
heuristic algorithm when considering the same number of cells (80)
An application of Machine Learning to Detect Abusive Bengali Text
Get PDFBengali abusive text detection can be useful to prevent cyberbullying and online harassment as these types of crimes are increasing rapidly in Bangladesh. Machine learning approach can be useful to keep the system always updated with the new types of approaches used by the abusers. This paper investigates machine learning algorithms e.g. Random Forest, Multinomial Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM) with Linear, Radial Basis Function (RBF), Polynomial and Sigmoid kernel and have compared with unigram, bigram and trigram based CountVectorizer and TfidfVectorizer features. The results show that SVM Linear kernel performs the best with trigram TfidfVectorizer features
A Performance Analysis of a Typical Server running on a Cloud
Get PDFIn recent years, Cloud computing has become very popular from individuals to big enterprises because of the reduced cost, minimal management effort etc. Cloud providers like Amazon, Google are now offering resources for web deployment, storage, servers etc. However, due to the varying load and cost, evaluating the performance of task scheduling policies in these real Cloud environments is very challenging. In this paper, the performance of Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling policy has been investigated using CloudSim and the hardware configuration of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with the time-out of a web and FTP servers. In addition, a comparison between space-shared and time-shared task provisioning policies have been examined which shows that the average execution time can be minimised by using space-shared policy in both AWS and GCP
Talking about sunbed tanning: Social representations and identity-work
Get PDFRationale
Despite the publicised health risks associated with its usage, sunbed tanning remains popular in many Western countries. Previous research indicates that knowledge of the harmful effects does not necessarily lead to a reduction in sunbed use.
Objective
The aim of this study was to develop a more extensive social psychological understanding of sunbed use, in the United Kingdom, by exploring the social representations of sunbed tanning held by both those who use and who have never used sunbeds.
Method
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 sunbed users and 10 who had never used a sunbed.
Results
A thematic analysis identified two dimensions in the social representations of both the users and non-users; these were concerned with a) health and b) beauty. However, whereas non-users emphasised the health risks, users downplayed and minimised them, instead emphasising the health benefits. Similarly, whereas non-users emphasised the negative aspects of excessive concern with beauty, sunbed users challenged and distanced themselves from this negativity. Sunbed users were engaged in a form of identity-work to protect themselves from the wider negativity and disapproval of which they were aware.
Conclusion
Theoretically, social representations theory has provided a unique lens through which to explore this topic, highlighting the importance of taking into consideration the wider environment in which sunbed use takes place. Preliminary practical suggestions include that health workers should consider identity-work when designing interventions aimed at reducing sunbed use. Findings also suggest that, rather than continuing to educate sunbed users about the risks, campaigns and interventions should challenge the commonly drawn upon arguments about the health benefits. These benefits emerged as a particularly powerful discursive tool for the sunbed users in helping to justify their behaviour, but also to counteract negative stereotypes and assumptions they knew others held of them
Synthesis, Structural Characterisation and Solution Behaviour of High-Symmetry Lanthanide Triflate Complexes with the Sterically Demanding Phosphine Oxides Cy3PO andtBu3PO
No full textThe synthesis and characterisation of complexes formed from lanthanide trifluoromethanesulfonates [Ln(OTf)3] and tricyclohexylphosphine oxide (Cy3PO) or tri‐tert‐butylphosphine oxide (tBu3PO) are described. The structures of [Ln(H2O)5(Cy3PO)2]·2R3PO·(OTf)3 (Ln = Pr, Tm; R = Cy and Ln = Nd; R = tBu) are pentagonal bipyramidal with an equatorial plane of five H2O ligands and two axial Cy3PO ligands. The remaining Cy3PO molecules are H‐bonded to the coordinated water molecules, as are the triflate anions. NMR spectroscopy showed that the triflate ions remain associated with the complexes in CDCl3 solution. Lanthanide‐induced shifts in the 19F and 31P NMR spectra confirm that one structure is present for all the lanthanides with an additional structure for the heavier metals. The acidity of the complexes was examined by 31P NMR spectroscopic studies on the reactions between [Ln(H2O)5(Cy3PO)2]·2Cy3PO·(OTf)3 (Ln = La, Eu, Er, Lu) and phosphines PR3 (R = Ph, mesityl, Cy), Ph2PC2H4PPh2 and Ph2PC3H6PPh2. Protonation of the more basic phosphines and H‐bonding to the less basic phosphines is observed
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