1,233 research outputs found
Student Expectations in the New Millennium
No full textHigher education has experienced vast changes as a result of global political and economic developments. Cultural and social changes in the last decade have also added to the continuing evolution of higher education. These changes inevitably lead to changing expectations of students entering higher education. An adequate understanding of student expectations is crucial in ensuring a good fit between higher educational institutions and their students. This study attempts to carry out a baseline descriptive-quantitative research on student expectations in the higher education of Hong Kong. Four scales have been developed to measure students’ attitude toward: 1. job-oriented curriculum design, 2. user-friendly course delivery method, 3. opportunities for lifelong learning, and 4. student consumerism. Students’ priority of what makes a good university, their reasons for going to university, and their self-perception of ability to cope with university life are also explored. The Student Expectations Questionnaire (developed by the author) was used to gather data from 857 first-year undergrads from nine institutions of higher education in Hong Kong. Analyses include, among others, gender, age, major of study as well as institution comparisons
Efficient, Superstabilizing Decentralised Optimisation for Dynamic Task Allocation Environments
No full textDecentralised optimisation is a key issue for multi-agent systems, and while many solution techniques have been developed, few provide support for dynamic environments, which change over time, such as disaster management. Given this, in this paper, we present Bounded Fast Max Sum (BFMS): a novel, dynamic, superstabilizing algorithm which provides a bounded approximate solution to certain classes of distributed constraint optimisation problems. We achieve this by eliminating dependencies in the constraint functions, according to how much impact they have on the overall solution value. In more detail, we propose iGHS, which computes a maximum spanning tree on subsections of the constraint graph, in order to reduce communication and computation overheads. Given this, we empirically evaluate BFMS, which shows that BFMS reduces communication and computation done by Bounded Max Sum by up to 99%, while obtaining 60-88% of the optimal utility
A Max-Plus Algebra-based Approach for Modelling Shoals of Fish Robots during Underwater Exploration
No full textThis paper introduces a novel approach to modelling fish robots for underwater exploration, focusing on a shoal of three biomimetic vehicles, each equipped with distinct sensors. The aim is to efficiently model the coordinated behaviour of the robots within the team in exploring an area with certain Points of Interest (POIs) through predefined cyclical paths. Depending on their capabilities, robots are assigned diversified tasks and paths. The resulting model, represented as a max-plus linear system, effectively manages task concatenation and synchronization. Simulation tests confirm the model’s efficacy in capturing the devices’ coordinated behaviour in underwater repetitive patrolling
Vitalistic information systems in the South African public health system : a transactional analysis perspective
No full textIncludes bibliographical references
Production of the Minor Ginsenoside F-2 from the PPD-mix-type Major Ginsenosides Using a Novel Recombinant Glycoside Hydrolase from Novosphingobium aromaticivorans
No full textBackground: The minor ginsenosides such as F-2, C-K, Rh2, and Rg3 make up less than 1% of the total ginseng extract; however, many studies have shown that ginsenoside F-2 has anti-cancer and antioxidant effects and improves dementia and atopic dermatitis. Therefore, the enhanced production of this minor ginsenoside is a promising approach for the pharmaceutical industry. In this study, we found and cloned a novel glycoside hydrolase gene for the gram-scale production of ginsenoside F-2. Methods and Results: Novosphingobium aromaticivorans, which was isolated from deep-terrestrial-subsurface sediments, has shown ginsenoside-converting ability. From this bacterium, a novel glycoside hydrolase, named BglNar, was found that can efficiently biotransform the protopanaxatriol (PPD-mix-type) major ginsenosides (Rb-1, Rb-2 Rc, and Rd) into the minor ginsenoside F-2. This enzyme was cloned, expressed in Escherichia coli BL21, and characterized. The BglNar comprises 439 amino acid and belongs to the glycoside hydrolase family 1. The K-m value of p-nitrophenyl-beta-D-glucopyranoside was 9.06 +/- 0.28 and the V-max value was 24.0 +/- 0.34 mu mol/min/mg of protein. For gram-scale production of minor ginsenoside F-2, crude PPD-mix-type ginsenosides (2 g/400 mL) were treated with BglNar and 1.14 g of F-2 with final purity of 82.5 +/- 1.3%, was obtained after purification using a column packed with HP20 resin. Conclusion: Our preliminary data demonstrate that the gram production of ginsenoside F-2 using a recombinant enzyme will enhance the health benefits of Panax ginseng. This is the first study describing the gram-scale production of F-2 from PPD-mix using a single novel ginsenoside-transforming beta-glucosidase of the GH family 1. Significance and Impact of Study: In most of the previous studies, researchers have been used the combination of enzymes for production of F-2, while in this study we found the possibility of gram-scale production of F-2 from PPD-mix-type major ginsenosides using a single recombinant enzyme, thus simplifying the production and reducing the cost.
Seed-borne Fungi of Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merril) and their control.
No full textFungi associated with seed of 14 cultivars comprising 16 samples of soybean were investigated and 27
species were isolated. Pathogenic fungi frequently isolated were Botryodiplodia theobromae, Colletotrichum
dematium, Diaporthe phaseolorum, Choanephora cucurbitarum, Fusarium equiseti, F. fusarioides, F.
moniliforme, F. semitectum, Macrophomina phaseolina, Myrothecium roridum, and Phoma sorghina.
Other fungi isolated included species of Aspergillus, Chaetomium, Cladosporium, Curvularia, Nigrospora,
odulisporium, Penicillium, Rhizopus, Trichoderma and Zygosporium. Seeds which were treated with
fungicides had a higher germination in vitro compared to the control. Benomyl eliminated most of the pathogenic
fungi associated with soybean seed
Warming effects on the responses of the maximum rate of Rubisco carboxylation (<i>V</i><sub>cmax</sub>), the maximum rate of photosynthetic electron transport (<i>J</i><sub>max</sub>) and the <i>J</i><sub>max</sub>/<i>V</i><sub>cmax</sub> ratio to foliar temperature (<i>T</i><sub>leaf</sub>) in 2010 (left panels) and 2011 (right panels).
No full text<p>The filled circles indicate the warming plots and the open circles for the control plots. (A) and (B) area-based <i>V</i><sub>cmax</sub>; (C) and (D) area-based <i>J</i><sub>max</sub>; (E) and (F) N-based <i>V</i><sub>cmax</sub>; (G) and (H) N-based <i>J</i><sub>max</sub>; (I) and (J) the <i>J</i><sub>max</sub>/<i>V</i><sub>cmax</sub> ratio. Each data point is the average of 4 replicates.</p
An Improved Sauvola Approach on Document Images Binarization
No full textDocument image binarization is one important processing step, especially for data analysis. A variable background, non-uniform illumination, and blur give a big challenging task in order to detect the text. In this paper, a new binarization based on local thresholding technique ‘WAN’ was presented. The proposed algorithm is known as ‘WAN’ after the first name of the author of this paper. WAN has been inspired by the Sauvola’s binarization method and exhibits its robustness and effectiveness when evaluated on low quality document images. Sauvola method failed to segment if the contrast between the foreground and background is small or if the text is in thin pen stroke text. The objective of the WAN method is to improve the Sauvola method and achieved a better binarization result. The results of the numerical simulation indicate that the WAN method is the most effective and efficient (f-measure 72.274 and NRM = 0.093) compared to the Sauvola method, Local Adaptive method, Niblack method, Feng Method, and Bernsen method
Avaliação de desempenho do serviço de voz em redes corporativas Frame Relay
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação.Um projeto de rede corporativa Frame Relay para serviços de transporte compartilhado de voz em tempo real e dados requer do projetista o ajuste de parâmetros da rede para o melhor desempenho dos serviços. O projetista deve conhecer a arquitetura da rede e o seu comportamento em condições críticas de tráfego, assim como os problemas referentes ao transporte de voz em tempo real em uma rede de comutação de pacotes e os mecanismos de QoS de que pode se beneficiar. Neste trabalho é concebido um modelo real de rede Frame Relay com suporte ao tráfego de voz em tempo real e pacotes IP. É aplicada então uma metodologia de avaliação de desempenho neste modelo, a fim de determinar o melhor ajuste dos parâmetros codec de voz e comprimento do fragmento das PDUs de tráfego IP que compartilham as facilidades de rede. Dois projetos experimentais são realizados, um para determinar o melhor ajuste destes fatores e a influência das características do codec no desempenho do serviço de voz e outro para determinar qual codec de baixa velocidade do ITU-T avaliado apresenta o melhor desempenho em uma situação de níveis elevados de latência de transmissão da rede. No primeiro projeto experimental são aplicados todos os mecanismos de QoS disponíveis do sistema. No segundo é desabilitado o mecanismo de fragmentação para criar condições desfavoráveis de latência da rede. Em ambos é estabelecida uma carga de tráfego limite para o sistema (congestionamento severo dos circuitos de acesso), a fim de avaliar a eficiência dos mecanismos de QoS do Frame Relay no desempenho do serviço de voz
A Note On The Cross-Sperner Families
No full textLet be a pair of families of , where
. If and hold for all
and , then is
called a Cross-Sperner pair. P. Frankl and Jian Wang introduced the extremal
problem that
-,
where . In this note, we prove that
for all
. This solves an open problem proposed by P. Frankl and Jian Wang.Comment: We solve an open problem proposed by P. Frankl and Jian Wan
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