Implementation of the Trigonometric LMS Algorithm using Original Cordic Rotation

The LMS algorithm is one of the most successful adaptive filtering algorithms. It uses the instantaneous value of the square of the error signal as an estimate of the mean-square error (MSE). The LMS algorithm changes (adapts) the filter tap weights so that the error signal is minimized in the mean square sense. In Trigonometric LMS (TLMS) and Hyperbolic LMS (HLMS), two new versions of LMS algorithms, same formulations are performed as in the LMS algorithm with the exception that filter tap weights are now expressed using trigonometric and hyperbolic formulations, in cases for TLMS and HLMS respectively. Hence appears the CORDIC algorithm as it can efficiently perform trigonometric, hyperbolic, linear and logarithmic functions. While hardware-efficient algorithms often exist, the dominance of the software systems has kept those algorithms out of the spotlight. Among these hardware- efficient algorithms, CORDIC is an iterative solution for trigonometric and other transcendental functions. Former researches worked on CORDIC algorithm to observe the convergence behavior of Trigonometric LMS (TLMS) algorithm and obtained a satisfactory result in the context of convergence performance of TLMS algorithm. But revious researches directly used the CORDIC block output in their simulation ignoring the internal step-by-step rotations of the CORDIC processor. This gives rise to a need for verification of the convergence performance of the TLMS algorithm to investigate if it actually performs satisfactorily if implemented with step-by-step CORDIC rotation. This research work has done this job. It focuses on the internal operations of the CORDIC hardware, implements the Trigonometric LMS (TLMS) and Hyperbolic LMS (HLMS) algorithms using actual CORDIC rotations. The obtained simulation results are highly satisfactory and also it shows that convergence behavior of HLMS is much better than TLMS.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Published in IJCNC; http://airccse.org/journal/cnc/0710ijcnc08.pdf, http://airccse.org/journal/ijc2010.htm

Candida antarctica lipase-catalyzed synthesis and characterization of novel acrylic teroligomers

The synthesis of three novel low molecular weight acrylic terpolymers, containing at random sequences of ethyl acrylate, acrylic acid and N-(2-hydroxyethyl)acrylamide, catalyzed by Candida antarctica lipase was successfully conducted in organic media. For the first time, these products have been enzymatically synthesized using ethyl acrylate as the only monomer starting material and taking advantage of a triple activity displayed by the lipase. In the presence of ethanolamine, the enzyme not only catalyzes the chain polymerization of ethyl acrylate but also the aminolysis and hydrolysis of the pendant ester groups affording the terpolymers. The products were characterized by 1H and 13C NMR and UV-MALDI-TOF-MS.Fil: Baldessari, Alicia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica; ArgentinaFil: Fatema, M. Kaniz. Ehime University; JapónFil: Nonami, Hiroshi. Ehime University; JapónFil: Erra Balsells, Rosa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; ArgentinaFil: Rustoy, Eduardo Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica; Argentin

Contemporary analysis and architecture for a generic cloud-based sensor data management platform.

An increasing volume of data is being generated by sensors and smart devices deployed in different areas, often far from computing facilities such as data centres. These data can be difficult to gather and process using local computing infrastructure. This is due to cost and limited resources. Cloud computing provides scalable resources that are capable of addressing such problems. However, platform-independent methods of gathering and transmitting sensor data to Clouds are not widely available. This paper presents a state-of-the-art analysis of Cloud-based sensor monitoring and data gathering platforms. It discusses their strengths and weaknesses and reviews the current trends in this area. Informed by the analysis, the paper further proposes a generic conceptual architecture for achieving a platform-neutral Cloud-based sensor monitoring and data gathering platform. We also discuss the objectives, design decisions and the implementation considerations for the conceptual architecture.IC

Lost Souls in the Dune An Artistic Exploration of the Reality of Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East

Abstrakt Bak de lukkede dørene til de overdådige hjemmene i Midtøsten ligger en nådeløs sannhet. Et ganske stort antall migrantarbeidere bærer vekten av virkeligheten i stillhet. I løpet av de siste årene har millioner av kvinnelige hushjelper fra Sør-Asia og Afrika migrert til Midtøsten på jakt etter jobbmuligheter, der de ble lovet anstendig innkvartering, god lønn, mat og et sunt arbeidsmiljø. Men i de fleste tilfeller er virkeligheten akkurat det motsatte, da flertallet av dem blir misbrukt, utnyttet og torturert fysisk og mentalt av arbeidsgiverne sine. Dette problemet fortjener vår kollektive oppmerksomhet, da menneskerettigheter er grunnleggende i denne tidsalderen. Dette prosjektet resonnerer med hjertene og tankene til dem som er vitne til det. Kunstens kraft kan sette et utrolig preg på verden og inspirere andre til å stå sammen med ofrene i kampen mot vold og for kvinners styrking. Mens migrantarbeidere fra hele sør inkluderes i min kunstneriske forskning, fokuserer en betydelig del av teksten min på kvinnelige migranter fra Bangladesh. For en kunstner er kunst stemme, kunst er lys, og formålet med denne kunstneriske forskningen er ikke bare å diskutere statistikk, men også å gjøre ordet vold synlig.Abstract Behind the closed doors of the lavish homes of the Middle East lies a ruthless truth. Quite a large number of migrant domestic workers bear the weight of reality in silence. Over the past few years, along with men, millions of female domestic workers from South Asia and Africa have migrated to Middle Eastern countries in search of job opportunities, where they were promised decent accommodation, a good salary, food, and a healthy working environment. But in most of the cases, the reality is just the opposite, as the bulk of them are being abused, exploited, and tortured physically and mentally by their employers. This issue deserves our collective attention, as in this era, human rights are basic. This project resonates with the hearts and minds of those who bear witness. The power of art can leave an incredible mark on the world and inspire others to stand alongside the victims in the fight against violence and for women’s empowerment. While migrant workers from all over the South are included in my artistic research, a significant portion of my text focuses on Bangladeshi female migrants. For an artist, art is voice, art is light, and the purpose of this artistic research is not only to discuss statistics but also to make the word violence visible

Reaction of Zinc Proteome with Biologically Important Metal Binding Ligands

Fluorescent sensors have been widely used as microscopic tools to image Zn2+ on a cellular level. Recently, it has been established that the sensors TSQ and Zinquin form adducts with Zn-proteins and image fractions of the Zn-proteome.1 Since TSQ and Zinquin bind specifically to many Zn-proteins, it is hypothesized that other metal binding ligands, both synthetic and natural, may also bind to the Zn-proteome. Biologically active 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen) and related molecules were investigated for their ability to bind to Zn-proteome. Similarly, the cellular tripeptide, glutathione was investigated. It was observed that Phen and some other metal binding, bidentate ligands, were able to displace TSQ from the TSQ-Zn-proteome. Specifically when cellular Zn-proteome reacted with TSQ, adduct formation occurs, that was detected by fluorescence emission at 470 nm. Upon reaction of TSQ-Zn-proteome with 1,10-phenanthroline, glutathione, and some other related small molecules, a significant decrease in fluorescence was observed, indicating the displacement of TSQ by each competing ligand. Native SDS (NDS) PAGE electrophoresis of the product of the reaction of 1,10-Phenanthroline with TSQ-Zn-proteome further confirmed the displacement of TSQ from an array of Zn-proteins. This reaction was further characterized with the use of Zn-alcohol dehydrogenase as a model enzyme that reacts with TSQ and Phen. These studies reveal the Zn-proteome as widely available for adduct formation at its zinc binding sites. The importance of such reactions is being investigated

Impact of Mass Media on the Utilization of Maternal Healthcare Services in South Asia

Maternal mortality is a serious issue in the developing world due in part to inadequate care and awareness before, during, and after the pregnancy period. Appropriate information about maternal healthcare is essential to reduce maternal mortality. Mass media can be an influential source in disseminating knowledge and information on maternal healthcare. Therefore, this study examines the impact of mass media exposure (television, radio, and newspaper) and socioeconomic factors on maternal healthcare utilization in four South Asian countries: India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Afghanistan. Analyses use the Demographic and Health Survey 2014-2016, a nationally representative survey of women aged 15-49 years. Maternal healthcare utilization is significantly higher among women exposed to mass media across countries, even after controlling for mother’s, husband’s, and household socioeconomic factors. Mother’s educational attainment moderates the association between mass media and maternal healthcare in three of the four countries

Adding Privacy Protection to Policy Based Authorisation Systems

An authorisation system determines who is authorised to do what i.e. it assigns privileges to users and provides a decision on whether someone is allowed to perform a requested action on a resource. A traditional authorisation decision system, which is simply called authorisation system or system in the rest of the thesis, provides the decision based on a policy which is usually written by the system administrator. Such a traditional authorisation system is not sufficient to protect privacy of personal data, since users (the data subjects) are usually given a take it or leave it choice to accept the controlling organisation’s policy. Privacy is the ability of the owners or subjects of personal data to control the flow of data about themselves, according to their own preferences. This thesis describes the design of an authorisation system that will provide privacy for personal data by including sticky authorisation policies from the issuers and data subjects, to supplement the authorisation policy of the controlling organisation. As personal data moves from controlling system to controlling system, the sticky policies travel with the data. A number of data protection laws and regulations have been formulated to protect the privacy of individuals. The rights and prohibitions provided by the law need to be enforced by the authorisation system. Hence, the designed authorisation system also includes the authorisation rules from the legislation. This thesis describes the conversion of rules from the EU Data Protection Directive into machine executable rules. Due to the nature of the legislative rules, not all of them could be converted into deterministic machine executable rules, as in several cases human intervention or human judgement is required. This is catered for by allowing the machine rules to be configurable. Since the system includes independent policies from various authorities (law, issuer, data subject and controller) conflicts may arise among the decisions provided by them. Consequently, this thesis describes a dynamic, automated conflict resolution mechanism. Different conflict resolution algorithms are chosen based on the request contexts. As the EU Data Protection Directive allows processing of personal data based on contracts, we designed and implemented a component, Contract Validation Service (ConVS) that can validate an XML based digital contract to allow processing of personal data based on a contract. The authorisation system has been implemented as a web service and the performance of the system is measured, by first deploying it in a single computer and then in a cloud server. Finally the validity of the design and implementation are tested against a number of use cases based on scenarios involving accessing medical data in a health service provider’s system and accessing personal data such as CVs and degree certificates in an employment service provider’s system. The machine computed authorisation decisions are compared to the theoretical decisions to ensure that the system returns the correct decisions

A Survey on Novel Services in Smart Home (Optimized for Smart Electricity Grid)

Advancement in technology has not only transformed our life but also extended in every sphere of our way of living. Till now in most of the cases we are adapting our lifestyle with the way that is directed by the functions of the modern devices. But scientists are researching on more modern smart devices that should rather adapt with our lifestyle seamlessly. That is the core concept of pervasive computing - a collection of invisible and visible sensors and computing devices to ease our daily life. Recently there has been an increasing interest in smart devices containing endpoints like sensors and actuators also known as the things. They can connect to the internet to cooperate and create new services at homes and industries. The typical application scenarios include smart home, e-health, smart grid and so on. Development of Smart Grid and Smart Meter encourages the consumer to use smart appliances in their home. There is an increased trend in adoption of smart appliances in general, as witnessed by the many new IoT enabled systems and services. A well designed smart appliance can take the full advantage of smart meter to optimize the electricity usage. There are many household products and devices in the market that provides smart control to manage home system. Our goal in this thesis is to investigate the products, what are the services they provide and which services can be developed in future by using these devices. We called the services here as Novel Services. Additionally, we propose a framework based on the novel services provided by the smart home devices and appliances to evaluate their services. Smart Electricity Grid consists of a wide range of solutions for the electricity grids of the future. If we can utilize and integrate information communication technology with the contemporary electric grid system into smart grid that will make the production, storage, distribution and management of energy highly efficient which will eventually benefit our people, community, nation and country

Water quality assessment and trophic state classification of Tasik Ilmu, UTM

Freshwater lakes are valuable natural asset to humans for their significant functions. Unfortunately, exposure of the lakes with anthropogenic pollutants creates concern on the occurrence of enhanced eutrophication which further degrade the water quality. In this study, water quality of UTM’s lake and river was characterized according the six water quality parameter of Malysian Department of Environment Water Quality Index (DOE-WQI), total phosphorus, fecal coliform, chl-a, transparency and turbidity. The impact of the oxidation pond (OP) on the lake water quality was also investigated and meanwhile, the trophic state of UTM’s lake was evaluated using Carlson index. Water samples were collected at seven locations including river, OP and lake for three times. The samples were analyzed for DO, BOD, COD, AN, total phosphorus and fecal coliform. The study found that, the WQI calculated for the lake was ranging from 69.5 to 70 which falls under Class III indicating that the water is slightly polluted and unsuitable for recreational use with body contact. The Trophic State Index (TSI) of Tasik Ilmu revealed that mean values of TSI(SD), TSI(chl-a) and TSI (TP) were 71.6, 65.4 and 100.2 respectively which reflect the eutrophic condition of the lake water. From the removal profile of OP it was found that, the COD removal was 60%, ammonical nitrogen and fecal coliform were only ranging between 30-33%, the total phosphorus and BOD were significant with 70% of removal. The classification of river water quality before the OP effluent falls under Class II with WQI 78 while, after the effluent it falls under Class III. In conclusion, the two indices TSI and WQI used for water quality assessment process confirmed that Tasik Ilmu is in a deteriorating state and effluents from the OP contributed to its deterioration

Perceived Corporate Glass Ceiling: A Survey Research in Bangladesh Corporate Job Sectors

The study investigated the perceived corporate glass ceiling and measured the leading factors of the glass ceiling according to gender, company types, and years of work experience. 257 adult male and female employees participated in this study as respondents, and they were from four districts of Bangladesh working in banks, multinational companies, private firms, and telecommunication sectors following a convenient sampling technique. The results revealed that 60.7% of the respondents perceived a glass ceiling exists in the workplace of Bangladesh. The researchers used mean of means analysis to compare the perceptual differences regarding the leading factors of glass ceiling according to gender, company types, and working experience and found work-life conflict as the most important factor for causing the glass ceiling.&nbsp