Intelligent Integrated Management for Telecommunication Networks

As the size of communication networks keeps on growing, faster connections, cooperating technologies and the divergence of equipment and data communications, the management of the resulting networks gets additional important and time-critical. More advanced tools are needed to support this activity. In this article we describe the design and implementation of a management platform using Artificial Intelligent reasoning technique. For this goal we make use of an expert system. This study focuses on an intelligent framework and a language for formalizing knowledge management descriptions and combining them with existing OSI management model. We propose a new paradigm where the intelligent network management is integrated into the conceptual repository of management information called Managed Information Base (MIB). This paper outlines the development of an expert system prototype based in our propose GDMO+ standard and describes the most important facets, advantages and drawbacks that were found after prototyping our proposal

An Improved Stock Price Prediction using Hybrid Market Indicators

In this paper the effect of hybrid market indicators is examined for an improved stock price prediction. The hybrid market indicators consist of technical, fundamental and expert opinion variables as input to artificial neural networks model. The empirical results obtained with published stock data of Dell and Nokia obtained from New York Stock Exchange shows that the proposed model can be effective to improve accuracy of stock price prediction

The South African Regulatory System: Past, Present, and Future

The drive for improved regulatory systems and the establishment of a more effective regulatory framework in South Africa has been evident for the past two decades but despite political intentions and legislative revisions success has been limited to date. Efforts to address the increasing volume of applications that have been received have to date failed and resources have been stretched to capacity resulting in the development of a significant backlog and extended timelines for product registration. The promulgation of the recently amended Medicines and Related Substance Act of 1965 triggered the establishment of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) as a separate juristic person outside of the National Department of Health to replace the former medicine regulatory authority the Medicines Control Council (MCC). The aim of this review is to provide the historical context supporting the new regulatory environment in South Africa and the transition from the MCC to SAHPRA. Key recommendations to SAHPRA to ensure the full potential of the new regulatory environment in South Africa include: establishing a quality management system to safeguard accountability, consistency and transparency and to streamline the implementation of good review practices including quality decisionmaking practices and benefit-risk assessment; the measurement and monitoring of regulatory performance, targets for overall approval time and key review milestones to instill a culture of accurate metrics collection and measurement of key performance indicators and their continuous improvement and the employment of a risk-based approach to the evaluation of medical products and codify the use of facilitated regulatory pathways in policy and culture. The application of a risk-based approach to regulatory review commensurate with a product’s risk to patients will facilitate the application of increased resources for pharmacovigilance activities and to support the reliance and recognition of reference agencies.Peer reviewe

Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches

Open-Source Telemedicine Platform for Wireless Medical Video Communication

An m-health system for real-time wireless communication of medical video based on open-source software is presented. The objective is to deliver a low-cost telemedicine platform which will allow for reliable remote diagnosis m-health applications such as emergency incidents, mass population screening, and medical education purposes. The performance of the proposed system is demonstrated using five atherosclerotic plaque ultrasound videos. The videos are encoded at the clinically acquired resolution, in addition to lower, QCIF, and CIF resolutions, at different bitrates, and four different encoding structures. Commercially available wireless local area network (WLAN) and 3.5G high-speed packet access (HSPA) wireless channels are used to validate the developed platform. Objective video quality assessment is based on PSNR ratings, following calibration using the variable frame delay (VFD) algorithm that removes temporal mismatch between original and received videos. Clinical evaluation is based on atherosclerotic plaque ultrasound video assessment protocol. Experimental results show that adequate diagnostic quality wireless medical video communications are realized using the designed telemedicine platform. HSPA cellular networks provide for ultrasound video transmission at the acquired resolution, while VFD algorithm utilization bridges objective and subjective ratings

Modeling Financial Time Series with Artificial Neural Networks

Financial time series convey the decisions and actions of a population of human actors over time. Econometric and regressive models have been developed in the past decades for analyzing these time series. More recently, biologically inspired artificial neural network models have been shown to overcome some of the main challenges of traditional techniques by better exploiting the non-linear, non-stationary, and oscillatory nature of noisy, chaotic human interactions. This review paper explores the options, benefits, and weaknesses of the various forms of artificial neural networks as compared with regression techniques in the field of financial time series analysis.CELEST, a National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center (SBE-0354378); SyNAPSE program of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (HR001109-03-0001