3G migration in Pakistan

The telecommunication industry in Pakistan has come a long way since the country\u27s independence in 1947. The initial era could be fairly termed as the PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) monopoly, for it was the sole provider of all telecommunication services across the country. It was not until four decades later that the region embarked into the new world of wireless communication, hence ending the decades old PTCL monopoly. By the end of the late 1990\u27s, government support and international investment in the region opened new doors to innovation and better quality, low cost, healthy competition. Wireless licenses for the private sector in the telecommunication industry triggered a promising chain of events that resulted in a drastic change in the telecommunication infrastructure and service profile. The newly introduced wireless (GSM) technology received enormous support from all stakeholders (consumers, regulatory body, and market) and caused a vital boost in Pakistan\u27s economy. Numerous tangential elements had triggered this vital move in the history of telecommunications in Pakistan. Entrepreneurs intended to test the idea of global joint ventures in the East and hence the idea of international business became a reality. The technology had proven to be a great success in the West, while Pakistan\u27s telecom consumer had lived under the shadow of PTCL dominance for decades and needed more flexibility. At last the world was moving from wired to wireless! Analysts termed this move as the beginning of a new era. The investors, telecommunication businesses, and Pakistani treasury prospered. It was a win-win situation for all involved. The learning curve was steep for both operators and consumers but certainly improved over time. In essence, the principle of deploying the right technology in the right market at the right time led to this remarkable success. The industry today stands on the brink of a similar crossroads via transition from second generation to something beyond. With the partial success of 3G in Europe and the USA, the government has announced the release of three 3G licenses by mid 2009. This decision is not yet fully supported by all but still initiated parallel efforts by the operators and the vendors to integrate this next move into their existing infrastructure

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

Example Based Caricature Synthesis

The likeness of a caricature to the original face image is an essential and often overlooked part of caricature production. In this paper we present an example based caricature synthesis technique, consisting of shape exaggeration, relationship exaggeration, and optimization for likeness. Rather than relying on a large training set of caricature face pairs, our shape exaggeration step is based on only one or a small number of examples of facial features. The relationship exaggeration step introduces two definitions which facilitate global facial feature synthesis. The first is the T-Shape rule, which describes the relative relationship between the facial elements in an intuitive manner. The second is the so called proportions, which characterizes the facial features in a proportion form. Finally we introduce a similarity metric as the likeness metric based on the Modified Hausdorff Distance (MHD) which allows us to optimize the configuration of facial elements, maximizing likeness while satisfying a number of constraints. The effectiveness of our algorithm is demonstrated with experimental results

Applied Metaheuristic Computing

For decades, Applied Metaheuristic Computing (AMC) has been a prevailing optimization technique for tackling perplexing engineering and business problems, such as scheduling, routing, ordering, bin packing, assignment, facility layout planning, among others. This is partly because the classic exact methods are constrained with prior assumptions, and partly due to the heuristics being problem-dependent and lacking generalization. AMC, on the contrary, guides the course of low-level heuristics to search beyond the local optimality, which impairs the capability of traditional computation methods. This topic series has collected quality papers proposing cutting-edge methodology and innovative applications which drive the advances of AMC

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2012

Proceedings of the 6th Annual Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Student Capstone Conference held on April 19, 2012 at VMASC in Suffolk, Virginia

Assessment of plastics in the National Trust: a case study at Mr Straw's House

The National Trust is a charity that cares for over 300 publically accessible historic buildings and their contents across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There have been few previous studies on preservation of plastics within National Trust collections, which form a significant part of the more modern collections of objects. This paper describes the design of an assessment system which was successfully trialled at Mr Straws House, a National Trust property in Worksop, UK. This system can now be used for future plastic surveys at other National Trust properties. In addition, the survey gave valuable information about the state of the collection, demonstrating that the plastics that are deteriorating are those that are known to be vulnerable, namely cellulose nitrate/acetate, PVC and rubber. Verifying this knowledge of the most vulnerable plastics enables us to recommend to properties across National Trust that these types should be seen as a priority for correct storage and in-depth recording