Using a Machine Learning Approach to Model a Chatbot for Ceylon Electricity Board Website

Customer support is one of the main aspects of the user experience for online services. However, the rise of natural language processing techniques, the industry is looking at automated chatbot solutions to provide quality services to an ever-growing user base. In Sri Lanka, Ceylon Electricity Board website is one of the largest websites that customers use always to get information about electricity services. Hence, a chatbot system is very essential in CEB website. This paper presents a study about implementing and evaluating of a chatbot model for CEB website. This study implements virtual conversation agent based on deep learning algorithm which is multilayer perceptron neural network and a special text dataset for conversations about CEB services. The conversation agent model is made by utilizing the natural language processing techniques to facilitate the processing of user messages. The output of this research is the response from the chatbot and identify the best testing method to get highest accuracy for chatbot model. The chatbot model achieves the highest accuracy with the number of epochs set to 2000 and the learning rate value of 0.01 on response context data training so that it gets 78.8% accuracy. Keywords: Natural language processing, chatbot, deep learning, multilayer perceptron neural network, Monte Carlo cross validation, k-fold cross validatio

Measuring Heuristic Accuracy on the Performance of Search Algorithms in Solving 8-Puzzle Problems

The goal of this paper is to examine the effect of heuristic accuracy on the performance of search algorithms in solving 8-puzzle problems. The 8-puzzle is a popular benchmark search problem in Artificial Intelligence, and numerous search strategies have been developed to solve it. This research evaluates the performance of search algorithms using different heuristics to determine the optimal level of heuristic accuracy for solving 8-puzzle problems. Several search algorithms, including uniform cost search and A* search, were implemented and tested using different heuristics. Manhattan and Euclidean distances were chosen as heuristics for A* algorithm. Heuristics play a crucial role in guiding these algorithms towards the solution, and their accuracy can greatly impact the performance of the search. Results revealed that reduction attained in both time and space complexity by A* search with Manhattan heuristic is over 99.1% for the average case, while the reduction in the effective branching factor is over 21.1%. These results from the experiments provide insights into the trade-off between heuristic accuracy and search efficiency, and contribute to a better understanding of the behavior of search algorithms in complex problem

Comparison of HTN Planning and OR-based Approaches for Solving Problems in Logistics Domains

Logistics is a day-to-day real-life situation leading to a very large domain. Among the various kinds of logistics problems we encounter are those pertaining to transportation, product inventories and location. Traditionally, Operations Research (OR) techniques are used most often and are popular candidates for solving logistics problems. With the development of Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning algorithms, there has been a recent trend to use HTN planners to address planning problems in general. It is also envisaged that HTN planners could solve logistics problems; yet, no proof or evidence could be found as to whether this approach is more efficient or suitable to handle logistics problems. In this paper, a comparison is done to ascertain whether HTN planning could be more efficient than OR-based approaches in solving logistics problems. Results revealed that HTN planning outperforms the traditional OR-based approach, especially in solving moderate-sized and more difficult harder problems. Furthermore, HTN planning is capable of solving very large scale problems, whereas OR based approach was unable to handle them within the same computational resource limitations.Keywords: Logistics, Operations research, Hierarchical task network, Transportation simplex method, HyperTensio

Reduction of Reactive Power Waste of Inductive Electrical Appliances using Power Factor Correction

Electricity is the primary source of power in most countries including Sri Lanka, and saving or minimising the waste of it has become crucial in facing the world power crisis. Electrical power is wasted in various ways including reactive power waste due to induction and capacitance of appliances, and standby power loss. These two contribute most to the waste. This paper focuses on reducing the reactive power waste of inductive electrical appliances commonly used in home and office by increasing the power factor. An attempt was made to reduce the power waste of inductive electrical appliances by connecting a capacitor bank with a variable capacitance in parallel with the appliance. Optimal capacitance and the power factor are determined using the capacitor bank. Results indicate about 30 percent of power saving could be achieved for fluorescent tube lamps using a power factor correction. A maximum power factor of 0.93 is achieved at the capacitance value of 2.99 F. It is not possible, by this method, to increase the power factor of more capacitive equipment such as CFL bulbs and ceiling fans. In this case, power minimisation could be tried connecting inductors in parallel with the equipment. Power factor and power consumption of home electrical appliances were measured for advising the general public of high power consuming equipment, especially in stand-by mode. To attain a further reduction of power waste it is proposed to measure inductance, capacitance and resistance of appliances using Hendry, Farad and Ohm meter. Total impedance can then be calculated and the power waste could be minimised using appropriatecapacitors and/or inductors.Keywords: reactive power, power factor, power waste, reactive power waste, power minimisatio

Archaeological signatures of landscape and settlement change on the Isle of Harris

Between 2004 and 2011, a programme of archaeological investigation by the University of Birmingham on the Isle of Harris, a distinctive island forming part of the Western Isles of Scotland, has allowed the archaeological remains of this enigmatic place to be further characterised and understood. Despite intensive archaeological interest in the archipelago for a number of decades, the Isle of Harris has been overlooked and only now are we beginning to identify the archaeological resource and make comparisons to the wealth of published data from islands such as the Uists, Barra and Lewis. This paper highlights some generic overall patterns of archaeological signatures on the Isle which has been identified through a range of archaeological methods including field walking, intrusive excavation, aerial reconnaissance, geophysical and topographical survey, and documentary research. Several key case studies will be introduced including upland shieling complexes and mulitperiod settlement sites on the west coast machair systems. The purpose of the paper is not to present a gazetteer of the results of the work to date, but to highlight some of the key findings with a view to demonstrating that the Isle of Harris is directly comparable with the archaeologically rich landscapes of the other islands

Characterizing the Metabolic Intensity and Cardiovascular Demands of Walking Football in Southeast Asian Women

Given that the recent rise in obesity rates throughout Southeast Asia is disproportionately driven by women, part of the regional solution may be to encourage more habitual physical activity within this population. Taking advantage of the regional popularity of walking football, this study sought to characterize the cardiovascular demands and metabolic intensity of Southeast Asian women competing in walking football matches to determine the sports’ suitability for promoting physical health. It was hypothesized that both cardiovascular and metabolic intensity measures (≥65% HR% and ≥3.0 METs, respectively) would meet or exceed established thresholds for improving fitness and health. Methods: Women’s teams from Singapore (Mean±SD: 42±11 yrs age; 29.2±7.0 kg/m2 BMI; n=14) and Malaysia (40±10 yrs age; 32.9±5.7 kg/m2 BMI; n=8) competed in two successive matches within a single day during which measures of heart rate (HR) and GPS (from portable handheld device) were recorded for each player, while relative HR was computed as a percent of each player’s age-predicted maximal HR (HR%, %). The GPS data were later converted to walking distance and metabolic intensity (i.e., metabolic equivalents, or METs). One-sample t-tests at the 0.05 alpha level were used to compare variables to their respective thresholds. Results: Both Malaysian and Singaporean teams had mean relative HRs (91-95% of HRMAX [P=0.008] versus 77-80% of HRMAX [P<0.001], respectively) that exceeded the 65% threshold for improving cardiovascular fitness. Both teams also maintained an average metabolic intensity that was statistically similar to the 3.0 MET threshold that decreases one risk for non-communicable diseases (3.2±0.9 METs [P=0.0510] versus (3.3±1.0 METs [P=0.288], respectively), and both teams walked an average of 2.2-2.4 kms/match. Conclusions: These results support the idea that competitive walking football is of sufficient intensity to promote positive changes in both cardiovascular and metabolic fitness in this population of Southeast Asian women

Photoionization of H₂ using the molecular R-matrix with time approach

We present results of the first calculations using the variational ab initio molecular R-matrix with time approach. We have calculated two and four-photon ionization cross sections for H2 and studied the effects of electron correlation and choice of the Gaussian atomic basis sets. Our results are compared with earlier calculations

One Health approach to an incidental surgical finding of Dioctophyme renale in a dog in the city of Seropédica, RJ, Brazil: case report

ABSTRACT Zoonotic diseases pose a significant challenge to global healthcare systems, particularly in underdeveloped nations. The concept of One Health emerges as an essential approach in controlling and preventing these zoonoses. This study documents the incidental surgical finding of a Dioctophyme renale specimen found in the abdominal cavity of a dog in the city of Seropédica, RJ, Brazil. We suspect that the actual prevalence in the region to be underestimated. Its geographical and socioeconomic characteristics indicate its potential to be an endemic zone, thus raising concerns for both animal and human health, as humans can also be subject to accidental infection. This report endeavors to reinforce the evidence that supports the assessment of Seropédica as being a potentially endemic region for dioctophymosis

Atomic and molecular suite of R-matrix codes for ultrafast dynamics in strong laser fields and electron/positron scattering

We describe and illustrate a number of recent developments of the atomic and molecular ab initio R-matrix suites for both time-dependent calculations of ultrafast laser-induced dynamics and time-independentcalculations of photoionization and electron scattering. © 2019 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Atomic and molecular suite of R-matrix codes for ultrafast dynamics in strong laser fields and electron/positron scattering

Synopsis: We describe and illustrate a number of recent developments of the atomic and molecular ab initio R-matrix suites for both time-dependent calculations of ultrafast laser-induced dynamics and time-independent calculations of photoionization and electron scattering