An Architectural Framework for Collaboration of Heterogeneous Communication Devices Using WAP and Mobile Device Augmented(MDA)Gateway Integration

Within the last couple of years, the challenge of displaying collaborative multimedia information has become very important with the large diversity of communication devices such as Personal Computers, laptops, notebooks and handheld devices. The shared data and information may be presented with different views depending on the communication device used by a particular collaborator. The use of various web tools (HTML, WML etc) offers some solutions to the problem but if the target application requires more complex features such as rich multimedia data than is manageable using HTML or WML format, something else need to be done. In this paper, we propose a framework that integrates WAP and MDA Gateway to support collaboration among virtual teams and nomadic workers using heterogeneous communication devices. We then discuss an approach for augmenting mobile device small screen capabilities with surrounding large screen display device

IMPROVING THE DEPENDABILITY OF DESTINATION RECOMMENDATIONS USING INFORMATION ON SOCIAL ASPECTS

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process

An Object-Oriented Software Model for Students’ Registration and Examination Result Processing in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

The principles of Object-Oriented Software Engineering are employed to model a software application known as Undergraduate Registration and Examination Processing System (SPERU) for Nigerian Tertiary institutions. Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools are utilized in its implementation to achieve an excellent software system. SPERU is herein presented , as a typical instance of a well modelled software system, that testifies to the beauty, power and supremacy of the Object-Oriented paradigm The result of applying software predictor metrics indicates that SPERU is reliable and elegant

A Product Line Architecture for Evolving Intelligent Component Services in Tourism Information Systems

The challenge facing developers of Tourism Information Systems (TIS) is the need to evolve more intelligent and dependable tourism support services. However, these kinds of information systems have largely identical functionalities and delivers almost similar services. The systems differ mostly in the customized information contents they deliver and the scope of the tourism interest that is being promoted. The peculiarity of the e-Tourism domain makes it ideal for product line development. In this paper, a reference Tourism Product Line Architecture (TPLA) as a platform for evolving intelligent component services is proposed. The TPLA is a layered architecture of core reusable components that can be leveraged for the development of a TIS product family. The architecture is extensible and its components are formally specified as possessing intrinsic intelligent attributes and the semantic awareness that are desirable for the next generation of Tourism Information Systems

Nitrogen and weed management in transplanted tomato in the Nigerian forest-savanna transition zone

Weed infestation and inherent low soil fertility are among primary reasons for low yields of tomato in Nigeria. Field trials were carried out during the wet season of 2015 and 2016 to evaluate yield response of tomato to nitrogen (N) application and weed control methods in the forest-savanna transition zone of Abeokuta, Nigeria. Positive relationship exists between growth of weed species and increase in N application. Across the years of study, increase in N up to 90 kg/ha increased weed density by 11–25%, however, the increased N gave the transplanted tomato competitive advantage and thus enhanced weed smothering. Pre-transplant application of butachlor (50% w/v) or probaben® (metolachlor 20% w/v+prometryn 20% w/v) each at 2.0 kg a.i/ha followed by supplementary hoe weeding at 6 weeks after transplanting (WAT) significantly reduced weed density by at least 15% and increased fruit yield of tomato by at least 32%, compared to use of the pre-transplant herbicides alone, across both years of study. The greatest tomato fruit yield of 12.2 t/ha was obtained with pre-transplant application of butachlor at 2.0 kg a.i/ha followed by supplementary hoe weeding at 6 WAT, averaged for both years. In general, this study suggests that increased application of N up to 90 kg/ha, and complementary weed control by pre-transplant herbicide and hoe weeding at 6 WAT would improve yield of tomato in the forestsavanna transition zone of Nigeria

Using Constraint Reasoning on Feature Models to Populate Ecosystem-driven Cloud Services e- Marketplace

Service providers leverage cloud ecosystems and cloud e-marketplaces to increase the business value of their services and reach a wider range of service users. A cloud ecosystem enable participating services to combine with other services, along their QoS properties; while the e-marketplace provides an environment where atomic services interconnect in unprecedented ways to be traded on the marketplace platform. Noting the unprofitability, impracticality and error-prone nature of performing ad hoc service combination of atomic services, the concern addressed in this technical report is how to guide the combination of atomic services participating in an ecosystem in a seamless manner. In this technical report, we proposed the use of feature models to model the inter-relationships and constraints among the atomic services, which is transformed into a constraint satisfaction problem and off-the-shelve constraint solvers are used to determining valid combinations. The collection of valid combinations become the blueprint that guides service composition and populates the e-marketplace service directory; users can then make service selection decisions based on the list. The applicability of the approach proposed in this report is demonstrated via an example of Customer relationship management as a service ecosystem

Building an Ontology-Based Framework for Tourism Recommendation Services

The tourism product has an intangible nature in that customers cannot physically evallfate the services on offer until practically experienced. This makes having access to ;credible;"i\nd authentic information about tourism products before the actual experience very valuable. An Ontology being a formal, explicit specification of concepts of a domain provides a viable platform for the development of credible knowledge-based tourism information services. In this paper, we present an approach aimed at enabling assorted intelligent reco=endations services in tourism support systems using ontologies. A suite of tourism ontologies was developed and engaged to enable a prototypical e-tourism system with various knowledge-based reco=endation capabilities. A usability evaluation of the system yields encouraging results as a demonstration of the viability of our approach

Techno-economic analysis of electricity and heat production by co-gasification of coal, biomass and waste tyre in South Africa

Abstract: South Africa has large deposit of coal that supports about 95 % of electric power generation in the country. The fuel is fast depleting, though the current reserve may serve for the next century. However, the emissions from the coal projects huge threat to the environment. Similarly, the country has abundant solid wastes that can be co-gasified with coal to H2 enriched syngas for clean energy production. A 5 MW combined heat and power plant was studied using different coal-to-solid waste ratios including 1:1, 3:2, and 4:1 with feedstocks costing, and without feedstock costing. The lower heating value of the fuels, determined from a model equation was applied to estimate the annual feedstocks requirement and the feed rate..

Nomadic Base Station (NBS): a Software Defined Radio (SDR) based Architecture for Capacity Enhancement in Mobile Communications Networks

In this research work, the problem of congestion that leads to dropped calls at GSM cell sites and drastic reduction in network capacity is addressed. We designed a novel GSM base station architecture named Nomadic Base Station (NBS) which is based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) architecture and simulated the LNA for its receiver front-end. The NBS receiver LNA selects and amplifies GSM signal bursts operating at 900MHz and 1800MHz Radio Frequency Band. The later stages translate the Radio Frequency (RF) signal to Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal. This implements the SDR technology by digitizing the IF signal into bit streams that can be processed on generic Central Processing Unit (CPU) using custom written signal processing software