Enhanced distance-based location management of mobile communication systems using a cell coordinates approach

In managing the locations of mobile users in mobile communication systems, the distance-based strategy has been proven to have better performance than other dynamic strategies, but is difficult to implement. In this paper, a simple approach is introduced to implement the distance-based strategy by using the cell coordinates in calculating the physical distance traveled. This approach has the advantages of being independent of the size, shape, and distribution of cells, as well as catering for the direction of movement in addition to the speed of each mobile terminal. An enhanced distance-based location management strategy is proposed to dynamically adjust the size and shape of location area for each individual mobile terminal according to the current speed and direction of movement. It can reduce the location management signaling traffic of the distance-based strategy by half when mobile terminals have predictable directions of movement. Three types of location updating schemes are discussed, namely, Circular Location Area, Optimal Location Area, and Elliptic Location Area. Paging schemes using searching techniques such as expanding distance search based on the last reported location and based on the predicted location, and expanding direction search are also explored to further reduce paging signal traffic by partitioning location areas into paging areas.published_or_final_versio

Automated people counting using template matching and head search

People counting using image processing has been carried out for years. Conventional methods can count people accurately when only a few isolated people pass through a counting region in a non-crowded situation. In this paper, the emphasis is on people counting in a crowded environment and a method using head search and model matching is described. A camera is mounted vertically downwards viewing the people heads from the top. People head search can be used to locate some passengers. In addition, templates obtained from the perspective projection of the human model are used to locate and isolate individual person. Our approach cams at dealing with a congested situation where occlusion is a major problem. This paper describes a real-time, high-accuracy, automated people counting system that has been developed. Experimental results are illustrated and the effectiveness of the developed method for real-time application is verified.published_or_final_versio

The operation of the commerce festival as an activity approach to learning

The main purpose of this study was to investigate changes in skills, motivation to learn and construction of knowledge in activity learning with business subjects through the operation of a Commerce Festival in a secondary school in Hong Kong. The results of this study clearly indicate the students’ positive perceptions of skills improvement. Holding the Commerce Festival by conducting activity learning in business subjects created a positive atmosphere, which enhanced students’ motivation to learn and develop generic skills. Nonetheless, there are areas in the activity learning approach that need improvement, such as task structure, students’ readiness for activity learning and teachers’ readiness for a paradigm shift in teaching practice.published_or_final_versio

A patient with non-Q wave acute inferior myocardial infarction

The occurrences of atrioventricular (AV) nodal blockade or right ventricular (RV) infarction in acute inferior myocardial infarction (MI) had been well recognised and signified a proximal right coronary artery (RCA) occlusion. However, they did not point out the extent of the RCA territory involved. We recently managed a patient with incomplete inferior MI in which ECG on presentation already showed (he infarct-related RCA as the dominant vessel having proximal occlusion. Various aggressive treatments have been taken subsequently.published_or_final_versio

Predicting Auction Price of Vehicle License Plate with Deep Residual Learning

Due to superstition, license plates with desirable combinations of characters are highly sought after in China, fetching prices that can reach into the millions in government-held auctions. Despite the high stakes involved, there has been essentially no attempt to provide price estimates for license plates. We present an end-to-end neural network model that simultaneously predict the auction price, gives the distribution of prices and produces latent feature vectors. While both types of neural network architectures we consider outperform simpler machine learning methods, convolutional networks outperform recurrent networks for comparable training time or model complexity. The resulting model powers our online price estimator and search engine

Energy loss of monoenergetic positrons passing through a thin carbon foil

In this paper, the measurements of energy loss and energy loss straggling for 1-10 keV monoenergetic positrons passing through thin carbon foils of different thicknesses ranging from 1.0 to 5.0 μg/cm 2 are presented. The stopping power dE/dx and positron transmission coefficient as a function of incident positron energy and foil thickness have also been investigated. Particularly, the experimental results obtained are compared with those from Monte Carlo simulation and theory with a view to providing a way to determine the actual thickness of a carbon foil. The ratio of the energy straggling to the foil thickness seems to have a linear relation with the beam energy. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.postprin

PCR amplification of alleles at locus D17S5: population genetic study in Hong Kong Chinese and detection of allelic loss in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract no. 2184published_or_final_versio

Emission mechanism of GeV-quiet soft gamma-ray pulsars: a case for peculiar geometry?

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High-energy emission of the first millisecond pulsar

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A tunable common mode inductor with an auxiliary winding network

Paper 1593Track no. 5 - Devices and ComponentsIn conventional switching converter, the parasitic capacitance between switching circuit and ground introduces common mode (CM) noise problem. A CM inductor is inserted in the power feeding paths to produce a high impedance to attenuate the CM noise. However, this parasitic capacitance and the CM inductor create low-frequency resonance near the switching frequency and its harmonics. Thus, the filtering performance is diminished. Increasing the CM inductance to shift the resonant frequency to low-frequency range is one of the methods to tackle this problem. However, this approach leads to increase the power losses (both core and winding losses) of the CM inductor reducing the efficiency of the converter. In this paper, a tunable CM inductor with a small-space auxiliary winding is proposed. The auxiliary winding can be connected to a passive network to alter the frequency response of the CM inductor without affecting the original inductance. As a result, the influence of the low-frequency resonance can be mitigated. A proof-of-concept protytpe is constructed and its performance is experimentally measured. Results show that the proposed tunable CM inductor operates as theoretically anticipated. © IEEE.published_or_final_versio