A technology transfer cocktail - focussing on the internet & e-commerce

Content Summary The Players in Technology Creation & Exploitation Micro-Engineering & manufacturing Micro-manufacture and the Internet Image Processing & Photonics Time Compression and Rapid Prototyping Internet Data Comms. & e-commerc

Coherent optical implementations of the fast Fourier transform and their comparison to the optical implementation of the quantum Fourier transform

Optical structures to implement the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms for discretely sampled data sets are considered. In particular, the decomposition of the FFT algorithm into the basic Butterfly operations is described, as this allows the algorithm to be fully implemented by the successive coherent addition and subtraction of two wavefronts (the subtraction being performed after one has been appropriately phase shifted), so facilitating a simple and robust hardware implementation based on waveguided hybrid devices as employed in coherent optical detection modules. Further, a comparison is made to the optical structures proposed for the optical implementation of the quantum Fourier transform and they are shown to be very similar

Delivery of broadband services to SubSaharan Africa via Nigerian communications satellite

Africa is the least wired continent in the world in terms of robust telecommunications infrastructure and systems to cater for its more than one billion people. African nations are mostly still in the early stages of Information Communications Technology (ICT) development as verified by the relatively low ICT Development Index (IDI) values of all countries in the African region. In developing nations, mobile broadband subscriptions and penetration between 2000-2009 was increasingly more popular than fixed broadband subscriptions. To achieve the goal of universal access, with rapid implementation of ICT infrastructure to complement the sparsely distributed terrestrial networks in the hinterlands and leveraging the adequate submarine cables along the African coastline, African nations and their stakeholders are promoting and implementing Communication Satellite systems, particularly in Nigeria, to help bridge the digital hiatus. This paper examines the effectiveness of communication satellites in delivering broadband-based services

Natural control of the mosquito population via Odonata and Toxorhynchites

The main impact of mosquito pests is the transmission of many dangerous diseases and death. Hence, the reduction of their population by the use of a natural control method is a primary objective of this research. This mosquito reduction method utilises different species of predators (Odonata) and (Toxorhynchites) to substantially improve the environment. The frequency of capturing the pest mosquitoes by the predators is determined using a Pascal distribution, whilst insect mortality is modelled using a Weibull distribution. The results from the model show that by using insect predators, a significant reduction of the mosquito population is possible in less than eighty days

Comparison of spatial domain optimal trade-off maximum average correlation height (OT-MACH) filter with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) using images with poor contrast and large illumination gradient

A spatial domain optimal trade-off Maximum Average Correlation Height (OT-MACH) filter has been previously developed and shown to have advantages over frequency domain implementations in that it can be made locally adaptive to spatial variations in the input image background clutter and normalised for local intensity changes. In this paper we compare the performance of the spatial domain (SPOT-MACH) filter to the widely applied data driven technique known as the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). The SPOT-MACH filter is shown to provide more robust recognition performance than the SIFT technique for demanding images such as scenes in which there are large illumination gradients. The SIFT method depends on reliable local edge-based feature detection over large regions of the image plane which is compromised in some of the demanding images we examined for this work. The disadvantage of the SPOTMACH filter is its numerically intensive nature since it is template based and is implemented in the spatial domain. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only

A review of global navigation satellite and augmentation systems

The importance and application of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) has never been greater; there is increasing demand for both commercial and government projects; indeed, owning and operating a GNSS facility has become a matter of national esteem. This article reviews some of the history that led up to the USA building its benchmark Global Positioning System (GPS) exploiting electromagnetic waves and reviews the progress being made by other nations in constructing accurate navigation positioning systems

Enhanced recurrent neural network for short-term wind farm power output prediction

Scientists, investors and policy makers have become aware of the importance of providing near accurate spatial estimates of renewable energies. This is why current studies show improvements in methodologies to provide more precise energy predictions. Wind energy is tied to weather patterns, which are irregular, especially in climates with erratic weather patterns. This can lead to errors in the predicted potentials. Therefore, recurrent neural networks (RNN) are exploited for enhanced wind-farm power output prediction. A model involving a combination of RNN regularization methods using dropout and long short-term memory (LSTM) is presented. In this model, the regularization scheme modifies and adapts to the stochastic nature of wind and is optimised for the wind farm power output (WFPO) prediction. This algorithm implements a dropout method to suit non-deterministic wind speed by applying LSTM to prevent RNN from overfitting. A demonstration for accuracy using the proposed method is performed on a 14-turbines wind farm. The model out performs the ARIMA model with up to 80% accuracy

Understanding adoption of big data analytics in China: from organizational users perspective

Big data is a recent technology employed by companies to gain a competitive advantage. The investment of big data technologies in the USA was estimated at more than 30 billion USD in 2016. However, the investment of big data technologies in China was relatively small in 2016. Grounded in the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, this study identifies the main factors affecting the organizational adoption of big data in China. The results can provide useful indicators for industries to utilize big data for a more productive business

The Mapping between Business E-Marketing Mix and Internet Consumers’ Decision-Making Styles in E-Commerce

As a result of the emergence of E-Commerce, emarketing mix has been widely adopted by most businesses and companies. Currently, the tools of e-marketing mix are provided by the company web site so that the customers can decide whether the company portfolio of products and/or services suits their needs. If we can understand the psychological factors of customer behavior, businesses can know which customers are suitable. This paper presents the relationship between e-marketing mix of particular businesses and psychological factors of customer behavior in order to provide an easier way for both businesses and customers to find their target needs

Adoption of Near Field Communication in the hotel industry based on risk perspectives and individual characteristics

The emergence of the mobile phone has created great opportunities for businesses, especially those providing services to customers. Hotels are very important to a country as they provide accommodation to travelers. Better services attract more hotel customers. With the advent of NFC, a wireless mobile technology, hotel customers can use NFC to get hotel services efficiently. Previous studies found that risk and users' individual characteristics are very important in analyzing the adoption of Internet communication technologies. This paper presents a quantitative study on hotel customers' adoption of Near Field Communications (NFC) based on six dimensions of risk perspectives and individual characteristics. The results can provide useful indicators for the hotel industry to utilize NFC for a more productive business