Alert-BDI: BDI Model with Adaptive Alertness through Situational Awareness

In this paper, we address the problems faced by a group of agents that possess situational awareness, but lack a security mechanism, by the introduction of a adaptive risk management system. The Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) architecture lacks a framework that would facilitate an adaptive risk management system that uses the situational awareness of the agents. We extend the BDI architecture with the concept of adaptive alertness. Agents can modify their level of alertness by monitoring the risks faced by them and by their peers. Alert-BDI enables the agents to detect and assess the risks faced by them in an efficient manner, thereby increasing operational efficiency and resistance against attacks.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to ICACCI 2013, Mysore, Indi

Non-Destructive Discrimination of arbitrary set of orthogonal quantum states by NMR using Quantum Phase Estimation

An algorithm based on quantum phase estimation, which discriminates quantum states nondestructively within a set of arbitrary orthogonal states, is described and experimentally verified by a NMR quantum information processor. The procedure is scalable and can be applied to any set of orthogonal states. Scalability is demonstrated through Matlab simulation

Singlet state creation and Universal quantum computation in NMR using Genetic Algorithm

Experimental implementation of a quantum algorithm requires unitary operator decomposition. Here we treat the unitary operator decomposition as an optimization problem and use Genetic Algorithm, a global optimization method inspired by nature's evolutionary process for operator decomposition. As an application, we apply this to NMR Quantum Information Processing and find a probabilistic way of doing universal quantum computation using global hard pulses. We also demonstrate efficient creation of singlet state (as a special case of Bell state) directly from thermal equilibrium using an optimum sequence of pulses

Training and development techniques for improving organizational performance for Ghanian firms

Includes bibliographical references

Missing Data in Quantitative Social Research

Almost invariably, the data available to the social scientist display one or more characteristics of missing information. Even though reasons for non response are varied, most frequently, they reflect the unwillingness of respondents to provide information on undesirable social behaviours and on issues considered as private. Besides these, sloppy research designs often leads to ambiguous and poorly structured survey questions which provide a recipe for low response. Longitudinal surveys also suffer from incompleteness due to attrition resulting from death and emigration, while in retrospective surveys, memory effect might be a major source of non-response. While there is no consensus among methodologists on the single most effective technique of handling missing information, certain pertinent questions need to be addressed: should we completely ignore the missing data and proceed with the analysis? What are the implicit assumptions if one adopts such an approach and how unbiased will our estimates be? This paper reviews a variety of methods of handling missing information

Residential Location and Intra City Mobility in an African City: Some Empirical Observations among Migrants in Metropolitan Accra, Ghana

Although many facets of the migration phenomena in sub-Saharan Africa have been studied extensively, there is a paucity of research on residential mobility behavior of migrants. This exploratory study examines the residential mobility in Accra, Ghana, using a retrospective survey of randomly selected migrant households. To examine the direction of moves, Accra was delineated into three major zones: the inner city, former periphery and recent periphery. The results demonstrate that unlike studies elsewhere, the inner zone of Accra does not serve as the major port of entry for migrants. While the former periphery served as the zone of entry for the majority of the migrants in the past, the recent periphery has become the predominant entry point in recent years, and has also become the zone to which most home owners eventually move. This change in the zone of entry over time has been explained through a ‘push-pull’ framework. Also, there is a significant association between ethnicity and area of initial residence. With the exception of the Akans, there is a marked concentration of ethnic groups in certain sectors of the city. For instance, almost two thirds of the Mole-Dagbanis initially settled in the former periphery. Using a multinomial logit model to estimate the direction of residential movement, it was found that although the majority of movements were intra-sectoral, different trajectories were observed for renters and home owners. The policy implications of the findings and directions for further research are discussed