Learning Points and Routes to Recommend Trajectories

The problem of recommending tours to travellers is an important and broadly studied area. Suggested solutions include various approaches of points-of-interest (POI) recommendation and route planning. We consider the task of recommending a sequence of POIs, that simultaneously uses information about POIs and routes. Our approach unifies the treatment of various sources of information by representing them as features in machine learning algorithms, enabling us to learn from past behaviour. Information about POIs are used to learn a POI ranking model that accounts for the start and end points of tours. Data about previous trajectories are used for learning transition patterns between POIs that enable us to recommend probable routes. In addition, a probabilistic model is proposed to combine the results of POI ranking and the POI to POI transitions. We propose a new F$_1$ score on pairs of POIs that capture the order of visits. Empirical results show that our approach improves on recent methods, and demonstrate that combining points and routes enables better trajectory recommendations

Modelling and evaluation of aircraft contrails for 4-dimensional trajectory optimisation

Contrails and aircraft-induced cirrus clouds are reputed being the largest components of aviation-induced global warming, even greater than carbon dioxide (CO2) exhaust emissions by aircraft. This article presents a contrail model algorithm specifically developed to be integrated within a multi-objective flight trajectory optimization software framework. The purpose of the algorithm is to supply to the optimizer a measure of the estimated radiative forcing from the contrails generated by the aircraft while flying a specific trajectory. In order to determine the precise measure, a comprehensive model is employed exploiting the Schmidt-Appleman criterion and ice-supersaturation regions. Additional parameters such as the solar zenith angle, contrail lifetime and spread are also considered. The optimization of flight trajectories encompassing such contrail model allows for selective avoidance of the positive radiative forcing conditions, such as only avoiding persistent contrails, or contrails which lead to negative radiative forcing. The model assesses the radiative forcing associated with 4-Dimensional (4D) trajectories in a 4D weather field, encompassing both the local time-of-day and the contrail lifetime. Some preliminary algorithm validation activities are presented, including a simulation case study involving a medium-range domestic flight of a turbofan aircraft from Melbourne to Brisbane

Oral cancer secretome: Identification of cancer-associated proteins

This study aims to identify cancer-associated proteins in the secretome of oral cancer cell lines. We have successfully established four primary cell cultures of normal cells with a limited lifespan without human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) immortalization. The secretome of these primary cell cultures were compared with that of oral cancer cell lines using 2DE. Thirty five protein spots were found to have changed in abundance. Unambiguous identification of these proteins was achieved by MALDI TOF/TOF. In silico analysis predicted that 24 of these proteins were secreted via classical or nonclassical mechanisms. The mRNA expression of six genes was found to correlate with the corresponding protein abundance. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) core analysis revealed that the identified proteins were relevant in, and related to, cancer development with likely involvements in tumor growth, metastasis, hyperproliferation, tumorigenesis, neoplasia, hyperplasia, and cell transformation. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that a comparative study of the secretome of cancer versus normal cell lines can be used to identify cancer-associated proteins.Article Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/elps.201300126/abstrac

Daylight performance through different types of glazing in the tropics

Having glazing on buildings will allow natural daylighting in a room. There are four types of glazing which are commonly used in the market today: Clear, light green, bronze and black float glass where tinted glazing will provide shading to the interior. These four glass are being tested using Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) software with different proportion to investigate the influence of arrangements of glazing to permit daylight and to serve as shading device. There are 40 combinations of different glazing proportion tested in the simulation. The combination of 75 % clear float glass on a green float glass base gives the highest lux value at a point 90cm from the opening whereas the lowest value is exhibited through a 25% green float glass with a black float glass base of 75%. The finding shows that glazing with lower Visual Light Transmittance as the base will give a lower Daylight Factor compared to using it on top of the other glazing. Furthermore, although there is a large contrast of Daylight Factor between the 0.9m and 3.6m depth, several combination of glazing achieved the requirement of Malaysian Standard 1525 for daylighting in office

Tractable Pathfinding for the Stochastic On-Time Arrival Problem

We present a new and more efficient technique for computing the route that maximizes the probability of on-time arrival in stochastic networks, also known as the path-based stochastic on-time arrival (SOTA) problem. Our primary contribution is a pathfinding algorithm that uses the solution to the policy-based SOTA problem---which is of pseudo-polynomial-time complexity in the time budget of the journey---as a search heuristic for the optimal path. In particular, we show that this heuristic can be exceptionally efficient in practice, effectively making it possible to solve the path-based SOTA problem as quickly as the policy-based SOTA problem. Our secondary contribution is the extension of policy-based preprocessing to path-based preprocessing for the SOTA problem. In the process, we also introduce Arc-Potentials, a more efficient generalization of Stochastic Arc-Flags that can be used for both policy- and path-based SOTA. After developing the pathfinding and preprocessing algorithms, we evaluate their performance on two different real-world networks. To the best of our knowledge, these techniques provide the most efficient computation strategy for the path-based SOTA problem for general probability distributions, both with and without preprocessing.Comment: Submission accepted by the International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms 2016 and published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series on June 1, 2016. Includes typographical corrections and modifications to pre-processing made after the initial submission to SODA'15 (July 7, 2014

A scheme for symmetrization verification

We propose a scheme for symmetrization verification in two-particle systems, based on one-particle detection and state determination. In contrast to previous proposals, it does not follow a Hong-Ou-Mandel-type approach. Moreover, the technique can be used to generate superposition states of single particles

Ultrafast Photoinduced Formation of Metallic State in a Perovskite-type Manganite with Short Range Charge and Orbital Order

Femtosecond reflection spectroscopy was performed on a perovskite-type manganite, Gd0.55Sr0.45MnO3, with the short-range charge and orbital order (CO/OO). Immediately after the photoirradiation, a large increase of the reflectivity was detected in the mid-infrared region. The optical conductivity spectrum under photoirradiation obtained from the Kramers-Kronig analyses of the reflectivity changes demonstrates a formation of a metallic state. This suggests that ferromagnetic spin arrangements occur within the time resolution (ca. 200 fs) through the double exchange interaction, resulting in an ultrafast CO/OO to FM switching.Comment: 4 figure