Towards a Scalable Hardware/Software Co-Design Platform for Real-time Pedestrian Tracking Based on a ZYNQ-7000 Device

Currently, most designers face a daunting task to research different design flows and learn the intricacies of specific software from various manufacturers in hardware/software co-design. An urgent need of creating a scalable hardware/software co-design platform has become a key strategic element for developing hardware/software integrated systems. In this paper, we propose a new design flow for building a scalable co-design platform on FPGA-based system-on-chip. We employ an integrated approach to implement a histogram oriented gradients (HOG) and a support vector machine (SVM) classification on a programmable device for pedestrian tracking. Not only was hardware resource analysis reported, but the precision and success rates of pedestrian tracking on nine open access image data sets are also analysed. Finally, our proposed design flow can be used for any real-time image processingrelated products on programmable ZYNQ-based embedded systems, which benefits from a reduced design time and provide a scalable solution for embedded image processing products

A Review of Agent Emotion Architectures

This paper attempts to highlight some of the research that has been conducted worldwide in the area of computational models of emotions, with a particular emphasis on agent emotions suitable for simulations and games. The intended outcome is to both review some of the more prominent research in the field, and to also ascertain the level of formal psychology that may underpin such work with a view to proposing that there is scope for an architecture built from the ground up, that arises from non-conflicting theories of emotion

Guidelines for Cloud Computing architecture: development process

Cloud computing (CC) has received significant attention from different types of businesses and Industries and emerged as a new utility for businesses activities. The philosophy behind CC shows a great potential to transform a major part of the IT industry, making computing environment and resources even more attractive as a cost-effective service and changing the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Resulting day by day more small and medium and large enterprise are adopting different types of CC services. However, strong market competitive environment for converting existing IT services to CC environment imposed different types of challenges for the CC architect. Development of CC architect environment in any organisation is a very complex process and success depends on its proper architecture design and development according to business requirements. The aim of this paper identifies the major type of key factors from literature and provides different guidelines for organisations to support the CC architecture development process. Finally, the different types of CC services generally referred to as CC architect are explained how they all work. This paper will be helpful and provides certain guidance on situations where specific types of CC services are particularly not the best option for any organization

A systematic review of cloud computing adoption by organisations

© 2021 The Authors. Published by Science Publishing Group. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijimseCloud computing represents a paradigm shift in information technology outsourcing. The technology renders numerous benefits such as flexibility, cost reduction and scalability. Also, it presents organisations with the opportunity to conform to environmental management system. Several studies have applied different theories to investigate the factors that affect cloud computing adoption by organisations. However, the results are inconclusive. Therefore, this study systematically reviews factors influencing adoption the adoption of cloud computing by organisations. A total of 174 papers were reviewed from different databases such as Science direct, Emerald and IEEE Xplore. Consequently, 37 of these articles have been considered to come up with the most salient factors based on their frequency. The findings indicated that technology readiness, top management support, relative advantage, competitive pressure, compatibility, complexity and data security are the significant factors that affect cloud computing adoption in organisations. This review consolidates literature and can benefit decision makers in organisations who intend to adopt cloud computing technology. Furthermore, it has laid a foundation for a future part of this work which is conceptualising a model for cloud computing adoption in the upstream oil and gas sector.Nigerian petroleum technology development fund (PTDF

Proposing a conceptual model for cloud computing adoption in upstream oil & gas sector

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.10.134Cloud computing is a paradigm which offers IT services such as storage, network and processing power via the internet. The technology has gained popularity in recent years with adoption in different sectors due to the numerous benefits it offers such as scalability, flexibility and cost reduction. Although some are quick adopters, others are considered cautious adaptors. The upstream oil and gas industry fall under the latter category due to some challenges with regards to adoption decision. Migrating to a cloud platform depends on a number of factors. A clear understanding of these factors is necessary to enable decision makers in the industry to be more proactive and appropriately guided in their plan towards adoption. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors that may influence cloud adoption in the industry. A literature review was conducted in order to propose an integrated model, which is a combination of the Technology environment organisation (TOE) framework, institutional theory, and diffusion of innovation. The model groups the factors into three fundamental categories. In addition, the study reports benefits of the cloud technology in the upstream oil and gas sector, challenges hindering adoption, as well as approaches by earlier researchers to support cloud migration in the industry

Statistical analysis of factors that influences the evaluation and adoption of multi-tenant databases

Multi-tenant Databases (MTD) are implemented in the deployment of database management services to Information Technology (IT) platform users. A database service provider hosts the Multi-tenant Database Management System (MTDMS) and each tenant subscribes to the service through a standard method such as a web service. Improved groupings of the factors that influence the adoption of MTDs are presented in this paper. A survey is presented here that involves forty one experts from the field of databases. A predictive analytical method called Relative Importance Index (RII) and other statistical tools have been adopted in the analysis. The result has led to the new framework in the adoption of MTDs. The research also considers the direction of decisions about MTDs in situations where two or more factors are combined. A new improved MTD framework is presented that improves the decision making process of MTD adoption.Published onlin

Emotional Analysis of Blogs and Forums Data

We perform a statistical analysis of emotionally annotated comments in two large online datasets, examining chains of consecutive posts in the discussions. Using comparisons with randomised data we show that there is a high level of correlation for the emotional content of messages.Comment: REVTEX format, 5 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted to Acta Physica Polonica

E-AI : an emotion architecture for agents in games & virtual worlds

Characters in games and virtual worlds continue to gain improvements in both their visual appearance and more human-like behaviours with each successive generation of hardware. One area that seemingly would need to be addressed if this evolution in human-like characters is to continue is in the area of characters with emotions. To begin addressing this, the thesis focuses on answering the question “Can an emotional architecture be developed for characters in games and virtual worlds, that is built upon a foundation of formal psychology? Therefore a primary goal of the research was to both review and consolidate a range of background material based on the psychology of emotions to provide a cohesive foundation on which to base any subsequent work. Once this review was completed, a range of supplemental material was investigated including computational models of emotions, current implementations of emotions in games and virtual worlds, machine learning techniques suitable for implementing aspects of emotions in characters in virtual world, believability and the role of emotions, and finally a discussion of interactive characters in the form of chat bots and non-player characters. With these reviews completed, a synthesis of the research resulted in the defining of an emotion architecture for use with pre-existing agent behaviour systems, and a range of evaluation techniques applicable to agents with emotions. To support validation of the proposed architecture three case studies were conducted that involved applying the architecture to three very different software platforms featuring agents. The first was applying the architecture to combat bots in Quake 3, the second to a chat bot in the virtual world Second Life, and the third was to a web chat bot used for e-commerce, specifically dealing with question and answers about the companies services. The three case studies were supported with several small pilot evaluations that were intended to look at different aspects of the implemented architecture including; (1) Whether or not users noticed the emotional enhancements. Which in the two small pilot studies conducted, highlighted that the addition of emotions to characters seemed to affect the user experience when the encounter was more interactive such as in the Second Life implementation. Where the interaction occurred in a combat situation with enemies with short life spans, the user experience seemed to be greatly reduced. (2) An evaluation was conducted on how the combat effectiveness of combat bots was affected by the addition of emotions, and in this pilot study it was found that the combat effectiveness was not quite statistically reduced, even when the bots were running away when afraid, or attacking when angry even if close to death. In summary, an architecture grounded in formal psychology is presented that is suitable for interactive characters in games and virtual worlds, but not perhaps ideal for applications where user interaction is brief such as in fast paced combat situations. This architecture has been partially validated through three case studies and includes suggestions for further work especially in the mapping of secondary emotions, the emotional significance of conversations, and the need to conduct further evaluations based on the pilot studies.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo