Intelligent Association Exploration and Exploitation of Fuzzy Agents in Ambient Intelligent Environments

This paper presents a novel fuzzy-based intelligent architecture that aims to find relevant and important associations between embedded-agent based services that form Ambient Intelligent Environments (AIEs). The embedded agents are used in two ways; first they monitor the inhabitants of the AIE, learning their behaviours in an online, non-intrusive and life-long fashion with the aim of pre-emptively setting the environment to the users preferred state. Secondly, they evaluate the relevance and significance of the associations to various services with the aim of eliminating redundant associations in order to minimize the agent computational latency within the AIE. The embedded agents employ fuzzy-logic due to its robustness to the uncertainties, noise and imprecision encountered in AIEs. We describe unique real world experiments that were conducted in the Essex intelligent Dormitory (iDorm) to evaluate and validate the significance of the proposed architecture and methods

Comparison of meat quality and fatty acid profile in slow-growing chicken genotypes fed diets supplemented with Origanum vulgare or Melissa officinalis leaves under the organic system under the organic system

This study was conducted to compare the meat quality and selected fatty acids profile of two different slow-growing broiler genotypes (Hubbard S757; S757 and Hubbard Grey Barred JA; GB-JA) fed diets supplemented with dry oregano (Origanum vulgare L., OV; 10 g/kg basal diets) or lemon balm leaves (Melissa officinalis L., MO; 10 g/kg basal diets) under organic housing system. It is concluded that slow-growing genotypes had no effect on L* parameter of the breast, thigh and abdominal fat meat quality. Two hundred and forty chicks were allocated randomly into 4 experimental groups according to a 2x2 factorial arrange-ment. Birds were raised until 98 days in order to achieve an acceptable market live weight. The b* colours of breast and thigh meat were significant different among genotypes and also a* colour of breast meat of GB-JA increased (P<0.05). Slow-growing female broilers produced a higher dry matter content and lower fat content of breast meat as compared with males. There were the higher concentrations of linoleic (C18:2n-6) acid and the lower concentrations of linolenic acid (C18:3n-3) in genotypes fed with supplemented dry oregano or lemon balm leaves diet. Sex affected total unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) composition, polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and linoleic acid, were higher in slow growing males breast meat as compared with females breast meat. These results suggested that the slow-growing genotypes might had influenced the colour of breast and thigh meat, although overall meat quality was not affected under the organic system. Key words: , , ,

Landslide susceptibility mapping of Cekmece area (Istanbul, Turkey) by conditional probability

International audienceAs a result of industrialization, throughout the world, the cities have been growing rapidly for the last century. One typical example of these growing cities is Istanbul. Today, the population of Istanbul is over 10 millions. Depending on this rapid urbanization, new suitable areas for settlements and engineering structures are necessary. For this reason, the Cekmece area, west of the Istanbul metropolitan area, is selected as the study area, because the landslides are frequent in this area. The purpose of the present study is to produce landslide susceptibility map of the selected area by conditional probability approach. For this purpose, a landslide database was constructed by both air ? photography and field studies. 19.2% of the selected study area is covered by landslides. Mainly, the landslides described in the area are generally located in the lithologies including the permeable sandstone layers and impermeable layers such as claystone, siltstone and mudstone layers. When considering this finding, it is possible to say that one of the main conditioning factors of the landslides in the study area is lithology. In addition to lithology, many landslide conditioning factors are considered during the landslide susceptibility analyses. As a result of the analyses, the class of 5?10° of slope, the class of 180?225 of aspect, the class of 25?50 of altitude, Danisment formation of the lithological units, the slope units of geomorphology, the class of 800?1000 m of distance from faults (DFF), the class of 75?100 m of distance from drainage (DFD) pattern, the class of 0?10m of distance from roads (DFR) and the class of low or impermeable unit of relative permeability map have the higher probability values than the other classes. When compared with the produced landslide susceptibility map, most of the landslides identified in the study area are found to be located in the most (54%) and moderate (40%) susceptible zones. This assessment is also supported by the performance analysis applied at end of the study. As a consequence, the landslide susceptibility map produced herein has a valuable tool for the planning purposes

Effects of Saccharomyces boulardii on antibiotic induced orocecal transit in rats

Clarithromycin is an antibiotic widely used for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication and together with amoxicillin and proton pump inhibitors they constitute the first line triple treatment regimen against H. pylori. Diarrhoea is one of the major drawbacks during H. pylori eradication and is majorly attributed to clarithromycin, while Saccharomyces boulardii is a probiotic and is shown to be effective in the treatment of antibiotic associated diarrhoea. We aimed to evaluate the effect of clarithromycin on orocecal transit in rats and to identify whether the supplementation with S. boulardii has a role on orocecal transit index. Adult rats of both sexes were divided into two groups to determine immediate or chronic effects of S. boulardii and clarithromycin on orocecal transit. The first group was given single dose of the test drug, while the second group received the test drugs for one week through orogastric intubation. Both groups were randomly distributed into four subgroups; the placebo group (group A), the S. boulardii group (group B), the clarithromycin group (group C), and the co-administration that is clarithromycin plus S. boulardii group (group D). Rats were given 20 mg kg−1 clarithromycin and 500 mg kg−1S. boulardii. We did not find any difference among the subgroups in group 1, where only single dose of the test drugs was administered. In chronic administration group, that is group 2, significant differences among the subgroups were observed (P=0.004). Post-hoc comparisons of orocecal transit index between group “2A and 2C” and “2C and 2D” were significantly different (P=0.013 and P=0.005, respectively). Our results show that long term clarithromycin administration leads to rapid orocecal transit index and S. boulardii supplementation to clarithromycin can abolish this adverse effect in rats. Those findings suggest the beneficial use of S. boulardii in H. pylori eradication regimens

One step emission tunable synthesis of PEG coated Ag 2 S NIR quantum dots and the development of receptor targeted drug delivery vehicles thereof

PEGylation of quantum dots (QDs) to decrease their toxicity, increase blood circulation time, reduce non-specific uptake and also to solubilize and stabilize hydrophobic QDs in aqueous medium is a widely used approach and many different methods were developed to achieve this. QDs that are luminescent in the near-infrared region (NIR) have recently emerged as the more appropriate materials for bio-imaging studies. In this work, we describe a single step emission tunable aqueous synthesis of PEGylated Ag2S NIRQDs. They are highly cytocompatible, not only due to the PEG coating but also due to the intrinsic biocompatibility of Ag2S, and prepared in a single step aqueous method using thiolated PEGs as the only coating material. Tuning the emission wavelength within the medical window (775–930 nm) with a quantum yield between 2 and 65% is achieved by changing the reaction variables such as PEG molecular weight, pH and precursor ratios. Ag2S–PEG NIRQDs prepared from 5 kDa MPEG-SH at acidic pH provided a dramatic enhancement in the luminescence intensity. These NIRQDs were also designed with surface functional groups to attach folic acid and loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) which dramatically enhanced the uptake and efficacy of DOX (50% cell death with 15 nM DOX) in FA-receptor overexpressed cancer cell lines (HeLa). They also showed a strong cytoplasmic NIR signal in the in vitro studies, demonstrating great theranostic potential

Assessment of geodetic velocities using GPS campaign measurements over long baseline lengths

GPS campaign measurements are frequently used in order to determine geophysical phenomena such as tectonic motion, fault zones, landslides, and volcanoes. When observation duration is shorter, the accuracy of coordinates are degraded and the accuracy of point velocities are affected. The accuracies of the geodetic site velocities from a global network of International GNSS Service (IGS) stations were previously investigated using only PPP. In this study, we extend which site velocities will also be assessed, including fundamental relative positioning. PPP-derived results will also be evaluated to see the effect of reprocessed JPL products, single-receiver ambiguity resolution, repeating survey campaigns minimum 3 days at the site, and eliminating noisier solutions prior to the year 2000. To create synthetic GPS campaigns, 18 globally distributed, continuously operating IGS stations were chosen. GPS data were processed comparatively using GAMIT/GLOBK v10.6 and GIPSY-OASIS II v6.3. The data of synthetic campaign GPS time series were processed using a regression model accounting for the linear and seasonal variation of the ground motion. Once the velocities derived from 24&thinsp;h sessions were accepted as the truth, the results from sub-sessions were compared with the results of 24&thinsp;h and hypothesis testing was applied for the significance of the differences. The major outcome of this study is that on global scales (i.e. over long distances) with short observation sessions, the fundamental relative positioning produces results similar to PPP. The reliability of the velocity estimation for GPS horizontal baseline components has now been improved to about 85&thinsp;% of the average for observation durations of 12&thinsp;h.</p

Discrete-Phase Constant Envelope Precoding for Massive MIMO Systems

We consider downlink of a multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system and focus on reducing the hardware costs by using a single common power amplifier and separate phase shifters (PSs) for antenna front-ends. In the previous literature, the use of analog PSs in this setup has been considered. Here, we study the use of practical digital PSs, which only support a limited set of discrete phases. Considering the sum of interference powers as a metric, we formulate the corresponding nonlinear discrete optimization problem and solve for the phases to be used during transmission. We devise a low-complexity algorithm, which employs a trellis structure providing suboptimal, but efficient and effective solutions. We demonstrate via examples that the proposed solutions have comparable performance to conventional analog PS-based algorithms. Furthermore, we prove that by utilizing discrete-phase constant envelope precoding, the interference can be made arbitrarily small by increasing the number of antennas. Therefore, the asymptotic gains promised by massive MIMO systems are preserved. We also obtain closed-form expressions for the rate loss due to errors in the phase and amplitude of the PSs, for both low and high SNR regimes. © 1972-2012 IEEE

Determination of periodic deformation from InSAR results using the FFT time series analysis method in Gediz Graben

Permanent Scatterers (PS) point velocities obtained by the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) method are generally determined using the linear regression model, which ignores periodic and seasonal effects. In this study, software was developed that can detect periodic effects by applying fast Fourier transformation (FFT) time series analysis to InSAR results. Using the FFT time series analysis, the periodic components of the surface movements at the PS points were determined, and then the annual velocity values free from periodic effects were obtained. The study area was chosen as the Gediz Graben, a tectonically active region where aseismic surface deformations have been observed in recent years. As a result, using the developed method, seasonal effects were successfully determined with the InSAR method at the PS points in the study area with a period of 384 days and an average amplitude of 19 mm. In addition, groundwater level changes of a water well in the region were modeled, and 0.93 correlation coefficient values were calculated between seasonal InSAR displacement values and water level changes. Thus, using the developed methodology, the relationship between the tectonic movement in the Gediz Graben in Turkey and the seasonal movements and the change in the groundwater level was determined