Smartphone apps usage patterns as a predictor of perceived stress levels at workplace

Explosion of number of smartphone apps and their diversity has created a fertile ground to study behaviour of smartphone users. Patterns of app usage, specifically types of apps and their duration are influenced by the state of the user and this information can be correlated with the self-reported state of the users. The work in this paper is along the line of understanding patterns of app usage and investigating relationship of these patterns with the perceived stress level within the workplace context. Our results show that using a subject-centric behaviour model we can predict stress levels based on smartphone app usage. The results we have achieved, of average accuracy of 75% and precision of 85.7%, can be used as an indicator of overall stress levels in work environments and in turn inform stress reduction organisational policies, especially when considering interrelation between stress and productivity of workers

An Integer Programming Formulation of the Minimum Common String Partition problem

We consider the problem of finding a minimum common partition of two strings (MCSP). The problem has its application in genome comparison. MCSP problem is proved to be NP-hard. In this paper, we develop an Integer Programming (IP) formulation for the problem and implement it. The experimental results are compared with the previous state-of-the-art algorithms and are found to be promising.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1401.453

A Modified Distortion Measurement Algorithm for Shape Coding

Efficient encoding of object boundaries has become increasingly prominent in areas such as content-based storage and retrieval, studio and television post-production facilities, mobile communications and other real-time multimedia applications. The way distortion between the actual and approximated shapes is measured however, has a major impact upon the quality of the shape coding algorithms. In existing shape coding methods, the distortion measure do not generate an actual distortion value, so this paper proposes a new distortion measure, called a modified distortion measure for shape coding (DMSC) which incorporates an actual perceptual distance. The performance of the Operational Rate Distortion optimal algorithm [1] incorporating DMSC has been empirically evaluated upon a number of different natural and synthetic arbitrary shapes. Both qualitative and quantitative results confirm the superior results in comparison with the ORD lgorithm for all test shapes, without any increase in computational complexity

Image-Dependent Spatial Shape-Error Concealment

Existing spatial shape-error concealment techniques are broadly based upon either parametric curves that exploit geometric information concerning a shape's contour or object shape statistics using a combination of Markov random fields and maximum a posteriori estimation. Both categories are to some extent, able to mask errors caused by information loss, provided the shape is considered independently of the image/video. They palpably however, do not afford the best solution in applications where shape is used as metadata to describe image and video content. This paper presents a novel image-dependent spatial shape-error concealment (ISEC) algorithm that uses both image and shape information by employing the established rubber-band contour detecting function, with the novel enhancement of automatically determining the optimal width of the band to achieve superior error concealment. Experimental results corroborate both qualitatively and numerically, the enhanced performance of the new ISEC strategy compared with established techniques

Bureaucracy in Bangladesh: Past, Present Experiences and Future Expectations

Bureaucracy plays dominant role in the development of the society and it is the cornerstone of modern society. Bangladesh has seen bureaucrats a continuous role in policy formulation and policy implementation. The bureaucracy, in present Bangladesh originates from the bureaucracy in British India. The bureaucracy in this portion of the subcontinent has experienced several ups and downs throughout the three distinct periods of British, Pakistan and Bangladesh era. The bureaucracy in Bangladesh is repeatedly apparent with the issues of corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, lack of accountability and transparency, etc. It is sometimes represented bureaucracy as an undesirable rather progressive facilitator to the progress of the country. Still bureaucracy plays traditional role and calls for a better system to meet the changing needs of the society. The service which citizen get and the services of the public servant renders, the people are disappointed with their performance quality. At present people are conscious of their rights. This paper discusses the loopholes of bureaucracy and provides recommendations to make bureaucracy efficient and meet the demands of the citizens due to the changing needs of the time. Keywords: Bureaucracy, Globalization, Administration, Change, Refor

THROMBOCYTE RESPONSE TO LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE IN STRESS INDUCED BROILER CHICKS

The role of thrombocytes, nucleated blood leukocytes, on immune responses in chickens fed diets supplemented with vitamin C has not been studied in the past. This study investigates the effects of three types of diets(control, control with corticosterone, and control with corticosterone and vitamin C) in 14-day old broiler chicks on the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6, and IL-12 in thrombocytes. In addition, the effect of LPS, a microbial component to which broiler chicks can be exposed, on the expression of these pro-inflammatory cytokines was investigated. After two weeks of feeding, blood samples from the chicks were collected and the thrombocytes isolated were incubated with LPS for an hour. Then, RNA was extracted from the samples to study the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines using real-time RT-PCR. The study found that the diets fed to broiler chicks do not affect the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6, and IL-12 in thrombocytes. However, LPS does increase the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6, and IL-12. The fact that thrombocytes are so abundant, and can be stimulated by LPS makes them the primary effector cell in innate host defenses against bacterial infections in poultry