A methodology for the design and evaluation of user interfaces for interactive information systems

The definition of proposed research addressing the development and validation of a methodology for the design and evaluation of user interfaces for interactive information systems is given. The major objectives of this research are: the development of a comprehensive, objective, and generalizable methodology for the design and evaluation of user interfaces for information systems; the development of equations and/or analytical models to characterize user behavior and the performance of a designed interface; the design of a prototype system for the development and administration of user interfaces; and the design and use of controlled experiments to support the research and test/validate the proposed methodology. The proposed design methodology views the user interface as a virtual machine composed of three layers: an interactive layer, a dialogue manager layer, and an application interface layer. A command language model of user system interactions is presented because of its inherent simplicity and structured approach based on interaction events. All interaction events have a common structure based on common generic elements necessary for a successful dialogue. It is shown that, using this model, various types of interfaces could be designed and implemented to accommodate various categories of users. The implementation methodology is discussed in terms of how to store and organize the information

Redesign of Goods Transportation Tools Through Stairs in Multilevel Buildings Based on a System Perspective (Case Studies at Telkom University Dormitory)

Telkom University is one of the private universities that has a dormitory program for students as a residential facility in Bandung. The large number of students coming from outside Bandung makes a dormitory program on the campus area of Telkom University as the appropriate residential solution for non-indigeneous students. The dormitory is in the form of a 4- storey building that can be reached using stairs. However, there was actually found another problem that the residents of dormitory who lived in the third and fourth floors found the difficulty when transporting goods that were quite heavy and large in term of going up and down using stairs. In a previous study with the title “The Design of goods-transporting tools through stairs in multi-storey buildings based on system perspective”, it was still found a lack in the part of the system where the chain wheels have not been able to run well yet and also inavailability of the safety system for goods which prevents items from falling off the conveyance. Therefore, it is necessary to redesign the goods transport equipment through stairs by focusing on developing wheel system and also goods safety system. The method used in this redesign is the qualitative method by observing Telkom University dormitories and conducting interviews with a number of dormitory residents. In addition, an analysis of the design of wheel system and safety of the previous conveyance of goods is carried out. The result of this analysis produce, products transporting goods that can be used through stairs so as to reduce the risk of accidents when transporting goods in multi-storey dormitories. Keywords : Goods Transport Equipment, Stairs, Rubbertrack wheel System

HEER: Hybrid Energy Efficient Reactive Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of numerous sensors which send sensed data to base station. Energy conservation is an important issue for sensor nodes as they have limited power.Many routing protocols have been proposed earlier for energy efficiency of both homogeneous and heterogeneous environments. We can prolong our stability and network lifetime by reducing our energy consumption. In this research paper, we propose a protocol designed for the characteristics of a reactive homogeneous WSNs, HEER (Hybrid Energy Efficient Reactive) protocol. In HEER, Cluster Head(CH) selection is based on the ratio of residual energy of node and average energy of network. Moreover, to conserve more energy, we introduce Hard Threshold (HT) and Soft Threshold (ST). Finally, simulations show that our protocol has not only prolonged the network lifetime but also significantly increased stability period.Comment: 2nd IEEE Saudi International Electronics, Communications and Photonics Conference (SIECPC 13), 2013, Riyadh, Saudi Arabi

Chemical and biological investigations of Delonix regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf.

U radu je opisana izolacija pet sastojaka petroleterske i diklormetanske frakcije metanolnog ekstrakta kore biljke Delonix regia: lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) i p-metoksibenzaldehid (5). Nadalje, testirano je antimikrobno djelovanje različitih ekstrakata difuzijskom metodom na disku (15 μg mm2). Zone inhibicije za sastojke topljive u petroleteru, tetraklormetanu i diklormetanu bile su 914 mm, 1113 mm, odnosno 920 mm, dok je zona inhibicije standarda kanamicina bila 2025 mm. U biološkom pokusu smrtnosti morskih kozica najveću toksičnost pokazali su spojevi topljivi u tetraklormetanu (LC50 = 0,83 μg mL1), dok je topljivost sastojaka topljivih u petroleteru i diklormetanu bila LC50 14,94, odnosno 3,29 μg mL1, a standarda vinkristin sulfata 0,812 μg mL1. Ovo je prvo izvješće o izolaciji sastojaka, antimikrobnom djelovanju i citotoksičnosti biljke D. regia.In this study five compounds, lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) and p-methoxybenzaldehyde (5) were isolated from the petroleum ether and dichloromethane fractions of a methanolic extract of the stem bark of Delonix regia. Antimicrobial screening of the different extracts (15 μg mm2) was conducted by disc diffusion method. The zones of inhibition demonstrated by the petroleum ether, carbon tetrachloride and dichloromethane fractions ranged from 914 mm, 1113 mm and 920 mm, respectively, compared to kanamycin standard with the zone of inhibition of 2025 mm. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, the carbon tetrachloride soluble materials demonstrated the highest toxicity with LC50 of 0.83 μg mL1, while petroleum ether and dichloromethane soluble partitionates of the methanolic extract revealed LC50 of 14.94 and 3.29 μg mL1, respectively, in comparison with standard vincristine sulphate with LC50 of 0.812 μg mL1. This is the first report on compounds separation from D. regia, their antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity

Online Tensor Methods for Learning Latent Variable Models

We introduce an online tensor decomposition based approach for two latent variable modeling problems namely, (1) community detection, in which we learn the latent communities that the social actors in social networks belong to, and (2) topic modeling, in which we infer hidden topics of text articles. We consider decomposition of moment tensors using stochastic gradient descent. We conduct optimization of multilinear operations in SGD and avoid directly forming the tensors, to save computational and storage costs. We present optimized algorithm in two platforms. Our GPU-based implementation exploits the parallelism of SIMD architectures to allow for maximum speed-up by a careful optimization of storage and data transfer, whereas our CPU-based implementation uses efficient sparse matrix computations and is suitable for large sparse datasets. For the community detection problem, we demonstrate accuracy and computational efficiency on Facebook, Yelp and DBLP datasets, and for the topic modeling problem, we also demonstrate good performance on the New York Times dataset. We compare our results to the state-of-the-art algorithms such as the variational method, and report a gain of accuracy and a gain of several orders of magnitude in the execution time.Comment: JMLR 201

The Relationship Between Poverty and Unemployment in Niger State

The nature of the relationship between the twin problem of poverty and unemployment has been unclear recently. Although the nature of the relationship has received more extensive scholarly attention worldwide and even in Nigeria, no study raised on the nature of its relationship in the region (state) which might produce an inverse relationship different from the proportionate obtained in previous studies. Hence the study on the relationship between poverty and unemployment in Niger state, Nigeria, using descriptive and a logistics regression model to analyze the 102 cross-sectional data randomly collected from the three geopolitical regions in the state. The result thus shows the existence of a proportionate relationship between poverty and unemployment, following the pattern of previous studies. The study thus recommends the actions of the policymakers in creating vocational skill programs to the aid-curb unemployment problem in the state. Accordingly, the increase in expenditure on education and the minimum wage as well recommended

Nonlinear reversal of PT symmetric phase transition in a system of coupled semiconductor micro-ring resonators

A system of two coupled semiconductor-based resonators is studied when lasing around an exceptional point. We show that the presence of nonlinear saturation effects can have important ramifications on the transition behavior of this system. In sharp contrast with linear PT-symmetric configurations, nonlinear processes are capable of reversing the order in which the symmetry breaking occurs. Yet, even in the nonlinear regime, the resulting non-Hermitian states still retain the structural form of the corresponding linear eigenvectors expected above and below the phase transition point. The conclusions of our analysis are in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Pengaruh Keberadaan Industri Kecil Batik Khas Gumelem Kabupaten Banjarnegara terhadap Guna Lahan dan Sosial-ekonomi Masyarakat Lokal

Perkembangan jaman semakin menuntut keberadaan industri kecil industri kecil batik khas Gumelem di Susukan untuk memberikan pengaruh terhadap kontribusi pertumbuhan ekonomi masyarakat lokal di Kabupaten Banjarnegara, khususnya yang berkaitan dengan Perubahan aspek guna lahan dan sosial-ekonomi. Berdasarkan fenomena tersebut, maka diangkat sebuah pertanyaan penelitian: “Bagaimana pengaruh keberadaan industri kecil industri kecil batik khas Gumelem terhadap guna lahan dan sosial-ekonomi masyarakat lokal di Kecamatan Susukan, Kabupaten Banjarnegara?” Hal ini penting untuk mengendalikan aktivitas-aktivitas terkait aspek fisik dan sosial-ekonomi yang muncul akibat adanya industri kecil tersebut. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji pengaruh keberadaan industri kecil batik khas Gumelem terhadap guna lahan dan sosial-ekonomi masyarakat lokal di Kecamatan Susukan, Kabupaten Banjarnegara. Hasil akhir dari penelitian ini bahwa keberadaan industri kecil batik khas Gumelem dinyatakan memberikan pengaruh terhadap aspek fisik, sosial, dan ekonomi. Dimana pada aspek guna lahan terjadi Perubahan fungsi bangunan maupun lahan, ketersediaan ruang. Pada aspek sosial terjadi pengurangan pengangguran, terjadi perpindahan penduduk internal, Perubahan kondisi sosial dan nilai-nilai budaya. Sedangkan pada aspek ekonomi dinyatakan dapat memberikan kesempatan kerja dan peningkatan pendapatan bagi masyarakat lokal. Berdasarkan pengaruh keberadaan industri kecil batik khas Gumelem ini diharapkan akan memanfaatkan kondisi fisik keruangan yang ada dan menunjang perekonomian dan kesejahteraan masyarakat lokal

Integrable nonlinear parity-time symmetric optical oscillator

The nonlinear dynamics of a balanced parity-time symmetric optical microring arrangement are analytically investigated. By considering gain and loss saturation effects, the pertinent conservation laws are explicitly obtained in the Stokes domain-thus establishing integrability. Our analysis indicates the existence of two regimes of oscillatory dynamics and frequency locking, both of which are analogous to those expected in linear parity-time symmetric systems. Unlike other saturable parity time symmetric systems considered before, the model studied in this work first operates in the symmetric regime and then enters the broken parity-time phase.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publicatio