Search

A model is constructed to measure, loss recovery provisions of collateralised retail lending, of banks.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2004.11.021 Byline: M.H. PhA[sup.1]ng (a), K.C. Chua (a), G. Mohan (a), M. Motani (a), T.C. Wong (b), P.Y. Kong (b) Keywords: Wavelength division multiplexing; Optical burst switching; Scheduling Abstract: Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising optical networking paradigm for efficient transport of bursty IP traffic over wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical Internet networks. In OBS, the header of a burst is sent in advance of the data burst to reserve a wavelength channel at each optical switching node along the path. The nodes use a scheduling algorithm to assign wavelengths to incoming bursts. Our work is motivated from the observation that existing scheduling algorithms assign a wavelength to a burst when its header arrives at the node. Thus, information about other bursts whose headers arrive later is not available when the scheduling decision is made. This leads to suboptimal scheduling decisions and unnecessary burst dropping. The key idea in our proposed algorithm, Ordered Scheduling, is to defer making the scheduling decision until just before the burst arrival in order to have full knowledge about other bursts. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is studied through simulation and the computational complexity and signalling overhead are analysed. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 3, Singapore 117576, Singapore (b) Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore Article History: Received 4 September 2003; Revised 1 November 2004; Accepted 22 November 2004 Article Note: (miscellaneous) Responsible Editor: A. Fumagalli

A study was conducted on the division of labor on lower termite (Reticulitermes fukienensis) workers. Termites of three age/size groups were subjected to behavioral assays do determine the levels in which would accomplish foraging and other tasks. All age/size groups performed the tasks, indicating that tasks are not allocated to specific castes. The oldest and largest workers were also observed to accomplish tasks more frequently than the small- and medium-size termites.

User performance is highly correlated with design variables of a system. Such association can be described as display–control relationship. In this study, a neural network-based methodology is proposed to identify and quantify the association among design variables (inputs) and to compute their relative influences (RIs) on the two performance measures (outputs) of user response time and response accuracy, using artificial neural network, generalised regression neural network, support vector regression (SVR), multiple linear regression and response surface model. Based on the results of the comparison, it is found that neural network-based methods are more reliable than SVR-based methods in computing the RI of design variables. As a result of our analysis, the best option for optimising each of the measures is suggested. Some useful observations about the design of man–machine systems are also presented, discussed and visualised. In the study of man–machine systems, quantitative methods are seldom adopted for examining the mappings between various displays and controls under a variety of operating conditions. The major contribution of this study is to provide some insights into the usefulness of quantitative methods in evaluating man–machine design in terms of display–control compatibility and to extract explanatory information from renowned black box systems such as neural networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Customer satisfaction in purchasing new products is an important issue that needs to be addressed in today's competitive markets. A product with good affective design excites consumer emotional feelings to buy the product. Affective design often involves complex and multi-dimensional problems for modelling and maximising affective satisfaction of customers. Machine learning is commonly used to model and maximise the affective satisfaction, since it is effective in modelling nonlinear patterns when numerical data relevant to the patterns is available. This review article presents a survey of commonly used machine learning approaches for affective design when two data streams, traditional survey data and modern big data, are used. A classification of machine learning technologies is first provided for traditional survey data. The limitations and advantages of machine learning technologies are discussed. Since big data related to affective design can be captured from social media, the prospects and challenges in using big data are discussed to enhance affective design, in which limited research has so far been attempted. This review article is useful for those who use machine learning technologies for affective design, and also provides guidelines for researchers who are interested in incorporating big data and machine learning technologies for affective design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach using genetic algorithms (GAs) is proposed to determine lot streaming (LS) conditions in a job-shop scheduling problem (JSP). LS refers to a situation that a job (lot) can be split into a number of smaller jobs (sub-lots) so that successive operations of the same job can be overlapped. Consequently, the completion time of the whole job can be shortened. By applying the proposed approach called LSGAVS, two sub-problems are solved simultaneously using GAs. The first problem is called the LS problem in which the LS conditions are determined and the second problem is called JSP after the LS conditions have been determined. Based on timeliness approach, a number of test problems will be studied to investigate the optimum the LS conditions such that all jobs can be finished close to their due dates in a job-shop environment. Computational results suggest that the proposed model, LSGAVS, works well with different objective measures and good solutions can be obtained with reasonable computational effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemistry students can perform a simple chemical reaction using cellulose to produce an economical ion-exchange reagent. Pretreated sawdust is mixed with sodium hydroxide, carbon disulfide, and a phase-transfer catalyst. The cellulose xanthate-based ion-exchange material that is produced can be used to remove heavy metals from waste products. Students who participate in this 10-hour laboratory exercise gain skills in applying science knowledge to solve real life problems.