Search results for: conversational agent
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1604

Search results for: conversational agent

1574 Utilization of Jackfruit Seed Flour (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.) as a Food Additive

Authors: C. S. D. S. Maduwage, P. W. Jeewanthi, W. A. J. P. Wijesinghe

Abstract:

This study investigated the use of Jackfruit Seed Flour (JSF) as a thickening agent in tomato sauce production. Lye peeled mature jackfruit seeds were used to obtain JSF. Flour was packed in laminated bags and stored for further studies. Three batches of tomato sauce samples were prepared according to the Sri Lankan Standards for tomato sauce by adding JSF, corn flour and without any thickening agent. Samples were stored at room temperature for 8 weeks in glass bottles. The physicochemical properties such as pH, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, and water activity were measured during the storage period. Microbial analysis and sensory evaluation were done to determine the quality of tomato sauce. JSF showed the role of a thickening agent in tomato sauce with lowest serum separation and highest viscosity during the storage period. This study concludes that JSF can be successfully used as a thickening agent in food industry.

Keywords: Jackfruit seed flour, food additive, thickening agent, tomato sauce

Procedia PDF Downloads 308
1573 Developmental Psycholinguistic Approach to Conversational Skills: A Continuum of the Sensitivity to Gricean Maxims

Authors: Zsuzsanna Schnell, Francesca Ervas

Abstract:

Background: Our experimental pragmatic study confirms a basic tenet in the Relevance of theoretical views in language philosophy. It draws up a developmental trajectory of the maxims, revealing the cognitive difficulty of their interpretation, their relative place to each other, and the order they may follow in development. A central claim of the present research is that social-cognitive skills play a significant role in inferential meaning construction. Children passing the False Belief Test are significantly more successful in tasks measuring the recognition of the infringement of conversational maxims. Aims and method: We examine preschoolers' conversational and pragmatic competence in view of their mentalization skills. To do so, we use a measure of linguistic tasks containing 5 short scenarios for each Gricean maxim. We measure preschoolers’ ToM performance with a first- and second-order ToM task and compare participants’ ability to recognize the infringement of the Gricean maxims in view of their social cognitive skills. Results: Findings suggest that Theory of Mind has a predictive force of 75% concerning the ability to follow Gricean maxims efficiently. ToM proved to be a significant factor in predicting the group’s performance and success rates in 3 out of 4 maxim infringement recognition tasks: in the Quantity, Relevance and Manner conditions, but not in the Quality trial. Conclusions: Our results confirm that children’s communicative competence in social contexts requires the development of higher-order social-cognitive reasoning. They reveal the cognitive effort needed to recognize the infringement of each maxim, yielding a continuum of their cognitive difficulty and trajectory of development.

Keywords: developmental pragmatics, social cognition, preschoolers, maxim infringement, Gricean pragmatics

Procedia PDF Downloads 30
1572 An Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation of Human Muscle

Authors: Sina Saadati, Mohammadreza Razzazi

Abstract:

In this article, we have tried to present an agent-based model of human muscle. A suitable model of muscle is necessary for the analysis of mankind's movements. It can be used by clinical researchers who study the influence of motion sicknesses, like Parkinson's disease. It is also useful in the development of a prosthesis that receives the electromyography signals and generates force as a reaction. Since we have focused on computational efficiency in this research, the model can compute the calculations very fast. As far as it concerns prostheses, the model can be known as a charge-efficient method. In this paper, we are about to illustrate an agent-based model. Then, we will use it to simulate the human gait cycle. This method can also be done reversely in the analysis of gait in motion sicknesses.

Keywords: agent-based modeling and simulation, human muscle, gait cycle, motion sickness

Procedia PDF Downloads 114
1571 Effects of an Added Foaming Agent on Hydro-Mechanical Properties of Soil

Authors: Moez Selmi, Mariem Kacem, Mehrez Jamei, Philippe Dubujet

Abstract:

Earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel boring machines are designed for digging in different types of soil, especially clay soils. This operation requires the treatment of soil by lubricants to facilitate the procedure of excavation. A possible use of this soil is limited by the effect of treatment on the hydro-mechanical properties of the soil. This work aims to study the effect of a foaming agent on the hydro-mechanical properties of clay soil. The injection of the foam agent in the soil leads to create a soil matrix in which they are incorporated gas bubbles. The state of the foam in the soil is scalable thanks to the degradation of the gas bubbles in the soil.

Keywords: EPB, clay soils, foam agent, hydro-mechanical properties, degradation

Procedia PDF Downloads 370
1570 Comparative Advantage of Mobile Agent Application in Procuring Software Products on the Internet

Authors: Michael K. Adu, Boniface K. Alese, Olumide S. Ogunnusi

Abstract:

This paper brings to fore the inherent advantages in application of mobile agents to procure software products rather than downloading software content on the Internet. It proposes a system whereby the products come on compact disk with mobile agent as deliverable. The client/user purchases a software product, but must connect to the remote server of the software developer before installation. The user provides an activation code that activates mobile agent which is part of the software product on compact disk. The validity of the activation code is checked on connection at the developer’s end to ascertain authenticity and prevent piracy. The system is implemented by downloading two different software products as compare with installing same products on compact disk with mobile agent’s application. Downloading software contents from developer’s database as in the traditional method requires a continuously open connection between the client and the developer’s end, a fixed network is not economically or technically feasible. Mobile agent after being dispatched into the network becomes independent of the creating process and can operate asynchronously and autonomously. It can reconnect later after completing its task and return for result delivery. Response Time and Network Load are very minimal with application of Mobile agent.

Keywords: software products, software developer, internet, activation code, mobile agent

Procedia PDF Downloads 311
1569 NSBS: Design of a Network Storage Backup System

Authors: Xinyan Zhang, Zhipeng Tan, Shan Fan

Abstract:

The first layer of defense against data loss is the backup data. This paper implements an agent-based network backup system used the backup, server-storage and server-backup agent these tripartite construction, and we realize the snapshot and hierarchical index in the NSBS. It realizes the control command and data flow separation, balances the system load, thereby improving the efficiency of the system backup and recovery. The test results show the agent-based network backup system can effectively improve the task-based concurrency, reasonably allocate network bandwidth, the system backup performance loss costs smaller and improves data recovery efficiency by 20%.

Keywords: agent, network backup system, three architecture model, NSBS

Procedia PDF Downloads 459
1568 Investigating the Effect of the Pedagogical Agent on Visual Attention in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Students

Authors: Nasrin Mohammadhasani, Rosa Angela Fabio

Abstract:

The attention to relevance information is the key element for learning. Otherwise, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) students have a fuzzy visual pattern that prevents them to attention and remember learning subject. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that the presence of a pedagogical agent can effectively support ADHD learner's attention and learning outcomes in a multimedia learning environment. The learning environment was integrated with a pedagogical agent, named Koosha as a social peer. This study employed a pretest and posttest experimental design with control group. The statistical population was 30 boys students, age 10-11 with ADHD that randomly assigned to learn with/without an agent in well designed environment for mathematic. The results suggested that experimental and control groups show a significant difference in time when they participated and mathematics achievement. According to this research, using the pedagogical agent can enhance learning of ADHD students by gaining and guiding their attention to relevance information part on display, so it can be considered as asocial cue that provides theme cognitive supports.

Keywords: attention, computer assisted instruction, multimedia learning environment, pedagogical agent

Procedia PDF Downloads 314
1567 The Design of the Multi-Agent Classification System (MACS)

Authors: Mohamed R. Mhereeg

Abstract:

The paper discusses the design of a .NET Windows Service based agent system called MACS (Multi-Agent Classification System). MACS is a system aims to accurately classify spread-sheet developers competency over a network. It is designed to automatically and autonomously monitor spread-sheet users and gather their development activities based on the utilization of the software Multi-Agent Technology (MAS). This is accomplished in such a way that makes management capable to efficiently allow for precise tailor training activities for future spread-sheet development. The monitoring agents of MACS are intended to be distributed over the WWW in order to satisfy the monitoring and classification of the multiple developer aspect. The Prometheus methodology is used for the design of the agents of MACS. Prometheus has been used to undertake this phase of the system design because it is developed specifically for specifying and designing agent-oriented systems. Additionally, Prometheus specifies also the communication needed between the agents in order to coordinate to achieve their delegated tasks.

Keywords: classification, design, MACS, MAS, prometheus

Procedia PDF Downloads 399
1566 An Agent-Service Oriented Framework for Online Contracts in Virtual Organizations

Authors: Zahra Raeisi, Reza Akbari

Abstract:

Contracting is known as one of the important tasks in virtual organization creation. Contracting is a costly process in terms of time and effort. One way to cut the time and effort is conducting contract electronically. The online contracting enable us to form virtual organization (VO) dynamically. This work presents an agent-service oriented framework for online contracting in virtual organizations. The proposed framework considers the main aspects and steps of traditional contracting process and uses the efficiency of service and agent based methodologies in order to provide a flexible and efficient way to establish contracts electronically in a VO.

Keywords: service oriented architecture, online contracts, agent-oriented architecture, virtual organization

Procedia PDF Downloads 504
1565 Contextual Toxicity Detection with Data Augmentation

Authors: Julia Ive, Lucia Specia

Abstract:

Understanding and detecting toxicity is an important problem to support safer human interactions online. Our work focuses on the important problem of contextual toxicity detection, where automated classifiers are tasked with determining whether a short textual segment (usually a sentence) is toxic within its conversational context. We use “toxicity” as an umbrella term to denote a number of variants commonly named in the literature, including hate, abuse, offence, among others. Detecting toxicity in context is a non-trivial problem and has been addressed by very few previous studies. These previous studies have analysed the influence of conversational context in human perception of toxicity in controlled experiments and concluded that humans rarely change their judgements in the presence of context. They have also evaluated contextual detection models based on state-of-the-art Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. Counterintuitively, they reached the general conclusion that computational models tend to suffer performance degradation in the presence of context. We challenge these empirical observations by devising better contextual predictive models that also rely on NLP data augmentation techniques to create larger and better data. In our study, we start by further analysing the human perception of toxicity in conversational data (i.e., tweets), in the absence versus presence of context, in this case, previous tweets in the same conversational thread. We observed that the conclusions of previous work on human perception are mainly due to data issues: The contextual data available does not provide sufficient evidence that context is indeed important (even for humans). The data problem is common in current toxicity datasets: cases labelled as toxic are either obviously toxic (i.e., overt toxicity with swear, racist, etc. words), and thus context does is not needed for a decision, or are ambiguous, vague or unclear even in the presence of context; in addition, the data contains labeling inconsistencies. To address this problem, we propose to automatically generate contextual samples where toxicity is not obvious (i.e., covert cases) without context or where different contexts can lead to different toxicity judgements for the same tweet. We generate toxic and non-toxic utterances conditioned on the context or on target tweets using a range of techniques for controlled text generation(e.g., Generative Adversarial Networks and steering techniques). On the contextual detection models, we posit that their poor performance is due to limitations on both of the data they are trained on (same problems stated above) and the architectures they use, which are not able to leverage context in effective ways. To improve on that, we propose text classification architectures that take the hierarchy of conversational utterances into account. In experiments benchmarking ours against previous models on existing and automatically generated data, we show that both data and architectural choices are very important. Our model achieves substantial performance improvements as compared to the baselines that are non-contextual or contextual but agnostic of the conversation structure.

Keywords: contextual toxicity detection, data augmentation, hierarchical text classification models, natural language processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 170
1564 A Safety Analysis Method for Multi-Agent Systems

Authors: Ching Louis Liu, Edmund Kazmierczak, Tim Miller

Abstract:

Safety analysis for multi-agent systems is complicated by the, potentially nonlinear, interactions between agents. This paper proposes a method for analyzing the safety of multi-agent systems by explicitly focusing on interactions and the accident data of systems that are similar in structure and function to the system being analyzed. The method creates a Bayesian network using the accident data from similar systems. A feature of our method is that the events in accident data are labeled with HAZOP guide words. Our method uses an Ontology to abstract away from the details of a multi-agent implementation. Using the ontology, our methods then constructs an “Interaction Map,” a graphical representation of the patterns of interactions between agents and other artifacts. Interaction maps combined with statistical data from accidents and the HAZOP classifications of events can be converted into a Bayesian Network. Bayesian networks allow designers to explore “what it” scenarios and make design trade-offs that maintain safety. We show how to use the Bayesian networks, and the interaction maps to improve multi-agent system designs.

Keywords: multi-agent system, safety analysis, safety model, integration map

Procedia PDF Downloads 417
1563 Multi-Agent Railway Control System: Requirements Definitions of Multi-Agent System Using the Behavioral Patterns Analysis (BPA) Approach

Authors: Assem I. El-Ansary

Abstract:

This paper illustrates the event-oriented Behavioral Pattern Analysis (BPA) modeling approach in developing an Multi-Agent Railway Control System (MARCS). The Event defined in BPA is a real-life conceptual entity that is unrelated to any implementation. The major contributions of this research are the Behavioral Pattern Analysis (BPA) modeling methodology, and the development of an interactive software tool (DECISION), which is based on a combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the ELECTRE Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods.

Keywords: analysis, multi-agent, railway control, modeling methodology, software modeling, event-oriented, behavioral pattern, use cases

Procedia PDF Downloads 545
1562 Determination of Neighbor Node in Consideration of the Imaging Range of Cameras in Automatic Human Tracking System

Authors: Kozo Tanigawa, Tappei Yotsumoto, Kenichi Takahashi, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

Abstract:

An automatic human tracking system using mobile agent technology is realized because a mobile agent moves in accordance with a migration of a target person. In this paper, we propose a method for determining the neighbor node in consideration of the imaging range of cameras.

Keywords: human tracking, mobile agent, Pan/Tilt/Zoom, neighbor relation

Procedia PDF Downloads 516
1561 Comparison of Microleakage of Composite Restorations Using Fifth and Seventh Generation of Bonding Agents

Authors: Karina Nabilla, Dedi Sumantri, Nurul T. Rizal, Siti H. Yavitha

Abstract:

Background: Composite resin is the most frequently used material for restoring teeth, but still failure cases are seen which leading to microleakage. Microleakage might be attributed to various factors, one of them is bonding agent. Various generations of bonding agents have been introduced to overcome the microleakage. The aim of this study was to evaluate the microleakage of composite restorations using the fifth and seventh bonding agent. Methods: Class I cavities (3X2X2 mm) were prepared on the occlusal surfaces of 32 human upper premolars. Teeth were classified into two groups according to the type of bonding agent used (n =16). Group I: Fifth Generation of Bonding Agent-Adper Single Bond2. Group II: Seventh Generation of Bonding Agent-Single Bond Universal. All cavities were restored with Filtek Z250 XT composite resin, stored in sterile aquades water at 370C for 24 h. The root apices were sealed with sticky wax, and all the surfaces, except for 2 mm from the margins, were coated with nail varnish. The teeth were immersed in a 1% methylene blue dye solution for 24 h, and then rinsed in running water, blot-dried and sectioned longitudinally through the center of restorations from the buccal to palatal surface. The sections were blindly assessed for microleakage of dye penetration by using a stereomicroscope. Dye penetration along margin was measured in µm then calculated into the percentage and classified into scoring system 1 to 3. Data were collected and statistically analyzed by Chi-Square test. Result: There was no significant difference (p > 0,05) between two groups. Conclusion: Fifth generation of bonding agent revealed less leakage compared to the seventh generation even statistically there was no significant difference.

Keywords: composite restoration, fifth generation of bonding agent, microleakage, seventh generation of bonding agent

Procedia PDF Downloads 268
1560 Multi-Agent TeleRobotic Security Control System: Requirements Definitions of Multi-Agent System Using The Behavioral Patterns Analysis (BPA) Approach

Authors: Assem El-Ansary

Abstract:

This paper illustrates the event-oriented Behavioral Pattern Analysis (BPA) modeling approach in developing an Multi-Agent TeleRobotic Security Control System (MTSCS). The event defined in BPA is a real-life conceptual entity that is unrelated to any implementation. The major contributions of this research are the Behavioral Pattern Analysis (BPA) modeling methodology, and the development of an interactive software tool (DECISION), which is based on a combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the ELECTRE Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods.

Keywords: analysis, multi-agent, TeleRobotics control, security, modeling methodology, software modeling, event-oriented, behavioral pattern, use cases

Procedia PDF Downloads 438
1559 A Rational Intelligent Agent to Promote Metacognition a Situation of Text Comprehension

Authors: Anass Hsissi, Hakim Allali, Abdelmajid Hajami

Abstract:

This article presents the results of a doctoral research which aims to integrate metacognitive dimension in the design of human learning computing environments (ILE). We conducted a detailed study on the relationship between metacognitive processes and learning, specifically their positive impact on the performance of learners in the area of reading comprehension. Our contribution is to implement methods, using an intelligent agent based on BDI paradigm to ensure intelligent and reliable support for low readers, in order to encourage regulation and a conscious and rational use of their metacognitive abilities.

Keywords: metacognition, text comprehension EIAH, autoregulation, BDI agent

Procedia PDF Downloads 321
1558 A Religious Book Translation by Pragmatic Approach: The Vajrachedika-Prajna-Paramita Sutra

Authors: Yoon-Cheol Park

Abstract:

This research focuses on examining the Chinese character-Korean language translation of the Vajrachedika-prajna-paramita sutra by a pragmatic approach. The background of this research is that there were no previous researches which looked into the Vajrachedika-prajna-paramita translation by pragmatic approach until now. Even though it is composed of conversational structures between Buddha and his disciple unlike other Buddhist sutras, most of its translation could find the traces to have pursued literal translation and still has now overlooked pragmatic elements in it. Accordingly, it is meaningful to examine the messages through speaker and hearer relation and between speaker intention and utterance meaning. Practically, the Vajrachedika-prajna-paramita sutra includes pragmatic elements, such as speech acts, presupposition, conversational implicature, the cooperative principle and politeness. First, speech acts in its sutra text show the translation to reveal obvious performance meanings of language to the target text. And presupposition in their dialogues is conveyed by paraphrasing or substituting abstruse language with easy expressions. Conversational implicature in utterances makes it possible to understand the meanings of holy words by relying on utterance contexts. In particular, relevance results in an increase of readability in the translation owing to previous utterance contexts. Finally, politeness in the target text is conveyed with natural stylistics through the honorific system of the Korean language. These elements mean that the pragmatic approach can function as a useful device in conveying holy words in a specific, practical and direct way depending on utterance contexts. Therefore, we expect that taking a pragmatic approach in translating the Vajrachedika-prajna-paramita sutra will provide a theoretical foundation for seeking better translation methods than the literal translations of the past. And it implies that the translation of Buddhist sutra needs to convey messages by translation methods which take into account the characteristic of sutra text like the Vajrachedika-prajna-paramita.

Keywords: buddhist sutra, Chinese character-Korean language translation, pragmatic approach, utterance context

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1557 Frequency Controller Design for Distributed Generation by Load Shedding: Multi-Agent Systems Approach

Authors: M. R. Vaezi, R. Ghasemi, A. Akramizadeh

Abstract:

Frequency stability of microgrids under islanded operation attracts particular attention recently. A new cooperative frequency control strategy based on centralized multi-agent system (CMAS) is proposed in this study. On this strategy, agents sent data and furthermore each component has its own to center operating decisions (MGCC). After deciding on the information, they are returned. Frequency control strategies include primary and secondary frequency control and disposal of multi-stage load in which this study will also provide a method and algorithm for load shedding. This could also be a big problem for the performance of micro-grid in times of disaster. The simulation results show the promising performance of the proposed structure of the controller based on multi agent systems.

Keywords: frequency control, islanded microgrid, multi-agent system, load shedding

Procedia PDF Downloads 463
1556 A New Distributed Computing Environment Based On Mobile Agents for Massively Parallel Applications

Authors: Fatéma Zahra Benchara, Mohamed Youssfi, Omar Bouattane, Hassan Ouajji, Mohamed Ouadi Bensalah

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a new distributed environment for High Performance Computing (HPC) based on mobile agents. It allows us to perform parallel programs execution as distributed one over a flexible grid constituted by a cooperative mobile agent team works. The distributed program to be performed is encapsulated on team leader agent which deploys its team workers as Agent Virtual Processing Unit (AVPU). Each AVPU is asked to perform its assigned tasks and provides the computational results which make the data and team works tasks management difficult for the team leader agent and that influence the performance computing. In this work we focused on the implementation of the Mobile Provider Agent (MPA) in order to manage the distribution of data and instructions and to ensure a load balancing model. It grants also some interesting mechanisms to manage the others computing challenges thanks to the mobile agents several skills.

Keywords: image processing, distributed environment, mobile agents, parallel and distributed computing

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1555 Reliable Consensus Problem for Multi-Agent Systems with Sampled-Data

Authors: S. H. Lee, M. J. Park, O. M. Kwon

Abstract:

In this paper, reliable consensus of multi-agent systems with sampled-data is investigated. By using a suitable Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and some techniques such as Wirtinger Inequality, Schur Complement and Kronecker Product, the results of this systems are obtained by solving a set of Linear Matrix Inequalities(LMIs). One numerical example is included to show the effectiveness of the proposed criteria.

Keywords: multi-agent, linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), kronecker product, sampled-data, Lyapunov method

Procedia PDF Downloads 528
1554 Leaching of Copper from Copper Ore Using Sulphuric Acid in the Presence of Hydrogen Peroxide as an Oxidizing Agent: An Optimized Process

Authors: Hilary Rutto

Abstract:

Leaching with acids are the most commonly reagents used to remove copper ions from its copper ores. It is important that the process conditions are optimized to improve the leaching efficiency. In the present study the effects of pH, oxidizing agent (hydrogen peroxide), stirring speed, solid to liquid ratio and acid concentration on the leaching of copper ions from it ore were investigated using a pH Stat apparatus. Copper ions were analyzed at the end of each experiment using Atomic Absorption (AAS) machine. Results showed that leaching efficiency improved with an increase in acid concentration, stirring speed, oxidizing agent, pH and decreased with an increase in the solid to liquid ratio.

Keywords: leaching, copper, oxidizing agent, pH stat apparatus

Procedia PDF Downloads 377
1553 A Multi-Agent Intelligent System for Monitoring Health Conditions of Elderly People

Authors: Ayman M. Mansour

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a multi-agent intelligent system that is used for monitoring the health conditions of elderly people. Monitoring the health condition of elderly people is a complex problem that involves different medical units and requires continuous monitoring. Such expert system is highly needed in rural areas because of inadequate number of available specialized physicians or nurses. Such monitoring must have autonomous interactions between these medical units in order to be effective. A multi-agent system is formed by a community of agents that exchange information and proactively help one another to achieve the goal of elderly monitoring. The agents in the developed system are equipped with intelligent decision maker that arms them with the rule-based reasoning capability that can assist the physicians in making decisions regarding the medical condition of elderly people.

Keywords: fuzzy logic, inference system, monitoring system, multi-agent system

Procedia PDF Downloads 606
1552 Waterproofing Agent in Concrete for Tensile Improvement

Authors: Muhamad Azani Yahya, Umi Nadiah Nor Ali, Mohammed Alias Yusof, Norazman Mohamad Nor, Vikneswaran Munikanan

Abstract:

In construction, concrete is one of the materials that can commonly be used as for structural elements. Concrete consists of cement, sand, aggregate and water. Concrete can be added with admixture in the wet condition to suit the design purpose such as to prolong the setting time to improve workability. For strength improvement, concrete is being added with other hybrid materials to increase strength; this is because the tensile strength of concrete is very low in comparison to the compressive strength. This paper shows the usage of a waterproofing agent in concrete to enhance the tensile strength. High tensile concrete is expensive because the concrete mix needs fiber and also high cement content to be incorporated in the mix. High tensile concrete being used for structures that are being imposed by high impact dynamic load such as blast loading that hit the structure. High tensile concrete can be defined as a concrete mix design that achieved 30%-40% tensile strength compared to its compression strength. This research evaluates the usage of a waterproofing agent in a concrete mix as an element of reinforcement to enhance the tensile strength. According to the compression and tensile test, it shows that the concrete mix with a waterproofing agent enhanced the mechanical properties of the concrete. It is also show that the composite concrete with waterproofing is a high tensile concrete; this is because of the tensile is between 30% and 40% of the compression strength. This mix is economical because it can produce high tensile concrete with low cost.

Keywords: high tensile concrete, waterproofing agent, concrete, rheology

Procedia PDF Downloads 327
1551 The Phatic Function and the Socializing Element of Personal Blogs

Authors: Emelia Noronha, Milind Malshe

Abstract:

The phatic function of communication is a vital element of any conversation. This research paper looks into this function with respect to personal blogs maintained by Indian bloggers. This paper is a study into the phenomenon of phatic communication maintained by bloggers through their blogs. Based on a linguistic analysis of the posts of twenty eight Indian bloggers, writing in English, studied over a period of three years, the study indicates that though the blogging phenomenon is not conversational in the same manner as face-to-face communication, it does make ample provision for feedback that is conversational in nature. Ordinary day to day offline conversations use conventionalized phatic utterances; those on the social media are in a perpetual mode of innovation and experimentation in order to sustain contact with its readers. These innovative methods and means are the focus of this study. Though the personal blogger aims to chronicle his/her personal life through the blog, the socializing function is crucial to these bloggers. In comparison to the western personal blogs which focus on the presentation of the ‘bounded individual self’, we find Indian personal bloggers engage in the presentation of their ‘social selves’. These bloggers yearn to reach out to the readers on the internet and the phatic function serves to initiate, sustain and renew social ties on the blogosphere thereby consolidating the social network of readers and bloggers.

Keywords: personal blogs, phatic, social-selves, blog readers

Procedia PDF Downloads 362
1550 Building Tutor and Tutee Pedagogical Agents to Enhance Learning in Adaptive Educational Games

Authors: Ogar Ofut Tumenayu, Olga Shabalina

Abstract:

This paper describes the application of two types of pedagogical agents’ technology with different functions in an adaptive educational game with the sole aim of improving learning and enhancing interactivities in Digital Educational Games (DEG). This idea could promote the elimination of some problems of DEG, like isolation in game-based learning, by introducing a tutor and tutee pedagogical agents. We present an analysis of a learning companion interacting in a peer tutoring environment as a step toward improving social interactions in the educational game environment. We show that tutor and tutee agents use different interventions and interactive approaches: the tutor agent is engaged in tracking the learner’s activities and inferring the learning state, while the tutee agent initiates interactions with the learner at the appropriate times and in appropriate manners. In order to provide motivation to prevent mistakes and clarity a game task, the tutor agent uses the help dialog tool to provide assistance, while the tutee agent provides collaboration assistance by using the hind tool. We presented our idea on a prototype game called “Pyramid Programming Game,” a 2D game that was developed using Libgdx. The game's Pyramid component symbolizes a programming task that is presented to the player in the form of a puzzle. During gameplay, the Agents can instruct, direct, inspire, and communicate emotions. They can also rapidly alter the instructional pattern in response to the learner's performance and knowledge. The pyramid must be effectively destroyed in order to win the game. The game also teaches and illustrates the advantages of utilizing educational agents such as TrA and TeA to assist and motivate students. Our findings support the idea that the functionality of a pedagogical agent should be dualized into an instructional and learner’s companion agent in order to enhance interactivity in a game-based environment.

Keywords: tutor agent, tutee agent, learner’s companion interaction, agent collaboration

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1549 The Implementation of the Multi-Agent Classification System (MACS) in Compliance with FIPA Specifications

Authors: Mohamed R. Mhereeg

Abstract:

The paper discusses the implementation of the MultiAgent classification System (MACS) and utilizing it to provide an automated and accurate classification of end users developing applications in the spreadsheet domain. However, different technologies have been brought together to build MACS. The strength of the system is the integration of the agent technology with the FIPA specifications together with other technologies, which are the .NET widows service based agents, the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Oracle Data Mining (ODM). Microsoft's .NET windows service based agents were utilized to develop the monitoring agents of MACS, the .NET WCF services together with SOA approach allowed the distribution and communication between agents over the WWW. The Monitoring Agents (MAs) were configured to execute automatically to monitor excel spreadsheets development activities by content. Data gathered by the Monitoring Agents from various resources over a period of time was collected and filtered by a Database Updater Agent (DUA) residing in the .NET client application of the system. This agent then transfers and stores the data in Oracle server database via Oracle stored procedures for further processing that leads to the classification of the end user developers.

Keywords: MACS, implementation, multi-agent, SOA, autonomous, WCF

Procedia PDF Downloads 273
1548 Generation Mechanism of Opto-Acoustic Wave from in vivo Imaging Agent

Authors: Hiroyuki Aoki

Abstract:

The optoacoustic effect is the energy conversion phenomenon from light to sound. In recent years, this optoacoustic effect has been utilized for an imaging agent to visualize a tumor site in a living body. The optoacoustic imaging agent absorbs the light and emits the sound signal. The sound wave can propagate in a living organism with a small energy loss; therefore, the optoacoustic imaging method enables the molecular imaging of the deep inside of the body. In order to improve the imaging quality of the optoacoustic method, the more signal intensity is desired; however, it has been difficult to enhance the signal intensity of the optoacoustic imaging agent because the fundamental mechanism of the signal generation is unclear. This study deals with the mechanism to generate the sound wave signal from the optoacoustic imaging agent following the light absorption by experimental and theoretical approaches. The optoacoustic signal efficiency for the nano-particles consisting of metal and polymer were compared, and it was found that the polymer particle was better. The heat generation and transfer process for optoacoustic agents of metal and polymer were theoretically examined. It was found that heat generated in the metal particle rapidly transferred to the water medium, whereas the heat in the polymer particle was confined in itself. The confined heat in the small particle induces the massive volume expansion, resulting in the large optoacoustic signal for the polymeric particle agent. Thus, we showed that heat confinement is a crucial factor in designing the highly efficient optoacoustic imaging agent.

Keywords: nano-particle, opto-acoustic effect, in vivo imaging, molecular imaging

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1547 Efficacy of Agrobacterium Tumefaciens as a Possible Entomopathogenic Agent

Authors: Fouzia Qamar, Shahida Hasnain

Abstract:

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the possible role of Agrobacterium tumefaciens as a possible insect biocontrol agent. Pests selected for the present challenge were adult males of Periplaneta americana and last instar larvae of Pieris brassicae and Spodoptera litura. Different ranges of bacterial doses were selected and tested to score the mortalities of the insects after 24 hours, for the lethal dose estimation studies. Mode of application for the inoculation of the bacteria, was the microinjection technique. The evaluation of the possible entomopathogenic carrying attribute of bacterial Ti plasmid, led to the conclusion that the loss of plasmid was associated with the loss of virulence against target insects.

Keywords: agrobacterium tumefaciens, toxicity assessment, biopesticidal attribute, entomopathogenic agent

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1546 An Automatic Speech Recognition of Conversational Telephone Speech in Malay Language

Authors: M. Draman, S. Z. Muhamad Yassin, M. S. Alias, Z. Lambak, M. I. Zulkifli, S. N. Padhi, K. N. Baharim, F. Maskuriy, A. I. A. Rahim

Abstract:

The performance of Malay automatic speech recognition (ASR) system for the call centre environment is presented. The system utilizes Kaldi toolkit as the platform to the entire library and algorithm used in performing the ASR task. The acoustic model implemented in this system uses a deep neural network (DNN) method to model the acoustic signal and the standard (n-gram) model for language modelling. With 80 hours of training data from the call centre recordings, the ASR system can achieve 72% of accuracy that corresponds to 28% of word error rate (WER). The testing was done using 20 hours of audio data. Despite the implementation of DNN, the system shows a low accuracy owing to the varieties of noises, accent and dialect that typically occurs in Malaysian call centre environment. This significant variation of speakers is reflected by the large standard deviation of the average word error rate (WERav) (i.e., ~ 10%). It is observed that the lowest WER (13.8%) was obtained from recording sample with a standard Malay dialect (central Malaysia) of native speaker as compared to 49% of the sample with the highest WER that contains conversation of the speaker that uses non-standard Malay dialect.

Keywords: conversational speech recognition, deep neural network, Malay language, speech recognition

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1545 Human Tracking across Heterogeneous Systems Based on Mobile Agent Technologies

Authors: Tappei Yotsumoto, Atsushi Nomura, Kozo Tanigawa, Kenichi Takahashi, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

Abstract:

In a human tracking system, expanding a monitoring range of one system is complicating the management of devices and increasing its cost. Therefore, we propose a method to realize a wide-range human tracking by connecting small systems. In this paper, we examined an agent deploy method and information contents across the heterogeneous human tracking systems. By implementing the proposed method, we can construct a human tracking system across heterogeneous systems, and the system can track a target continuously between systems.

Keywords: human tracking system, mobile agent, monitoring, heterogeneous systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 536