A situation calculus based approach to dynamic management of e-business services

In the era of e-businesses, the traditional business services are greatly challenged by the ever-increasing demands from customers with various backgrounds and personalities. Large numbers of new e-businesses are driven by the needs of customers. The existing dynamics inherent in the customer needs require the corresponding dynamic management of services. Attempting to respond to customers in a rapid and intelligent way, this paper proposes a situation calculus based approach for dynamically managing e-Business services in the ubiquitous environment. By employing the formalism of the situation calculus to enable intelligence and automation, the approach can implement. the functions of service automatic composition and model verification. These functions will improve the degree of customer-orientation and enable fast responsiveness in the emerging e-service systems.     

Conflict analysis approaches for investigating attitudes and misperceptions in the War of 1812

Formal systems engineering approaches to modeling misperceptions and attitudes are employed within the framework of the graph model for conflict resolution to systematically study the War of 1812 between the United States of America and Great Britain in order to provide enhanced insights into the causes of the war. More specifically, relational definitions for preferences, movements and stability concepts are defined for describing the attitudes and associated behavior of decision makers involved in a conflict. To capture misperceptions of decision makers in the War of 1812, attitudes are studied within the structure of a hypergame. Combining attitudes and misperceptions within the paradigm of the graph model furnishes the flexible analytical tool which demonstrates that misunderstanding of attitudes by Great Britain and the United States may have contributed to the outbreak of this nasty war.     

THE λ-GROBNER BASES UNDER POLYNOMIAL COMPOSITION

Polynomial composition is the operation of replacing variables in a polynomial with other polynomials. λ-Grgbner basis is an especial Grobner basis. The main problem in the paper is： when does composition commute with λ-Grobner basis computation？ We shall answer better the above question. This has a natural application in the computation of λ-Grobner bases.     

海南岛东部地区砖红壤中微量元素含量的纵向分异研究

对海南岛东部地区发育典型的6个砖红壤剖面的微量元素的组成特征及其纵向变化规律进行研究发现,土壤母质是决定砖红壤微量元素含量的主要原因,区内花岗岩砖红壤中Cu、Sr、Zn、Pb含量明显高于砂页岩砖红壤,而砂页岩砖红壤中的As含量相对较高.砂页岩砖红壤剖面中的微量元素含量的纵向变化规律具有相似性,并显示出B层>C层>A层的特征,而花岗岩砖红壤微量元素在各层中的纵向分异规律不甚明显.区内的人类活动对海南岛东部砖红壤剖面中的部分微量元素的分布具有一定的影响,农药及老鼠药的大量使用,可致使大量的As元素进入土壤表层富集,并造成土壤中As含量超标,成为区内环境的重要隐患.     

A multiple intelligent agent system for credit risk prediction via an optimization of localized generalization error with diversity

Company bankruptcies cost billions of dollars in losses to banks each year. Thus credit risk prediction is a critical part of a bank＇s loan approval decision process. Traditional financial models for credit risk prediction are no longer adequate for describing today＇s complex relationship between the financial health and potential bankruptcy of a company. In this work, a multiple classifier system （embedded in a multiple intelligent agent system） is proposed to predict the financial health of a company. In our model, each individual agent （classifier） makes a prediction on the likelihood of credit risk based on only partial information of the company. Each of the agents is an expert, but has limited knowledge （represented by features） about the company. The decisions of all agents are combined together to form a final credit risk prediction. Experiments show that our model out-performs other existing methods using the benchmarking Compustat American Corporations dataset.     

Using Action Research to Improve Communication and Facilitate Group Work in a Multicultural Classroom: A South African Case Study

This study started with problems that my colleagues (and I) were experiencing with interaction and intercultural communication among students in our diverse classrooms. Educators were also experiencing difficulties in motivating students to work effectively in groups. The purpose of this paper was to seek solutions to these problems by exploring variations of the group oral assessment structure in a multilingual and multicultural context. Four phases of assessments were conducted at two tertiary institutions in South Africa using a combination of action research and a participatory approach. Not only did this study succeed in addressing the problems but it also revealed the added benefits of using an action research methodology.     

EXPLORATION/EXPLOITATION TRADEOFF WITH CELL-SHIFT AND HEURISTIC CROSSOVER FOR EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS

In order to tradeoff exploration/exploitation and inspired by cell genetic algorithm a cellshift crossover operator for evolutionary algorithm （EA） is proposed in this paper. The definition domain is divided into n-dimension cubic sub-domains （cell） and each individual locates at an ndimensional cube. Cell-shift crossover first exchanges the cell numbers of the crossover pair if they are in the different cells （exploration） and subsequently shift the first individual from its initial place to the other individual＇s cell place. If they are already in the same cell heuristic crossover （exploitation） is used. Cell-shift/heuristic crossover adaptively executes exploration/exploitation search with the vary of genetic diversity. The cell-shift EA has excellent performance in terms of efficiency and efficacy on ten usually used optimization benchmarks when comparing with the recent well-known FEP evolutionary algorithm.     

INFORMATION CHARACTERIZATION OF COMMUNICATION CHANNELS FOR SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION

This paper studies identification of systems in which the system output is quantized, transmitted through a digital communication channel, and observed afterwards. The concept of the CR Ratio is introduced to characterize impact of communication channels on identification. The relationship between the CR Ratio and Shannon channel capacity is discussed. Identification algorithms are further developed when the channel error probability is unknown.     

Kinematics analysis of a robotic rock grinder

With the aim to discover water, life and resources in other planets, robotic sampling instrument is a crucial part of the space exploration robot. To remove dusty and weathered surfaces and expose the fresh rock underneath the planetary surface, a robotic rock grinder is considered to replace the geolo- gist’s rock hammer to carry out the geological investigation. A primary prototype of the robotic rock grinder with three degrees of freedom has been developed in this paper. Planetary transmission system is used in the grinding driving system with two inputs (rotation motor and revolution motor) and two outputs (grinding wheel and cutting brush). The grinding wheel with two teeth has been used to abrade the rock. The cutting brush is used to sweep the debris. The third actuator is to feed the grinding sys- tem. Kinematics of the grinding system has been analyzed. To get a continuous and smooth fresh face over the rock, grinding trajectory of the grinding wheel has been discussed and planned. Lastly, abra- sion experiments have been made to testify the feasibility and the basic function of this system.     

Enolate chelating N-heterocyclic carbene complexes of Fe(II): Synthesis, structure and their catalytic activity for ring-opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone

The reaction of anhydrous FeBr2 with two equivalents of anionic N-heterocyclic carbene (NaL1 and NaL2), which are generated in situ by the reaction of the corresponding salt [4-R-C6H4COCH2{CH- (NCHCHNiPr)}Br] (R = OCH3, H2L1Br, 1; R = F, H2L2Br, 2) with two equivalents of NaN(SiMe3)2, affords bis-ligand Fe(II) complexes of L12Fe (3) and L22Fe (4) in high yield, respectively. Attempt to synthesize mono-ligand Fe(II) bromide by the 1:1 molar ratio of NaL to FeBr2 is unsuccessful, and the same com- plexes of 3 and 4 were obtained. Both 3 and 4 have been depicted by elemental analysis and X-ray structure determination. Preliminary studies show that both 3 and 4 can be used as single-component catalyst for the ring-opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone, and the catalytic activity of 3 is higher than that of 4.