Thursday 31 March 2011

Subjective Measurement of Leather Handle

A new paper looking a how experts in the leather industry assess leather quality is to be published in the The Amercian Leather Chemists Association Journal

Y. Wang , G. Attenburrow, P. Picton, S. Turner

Volume: 106 Number: 4
Abstract

Leather handle strongly relates to leather quality, and in the leather industries experts still manually assess it. In this paper a new approach, Descriptive Sensory Analysis, was applied when subjectively measure leather handle and thus a comprehensive handle profile was established. Ten attributes of leather samples were identified and quantified by a trained expert panel according to agreed procedures. Principal Component Analysis was used to reduce data dimensionalities and a conception 3D handle space was proposed and demonstrated to exhibit the handle attributes of leather.

RESUMEN El comportamiento organoléptico de cuero está ligado fuertemente a la evaluación de calidad en el cuero, y en las industrias del cuero los expertos subjetivamente las evalúan por toque. En este artículo se presenta un nuevo enfoque, un Análisis de Descripción Sensorial, que se aplicó cuando el toque de cuero fue determinado subjetivamente, y luego un perfil descriptivo comprensivo fue establecido. Diez atributos de las muestras de cueros fueron identificados y cuantificados por un panel de expertos entrenados de acuerdo a los procedimientos previos acordados. Análisis de Componentes Principales se utilizó para reducir la redundancia de datos a una concepción del manejo en espacio 3D fue propuesto y demostrado efectivo para exhibir los atributos requeridos en la descripción del toque de cuero.

Thursday 24 March 2011

Book chapter: Problems First

Two members of the Computing Division of the University of Northampton have contributed a chapter to the book Software Industry-Oriented Education Practices and Curriculum Development: Experiences and Lessons edited by Drs. Matthew Hussey, Xiaofei Xu and Bing Wu. ISBN: 978-1609607975 IGI Global to be published later this year.

Problems First

Gary Hill and Scott Turner

ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the need to focus initial programming education on problem-solving, in advance of programming syntax and software design methodology. The main vehicle for this approach is simple Lego based robots programmed in Java, followed by the programming of a graphical representation/simulation to develop programming skills. Problem solving is not trivial (Beaumont & Fox, 2003) and is an important skill, central to computing and engineering.

An approach will be considered, illustrated with a series of problem-solving tasks that increase in complexity at each stage and give the students practice in attempting problem-solving approaches, as well as assisting them to learn from their mistakes. Some of the problems include ambiguities or are purposely ill-defined, to enable the student to resolve these as part of the process.

The benefits to students will be discussed including students’ statements that this approach, using robots, provides a method to visually and physically see the outcome of a problem. In addition, students report that the method improves their satisfaction with the course.

The importance of linking the problem-solving robot activity and the programming assignment, whilst maintaining the visual nature of the problem, will be discussed, together with the comparison of this work with similar work reported by other authors relating to teaching programming using robots (Williams, 2003).

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Update: IT Skills for the Recession/Recovery event

A successful event BCS Northampton IT Skills for the Recession/Recovery was held in the Newton Building, University of Northampton on the 9th March 2011 organised by Sarith Chandra, Rashmi Dravid,and a team of University Students.

Speakers included
-Professor Kamal Bechkoum, Dean of School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton
-Rachel Cooper, QA/Risk Leader, GE Captial (UK Home Lending)
-Jonathon Berg, Director of Paradise Computing Ltd
-Ashley Cooper, Principal Consultant, Parc Ellis solutions Ltd

The event took the form of speaker presentations, a networking session and a panel discussion.

The audience included IT professional, and students (and some ex-students). Over 57 people attended with over 80% of those who filled in the feedback form, rated the event of high value and of a high standard.

For more details of past and future events can be found at BCS Northampton Branch.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

PREDICTING LEATHER HANDLE LIKE AN EXPERT BY ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

A paper has been recently published that combines artificial intelligence and leather science research looking at modelling the subjective assessment of leather handle.

Abstract

This study developed an artificial neural network model to predict the subjective assessment of leather handle by an expert using its measurable physical characteristics. A statistical method was applied to prune the inputs of the network and the “error band” conception was proposed during training.

More details can be found at:

Wang, Y., Picton, P., Turner, S. and Attenburrow, G (2011) Predicting Leather Handle like an Expert Artificial Neural Networks, Applied Artificial Intelligence, Volume 25, Issue 2 February 2011 , pages 180 - 192 ISSN: 0883-9514 DOI:10.1080/08839514.2011.545218

Monday 21 March 2011

Junkbots: End of an era... start of another

The funding for the junkbots project has now come to an end.So what were the outcomes.

Figure 1Overall Results

Figure 1 shows how the overall score for the whole project. Overall the student were satisfied/ok (around 3) or more than satisfied ( 4 or 5). There seems to be a linkage between the junkbot building exercises and the overall satisfaction ratings. Programming on the whole had slightly lower satisfaction scores but ok scores.

Figure 2: Comparison of the overall event scores across the schools.

Figure 2 shows scores for the overall project for each school. Overall as mentioned previous the response is very positive (all the results were 89% or higher 3,4, or 5 ratings). There were variations in the level of satisfaction. The school were students were selected the student's based on ability or interest tended to have satisfaction scores that were higher.Does this mean the approaches are more suited to the gifted and talented. Probably not as the satisfaction scores were reasonable for all the schools.

Figure 3: Comparison of the junkbots ratings across the schools.

Figure 3 shows the ratings for the junkbot building activity alone. As has already been observed they are similar to the overall event results but there are variations between schools. One school in particular the results for this activity were lower, one possible reason for this was the age of the students, this was the youngest group.

Figure 4: Comparison of the robot programming ratings across the schools.

Figure 4 shows the ratings for the exercises involving programming LEGO robots to solve the junk clearing tasks built with the junkbots previously. This was always likely to be most challenging of the tasks. Very few if any of the students had done any programming before, so been all new, with only one robot per group was always likely to be a concern. In reality the results were on the whole very good and what the some of the students did with the robots actually was very impressive.

Is it a success?
Yes the satisfaction scores are good, the students produced some very good designs and in the case of programming robots in Java did something that the schools probably haven't got the capacity to do on their own (though robots in school has a long history). The students got to meet practising STEM professionals and students. So thank you to all the schools who have taken part, as well as the university students and staff who took part.

Where next?
Even though the funding has finished, the project carries on. Activities from the project will carry on, as an example, one of the schools we worked with previously we will be working with on the 30th March 2011 building junkbots.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

ADOPTION OF IT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: THE CASE OF NEPAL

A recent MSc student project by Prabin Gautam looked at the efficacious adoption of IT in developing countries, with a particular focus on Nepal.

Abstract:Information Technology (IT) is the essential tool for development of the country. The use of IT as a tool for delivering various services and its adoption as a sustainable industry which contribute to the national economy are accepted by every country. The effective use and adoption of IT has the potential to deliver significant benefits to the developing countries. Despite of low level economic development, lack of infrastructure and long political instability, Nepal has been trying to prove its capability and aims to place itself in global IT map. Widened digital divide, brain drain, cost of IT infrastructure, power outage and insufficient connectivity infrastructures has always been felt as the challenges in IT adoption in the country. Beside that, increasing software piracy, lack of systematic framework for IT adoption leads to chaotic and uneven distribution of IT infrastructure in the country.

Developing countries like Nepal are in urgent need to adopt effective framework and strategies effectively managing the IT assets, reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of software solutions and building mechanism to tackle software piracy. Open Technologies like Open Source Software, Open Standards and Open Contents offers compelling prospects for addressing the issues mentioned above.

This dissertation is based on the study and evaluation of IT scenario and adoption frameworks from various countries. The data collection form IT stakeholders in Nepal and relevant literatures and reports delivers the clear picture of Nepal present IT status. Questionnaire survey, based on purposive sampling, has been carried out with 46 participants representing IT stakeholders of Nepal. To further validate the questionnaire finding and obtain more data, Interview with few stakeholders were conducted. The data collection combined with the overall literature has been analysed. Based on the key outcome of this analysis, the framework has been developed and evaluated.

This report delivers the framework for efficacious IT adoption in countries like Nepal with the implementation of Open Technologies. Beside that, the report also suggests the roles and activities that must be carried out for making the investment in IT fruitful. The building up of local expert pool and knowledgebase will help the country to be self reliable and reduces dependency on foreign proprietary software.

Monday 7 March 2011

Development of an Augmented Reality (AR) application for android mobiles

Written by Sanjiv Udash

The project is based on the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) application for android mobiles that focuses on combing all the benefits of technology advancements in the field to provide users with the AR experience in an outdoor as well as indoor environment. The application was divided into two modes. The first mode called the Wikitude mode focuses on the outdoor environment by making use of the Wikitude API to allow users to view different points of interests (POI) around the Newton building. Users are provided with a live view of the real world, a compass displaying the POIs, and different icons representing the POIs. These POIs can be clicked to gain detailed information about them and links them related websites.

As seen in the figure above, the user upon selecting the Wikitude mode is presented with a live camera view. The live view comes with the addition of different POIs displayed as clickable icons and radar displaying the different POIs around the user in form of dots. The user can click the POIs which in turn displays the information below the POI. The view also provides users with three buttons. Button1 allows user to return back to the main menu. The second button allows user to change the distance of the POI from the user’s current location, allowing user to filter the number of POIs around. The third button is only displayed when one of the POI is selected and provides with a more detailed web page of the selected POI.

The second mode called the 3D mode focuses on the indoor environment by making use of the Andar framework. The mode allows user to choose different 3D models that can be viewed upon different marker patters.

The first image in the sequence displays the choice of models that users can select from. The second image displays the marker upon which the model will be displayed upon and the last image shows the 3D model being displayed upon the user bringing the mobile device above the marker. The application is still in beta version with possible features like search option and auto correction to be added in the near future.

Computing Courses

BSc and HND Computing Provision (click on the links below for more details of the courses)

The University of Northampton's, Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies offers five courses within the MSc Computing postgraduate provision (shown below) all available either part-time or full-time.

The contents are the opinion of the author(s) and not necessarily the view of the University of Northampton.

Friday 4 March 2011

MSc Student Work: Android Augmented Reality

A recent MSc student project by Sanjiv Udash looked at Augmented Reality based around Android.

Abstract: In recent times, Augmented Reality (AR) has come within the reach of common people. It has opened a whole new world for developers letting them exploit the capabilities of the smart phones to mix the virtual with the real world. Despite these advancements, just a glance in the current market shows that most of the AR applications are focused only on outdoor environments.

This dissertation is based on the development of an AR application for android mobiles that focuses on combing all the benefits of technology advancements in the field to provide users with the AR experience in an outdoor as well as indoor environment. The work also complied of a series of tests and evaluations that were carried out to formulate an understanding of user’s view about the application.

The creation of the application is considered to be a vital step in the advancement of AR field and can be regarded as a base for other developers to develop similar application in different fields.

Thursday 3 March 2011

HTTP Push in browser based Web Applications

A 2011 MSc student project at the University of Northampton looked into the viability of Comet/HTTP Push with 'legacy' Apache-PHP technology and whether there are new possibilities of Comet applications that did not exist with AJAX.

He concluded:

There are a few small pitfalls in implementing Comet with a Apache/PHP - but they are not difficult to solve.
Comet is worth implementing for to replace an AJAX or PHP/Synchronous system when dealing with live data from a server.
Additional coding needed to implement Comet is small and no harder than Ajax.
It can make web applications live, a whole new experience.

Computing Courses

BSc and HND Computing Provision (click on the links below for more details of the courses)

The contents are the opinion of the author(s) and not necessarily the view of the University of Northampton.