Digital Commons Network^™

Interacting With Large Music Collections: Towards The Use Of Environmental Metadata, Gordon Reynolds, Dan Barry, Ted Burke, Eugene Coyle

Conference papers

Large music collections afford the listener flexibility in the form of choice, which enables the listener to choose the appropriate piece of music to enhance or complement their listening scenario on-demand. However, bundled with such a large music collection is the demanding task of manually searching through each entry in the collection to find the appropriate song required by the listener. This paper highlights the need for contextual and environmental information, which ultimately defines the listenerpsilas listening scenario. Here, the preliminary results of an online music survey are analysed. These results indicate the possibility of how environmental features may be …

Linear Prediction: The Problem, Its Solution And Application To Speech, Alan O'Cinneide, David Dorran, Mikel Gainza

Conference papers

Linear prediction is a signal processing technique that is used extensively in the analysis of speech signals and, as it is so heavily referred to in speech processing literature, a certain level of familiarity with the topic is typically required by all speech processing engineers. This paper aims to provide a well-rounded introduction to linear prediction, and so doing, facilitate the understanding of the technique. Linear prediction and its mathematical derivation will be described, with a specific focus on applying the technique to speech signals. It is noted, however, that although progress in linear prediction has been driven primarily by …

Beyond Economics: A Behavioural Approach To Energy Efficiency In Domestic Buildings, Marius Claudy, Aidan O'Driscoll

Articles

This paper argues that the moderate success of policies aiming to stimulate the uptake of Sustainable Energy Systems (SES) in the domestic sector is grounded in a poor understanding of the ‘consumer’. The predominant economic approach behind most policies assumes that improving the cost-benefit ratio of technologies via grants and subsidies and providing sufficient information will automatically incentivise householders’ to invest into SES. Yet, policymakers often neglect behavioural determinants such as attitudes, social norms or personal capabilities. Drawing on key findings from the economics, technology and behavioural literature, this paper proposes an integrated model to identify behavioural and contextual influences …

The Annotation Of Traditional Irish Dance Music Using Matt2 And Tansey, Bryan Duggan, Brendan O'Shea, Mikel Gainza

Conference papers

Currents estimates put the canon of traditional Irish dance tunes at least 7,000 compositions. Given this diversity, a common problem faced by musicians and ethnomusicologists is identifying tunes from recordings. This is evident even in the number of commercial recordings whose title is gan ainm (without name). This work attempts to solve this problem by developing a Content Based Music Information Retrieval (CBMIR) System adapted to the characteristics of traditional Irish music. A system is presented called MATT2 (Machine Annotation of Traditional Tunes) whose primary goal is to annotate recordings of traditional Irish dance music with useful meta-data including tune …

Back To The Future:Knowledge Light Case Base Cookery, Qian Zhang, Rong Hu, Brian Mac Namee, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

The domain of cookery has been of interest for Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) research for many years since the CHEF case-based planning system in the mid 1980s. This paper returns to look at this domain, emphasising a knowledge-light approach. Our approach focuses on; the design of a structured case representation which encapsulates the details of a recipe, on leveraging WordNet for identifying food items and the relationships between them, and on using Active Learning to assist in labelling recipes with meal and cuisine types. Users can search for recipes by specifying the ingredients they wish to include in, or exclude from, …

Physics-Based Table-Top Mixed Reality Games, Qingqing Dong, Zhongyi Sun, Brian Mac Namee

Conference papers

Mixed reality applications use techniques from computer vision, augmented reality and virtual reality to allow real and virtual objects interact physically together on a user’s computer screen. This paper will describe two mixed reality applications which allow the user to play games that appear to take place on top of their physical desk. The games described are a desktop racing game and a desktop based game of ten pin bowling. In the desktop racing game virtual cars, controlled by the user, interact with both virtual objects (such as trees, walls and lampposts) and real ones (such as ramps and blocks). …

Tax Treatment Encourages Residential Investment, Thomas Power

Articles

The economic survey on Ireland by the OECD (issue 5 2008) proposed phasing out policies that distort the housing market, which in turn could help to dampen future housing cycles and maintain competitiveness in the economy.

Specifically it suggests that tax breaks favouring owner occupation contributes to making housing expensive and that these effects could be reduced either by “limiting mortgage tax relief… or by implementing a property tax”.

Implementing Ecommerce In The Irish Construction Industry, Alan V. Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

The current methods of ordering, delivering and invoicing of materials in the construction in-dustry is enormously inefficient, with vast quantities of paperwork, duplication of effort, scanning, re-keying and resolving mismatches between invoices, delivery dockets and purchase orders. The objective of this pa-per is to set out the progress that is being made by the Construction IT Alliance (CITA) in Ireland to support the implementation of eCommerce in the Irish construction industry. The authors will present the result of a pilot project in 2006 which demonstrated that the technology necessary for implementing an electronic supply chain exists and could be deployed …

Citax: A Collaborative Ict Standards Model For The Irish Construction Industry, Alan V. Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

The Irish construction industry is facing a series of fundamental challenges that is affecting every player in the AEC lifecycle, from architects to engineers to quantity surveyors to owners to tenants. Despite technological advances in recent years, the Irish construction industry lags behind other industries in respect to ICT investments. Although there is a pressing need for innovation, existing procurement and tendering procedures in Ireland largely discourage new ideas and put further pressure on thin margins that characterise the competitiveness of the construction sector. The low level of inter-company ICT connectivity reflects the general fragmented and adversarial nature of the …

Proposal For A Construction Industry Digital Competency Centre For Ireland, Alan V. Hore

Conference papers

The Irish construction industry is facing a series of fundamental challenges that is affecting every player in the AEC lifecycle from architects to owners to tenants. Despite technology advances in recent years, the Irish construction industry lags behind other industries in respect to Information Communications Technology (ICT) investments. Despite a pressing need for innovation, procurement and tendering procedures in Ireland largely discourages new ideas and puts further pressure on wafer-thin margins that characterise the construction sector. This paper will reflect on the deliverables of the Construction Information Technology Alliance (CITA) in Ireland, which was formed in partnership between the Technological …

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews, Katherine Younger

Articles

We are all familiar with the dietary guideline exhorting us to eat so many portions of oily fish per week in order to boost our intakes of n-3 long-chain PUFA, but it is perhaps not so widely realised that the fish must themselves be provided with dietary n-3 long-chain PUFA or, possibly, their precursors (though, as in humans, the ability of carnivorous fish to elongate and desaturate n-3 PUFA appears to be limited).

Temperature Dependence Of A Macrobending Edge Filter Based On A High-Bend Loss Fiber, Pengfei Wang, Ginu Rajan, Yuliya Semenova, Gerald Farrell

Articles

The temperature dependence of a macrobending bare fiber based edge filter is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The fiber used is a high bend loss fiber, type 1060XP. The experimental results show a good agreement with the proposed theoretical model over a temperature range from 0 to 80oC. It is shown that the strong temperature dependence of a high-bend loss fiber has a significant influence on the performance of a fiber edge filter used in a wavelength measurement application. However it is also concluded that such a temperature dependent performance can be beneficially utilized in a fiber temperature sensing application.

Prevention Of Staphylococcus Epidermidis Biofilm Formation Using A Low-Temperature Processed Silver-Doped Phenyltriethoxysilane Sol–Gel Coating, Niall Stobie, Brendan Duffy, Declan Mccormack, John Colreavy, Martha Hidalgo, Patrick Mchale, Steven Hinder

Articles

Sol–gel coatings which elute bioactive silver ions are presented as a potential solution to the problem of biofilm formation on indwelling surfaces. There is evidence that high-temperature processing of such materials can lead to diffusion of silver away from the coating surface, reducing the amount of available silver. In this study, we report the biofilm inhibition of a Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm using a low-temperature processed silver-doped phenyltriethoxysilane sol–gel coating. The incorporation of a silver salt into a sol–gel matrix resulted in an initial high release of silver in de-ionised water and physiological buffered saline (PBS), followed by a lower sustained …

Dit News, 1st.-31st. Of December, 2007, Dit:Students Union

DIT Student Union

No abstract provided.

A Coupled Fluid-Structure Model Of A Therapeutic Ultrasound Angioplasty Wire Waveguide, Graham Gavin, Finbar Dolan, M.S. Hashmi, Garrett Mcguinness

Articles

Ultrasonic longitudinal displacements, delivered to the distal tips of small diameter wire waveguides, have been shown to be capable of disrupting complicated atherosclerotic plaques during vascular interventions. These ultrasonic displacements can disrupt plaques by direct contact ablation but also by pressure waves, associated cavitation and acoustic streaming developed in the surrounding blood and tissue cavities. The pressure waves developed within the arterial lumen appear to play a major role but are complex to predict as they are determined by the distal tip output of the wire waveguide (both displacement and frequency), the geometric features of the waveguide tip and the …

Evaluation Of Robocode As A Teaching Tool For Computer Programming, Arnold Hensman

Conference Papers

Robocode began as an educational tool to aid in learning Java programming. It has since evolved into something of a phenomenon, as the prospect of creating simple to complex virtual tanks appears to pose an attractive challenge to both novice and expert programmers alike. What started out as a teaching tool has grown into a worldwide network of competitors, all keen to prove that their ‘bot’ stands out from the crowd. Competitions are well organised and many Robocode events are a PR dream for the computing companies that sponsor them. Without a doubt, this easy to use application has sparked …

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Practical Sensor For Measurement Of Nitrogen, Dusan Popovic, Vladimir Milosavljevic, Steven Daniels

Articles

This paper presents a method for precise measurement of atomic and molecular nitrogen in an oxygen-nitrogen dc plasma. This is achieved by monitoring the intensities of the atomic nitrogen spectral line at 821.6 nm and the molecular nitrogen bandhead at 337.1 nm, relative to the atomic oxygen spectral line at 844.7 nm. Oxygen is one of the most frequently used gases for surface chemical treatment, including deposition and etching, therefore the ability to measure and control the process and chemical composition of the process is essential. To validate this oxygen actimometry method for N2-xO2 (where x varies from 0 to …

Dit News, 1st.-30th. Of November, 2007, Dit:Students Union

DIT Student Union

No abstract provided.

Wireless Positioning Techniques: A Developer's Update, Seamus Rooney, Keith Gardiner, James Carswell

Conference papers

This paper describes the current efforts to develop an open source, privacy sensitive, location determination software component for mobile devices. Currently in mobile computing, the ability of a mobile device to determine its own location is becoming increasingly desirable as the usefulness of such a feature enhances many commercial applications. There have been numerous attempts to achieve this from both the network positioning perspective and also from the wireless beacon angle not to mention the integration of GPS into mobile devices. There are two important aspects to consider when using such a system which are privacy and cost. This paper …

An Experimental Investigation Of Real-Time Video Transmission Over Ieee 802.11e Wlan Networks Using Txop, Nicola Cranley, Mark Davis

Conference papers

Real-time multimedia streaming applications require a strict bounded end-to-end delay and are considered to be bursty as each video frame is typically transmitted as a burst of packets. In this paper we show how the distribution of video frame sizes can be used to efficiently dimension the IEEE 802.11e TXOP limit parameter to efficiently deal with this burstiness in order to enhance the transmission of real-time video streaming services. Through experimental investigation, we show that by using the mean video frame size to dimension the TXOP limit parameter, the transmission delay for the video frame is reduced by 67% under …

Thermal Testing Of Building Insulation Materials, Eoghan Frawley, David Kennedy

Articles

This article explores the testing of building insulation materials and the development of a suitable testing apparatus.

Experimental Measurement Of Overhead Associated With Active Probing Of Wireless Mesh Networks, Brian Keegan, Karol Kowalik

Conference papers

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) represent the next generation wireless networks. The increased capacity of WMNs means that they are now capable of providing backhaul services traditionally maintained by wired networks. The attraction of WMNs is their ease of deployment and ability to self organise, self configure, and self heal. In order to successfully achieve this objective careful consideration must be applied when constructing a WMN. In order to optimise the operation of the network, data should traverse the network by means of the most efficient route. Characterisation and path selection will be determined by the routing algorithm coupled with the …

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Optical Reading And Playing Of Sound Signals From Vinyl Records, Arnold Hensman, Kevin Casey

Conference Papers

While advanced digital music systems such as compact disk players and MP3 have become the standard in sound reproduction technology, critics claim that conversion to digital often results in a loss of sound quality and richness. For this reason, vinyl records remain the medium of choice for many audiophiles involved in specialist areas. The waveform cut into a vinyl record is an exact replica of the analogue version from the original source. However, while some perceive this media as reproducing a more authentic quality then its digital counterpart, there is an absence a safe playback system. Contact with the stylus …

Are Government Laws Consistent With The Laws Of Supply And Demand, Thomas Power

Other Resources

Government laws are not always consistent with the laws of supply and demand and when enacted have unintended consequences. Three real world examples provide illustrations of policy makers implementing policies that have unintended consequences. When households and firms look at prices when deciding what to buy and sell, they unknowingly take into account the social benefits and costs of their actions. As a result, prices guide these individual decision makers to reach outcomes that maximize the welfare of society as a whole.

Rural Utility Cooperative (Ruc): Final Evaluation Report, Steven Konkel

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Contention Among Stations On Video Streaming Applications Over Wireless Local Area Networks: An Experimental Approach, Nicola Cranley, Tanmoy Debnath

Conference papers

Multimedia streaming applications have a large impact on the resource requirements of the WLAN. There are many variables involved in video streaming, such as the video content being streamed, how the video is encoded and how it is sent. This makes the role of radio resource management and the provision of QoS guarantees extremely difficult. For video streaming applications, packet loss and packets dropped due to excessive delay are the primary factors that affect the received video quality. In this paper, we experimentally analyse the effects of contention on the performance of video streaming applications with a given delay constraint …

The Capability Of The Edca Mechanism To Support Voice Traffic In A Mixed Voice/Data Transmission Over 802.11e Wlans: An Experimental Investigation, Miroslaw Narbutt, Mark Davis

Conference papers

In this paper we experimentally evaluate the capability of the EDCA mechanism to support voice traffic in a mixed voice/data transmission over 802.11e WLANs. In particular we investigate how real-time voice transmission can be supported by tuning four EDCA parameters, namely AIFSN, CWmin, CWmax and TXOP and how this impacts on background data transmission. The experimental set-up involves fifteen VoIP terminals sending bi-directional traffic between wired and wireless subnets and another station injecting various types of heavy background load to the wireless subnet. End-to-end voice transmission quality is predicted from time-varying transmission impairments with the use of the latest Appendix …