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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Information Science and Computing	50%

Selected Abstracts

Low-cost data communication network for rural telecom network management

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2008
C. Jagadish
The backbone networking infrastructure of rural telecom networks is often costly and is of limited bandwidth. The availability of connectivity such as DSL or leased lines is scarce. In order to keep operational costs low, these rural telecom networks are often kept unmanned and are managed from a centralized network management station (NMS). This often requires a low-cost, efficient and reliable data communication network (DCN) between the rural telecom equipment and the central NMS. The conventional DCN used for telecom management consists either of leased lines or Internet connectivity. These are often costly and not freely available in rural areas. We have developed a new DCN model, based on dial-up, which is easily available. Using mathematical models and measurements we show that this DCN meets the QoS requirements of a telecom network at an affordable cost. We have implemented this DCN in corDECT networks. This is in use in India and Tunisia, and is under implementation in other similar countries. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Humanoids and personal robots: Design and experiments

JOURNAL OF FIELD ROBOTICS (FORMERLY JOURNAL OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS), Issue 12 2001
Paolo Dario
This paper addresses the field of humanoid and personal robotics,its objectives, motivations, and technical problems. The approach described in the paper is based on the analysis of humanoid and personal robots as an evolution from industrial to advanced and service robotics driven by the need for helpful machines, as well as a synthesis of the dream of replicating humans. The first part of the paper describes the development of anthropomorphic components for humanoid robots, with particular regard to anthropomorphic sensors for vision and touch, an eight-d.o.f. arm, a three-fingered hand with sensorized fingertips, and control schemes for grasping. Then, the authors propose a user-oriented design methodology for personal robots, and describe their experience in the design, development, and validation of a real personal robot composed of a mobile unit integrating some of the anthropomorphic components introduced previously and aimed at operating in a distributed working environment. Based on the analysis of experimental results, the authors conclude that humanoid robotics is a tremendous and attractive technical and scientific challenge for robotics research. The real utility of humanoids has still to be demonstrated, but personal assistance can be envisaged as a promising application domain. Personal robotics also poses difficult technical problems, especially related to the need for achieving adequate safety, proper human,robot interaction, useful performance, and affordable cost. When these problems are solved, personal robots will have an excellent chance for significant application opportunities, especially if integrated into future home automation systems, and if supported by the availability of humanoid robots. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source]

Catastrophic payments for health care among households in urban Tamil Nadu, India

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2009
Salem Deenadayalan Vaishnavi
Abstract Urban residents in India face important health problems due to unhygienic conditions, excessive crowding and lack of proper sanitation. The private sector has started occupying the centre stage of the health system and households are burdened with increasing levels of health expenditure. This paper aims to study out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) and the extent of catastrophic payments for health care among households in a highly urbanised state, Tamil Nadu. The study used data on morbidity and health care for the year 2004 collected by the National Sample Survey Organization, India. Care was sought for 84 per cent of illness episodes in urban areas, and the majority used private sector providers (67 per cent for inpatients and 78 per cent for outpatients). Mean OOPE for inpatients and outpatients was higher for households with higher income. The average cost burden per visit was higher among those who sought care from private providers for inpatient services (29 per cent of household consumption expenditure) and outpatient services (20% of household consumption expenditure) compared with the burden associated with public health service use (3,4 per cent of consumption expenditure). About 60 per cent of households which used private health services faced catastrophic payments at the 10 per cent threshold level. To avoid catastrophic expenditure, greater use of the public sector which is providing services at an affordable cost is needed. Improving access to public health services, better gate-keeping systems, stronger controls on drug prices and increasing the quality of services are required to reduce the incidence of catastrophic expenditure both on inpatients and outpatients. Greater use of risk pooling mechanisms would encourage the poor to seek health care and also to protect households from all socio-economic groups from catastrophic expenditure. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

End-to-end diagnostics in IPTV architectures

BELL LABS TECHNICAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2008
Kamakshi Sridhar
The introduction of new revenue-generating services like Internet Protocol television (IPTV) promises to bring to the end user a much more personal-ized communication and entertainment experience at an affordable cost. IPTV brings new features like video on demand (VoD), broadcast TV, and customized ad insertion, along with more traditional voice and data services whose realization requires a wholesale deployment of existing and new protocols and new network elements. Configuration, maintenance and troubleshooting of such networks, customized for each end user, are complex, and it is widely believed that providing diagnostics mechanisms is of substantial importance for rollout of IPTV. This paper describes research efforts at Alcatel-Lucent toward the definition and development of end-to-end diagnostics for IPTV architectures, comprising probes and mechanisms to detect problems in the network and to issue corrective measures. © 2008 Alcatel-Lucent. [source]