Innovation in IT Soft Copy)

8/3/2019 Innovation in IT Soft Copy)

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Group Members :

Sagar Bhoi 1010Deepa Dattani 1017

Tanush Kagne 1041

Aditya Mahadik 1048

Kishori Mahadik 1049

Sweta Patil 1052


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INDEXSr.No Topic Page No.

1 What is IT? 4

2 Biometric 6

3 Gesture recognition 13

4 Bioinformatics 17

5 Nanotechnology 20

6 Robotics 23

7 Business Intelligence 27

8 Sixth Sense 31

9 Artifical Neural Network 33


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Information TechnologyInformation technology has the highest probability of having the most dramatic effects over

the next 25 years. While one can see continuous changes over the past 50 years, the outcomes inthe next century will be even more dramatic. Information technology will affect personal life,business life, social life, government activities, international commerce and foreign relations.(For convenience, we include under information technology: telecommunications, computers,virtual reality and technologies promoting smartness, that is, intelligence in devices andsystems, including robots.) Among the principal effects off the widespread use of thesetechnologies are the following.

First, every business is now primarily an information machine, irrespective of what a companythinks its business is. It may sell shoes, food, or clothing, or manufacture gadgets, but the realityis that information technology has come to dominate every aspect of the business enterprise, tothe extent that.businesses are more alike than different by being information machines.

Accommodating to that will be important, as businesses reset theirpriorities to keep that information machine humming and exploit its capabilities. They willrecognize the tremendous power of the information machine by reaching out to customers,suppliers, public interest groups, government, competitors, and other organizations. Informationtechnology will also affect the traditional internal elements of the firm.

Second, information technology first allows and now demands a total systems orientation in allinstitutional enterprises. All enterprises for the indefinite past have recognized that they are apart of a larger system, but the practicalities of life in business or government allowed onlylimited attention to most of the elements in the system. The failure to take the total system intoaccount has left many organizations at a tremendous disadvantage when they find that the

world has changed while they were not watching. Information technology now makes it practicalto have a truly holistic approach to all information and knowledge relevant to the enterprise.

Third, information technology fundamentally contracts time, moving things at a faster pace. Bycontracting time, it also in many regards eliminates distance. Aside from any trivialinconvenience in the fraction of a second it takes to transmit an electronic message or image onecan now communicate visually, verbally or with data, from any place to any place at any time.

Fourth, the consequences of all of these capabilities lie in two distinct domains, with a fuzzyinterface.Almost all of information technology is introduced because it promises to delivergreater effectiveness andefficiency. It is the second level of effects, the transformational ones,

that cause fundamental changes in the organization, its functions and operation. One can see atransformation in institutions in the recent enthusiasm for knowledgemanagement, which isintended to cast over the whole organization a new network of communication that allowsthe organization to know what is known inside the organization and have timely access to it.That point and that need was nicely put by Lew Platt, a former CEO of Hewlett- Packard: If HPknew what HP knows, we would be three times more profitable. Similarly electronic commerceis radically changing companies as they try to come to grips with the use of informationnetworks to substitute and replace or augment traditional marketing and sales.


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Fifth, the formation of networks is an absolutely central characteristic of informationtechnology. Networks may be inside of organizations, to facilitate communication and the flowof work. They may be outside of organizations, in public interest group or in affinity groups toshare concerns about a disease, environmental problems, films, car and travel or anything else.Those networks widen peoples awareness and give them more satisfying and richcommunications, with regard to their specific interests and concerns.

Sixth, information technology can often substitute for materials and for human resources andcreate new enterprises. Information technology creates new businesses, not necessarily big ones.Every innovation creates new needs. Those new needs create niche markets and opportunities.The globalization of every commercial enterprise is now well underway. Global networkingmakes it first attractive and later necessary to be sure that one has a full grasp of what is going onaround the world. Going along with globalizationand pushing it hard is the need forstandardization. Standardization has the general effect of making partsmore compatible witheach other, systems more interchangeable, and linkages cheaper and more effective.Illustrations throughout this chapter highlight these and other capabilities coming about from

informationtechnology.

Seventh, technologies can coalesce to create striking new capabilities. To illustrate,telecommunications an computation have now come together to create a capability called virtualreality. One can create images, scenes, and interactions that do not exist in any place except incyberspace. The computational capabilities bring reality to the images of devices and scenes,while telecommunications carry them wherever they need to go.Virtual reality and associatedexperiences will drastically alter education by making it tailored to what one knows, what oneneed to learn, and ones particular preferred learning strategies. Virtual reality will optimize andaccelerate remote learning. Virtual reality will also allow all kinds of simulation, so much sothat no devices, whether as simple as a new wine bottle opener or as complex as a new housing

development or cruise ship, will even begin to be built until it is completely planned, designed,built, tested, evaluated, and modified in cyberspace.Even today, with relatively primitive virtual reality, one can walk through the offices of a not yetbuilt building, test it for comfort and size, and even begin to place furniture in it and decorate itto ones taste. Virtual reality will have great effects on the modeling of social, economic,political, physical, and infrastructural systems. The model can then be tried out to testmodifications, intrusions, inventions, innovations, and habitability.Jacky Swann and her associates have in this volume been exploringand codifying theconnections between knowledge, networking, and innovation. This triatic relationship iscrucial to new developments and their applications. The model they are developing linking andcomparing invention, diffusion, and implementation promises to shed beneficial light on

behavior of all kinds of institutions.


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BIOMETRIC

Biometrics comprises methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or

more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. Incomputer science, in particular, biometrics is usedas a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals

in groups that are under surveillance.

Biometric characteristics can be divided in two main classes

Physiological are related to the shape of the body. Examples include, but are not limitedto fingerprint, face recognition, DNA, Palm print, hand geometry, iris recognition, which has

largely replaced retina, and odour/scent.

Behavioral are related to the behavior of a person. Examples include, but are not limitedto typing rhythm, gait, and voice. Some researchers

[1]have coined the

term behaviometrics for this class of biometrics.

Strictly speaking, voice is also a physiological trait because every person has a different vocal

tract, but voice recognition is mainly based on the study of the way a person speaks, commonly

classified as behavioral.

Introduction

It is possible to understand if a human characteristic can be used for biometrics in terms of the

following parameters:

Universality each person should have the characteristic. Uniqueness is how well the biometric separates individuals from another. Permanence measures how well a biometric resists aging and other variance over time. Collectability ease of acquisition for measurement.


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Performance accuracy, speed, and robustness of technology used. Acceptability degree of approval of a technology. Circumvention ease of use of a substitute.A biometric system can operate in the following two modes

Verification A one to one comparison of a captured biometric with a stored template toverify that the individual is who he claims to be. Can be done in conjunction with a smart

card, username or ID number.

Identification A one to many comparison of the captured biometric against a biometricdatabase in attempt to identify an unknown individual. The identification only succeeds in

identifying the individual if the comparison of the biometric sample to a template in the

database falls within a previously set threshold.

The first time an individual uses a biometric system is called an enrollment. During theenrollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. In subsequent uses, biometric

information is detected and compared with the information stored at the time of enrollment. Note

that it is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric

system is to be robust. The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and the

system; it has to acquire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition

system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired. The second block performs all

the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g.

removing background noise), to use some kind of normalization, etc. In the third block necessary

features are extracted. This step is an important step as the correct features need to be extracted

in the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create

a template. A template is a synthesis of the relevant characteristics extracted from the source.

Elements of the biometric measurement that are not used in the comparison algorithm are

discarded in the template to reduce the filesize and to protect the identity of the enrollee.

If enrollment is being performed, the template is simply stored somewhere (on a card or within a

database or both). If a matching phase is being performed, the obtained template is passed to a

matcher that compares it with other existing templates, estimating the distance between them

using any algorithm (e.g. Hamming distance). The matching program will analyze the template

with the input. This will then be output for any specified use or purpose (e.g. entrance in a

restricted area)


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Performance

The following are used as performance metrics for biometric systems:

false accept rate or false match rate (FAR or FMR) the probability that the systemincorrectly matches the input pattern to a non-matching template in the database. It measuresthe percent of invalid inputs which are incorrectly accepted.

false reject rate or false non-match rate (FRR or FNMR) the probability that the systemfails to detect a match between the input pattern and a matching template in the database. It

measures the percent of valid inputs which are incorrectly rejected.

receiver operating characteristic or relative operating characteristic (ROC) The ROCplot is a visual characterization of the trade-off between the FAR and the FRR. In general,

the matching algorithm performs a decision based on a threshold which determines how

close to a template the input needs to be for it to be considered a match. If the threshold isreduced, there will be less false non-matches but more false accepts. Correspondingly, a

higher threshold will reduce the FAR but increase the FRR. A common variation is

the Detection error trade-off (DET), which is obtained using normal deviate scales on both

axes. This more linear graph illuminates the differences for higher performances (rarer

errors).

equal error rate or crossover error rate (EER or CER) the rate at which both acceptand reject errors are equal. The value of the EER can be easily obtained from the ROC curve.

The EER is a quick way to compare the accuarcy of devices with different ROC curves. In

general, the device with the lowest EER is most accurate. Obtained from the ROC plot by

taking the point where FAR and FRR have the same value. The lower the EER, the more

accurate the system is considered to be.

failure to enroll rate (FTE or FER) the rate at which attempts to create a template froman input is unsuccessful. This is most commonly caused by low quality inputs.

failure to capture rate (FTC) Within automatic systems, the probability that the systemfails to detect a biometric input when presented correctly.

template capacity the maximum number of sets of data which can be stored in the system..Current, emerging and future applications of biometrics

Proposal calls for biometric authentication to access certain public networks

John Michael (Mike) McConnell, a former vice admiral in the United States Navy, a former

Director of US National Intelligence, and Senior Vice President of Booz Allen

Hamiltonpromoted the development of a future capability to require biometric authentication to


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access certain public networks in his Keynote Speech at the 2009 Biometric Consortium

Conference.

A basic premise in the above proposal is that the person that has uniquely authenticated

themselves using biometrics with the computer is in fact also the agent performing potentially

malicious actions from that computer. However, if control of the computer has been subverted,

for example in which the computer is part of a botnet controlled by a hacker, then knowledge of

the identity of the user at the terminal does not materially improve network security or aid law

enforcement activities.

Issues and concern

Privacy and discrimination

Data obtained during biometric enrollment could be used in ways the enrolled individual does

not consent to.

Danger to owners of secured items

When thieves cannot get access to secure properties, there is a chance that the thieves will stalk

and assault the property owner to gain access. If the item is secured with a biometric device, the

damage to the owner could be irreversible, and potentially cost more than the secured property.

For example, in 2005, Malaysian car thieves cut off the finger of a Mercedes-Benz S-

Class owner when attempting to steal the car.

Cancelable biometrics

One advantage of passwords over biometrics is that they can be re-issued. If a token or a

password is lost or stolen, it can be cancelled and replaced by a newer version. This is not

naturally available in biometrics. If someones face is compromised from a database, they cannot

cancel or reissue it. Cancelable biometrics is a way in which to incorporate protection and the

replacement features into biometrics. It was first proposed by Ratha et al.

Several methods for generating cancelable biometrics have been proposed. The first fingerprint

based cancelable biometric system was designed and developed by Tulyakov et al. Essentially,

cancelable biometrics perform a distortion of the biometric image or features before matching.

The variability in the distortion parameters provides the cancelable nature of the scheme. Some

of the proposed techniques operate using their own recognition engines, such as Teoh et al. and

Savvides et al., whereas other methods, such as Dabbah et al.,take the advantage of the

advancement of the well-established biometric research for their recognition front-end to conduct

recognition. Although this increases the restrictions on the protection system, it makes

the cancellable templates more accessible for available biometric technologies.


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What are the disadvantages and advantages ofbiometrics?

The advantages of biometrics are the person is the key so you need never remember your card

or key again. Each body part is unique and Biometrics uses your unique identity to enable a

purchase activate something or unlock something. Biometrics encompasses Voice, Vein, Eye,

Fingerprint, Facial recognition and more.

The disadvantages are numerous however: criminals have been known to remove fingers to

open biometric locks, Biometrics requires a lot of data to be kept on a person, these systems are

not always reliable as human beings change over time if you are ill; eyes puffy, voice hoarse or

your fingers are rough from laboring for example it maybe more difficult for the machinery to

identify you accurately. Every time you use Biometrics you are being tracked by a databasebringing up a range of privacy issues. The final disadvantage is the expense and technical

complexity of such systems.

Disadvantages of a biometric system.

y The finger print of those people working in Chemical industries are often affected.Therefore these companies should not use the finger print mode of authentication.

y It is found that with age, the voice of a person differs. Also when the person has flu orthroat infection the voice changes or if there there are too much noise in the environmentthis method maynot authenticate correctly. Therefore this method of verification is not

workable all the timey For people affected with diabetes, the eyes get affected resulting in differences.y Biometrics is an expensive security solution.y Advantages of Biometrics :

* Increase security - Provide a convenient and low-cost additional tier of security.

* Reduce fraud by employing hard-to-forge technologies and materials. For e.g.Minimisethe opportunity for ID fraud, buddy punching.

* Eliminate problems caused by lost IDs or forgotten passwords by using physiological

attributes. For e.g. Prevent unauthorised use of lost, stolen or "borrowed" ID cards.

* Reduce password administration costs.

* Replace hard-to-remember passwords which may be shared or observed.

* Integrate a wide range of biometric solutions and technologies, customer applicationsand databases into a robust and scalable control solution for facility and network access


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* Make it possible, automatically, to know WHO did WHAT, WHERE and WHEN!

* Offer significant cost savings or increasing ROI in areas such as Loss Prevention orTime & Attendance.

* Unequivocally link an individual to a transaction or event.

Current Biometric Technologies

y Palm Print RecognitionPalm print recognition is very similar to fingerprint recognition. Both palm and fingerbiometrics use the information found in the pattern of ridges in the skin.

y Fingerprint RecognitionFingerprint recognition is probably the best known form of biometrics. See - History ofFingerprinting

y Hand GeometryHand geometry is the oldest form of biometrics.

y Dynamic SignatureThis is how people write in particular the signature of their name.

y Vascular Pattern RecognitionThis is a very new form of biometrics where infared photography is used to identify the bloodvessels in a hand or fingerprint.

y Iris RecognitionThis is the identification of the individual by the unique pattern in the iris.

y Face RecognitionThis is the identification of the individual by the unique pattern in the face.

y Speaker RecognitionThis is the identification of the individual, the unique pattern of the voice.Voice Recognition:The field of computer science that deals with designing computer systemsthat can recognizespoken words. Note that voice recognition implies only that the computer can take dictation, notthat it understands what is being said. Comprehending human languages falls under a differentfield of computer science called natural languageprocessing.A number of voice recognition systems are available on the market. The most powerful canrecognize thousands of words. However, they generally require an extended training sessionduring which the computer system becomes accustomed to a particular voice and accent. Such

systems are said to bespeaker dependent.Many systems also require that the speaker speak slowly and distinctly and separate each wordwith a short pause. These systems are called discrete speech systems. Recently, great strideshave been made in continuous speech systems -- voice recognition systems that allow you tospeak naturally. There are now several continuous-speech systems available for personalcomputers.Because of their limitations and high cost, voice recognition systems have traditionally been usedonly in a few specialized situations. For example, such systems are useful in instances when the


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user is unable to use a keyboard to enter data because his or her hands are occupied or disabled.Instead of typing commands, the user can simply speak into a headset. Increasingly, however, asthe cost decreases and performance improves, speech recognition systems are entering themainstream and are being used as an alternative to keyboards.


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Gesture recognition

Gesture recognition is the mathematical interpretation of a human gesture by a computingdevice. Gesture recognition, along with facial recognition, voice recognition, eye tracking and lipmovement recognition are components of what developers refer to as a perceptual user interface(PUI). The goal of PUI is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for the underlying logicaldesign of a stored program, a design discipline known as usability. In personal computing,gestures are most often used for input commands.

Recognizing gestures as input allows computers to be more accessible for the physically-impaired and makes interaction more natural in a 3-D virtual world environment. Hand and bodygestures can be amplified by a controller that contains accelerometers and gyroscopes to sensetilting, rotation and acceleration of movement -- or the computing device can be outfitted with acamera so that software in the device can recognize and interpret specific gestures. A wave of thehand, for instance, might terminate the program.

In addition to the technical challenges of implementing gesture recognition, there are also socialchallenges. Gestures must be simple, intuitive and universally acceptable. The study of gesturesand other nonverbal types of communication is known as kinesics.

Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal ofinterpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. Gestures can originate from any bodilymotion or state but commonly originate from the face or hand. Current focuses in the fieldinclude emotion recognition from the face and hand gesture recognition. Many approaches havebeen made using cameras and computer vision algorithms to interpret sign language. However,the identification and recognition of posture, gait, proxemics, and human behaviors is also thesubject of gesture recognition techniques. Gesture recognition can be seen as a way forcomputers to begin to understand human body language, thus building a richer bridge betweenmachines and humans than primitive text user interfaces or even GUIs (graphical userinterfaces), which still limit the majority of input to keyboard and mouse.

Gesture recognition enables humans to interface with the machine (HMI) and interact naturallywithout any mechanical devices. Using the concept of gesture recognition, it is possible to pointa finger at the computer screen so that the cursor will move accordingly. This could potentiallymake conventional input devices such as mouse, keyboards and even touch-screens redundant.

Gesture recognition can be conducted with techniques from computer vision and processing.

The literature includes ongoing work in the computer vision field on capturing gestures or moregeneral human pose and movements by cameras connected to a computer.

Gesture recognition and pen computing:

In some literature, the term gesture recognition has been used to refer more narrowly to non-text-input handwriting symbols, such as inking on a graphics tablet, multitouch gestures, and


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mouse gesture recognition. This is computer interaction through the drawing of symbols with

a pointing device cursor.

Gesture recognition is useful for processing information from humans which is not conveyed

through speech or type. As well, there are various types of gestures which can be identified by

computers.

Types of gestures

Sign language recognition. Just as speech recognition can transcribe speech to text, certaintypes of gesture recognition software can transcribe the symbols represented through

sign into text.

For socially assistive robotics. By using proper sensors (accelerometers and gyros) worn onthe body of a patient and by reading the values from those sensors, robots can assist in patient

rehabilitation. The best example can be stroke rehabilitation. Directional indication through pointing. Pointing has a very specific purpose in

our society, to reference an object or location based on its position relative to ourselves. The

use of gesture recognition to determine where a person is pointing is useful for identifying

the context of statements or instructions. This application is of particular interest in the field

of robotics.

Control through facial gestures. Controlling a computer through facial gestures is a usefulapplication of gesture recognition for users who may not physically be able to use a mouse or

keyboard. Eye tracking in particular may be of use for controlling cursor motion or focusing

on elements of a display.

Alternative computer interfaces. Foregoing the traditional keyboard and mouse setup tointeract with a computer, strong gesture recognition could allow users to accomplish frequent

or common tasks using hand or face gestures to a camera.

Immersive game technology. Gestures can be used to control interactions within videogames to try and make the game player's experience more interactive or immersive.

Virtual controllers. For systems where the act of finding or acquiring a physical controllercould require too much time, gestures can be used as an alternative control mechanism.

Controlling secondary devices in a car, or controlling a television set are examples of such

usage.

Affective computing. In affective computing, gesture recognition is used in the process ofidentifying emotional expression through computer systems.


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Remote control. Through the use of gesture recognition, "remote control with the wave of ahand" of various devices is possible. The signal must not only indicate the desired response,

but also which device to be controlled.

Input methodThe ability to track a person's movements and determine what gestures they may be performing

can be achieved through various tools. Although there is a large amount of research done in

image/video based gesture recognition, there is some variation within the tools and environments

used between implementations.

Depth-aware cameras. Using specialized cameras such as time-of-flight cameras, one cangenerate a depth map of what is being seen through the camera at a short range, and use this

data to approximate a 3d representation of what is being seen. These can be effective for

detection of hand gestures due to their short range capabilities.

Stereo cameras. Using two cameras whose relations to one another are known, a 3drepresentation can be approximated by the output of the cameras. To get the cameras'

relations, one can use a positioning reference such as a lexian-stripe or infrared emitters.

Controller-based gestures. These controllers act as an extension of the body so that whengestures are performed, some of their motion can be conveniently captured by software.

Mouse are one such example, where the motion of the mouse is correlated to a symbol being

drawn by a person's hand, as is the Wii Remote, which can study changes in acceleration

over time to represent gestures.

Single camera. A normal camera can be used for gesture recognition where theresources/environment would not be convenient for other forms of image-based recognition.

Although not necessarily as effective as stereo or depth aware cameras, using a single camera

allows a greater possibility of accessibility to a wider audience.


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Challenges

There are many challenges associated with the accuracy and usefulness of gesture recognition

software. For image-based gesture recognition there are limitations on the equipment used

and image noise. Images or video may not be under consistent lighting, or in the same location.

Items in the background or distinct features of the users may make recognition more difficult.

The variety of implementations for image-based gesture recognition may also cause issue for

viability of the technology to general usage. For example, an algorithm calibrated for one camera

may not work for a different camera. The amount of background noise also causes tracking and

recognition difficulties, especially when occlusions (partial and full) occur. Furthermore, the

distance from the camera, and the camera's resolution and quality, also cause variations in

recognition accuracy.

In order to capture human gestures by visual sensors, robust computer vision methods are also

required, for example for hand tracking and hand posture recognition[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] or

for capturing movements of the head, facial expressions or gaze direction.

"Gorilla arm"

"Gorilla arm" was a side-effect that destroyed vertically-oriented touch-screens as a mainstream

input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s.

Designers of touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans are not designed to hold their

arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than a very few selections, the armbegins to feel sore, cramped, and oversizedthe operator looks like a gorilla while using the

touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale to

human-factors designers; "Remember the gorilla arm!" is shorthand for "How is this going to fly

in real use?

Gorilla arm is not a problem for specialist short-term-use uses, since they only involve brief

interactions which do not last long enough to cause gorilla arm.


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BIOINFORMATICS

Bioinformatics was applied in the creation and maintenance of a database to store biologicalinformation at the beginning of the "genomic revolution", such as nucleotide and amino acid

sequences. Development of this type of database involved not only design issues but the

development of complex interfaces whereby researchers could both access existing data as well

as submit new or revised data.

In order to study how normal cellular activities are altered in different disease states, the

biological data must be combined to form a comprehensive picture of these activities. Therefore,

the field of bioinformatics has evolved such that the most pressing task now involves the analysis

and interpretation of various types of data, including nucleotide and amino acid sequences,

protein domains, and protein structures. The actual process of analyzing and interpreting data is

referred to as computational biology. Important sub-disciplines within bioinformatics and

computational biology include:

the development and implementation of tools that enable efficient access to, and use andmanagement of, various types of information.

the development of new algorithms (mathematical formulas) and statistics with which toassess relationships among members of large data sets, such as methods to locate a gene

within a sequence, predict protein structure and/or function, and cluster protein sequencesinto families of related sequences.

There are two fundamental ways of modelling a Biological system (e.g. living cell) both coming

under Bioinformatic approaches.

Static Sequences - Proteins, Nucleic acids and Peptides Structures - Proteins, Nucleic acids, Ligands (including metabolites and drugs) and

Peptides

Interaction data among the above entities including microarray data and Networks ofproteins, metabolites

Dynamic Systems Biology comes under this category including reaction fluxes and variable

concentrations of metabolites


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Multi-Agent Based modelling approaches capturing cellular events such as signalling,transcription and reaction dynamics

A broad sub-category under bioinformatics is structural bioinformatics.

Since the Phage -X174 was sequenced in 1977, the DNA sequences of thousands of

organisms have been decoded and stored in databases. This sequence information is analyzed to

determine genes that encode polypeptides (proteins), RNA genes, regulatory sequences,

structural motifs, and repetitive sequences. A comparison of genes within a species or between

different species can show similarities between protein functions, or relations between species

(the use of molecular systematics to construct phylogenetic trees). With the growing amount of

data, it long ago became impractical to analyze DNA sequences manually. Today, computer

programs such as BLAST are used daily to search sequences from more than 260 000 of

organisms, containing over 190 billion nucleotides. These programs can compensate for

mutations (exchanged, deleted or inserted bases) in the DNA sequence, in order to identifysequences that are related, but not identical. A variant of this sequence alignment is used in the

sequencing process itself. The so-called shotgun sequencing technique (which was used, for

example, by The Institute for Genomic Research to sequence the first bacterial

genome, Haemophilus influenzae) does not produce entire chromosomes, but instead generates

the sequences of many thousands of small DNA fragments (ranging from 35 to 900 nucleotides

long, depending on the sequencing technology). The ends of these fragments overlap and, when

aligned properly by a genome assembly program, can be used to reconstruct the complete

genome. Shotgun sequencing yields sequence data quickly, but the task of assembling the

fragments can be quite complicated for larger genomes. For a genome as large as the human

genome, it may take many days of CPU time on large-memory, multiprocessor computers to

assemble the fragments, and the resulting assembly will usually contain numerous gaps that have

to be filled in later. Shotgun sequencing is the method of choice for virtually all genomes

sequenced today, and genome assembly algorithms are a critical area of bioinformatics research.

Another aspect of bioinformatics in sequence analysis is annotation, which involves

computational gene finding to search for protein-coding genes, RNA genes, and other functional

sequences within a genome. Not all of the nucleotides within a genome are part of genes. Within

the genome of higher organisms, large parts of the DNA do not serve any obvious purpose. This

so-called junk DNA may, however, contain unrecognized functional elements. Bioinformatics

helps to bridge the gap between genome and proteome projects for example, in the use of

DNA sequences for protein identification.


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Bioinfomatics and Information Technology

The research group Bioinformatics and Information Technology focuses on the development,installation and provision of bioinformatic tools and the implementation of biological databasesto support in silico analysis of various IPK research groups.Primary tasks are the effective support to store genomic data within specific databases (e.g. CR-EST), to offer selected tools for data analysis with information retrieval as the final goal, theevaluation of currently available bioinformatic tools and consulting concerning topics like datastorage and use of the analysis tools.An additional interest is the data integration. Goal of these activities is the consolidation of theworldwide distributed data including the minimisation of redundancy and the provision of user-specific views onto the integrated data set.

The tasks of the group also include the operation of the central IT services, like network, centralfile server, archiving and backup. In this context, the group provides a file server cluster for thecentral storage of user files. Furthermore, the group operates an Active Directory service for thehomogeneous management of user data. Parts of the PCs of the institute have been successfullyintegrated into the provided Windows domain. Thus, a homogeneous, central and resourcesaving management of files and printers can be established.The technical basis for the external presentation of information, resources and scientific resultsof the IPK using an Internet portal is also managed by the IT group. To support internalcommunication, management and information exchange, a collaboration suite has beenintegrated into the Intranet portal.Beside these central services, the individual desktop support of scientific and non-scientific ITusers is an important and challenging task for the IT resource planning.


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NANOTECHNOLOGY

The first use of the concepts found in 'nano-technology' (but pre-dating use of that name) was in

"There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", a talk given by physicist Richard Feynman at

an American Physical Society meeting atCaltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman described a

process by which the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules might be developed,

using one set of precise tools to build and operate another proportionally smaller set, and so on

down to the needed scale. In the course of this, he noted, scaling issues would arise from the

changing magnitude of various physical phenomena: gravity would become less important,

surface tension and van der Waals attraction would become increasingly more significant, etc.

This basic idea appeared plausible, and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to

produce a useful quantity of end products. The term "nanotechnology" was defined by TokyoScience University ProfessorNorio Taniguchi in a 1974 paper as follows: "'Nano-technology'

mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by

one atom or by one molecule." In the 1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in

much more depth by Dr. K. Eric Drexler, who promoted the technological significance of nano-

scale phenomena and devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation: The Coming

Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and

Computation, and so the term acquired its current sense. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era

of Nanotechnology is considered the first book on the topic of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology

and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major developments; the birth

of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). This

development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 and carbon nanotubes a few years later. In

another development, the synthesis and properties of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied;

this led to a fast increasing number of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and quantum dots.

The atomic force microscope (AFM or SFM) was invented six years after the STM was invented.

In 2000, the United States National Nanotechnology Initiative was founded to coordinate Federal

nanotechnology research and development and is evaluated by the President's Council of

Advisors on Science and Technology.


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Will Nanotechnology transform Information Technology?

The nanotechnology industry is heralding a new world order and is estimated to grow over $1

trillion by 2015. Since it is distinguished by its interdisciplinary nature, can nanotechnologyrevolutionize information technology?

Even though it has already bringing in radical changes in the fields of healthcare, textile, paint,rubber, automobile industries, but lately also seeing advances on the IT front.

Talking to CXOtoday, Ashok Kumar Manoli, principal secretary IT, BT & Science &Technology, Government of Karnataka said, without doubt, nanotechnology is making rapidadvances in the IT industry since IT is one of the defining features of todays world. Nano hasmade advances in IT even if it is not directly related.

Recently, IBM researchers have created transistors out of carbon nanotubes that can outperformsimilar silicon transistors, a development that helps build the case that carbon may one daybecome a building block of computing.

IBM researchers have outlined how transistors made of carbon nanotubes long, thin strands ofcarbon molecules delivered more than twice the amount of electrical current at a faster ratethan cutting-edge transistors made from silicon and metal, the basis for chips today.

Likewise, Samsung, worlds leading electronics major has added carbon nanotubes to LCDtellies. Reports indicate that Samsung has been showing off its technology, which uses carbonnanotubes to drop the cost and increase the performance of LCD screens.

According to Masum Khan, product manager of Tesscorn, a leading company in customizedequipments for nano research said, Samsung research institutes have developed a 15-inchprototype LCD screen that employs an array of carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes are usedinstead of conventional light sources, such as bulbs or light-emitting diodes.Khan said that tellytechnologies would lower the cost of LCD TVs in the coming years.

Nanotech in consumer electronics

Nanotube TV technology has been around for a while and has much in common with traditionalcathode-ray sets. The downside is that they need new production lines and would be more

expensive than LCDs and Plasma screens.

However, if they are used alongside LCDs they could be used to cut the cost the backlight ofLCD TVs. The backlight makes up half the cost of a 40-inch LCD. Samsung said that the partialuse of nanotubes could lower energy consumption and improve picture quality. An LCD takes 15milliseconds to render a picture, while an LCD with carbon nanotubes as a backlight just fourmilliseconds.


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Technologists now want to create an LCD with a carbon backlight that lasts 30,000 hours andputs out 60 to 70 lumens per watt.

The other advances in nanotechnology is the Nanosilver technology used in almost allconsumer appliances like washing machines, refrigerators where in the nanosilver technologyhelps fighting bacteria so food remains fresh for longer. Khan said a number of products arealready coming out in the market.

Car changes color as per outside climate

On the automobile front, nanotechnology is used to develop a paint that can change colordepending on the outside weather. This is possible when a small change in done nanovoltageto the paints resulting in change of color. A number of automobile manufacturers have alreadyexpressed interest in the technology but this is still in research stage, adds Khan.

Nano materials in tyres

Likewise, rubber when mixed with nano materials tends to have longer life than the normal tyresand also less on the wear and tear.

Light bullet proof garments

On the textile front, we already seen garments that are stain resistant and wrinkle free but nowarmed forces will use garments made of carbon material that are very light and even bullet proof.These garments are also anti-bacterial that can be worn for a number of days.


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ROBOTICS

What is Robotics?

Robotics refers to research and engineering activities of study of robots and its design anddevelopment. In this modern age robotic system has been implemented almost in all fields likecomputer science, mechanical engineering, space technology and many more. This technologytakes place when knowledge of electronics, mechanical science and software technology togetherforms a science or knowledge house.

Role & Impact of Robotics

Robotics in this modern age has a lot of influence in each and every field and has made manyjobs easy and thus does the job automatically. Impact of robotics on IT has seen major role toplay for its popularity and usage. Due to this technology speed of computer has been increasedup to 100 million per second. Scientists are even working hard to replace the human thinkinginto this robot like storage capacity by 2030. So if this will be successful than many of the

human thinking can be stored and can be done professionally.

The use of robotics is very important and plays a very vital role in space technology. Thedevelopment of Eurobot is one such trial which assists astronauts during extravehicular activityfor major repairing and other research analysis job what is called as spacewalk. The role ofrobotics is a part of study and development of scientists working for human expeditions to themoon or any other planet.


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Robots can be found in the manufacturing industry, the military, space exploration,transportation, and medical applications. Below are just some of the uses for robots.

Robots on Earth

Typical industrial robots do jobs that are difficult, dangerous or dull. They lift heavyobjects, paint, handle chemicals, and perform assembly work. They perform the same job

hour after hour, day after day with precision. They don't get tired and they don't make errorsassociated with fatigue and so are ideally suited to performing repetitive tasks. The majorcategories of industrial robots by mechanical structure are:

y Cartesian robot /Gantry robot: Used for pick and place work, application of sealant,assembly operations, handling machine tools and arc welding. It's a robot whose arm hasthree prismatic joints, whose axes are coincident with a Cartesian coordinator.

y Cylindrical robot: Used for assembly operations, handling at machine tools, spot welding,and handling at die-casting machines. It's a robot whose axes form a cylindricalcoordinate system.

y Spherical/Polar robot: Used for handling at machine tools, spot welding, diecasting,fettling machines, gas welding and arc welding. It's a robot whose axes form a polarcoordinate system.

y SCARA robot: Used for pick and place work, application of sealant, assembly operationsand handling machine tools. It's a robot which has two parallel rotary joints to providecompliance in a plane.

y Articulated robot: Used for assembly operations, die-casting, fettling machines, gaswelding, arc welding and spray painting. It's a robot whose arm has at least three rotaryjoints.

y Parallel robot: One use is a mobile platform handling cockpit flight simulators. It's arobot whose arms have concurrent prismatic or rotary joints.

Industrial robots are found in a variety of locations including the automobile and manufacturingindustries. Robots cut and shape fabricated parts, assemble machinery and inspect manufacturedparts. Some types of jobs robots do: load bricks, die cast, drill, fasten, forge, make glass, grind,heat treat, load/unload machines, machine parts, handle parts, measure, monitor radiation, run


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nuts, sort parts, clean parts, profile objects, perform quality control, rivet, sand blast, changetools and weld.

Outside the manufacturing world robots perform other important jobs. They can be found inhazardous duty service, CAD/CAM design and prototyping, maintenance jobs, fighting fires,medical applications, military warfare and on the farm.

Farmers drive over a billion slooooww tractor miles every year on the same ground. Their land isgenerally gentle, and proven robot navigation techniques can be applied to this environment. Arobot agricultural harvester named Demeter is a model for commercializing mobile roboticstechnology. The Demeter harvester contains controllers, positioners, safeguards, and tasksoftware specialized to the needs commercial agriculture.

Some robots are used to investigate hazardous and dangerous environments. The Pioneer robot isa remote reconnaissance system for structural analysis of the Chornobyl Unit 4 reactor building.Its major components are a teleoperated mobile robot for deploying sensor and samplingpayloads, a mapper for creating photorealistic 3D models of the building interior, a coreborer forcutting and retrieving samples of structural materials, and a suite of radiation and otherenvironmental sensors.

An eight-legged, tethered, robot named Dante II descended into the active crater of Mt. Spurr, anAlaskan volcano 90 miles west of Anchorage. Dante II's mission was to rappel and walkautonomously over rough terrain in a harsh environment; receive instructions from remote


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operators; demonstrate sophisticated communications and control software; and determine howmuch carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide exist in the steamy gas emanatingfrom fumaroles in the crater. Via satellite, Dante II sent back visualinformation and other data, as well as received instruction from humanoperators at control stations in Anchorage, Washington D.C., and theNASA Ames Research Center near San Francisco. Dante II savesvolcanologists from having to enter the craters of active volcanoes. Italso demonstrates the technology necessary for a robot to explore thesurface of the moon or planets. That is, the robot must be able to walkon rough terrain in a harsh environment, receive instructions from remote operators about whereto go next, and reach those commanded goals autonomously.

Robotic underwater rovers are used explore and gather information about many facets of ourmarine environment. One example of underwater exploration is Project Jeremy, collaborationbetween NASA and Santa Clara University. Scientists sent an underwater telepresence remotelyoperated vehicle (TROV) into the freezing Arctic Ocean waters to investigate the remains of awhaling fleet lost in 1871. The TROV was tethered to the surface boat Polar Star by a cable that

carried power and instructions down to the robot and the robot returned video images up to thePolar Star. The TROV located two ships which it documented using stereoscopic video camerasand control mechanisms like the ones on the Mars Pathfinder. In addition to pictures, the TROVcan also collect artifacts and gather information about the water conditions. By learning how tostudy extreme environments on earth, scientists will be better prepared to study environments onother planets.

Robots in Space

Space-based robotic technology at NASA falls within three specific mission areas:exploration robotics, science payload maintenance, and on-orbit servicing. Related elements

are terrestrial/commercial applications which transfer technologies generated from spacetelerobotics to the commercial sector and component technology which encompasses thedevelopment of joint designs, muscle wire, exoskeletons and sensor technology.


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Today, two important devices exist which are proven space robots. One is the RemotelyOperated Vehicle (ROV) and the other is the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). An ROV canbe an unmanned spacecraft that remains in flight, a lander that makes contact with anextraterrestrial body and operates from a stationary position, or a rover that can move overterrain once it has landed. It is difficult to say exactly when early spacecraft evolved from simpleautomatons to robot explorers or ROVs. Even the earliest and simplest spacecraft operated withsome preprogrammed functions monitored closely from Earth. One of the best known ROV's isthe Sojourner rover that was deployed by the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft. Several NASA centersare involved in developing planetary explorers and space-based robots.

The most common type of existing robotic device is the robot arm often used in industry andmanufacturing. The mechanical arm recreates many of the movements of the human arm, havingnot only side-to-side and up-and-down motion, but also a full 360-degree circular motion at thewrist, which humans do not have. Robot arms are of two types. One is computer-operated andprogrammed for a specific function. The other requires a human to actually control the strengthand movement of the arm to perform the task. To date, the NASA Remote Manipulator System(RMS) robot arm has performed a number of tasks on much space missions-serving as a

grappler, a remote assembly device, and also as a positioning and anchoring device for astronautsworking in space.

THE FUTURE OF ROBOTICS

What does the future hold for robotics? What is the next step, or the next technological boundaryto overcome? The general trend for computers seems to be faster processing speed, greatermemory capacity and so on. One would assume that the robots of the future would becomecloser and closer to the decision-making ability of humans and also more independent. Presentlythe most powerful computers can't match the mental ability of a low-grade animal. It will be along time until were having conversations with androids and have those does all our housework.

Another difficult design aspect about androids is their ability to walk around on two legs likehumans. A robot with biped movement is much more difficult to build then a robot with, say,wheels to move around with. The reason for this is that walking takes so much balance. Whenyou lift your leg to take a step you instinctively shift your weight to the other side by just theright amount and are constantly alternating your center of gravity to compensate for the varyingdegrees of leg support. If you were to simply lift your leg with the rest of your body remainingperfectly still you would likely fall down. Try a simple test by standing with one shoulder andone leg against a wall. Now lift your outer leg and observe as you start to fall over.

Indeed, the human skeletal and muscular systems are complicated for many reasons. For now,robots will most likely be manufactured for a limited number of distinct tasks such as painting,

welding or lifting. Presumably, once robots have the ability perform a much wider array of tasks,and voice recognition software improves such that computers can interpret complicatedsentences in varying accents, we may in fact see robots doing our housework and carrying outother tasks in the physical world.


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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Defining Business Intelligence (BI)

The term business intelligence (BI) refers to skills, technologies, applications, practicing for the

compilation, assimilation, analysis, management and presentation of business information also attimes to the information itself. The solitary objective of the business intelligent is to enhancebetter business decision making.

D.J Power concept for business intelligence

y The concept of business intelligence emerged during the period of 1958 when D.J Powergave the concept of Decision Support System. According to D.J Power, BI is theconcept and technique in order to enhance and promote the business decision making byimplementing the Fact-Based-Support-System. BI is occasionally used compatibly withbrief books, report, query, paraphernalia and executive information systems. Business

Intelligent systems are called the data driven systems (DSS).y BI system presents up to date, chronological and prognostic views of business functions

through the use and implementations of various kinds of data such as data warehouse,data mart and operational data.

y Software fundamentals support the use of this information by sustaining in thewithdrawal, analysis, and reporting of data. An application undertakes transaction,production, finance, and a lot of business data for functioning and objectives known asthe Business Performance Management Information can be collected by variousorganizations to in order to achieve the business targets.

There are several ways for improving the business efficiency levels which are discussed as

under.

Practical and technological training for workforce

Improving the business skills at the right time is the matter of training which must be given to theemployees of any particular company so that the objectivity and efficiency of the companysemployees can be increased within a short span of time. The training may contain the services ofan expert person who does have the excellent knowledge of business Intelligent and businessmanagement (BM) also includes the amount of services in form of money which will have to begiven by the business employers in order to enhance the skills of their (BI) and its improvementsso that the long-term goals of the companys intellectual capacity and lucrative can be achieved

within a short span of time.

Boosting the confidence of workforce

A better and intellectual business workforce must be the hidden objective of a businessemployer. For example, the incentives, push-push, confidence and bonuses are those thingswhich can improve the employees efficiency in a single moment of time, because it is the


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biggest mystery of any of the successful businesses in the world where bonuses andencouragements are given to the workforce.

Ample amount of capital investment

This has some of the benefits which are discussed as under.

y The inventive and imported mechanical equipments can enhance the hours of theworkforce so that you may be able to earn the maximum amount of lucrative.

y More and more capital investment will increase the overall efficiency, production andprofit of the company.

y A large amount of capital input would bring out the maximum amount of efficiency andoutput for the company so there would be less wastage of the companys resources andcapital.

Using best quality of raw materialsUsing the best raw materials will not only boost the internal capacity of the machineries, but alsoimprove the external efficiency of the business by producing more and more valuable amount ofproduction. So, it would improve the overall business efficacy.

Analytical approach

In nut shell, we can say that business intelligence (BI) in order to improve the overall businessefficacy is the basic objective of the entrepreneurs. They put an ample amount of investment intheir businesses by launching up latest technologies to get maximum profit. The training of thebusiness employees comes into consideration through the providence and incentives of thebusiness employers so that the entire efficacy of the workforce can be raised-up within a shortspan of time.


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Key Steps to Achieving BI Benefits

Hospitality companies seeking to take advantage of thebenefits of business intelligence needto align both their business and information technology resources. After determiningwhich areas of BI will be most helpful to the company in meeting its business goals, thecompany needs to take these steps in order to make the best use of BI, according to DanielJ. Connolly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Electronic Commerce atthe University of Denvers Daniels College of Business.

DATA GATHERING:Most hospitality companies gather enormous amounts of data alreadyfrom their reservationsystems, their points of sale, property restaurants, etc. To be most effective, this data must notonly be collected but placed in a central repository, where it can be made availableto others within the organization.

DATA CLEANSING, ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS:This involves turning the raw data into useful information, says

Connolly. This is accomplished by looking for patterns and seeing outliers from the norm.

SHARING/COMMUNICATING DATA:Some people within an organization are protectionist with information, says

Connolly. They take the old saying knowledge is power to mean that if they know somethingand they tell someone, their own value is diminished. Companies need to open thisup and let people know its O.K. to share information.

USING THE DATA TO MAKE FACT-BASED, INFORMED DECISIONS:In addition to addressing corporate culture issues about sharing information, hospitalitycompanies also need to stress the value of BI once its available. This way people know thattheyre making decisions with a certain degree of confidence, notes Connolly. Theyre notshooting from the hip, but acting on things because this is what the data tells us.

OVERCOMING BI CHALLENGES:

With this range of benefits, why isnt business intelligence more of a priority in the hospitalityindustry?For many, it is. But a number of challenges must be overcome for companies to reap the benefitsof BI:

Hospitality industry structure:


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Theres a distinct separation between ownership and management in the hospitality industry,notes Mark Haley, Partner at The Prism Partnership consulting firm.More centralized hospitality industry segments, such as airlines, car rentals and cruise ships,tend tomake more of the investments needed for BI to work effectively.

Dispersed data:The hospitality industry remains characterized by islands of information,notes Haley. For BI to be effective, companies need a repository of data to bring those islandstogether in one place, which requires investments of time, money and technology.


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SIXTH SENSE IN INNOVATION

SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with

digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter

something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about

it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the

most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with

our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated

about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of

computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually

connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions

with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen.

SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world,

and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. SixthSense frees

information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire

world your computer.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The

hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector

and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the users pocket. The projector

projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as

interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects

using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data

captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials)

at the tip of the users fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and

arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for

the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained

by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user

interaction.

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness,

viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed

on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based

systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing

application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the users

index finger. SixthSense also recognizes users freehand gestures (postures). For example, the

SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is


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looking at by detecting the framing gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick

through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the

air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction

instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map

application or drawing an @ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also

augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about theseobjects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic

information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the

users wrist projects an analog watch.


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ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

1) Artificial Neural Networks are the result of academic investigations that involve usingmathematical formulations to model nervous system operations. The resulting techniquesare being successfully applied in a variety of everyday business applications.

2) Neural Networks represent a meaningfully different approach to using computers in theworkplace. A Neural Network is used to learn patterns and relationships in data. The datamay be the results of a market research effort, the results of a production process givenvarying operational conditions, or the decisions of a loan officer given a set of loanapplications. Regardless of the specifics involved, applying a Neural Network is asubstantial departure from traditional approaches.

3) Traditionally a programmer or an analyst specifically "codes" every facet of the problemin order for the computer to "understand" the situation. Neural networks do not requirethe explicit coding of the problem. For example, to generate a model that performs a sales

forecast, a Neural Network only needs to be given raw data related to the problem. Theraw data might consist of: history of past sales, prices, competitors' prices, and othereconomic variables.

4) The neural network sorts through this information and produces an understanding of thefactors impacting sales. The model can then be called upon to provide a prediction offuture sales given a forecast of the key factors.These advancements are due to thecreation of neural network learning rules, which are the algorithms used to "learn" therelationships in the data. The learning rules enable the network to "gain knowledge" fromavailable data and apply that knowledge to assist a manager in making key decisions.

WHAT CAN NEURAL NETWORKS BE USED FOR?

1) Neural networks constitute a powerful tool for data mining. Data mining has become apopular term recently and really involves the extraction of knowledge from information.Organizations have more and more data from which they need to extract key trends inorder to run their businesses more efficiently and improve decision-making. Applicationsof Neural Networks are numerous.

2) Many receive their first introduction by reading about the applications of the techniquesin financial market predictions. It is impossible to pick up a discussion on modernmethods of financial analysis without some discussion of technical analysis of financial

markets and portfolio selection being performed with Neural Networks.Other successfulapplications of the techniques include: analysis of market research data and customersatisfaction, industrial process control, forecasting applications, and credit card fraudidentification.

3) Neural Networks based systems are now the standard to control credit card fraud. Thesesystems are able to recognize fraudulent use based on past charge patterns with greateraccuracy than other available methods.


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SHOULD I CONSIDER NEURAL NETWORKS?

When approached with a proposal to apply a Neural Network, how should a business managerevaluate theproposal? Does this new capability offer real benefits, or is this the latest example oftrendy approaches andbuzzwords? Most importantly, are these techniques practical or are theyacademic approaches that are not practicalor cost effective?Given a steady increase in successful applications, Neural Networks are for realand offer substantial benefits. The technical details of Neural Networks are beyond the scope ofthis article, but successful applications share certain common characteristics that may be easilyunderstood. First, there will exist interrelationships between the explanatory factors that are usedto estimate the factor we don't know -- the outcome. Having interrelationships in the data meansthat two or more factors work together to predict model outcome. For example, a chemicalprocess in a production facility may be dependent on temperature and humidity. These twofactors combine to affect the outcome of the process. The second condition in which NeuralNetworks excel is when there is a non-linear relationship between the explanatory factors and theoutcome. This simply means that the nature of the relationship between the factors and the

outcome changes as the factors take on different values, which is the norm for everydayproblems. In regards to the trendiness issue, yes, neural networks are presently trendy -- at leastin some circles. However, the need to improve processes by doing things better and cheaper ismore important than ever in today's competitive business climate. Likewise, the desire to developcomputer systems that can learn by themselves and improve decision-making is an ongoing goalof information technology. The Neural Network techniques we use today may not remain withus. However, the goal of developing computers that learn from past experience and lead to betterbusiness decisions will remain a high priority. Neural Networks now represent one of the bestpractices in achieving this goal. Furthermore, continued achievements toward this goal are likelyto be inspired or generated from these technologies.The answer to the question of whether these approaches are practical and cost effective is a

definitive "yes", although finding documented proof of this can be a challenge. It is true that thetechniques are relatively new and that experience with these techniques is not as extensive aswith traditional techniques. A great deal has been published about the technical approaches, themathematics, and the learning rules. However, little has been written about the practicalapplication of Neural Networks. It would be highly unlikely for you to find a source describingthe application of Neural Networks to your specific problem. However, there is not a dearth ofsuccessful applications. Look at it this way - how likely would it be for you to share specifics ofkey information learned about your markets or business with your competitors?The fact remains, however, that neural networks are proving their worth everyday in a widevariety of businessapplications, and saving their users time and money in the process.

WHEN TO CONSIDER A NEURAL NETWORKNeural Networks should be applied in situations where traditional techniques have failed to givesatisfactory results, or where a small improvement in modeling performance can make asignificant difference in operational efficiency or in bottom-line profits. Direct marketing is anexcellent example of where a small improvement can lead to significant results. The responserate on direct marketing campaigns is usually quite low. A five percent response rate is oftenconsidered very good. By reviewing the demographic data on those that respond it may bepossible to identify characteristics that would produce a 6% response rate. If a Neural Network is


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used to analyze the demographic characteristics and a 7% response rate is produced, then the costof the direct mail campaign can be reduced while maintaining the same desired level of positiveresponse from prospects. An individual wanting to investigate this emerging technology andexplore ways in which it can improve his/her organization is advised to consult with NeuralNetwork practitioners who have experience in developing and implementing models for use incommercial applications. Z Solutions will be glad to discuss this with you.The bottom line is that any manager interested in getting more useful information from availabledata should consider Neural Network technology as an option. They can be used by aggressiveorganizations to focus available resources more effectively, thus gaining a valuable competitiveedge.


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How important is it for tech firms to innovate? What kind of future

do you foresee for innovations in the IT domain within the country?

IT innovations have a 360-degree impact on how companies interact with their customers.Highlighting the importance of innovative practices, a survey by a leading research group

indicates that the most innovative companies outperform their peers by nearly 400 basis pointsper year in terms of stock price. If this observation is to be believed, Indian companies also needto invest in innovations that enhance their interactions with their customers and establishprocesses to enable customer-centric innovations.

It is heartening to see the IT industry adopting a multi-pronged approach to innovation. It hasincorporated aspects ranging from enhancing the end user experience, optimising resources andcreating a technology platform, to keeping pace with the dynamics of the customer expectations,to managing the realities of running a geographically spread and diverse business.


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REFERENCES:

y www.webopedia.comy www.wikipedia.comy www.nap.eduy www.bussiness.fullerton.edu

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