Elementary Technology Research Articles

<Note> Elementary Technology Correlates with Lifetime Reproductive Success in Wild Chimpanzees, but Why?

<Note> Elementary Technology Correlates with Lifetime Reproductive Success in Wild Chimpanzees, but Why?

지능적인 RFID 미들웨어 시스템을 위한 적응형 윈도우 슬라이딩 기반의 유연한 데이터 정제

Over the past years RFID/SN has been an elementary technology in a diversity of applications for the ubiquitous environments, especially for Internet of Things. However, one of obstacles for widespread deployment of RFID technology is the inherent unreliability of the RFID data streams by tag readers. In particular, the problem of false readings such as lost readings and mistaken readings needs to be treated by RFID middleware systems because false readings ultimately degrade the quality of application services due to the dirty data delivered by middleware systems. As a result, for the higher quality of services, an RFID middleware system is responsible for intelligently dealing with false readings for the delivery of clean data to the applications in accordance with the tag reading environment. One of popular techniques used to compensate false readings is a sliding window filter. In a sliding window scheme, it is evident that determining optimal window size intelligently is a nontrivial important task in RFID middleware systems in order to reduce false readings, especially in mobile environments. In this paper, for the purpose of reducing false readings by intelligent window adaption, we propose a new adaptive RFID data cleaning scheme based on window sliding for a single tag. Unlike previous works based on a binomial sampling model, we introduce the weight averaging. Our insight starts from the need to differentiate the past readings and the current readings, since the more recent readings may indicate the more accurate tag transitions. Owing to weight averaging, our scheme is expected to dynamically adapt the window size in an efficient manner even for non-homogeneous reading patterns in mobile environments. In addition, we analyze reading patterns in the window and effects of decreased window so that a more accurate and efficient decision on window adaption can be made. With our scheme, we can expect to obtain the ultimate goal that RFID middleware systems can provide applications with more clean data so that they can ensure high quality of intended services.

Selective insectivory at Toro-Semliki, Uganda: Comparative analyses suggest no ‘savanna’ chimpanzee pattern

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) insectivory across Africa is ubiquitous. Insects provide a significant nutritional payoff and may be important for chimpanzees in dry, open habitats with narrow diets. We tested this hypothesis at Semliki, Uganda, a long-term dry study site. We evaluated prospects for insectivory by measuring insect abundance along de novo transects and trails, monitoring social insect colonies, and surveying available raw materials for elementary technology. We determined the frequency and nature of insectivory through behavioral observation and fecal analysis. We then compared our results with those from 15 other long-term chimpanzee study sites using a cluster analysis. We found that Semliki chimpanzees are one of the most insectivorous populations studied to date in terms of frequency of consumption, but they are very selective in their insectivory, regularly consuming only weaver ants (Oecophylla longinoda) and honey and bees from hives of Apis mellifera. This selectivity obtains despite having a full range of typical prey species available in harvestable quantities. We suggest that Semliki chimpanzees may face ecological time constraints and therefore bias their predation toward prey taxa that can be quickly consumed. Geographical proximity correlated with the results of the cluster analysis, while rainfall, a relatively gross measure of environment, did not. Because broad taxonomic groups of insects were used in analyses, prey availability was unlikely to have a strong effect on this pattern. Instead, we suggest that transmission of cultural knowledge may play a role in determining chimpanzee prey selection across Africa. Further study is needed to test these hypotheses.

The ‘other faunivory’ revisited: Insectivory in human and non-human primates and the evolution of human diet

The role of invertebrates in the evolution of human diet has been under-studied by comparison with vertebrates and plants. This persists despite substantial knowledge of the importance of the ‘other faunivory’, especially insect-eating, in the daily lives of non-human primates and traditional human societies, especially hunters and gatherers. Most primates concentrate on two phyla, Mollusca and Arthropoda, but of the latter's classes, insects (especially five orders: Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera) are paramount. An insect product, bees' honey, is particularly important, and its collection shows a reversal of the usual sexual division of labor. Human entomophagy involves advanced technology (fire, containers) and sometimes domestication. Insectivory provides comparable calorific and nutritional benefits to carnivory, but with different costs. Much insectivory in hominoids entails elementary technology used in extractive foraging, such as termite fishing by chimpanzees. Elucidating insectivory in the fossil and paleontological record is challenging, but at least nine avenues are available: remains, lithics, residues, DNA, coprolites, dental microwear, stable isotopes, osteology, and depictions. All are in play, but some have been more successful so far than others.

Introducing Complex Situations in Primary Education: Their Impact on Student’s Results in Terms of Efficiency

This paper examined the efficiency of using complex situations in teaching Science and Elementary Technology in 20 primary schools, 38 classes ( only fourth years), located in Huye district in Rwanda. The sample was divided into four groups: 9 classes practiced the “teaching situations”, 9 dealt with “integration situations”, 9 mixed “teaching and integration situations” and 11 classes made a “reference group” that did not use any of those approaches. One pre-test and three post-tests have been done by learners from those classes during the 2012 school year. Every test had a “resource” test and a “situation” test with a similar level of difficulties. The analysis indicated progressive increase of marks, especially, for the classes which practiced the “integration situations”. The findings showed a priority of starting with the “integration situations” for the development of the learner’s autonomy and of a cognitive development.

WAR AND PEACE: A LIBERALIST REASSESSMENT

In a simple formal model of two-country, two-good with an elementary Conflict Technology, we use rudimentary game theoretics to study the matter of war and peace where under peace, cooperative exchange takes place and where, in case of war, the winner takes all through appropriation of the whole endowment left after payment of armament expenditures. We provide conditions under which war is inevitable then go on to characterize situations where war, still probable, is not necessarily the final outcome. In this case, cooperative exchange is profitable for both countries, and they should take this welfare gain from trade into account in the determination of their armament expenditures. This problem will be cast in terms of a two-stage game, the final stage is modelled as a Nash Bargaining solution with endogenous threat-point, and the precedent stage, aimed at the determination of armament expenditure, is modelled as a Nash Bayesian Equilibrum in the context of incomplete information. With a simple rule of Bayesian inferences, it is possible to transform the game under incomplete information into one under imperfect information and solve for pure strategies. Using backward induction to yield the perfect equilibrium of this two-stage game, this paper provides a simple solution which concurs with the liberalist view, that economic gain in trade would enhance not war but peace between nations.

장애물회피소나 빔 모델링 기반의 국부경로제어 기법 연구

최근에는, 초소형 AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle)의 개발에 대한 요구가 증가하고 있으므로 그 요소 기술의 확보가 시급하다. 요소 기술의 하나로서 국부경로제어의 기존 연구에서는 주로 전방감시소나(Forward Looking Sonar : FLS)의 정보를 활용하고 있는데, FLS의 크기는 초소형 AUV에 적합하지 않으므로 장애물회피소나(Obstacle Avoidance Sonar : OAS)를 이용하는 것이 바람직하다. 요약하면, 초소형 AUV를 위한 OAS 기반의 국부경로제어 시스템은 다음과 같은 문제점들을 가지고 있다. 즉, OAS는 낮은 방위(bearing) 분해능 및 지역적인 거리(range) 정보를 제공하며, 임무시간을 증대하기 위해서 에너지 소비가 적은 시스템을 필요로 한다. 나아가, 구조 및 파라메터 관점에서 용이한 설계 절차를 요구한다. 이 문제를 해결하기 위해서 OAS 빔 모델링을 기반으로 진화 전략(Evolution Strategy : ES) 및 퍼지논리 제어기(Fuzzy Logic Controller : FLC)를 이용하는 지능형 국부경로제어 기법이 제안되었다. 제안된 기법의 성능을 검증하고 특성을 분석하기 위해서 수중비행체(Underwater Flight Vehicle : UFV)의 수평면 침로(course) 제어가 수행되었다. 시뮬레이션 결과는 제안된 기법에 있어서 실제 적용의 가능성과 추가 연구의 필요성을 보여준다. Recently, as the needs of developing the micro autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) are increasing, the acquisition of the elementary technology is urgent. While they mostly utilizes information of the forward looking sonar (FLS) in conventional studies of the local path control as an elementary technology, it is desirable to use the obstacle avoidance sonar (OAS) because the size of the FLS is not suitable for the micro AUV. In brief, the local path control system based on the OAS for the micro AUV operates with the following problems: the OAS offers low bearing resolution and local range information, it requires the system that has reduced power consumption to extend the mission execution time, and it requires an easy design procedure in terms of its structures and parameters. To solve these problems, an intelligent local path control algorithm based on the beam modeling of OAS with the evolution strategy (ES) and the fuzzy logic controller (FLC), is proposed. To verify the performance and analyze the characteristic of the proposed algorithm, the course control of the underwater flight vehicle (UFV) is performed in the horizontal plane. Simulation results show that the feasibility of real application and the necessity of additional work in the proposed algorithm.

The Practice and Thinking on Innovation of Information Technology Curriculum Teaching

The aims that indicated in "The Guidance Outline on Elementary and Middle Schools Information Technology Curriculum” are to enable students to have abilities of acquiring, transmitting, processing and applying information through learning information technology courses; cultivate them to have good information literacy; make information technology as a significant way of supporting for lifelong and cooperative learning, laying a necessary foundation of adapting to the study, work and life in information society. With the application of multimedia computers and networks, education and teaching have undergone profound changes that the integration of information technology and subject teaching (or course) has become the focus in educational reform, so how to integrate instruction with the information technology curriculum I think the idea that combing with other subjects teaching in the information technology curriculum to carry out thematic inquiry learning not only can achieve unique effects, but also is a win-win teaching model of information technology and other teaching courses. This paper aims at exploring the positive ways and meaning of the integration of information technology and other subjects through thematic inquiry learning cases.

In search of the last common ancestor: new findings on wild chimpanzees.

Modelling the behaviour of extinct hominins is essential in order to devise useful hypotheses of our species' evolutionary origins for testing in the palaeontological and archaeological records. One approach is to model the last common ancestor (LCA) of living apes and humans, based on current ethological and ecological knowledge of our closest living relations. Such referential modelling is based on rigorous, ongoing field studies of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus). This paper reviews recent findings from nature, focusing on those with direct implications for hominin evolution, e.g. apes, using elementary technology to access basic resources such as food and water, or sheltering in caves or bathing as thermoregulatory adaptations. I give preference to studies that directly address key issues, such as whether stone artefacts are detectible before the Oldowan, based on the percussive technology of hammer and anvil use by living apes. Detailed comparative studies of chimpanzees living in varied habitats, from rainforest to savannah, reveal that some behavioural patterns are universal (e.g. shelter construction), while others show marked (e.g. extractive foraging) or nuanced (e.g. courtship) cross-populational variation. These findings allow us to distinguish between retained, primitive traits of the LCA versus derived ones in the human lineage.

VIRTUAL EXPERIMENTS SYSTEM FOR MATERIALS DESIGN

The continued progress of high performance computers and network allows increasingly advanced research and development method in science and technology. Materials design is one of the recent scientific technological disciplines to benefit from such computers and network. Materials design by the use of computer is expected due to the recent progress of high performance computing and networking. The success of such materials design will rely on the integration of various elements of computational technology such as simulation, database, knowledge information processing, visualization and the human interface into a practical system. In the past, various elements of computational technology, such as simulation, database, were researched individually. Although each elementary technology is available, the integration of those technologies has not yet been established.

Educational Application and Expectation Effects of Creative Problem-Solving Techniques Based on TRIZ in Elementary Technology Education

Educational Application and Expectation Effects of Creative Problem-Solving Techniques Based on TRIZ in Elementary Technology Education

Technical knowledge in a technical society: elementary school technology education in Sweden, 1919–1928

The aim of this article is to identify a technical domain of knowledge in the curriculum of the Swedish elementary school and views on elementary school technology of two interest groups – school teachers and engineers. Gradually during the early to mid‐1920s there was increased technical content in the Swedish elementary school, if we look at the new curriculum, in‐service education and stakeholders’ views. The main reasons for this were, first of all, that the first decades of the twentieth century witnessed industrial growth with accompanying technification of large parts of society including the school. Second, the curriculum of 1919 had a broader technical content than earlier curricula, and thus mirrored the societal changes. Third, vocational secondary schools led to new requirements in respect of elementary technology education. Representatives of the Government were prime movers in enhancing the significance of technology in school together with teachers, while engineers generally showed little interest.

Multi-Core/Multi-IP Technology for Embedded Applications

SoC has driven the evolution of embedded systems or consumer electronics. Multi-core/multi-IP is the key technology to integrate many functions on a SoC for future embedded applications. In this paper, the transition of SoC and its required functions for cellular phones as an example is described. And the state-of-the-art multi-core technology of homogeneous type and heterogeneous type are shown. When many cores and IPs are integrated on a chip, collaboration between cores and IPs becomes important to meet requirement. To realize it, MPSoC Platform concept and elementary technology for this platform is described.

The nature of culture: Technological variation in chimpanzee predation on army ants revisited

Chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes) predation on army ants ( Dorylus, subgenus Anomma) is an impressive example of skillful use of elementary technology, and it has been suggested to reflect cultural differences among chimpanzee communities. Alternatively, the observed geographic diversity in army-ant-eating may represent local behavioral responses of the chimpanzees to the anti-predator traits of the army ant species present at the different sites. We examined assemblages of available prey species, their behavior and morphology, consumption by chimpanzees, techniques employed, and tool lengths at 14 sites in eastern, central, and western Africa. Where army ants are eaten, tool length and concomitant technique are a function of prey type. Epigaeically foraging species with aggressive workers that inflict painful bites are harvested with longer tools and usually by the “pull-through” technique; species foraging in leaf-litter with less aggressive workers that inflict less painful bites are harvested with short tools and by the “direct-mouthing” technique. However, prey species characteristics do not explain several differences in army-ant-eating between Bossou (Guinea) and Taï (Ivory Coast), where the same suite of prey species is available and is consumed. Moreover, the absence of army-ant-eating at five sites cannot be explained by the identity of available prey species, as all the species found at these sites are eaten elsewhere. We conclude that some of the observed variation in the predator-prey relationship of chimpanzees and army ants reflects environmental influences driven by the prey, while other variation is not linked to prey characteristics and may be solely sociocultural.

Innovation on Energy Power Technology(7): Development and Practical Application of Sodium-Sulfur Battery for Electric Energy Storage System

Sodium-Sulfur battery (NAS battery), which has more than 3 times of energy density compared with the conventional lead-acid battery and can be compactly established, has a great installation effects as a distributed energy storage system in the urban area which consumes big electric power. For the power company, NAS battery contributes to the load leveling, the supply capability up at the peak period, the efficient operation of the electric power equipment and the reduction of the capital expenditure. And for the customer, it is possible to enjoy the reduction of the electricity charges by utilizing nighttime electric power and the securing of a security. The contribution to the highly sophisticated information society where the higher electric power quality is desired, mainly office buildings and factories by the progress of IT, is very big. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) developed the elementary technology of NAS battery from 1984 and ended the development of practical battery which has long-term durability and the safety and the performance verification of the megawatt scale. Finally TEPCO accomplished the practical application and commercialization of the stationary energy storage technology by NAS battery. In this paper, we introduces about conquered problems until practical application and commercialization.

Prospects for Bonobo Insectivory: Lui Kotal, Democratic Republic of Congo

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are well-known to eat invertebrates, especially social insects, across Africa, but allopatric bonobos (P. paniscus) are not. Bonobo insectivory is sparsely documented and apparently sporadic. However, the availability to bonobos of social insect prey and raw materials with which to make tools to exploit them is unknown. Here, we test a set of hypotheses that relates to questions of presence, abundance, density, and distribution of taxa that Pan consume and of vegetation suitable for making extractive foraging tools. We worked at Lui Kotal, Democratic Republic of Congo, where unprovisioned bonobos live in intact forest, far from villages. We collected insect and fecal specimens, transected for prey and assessed raw materials, and monitored mounds of Macrotermes. All but 1 of the major taxa of relevant termites, ants, and (stinging) honey bees were present. The 3 main taxa of insects that chimpanzees elsewhere eat —Macrotermes (fungus-growing termites), Dorylus (Anomma; army or driver ants), and Apis (honey bees)— were abundant and widespread, and usually at densities exceeding those at well-known chimpanzee study-sites. Similarly, woody and nonwoody vegetation suitable for making fishing probes was common at mounds of Macrotermes. There is no obvious ecological reason why bonobos should not use elementary technology in extractive foraging, e.g., termite-fish, ant-fish, ant-dip, honey-dip, to obtain social insects.

Subsistence Technology of Nigerian Chimpanzees

A trademark of Homo sapiens is the enormous variation in behavioral patterns across populations. Insight into the development of human cultures can be aided by studies on communities of Pan across Africa that display unique combinations of social behavior and elementary technology. Only cross-population comparisons can reveal whether the diversity reflects differential genetics, environmental constraints, or is a cultural variant. However, the recently recognized and most endangered subspecies, Pan troglodytes vellerosus, remains completely unstudied in this respect. We report first evidence from a new long-term study of Nigerian chimpanzees at Gashaka. Their dietary composition is highly varied and they have to cope with high concentrations of antifeedant defenses of plants against consumption. Gashaka chimpanzees use a varied tool kit for extractive foraging. For example, they harvest insects throughout the year, via digging sticks and probes, to obtain honey from stingless-bee and honeybee nests, dipping wands to prey on army ants, and fishing rods to eat arboreal ants. Tools appeared to be custom-made with a considerable degree of standardization in length, diameter, and preferential use of distal ends. Moreover, compared to the rainy season, tools were longer during the dry season when insects retreat further into their nests. Many of the expressions of subsistence technology seem to be environmentally constrained. Most notably, the absence of termite-eating could reflect a low abundance of mounds. Other traits may represent cultural variation. For example, the chimpanzees did not hammer open 2 types of hard-shelled nuts with tools, unlike what occurs elsewhere in West Africa. The prevalence of elementary technology may indicate that the material culture of Gashaka chimpanzees is most related to core cultural tendencies of Central African populations.

New Wine in New Bottles: Prospects and Pitfalls of Cultural Primatology

Cultural primatology has matured in recent years from natural history to ethnography to ethnology, but new techniques of analysis and interpretation are needed to deal with new findings. Studies of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) lead the way, both observationally in nature and experimentally in captivity. New data on elementary technology employed in extractive foraging (e.g., ant dipping) show that prevailing ideas of environmental versus cultural determinism are simplistic. Cultural primatology yields both behavioral diversity and universals. As with humans, cultural change can be maladaptive (e.g., pestle pounding, crop raiding) as well as adaptive. The future of cultural primatology depends on the ongoing survival of wild populations of primates.

Ant fishing by wild chimpanzees is not lateralised

Right-dominant handedness is unique and universal in Homo sapiens, suggesting that it is a highly derived trait. Our nearest living relations, chimpanzees, show lateralised hand preference when using tools, but not when otherwise manipulating objects. We report the first contrary data, that is, non-lateralised tool-use, for ant fishing as done in the Mahale Mountains of Tanzania. Unlike nut cracking, termite fishing, and fruit pounding, as seen elsewhere, in which most individuals are either significantly or wholly left- or right-biassed, ant fishers are mostly ambilateral. The clue to this exception lies in arboreality; all other patterns of chimpanzee elementary technology are done on the ground. Arboreal tool use usually requires not only that one hand be used to hold the tool, but also that the other hand gives postural support. When the supporting hand is fatigued, then it must be relieved by the other. Terrestrial tool use entails no such trading off. To test the hypothesis, we compared frequency of hand changing with the incidence of major hand support, and found them to be significantly positively correlated. The evolutionary transition from arboreality to terrestriality may have been a key enabler for the origins of human laterality.

Developing generic hydrodynamic models using artificial neural networks

Possibilities for the development of a new modelling paradigm, namely allowing models to 'construct themselves' by learning from existing numericalhydraulic models, was investigated by extending previous works to encompass schemes that can be applied over arbitrary bathymetries with variable distances and time steps. For the simplest possible cases of one and two dimensional flow problems considered in this study, the relatively elementary technology of artificial neural network was found to provide acceptable results. Moreover, It was demonstrated that the well-trained networks could be substituted in place of the finite difference schemes in the hydrodynamic model formulation and could perform like numerical operators. This new paradigm is intended in future to supplement, and even in some instances to replace the current one