The Library of Babel, described by Jorge Luis Borges, stores an enormous amount of information. The Library exists ab aeterno. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia, becomes a modern analogue of such a Library. Information retrieval and ranking of Wikipedia articles become the challenge of modern society. While PageRank highlights very well known nodes with many ingoing links, CheiRank highlig...

Agile estimation approaches usually start by sizing the user stories to be developed by comparing them among themselves. Different techniques, with varying degrees of formality are used to conduct the comparisons – plain contrasts, triangulation, planning poker and voting. This article proposes the use of a modified paired comparison method in which a reduced number of comparisons is selected a...

In an insightful essay on the representation of racial and religious difference in early modern English drama, Ania Loomba has pointed out the crucial significance of gender in this respect. More often than not, she observes, ‘a fair maid of an alien faith and ethnicity [is] romanced by a European, married to him, and converted to Christianity. Her story, unlike those of converted men, does not...

The qualitative and quantitative composition of the floral odour of Peltandra uirginica was determined by trapping odour components from freshly cut inflorescences on Tenax and Carbotrap adsorbents using a purge and trap apparatus. Analysis showed that a single novel compound, 1,3,6-trimethyl-2,5-dioxabicyclo[3.2.l.]nonane, comprised nearly 70% of the odour. Four isomers of this compound were f...

In this paper we present a system which automatically generates interactive stories that are focused around dilemmas to create dramatic tension. A story designer provides the background of the story world, such as information on characters and their relations, objects, and actions. In addition, our system is provided with knowledge of generic story actions and dilemmas which are based on those ...

Stories are now a distinctive and established genre in social media. From Snapchat to WhatsApp, via Facebook Instagram, more than half billion authors (amateurs, but not only) interact with apps by composing consuming stories that configure new literature which alphabetic writing coexists the growing dominance of visual language. Centered on narrativization lives users, invited tell retell them...

Previous studies showed that the time-expanded speech signal and the cue of moving image of talker’s face improve speech intelligibility. Sakamoto et al. (2008) investigated the detection thresholds of auditory-visual asynchrony for timeexpanded speech and a moving image of the talker’s face. Their results showed that detection thresholds in longer words were higher than those for shorter words...

For interactive systems, usage models are an important component of the requirements specification. In the spirit of agile methods and “just enough" written communication, well-understood user activities might be communicated by XP user stories and subsequent discussions. In cloudier areas, more details should be written to reduce the risk of misunderstanding. This paper describes nine techniqu...

Usability is a critical quality factor. Therefore, like traditional software teams, agile teams have to address usability to properly catch their users experience. There exists an interesting debate in the agile and usability communities about how to achieve this integration. Our aim is to contribute to this debate by discussing the incorporation of particular usability recommendations into use...

Citation: Shiratori Y, Yamakawa T, Sakamoto M, Yoshida H, Kitaoka T, Tran QT, Doan DCT and Dang MC (2017) Biogas Production from Local Biomass Feedstock in the Mekong Delta and Its Utilization for a Direct Internal Reforming Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. Front. Environ. Sci. 5:25. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2017.00025 Biogas Production from Local Biomass Feedstock in the Mekong Delta and Its Utilization for a...