Android devices are convenient. Not only do they come with some fantastic tools built-in, but you can add lots of apps to get even more out of your device. Tap or click here for five handy Google apps you should use on your Android.
Your Android phone is also highly customizable. You can customize your phone using many different tools and settings, but what’s practical?
Let’s look at what options you can change right now to unlock your phone’s hidden potential.
Font size is a big issue on smaller phone screens. Even when your phone upscales text, it isn’t always clear. You can control your phone’s font size (which will apply to everything on your entire device, including internet browsing) with these steps:
Here you can change font sizes with a slider. You will be able to live preview the changes as they occur.
Privacy, security, the latest trends and the info you need to live your best digital life.
Maybe you want to do that manually. Perhaps you’re sick and tired of the apps crowding your home screen. Whatever the reason is, this is how you fix it:
Keep in mind that this will impact every download in the future from the Google Play Store. If you want to disable it, repeat the same steps and reverse your choice.
Your screen locks after a set amount of time. Someone can access your information in a public space if you put your phone down without locking it. If they swipe your phone while it’s unlocked, they have greater access to your apps and information. Try this:
Select a shorter period for lockout. This will not be affected if you’re viewing media, so shorter times are still usable.
Beyond security issues in public spaces, you also save battery by locking the screen faster. If you’re known for leaving your screen unlocked when you place it down, this will help reduce the number of recharges you need, prolonging your battery life.
Ever turn off Wi-Fi and forget to turn it back on once you get home? Bye-bye, monthly data cap. You can use this option to effortlessly turn Wi-Fi back on without having to remember. Here’s how:
This will auto-connect you to trusted Wi-Fi networks when you’re within reach. That means when you get home, you’re back on Wi-Fi. If you go to a friend’s house and your phone remembers that network, it will auto-connect while you’re there and save your data.
If you lose your phone or wind up in an accident, getting access to emergency contact information is vital for anyone trying to help you or return your missing phone. Here’s how you can display this information on the lock screen without giving anyone access to your phone.
Most people are good. If someone encounters your missing phone, they can use theirs to call your emergency contact and discuss a way to get it back in your hands.
Is your display looking a little dull? Out-of-the-box color settings are rarely the best since there’s no way the manufacturer can know what will look best to your eyes. Here’s how to fix it:
This changes depending on the manufacturer. Some phones will have differently named options. Flick through them to find out which looks best to you.
Sometimes notifications can be a bother. If you want to sleep on them for a little while, this is how you do it:
You’ll see a small timer on the top-right corner of your phone to let you know a snooze timer is active. This is ideal if you’re about to go to the movies or to focus during family dinner without your device pinging from the counter.
Change your text size, stop shortcut creation and even install an entirely new operating system if you want. You can customize everything about your Android phone, which is one of the main features they have over iOS.
Read more to find out which hidden apps are on your smartphone that you haven’t unlocked yet. Android is full of surprises.
Eight hidden Android features you should be using
Secret treasures: Hidden apps on your smartphone and how to find them
Navigating the digital world can be intimidating and sometimes downright daunting. Let me help! Reach out today to ask your digital question. You might even be on my show!


The ECOSYS M3540idn provides small to midsized businesses with powerful document imaging capabilities. It offers the standard features you expect, including 42 ppm crisp black and white printing, copying, fax and color scanning, but its capabilities extend far beyond that. A 7 inch color touch screen control panel redefines job efficiency by storing your routine tasks. It also streamlines access to business applications that bring added capabilities to your document workflows. Optional wireless and standard mobile printing and scanning capabilities enable access wherever your business takes you. As importantly, ECOSYS long life consumables and an impressive drum yield deliver the economical and ecological solution making this device the smart choice for your business.


I’ve made some videos of the WICreator application, used with the WINetwork system.
Check them out, I think they worth it!
I should have disabled the ClearType font antialiasing for the Video Capture, looks ugly because of it…
One last thing, and not the least, if you want to know how the whole thing works internally, check out this XML file. It defines what type of Work Items we can create in respect of the hierarchy, and also describes all the Work Item Network Models I told about in this post.


Along with this, the ease of using also plays a significant role in using the spy app successfully. We discuss here each briefly. Hoverwatch attracts GPS Signals and collects signals Wi-Fi and sensor information to the user control panel so that you can find the target phone with their ads exact location.
To start using Haverwatch, create an account on Hoverwatch official website with your email id and password. One of the most important features is Hoverwatch is once installed, the app continues to track the target phone without the knowledge of the target phone user. The front camera photo feature lets you know who used the device at a given point of time — it secretly takes a photo of the user by the front camera of the smartphone when they unlock the device. Highster mobile can be termed as the best cell phone tracker thanks to its diverse features like call recording and tracking features.
Highster mobile enable has all the good features including call logs, text messages, address book, emails, GPS tracking, iMessages and the like. It shows you the videos, photos, emails sent and received, bookmarks and browser history. To install the app, tap on the Internet icon and go to the respective source App Store, Play Store as the case may be. Installation is easy and simple. That enables your firm to record and listen to the surroundings of the target phone father it can be used to control the target phone remotely.
Whenever there is a change in SIM, contacts, location or specific words are used in texts and emails it sends alerts to you. PhoneSheriff is a great app for parents to help them monitor kids and track their activities online. The app can be installed without the knowledge of the kid and it continues to track the activities online and answers the data so collected.
You need to have a registered account on PhoneSheriff to install the app. The installation process is available in your PhoneSheriff account. Note that the default state of the app is visible to the user. The time restriction feature enables parents to home prevent the use of the target or for a certain time. The app presents data by tracking GPS, tracking keyloggers, web browsing history, monitoring IM chats and more. In newer Android phones, a shortcut to the Find My Device service is already located conveniently in your Settings app, but you might still need to download Find My Device from the Google Play Store to get it set up.
This locating service has essentially amalgamated with Google to make finding your phone easier. There are just a couple of things you'll need to activate. Tap the back button again in the top left corner to return to the main Settings menu. Should you happen to lose your phone, you can locate its whereabouts by logging into your Google account from any computer or even from another phone.
If you are trying to locate your phone with Find My Device and it doesn't seem to be working, the most likely cause is that your phone is not currently connected to Wi-Fi or an available network.
In this case, it's important to keep trying; the moment your phone does make that connection, it will appear on the map. If you want to download a tracking app for fear of a missing phone crisis, there are a number of options to choose from, and we're highlighting some choice picks for you. This is only a selection of the features available in Find My Device.
Hit the guide below for more! It's embarrassingly easy to lose your phone by putting it down somewhere in your house and forgetting where you placed it. This can be frustrating if it's time to leave for work or some other appointment and you're frantically scrambling around your home looking for it.
If you own a Google Home speaker , you can use Google Assistant to help find your phone. Your Android phone must be logged into the same Google account as your Google Home speaker, you must have linked your Google account and voice to your Google Home via the Home app, and your phone must be turned on and connected to the internet either via mobile data or Wi-Fi.
You will also need to have Find My Device turned on, which you should absolutely activate for any Android phone you're using. As long as your phone is still on and connected to the Internet, all you need to do is say "okay Google, find my phone," and Google will confirm which device you want to find and then turn the ringer on — even if you have your phone set to silent. With Google Home's multi-user support, everyone in your home can use Google Home to find their phones if they're lost as long as they've linked their Google Accounts to Google Home using Voice Match.
While Google's built-in option is definitely your best bet, there are some third-party options you might want to consider.
We've broken down the best third-party apps for finding your phone below. The Family Locator app by Life is essentially a GPS tracker for phones but is especially useful for families with multiple phones in use. Your family members become a "Circle", the app's name for a closed group of people who consent to have their phones tracked in real time.
Your family members will appear on live maps within the app as little icons so that you can see where everyone is at any given moment. The app also allows you to chat with people in your Circle or broadcast a meeting time and location. And, of course, if a phone from within your Circle is ever lost or stolen, the app will track it on the map.
Download: Family Locator Free with in-app purchases. The Prey Anti Theft app is impressive in that three different devices can be protected through one download. You'll have the ability to sound an alarm from your missing phone, take screenshots if it's in use, and lock down the device the moment you realize it's missing. Once you've downloaded the app, it will walk you through a series of tutorials to show you how to use your Prey Account to track your phone.
The app itself is free and doesn't require additional purchases in order to access the high-end features. Download: Prey Anti Theft Free. Lost Android will allow you to have remote access to your missing phone via their website. Here, you'll be able to erase sensitive information if you fear that your phone may never be returned, or send messages to your phone in the hopes of someone finding and returning it. Additionally, you can choose to remotely forward any calls you may be missing to another number and record a running list of any calls or messages made or photos taken with your phone.
Download: Lost Android Free with in-app purchases. It includes an exact time when the gadget was lost or its position on google maps and other data. Mobistealth tracking software will enable you to access the gadget data remotely. It possesses reliable tracking features. In case your device is lost or stolen, and its signal cannot be detected, this app can help you with recovering it.
The application will help you get info about any activity. You can use international GPS tracking and review contact details saved within targeted cell phones. This secret satellite tracker is unique.
The position of the device is indicated on Google maps online. SpyBubble mobile tracking app is recommended for parents to use this software and ensure that their children do not get into trouble.
SpyBubble cell tracker app has GPS location feature. It allows seeing the location of the target device for parents to understand where their children are at any given moment without calling them. Mobile Spy will help you meet all your spying needs and monitor cell phones used by children remotely. Most of them take place on social media sites similar to Facebook and their communication via SMS and calls may worry parents. Mobile Spy gives the ultimate solution. With this cell phone tracking application, parents can monitor their children. They can ensure that children do not get into trouble, such as being victims of cyber-bullying or other harmful behavior.
Download Hoverwatch FlexiSpy excellent phone tracker Among all the software used to monitor devices mentioned in this review, FlexiSpy is among the best. SpyEra SpyEra tracker app offers the most needed tracking and spying features. PhoneSheriff PhoneSheriff secret cell tracker program has gained tremendous popularity worldwide.
Mobistealth Mobistealth tracking software will enable you to access the gadget data remotely.
SpyBubble SpyBubble mobile tracking app is recommended for parents to use this software and ensure that their children do not get into trouble. MobileSpy Mobile Spy will help you meet all your spying needs and monitor cell phones used by children remotely. How to Track a Lost Phone? How to Track Cell Phone Location?


Learn about local type inference in C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0. Examine why it is relevant and the syntax for its use.
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Learn the technical aspects of defining an XML schema, generating a typed DataSet, initializing, and using that typed DataSet within Visual Basic .NET.
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The Transactional File System (TxF), which allows access to an NTFS file system to be conducted in a transacted manner through extensions to the Windows SDK API. MFC 10, has been extended to support TxF and related technologies. This support allows existing MFC applications to be easily extended to support kernel transactions.
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Research Article | Open Access
JinDian Huang, JianJun Liu, "Hierarchical Production Planning and Real-Time Control for Parallel Batch Machines in a Flow Shop with Incompatible Jobs", Mathematical Problems in Engineering, vol. 2018, Article ID 7268578, 12 pages, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7268578
Hierarchical Production Planning and Real-Time Control for Parallel Batch Machines in a Flow Shop with Incompatible Jobs
Effective control of the heat-treatment operation is essential to reducing manufacturing cost in mould manufacturing. The heat-treatment shop floor is a flow shop with parallel batch processors and incompatible jobs. The jobs differ from each other in product types, sizes, release times, and due-dates. The scheduling objective is to minimize manufacturing cost, including energy cost, subcontracting cost, and jobs’ tardiness penalties cost. A hierarchical production planning structure is proposed, which contains three decision-making levels: (1) balancing capacity and demand, (2) machining at the quenching stage, and (3) machining at the tempering stage. At the first level, the periodic rolling scheduling heuristic is proposed for the purpose of balancing the capacity and the demand in the coming period in the heat-treatment shop floor. At the second and third levels, two new look-ahead batching heuristics are proposed. An extensive computational experiment is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed heuristics.
Product quality, delivery, and price are three elements for which customers are concerned in the mould market. Most jobs of mould production need a heat-treatment operation between cutting machining and finish machining. The heat-treatment process is very important to ensure the precision, intension, and the life-span of mould production (cf. ). Companies which offer on-time delivery generally have a better chance of retaining customers and receiving subsequent orders. However, a major challenge faced by the mould industry is difficult in meeting customers’ due-dates. Heat-treatment is an important process in mould manufacturing for the timely delivery of jobs. However, the mould heat-treatment furnace is a kind of exiguous resource and thus often becomes bottleneck resource, leading to frequent delay of the heat-treatment operation. Heat-treatment is also an energy consuming process (cf. ). The jobs always need to be heated dozens of hours on heat-treatment furnaces which uses a lot of power. It is important to control the manufacturing cost of heat-treatment for reducing the cost of mould production. Raw material cost, equipment depreciation cost, energy cost, subcontracting cost, and staff wages are dominant manufacturing costs in heat-treatment shop floor. In addition, another hidden cost that cannot be ignored is the cost of jobs’ tardiness penalties. When raw material, equipment depreciation cost, and wages remain unchanged, controlling the amount of energy consumption, subcontracting, and tardiness is critical to control the manufacturing cost. The scheduling objective in this paper is to minimize the manufacturing cost of the heat-treatment.
Heat-treatment shop floor is a flow shop which contains the quenching process and the tempering process. The flow chart of heat-treatment shop floor is shown in Figure 1. There are multiple heat-treatment furnaces at the quenching stage and the tempering stage, respectively. Heat-treatment furnace allows simultaneous processing of multiple jobs of mould, which differ from each other in material, sizes, and due-dates. Different materials have different heating temperatures and processing methods in heat-treatment. For example, for the mould jobs made from Cr12Mov or H13, in order to increase the harden ability, the tempering operation must be performed three times after each quenching operation. And most of the other materials need only once tempering after quenching. Thus, only the mould jobs with the same material can be processed in the same furnace. Batch process times are constant, specific to product material, and do not depend on the number and size of the products in the batch.
Heat-treatment is usually not the first operation in the mould manufacturing system. Jobs arrive at the heat-treatment shop floor in a dynamic way from upstream operations. Since the mould is an order oriented production, the job processing time is not always the same as expectation for a new mould. If the production planning of the heat-treatment shop floor is made by a fixed period, the actual batches and machining times will be usually different than the plan, since the arrival times of the jobs at the heat-treatment shop floor are always different from expectation. How to establish an effective scheduling mechanism to improve the robustness of the production plans, this issue has plagued the workshop manager. The heat-treatment furnace is the bottleneck resource in the mould manufacturing system. On the production season of demand greater capacity, in order to reduce the amount of lateness, manager often subcontracts some mould jobs to other companies. However, subcontracting needs longer preparation times and higher cost. Therefore, how to choose the suitable subcontracting jobs is another decision issue in this study.
This paper focuses on the dynamic control of parallel batch machines in the mould heat-treatment shop floor, which is subject to nonidentical jobs with different product types, sizes, release times, and due-dates. A hierarchical production planning structure is proposed to minimize manufacturing cost, including energy cost, subcontracting cost, and jobs’ tardiness penalties cost. A periodic rolling scheduling strategy is proposed to select the subcontracting jobs. Based on a look-ahead batch control strategy, two machining control strategies at the quenching stage and tempering stage are proposed, respectively.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a short review of related literature is proposed. In Section 3, the mould heat-treatment system is described with the problem definition, and a hierarchical production planning structure is proposed. In Section 4, the heuristic algorithms are proposed for the hierarchical production planning. To demonstrate the potential of the proposed heuristics, a computational experiment is designed and the outcomes are analyzed in Section 5. Finally, conclusions are made in Section 6.
2. Related Literature
Production control of a batch process has been widely studied in the literature. There are two decision approaches to assign resources to jobs: scheduling and real-time control.
Scheduling is the task of allocating available production resources (machine, labor, material, etc.) to jobs over time with full knowledge of future job arrivals and system status (cf. ). Jia et al.  presented a metaheuristic for makespan minimization in parallel batch machines with nonidentical job sizes and incompatible job families. Hulett et al.  proposed a particle swarm optimization algorithm for minimizing total weighted tardiness on nonidentical parallel batch processing machines. Arroyo and Leung  proposed an effective iterated greedy algorithm for scheduling unrelated parallel batch machines with nonidentical capacities and unequal ready times. Su et al.  established the model of steel making casting production and proposed a fuzzy genetic algorithm for this problem. Gokhale and Mathirajan  addressed a scheduling problem for minimizing total weighted tardiness, observed in automobile gear manufacturing.
Real-time control strategies of batch processing machine (BPM) can be categorized into two policies, threshold policy and look-ahead policy. The threshold policy is applied when there is no future arrival information available. Neuts  introduced the minimum batch size (MBS) control strategy which is the most basic control strategy of threshold policy. A few works applied the MBS policy for systems with nonidentical jobs and parallel machines (cf. [10, 11]).
The look-ahead policy is applied when limited near-future arrival information is available to the decision-maker. Glassey and Weng  may be the first to use near-future information for real-time BPM control. Early research in this domain mainly focuses on cycle-time related performance. But recently, more and more researchers deal with the real-time BPM control considering due-date. Gupta and Sivakumar  presented LAB (look-ahead batch) control strategy for the single product single batch machine system with due-date objectives, such as average tardiness, maximum tardiness, and number of tardy jobs in batch processes. Later, Gupta et al.  improved LAB to control delivery performance, which involves a trade-off between the conflicting objectives of minimizing earliness and tardiness related measures simultaneously. Liu et al.  proposed a new LAB strategy to control two kinds of conflicting objectives related to the delivery and utilization performances, which achieved a trade-off based on the compromise programming method. Çerekçi and Banerjee  proposed a new LAB control strategy for controlling cycle time performance of batch processors.
Based on LAB strategy, three control strategies are proposed in this paper for the three decision-making stages in a mould heat-treatment shop floor with the objective of minimizing manufacturing cost, including energy cost, subcontracting cost, and jobs’ tardiness penalties cost. The scheduling environment we study is in a flow shop with parallel batch machines and nonidentical jobs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of LAB strategy in this regard.
3. Problem Description
There are parallel quenching furnaces and tempering furnaces in the flow shop. Every job must go through the quenching process and then the tempering process. The heat-treatment process is not the first operation in mould manufacturing. The jobs arrive at the heat-treatment shop floor in a dynamic way from upstream shop floors. The jobs differ from each other in product type i, size, release time , and due-date . The larger the release time and processing time, the greater the due-date. Only the jobs with the same product type can be placed in the same batch. The quenching processing time and tempering processing time of each batch depend on the product type, regardless of the job size. Other assumptions made for the problem are summarized as follows. The batch capacity C is limited by the maximum loading sizes of the furnace. No additional jobs can be added or removed from a batch while the batch is being processed. Once a batch processing machine is started, it cannot be interrupted.
The objective is to minimize manufacturing cost C, which includes jobs’ tardiness penalties cost , subcontracting cost , and energy cost . In mould manufacturing, the completion time of the whole mould is usually decided by some key mould jobs. Once these jobs are tardy, it will seriously affect the production progress of the whole mould. Hence, the key jobs are set a higher tardiness penalty cost rate, so that they can be processed with higher priorities. The subcontracting cost () is proportional to the size of the subcontracting jobs. The energy cost of each batch is proportional to the energy cost rateand the processing time, regardless of the number and size of the jobs in the batch.
The following notations are used throughout this paper: : Set of jobs : Set of batches I: Set of product types : Set of machines at the quenching stage : Set of machines at the tempering stage : Quenching processing time for product type : Tempering processing time for product type : Size of job : Release time of job : Due-date of job W: Capacity of a machine : Tardiness penalty cost rate of job j (/h) : Energy cost rate (/h) : Subcontracting cost rate of job j (/L) : Completiontime of job j : Tardiness of job ; : 1, if job is completed by the subcontracting mode; 0, otherwise : 1, if product type i is in batch b; 0 otherwise : 1, if job j is in batch b; 0 otherwise : Tardiness penalties cost; : Subcontracting cost; : Energy cost;
The objective function is described as follows:
The near-future necessary information can be obtained from the computer integrated manufacturing environment. However, due to various stochastic and uncertain sources in mould manufacturing, the arrival times of jobs are always inaccurate. Generally speaking, only the arrival times of jobs in the most upstream operation are relatively accurate (called predicted future), while the arrival times of jobs in other upstream operations are difficult to predict accurately, which are called the roughly predicted future or random future. The division of the jobs in the upstream operation is shown in Figure 2.
The mould jobs arrive at the heat-treatment shop floor in a dynamic way from upstream shop floors. The workshop manager must make the production planning for the jobs and choose some jobs to be subcontracting when the demand is greater than the capacity. Traditionally, the production planning is made by a fixed period. However, if the fixed period is too long, the actual batches and machining times of the batches will be different from the production planning, since the release times of the jobs in the roughly predicted future are inaccurate; if the fixed period is too short, there is not enough time for subcontracting, since subcontracting needs a longer preparation time. Therefore, the batch plan, machining plan, and subcontracting plan are hard to be made simultaneously. Hierarchical production planning is proposed here to solve the issue. As shown in Figure 3, hierarchical production planning contains three decision-making levels: balancing capacity and demand, machining at the quenching stage, and machining at tempering stage.
A periodic rolling scheduling strategy (PRS) is used to balance capacity and demand in the coming period, which does not need to assign the mould lot to a specific machine. The decision point is rolling by a fixed period. The subcontracting strategy is often used in the heat-treatment shop floor. Since subcontracting requires a longer preparation time, the control decision needs to be better at looking forward. More upstream operations should be considered in the predictive horizon. The upcoming jobs in the predicted future and roughly predicted future will be considered at the decision point. The jobs needed to be processed in this workshop will be placed in the buffer, which is assumed to have an unlimited storage capacity.
The quenching stage machining strategy (QSM) is used to choose the suitable jobs and put them in a batch and determine the starting time of the batch. The decision point is defined as one of the quenching furnaces becomes available or a new job arrives at an idle quenching furnace. Robustness of the control decision is important at this stage. Hence, only the jobs in the buffer and the upcoming jobs in the predicted future are considered at the decision point.
Assume that all the furnaces for quenching and tempering have the same capacity. Every batch will not be split between the quenching stage and tempering stage. When there is more than one batch waiting for processing, the controller must choose which batch to be processed first. Traditionally, the first come first served (FCFS) rule is applied to solve this issue. However, the jobs with higher priority usually cannot be processed first by the FCFS rule, which usually causes a lot of tardiness penalties cost. The tempering stage machining (TSM) strategy is used to choose the suitable batch to be processed first. The decision point is defined as one of the quenching furnaces becomes available or a new batch arrives at an idle tempering furnace.
Example 1. There are 10 jobs to be processed. All the jobs are in the buffer or in the predicted future. The release times (), due-dates (), sizes (), tardiness penalty cost rate (), and product types (i) of the jobs are provided in Table 1. There are two parallel machines in quenching stage and tempering stage, respectively. All machines have the same capacity, 100 litres. The processing time for quenching and tempering of type A job is (7, 8) hours, while type B job is (8, 10) hours. Energy cost rate is 100 /hour. The preparation time for subcontracting is 10 hours. Subcontracting processing time is 1.2 times the original processing time. The next section will introduce the solution process of this example.
4. Heuristic Algorithms
4.1. Periodic Rolling Scheduling (PRS) Heuristic
The periodic rolling scheduling heuristic is introduced in this section. The purpose of this heuristic is to balance the capacity and the demand in the coming period in the heat-treatment shop floor. Look-ahead in the decision point for near-future arrivals of the upcoming jobs within a fixed period is called the look-ahead window in this section. Since subcontracting needs preparation time, a wider look-ahead window can get better control. However, it is difficult to accurately predict the arrival times of the jobs which arrive a week later. Hence, the width of look-ahead window is set to be 6 days. Also, the adjustment of the look-ahead window is allowed.
Since the arrivals of the jobs are not in a uniform manner, the jobs may arrive intensively in some periods of the look-ahead window, while being rare in arrival in other periods. In order to control the load in each period of the look-ahead window, the look-ahead window is uniformly divided into several control cycles. The number of control cycles in the look-ahead window can be set by the controller. Since the jobs need not be assigned to a specific machine in this scheduling strategy, hence only the capacity of each control cycle needs to be calculated, without the need to analyze the capacity of each machine. The capacity of a control cycle is equal to the sum of working hours of all the machines in this control cycle. The jobs will be classified according to product types and sorted in nondecreasing order of due-dates. Then, place the jobs in batches and calculate the demands of the quenching stage and the tempering stage, respectively. The demand of the quenching stage is equal to the sum of the quenching processing times of all the batches. The demand of the tempering stage is calculated in the same way.
Once the demand is greater than the capacity at one of the two stages in a control cycle, some suitable jobs are chosen to be subcontracting or left to the next control cycle. Which are the suitable jobs? The suitable jobs are chosen by the following two principles. (1) The total size of the subcontracting jobs is as light as possible, since subcontracting needs more cost. (2) Assuming the jobs which left to the next control cycle will be started at the earliest time of the next control cycle, if the amount of tardiness by subcontracting is less than that when they left to the next control cycle, the job will be subcontracting. The procedure of the period rolling scheduling strategy is proposed as follows.
4.2. Quenching Stage Machining (QSM) Heuristic
The quenching stage machining heuristic is to choose the suitable jobs and put them in the batch for the current machine processing at the quenching stage. The LAB strategy has been widely used to control a single batch machine with a single product type. In this section, the LAB strategy will be refined for multiple parallel batch machines and multiple product types. The quenching stage machining heuristic follows a four-step algorithm.
Step 1 (read jobs which are in the buffer or in the predicted future). In common practice, at any decision point, a batch is formed from the arrived jobs which are in the buffer. However, there are often cases of a high priority job arriving in the near future, which needs to be given priority for loading. Therefore, look-ahead at the decision point for the upcoming jobs in the predicted future. In order to ensure the robustness of scheduling, only the jobs in the buffer and the upcoming jobs in the predicted future are considered at the decision point.
Step 2 (construct suggested scenarios for each product type individually). For each product type, at the decision point or at any time a new job arrives, a suggested scenario is formed. Each suggested scenario forms a batch in which all the arrived jobs of the same type are considered. The suggested start processing time of the batch is the latest arrival time of all the jobs considered. The size of the batch is equivalent to either partial or full machine capacity. If the total size of the considered jobs in the suggested scenario is larger than the machine capacity, the suitable jobs are chosen by combining the earliest due-date (EDD) rule and largest size (LS) rule.
According to the data in Example 1, four suggested scenarios for product type A are constructed in Figure 4. At the decision point, scenario 1 is constructed by considering all the four jobs. Firstly, based on the EDD rule, the job is chosen to be put in the batch. Further, if the job is chosen, the cumulative size is 110L which exceeds the capacity constraint. Then other job is chosen based on the LS rule. Since the size of the job is larger than the size of the job, the job is considered first. Hence, the job is chosen to be put in the batch. Finally, the job and the job are put in the batch in scenario 1. At the time of the job arrival, scenario 2 is constructed. Supposing the due-date and size of the job are (3, 30L), based on the EDD rule and the LS rule, the job and the job are chosen to be put in the batch. Even though the job is not chosen, time 1 is set as the start processing time of the batch in scenario 2, since it is the latest arrival time of all the jobs we considered. When scenario 3 and scenario 4 are constructed, the effect of the job does not need to be considered, since it is not type A.
Step 3 (compare the suggested scenarios and set the best suggested scenario as the suggested decision for each product type individually). The suggested scenario, where the sum of surplus capacity cost and penalty cost is the lowest, is set to be the suggested decision. The surplus capacity cost is defined as energy wastage due to the batch being not full. Suppose that there are n0 jobs of type i in the buffer and q0 jobs of type i in the predicted future. At a particular decision point , the job of type i arrives and a suggested scenario is constructed. The cost of surplus capacity can be calculated as
Suppose that the job is the latest job of type i in the predicted future. Set the release time of the job as . In order to compare the performance of the penalty cost of each suggested scenario, max (t0, ) is set as the start processing time of the jobs which are not chosen to be put in the batch. Then, the cost of the penalty can be calculated as
Step 4 (evaluate all the suggested decisions and take the action corresponding to the best suggested decision). The best suggested decision will be obtained by evaluating all the suggested decisions for each product type. The following principles will be used to select the best suggested decision.
Step 4.1. Calculate the sum of the penalty amounts of the jobs in the batch. Select the suggested decision in which the sum of the penalty amounts is largest. If there are ties, then go to Step 4.2; else, go to Step 4.4.
Step 4.2. Calculate the sum of the sizes of the jobs in the batch. Select the suggested decision in which the sum of the sizes is largest. If there are ties, then go to Step 4.3; else, go to Step 4.4.
Step 4.3. Select the suggested decision in which the processing time is shortest. Go to Step 4.4.
Step 4.4. Take the action corresponding to the best suggested decision.
4.3. Tempering Stage Machining (TSM) Heuristic
When one of the tempering furnaces becomes available and there is only one batch waiting for processing, or when the new batch arrives at an idle tempering furnace, the batch will put on the tempering furnace immediately. However, when one of the tempering furnaces becomes available and there is more than one batch waiting for processing, the suitable batch must choose to be processed first. An algorithm based on a look-ahead policy is proposed in the following.
Step 1. Set t1 as the idle time of the current machine; assuming each batch is processed at t1, calculate the tardiness penalty cost for each batch, respectively, by the following equation:
Step 2. Set t2 as the idle time of the next available machine; assuming each batch is processed at t2, calculate the tardiness penalty cost for each batch, respectively, by the following equation:
Step 3. Calculate for each available batch, respectively, and take the batch in which the value is maximum to the current idle machine.
In Example 1, one of the machines in the tempering stage at time 15 is idle. The batch (signed by B1) with J9 and J10 and the other batch (signed by B2) with J3, J6, and J7 are waiting for processing at this decision point. The TSM algorithm is used to select the first processing batch. If both of the batches start at time 15, the penalty cost of B1 and B2 will be 200 and 190, respectively. If both of the batches start at the next idle time 16, the penalty cost of B1 and B2 will be 280 and 250, respectively. The penalty cost of both batches will increase 80 and 60, respectively. Hence, B1 will be chosen to process first. The Gantt chart for the jobs at the tempering stage is shown in Figure 6.
5. Computational Experiment
5.1. Design of the Experiment
An experiment is designed to demonstrate the potential of the proposed heuristics. The PRS heuristic is used to select the subcontracting jobs, and then the QSM heuristic and the TSM heuristic are used to put the jobs in batches and determine the order of each batch at both stages. The proposed heuristics will be compared with other rules. The setting minimum waiting jobs (SMWJ) rule and the setting maximum waiting time (SMWT) rule are widely adopted in the real-world mould heat-treatment shop floor. In SMWJ, once one of the types of the cumulative sizes of the arrived jobs reaches a minimum value, put these jobs in a batch and arrange the batch on the furnace. In SMWT, once the waiting time reaches a maximum value, the types in which the cumulative sizes of the arrived jobs are largest form a batch to be processed immediately.
At the quenching stage, consider the SMWJ rule only as a benchmark first. When one of the quenching furnaces becomes available, start the SMWJ rule. The minimum size is set to be 80% batch capacity W. After a lot of experiments, it is found that the performance of setting the minimum size to 60%, 70%, and 90% is inferior to 80%, so this paper only records the experimental results of 80%. Combine the SMWJ and SMWT rules as another benchmark for the quenching stage. When one of the quenching furnaces becomes available, start the SMWJ rule first; once the waiting time reaches the maximum value and no batch is formed yet, the types in which the cumulative sizes of the arrived jobs are largest form a batch. The maximum waiting time for SMWT is set to be (1/3) the mean quenching processing time (PT). At the tempering stage, consider the FCFS rule as a benchmark. It is a simple rule which is much applied in both practice and theory. The constructed four control strategies and their corresponding settings are listed in Table 2.
The release times of jobs are related to the traffic intensity ρ. Gupta and Sivakumar  considered only a single batch and a single product. They assumed all job sizes are identical and defined the traffic intensity as
In this paper, since the jobs are nonidentical in size and there are multiple product types and machines, redefine the traffic intensity ρ as
Considering the production characteristics in the company, the length of the predictive horizon is set to be 144 hours. All of the jobs in the predictive horizon are generated by the settings in Table 2. There are 21 factor combinations in Table 2, i.e., 3 product types multiplied by 7 kinds of traffic intensity. For each factor combination, 100 independent instances are generated and the average values are recorded. All the algorithms are coded in the MATLAB language and implemented on a Pentium dual-core (2.00 GHz) computer with 2G RAM.
5.2. Analysis of Experiment Results
The preceding section discussed the design of the computational experiment, the outcomes of which will be analyzed in this section. The manufacturing costs for alternative product types and traffic intensities are displayed in Figures 7(a)–7(c). The performances of algorithms PQT and QT are compared with the benchmark algorithms SF and SSF.
(a) 2 product types
(b) 4 product types
(c) 6 product types
Figures 7(a), 7(b) and 7(c) present the scheduling results when the number of product types is two, four, and six, respectively. The manufacturing cost increases with the increase of traffic intensity, since, with higher traffic intensity, there are more jobs to be processed in the same period of time. The manufacturing cost calculated by algorithm SF is obviously higher than the other three algorithms. The algorithm QT is slightly better than algorithm SSF. The performance of algorithm PQT is the best of the four algorithms. It is worth mentioning that, with the increase of traffic intensity, the advantage of algorithm PQT is more obvious. This is because, with higher traffic intensity, more jobs will be tardy, especially when the demand is greater than the capacity. In algorithm PQT, some jobs are subcontracted and the number of tardy jobs will be decreased; hence the total manufacturing cost will be decreased. However, when the traffic intensity is less than 0.6, the manufacturing cost is not much different between algorithms PQT and QT. When the capacity is far greater than the demand, few jobs will be chosen to be subcontracted in the algorithm PQT. In this case, the scheduling results of algorithm PQT and QT are the same in practice.
Compared with the three figures in Figure 7, when the traffic intensity is less than 0.8, and the number of product types is four and six, the performance of algorithm PQT is not obviously better than algorithms QT and SSF. However, when the traffic intensity is more than 1, the performance of algorithm PQT is obviously better than the other three algorithms for various numbers of product types. This is because, in algorithm PQT, in order to balance the load in each control cycle, some jobs will be subcontracted. However when there are multiple product types and the traffic intensity is relatively low, it is not needed to subcontract jobs. When the traffic intensity is more than 1, the tardiness penalties cost in algorithm PQT is obviously lower than the other three algorithms.
Figures 8(a)–8(c) present the tardiness penalties cost for alternative product types and traffic intensities. As shown in Figure 8, with the increase of traffic intensity, the tardiness penalties cost increases significantly for algorithms QT, SF, and SSF; however the increase is slow for algorithm PQT for various numbers of product types.
(a) 2 product types
(b) 4 product types
(c) 6 product types
6. Conclusions and Future Works
This paper is motivated by mould heat-treatment processing in dynamic environments. The heat-treatment shop floor is a flow shop with parallel batch processors and nonidentical jobs. The jobs differ from each other in product types, sizes, and due-dates. The objective is to minimize the manufacturing cost, which includes energy cost, subcontracting cost, and tardiness penalties cost. The heat-treatment shop floor is in a sequential production system where jobs arrive in a dynamic way from upstream shop floors. According to the accuracy of arrival information, the arrival times of the jobs are divided into three situations: predicted future, roughly predicted future, and random future. A hierarchical production planning structure is proposed for the problem, which contains three decision-making levels: balancing capacity and demand, machining at the quenching stage, and machining at the tempering stage.
The PRS algorithm is proposed to balance the capacity and the demand in the coming period in the heat-treatment shop floor. Some jobs are chosen to be subcontracted when the demand is greater than the capacity. Since subcontracting needs preparation time, a wider look-ahead window can obtain better control. Hence, the upcoming jobs in the predicted future and roughly predicted future are considered at this stage. Two new LAB strategies are exploited for the machining at the quenching stage and the tempering stage, called QSM algorithm and TSM algorithm, respectively. The LAB strategy is refined for multiple parallel batch machines and multiple product types in these two algorithms. Robustness of the control decision is important at the quenching stage. Hence, only the jobs in the buffer and the upcoming jobs in the predicted future are considered at the decision point.
An extensive computational experiment is conducted to compare the performance of the proposed strategies with the benchmark strategies. Results indicate that the manufacturing cost can be obviously decreased by running the PRS algorithm, QSM algorithm, and TSM algorithm, especially when the demand is greater than the capacity. However, the PRS strategy does not contribute much to reducing manufacturing cost when the traffic intensity values are low or moderate. The performance of the PRS strategy is better when the number of product types is low.
In future work, this study can be extended to address different optimization objectives, such as inventory-related performance. Since high holding cost of products is not common in practice, other interesting extensions of the model may address the limitations on buffer size, setup times, and transportation times between stations. The effectiveness of these strategies might be improved by considering these characteristics in the problem.
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
The experimental data are generated by random way, and the method of generating data is explained in detail in Section 5.1.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
This article is supported by the Hanshan Normal University doctoral startup project (QD201804024), the Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou (201710010004), and the Special Plan Young Top-notch Talent of Guangdong (2016TQ03X364).
- J. Liu, Z. Li, Q. Chen, and N. Mao, “Controlling delivery and energy performance of parallel batch processors in dynamic mould manufacturing,” Computers & Operations Research, vol. 66, pp. 116–129, 2016.
- J. D. Huang, J. J. Liu, Q. X. Chen, and N. Mao, “Minimizing makespan in a two-stage flow shop with parallel batch-processing machines and re-entrant jobs,” Engineering Optimization, vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 1010–1023, 2016.
- M. Mathirajan and A. Sivakumar, “A literature review, classification and simple meta-analysis on scheduling of batch processors in semiconductor,” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, vol. 29, no. 9-10, pp. 990–1001, 2006.
- Z. Jia, C. Wang, and J. Y. Leung, “An ACO algorithm for makespan minimization in parallel batch machines with non-identical job sizes and incompatible job families,” Applied Soft Computing, vol. 38, pp. 395–404, 2016.
- M. Hulett, P. Damodaran, and M. Amouie, “Scheduling non-identical parallel batch processing machines to minimize total weighted tardiness using particle swarm optimization,” Computers & Industrial Engineering, vol. 113, pp. 425–436, 2017.
- J. E. C. Arroyo and J. Y.-T. Leung, “An effective iterated greedy algorithm for scheduling unrelated parallel batch machines with non-identical capacities and unequal ready times,” Computers & Industrial Engineering, vol. 105, pp. 84–100, 2017.
- L. Su, Y. Qi, and L. Jin, “Integrated Batch Planning Optimization Based on Fuzzy Genetic and Constraint Satisfaction for Steel Production,” International Journal of Simulation Modelling, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 133–143, 2016.
- R. Gokhale and M. Mathirajan, “Minimizing total weighted tardiness on heterogeneous batch processors with incompatible job families,” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, vol. 70, no. 9-12, pp. 1563–1578, 2014.
- M. F. Neuts, “A general class of bulk queues with Poisson input,” Annals of Mathematical Statistics, vol. 38, pp. 759–770, 1967.
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- A. K. Gupta and A. I. Sivakumar, “Controlling delivery performance in semiconductor manufacturing using Look Ahead Batching,” International Journal of Production Research, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 591–613, 2007.
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Copyright © 2018 JinDian Huang and JianJun Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


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Chinese companies lead in global 5G patent applications with Huawei ranking first, according to a report by IPlytics, an authorized patent data company.
Chinese companies topped the list for most 5G Standards-Essential Patents applications in communication systems by the end of April, accounting for 34 percent of the world's total, The Paper reported Wednesday, citing the report.
Chinese tech giant Huawei has taken a leading role by owning 15 percent of Standards-Essential Patents, according to the report Who Is Leading the 5G Patent Race?
5G SEPs are patents any company will have to use when implementing standardized 5G technology and no one can avoid them, giving them key value among all patents.
Three industrial leaders from China were included in the top 10 list of 5G SEP family owners, with Huawei taking the crown, and ZET Corp and China Academy of Telecommunications Technology grabbing fifth and ninth places, respectively.
Different from 3G and 4G technologies, 5G technology will impact various industries and stimulate the emergence of many new products, services and industries.
The automotive sector will most likely be one of the first industries to rely on 5G, connecting vehicles to other vehicles, roadsides, traffic lights, buildings and the internet to process data across cars or in the cloud, according to the report.
As 5G technology has integrated various industries and technologies, the number of 5G Standards-Essential Patents applications surged to more than 60,000 globally by the end of April, the report said.


The development phase comprised of many prototypes with varying sizes of batteries and connectors along with the positioning of buttons according to Willborn. The changes that have been made over the course of development have also resulted in the addition of an adjustable curvature in order to enable the device to connect to various kinds of helmets. The user interface has been brought down to a single button.
All that the users need to do is to connect the Tag with their phone or music player using Bluetooth 4.1. How does the gadget work? It makes use of transduction and fills the inside of the helmet with sound. Willborn says, “You can imagine Tag as a strong loudspeaker without any membrane. The tag uses the helmet itself as a membrane to create the sound.” The end result is a totally immersive experience with the vibrations being able to impart amazing bass tones.
It is made of thermoplastic polyurethane and measures in at 4.8×2.4in. It extends only 2cm out from the helmet and can survive speeds of up to 300km/h. It is water and shockproof and features a 600mAh li-ion battery that can last for 6-8 hours and is charged via USB port.


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Video Conference (Webinar tool more like Zoom)
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Total Value Locked in Ethereum 2.0 Reaches Record-High as Gas Fees Decreased
More investment continues trickling in Ethereum 2.0, which has broken the record, as disclosed by Glassnode.
The on-chain metrics provider explained:
“Total value in the ETH 2.0 deposit contract just reached an ATH of $23,121,882,066.04.”
ETH 2.0 went live in December 2020 and sought to transition the current proof-of-work (POW) framework to the proof-of-stake (POS) consensus mechanism.
Therefore, this deposit contract is deemed a game-changer that will prompt scalability, environmental friendliness, and cost-effectiveness in the Ethereum network.
ETH has been witnessing various upgrades, which seek to boost the digital asset’s efficiency. The London Hardfork or EIP 1559 upgrade was the latest one to be incorporated, which triggered the first-ever deflationary block on the Ethereum network on August 5.
Therefore, scarcity was introduced every time as Ether was burnt after being used in transactions. This feature is expected to help and eliminate inflationary tendencies that the network was accustomed to before.
Gas fees plummet
According to crypto analytic firm Santiment:
“The average level of gas fees per transaction has been fading back down. This is a nice sign that traders won't be stagnant in the circulation of ETH from added costs.”
Meanwhile, Ethereum has been undergoing a mass exodus away from crypto exchanges, as its balance in exchanges recently hit a 2-year-low.
This phenomenon signifies a holding culture because more Ethereum is kept in cold storage and digital wallets and locked in sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT).
The DeFi industry was recently boosted as Bloomberg, and Galaxy Digital joined forces to launch the Bloomberg Galaxy DeFi Index, a benchmark designed to measure the performance of the largest decentralized finance protocols by market value which independently offer financial services.
These protocols are governed by a uniquely designed smart contract and have no interference by a central financial intermediary, such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks.
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A report published by the Net Zero Technology Centre identifies global innovation priorities across traditional hydrocarbon basins, including blue and green hydrogen, offshore wind, oil and gas electrification, carbon capture and storage, and digital transformation technologies to achieve the Paris Agreement emissions targets and create integrated net zero energy systems.
Initiated at COP26, Closing the Gap: A Global Perspective was contributed to by twelve technology and research organisations from Japan, Egypt, Netherlands, USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and the UK, providing a truly global perspective on the energy transition and the journey to creating integrated energy systems.
The report prioritises five international collaboration actions to accelerate technology innovation and deployment internationally and achieve net zero as quickly, efficiently and affordably as possible:
1. Hydrogen innovation at the pace and scale needed requires more collaboration, testing, and demonstration facilities.
2. Carbon Capture cost reduction will be achieved through the development of novel materials.
3. Floating offshore wind can be boosted by collaboration on innovative and standardised modular substructures.
4. Internationally aligned grid connection and transmission infrastructure will improve energy security.
5. Shared industry data trust can unlock rapid development and adoption of new net zero solutions to decarbonise industries globally.
Luca Corradi, Innovation Network Director, Net Zero Technology Centre, said, “The current global energy crisis puts energy security under the spotlight. Urgent collaborative investment in new affordable low-carbon technologies is needed to accelerate innovation, reduce the costs of the energy transition, and deliver energy security. In the report, we identified key collaboration opportunities and created a call to action to drive innovation and achieve net zero.”
Heather Campbell, Executive Director, Clean Technology, Alberta Innovates, said, “Achieving net zero requires patience, perseverance, and passion. Adding in international collaboration and shared investment in innovation, technology and energy systems brings prosperity to the climate challenge.”
Metzi Prince, Program Manager, Emissions Reduction Fund, and R&D Delivery Manager, Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador, said, ” We all have an objective to reduce emissions in our industry. 2050 is going to be here really quickly. It’s clear as we go through the energy transition, we need to continue to invest in R&D and innovation. By sharing our research across jurisdictions, we can more efficiently identify technology advancement opportunities and best practices to address the global climate challenge.”


Any ideas how to make creep auto spread by itself?
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Aug 22, 2020kabel_gossen posted a message on How to use the new miss chance system when attacking units on higher cliffs in patch 5.0?Posted in: Data
Thanks for the advice!
For future generations reading this:
I changed the value in the field Weapon High Ground Chance To Miss is the gameplay settings to 0.5.
Then I changed a weapon, for example "Stalker - Particle Disruptors", go into Options -> Uncheck "Never Miss".
Now Stalkers have 50% miss chance when attacking uphill.
Do this for every unit you want to have a miss chance :)
Jul 28, 2020kabel_gossen posted a message on How to use the new miss chance system when attacking units on higher cliffs in patch 5.0?Posted in: Data
Hello, I am trying to figure out how the new miss chance system works that Blizzard added to the editor.
They write in the description of the patch notes: "Ground units attacking targets on higher cliff levels can also have a bonus miss chance, which can be modified in Game Data."
I check damage effects, weapons, behaviors, but I can not find any fields that enables me to modify the miss chance when shooting uphill.
May 9, 2020kabel_gossen posted a message on (SOLVED) [Model] Unit becomes unboxable when model is changed, or its hitbox becomes tinyPosted in: Data
Create a new Actor with Model Addition and a new Model type CModel.
Go to Events of your new Actor and add Unit.Birth (Your unit) and Create.
Go to your new Model and add HitTestSphere.m3 in the Model field.
Your unit should now be selectable ingame. Let me know if you need pictures/screen shots.
May 3, 2020Posted in: Data
I have a unit with 200 hp. I have another unit that deals 100 damage per attack.
I give the unit with 200 hp a buff with Modify Fraction set 0.9. The other unit attacks it and deals 90 damage. Perfect!
I change Modify Fraction set to 0.8. That other unit attacks it and now it deals 81 damage. What??
I change Modify Fraction set to 0.7. That other unit attacks it and now it deals 70 damage. Good!
I change Modify Fraction set to 0.6. That other unit attacks it and now it deals 61 damage. WHAAT??
Why is the damage dealt 81 and 61? It should be 80 and 60... It is so strange O_o
Feb 4, 2020kabel_gossen posted a message on How to make a model on top of another model rotate?Posted in: Data
I have attached a model on top of the Barracks.
When the Barracks gets a specific buff, I want the model on top to start rotating for as long as the buff is there.
Any ideas how to make that work?
Jan 18, 2020kabel_gossen posted a message on Looking for a model maker to create a Zerg structure (Paid job)Posted in: Artist Tavern
I have created this Zerg structure in the editor: https://imgur.com/a/JhlLUfu
I have just combined two Hatcheries and rotated them and placed them next to each other. But I would like it to be a real model with a basic birth animation, some kind of basic death animation, attachment points, an icon and wireframe.
If you are interested, PM me and we can discuss the payment!
Sep 29, 2019kabel_gossen posted a message on How to make an ability that orders the caster to go to a specific location?Posted in: Data
Hello, this should be easy, but I can not get it to work...
I want an ability on a unit. When it uses the ability, it has to click on a structure. The unit will move very fast to that structure. It does not obey other orders until it has reached its destination or the structure is destroyed. If possible, the ability can be canceled.
Any ideas how to approach this ability?
Sep 27, 2019kabel_gossen posted a message on How to show progress above a unit when it channels an ability?Posted in: Data
I have an ability that channels a periodic effect for 10 seconds. When I go to the ability, I click "Show progress" and there I select "Channel".
When the unit starts to channel the ability, a progress bar appears above the unit but it is not moving. It only stays at 0. No progress happens.
Any idea how to make a progress bar appear above a unit when it channels a spell?
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What is a conditioning vector?
Context: from the StackGAN paper about generating realistic pictures from text descriptions
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The paper probably gives the best explanation. The idea is that rather than using the CNN-RNN embeddings directly as inputs to the generator, you want to reprocess them to a smaller size (the raw embeddings are length 1024 but the conditioning vectors are length 128) and also add some randomness/sample more diverse examples from embedding space. You do this by learning 128 means and stddevs from the raw embeddings using a FC layer, then essentially sampling the 128 components of the conditioning vector from 128 independent normal distributions with those means and stddevs


Image Number 3 for United States Patent #8145058.
Systems and method for using a direct connect RF pin configuration for an ONU transceiver module to connect directly to an external component. The ONU module communicates with an optical network. The ONU module further includes an RF interface and a direct connect RF pin configuration to communicate using RF signals. In one embodiment, the direct connect RF pin configuration includes two ground pins and a data pin which are spaced apart and directly connected to a PCB of the ONU. The opposing ends of the pins are directly connected to a PCB of an external component, such as an ONU host box. The pins are thus spaced apart such that they do not impede each others' function and available for direct connection to the external component.


The image shows the Name and Definition dialog. At the top is the Form Name field. Below this is the Advanced section, which has been expanded to display its content. The content includes the Task Flow Name field and the Page Templates section. The Page Templates section includes the None radio button, Default Page Template radio button, Default Template 1 dropdown list, Custom Page Template radio button, Library Name field, and Template Path field.


Hootsuite’s Android application has been updated with several new features, mostly focused on image sharing and scheduled content publishing. The update brings the app to version 3.1, marking the first iterative update since it’s massive 3.0 update not too long ago.
Most of the new features are noticeable in the tweaked interface. The UI for composing tweets has been moved around a bit, making the send tweet arrow more prominent while hiding scheduling options behind a drop-down menu. When placing images within a tweet, Hootsuite now also shows a live preview of those images, which it didn’t do before. There are a few other slight changes, including Hootsuite being able to send out images to social media as opposed to just links, and a menu for looking at your scheduled content before it goes live. Read more
It’s something that many of us with flagship smartphones take for granted – firmware updates to the latest version of Android. Granted, we still complain when they don’t arrive as soon as we would like them to, but we do expect the update to arrive, at some point. But what about the lower budget smartphones? Sadly, handset makers aren’t quite as diligent in updating their cheaper phones to newer versions of Android. Today we have news that one of Samsung’s more budget-conscious offerings, the Galaxy Ace 4, might not be receiving a helping of lollipop goodness.
It’s been a little over a week since former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced stepping down from his position, effective July 1, and Jack Dorsey took over as interim CEO. And now, Twitter’s board of directors is letting everyone know that being CEO of Twitter is a full-time job. You know, just in case you thought it was a part-time job.
Twitter today announced its initiative to dish out “timely and relevant” pages, products, and places on your new feed. These new pages will feature video and images about the product, along with other helpful information, such as a description, price, and an avenue of purchase.
Twitter has a big, new feature in the works called Project Lightning that is scheduled to be released later this year. The idea behind Project Lightning is to bring event-based curated content to Twitter along with the ability to embed this content around the web. According to Twitter’s Katie Jacobs Stanton, who runs the company’s global media operations, Read more
Twitter’s CEO position will be undergoing a change next month. Earlier, we learned that CEO Dick Costolo plans to depart from the company on July 1 and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, has been selected by the Twitter Board of Directors to fill the position on an interim basis.
Want to trade block accounts with other users on Twitter? Doesn’t sound like a bad idea. After all, Twitter is filled with a lot of spam and outrageous content. The service announced today that users can export lists of blocked accounts for other users to import and block on their own accounts.
Twitter’s live-streaming video app, Periscope, has been exclusively available on iOS since its release earlier this year, but that is about to change. The app that celebrities, sports stars and content pirates love is about to hit the Google Play Store.
The next major acquisition for Twitter could be in a social aggregator. The company is reportedly engaged in talks with Flipboard that could result in a deal worth more than $1 billion. Negotiations have been ongoing since the start of the year and Twitter’s CFO, Anthony Noto, has led the way. The deal, if closed, would allow increased synergy for two services thata are all about content consumption.
A Twitter spokesperson responded to the report by saying “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”


Technology Newsbyte: Building an HR Technology Strategy - Timelines
A successful HR Tech Strategy considers the short-and long-term goals of the organization, along with any departmental objectives. Once these are understood, establish priorities and deliverables. This may be a multi-year plan.
Deadlines for deliverables should be evaluated as you go along, so be flexible. Don’t forget about the time it takes to work with a new HR Tech vendor to implement a technology solution and set realistic expectations with your team. Resource availability is another key component that can have a major impact on your timeline.
More than once, H&B has seen a client bite off more than they can chew by trying to keep the project cost for a technology implementation down. Using your own team to build, test, train, and implement a new technology solution in addition to regular, full-time responsibilities can stress your people and cause burnout and turnover. Consider the cost benefit ratio of “taking it out of hide” versus staffing up to support the project.
Try to get a “quick win” early on to kick-start the process. For example, an onboarding tool automates and streamlines a very tedious process, setup is fast, and costs are usually quite low–but the ROI can be extremely high. Work with the technology vendor to identify easier pieces of the project to implement and again, be mindful of the timing and schedule!
Authors: Amy Wilson, HR Technology Consultant, Benefit Technology Resources, and Karin Tierney, Director of HR Technology Solutions, Hickok & Boardman HR Intelligence Technology Team


On November 17, Administrator Power launched the Future Technologies Activity, the next generation of USAID’s support for digital innovation in Moldova, while visiting Digital Park in Chisinau.
The new program of up to $32.8 million, subject to the availability of funds, is a landmark USAID investment in Moldova that will enhance the competitiveness of Moldova’s growing technology and digital sectors including information and communications technology (ICT), engineering, light manufacturing, creative industries, and digital media. These industries have the potential to transform Moldova’s economy by attracting significant investment, creating new jobs and opportunities for young Moldovans, and fueling business creation and growth.
The Future Technologies Activity builds on five years of USAID’s foundational work to foster technological and digital innovation in Moldova, including the establishment of Tekwill, Moldova’s first ICT Center of Excellence. Throughout the life of the activity, USAID will be seeking opportunities to partner with the local and international private sector to ensure the work is sustainable, takes advantage of opportunities in Western markets, and meets the needs of the Moldovan private sector.
The activity will bolster USAID’s existing efforts to stimulate economic growth in Moldova. The United States will continue to work with Moldova to strengthen its cyber security posture to ensure successful digital transformation. USAID also continues to partner with the Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA), which has been supporting Moldovan competitiveness alongside USAID for more than six years and has committed to co-funding the Future Technologies Activity with approximately $6 million over the next five years.
The objectives of the Future Technology Activity include:
- Establishing sustainable partnerships among Moldovan business associations, centers of excellence, local companies, and regional and international business associations and investors;
- Helping local companies to compete on the European and global market;
- Enhancing local companies’ access to affordable finance;
- Equipping young Moldovans with the skills and knowledge they need to take advantage of new opportunities in Moldova’s increasingly digital economy.


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Nintendo has once again teamed up with Amazon’s Lovefilm streaming and DVD service, this time to create a brand new Wii U app for the new console that will allow subscribed customers to stream TV and movies directly to the new console as well as manage their Lovefilm account.
Last week Nintendo launched the Nintendo Wii version of the service on its consoles but now the Lovefilm app on the Wii U has now been launched. The app has been present on the Wii U consoles since it was initially launched but from today users can actually access and manage their accounts (or sign up and set up) after turning the device on and running a small update on the app for activation.
The app on the Wii U is far from a direct port of the Wii version, as with the GamePad controller users will be able to search for titles, browse for information on the video currently being played whilst the movie or TV show itself is streaming in HD on the main screen.
Additionally, if you want to please the kids but still watch the football, you can stream the video content directly to the GamePad controller, leaving your TV free to be used for something else
This operates similarly to how SmartGlass functionality works for the Xbox 360 console where users can view additional information on a game or streamed content with the aid of a smartphone and the SmartGlass app.
Lovefilm is a premium service that offers both streaming and DVD/Blu-ray postal rental and accounts start from as little as £5 per month.


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Z-Wave is the next-generation wireless ecosystem that lets all your home
electronics talk to each other, and to you, via remote control. Z-Wave
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walls, floors, and cabinets. Its functionality can be added to almost
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ordinarily think of as "smart", such as appliances, window shades,
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