MT Message Flow

MT messages are the messages which are terminated from the mobile phone. The origination of the MT messages is the SMSC. This is somewhat complex process compared with the MO flow which had less number of steps.

The message flow of the MT messages is explained in the picture below.

Step 1

Accept the submission of MT messages to the relevant module in the SMSC. Origination of this messages could be from an applications or could be a MO message.

Step 2

Then for message is to be sent, SMSC access HLR (Home location register) to obtain the location information for a particular user. HLR replies with the relevant information

Step 3

Then the message is transferred to required MSC with the relevant information which would need for MSC to proceed.

Step 4

In step 4, authentication and other information

Step 5

Message is then actually sent to the subscriber. At this stage VLR is updated changing the status of the SMS delivery.

Step 6

Status report of the message is then sent to SMSC.

Step 7

Finally SMSC will update the relevant personal information on HLR and message is then sent to the next step processing

MO Message Flow

The letters MO stands for "Mobile Originated". So MO message is the message which originates from the mobile phone. And even though it is not indicated in the name, destination of the MO messages will be the "Short Message Service Center" (SMSC). From that point onwards SMSC takes care of the message performing routing accordingly.

The message flow of the MO messages is shown in the picture below.

Before subscriber sends the message, access request and authentication is done using the information available on VLR (Visitor location register)

Step 1

In this step, message is sent to the MSC after following the process explained above. MSC (Mobile Switching Center) is responsible for handling all the subscriber events, who are in a particular geographical area.

Step 2

Then the VLR is updated with the relevant information about the MO message. This will be used to obtain the location information about the subscriber who sent the message as well.

Step 3

In this step three, the message is transfered to the SMSC, which handles the rest of the message routing process.

Step 4

SMSC will take relevant routing actions and will be sent to further processing. MO message flow ends up here.

Step 5

The delivery report is sent to the MSC from SMSC, once the SMSC obtains the delivery status of the message.

Step 6

From there onwards MSC will handle the delivery report. Will access VLR and sends relevant delivery status to the subscriber who sent the message. If he's not in his area then will inform back to the SMSC.

The point to note here is that the HLR is not accessed at any point in the MT flow.

Neural networks for the benefit of mankind in health

Mankind has found many ways to make life easy by using IT. Among those inventions Artificial Neural Network has a special place in which it simulates the the biological neural network of human brain.

There are many applications which uses ANNs for the benefit of mankind. Among them Health applications play a leading role because most of the health application's purpose is to predict a probable future outcome which will help humans to avoid it. Neural applications are being used most of the time because of its capability to predict accurately the outcome from the set of past data.

Heart monitoring, ECG analysis is a well known application which uses ANN to identify the pattern of the ECG to recognize an probable condition earlier which will eventually support, supporting the patient with the medical assistance which would be needing in order to overcome the situation.

Another very useful application is prediction of future patients information based on particular geographical location based on the past patient information of that area. This concept is actually implemented by the hSenid Mobile Solutions as IDEWS. (Infectious Diseases Early Warning System). Here the possible patient information of epidemic diseases such as Dengue is informed to relevant authorities, enabling taking precautions. The heart of this system make use of an ANN. And it is actually proven the accurate predictions of ANN.

So anyways there may be so many health related applications that would be developed using ANNs in the future which would become ultimately a life saver.

HLR & VLR

HLR and VLR are two important components in mobile network environment where the basis of mobility depends on these two elements. HLR is the Home Location Register whereas VLR is the Visitor location register.

The main purpose of HLR is to find the location information of a mobile subscriber. For a simple example it is like checking the address of a letter where it should be sent. In this case the problem is, address of the subscriber is not static but dynamic. It changes all the time. So HLR contains the location information of subscribers which helps operators to find where he/she is.

VLR contains information about users in a particular area at a given time. So it is not a permanent storage since the users in a particular area can be switched constantly. This VLR is attached to a particular Mobile Switching Center (MSC) which receives Short Messages (SM) or Calls from operator and distribute it to the final user.

When these two elements are compared and contrasted, HLR is a permanent data storage whereas VLR is a temporary storage. HLR contains all the data about the entire subscriber base of a particular operator whereas at a given time VLR contains information about a subset of the subscriber base unless all the subscribers are in one geographical area. And HLR is built as optimized reading is capable whereas in VLR both the processes reading and writing is optimized.

In conclusion both these elements are vital in mobile networks since the mobility depends on HLR and VLR, specially using HLR.

Number Portability

Before explaining number portability with a technical aspect will explain using a simple example.

A person using "A" service provider's service and his mobile number starts with 077xxxxxxx. But sevice provider "B" offers very attractive package for a very low amount of charges. And if we are to join "B" we should change our number. But still will u be able to change the provider. For me I cant because the switching cost might exceed the benefit received from changing the service provider. Most of the people today have this problem.

Solution for this could be number portability. What happens in number portability is a particular person will have a one fixed number. And any service provider would be able to get connected and provide services to that number. So switching operator wont be a hazard anymore and it also will lead to more competitive market for mobile service providers. Competitiveness obviously will result in many innovations and subscribers will get the maximum yield out of it.

This concept is somewhat similar to IP V6 concept, in which every individual would be able to own a private IP address of his own with the large address range.

There are practical use of number portability as for today. Even in india it exists. So this is the right time for us to move on and get mixed up with the modern world which is with less hazards.

SMSC

In short SMSC is a short message store and forward system.

It provides a facility for users to send SMS between mobile phones or applications. There are three main parts of this process mainly called as Mobile Originated (MO) messages, SMSC and Mobile terminated (MT) messages.

In MO messages what it does is sending message from the mobile phone to SMSC. This will have to follow through many steps such as Base station system (BSS) and Mobile Switching Center (MSC). Visitor Location Register (VLR) and Home Location Register (HLR) will als updated and verifies on the way.

In SMSC as for the definition it routes message and regulate the process.. It applies relevant logics, filtering, validations for the message and follow the necessary procedure. Target of the message could be a another mobile phone or a particular application.

In MT messages again there is a defined path to be followed. First senders location should be found by accessing HLR which contains all the detail of the subscribers. Then once the location of the user is found, it is sent to MSC and there it access VLR for further user detail verification and authentication. Then form MSC it sends the message to the particular mobile subscriber.

If the message is not delivered, HLR is informed to update SMSC when the particular subscriber come live. Message will be stored at MSC. There are two concepts in that case too. Store & Forward and Forward & Store.

In Store and forward message will be stored before checking whether the user is online or not. In the other method forward and store, message is stored once the messaged delivery is failed. There are advantages and disadvantages of both these models.

Flying When Pregnant

Flying while pregnant is something that our mothers are heavily scared of. But mentioning the summary in short, it is not a something to be worried about provided that the mother and child are in good health and delivery won't take place while on air.

But the fact to remember is most of the airlines have their own restrictions about pregnant ladies travelling. Normally most of the airlines do not allow to travel after 36 months. But that depends on the flight as well. If it is a domestic travel it could be 7 days prior to the due date of 2,3 days.

In one of the studies on pregnancy and air travel, they have revealed that there is a slight increase in miscarriage. But this study was carried out with the flight attendances who stay fairly large amount of their time on air, on average 74 hours per month.

Travelling in first trimester would be little bit difficult for someone as you will be feeling uncomfortable within that period because of pregnancy symptoms such as morning weakness. But anyways in the case of a travel it will be much more comfortable taking some extra sick bags.

The second trimester is somewhat okay to travel as for the studies since your pregnancy symptoms will be less during this period. Risk of miscarriage is significantly lowered.

During third trimester, it is also okay to travel unless the delivery dates are not close by.

Even though it is recommended to travel while pregnant, there is a increased chance of developing a blood clot. But there are actions to be taken as precautions for this. Not crossing your legs, drinking water to keep hydrated, wearing comfortable loose cloths would be some of them.

As a summary again it is not something to worry, travelling while pregnant. But prevention is always better than cure.

Artificial Neural Networks

In short Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a computational model which represents the behavior of biological neural network.

The base of the ANN is the individual nodes which are composed artificially to represent the behavior of a neurons inside human body. The group or a collection of such a artificial nodes is called as a ANN.

Human biological neural network is a complex element which is used to carry out a specific physiological function. So do the Artificial Neural Network. ANN is also designed as the need of it, to perform the function which is intended to.

The flow of a ANN is it captures an input and then using the set of neural nodes, which is called as the ANN, it classifies the input into different classes and give it away as the output. There are main two types of ANNs based on how the training is carried out which is the most important part in any neural network. Training is of two types, supervised training and unsupervised training. In supervised training weights of each node is adjusted in such a way that the output required is obtained. But in unsupervised learning ANN is allowed to train on it's own. Desired output is not provided. It adjusts according to the changes which is more flexible.

When ANNs are used in applications there may be compromises. Since complicated ANNs use huge amount of memory, there could be a clash between quality and feasibility. It should be properly handled in order to produce a good output.

In many of the applications today, they uses neural networks. Some of they would be Function approximation, regression analysis, time series predictions, classification, pattern recognition, time series analysis, data processing.

Stage Fright

"The day that I will not hear my heart beat in front of an audience when I am performing, will be the day I will start loosing".

The above comment was made by one of the great performers in Sri Lanka. The point to be highlighted is, it is not something unusual. Even the most admiring performers have the stage fright, not only you and me.

Stage fright, performance anxiety is the fear, anxiety someone might be having when speaking in front of an audience. Glossophobia is the scientific name for this. The main reason for this would be the feeling troubling the presenter that "Others will think I am stupid". Other than this there are some other reasons as well.

Lack of confidence

Trying to achieve perfectionism

Past experience

Avoidance

In order to avoid this problem, there are many ways of controlling. The main factor i would say is improve your self confidence. Because it might affect very badly if necessary actions were not taken at the proper time.

Practicing is another method which will reduce the stage fright. There is a very common saying that "Practice make you perfect" and it does. Breathing exercise also would help to get rid of stage fright as it makes u focus and build up the self confidence.

Most importantly while working towards loosing the stage fright, a person must understand that when you are performing, it's you who is presenting. Others are there in the audience but you have the control. And this is not something only you are having but most of the people around the world.

BnS, THE band created brand..

BnS, a band or a brand?? This is a question to be answered. As for my opinion BnS is a band which created a brand, purely because of the commitment, dedication and hardwork in bringing up sri lankan music to the world class. As a proud sri lankan I can say both of them and BnS family are pure Sri Lankans.

Reason for this article was their new album launch, "Sara Sihina" which was held in Sirimawo Bandaranayaka Memorial Exhibition Center yesterday (14-09-2010). I felt extremely privileged to be there in the grand album launch which i enjoyed every moment of it.

Bhathiya, classically trained singer and a piano player is a wonderful performer on stage. He actually knows how to entertain a crowd with his absolutely superb voice. The Anadian, convers his strength in to powerful imagination on stage, with all his talents, which was an unforgettable experience.

Santhush plays the emotional part of the song with his so powerful emotions, adding life to the music with his vocals. If anyone looking at this Royalist face while he is performing, seeing itself is sufficient to understand the meaning of the song. He is such an expressionist.

The challenge these guys have undertaken, which was an enormous risk, i would call it, is impressive. It is worth if anyone could reset his mindset to two unemployed guys just after schooling, step in to music industry without knowing what they are going to do.

About one year ago these two young lads came in to our university for a enhancement lecture. In that they showed us a nice presentation about how they built up the brand, BnS. I still can remember they were explaining one slide, a pyramid more than half an hour. It was basically awesome. Even though we thought these guys have done a good work of reverse engineering in showing us these slides. But it is not worth considering even whether they were lying or not. Because they have proved it.

Mentioning about the best song in the whole event was "Kawada ho". It's about an experience what most of us has experienced at some point in life. It was simply awesome. I was scared to close my eyes while listening. Was that powerful. I never thought a song can do something like this. Again it was awesome.

Talking about this album "Sara Sihina" it is a great collection of songs plus some of the great songs from their previous albums. One of another important thing i noticed there was the selection of songs. It was really good. And as usual, as they do in every concert all the people who should be thanked was thanked in a proper manner. It is something all of our other artist should be noted down. Specially not to forget the start.

Special thanks to my friends who invited me to this absolutely fantastic event. Thanks people and my last words "I enjoyed every moment of it, specially "kawada ho"".

Sleep Sweet Sleep...

On average everyone of us spend one third of our lives sleeping.

The above statement shows how important the "Sleep" is for a human being. If age of a particular person is 60, 20 years of his life is spent on sleeping. People tend to use the phrase "waste time on sleeping" specially the ones who don't have a clue about what sleep is about and how important it is for humans just like oxygen.

There are many consequences of "Problem Sleepiness" which occurs in day to day life. As everyone of us, having experience about a day that we coudn't have a proper sleep, we know how it feels like. It reduces your productiviry, efficiency, effectiveness, concentration, energy, memory and also might cause emotional instability and lethrgy. In one of the surveys conducted in new york about car crashes, 25 percent of the drivers have fallen some amount of time on the steering wheel. This shows the size of the impact of problem sleepiness in day to day life of people.

There are many misconceptions in the society about sleep. As for the information from certain researches about sleep, they have found out that most of those, do not have any validity.

"Sleep is a time for the body and the brain to rest" is one of the misconception which is not true at all. Because during the sleeping time most of the cells in our body functions as we are awake and some more, specially inside the brain. In one of the book, authour has mentioned that there are particular kind of rays emitting from people when they are at sleep which is different from when people are awake.

And "Sleep does not get accumulated" is also another one which is not true again. If you dont sleep properly, it gets accumulated. Bt eventhough u can pay off your sleep debt, it won't be fully recovered as such.

Another one is day time sleep can pay off the missed sleep at night. This is not particularly right too. Because inside the human brain there is a biologica clock which keeps track of the day and night. So rest of the functions are organized in such a way that, it follows the output from the biologica clock which is totally out of our control. For a simple example, if u turn off lights in a room to create an artificial environment to demonstrate night at a daytime, sill your brain would recongnize it as day time. You wont be able to have the exact similar sleep you have at night.

There are many more misconceptions and consequences of "Less sleep". I have listed only few. As for the general recommendations, it is adviced to sleep at least 5 hours per day at night. The recommended time for to sleep is to from 10pm to 6am. There are many ways of sleeping too. Aganin the recommended method is to sleep, turning to your right side. The underlying logic is you should sleep in a way that your heart positions on an upper level. It will lead to proper blood circulation.

Even though we are aware of the facts about proper sleeping sometimes we might not be able to follow it with the shedules that each one of us has. Anyway it is good to educate people always about the right thing.

Sportsmanship

World has became a competitive place where everyone is trying to survive. But in this race almost all the people have forgotten the basic needs of human beings.

Sportsmanship is not something that anyone should be doing. It is not a must. But it helps a lot in the process of building a complete man. It is not only about sports. Its a well known discipline for fairness, ethics, respect and sense of fellowship.

Even though lot of students nowadays consider doing sports as a waste of time with the race that everyone want to win, as for my opinion sports is a must which will eventually lead them to the victory. It is not about winning, but it is about courage, dedication, commitment and patience. As for a very simple example a student might be thinking the time that he spend on sports could have been spent on something which will add value to him, studies. But the question is what is value?? Is it the academic life? Academic life or sports is just one part of life but not everything. Winner is a person who strike a balance between everything.

There are two sides of every story. There are people who have achieved a lot by following it up to the extreme. Sports or studies or anything. But still the question exist. Is he/she successful by going in to an extreme of one field. Well this is bit vague. Some one might interpret this as YES answer while someone says this is NO ans. Me being on the NO side, sports help building a perfect man, but it only helps. Can not do it alone.

Is Antimatter the real wealth?

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver – Mahatma Gandhi.

Even thought the above two words, gold and silver, of the statement of Mahatma Gandhi should be replaced by the word "antimatter" which is roughly around 1750 trillion USD per ounce, it is worth arguing the question, what is real wealth. As for my opinion Mahatma Ghandhi was perfectly right which is also said by lord Buddha 2554 years back in a different manner, "Arogya parama labha, santhutti paraman danan".

Common cold is one of the diseases which is less lethal, but severe in returns. Viral Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (VURTI), the common cold, is a viral infection as it is stated there in its scientific name. It has many symptoms including runny nose and pink eyes which are physically observable facts along with the cough and fever sometimes. The normal average lifetime of the cold is roughly around 7 to 10 days which is subjected to extensions if not properly manged. Common cold must be clearly distinguished between other influenza like diseases which involves lungs whereas common cold does not. This is said to be the most frequent infectious disease among humans.

According to the sources there are about 200 viruses which causes the common cold and this viruses spreads in many different ways including through the air. When there is a person who has a common cold near by it increases the probability of people around him/her getting it.

Mentioning about the painful side of common cold, it simply just totally stop your work. With a runny nose nobody would be able to carry out the routine work as usual or else to to be exposed to dust. Third world countries like ours naturally has high amount of carbon dioxide and dust particles in air rather than in other countries. This might be an positive factor for the increased frequency of the common cold in Sri Lanka. And the other factor pink eyes would not let you work. Specially for the activities such as reading, driving and computing, gaming this will have a very negative effect.

When a normal working person is considered, with his/her routine the most probable reason for the common cold would be the careless management of the disease. As for my view it is again a problem with no solution i would say. Spending the day inside an air conditioned office, breathing the air which is artificially altered, bathing late which will eventually makes water to be deposited on the head for a long time, will make the situation a lot worse but not better.

The most important piece of information which made me to write this article is "There is no cure".

We live in an era where people are getting ready to sit back and relax at home letting machines to do work for them. We live in a world where man produce genetically altered living organisms. We live in a world where man basically do everything he wish for. But still no medicine for viral infections. It is worth discussing the reasons for this and probable solutions for the above matter.