A knitted substrate for electrical connection of electronic components thereto. Temperatures of the polymeric material is measured and the ambient temperature in the vicinity of the substrate. Peripheral faces of tip end side engaging projections are formed into coarse faces, and conductive paste is interposed between the segments and the carbon. The dispersion is obtained by contacting a colloidal dispersion or a dispersion of initial complexes comprising at least a rare earth compound and at least a complex-forming agent or an anion of said monovalent acid and whereof the pH has been adjusted to a value of at least 7, with vanadate ions, then, in adjusting the pH of the resulting medium to a value of at least 9 and heating. At each hierarchical level, an HMM may be constructed and Viterbi algorithm may be employed to solve for the alignment. The master appliance conveys to the controlling device the state information and the controlling device uses the state information to dynamically configure itself to command functional operations of one or more of the plurality of appliances.