Search results for: assistance robot

Authors: Mine Cekin

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Self-regulated learning (SRL), which can be defined as learning that takes place when an individual is an active controller over his cognition, behavior, and motivation in the learning process, seems to be an essential educational goal. However, it is asserted that students need an assistance to become self-regulated learners. Therefore, teachers appear to play an important role in the introduction of SRL. Even though the importance of SRL has been shown by many researchers, the issue of how teachers can introduce it in a classroom environment needs to be investigated thoroughly. When it comes to mathematics learning particularly, it seems really difficult to associate this area with self-regulated learning because of the fact that it is mainly seen as a domain that is overwhelmingly memorizing written notations. As a result, self-regulated learning in mathematics education and what roles teachers have seem to deserve a significant attention. In this study, the significance of SRL and the roles of teachers in promoting SRL in the field of mathematics education particularly with the help of current literature have been highlighted. Some of the roles of teachers are becoming self-regulated learners themselves, facilitating motivation and collaboration with their colleagues in their schools.

Keywords: mathematics education, motivation, self-regulated learning, teacher self-regulation

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Authors: Christopher Spiewak, M. R. Islam, Mohammad Arifur Rahaman, Mohammad H. Rahman, Roger Smith, Maarouf Saad

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For those who have lost the ability to move their hand, going through repetitious motions with the assistance of a therapist is the main method of recovery. We have been developed a robotic assistive device to rehabilitate the hand motions in place of the traditional therapy. The developed assistive device (RAD-HR) is comprised of four degrees of freedom enabling basic movements, hand function, and assists in supporting the hand during rehabilitation. We used a nonlinear computed torque control technique to control the RAD-HR. The accuracy of the controller was evaluated in simulations (MATLAB/Simulink environment). To see the robustness of the controller external disturbance as modelling uncertainty (±10% of joint torques) were added in each joints.

Keywords: biorobotics, rehabilitation, robotic assistive device, exoskeleton, nonlinear control

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Authors: Arbnor Pajaziti, Hasan Cana

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In this paper, the structural genetic algorithm is used to optimize the neural network to control the joint movements of robotic arm. The robotic arm has also been modeled in 3D and simulated in real-time in MATLAB. It is found that Neural Networks provide a simple and effective way to control the robot tasks. Computer simulation examples are given to illustrate the significance of this method. By combining Genetic Algorithm optimization method and Neural Networks for the given robotic arm with 5 D.O.F. the obtained the results shown that the base joint movements overshooting time without controller was about 0.5 seconds, while with Neural Network controller (optimized with Genetic Algorithm) was about 0.2 seconds, and the population size of 150 gave best results.

Keywords: robotic arm, neural network, genetic algorithm, optimization

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Authors: Mostafa El Khashab

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Our experience with 50 patients with metastatic tumors located in different locations of the brain by a stereotactic-guided craniotomy and total microsurgical resection. Patients ranged in age from 36 to 73 years. There were 28 women and 22 men. Thirty-four patients presented with hemiparesis and 6 with aphasia and the remaining presented with psychological manifestations and memory issues. Gross total resection was accomplished in all cases, with postoperative imaging confirmation of complete removal. Forty patients were subjected to whole brain irradiation. One patient developed a stroke postoperatively and another one had a flap infection. 4 patients developed different postoperative but unrelated morbidities, including pneumonia and DVT. No mortality was encountered. We believe that with the assistance of stereotactic localization, metastases in vital regions of the brain can be removed with very low neurologic morbidity and that, in comparison to other modalities, they fare better regarding their long-term outcome.

Keywords: stereotactic, craniotomy, radiosurgery, patient

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Authors: Keyi Wang

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Similar to the touchscreen, hand gesture based human-computer interaction (HCI) is a technology that could allow people to perform a variety of tasks faster and more conveniently. This paper proposes a training method of an image-based hand gesture image and video clip recognition system using a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) with a dataset. A dataset containing 6 hand gesture images is used to train a 2D CNN model. ~98% accuracy is achieved. Furthermore, a 3D CNN model is trained on a dataset containing 4 hand gesture video clips resulting in ~83% accuracy. It is demonstrated that a Cozmo robot loaded with pre-trained models is able to recognize static and dynamic hand gestures.

Keywords: deep learning, hand gesture recognition, computer vision, image processing

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Authors: Anil K. Giri, Dipak Subedi, Kathleen Kassel, Ashok Mishra

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The United States Department of Agriculture’s programs has been accused of being discriminatory in the past based on the race of the farmer, especially African-American producers. This study examines if there was racial discrimination in payments from the most recent new USDA programs, including those made in response to the pandemic. This study uses the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to examine the payments after normalizing them relative to cash receipts to test if discrimination in the number of payments received exists. Three programs investigated in this study are: i) the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), ii) the Market Facilitation Program (MFP), and (iii) the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The PPP program was administered by the Small Business Administration, whereas the other two were designed and implemented by the USDA. The PPP made forgivable loans to small businesses and, initially, was heavily criticized for not reaching minority businesses (in general). The Small Business Administration then initiated a second draw of PPP loans, prioritizing minority-owned businesses. This study compares attributes of PPP loans made to African-American farming businesses and other farming businesses in the two draws of the PPP. We find that the number of African-American farming businesses participating in the second draw of PPP loans decreased significantly from the first draw. However, the average amount of PPP loans to African-American farming businesses increased in the second draw. In the first draw, the average cost of jobs reported per loan was higher for African-American farming businesses than for other producers. In the second draw, the average cost of jobs reported per loan was significantly higher for other farming businesses than for African-American businesses. The share of PPP loans forgiven for African-American farming businesses is significantly below the national rate of 89 percent. The rate of forgiveness for PPP loans made to African-American producers is unlikely to increase significantly without policy changes. This can increase financial burdens in the future to farm operations operated by African- Americans. Finally, we conclude that the initial goal of increasing minority participation in PPP loans in the second draw, at least among African-Americans in the agricultural sector, did not meet. CFAP made almost $600 million in direct payments to minority producers, including Black producers. Black or African American producers received more than $52 million in CFAP payments. CFAP payments were proportional to the value of agricultural commodities sold for most minority producers. The 2017 Census of Agriculture showed that the majority of minority producers, including African American producers but excluding Asian producers, raised livestock. CFAP made the highest payments to livestock minority producers.

Keywords: United States department of agriculture (USDA), coronavirus food assistance program (CFAP), paycheck protection program (PPP), African-American producers, minority American producers

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Authors: Caner Koc, Dilara Gerdan Koc, Mustafa Vatandas

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The fundamental components of autonomous agricultural robot design, such as having a working understanding of coordinates, correctly constructing the desired route, and sensing environmental elements, are the most important. A variety of sensors, hardware, and software are employed by agricultural robots to find these systems.These enable the fully automated driving system of an autonomous vehicle to simulate how a human-driven vehicle would respond to changing environmental conditions. To calculate the vehicle's motion trajectory using data from the sensors, this automation system typically consists of a sophisticated software architecture based on object detection and driving decisions. In this study, the software architecture of an autonomous agricultural vehicle is compared to the trajectory planning techniques.

Keywords: agriculture 5.0, computational intelligence, motion planning, trajectory planning

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Authors: E. Vazquez-Santacruz, M. Gamboa-Zuniga

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In this paper, we show a methodology for bodies classification in lying state using HOG descriptors and pressures sensors positioned in a matrix form (14 x 32 sensors) on the surface where bodies lie down. it will be done in real time. Our system is embedded in a care robot that can assist the elderly patient and medical staff around to get a better quality of life in and out of hospitals. Due to current technology a limited number of sensors is used, wich results in low-resolution data array, that will be used as image of 14 x 32 pixels. Our work considers the problem of human posture classification with few information (sensors), applying digital process to expand the original data of the sensors and so get more significant data for the classification, however, this is done with low-cost algorithms to ensure the real-time execution.

Keywords: real-time classification, sensors, robots, health care, elderly patients, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Radhakumari Challa

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In India the commercial banks have taken the initiative of visiting the villages and helping the villagers open the no-frill accounts as part of the mission towards achieving the total financial inclusion. As an extension to the first phase of the study conducted a year back which revealed that the required awareness that the no-frill accounts creation is the initiative of the government to transfer either the financial assistance or other benefits of economic development directly was lacking among the villagers, the present study is undertaken to review the change in perceptions of beneficiaries in villages over a year period. The study reveals that that there is increase in the awareness among villagers regarding the purpose for which no-frills accounts are opened, about the method of operating these accounts. Awareness about their right for accessing all the financial services is also found to be on the rise.

Keywords: business correspondence, financial inclusion no-frill account, percolation

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Authors: Mari Chaikovskaia, Jean-Philippe Gayon, Alain Quilliot

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We consider a fleet of elementary robots that can be connected in different ways to transport loads of different types. For instance, a single robot can transport a small load, and the association of two robots can either transport a large load or two small loads. We seek to determine the optimal number of robots to transport a set of loads in a given time interval, with or without reconfiguration. We show that the problem with reconfiguration is strongly NP-hard by a reduction to the bin-packing problem. Then, we study a special case with unit capacities and derive simple formulas for the minimum number of robots, up to 3 types of loads. For this special case, we compare the minimum number of robots with or without reconfiguration and show that the gain is limited in absolute value but may be significant for small fleets.

Keywords: fleet sizing, reconfigurability, robots, transportation

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Authors: Beverly Black

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Teen dating violence (TDV) is a significant public health problem with severe negative impact on youths’ mental and physical health and well-being. Exacerbating the negative impact of TDV victimization is the fact that teens rarely report the violence. They are fearful to tell friends or family, especially parents. The family context is the first place where children learn about interpersonal relationships, and therefore, parental response of teens’ life experiences influences teens’ actions and development. This study examined youths’ perspectives on parental responses to TDV. Effective parental responses to TDV may increase the likelihood that youth will leave abusive relationships. Method. Eleven gender-separate focus groups were conducted with 27 females and 28 males, ages 12 to 17, to discuss parental responses to teen dating violence. Youth were recruited from a metropolitan community in the southwestern part of the United States. Focus groups questions asked the middle and high school youth how they would want their parents to respond to them if they approached them about various incidents of dating violence. All focus groups were transcribed. Using QSR-N10, two researchers’ analyzed data first using open and axial coding techniques to find overarching themes. Researchers triangulated the coded data to ensure accurate interpretations of the participants’ messages and used the scenario questions to structure the coded results. Results. Most youths suggested that parents should simply talk with them; they recognized the importance of communication. Teens wanted parents to ask questions, educate them about healthy relationships, share their personal experiences, and give teens advice (tell them to break up, limit contact with perpetrator, go to police). Younger youth expressed more willingness to listen to parental advice. Older youth wanted their parents to give them the opportunity to make their decisions. Many of the teens’ comments focused on the importance of parents protecting the teen, providing support and empathy for the teen, and especially refraining from overreacting (not yelling, not getting angry and staying calm). Implications. Parents need to know how to effectively respond to youth needing to leave unhealthy relationships. Demanding that their children end a relationship may not be a realistic approach to TDV. A parent’s ineffective response, when approached by an adolescent for assistance in TDV, may influence a youth to dismiss parents and other adults as viable options for seeking assistance. Parents and prevention educators can learn from hearing youths’ voices about effective responses to TDV.

Keywords: adolescents dating abuse, adolescent and parent communication, parental responses to teen dating violence, teen dating violence

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Authors: Rose Mwanza

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This paper investigates security factors influencing primary school pupils’ school participation in Kenya. Schools, communities and the Government all have roles to play in enhancing primary school pupil’s school participation. The effective security system of a country provides the necessary avenues to facilitate improved health services protection of children and allows free movement of the country’s citizens which leads to a conducive atmosphere for school participation. Kenya is a signatory to international commitments and conventions related to security such as the National Policy on Peace Building and Conflict Management, United Nations Development Assistance Framework and Key Security Unity, which enable primary school pupils to participate in education. The paper also looks at the strategies the Government of Kenya has put in place to ensure effective pupil school participation.

Keywords: ethnicity, social media, participation in school, poverty, terrorism

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Authors: Ammar Z. Alwrekiat, Sara Ojeda Gonzalez, Maria Jose Miranda Martel, Antonio Mihi-Ramirez

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This paper analyses the economic situation in Jordan, which has been the political asylum destination for Syrians since 2011. We analyze the effects of the Jordanian situation through the following indicators: international aid, gross domestic product, remittances, and unemployment. A correlation analysis has been used to identify the main connections of these parameters with the reception of refugees. Although the economic effects of Syrian refugees in Jordan are uncertain, it involves an important challenge in the development of migration policies. Jordan has a special economic situation and limited capacities, but the country has provided humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees. In this case, the support of the international community is of particular importance, taking an important role in the negotiation of international agreements on refugees.

Keywords: correlation analysis, economic implications, migration, refugees

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Authors: Karina Guimaraes, Lilian Santos

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This study has the purpose of planning and instituting monitoring actions as a way of knowing the scenario of assistance to the patient with stoma, treated in the public health network in Brazil, from January to November of the year 2016, from the elaboration of a technical document containing the survey of the number of procedures offered and the value of the ostomy services, accredited in the Unified Health System-SUS. The purpose of this document is to improve the quality of these services in the efficient management of available financial resources, making it indispensable for the creation of strategies for the implementation and implementation of care services for people with stomata as a strategic tool in the promotion, prevention, qualification and efficiency in health care.

Keywords: health economic, management, ostomy, unified health system

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Authors: P. H. Le, J. Molina, S. Hirai

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In this work, we propose the application of Japanese “Origami” art for a floating function of a small aerial vehicle such as a hexarotor. A preliminary experiment was conducted using Origami magic balls mounted under a hexarotor. This magic ball can expand and shrink using an air pump during free flying. Using this interesting and functional concept, it promises to reduce the resistance of wind as well as reduce the energy consumption when the Origami balls are deflated. This approach can be particularly useful in rescue emergency situations. Furthermore, there are many unexpected reasons that may cause the multi-rotor has to land on the surface of water due to problems with the communication between the aircraft and the ground station. In addition, a complementary experiment was designed to prove that the hexarotor can fly maintaining the stability and also, takes off and lands on the surface of water using air balloons.

Keywords: helicopter, Japanese origami ball, floating, aerial robots, rescue

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Authors: Mohsen Maraoui

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In the face of the growth in the quantity of data produced, several methods and techniques appear to remedy the problems of processing and analyzing large amounts of information mainly in the field of teaching. In this paper, we propose an intelligent cloud-based teaching system for E-learning content services. This system makes easy the manipulation of various educational content forms, including text, images, videos, 3 dimensions objects and scenes of virtual reality and augmented reality. We discuss the integration of institutional and external services to provide personalized assistance to university members in their daily activities. The proposed system provides an intelligent solution for media services that can be accessed from smart devices cloud-based intelligent service environment with a fully integrated system.

Keywords: cloud computing, e-learning, indexation, IoT, learning in Arabic language, smart tools

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Authors: Febrina Natalia, Noriyuki Tanaka, Mitsuru Osaki

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Sustainability Index for REDD-plus implementation was constructed to evaluate the sustainability of different communities in 5 villages (Taruna Jaya, Tumbang Nusa, Marang, Terantang, and Seragam Jaya) in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia based on the main objectives of REDD-plus project (reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation, increasing carbon stock, preserving biodiversity and sustaining forest management). This index was separately composed of 3 different components; (1) ecology, (2) economy, and (3) society. The index of sustainability was determined into four categories; 3,3-4,0 (excellent), 2,5-3,2 (good), 1,8-2,4 (fair), and 1,0-1,7 (poor). Overall, this technique aims to assist all stakeholders and local government in particular in providing information of villages’ sustainability index before implementing REDD-plus project that the assistance and benefits given to villages will be beneficial, effective and efficient.

Keywords: central kalimantan, Indonesia, REDD-plus, sustainability index

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Authors: Norbert Szulc, Jakub Wilk, Franciszek Górski

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This paper presents an approach for simulating and testing robotic systems based on PX4, using a local Kubernetes cluster. The approach leverages modern cloud-native tools and runs on single-board computers. Additionally, this solution enables the creation of datasets for computer vision and the evaluation of control system algorithms in an end-to-end manner. This paper compares this approach to method commonly used Docker based approach. This approach was used to develop simulation environment for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) for RoboBoat 2023 by running a containerized configuration of the PX4 Open-source Autopilot connected to ROS and the Gazebo simulation environment.

Keywords: cloud computing, Kubernetes, single board computers, simulation, ROS

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Authors: Tudor Deaconescu, Andrea Deaconescu

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Deployment of pneumatic muscles in various industrial applications is still in its early days, considering the relative newness of these components. The field of robotics holds particular future potential for pneumatic muscles, especially in view of their specific behaviour known as compliance. The paper presents and discusses an innovative constructive solution for a gripper system mountable on an industrial robot, based on actuation by a linear pneumatic muscle and transmission of motion by gear and rack mechanism. The structural, operational and constructive models of the new gripper are presented, along with some of the experimental results obtained subsequently to the testing of a prototype. Further presented are two control variants of the gripper system, one by means of a 3/2-way fast-switching solenoid valve, the other by means of a proportional pressure regulator. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed for both variants.

Keywords: gripper system, pneumatic muscle, structural modelling, robotics

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Authors: Louise Bernier

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Under some jurisdictions (including Canada), eligible patients can request and receive medical assistance in dying (MAiD) through lethal injections, inducing their cardiocirculatory death. Those same patients can also wish to donate their organs in the process. If they qualify as organ donors, a clinical and ethical rule called the 'dead donor rule' (DDR) requires the transplant teams to wait after cardiocirculatory death is confirmed, followed by a 'no touch' period (5 minutes in Canada) before they can proceed with organ removal. The medical procedures (lethal injections) as well as the delays associated with the DDR can damage organs (mostly thoracic organs) due to prolonged anoxia. Yet, strong scientific evidences demonstrate that operating differently and reconsidering the DDR would result in more organs of better quality available for transplant. This idea generates discomfort and resistance, but it is also worth considering, especially in a context of chronic shortage of available organs. One option that could be examined for MAiD’ patients who wish and can be organ donors would be to remove vital organs while patients are still alive (and under sedation). This would imply accepting that patient’s death would occur through organ donation instead of lethal injections required under MAiD’ legal rules. It would also mean that patients requesting MAiD and wishing to be organ donors could aspire to donate better quality organs, including their heart, an altruistic gesture that carries important symbolic value for many donors and their families. Following a patient centered approach, our hypothesis is that preventing vital organ donation from a living donor in all circumstance is neither perfectly coherent with how legal mentalities have evolved lately in the field of fundamental rights nor compatible with the clinical and ethical frameworks that shape the landscape in which those complex medical decisions unfold. Through a study of the legal, ethical, and clinical rules in place, both at the national and international levels, this analysis raises questions on the numerous inconsistencies associated with respecting the DDR with patients who have chosen to die through MAiD. We will begin with an assessment of the erosion of certain national legal frameworks that pertain to the sacred nature of the right to life which now also includes the right to choose how one wishes to die. We will then study recent innovative clinical protocols tested in different countries to help address acute organ shortage problems in creative ways. We will conclude this analysis with an ethical assessment of the situation, referring to principles such as justice, autonomy, altruism, beneficence, and non-malfeasance. This study will build a strong argument in favor of starting to allow vital organ donations from living donors in countries where MAiD is already permitted.

Keywords: altruism, autonomy, dead donor rule, medical assistance in dying, non-malfeasance, organ donation

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Authors: Wanda Luen-Wun Siu, Xiaowen Zhang

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The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has caused great difficulties for South-South cooperation, but there are also opportunities. China’s health diplomacy has changed from dispatching medical teams, assisting in the construction of hospitals, and encouraging medical investment in the Africa health sector. This paper adopted a retrospective review of China’s health diplomacy in Africa from 1963 to 2020. Findings suggested that China has a preference for aiding Africa health infrastructure and sending medical teams to African countries. China’s health diplomacy in Africa is a success and has established secure diplomatic relations with African countries, thanks to the medical and health assistance to Africa over 60 years. This research contributes to the literature of health diplomacy and foreign relations and indicates that China’s health aid has fostered cooperation at the medical and diplomatic levels.

Keywords: Africa, china’s health diplomacy, COVID-19, bilateral relations

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Authors: Julien Benomar

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The World Bank report published in April 2023 called “Migrants, Refugees and Society” allows us to first distinguish migrants in search of economic opportunities and refugees that flee a situation of danger and choose their destination based on their immediate need for safety. Amongst those two categories, the report distinguished people having professional skills adapted to the labor market of the host country and those who have not. Out of that distinction of four categories, we choose to focus our research on refugees that do not have professional skills adapted to the labor market of the host country. Given that refugees generally have no recourse to public assistance schemes and cannot count on the support of their entourage or support network, we propose to examine the extent to which external assistance, such as international humanitarian action, is likely to accompany refugees' transition to financial empowerment through entrepreneurship. To this end, we propose to carry out a case study structured in three stages: (i) an exchange with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) active in supporting refugee populations from Congo and Burundi to Rwanda, enabling us to (i.i) define together a financial empowerment income, and (i. ii) learn about the content of the support measures taken for the beneficiaries of the humanitarian project; (ii) monitor the population of 118 beneficiaries, including 73 refugees and 45 Rwandans (reference population); (iii) conduct a participatory analysis to identify the level of performance of the project and areas for improvement. The case study thus involved the staff of an international NGO active in helping refugees from Rwanda since 2015 and the staff of a Luxembourg NGO that has been funding this economic aid project through entrepreneurship since 2021. The case study thus involved the staff of an international NGO active in helping refugees from Rwanda since 2015 and the staff of a Luxembourg NGO, which has been funding this economic aid through an entrepreneurship project since 2021, and took place over a 48-day period between April and May 2023. The main results are of two types: (i) the need to associate indicators for monitoring the impact of the project on the indirect beneficiaries of the project (refugee community) and (ii) the identification of success factors making it possible to bring concrete and relevant responses to the constraints encountered. The first result thus made it possible to identify the following indicators: Indicator of community potential ((jobs, training or mentoring) promoted by the activity of the entrepreneur), Indicator of social contribution (tax paid by the entrepreneur), Indicator of resilience (savings and loan capacity generated, and finally impact on social cohesion. The second result made it possible to identify that among the 7 success factors tested, the sector of activity chosen and the level of experience in the sector of the future activity are those that stand out the most clearly.

Keywords: entrepreuneurship, refugees, financial empowerment, international aid

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Authors: Suriani Oxley

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All teachers aim to conduct a successful and an effective teaching. Teacher will use a variety of teaching techniques and methods to ensure that students achieve the learning objectives but often the teaching and learning processes are interrupted by a number of things such as noisy students, students not paying attention, the students play and so on. Such disturbances must be addressed to ensure that students can concentrate on their learning activities. This qualitative study observed and captured a video of numerous tricks that teachers in Labuan have implemented in helping the students to pay attentions in the classroom. The tricks are such as Name Calling, Non-Verbal Clues, Body Language, Ask Question, Offer Assistance, Echo Clapping, Call and Response & Cues and Clues. All of these tricks are simple but yet interesting language learning strategies that helped students to focus on their learning activities.

Keywords: paying attention, observation, tricks, learning strategies, classroom

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Authors: Edward Hage, Pieter Lietaert, Gabriel Abedrabbo

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Musculoskeletal disorders are an important category of work-related diseases. They are often caused by working in non-ergonomic postures and are preventable with proper workplace design, possibly including human-machine collaboration. This paper presents a methodology and a supporting software prototype to design a simple assembly cell with minimal ergonomic risk. The methodology helps to determine the optimal position and orientation of workpieces and workplace resources for specific operator assembly actions. The methodology is tested on an industrial use case: a collaborative robot (cobot) assisted assembly of a clamping device. It is shown that the automated methodology results in a workplace design with significantly reduced ergonomic risk to the operator compared to a manual design of the cell.

Keywords: ergonomics optimization, design for ergonomics, workplace design, pose generation

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Authors: Prasansha Kumari

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Agritourism is a growing industry in many parts of the world. At present, agritourism is promoted by most of the countries in the world aiming at sustainable rural development. This study intends to identify and analyze the potential for agritourism development in Sri Lanka with special reference to five farming areas in Kegalle district. SWOT analysis used to identify the possibility of agritourism in this areas. The study rival that there are several opportunities to the development of agritourism while identified the main threat and weakness for developing agritourism in the study areas. The opportunities related to a number of tourist attraction places and increase the demand for agritourism. The main problems related to infrastructure facilities, large farming lands, knowledge and skill of farmers, government support, credits and financial assistance, attitude of young generation and environmental impact.

Keywords: agritourism, sustainable rural development, farming, tourism

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Authors: Mircea Ivanescu, Nirvana Popescu, Decebal Popescu, Dorin Popescu

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This paper addresses the control problem of a class of hyper-redundant arms. In order to avoid discrepancy between the mathematical model and the actual dynamics, the dynamic model with uncertain parameters of this class of manipulators is inferred. A procedure to design a feedback controller which stabilizes the uncertain system has been proposed. A PD boundary control algorithm is used in order to control the desired position of the manipulator. This controller is easy to implement from the point of view of measuring techniques and actuation. Numerical simulations verify the effectiveness of the presented methods. In order to verify the suitability of the control algorithm, a platform with a 3D flexible manipulator has been employed for testing. Experimental tests on this platform illustrate the applications of the techniques developed in the paper.

Keywords: distributed model, flexible manipulator, observer, robot control

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Authors: Rajesh Ranjan, Marimuthu Palaniswami, A. A. Hashmi

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With the changing lifestyle and environment around us, the prevalence of the critical and incurable disease has proliferated. One such condition is the neurological disorder which is rampant among the old age population and is increasing at an unstoppable rate. Most of the neurological disorder patients suffer from some movement disorder affecting the movement of their body parts. Tremor is the most common movement disorder which is prevalent in such patients that infect the upper or lower limbs or both extremities. The tremor symptoms are commonly visible in Parkinson’s disease patient, and it can also be a pure tremor (essential tremor). The patients suffering from tremor face enormous trouble in performing the daily activity, and they always need a caretaker for assistance. In the clinics, the assessment of tremor is done through a manual clinical rating task such as Unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale which is time taking and cumbersome. Neurologists have also affirmed a challenge in differentiating a Parkinsonian tremor with the pure tremor which is essential in providing an accurate diagnosis. Therefore, there is a need to develop a monitoring and assistive tool for the tremor patient that keep on checking their health condition by coordinating them with the clinicians and caretakers for early diagnosis and assistance in performing the daily activity. In our research, we focus on developing a system for automatic classification of tremor which can accurately differentiate the pure tremor from the Parkinsonian tremor using a wearable accelerometer-based device, so that adequate diagnosis can be provided to the correct patient. In this research, a study was conducted in the neuro-clinic to assess the upper wrist movement of the patient suffering from Pure (Essential) tremor and Parkinsonian tremor using a wearable accelerometer-based device. Four tasks were designed in accordance with Unified Parkinson’s disease motor rating scale which is used to assess the rest, postural, intentional and action tremor in such patient. Various features such as time-frequency domain, wavelet-based and fast-Fourier transform based cross-correlation were extracted from the tri-axial signal which was used as input feature vector space for the different supervised and unsupervised learning tools for quantification of severity of tremor. A minimum covariance maximum correlation energy comparison index was also developed which was used as the input feature for various classification tools for distinguishing the PT and ET tremor types. An automatic system for efficient classification of tremor was developed using feature extraction methods, and superior performance was achieved using K-nearest neighbors and Support Vector Machine classifiers respectively.

Keywords: machine learning approach for neurological disorder assessment, automatic classification of tremor types, feature extraction method for tremor classification, neurological movement disorder, parkinsonian tremor, essential tremor

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Authors: Yuanqing Li, Changyi Lei, Zhaopeng Xue, Zhuo Zheng, Yanbo Long

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In agricultural production and breeding, implementing automatic picking robot in orchard farming to reduce human labour and error is challenging. The core function of it is automatic identification based on machine vision. This paper focuses on apple detection and counting in orchards and implements several deep learning methods. Extensive datasets are used and a semi-automatic annotation method is proposed. The proposed deep learning models are in state-of-the-art YOLO family. In view of the essence of the models with various backbones, a multi-dimensional comparison in details is made in terms of counting accuracy, mAP and model memory, laying the foundation for realising automatic precision agriculture.

Keywords: agricultural object detection, deep learning, machine vision, YOLO family

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Authors: Hanbhin Ryu, Ilkwon Yun

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Automotive industry targets to provide an improvement in safety and convenience through realizing fully autonomous vehicle. For partially realizing fully automated driving, Current vehicles already feature varieties of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) for safety and infotainment systems for the driver’s convenience. This paper presents Cloud Connected Vehicle (CCV) which connected vehicles with cloud data center via the access network to control the vehicle for achieving next autonomous driving form and describes its features. This paper also describes the shortcoming of the existing In-Vehicle Network (IVN) to be a next generation IVN of CCV and organize the 802.3 Ethernet, the next generation of IVN, related research issue to verify the feasibility of using Ethernet. At last, this paper refers to additional considerations to adopting Ethernet-based IVN for CCV.

Keywords: autonomous vehicle, cloud connected vehicle, ethernet, in-vehicle network

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Authors: Klaus Peter Scherer, Daniel Knöll, Constantin Rieder

Abstract:

Problem and Purpose: Intelligent systems are available and helpful to support the human being decision process, especially when complex surgical eye interventions are necessary and must be performed. Normally, such a decision support system consists of a knowledge-based module, which is responsible for the real assistance power, given by an explanation and logical reasoning processes. The interview based acquisition and generation of the complex knowledge itself is very crucial, because there are different correlations between the complex parameters. So, in this project (semi)automated self-learning methods are researched and developed for an enhancement of the quality of such a decision support system. Methods: For ophthalmic data sets of real patients in a hospital, advanced data mining procedures seem to be very helpful. Especially subgroup analysis methods are developed, extended and used to analyze and find out the correlations and conditional dependencies between the structured patient data. After finding causal dependencies, a ranking must be performed for the generation of rule-based representations. For this, anonymous patient data are transformed into a special machine language format. The imported data are used as input for algorithms of conditioned probability methods to calculate the parameter distributions concerning a special given goal parameter. Results: In the field of knowledge discovery advanced methods and applications could be performed to produce operation and patient related correlations. So, new knowledge was generated by finding causal relations between the operational equipment, the medical instances and patient specific history by a dependency ranking process. After transformation in association rules logically based representations were available for the clinical experts to evaluate the new knowledge. The structured data sets take account of about 80 parameters as special characteristic features per patient. For different extended patient groups (100, 300, 500), as well one target value as well multi-target values were set for the subgroup analysis. So the newly generated hypotheses could be interpreted regarding the dependency or independency of patient number. Conclusions: The aim and the advantage of such a semi-automatically self-learning process are the extensions of the knowledge base by finding new parameter correlations. The discovered knowledge is transformed into association rules and serves as rule-based representation of the knowledge in the knowledge base. Even more, than one goal parameter of interest can be considered by the semi-automated learning process. With ranking procedures, the most strong premises and also conjunctive associated conditions can be found to conclude the interested goal parameter. So the knowledge, hidden in structured tables or lists can be extracted as rule-based representation. This is a real assistance power for the communication with the clinical experts.

Keywords: an expert system, knowledge-based support, ophthalmic decision support, self-learning methods

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