Search results for: Marcus Müller

Authors: Anton Hristozov, Eric Matson, Eric Dietz, Marcus Rogers

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Components are heavily used in many software systems, including robotics systems. The growth of sophistication and diversity of new capabilities for robotic systems presents new challenges to their architectures. Their complexity is growing exponentially with the advent of AI, smart sensors, and the complex tasks they have to accomplish. Such complexity requires a more rigorous approach to the creation, use, and interoperability of software components. The issue is exacerbated because robotic systems are becoming more and more reliant on third-party components for certain functions. In order to achieve this kind of interoperability, including dynamic component replacement, we need a way to standardize their interfaces. A formal approach is desperately needed to specify what an interface of a robotic software component should contain. This study performs an analysis of the issue and presents a universal and generic approach to standardizing component interfaces for robotic systems. Our approach is inspired by well-established robotic architectures such as ROS, PX4, and Ardupilot. The study is also applicable to other software systems that share similar characteristics with robotic systems. We consider the use of JSON or Domain Specific Languages (DSL) development with tools such as Antlr and automatic code and configuration file generation for frameworks such as ROS and PX4. A case study with ROS2 is presented as a proof of concept for the proposed methodology.

Keywords: CPS, robots, software architecture, interface, ROS, autopilot

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Authors: Marcus Smith

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DNA profiling has made a valuable contribution to criminal investigations over the past thirty years. Direct matching DNA profiles from a crime scene and suspect, or between a suspect and a database remain of great importance to crimes such as murder, assault, and property theft. As scientific and technological advancement continues, a wide range of new DNA profiling applications has been developed. The application of new techniques involves an interesting balancing act between admitting probative evidence in a criminal trial, evaluating its degree of relevance and validity, and limiting its prejudicial impact. The impact of new DNA profiling applications that have significant implications for law enforcement and the legal system can be evaluated through a review of relevant case law, legislation and the latest empirical evidence from jurisdictions around the world including the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. There are benefits in further examining the implications of these new developments, including how the criminal law can best be adapted to ensure that new technology is used to enhance criminal investigation and prosecution while ensuring it is applied in a measured way that respects individual rights and maintains principles of fairness enshrined in the legal system.

Keywords: criminal procedure, forensic evidence, DNA profiling, familial searching, phenotyping

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: Antonia Müller, Svend Reuse

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The Brexit referendum in June 2016 led to different publications analysing potential consequences for European and British insurance companies under the European Passport. This study addresses a research gap, regarding the measures taken by insurance companies based in the United Kingdom and thus on structural changes to the European insurance market by an innovative structured Solvency and Financial Condition Report content analysis. In scope are all insurance companies based in the United Kingdom, that fall under the Solvency II supervisory regime. The results show that the majority of British Solvency II insurance companies in scope, conducting cross-border business to the European Union, have applied and reported measures to be able to continue operating this cross-border business after Brexit. In addition, the study shows that 34 new insurance companies based in the European Union were established as a result of Brexit, indicating structural changes to the European insurance market.

Keywords: brexit, europe, insurance market, solvency and financial condition repot, structural changes

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Authors: Faouzi Ahtchi-Ali, Marcus Vitiello

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A study was conducted in the east region of the Middle East to assess the constructability of a shoring system for a 12-meter deep excavation. Several shoring systems were considered in this study including secant concrete piling, contiguous concrete piling, and sheet-piling. The excavation was carried out in a very dense sand with the groundwater level located at 3 meters below ground surface. The study included conducting a pilot test for each shoring system listed above. The secant concrete piling included overlapping concrete piles to a depth of 16 meters. Drilling method with full steel casing was utilized to install the concrete piles. The verticality of the piles was a concern for the overlap. The contiguous concrete piling required the installation of micro-piles to seal the gap between the concrete piles. This method revealed that the gap between the piles was not fully sealed as observed by the groundwater penetration to the excavation. The sheet-piling method required pre-drilling due to the high blow count of the penetrated layer of saturated sand. This study concluded that the sheet-piling method with pre-drilling was the most cost effective and recommended a method for the shoring system.

Keywords: excavation, shoring system, middle east, Drilling method

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Authors: Andrew T. Hendrickson, Liven De Marez, Marijn Martens, Gytha Muller, Tudor Paisa, Koen Ponnet, Catherine Schweizer, Megan Van Meer, Mariek Vanden Abeele

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Quantifying and understanding the myriad ways people use their phones and how that impacts their relationships, cognitive abilities, mental health, and well-being is increasingly important in our phone-centric society. However, most studies on the patterns of phone use have focused on theory-driven tests of specific usage hypotheses using self-report questionnaires or analyses of smaller datasets. In this work we present a series of analyses from a large corpus of over 3000 users that combine data-driven and theory-driven analyses to identify reliable smartphone usage patterns and clusters of similar users. Furthermore, we compare the stability of user clusters across user- and system-initiated sessions, as well as during the hypothesized ritualized behavior times directly before and after sleeping. Our results indicate support for some hypothesized usage patterns but present a more complete and nuanced view of how people use smartphones.

Keywords: data mining, experience sampling, smartphone usage, health and well being

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Authors: Marcus C. Garcia, Giselle C. Guimarães, Luciana H. Yamane, Renato R. Siman

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The environmental indicators and the classification of beach waste are essential tools to diagnose the current situation and to indicate ways to improve the quality of this environment. The purpose of this paper was to perform a quali-quantitative analysis of the beach waste on the Curva da Jurema Beach (Espírito Santo - Brazil). Three transects were used with equidistant positioning over the total length of the beach for the solid waste collection. Solid wastes were later classified according to their use and primary raw material from the low and high summer season. During the low season, average values of 7.10 items.m^-1, 18.22 g.m^-1 and 0.91 g.m^-2 were found for the whole beach, and transect 3 contributed the most waste, with the total sum of items equal to 999 (49%), a total mass of 5.62 kg and a total volume of 21.31 L. During the high summer season, average values of 8.22 items.m^-1, 54.40 g.m^-1 and 2.72 g.m^-2 were found, with transect 2 contributing the most to the total sum with 1,212 items (53%), a total mass of 10.76 kg and a total volume of 51.99 L. Of the total collected, plastic materials represented 51.4% of the total number of items, 35.9% of the total mass and 68% of the total volume. The implementation of reactive and proactive measures is necessary so that the management of the solid wastes on Curva da Jurema Beach is in accordance with principles of sustainability.

Keywords: beach solid waste, environmental indicators, quali-quantitative analysis, waste management

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Authors: Nader Parsazadeh

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The variety of bed sediment load relationships, insufficient information and data, and the influence of river conditions make the selection of an optimum relationship for a given river extremely difficult. Hence, in order to select the best formulae, the bed load equations should be evaluated. The affecting factors need to be scrutinized, and equations should be verified. Also, re-evaluation may be needed. In this research, sediment bed load of Dez Dam at Tal-e Zang Station has been studied. After reviewing the available references, the most common formulae were selected that included Meir-Peter and Muller, using MS Excel to compute and evaluate data. Then, 52 series of already measured data at the station were re-measured, and the sediment bed load was determined. 1. The calculated bed load obtained by different equations showed a great difference with that of measured data. 2. r difference ratio from 0.5 to 2.00 was 0% for all equations except for Nilsson and Shields equations while it was 61.5 and 59.6% for Nilsson and Shields equations, respectively. 3. By reviewing results and discarding probably erroneous measured data measurements (by human or machine), one may use Nilsson Equation due to its r value higher than 1 as an effective equation for estimating bed load at Tal-e Zang Station in order to predict activities that depend upon bed sediment load estimate to be determined. Also, since only few studies have been conducted so far, these results may be of assistance to the operators and consulting companies.

Keywords: bed load, empirical relation ship, sediment, Tale Zang Station

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Authors: Luiz Daniel Garay Trindade, Antonio De Freitas Valle Neto, Fabio Paulo Basso, Elder De Macedo Rodrigues, Maicon Bernardino, Daniel Welfer, Daniel Muller

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Agriculture plays an important role in society since it is one of the main sources of food in the world. To help the production and yield of crops, precision agriculture makes use of technologies aiming at improving productivity and quality of agricultural commodities. One of the problems hampering quality of agricultural production is the disease affecting crops. Failure in detecting diseases in a short period of time can result in small or big damages to production, causing financial losses to farmers. In order to provide a map of the contributions destined to the early detection of plant diseases and a comparison of the accuracy of the selected studies, a systematic literature review of the literature was performed, showing techniques for digital image processing and neural networks. We found 35 interesting tool support alternatives to detect disease in 19 plants. Our comparison of these studies resulted in an overall average accuracy of 87.45%, with two studies very closer to obtain 100%.

Keywords: pattern recognition, image processing, deep learning, precision agriculture, smart farming, agricultural automation

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Authors: Augustine Okolie, Johannes Müller, Mirjam Kretzchmar

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We adopt a maximum-likelihood framework to estimate parameters of a stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model with contact tracing on a rooted random tree. Given the number of detectees per index case, our estimator allows to determine the degree distribution of the random tree as well as the tracing probability. Since we do not discover all infectees via contact tracing, this estimation is non-trivial. To keep things simple and stable, we develop an approximation suited for realistic situations (contract tracing probability small, or the probability for the detection of index cases small). In this approximation, the only epidemiological parameter entering the estimator is the basic reproduction number R0. The estimator is tested in a simulation study and applied to covid-19 contact tracing data from India. The simulation study underlines the efficiency of the method. For the empirical covid-19 data, we are able to compare different degree distributions and perform a sensitivity analysis. We find that particularly a power-law and a negative binomial degree distribution meet the data well and that the tracing probability is rather large. The sensitivity analysis shows no strong dependency on the reproduction number.

Keywords: stochastic SIR model on graph, contact tracing, branching process, parameter inference

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Authors: Dmytro D. Buiadzhy

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The modern psychiatric discourse proves the existence of the direct ties between the children's mental health and their success in life as adults. The unresolved mental health problems in childhood are likely to lead individuals to poverty, isolation, and social exclusion as stated by Marcus Richards. Such an approach justifies the involvement of children in the view of supervision and control of power. The discourse, related to the mental health of children, provides a tight impact of family, educational institutions and medical authorities on the child through any manifestations of his psychic, having signs of "abnormality.” Throughout the adult life, the individual continues to feel the pressure of power through legal, political, and economic institutions that also appeal to the mental health regulation. The juvenile law declares the equality of a child and an adult, but in fact simply delegates the powers of parents to impersonal social institutions of the guardianship, education, and social protection. The psychiatric power in this study is considered in accordance with the Michel Foucault’s concept of power as a manifestation of "positive" technologies of power, which include various manifestations of subjectivity, in particular children’s one, in a view of supervision and control of the state power. The main issue disclosed in this paper is how weakening of the parental authority, in the context of legislative ratification of the child rights, strengthens the other forms of power over children, especially the psychiatric power, which justifies and affects the children mancipation.

Keywords: child rights, psychiatric power, discourse, parental authority

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Authors: Ladislav Ptacek, Jan Vanek, Jan Eisner, Alexandra Pruchova, Pavel Linhart, Ludek Muller, Dana Jirotkova

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One of the essential steps of avian song processing is signal filtering. Currently, the standard methods of filtering are the Mel Bank Filter or linear filter distribution. In this article, a new type of bank filter called the Bird-Adapted Filter is introduced; whereby the signal filtering is modifiable, based upon a new mathematical description of audiograms for particular bird species or order, which was named the Avian Audiogram Unified Equation. According to the method, filters may be deliberately distributed by frequency. The filters are more concentrated in bands of higher sensitivity where there is expected to be more information transmitted and vice versa. Further, it is demonstrated a comparison of various filters for automatic individual recognition of chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). The average Equal Error Rate (EER) value for Linear bank filter was 16.23%, for Mel Bank Filter 18.71%, the Bird-Adapted Filter gave 14.29%, and Bird-Adapted Filter with 1/3 modification was 12.95%. This approach would be useful for practical use in automatic systems for avian species and individual identification. Since the Bird-Adapted Filter filtration is based on the measured audiograms of particular species or orders, selecting the distribution according to the avian vocalization provides the most precise filter distribution to date.

Keywords: avian audiogram, bird individual identification, bird song processing, bird species recognition, filter bank

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Authors: Christian Röling, Elena Y. Poimanova, Vladimir V. Bruevich

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Here we demonstrate a non-destructive optical technique to localize and characterize single crystals of semiconductive organic materials – Spectroscopic Imaging Ellipsometry. With a combination of microscopy and ellipsometry, it is possible to characterize even micro-sized thin film crystals on plane surface regarding anisotropy, optical properties, crystalline domains and thickness. The semiconducting thiophene-phenylene co-oligomer 1,4-bis(5'-hexyl-[2,2'-bithiophen]-5-yl)benzene (dHex-TTPTT) crystals were grown by solvent based self-assembly technique on silicon substrate with 300 nm thermally silicon dioxide. The ellipsometric measurements were performed with an Ep4-SE (Accurion). In an ellipsometric high-contrast image of the complete sample, we have localized high-quality single crystals. After demonstrating the uniaxial anisotropy of the crystal by using Müller-Matrix imaging ellipsometry, we determined the optical axes by rotating the sample and performed spectroscopic measurements (λ = 400-700 nm) in 5 nm intervals. The optical properties were described by using a Lorentz term in the Ep4-Model. After determining the dispersion of the crystals, we converted a recorded Delta and Psi-map into a 2D thickness image. Based on a quantitative analysis of the resulting thickness map, we have calculated the height of a molecular layer (3.49 nm).

Keywords: anisotropy, ellipsometry, SCFET, thin film

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Authors: Natalia Limones, Javier Marzo, Marcus Wijnen, Aleix Serrat-Capdevila

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In this research we developed a structured approach for the detection of areas under the highest levels of drought risk that is suitable for data-scarce environments. The methodology is based on recent scientific outcomes and methods and can be easily adapted to different contexts in successive exercises. The research reviews the history of drought in the south of Angola and characterizes the experienced hazard in the episode from 2012, focusing on the meteorological and the hydrological drought types. Only global open data information coming from modeling or remote sensing was used for the description of the hydroclimatological variables since there is almost no ground data in this part of the country. Also, the study intends to portray the socioeconomic vulnerabilities and the exposure to the phenomenon in the region to fully understand the risk. As a result, a map of the areas under the highest risk in the south of the country is produced, which is one of the main outputs of this work. It was also possible to confirm that the set of indicators used revealed different drought vulnerability profiles in the South of Angola and, as a result, several varieties of priority areas prone to distinctive impacts were recognized. The results demonstrated that most of the region experienced a severe multi-year meteorological drought that triggered an unprecedent exhaustion of the surface water resources, and that the majority of their socioeconomic impacts started soon after the identified onset of these processes.

Keywords: drought risk, exposure, hazard, vulnerability

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Authors: Jannes Quer, Amir Niknejad, Marcus Weber

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Computational Drug Design is often based on Molecular Dynamics simulations of molecular systems. Molecular Dynamics can be used to simulate, e.g., the binding and unbinding event of a small drug-like molecule with regard to the active site of an enzyme or a receptor. However, the time-scale of the overall binding event is many orders of magnitude longer than the time-scale of simulation. Thus, there is a need to speed-up molecular simulations. In order to speed up simulations, the molecular dynamics trajectories have to be ”steared” out of local minimizers of the potential energy surface – the so-called metastabilities – of the molecular system. Increasing the kinetic energy (temperature) is one possibility to accelerate simulated processes. However, with temperature the entropy of the molecular system increases, too. But this kind ”stearing” is not directed enough to stear the molecule out of the minimum toward the saddle point. In this article, we give a new mathematical idea, how a potential energy surface can be changed in such a way, that entropy is kept under control while the trajectories are still steared out of the metastabilities. In order to compute the unsteared transition behaviour based on a steared simulation, we propose to use extrapolation methods. In the end we mathematically show, that our method accelerates the simulations along the direction, in which the curvature of the potential energy surface changes the most, i.e., from local minimizers towards saddle points.

Keywords: extrapolation, Eyring-Kramers, metastability, multilevel sampling

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Authors: Lars Rödel, Jonas Krebs, Gregor Müller

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The growing price pressure due to the increasing number of global suppliers, the growing individualization of products and ever-shorter delivery times are upcoming challenges in the industry. In this context, Mass Personalization stands for the individualized production of customer products in batch size 1 at the price of standardized products. The possibilities of digitalization and automation of technical order processing open up the opportunity for companies to significantly reduce their cost of complexity and lead times and thus enhance their competitiveness. Many companies already use a range of CAx tools and configuration solutions today. Often, the expert knowledge of employees is hidden in "knowledge silos" and is rarely networked across processes. DesignChain describes the automated digital process from the recording of individual customer requirements, through design and technical preparation, to production. Configurators offer the possibility of mapping variant-rich products within the Design Chain. This transformation of customer requirements into product features makes it possible to generate even complex CAD models, such as those for large-scale plants, on a rule-based basis. With the aid of an automated CAx chain, production-relevant documents are thus transferred digitally to production. This process, which can be fully automated, allows variants to always be generated on the basis of current version statuses.

Keywords: automation, design, CAD, CAx

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Authors: Karla Lienau, Rafael Müller, René Moré, Debora Ressnig, Dan Cook, Richard Walton, Greta R. Patzke

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The increasing demand for renewable energy sources and storable fuels underscores the high potential of artificial photosynthesis. The four electron transfer process of water oxidation remains the bottleneck of water splitting, so that special emphasis is placed on the development of economic, stable and efficient water oxidation catalysts (WOCs). Our investigations introduced cobalt carbodiimide CoNCN and its transition metal analogues as WOC types, and further studies are focused on the interaction of different transition metals in the convenient all-nitrogen/carbon matrix. This provides further insights into the nature of the ‘true catalyst’ for cobalt centers in this non-oxide environment. Water oxidation activity is evaluated with complementary methods, namely photocatalytically using a Ru-dye sensitized standard setup as well as electrocatalytically, via immobilization of the WOCs on glassy carbon electrodes. To further explore the tuning potential of transition metal combinations, complementary investigations were carried out in oxidic spinel WOC matrices with more versatile host options than the carbodiimide framework. The influence of the preparative history on the WOC performance was evaluated with different synthetic methods (e.g. hydrothermally or microwave assisted). Moreover, the growth mechanism of nanoscale Co3O4-spinel as a benchmark WOC was investigated with in-situ PXRD techniques.

Keywords: carbodiimide, photocatalysis, spinels, water oxidation

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Authors: Pavel Svoboda, Oldřich Müller

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The paper contains a screening of the opinions of helping professional workers working in a home for seniors with individuals with neurocognitive disorders and compares them with the opinions of a younger generation of students who are just preparing for this work. The authors carried out a comparative questionnaire survey with both target groups, focusing on the analysis and comparison of possible differences in their knowledge in the field of care for elderly people with neurocognitive disorders. Specifically, they focused on knowledge and experience with approaches, methods and tools applicable within the framework of music therapy interventions, as they are understood in practice in comparison with the theoretical knowledge of secondary school students focused on social work. The questionnaire was mainly aimed at assessing the knowledge of the possibilities of effective memory stimulation of the elderly and their communication skills using the means of music. The conducted investigation was based on the research of studies dealing with so-called non-pharmacological approaches to the given clientele; for professional caregivers, it followed music therapy lessons, which the authors regularly implemented from the beginning of 2022. Its results will, among other things, serve as the basis for an upcoming study with a scoping design review.

Keywords: neurocognitive disorders, seniors, music therapy intervention, melody, rhythm, text, memory stimulation, communication skills

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Authors: Marcus Klein, Martina GrießBach, Richard Kupke

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The current advances in the research and manufacturing of large area graphene layers are promising towards the introduction of this exciting material in the display industry and other applications that benefit from excellent electrical and optical characteristics. New production technologies in the fabrication of flexible displays, touch screens or printed electronics apply graphene layers on non-metal substrates and bring new challenges to the required metrology. Traditional measurement concepts of layer thickness, sheet resistance, and layer uniformity, are difficult to apply to graphene production processes and are often harmful to the product layer. New non-contact sensor concepts are required to adapt to the challenges and even the foreseeable inline production of large area graphene. Dedicated non-contact measurement sensors are a pioneering method to leverage these issues in a large variety of applications, while significantly lowering the costs of development and process setup. Transferred and printed graphene layers can be characterized with high accuracy in a huge measurement range using a very high resolution. Large area graphene mappings are applied for process optimization and for efficient quality control for transfer, doping, annealing and stacking processes. Examples of doped, defected and excellent Graphene are presented as quality images and implications for manufacturers are explained.

Keywords: graphene, doping and defect testing, non-contact sheet resistance measurement, inline metrology

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Authors: Masica Jordan Alston, Angela N. Bullock, Angela S. Henderson, Stephanie Strianse, Sade Dunn, Joseph Hackett, Alaysia Black Hackett, Marcus Mason

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The Energy Model of Cumulative Grief was created in 2018. The Energy Model of Cumulative Grief utilizes historic models of grief stage theories. The innovative model is additionally unique due to its focus on cultural responsiveness. The Energy Model of Cumulative Grief helps to train practitioners who work with clients dealing with grief and loss. This paper assists in introducing the world to this innovative model and exploring how this model positively impacted a convenience sample of 140 practitioners and individuals experiencing grief and loss. Respondents participated in Webinars provided by the National Grief and Loss Center of America (NGLCA). Participants in this cross-sectional research design study completed one of three Grief and Loss Surveys created by the Grief and Loss Centers of America. Data analysis for this study was conducted via SPSS and Survey Hero to examine survey results for respondents. Results indicate that the Energy Model of Cumulative Grief was an effective resource for participants in addressing grief and loss. The majority of participants found the Webinars to be helpful and a conduit to providing them with higher levels of hope. The findings suggest that using The Energy Model of Cumulative Grief is effective in providing culturally responsive grief and loss resources to practitioners and clients. There are far reaching implications with the use of technology to provide hope to those suffering from grief and loss worldwide through The Energy Model of Cumulative Grief.

Keywords: grief, loss, grief energy, grieving brain

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Authors: James Jr. Mashiyane, Risuna Nkolele, Stephanie J. Müller, Gciniwe S. Dlamini, Rebone L. Meraba, Darlington S. Mapiye

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When performing language tasks in natural language processing (NLP), the dimensionality of word embeddings is chosen either ad-hoc or is calculated by optimizing the Pairwise Inner Product (PIP) loss. The PIP loss is a metric that measures the dissimilarity between word embeddings, and it is obtained through matrix perturbation theory by utilizing the unitary invariance of word embeddings. Unlike in natural language, in genomics, especially in genome sequence processing, unlike in natural language processing, there is no notion of a “word,” but rather, there are sequence substrings of length k called k-mers. K-mers sizes matter, and they vary depending on the goal of the task at hand. The dimensionality of word embeddings in NLP has been studied using the matrix perturbation theory and the PIP loss. In this paper, the sufficiency and reliability of applying word-embedding algorithms to various genomic sequence datasets are investigated to understand the relationship between the k-mer size and their embedding dimension. This is completed by studying the scaling capability of three embedding algorithms, namely Latent Semantic analysis (LSA), Word2Vec, and Global Vectors (GloVe), with respect to the k-mer size. Utilising the PIP loss as a metric to train embeddings on different datasets, we also show that Word2Vec outperforms LSA and GloVe in accurate computing embeddings as both the k-mer size and vocabulary increase. Finally, the shortcomings of natural language processing embedding algorithms in performing genomic tasks are discussed.

Keywords: word embeddings, k-mer embedding, dimensionality reduction

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Authors: Marcus Maia

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The present study reports and discusses the use of eye tracking qualitative data in reading workshops in Brazilian middle and high schools and in Generative Syntax and Sentence Processing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, respectively. Both endeavors take the sentential level as the proper object to be metacognitively explored in language education (cf. Chomsky, Gallego & Ott, 2019) to develop innate science forming capacity and knowledge of language. In both projects, non-discrepant qualitative eye tracking data collected and quantitatively analyzed in experimental syntax and psycholinguistic studies carried out in Lapex (Experimental Psycholinguistics Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) were displayed to students as a point of departure, triggering discussions. Classes would generally start with the display of videos showing eye tracking data, such as gaze plots and heatmaps from several studies in Psycholinguistics and Experimental Syntax that we had already developed in our laboratory. The videos usually triggered discussions with students about linguistic and psycholinguistic issues, such as the reading of sentences for gist, garden-path sentences, syntactic and semantic anomalies, the filled-gap effect, island effects, direct and indirect cause, and recursive constructions, among other topics. Active, problem-solving based methodologies were employed with the objective of stimulating student participation. The communication also discusses the importance of developing full literacy, epistemic vigilance and intellectual self-defense in an infodemic world in the lines of Maia (2022).

Keywords: reading, educational psycholinguistics, eye-tracking, active methodology

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Authors: Riccardo Pasquali, Keith Harlin, Mark Muller

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The ShallowTherm project is focussed on developing and applying a methodology for extrapolating relatively sparsely sampled thermal conductivity measurements across Ireland using mapped Litho-Electrical (LE) units. The primary data used consist of electrical resistivities derived from the Geological Survey Ireland Tellus airborne electromagnetic dataset, GIS-based maps of Irish geology, and rock thermal conductivities derived from both the current Irish Ground Thermal Properties (IGTP) database and a new programme of sampling and laboratory measurement. The workflow has been developed across three case-study areas that sample a range of different calcareous, arenaceous, argillaceous, and volcanic lithologies. Statistical analysis of resistivity data from individual geological formations has been assessed and integrated with detailed lithological descriptions to define distinct LE units. Thermal conductivity measurements from core and hand samples have been acquired for every geological formation within each study area. The variability and consistency of thermal conductivity measurements within each LE unit is examined with the aim of defining a characteristic thermal conductivity (or range of thermal conductivities) for each LE unit. Mapping of LE units, coupled with characteristic thermal conductivities, provides a method of defining thermal conductivity properties at a regional scale and facilitating the design of ground source heat pump closed-loop collectors.

Keywords: thermal conductivity, ground source heat pumps, resistivity, heat exchange, shallow geothermal, Ireland

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Authors: S. Schröder, P. Ennen, T. Langer, S. Müller, M. Shehadeh, M. Haberstroh, F. Hees

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Since a bit over a year ago, Festo AG and Co. KG, Festo Didactic SE, robomotion GmbH, the researchers of the Cybernetics-Lab IMA/ZLW and IfU, as well as the Human-Computer Interaction Center at the RWTH Aachen University, have been working together in the focal point of assembly competences to realize different scenarios in the field of human-machine interaction (HMI). In the framework of project ARIZ, questions concerning the future of production within the fourth industrial revolution are dealt with. There are many perspectives of human-robot collaboration that consist Industry 4.0 on an individual, organization and enterprise level, and these will be addressed in ARIZ. The aim of the ARIZ projects is to link AI-Approaches to assembly problems and to implement them as prototypes in demonstrators. To do so, island and flow based production scenarios will be simulated and realized as prototypes. These prototypes will serve as applications of flexible robotics as well as AI-based planning and control of production process. Using the demonstrators, human interaction strategies will be examined with an information system on one hand, and a robotic system on the other. During the tests, prototypes of workspaces that illustrate prospective production work forms will be represented. The human being will remain a central element in future productions and will increasingly be in charge of managerial tasks. Questions thus arise within the overall perspective, primarily concerning the role of humans within these technological revolutions, as well as their ability to act and design respectively to the acceptance of such systems. Roles, such as the 'Trainer' of intelligent systems may become a possibility in such assembly scenarios.

Keywords: human-machine interaction, information technology, island based production, assembly competences

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Authors: Munira Al-Azraqi

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Modern South Arabian Languages (MSAL) belong to the Semitic language family and are believed to be either a southern member of the west Semitic branch (Rubin 2010; Moscati et al 1969) or an eastern member of the south Semitic branch (Faber 1997), (Watson 2012). They are six languages which are still spoken in southern Arabia. They are used in Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and in some of the Gulf states. Mehri is one of them however it has the highest number of speakers comparing to the other members of MSAL. It is used in Yemen, Oman, in parts of southern and eastern Saudi Arabia and in some of the Gulf states. The number of Mehri speakers is estimated at between 100,000 and 180,000. The problem that this language might face is that its speakers live in different places which are belonging to different countries. This might cause the language to change rapidly due to education and communication. There are some studies on Omani and Yemeni Mehri but not in Saudi Mehri. In the nineteenth century, travelers, western scholars and explorers played their parts in the discovery of these peoples and their languages. The historical turning point for the knowledge of the MSAL is 1898, when the Südarabische Expedition of the Imperial Academy of Vienna started. The three scholars, Müller, Jahn and Hein began their systematic collection of texts, which were later studied grammatically and lexically by Bittner (1908-1917), Jahn (1915), Leslau (1938) and Wagner (1953). Saudi Mehri has not been studied. This might be caused by the lack of information or the difficulty in collecting the data which this paper aims to shed light on.

Keywords: Modern South Arabian, Mehri, Saudi Arabia, endangered languages

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Authors: T. Botelho de Sousa, F. Raphael Cabral Furtado, O. Eduardo da Silva Ferri, A. Batista, W. Augusto Varella, C. Eduardo Pinto, J. Mimar Santa Cruz Yabarrena, S. Gibran Ruwer, F. Müller Guerrini, L. Adalberto Philippsen Júnior

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Lean Supply Chain Management (LSCM) is an emerging research field in Operations Management (OM). As a strategic model that focuses on reduced cost and waste with fulfilling the needs of customers, LSCM attracts great interest among researchers and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of Lean Supply Chains literature, based on bibliometric analysis through 57 papers published in indexed journals by SCOPUS and/or Web of Science databases. The results indicate that the last three years (2015, 2016, and 2017) were the most productive on LSCM discussion, especially in Supply Chain Management and International Journal of Lean Six Sigma journals. India, USA, and UK are the most productive countries; nevertheless, cross-country studies by collaboration among researchers were detected, by social network analysis, as a research practice, appearing to play a more important role on LSCM studies. Despite existing limitation, such as limited indexed journal database, bibliometric analysis helps to enlighten ongoing efforts on LSCM researches, including most used technical procedures and collaboration network, showing important research gaps, especially, for development countries researchers.

Keywords: Lean Supply Chains, Bibliometric Study, SCOPUS, Web of Science

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Authors: John Joseph S. Martis, Rohanchandra R. Gatty, Aaron Jose Fernandes, Rahul P. Nambiar

Abstract:

Introduction: Surgery for breast cancer is either mastectomy or breast conservation surgery. The most commonly used incision for modified radical mastectomy is the transverse Stewart incision. But this incision may have the disadvantage of causing disparity between the closure lines of superior and inferior skin flaps in mastectomy and can cause overhanging of soft tissue below and behind the axilla. The curvizigzag incision, on principle, may help in this regard and can prevent scar migration beyond the anterior axillary line. This study aims to compare the two incisions in this regard. Methods: 100 patients with cancer of breast were included in the study after satisfying inclusion and exclusion criteria. They underwent surgery at Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, India, between November 2019 to September 2021. The patients were divided into two groups. Group A patients were subjected to modified radical mastectomy with curvizigzag incision and group B patients with transverse Stewart incision. Results: Seroma on postoperative day1, day 2 was 0% in both the groups. Seroma on postoperative day 30 was present in 14% of patients in group B. 60% of patients in group B had sag of soft tissue below and behind the axilla, and none of the patients in group A had this problem. In 64% of the patients in group B, the incision crossed the anterior axillary fold, 64% of the patients in group B had tension in the incision site while approximation of the skin flaps. Conclusion: Curvizigzag incision is statistically better with lesser complications when compared to the transverse Stewart incision for modified radical mastectomy for carcinoma breast.

Keywords: breast cancer, curvizigzag incision, transverse Stewart incision, seroma, modified radical mastectomy

Procedia PDF Downloads 67

Authors: B. Khatri, K. Lappe, M. Habedank, T. Müller, C. Megnin, T. Hanemann

Abstract:

We present a process flow for the development of ceramic-filled polymer composite filaments compatible with the fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printing process. Thermoplastic-ceramic composites were developed using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and 10- and 20 vol.% barium titanate (BaTiO3) powder (corresponding to 39.47- and 58.23 wt.% respectively) and characterized for their flow properties. To make them compatible with the existing FDM process, the composites were extruded into filaments. These composite filaments were subsequently structured into tensile stress specimens using a commercially available FDM 3D printer and characterized for their mechanical properties. Rheometric characterization of the material composites revealed non-Newtonian behavior with the viscosity logarithmically decreasing over increasing shear rates, as well as higher viscosities for samples with higher BaTiO3 filler content for a given shear rate (with the ABS+20vol.% BaTiO3 composite being over 50% more viscous compared to pure ABS at a shear rate of 1x〖10〗^3 s^(-1)). Mechanical characterization of the tensile stress specimens exhibited increasingly brittle behavior as well as a linearly decreasing ultimate tensile strength of the material composites with increasing volumetric ratio of BaTiO3 (from σ_max=32.4MPa for pure ABS to σ_max=21.3MPa for ABS+20vol.% BaTiO3). Further studies being undertaken include the development of composites with higher filler concentrations, sintering of the printed composites to yield pure dielectric structures and the determination of the dielectric characteristics of the composites.

Keywords: ceramic composites, fused deposition modeling, material characterization, rapid prototyping

Procedia PDF Downloads 309

Authors: I. Schäfer, B. Kohn, M. Volkmann, E. Müller

Abstract:

Introduction: Blood-feeding arthropods transmit parasitic, bacterial, or viral pathogens to domestic animals and wildlife. Vector-borne infections are gaining significance due to the increase of travel, import of domestic animals from abroad, and the changing climate in Europe. Aims of the study: The main objective of this retrospective study was to assess the prevalence of vector-borne infections in cats in which a ‘Feline Travel Profile’ had been conducted. Material and Methods: This retrospective study included test results from cats for which a ‘Feline Travel Profile’ established by LABOKLIN had been requested by veterinarians between April 2012 and December 2019. This profile contains direct detection methods via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Hepatozoon spp. and Dirofilaria spp. as well as indirect detection methods via immunofluorescence antibody test (IFAT) for Ehrlichia spp. and Leishmania spp. This profile was expanded to include an IFAT for Rickettsia spp. from July 2015 onwards. The prevalence of the different vector-borne infectious agents was calculated. Results: A total of 602 cats were tested using the ‘Feline Travel Profile’. Positive test results were as follows: Rickettsia spp. IFAT 54/442 (12.2%), Ehrlichia spp. IFAT 68/602 (11.3%), Leishmania spp. IFAT 21/602 (3.5%), Hepatozoon spp. PCR 51/595 (8.6%), and Dirofilaria spp. PCR 1/595 cats (0.2%). Co-infections with more than one pathogen could be detected in 22/602 cats. Conclusions: 170/602 cats (28.2%) were tested positive for at least one vector-borne pathogen. Infections with multiple pathogens could be detected in 3.7% of the cats. The data emphasizes the importance of considering vector-borne infections as potential differential diagnoses in cats.

Keywords: arthopod-transmitted infections, feline vector-borne infections, Germany, laboratory diagnostics

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Abimbola Mobolanle Adu, Marcus Tayo Akinlade

Abstract:

This comprehensive study systematically dissects the intricate interplay between the removal of fuel subsidy and its multifaceted repercussions on Nigeria's educational system. Originating in the 1970s, the fuel subsidy policy initially conceived to curtail fuel costs and faced financial unsustainability. In 2023, President Bola Tinubu's administration announced its cessation. The resultant escalation in petroleum product prices precipitated challenges within the education sector, manifesting as heightened administrative costs, increased student fees, amplified dropout rates, and others. Employing a qualitative research methodology, grounded in Critical Theory, the study draws from diverse secondary sources and employs content analysis to unravel the intricate layers of this issue. Critical Theory provides a lens through which the power dynamics, socio-economic structures, and ideological influences shaping policy decisions can be critically examined, offering a deeper understanding of the multifaceted impact. Findings underscore the imperative for strategic interventions, advocating for investments in technology and the exploration of alternative energy sources. The paper concludes by emphasizing the pivotal role of education, advocating for nuanced policies to alleviate the impact on both private and public educational institutions. In essence, this research contributes nuanced insights into the labyrinthine dynamics between fuel subsidy policies and the educational sector, underscoring the exigency for meticulous interventions to fortify the nation's educational foundation.

Keywords: administration, education, fuel subsidy, policy, multilayered impact

Procedia PDF Downloads 31

Authors: Simone F. Medeiros, Isabela F. Santos, Rodolfo M. Moraes, Jaspreet K. Kular, Marcus A. Johns, Ram Sharma, Amilton M. Santos

Abstract:

Tissue engineering aims to develop alternatives to treat damaged tissues by promoting their regeneration. Its basic principle is to place cells on a scaffold capable of promoting cell functions, and for this purpose, polymeric nanoparticles have been successfully used due to the ability of some macro chains to mimic the extracellular matrix and influence cell functions. In general, nanoparticles require surface chemical modification to achieve cell adhesion, and recent advances in their synthesis include methods for modifying the ligand density and distribution onto nanoparticles surface. However, this work reports the development of biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles capable of promoting cellular adhesion without any surface chemical modification by ligands. Biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles based on poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBHV) were synthesized by solvent evaporation method. The produced nanoparticles were small in size (85 and 125 nm) and colloidally stable against time in aqueous solution. Morphology evaluation showed their spherical shape with small polydispersity. Human osteoblast-like cells (MG63) were cultured in the presence of PHBHV nanoparticles, and growth kinetics were compared to those grown on tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). Cell attachment on non-tissue culture polystyrene (non-TCPS) pre-coated with nanoparticles was assessed and compared to attachment on TCPS. These findings reveal the potential of PHBHV nanoparticles for cell adhesion and growth, without requiring a matrix ligand to support cells, to be used as scaffolds, in tissue engineering applications.

Keywords: tissue engineering, PHBHV, stem cells, cellular attachment

Procedia PDF Downloads 191