Search results for: smart home appliances

Authors: Paritosh Goel

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The conservation of historic buildings and historic Centre’s over recent years has become fully encompassed in the planning of built-up areas and their management following climate changes. The approach of the world of restoration, in the Indian context on integrated urban regeneration and its strategic potential for a smarter, more sustainable and socially inclusive urban development introduces, for urban transformations in general (historical centers and otherwise), the theme of sustainability. From this viewpoint, it envisages, as a primary objective, a real “green, ecological or environmental” requalification of the city through interventions within the main categories of sustainability: mobility, energy efficiency, use of sources of renewable energy, urban metabolism (waste, water, territory, etc.) and natural environment. With this the concept of a “resilient city” is also introduced, which can adapt through progressive transformations to situations of change which may not be predictable, behavior that the historical city has always been able to express. Urban planning on the other hand, has increasingly focused on analyses oriented towards the taxonomic description of social/economic and perceptive parameters. It is connected with human behavior, mobility and the characterization of the consumption of resources, in terms of quantity even before quality to inform the city design process, which for ancient fabrics, and mainly affects the public space also in its social dimension. An exact definition of the term “smart city” is still essentially elusive, since we can attribute three dimensions to the term: a) That of a virtual city, evolved based on digital networks and web networks b) That of a physical construction determined by urban planning based on infrastructural innovation, which in the case of historic Centre’s implies regeneration that stimulates and sometimes changes the existing fabric; c) That of a political and social/economic project guided by a dynamic process that provides new behavior and requirements of the city communities that orients the future planning of cities also through participation in their management. This paper is a preliminary research into the connections between these three dimensions applied to the specific case of the fabric of ancient cities with the aim of obtaining a scientific theory and methodology to apply to the regeneration of Indian historical Centre’s. The Smart city scheme if contextualize with heritage of the city it can be an initiative which intends to provide a transdisciplinary approach between various research networks (natural sciences, socio-economics sciences and humanities, technological disciplines, digital infrastructures) which are united in order to improve the design, livability and understanding of urban environment and high historical/cultural performance levels.

Keywords: historical cities regeneration, sustainable restoration, urban planning, smart cities, cultural heritage development strategies

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Authors: Richard Lewis

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The following assumptions of the Big Bang theory are challenged and found to be false: the cosmological principle, the assumption that all matter formed at the same time and the assumption regarding the cause of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The evolution of the universe is described based on the conclusion that the universe is finite with a space boundary. This conclusion is reached by ruling out the possibility of an infinite universe or a universe which is finite with no boundary. In a finite universe, the centre of the universe can be located with reference to our home galaxy (The Milky Way) using the speed relative to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) rest frame and Hubble's law. This places our home galaxy at a distance of approximately 26 million light years from the centre of the universe. Because we are making observations from a point relatively close to the centre of the universe, the universe appears to be isotropic and homogeneous but this is not the case. The CMB is coming from a source located within the event horizon of the universe. There is sufficient mass in the universe to create an event horizon at the Schwarzschild radius. Galaxies form over time due to the energy released by the expansion of space. Conservation of energy must consider total energy which is mass (+ve) plus energy (+ve) plus spacetime curvature (-ve) so that the total energy of the universe is always zero. The predominant position of galaxy formation moves over time from the centre of the universe towards the boundary so that today the majority of new galaxy formation is taking place beyond our horizon of observation at 14 billion light years.

Keywords: cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, evolution of the universe

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Authors: Xiang-Yao Zheng, Jen-Cheng Wang, Joe-Air Jiang

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Improving the line ampacity while using existing power grids is an important issue that electricity dispatchers are now facing. Using the information provided by the dynamic thermal rating (DTR) of transmission lines, an overhead power grid can operate safely. However, dispatchers usually lack real-time DTR information. Thus, this study proposes a long-short-term memory (LSTM)-based method, which is one of the neural network models. The LSTM-based method predicts the DTR of lines using the weather data provided by Central Weather Bureau (CWB) of Taiwan. The possible thermal bottlenecks at different locations along the line and the margin of line ampacity can be real-time determined by the proposed LSTM-based prediction method. A case study that targets the 345 kV power grid of TaiPower in Taiwan is utilized to examine the performance of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the proposed method is useful to provide the information for the smart grid application in the future.

Keywords: electricity dispatch, line ampacity prediction, dynamic thermal rating, long-short-term memory neural network, smart grid

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Authors: Matthew McArthur, Margaret Friend

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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the stability of the home environment for families across the world. Potential disruptions include parent work modality (in-person vs. remote), levels of health anxiety, family routines, and caregiving. These disruptions may have interfered with the processes of early vocabulary acquisition, carrying lasting effects over the life course. Our justification for this research is as follows: First, early, stable, caregiver-child reciprocal interactions, which may have been disrupted during the pandemic, contribute to the development of the brain architecture that supports language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Second, early vocabulary predicts several cognitive outcomes, such as numeracy, literacy, and executive function. Further, disruption in the home is associated with adverse cognitive, academic, socio-emotional, behavioral, and communication outcomes in young children. We are interested in how disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with vocabulary acquisition in children born during the first two waves of the pandemic. We are conducting a moderated online experiment to assess this question. Participants are 16 children (10F) ranging in age from 19 to 39 months (M=25.27) and their caregivers. All child participants were screened for language background, health history, and history of language disorders, and were typically developing. Parents completed a modified version of the COVID-19 Family Stressor Scale (CoFaSS), a published measure of COVID-19-related family stressors. Thirteen items from the original scale were replaced to better capture change in family organization and stability specifically related to disruptions in income, anxiety, family relations, and childcare. Following completion of the modified CoFaSS, children completed a Web-Based version of the Computerized Comprehension Task and the Receptive One Word Picture Vocabulary if 24 months or older or the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory if younger than 24 months. We report our preliminary data as a partial correlation analysis controlling for age. Raw vocabulary scores on the CCT, ROWPVT-4, and MCDI were all negatively associated with pandemic-related disruptions related to anxiety (r12=-.321; r1=-.332; r9=-.509), family relations (r12=-.590*; r1=-.155; r9=-.468), and childcare (r12=-.294; r1=-.468; r9=-.177). Although the small sample size for these preliminary data limits our power to detect significance, this trend is in the predicted direction, suggesting that increased pandemic-related disruption across multiple domains is associated with lower vocabulary scores. We anticipate presenting data on a full sample of 50 monolingual English participants. A sample of 50 participants would provide sufficient statistical power to detect a moderate effect size, adhering to a nominal alpha of 0.05 and ensuring a power level of 0.80.

Keywords: COVID-19, early vocabulary, home environment, language acquisition, multiple measures

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Authors: Adebimpe Olubunmi Adebanjo

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This study observed students’ attitudes towards reading as a determinant of performance in O’ Level English in Oyo state secondary schools. Random sampling technique was used to select two schools from each of the five geo-political zones of the state while stratified sampling technique was used to select twenty students from each of the ten schools. A researcher designed questionnaire was used to gather information on students’ attitudes while a prepared test based on O’ Level syllabus was stapled to each of the questionnaire to ascertain their level of achievement in O’ Level English. The Percentage, Mean, Standard Deviation, Chi-square and Pearson Contingency Coefficient were used to answer and test the research questions and hypotheses raised. The findings showed that the general attitude of students towards reading was ambivalent; the general level of achievement was also low. The findings also revealed that there was a significant difference in the attitudes of students to reading on the basis of gender and home background. Students from educated homes also had better attitudes towards reading than their counterparts from illiterate homes. The findings also showed that there was a significant relationship between students’ attitudes to reading and their performance in O’ Level English. Students with positive attitude to reading had better grades in O’ Level English than students with ambivalent and negative attitudes. Based on the findings, it was recommended that students should change their attitudes to reading; the school and the home were also advised to always encourage students to read.

Keywords: positive, ambivalent, negative attitudes, o' level English

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Authors: Claire Xu, Welton Wang, Manasvi Pinnaka, Anqi Pan, Michael Han

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Hospitalizations account for one-third of the total health care spending in the US. Early risk detection and intervention can reduce this high cost and increase the satisfaction of both patients and physicians. Due to the lack of awareness of the potential arising risks in home environment, the opportunities for patients to seek early actions of clinical visits are dramatically reduced. This research aims to offer a highly personalized remote patients monitoring and risk assessment AI framework to identify the potentially preventable hospitalization for both acute as well as chronic diseases. A hybrid-AI framework is trained with data from clinical setting, patients surveys, as well as online databases. 20+ risk factors are analyzed ranging from activities, biometric info, demographic info, socio-economic info, hospitalization history, medication info, lifestyle info, etc. The AI model yields high performance of 87% accuracy and 88 sensitivity with 20+ features. This hybrid-AI framework is proven to be effective in identifying the potentially preventable hospitalization. Further, the high indicative features are identified by the models which guide us to a healthy lifestyle and early intervention suggestions.

Keywords: hospitalization prevention, machine learning, remote patient monitoring, risk prediction

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Authors: Ilknur Kahriman, Hacer Kobya Bulut, Birsel C. Demirbag

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Introduction and Aim: One of the most challenging aspects of being parents of a child diagnosed with cancer is to balance their normal family life with the child's health needs and treatment requirements. Cancer covers an important part of family life and gets ahead of other matters. Families mostly feel that everything has changed in their lives with the cancer diagnosis and are obliged to make a number of adjustments in their lives. Their normal family life suddenly begins to include treatments, hospital appointments and hospitalizations. This study is a descriptive research conducted to determine the changes in the lives of families who had a child with cancer. Methods: This study was carried out with 65 families having children diagnosed with cancer in 0-17 age group at outpatient pediatric oncology clinic and polyclinic of a university hospital in Trabzon. Data were collected through survey method from August to November, 2015. In the analysis of the data, numbers, percentage and chi-square test were used. Findings: It was found out that the average age of mothers was 35.33 years, most of them were primary school graduates (44.6%) and housewives (89.2%) and the average age of fathers was 39.30 years, most of them were high school graduates (29.2%) and self-employed (43.8% ). The majority of their children were boys and their average age was 7.74 years and 77% had Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) diagnosis. 87.5% of the mothers who had a child with cancer had increased fears in their lives, 84.4% had increased workload at home, 82.8% had more stressful life and 82.8% felt themselves physically tired. The mothers indicated that their healthy children could not do the social activities they had used to do before (56.5%), they no longer fed their healthy children with the food they loved eating so that the sick child did not aspire (52.3%) and their healthy children were more furious than before (53.2%). As for the fathers, the fundamental change they had was increased workload at home (82.3%), had more stressful life (80.6%) and could no longer allocate time to the activities they had been interested in and done before (77.8%). There was not a significant difference between the sick children gender and the changes in their parents lives. The communication between the mothers and their healthy children were determined to be positively affected in the families in which the sick child's disease duration was under 12 months (X2 = 6.452, p = 0.011). Conclusion: This study showed that parents having a child with cancer had more workload at home, had more stressful lives, could not allocate time to social activities, had increased fears, felt themselves tired and their healthy children became more furious and their social activities reduced.

Keywords: child, cancer, changes in lives, family

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Authors: Xi Wang, Xiaoming Tao, Raymond C. H. So

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As one of the convenient and noninvasive sensing approaches, the automatic limb girth measurement has been applied to detect intention behind human motion from muscle deformation. The sensing validity has been elaborated by preliminary researches but still need more fundamental study, especially on kinetic contraction modes. Based on the novel fabric strain sensors, a soft and smart limb girth measurement system was developed by the authors’ group, which can measure the limb girth in-motion. Experiments were carried out on elbow isometric flexion and elbow isokinetic flexion (biceps’ isokinetic contractions) of 90°/s, 60°/s, and 120°/s for 10 subjects (2 canoeists and 8 ordinary people). After removal of natural circumferential increments due to elbow position, the joint torque is found not uniformly sensitive to the limb circumferential strains, but declining as elbow joint angle rises, regardless of the angular speed. Moreover, the maximum joint torque was found as an exponential function of the joint’s angular speed. This research highly contributes to the application of the automatic limb girth measuring during kinetic contractions, and it is useful to predict the contraction level of voluntary skeletal muscles.

Keywords: fabric strain sensor, muscle deformation, isokinetic contraction, joint torque, limb girth strain

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Authors: K. Khlifi, A. Haddouk, M. Hlaili, H. Mechergui

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The present paper provides a detailed analysis of prior methods and approaches for non-linear load identification in residential buildings. The main goal of this analysis is to decipher the distorted signals and to estimate the harmonics influence on power systems. We have performed an analytical study of non-linear loads behavior in the residential environment. Simulations have been performed in order to evaluate the distorted rate of the current and follow his behavior. To complete this work, an instrumental platform has been realized to carry out practical tests on single-phase non-linear loads which illustrate the current consumption of some domestic appliances supplied with single-phase sinusoidal voltage. These non-linear loads have been processed and tracked in order to limit their influence on the power grid and to reduce the Joule effect losses. As a result, the study has allowed to identify responsible circuits of harmonic pollution.

Keywords: distortion rate, harmonic analysis, harmonic pollution, non-linear load, power factor

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Authors: Boumaraf Malak

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The development of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and artificial intelligence (AI) are spurring us to pave the way for the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs). This is open again opportunities for smart roads, smart traffic safety, and mobility comfort. A highly intelligent decision-making system is essential for autonomous driving around dense, dynamic objects. It must be able to handle complex road geometry and topology, as well as complex multiagent interactions, and closely follow higher-level commands such as routing information. Autonomous vehicles have become a very hot research topic in recent years due to their significant ability to reduce traffic accidents and personal injuries. Using new artificial intelligence-based technologies handles important functions in scene understanding, motion planning, decision making, vehicle control, social behavior, and communication for AV. This paper focuses only on deep reinforcement learning-based methods; it does not include traditional (flat) planar techniques, which have been the subject of extensive research in the past because reinforcement learning (RL) has become a powerful learning framework now capable of learning complex policies in high dimensional environments. The DRL algorithm used so far found solutions to the four main problems of autonomous driving; in our paper, we highlight the challenges and point to possible future research directions.

Keywords: deep reinforcement learning, autonomous driving, deep deterministic policy gradient, deep Q-learning

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Authors: Minakshi Jain, I. P. Singh

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The mountain system makes the one fifth of the world’s landscape and is the home to the 600 million people. Though hills and mountains contain about 10 percent of the total population of the country, yet almost half of the country’s population living in or adjacent to the mountain areas depend directly or indirectly on the resources of the hills. Mountain environments are essential to the survival of the global ecosystems, as they sustain the economy of India through its perennial river system and precious forest wealth. Hill areas, with distinct climate, diverse vegetation and valuable flora & fauna are distinguished primarily by unique eco-system, rich both in bio-diversity and visual resources. These areas have special significance in terms of environment and economy. Still the irony is that these mountain ecosystems are fragile and highly susceptible to disturbance, with a low ability to rebound and heal after damage. Hills are home to endangered species, biological diversity and an essential part of the ecosystem. They are extremely sensitive to any human related development. Natural systems are the most ignored in the hills. The way the cities and towns have encroached them today has the serious repercussions on the climate. Amidst immense resources and constraints of nature, the town had a fantastic diversity of cultural and ethnic characteristics nurtured through ages along river basin and valley strung across the length and breadth of this Himalayan setting.

Keywords: eco-system, bio-diversity, urban sprawl, vernacular landscape

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Authors: Fawad Hussain, Mohammad Basir Bin Saud, Mohd Azwardi Md Isa

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The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the mediating impact of export performance (EP) between technological advancement capabilities (TAC) and business performance (BP) of Malaysian manufacturing MSME’s. Firm’s technological advancement resources are hypothesized as a platform to enhance both exports and business performance of manufacturing MSMEs in Malaysia. This study is twofold, primary it has investigated that technological advancement capabilities helps to appreciates main performance measures noted in terms of export performance and Secondly it investigates that how efficiently and effectively technological advancement capabilities can contributes in overall Malaysian MSME’s business performance. Smart PLS-3 statistical software is used to know the association between technological advancement capabilities, MSME’s export performance and business performance. In this study the data was composed from Malaysian manufacturing MSME’s in east coast industrial zones known as manufacturing hub of MSMEs. Seven Hundred and Fifty (750) questionnaires were distributed but only 148 usable questionnaires are returned. The finding of this study indicated that technological advancement capabilities helps to strengthen the export in term of time and cost efficient and it plays a significant role in appreciating their business performance. This study is helpful for small and medium enterprises owners who intent to expand their business overseas and though smart technological advancement resources they can achieve their business competitiveness and excellence both at local and international markets.

Keywords: technological advancement capabilities, export performance, business performance, small and medium manufacturing enterprises, malaysia

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Authors: Pushpavathi M., Kavya V., Akshatha V.

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Introduction: Cleft lip and palate (CLP) is a congenital condition which hinders effectual communication due to associated speech and language difficulties. Expressive language delay (ELD) is a feature seen in this population which is influenced by factors such as type and severity of CLP, age at surgical and linguistic intervention and also the type and intensity of speech and language therapy (SLT). Since CLP is the most common congenital abnormality seen in Indian children, early intervention is a necessity which plays a critical role in enhancing their speech and language skills. The interaction between the timing of intervention and factors which contribute to effective intervention by caregivers is an area which needs to be explored. Objectives: The present study attempts to determine the effect of timing of intervention on the contributing maternal factors for effective linguistic intervention in toddlers with repaired CLP with respect to the awareness, home training patterns, speech and non-speech behaviors of the mothers. Participants: Thirty six toddlers in the age range of 1 to 4 years diagnosed as ELD secondary to repaired CLP, along with their mothers served as participants. Group I (Early Intervention Group, EIG) included 19 mother-child pairs who came to seek SLT soon after corrective surgery and group II (Delayed Intervention Group, DIG) included 16 mother-child pairs who received SLT after the age of 3 years. Further, the groups were divided into group A, and group B. Group ‘A’ received SLT for 60 sessions by Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), while Group B received SLT for 30 sessions by SLP and 30 sessions only by mother without supervision of SLP. Method: The mothers were enrolled for the Early Language Intervention Program and following this, their awareness about CLP was assessed through the Parental awareness questionnaire. The quality of home training was assessed through Mohite’s Inventory. Subsequently, the speech and non-speech behaviors of the mothers were assessed using a Mother’s behavioral checklist. Detailed counseling and orientation was done to the mothers, and SLT was initiated for toddlers. After 60 sessions of intensive SLT, the questionnaire and checklists were re-administered to find out the changes in scores between the pre- and posttest measurements. Results: The scores obtained under different domains in the awareness questionnaire, Mohite’s inventory and Mothers behavior checklist were tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis. Since the data did not follow normal distribution (i.e. p > 0.05), Mann-Whitney U test was conducted which revealed that there was no significant difference between groups I and II as well as groups A and B. Further, Wilcoxon Signed Rank test revealed that mothers had better awareness regarding issues related to CLP and improved home-training abilities post-orientation (p ≤ 0.05). A statistically significant difference was also noted for speech and non-speech behaviors of the mothers (p ≤ 0.05). Conclusions: Extensive orientation and counseling helped mothers of both EI and DI groups to improve their knowledge about CLP. Intensive SLT using focused stimulation and a parent-implemented approach enabled them to carry out the intervention in an effectual manner.

Keywords: awareness, cleft lip and palate, early language intervention program, home training, orientation, timing of intervention

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Authors: M. Graus, K. Westhoff, X. Xu

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The climate change causes a change in all aspects of society. While the expansion of renewable energies proceeds, industry could not be convinced based on general studies about the potential of demand side management to reinforce smart grid considerations in their operational business. In this article, a procedure model for a case-specific data-driven decision support for industrial energy management based on a holistic data analytics approach is presented. The model is executed on the example of the strategic decision problem, to integrate the aspect of renewable energies into industrial energy management. This question is induced due to considerations of changing the electricity contract model from a standard rate to volatile energy prices corresponding to the energy spot market which is increasingly more affected by renewable energies. The procedure model corresponds to a data analytics process consisting on a data model, analysis, simulation and optimization step. This procedure will help to quantify the potentials of sustainable production concepts based on the data from a factory. The model is validated with data from a printer in analogy to a simple production machine. The overall goal is to establish smart grid principles for industry via the transformation from knowledge-driven to data-driven decisions within manufacturing companies.

Keywords: data analytics, green production, industrial energy management, optimization, renewable energies, simulation

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Authors: Apurwa Rastogi, Anant Parghi

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Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are memory metals with a high calibre to outperform as a civil construction material. They showcase novel functionality of undergoing large deformations and self-healing capability (pseudoelasticity) that leads to its emerging applications in a variety of areas. In the existing literature, most of the studies focused on the behaviour of SMA when used in critical regions of the smart buildings/bridges designed to withstand severe earthquakes without collapse and also its various applications in retrofitting works. However, despite having high ductility, their uses as construction joints and shear connectors in composite bridges are still unexplored in the research domain. This article presents to gain a broad outlook on whether SMAs can be partially used as shear connectors in composite bridges. In this regard, existing papers on the characteristics of shear connectors in the composite bridges will be discussed thoroughly and matched with the fundamental characteristics and properties of SMA. Since due to the high strength, stiffness, and ductility phenomena of SMAs, it is expected to be a good material for the shear connectors in composite bridges, and the collected evidence encourages the prior scrutiny of its partial use in the composite constructions. Based on the comprehensive review, important and necessary conclusions will be affirmed, and further emergence of research direction on the use of SMA will be discussed. This opens the window of new possibilities of using smart materials to enhance the performance of bridges even more in the near future.

Keywords: composite bridges, ductility, pseudoelasticity, shape memory alloy, shear connectors

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Authors: Saeed Haghnia

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This paper traces the back history of environments in which the elderly who could not stay in private dwellings were accommodated and taken care of in Iran in the 19th century. It investigates the factors impacting on the establishment of the first nursing homes in Iran in 1973. Today in 2020, the nursing home is the only available model of residential care environment for the elderly who cannot stay in private dwellings in Iran. Understanding the evolution of these environments from a socio-political perspective is crucial before studying nursing homes’ response to the elderly and society in Iran and seeking any alternative model specific to the context. However, no study on the evolution of these environments in Iran was found. Thus, this paper, by going through primary and secondary resources and from a socio-political perspective, investigates how the elderly who could not stay in private dwellings were accommodated and taken care of in Iran in the 19th century. Maristan, in the early 19th century in Egypt as a part of Islamic territory, is an example of such spaces in which homeless elderly were kept and taken care of. This study suggests that in the 19th century in Iran in lack of significant governmental influence over people’s social affairs, any potential environments accommodating and taking care of the elderly who could not stay in private dwellings (mainly homeless) in Iran were probably regulated or supported by local figures, specifically clergies, as a response to the need for taking care of the vulnerable members of society.

Keywords: nursing home, ageing, Iran, middle east, Qajar, Pahlavi

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Authors: Stephen Hernandez, Nikita Sharma

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The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged as a worldwide pandemic at the beginning of 2020. The pandemic and its impact reached the shores of the United States by the second week of March. Once infections started to grow in numbers, early intervention programs, including those providing home-based services, recognized that to reduce the spread of the virus, many traditional in-person therapeutic interventions were going to be impossible due to social distancing and self-quarantine requirements. Initially, infants, toddlers, and their families were left without any services from their educators and therapists, but within a few weeks of the public health emergency, various states, including New York, approved the use of teletherapy/virtual visits for early intervention service provision. This paper will detail the results of a survey from over 400 E.I. service providers about their experiences utilizing teletherapy to deliver services to children in early intervention programs. The survey questions focused on how did COVID-19 stay-at-home orders impact E.I. services for young children with special needs? Sub-questions included topics such as availability of the parents, the amount of time that babies remained engaged, as well as the perceived success of teletherapy as a viable option to provide service by both parent and professional. The results of this study found that therapists found teletherapy to be a viable manner of providing services and could be very effective on a case by case basis.

Keywords: early intervention, teletheraphy, telehealth, COVID-19

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Authors: Robert Joseph M. Licup

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The deployment of the fifth-generation (5G) mobile system through mmWave frequencies is the new solution in the requirement to provide higher bandwidth readily available for all users. The usage pattern of the mobile users has moved towards either the work from home or online classes set-up because of the pandemic. Previous mobile technologies can no longer meet the high speed, and bandwidth requirement needed, given the drastic shift of transactions to the home. The millimeter-wave (mmWave) underutilized frequency is utilized by the fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks that support multi-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) transmission. However, due to its short wavelengths, high path loss, directivity, blockage sensitivity, and narrow beamwidth are some of the technical challenges that need to be addressed. Different tools, technologies, and scenarios are explored to support network design, accurate channel modeling, implementation, and deployment effectively. However, there is a big challenge on how the consumer will adopt this solution and maximize the benefits offered by the 5G Technology. This research proposes to study the intricacies of technology diffusion, individual attitude, behaviors, and how technology adoption will be attained. The agent based simulation model shaped by the actual applications, technology solution, and related literature was used to arrive at a computational model. The research examines the different attributes, factors, and intricacies that can affect each identified agent towards technology adoption.

Keywords: agent-based model, AnyLogic, 5G O21, 5G mmWave solutions, technology adoption

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Authors: Branimir Skoric

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Over the past two decades, number of international travels rose significantly in the United Kingdom and Worldwide in the shape of business travels and holiday travels as well. The fact that elderly people travel a lot, more than ever before increased the needs for medical evacuations (repatriations) back home if they fell ill abroad or had any kind of accident. This paper concerns medical evacuations of patients on the way back home to the United Kingdom (United Kingdom Residents) and their specific medical needs during short-haul or long-haul commercial scheduled flight and ground transportation to the final destination regardless whether it was hospital or usual place of residence. Particular medical need during medical evacuations is oxygen supply and it can be supplied via portable oxygen concentrator, pulse flow oxygenator or continuous free flow oxygenator depending on the main diagnosis and patient’s comorbidities. In this retrospective study, patients were divided into two groups. One group was consisted of patients suffering from cardio-respiratory diagnoses as primary illness. Another Group consisted of patients suffering from noncardiac illnesses who have other problems including any kind of physical injury. Needs for oxygen and type of supply were carefully considered in regards of duration of the flight, standard airline cabin pressure and results described in this retrospective study.

Keywords: commercial flight, elderly travellers, medical evacuations, oxygen

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Authors: Kaiyi Zhang, Wenlong Li, Haicheng Li, Yifei Luo, Zheng Li, Xiaoshi Wang, Xiaodong Chen

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Plant wearable sensors facilitate the real-time monitoring of plant physiological status. In situ monitoring of the plant chlorophyll content over days could provide valuable information on the photosynthetic capacity, nitrogen content, and general plant health. However, it cannot be achieved by current chlorophyll measuring methods. Here, a miniaturized and plant-wearable chlorophyll meter was developed for rapid, non-destructive, in situ, and long-term chlorophyll monitoring. This reflectance-based chlorophyll sensor with 1.5 mm thickness and 0.2 g weight (1000 times lighter than the commercial chlorophyll meter), includes a light emitting diode (LED) and two symmetric photodetectors (PDs) on a flexible substrate and is patched onto the leaf upper epidermis with a conformal light guiding layer. A chlorophyll content index (CCI) calculated based on this sensor shows a better linear relationship with the leaf chlorophyll content (r² > 0.9) than the traditional chlorophyll meter. This meter can wirelessly communicate with a smartphone to monitor the leaf chlorophyll change under various stresses and indicate the unhealthy status of plants for long-term application of plants under various stresses earlier than chlorophyll meter and naked-eye observation. This wearable chlorophyll sensing patch is promising in smart and precision agriculture.

Keywords: plant wearable sensors, reflectance-based measurements, chlorophyll content monitoring, smart agriculture

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Authors: Hussien Ali, Mesfin Menza, Fitsum Hagos, Amare Haileslassie

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Climate change has perverse effects on agricultural productivity and natural resource base, negatively affecting the well-being of the households and communities. The government and NGOs promote climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices to help farmers adapt to and mitigate the negative effects of climate change. This study aims to identify widely available CSA practices and examine their impacts on food security and multi-dimensional poverty of rural farm households in the Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia. Using three-stage proportional to size sampling procedure, the study randomly selected 278 households from two kebeles from four districts each. A cross-sectional data of 2020/21 cropping season was collected using structured and pretested survey questionnaire. Food consumption score, dietary diversity score, food insecurity experience scale, and multidimensional poverty index were calculated to measure households’ welfare indicators. Multinomial endogenous switching regression model was used to assess average treatment effects of CSA on these outcome indicators on adopter and non-adopter households. The results indicate that the widely adopted CSA practices in the area are conservation agriculture, soil fertility management, crop diversification, and small-scale irrigation. Adopter households have, on average, statistically higher food consumption score, dietary diversity score and lower food insecurity access scale than non-adopters. Moreover, adopter households, on average, have lower deprivation score in multidimensional poverty compared to non-adopter households. Up scaling the adoption of CSA practices through the improvement of households’ implementation capacity and better information, technical advice, and innovative financing mechanisms is advised. Up scaling CSA practices can further promote achieving global goals such as SDG 1, SDG 2, and SDG 13 targets, aimed to end poverty and hunger and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change, respectively.

Keywords: climate-smart agriculture, food security, multidimensional poverty, upscaling CSA, Ethiopia

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Authors: Lisa Naudine Parrock, Geoffrey Lautenbach

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The changes brought to society by the technological development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution are also reaching the sphere of education and the education system needs to respond. Students need skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking in order to be successful in the 21st Century, which could be developed through the meaningful use of technology. This study is theorized by the 21st Century Framework for Learning and examines the student perceptions of grade 10 and 11 English Home language learners on how the technology used in their English classroom contributes to the development of 21st Century skills. The researcher adopted a constructivist paradigm and presented findings based on a general qualitative method. The study found that students perceived the use of technology in the classroom positively contributed to their development of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Students also perceived technology as contributing to their access to information, a positive classroom atmosphere, heightened engagement in learning and developing skills necessary for their future. In addition, this study highlighted certain pedagogical strategies and digital tools that support the development of 21st Century skills. The findings suggest that the meaningful integration of technology fosters the development of 21st Century skills in grade 10 and 11 learners.

Keywords: educational technology, 21st century skills, fourth industrial revolution, affordances of technology

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Authors: Yun-Chung Yu, Yan-Wen Wang, Min-Sheng Liao, Joe-Air Jiang, Yuen-Chung Lee

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This paper proposes to use a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) for a smart pest monitoring system which aims at the oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) to improve the communication efficiency of the system. The oriental fruit fly is one of the main pests in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. Different smart pest monitoring systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture have been developed to solve problems of employing manual measurement. These systems often use Octopus II, a communication module following the 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee specification, as sensor nodes. The Octopus II is commonly used in low-power and short-distance communication. However, the energy consumption increase as the logical topology becomes more complicate to have enough coverage in the large area. By comparison, LoRaWAN follows the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) specification, which targets the key requirements of the IoT technology, such as secure bi-directional communication, mobility, and localization services. The LoRaWAN network has advantages of long range communication, high stability, and low energy consumption. The 433MHz LoRaWAN model has two superiorities over the 2.4GHz ZigBee model: greater diffraction and less interference. In this paper, The Octopus II module is replaced by a LoRa model to increase the coverage of the monitoring system, improve the communication performance, and prolong the network lifetime. The performance of the LoRa-based system is compared with a ZigBee-based system using three indexes: the packet receiving rate, delay time, and energy consumption, and the experiments are done in different settings (e.g. distances and environmental conditions). In the distance experiment, a pest monitoring system using the two communication specifications is deployed in an area with various obstacles, such as buildings and living creatures, and the performance of employing the two communication specifications is examined. The experiment results show that the packet receiving the rate of the LoRa-based system is 96% , which is much higher than that of the ZigBee system when the distance between any two modules is about 500m. These results indicate the capability of a LoRaWAN-based monitoring system in long range transmission and ensure the stability of the system.

Keywords: LoRaWan, oriental fruit fly, IoT, Octopus II

Procedia PDF Downloads 355

Authors: Tanveer Hussain, Khan Muhammad, Amin Ullah, Mi Young Lee, Sung Wook Baik

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The Big Data generated from distributed vision sensors installed on large scale in smart cities create hurdles in its efficient and beneficial exploration for browsing, retrieval, and indexing. This paper presents a three-folded framework for effective video summarization of such data and provide a compact and representative format of Big Video Data. In the first fold, the paper acquires input video data from the installed cameras and collect clues such as type and count of objects and clarity of the view from a chunk of pre-defined number of frames of each view. The decision of representative view selection for a particular interval is based on fuzzy inference system, acquiring a precise and human resembling decision, reinforced by the known clues as a part of the second fold. In the third fold, the paper forwards the selected view frames to the summary generation mechanism that is supported by a saliency-aware convolution neural network (CNN) model. The new trend of fuzzy rules for view selection followed by CNN architecture for saliency computation makes the multi-view video summarization (MVS) framework a suitable candidate for real-world practice in smart cities.

Keywords: big video data analysis, fuzzy logic, multi-view video summarization, saliency detection

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Authors: Noor Hayati Binti Ismail, Mastor Bin Surat, Raja Nafida Binti Raja Shahminan, Shahrul Kamil Bin Yunus

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This study is to look the changes, development and evolution taking place in the Minangkabau house. Minangkabau traditional house is a part of the assets of Indonesia's culture and history. In addition to custom house, traditional Minangkabau building also serves as a place to live within the context of human habitats but has slowly through the changes. Luhak Nan Tigo of Luhak Tanah Datar, Agam And Luhak 50 Kota are holding the Minangkabau. ‘Induk’ house is the sole home, Main house or an older home for a gathering place doing activities together. The 'Genius Loci' refers to the unique aspects of the history, the value of a place, culturally and socially. Main house has the aspect of Minangkabau is a house occupied by custom rules that practice matrilineal kinship system and tendency to move out from the community. The study involves several villages and traditional houses at Padang, Bukit Tinggi, Kampar Kiri in Indonesia and Rembau, kuala Pilah, tampin in Negeri Sembilan has been selected to serve as a research field. These factors were the occurrence of evolution Minangkabau house from the ‘induk’, kampar and Negeri Sembilan. In this regard, the identity and uniqueness of the house increasingly difficult to sustain as well as lack of clarity can be understood by the people of the present generation.

Keywords: evolution, Genius loci, ‘Induk’ house, matrilineal kinship

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Authors: Leonardo Coloma

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The world changes constantly, every second its properties vary due either natural factors or human intervention. As the most intelligent creatures on the planet, human beings have transformed the environment and paradoxically –have allowed ‘mother nature’ to lose species, accelerate the processes of climate change, the deterioration of the ozone layer, among others. The rapid population growth, the procurement, administration and distribution of resources, waste management, and technological advances are some of the factors that boost urban sprawl whose gray stain extends over the territory, facing challenges such as pollution, overpopulation and scarcity of resources. In Ecuador, these problems are added to the social, cultural, economic and political anomalies that have historically affected it. This fact can represent a greater delay when trying to solve global problems, without having paid attention to local inconveniences –smaller ones, but ones that could be the key to project smart solutions on bigger ones. This research aims to highlight the main characteristics of the development models adopted by two Amazonian cities, and analyze the impact of such urban growth on society; to finally define the parameters that would allow the development of an intelligent city in Ecuador, prepared for the challenges of the XXI Century. Contrasts in the climate, temperature, and landscape of Ecuadorian cities are fused with the cultural diversity of its people, generating a multiplicity of nuances of an indecipherable wealth. However, we strive to apply development models that do not recognize that wealth, not understanding them and ignoring that their proposals will vary according to where they are applied. Urban plans seem to take a bit of each of the new theories and proposals of development, which, in the encounter with the informal growth of cities, with those excluded and ‘isolated’ societies, generate absurd morphologies - where the uncertain becomes tangible. The desire to project smart cities is ever growing, but it is important to consider that this concept does not only have to do with the use of information and communication technologies. Its success is achieved when advances in science and technology allow the establishment of a better relationship between people and their context (natural and built). As a research methodology, urban analysis through mappings, diagrams and geographical studies, as well as the identification of sensorial elements when living the city, will make evident the shortcomings of the urban models adopted by certain populations of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Following the vision of previous investigations started since 2014 as part of ‘Centro de Acciones Urbanas,’ the results of this study will encourage the dialogue between the city (as a physical fact) and those who ‘make the city’ (people as its main actors). This research will allow the development of workshops and meetings with different professionals, organizations and individuals in general.

Keywords: Latin American cities, smart cities, urban development, urban morphology, urban sprawl

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Authors: Tuğçe Arslan

Abstract:

In the dark and gloomy times of the Middle Ages, high, majestic, and frightening structures were revealed in the architectural field. Thus, gothic architecture began to find a place for itself in different areas and spread its influence. Gothic has found its place in almost every literary genre and manages to show itself as the dominant genre in the works it enters. It has exploited many concepts, such as a chest full of bad feelings, and creates a gloomy, scary, frightening, and pessimistic mood in the story with these concepts. One of the essential concepts it uses while creating these feelings is the concept of “Doppelganger.” With this concept, the authors make sense of the uncanny; at this point, they allow the spaces to act like characters, just like the uncanny feeling Edgar Allan Poe creates in his story “The Fall of the House of the Usher.” In this story by Edgar Allan Poe, attention should be paid to the symbolic link between the two, as “House of Usher” refers to the family and the building. And indeed, it is possible to see this minor rift as representative of a breakdown in family unity, specifically between Madeline and Roderick. Because although the home is not alive, it has some supernatural features that make it look like a living, breathing being. Therefore, the remainder of this paper will argue that apart from the apparent twins, the house should also qualify as a Doppelganger in the story. This study will first explore the physical and mental disorders of the twins and their journey to complement each other; next, in an attempt to demonstrate how the house as a non-living needs to be considered as a Doppelganger of the twins, a close reading on the house depictions will be scrutinized.

Keywords: Edgar Allan Poe, doppelganger, uncanny, gothic, space, home

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Authors: Wen Li, Zhengyu Bai, Qi Zhang

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The demand for smart scheduling platform in agriculture, particularly in the scheduling process of machinery equipment, is high. With the continuous development of agricultural machinery equipment technology, a large number of agricultural machinery equipment and agricultural machinery cooperative service organizations continue to appear in China. The large area of cultivated land and a large number of agricultural activities in the central and western regions of China have made the demand for smart and efficient agricultural machinery equipment scheduling platforms more intense. In this study, we design and implement a platform for agricultural machinery equipment scheduling to allocate agricultural machinery equipment resources reasonably. With agricultural machinery equipment scheduling platform taken as the research object, we discuss its research significance and value, use the service blueprint technology to analyze and characterize the agricultural machinery equipment schedule workflow, the network analytic method to obtain the demand platform function requirements, and divide the platform functions through the platform function division diagram. Simultaneously, based on the case-based reasoning (CBR) algorithm, the equipment scheduling module of the agricultural machinery equipment scheduling platform is realized; finally, a design scheme of the agricultural machinery equipment scheduling platform architecture is provided, and the visualization interface of the platform is established via VB programming language. It provides design ideas and theoretical support for the construction of a modern agricultural equipment information scheduling platform.

Keywords: case-based reasoning, service blueprint, system design, ANP, VB programming language

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Authors: Hamed Khani Arani, Mohammad Shariyat, Armaghan Mohammadian

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In this research, the free vibration of a rectangular sandwich nano-plate (SNP) made of three smart layers in the visco Pasternak foundation is studied. The core of the sandwich is a piezo magnetic nano-plate integrated with two layers of piezoelectric materials. First-order shear deformation plate theory is utilized to derive the motion equations by using Hamilton’s principle, piezoelectricity, and modified couple stress theory. Elastic medium is modeled by visco Pasternak foundation, where the damping coefficient effect is investigated on the stability of sandwich nano-plate. These equations are solved by the differential quadrature method (DQM), considering different boundary conditions. Results indicate the effect of various parameters such as aspect ratio, thickness ratio, shear correction factor, damping coefficient, and boundary conditions on the dimensionless frequency of sandwich nano-plate. The results are also compared by those available in the literature, and these findings can be used for automotive industry, communications equipment, active noise, stability, and vibration cancellation systems and utilized for designing the magnetostrictive actuator, motor, transducer and sensors in nano and micro smart structures.

Keywords: free vibration, modified couple stress theory, sandwich nano-plate, visco Pasternak foundation

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: U. Schmidt, D. Dannehl, I. Schuch, J. Suhl, T. Rocksch, R. Salazar-Moreno, E. Fitz-Rodrigues, A. Rojano Aquilar, I. Lopez Cruz, G. Navas Gomez, R. A. Abraham, L. C. Irineo, N. G. Gilberto

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The integration of agricultural production systems into urban areas is a challenge for the coming decades. Because of increasing greenhouse gas emission and rising resource consumption as well as costs in animal husbandry, the dietary habits of people in the 21st century have to focus on herbal foods. Intensive plant cultivation systems in large cities and megacities require a smart coupling of information, material and energy flow with the urban infrastructure in terms of Horticulture 4.0. In recent years, many puzzle pieces have been developed for these closed processes at the Humboldt University. To compile these for an urban plant production, it has to be optimized and networked with urban infrastructure systems. In the field of heat energy production, it was shown that with closed greenhouse technology and patented heat exchange and storage technology energy can be provided for heating and domestic hot water supply in the city. Closed water circuits can be drastically reducing the water requirements of plant production in urban areas. Ion sensitive sensors and new disinfection methods can help keep circulating nutrient solutions in the system for a longer time in urban plant production greenhouses.

Keywords: semi closed, greenhouses, urban farming, solar heat collector, closed water cycles, aquaponics

Procedia PDF Downloads 332