Search results for: aerial survey

Authors: Kübra Taşkıran, Bahattin Türetken

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In this paper, a microstrip array antenna with circular polarization at 2.4 GHz frequency has been designed using the in order to provide image and telemetric data transmission in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems. In addition to the antenna design, the power divider design was made and the antennas were fed in phase. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the antenna operates at a frequency of 2.4016 GHz with 12.2 dBi directing gain. In addition, this designed array antenna was transformed into a form compatible with the rocket surface used in A-UAV Systems, and analyzes were made. As a result of these analyzes, it has been observed that the antenna operates on the surface of the missile at a frequency of 2.372 GHz with a directivity gain of 10.2 dBi.

Keywords: cicrostrip array antenna, circular polarization, 2.4 GHz, image and telemetric data, transmission, surface compatible, UAV and armed UAV

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Authors: Khojesta Kawish, Tetsuya Ando, Sayed Abdul Basir Samimi

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Bagh-e Dasht area is situated in the northern part of Herat, an old city in western Afghanistan located on the Silk Road which has received a strong influence from Persian culture. Initially, the Bagh-e Dasht area was developed for gardens and palaces near Joy-e Injil canal during the Timurid Empire in the 15^th century. It is assumed Bagh-e Dasht became a settlement in the 16^th century during the Safavid Empire. The oldest area is the southern part around the canal bank which is characterized by Dalans, sun-dried brick arcades above which houses are often constructed. Traditional houses in this area are built with domical vault roofs constructed with sun-dried bricks. Bagh-e Dasht is one of the best-preserved settlements of traditional houses in Herat. This study examines the transformation of the Bagh-e Dasht area with a focus on Dalans, where traditional houses with domical vault roofs have been well-preserved until today. The aim of the study is to examine the extent of physical changes to the area as well as changes to houses and the community. This research paper contains original results which have previously not been published in architectural history. The roof types of houses in the area are investigated through examining high resolution satellite images. The boundary of each building and space is determined by both a field survey and aerial photographs of the study area. A comprehensive field survey was then conducted to examine each space and building in the area. In addition, a questionnaire was distributed to the residents of the Dalan houses and interviews were conducted with the Wakil (Chief) of the area, a local historian, residents and traditional builders. The study finds that the oldest part of Bagh-e Dasht area, the south, contains both Dalans and domical vault roof houses. The next oldest part, which is the north, only has domical vault roof houses. The rest of the area only has houses with modernized flat roofs. This observation provides an insight into the process of historical development in the Bagh-e Dasht area.

Keywords: Afghanistan, Bagh-e Dasht, Dalan, domical vault, Herat, over path house, traditional house

Procedia PDF Downloads 112

Authors: Ebrahim H. Kapeel, Ehab Safwat, Hossam Hendy, Ahmed M. Kamel, Yehia Z. Elhalwagy

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Motivated by the problem of the availability of high-fidelity flight simulation models for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This paper focuses on the geometric-mass inertia modeling and the actuation system modeling for the small fixed-wing UAVs. The UAV geometric parameters for the body, wing, horizontal and vertical tail are physically measured. Pendulum experiment with high-grade sensors and data analysis using MATLAB is used to estimate the airplane moment of inertia (MOI) model. Finally, UAV’s actuation system is modeled by estimating each servo transfer function by using the system identification, which uses experimental measurement for input and output angles through using field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Experimental results for the designed models are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the methodology. It also gives a very promising result to finalize the open-loop flight simulation model through modeling the propulsion system and the aerodynamic system.

Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicle, geometric-mass inertia model, system identification, Simulink

Procedia PDF Downloads 157

Authors: Ebasa Girma, Nathnael Minyelshowa, Lebsework Negash

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The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in precision agriculture has seen a huge increase recently. As such, systems that aim to apply various algorithms on the field need a structured framework of abstractions. This paper defines the various tasks of the UAVs in precision agriculture and models them into an architectural framework. The presented architecture is built on the context that there will be minimal physical intervention to do the tasks defined with multiple coordinated and cooperative UAVs. Various tasks such as image processing, path planning, communication, data acquisition, and field mapping are employed in the architecture to provide an efficient system. Besides, different limitation for applying Multi-UAVs in precision agriculture has been considered in designing the architecture. The architecture provides an autonomous end-to-end solution, starting from mission planning, data acquisition, and image processing framework that is highly efficient and can enable farmers to comprehensively deploy UAVs onto their lands. Simulation and field tests show that the architecture offers a number of advantages that include fault-tolerance, robustness, developer, and user-friendliness.

Keywords: deep learning, multi-UAVs, precision agriculture, UAVs architecture

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Authors: Eva Tsouparopoulou, Maria Symeonaki

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The internationally documented declining survey response rates of the last two decades are mainly attributed to refusals. In fieldwork, a refusal may be obtained not only from the respondent himself/herself, but from other sources on the respondent’s behalf, such as other household members, apartment building residents or administrator(s), and neighborhood residents. In this paper, we investigate how the composition of the demographic profile of survey refusals changes when different classifications are implemented and the classification issues arising from that. The analysis is based on the 2002-2018 European Social Survey (ESS) datasets for Belgium, Germany, and United Kingdom. For these three countries, the size of selected sample units coded as a type of refusal for all nine under investigation rounds was large enough to meet the purposes of the analysis. The results indicate the existence of four different possible classifications that can be implemented and the significance of choosing the one that strengthens the contrasts of the different types of respondents' demographic profiles. Since the foundation of social quantitative research lies in the triptych of definition, classification, and measurement, this study aims to identify the multiplicity of the definition of survey refusals as a methodological tool for the continually growing research on non-response.

Keywords: non-response, refusals, European social survey, classification

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Authors: Angelo Lerro, Manuela Battipede, Piero Gili, Alberto Brandl

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Redundancy requirements for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are hardly faced due to the generally restricted amount of available space and allowable weight for the aircraft systems, limiting their exploitation. Essential equipment as the Air Data, Attitude and Heading Reference Systems (ADAHRS) require several external probes to measure significant data as the Angle of Attack or the Sideslip Angle. Previous research focused on the analysis of a patented technology named Smart-ADAHRS (Smart Air Data, Attitude and Heading Reference System) as an alternative method to obtain reliable and accurate estimates of the aerodynamic angles. This solution is based on an innovative sensor fusion algorithm implementing soft computing techniques and it allows to obtain a simplified inertial and air data system reducing external devices. In fact, only one external source of dynamic and static pressures is needed. This paper focuses on the benefits which would be gained by the implementation of this system in UAV applications. A simplification of the entire ADAHRS architecture will bring to reduce the overall cost together with improved safety performance. Smart-ADAHRS has currently reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6. Real flight tests took place on ultralight aircraft equipped with a suitable Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI). The output of the algorithm using the flight test measurements demonstrates the capability for this fusion algorithm to embed in a single device multiple physical and virtual sensors. Any source of dynamic and static pressure can be integrated with this system gaining a significant improvement in terms of versatility.

Keywords: aerodynamic angles, air data system, flight test, neural network, unmanned aerial vehicle, virtual sensor

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Authors: Wu Defu, Kiefer Chiam, Yang Kin Seng

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The planning of geological survey works is an iterative process which involves planner, geologist, civil engineer and other stakeholders, who perform different roles and have different points of view. Traditionally, the team used paper maps or CAD drawings to present the proposal which is not an efficient way to present and share idea on the site investigation proposal such as sitting of borehole location or seismic survey lines. This paper focuses on how a GIS approach can be utilised to develop a web-based system to support decision making process in the planning of geological survey works and also to plan site activities carried out by Singapore Geological Office (SGO). The authors design a framework of building an interactive web-based GIS system, and develop a prototype, which enables the users to obtain rapidly existing geological information and also to plan interactively borehole locations and seismic survey lines via a web browser. This prototype system is used daily by SGO and has shown to be effective in increasing efficiency and productivity as the time taken in the planning of geological survey works is shortened. The prototype system has been developed using the ESRI ArcGIS API 3.7 for Flex which is based on the ArcGIS 10.2.1 platform.

Keywords: engineering geology, flex, geological survey planning, geoscience, GIS, site investigation, WebGIS

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Authors: Mohammad Narimani, Zahra Rostamoghli

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The main objective of this study is the survey of rate and causes of literacy preservation in adult newly learners. Statistical sample consists of 384 adults who are newly learners of literacy, at 2002, who were selected by stratified sampling method. This is a correlation cross-sectional survey research, in which authors-constructed measures were used for data collection. Results of survey showed that learners' literacy preservation rate after two years was 70%, 61% and 57%, in reading, dictation and mathematic tests, respectively.Following can be noted as factors correlated with literacy preservation; repetition of subjects and learners' subjective review, access to and using the library and publications, feeling of need to and interest in educated matters, socio cultural class of learners, and literacy level of learners' family.

Keywords: literacy preservation, new learner, literacy improvement movement, mathematic test

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Authors: Soheib Fergani

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This paper concerns with the formal asymptotic stability guarantees, analysis and evaluation of a nonlinear controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (uav) for trajectory tracking purpose. As the system has been recognised as an under-actuated non linear system, the control strategy has been oriented towards a hierarchical control. The dynamics of the system and the mission purpose make it mandatory to provide an absolute proof of the vehicle stability during the maneuvers. For this sake, this work establishes the complete theoretical proof for an implementable control oriented strategy that asymptotically stabilizes (GAS and LISS) the system and has never been provided in previous works. The considered model is reorganized into two partly decoupled sub-systems. The concidered control strategy is presented into two stages: the first sub-system is controlled by a nonlinear backstepping controller that generates the desired control inputs to stabilize the second sub-system. This methodology is then applied to a harware in the loop uav simulator (SiMoDrones) that reproduces the realistic behaviour of the uav in an indoor environment has been performed to show the efficiency of the proposed strategy.

Keywords: UAV application, trajectory tracking, backstepping, sliding mode control, input to state stability, stability evaluation

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Authors: Sunglim Lee, Susumu Fujii, Koji Okamura

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Smart grid is a new approach for electric power grid that uses information and communications technology to control the electric power grid. Smart grid provides real-time control of the electric power grid, controlling the direction of power flow or time of the flow. Control devices are installed on the power lines of the electric power grid to implement smart grid. The number of the control devices should be determined, in relation with the area one control device covers and the cost associated with the control devices. One approach to determine the number of the control devices is to use the data on the surplus power generated by home solar generators. In current implementations, the surplus power is sent all the way to the power plant, which may cause power loss. To reduce the power loss, the surplus power may be sent to a control device and sent to where the power is needed from the control device. Under assumption that the control devices are installed on a lattice of equal size squares, our goal is to figure out the optimal spacing between the control devices, where the power sharing area (the area covered by one control device) is kept small to avoid power loss, and at the same time the power sharing area is big enough to have no surplus power wasted. To achieve this goal, a simulation using landscape ecology method is conducted on a sample area. First an aerial photograph of the land of interest is turned into a mosaic map where each area is colored according to the ratio of the amount of power production to the amount of power consumption in the area. The amount of power consumption is estimated according to the characteristics of the buildings in the area. The power production is calculated by the sum of the area of the roofs shown in the aerial photograph and assuming that solar panels are installed on all the roofs. The mosaic map is colored in three colors, each color representing producer, consumer, and neither. We started with a mosaic map with 100 m grid size, and the grid size is grown until there is no red grid. One control device is installed on each grid, so that the grid is the area which the control device covers. As the result of this simulation we got 350 m as the optimal spacing between the control devices that makes effective use of the surplus power for the sample area.

Keywords: landscape ecology, IT, smart grid, aerial photograph, simulation

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Authors: Julio Manuel De Luis Ruiz, Javier Sedano Cibrián, RubéN Pérez Álvarez, Raúl Pereda García, Felipe Piña García

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Nowadays it is common to resort to aerial photography to carry out the prospection and/or exploration of archaeological sites. In this sense, the classic 3D models are being applied to investigate the direction towards which the generally subterranean structures of an archaeological site may continue and therefore, to help in making the decisions that define the location of new excavations. In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been applied as the vehicles that carry the sensor. This implies certain advantages, such as the possibility of including low-cost sensors, given that these vehicles can carry the sensor at relatively low altitudes. Due to this, low-cost dual sensors have recently begun to be used. This new equipment can collaborate with classic Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) in the exploration of archaeological sites, but this entails the need for a methodological setting to optimise the acquisition, processing and exploitation of the information provided by low-cost dual sensors. This research focuses on the design of an appropriate workflow to obtain 3D models with low-cost sensors carried on UAVs, both in the RGB and thermal domains. All the foregoing has been applied to the archaeological site of Juliobriga, located in Cantabria (Spain).

Keywords: process optimization, RGB models, thermal models, , UAV, workflow

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Authors: Rufai Yakubu And Suleiman Kabiru

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Triterpenoids are a diverse class of secondary metabolites with potential antimicrobial properties. In this study, the crude extracts from ethyl acetate was obtained with ultrasonic extraction method. Using a combined chromatographic separation method to isolate squalene (1) stigmasterol (2), stigmasta-5,22-diene-3-ol acetate (3), γ-sitosterol (4), lupeol (5), taraxasterol (6), and betulinic acid (7) from ethyl acetate extracts. Ethyl acetate crude extracts and isolated compounds were both screened for antimicrobial activity and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). For ethyl acetate crude extracts with concentrations of (1.5, 0.75, 0.35, & 0.168 mg/mL) indicated marginal antibacterial activity with a range of 17, 20 and 14 mm zone of inhibition for Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans and lower minimum inhibitory concentrations ranges from 18.75 µg/ml to 150 µg/mL. Butulinic acid showed the highest activity against E. coli and C. albicans at 15 mm and 15 mm followed by Lupeol against S. aureus, E. coli and C. albicans at 13, 12, 12 mm. Moreso, no antimicrobial activity for both S. aureus and C. albicans with squalene except for E. coli which showed activity at 11 mm with 300 µg/mL (MIC). Thus, abundant triterpenoids in Deinbollia pinnata will be another centered area for antimicrobial drug discovery.

Keywords: triterpenoid, antimicrobial potentials, deinbollia pinnata, aerial parts

Procedia PDF Downloads 46

Authors: Z. Wochyński, K. A. Sobiech, Z. Kobos

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To C-Reactive Proteins include ferritin, transferrin, and ceruloplasmin- metalloproteins. The study aimed at assessing an effect of training on the Special Aerial Gymnastics Instruments (SAGI) on changes of serum ferritin, transferrin, and ceruloplasmin and cadets’ physical fitness in comparison with a control group. Fifty-five cadets in the mean age 20 years were included into this study. They were divided into two groups: Group A (N=41) trained on SAGI and Group B (N=14) trained according the standard program of physical education (control group). In both groups, blood was a material for assays. Samples were collected twice before and after training at the start of the program (training I), during (training II), and after education program completion (training III). Commercially available kits were used to assay blood serum ferritin, transferrin, and ceruloplasmin. Cadets’ physical fitness was evaluated with exercise tests before and after education program completion. In Group A, serum post-exercise ferritin decreased statistically insignificantly in training I and II and increased in training III in comparison with pre-exercise values. In Group B, post-exercise serum ferritin decreased statistically insignificantly in training I and III and significantly increased in training II in comparison with the pre-exercise values. In Group A, serum transferrin decreased statistically insignificantly in training I, and significantly increased in training II, whereas in training III it increased insignificantly in comparison with pre-exercise values. In Group B, post-exercise serum transferrin increased statistically significantly in training I, II, and III in comparison with pre-exercise values. I n Group A, serum ceruloplasmin decreased in all three series in comparison with pre-exercise values. In Group B, serum ceruloplasmin increased significantly in training II. It was showed that the training on SAGI significantly decreased serum ceruloplasmin in Group A in all three series of assays and did not produce significant changes in serum ferritin also was showed significant increase in serum transferrin.

Keywords: special aerial gymnastics instruments, ferritin, ceruloplasmin, transferrin

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Authors: A. E. Elkorany, Eman Elsrgawy

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Eighty six isolates of Phytophthora infestans dating back to 2006 were recovered from potato tubers that were on sale in Alexandria markets, Egypt. The isolates were characterized for mating type and colony morphology. Both A1 and A2 mating types were detected in the isolate collection, however, the A2 constituted 5.8% of the total isolates made while the A1 mating type isolates constituted 91.9%. The self-fertile phenotype was also detected but at a lower percentage of 2.3% of the total isolates. This indicated that Mexico, the probable origin of the disease, is no longer the only place where A2 mating type ever exists. The lumpy phenotype was the only trait observed linked to the A2 mating type isolates on rye A agar medium. The self-fertile isolates, however, exhibited colonies of a waxy appearance with little aerial hyphae and the culture were backed full with oospores. The A1 mating colonies were of smooth white abundant aerial hyphae. The metalaxyl resistant isolates were also detected among the analyzed isolates and constituted 4.6% of the total (86) isolates investigated. The appearance of the A2 mating type outside Mexico and the variation revealed in the population of Phytophthora infestans investigated supported the hypothesis of a second worldwide migration of the fungus from its origin which could constitute a threat to potato cultivation around the world.

Keywords: Phytophthora infestans, potato, Egypt, fungus

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Authors: I. Mahmood

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This survey was conducted to explore the hypothesis that excessive screen exposure combined with a subsequent decrease in parent-child interaction during infancy might be associated with autism. The main questions being asked are: Were children with autism exposed to long hours of screen time during the first 2 years of life? And what was the reason(s) for exposure at such an early age? Other variables were also addressed in this survey. An Arabic questionnaire was administered online (June 2019) via a Facebook page, relatively well-known in Arab countries. 1725 parents of children diagnosed with autism participated in this survey. Results show that 80.9% of children surveyed who were diagnosed with autism had been exposed to screens for long periods of time during the first 2 years of life. It can be inferred from the results of this survey that over-exposure to screens disrupt the parent-child interaction which is shown to be associated with ASD. The results of this survey highlight the harmful effects of screen exposure during infancy and the importance of parent-child interaction during the critical period of brain development. This paper attempts to further explore the connection between parent-child interaction and ASD, as well as serve as a call for further research and investigation of the relation between screens and parent-child interactions during infancy and Autism.

Keywords: attachment disorder, autism, screen exposure, virtual autism

Procedia PDF Downloads 97

Authors: Yuling Cui, Danhao Deng, Chaowei Wang, Weidong Wang

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In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in wireless communication, attracting more and more attention from researchers. UAVs can not only serve as a relay for auxiliary communication but also serve as an aerial base station for ground users (GUs). However, limited energy means that they cannot work all the time and cover a limited range of services. In this paper, we investigate 2D UAV trajectory design and power allocation in order to maximize the UAV's service time and downlink throughput. Based on deep reinforcement learning, we propose a depth deterministic strategy gradient algorithm for trajectory design and power distribution (TDPA-DDPG) to solve the energy-efficient and communication service quality problem. The simulation results show that TDPA-DDPG can extend the service time of UAV as much as possible, improve the communication service quality, and realize the maximization of downlink throughput, which is significantly improved compared with existing methods.

Keywords: UAV trajectory design, power allocation, energy efficient, downlink throughput, deep reinforcement learning, DDPG

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Authors: M. Cizmesija, N. Erjavec, V. Bahovec

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While the European Union (EU) harmonized methodology is a benchmark of worldwide used business survey (BS) methodology, the choice of variables that are components of the confidence indicators, as the leading indicators, is not strictly determined and unique. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate and to quantify the relationship between all business survey variables in manufacturing industry and industrial production as a reference macroeconomic series in Croatia. The assumption is that there are variables in the business survey, that are not components of Industrial Confidence Indicator (ICI) and which can accurately (and sometimes better then ICI) predict changes in Croatian industrial production. Empirical analyses are conducted using quarterly data of BS variables in manufacturing industry and Croatian industrial production over the period from the first quarter 2005 to the first quarter 2013. Research results confirmed the assumption: three BS variables which is not components of ICI (competitive position, demand and liquidity) are the best leading indicator then ICI, in forecasting changes in Croatian industrial production instantaneously, with one, two or three quarter ahead.

Keywords: balance, business survey, confidence indicators, industrial production, forecasting

Procedia PDF Downloads 448

Authors: Y. Gholipour, E. Rezazadeh

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Delay is one of the most serious and common problems of construction project that can affect project delivery unfavorably. This research presents the most important causes of delay in large dam projects based on a survey on some executed dam construction in Iran. In this survey a randomly selected samples of owners, consultants and contractors have been involved. The outcome of this survey revealed that scheduled payments, site management, shop drawing review process, unforeseen ground conditions and contractor experience as the most important factors affecting on delay in dam construction projects.

Keywords: delay, dam construction, project management, Iran

Procedia PDF Downloads 417

Authors: Andrei Contan, Richard Torkar

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Aim: The process of test automation and its practices in industry have to be better understood, both for the industry itself and for the research community. Method: We conducted a quantitative industry survey by asking IT professionals to answer questions related to the area of test automation. Results: Test automation needs and practices vary greatly between organizations at different stages of the software development life cycle. Conclusions: Most of the findings are general test automation challenges and are specific to small- to medium-sized companies, developing software applications in the web, desktop or mobile domain.

Keywords: survey, testing, test automation, status of test automation

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Authors: Jeanne Phyre Lagare, Kirstin Rhys Pueblos

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This study was conducted to evaluate the possible anthelmintic activities of the decoction and the nonpolar constituents of the aerial part of Ruellia tuberosa Linn. against Eudrilus eugeniae or African Night Crawler earthworms as test organism which are of anatomic and physiological resemblance to the intestinal roundworm parasites of human beings. The in vitro anthelmintic assay of each extract was done by determining the time of paralysis and death of the test organisms at three concentrations (3, 25, 50 mg/mL). The hexane-soluble extract (RTH) showed better results compared to the decoction (RTD) at all concentrations employed. All the fractions of RTH showed significantly higher anthelmintic activities (111.43, 48.19, and 62.3 minutes, respectively) compared to their mother extract (164.56 minutes) at 3-mg/mL concentration. Moreover, RTH5 showed a comparable activity with the positive control mebendazole at 3-mg/mL concentration. Remarkably, fraction RTH4 exhibited the best anthelmintic activity at 3-mg/mL concentration for it showed the strongest anthelmintic activity than the rest of the test solutions tested. The study demonstrated the promising anthelmintic activity of the nonpolar constituent of the ethanolic extract of R. tuberosa Linn.

Keywords: anthelmintic activity, Eudrillus eugenia, mebendazole, Ruellia tuberosa Linn

Procedia PDF Downloads 177

Authors: Shimaa Holail, Tamer Saleh, Xiongwu Xiao

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Building change detection (BCD) from satellite imagery is an essential topic in urbanization monitoring, agricultural land management, and updating geospatial databases. Recently, methods for detecting changes based on deep learning have made significant progress and impressive results. However, it has the problem of being insensitive to changes in buildings with complex spectral differences, and the features being extracted are not discriminatory enough, resulting in incomplete buildings and irregular boundaries. To overcome these problems, we propose a dual Siamese network based on the Unet model with the addition of a deep supervision strategy (DS) in this paper. This network consists of a backbone (encoder) based on ImageNet pre-training, a fusion block, and feature pyramid networks (FPN) to enhance the step-by-step information of the changing regions and obtain a more accurate BCD map. To train the proposed method, we created a new dataset (EGY-BCD) of high-resolution and multi-temporal aerial images captured over New Cairo in Egypt to detect building changes for this purpose. The experimental results showed that the proposed method is effective and performs well with the EGY-BCD dataset regarding the overall accuracy, F1-score, and mIoU, which were 91.6 %, 80.1 %, and 73.5 %, respectively.

Keywords: building change detection, deep supervision, semantic segmentation, EGY-BCD dataset

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Authors: Lucas Barbosa Da Silva, Jun Okamoto Jr.

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Precision Agriculture has long being benefited from crop fields’ aerial imagery. This important tool has allowed identifying patterns in crop fields, generating useful information to the production management. Reflectance intensity data in different ranges from the electromagnetic spectrum may indicate presence or absence of nutrients in the soil of an area. Different relations between the different light bands may generate even more detailed information. The knowledge of the nutrients content in the soil or in the crop during its growth is a valuable asset to the farmer that seeks to optimize its yield. However, small farmers in Brazil often lack the resources to access this kind information, and, even when they do, it is not presented in a comprehensive and/or objective way. So, the challenges of implementing this technology ranges from the sampling of the imagery, using aerial platforms, building of a mosaic with the images to cover the entire crop field, extracting the reflectance information from it and analyzing its relationship with the parameters of interest, to the display of the results in a manner that the farmer may take the necessary decisions more objectively. In this work, it’s proposed an analysis of soil nutrient contents based on image processing of satellite imagery and comparing its outtakes with commercial laboratory’s chemical analysis. Also, sources of satellite imagery are compared, to assess the feasibility of using Google Earth data in this application, and the impacts of doing so, versus the application of imagery from satellites like Landsat-8 and Pleiades. Furthermore, an algorithm for building mosaics is implemented using Google Earth imagery and finally, the possibility of using unmanned aerial vehicles is analyzed. From the data obtained, some soil parameters are estimated, namely, the content of Potassium, Phosphorus, Boron, Manganese, among others. The suitability of Google Earth Imagery for this application is verified within a reasonable margin, when compared to Pleiades Satellite imagery and to the current commercial model. It is also verified that the mosaic construction method has little or no influence on the estimation results. Variability maps are created over the covered area and the impacts of the image resolution and sample time frame are discussed, allowing easy assessments of the results. The final results show that easy and cheaper remote sensing and analysis methods are possible and feasible alternatives for the small farmer, with little access to technological and/or financial resources, to make more accurate decisions about soil nutrient management.

Keywords: remote sensing, precision agriculture, mosaic, soil, nutrient content, satellite imagery, aerial imagery

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Authors: Yahia Massinissa, Yahia Mouloud

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Cystic fibrosis (CF), the most common lethal genetic disease in the Europe population, is caused by mutations in the transmembrane conductance regulator gene (CFTR). It affects most organs including an epithelial tissue, base of hydroelectrolytic transepithelial transport, notably that aerial ways, the pancreas, the biliary ways, the intestine, sweat glands and the genital tractus. The gene whose anomalies are responsible of the cystic fibrosis codes for a protein Cl channel named CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) that exercises multiple functions in the cell, one of the most important in control of sodium and chlorine through epithelia. The deficient function translates itself notably by an abnormal production of viscous secretion that obstructs the execrator channels of this target organ: one observes then a dilatation, an inflammation and an atrophy of these organs. It also translates itself by an increase of the concentration in sodium and in chloride in sweat, to the basis of the sweat test. In order to do a phenotypical and genotypical diagnosis at a part of the Algerian population, our survey has been carried on 16 patients with evocative symptoms of the cystic fibrosis at that the clinical context has been confirmed by a sweat test. However, anomalies of the CFTR gene have been determined by electrophoresis in gel of polyacrylamide of the PCR products (polymerase chain reaction), after enzymatic digestion, then visualized to the ultraviolet (UV) after action of the ethidium bromide. All mutations detected at the time of our survey have already been identified at patients attained by this pathology in other populations of the world. However, the important number of found mutation with regard to the one of the studied patients testifies that the origin of this big clinical variability that characterizes the illness in the consequences of an enormous diversity of molecular defects of the CFTR gene.

Keywords: cystic fibrosis, CFTR gene, polymorphism, algerian population, sweat test, genotypical diagnosis

Procedia PDF Downloads 278

Authors: Konstanca Nikolajevic, Nicolas Belanger, David Duvivier, Rabie Ben Atitallah, Abdelhakim Artiba

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Finding the optimal 3D path of an aerial vehicle under flight mechanics constraints is a major challenge, especially when the algorithm has to produce real-time results in flight. Kinematics models and Pythagorian Hodograph curves have been widely used in mobile robotics to solve this problematic. The level of difficulty is mainly driven by the number of constraints to be saturated at the same time while minimizing the total length of the path. In this paper, we suggest a pragmatic algorithm capable of saturating at the same time most of dimensioning helicopter 3D trajectories’ constraints like: curvature, curvature derivative, torsion, torsion derivative, climb angle, climb angle derivative, positions. The trajectories generation algorithm is able to generate versatile complex 3D motion primitives feasible by a helicopter with parameterization of the curvature and the climb angle. An upper ”motion primitives’ concatenation” algorithm is presented based. In this article we introduce a new way of designing three-dimensional trajectories based on what we call the ”Dubins gliding symmetry conjecture”. This extremely performing algorithm will be soon integrated to a real-time decisional system dealing with inflight safety issues.

Keywords: robotics, aerial robots, motion primitives, helicopter

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Authors: E. M. Condori-Peñaloza, S. S. Costa

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Eleusine indica L, known as goose-grass, is considered a troublesome weed that can cause important economic losses in the agriculture worldwide. However, this grass is used as a medicinal plant in some regions of Brazil to treat influenza and pneumonia. In Africa and Asia, it is used to treat malaria and as diuretic, anti-helminthic, among other uses. Despite its therapeutic potential, little is known about the chemical composition and bioactive compounds of E. indica. Hitherto, two major flavonoids, schaftoside and vitexin, were isolated from aerial part of the species and showed inhibitory activity on lung neutrophil influxes in mice, suggesting a beneficial effect on airway inflammation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the chemical profile of aqueous extracts from aerial parts of Eleusine indica specimens using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-DAD) and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), with emphasis on phenolic compounds. Specimens of E. indica were collected in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Aerial parts of fresh plants were extracted by decoction (10% p/v). After spontaneous precipitation of the aqueous extract at 10-12°C for 24 hours, the supernatant obtained was frozen and lyophilized. After that, 1 g of the extract was dissolved into 25 mL of water and fractionated on a reverse phase chromatography column (RP-2), eluted with a gradient of H2O/EtOH. Five fractions were obtained. The extract and fractions had their chemical profile analyzed by using HPLC-DAD (C-18 column: 20 μL, 256 -365 nm; gradient water 0.01% phosphoric acid/ acetonitrile. The extract was also analyzed by NMR (1H, 500 MHz, D2O) in order to access its global chemical composition. HPLC-DAD analyses of crude extract allowed the identification of ten phenolic compounds. Fraction 1, eluted with 100% water, was poor in phenolic compounds and no major peak was detected. In fraction 2, eluted with 100% water, it was possible to observe one major peak at retention time (RT) of 23.75 minutes compatible with flavonoid; fraction 3, also eluted with 100% water, showed four peaks at RT= 21.47, 23.52, 24.33 and 25.84 minutes, all of them compatible with flavonoid. In fraction 4, eluted with 50%/ethanol/50% water, it was possible to observe 3 peaks compatible with flavonoids at RT=24.65, 26.81, 27.49 minutes, and one peak (28.83 min) compatible with a phenolic acid derivative. Finally, in fraction 5, eluted with 100% ethanol, no phenolic substance was detected. The UV spectra of all flavonoids detected were compatible with the flavone subclass (λ= 320-345 nm). The 1H NMR spectra of aerial parts extract showed signals in three regions: δ 0.8-3.0 ppm (aliphatic compounds), δ 3.0-5.5 ppm corresponding to carbohydrates (signals most abundant and overlapped), and δ 6.0-8.5 ppm (aromatic compounds). Signals compatible with flavonoids (rings A and B) could also be detected in the crude extract spectra. These results suggest the presence of several flavonoids in E. indica, which reinforces their therapeutic potential. The pharmacological activities of Eleusine indica extracts and fractions will be further evaluated.

Keywords: flavonoids, HPLC, NMR, phenolic compounds

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Authors: Heba Aboul-Enein

Abstract:

The blessed Mecca (Makkah) has been attacked as a city without a pre-Islamic history. Many claims have been posited denying the historicity of this holy city, and mythicizing Arabic historical records. Hence, the current paper attempted to shed light on this controversial history of Makkah. To achieve the intended objective, the study recoursed to archaeological, historical, and linguistic evidence, to prove that the holy city existed since the dawn of human history. The data under study include the results of recent excavations; archaeological surveys in Saudi Arabia, academic works of archaeologists, newspaper reports of the latest archaeological discoveries, and the findings of Saudi explorers. In addition, the study examined ancient and contemporary references; western accounts of Makkah, the bible, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Arabic references, in an effort to reconcile these texts with the archeological findings. The paper also reviewed the latest results of aerial archeology of the region. The study proved based on archaeological finds, and contrary to fallacious claims, that Makkah is an ancient city that existed and was inhabited by humans in varied historical eras.

Keywords: aerial archaeology, archaeological finds in the Makkan region, archaeological surveys, Western, Jewish and Islamic accounts of Makkah

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Authors: Ilona Mewes, Helena Jenzer, Farshideh Einsele

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Objective: The objective of the study was to integrate two big databases from Swiss nutrition national survey (menuCH) and Swiss health national survey 2012 for data mining purposes. Each database has a demographic base data. An integrated Swiss database is built to later discover critical food consumption patterns linked with lifestyle diseases known to be strongly tied with food consumption. Design: Swiss nutrition national survey (menuCH) with approx. 2000 respondents from two different surveys, one by Phone and the other by questionnaire along with Swiss health national survey 2012 with 21500 respondents were pre-processed, cleaned and finally integrated to a unique relational database. Results: The result of this study is an integrated relational database from the Swiss nutritional and health databases.

Keywords: health informatics, data mining, nutritional and health databases, nutritional and chronical databases

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Authors: Lizbeth Puerta, Enselmina Marín

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The purpose of this research is to present a survey to be applied to professors of public universities, to identify the factors that benefit or hinder the university-industry relation. Hence, this research studies some elements that integrate the variables: Knowledge management, technology management, and technology transfer; to define the existence of a relation between these variables and the industry necessities of innovation. This study is exploratory, descriptive and non-experimental. The research question is: What is the impact of the knowledge management, the technology management, and the technology transfer, made by administrative support areas of the public universities, in the industries innovation? Thus, literature review was made to identify some elements that should be considered to design a survey that allows to obtain valid information to the study variables. After this, the survey was developed, and the Content Validity Analysis was made through the Lawshe Model. The analysis indicated that the Content Validity Index (CVI) was 0.80. Hence, it was determined that this survey presents acceptable psychometric properties to be used as an evaluation tool.

Keywords: innovation, knowledge management, technology management, technology transfer

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Authors: Sunghun Jung

Abstract:

The existing web map service providers contract with the satellite operators to update their maps by paying an astronomical amount of money, but the cost could be minimized by operating a cheap and small UAV. In contrast to the satellites, we only need to replace aged battery packs from time to time for the usage of UAVs. Utilizing both a regular camera and an infrared camera mounted on a small, solar-powered, long-endurance, and hoverable UAV, daytime ground surface photographs, and nighttime infrared photographs will be continuously and repeatedly uploaded to the web map server and overlapped with the existing ground surface photographs in real-time. The real-time web map service using a small, solar-powered, long-endurance, and hoverable UAV can also be applied to the surveillance missions, in particular, to detect border area intruders. The improved real-time image stitching algorithm is developed for the graphic map data overlapping. Also, a small home server will be developed to manage the huge size of incoming map data. The map photographs taken at tens or hundreds of kilometers by a UAV would improve the map graphic resolution compared to the map photographs taken at thousands of kilometers by satellites since the satellite photographs are limited by weather conditions.

Keywords: long-endurance, real-time web map service (RWMS), solar-powered, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

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Authors: Slim Namouchi, Bruno Vallet, Imed Riadh Farah

Abstract:

3D urban models provide powerful tools for decision making, urban planning, and smart city services. The accuracy of this 3D based systems is directly related to the quality of these models. Since manual large-scale modeling, such as cities or countries is highly time intensive and very expensive process, a fully automatic 3D building generation is needed. However, 3D modeling process result depends on the input data, the proprieties of the captured objects, and the required characteristics of the reconstructed 3D model. Nowadays, producing 3D real-world model is no longer a problem. Remotely sensed data had experienced a remarkable increase in the recent years, especially data acquired using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). While the scanning techniques are developing, the captured data amount and the resolution are getting bigger and more precise. This paper presents a literature review, which aims to identify different methods of automatic 3D buildings extractions either from LiDAR or the combination of LiDAR and satellite or aerial images. Then, we present open source technologies, and data models (e.g., CityGML, PostGIS, Cesiumjs) used to integrate these models in geospatial base layers for smart city services.

Keywords: CityGML, LiDAR, remote sensing, SIG, Smart City, 3D urban modeling

Procedia PDF Downloads 104