Search results for: automated document processing

Authors: K. A. Weidenmann, M. Grigo, B. Brylka, P. Elsner, T. Böhlke

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In order to reduce fuel consumption, the weight of automobiles has to be reduced. Fiber reinforced polymers offer the potential to reach this aim because of their high stiffness to weight ratio. Additionally, the use of fiber reinforced polymers in automotive applications has to allow for an economic large-scale production. In this regard, long fiber reinforced thermoplastics made by direct processing offer both mechanical performance and processability in injection moulding and compression moulding. The work presented in this contribution deals with long glass fiber reinforced polypropylene directly processed in compression moulding (D-LFT). For the use in automotive applications both the temperature and the time dependency of the materials properties have to be investigated to fulfill performance requirements during crash or the demands of service temperatures ranging from -40 °C to 80 °C. To consider both the influence of temperature and time, quasistatic tensile tests have been carried out at different temperatures. These tests have been complemented by high speed tensile tests at different strain rates. As expected, the increase in strain rate results in an increase of the elastic modulus which correlates to an increase of the stiffness with decreasing service temperature. The results are in good accordance with results determined by dynamic mechanical analysis within the range of 0.1 to 100 Hz. The experimental results from different testing methods were grouped and interpreted by using different time temperature shift approaches. In this regard, Williams-Landel-Ferry and Arrhenius approach based on kinetics have been used. As the theoretical shift factor follows an arctan function, an empirical approach was also taken into consideration. It could be shown that this approach describes best the time and temperature superposition for glass fiber reinforced polypropylene manufactured by D-LFT processing.

Keywords: composite, dynamic mechanical analysis, long fibre reinforced thermoplastics, mechanical properties, time temperature superposition

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Authors: Makrina Tindangen

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The problems faced by participants of teacher profession program in Faculty of teaching and education Mulawarman University is professional and pedagogic competence. Professional competence related to the mastery of teaching materials, while pedagogic competence related with the ability to plan and to implement learning. Based on the problems, the purpose of the research is to maximize the role of companion teacher for the achievement of professional and pedagogic competencies in the workshop of the participants of teacher professional education in the Faculty of Teaching and Education of Mulawarman University. Qualitative research method with interview guidance and document to get in-depth data on how to maximize the role of companion teachers in the achievement of professional and pedagogic competencies in the workshop participants of professional education participants. Location of this research is on the Faculty of Teaching and Education of Mulawarman University, Samarinda City, East Kalimantan Province. Research respondents were 12 teachers of workshop facilitator. Descriptive data analysis is through interpretation of interview data. The conclusion of the research result, how to maximize the role of assistant teachers in workshop activities for the professional competence and pedagogic competence of professional teacher training program participants, through facilitation activities conducted by teachers of companion related to real problems faced by students in school, so that the workshop participants have professional competence and pedagogic as an initial competence before carrying out practical activities of field experience in school.

Keywords: companion teacher, professional and pedagogical competence, activities, workshop participants

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Authors: Deboraj Muchahary, Amlan Deep Borah Abir J. Mondal, Alak Majumder

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A discrete cosine transform (DCT) is described and a technique to compute it using fast Fourier transform (FFT) is developed. In this work, DCT of a finite length sequence is obtained by incorporating CORDIC methodology in radix-2 FFT algorithm. The proposed methodology is simple to comprehend and maintains a regular structure, thereby reducing computational complexity. DCTs are used extensively in the area of digital processing for the purpose of pattern recognition. So the efficient computation of DCT maintaining a transparent design flow is highly solicited.

Keywords: DCT, DFT, CORDIC, FFT

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Authors: Seyed Majid Alavi Shooshtari

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As a multi-layered prose piece of artistry and craftsmanship Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721) is a satirical work which records the experiences of two Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, traveling through France in the early eighteenth century. Montesquieu creates Persian Letters as a critique of the French society, a critical explanation of what was considered to be 'the Orient' in the period, and an invaluable historical document which illustrates the ways Europe and the East understood each other in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, Persian Letters is considered today, in part, an Orientalist text because of it presenting the culture of the East using stereotypical images. Although, when Montesquieu published Persian Letters, the term Orientalist was a harmless word for people who studied or took an interest in it, the ways in which this Western intellectual author exerts his critique of French social and political life through the eyes of Persian protagonists by placing the example of the Orient (the Other) at the service of an ongoing Eighteen century discourse does raise some Eastern eyebrows. The fact that Persian side of the novel is considered by some critics as a fanciful decor, and the letters sent home are seen as literary props, yet these Eastern men intelligently question the rationality of religious, state, military and cultural practices and uncover much of the absurdity, irrationality or frivolity of European life. By drawing on the insight that Montesquieu’s text problematizes the assumption that orientalism monolithically constructs the Orient as the Other, the present paper aims to examine how the innocent gaze of two Eastern travelers mirrors the ways Europe’s identity defines its-Self.

Keywords: montesquieu, persian letters, ‘the orint’, identity politics, self, the other

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Authors: Dorothy I. Riddle

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Limited mobility (or an inability to walk more than 15 meters without sitting down to rest) restricts full community participation for 13 percent of Canadian adults or 4.2 million persons), yet Canadian accessibility standards are silent on distance to be walked as an accessibility barrier to be addressed. Instead, they focus on ensuring access for the wheeled mobility devices used regularly by le The Accessible Canada Act mandates that Canada be barrier free by 2040, which will necessitate eliminating distance to be walked as a barrier in federal programs and services. This paper details the results of a multi-year research project funded by Accessibility Standards Canada to document the lived experience of those struggling with limited mobility and make recommendations regarding how to ensure accessibility for those with limited mobility. Over 2,600 Canadians from across Canada participated in an online survey and follow-up focus groups. The results underscored the importance of providing not only mobility supports in public facilities but also the information necessary for planning access to federal programs and services. As numerous participants indicated, if they weren’t sure how far they would have to walk, they simply stayed home and depended on friends and relatives for help with errands or appointments. This included failing to participate in civic activities, such as voting, for fear of having to walk too far and stand unsupported for too long. Types of information that were deemed critical included whether or not mobility aids were available, where seating to rest was located throughout the facility, what alternatives to standing while waiting for service and having to walk to the service provider (rather than the provider coming to the customer) were available, and diagrams of accessible parking and its relationship to elevators and services.

Keywords: accessibility standards, distance to be walked, limited mobility, mobility aids, service to customer

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Authors: Mirian Graciella Dalla Porta, Humberto Jorge José, Danielle de Bem Luiz, Regina de F. P. M.Moreira

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Similar to most processing industries, fish processing produces large volumes of wastewater, which contains especially organic contaminants, salts and oils dispersed therein. Different processes have been used for the treatment of fishery wastewaters, but the most commonly used are chemical coagulation and flotation. These techniques are well known but sometimes the characteristics of the treated effluent do not comply with legal standards for discharge. Electrocoagulation (EC) is an electrochemical process that can be used to treat wastewaters in terms of both organic matter and nutrient removal. The process is based on the use of sacrificial electrodes such as aluminum, iron or zinc, that are oxidized to produce metal ions that can be used to coagulate and react with organic matter and nutrients in the wastewater. While EC processes are effective to treatment of several types of wastewaters, applications have been limited due to the high energy demands and high current densities. Generally, the for EC process can be performed without additional chemicals or pre-treatment, but the costs should be reduced for EC processes to become more applicable. In this work, we studied the treatment of a real wastewater from fishmeal industry by electrocoagulation process. Removal efficiencies for chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC) turbidity, phosphorous and nitrogen concentration were determined as a function of the operating conditions, such as pH, current density and operating time. The optimum operating conditions were determined to be operating time of 10 minutes, current density 100 A.m-2, and initial pH 4.0. COD, TOC, phosphorous concentration, and turbidity removal efficiencies at the optimum operating conditions were higher than 90% for aluminum electrode. Operating costs at the optimum conditions were calculated as US$ 0.37/m3 (US$ 0.038/kg COD) for Al electrode. These results demonstrate that the EC process is a promising technology to remove nutrients from fishery wastewaters, as the process has both a high efficiency of nutrient removal, and low energy requirements.

Keywords: electrocoagulation, fish, food industry, wastewater

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Authors: J. M. Hernández-Ontiveros, E. E. García-Guerrero, E. Inzunza-González, O. R. López-Bonilla

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This paper presents the implementation of an algorithm that identifies and accounts different fish species: Catfish, Sea bream, Sawfish, Tilapia, and Totoaba. The main contribution of the method is the fusion of the characteristics of invariance to the position, rotation and scale of the Hu moments, with the proper counting of fish. The identification and counting is performed, from an image under different noise conditions. From the experimental results obtained, it is inferred the potentiality of the proposed algorithm to be applied in different scenarios of aquaculture production.

Keywords: counting fish, digital image processing, invariant moments, pattern recognition

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Authors: M. Gerasimou, S. Mantzoukis, P. Christodoulou, N. Varsamis, G. Kolliopoulou, N. Zotos

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Purpose: Microbial infection of the blood is a serious condition where bacteria invade the bloodstream and cause systemic disease. In such cases, blood cultures are performed. Blood cultures are a key diagnostic test for intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Material and method: The BacT/Alert system, which measures the production of carbon dioxide with metabolic organisms, is used. The positive result in the BacT/Alert system is followed by culture in the following selective media: Blood, Mac Conkey No 2, Chocolate, Mueller Hinton, Chapman and Sabaureaud agar. Gram staining method was used to differentiate bacterial species. The microorganisms were identified by biochemical techniques in the automated Microscan (Siemens) system and followed by a sensitivity test on the same system using the minimum inhibitory concentration MIC technique. The sensitivity test is verified by a Kirby Bauer-based test. Results: In 2017 the Laboratory of Microbiology received 3347 blood cultures. Of these, 170 came from the ICU. 116 found positive. Of these S. epidermidis was identified in 42, A. baumannii in 27, K. pneumoniae in 12 (4 of these KPC ‘Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase’), S. hominis in 8, E. faecium in 7, E. faecalis in 5, P. aeruginosa in 3, C. albicans in 3, S. capitis in 2, K. oxytoca in 2, P. mirabilis in 2, E. coli in 1, S. intermidius in 1 and S. lugdunensis in 1. Conclusions: The study of epidemiological data and microbial resistance phenotypes is essential for the choice of therapeutic regimen for the early treatment and limitation of multivalent strains, while it is a crucial factor to solve diagnostic problems.

Keywords: blood culture, bloodstream, infection, intensive care unit

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Authors: Jun-Ki Choi

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The usage of valuable resources and the potential for waste generation at the end of the life cycle of photovoltaic (PV) technologies necessitate a proactive planning for a PV recycling infrastructure. To ensure the sustainability of PV in large scales of deployment, it is vital to develop and institute low-cost recycling technologies and infrastructure for the emerging PV industry in parallel with the rapid commercialization of these new technologies. There are various issues involved in the economics of PV recycling and this research examine those at macro and micro levels, developing a holistic interpretation of the economic viability of the PV recycling systems. This study developed mathematical models to analyze the profitability of recycling technologies and to guide tactical decisions for allocating optimal location of PV take-back centers (PVTBC), necessary for the collection of end of life products. The economic decision is usually based on the level of the marginal capital cost of each PVTBC, cost of reverse logistics, distance traveled, and the amount of PV waste collected from various locations. Results illustrated that the reverse logistics costs comprise a major portion of the cost of PVTBC; PV recycling centers can be constructed in the optimally selected locations to minimize the total reverse logistics cost for transporting the PV wastes from various collection facilities to the recycling center. In the micro- process level, automated recycling processes should be developed to handle the large amount of growing PV wastes economically. The market price of the reclaimed materials are important factors for deciding the profitability of the recycling process and this illustrates the importance of the recovering the glass and expensive metals from PV modules.

Keywords: photovoltaic, recycling, mathematical models, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 237

Authors: K. R. Roopesh Bharatwaj, Avinash Maharana, Favour Tobi Aborisade, Roger Young

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Presently, there are few cases of complete automation of drones and its allied intelligence capabilities. In essence, the potential of the drone has not yet been fully utilized. This paper presents feasible methods to build an intelligent drone with smart capabilities such as self-driving, and obstacle avoidance. It does this through advanced Reinforcement Learning Techniques and performs object detection using latest advanced algorithms, which are capable of processing light weight models with fast training in real time instances. For the scope of this paper, after researching on the various algorithms and comparing them, we finally implemented the Deep-Q-Networks (DQN) algorithm in the AirSim Simulator. In future works, we plan to implement further advanced self-driving and object detection algorithms, we also plan to implement voice-based speech recognition for the entire drone operation which would provide an option of speech communication between users (People) and the drone in the time of unavoidable circumstances. Thus, making drones an interactive intelligent Robotic Voice Enabled Service Assistant. This proposed drone has a wide scope of usability and is applicable in scenarios such as Disaster management, Air Transport of essentials, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Monitoring people movements in public area, and Defense. Also discussed, is the entire drone communication based on the satellite broadband Internet technology for faster computation and seamless communication service for uninterrupted network during disasters and remote location operations. This paper will explain the feasible algorithms required to go about achieving this goal and is more of a reference paper for future researchers going down this path.

Keywords: convolution neural network, natural language processing, obstacle avoidance, satellite broadband technology, self-driving

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Authors: Cheng-Ying Li, Sheng-Yuan Chu

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This article deposited LZO-doped Mg piezoelectric thin films via RF sputtering and observed microstructure and electrical characteristics by varying the deposition temperature. The XRD analysis results indicate that LZO-doped Mg exhibits excellent (002) orientation, and there is no presence of ZnO(100), Influenced by the temperature's effect on the lattice constant, the (002) peak intensity increases with rising temperature. Finally, we conducted deformation intensity analysis on the films, revealing an over fourfold increase in deformation at a processing temperature of 500°C.

Keywords: RF sputtering, piezoelectricity, ZnO, Mg

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Authors: Siobhan O’Shea, Sangeetha Vijaysri Nair, Hee Cheol Kim, Charles Thomas Nugent, Cheuk Yan William Tong, Sam Douthwaite, Andrew Worlock

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The Aptima® HIV-1 Quant Dx Assay is a fully automated assay on the Panther system. It is based on Transcription-Mediated Amplification and real time detection technologies. This assay is intended for monitoring HIV-1 viral load in plasma specimens and for the detection of HIV-1 in plasma and serum specimens. Nine-hundred and seventy nine specimens selected at random from routine testing at St Thomas’ Hospital, London were anonymised and used to compare the performance of the Aptima HIV-1 Quant Dx assay and Roche COBAS® AmpliPrep/COBAS® TaqMan® HIV-1 Test, v2.0. Two-hundred and thirty four specimens gave quantitative HIV-1 viral load results in both assays. The quantitative results reported by the Aptima Assay were comparable those reported by the Roche COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0 with a linear regression slope of 1.04 and an intercept on -0.097. The Aptima assay detected HIV-1 in more samples than the Roche assay. This was not due to lack of specificity of the Aptima assay because this assay gave 99.83% specificity on testing plasma specimens from 600 HIV-1 negative individuals. To understand the reason for this higher detection rate a side-by-side comparison of low level panels made from the HIV-1 3rd international standard (NIBSC10/152) and clinical samples of various subtypes were tested in both assays. The Aptima assay was more sensitive than the Roche assay. The good sensitivity, specificity and agreement with other commercial assays make the HIV-1 Quant Dx Assay appropriate for both viral load monitoring and detection of HIV-1 infections.

Keywords: HIV viral load, Aptima, Roche, Panther system

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Authors: Ebipatei Victoria Tunyan, T. A. Cao, Cheol Young Ock

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Detecting subjectively biased statements is a vital task. This is because this kind of bias, when present in the text or other forms of information dissemination media such as news, social media, scientific texts, and encyclopedias, can weaken trust in the information and stir conflicts amongst consumers. Subjective bias detection is also critical for many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks like sentiment analysis, opinion identification, and bias neutralization. Having a system that can adequately detect subjectivity in text will boost research in the above-mentioned areas significantly. It can also come in handy for platforms like Wikipedia, where the use of neutral language is of importance. The goal of this work is to identify the subjectively biased language in text on a sentence level. With machine learning, we can solve complex AI problems, making it a good fit for the problem of subjective bias detection. A key step in this approach is to train a classifier based on BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) as upstream model. BERT by itself can be used as a classifier; however, in this study, we use BERT as data preprocessor as well as an embedding generator for a Bi-LSTM (Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory) network incorporated with attention mechanism. This approach produces a deeper and better classifier. We evaluate the effectiveness of our model using the Wiki Neutrality Corpus (WNC), which was compiled from Wikipedia edits that removed various biased instances from sentences as a benchmark dataset, with which we also compare our model to existing approaches. Experimental analysis indicates an improved performance, as our model achieved state-of-the-art accuracy in detecting subjective bias. This study focuses on the English language, but the model can be fine-tuned to accommodate other languages.

Keywords: subjective bias detection, machine learning, BERT–BiLSTM–Attention, text classification, natural language processing

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Authors: Zelda Jansen Van Rensburg

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Purpose: This study investigates the perceived disparities between Quantity Surveying and Commercial Management in the construction industry, questioning if these differences are substantive or merely semantic. It aims to challenge the conventional notion of Commercial Managers’ superiority by critically evaluating QS and CM roles, exploring CM integration possibilities, examining qualifications for aspiring Commercial Managers, assessing regulatory frameworks, and considering terminology redefinition for global QS professional enhancement. Design: Utilizing mixed methods like literature reviews, surveys, interviews, and document analyses, this research examines the QS-CM relationship. Insights from industry professionals, academics, and regulatory bodies inform the investigation into changing QS roles. Findings: Empirical data highlight evolving roles, showcasing areas of convergence and divergence between QSs and CM. Potential CM integration into QS practice and qualifications for aspiring Commercial Managers are identified. Limitations/Implications: Limitations include potential bias in self-reported data and findings. Nevertheless, the research informs future practices and educational approaches in QS and CM, reflecting the changing roles and responsibilities of Quantity Surveyors. Practical Implications: Findings inform industry practitioners, educators, and regulators, stressing the need to adapt to changing QS roles and integrate CM principles where applicable. Value to the Conference Theme: Aligned with ‘Evolving roles and responsibilities of Quantity Surveyors,’ this research offers insights crucial for understanding the changing dynamics within the QS profession and informs strategies to navigate these shifts effectively.

Keywords: quantity surveying, commercial management, cost engineering, quantity survey

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Authors: Broto Seno

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This study aims to describe and examine more in the implementation of educational partnerships for undergraduate students at Yogyakarta State University (YSU), which is more focused on educational partnerships abroad. This study used descriptive qualitative approach. The study subjects consisted of a vice-rector, two staff education partnerships, four vice-dean, nine undergraduate students and three foreign students. Techniques of data collection using interviews and document review. Validity test of the data source using triangulation. Data analysis using flow models Miles and Huberman, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion. Results of this study showed that the implementation of educational partnerships abroad for undergraduate students at YSU meets six of the nine indicators of the success of strategic partnerships. Six indicators are long-term, strategic, mutual trust, sustainable competitive advantages, mutual benefit for all the partners, and the separate and positive impact. The indicator has not been achieved is cooperative development, successful, and world class / best practice. These results were obtained based on the discussion of the four formulation of the problem, namely: 1) Implementation and development of educational partnerships abroad has been running good enough, but not maximized. 2) Benefits of the implementation of educational partnerships abroad is providing learning experiences for students, institutions of experience in comparison to each faculty, and improving the network of educational partnerships for YSU toward World Class University. 3) The sustainability of educational partnerships abroad is pursuing a strategy of development through improved management of the partnership. 4) Supporting factors of educational partnerships abroad is the support of YSU, YSU’s partner and society. Inhibiting factors of educational partnerships abroad is not running optimally management.

Keywords: partnership, education, YSU, institutions and faculties

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Authors: Chularat Leewuttanakul, Khanitta Ruttarattanamongkol, Sasivimon Chittrakorn

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Rice during grain development stage is a rich source of many bioactive compounds. Dough stage rice contains high amounts of photochemical and can be used for rice milling industries. However, rice grain at dough stage had low milling quality due to high moisture content. Thermal processing can be applied to rice grain for improving milled rice yield. This experiment was conducted to study the chemical and physic properties of dough stage rice grain after roasting treatment. Rice were roasted with two different methods including traditional pan roasting at 140 °C for 60 minutes and using the electrical roasting machine at 140 °C for 30, 40, and 50 minutes. The chemical, physical properties, and bioactive compounds of brown rice and milled rice were evaluated. The result of this experiment showed that moisture content of brown and milled rice was less than 10 % and amylose contents were in the range of 26-28 %. Rice grains roasting for 30 min using electrical roasting machine had high head rice yield and length and breadth of grain after milling were close to traditional pan roasting (p > 0.05). The lightness (L*) of rice did not affect by roasting treatment (p > 0.05) and the a* indicated the yellowness of milled rice was lower than brown rice. The bioactive compounds of brown and milled rice significantly decreased with increasing of drying time. Brown rice roasted for 30 minutes had the highest of total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, α-tocopherol, and ɤ-oryzanol content. Volume expansion and elongation of cooked rice decreased as roasting time increased and quality of cooked rice roasted for 30 min was comparable to traditional pan roasting. Hardness of cooked rice as measured by texture analyzer increased with increasing roasting time. The results indicated that rice grains at dough stage, containing a high amount of bioactive compounds, have a great potential for rice milling industries and the electrical roasting machine can be used as an alternative to pan roasting which decreases processing time and labor costs.

Keywords: bioactive compounds, cooked rice, dough stage rice grain, grain development, roasting

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Authors: Hamilton V. Niculescu

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Following a three year study conducted on eighteen Irish people that are involved in growing vegetables in various community gardens around Dublin, Republic of Ireland, it was revealed that addition of some automated features aimed at improving agricultural practices represented a process which was regarded as potentially beneficial, and as a great tool to closely monitor climate conditions inside the greenhouses. The participants were provided with a free custom-built mobile app through which they could remotely monitor and control features such as irrigation, air ventilation, and windows to ensure optimal growing conditions for vegetables growing inside purpose-built greenhouses. While the initial interest was generally high, within weeks, the participants' level of interaction with the enclosures slowly declined. By employing a constructivist grounded theory methodology, following focus group discussions, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and observations, it was revealed that participants' trust in newer technologies, and renewables, in particular, was low. There are various reasons for this, but because the participants in this study consist of mainly working-class people, it can be argued that lack of education and knowledge are the main barriers acting against the adoption of innovations. Consequently, it was revealed that most participants eventually decided to "set and forget" the systems in automatic working mode, indicating that the immediate effect of introducing people to assisting technologies also introduced some unintended consequences into their lifestyle. It is argued that this occurrence also indicates the fact that people initially "read" newer technologies and only adopt those features that they find useful and less intrusive in regards to their current lifestyle.

Keywords: automation, communication, greenhouse, sustainable

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Authors: Traci A. Hefner

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Limited research exists on the readiness of emergency departments to respond to human trafficking (HT). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to improve the readiness of a Department of Emergency Medicine (ED), located in the southeast region of the United States, in identifying, assessing, and responding to trafficked individuals. The research objectives were to 1) provide an organizing framework to understand the ED’s readiness to respond to HT, using the Transtheoretical Model’s stages of change construct, 2) explain the readiness of the ED through a three-pronged contextual approach that included policies and procedures, patient data collection processes, and clinical practice methods, and 3) develop recommendations to respond to HT. Content analysis was used for document reviews and on-site observations, while thematic analysis identified themes of staff perceptions of the ED’s readiness in interviews of over 30 clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals. Results demonstrated low levels of readiness to identify HT through the ED’s policies and procedures, data collection processes, and clinical practice methods. Clinical practice-related factors consisted of limited awareness of HT warning signs and low-levels of knowledge about community resources for possible HT referrals. Policy and practice recommendations to increase the ED’s readiness to respond to HT included: developing staff trainings across the ED system to enhance awareness of HT warning signs, incorporating HT into current policies and procedures for vulnerable patient populations as well as creating a HT protocol that addresses policies and procedures, screening tools, and community referrals.

Keywords: emergency medicine, human trafficking, organizational assessment, stages of change

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Authors: María-Luisa Pinto-Salamanca, Wilson-Javier Pérez-Holguín

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Reconstruction of contact forces is a fundamental technique for analyzing the properties of a touched object and is essential for regulating the grip force in slip control loops. This is based on the processing of the distribution, intensity, and direction of the forces during the capture of the sensors. Currently, efficient hardware alternatives have been used more frequently in different fields of application, allowing the implementation of computationally complex algorithms, as is the case with tactile signal processing. The use of hardware for smart tactile sensing systems is a research area that promises to improve the processing time and portability requirements of applications such as artificial skin and robotics, among others. The literature review shows that hardware implementations are present today in almost all stages of smart tactile detection systems except in the force reconstruction process, a stage in which they have been less applied. This work presents a hardware implementation of a model-driven reported in the literature for the contact force reconstruction of flat and rigid tactile sensor arrays from normal stress data. From the analysis of a software implementation of such a model, this implementation proposes the parallelization of tasks that facilitate the execution of matrix operations and a two-dimensional optimization function to obtain a vector force by each taxel in the array. This work seeks to take advantage of the parallel hardware characteristics of Field Programmable Gate Arrays, FPGAs, and the possibility of applying appropriate techniques for algorithms parallelization using as a guide the rules of generalization, efficiency, and scalability in the tactile decoding process and considering the low latency, low power consumption, and real-time execution as the main parameters of design. The results show a maximum estimation error of 32% in the tangential forces and 22% in the normal forces with respect to the simulation by the Finite Element Modeling (FEM) technique of Hertzian and non-Hertzian contact events, over sensor arrays of 10×10 taxels of different sizes. The hardware implementation was carried out on an MPSoC XCZU9EG-2FFVB1156 platform of Xilinx® that allows the reconstruction of force vectors following a scalable approach, from the information captured by means of tactile sensor arrays composed of up to 48 × 48 taxels that use various transduction technologies. The proposed implementation demonstrates a reduction in estimation time of x / 180 compared to software implementations. Despite the relatively high values of the estimation errors, the information provided by this implementation on the tangential and normal tractions and the triaxial reconstruction of forces allows to adequately reconstruct the tactile properties of the touched object, which are similar to those obtained in the software implementation and in the two FEM simulations taken as reference. Although errors could be reduced, the proposed implementation is useful for decoding contact forces for portable tactile sensing systems, thus helping to expand electronic skin applications in robotic and biomedical contexts.

Keywords: contact forces reconstruction, forces estimation, tactile sensor array, hardware implementation

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Authors: Hatim Bastawi

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Three varieties of potatoes, namely Agria, Alpha and Diamant were evaluated for their suitability for industrial production of French fries. The evaluation was under taken after testing quality parameters of specific gravity, dry matter, peeling ratio, and defect after frying and panel test. The variety Agria ranked the best followed by Alpha with regard to the parameters tested. On the other hand, Diamant showed significantly higher defect percentage than the other cultivars. Also, it was significantly judged of low acceptance by panelists.

Keywords: cultivars, crisps, French fries

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Authors: Navaneeth Krishnan, Chandan N. Bhagwat, Aparajit P. Utpat

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Cloud Computing provides us a means to upload data and use applications over the internet. As the number of devices connecting to the cloud grows, there is undue pressure on the cloud infrastructure. Fog computing or Network Based Computing or Edge Computing allows to move a part of the processing in the cloud to the network devices present along the node to the cloud. Therefore the nodes connected to the cloud have a better response time. This paper proposes a method of moving the computation from the cloud to the network by introducing an android like appstore on the networking devices.

Keywords: cloud computing, fog computing, network devices, appstore

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Authors: Manendra Singh Parihar, Sandip Ghosh Chowdhury

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Austenitic stainless steels are widely used and give a good combination of properties. When this steel is plastically deformed, a phase transformation of the metastable Face Centred Cubic Austenite to the stable Body Centred Cubic (α’) or to the Hexagonal close packed (ԑ) martensite may occur, leading to the enhancement in the mechanical properties like strength. The work was based on variant selection and corresponding texture analysis for the strain induced martensitic transformation during deformation of the parent austenite FCC phase to form the product HCP and the BCC martensite phases separately, obeying their respective orientation relationships. The automated method for reconstruction of the parent phase orientation using the EBSD data of the product phase orientation is done using the MATLAB and TSL-OIM software. The method of triplets was used which involves the formation of a triplet of neighboring product grains having a common variant and linking them using a misorientation-based criterion. This led to the proper reconstruction of the pre-transformation phase orientation data and thus to its microstructure and texture. The computational speed of current method is better compared to the previously used methods of reconstruction. The reconstruction of austenite from ԑ and α’ martensite was carried out for multiple samples and their IPF images, pole figures, inverse pole figures and ODFs were compared. Similar type of results was observed for all samples. The comparison gives the idea for estimating the correct sequence of the transformation i.e. γ → ε → α’ or γ → α’, during deformation of AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel.

Keywords: variant selection, reconstruction, EBSD, austenitic stainless steel, martensitic transformation

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Authors: Sandra Baez, Mariana Pino, Mildred Berrio, Hernando Santamaria-Garcia, Lucas Sedeno, Adolfo Garcia, Sol Fittipaldi, Agustin Ibanez

Abstract:

Schadenfreude refers to the perceiver’s experience of pleasure at another’s misfortune. This is a multidetermined emotion which can be evoked by hostile feelings and envy. The experience of Schadenfreude engages mechanisms implicated in diverse social cognitive processes. For instance, Schadenfreude involves heightened reward processing, accompanied by increased striatal engagement and it interacts with mentalizing and perspective-taking abilities. Patients with Huntington's disease (HD) exhibit reductions of Schadenfreude experience, suggesting a role of striatal degeneration in such an impairment. However, no study has directly assessed the relationship between regional brain atrophy in HD and reduced Schadenfreude. This study investigated whether gray matter (GM) atrophy in HD patients correlates with ratings of Schadenfreude. First, we compared the performance of 20 HD patients and 23 controls on an experimental task designed to trigger Schadenfreude and envy (another social emotion acting as a control condition). Second, we compared GM volume between groups. Third, we examined brain regions where atrophy might be associated with specific impairments in the patients. Results showed that while both groups showed similar ratings of envy, HD patients reported lower Schadenfreude. The latter pattern was related to atrophy in regions of the reward system (ventral striatum) and the mentalizing network (precuneus and superior parietal lobule). Our results shed light on the intertwining of reward and socioemotional processes in Schadenfreude, while offering novel evidence about their neural correlates. In addition, our results open the door to future studies investigating social emotion processing in other clinical populations characterized by striatal or mentalizing network impairments (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders).

Keywords: envy, Gray matter atrophy, Huntigton's disease, Schadenfreude, social emotions

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Authors: D. Hilton

Abstract:

An analysis of the Australian Diabetes Screening Study estimated undiagnosed diabetes mellitus [DM] prevalence in a high risk general practice based cohort. DM prevalence varied from 9.4% to 18.1% depending upon the diagnostic criteria utilised with age being a highly significant risk factor. Utilising the gold standard oral glucose tolerance test, the prevalence of DM was 22-23% in those aged >= 70 years and <15% in those aged 40-59 years. Opportunistic screening in Australian general practice potentially can identify many persons with undiagnosed type 2 DM. An Australian Bureau of Statistics document published three years ago, reported the highest rate of DM in men aged 65-74 years [19%] whereas the rate for women was highest in those over 75 years [13%]. If you consider that the Australian Bureau of Statistics report in 2007 found that 13% of the population was over 65 years of age and that this will increase to 23-25% by 2056 with a further projected increase to 25-28% by 2101, obviously this information has to be factored into the equation when age related diabetes prevalence predictions are calculated. This 10-15% proportional increase of elderly persons within the population demographics has dramatic implications for the estimated number of elderly persons with DM in these age groupings. Computational methodology showing the age related demographic changes reported in these official statistical documents will be done showing estimates for 2056 and 2101 for different age groups. This has relevance for future diabetes prevalence rates and shows that along with many countries worldwide Australia is facing an increasing pandemic. In contrast Japan is expected to have a decrease in the next twenty years in the number of persons with diabetes.

Keywords: epidemiological methods, aging, prevalence, diabetes mellitus

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Authors: Chiun-C. R. Wang, I-Yu Chiu

Abstract:

Drying is the most difficult and critical step to control in the dried salted noodles production. Microwave drying has the specific advantage of rapid and uniform heating due to the penetration of microwaves into the body of the product. Microwave-assisted facility offers a quick and energy saving method during food dehydration as compares to the conventional air-dried method for the noodle preparation. Recently, numerous studies in the rheological characteristics of pasta or spaghetti were carried out with microwave–assisted and conventional air driers and many agricultural products were dried successfully. There is very few research associated with the evaluation of physicochemical characteristics and cooking quality of microwave-assisted air dried salted noodles. The purposes of this study were to compare the difference between conventional air and microwave-assisted air drying method on the physicochemical properties and eating quality of rice bran noodles. Three different microwave power including 0.5 KW, 0.75 KW and 1.0 KW installing with 50℃ hot air were applied for dehydration of rice bran noodles in this study. Three proportion of rice bran ranging in 0-20% were incorporated into salted noodles processing. The appearance, optimum cooking time, cooking yield and losses, textural profiles analysis, and sensory evaluation of rice bran noodles were measured in this study. The results indicated that high power (1.0 KW) microwave facility caused partially burnt and porous on the surface of rice bran noodles. However, no significant difference of noodle was appeared on the surface of noodles between low power (0.5 KW) microwave-assisted salted noodles and control set. The optimum cooking time of noodles was decreased as higher power microwave was applied or higher proportion of rice bran was incorporated in the preparation of salted noodles. The higher proportion of rice bran (20%) or higher power of microwave-assisted dried noodles obtained the higher color intensity and the higher cooking losses as compared with conventional air dried noodles. Meanwhile, the higher power of microwave-assisted air dried noodles indicated the larger air cell inside the noodles and appeared little burnt stripe on the surface of noodles. The firmness of cooked rice bran noodles slightly decreased in the cooked noodles which were dried by high power microwave-assisted method. The shearing force, tensile strength, elasticity and texture profiles of cooked rice noodles decreased with the progress of the proportion of rice bran. The results of sensory evaluation indicated conventional dried noodles obtained the higher springiness, cohesiveness and overall acceptability of cooked noodles than high power (1.0 KW) microwave-assisted dried noodles. However, low power (0.5 KW) microwave-assisted dried noodles showed the comparable sensory attributes and acceptability with conventional dried noodles. Moreover, the sensory attributes including firmness, springiness, cohesiveness decreased, but stickiness increased with the increases of rice bran proportion in the salted noodles. These results inferred that incorporation of lower proportion of rice bran and lower power microwave-assisted dried noodles processing could produce faster cooking time and more acceptable quality of cooked noodles as compared to conventional dried noodles.

Keywords: white salted noodles, microwave-assisted air drying processing, cooking yield, appearance, texture profiles, scanning electrical microscopy, sensory evaluation

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Authors: Abdelhalim. N. Mohammed, Mohammed. Y. Esmail

Abstract:

In the course of recent decades, medical imaging has been dominated by the use of costly film media for review and archival of medical investigation, however due to developments in networks technologies and common acceptance of a standard digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) another approach in light of World Wide Web was produced. Web technologies successfully used in telemedicine applications, the combination of web technologies together with DICOM used to design a web-based and open source DICOM viewer. The Web server allowance to inquiry and recovery of images and the images viewed/manipulated inside a Web browser without need for any preinstalling software. The dynamic site page for medical images visualization and processing created by using JavaScript and HTML5 advancements. The XAMPP ‘apache server’ is used to create a local web server for testing and deployment of the dynamic site. The web-based viewer connected to multiples devices through local area network (LAN) to distribute the images inside healthcare facilities. The system offers a few focal points over ordinary picture archiving and communication systems (PACS): easy to introduce, maintain and independently platforms that allow images to display and manipulated efficiently, the system also user-friendly and easy to integrate with an existing system that have already been making use of web technologies. The wavelet-based image compression technique on which 2-D discrete wavelet transform used to decompose the image then wavelet coefficients are transmitted by entropy encoding after threshold to decrease transmission time, stockpiling cost and capacity. The performance of compression was estimated by using images quality metrics such as mean square error ‘MSE’, peak signal to noise ratio ‘PSNR’ and compression ratio ‘CR’ that achieved (83.86%) when ‘coif3’ wavelet filter is used.

Keywords: DICOM, discrete wavelet transform, PACS, HIS, LAN

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Authors: Yukiko Sasaki Alam, Shahid Alam

Abstract:

Syntactic parsing is vital for semantic treatment by many applications related to natural language processing (NLP), because form and content coincide in many cases. However, it has not yet reached the levels of reliable performance. By manually examining and analyzing individual machine translation output errors that involve syntax as well as semantics, this study attempts to discover what is required for improving syntactic and semantic parsing.

Keywords: syntactic parsing, error analysis, machine translation, deep parsing

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Authors: Chomba Kalunga

Abstract:

Many developing countries have a rich endowment of natural resources. Yet, amidst that wealth, living standards remain poor. At the same time, international markets have been surged with an increase in copper prices in the last twenty years. This is a presentation of the findings on the causal economic impact of Zambia’s copper mines, a country located in sub-Saharan Africa endowed with vast copper deposits on living standards using household data from 1996 to 2010, exploiting an episode where the copper prices on the international market were rising. Using an Instrumental Variable approach and controlling for constituency-level and microeconomic factors, the results show a significant impact of copper production on living standards. After splitting the constituencies close to and far away from the nearest mine, the results document that constituencies close to the mines benefited significantly from the increase in copper production, compared to their counterparts through increased levels of employment. Finally, the results are not consistent with the natural resource curse hypothesis; findings show a positive causal relationship between the presence of natural resources and socioeconomic outcomes in less developed countries, particularly for constituencies close to the mines in Zambia. Some key policy implications follow from the findings. The finding that increased copper production led to an increase in employment suggests that, in Zambias’ context, policies that promote local employment may be more beneficial to residents. Meaning that it is government policies that can help improve the living standards were government needs to work towards making this impact more substantial.

Keywords: copper prices, local development, mining, natural resources

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Authors: Kevin Wang, Jian Ge, Yinan Zhao, Kevin Willis

Abstract:

Kepler has discovered over 4000 exoplanets and candidates. However, current transit planet detection techniques based on the wavelet analysis and the Box Least Squares (BLS) algorithm have limited sensitivity in detecting minor planets with a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and long periods with only 3-4 repeated signals over the mission lifetime of 4 years. This paper presents a novel precise-period transit signal detection methodology based on a new Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Fast Folding algorithm in conjunction with a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to detect low SNR and/or long-period transit planet signals. A comparison with BLS is conducted on both simulated light curves and real data, demonstrating that the new method has higher speed, sensitivity, and reliability. For instance, the new system can detect transits with SNR as low as three while the performance of BLS drops off quickly around SNR of 7. Meanwhile, the GPU Fast Folding method folds light curves 25 times faster than BLS, a significant gain that allows exoplanet detection to occur at unprecedented period precision. This new method has been tested with all known transit signals with 100% confirmation. In addition, this new method has been successfully applied to the Kepler of Interest (KOI) data and identified a few new Earth-sized Ultra-short period (USP) exoplanet candidates and habitable planet candidates. The results highlight the promise for GPU Fast Folding as a replacement to the traditional BLS algorithm for finding small and/or long-period habitable and Earth-sized planet candidates in-transit data taken with Kepler and other space transit missions such as TESS(Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and PLATO(PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars).

Keywords: algorithms, astronomy data analysis, deep learning, exoplanet detection methods, small planets, habitable planets, transit photometry

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Authors: Parthiban Srinivasan

Abstract:

With recent advances in computational power and access to enough data in biosciences, artificial intelligence methods are increasingly being used in drug discovery research. These methods are essentially a series of advanced statistics based exercises that review the past to indicate the likely future. Our goal is to develop a model that accurately predicts biological activity and toxicity parameters for novel compounds. We have compiled a robust library of over 150,000 chemical compounds with different pharmacological properties from literature and public domain databases. The compounds are stored in simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES), a commonly used text encoding for organic molecules. We utilize an automated process to generate an array of numerical descriptors (features) for each molecule. Redundant and irrelevant descriptors are eliminated iteratively. Our prediction engine is based on a portfolio of machine learning algorithms. We found Random Forest algorithm to be a better choice for this analysis. We captured non-linear relationship in the data and formed a prediction model with reasonable accuracy by averaging across a large number of randomized decision trees. Our next step is to apply deep neural network (DNN) algorithm to predict the biological activity and toxicity properties. We expect the DNN algorithm to give better results and improve the accuracy of the prediction. This presentation will review all these prominent machine learning and deep learning methods, our implementation protocols and discuss these techniques for their usefulness in biomedical and health informatics.

Keywords: deep learning, drug discovery, health informatics, machine learning, toxicity prediction

Procedia PDF Downloads 345