Search results for: waterborne objects

Authors: Alvaro Rodriguez, Maria Bermudez, Juan R. Rabuñal, Jeronimo Puertas

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One of the main issues in Computer Vision is to extract the movement of one or several points or objects of interest in an image or video sequence to conduct any kind of study or control process. Different techniques to solve this problem have been applied in numerous areas such as surveillance systems, analysis of traffic, motion capture, image compression, navigation systems and others, where the specific characteristics of each scenario determine the approximation to the problem. This paper puts forward a Computer Vision based algorithm to analyze fish trajectories in high turbulence conditions in artificial structures called vertical slot fishways, designed to allow the upstream migration of fish through obstructions in rivers. The suggested algorithm calculates the position of the fish at every instant starting from images recorded with a camera and using neural networks to execute fish detection on images. Different laboratory tests have been carried out in a full scale fishway model and with living fishes, allowing the reconstruction of the fish trajectory and the measurement of velocities and accelerations of the fish. These data can provide useful information to design more effective vertical slot fishways.

Keywords: Computer Vision, Neural Network, Fishway, Fish Trajectory, Tracking

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Authors: Chao. Huo, Roger. Barènes, Jérémie. Gressier, Gilles.Grondin

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The parametrical study of Shrouded Contra-rotating Rotor was done in this paper based on 2D axisymmetric simulations. The calculations were made with an actuator disk as double rotor model. It objects to explore and quantify the effects of different shroud geometry parameters mainly using the performance of power loading (PL), which could evaluate the whole propulsion system capability as 5 Newtontotal thrust generationfor hover demand. The numerical results show that:The increase of nozzle radius is desired but limited by the flow separation, its optimal design is around 1.15 times rotor radius, the viscosity effects greatly constraint the influence of nozzle shape, the divergent angle around 10.5° performs best for chosen nozzle length;The parameters of inlet such as leading edge curvature, radius and internal shape do not affect thrust great but play an important role in pressure distribution which could produce most part of shroud thrust, they should be chosen according to the reduction of adverse pressure gradients to reduce the risk of boundary separation.

Keywords: Axisymmetric simulation, parametrical design, power loading, Shrouded Contra-Rotating Rotor.

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Authors: U. Kalay, O. Kalıpsız

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For a spatiotemporal database management system, I/O cost of queries and other operations is an important performance criterion. In order to optimize this cost, an intense research on designing robust index structures has been done in the past decade. With these major considerations, there are still other design issues that deserve addressing due to their direct impact on the I/O cost. Having said this, an efficient buffer management strategy plays a key role on reducing redundant disk access. In this paper, we proposed an efficient buffer strategy for a spatiotemporal database index structure, specifically indexing objects moving over a network of roads. The proposed strategy, namely MONPAR, is based on the data type (i.e. spatiotemporal data) and the structure of the index structure. For the purpose of an experimental evaluation, we set up a simulation environment that counts the number of disk accesses while executing a number of spatiotemporal range-queries over the index. We reiterated simulations with query sets with different distributions, such as uniform query distribution and skewed query distribution. Based on the comparison of our strategy with wellknown page-replacement techniques, like LRU-based and Prioritybased buffers, we conclude that MONPAR behaves better than its competitors for small and medium size buffers under all used query-distributions.

Keywords: Buffer Management, Spatiotemporal databases.

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Authors: Saad M. Al-Garni, Adel A. Abdennour

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Freeways are originally designed to provide high mobility to road users. However, the increase in population and vehicle numbers has led to increasing congestions around the world. Daily recurrent congestion substantially reduces the freeway capacity when it is most needed. Building new highways and expanding the existing ones is an expensive solution and impractical in many situations. Intelligent and vision-based techniques can, however, be efficient tools in monitoring highways and increasing the capacity of the existing infrastructures. The crucial step for highway monitoring is vehicle detection. In this paper, we propose one of such techniques. The approach is based on artificial neural networks (ANN) for vehicles detection and counting. The detection process uses the freeway video images and starts by automatically extracting the image background from the successive video frames. Once the background is identified, subsequent frames are used to detect moving objects through image subtraction. The result is segmented using Sobel operator for edge detection. The ANN is, then, used in the detection and counting phase. Applying this technique to the busiest freeway in Riyadh (King Fahd Road) achieved higher than 98% detection accuracy despite the light intensity changes, the occlusion situations, and shadows.

Keywords: Background Extraction, Neural Networks, VehicleDetection, Freeway Traffic.

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Authors: Haider AlAbadi, Joe Petrolito, Nelson Lam, Emad Gad

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In areas of low to moderate seismicity many building contents and equipment are not positively fixed to the floor or tied to adjacent walls. Under seismic induced horizontal vibration, such contents and equipment can suffer from damage by either overturning or impact associated with rocking. This paper focuses on the estimation of shock on typical contents and equipment due to rocking. A simplified analytical model is outlined that can be used to estimate the maximum acceleration on a rocking object given its basic geometric and mechanical properties. The developed model was validated against experimental results. The experimental results revealed that the maximum shock acceleration can be underestimated if the static stiffness of the materials at the interface between the rocking object and floor is used rather than the dynamic stiffness. Excellent agreement between the model and experimental results was found when the dynamic stiffness for the interface material was used, which was found to be generally much higher than corresponding static stiffness under different investigated boundary conditions of the cushion. The proposed model can be a beneficial tool in performing a rapid assessment of shock sensitive components considered for possible seismic rectification. 

Keywords: Impact, shock, earthquakes, rocking, building contents, overturning.

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Authors: Gaoyong Luo

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The approach based on the wavelet transform has been widely used for image denoising due to its multi-resolution nature, its ability to produce high levels of noise reduction and the low level of distortion introduced. However, by removing noise, high frequency components belonging to edges are also removed, which leads to blurring the signal features. This paper proposes a new method of image noise reduction based on local variance and edge analysis. The analysis is performed by dividing an image into 32 x 32 pixel blocks, and transforming the data into wavelet domain. Fast lifting wavelet spatial-frequency decomposition and reconstruction is developed with the advantages of being computationally efficient and boundary effects minimized. The adaptive thresholding by local variance estimation and edge strength measurement can effectively reduce image noise while preserve the features of the original image corresponding to the boundaries of the objects. Experimental results demonstrate that the method performs well for images contaminated by natural and artificial noise, and is suitable to be adapted for different class of images and type of noises. The proposed algorithm provides a potential solution with parallel computation for real time or embedded system application.

Keywords: Edge strength, Fast lifting wavelet, Image denoising, Local variance.

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Authors: Matthias Dehmer, Frank Emmert Streib, Alexander Mehler, Jürgen Kilian, Max Mühlhauser

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Due to the tremendous amount of information provided by the World Wide Web (WWW) developing methods for mining the structure of web-based documents is of considerable interest. In this paper we present a similarity measure for graphs representing web-based hypertext structures. Our similarity measure is mainly based on a novel representation of a graph as linear integer strings, whose components represent structural properties of the graph. The similarity of two graphs is then defined as the optimal alignment of the underlying property strings. In this paper we apply the well known technique of sequence alignments for solving a novel and challenging problem: Measuring the structural similarity of generalized trees. In other words: We first transform our graphs considered as high dimensional objects in linear structures. Then we derive similarity values from the alignments of the property strings in order to measure the structural similarity of generalized trees. Hence, we transform a graph similarity problem to a string similarity problem for developing a efficient graph similarity measure. We demonstrate that our similarity measure captures important structural information by applying it to two different test sets consisting of graphs representing web-based document structures.

Keywords: Graph similarity, hierarchical and directed graphs, hypertext, generalized trees, web structure mining.

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Authors: Nhat Linh Ho, Thanh-Phong Dao, Shyh-Chour Huang, Hieu Giang Le

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This paper presents a design and optimization for a compliant gripper. The gripper is constructed based on the concept of compliant mechanism with flexure hinge. A passive force regulation mechanism is presented to control the grasping force a micro-sized object instead of using a sensor force. The force regulation mechanism is designed using the planar springs. The gripper is expected to obtain a large range of displacement to handle various sized objects. First of all, the statics and dynamics of the gripper are investigated by using the finite element analysis in ANSYS software. And then, the design parameters of the gripper are optimized via Taguchi method. An orthogonal array L₉ is used to establish an experimental matrix. Subsequently, the signal to noise ratio is analyzed to find the optimal solution. Finally, the response surface methodology is employed to model the relationship between the design parameters and the output displacement of the gripper. The design of experiment method is then used to analyze the sensitivity so as to determine the effect of each parameter on the displacement. The results showed that the compliant gripper can move with a large displacement of 213.51 mm and the force regulation mechanism is expected to be used for high precision positioning systems.

Keywords: Flexure hinge, compliant mechanism, compliant gripper, force regulation mechanism, Taguchi method, response surface methodology, design of experiment.

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Authors: Soyoon Bak, Sunyoung Bu, Philsu Kim

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In this paper, a backward semi-Lagrangian scheme combined with the second-order backward difference formula is designed to calculate the numerical solutions of nonlinear advection-diffusion equations. The primary aims of this paper are to remove any iteration process and to get an efficient algorithm with the convergence order of accuracy 2 in time. In order to achieve these objects, we use the second-order central finite difference and the B-spline approximations of degree 2 and 3 in order to approximate the diffusion term and the spatial discretization, respectively. For the temporal discretization, the second order backward difference formula is applied. To calculate the numerical solution of the starting point of the characteristic curves, we use the error correction methodology developed by the authors recently. The proposed algorithm turns out to be completely iteration free, which resolves the main weakness of the conventional backward semi-Lagrangian method. Also, the adaptability of the proposed method is indicated by numerical simulations for Burgers’ equations. Throughout these numerical simulations, it is shown that the numerical results is in good agreement with the analytic solution and the present scheme offer better accuracy in comparison with other existing numerical schemes.

Keywords: Semi-Lagrangian method, Iteration free method, Nonlinear advection-diffusion equation.

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Authors: I. Benning

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Using technology to expand the learning space is critical for a productive mathematical discourse. This is a case study of two teachers who developed and enacted GeoGebra-based mathematics lessons following their engagement in a two-year professional development. The didactical and semiotic affordance of GeoGebra in widening the learning space for a productive mathematical discourse was explored. The approach of thematic analysis was used for lesson artefact, lesson observation, and interview data. The results indicated that constructing tools in GeoGebra provided a didactical milieu where students used them to explore mathematical concepts with little or no support from their teacher. The prompt feedback from the GeoGebra motivated students to practice mathematical concepts repeatedly in which they privately rethink their solutions before comparing their answers with that of their colleagues. The constructing tools enhanced self-discovery, team spirit, and dialogue among students. With regards to the semiotic construct, the tools widened the physical and psychological atmosphere of the classroom by providing animations that served as virtual concrete to enhance the recording, manipulation, testing of a mathematical idea, construction, and interpretation of geometric objects. These findings advance the discussion of widening the classroom for a productive mathematical discourse within the context of the mathematics curriculum of Ghana and similar sub-Saharan African countries.

Keywords: GeoGebra, theory of didactical situation, semiotic mediation, mathematics laboratory, mathematical discussion.

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Authors: Yun-Tao Zhang, Jong-Yeop Bae, Whoi-Yul Kim

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Background modeling and subtraction in video analysis has been widely used as an effective method for moving objects detection in many computer vision applications. Recently, a large number of approaches have been developed to tackle different types of challenges in this field. However, the dynamic background and illumination variations are the most frequently occurred problems in the practical situation. This paper presents a favorable two-layer model based on codebook algorithm incorporated with local binary pattern (LBP) texture measure, targeted for handling dynamic background and illumination variation problems. More specifically, the first layer is designed by block-based codebook combining with LBP histogram and mean value of each RGB color channel. Because of the invariance of the LBP features with respect to monotonic gray-scale changes, this layer can produce block wise detection results with considerable tolerance of illumination variations. The pixel-based codebook is employed to reinforce the precision from the output of the first layer which is to eliminate false positives further. As a result, the proposed approach can greatly promote the accuracy under the circumstances of dynamic background and illumination changes. Experimental results on several popular background subtraction datasets demonstrate very competitive performance compared to previous models.

Keywords: Background subtraction, codebook model, local binary pattern, dynamic background, illumination changes.

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Authors: Somi Nah

Abstract:

The genre of fantasy depicts a world of imagine that triggers popular interest from a created view of world, and a fantasy is defined as a story that illustrates a world of imagine where scientific or horror elements are stand in its center. This study is not focused on the narrative of the fantasy, i.e. not on the adventurous story, but is concentrated on the image of the fantasy to work on its relationship with intended themes and differences among cultures due to meanings of materials. As for films, we have selected some films in the 2000's that are internationally recognized as expressing unique images of fantasy containing the theme of love in them. The selected films are 5 pieces including two European films, Amelie from Montmartre (2001) and The Science of Sleep (2005) and three Asian films, Citizen Dog from Thailand (2004), Memories of Matsuko from Japan (2006), and I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK from Korea (2006). These films share some common characteristics to the effect that they give tiny lessons and feelings for life with expressions of fantasy images as if they were fairy tales for adults and that they lead the audience to reflect on their days and revive forgotten dreams of childhood. We analyze the images of fantasy in each of the films on the basis of the elements of Mise-en-Scène (setting and props, costume, hair and make-up, facial expressions and body language, lighting and color, positioning of characters, and objects within a frame).

Keywords: Mise-en-scène, fantasy images, films, visualization.

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Authors: Sevgi Birsel Nemlioğlu, Hasan Atak

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Aggression is a behavior that cannot be approved by the society. Vandalism which is aggression towards objects is an action that tends to damage public or personal property. The behaviors that are described as vandalism can often be observed in the schools as well. According to Zwier and Vaughan (1) previous research about the reasons of and precautionary measures for vandalism in schools can be grouped in three tendency categories: conservative, liberal and radical. In this context, the main aim of this study is to discover which ideological tendency of the reasons of school vandalism is adopted by the teachers and what are their physical, environmental, school system and societal solutions for vandalism. A total of 200 teachers participated in this study, and the mean age was 34.20 years (SD = 6.54). The sample was made up of 109 females and 91 males. For the analysis of the data, SPSS 15.00, frequency, percentage, and t-test were used. The research showed that the teachers have tendencies in the order of conservative, liberal and radical for the reasons of vandalism. The research also showed that the teachers do not have any tendency for eliminating vandalism physically and general solutions on the level of society; on the other hand they mostly adopt a conservative tendency in terms of precautions against vandalism in the school system. Second most, they adopt the liberal tendency in terms of precautions against vandalism in the school system. . It is observed that the findings of this study are comparable to the existing literature on the subject. Future studies should be conducted with multiple variants and bigger sampling.

Keywords: Vandalism, School, Vandal, Turkey, Teacher, Tendency.

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Authors: Qian Liu, Steve Furber

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To explore how the brain may recognise objects in its general,accurate and energy-efficient manner, this paper proposes the use of a neuromorphic hardware system formed from a Dynamic Video Sensor (DVS) silicon retina in concert with the SpiNNaker real-time Spiking Neural Network (SNN) simulator. As a first step in the exploration on this platform a recognition system for dynamic hand postures is developed, enabling the study of the methods used in the visual pathways of the brain. Inspired by the behaviours of the primary visual cortex, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are modelled using both linear perceptrons and spiking Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) neurons. In this study’s largest configuration using these approaches, a network of 74,210 neurons and 15,216,512 synapses is created and operated in real-time using 290 SpiNNaker processor cores in parallel and with 93.0% accuracy. A smaller network using only 1/10th of the resources is also created, again operating in real-time, and it is able to recognise the postures with an accuracy of around 86.4% - only 6.6% lower than the much larger system. The recognition rate of the smaller network developed on this neuromorphic system is sufficient for a successful hand posture recognition system, and demonstrates a much improved cost to performance trade-off in its approach.

Keywords: Spiking neural network (SNN), convolutional neural network (CNN), posture recognition, neuromorphic system.

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Authors: Yao-Hong Tsai

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Due to the sensor technology, video surveillance has become the main way for security control in every big city in the world. Surveillance is usually used by governments for intelligence gathering, the prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or the investigation of crime. Many surveillance systems based on computer vision technology have been developed in recent years. Moving target tracking is the most common task for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to find and track objects of interest in mobile aerial surveillance for civilian applications. The paper is focused on vision-based collision avoidance for UAVs by recurrent neural networks. First, images from cameras on UAV were fused based on deep convolutional neural network. Then, a recurrent neural network was constructed to obtain high-level image features for object tracking and extracting low-level image features for noise reducing. The system distributed the calculation of the whole system to local and cloud platform to efficiently perform object detection, tracking and collision avoidance based on multiple UAVs. The experiments on several challenging datasets showed that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

Keywords: Unmanned aerial vehicle, object tracking, deep learning, collision avoidance.

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Authors: Derlis Gregor, Kevin Cikel, Mario Arzamendia, Raúl Gregor

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This paper presents a self-sustaining mobile system for counting and classification of vehicles through processing video. It proposes a counting and classification algorithm divided in four steps that can be executed multiple times in parallel in a SBC (Single Board Computer), like the Raspberry Pi 2, in such a way that it can be implemented in real time. The first step of the proposed algorithm limits the zone of the image that it will be processed. The second step performs the detection of the mobile objects using a BGS (Background Subtraction) algorithm based on the GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model), as well as a shadow removal algorithm using physical-based features, followed by morphological operations. In the first step the vehicle detection will be performed by using edge detection algorithms and the vehicle following through Kalman filters. The last step of the proposed algorithm registers the vehicle passing and performs their classification according to their areas. An auto-sustainable system is proposed, powered by batteries and photovoltaic solar panels, and the data transmission is done through GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)eliminating the need of using external cable, which will facilitate it deployment and translation to any location where it could operate. The self-sustaining trailer will allow the counting and classification of vehicles in specific zones with difficult access.

Keywords: Intelligent transportation systems, object detection, video processing, road traffic, vehicle counting, vehicle classification.

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Authors: Mehdi Modabberifar, Sanaz Jabary, Mojtaba Ghodsi

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Stiffness sensing is an important issue in medical diagnostic, robotics surgery, safe handling, and safe grasping of objects in production lines. Detecting and obtaining the characteristics in dwelling lumps embedded in a soft tissue and safe removing and handling of detected lumps is needed in surgery. Also in industry, grasping and handling an object without damaging in a place where it is not possible to access a human operator is very important. In this paper, a method for object handling is presented. It is based on the use of an intelligent gripper to detect the object stiffness and then setting a programmable force for grasping the object to move it. The main components of this system includes sensors (sensors for measuring force and displacement), electrical (electrical and electronic circuits, tactile data processing and force control system), mechanical (gripper mechanism and driving system for the gripper) and the display unit. The system uses a rotary potentiometer for measuring gripper displacement. A microcontroller using the feedback received by the load cell, mounted on the finger of the gripper, calculates the amount of stiffness, and then commands the gripper motor to apply a certain force on the object. Results of Experiments on some samples with different stiffness show that the gripper works successfully. The gripper can be used in haptic interfaces or robotic systems used for object handling.

Keywords: Gripper, haptic, stiffness, robotic.

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Authors: Nieto Bernal Wilson, Carmona Suarez Edgar

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The organizations have structured and unstructured information in different formats, sources, and systems. Part of these come from ERP under OLTP processing that support the information system, however these organizations in OLAP processing level, presented some deficiencies, part of this problematic lies in that does not exist interesting into extract knowledge from their data sources, as also the absence of operational capabilities to tackle with these kind of projects.  Data Warehouse and its applications are considered as non-proprietary tools, which are of great interest to business intelligence, since they are repositories basis for creating models or patterns (behavior of customers, suppliers, products, social networks and genomics) and facilitate corporate decision making and research. The following paper present a structured methodology, simple, inspired from the agile development models as Scrum, XP and AUP. Also the models object relational, spatial data models, and the base line of data modeling under UML and Big data, from this way sought to deliver an agile methodology for the developing of data warehouses, simple and of easy application. The methodology naturally take into account the application of process for the respectively information analysis, visualization and data mining, particularly for patterns generation and derived models from the objects facts structured.

Keywords: Data warehouse, model data, big data, object fact, object relational fact, process developed data warehouse.

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Authors: Martin Doran, Roy Sterritt, George Wilkie

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NASA, ESA, and NSSC space agencies have plans to put planetary rovers on Mars in 2020. For these future planetary rovers to succeed, they will heavily depend on sensors to detect obstacles. This will also become of vital importance in the future, if rovers become less dependent on commands received from earth-based control and more dependent on self-configuration and self-decision making. These planetary rovers will face harsh environments and the possibility of hardware failure is high, as seen in missions from the past. In this paper, we focus on using Autonomic principles where self-healing, self-optimization, and self-adaption are explored using the MAPE-K model and expanding this model to encapsulate the attributes such as Awareness, Analysis, and Adjustment (AAA-3). In the experimentation, a Pioneer P3-DX research robot is used to simulate a planetary rover. The sonar sensors on the P3-DX robot are used to simulate the sensors on a planetary rover (even though in reality, sonar sensors cannot operate in a vacuum). Experiments using the P3-DX robot focus on how our software system can be adapted with the loss of sonar sensor functionality. The autonomic manager system is responsible for the decision making on how to make use of remaining ‘enabled’ sonars sensors to compensate for those sonar sensors that are ‘disabled’. The key to this research is that the robot can still detect objects even with reduced sonar sensor capability.

Keywords: Autonomic, self-adaption, self-healing, self-optimization.

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Authors: S. Wongkoon, M. Jaroensutasinee, K. Jaroensutasinee, W. Preechaporn, S. Chumkiew

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This study investigated the number of Aedes larvae, the key breeding sites of Aedes sp., and the relationship between climatic factors and the incidence of DHF in Samui Islands. We conducted our questionnaire and larval surveys from randomly selected 105 households in Samui Islands in July-September 2006. Pearson-s correlation coefficient was used to explore the primary association between the DHF incidence and all climatic factors. Multiple stepwise regression technique was then used to fit the statistical model. The results showed that the positive indoor containers were small jars, cement tanks, and plastic tanks. The positive outdoor containers were small jars, cement tanks, plastic tanks, used cans, tires, plastic bottles, discarded objects, pot saucers, plant pots, and areca husks. All Ae. albopictus larval indices (i.e., CI, HI, and BI) were higher than Ae. aegypti larval indices in this area. These larval indices were higher than WHO standard. This indicated a high risk of DHF transmission at Samui Islands. The multiple stepwise regression model was y = –288.80 + 11.024xmean temp. The mean temperature was positively associated with the DHF incidence in this area.

Keywords: Dengue vectors, Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, Container Index, House Index, Breteau Index, Aedes indices, Climatic factors, Temperature.

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Authors: Kaishuan Shen, Pan Changyu, Yuhsiang Lu, Zongshao Liu, Chishxsin Chuang, Minyuan Ma

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The culture of riding heavy motorcycles originates from advanced countries and mainly comes from Europe, North America, and Japan. Heavy duty motorcycle riders are different from people who view motorcycles as a convenient mean of transportation. They regard riding them as a kind of enjoyment and high-level taste. The activities of riding heavy duty motorcycles have formes a distinctive landscape in domestic land in Taiwan. Previous studies which explored motorcycle culture in Taiwan still focused on the objects of motorcycle engine displacement under 50 cc.. The study aims to study the heavy duty motorcycles of engine displacement over 550 cc. and explores where their attractiveness is. For finding the attractiveness of heavy duty motorcycle, the study chooses Miryoku Engineering (Preference-Based Design) approach. Two steps are adopted to proceed the research. First, through arranging the letters obtained from interviewing experts, EGM (The Evaluation Grid Method) was applied to find out the structure of attractiveness. The attractive styles are eye-dazzling, leisure, classic, and racing competitive styles. Secondarily, Quantification Theory Type I analysis was adopted as a tool for analyzing the importance of attractiveness. The relationship between style and attractive parts was also discussed. The results could contribute to the design and research development of heavy duty motorcycle industry in Taiwan.

Keywords: attractiveness, evaluation, heavy dutymotorcycle, miryoku engineering

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Authors: J. Prakash, K. Rajesh

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In this paper we present a new method for coin identification. The proposed method adopts a hybrid scheme using Eigenvalues of covariance matrix, Circular Hough Transform (CHT) and Bresenham-s circle algorithm. The statistical and geometrical properties of the small and large Eigenvalues of the covariance matrix of a set of edge pixels over a connected region of support are explored for the purpose of circular object detection. Sparse matrix technique is used to perform CHT. Since sparse matrices squeeze zero elements and contain only a small number of non-zero elements, they provide an advantage of matrix storage space and computational time. Neighborhood suppression scheme is used to find the valid Hough peaks. The accurate position of the circumference pixels is identified using Raster scan algorithm which uses geometrical symmetry property. After finding circular objects, the proposed method uses the texture on the surface of the coins called texton, which are unique properties of coins, refers to the fundamental micro structure in generic natural images. This method has been tested on several real world images including coin and non-coin images. The performance is also evaluated based on the noise withstanding capability.

Keywords: Circular Hough Transform, Coin detection, Covariance matrix, Eigenvalues, Raster scan Algorithm, Texton.

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Authors: Chong-Yang Qiao, Teeravarunyou Sakol

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Current production-oriented factories need maintenance operators to work in shifts monitoring and inspecting complex systems and different equipment in the situation of mechanical breakdown. Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that embeds data into the environment for situation awareness to help maintenance operators make decisions and solve problems. An application was designed to identify the problem of steam generators and inspection centrifugal pumps. The objective of this research was to find the best medium of AR and type of problem solving strategies among analogy, focal object method and mean-ends analysis. Two scenarios of inspecting leakage were temperature and vibration. Two experiments were used in usability evaluation and future innovation, which included decision-making process and problem-solving strategy. This study found that maintenance operators prefer build-in magnifier to zoom the components (55.6%), 3D exploded view to track the problem parts (50%), and line chart to find the alter data or information (61.1%). There is a significant difference in the use of analogy (44.4%), focal objects (38.9%) and mean-ends strategy (16.7%). The marked differences between maintainers and operators are of the application of a problem solving strategy. However, future work should explore multimedia information retrieval which supports maintenance operators for decision-making.

Keywords: Augmented reality, situation awareness, decision-making, problem-solving.

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Authors: Jutharat Sunprasert, Ekapong Hirunsirisawat, Narongrit Waraporn, Somporn Peansukmanee

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Metal Ship and Robotic Car is one of the hands-on activities in the course, the Fundamental of Engineering that can be divided into three parts. The first part, the metal ships, was made by using engineering drawings, physics and mathematics knowledge. The second part is where the students learned how to construct a robotic car and control it using computer programming. In the last part, the students had to combine the workings of these two objects in the final testing. This aim of study was to investigate the effectiveness of hands-on activity by integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) concepts to develop scientific and engineering skills. The results showed that the majority of students felt this hands-on activity lead to an increased confidence level in the integration of STEM. Moreover, 48% of all students engaged well with the STEM concepts. Students could obtain the knowledge of STEM through hands-on activities with the topics science and mathematics, engineering drawing, engineering workshop and computer programming; most students agree and strongly agree with this learning process. This indicated that the hands-on activity: “Metal Ship and Robotic Car” is a useful tool to integrate each aspect of STEM. Furthermore, hands-on activities positively influence a student’s interest which leads to increased learning achievement and also in developing scientific and engineering skills.

Keywords: Hands-on activity, STEM education, computer programming, metal work.

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Authors: Namal A. Senanayake, Khoo B. How, Quah W. Wai

Abstract:

In this project, a tele-operated anthropomorphic robotic arm and hand is designed and built as a versatile robotic arm system. The robot has the ability to manipulate objects such as pick and place operations. It is also able to function by itself, in standalone mode. Firstly, the robotic arm is built in order to interface with a personal computer via a serial servo controller circuit board. The circuit board enables user to completely control the robotic arm and moreover, enables feedbacks from user. The control circuit board uses a powerful integrated microcontroller, a PIC (Programmable Interface Controller). The PIC is firstly programmed using BASIC (Beginner-s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and it is used as the 'brain' of the robot. In addition a user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) is developed as the serial servo interface software using Microsoft-s Visual Basic 6. The second part of the project is to use speech recognition control on the robotic arm. A speech recognition circuit board is constructed with onboard components such as PIC and other integrated circuits. It replaces the computers- Graphical User Interface. The robotic arm is able to receive instructions as spoken commands through a microphone and perform operations with respect to the commands such as picking and placing operations.

Keywords: Tele-operated Anthropomorphic Robotic Arm and Hand, Robot Motion System, Serial Servo Controller, Speech Recognition Controller.

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Authors: Lai Yi-Hsiu

Abstract:

The present study addressed the nature of bilingual semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese and Southern Min and examined category effects and age effects. Nineteen bilingual adults of Mandarin Chinese and Southern Min, nine monolingual seniors of Mandarin Chinese, and ten monolingual seniors of Southern Min in Taiwan individually completed two semantic tasks: Picture naming and category fluency tasks. The instruments for the naming task were sixty black-and-white pictures, including thirty-five object pictures and twenty-five action pictures. The category fluency task also consisted of two semantic categories – objects (or nouns) and actions (or verbs). The reaction time for each picture/question was additionally calculated and analyzed. Oral productions in Mandarin Chinese and in Southern Min were compared and discussed to examine the category effects and age effects. The results of the category fluency task indicated that the content of information of these seniors was comparatively deteriorated, and thus they produced a smaller number of semantic-lexical items. Significant group differences were also found in the reaction time results. Category effects were significant for both adults and seniors in the semantic fluency task. The findings of the present study will help characterize the nature of the bilingual semantic processing of adults and seniors, and contribute to the fields of contrastive and corpus linguistics.

Keywords: Bilingual semantic processing, aging, Mandarin Chinese, Southern Min.

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Authors: Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz, Pedro Cesar Santana-Mancilla, Laura Sanely Gaytan-Lugo

Abstract:

This paper describes the design and application of a short in-class project conducted in Algoma University’s Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) course taught at the Bachelor of Computer Science. The project was based on the Maker Movement (people using and reusing electronic components and everyday materials to tinker with technology and make interactive applications), where students applied low-cost and easy-to-use electronic components, the Arduino Uno microcontroller board, software tools, and everyday objects. Students collaborated in small teams by completing hands-on activities with them, making an interactive walking cane for blind people. At the end of the course, students filled out a Technology Acceptance Model version 2 (TAM2) questionnaire where they evaluated microcontroller boards’ applications in HCI classes. We also asked them about applying the Maker Movement in HCI classes. Results showed overall students’ positive opinions and response about using microcontroller boards in HCI classes. We strongly suggest that every HCI course should include practical activities related to tinkering with technology such as applying microcontroller boards, where students actively and constructively participate in teams for achieving learning objectives.

Keywords: Maker movement, microcontrollers, learning, projects, course, technology acceptance.

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Authors: M. Ramezanifard, J. Dargahi, S. Najarian, N. Narayanan

Abstract:

One of the major disadvantages of the minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is the lack of tactile feedback to the surgeon. In order to identify and avoid any damage to the grasped complex tissue by endoscopic graspers, it is important to measure the local softness of tissue during MIS. One way to display the measured softness to the surgeon is a graphical method. In this paper, a new tactile sensor has been reported. The tactile sensor consists of an array of four softness sensors, which are integrated into the jaws of a modified commercial endoscopic grasper. Each individual softness sensor consists of two piezoelectric polymer Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) films, which are positioned below a rigid and a compliant cylinder. The compliant cylinder is fabricated using a micro molding technique. The combination of output voltages from PVDF films is used to determine the softness of the grasped object. The theoretical analysis of the sensor is also presented. A method has been developed with the aim of reproducing the tactile softness to the surgeon by using a graphical method. In this approach, the proposed system, including the interfacing and the data acquisition card, receives signals from the array of softness sensors. After the signals are processed, the tactile information is displayed by means of a color coding method. It is shown that the degrees of softness of the grasped objects/tissues can be visually differentiated and displayed on a monitor.

Keywords: Minimally invasive surgery, Robotic surgery, Sensor, Softness, Tactile.

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Authors: Awais Adnan, Muhammad Nawaz, Sajid Anwar, Tamleek Ali, Muhammad Ali

Abstract:

Needs of an efficient information retrieval in recent years in increased more then ever because of the frequent use of digital information in our life. We see a lot of work in the area of textual information but in multimedia information, we cannot find much progress. In text based information, new technology of data mining and data marts are now in working that were started from the basic concept of database some where in 1960. In image search and especially in image identification, computerized system at very initial stages. Even in the area of image search we cannot see much progress as in the case of text based search techniques. One main reason for this is the wide spread roots of image search where many area like artificial intelligence, statistics, image processing, pattern recognition play their role. Even human psychology and perception and cultural diversity also have their share for the design of a good and efficient image recognition and retrieval system. A new object based search technique is presented in this paper where object in the image are identified on the basis of their geometrical shapes and other features like color and texture where object-co-relation augments this search process. To be more focused on objects identification, simple images are selected for the work to reduce the role of segmentation in overall process however same technique can also be applied for other images.

Keywords: Object correlation, Geometrical shape, Color, texture, features, contents.

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Authors: S. Cobos-Guzman

Abstract:

This paper presents the results of a mechatronic design based on a 4-wheel omnidirectional mobile robot that can be used in indoor logistic applications. The low-level control has been selected using two open-source hardware (Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and Arduino Mega 2560) that control four industrial motors, four ultrasound sensors, four optical encoders, a vision system of two cameras, and a Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 laser scanner. Moreover, the system is powered with a lithium battery that can supply 24 V DC and a maximum current-hour of 20Ah.The Robot Operating System (ROS) has been implemented in the Raspberry Pi and the performance is evaluated with the selection of the sensors and hardware selected. The mechatronic system is evaluated and proposed safe modes of power distribution for controlling all the electronic devices based on different tests. Therefore, based on different performance results, some recommendations are indicated for using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino in terms of power, communication, and distribution of control for different devices. According to these recommendations, the selection of sensors is distributed in both real-time controllers (Arduino and Raspberry Pi). On the other hand, the drivers of the cameras have been implemented in Linux and a python program has been implemented to access the cameras. These cameras will be used for implementing a deep learning algorithm to recognize people and objects. In this way, the level of intelligence can be increased in combination with the maps that can be obtained from the laser scanner.

Keywords: Autonomous, indoor robot, mechatronic, omnidirectional robot.

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