Abstract: In global navigation satellite system (GNSS) denied settings, such as indoor environments, autonomous mobile robots are often limited to dead-reckoning navigation techniques to determine their position, velocity, and attitude (PVA). Localization is typically accomplished by employing an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which, while precise in nature, accumulates errors rapidly and severely degrades the localization solution. Standard sensor fusion methods, such as Kalman filtering, aim to fuse precise IMU measurements with accurate aiding sensors to establish a precise and accurate solution. In indoor environments, where GNSS and no other a priori information is known about the environment, effective sensor fusion is difficult to achieve, as accurate aiding sensor choices are sparse. However, an opportunity arises by employing a depth camera in the indoor environment. A depth camera can capture point clouds of the surrounding floors and walls. Extracting attitude from these surfaces can serve as an accurate aiding source, which directly combats errors that arise due to gyroscope imperfections. This configuration for sensor fusion leads to a dramatic reduction of PVA error compared to traditional aiding sensor configurations. This paper provides the theoretical basis for the depth camera aiding sensor method, initial expectations of performance benefit via simulation, and hardware implementation thus verifying its veracity. Hardware implementation is performed on the Quanser Qbot 2™ mobile robot, with a Vector-Nav VN-200™ IMU and Kinect™ camera from Microsoft.
Abstract: The most demanded organic foods worldwide are those that are consumed fresh, such as fruits and vegetables. However, there is a knowledge gap about some aspects of organic food microbiological quality and safety. Organic fruits and vegetables are more exposed to pathogenic microorganisms due to surface contact with natural fertilizers such as animal manure, wastes and vermicompost used during farming. Therefore, the objective of this work was to study the contamination of organic fresh green leafy vegetables by two emergent pathogens, Arcobacter spp. and Helicobacter pylori. For this purpose, a total of 24 vegetable samples, 13 lettuce and 11 spinach were acquired from 10 different ecological supermarkets and greengroceries and analyzed by culture and PCR. Arcobacter spp. was detected in five samples (20%) by PCR, four spinach and one lettuce. One spinach sample was found to be also positive by culture. For H. pylori, the H. pylori VacA gene-specific band was detected in 12 vegetable samples (50%), 10 lettuces and two spinach. Isolation in the selective medium did not yield any positive result, possibly because of low contamination levels together with the presence of the organism in its viable but non-culturable form. Results showed significant levels of H. pylori and Arcobacter contamination in organic vegetables that are generally consumed raw, which seems to confirm that these foods can act as transmission vehicles to humans.
Abstract: How the extraction and penetration of spudcan affect the performance of the adjacent pile foundation supporting the jacket platform was studied in the program FLAC3D depending on a wind farm project in Bohai sea. The simulations were conducted at the end of the spudcan penetration, which induced a pockmark in the seabed. The effects of the distance between the pile foundation and the pockmark were studied. The displacement at the mudline arose when the pockmark was closer. The bearing capacity of this jacket platform with deep pile foundations has been less influenced by the process of spudcan penetration, which can induce severe stresses on the pile foundation. The induced rotation was also satisfied with the serviceability constraints.
Abstract: CO₂-based gas mixtures exhibit huge potential as the interruption medium for replacing SF₆ in high voltage switchgears. In this paper, the recovery characteristics of dielectric strength of CO₂-O₂ mixture in the post arc phase after the current zero are presented. As representative examples, the dielectric recovery curves under conditions of different gas filling pressures and short-circuit current amplitudes are presented. A series of dielectric recovery measurements suggests that the dielectric recovery rate is proportional to the mass flux of the blowing gas, and the dielectric strength recovers faster in the case of lower short circuit currents.
Abstract: This work describes a system that uses electromyography (EMG) signals obtained from muscle sensors and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for signal classification and pattern recognition that is used to control a small unmanned aerial vehicle using specific arm movements. The main objective of this endeavor is the development of an intelligent interface that allows the user to control the flight of a drone beyond direct manual control. The sensor used were the MyoWare Muscle sensor which contains two EMG electrodes used to collect signals from the posterior (extensor) and anterior (flexor) forearm, and the bicep. The collection of the raw signals from each sensor was performed using an Arduino Uno. Data processing algorithms were developed with the purpose of classifying the signals generated by the arm’s muscles when performing specific movements, namely: flexing, resting, and motion of the arm. With these arm motions roll control of the drone was achieved. MATLAB software was utilized to condition the signals and prepare them for the classification. To generate the input vector for the ANN and perform the classification, the root mean square and the standard deviation were processed for the signals from each electrode. The neuromuscular information was trained using an ANN with a single 10 neurons hidden layer to categorize the four targets. The result of the classification shows that an accuracy of 97.5% was obtained. Afterwards, classification results are used to generate the appropriate control signals from the computer to the drone through a Wi-Fi network connection. These procedures were successfully tested, where the drone responded successfully in real time to the commanded inputs.
Abstract: With the advent of three-dimension (3D) technology, there are lots of research in converting 2D images to 3D images. The main difference between 2D and 3D is the visual illusion of depth in 3D images. In the recent era, there are more depth estimation techniques. The objective of this paper is to convert 2D images to 3D images with less computation time. For this, the input image is divided into blocks from which the depth information is obtained. Having the depth information, a depth map is generated. Then the 3D image is warped using the original image and the depth map. The proposed method is tested on Make3D dataset and NYU-V2 dataset. The experimental results are compared with other recent methods. The proposed method proved to work with less computation time and good accuracy.
Abstract: The paper focuses on Heidegger’s 1919-1920 early research in order to point out his hermeneutical phenomenology of the life-world, arguing that the concept of world (Welt) is the main philosophical trigger for the phenomenology of factical life. Accordingly, the argument of the paper is twofold: First, the phenomenological hermeneutics of facticity is preceded both chronologically and philosophically by an original phenomenological investigation of life-world, in which the world is construed as the context of the givenness of life. Second, the phenomenology of life-world anticipates the question of being (Seinsfrage), but it also follows it, once this latter is shattered, the question of world as event remaining at the very core of Heidegger’s last meditations on the dominion of technology and the post-metaphysical abode of human beings on earth.
Abstract: In this work, we investigate the exponential stability of a linear system described by x˙ (t) = Ax(t) − ρBx(t). Here, A generates a semigroup S(t) on a Hilbert space, the operator B is supposed to be of Desch-Schappacher type, which makes the investigation more interesting in many applications. The case of Miyadera-Voigt perturbations is also considered. Sufficient conditions are formulated in terms of admissibility and observability inequalities and the approach is based on some energy estimates. Finally, the obtained results are applied to prove the uniform exponential stabilization of bilinear partial differential equations.
Abstract: The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a continuous strategic monitoring model focused not only on financial issues but also on internal processes, patients/users, and learning and growth. Initially dedicated to business management, it currently serves organizations of other natures - such as hospitals. This paper presents a BSC designed for a Portuguese Acute Pain Unit (APU). This study is qualitative and based on the experience of collaborators at the APU. The management of APU is based on four perspectives – users, internal processes, learning and growth, and financial and legal. For each perspective, there were identified strategic objectives, critical factors, lead indicators and initiatives. The strategic map of the APU outlining sustained strategic relations among strategic objectives. This study contributes to the development of research in the health management area as it explores how organizational insufficiencies and inconsistencies in this particular case can be addressed, through the identification of critical factors, to clearly establish core outcomes and initiatives to set up.
Abstract: This project is a study of learning activities of creating experience from actual work performance to enhance career skills and technological usage abilities for uses in advertising career work performance for undergraduate students who enroll in the Creative Strategies for Advertising Course. The instructional model consisted of two learning approaches: (1) simulation-based learning, which is the learning with the use of simulations of working in various sections of creative advertisement work with their own work process and steps as well as the virtual technology learning in advertising companies; and (2) project-based learning, which is the learning that the learners engage in actual work performance based on the process of creating and producing creative advertisement works to be present on new media channels. The results of learning management showed that the effects on the students in various aspects were as follows: (1) the students had experience in the advertising process at the higher level; and (2) the students had work performance skills from the actual work performance that enabled them to possess the abilities to create and present their own work; also, they had created more efficient work outcomes and disseminated them on new media channels at a better level.
Abstract: The Purdue University Research Reactor-1 (PUR-1) is a 10 kWth pool-type research reactor located at Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus. The reactor was recently upgraded to use entirely digital instrumentation and control systems. However, currently, there is no automated control system to regulate the power in the reactor. We propose a fuzzy logic controller as a form of digital twin to complement the existing digital instrumentation system to monitor and stabilize power control using existing experimental data. This work assesses the feasibility of a power controller based on a Fuzzy Rule-Based System (FRBS) by modelling and simulation with a MATLAB algorithm. The controller uses power error and reactor period as inputs and generates reactivity insertion as output. The reactivity insertion is then converted to control rod height using a logistic function based on information from the recorded experimental reactor control rod data. To test the capability of the proposed fuzzy controller, a point-kinetic reactor model is utilized based on the actual PUR-1 operation conditions and a Monte Carlo N-Particle simulation result of the core to numerically compute the neutronics parameters of reactor behavior. The Point Kinetic Equation (PKE) was employed to model dynamic characteristics of the research reactor since it explains the interactions between the spatial and time varying input and output variables efficiently. The controller is demonstrated computationally using various cases: startup, power maneuver, and shutdown. From the test results, it can be proved that the implemented fuzzy controller can satisfactorily regulate the reactor power to follow demand power without compromising nuclear safety measures.
Abstract: With the rapid development of industrialization, countries in different stages of development in the world have gradually begun to pay attention to the impact of air pollution on health and the environment. Air control in developed countries is an effective reference for air control in developing countries. Artificial intelligence and other technologies also play a positive role in the prediction of air pollution. By comparing the annual changes of pollution in London and Beijing, this paper concludes that the pollution in developed cities is relatively low and stable, while the pollution in Beijing is relatively heavy and unstable, but is clearly improving. In addition, by analyzing the changes of major pollutants in Beijing in the past eight years, it is concluded that all pollutants except O3 show a significant downward trend. In addition, all pollutants except O3 have certain correlation. For example, PM10 and PM2.5 have the greatest influence on air quality index (AQI). Python, which is commonly used by artificial intelligence, is used as the main software to establish two models, support vector machine (SVM) and linear regression. By comparing the two models under the same conditions, it is concluded that SVM has higher accuracy in pollution prediction. The results of this study provide valuable reference for pollution control and prediction in developing countries.
Abstract: Chitosans, CSs, in solution are increasingly used in a range of geometric properties in various academic and industrial sectors, especially in the domain of pharmaceutical and biomedical engineering. In order to provide a tailoring guide of CSs to the applicants, gamma (γ)-irradiation technology and simple viscosity measurements have been used in this study. Accordingly, CS solid discs (0.5 cm thickness and 2.5 cm diameter) were exposed in air to Cobalt-60 (γ)-radiation, at room temperature and constant 50 kGy dose for different periods of exposer time (tγ). Diluted solutions of native and different irradiated CS were then prepared by dissolving 1.25 mg cm-3 of each polymer in 0.1 M NaCl/0.2 M CH3COOH. The single-concentration relative viscosity (ƞr) measurements were employed to obtain their intrinsic viscosity ([ƞ]) values and interrelated parameters, like: the molar mass (Mƞ), hydrodynamic radiuses (RH,ƞ), radius of gyration (RG,ƞ), and second virial coefficient (A2,ƞ) of CSs in the solution. The results show an exponential decrease of ƞr, [ƞ], Mƞ, RH,ƞ and RG,ƞ with increasing tγ. This suggests the influence of random chain-scission of CSs glycosidic bonds, with rate constant kr and kr-1 (lifetime τr ~ 0.017 min-1 and 57.14 min, respectively). The results also show an exponential decrease of A2ƞ with increasing tγ, which can be attributed to the growth of excluded volume effect in CS segments by tγ and, hence, better solution quality. The results are represented in following scaling laws as a tailoring guide to the applicants: RH,ƞ = 6.98 x 10-3 Mr0.65; RG,ƞ = 7.09 x 10-4 Mr0.83; A2,ƞ = 121.03 Mƞ,r-0.19.
Abstract: Totalistic organizations include organizations that operate by playing a prominent role in the life of its members through embedding values and practices. The Church of Scientology (CoS) is an example of a religious totalistic organization and has recently garnered attention because of the questionable treatment of members by those with authority, particularly when members try to leave the Church. The purpose of this study was to analyze exit communication and evaluate the task and relational messages discussed on online discussion boards for individuals with a previous or current connection to the totalistic CoS. Using organizational exit phases and interaction process analysis (IPA), researchers coded 30 boards consisting of 14,179 thought units from the Exscn.net website. Findings report that all stages of exit were present, and post-exit surfaced most often. Posts indicated more tasks than relational messages, where individuals mainly provided orientation/information. After a discussion of the study’s contributions, limitations and directions for future research are explained.
Abstract: Bone Scaffolds are fundamental architecture or a support structure that allows the regeneration of lost or damaged tissues and they are developed as a crucial tool in biomedical engineering. The structure of bone scaffolds plays an important role in treating bone defects. The shape of the bone scaffold performs a vital role, specifically pore size and shape, which help understand the behavior and strength of the scaffold. In this article, first, fundamental aspects of bone scaffold design are established. Second, the behavior of each architecture of the bone scaffold with biomaterials is discussed. Finally, for each structure, the stress analysis was carried out. This study aimed to design a porous and mechanically strong bone regeneration scaffold that can be successfully manufactured. Four porous architectures of the bone scaffold were designed using Rhinoceros solid modelling software. The structure model consisted of repeatable unit cells arranged in layers to fill the chosen scaffold volume. The mechanical behavior of used biocompatible material is studied with the help of ANSYS 19.2 software. It is also playing significant role to predict the strength of defined structures or 3 dimensional models.
Abstract: Several situations arise in industrial practice which calls for joining of dissimilar metals. With increasing demand in the application requirements, dissimilar metal joining becomes inevitable in modern engineering industries. The metals employed are the structure for effective and utilization of the special properties of each metal. The purpose of this paper is to present the research and development status of titanium (Ti) and aluminium (Al) dissimilar alloys weldment by the researchers worldwide. The detailed analysis of problems faced during welding of dissimilar metal joint for Ti/Al metal combinations are discussed. Microstructural variations in heat affected zone (HAZ), fusion zone (FZ), Intermetallic compound (IMC) layer and surface fracture of weldments are analysed. Additionally, mechanical property variations and microstructural feature have been studied by the researchers. The paper provides a detailed literature review of Ti/Al dissimilar metal joint microchemistry and property variation across the weldment.
Abstract: Due to the quick increase in the volume of Arabic opinions posted on various social media, Arabic sentiment analysis has become one of the most important areas of research. Compared to English, there is very little works on Arabic sentiment analysis, in particular aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA). In ABSA, aspect extraction is the most important task. In this paper, we propose a semantic ABSA approach for standard Arabic reviews to extract explicit aspect terms and identify the polarity of the extracted aspects. The proposed approach was evaluated using HAAD datasets. Experiments showed that the proposed approach achieved a good level of performance compared with baseline results. The F-measure was improved by 19% for the aspect term extraction tasks and 55% aspect term polarity task.
Abstract: The performance of an embedded grounding system is very important for the safe operation of electrical appliances and human beings. In principle, a safe grounding system has two objectives, which are to dissipate fault current without exceeding any operating and equipment limits and to ensure there is no risk of electric shock to humans in the vicinity of earthed facilities. The case studies in this paper present the calculating grounding resistance for multiple configurations of vertical and horizontally by using a simple and accurate formula. From the analytic calculated results, observed good/empirical relationship between the grounding resistance and length of the embedded grounding configurations. Moreover, the configurations of vertical and horizontal observed effectiveness of grounding resistance and good agreement on the reduction of grounding resistance values especially for vertical configuration.
Abstract: Composting is one of the conventional techniques adopted for organic waste management but the practice is very limited in emerging cities despite that most of the waste generated is organic. This paper aims to examine the viability of composting for organic waste management in the emerging city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by addressing the composting practice, quality of compost and application of compost in urban agriculture. The study collects data using compost laboratory testing and urban farm households’ survey and uses descriptive analysis on the state of compost production and application, physicochemical analysis of the compost samples, and regression analysis on the urban farmer’s willingness to pay for compost. The findings of the study indicated that there is composting practice at a small scale, most of the producers use unsorted feedstock materials, aerobic composting is dominantly used and the maturation period ranged from four to 10 weeks. The carbon content of the compost ranges from 30.8 to 277.1 due to the type of feedstock applied and this surpasses the ideal proportions for C:N ratio. The total nitrogen, pH, organic matter and moisture content are relatively optimal. The levels of heavy metals measured for Mn, Cu, Pb, Cd and Cr6+ in the compost samples are also insignificant. In the urban agriculture sector, chemical fertilizer is the dominant type of soil input in crop productions but vegetable producers use a combination of both fertilizer and other organic inputs including compost. The willingness to pay for compost depends on income, household size, gender, type of soil inputs, monitoring soil fertility, the main product of the farm, farming method and farm ownership. Finally, this study recommends the need for collaboration among stakeholders along the value chain of waste, awareness creation on the benefits of composting and addressing challenges faced by both compost producers and users.
Abstract: The free-market economy provides many opportunities for entrepreneurship or starting one’s own business, attracting many students to study business at for-profit colleges in the United States. This is also true for international students, many of whom are filled with the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families through entrepreneurial endeavors. This qualitative research showed that not all graduates business students start their own business. In investigating this phenomenon, the effectiveness of entrepreneurship curricula at international colleges needs to be examined in order to adjust, improve and reform entrepreneurship curricula. This qualitative study will explore how business skills learned in college for-profit play a role in the entrepreneurial readiness of undergraduate business students in the south Florida. Business curricula helps international students achieve goals and transform their actions to understand challenges in a corporate society. Students will be interviewed to gain information about the students’ experience with entrepreneurship curricula in a for-profit college in south Florida.