Abstract: Improving resources for medical autonomy of astronauts in prolonged space missions, such as a Mars mission, requires not only technology development, but also decision-making support systems. The Advanced Crew Medical System - Medical Condition Requirements study, funded by the Canadian Space Agency, aimed to create knowledge content and a scenario-based query capability to support medical autonomy of astronauts. The key objective of this study was to create a prototype tool for identifying medical infrastructure requirements in terms of medical knowledge, skills and materials. A multicriteria decision-making method was used to prioritize the highest risk medical events anticipated in a long-term space mission. Starting with those medical conditions, event sequence diagrams (ESDs) were created in the form of decision trees where the entry point is the diagnosis and the end points are the predicted outcomes (full recovery, partial recovery, or death/severe incapacitation). The ESD formalism was adapted to characterize and compare possible outcomes of medical conditions as a function of available medical knowledge, skills, and supplies in a given mission scenario. An extensive literature review was performed and summarized in a medical condition database. A PostgreSQL relational database was created to allow query-based evaluation of health outcome metrics with different medical infrastructure scenarios. Critical decision points, skill and medical supply requirements, and probable health outcomes were compared across chosen scenarios. The three medical conditions with the highest risk rank were acute coronary syndrome, sepsis, and stroke. Our efforts demonstrate the utility of this approach and provide insight into the effort required to develop appropriate content for the range of medical conditions that may arise.
Abstract: The information of the impact cutting behavior of plants stalk plays an important role in the design and fabrication of plants cutting equipment. It is difficult to investigate a theoretical method for defining cutting properties of plants stalks because the cutting process is complex. Thus, it is necessary to set up an experimental approach to determine cutting parameters for a single stalk. To measure the shear force, shear energy and shear strength of plant stalk, a special impact cutting tester was fabricated. It was similar to an Izod impact cutting tester for metals but a cutting blade and data acquisition system were attached to the end of pendulum's arm. The apparatus was included four strain gages and a digital indicator to show the real-time cutting force of plant stalk. To measure the shear force and also testing the apparatus, two plants’ stalks, like buxus and privet, were selected. The samples (buxus and privet stalks) were cut under impact cutting process at four loading rates 1, 2, 3 and 4 m.s-1 and three internodes fifth, tenth and fifteenth by the apparatus. At buxus cutting analysis: the minimum value of cutting energy was obtained at fifth internode and loading rate 4 m.s-1 and the maximum value of shear energy was obtained at fifteenth internode and loading rate 1 m.s-1. At privet cutting analysis: the minimum value of shear consumption energy was obtained at fifth internode and loading rate: 4 m.s-1 and the maximum value of shear energy was obtained at fifteenth internode and loading rate: 1 m.s-1. The statistical analysis at both plants showed that the increase of impact cutting speed would decrease the shear consumption energy and shear strength. In two scenarios, the results showed that with increase the cutting speed, shear force would decrease.
Abstract: PV energy prices are declining rapidly. To take advantage of the benefits of those prices and lower the carbon footprint, operational practices must be modified. Undoubtedly, it challenges the electrowinning practice to operate at constant current throughout the day. This work presents a technology that contributes in providing modulation capacity to the electrode current distribution system. This is to raise the day time dc current and lower it at night. The system is a triple intercell bar that operates in current-source mode. The design is a capping board free dogbone type of bar that ensures an operation free of short circuits, hot swapability repairs and improved current balance. This current-source system eliminates the resetting currents circulating in equipotential bars. Twin auxiliary connectors are added to the main connectors providing secure current paths to bypass faulty or impaired contacts. All system conductive elements are positioned over a baseboard offering a large heat sink area to the ventilation of a facility. The system works with lower temperature than a conventional busbar. Of these attributes, the cathode current balance property stands out and is paramount for day/night modulation and the use of photovoltaic energy. A design based on a 3D finite element method model predicting electric and thermal performance under various industrial scenarios is presented. Preliminary results obtained in an electrowinning facility with industrial prototypes are included.
Abstract: Cities in their historical evolution have always adapted their internal structure to the needs of society (for example protective city walls during classicism era lost their defense function, became unnecessary, were demolished and gave space for new features such as roads, museums or parks). Today it is necessary to modify the internal structure of the city in order to minimize the impact of climate changes on the environment of the population. This article discusses the results of the Urban Climate model owned by VITO, which was carried out as part of a project from the European Union's Horizon grant agreement No 730004 Pan-European Urban Climate Services Climate-Fit city. The use of the model was aimed at changes in land use and land cover in cities related to urban heat islands (UHI). The task of the application was to evaluate possible land use change scenarios in connection with city requirements and ideas. Two pilot areas in the Czech Republic were selected. One is Ostrava and the other Hodonín. The paper provides a demonstration of the application of the model for various possible future development scenarios. It contains an assessment of the suitability or inappropriateness of scenarios of future development depending on the temperature increase. Cities that are preparing to reconstruct the public space are interested in eliminating proposals that would lead to an increase in temperature stress as early as in the assignment phase. If they have evaluation on the unsuitability of some type of design, they can limit it into the proposal phases. Therefore, especially in the application of models on Local level - in 1 m spatial resolution, it was necessary to show which type of proposals would create a significant temperature island in its implementation. Such a type of proposal is considered unsuitable. The model shows that the building itself can create a shady place and thus contribute to the reduction of the UHI. If it sensitively approaches the protection of existing greenery, this new construction may not pose a significant problem. More massive interventions leading to the reduction of existing greenery create a new heat island space.
Abstract: ICT tools and platforms endorse more and more
educational process. Many models and techniques for people to
be educated and trained about specific topics and skills do exist,
as classroom lectures with textbooks, computers, handheld devices
and others. The choice to what extent ICT is applied within
learning contexts is related to personal access to technologies as
well as to the infrastructure surrounding environment. Among recent
techniques, the adoption of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented
Reality (AR) provides significant impulse in fully engaging users
senses. In this paper, an application of AR/VR within Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) context is presented. It aims to provide
immersive environment experiences for educational and training
purposes (e.g. for civil protection personnel), useful especially for
situations where real scenarios are not easily accessible by humans.
First acknowledgments are promising for building an effective tool
that helps civil protection personnel training with risk reduction.
Abstract: This study presents the use of daylight in the case study of the Reid building at the Glasgow School of Art in the city of Glasgow, UK. In Nordic countries, daylight is one of the main considerations within building design, especially in the face of long, lightless winters. A shortage of daylight, contributing to dark and gloomy conditions, necessitates that designs incorporate strong daylight performance. As such, the building in question is designed to capture natural light for varying needs, where studios are located on the North and South façades. The study’s approach presents an analysis of different façade scenarios, where daylight from the North is observed, analyzed and compared with the daylight from the South façade for various design studios in the building. The findings then are correlated with the results of daylight levels from the daylight simulation program (Autodesk Ecotect Analysis) for the investigated studios. The study finds there to be a dramatic difference in daylight nature and levels between the North and South façades, where orientation, obstructions and designed façade fenestrations have major effects on the findings. The study concludes that some of the studios positioned on the North façade do not have a desirable quality of diffused northern light, due to the outside building’s obstructions, area and volume of the studio and the shadow effect of the designed mezzanine floor in the studios.
Abstract: Road traffic accidents lead to a higher rate of death and injury, especially in vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. Improving the safety of facilities for pedestrians is a major concern for policymakers because of the high number of pedestrian fatalities and direct and indirect costs which are imposed to the society. This study focuses on the idea of determining the willingness to pay of pedestrians for increasing their safety while crossing the street. In this study, three different scenarios including crossing the street with zebra crossing facilities, crossing the street with zebra crossing facilities and installing a pedestrian traffic light and constructing a pedestrian bridge with escalator are presented. The research was conducted based on stated preferences method. The required data were collected from a questionnaire that consisted of three parts: pedestrian’s demographic characteristics, travel characteristics and scenarios. Four different payment amounts are presented for each scenario and a logit model has been built for each proposed payment. The results show that sex, age, education, average household income and individual salary have significant effect on choosing a scenario. Among the policies that have been mentioned through the questionnaire scenarios, the scenario of crossing the street with zebra crossing facilities and installing a traffic lights is the most frequent, with willingness to pay 10,000 Rials and the scenario of crossing the street with a zebra crossing with a willingness to pay 100,000 Rials having the least frequency. For all scenarios, as the payment is increasing, the willingness to pay decreases.
Abstract: Since last decade, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been used in many areas like health care, agriculture, defense, military, disaster hit areas and so on. Wireless Sensor Networks consist of a Base Station (BS) and more number of wireless sensors in order to monitor temperature, pressure, motion in different environment conditions. The key parameter that plays a major role in designing a protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks is energy efficiency which is a scarcest resource of sensor nodes and it determines the lifetime of sensor nodes. Maximizing sensor node’s lifetime is an important issue in the design of applications and protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks. Clustering sensor nodes mechanism is an effective topology control approach for helping to achieve the goal of this research. In this paper, the researcher presents an energy efficiency protocol to prolong the network lifetime based on Energy efficient clustering algorithm. The Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is a routing protocol for clusters which is used to lower the energy consumption and also to improve the lifetime of the Wireless Sensor Networks. Maximizing energy dissipation and network lifetime are important matters in the design of applications and protocols for wireless sensor networks. Proposed system is to maximize the lifetime of the Wireless Sensor Networks by choosing the farthest cluster head (CH) instead of the closest CH and forming the cluster by considering the following parameter metrics such as Node’s density, residual-energy and distance between clusters (inter-cluster distance). In this paper, comparisons between the proposed protocol and comparative protocols in different scenarios have been done and the simulation results showed that the proposed protocol performs well over other comparative protocols in various scenarios.
Abstract: This paper appraises the performances of two control scenarios, for doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) operating in wind generation system (WGS), which are the direct decoupled control (DDC) and indirect decoupled control (IDC). Both control scenarios studied combines vector control and Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) control theory so as to maximize the captured power through wind turbine. Modeling of DFIG based WGS and details of both control scenarios have been presented, a proportional integral controller is employed in the active and reactive power control loops for both control methods. The performance of the both control scenarios in terms of power reference tracking and robustness against machine parameters inconstancy has been shown, analyzed and compared, which can afford a reference to the operators and engineers of a wind farm. All simulations have been implemented via MATLAB/Simulink.
Abstract: Assessing several individuals intensively over time
yields intensive longitudinal data (ILD). Even though ILD provide
rich information, they also bring other data analytic challenges. One
of these is the increased occurrence of missingness with increased
study length, possibly under non-ignorable missingness scenarios.
Multiple imputation (MI) handles missing data by creating several
imputed data sets, and pooling the estimation results across imputed
data sets to yield final estimates for inferential purposes. In this
article, we introduce dynr.mi(), a function in the R package,
Dynamic Modeling in R (dynr). The package dynr provides a suite
of fast and accessible functions for estimating and visualizing the
results from fitting linear and nonlinear dynamic systems models in
discrete as well as continuous time. By integrating the estimation
functions in dynr and the MI procedures available from the R
package, Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations (MICE), the
dynr.mi() routine is designed to handle possibly non-ignorable
missingness in the dependent variables and/or covariates in a
user-specified dynamic systems model via MI, with convergence
diagnostic check. We utilized dynr.mi() to examine, in the context
of a vector autoregressive model, the relationships among individuals’
ambulatory physiological measures, and self-report affect valence
and arousal. The results from MI were compared to those from
listwise deletion of entries with missingness in the covariates.
When we determined the number of iterations based on the
convergence diagnostics available from dynr.mi(), differences in
the statistical significance of the covariate parameters were observed
between the listwise deletion and MI approaches. These results
underscore the importance of considering diagnostic information in
the implementation of MI procedures.
Abstract: Jatropha curcas is a perennial oleaginous plant that is currently considered an energy crop with high potential as an environmentally sustainable biofuel. During the last decades, research in biofuels has grown in tropical and subtropical regions in Latin America. However, as far we know, there are no reports on the growth and yield patterns of Jatropha curcas under the specific agro climatic scenarios of the State of Morelos, Mexico. This study presents the results of 52 months monitoring of 10 toxic and non-toxic ecotypes of Jatropha curcas (E1M, E2M, E3M, E4M, E5M, E6O, E7O, E8O, E9C, E10C) in an experimental plantation with minimum watering and fertilization resources. The main objective is to identify the ecotypes with the highest potential as biodiesel raw material in the select region, by developing experimental information. Specifically, we monitored biophysical and growth parameters, including plant survival and seed production (at the end of month 52), to study the performance of each ecotype and to establish differences among the variables of morphological growth, net seed oil content, and toxicity. To analyze the morphological growth, a statistical approach to the biophysical parameters was used; the net seed oil content -80 to 192 kg/ha- was estimated with the first harvest; and the toxicity was evaluated by examining the phorbol ester concentration (µg/L) in the oil extracted from the seeds. The comparison and selection of ecotypes was performed through a methodology developed based on the normalization of results. We identified four outstanding ecotypes (E1M, E2M, E3M, and E4M) that can be used to establish Jatropha curcas as energy crops in the state of Morelos for feasible agro-industrial production of biodiesel and other products related to the use of biomass.
Abstract: The study discusses the role of foreign languages in general and of English in particular in the process of internationalization of higher education (IHE), defined as the intentional integration of an international, intercultural or global dimension in the purpose, function or offer of higher education. The study is bibliographical and offers a brief outline of the current political, economic and educational scenarios in Brazil, before discussing some possibilities and challenges for the development of multilingualism and IHE there. The theoretical background includes a review of Brazilian language and internationalization policies. The review and discussion concludes that the use of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach and the Intercomprehension approach to foreign language teaching/learning are relevant alternatives to foster multilingualism in that context.
Abstract: Workers are often required to enter unsupported trenches during the construction process, which may present serious risks. Trench failures can result in death or damage to adjacent properties, therefore trenches should be excavated with extreme precaution. Excavation work is often done in unsaturated soils, where the critical height (i.e. maximum depth that can be excavated without failure) of unsupported trenches can be more reliably estimated by considering the influence of matric suction. In this study, coupled stress/pore-water pressure analyses are conducted to investigate the critical height of sloped unsupported trenches considering the influence of pore-water pressure redistribution caused by excavating. Four different wall slopes (1.5V:1H, 2V:1H, 3V:1H, and 90°) and a vertical trench with the top 0.3 m sloped 1:1 were considered in the analyses with multiple depths of the ground water table in a sand. For comparison, the critical heights were also estimated using the limit equilibrium method for the same excavation scenarios used in the coupled analyses.
Abstract: Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in teaching methodologies and practices. Gamification is fast becoming a key instrument in the education of new generations and besides other methods, serious games have become the center of attention. Ready-built serious games are available for most higher education institutions to buy and implement. However, monetary restraints and the unalterable nature of the games might deter most higher education institutions from the application of these serious games. Therefore, there is a continuously growing need for a customizable serious game that has been developed based on a concrete need analysis and experts’ opinion. There has been little evidence so far of serious games that have been created based on relevant and current need analysis from higher education institution teachers, professional practitioners and students themselves. Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to analyze the needs of higher education institution educators with special emphasis on their needs, the applicability of serious games in their classrooms, and exploring options for the development of a customizable serious game framework. The paper undertakes to analyze workshop discussions on implementing serious games in education and propose a customizable serious game framework applicable in the education of the new generation. Research results show that the most important feature of a serious game is its customizability. The fact that practitioners are able to manage different scenarios and upload their own content to a game seems to be a key to the increasingly widespread application of serious games in the classroom.
Abstract: The field of automatic facial expression analysis has been an active research area in the last two decades. Its vast applicability in various domains has drawn so much attention into developing techniques and dataset that mirror real life scenarios. Many techniques such as Local Binary Patterns and its variants (CLBP, LBP-TOP) and lately, deep learning techniques, have been used for facial expression recognition. However, the problem of occlusion has not been sufficiently handled, making their results not applicable in real life situations. This paper develops a simple, yet highly efficient method tagged Local Binary Pattern-Histogram of Gradient (LBP-HOG) with occlusion detection in face image, using a multi-class SVM for Action Unit and in turn expression recognition. Our method was evaluated on three publicly available datasets which are JAFFE, CK, SFEW. Experimental results showed that our approach performed considerably well when compared with state-of-the-art algorithms and gave insight to occlusion detection as a key step to handling expression in wild.
Abstract: The telemedicine services require correct computing resource management to guarantee productivity and efficiency for medical and non-medical staff. The aim of this study was to examine web management strategies to ensure the availability of resources and services in telemedicine so as to provide medical information management with an accessible strategy. In addition, to evaluate the quality-of-service parameters, the followings were measured: delays, throughput, jitter, latency, available bandwidth, percent of access and denial of services based of web management performance map with profiles permissions and database management. Through 24 different test scenarios, the results show 100% in availability of medical information, in relation to access of medical staff to web services, and quality of service (QoS) of 99% because of network delay and performance of computer network. The findings of this study suggest that the proposed strategy of web management is an ideal solution to guarantee the availability, reliability, and accessibility of medical information. Finally, this strategy offers seven user profile used at telemedicine center of Bogota-Colombia keeping QoS parameters suitable to telemedicine services.
Abstract: Telemedicine services use a large amount of data, most of which are diagnostic images in Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and Health Level Seven (HL7) formats. Metadata is generated from each related image to support their identification. This study presents the use of decision trees for the optimization of information search processes for diagnostic images, hosted on the cloud server. To analyze the performance in the server, the following quality of service (QoS) metrics are evaluated: delay, bandwidth, jitter, latency and throughput in five test scenarios for a total of 26 experiments during the loading and downloading of DICOM images, hosted by the telemedicine group server of the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogotá, Colombia. By applying decision trees as a data mining technique and comparing it with the sequential search, it was possible to evaluate the search times of diagnostic images in the server. The results show that by using the metadata in decision trees, the search times are substantially improved, the computational resources are optimized and the request management of the telemedicine image service is improved. Based on the experiments carried out, search efficiency increased by 45% in relation to the sequential search, given that, when downloading a diagnostic image, false positives are avoided in management and acquisition processes of said information. It is concluded that, for the diagnostic images services in telemedicine, the technique of decision trees guarantees the accessibility and robustness in the acquisition and manipulation of medical images, in improvement of the diagnoses and medical procedures in patients.
Abstract: This study evaluated the uncertainties involved in the solar radiation projections generated by the Brazilian Earth System Model (BESM) of the Weather and Climate Prediction Center (CPTEC) belonging to Coupled Model Intercomparison Phase 5 (CMIP5), with the aim of identifying efficiency in the projections for solar radiation of said model and in this way establish the viability of its use. Two different scenarios elaborated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were evaluated: RCP 4.5 (with more optimistic contour conditions) and 8.5 (with more pessimistic initial conditions). The method used to verify the accuracy of the present model was the Nash coefficient and the Statistical bias, as it better represents these atmospheric patterns. The BESM showed a tendency to overestimate the data of solar radiation projections in most regions of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and through the validation methods adopted by this study, BESM did not present a satisfactory accuracy.
Abstract: Theagenio" in Thessaloniki exists and works for three centuries now as a hospital. Since 1975, it has been operating as an Integrated Special Cancer Hospital and since 1985 it has been integrated into the National Health System. "Theagenio" Cancer Hospital is located at the central web of Thessaloniki residential complex and consists of two buildings, the "Symeonidio Research Center", which was completed in 1962 and the Nursing Ward, a project that was later completed in 1975. This paper examines the design of the Hospital Unit according to the requirements of the energy design of buildings. Initially, the energy characteristics of the Hospital are recorded, followed by a detailed presentation of the electromechanical installations. After the existing situation has been captured and with the help of the software TEE-KENAK, different scenarios for the energy upgrading of the buildings have been studied. Proposals for upgrading concern both the shell, e.g. installation of external thermal insulation, replacement of frames, addition of shading systems, etc. as well as electromechanical installations, e.g. use of ceiling fans, improvements in heating and cooling systems, interventions in lighting, etc. The simulation calculates the future energy status of the buildings and presents the economic benefits of the proposed interventions with reference to the environmental profits that arise.
Abstract: Local generated and distributed system for thermal and electrical energy is sighted in the near future to reduce transmission losses instead of the centralized system. Distributed Energy Resources (DER) is designed at different sizes (small and medium) and it is incorporated in energy distribution between the hubs. The energy generated from each technology at each hub should meet the local energy demands. Economic and environmental enhancement can be achieved when there are interaction and energy exchange between the hubs. Network energy system and CO2 optimization between different six hubs presented Canadian community level are investigated in this study. Three different scenarios of technology systems are studied to meet both thermal and electrical demand loads for the six hubs. The conventional system is used as the first technology system and a reference case study. The conventional system includes boiler to provide the thermal energy, but the electrical energy is imported from the utility grid. The second technology system includes combined heat and power (CHP) system to meet the thermal demand loads and part of the electrical demand load. The third scenario has integration systems of CHP and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) where the thermal waste energy from the CHP system is used by ORC to generate electricity. General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) is used to model DER system optimization based on energy economics and CO2 emission analyses. The results are compared with the conventional energy system. The results show that scenarios 2 and 3 provide an annual total cost saving of 21.3% and 32.3 %, respectively compared to the conventional system (scenario 1). Additionally, Scenario 3 (CHP & ORC systems) provides 32.5% saving in CO2 emission compared to conventional system subsequent case 2 (CHP system) with a value of 9.3%.