Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Canadian Military Personnel

Abstract : The escalating cost of claims for noise-induced hearing loss in the Canadian Forces (CF) prompted the review of current hearing conservation practices. As a first step, a prospective study was conducted to assess risk factors for the development of hearing loss in a wide range of military trades. A total of 1,057 individuals working in land, sea and air environments at five CF military bases contributed their current hearing test results and first hearing test results on record. They also completed a 56-item questionnaire relating to demographics, occupational and non occupational noise exposure history, training in and utilization of personal hearing protection, and risk factors other than noise which might affect hearing, including head injury, ear disease, medications, and solvent exposure. Military medical personnel recruited the subjects, distributed the questionnaires and assessed hearing. Apparatus and protocols for the latter conformed to current clinical practice. The results showed that the prevalence of moderate to severe hearing loss progressed with years of noise exposure, with hearing thresholds in those over 45 years ranging broadly from normal to over 70 dB HL. Unprotected exposure to solvents and leisure noise appeared to be significant determinates of adverse outcome, while the effects of head injury, history of ear disease, and the use of medications were minimal. The survey suggested that training on the hazards of noise exposure and the selection and utilization of hearing protection were inadequate. Hearing protection was reported to be incompatible with other gear, uncomfortable and an impediment to communication.
Visual Early Leakage Detection for Industrial Surveillance Environments

Liquid leakage can cause industrial accidents. Current liquid leakage detection methods judge the leakage state by analyzing signals from special intrusion sensors, which is not ideal for early leakage because of sensor-limited sensitivity. Visual information from surveillance systems deployed in industrial environments can reflect early leakage that cannot be monitored by such pressure sensors. In this article, we propose a visual early leakage detection system based on a visual background extractor (Vibe) and EfficientNetB0. First, we extract the translucent and small potential leakage candidates based on Vibe, which include leakage targets and environmental interference. Then, to further recognize leakage targets in potential leakage candidates, we explore convolution neural network (CNN) models and a few recently proposed methods, and compare them with two different evaluation criteria. Our model based on EfficientNetB0 performs best and achieves 99.526% accuracy. In addition, our CNN model for leakage recognition with a smaller size is feasible for industrial applications. Experiments are conducted on the leakage dataset from the surveillance video from the Tianjin Binhai Heating Station and the detection results are consistent with real leakage situations. Our leakage detection system has high sensitivity and accuracy, which meets the requirements of early leakage detection.
Verification of a special inertial measurement unit using a Quadrotor aircraft

Purpose – Calibration and 6-DOF test of a unique inertial measurement unit (IMU) using a Quadrotor aircraft. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issue. Design/methodology/approach – An IMU with the special capability of measuring the angular acceleration was developed and tested. A Quadrotor aircraft is used as 6-DOF test platform. Kinematics modeling of the Quadrotor was used in the determination of the Euler angles, while Dynamics modeling aided in the design the closed loop controller. For safety, the flight test was performed on a 6-DOF constrained reduced-gravity test stand. Findings – The developed IMU is suitable for measuring states and its time derivatives of mini UAVs. Not only that but also a simple control algorithm can be integrated in the same processing unit (a 32 microcontroller in this case). Originality/value – The tested IMU as well as the safety constrained test techniques are unique.
Lessons From Watershed-Based Climate Smart Agricultural Practices In Jogo-Gudedo Watershed, Ethiopia

Land degradation is the most chronic problem in the Ethiopia. Soil erosion and denudation of vegetation covers are tending to enlarge the area of degraded and west land in semi-arid watersheds. It is, therefore, watershed management is believed as a holistic approach to create a climate smart landscape that integrate forestry, agriculture, pasture and soil water management, with an objective of sustainable management of natural resources to improve livelihood. This approach pursues to promote interactions among multiple stakeholders and their interests within and between the upstream and downstream locations of a watershed. Melkassa Agricultural Research Centre (MARC) has been implementing integrated watershed management research project in the Jogo-gudedo watershed from 2010-2014 and lessons from Jogo-gudedo watershed are presented in this research report. Participatory action research (PAR) was implemented on Soil and Water Conservation (SWC), area enclosure, Agroforestry (AF), Conservation Tillage (CT), energy saving stove, drought resistance crop varieties in the Jogo-gudedo watershed. Empirical research and action research at plot level and evaluation of introduced technologies with farmers through experimental learning approach and documentation were employed. The participatory evaluation and collective action of SWC and improved practices brought high degree of acceptance of the practices and technologies. This had been ratified by the implementation of comprehensive watershed management action research which in turn enabled to taste and exploit benefits of climatesmart agricultural practices. Eventually, significant reduction on soil loss and fuel wood consumption, improvements on vegetation cover and crop production were quantitatively recorded as a good indicator and success. Field visit, meetings, trainings and frequent dialogues between practitioners and communities at watershed level have had a help in promoting the climate smart agriculture practices and improving productivity that could help to improve the livelihoods of the local people and sustainable watershed resource management.
AN ANALYTICAL STUDY ON DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF STABILISED RURAL ROADS

Cement and lime stabilised rural roads were modelled using CIRCLY program. Results indicate that at a particular modulus and CBR, thickness of soil-cement base and soil- lime sub-base increase with increasing allowable number of load repetitions to fatigue (N). Thickness of soil-cement base and soil-lime sub-base decrease as modulus of soil-cement and soil-lime increase. For each modulus of soil-cement base and soil-lime sub-base, as CBR is increased, thickness of soil-cement base and soil-lime sub-base decreased significantly. At a particular modulus, CBR and N, the thickness of soil-cement base for the paved road is less than that for unpaved road and that the thickness of soil-lime sub-base of paved road with granular base is considerably lower than those of soil-cement bases in both unpaved and paved roads. Finally, design curves were developed to estimate thickness of soil-cement base and soil-lime sub-base for different N-values and modulus of soil-cement and soil-lime mix.
The Effect of Imagery Exercise and Progressive Muscle Relaxation on Anxiety and Concentration in Soccer Athletes

This study aims to examine the effect of applying imagery and progressive muscle relaxation exercises on the level of anxiety and concentration in Persatu Darek FC athletes. This study uses a quantitative approach with a quasi experimental design (matching-only design). The research sample consisted of 33 athletes who were divided into 3 groups of athletes (11 athletes in each group), each of which was given a pretest and posttest. The experimental group I was given an imagery exercise program, the experimental group II was given a progressive muscle relaxation exercise program, and the third group was a control (conventional exercise). The test instrument to measure the level of concentration is the grid concentration exercise test, while the anxiety test uses a sport anxiety scale. Data analysis in this study used a different test (t-test) and multivariate analysis of variance. The results of the study showed that there was a significant effect of giving progressive muscle relaxation and imagery exercises to the level of anxiety in soccer players. However, it has no effect on conventional exercise modes. The provision of progressive muscle relaxation and imagery exercises also affects concentration in soccer players, and this does not apply to conventional training modes. In this study, we also found that there was no difference in the effect of the concentration variables and the level of anxiety together. Therefore, it can be concluded that neither of the two methods of mental exercise (imagery and progressive muscle relaxation) has a more effective effect on concentration and anxiety levels. The recommendation from the results of this study is that mental exercise conduction (imagery and progressive muscle relaxation) is very important for soccer players as a non-physical exercise mode that is very useful for reducing anxiety and increasing concentration.
Dynamic Computational Models and Simulations of the Opioid Crisis: A Comprehensive Survey

Opioids have been shown to temporarily reduce the severity of pain when prescribed for medical purposes. However, opioid analgesics can also lead to severe adverse physical and psychological effects or even death through misuse, abuse, short- or long-term addiction, and one-time or recurrent overdose. Dynamic computational models and simulations can offer great potential to interpret the complex interaction of the drivers of the opioid crisis and assess intervention strategies. This study surveys existing studies of dynamic computational models and simulations addressing the opioid crisis and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art of dynamic computational models and simulations of the opioid crisis. This review gives a detailed analysis of existing modeling techniques, model conceptualization and formulation, and the policy interventions they suggest. It also explores the data sources they used and the study population they represented. Based on this analysis, direction and opportunities for future dynamic computational models for addressing the opioid crisis are suggested.
Mobile learning in Education: An Overview

Tremendous advancements in the field of information and communication technologies have brought about tremendous changes in the world around us. M-Learning is also the result of the evolutions of these advancements. It has become the future technology to impart formal education in the best possible way to the learners. Although it is compact and convenient in usability still it has certain co nstraints of security and implementation. A positive attitude of the teacher and learner can enable in providing this mode of learning in the best possible manner. Policy makers , stake holders, politicians and administrators have to come forward and support thi s technology by enacting suitable measures for its widespread implementation and util ization in the education sector.
Linear Rheological Properties of Poly(Propylene Carbonate) with Different Molecular Weights

The linear viscoelastic properties of poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC) melts having different molecular weights and narrow molecular weight distributions were studied. Some linear viscoelasticity parameters, including the plateau modulus and zero shear viscosity of PPC, were evaluated. The entanglement molecular weight of PPC was estimated to be 5.9 kg/ mol, which is considerably lower than that previously reported for PPC with a broad molecular weight distribution.
Water Management Applications of Climate-Based Hydrologic Forecasts: Case Study of the Truckee-Carson River Basin

Water managers in the western United States and throughout the world are facing the increasing challenge of supplying a variety of water demands under the growing stresses of climate variability and of population and economic growth. Accurate streamflow forecasts are key to the water resources planning and decision-making process. There is growing evidence that variability in western streamflow is modulated by large-scale ocean-atmospheric features. Traditional forecasting techniques, however, do not systematically utilize large-scale climate information. In this study we present a framework for incorporating climate information into water resources decision-making and demonstrate the method on the semiarid Truckee-Carson Basin in Nevada where environmental, agricultural, and municipal demands compete for a limited supply of water. In this basin, water managers must plan carefully to meet the demands of timing and required flowrates. The framework presented in this paper consists of a streamflow forecast .
STRESS AT WORK AS A HEALTH RISK FACTOR FROM THE OPINION OF PROFESSIONALLY ACTIVE NURSES

Medical workers, especially nurses, are susceptible to numerous stressful situations, due to the great demands which are a result of the specifics of working with an ill person. The aim of the study was to identify stress factors in nursing work, without taking into account the place of employment (i.e., wards). was of a of and The diagnostic poll method the interview technique were a designed questionnaire was used the research tool. the problem and were the most frequently used forms of fighting stress. Significant relationships were found between the level of and the marital status and place of residence of the participants.
Workshop on Mixed Reality Applications for In-Vehicle Experiences in Automated Driving

With the increasing development of mixed reality (MR), the number of its purposes and applications in vehicles increases. Mixed reality may help to increase road safety, allow drivers to perform non-driving related tasks (NDRTs), and enhance passenger experiences. MR can also be helpful in the transition towards automated driving. However, there are still a number of challenges with the use of MR when applied in vehicles, and also several human factors issues need to be solved. Additionally, virtual reality (VR) has the potential to simulate mixed reality applications for HCI research, such as pedestrian and passenger experiences. In a schedule tailored to fit the requirements of a hybrid presence and online event, participants will define relevant user stories and use cases and elaborate experimental designs with measurable outcomes to contribute to the research roadmap.
TempoRL: Temporal Priors for Exploration in Off-Policy Reinforcement Learning

Eﬃcient exploration is a crucial challenge in deep reinforcement learning. Several methods, such as behavioral priors, are able to leverage oﬄine data in order to eﬃciently accelerate reinforcement learning on complex tasks. However, if the task at hand deviates excessively from the demonstrated task, the eﬀectiveness of such methods is limited. In our work, we propose to learn features from oﬄine data that are shared by a more diverse range of tasks, such as correlation between actions and directedness. Therefore, we introduce state-independent temporal priors, which directly model temporal consistency in demonstrated trajectories, and are capable of driving exploration in complex tasks, even when trained on data collected on simpler tasks. Furthermore, we introduce a novel integration scheme for action priors in oﬀ-policy reinforcement learning by dynamically sampling actions from a probabilistic mixture of policy and action prior. We compare our approach against strong baselines and provide empirical evidence that it can accelerate reinforcement learning in long-horizon continuous control tasks under sparse reward settings.
Random Field-Based Approach for Strength Evaluation of Suspension Bridge Cables

A methodology is introduced to estimate the strength of suspension bridge cables using results of tensile strength tests performed on wire samples extracted from the bridge’s main cables. The innovation of the proposed methodology is to consider the spatial correlation of the wire strength over the wire’s length, a real and experimentally measured property of ductile steel wires that is disregarded in the current standard approach. The wire strength is modeled as a nonGaussian random field along its length. The number of parallel wires in the cable’s cross section is then considered to estimate the strength of the entire cable. The capabilities of the proposed methodology are demonstrated through an application involving an experimental data set of wire segments extracted from the Williamsburg Bridge. Results of the proposed methodology are compared to corresponding results of the current standard approach. It is explained why the former results are relatively more accurate than the latter. A procedure fo.
HPI Future SOC Lab – Proceedings 2017

The “HPI Future SOC Lab” is a cooperation of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) and industry partners. Its mission is to enable and promote exchange and interaction between the research community and the industry partners. The HPI Future SOC Lab provides researchers with free of charge access to a complete infrastructure of state of the art hard and software. This infrastructure includes components, which might be too expensive for an ordinary research environment, such as servers with up to 64 cores and 2 TB main memory. The offerings address researchers particularly from but not limited to the areas of computer science and business information systems. Main areas of research include cloud computing, parallelization, and In-Memory technologies. This technical report presents results of research projects executed in 2017. Selected projects have presented their results on April 25th and November 15th 2017 at the Future SOC Lab Day events.
Firmsâ€™ participation strategies and performances of OSS projects: an empirical analysis

Software firms? participation in Open Source Software (OSS) projects is a widespread phenomenon. Firms participate in the projects of collective software development created by the OSS community by varied participation strategies (i.e. offering sponsorships, writing and debugging code, testing the software, and so on). To date, investigations on firms? participation in OSS projects have mostly focused on firms? incentives to participate or on the effects of projects? participation on firms? performance. The present paper advances the received knowledge in that it addresses following research question: what is the impact, if any, of specific firms? participation strategies on OSS projects? performances?
Transient stability index from conventional time domain simulation

This paper presents a practical and efficient method to incorporate energy analysis into conventional power system time domain transient stability simulation for producing a first swing stability index. The proposed method is a variation of the potential energy boundary source approach, utilizing a numerical transient energy function and a pseudo-fault-on trajectory starting from the dominant potential energy peak point of the postfault system trajectory. The transient stability index not only provides additional insight into the stability studies, but also has the potential of speeding up the stability limit derivation process by reducing the number of program runs. >
Effect of Seeding Methods and Tillage Practices on Wheat under Rainfed-Condition

An experiment on tillage practices (mouldboard plough, discplough, cultivator, rotavator and desi hall) and seeding methods (drill, lister and pora) was conducting during 1996-97 at Malakandher Research farm of KPK Agricultural University, Peshawar in RCB design with three replications using 12×5m net plot size. Different seeding methods significantly affected days to emergence, tillering capacity (m 2 ) -1 , number of grain spike -1 , harvest index and grain yield kg ha - ¹. Maximum of 586.2 tiller, 39.77 harvest index and 1722.66 kg ha -1 of grain yield was obtained in drilled seeded plots while pora method of seeding had the lowest values for these variables. Various tillage practices significantly affected tillering capacity per (m 2 ) -1 and number of grain spike -1 . Interaction between seeding methods and tillage practices had affected all the variable maximum of 672 tillers (m 2 ) -1 were recorded from the rotavator tilled plots and seeded with drill. Highest harvest index of 40.50 and maximum grain yield of 1885kg ha -1 . were recorded from plots prepare by rotavator and
Shoe traction and surface compliance affect performance of soccer-related movements

Purpose: To determine how shoe-surface interaction, specifically traction and compliance, affects performance and biomechanics of soccer-related movements. Methods: Third generation artificial turf was installed in the laboratory to allow for kinetic and kinematic data collection both on the turf and on a laboratory surface (Pulastic sports surface). Twelve male athletes performed five 5 m sprint accelerations and five 180° sprint turns in three different shoe-surface conditions (indoor soccer shoe on the laboratory surface, indoor soccer shoe on the turf surface, soccer cleat on turf surface). Comparisons between the indoor shoe across surfaces indicated compliance effects and comparisons between the cleat and indoor shoe on turf indicated traction effects. Results: Performance increased for the sprint acceleration in the indoor shoe on the turf compared to the laboratory (1.04 s vs. 1.08 s); however, no further increase in acceleration performance occurred with the soccer cleat. For the turn movement, no change in performance occurred comparing the indoor shoe across surfaces however an increase in turn performance was seen when using the soccer cleat on turf compared to the indoor shoe (2.67 s vs. 2.56 s). The cleat had both increased utilised translational and rotational traction compared to the indoor shoe on turf for the turn movement. The cleat also resulted in increased ankle eversion moments as well as increased knee abduction and external rotation moments compared to the indoor shoe on the turf surface for the turn movement. Conclusion: Both compliance and traction shoe-surface characteristics affect performance; however, the effects of the different characteristics are different depending on the movement type.