Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Object detection and tracking using a high-performance artificial intelligence-based 3D depth camera: towards early detection of African swine fever

Background Inspection of livestock farms using surveillance cameras is emerging as a means of early detection of transboundary animal disease such as African swine fever (ASF). Object tracking, a developing technology derived from object detection aims to the consistent identification of individual objects in farms. Objectives This study was conducted as a preliminary investigation for practical application to livestock farms. With the use of a high-performance artificial intelligence (AI)-based 3D depth camera, the aim is to establish a pathway for utilizing AI models to perform advanced object tracking. Methods Multiple crossovers by two humans will be simulated to investigate the potential of object tracking. Inspection of consistent identification will be the evidence of object tracking after crossing over. Two AI models, a fast model and an accurate model, were tested and compared with regard to their object tracking performance in 3D. Finally, the recording of pig pen was also processed with aforementioned AI model to test the possibility of 3D object detection. Results Both AI successfully processed and provided a 3D bounding box, identification number, and distance away from camera for each individual human. The accurate detection model had better evidence than the fast detection model on 3D object tracking and showed the potential application onto pigs as a livestock. Conclusions Preparing a custom dataset to train AI models in an appropriate farm is required for proper 3D object detection to operate object tracking for pigs at an ideal level. This will allow the farm to smoothly transit traditional methods to ASF-preventing precision livestock farming.
Robust H∞ control for uncertain impulsive systems with input constraints and external disturbance

This paper is concerned with the problem of robust H∞ control for uncertain impulsive systems with input constraints. The parametric uncertainties are assumed to be time‐varying and norm‐bounded. The input constraints under consideration are novel reverse polytopic constraints avoiding a set of specified input values. Via the designed state feedback switching control law, the input constraints can be satisfied. Moreover, by applying the Lyapunov function theory, sufficient conditions for robust stabilization and H∞ control are established in terms of linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.
In the Footsteps of My Countrymen: Atmospheric Chemistry in New England, Los Angeles, and the Southeast United States

The formation of organic aerosol in the atmosphere degrades air quality and impacts climate change, but has been poorly understood for many years. This article gives a personal history of field studies that have advanced my scientific understanding. Measurements in New England in 2002, Los Angeles in 2010, and the Southeast U.S. in 2013 showed how organic aerosol is formed in these regions, which are distinctly different in their mixtures of natural and anthropogenic emissions. In taking this research path, I followed in the footsteps of two countrymen, Arie Haagen‐Smit and Frits Went, who did foundational work on air pollution in Los Angeles and haze formation from natural emissions.
Controlling the direction of "walkie" type forklifts and pallet jacks on sloping ground

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an electronic solution to effectively lock swivelling wheel steering positions to driver‐control. Simple and affordable systems are described to assist forklift users in steering their walkie type forklifts or pallet jacks across sloping ground.Design/methodology/approach – A rolling road was created as an assessment tool and trials with both the test bed and in real situations were conducted to evaluate the new systems. The small swivel detector that was created could be successfully attached to swivelling wheel swivel bearings.Findings – The new system was successful, robust and was not affected by changeable parameters. The simple systems assisted hand truck operators in steering their forklifts across sloping ground without veering off course. The systems overcame the problems associated with forklifts that steer using two swivelling wheels and meant that less work was required from hand truck operators as their forklifts tended to travel in the desire.
Three-phase OPF Based Local Flexibility Market for Mitigating Unbalanced Voltage in Distribution Systems

This paper presents a three-phase optimal power flow (TOFP) based method for mitigating the voltage unbalance factor (VUF) with the help of demand-side flexibility. It can be expected that issues with the unbalanced voltage can increase in the future distribution system with significant levels of single-phase Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). Unhealthy voltage unbalance status reduces the efficiency of the distribution systems, leading to energy loss and heat problems in electrical devices. This paper has proposed a three-phase OPF (TOPF) based local flexibility market (LFM) framework, where Distribution System Operators (DSOs) can utilize the upwards or downwards flexibility to manage the voltage unbalance. A modified IEEE-34 bus distribution network is used to illustrate the implementation of the proposed methodology, with the simulation results showing that the VUF value varies with the unbalanced load and connected photovoltaic (PV) levels, while the VUF drops below the limiting threshold when the flexible phase-by-phase flexibility services are introduced. This means that the proposed approach could inform modification of flexible service product in the future local flexibility market framework to help DSOs mitigate the unbalanced voltage.
Edge Computing in Mobile Information System for Digital Construction of College English Teaching

As an education mode and teaching method of modern education, digital teaching in colleges and universities plays a role of bridge and hub in the development of modern education. Digital teaching has become one of the important driving forces for the development of digital and informatization of education in colleges and universities. This paper combines edge computing and digital technology to study the mobile information system used in the digital teaching of college English, namely, the digital teaching platform. In the technical part, this article clarifies the concept of mobile information system and introduces edge computing, cloud computing, digital system structure, and other technologies in detail; the system design and implementation part introduces the system architecture, function design, and how to realize the system function. In the system test section, black box and white box tests were performed on the system. The test results show that all functions of the system can be used normally and have certain feasibility. The mobile information system reduces the average content transmission delay (ADL) by approximately 14%-22% and 21%-31%, respectively, which greatly improves the efficiency of digital teaching of English in colleges and universities.
19 GHz vertical Si p-channel MOSFET

Vertical Si p-MOSFETs with channel lengths of 100 nm were fabricated using selective low pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) epitaxial growth and conventional i-line lithography. The layout, called VOXFET, reduces gate to source/drain overlap capacitances, thus improving high speed applications. Transistors with a gate width of 12 /spl mu/m and gate oxide thickness of 10 nm show transconductances g/sub m/ of 200 mS/mm and measured cutoff frequencies of f/sub T/=8.7 GHz and f/sub MAX/=19.2 GHz.
The Impact of Cataract Surgery on Vision-Related Quality of Life and Psychological Distress in Monocular Patients

Purpose To determine the changes in vision-related quality of life and psychological distress after cataract surgery in monocular patients and to compared these with a control group of age- and gender-matched binocular patients. Methods We enrolled 40 monocular patients and 40 binocular patients who underwent cataract surgery from August 2017 to December 2018. All participants undertook eye examinations and answered questionnaires (the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire, Self-rating Anxiety Scale, and Self-rating Depression Scale) before and after cataract surgery. Result The monocular patients had significantly worse mean CDVA than the binocular patients before and after surgery. However, there was no significant difference between the increases gained by the two groups. Mean composite VFQ-25 scores of the monocular group were significantly lower than those of the binocular group before and after surgery, but the improvement experienced by the monocular group was statistically larger than the binocular group (37.20 ± 12.84 vs. 19.11 ± 5.13, P < 0.001). Mean standard SAS scores of monocular patients were significantly higher than those of binocular controls before and after surgery, while monocular patients experienced a significant greater decline of SAS scores (−9.41 ± 5.39 VS −3.84 ± 1.61, P < 0.001). Mean standard SDS scores of the monocular group were significantly higher than those of the control group before and after surgery, but the monocular group experienced a significantly greater decline of SDS scores following cataract surgery (−11.91 ± 6.38 VS −4.78 ± 1.79, P < 0.001). There was a significant correlation between the preoperative logMAR CDVA and both the postoperative logMAR CDVA (r = 0.63, P < 0.001) and the changes in the logMAR CDVA (r = −0.881, P < 0.001) for monocular patients. Linear regression analyses suggested that higher postoperative VFQ-25 scores had significant associations with better preoperative CDVA and the absence of systemic comorbidity (both P < 0.05). Age and ocular comorbidity were significantly associated with postoperative SAS scores (both P < 0.05). Age and systemic comorbidity remained significant impact factors for SDS scores (both P < 0.05). Conclusion Monocular patients reported greater improvement in vision-related quality of life and greater decline in the level of anxiety and depression than binocular control subjects, despite having similar CDVA gains after cataract surgery. We argue that it is not a better choice for monocular patients to delay cataract surgery until the cataract is very advanced. A clear understanding of the impact of cataract surgery on vision-related quality of life and psychological distress in monocular patients is needed by ophthalmologists when making surgery decision.
Sociable robots : the role of presence and task in human-robot interaction

Human-robot interaction is an emerging area of study that is developing an understanding of how to build robots that are useful and effective in helping people perform tasks in particular domains. In particular, social robots, or those that help people as capable partners rather than as tools, are believed to be of greatest use for applications in entertainment, education, and healthcare because of their potential to be perceived as trusting, helpful, reliable, and engaging. This thesis explores how the robot’s physical presence and proximity to a person influence a person’s perception of these characteristics. Results from two experiments are reported: the first shows differences in participant responses to a robot, an animated character, and a human and the second shows the outcome of participants interacting with a robot or a robot presented on a television in two different types of tasks. Responses to the interactions were collected via questionnaire and videotape and are reported on scales measuring trust, perceived information quality, altruism, level of engagement, reliability, immediacy, credibility, and persuasiveness. The results of this research will contribute towards the goal of building robots that can effectively communicate with and assist humans in a variety of applications in domains that I believe will benefit from social robots. This work was sponsored in part by a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation Thesis Supervisor: Cynthia Breazeal Title: Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
PIPELINE INTEGRITY REVIEWS

Most pipeline systems in the world are many years old, with some approaching the end of their design lives. Increasingly, the design, operation and condition of these systems have to be reviewed for a variety of reasons: i. CODE/REGULATORY/COMPANY REQUIREMENTS, ii. SAFETY – e.g. following a failure, or because of population encroachments, iii. POOR DOCUMENTATION – ensure or prove continuing integrity, iv. UPRATING - a need to increase pressure/throughput, v. CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP, vi. CHANGE OF USE, vii. LIFE EXTENSION, beyond original design life. This paper introduces the reader to Integrity Reviews and gives outlines on how to conduct them, their contents, and analytical methods. These reviews are being successfully used by Andrew Palmer and Associates/Penspen for clients in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Energy Audit of Manufacturing and Processing Industries in Nigeria: A Case Study of Food Processing Industry and Distillation & Bottling Company

In this paper, analysis of the energy audit of Food processing industry and Distillation and Bottling Company in Ota, Nigeria has been carried out. A walk-through energy audit of these industries was undertaken to identify the major sources of energy in use, identifying the lapses in energy usage, identifying areas to improve energy usage, determining the level of consumption of the energy sources and recommending policy measures that will enhance energy savings in the industries and Nigerian industries at large. The study observed that among a wide variation of end-use electricity consuming equipment, electric motors were the major consumer of electrical energy, accounting for 40-47% of total electric energy. Also from the identified energy use sources in the two industries, it was observed that fuel energy expended in operating the generating set, boilers or heaters in the industries had the highest value of energy use accounting for more than 65% of the total energy used. It was observed that none of the companies under review sufficiently utilized their energy as they all have their energy used ratio far below 1. This was as a result of some factors that contributed to energy waste and energy use inefficiency in the companies. Among these factors are: Poor in housekeeping of air- condition and refrigeration equipments and electric motors that dissipate much heat, use of electric motors that are weak and generate excessive noise because they have been rewound more than twice, improper lagging of boilers that lead to losing much heat, switching on of the lighting points in the day time and generation of electrical energy more than needed in the industry by some electric generator. The study concluded that energy is not sufficiently utilized in these companies and recommendations for efficient energy usage in the industries were proposed in this study.
The effect of display size on performance of operational tasks with UAVs

The user-Interface of military dismounted systems has extreme influence on soldiers' ability to complete their missions and to protect themselves during combat. This work focused on the type of displays required to retrieve information from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in operational situations. Twenty IDF soldiers with limited experience in operating UAVs, participated in this simulated study of display-size preferences. In the 3 × 2 within subject design, participants used 3 types of displays on two missions: navigation and target detection. Performance data was collected for both tasks. Participants also completed the NASA-TLX and a closing questionnaire. Statistical analyses showed that performance differences between displays were task dependent. Thus, some tasks can be performed with a smaller display at the same level of performance by exerting more mental effort. Furthermore, sensitivity to task difficulty was evident.
How Can Productivity in Product Design and Engineering Be Assessed? Guidelines to Build a Dashboard of KPIs

Productivity is among the most popular and useful measures to control a firm's performance. It is usually defined as a ratio between a firm's final outputs and its inputs. Such a definition for productivity does not allow an accurate assessment of those organizational units operating in the early stages of the new product development process, whose outputs are distant from a firm's final ones. This article focuses on the organizational units operating on product design and engineering activities, considered a key competitive advantage source. Indeed, such units oversee major responsibilities in developing new products and improving existing ones. Therefore, monitoring product design and engineering units’ productivity is of pivotal importance, especially for firms whose business model heavily relies on new or continuously improved products. However, research on the productivity of product design and engineering units has been underdeveloped, and previous studies have called for research on the topic. Hence, this article outlines the features of product design and engineering activities, describing their similarities and differences with respect to research and development activities and to service activities. Consequently, it presents methodological insights to assess product design and engineering productivity and their illustrative implementation in Leonardo SpA, a global company in the Aerospace and Defence sector. Finally, the article outlines the theoretical and managerial implications of the study.
The relationship between the Acoustic Complexity Index and avian species richness and diversity: a review

ABSTRACT Technologies to monitor species are constantly evolving including the use of acoustic recordings to determine species presence, activity patterns and population dynamics. The Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI) aims to determine ecologically relevant changes in the soundscape by measuring the variability within biotic sounds whilst remaining insensitive to anthrophony. Previous findings relating to this index and its correlations with avian species richness and diversity, environmental and anthropogenic factors were amalgamated in this review to guide the future use of this monitoring technique. A total of 25 papers were returned following a literature search in June 2020 targeting studies in which these relationships were analysed. Current literature shows inconclusive relationships between the ACI and avian species richness and diversity. Also, those studies analysing relationships between the index, environmental and anthropogenic factors provided contrasting results due to the lack of replication between studies. The future implementation of a standardised approach towards data collection should lead to more compelling conclusions. Relationships between the soundscape and the environment should be evaluated on an individual site basis due to the influence species composition has on the acoustic environment. Further study is required to determine the relationship between anthropogenic factors, the ACI and avian assemblages.
Who participates in computer science education studies? A literature review on K-12 subjects

Computer science education (CSEd) research within K-12 makes extensive use of empirical studies in which children participate. Insight in the demographics of these children is important for the purpose of understanding the representativeness of the populations included. This literature review studies the demographics of subjects included in K-12 CSEd studies. We have manually inspected the proceedings of three of the main international CSEd conferences: SIGCSE, ITiCSE and ICER, of five years (2014–2018), and selected all papers pertaining to K-12 CSEd experiments. This led to a sample of 134 papers describing 143 studies. We manually read these papers to determine the demographic information that was reported on, investigating the following categories: age/grade, gender, race/ethnic background, location, prior computer science experience, socio-economic status (SES), and disability. Our findings show that children from the United States, boys and children without computer science experience are included most frequently. Race and SES are frequently not reported on, and for race as well as for disabilities there appears a tendency to report these categories only when they deviate from the majority. Further, for several demographic categories different criteria are used to determine them. Finally, most studies take place within schools. These insights can be valuable to correctly interpret current knowledge from K-12 CSEd research, and furthermore can be helpful in developing standards for consistent collection and reporting of demographic information in this community.
Turbine Size and Temperature Dependence of Icing on Wind Turbine Blades

The dependence of atmospheric icing on temperature and wind turbine size was studied by performing numerical simulations of ice accumulation on five different wind turbine blade profiles at four different temperatures. The profiles were for 450 kW, 600 kW, 1 MW, 2 MW and 5 MW wind turbines, and the temperatures −10°C, −7.5°C, −5°C and −2.5°C. The simulations indicate that generally atmospheric icing is less severe for larger wind turbines in terms of how much the aerodynamics are disturbed, but the opposite can be true under certain specific conditions. It is indicated that the air temperature range at which the transition between glaze and rime ice occurs is lower for the larger wind turbines.
Effect of proprioceptive stimulation using a soft robotic glove on motor activation and brain connectivity in stroke survivors

Objective. Soft-robotic-assisted training may improve motor function during post-stroke recovery, but the underlying physiological changes are not clearly understood. We applied a single-session of intensive proprioceptive stimulation to stroke survivors using a soft robotic glove to delineate its short-term influence on brain functional activity and connectivity. Approach. In this study, we utilized task-based and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize the changes in different brain networks following a soft robotic intervention. Nine stroke patients with hemiplegic upper limb engaged in resting-state and motor-task fMRI. The motor tasks comprised two conditions: active movement of fingers (active task) and glove-assisted active movement using a robotic glove (glove-assisted task), both with visual instruction. Each task was performed using bilateral hands simultaneously or the affected hand only. The same set of experiments was repeated following a 30 min treatment of continuous passive motion (CPM) using a robotic glove. Main results. On simultaneous bimanual movement, increased activation of supplementary motor area (SMA) and primary motor area (M1) were observed after CPM treatment compared to the pre-treatment condition, both in active and glove-assisted task. However, when performing the tasks solely using the affected hand, the phenomena of increased activity were not observed either in active or glove-assisted task. The comparison of the resting-state fMRI between before and after CPM showed the connectivity of the supramarginal gyrus and SMA was increased in the somatosensory network and salience network. Significance. This study demonstrates how passive motion exercise activates M1 and SMA in the post-stroke brain. The effective proprioceptive motor integration seen in bimanual exercise in contrast to the unilateral affected hand exercise suggests that the unaffected hemisphere might reconfigure connectivity to supplement damaged neural networks in the affected hemisphere. The somatosensory modulation rendered by the intense proprioceptive stimulation would affect the motor learning process in stroke survivors.