bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Iterative Refinement of Transmission Map for Stereo Image Defogging Using a Dual Camera Sensor
Authors: Kim Heegwang , Park Jinho , Park Hasil , Paik Joonki
Published: December 2017

Recently, the stereo imaging-based image enhancement approach has attracted increasing attention in the field of video analysis. This paper presents a dual camera-based stereo image defogging algorithm. Optical flow is first estimated from the stereo foggy image pair, and the initial disparity map is generated from the estimated optical flow. Next, an initial transmission map is generated using the initial disparity map. Atmospheric light is then estimated using the color line theory. The defogged result is finally reconstructed using the estimated transmission map and atmospheric light. The proposed method can refine the transmission map iteratively. Experimental results show that the proposed method can successfully remove fog without color distortion. The proposed method can be used as a pre-processing step for an outdoor video analysis system and a high-end smartphone with a dual camera system.
Signal Subspace Smoothing Technique for Time Delay Estimation Using MUSIC Algorithm
Authors: Sun Meng , Wang Yide , Le Bastard Cédric , Pan Jingjing , Ding Yuehua
Published: December 2017

In civil engineering, Time Delay Estimation (TDE) is one of the most important tasks for the media structure and quality evaluation. In this paper, the MUSIC algorithm is applied to estimate the time delay. In practice, the backscattered echoes are highly correlated (even coherent). In order to apply the MUSIC algorithm, an adaptation of signal subspace smoothing is proposed to decorrelate the correlation between echoes. Unlike the conventional sub-band averaging techniques, we propose to directly use the signal subspace, which can take full advantage of the signal subspace and reduce the influence of noise. Moreover, the proposed method is adapted to deal with any radar pulse shape. The proposed method is tested on both numerical and experimental data. Both results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Practical, Robust and Fast Method for Location Localization in Range-Based Systems
Authors: Huang Shiping , Wu Zhifeng , Misra Anil
Published: December 2017

Location localization technology is used in a number of industrial and civil applications. Real time location localization accuracy is highly dependent on the quality of the distance measurements and efficiency of solving the localization equations. In this paper, we provide a novel approach to solve the nonlinear localization equations efficiently and simultaneously eliminate the bad measurement data in range-based systems. A geometric intersection model was developed to narrow the target search area, where Newton’s Method and the Direct Search Method are used to search for the unknown position. Not only does the geometric intersection model offer a small bounded search domain for Newton’s Method and the Direct Search Method, but also it can self-correct bad measurement data. The Direct Search Method is useful for the coarse localization or small target search domain, while the Newton’s Method can be used for accurate localization. For accurate localization, by utilizing the proposed Modified Newton’s Method (MNM), challenges of avoiding the local extrema, singularities, and initial value choice are addressed. The applicability and robustness of the developed method has been demonstrated by experiments with an indoor system.
A Novel Passive Wireless Sensing Method for Concrete Chloride Ion Concentration Monitoring
Authors: Zhou Shuangxi , Sheng Wei , Deng Fangming , Wu Xiang , Fu Zhihui
Published: December 2017

In this paper, a novel approach for concrete chloride ion concentration measuring based on passive and wireless sensor tag is proposed. The chloride ion sensor based on RFID communication protocol is consisting of an energy harvesting and management circuit, a low dropout voltage regulator, a MCU, a RFID tag chip and a pair of electrodes. The proposed sensor harvests energy radiated by the RFID reader to power its circuitry. To improve the stability of power supply, a three-stage boost rectifier is customized to rectify the harvested power into dc power and step-up the voltage. Since the measured data is wirelessly transmitted, it contains miscellaneous noises which would decrease the accuracy of measuring. Thus, in this paper, the wavelet denoising method is adopted to denoise the raw data. Besides, a monitoring software is developed to display the measurement results in real-time. The measurement results indicate that the proposed passive sensor tag can achieve a reliable communication distance of 16.3 m and can reliably measure the chloride ion concentration in concrete.
A Game-Theory Based Incentive Framework for an Intelligent Traffic System as Part of a Smart City Initiative
Authors: Mei Haibo , Poslad Stefan , Du Shuang
Published: December 2017

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) can be applied to inform and incentivize travellers to help them make cognizant choices concerning their trip routes and transport modality use for their daily travel whilst achieving more sustainable societal and transport authority goals. However, in practice, it is challenging for an ITS to enable incentive generation that is context-driven and personalized, whilst supporting multi-dimensional travel goals. This is because an ITS has to address the situation where different travellers have different travel preferences and constraints for route and modality, in the face of dynamically-varying traffic conditions. Furthermore, personalized incentive generation also needs to dynamically achieve different travel goals from multiple travellers, in the face of their conducts being a mix of both competitive and cooperative behaviours. To address this challenge, a Rule-based Incentive Framework (RIF) is proposed in this paper that utilizes both decision tree and evolutionary game theory to process travel information and intelligently generate personalized incentives for travellers. The travel information processed includes travellers’ mobile patterns, travellers’ modality preferences and route traffic volume information. A series of MATLAB simulations of RIF was undertaken to validate RIF to show that it is potentially an effective way to incentivize travellers to change travel routes and modalities as an essential smart city service.
Chinese Consumer Quality Perception and Preference of Traditional Sustainable Rice Produced by the Integrated Rice–Fish System
Authors: Wang Erpeng , Gao Zhifeng
Published: December 2017

Historically, humans have created many sustainable practices, and among the most famous and successful sustainable practice is the rice–fish system in China. While previous studies have investigated eco-labeling food from various angles, consumer perception and preference of food produced from traditional sustainable practices (traditional sustainable food) remain unexplored. Taking the historical rice–fish system as an example, we examined consumers’ perception and willingness to pay (WTP) for rice produced by a rice–fish system, by using data from 1422 consumers from China. Our paper shows that most Chinese consumers do understand the meaning of the rice–fish system and perceive the traditional sustainable system as environmentally friendly and producing high-quality food. The premium that consumers are willing to pay for rice from a rice–fish system is about 41%. Consumers who perceive the linkage between sustainable production and food quality and safety have a significantly higher WTP for traditional sustainable rice (p-value = 0.000). Interestingly, the perception of environment risk does not directly cause more traditional sustainable food consumption, but those who self-proclaimed as environmentalists are willing to pay a premium for traditional sustainable rice. Females, people with high family income, and people with children are more willing to pay for traditional sustainable rice. Understanding consumer perception and preference of traditional sustainable food provides critical information for Chinese policymakers to develop a cheap and efficient way to keep traditional sustainable practices and promote sustainable food consumption.
Performance Evaluation of Research and Business Development: A Case Study of Korean Public Organizations
Authors: Park Jaehun , Kim Joonyoung , Sung Si-Il
Published: December 2017

This study presents data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based systematic and simultaneous performance measures for research and business development (R&BD) and internal processes. In particular, we focus on the relationship between the research and development (R&D) process and business development (BD) process in evaluating R&BD overall performance, and provide effective guidelines for relatively underperforming decision-making units to help them establish an optimal strategy to increase their performance. To that end, we develop a two-stage network DEA model based on performance measures by defining variables and transforming R&D and BD performances into a serial network structure. In addition, based on the proposed method, we present a practical application of R&BD performance measurement for Korean public organizations, specifically public research institutes and universities.
Revisiting the Granger Causality Relationship between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in China: A Multi-Timescale Decomposition Approach
Authors: Jiang Lei , Bai Ling
Published: December 2017

The past four decades have witnessed rapid growth in the rate of energy consumption in China. A great deal of energy consumption has led to two major issues. One is energy shortages and the other is environmental pollution caused by fossil fuel combustion. Since energy saving plays a substantial role in addressing both issues, it is of vital importance to study the intrinsic characteristics of energy consumption and its relationship with economic growth. The topic of the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth has been hotly debated for years. However, conflicting conclusions have been drawn. In this paper, we provide a novel insight into the characteristics of the growth rate of energy consumption in China from a multi-timescale perspective by means of adaptive time-frequency data analysis; namely, the ensemble empirical mode decomposition method, which is suitable for the analysis of non-linear time series. Decomposition led to four intrinsic mode function (IMF) components and a trend component with different periods. Then, we repeated the same procedure for the growth rate of China’s GDP and obtained four similar IMF components and a trend component. In the second stage, we performed the Granger causality test. The results demonstrated that, in the short run, there was a bidirectional causality relationship between economic growth and energy consumption, and in the long run a unidirectional relationship running from economic growth to energy consumption.
Reconstructing Damaged Complex Networks Based on Neural Networks
Authors: Lee Ye , Sohn Insoo
Published: December 2017

Despite recent progress in the study of complex systems, reconstruction of damaged networks due to random and targeted attack has not been addressed before. In this paper, we formulate the network reconstruction problem as an identification of network structure based on much reduced link information. Furthermore, a novel method based on multilayer perceptron neural network is proposed as a solution to the problem of network reconstruction. Based on simulation results, it was demonstrated that the proposed scheme achieves very high reconstruction accuracy in small-world network model and a robust performance in scale-free network model.
Exploring Numerically the Benefits of Water Discharge Prediction for the Remote RTC of WDNs
Authors: Creaco Enrico
Published: December 2017

This paper explores numerically the benefits of water discharge prediction in the real time control (RTC) of water distribution networks (WDNs). An algorithm aimed at controlling the settings of control valves and variable speed pumps, as a function of pressure head signals from remote nodes in the network, is used. Two variants of the algorithm are considered, based on the measured water discharge in the device at the current time and on the prediction of this variable at the new time, respectively. As a result of the prediction, carried out using a polynomial with coefficients determined through linear regression, the RTC algorithm attempts to correct the expected deviation of the controlled pressure head from the set point, rather than the currently measured deviation. The applications concerned the numerical simulation of RTC in a WDN, in which the nodal demands are reconstructed stochastically through the bottom-up approach. The results prove that RTC benefits from the implementation of the prediction, in terms of the closeness of the controlled variable to the set point and of total variations of the device setting. The benefits are more evident when the water discharge features contained random fluctuations and large hourly variations.
Spanish Agriculture and Water: Educational Implications of Water Culture and Consumption from the Farmers’ Perspective
Authors: Tójar-Hurtado Juan-Carlos , Mena-Rodríguez Esther , Fernández-Jiménez Miguel-Ángel
Published: December 2017

The responsible management and consumption of water is a challenge that involves all segments of society. Having access to sufficient quality and quantity of water is not only a technological issue, but requires that the adopted measures and programmes take into account the dimensions of society and education. Spanish agriculture, as in other areas of the world, is a major consumer of water and more so than other sectors, including household consumption. Within the field of environmental education, this study covered the water culture and consumption of Andalusian farmers, based on their own perceptions. For this purpose, a questionnaire was created and validated, and included a sample of 1030 farmers selected with pseudorandom number sampling. An analysis of the data showed relevant results with respect to the values and notions supporting the justification for farmer behaviours, both from a cognitive-representative viewpoint and from an affective-expressive stance, as well as assertions made by the irrigators about other key sectors concerning the responsible management of water usage and water consumption. The findings of this study may assist in the design of environmental education programmes addressing this sector, which could also include other similar populations.
Spatial and Temporal Variations of Snow Cover in the Karoon River Basin, Iran, 2003–2015
Authors: Keikhosravi Kiany Mohammad , Masoodian Seyed , Balling Robert , Svoma Bohumil
Published: December 2017

The Karoon River Basin, with an area of about 67,000 km2, is located in the southern part of Iran and has a complex mountainous terrain. No comprehensive study has been done on the spatial and temporal variations of snow cover in this region to date. In this paper, daily snow data of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MODIS Terra (MOD10A1) and MODIS Aqua (MYD10A1) were examined from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2015, to analyze snow cover variations. Due to difficulties created by cloud cover effects, it was crucial to reduce cloud contamination in the daily time series. Therefore, two common cloud removal methods were applied on the daily data. The results suggested that in winter nearly 43% of the Basin’s area experienced a negative trend, while only 1.4% of the Basin had a positive trend for snow-covered days (SCD); trends in fall and spring were less evident in the data. Using a digital elevation model of the Basin, the trends of SCD in 100 m elevation intervals were calculated, indicating a significant positive trend in SCD during the fall season above 3500 m.
Climate Change Impacts on Flow and Suspended Sediment Yield in Headwaters of High-Latitude Regions—A Case Study in China’s Far Northeast
Authors: Zhou Yuyan , Xu Y. , Xiao Weihua , Wang Jianhua , Huang Ya , Yang Heng
Published: December 2017

Climate change is expected to have stronger effects on water resources in higher latitude regions. Despite intensive research on possible hydrological responses in those regions to a warmer environment, our knowledge on erosion and sediment yield induced by the climate change in high-latitude headwaters is still limited. In this study, we estimated suspended sediment yields from 2021 to 2050 in a typical headwater area of far Northeast China to elucidate potential impacts of future climate change on surface runoff and erosion in higher latitude regions. We first parameterized the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) using historical measurements to estimate runoff from the river basin. The model performed well in both the calibration (2006–2011) and the validation (2012–2014) periods, with an R2 of 0.85 and 0.88 and a Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) of 0.7 and 0.73, respectively. We also utilized historical measurements on sediment yields from the period 2006–2014 to develop a runoff-sediment yield rating curve, and the rating curve obtained an excellent goodness of fit (R2 = 0.91, p < 0.001). We then applied the calibrated SWAT model to two climate change projections, also known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), for the period from 2021 to 2050 to obtain future runoff estimates. These runoff estimates were then used to predict future sediment yield by using the developed runoff-sediment yield rating curve. Our study found a significant increase of annual sediment yield (p < 0.05) for both climate change projections (RCP4.5 = 237%; RCP8.5 = 133%) in this, China’s high-latitude region. The increases of sediment yield were prevalent in summer and autumn, varying from 102–299% between the two RCPs scenarios. Precipitation was the dominated factor that determined the variation of runoff and sediment yield. A warming climate could bring more snowmelt-induced spring runoff and longer rainy days in autumn, hence leading to higher erosion. These findings demonstrate that under the changing climate, soils in this high-latitude headwater area would be eroded twice to three times that of the baseline period (1981–2010), indicating a potential risk to the downstream water quality and reservoir management.
Exploring wear at the nanoscale with circular mode atomic force microscopy
Authors: Noel Olivier , Vencl Aleksandar , Mazeran Pierre-Emmanuel
Published: December 2017

The development of atomic force microscopy (AFM) has allowed wear mechanisms to be investigated at the nanometer scale by means of a single asperity contact generated by an AFM tip and an interacting surface. However, the low wear rate at the nanoscale and the thermal drift require fastidious quantitative measurements of the wear volume for determining wear laws. In this paper, we describe a new, effective, experimental methodology based on circular mode AFM, which generates high frequency, circular displacements of the contact. Under such conditions, the wear rate is significant and the drift of the piezoelectric actuator is limited. As a result, well-defined wear tracks are generated and an accurate computation of the wear volume is possible. Finally, we describe the advantages of this method and we report a relevant application example addressing a Cu/Al2O3 nanocomposite material used in industrial applications.
An efficient synthesis of 1,6-anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid from N-acetylglucosamine
Authors: Calvert Matthew B , Mayer Christoph , Titz Alexander
Published: December 2017

A novel synthesis of 1,6-anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid is described, which proceeds in only five steps from the cheap starting material N-acetylglucosamine. This efficient synthesis should enable future studies into the importance of 1,6-anhydromuramic acid in bacterial cell wall recycling processes.
K2-136: A Binary System in the Hyades Cluster Hosting a Neptune-sized Planet
Authors: Ciardi David R. , Crossfield Ian J. M. , Feinstein Adina D. , Schlieder Joshua E. , Petigura Erik A. , David Trevor J. , Bristow Makennah , Patel Rahul I. , Arnold Lauren , Benneke Björn , Christiansen Jessie L. , Dressing Courtney D. , Fulton Benjamin J. , Howard Andrew W. , Isaacson Howard , Sinukoff Evan , Thackeray Beverly
Published: December 2017

We report the discovery of a Neptune-size planet (

) in the Hyades Cluster. The host star is in a binary system, comprising a K5V star and M7/8V star with a projected separation of 40 au. The planet orbits the primary star with an orbital period of 17.3 days and a transit duration of 3 hrs. The host star is bright (V = 11.2, J = 9.1) and so may be a good target for precise radial velocity measurements. K2-136A c is the first Neptune-sized planet to be found orbiting in a binary system within an open cluster. The Hyades is the nearest star cluster to the Sun, has an age of 625–750 Myr, and forms one of the fundamental rungs in the distance ladder; understanding the planet population in such a well-studied cluster can help us understand and set constraints on the formation and evolution of planetary systems.
Simultaneous Transverse and Longitudinal Oscillations in a Quiescent Prominence Triggered by a Coronal Jet
Authors: Zhang Q. M. , Li D. , Ning Z. J.
Published: December 2017

In this paper, we report our multiwavelength observations of the simultaneous transverse and longitudinal oscillations in a quiescent prominence. The prominence was observed by the Global Oscillation Network Group and by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory on 2015 June 29. A GOES C2.4 flare took place in NOAA active region 12373, which was associated with a pair of short ribbons and a remote ribbon. During the impulsive phase of the flare, a coronal jet spurted out of the primary flare site and propagated in the northwest direction at an apparent speed of ∼224 km s−1. Part of the jet stopped near the remote ribbon. The remaining part continued moving forward before stopping to the east of the prominence. Once the jet encountered the prominence, it pushed the prominence to oscillate periodically. The transverse oscillation of the eastern part (EP) of prominence can be divided into two phases. In phase I, the initial amplitude, velocity, period, and damping timescale are ∼4.5 Mm, ∼20 km s−1, ∼25 minutes, and ∼7.5 hr, respectively. The oscillation lasted for two cycles. In phase II, the initial amplitude increases to ∼11.3 Mm, while the initial velocity halves to ∼10 km s−1. The period increases by a factor of ∼3.5. With a damping timescale of ∼4.4 hr, the oscillation lasted for about three cycles. The western part of prominence also experienced transverse oscillation. The initial amplitude is only ∼2 Mm and the velocity is less than 10 km s−1. The period (∼27 minutes) is slightly longer than that of the EP in phase I. The oscillation lasted for about four cycles with the shortest damping timescale (∼1.7 hr). To the east of prominence, a handful of horizontal threads experienced longitudinal oscillation. The initial amplitude, velocity, period, and damping timescale are ∼52 Mm, ∼50 km s−1, ∼99 minutes, and 2.5 hr, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first report of simultaneous transverse and longitudinal prominence oscillations triggered by a coronal jet.
Disk Masses for Embedded Class I Protostars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud
Authors: Sheehan Patrick D. , Eisner Josh A.
Published: December 2017

Class I protostars are thought to represent an early stage in the lifetime of protoplanetary disks, when they are still embedded in their natal envelope. Here we measure the disk masses of 10 Class I protostars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud to constrain the initial mass budget for forming planets in disks. We use radiative transfer modeling to produce synthetic protostar observations and fit the models to a multi-wavelength data set using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting procedure. We fit these models simultaneously to our new Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy 1.3 mm observations that are sensitive to the wide range of spatial scales that are expected from protostellar disks and envelopes so as to be able to distinguish each component, as well as broadband spectral energy distributions compiled from the literature. We find a median disk mass of

on average, more massive than the Taurus Class II disks, which have median disk mass of

. This decrease in disk mass can be explained if dust grains have grown by a factor of 75 in grain size, indicating that by the Class II stage, at a few Myr, a significant amount of dust grain processing has occurred. However, there is evidence that significant dust processing has occurred even during the Class I stage, so it is likely that the initial mass budget is higher than the value quoted here.
HST Imaging of the Brightest z ∼ 8–9 Galaxies from UltraVISTA: The Extreme Bright End of the UV Luminosity Function
Authors: Stefanon Mauro , Labbé Ivo , Bouwens Rychard J. , Brammer Gabriel B. , Oesch Pascal , Franx Marijn , Fynbo Johan P. U. , Milvang-Jensen Bo , Muzzin Adam , Illingworth Garth D. , Fèvre Olivier Le , Caputi Karina I. , Holwerda Benne W. , McCracken Henry J. , Smit Renske , Magee Dan
Published: December 2017

We report on the discovery of three especially bright candidate

galaxies. Five sources were targeted for follow-up with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), selected from a larger sample of 16 bright (

mag) candidate

Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) identified over 1.6 degrees2 of the COSMOS/UltraVISTA field. These were selected as Y and J dropouts by leveraging the deep (Y-to-

mag,

) NIR data from the UltraVISTA DR3 release, deep ground-based optical imaging from the CFHTLS and Suprime-Cam programs, and Spitzer/IRAC mosaics combining observations from the SMUVS and SPLASH programs. Through the refined spectral energy distributions, which now also include new HyperSuprimeCam g-, r-, i-, z-, and Y-band data, we confirm that 3/5 galaxies have robust

, consistent with the initial selection. The remaining 2/5 galaxies have a nominal

. However, with HST data alone, these objects have increased probability of being at

. We measure mean UV continuum slopes

for the three

galaxies, marginally bluer than similarly luminous

in CANDELS but consistent with previous measurements of similarly luminous galaxies at

. The circularized effective radius for our brightest source is 0.9 ± 0.3 kpc, similar to previous measurements for a bright

galaxy and bright

galaxies. Finally, enlarging our sample to include the six brightest

LBGs identified over UltraVISTA (i.e., including three other sources from Labbé et al.) we estimate for the first time the volume density of galaxies at the extreme bright end (

mag) of the

UV luminosity function. Despite this exceptional result, the still large statistical uncertainties do not allow us to discriminate between a Schechter and a double-power-law form.
The Characteristics of Thin Magnetic Flux Tubes in the Lower Solar Atmosphere Observed by Hinode/SOT in the G band and in Ca ii H Bright Points
Authors: Xiong Jianping , Yang Yunfei , Jin Chunlan , Ji Kaifan , Feng Song , Wang Feng , Deng Hui , Hu Yu
Published: December 2017

Photospheric bright points (PBPs) and chromospheric bright points (CBPs) reflect the cross sections of magnetic flux tubes at different heights of the lower solar atmosphere. We aim to study the fine 3D structures and transportation dynamics of the magnetic flux tubes using G-band and simultaneous Ca ii H image-series from the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) on board Hinode. A 3D track-while-detect method is proposed to detect and track PBPs and CBPs. The mean values of equivalent diameters, maximum intensity contrasts, transverse velocities, motion ranges, motion types, and diffusion indices of PBPs and CBPs are 180 ± 20 and 210 ± 30 km,

and

, 1.6 ± 0.8 and 2.7 ± 1.4 km s−1, 1.5 ± 0.6 and 1.7 ± 0.8, 0.8 ± 0.2 and 0.6 ± 0.2, and 1.7 ± 0.7 and 1.3 ± 0.7, respectively. Moreover, the ratios of each CBP characteristics to its corresponding PBP are derived to explore the change rates of the flux tubes. The corresponding ratios are 1.2 ± 0.2, 1.2 ± 0.1, 1.9 ± 0.1, 1.4 ± 0.3, 0.7 ± 0.2, and 0.9 ± 0.4, respectively. The statistical results imply that the majority magnetic flux tubes expand slightly with increasing solar height, look brighter than their surroundings, show a higher transverse velocity, a wider motion range, and a more erratic path, but the majority of the flux tubes diffuse slightly slower. The phenomenon might be explained by the conservation of momentum combined with a decrease in density. The more erratic path leads to a swing or twist of the flux tubes and therefore guides magnetohydrodynamic waves.
Observations of a Fast-mode Magnetosonic Wave Propagating along a Curving Coronal Loop on 2011 November 11
Authors: Qu Z. N. , Jiang L. Q. , Chen S. L.
Published: December 2017

The detailed analysis of an interesting quasi-periodic fast-propagating (QFP) magnetosonic wave is presented using high-resolution observations taken by the Solar Dynamic Observatory. The QFP wave occurred over the west solar limb during the fast eruption phase of a nearby prominence. It propagated along a group of curving coronal loop and manifested two types of wave trains that showed different morphologies and propagation characteristics. The wavefronts of the first type wave trains are relatively broad, and they changed their propagation direction when they pass through the turning part of the guiding loop. On the contrary, the wavefronts of the other type wave trains are narrow, and their propagation did not affected by geometric changes of the guiding loop. Measurements indicate that the average speeds of the broad (narrow) wave trains is

, and the period of the wave trains ranges from 54 to 458 s. We propose that the narrow wave trains may manifest the leakage of the wave trains from the guiding coronal loop, or were guided by another group of invisible coronal loop. In addition, the projection effect and weak magnetic field strength of the guiding coronal loop are proposed to explain the slow wave speed.
Indicadores de alfabetização científica: um estudo em espaços não formais da cidade de Toledo - PR.
Authors: Ferreira Matheus , Alves Gabriela Ledur , Da Cunha Marcia Borin , Leite Rosana Franzen
Published: December 2017

O presente trabalho apresenta um estudo sobre os seguintes espaços de educação não formal presentes na cidade de Toledo/PR: Parque das Aves e Aquário Municipal Rômolo Martinelli. Para esse estudo foi realizada uma entrevista focalizada com os coordenadores dos espaços, para identificar como são realizadas as atividades, bem como e quais sãos os seus principais frequentadores. Após as transcrições das entrevistas, foi então realizada uma análise de conteúdos baseada em Bardin. As categorias são de acordo com os indicadores de Alfabetização Científica, segundo a professora Tânia Maria Cerati. A análise forneceu subsídios para concluir que os espaços recebem visitantes de diversas cidades do Brasil, bem como do exterior, no entanto os principais visitantes são estudantes de escolas municipais da cidade. Identificamos também que diversas atividades são realizadas nesses espaços, sendo que elas podem proporcionar diferentes conhecimentos aos que os visitam.
Management and Outcomes of Retained Lenticules and Lenticule Fragments Removal After Failed Primary SMILE: A Case Series
Authors: Ganesh Sri , Brar Sheetal , Lazaridis Apostolos
Published: December 2017

PURPOSE:

To describe the management of and report the outcomes following the removal of retained lenticules or lenticule fragments after a complicated small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE).

METHODS:

Three patients were referred for consultation due to intraoperative complications during SMILE. In case 1, the lenticule was torn during extraction and a central fragment was retained in the pocket. In case 2, the inferior part of the lenticule remained attached at the anterior plane and its detached, superior part was dislocated and folded at the inferior part of the pocket. In case 3, the lenticule was completely attached at the anterior plane. All cases underwent secondary surgery. The lenticule fragment was detached using the dissector's body and tip and was extracted using the advanced lenticule forceps. The retained lenticules were extracted after dissection of tissue bridges at the anterior plane and periphery.

RESULTS:

Postoperatively, all eyes showed improvement of visual acuity and topographic regularization of the anterior corneal curvature. Complete removal of lenticule remnants was accomplished in cases 1 and 2. In case 3, the photodisruption during primary SMILE was incomplete at a peripheral area next to the incision. A small peripheral fragment, corresponding to the described peripheral area, remained attached after the lenticule removal and was left in situ but did not have any impact on visual acuity and quality.

CONCLUSIONS:

Retained lenticules or lenticule fragments may induce irregular astigmatism and loss of visual acuity. Prompt removal restores visual acuity and induces the desired effect of the primary SMILE procedure.

[
J Refract Surg
. 2017;33(12):848–853.]
Pediatric Pharmaceutical Ingestions
Authors: Lowry Jennifer A. , Burns Michele , Calello Diane P.
Published: December 2017

Pharmaceutical ingestions comprise an important part of pediatric toxicology. Based on the 2015 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System, coupled with recent epidemiology articles on the topic of pediatric toxicology, it is apparent that poison prevention education has not been completely successful in decreasing exposures to toxic drugs. From the unintentional ingestion in a toddler due to unsafe storage to the intentional adolescent ingestion for misuse and abuse, pharmaceutical medications continue to cause harm. Access to adult prescription drugs in the home accounted for most of the exposures in children age ≤5 years as well as adolescents age 13 to 19 years. Ingestions resulting from more common pharmaceutical exposures are discussed with the hope of increasing awareness about the need for added vigilance.

[
Pediatr Ann.
2017;46(12):e459–e465.]
Health Literacy Competencies for European Health Care Personnel
Authors: Karuranga Suvi , Sørensen Kristine , Coleman Clifford , Mahmud Amina Jama
Published: December 2017

Background:

Health literacy as a concept is gaining importance in European countries, although it is still not adequately addressed among health personnel. Health literacy supports the self-management of patients in maintaining and improving health, which could decrease the burden on health systems in Europe. However, health professionals lack adequate knowledge about health literacy and the skills to promote health literacy among their patients.

Objective:

The Health Literacy Practices and Educational Competencies for Health Professionals (a health literacy training curriculum for health professionals) was recently developed in the United States, and the study presented here aimed to refine that assessment for health personnel in European settings.

Methods:

The modified Delphi method was used and data collected online via electronic communication to achieve consensus among an expert panel. The participants were a group of 20 health literacy and health care experts from 10 professional fields representing 13 European countries. The participants rated health literacy competencies on a four-point Likert scale and provided written feedback and recommendations. If a predetermined threshold of 70% or more of the participants agreed on the competency, the consensus was defined (similar to the criteria in the Health Literacy Practices and Educational Competencies for Health Professionals intervention).

Key Results:

After three rounds of ratings and modifications, consensus agreement was reached on 56 health literacy competencies (20 knowledge items, 25 skills items, 11 attitude items) and 38 practices. Eight items were removed from the original list and eight new items were added to the final list.

Conclusions:

This study is the first known attempt to develop a measurable list of health literacy competencies for health personnel in Europe. Further work is needed to develop educational curricula, standard national and regional guidelines, and questionnaires for the process of implementation to maximize health literacy responsiveness in health care organizations.

[
Health Literacy Research and Practice
. 2017;1(4):e247–e256.]

Plain Language Summary:

The Health Literacy Practices and Educational Competencies for Health Professionals was recently developed in the United States. This study aimed to refine that assessment for health care professionals in Europe. The modified Delphi method was used and data collected online via electronic communication, and in the end, 56 health literacy competencies were included.
Improving Organizational Health Literacy in Extracurricular Youth Work Settings
Authors: Wieczorek Christina C. , Ganahl Kristin , Dietscher Christina
Published: December 2017

Although most health literacy (HL) interventions in Europe focus on the enhancement of individual competences and primarily address health care, this article describes a novel approach to improving the HL friendliness of extracurricular youth work in Austria. Accordingly, the “Vienna Concept of Health-Literate Hospitals and Healthcare Organizations (V-HLO)” was transferred to extracurricular youth work for the first time. This article first gives a concise overview of the project, then outlines the interaction between the project development and the evaluation, and finally summarizes the main project outcomes and results. The project outcomes and the results indicate that the concept of organizational HL, in particular the V-HLO, could be transferred from the health care setting to the extracurricular youth work setting; yet data indicate that different priorities are relevant and different tools are needed. Although quality management is an important partner to implement the V-HLO in hospitals, more informal and flexible structures are required for an extracurricular youth work setting. The successful transfer of the V-HLO to the extracurricular youth work setting illustrates that the V-HLO has potential in varied settings beyond health care.

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Health Literacy Research and Practice
. 2017;1(4):e233–e238.]
Humanoid Robot Cooperative System by Machine Vision
Authors: Jiménez Moreno Robinson , Aviles Oscar , Hernández Beleño Ruben Darío
Published: December 2017

This article presents a supervised control position system, based on image processing and oriented to the cooperative work between two humanoid robots that work autonomously. The first robot picks up an object, carry it to the second robot and after that the same second robot places it in an endpoint, this is achieved through doing movements in straight line trajectories and turns of 180 degrees. Using for this the Microsoft Kinect , finding for each robot and the reference object its exact spatial position, through the color space conversion and filtering, derived from the information of the RGB camera that counts and obtains this result using the information transmitted from the depth sensor, obtaining the final location of each. Through programming in C #, and the developed algorithms that allow to command each robot in order to work together for transport the reference object, from an initial point, delivering this object from one robot to the other and depositing it in an endpoint. This experiment was tested performed the same trajectory, under uniform light conditions, achieving each time the successful delivering of the object
Application of Wireless Sensor Network based on LoRa in City Gas Meter Reading
Authors: Wang Kun
Published: December 2017

At present, the common meter reading method in gas meter reading system is manual. The meter reader enters the meter reading system to calculate the cost after getting the reading. This work is not only labour-intensive, but also inefficient. In addition, incorrect reading may occur due to human errors. With the development of the wireless communication technology, a wireless communication technology named LoRa for long-distance and low-power-consumption devices appeared. LoRa is a wireless communication technology with long transmission distance, low power consumption, low transmission speed, low complexity and low cost. It is mainly used in automatic control and internet of things. Through the comparison and analysis of several wireless communication technologies, a gas meter reading platform based on LoRa spread spectrum and wireless sensors is proposed. First of all, this paper briefly introduces the LoRa wireless communication technology and machine vision technology. Secondly, it gives a detailed introduction to the overall design of the system which includes system architecture design, information acquisition terminal, image acquisition module and wireless sensor module. Finally, an experiment is carried out in a residential area. The results show that the gas meter reading platform based on LoRa and wireless sensor network has a high practical value.
A Novel Wireless Sensor Network Architecture Based on Cloud Computing and Big Data
Authors: Song Changtong
Published: December 2017

To explore big data processing and its application in wireless sensor network (WSN), this paper studies structural construction of the WSN based on big data processing, and numerically simulates SVC4WSN and MDF4LWSN architectures. Moreover, the relationship between the optimal network layer and node communication radius was verified at different node densities. The results indicate that the proposed model achieved better lifecycle and loading balancing effect than the other network.
WSN Spatio-temporal Correlation Data Fusion Method for Dairy Cow
Authors: Zhu Huaji , Miao Yisheng , Wu Huarui
Published: December 2017

The cowshed environment has significant impacts on the yield, diseases and behaviors of dairy cows. Heat stress, in particular, has a great impact on yield. The cowshed environment monitoring system based on wireless sensor network can accurately sense the temperature and other environmental parameters in real time and provide basis for manual environmental intervention and control. Energy constraint is one of the important problems that affect the long-term stable monitoring by the dairy cow wireless sensor network. So, the weighted Markov chain method is used to predict the time series of cowshed temperature. Replacing the actual values with the predicted values at the cluster head can effectively reduce data traffic in the cluster, thereby reducing network power consumption. Test data show that, the average variance of the cowshed environment temperature predicted by the method proposed in this paper is 0.185, and the average power consumption is reduced by about 40% when the compression ratio is 0.3, which effectively prolongs the network lifetime. In addition to that, the cowshed environment prediction can also help make pre-judgments for environmental control, reduce or avoid the heat stress of dairy cows after the environmental parameters exceed the thresholds and provide the basis for the multi-source data fusion for dairy cow.
Anxiété langagière, communication médiée par les technologies et élicitation des clitiques objets du français L2
Authors: Jebali Adel
Published: December 2017

La communication médiée par les technologies est perçue par plusieurs auteurs comme étant moins anxiogène et plus propice à une meilleure production langagière de la part des apprenants des L2 que dans un contexte de communication face à face. Cependant, d'autres sont d'avis qu'il n'existe aucune différence entre les deux modes de communication en ce qui a trait à la performance linguistique. Nous avons mené une expérience auprès d'un groupe d'apprenants du français langue seconde de niveau intermédiaire-avancé. Nous avons mesuré la performance linguistique de ces apprenants pendant la réalisation de deux types de tâches langagières : une face à face et l'autre médiée par Skype. Les participants ont également répondu à deux questionnaires : un questionnaire dont le but est de mesurer leur degré d'anxiété langagière et un autre pour sonder leur degré d'anxiété informatique. Les résultats de cette recherche démontrent que les apprenants sont plus performants dans un contexte de communication à distance et produisent plus de clitiques, mais que cela ne se produit que lorsque l'élicitation de ces unités est de nature actionnelle.
Epitope Mapping of SERCA2a Identifies an Antigenic Determinant That Induces Mainly Atrial Myocarditis in A/J Mice
Authors: Krishnan Bharathi , Massilamany Chandirasegaran , Basavalingappa Rakesh H. , Gangaplara Arunakumar , Rajasekaran Rajkumar A. , Afzal Muhammad Z. , Khalilzad-Sharghi Vahid , Zhou You , Riethoven Jean-Jack , Nandi Shyam S. , Mishra Paras K. , Sobel Raymond A. , Strande Jennifer L. , Steffen David , Reddy Jay
Published: December 2017

Sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ adenosine triphosphatase (SERCA)2a, a critical regulator of calcium homeostasis, is known to be decreased in heart failure. Patients with myocarditis or dilated cardiomyopathy develop autoantibodies to SERCA2a suggesting that they may have pathogenetic significance. In this report, we describe epitope mapping analysis of SERCA2a in A/J mice that leads us to make five observations: 1) SERCA2a contains multiple T cell epitopes that induce varying degrees of myocarditis. One epitope, SERCA2a 971–990, induces widespread atrial inflammation without affecting noncardiac tissues; the cardiac abnormalities could be noninvasively captured by echocardiography, electrocardiography, and magnetic resonance microscopy imaging. 2) SERCA2a 971–990-induced disease was associated with the induction of CD4 T cell responses and the epitope preferentially binds MHC class II/IAk rather than IEk. By creating IAk/and IEk/SERCA2a 971–990 dextramers, the T cell responses were determined by flow cytometry to be Ag specific. 3) SERCA2a 971–990-sensitized T cells produce both Th1 and Th17 cytokines. 4) Animals immunized with SERCA2a 971–990 showed Ag-specific Abs with enhanced production of IgG2a and IgG2b isotypes, suggesting that SERCA2a 971–990 can potentially act as a common epitope for both T cells and B cells. 5) Finally, SERCA2a 971–990-sensitized T cells were able to transfer disease to naive recipients. Together, these data indicate that SERCA2a is a critical autoantigen in the mediation of atrial inflammation in mice and that our model may be helpful to study the inflammatory events that underlie the development of conditions such as atrial fibrillation in humans.