scholarly journals Smart Building Surveillance System as Shared Sensory System for Localization of AGVs

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (23) ◽  
pp. 8452
Author(s):  
Petr Oščádal ◽  
Daniel Huczala ◽  
Jan Bém ◽  
Václav Krys ◽  
Zdenko Bobovský
Keyword(s):  
Sensory System ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Automated Guided Vehicles ◽  
Building Control ◽  
Smart Building ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Position Detection ◽  
Surveillance Cameras ◽  
Building Control System ◽  
The Impact

The objective of this study is to extend the possibilities of robot localization in a known environment by using the pre-deployed infrastructure of a smart building. The proposed method demonstrates a concept of a Shared Sensory System for the automated guided vehicles (AGVs), when already existing camera hardware of a building can be utilized for position detection of marked devices. This approach extends surveillance cameras capabilities creating a general sensory system for localization of active (automated) or passive devices in a smart building. The application is presented using both simulations and experiments for a common corridor of a building. The advantages and disadvantages are stated. We analyze the impact of the captured frame’s resolution on the processing speed while also using multiple cameras to improve the accuracy of localization. The proposed methodology in which we use the surveillance cameras in a stand-alone way or in a support role for the AGVs to be localized in the environment has a huge potential utilization in the future smart buildings and cities. The available infrastructure is used to provide additional features for the building control unit, such as awareness of the position of the robots without the need to obtain this data directly from the robots, which would lower the cost of the robots themselves. On the other hand, the information about the location of a robot may be transferred bidirectionally between robots and the building control system to improve the overall safety and reliability of the system.

Minor works control in Hong Kong: a preliminary evaluation

Facilities ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 320-336
Author(s):  
Johnny Kwok Wai WONG ◽  
Ringo W.H. Shum
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Control System ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Building Control ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Building Control System ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Control Regime ◽  
Minor Works

Purpose – This study aims to understand the impacts of the Minor Works Control System (MWCS) on the performance of minor works contractors following its implementation in 2011, and specifically the initiatives adopted by minor works contractors in response to the new building control regime. Suggestions are made for the further improvement of the MWCS. Like many Western countries and Asian counterparts, Hong Kong has recently implemented a new building control system (the MWCS), which aims to restructure the building proposal approval process and shift the responsibility for building control from the public to the private sector. The effectiveness of the MWCS has been strongly questioned by the industry and the public. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed method including a questionnaire survey (quantitative) and focus group discussions (qualitative) was adopted to provide an initial evaluation of the impact of the MWCS on practitioners and the industry. Findings – The results suggest that implementation of the new control system has helped increase safety awareness and the technical capacity of minor works contractors. Despite these benefits, registered contractors are encountering challenges under the MWCS, such as manpower arrangement problems and higher business operating costs. Initiatives that include maintaining a sound financial background, an adequate in-house supervisory staff and a safe working environment are considered critical by practitioners to maintain their competitive edge under the new control regime. Originality/value – This study is one of the first studies in Hong Kong to evaluate the impact of the new building control system. The feedback and suggestions provided by the practitioners and experts during the research provide valuable insights for the government on how to provide support to practitioners under the MWCS to achieve a better built environment in Hong Kong.

The Management of Post-Tonsillectomy Morbidity in Patients With Sleep Apnoea

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (10) ◽  
pp. 3738-3740
Keyword(s):  
Day Surgery ◽  
Sleep Apnoea ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Multicenter Studies ◽  
Therapeutic Modalities ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Obstructive Sleep ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Surgery Center

The Tonsillectomy in children or adults is an intervention commonly encountered in the ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) and Head and Neck surgeon practice. The current tendency is to perform this type of surgery in major ambulatory surgery centers. Two objectives are thus pursued: first of all, the increase of the patient quality of life through the reintegration into the family as quickly as possible and secondly, the expenses associated with continuous hospitalization are reduced. Any tertiary (multidisciplinary) sleep center must ensure the complete diagnosis and treatment (including surgery) of sleep respiratory disorders. Under these conditions the selection of patients and especially the implementation of the specific protocols in order to control the postoperative complications it becomes essential. The present paper describes our experience of tonsillectomy as treatment for selected patients with chronic rhonchopathy (snoring) and mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnoea. It was presented the impact of antibiotics protocols in reducing the main morbid outcomes following tonsillectomy, in our day surgery center. The obtained results can also be a prerequisite for the integrative approach of the patients with sleep apnoea who were recommended surgical treatment. Considering the wide range of therapeutic modalities used in sleep apnoea, each with its specific advantages and disadvantages, more extensive and multicenter studies are needed. Keywords: post-tonsillectomy morbidity, day surgery center, sleep disorders

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
. A Broad look at the Adaptation of Technology in Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Vladislav Ilin
Keyword(s):  
Technology In Education ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Standardized Method ◽  
Impact Of Technology ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Technology in education is a global phenomenon affecting learners of all ages. The breadth and variety of available tools make it difficult to implement a standardized method for assessing the impact of technology on learning. The lack of a consensus on good and bad practices results in inconsistent application and mixed learning results.   This article takes a look at the adaptation of technology to education and examines the various tools used to enhance learning. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using technology, as well as review methodologies for evaluating the impact.   The essay concludes by identifying several problems with the way technology is evaluated and offers suggestions for further research to address those problems.

Unfunded Public Employee Health Care Benefits and GASB No. 45

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth K. Keating ◽  
Eric S. Berman
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
Employment Benefits ◽  
Care Plans ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Government Accounting ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

The Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) recently released Statement No. 45, Accounting and Financial Reporting by Employers for Post-Employment Benefits Other Than Pensions and its companion Statement No. 43 for pooled stand-alone health care plans, which will profoundly affect American governmental finance. The goal of this article is to encourage governments to consider carefully a full range of options in funding and restructuring other post-employment benefits (OPEB). This article will review Statement No. 45's potential impact on governments and review existing disclosures in financial reports as well as bond offering statements. The article will discuss the statement's impact on budgets and governmental operations, including collective bargaining. Funding options under Statement No. 45 will be detailed, including the advantages and disadvantages of irrevocable trusts and OPEB bonds. The article will also discuss the impact of Medicare Part D subsidies received by governments, as well as the bond rating implications of policy decisions surrounding OPEB. As the largest government entities are just now implementing GASB Statement No. 45, estimates of the magnitude of unfunded OPEB liabilities are limited as are the strategies likely to be adopted to cover these obligations. This article offers a summary of the unfunded OPEB liabilities reported by states and major cities and suggests some measures for assessing the ability of these entities to address these costs.

scholarly journals Potential Impact of the Current and Future Climate on the Yield, Quality, and Climate Suitability for Tea [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze]: A Systematic Review

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 619
Author(s):  
Sadeeka Layomi Jayasinghe ◽  
Lalit Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Tea Quality ◽  
Climate Suitability ◽  
Yield Quality ◽  
The Impact

Even though climate change is having an increasing impact on tea plants, systematic reviews on the impact of climate change on the tea system are scarce. This review was undertaken to assess and synthesize the knowledge around the impacts of current and future climate on yield, quality, and climate suitability for tea; the historical roots and the most influential papers on the aforementioned topics; and the key adaptation and mitigation strategies that are practiced in tea fields. Our findings show that a large number of studies have focused on the impact of climate change on tea quality, followed by tea yield, while a smaller number of studies have concentrated on climate suitability. Three pronounced reference peaks found in Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RYPS) represent the most significant papers associated with the yield, quality, and climate suitability for tea. Tea yield increases with elevated CO2 levels, but this increment could be substantially affected by an increasing temperature. Other climatic factors are uneven rainfall, extreme weather events, and climate-driven abiotic stressors. An altered climate presents both advantages and disadvantages for tea quality due to the uncertainty of the concentrations of biochemicals in tea leaves. Climate change creates losses, gains, and shifts of climate suitability for tea habitats. Further studies are required in order to fill the knowledge gaps identified through the present review, such as an investigation of the interaction between the tea plant and multiple environmental factors that mimic real-world conditions and then studies on its impact on the tea system, as well as the design of ensemble modeling approaches to predict climate suitability for tea. Finally, we outline multifaceted and evidence-based adaptive and mitigation strategies that can be implemented in tea fields to alleviate the undesirable impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Evaluation of offshore wind power in the China sea

2021 ◽  
pp. 014459872199226
Author(s):  
Yu-chi Tian ◽  
Lei kou ◽  
Yun-dong Han ◽  
Xiaodong Yang ◽  
Ting-ting Hou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Wind Power ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Offshore Wind Power ◽  
Business Operation ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Wind Energy Development ◽  
The Impact

With resource crisis and environmental crisis increasingly grim, many countries turn the focus to pollution-free and renewable wind energy resources, which are mainly used for offshore wind power generation, seawater desalination and heating, etc., on the premise that the characteristics of resources are fully grasped. In this study, the evaluation of offshore wind energy in offshore waters in China, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of existing studies were overviewed from four aspects: the spatial-temporal characteristics of wind energy, wind energy classification, the short-term forecast of wind energy and the long-term projection of wind energy, according to the research content and the future considerations about wind energy evaluation (evaluation of wind energy on islands and reefs, the impact of wind energy development on human health) were envisaged, in the hope of providing a scientific basis for the site selection and business operation ‘or military applications’ here (after business operation), etc. of wind energy development, ‘aritime navigation against environmental construction,’ here and also contributing to the sustainable development and health of human beings.

scholarly journals When is a Match Sufficient? A Score-based Balance Metric for the Synthetic Control Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Layla Parast ◽  
Priscillia Hunt ◽  
Beth Ann Griffin ◽  
David Powell
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Treated Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Donor Pool ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn some applications, researchers using the synthetic control method (SCM) to evaluate the effect of a policy may struggle to determine whether they have identified a “good match” between the control group and treated group. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of the mean and maximum Absolute Standardized Mean Difference (ASMD) as a test of balance between a synthetic control unit and treated unit, and provide guidance on what constitutes a poor fit when using a synthetic control. We explore and compare other potential metrics using a simulation study. We provide an application of our proposed balance metric to the 2013 Los Angeles (LA) Firearm Study [9]. Using Uniform Crime Report data, we apply the SCM to obtain a counterfactual for the LA firearm-related crime rate based on a weighted combination of control units in a donor pool of cities. We use this counterfactual to estimate the effect of the LA Firearm Study intervention and explore the impact of changing the donor pool and pre-intervention duration period on resulting matches and estimated effects. We demonstrate how decision-making about the quality of a synthetic control can be improved by using ASMD. The mean and max ASMD clearly differentiate between poor matches and good matches. Researchers need better guidance on what is a meaningful imbalance between synthetic control and treated groups. In addition to the use of gap plots, the proposed balance metric can provide an objective way of determining fit.

scholarly journals Classification of standing and sitting phases based on in-socket piezoelectric sensors in a transfemoral amputee

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tawfik Yahya ◽  
Nur Azah Hamzaid ◽  
Sadeeq Ali ◽  
Farahiyah Jasni ◽  
Hanie Nadia Shasmin
Keyword(s):  
Time Domain ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Sensory System ◽  
Metabolic Energy ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Transfemoral Amputee ◽  
Sit To Stand ◽  
Optimal Classifier ◽  
The Impact

AbstractA transfemoral prosthesis is required to assist amputees to perform the activity of daily living (ADL). The passive prosthesis has some drawbacks such as utilization of high metabolic energy. In contrast, the active prosthesis consumes less metabolic energy and offers better performance. However, the recent active prosthesis uses surface electromyography as its sensory system which has weak signals with microvolt-level intensity and requires a lot of computation to extract features. This paper focuses on recognizing different phases of sitting and standing of a transfemoral amputee using in-socket piezoelectric-based sensors. 15 piezoelectric film sensors were embedded in the inner socket wall adjacent to the most active regions of the agonist and antagonist knee extensor and flexor muscles, i. e. region with the highest level of muscle contractions of the quadriceps and hamstring. A male transfemoral amputee wore the instrumented socket and was instructed to perform several sitting and standing phases using an armless chair. Data was collected from the 15 embedded sensors and went through signal conditioning circuits. The overlapping analysis window technique was used to segment the data using different window lengths. Fifteen time-domain and frequency-domain features were extracted and new feature sets were obtained based on the feature performance. Eight of the common pattern recognition multiclass classifiers were evaluated and compared. Regression analysis was used to investigate the impact of the number of features and the window lengths on the classifiers’ accuracies, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test significant differences in the classifiers’ performances. The classification accuracy was calculated using k-fold cross-validation method, and 20% of the data set was held out for testing the optimal classifier. The results showed that the feature set (FS-5) consisting of the root mean square (RMS) and the number of peaks (NP) achieved the highest classification accuracy in five classifiers. Support vector machine (SVM) with cubic kernel proved to be the optimal classifier, and it achieved a classification accuracy of 98.33 % using the test data set. Obtaining high classification accuracy using only two time-domain features would significantly reduce the processing time of controlling a prosthesis and eliminate substantial delay. The proposed in-socket sensors used to detect sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit movements could be further integrated with an active knee joint actuation system to produce powered assistance during energy-demanding activities such as sit-to-stand and stair climbing. In future, the system could also be used to accurately predict the intended movement based on their residual limb’s muscle and mechanical behaviour as detected by the in-socket sensory system.

scholarly journals A Review of Computer-Aided Expert Systems for Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2764
Author(s):  
Xin Yu Liew ◽  
Nazia Hameed ◽  
Jeremie Clos
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Main Process ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Learning Methods ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Conventional Methods ◽  
The Impact

A computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) expert system is a powerful tool to efficiently assist a pathologist in achieving an early diagnosis of breast cancer. This process identifies the presence of cancer in breast tissue samples and the distinct type of cancer stages. In a standard CAD system, the main process involves image pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction, feature selection, classification, and performance evaluation. In this review paper, we reviewed the existing state-of-the-art machine learning approaches applied at each stage involving conventional methods and deep learning methods, the comparisons within methods, and we provide technical details with advantages and disadvantages. The aims are to investigate the impact of CAD systems using histopathology images, investigate deep learning methods that outperform conventional methods, and provide a summary for future researchers to analyse and improve the existing techniques used. Lastly, we will discuss the research gaps of existing machine learning approaches for implementation and propose future direction guidelines for upcoming researchers.

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