everyday objects
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2022 ◽  
pp. 780-802
Author(s):  
Mahesh Kushwah ◽  
Rajneesh Rani

The internet of things (IoT) is viewed as something that connects everyday objects like smart TV and smart phones. Automation is the future of human civilization. It's like operating various devices and machinery with minimum or no human intervention. In this chapter, home appliances and other electronic devices are proposed to be controlled over internet with the help of website or smartphone. Speech recognition technology has been implemented in this chapter which will help complete or partially visually impaired people or persons with physical disability. Smart CCTV concept has been developed in this chapter which will allow to operate the web camera whenever it detects motion and sleep at other times which will save energy as well as storage unlike current CCTV scenario. Also, smart CCTV captures images and video footage and provides the real-time status of the place via a registered email address, website, and mobile app. If you are outside, you can check the status of your home and be in line with it, and you will activate the home appliances from the web site and through speech.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Maciej Sydor ◽  
Agata Bonenberg ◽  
Beata Doczekalska ◽  
Grzegorz Cofta

Mycelium-based composites (MBCs) have attracted growing attention due to their role in the development of eco-design methods. We concurrently analysed scientific publications, patent documents, and results of our own feasibility studies to identify the current design issues and technologies used. A literature inquiry in scientific and patent databases (WoS, Scopus, The Lens, Google Patents) pointed to 92 scientific publications and 212 patent documents. As a part of our own technological experiments, we have created several prototype products used in architectural interior design. Following the synthesis, these sources of knowledge can be concluded: 1. MBCs are inexpensive in production, ecological, and offer a high artistic value. Their weaknesses are insufficient load capacity, unfavourable water affinity, and unknown reliability. 2. The scientific literature shows that the material parameters of MBCs can be adjusted to certain needs, but there are almost infinite combinations: properties of the input biomaterials, characteristics of the fungi species, and possible parameters during the growth and subsequent processing of the MBCs. 3. The patent documents show the need for development: an effective method to increase the density and the search for technologies to obtain a more homogeneous internal structure of the composite material. 4. Our own experiments with the production of various everyday objects indicate that some disadvantages of MBCs can be considered advantages. Such an unexpected advantage is the interesting surface texture resulting from the natural inhomogeneity of the internal structure of MBCs, which can be controlled to some extent.


Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Dominic Wen How Tan ◽  
Poh Kiat Ng ◽  
Ervina Efzan Mhd Noor ◽  
Adi Saptari ◽  
Chee Chen Hue ◽  
...  

As people age, their finger function deteriorates due to muscle, nerve, and brain degeneration. While exercises might delay this deterioration, an invention that enhances elderly people’s pinching abilities is essential. This study aims to design and develop a finger grip enhancer that facilitates the day-to-day pinching activities of elderly people. This research is an extension of a previous study that conceptualised a finger grip enhancer. The device facilitates finger flexion on the thumb and index finger, and weighs 520 g, allowing for improved portability and sufficient force exertion (13.9 N) for day-to-day pinching. To test for usability, eleven subjects aged 65 years and above performed a pinch-lift-hold test on various household objects. The pinch force before and after utilising the device was measured. Using Minitab 18, the statistical significance of using this device was analysed with a paired-samples t-test. With this device, the elderly people’s pinching abilities significantly improved in both pinch force and pinch force steadiness (p < 0.05). The proposed device has the potential to enhance elderly people’s quality of life by supporting a firm pinch in the handling of everyday objects. This research has applicational value in developing exoskeleton devices for patients who require rehabilitation.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Remko Proesmans ◽  
Andreas Verleysen ◽  
Robbe Vleugels ◽  
Paula Veske ◽  
Victor-Louis De Gusseme ◽  
...  

Smart textiles have found numerous applications ranging from health monitoring to smart homes. Their main allure is their flexibility, which allows for seamless integration of sensing in everyday objects like clothing. The application domain also includes robotics; smart textiles have been used to improve human-robot interaction, to solve the problem of state estimation of soft robots, and for state estimation to enable learning of robotic manipulation of textiles. The latter application provides an alternative to computationally expensive vision-based pipelines and we believe it is the key to accelerate robotic learning of textile manipulation. Current smart textiles, however, maintain wired connections to external units, which impedes robotic manipulation, and lack modularity to facilitate state estimation of large cloths. In this work, we propose an open-source, fully wireless, highly flexible, light, and modular version of a piezoresistive smart textile. Its output stability was experimentally quantified and determined to be sufficient for classification tasks. Its functionality as a state sensor for larger cloths was also verified in a classification task where two of the smart textiles were sewn onto a piece of clothing of which three states are defined. The modular smart textile system was able to recognize these states with average per-class F1-scores ranging from 85.7 to 94.6% with a basic linear classifier.


Author(s):  
Evgeny Stelnik ◽  

ntroduction. The tent (σκηνή, τέντα) was a simple and everyday object of Byzantine life. Diplomats, merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, travelers, and simply wanderers spent a considerable part of their lives in a tent. It was a natural element of the Byzantine landscape, and geographical mobility was an important part of the lifestyle of the Byzantine elite and its psychology. But this simple, everyday thing in a certain context took on an extremely important meaning and turned into an important religious and social symbol. A simple object could indicate complicated social and ideological constructions of the 10th–12th centuries. The task of the study is to reveal the implicit power context which in certain cases endowed simple everyday objects (like a tent) with an extremely important meaning. Methods. The article is written in the general context of structuralist methodologies. We regarded the tent as a simple sign indicating the complex representations that lie behind its content. Structuralist methods allow for a correct reconstruction of Byzantine everyday representations in different strata of society. Analysis and Results. The rich tent in Byzantine society of the 10th–12th centuries was not just a part of the daily military life of the aristocracy, but also an important element of power relations. Tents defined the social status of their owners, emphasized their power and importance. Aristocratic tents of that time were a space where power decisions were made and court life took place. The tent as a power symbol relied on a broad religious context. The Tabernacle of Moses, which was the model for every tent in the Byzantine Empire, was also created by the Lord’s will, with Moses himself acting as “royal scribe”. The folkloric tent of Charos in the Acritic songs turns out to be the center of the “lower” world in which Charos ruthlessly reigns. Behind each reading of the symbolic meaning of the tent lie different social practices of different groups of Byzantine society, but they are all filled with their own understanding of the essence of power.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Maddock ◽  
Jennifer Oates

Purpose Health-care student resilience is a well-researched topic, although the concept continues to evolve, not least as “resilience-building” has become an expected feature of health-care student professional education. The study aimed to understand the concept of resilience from the point of view of student nurses and midwives. Design/methodology/approach The study used a novel arts-informed method, informed by Miller’s and Turkle’s work on “evocative objects.” A total of 25 student nurses and midwives from a London-based university selected “resilience objects” which were photographed and discussed during interviews with an artist-researcher. Findings Analysis of the interviews revealed that “resilience” was founded on identity, connection, activity and protection. “Resilience objects” were used in everyday rituals and “resilience” was a characteristic that developed over time through the inhabiting of multiple identities. Practical implications Given that resilience is intertwined with notions of identity, health-care faculties should enhance students’ sense of identity, including, but not exclusively, nursing or midwifery professional identity, and invite students to develop simple rituals to cope with the challenges of health-care work. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to locate health-care students’ resilience in specific material objects. Novel insights are that health-care students used everyday rituals and everyday objects to connect to their sense of purpose and manage their emotions, as means of being resilient.


2021 ◽  
pp. 108-125
Author(s):  
Svitlana Macenka

Increased interest in everyday life and routine explains a new and relevant perception of the creative agenda of contemporary German writer Wilhelm Genazino (1943-2018), known as “poetizing everyday life”. The article, thus, aims to offer a comprehensive view into the poetics of the German novelist to identify ways in which everyday life is poetized, which is an example of linguistic mastery, narrative skill, and philosophical generalization. A close reading method is used to analyze specific scenes from the novels (An Umbrella for One Day, Happiness in Unhappy Times, The Foolishness of Love, If We Were Animals), in which the characters actively practice the “extended gaze”, theoretically validated in W. Genazino’s essay, to reveal a system of special ties important to their inner world behind the routine situations and worn clothes. The writer believes that in such a way, characters experience an epiphany, which provokes further musing about art and the mystery of everyday life. In this connection, it is established that Genazino’s characters manage to avoid the negative influences of society by distancing from it via self-invented aesthetic processes. They are constantly searching for individual vision. It is also noted that the writer focuses on prolonged disappearance scenes, works with time accumulated in objects, and projects distancing from one’s own self to clothes. The extended gaze which the protagonists use to watch their own portrayals helps them overcome identity crisis and generate art, which promises salvation, through simple observance. It is concluded that W. Genazino talks about the aesthetic link between the subject and object perceived as individual “cultural significance”. It enables the protagonists to discard the routine and enter a space outside the limits they have themselves created. Everyday objects and familiar situations have the capacity to stimulate memories and boost creative perception. Their fleeting nature provides for compensatory narration, which means dropping the inessential and petty and is, consequently, perceived as a productive narration. Everyday reality emerges as something that may be perceived as visible existence, which upon some consideration may reveal unique dimensions and gain particular significance based on intermediary space between what is perceived by the eye and the invisible, actualized by the inner vision. Such reflexive vision transcends the limits of things, transforming them and constituting new reality. Such is the underlying principle that the writer used to recreate everyday life in his works.


Heritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Margherita Longoni ◽  
Norma Cicala ◽  
Vittoria Guglielmi ◽  
Gianluca Poldi ◽  
Silvia Bruni

Two paintings, made on aluminium support by Silvio Pasotti (among the major exponents of 1960s Italian pop art) were investigated in a totally non-invasive manner to identify the materials used by the artist. Raman spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), visible reflectance spectroscopy, and spectrofluorimetry with visible excitation were exploited as molecular analysis techniques, which are particularly suitable to recognise also synthetic organic materials, such as pigments and binders. The effectiveness of this multi-analytical approach was demonstrated, leading to the identification of several synthetic organic pigments, both conventional and “special effect” ones, introduced during the first half of the 20th century, as well as some well-established inorganic ones. Combining FTIR results both in the medium and near IR ranges, considerations regarding the binders employed by the artist could also be made, suggesting the use of both nitrocellulose and acrylic paints. Imaging techniques, such as IR reflectography, false colour IR, UV induced fluorescence, and portable microscopy, were also used to achieve a better knowledge of the painting practice.


Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Audrey Gouello ◽  
Catherine Dunyach-Remy ◽  
Christian Siatka ◽  
Jean-Philippe Lavigne

The objective of forensic sciences is to find clues in a crime scene in order to reconstruct the scenario. Classical samples include DNA or fingerprints, but both have inherent limitations and can be uninformative. Another type of sample has emerged recently in the form of the microbiome. Supported by the Human Microbiome Project, the characteristics of the microbial communities provide real potential in forensics. They are highly specific and can be used to differentiate and classify the originating body site of a human biological trace. Skin microbiota is also highly specific and different between individuals, leading to its possibility as an identification tool. By extension, the possibilities of the microbial communities to be deposited on everyday objects has also been explored. Other uses include the determination of the post-mortem interval or the analysis of soil communities. One challenge is that the microbiome changes over time and can be influenced by many environmental and lifestyle factors. This review offers an overview of the main methods and applications to demonstrate the benefit of the microbiome to provide forensically relevant information.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (24) ◽  
pp. 8496
Author(s):  
Preetha Jagannathan ◽  
Sasikumar Gurumoorthy ◽  
Andrzej Stateczny ◽  
Parameshachari Bidare Divakarachar ◽  
Jewel Sengupta

In recent trends, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have become popular because of their cost, simple structure, reliability, and developments in the communication field. The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the interconnection of everyday objects and sharing of information through the Internet. Congestion in networks leads to transmission delays and packet loss and causes wastage of time and energy on recovery. The routing protocols are adaptive to the congestion status of the network, which can greatly improve the network performance. In this research, collision-aware routing using the multi-objective seagull optimization algorithm (CAR-MOSOA) is designed to meet the efficiency of a scalable WSN. The proposed protocol exploits the clustering process to choose cluster heads to transfer the data from source to endpoint, thus forming a scalable network, and improves the performance of the CAR-MOSOA protocol. The proposed CAR-MOSOA is simulated and examined using the NS-2.34 simulator due to its modularity and inexpensiveness. The results of the CAR-MOSOA are comprehensively investigated with existing algorithms such as fully distributed energy-aware multi-level (FDEAM) routing, energy-efficient optimal multi-path routing protocol (EOMR), tunicate swarm grey wolf optimization (TSGWO), and CoAP simple congestion control/advanced (CoCoA). The simulation results of the proposed CAR-MOSOA for 400 nodes are as follows: energy consumption, 33 J; end-to-end delay, 29 s; packet delivery ratio, 95%; and network lifetime, 973 s, which are improved compared to the FDEAM, EOMR, TSGWO, and CoCoA.


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