Theoretical investigation of applicability and limitations of advanced noise reduction methods for wavelength modulation spectroscopy

In this study, the applicability and limitations of several statistical and mathematical methods for noise reduction in wavelength modulation spectroscopy are analyzed. Background noise is simulated for different frequencies and frequency confinement. The noise is added to an absorption line of varying amplitude. The noise reduction methods (NRMs) are applied to the simulated signals and their performances are analyzed and compared. All NRMs show great increase in signal to noise ratio (SNR) while keeping bias low under certain conditions of the simulated signal. For each NRM the subspace of best performance is summarized and highlighted. Little to no overlap is found between these subspaces. Therefore, the optimal NRM strongly depends on measurement conditions and NRM quality cannot be compared in a general context.

A Decision Support System for Face Sketch Synthesis Using Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence

The recent development in the area of IoT technologies is likely to be implemented extensively in the next decade. There is a great increase in the crime rate, and the handling officers are responsible for dealing with a broad range of cyber and Internet issues during investigation. IoT technologies are helpful in the identification of suspects, and few technologies are available that use IoT and deep learning together for face sketch synthesis. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and other constructs of deep learning have become major tools in recent approaches. A new-found architecture of the neural network is anticipated in this work. It is called Spiral-Net, which is a modified version of U-Net fto perform face sketch synthesis (the phase is known as the compiler network C here). Spiral-Net performs in combination with a pre-trained Vgg-19 network called the feature extractor F. It first identifies the top n matches from viewed sketches to a given photo. F is again used to formulate a feature map based on the cosine distance of a candidate sketch formed by C from the top n matches. A customized CNN configuration (called the discriminator D) then computes loss functions based on differences between the candidate sketch and the feature. Values of these loss functions alternately update C and F. The ensemble of these nets is trained and tested on selected datasets, including CUFS, CUFSF, and a part of the IIT photo–sketch dataset. Results of this modified U-Net are acquired by the legacy NLDA (1998) scheme of face recognition and its newer version, OpenBR (2013), which demonstrate an improvement of 5% compared with the current state of the art in its relevant domain.

The Monastic Monolith in Operation

The general patterns established during the period 1922–67 regarding the political and administrative arrangements relating to the Irish education system began to break down after following the introduction of free second-level education in 1967 and a subsequent great increase in attendance at second-level schools. In 1965, The OECD-sponsored Investment in Education report contributed greatly to portraying the economic, social, and geographic inequalities of opportunity in Ireland at the time. In particular, it drew attention to the fact that one-third of all children left full-time education upon completion of primary schooling and only 59 per cent of all 15-year-old children were in school. What was less clear in the public mind at the time was that levels of provision had been even bleaker on the establishment of the State and had not changed substantially over the succeeding four decades. That reality constitutes the background to considerations in this chapter. It opens by elaborating on the various types of primary, second-level, and continuation schools that existed across the nation. The overall patterns of access to and attendance at secondary school are then detailed. A very general exposition of the economic and social conditions in the country that influenced the existence of these patterns follows.

COVID-19 and Education

The transformations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected people's routines and lifestyles on a global scale, especially regarding the role of technology. This becomes clear when we examine the state of education currently. The sudden suspension of traditional teaching and the critical aspect in the academy may be the perfect opportunity for a new examination of the potentials and challenges higher education currently faces. This article aims to circumscribe the pandemic's impacts on higher education and its constituents: students, professors, and educational institutions, after this great increase in technology's role in people's daily lives. This is materialized from a bibliographic review by the presented studies of Educação Vigiada "education monitored" (2020), GAFAM's monopoly over digital education platforms, and how data colonialism comes unnoticed as a consequence of the new technology-focused lifestyles. It was sought to draw a panorama from the opinions of students and teachers, through the SEMESP (2020) survey, pointing to the challenges and potentialities that will help in the adaptation of education in the future context.

Exploring Topics in Bibliometric Research Through Citation Networks and Semantic Analysis

This article surveys topic distributions of the academic literature that employs the terms bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics. This exploration allows informing on the adoption of those terms and publication patterns of the authors acknowledging their work to be part of bibliometric research. We retrieved 20,268 articles related to bibliometrics and applied methodologies that exploit various features of the dataset to surface different topic representations. Across them, we observe major trends including discussions on theory, regional publication patterns, databases, and tools. There is a great increase in the application of bibliometrics as science mapping and decision-making tools in management, public health, sustainability, and medical fields. It is also observed that the term bibliometrics has reached an overall generality, while the terms scientometrics and informetrics may be more accurate in representing the core of bibliometric research as understood by the information and library science field. This article contributes by providing multiple snapshots of a field that has grown too quickly beyond the confines of library science.

What do we know about survival of Common cranes? An elementary introduction with Euring databank

The increase of the western populations of Common cranes (Grus grus) in the last five decades highlights the need to estimate survival rates. According to Euring databank (EDB), the oldest Common crane ever known was 27 years old in year 2017. This lifespan was obtained by means of 24,900 recoveries of 2,124 ringed cranes collected between years 1936 and 2017. Nearly all cranes were ringed and observed in the last 30 years, and therefore the elapsed time was not enough to reach the maximum longevity reported for the species in captivity (43 years, Mitchell 1911). Life expectancy was five years on average after the ring was attached. Here we provide some elementary analyses to calculate the annual apparent survival rate (ϕ = 0.85) and the annual encounter probability (p = 0.45) of Common cranes, as a first step to advance in the knowledge of the species' population dynamics. The great increase of breeding and wintering crane populations in western Europe in the last decades remains largely unexplained.

The Dichotomy between Indoor Air Quality and Energy Efficiency in Light of the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Recently, there has been a great increase in the importance of issues related to energy efficiency [...]

Extracellular Vesicles of Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Therapeutic Properties Discovered with Extraordinary SuccessOK

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the cells distributed in the stromas of the body, are known for various properties including replication, the potential of various differentiations, the immune-related processes including inflammation. About two decades ago, these cells were shown to play relevant roles in the therapy of numerous diseases, dependent on their immune regulation and their release of cytokines and growth factors, with ensuing activation of favorable enzymes and processes. Such discovery induced great increase of their investigation. Soon thereafter, however, it became clear that therapeutic actions of MSCs are risky, accompanied by serious drawbacks and defects. MSC therapy has been therefore reduced to a few diseases, replaced for the others by their extracellular vesicles, the MSC-EVs. The latter vesicles recapitulate most therapeutic actions of MSCs, with equal or even better efficacies and without the serious drawbacks of the parent cells. In addition, MSC-EVs are characterized by many advantages, among which are their heterogeneities dependent on the stromas of origin, the alleviation of cell aging, the regulation of immune responses and inflammation. Here we illustrate the MSC-EV therapeutic effects, largely mediated by specific miRNAs, covering various diseases and pathological processes occurring in the bones, heart and vessels, kidney, and brain. MSC-EVs operate also on the development of cancers and on COVID-19, where they alleviate the organ lesions induced by the virus. Therapy by MSC-EVs can be improved by combination of their innate potential to engineering processes inducing precise targeting and transfer of drugs. The unique properties of MSC-EVs explain their intense studies, carried out with extraordinary success. Although not yet developed to clinical practice, the perspectives for proximal future are encouraging.

Structural repair on a composite aircraft fuselage damaged by fire.

Composite materials have been used on aircraft for decades with tremendous benefits. Through the use of these advanced materials we have seen a great increase in the aircraft’s efficiency, while improving the strength of the aircraft. Unfortunately due to the complexity of this material, it has not been used in large structural components such as the fuselage until very recently. Because of this, there are still some unknown aspects of implementing this material which have not yet been researched. One example that demonstrates this is a large section of an aircraft’s composite fuselage structure which has sustained fire damage. The main difficulties here are the unknown extent of damage caused by the fire, the unproven repair methods, and the durability of the repair patch itself. This report outlines some of these challenges as well as offers two different repair methods that are then analyzed using CATIAs FEA suite.

Structural repair on a composite aircraft fuselage damaged by fire.

Composite materials have been used on aircraft for decades with tremendous benefits. Through the use of these advanced materials we have seen a great increase in the aircraft’s efficiency, while improving the strength of the aircraft. Unfortunately due to the complexity of this material, it has not been used in large structural components such as the fuselage until very recently. Because of this, there are still some unknown aspects of implementing this material which have not yet been researched. One example that demonstrates this is a large section of an aircraft’s composite fuselage structure which has sustained fire damage. The main difficulties here are the unknown extent of damage caused by the fire, the unproven repair methods, and the durability of the repair patch itself. This report outlines some of these challenges as well as offers two different repair methods that are then analyzed using CATIAs FEA suite.