outdoor environments
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2022 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Chrysovalantis Anastasiou ◽  
Constantinos Costa ◽  
Panos K. Chrysanthis ◽  
Cyrus Shahabi ◽  
Demetrios Zeinalipour-Yazti

The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance and benefits of recommending paths that reduce the exposure to and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus by avoiding crowded indoor or outdoor areas. Existing path discovery techniques are inadequate for coping with such dynamic and heterogeneous (indoor and outdoor) environments—they typically find an optimal path assuming a homogeneous and/or static graph, and hence they cannot be used to support contact avoidance. In this article, we pose the need for Mobile Contact Avoidance Navigation and propose ASTRO ( A ccessible S patio- T emporal R oute O ptimization), a novel graph-based path discovering algorithm that can reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure by taking into consideration the congestion in indoor spaces. ASTRO operates in an A * manner to find the most promising path for safe movement within and across multiple buildings without constructing the full graph. For its path finding, ASTRO requires predicting congestion in corridors and hallways. Consequently, we propose a new grid-based partitioning scheme combined with a hash-based two-level structure to store congestion models, called CM-Structure , which enables on-the-fly forecasting of congestion in corridors and hallways. We demonstrate the effectiveness of ASTRO and the accuracy of CM-Structure ’s congestion models empirically with realistic datasets, showing up to one order of magnitude reduction in COVID-19 exposure.


Chemosphere ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 289 ◽  
pp. 133154
Author(s):  
Andreja Stojić ◽  
Gordana Jovanović ◽  
Svetlana Stanišić ◽  
Snježana Herceg Romanić ◽  
Andrej Šoštarić ◽  
...  

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Elisa Martin ◽  
Ana Carolina Alonso ◽  
Janinna Faraone ◽  
Marina Stein ◽  
Elizabet L Estallo

The presence, abundance and distribution of Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti (Linnaeus 1762) and Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse 1894) could be conditioned by different data obtained from satellite remote sensors. In this paper, we aim to estimate the effect of landscape coverage and spectral indices on the abundance of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus from the use of satellite remote sensors in Eldorado, Misiones, Argentina. Larvae of Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus were collected monthly from June 2016 to April 2018, in four outdoor environments: tire repair shops, cemeteries, family dwellings, and an urban natural park. The proportion of each land cover class was determined by Sentinel-2 image classification. Furthermore spectral indices were calculated. Generalized Linear Mixed Models were developed to analyze the possible effects of landscape coverage and vegetation indices on the abundance of mosquitoes. The model's results showed the abundance of Ae. aegypti was better modeled by the minimum values of the NDVI index, the maximum values of the NDBI index and the interaction between both variables. In contrast, the abundance of Ae. albopictus has to be better explained by the model that includes the variables bare soil, low vegetation and the interaction between both variables.


2022 ◽  
pp. 520-536
Author(s):  
Rui Miguel Pascoal

This work analyses energy expenditure in outdoor sport environments with augmented reality technology. Battery efficiency is becoming a relevant topic in the context of the varied outdoor end-user services, among other realms. It is a key to the acceptance and use of mobile technology. In outdoor environments, battery efficiency can be low, especially when information based on close-to-real-time requires internet access and the use of sensors. Such requirement is today evident with the growth of internet dependence and multiple sensors, which perform both actively and passively via fitness gadgets, smartphones, pervasive systems, and other personal mobile gadgets. In this context, it is relevant to understand how energy is spent with the accelerometer, global position system, and internet access (Wi-Fi or mobile data) providing smart data for outdoor sports activities. Through a prototype, an analysis is made based on the current battery autonomy, and an algorithm model for better battery efficiency is proposed.


Author(s):  
Loredana Adriana Patrascoiu

One of the major challenges facing inclusive education for children with ASD is the identification and the removal of barriers of learning, ranging from attitudinal barriers to those related to how we organize workspaces and the conception of educational resources. The collaborative approach is one of the most effective ways of learning, and it has the benefit to develop the culture of inclusion in schools. In fact, the major challenge of the system is to personalize the educational therapeutic approach, respectively to create learning environments that generate meaningful learning experiences for each beneficiary. When the authors refer to the personalization of inclusive learning environments during pandemic period, they think both of indoor environments, but also of outdoor environments, as well as virtual environments, models of innovative practices regarding the preparation and organization of personalized collaborative spaces both in classrooms and also in learning spaces from the community, having a multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approach in order to develop life skills.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 162
Author(s):  
Andrea Macchia ◽  
Sara Capriotti ◽  
Laura Rivaroli ◽  
Silvestro Antonio Ruffolo ◽  
Mauro Francesco La Russa

Urban art is a form of artistic visual expression and communication that is created in the street and generally in the public dimension of urban spaces. Often these kinds of artworks are in outdoor environments, and they usually suffer from atmospheric weathering and anthropic vandalism. Recently, several strategies have been used to limit or remove the effects of such vandalism. Currently, the use of quartz paints is growing among artists; such paints after setting are more porous and rough on the surface with respect to regular paints. The aim of the study is to assess the performance of anti-graffiti coatings on quartz artworks paints. Two anti-graffiti products were chosen, and their behaviors were assessed in the laboratory by means of contact angle measurement, water capillary test, colorimetric analysis, and optical and electron microscopy. Results showed good water repellence efficacy of the tested products, demonstrating that they are suitable for the protection of urban art, but at least two applications on the surface are needed to achieve good performance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Brügge ◽  
Matz Glantz ◽  
Klas Sandell ◽  
Therese Lundqvist Jones

Friluftsliv explored doesn’t only include nature knowledge, techniques in the outdoors and outdoor pedagogics but also covers ecology, human ecology, geography, environmental and societal questions, history, health, biology, craft and lots of practical activities -both for urban and rural friluftsliv. In this translation to English of the revised fifth edition of the Swedish book there are many activities and the text is suitable for the modern day. Friluftsliv embraces the feeling around the campfire, paddling along winding rivers and walking towards the distant blue mountains. But, it is also to whittle a stick, to remember your waterproofs and to find your way home. Knowledge emerges when you combine imagination with facts and the glint in your eyes, using all our outdoor environments: forests, water, the coast, mountains and the nature close at hand. Emotion is to swim in crystal clear water far out in the archipelago and to see the clouds gliding across the sky. But also, to be able to present other sides of yourself, to be fascinated by your own body, the struggling ant and the sight of frost on trees. Quality of life is to experience friluftsliv – as it happens!


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Changqiang Wang ◽  
Aigong Xu ◽  
Xin Sui ◽  
Yushi Hao ◽  
Zhengxu Shi ◽  
...  

Seamless positioning systems for complex environments have been a popular focus of research on positioning safety for autonomous vehicles (AVs). In particular, the seamless high-precision positioning of AVs indoors and outdoors still poses considerable challenges and requires continuous, reliable, and high-precision positioning information to guarantee the safety of driving. To obtain effective positioning information, multiconstellation global navigation satellite system (multi-GNSS) real-time kinematics (RTK) and an inertial navigation system (INS) have been widely integrated into AVs. However, integrated multi-GNSS and INS applications cannot provide effective and seamless positioning results for AVs in indoor and outdoor environments due to limited satellite availability, multipath effects, frequent signal blockages, and the lack of GNSS signals indoors. In this contribution, multi-GNSS-tightly coupled (TC) RTK/INS technology is developed to solve the positioning problem for a challenging urban outdoor environment. In addition, ultrawideband (UWB)/INS technology is developed to provide accurate and continuous positioning results in indoor environments, and INS and map information are used to identify and eliminate UWB non-line-of-sight (NLOS) errors. Finally, an improved adaptive robust extended Kalman filter (AREKF) algorithm based on a TC integrated single-frequency multi-GNSS-TC RTK/UWB/INS/map system is studied to provide continuous, reliable, high-precision positioning information to AVs in indoor and outdoor environments. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is capable of seamlessly guaranteeing the positioning accuracy of AVs in complex indoor and outdoor environments involving many measurement outliers and environmental interference effects.


Drones ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Jannette Quino ◽  
Joe Mari Maja ◽  
James Robbins ◽  
James Owen ◽  
Matthew Chappell ◽  
...  

Accurate inventory allows for more precise forecasting, including profit projections, easier monitoring, shorter outages, and fewer delivery interruptions. Moreover, the long hours of physical labor involved over such a broad area and the effect of inefficiencies could lead to less accurate inventory. Unreliable data and predictions, unannounced stoppages in operations, production delays and delivery, and a considerable loss of profit can all arise from inaccurate inventory. This paper extends our previous work with drones and RFID by evaluating: the number of flights needed to read all tags deployed in the field, the number of scans per pass, and the optimum drone speed for reading tags. The drone flight plan was divided into eight passes from southwest to northwest and back at a horizontal speed of 2.2, 1.7, and 1.1 m per second (m/s) at a vertically fixed altitude. The results showed that speed did not affect the number of new tags scanned (p-value > 0.05). Results showed that 90% of the tags were scanned in less than four trips (eight passes) at 1.7 m/s. Based on these results, the system can be used for large-scale nursery inventory and other industries that use RFID tags in outdoor environments. We presented two novel measurements on evaluating RFID reader efficiency by measuring how fast the reader can read and the shortest distance traveled by the RFID reader over tag.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 1215-1215
Author(s):  
Takanori Fukao ◽  
Yuichi Tsumaki ◽  
Keita Kurashiki

Field robotics has been undergoing rapid progress in recent years. It addresses a wide range of activities performed in outdoor environments, and its applications are being developed in areas where it was previously considered difficult to apply. This rapid progress is largely supported by AI-based improvements in computer vision systems with monocular cameras, stereo cameras, RGB-D cameras, LiDAR systems, and/or other sensors. Field robotics is impelled by an application-driven approach by its nature, and it contributes to the resolution of social problems and the creation of new innovations, including autonomous driving to reduce casualties, autonomous working machines/robots to resolve the problems of labor shortages or dangers, disaster-response robots to aid rescue parties, various kinds of aerial robots to do searches or make deliveries, underwater robots to perform search missions, etc. In this special issue on “Field Robotics with Vision Systems,” we highlight sixteen interesting papers, including one review paper, fourteen research papers, and one development report. They cover various application areas, ranging from underwater to space environments, and they propose interesting integration methods or element technologies to use in outdoor environments where vision systems and robot systems have great difficulty performing robustly. We thank all authors and reviewers, and we hope that this special issue contributes to future research and development in area of field robotics, which promises new innovations.


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