A Novel Vehicle Detection Framework Based on Parallel Vision

Autonomous driving has become a prevalent research topic in recent years, arousing the attention of many academic universities and commercial companies. As human drivers rely on visual information to discern road conditions and make driving decisions, autonomous driving calls for vision systems such as vehicle detection models. These vision models require a large amount of labeled data while collecting and annotating the real traffic data are time-consuming and costly. Therefore, we present a novel vehicle detection framework based on the parallel vision to tackle the above issue, using the specially designed virtual data to help train the vehicle detection model. We also propose a method to construct large-scale artificial scenes and generate the virtual data for the vision-based autonomous driving schemes. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of our proposed framework, demonstrating that the combination of virtual and real data has better performance for training the vehicle detection model than the only use of real data.

Lessons From Rojava for the Paradigm of Social Ecology

This essay addresses two related questions raised by the editors of the research topic for “Beyond the Frontiers of Political Science: Is Good Governance Possible in Cataclysmic Times?” In particular, it explores: 1) how we can identify new tools and perspectives from which to address the multiple and mutually reinforcing problems accumulating around climate change; and 2) what institutional alternatives to the nation-state need to be created and empowered to tackle such complex problems. It does so through an in-depth treatment of the paradigm of “social ecology” and the associated political project of “democratic confederalism.” It begins with an overview of the argument, first advanced by Murray Bookchin and subsequently adopted and adapted by the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, that building an ecological society requires an assault on hierarchy in all its forms, and the construction of alternative, direct-democratic institutions capable of transcending the system of the capitalist nation-state. It sketches the institutional architecture of popular assemblies central to this project, both emphasizing their potential to contest capitalist social-property relations and hierarchies intrinsic to the nation-state and pointing out some sources of resilience of the existing system. It hones in on the experience of the revolutionary forces in control of the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES), who have been directly inspired by Öcalan’s ideas. It highlights both the AANES’s achievements as well as the significant obstacles it has encountered in the attempt to bring into being a radically-egalitarian, ecological society. It concludes by drawing lessons from these difficulties.

The Development of Performance Measurement Research Over Three Decades: A Bibliometric Analysis

This paper provides a systematic literature review in light of performance measurement based on the Scopus database using bibliometric analysis. Performance measurement is a compelling research topic because of its imperativeness in entity success. There is no literature in regard to the analysis of the development of performance measurement research using a bibliometric analysis based on the Scopus database. This paper useful for researchers working in performance measurement research to understand the evolution of the literature and to capture future research opportunities. The core of this research is the development of performance measurement topics over several decades, from 1986-2020 using bibliometric analysis. This paper uses citation/co-citation analysis related to performance measurement to investigate the development of performance measurement research over the last three decades. 1,882 articles are investigated in this bibliometric analysis. This research figures out that performance measurement topics alter every period. The predominating performance measurement topic is benchmarking. This research also indicates that performance measurement-related research increases based on the number of publications and changes of research issues every period. This research can be used as one of the theoretical bases to observe performance measurement-related topics. Penelitian ini bertujuan meninjau literatur secara sistematis terkait pengukuran kinerja berdasarkan basis data Scopus dengan analisis bibliometrik. Pengukuran kinerja menarik untuk diteliti karena berperan penting dalam kesuksesan suatu entitas. Belum terdapat literatur terkait analisis perkembangan riset pengukuran kinerja menggunakan analisis bibliometrik berdasarkan basis data Scopus. Penelitian ini bermanfaat bagi peneliti yang bekerja di penelitian pengukuran kinerja untuk memahami evolusi literatur dan untuk menangkap peluang penelitian di masa depan. Penelitian ini berfokus pada perkembangan topik terkait pengukuran kinerja yang dibagi menjadi beberapa dekade dari tahun 1986 hingga 2020. Penelitian ini menggunakan analisis kutipan/ko-sitasi terkait dengan pengukuran kinerja untuk menyelidiki perkembangan kinerja penelitian pengukuran selama tiga dekade terakhir. 1.882 artikel diselidiki menggunakan analisis bibliometrik. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa topik pengukuran kinerja berubah setiap periode. Topik pengukuran kinerja yang mendominasi adalah benchmarking. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa penelitian terkait pengukuran kinerja meningkat berdasarkan jumlah publikasi dan perubahan isu penelitian setiap periode. Penelitian ini dapat dijadikan sebagai salah satu landasan teori untuk mengamati topik terkait pengukuran kinerja.

Development of Liquid Diene Rubber Based Highly Deformable Interactive Fiber-Elastomer Composites

The preparation of intelligent structures for multiple smart applications such as soft-robotics, artificial limbs, etc., is a rapidly evolving research topic. In the present work, the preparation of a functional fabric, and its integration into a soft elastomeric matrix to develop an adaptive fiber-elastomer composite structure, is presented. Functional fabric, with the implementation of the shape memory effect, was combined with liquid polybutadiene rubber by means of a low-temperature vulcanization process. A detailed investigation on the crosslinking behavior of liquid polybutadiene rubber was performed to develop a rubber formulation that is capable of crosslinking liquid rubber at 75 °C, a temperature that is much lower than the phase transformation temperature of SMA wires (90–110 °C). By utilizing the unique low-temperature crosslinking protocol for liquid polybutadiene rubber, soft intelligent structures containing functional fabric were developed. The adaptive structures were successfully activated by Joule heating. The deformation behavior of the smart structures was experimentally demonstrated by reaching a 120 mm bending distance at an activation voltage of 8 V without an additional load, whereas 90 mm, 70 mm, 65 mm, 57 mm bending distances were achieved with attached weights of 5 g, 10 g, 20 g, 30 g, respectively.

Remediation of Pesticides by Microalgae as Feasible Approach in Agriculture: Bibliometric Strategies

Pesticide treatment dramatically reduces crop loss and enhances agricultural productivity, promoting global food security and economic growth. However, owing to high accrual and persistent tendency, pesticides could create significant ecological consequences when used often. Lately, the perspective has transitioned to implementing biological material, environmentally sustainable, and economical strategies via bioremediation approaches to eradicate pesticides contaminations. Microalgae were regarded as a prominent option for the detoxification of such hazardous contaminants. Sustainable application and remediation strategies of pesticides pollutants in the agriculture system by microalgae from the past studies, and recent advancements were integrated into this review. Bibliometric strategies to enhance the research advancements in pesticide bioremediation by microalgae between 2010 and 2020 were implemented through critical comparative analysis of documents from Scopus and PubMed databases. As a result, this study identified a growing annual research trend from 1994 to 2020 (nScopus > nPubMed). Global production of pesticide remediation by microalgae demonstrated significant contributions from India (23.8%) and China (16.7%). The author’s keyword clustering was visualized using bibliometric software (VOSviewer), which revealed the strongest network formed by “microalgae”, “bioremediation”, “biodegradation”, “cyanobacteria”, “wastewater”, and “pesticide” as significant to the research topic. Hence, this bibliometric review will facilitate the future roadmap for many scholars and authors who were drawing attention to the burgeoning research on bioremediation of pesticides to counteract environmental impacts while maintaining food sustainability.

Multiobjective multitasking optimization assisted by multidirectional prediction method

Multiobjective multitasking optimization (MTO) is an emerging research topic in the field of evolutionary computation, which has attracted extensive attention, and many evolutionary multitasking (EMT) algorithms have been proposed. One of the core issues, designing an efficient transfer strategy, has been scarcely explored. Keeping this in mind, this paper is the first attempt to design an efficient transfer strategy based on multidirectional prediction method. Specifically, the population is divided into multiple classes by the binary clustering method, and the representative point of each class is calculated. Then, an effective prediction direction method is developed to generate multiple prediction directions by representative points. Afterward, a mutation strength adaptation method is proposed according to the improvement degree of each class. Finally, the predictive transferred solutions are generated as transfer knowledge by the prediction directions and mutation strengths. By the above process, a multiobjective EMT algorithm based on multidirectional prediction method is presented. Experiments on two MTO test suits indicate that the proposed algorithm is effective and competitive to other state-of-the-art EMT algorithms.

A Comprehensive Formalization of AADL with Behavior Annex

In safety-critical fields, architectural languages such as AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language) have been playing an important role, and the analysis of the languages and systems designed by them is a challenging research topic. At present, a formal method has become one of the main practices in software engineering for strict analysis, and it has been applied on the tools of formalization and analysis. The formal method can be used to find and resolve the problems early by describing the system with precise semantics and validating the system model. This article studies the comprehensive formal specification and verification of AADL with Behavior annex by the formal method. The presentation of this specification and semantics is the aim of this article, and the work is illustrated with an ARINC653 model case study in Isabelle/HOL.

What Prevents You to Plug in to Online Surveys?

In today's world, which has been administered by computers and artificial intelligence in many areas, online data gathering has become an inevitable way of collecting data. Many researchers have preferred online surveying, considering the advantages of this method over the classical ones. Hence, the factors that may affect the response rate of online surveying have become a prominent research topic. In line with the popularity of this issue, the purpose of this chapter was to clarify the concept of online surveys; give information about their types, advantages, and usage; and investigate the factors that affect the participants' response behaviors. Besides the discussions on the theoretical framework of online surveying, an online survey aiming to determine the factors affecting the participation in online surveying was administered to a group of people to investigate the response behaviors thoroughly. The findings revealed that rs might affect ants' response behaviors to online surveys in various ways radically.

Communication and Marketing in the Fight Against Racism in the Sports Context

Racism is a global hierarchy of superiority and inferiority that has been politically, culturally, and economically produced and reproduced for centuries by the institutions, in different countries, depending on their colonial history. In that sense, racism cannot be seen as a concept that is equal in every region of the world. Racism in sport is a research topic that has been particularly valued in recent years (and decades). There are several episodes of racism that occur in sport (among fans and athletes). In this sense, sports institutions (European and global) regularly invest in social marketing campaigns to raise awareness of this social phenomenon. Therefore, social media has allowed football fans to engage in discussions concerning football and other subjects. This chapter presents a brief theoretical reflection with three (European) examples of marketing campaigns against racism in sport (UEFA, Premier League, and F.C. Porto). This chapter presents inputs for marketing, ethics, and management in sport. At the end, lines of future research will be presented.