Between Computer Automation, Voltage Control and Literature: A portrait of Peter Zinovieff

The life and times of Peter Zinovieff (1933–2021) have been amply commented upon and there are numerous testimonies of his role on developing electronic music as well as his strong impact on musicians throughout the 1970s. However, besides his important role in developing synthesisers, sound processing and various other devices, he is now recognised as a significant pioneer in music with computers. His collaboration with Harrison Birtwistle’s opera The Mask of Orpheus has been deemed an important contribution to contemporary music in Great Britain. Finally, his late return to composition and performance shows his lifelong attachment to innovation and experimentation in music.

A fully automated method for late ventricular diastole frame selection in post-dive echocardiography without ECG gating

Venous gas emboli (VGE) are often quantified as a marker of decompression stress on echocardiograms. Bubble-counting has been proposed as an easy to learn method, but remains time-consuming, rendering large dataset analysis impractical. Computer automation of VGE counting following this method has therefore been suggested as a means to eliminate rater bias and save time. A necessary step for this automation relies on the selection of a frame during late ventricular diastole (LVD) for each cardiac cycle of the recording. Since electrocardiograms (ECG) are not always recorded in field experiments, here we propose a fully automated method for LVD frame selection based on regional intensity minimization. The algorithm is tested on 20 previously acquired echocardiography recordings (from the original bubble-counting publication), half of which were acquired at rest (Rest) and the other half after leg flexions (Flex). From the 7,140 frames analyzed, sensitivity was found to be 0.913 [95% CI: 0.875-0.940] and specificity 0.997 [95% CI: 0.996-0.998]. The method’s performance is also compared to that of random chance selection and found to perform significantly better (p<0.0001). No trend in algorithm performance was found with respect to VGE counts, and no significant difference was found between Flex and Rest (p>0.05). In conclusion, full automation of LVD frame selection for the purpose of bubble counting in post-dive echocardiography has been established with excellent accuracy, although we caution that high quality acquisitions remain paramount in retaining high reliability.

Using Visual and Digital Imagery to Quantify Horn Fly (Diptera: Muscidae) Densities

The horn fly, Haematobia irritans L. (Diptera: Muscidae), is a persistent pest of cattle globally. A threshold of 200 flies per animal is considered the standard management goal; however, determining when that threshold has been exceeded is difficult using visual estimates that tend to overestimate the actual fly densities and are, at best, subjective. As a result, a more reliable and durable method of determining horn fly densities is needed. Here, we describe the methods commonly used to quantify horn fly densities including visual estimates and digital photography, and provide examples of quantification software and the prospect for computer automation methods.

Before Body Scanning There was Looker

This paper uses the film Looker (Michael Crichton, 1981) to highlight how a group of filmmakers and technologists imagined the sinister side of computer-automated biometrics would unfold in late twentieth century United States. The film depicts a scene in which a young female model gets her naked body scanned for a multinational corporation that will capitalize on the 3D computer model created from her likeness. An analysis of the body scanning scene and behind-the-scenes production processes raise new questions about the legacy of biometric imaginaries in the United States and helps us see in new ways how a set of concerns crystallized around the computerization of personal identifiable information, including physical bodies. While fears of computer automation existed in previous decades, by the early 1980s, the stakes heightened as biometric and photosensing technologies could sense and gather data computationally.

STRATEGI MEWUJUDKAN LAYANAN PRIMA DI PERPUSTAKAAN IAIN PONOROGO

Layanan prima menjadi salah satu hal yang harus diwujudkan oleh perpustakaan agar pengunjung memperoleh kenyamanan dan dapat mengambil manfaat dari keberadaan perpustakaan. Artikel ini memaparkan bagaimana kondisi perpustakaan STAIN Ponorogo setelah upaya pelayanan prima dilakukan utamanya pada peralihan status dari STAIN menjadi IAIN Ponorogo. Dari hasil penelitian ditemukan bahwa perpustakaan IAIN Ponorogo telah melakukan berbagai macam upaya yakni: strategi menyediakan koleksi buku yang lengkap, layanan mandiri peminjaman kunci dengan tiga komputer, memberikan attention yang lebih, memberikan pelatihan/training ORS (Online Research Skill) setiap hari jum’at, selving setiap hari dengan bantuan Office Boy, penghitungan denda dengan otomasi komputer, pelayanan kartu kunjung, kartu sakti dan layanan silang antar perpustakaan, penyimpanan barang di loker dan penggunaan cctv, request buku baru, penelusuran buku dengan menggunakan komputer OPAC, dan ketepatan jam buka layanan, serta memberikan layanan yang ramah dan cepat. Meskipun demikian masih terdapat kekurangan dalam pelayanan yakni layanan yang ramah dan cepat tersebut belum konsisten. [Excellent service is one of the things that must be realized by the library so that visitors get comfort and can take the advantage of the library existence. This article describes how the condition of the STAIN Ponorogo library after the efforts of excellent service is carried out primarily on the transition of status from STAIN to IAIN Ponorogo. The results of the study shows that IAIN Ponorogo library has made various efforts namely: a strategy of providing a complete collection of books, key lending independent services with three computers, giving more attention, providing training/ORS (Online Research Skill) training every Friday , arranging the book (selving) every day with the help of Office Boy, calculating fines with computer automation, visiting card services, magic cards and cross services between libraries, storing goods in lockers and using cctv, request for the new books, searching books using OPAC computers, and accuracy in opening hours service, as well as providing friendly and fast service. Nonetheless is still lacking of friendly and fast service].

DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT SMART GRID WITH ERROR CONTROL ALGORITHM

The in capabilities of the current power grid in distributing monitoring and managing due to the rising needs in the energy consumption and the aging infrastructure of the prevailing power grid, has led to the emergence of the grid that is smart in managing distributing and monitoring . The smart grid incorporating controls, computer, automation along innovative technologies and tools are able to provide an enhanced performance by being extra proficient, secure, reliable and greener. The smart grid also provides with the two way communication between the users and the utilities on the terms of electricity and information with the usage being completely monitored using the wireless sensor networks. The communication between the user and the utilities are often affected due to the noise, fading and path loss etc. experienced by the communication path. So the paper proffers an error control method that is adaptive to the changing behavior of the communication channels to make have an error less communication making the smart grid efficient. The result obtained based on the bit error rate, delay and the throughput evince the capability of the proposed scheme.

Bacterial and Virus affected Citrus Leaf Disease Classification using Smartphone and SVM

Automatic detection of citrus leaves disease is very much essential for the better productivity of citrus. Citrus leaves are affected by bacteria, fungus and virus respectively. Farmer detects the diseases of the plant using laboratory, naked eyes or using expert’s view. The rural farmers often face difficulties to detect these diseases due to the non availability of the laboratories in their area. Here in this paper, a computer automation system is proposed to detect the diseases of citrus leaves on an early stage. Citrus leaves images are captured using Smartphone. Captured images are used to extract the different features of the citrus leaves samples using Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix. Finally, citrus greening and citrus CTV images are classified from citrus healthy images using Gaussian kernel based support vector machine. Accuracy of the kernel is evaluated for the different values of Gamma parameter of kernel. The Gaussian kernel gives maximum accuracy (95.5%) with Gamma value 1.