Fused Contextual Data with Threading Technology to Accelerate Processing in Home UbiHealth

According to the ubiquitous computing paradigm, dispersed computers within the home environment can support the residents’ health by being aware of all the developing and evolving situations. The context-awareness of the supporting computers stems from the data acquisition of the occurring events at home. In some cases, different sensors provide input of identical type, thereby raising conflict-related issues. Thus, for each type of input data, fusion methods must be applied on the raw data to obtain a dominant input value. Also, for diagnostic inference purpose, data fusion methods must be applied on the values of the available classes of multiple contextual data structures. Dempster-Shafer theory offers the algorithmic tools to efficiently fuse the data of each input type or class. The employment of threading technology accelerates the computational process and carrying out benchmarks on publicly available data set, is shown to be more efficient. Thus, threading technology proved promising for home UbiHealth applications by lowering the number of required cooperating computers.

Estimation of Inter-System Biases between BDS-3/GPS/Galileo and Its Application in RTK Positioning

For the development of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), the third generation of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) achieved full constellation for worldwide service on 23 June 2020. The new signals, B1C and B2a of BDS-3, further enhance the compatibility and interoperability between different GNSSs. In this study, we first assessed the quality of all the signals in BDS-3/GPS/Galileo. Then, to achieve the interoperability among BDS-3/GPS/Galileo, the inter-system bias (ISB), which appears if an inter-system difference exists between two GNSSs, was estimated at overlapping frequencies. Finally, we used the estimated ISBs in real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning. The results show the higher quality of the overlapping frequency B2a/L5/E5a than B1C/L1/E1 in terms of pseudo range multipath. The ISBs are stable both in the short term for one day and in the long term for over a year, which fit a zero-mean normal distribution well when the identical type of receiver is applied. Thus, it is reasonable to ignore the ISBs in the inter-system differences. With the estimated ISBs, the inter-system double-difference RTK can be achieved, which is called a tightly combined model (TCM) RTK. Compared with the traditional intra-system double-difference RTK, which is called a loosely combined model (LCM) RTK, the TCM RTK can achieve a higher success rate (SR) in terms of ambiguity resolution and higher positioning accuracy. In addition, the higher the cutoff elevation angle set, the greater the promotion can be obtained in SR. Even with a cutoff elevation angle of 50°, the SR of TCM is over 80%. Thus, it is important to apply TCM RTK when the observation conditions are limited, such as in dense jungles or the urban canyons.

Identification of Signs of “Business Fragmentation” in Russian Far Eastern Territories with Special Economic Status

The issue of “business fragmentation” has been relevant in Russia for over ten years. Business striving to ensure competitiveness makes it necessary to look for mechanisms to reduce the tax burden, applying special tax regimes or preferential tax conditions for residents of territories with special economic status. In this paper, the authors analyze the theoretical prerequisites for substantiating the signs of “business fragmentation,” and study the scope of application of “business fragmentation” schemes within the framework of preferential tax conditions for territories with special economic status in the Far East. The basic research methods were content analysis, comparative analysis and synthesis. As a result of the content analysis of judicial practice, the criteria for business fragmentation, confirming the formal division of a business, were substantiated. The authors carried out a comparative analysis of resident companies and identified, based on open data, 159 residents of priority social and economic development areas (PSEDAs) and 625 residents of the Free Port of Vladivostok (FPV) with signs of “business fragmentation.” Those amounted to 28.49 % and 29.48 % in the total number of active residents, respectively. Vladivostok is the leader in terms of the number of residents with signs of “business fragmentation,” with 443 residents of the FPV. The most common signs of “business fragmentation” among resident companies in territories with a special economic status of the Far East are substantiated: common persons managing companies, common or identical type of activity, and common address of location. Common types of activity among resident companies with signs of “business fragmentation” within territories with special economic status of the Far East are warehousing and auxiliary transport (15 % of PSEDA; 12.3 % of the FPV); construction of buildings (16.5 % of the FPV); and operations with real estate (14 % of the FPV).

Dynamically Changing Parallelism with the Asynchronous Sequential Data Flows

A statically typed version of the data driven functional parallel computing model is proposed. It enables a representation of dynamically changing parallelism by means of asynchronous serial data flows. We consider the features of the syntax and semantics of the statically typed data driven functional parallel programming language Smile that supports asynchronous sequential flows. Our main idea is to apply the Hoar concept of communicating sequential processes to the computation control on the data readiness. It is assumed that on the data readiness a control signal is emitted to inform the processes about the occurrence of certain events. The special feature of our approach is that the model is extended with the special asynchronous containers that can generate events on their partial filling. These containers are a stream and a swarm, each of which has its own specifics. A stream is used to process data which have identical type. The data comes sequentially and asynchronously at arbitrary time moments. The number of the incoming data elements is initially unknown, so the processing completes on the signal of the end of the stream. A swarm is used to contain independent data of the same type and may be used for the massive parallel operations performing. Unlike a stream, the swarm’s size is fixed and known in advance. General principles of the operations with the asynchronous sequential flows with an arbitrary order of data arrival are described. The use of the streams and the swarms in various situations is considered. We propose the language constructions which allow us to operate the swarms and streams and describe the specifics of their application. We provide the sample functions to illustrate the use of the different approaches to description of the parallelism: recursive processing of the asynchronous flows, processing of the flows in an arbitrary or predefined order of operations, direct access and access by the reference to the elements of the streams and swarms, pipelining of calculations. We give a preliminary parallelism assessment which depends on the ratio of the rates of data arrival and their processing. The proposed methods can be used in the development of the future languages and tool-kits of architecture-independent parallel programming.

Response Regulators 9 and 10 Negatively Regulate Salinity Tolerance in Rice

Cytokinins are involved in the regulation of many plant growth and development processes, and function in response to abiotic stress. Cytokinin signaling is similar to the prokaryotic two-component signaling systems and includes the transcriptional upregulation of type-A response regulators (RRs), which in turn act to inhibit cytokinin signal response via negative feedback. Cytokinin signaling consists of several gene families and only a handful full of genes is studied. In this study, we demonstrated the function of two highly identical type-A RR genes from rice, OsRR9 and OsRR10, which are induced by cytokinin and only OsRR10 repressed by salinity stress in rice. Loss-of-function mutations give rise to mutant genes, osrr9/osrr10, which have higher salinity tolerance than wild type rice seedlings. The transcriptomic analysis uncovered several ion transporter genes, which were upregulated in response to salt stress in the osrr9/osrr10 mutants relative to the wild type seedlings. These include high-affinity potassium transporters, such as OsHKT1;1, OsHKT1;3 and OsHKT2;1, which play an important role in sodium and potassium homeostasis. In addition, disruption of the genes OsRR9 and OsRR10 also affects the expression of multiple genes related to photosynthesis, transcription and phytohormone signaling. Taken together, these results suggest that the genes OsRR9 and OsRR10 function as negative regulators in response to salinity in rice.

Differential Inter-System Biases Estimation and Initial Assessment of Instantaneous Tightly Combined RTK with BDS-3, GPS, and Galileo

In this contribution, we assess, for the first time, the tightly combined real-time kinematic (RTK) with GPS, Galileo, and BDS-3 operational satellites using observations from their overlapping L1-E1-B1C/L5-E5a-B2a frequencies. First, the characteristics of B1C/B2a signals from BDS-3 operational satellites is evaluated compared to GPS/Galileo L1-E1/L5-E5a signals in terms of observed carrier-to-noise density ratio, pseudorange multipath and noise, as well as double-differenced carrier phase and code residuals using data collected with scientific geodetic iGMAS and commercial M300Pro receivers. It’s demonstrated that the observational quality of B1C/B2a signals from BDS-3 operational satellites is comparable to that of GPS/Galileo L1-E1/L5-E5a signals. Then, we investigate the size and stability of phase and code differential inter-system bias (ISB) between BDS-3/GPS/Galileo B1C-L1-E1/B2a-L5-E5a signals using short baseline data collected with both identical and different receiver types. It is verified that the BDS-3/GPS/Galileo ISBs are indeed close to zero when identical type of receivers are used at both ends of a baseline. Moreover, they are generally present and stable in the time domain for baselines with different receiver types, which can be easily calibrated and corrected in advance. Finally, we present initial assessment of single-epoch tightly combined BDS-3/GPS/Galileo RTK with single-frequency and dual-frequency observations using a formal and empirical analysis, consisting of ambiguity dilution of precision (ADOP), ratio values, the empirical ambiguity resolution success rate, and the positioning accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the tightly combined model can deliver much lower ADOP and higher ratio values with respect to the classical loosely combined model whether for GPS/BDS-3 or GPS/Galileo/BDS-3 solutions. The positioning accuracy and the empirical ambiguity resolution success rate are remarkably improved as well, which could reach up to approximately 10%∼60% under poor observational conditions.

A tuberculosis outbreak at an insecure, temporary housing facility, manga café, Tokyo, Japan, 2016–2017

In November 2016, a woman in her 30s who stayed at an insecure, temporary housing facility, a manga café in Tokyo, Japan, for a year was diagnosed with sputum smear-positive tuberculosis (TB). Since the café had 31 staff members and provided with accommodation to many people, the local health office initiated a contact investigation. This study aims to characterise the cases found in the outbreak. A TB case was defined as a person tested bacteriologically positive for TB, or was determined to have TB by a physician. A latent TB infection case was defined as a person tested positive by interferon-γ release assay. From January 2016 through November 2017, there were 31 staff members at the manga café, of which, six developed TB disease (one smear-negative, culture-positive and five smear- and culture-negative) in addition to seven LTBI. Another long-term customer was found having sputum smear-positive TB. Variable numbers tandem repeat (VNTR) test revealed that the index patient and the long-term customer had the identical type of VNTR; however, one staff member had a different VNTR. Local health authorities should intensify screening long-term customers of such facilities for TB regularly as well as once a TB outbreak occurs.

Free relatives in Maltese

This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of free relative clauses (frcs) in Maltese, in particular so-called plain, standard or non -ever free relative clauses. We demonstrate that such frcs are interpreted as definites, consistent with the findings in much previous literature on other languages. However, we also show that Maltese has not one but two strategies for plain (realis or definite) frcs: alongside frcs formed using a wh-word we also find frcs introduced by the complementising element li, inconsistent with the seemingly widespread assumption that frcs necessarily involve a wh-word. Both strategies give rise to definite interpretations. Additionally, we argue that definite or realis wh-frcs are to be distinguished from a different (but apparently structurally identical) type, the so-called irrealis free relative clause or modal existential construction, which has not been previously identified for Maltese. We show that this subset of free relatives exhibit the properties associated with the modal existential construction crosslinguistically. We then demonstrate the existence of a subtype of headed relative clauses in Maltese which also share a number of the properties which we identify in the Maltese modal existential construction.

The Analysis of Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Emissions From Forklifts Fueled by Diesel Fuel and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Obtained Under Real Driving Conditions

The paper presents an analysis of gaseous exhaust emissions and fuel consumption obtained from two forklifts based on the measurements performed under actual driving conditions. The first of the investigated objects was fitted with a diesel engine and the second with a spark ignition engine fueled with LPG. In order to carry out the research, the authors developed a proprietary methodology because the VDI 2198 test procedure (developed by VDI - Association of German Engineers) for the determination of forklift energy consumption, did not fully reflect the actual conditions of operation of these vehicles. The VDI procedure only determines the energy consumption according to predetermined sequences (collecting load, load transport, load-dropping) performed only in indoor areas. The authors developed a test route composed of similar sequences i.e. collecting load, load transport, load-dropping and driving without a load. The measurements were carried out in a warehouse and outdoors, which better reflected the actual forklift driving conditions. During the trials, the exhaust emissions were measured (Semtech - Portable Emission Measurement System) along with the driving parameters such as speed, acceleration and distance covered. Based on the obtained parameters, on-road exhaust emissions and fuel consumption were obtained. The obtained data allowed a comparison of the measurement conditions and the type of fuel used for the forklifts. Both tested vehicles were loaded with identical type of load of the same weight.

Dynamic Analysis of Historic Railway Bridges in Poland in the Context of Adjusting Them to Pendolino Trains

The article presents the dynamic analysis of the historic railway bridge in Tczew as an example of the usefulness of such type of bridge for high-speed trains. The model of the bridge and the simulation of rolling stock passage was performed in SOFISTIK program. The scope of work includes experimental studies, the solution of the problem concerning the correct solution features of the dynamic model which takes into account the dependencies between the bridge, track and rolling - stock (RBT). The verification of the model was performed by comparing the results obtained on site during the passage of ET-22 locomotive and twenty (20) open goods wagons with the results obtained in the program for the identical type of rolling stock used to the simulation Pendolino train. Then, after the verification, the simulation of high-speed train passage was performed. The speed of the train passage varied from 150 [km/h] to the max. possible speed of 250 [km/h] which PENDOLINO train, approved for the simulation, may reach. Under the analysis of obtained results it was possible to define the conditions for adjusting the historic bridge to high-speed train passage.