Concept of a System Providing Ground-Based Medical Support for In-Flight Emergencies

In this paper, we present the concept of a telematics system that not only opens an audiovisual communication channel to ground-based doctors, but also provides them with medical background information on the patient (e.g. contraindication of certain medicaments, affliction with haemophilia, diabetes). This information can be a vital supplement to the diagnostic data (e.g. electrocardiogram, oximetry) relayed to the specialist by the cabin crew, aiding the doctor in deciding on the right therapy, instructing the crew appropriately and monitoring the treatment

The Potential of ICT in supporting Domiciliary Care in Germany

This report documents the findings of the study on the potential of ICT in supporting the provision of domiciliary care, with particular attention to the case of immigrant care workers and informal caregivers in Germany. This country study was launched by JRC-IPTS in 2008 in parallel with two complementary country studies, assessing the situation in Spain and the UK, with the same focus and objectives. All three studies were prompted by the findings of a previous exploratory study on the use of ICT by immigrant care workers in Italy. In Germany, the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for health and social care is playing an increasingly important role in the context of the demographic changes. As, on the one hand, people are getting older and the need for care is increasing, and, on the other hand, the number of formal and informal caregivers is decreasing, technical devices are seen as a possible solution to this dilemma. At the same time, people in need of care and their relatives have a tendency to informally employ private care assistants, often from migrant backgrounds, to assist those in need of care in their homes with daily tasks, so as to avoid and postpone their transferral into institutional care. This report gives an overview on the situation of domiciliary care in Germany, outlining the current use of ICT in home care and by domiciliary caregivers. It investigates the opportunities for ICT in home care and identifies drivers and barriers for the deployment of ICT by caregivers with a particular focus on migrant care assistants. The research undertaken in this and the other national reports is exploratory in nature. The study employs a triangulation of methods, comprising desk-based analysis of existing reports and scientific publications; analysis of information and service web sites; and field work involving direct questioning of experts, service providers, and a sample of carers and care workers, including immigrants.JRC.DG.J.4-Information Societ

PIC CONTROLLED ROBOTIC DEVICE DRIVE SYSTEM

The Final Year Project course is designed for students to perform research; design and development work in each discipline, to produce practical solutions. It provides opportunity for students to use the tools and techniques of problem-solving by engagement of the project. Under proper guidance of supervisor, the students will shape the direction in the field of interest as a preparation for approaching their desired career path in the near future, as well as gain better understanding of the responsibilities they have to shoulder when they undertake future projects. The objective ofthis project is to produce a storage/delivery autonomous robot which will operate ina production plant. The Scope of Study will cover areas of research done to fulfill design requirements ofproject with objective and its functionality. The areas of design requirements will include movement mechanism, electronic circuits, and programming. These subareas are developed and integrated for implementation ofthe workable robot. The project is divided into two phases; 1) intensive design research and 2) implementation and construction. Methodology and Project Work of this project is done by implementing a lot of research not only on the Internet but also literature review on scholars that have completed similar robotic design. The weekly Log Book and Progress Report is also compiled and summarized to present the author's progress so far. Consultation with supervisor and other FYP students had also aid in objective of completing the author's FYP. The author has also included flow chart ofactivities planned throughout the semester to ensure maximum progress ofher FYP. The research taken with the methodology mentioned allows the author to fulfill progress of design requirements planned in completion of the robot with reference to the scope of study for the project. Progress and modification made throughout project are discussed in detail, to reflect objective of project. Future improvisation and recommendations are also suggested atthe end for further research

PIC CONTROLLED ROBOTIC DEVICE DRIVE SYSTEM

The Final Year Project course is designed for students to perform research; design and development work in each discipline, to produce practical solutions. It provides opportunity for students to use the tools and techniques of problem-solving by engagement of the project. Under proper guidance of supervisor, the students will shape the direction in the field of interest as a preparation for approaching their desired career path in the near future, as well as gain better understanding of the responsibilities they have to shoulder when they undertake future projects. The objective ofthis project is to produce a storage/delivery autonomous robot which will operate ina production plant. The Scope of Study will cover areas of research done to fulfill design requirements ofproject with objective and its functionality. The areas of design requirements will include movement mechanism, electronic circuits, and programming. These subareas are developed and integrated for implementation ofthe workable robot. The project is divided into two phases; 1) intensive design research and 2) implementation and construction. Methodology and Project Work of this project is done by implementing a lot of research not only on the Internet but also literature review on scholars that have completed similar robotic design. The weekly Log Book and Progress Report is also compiled and summarized to present the author's progress so far. Consultation with supervisor and other FYP students had also aid in objective of completing the author's FYP. The author has also included flow chart ofactivities planned throughout the semester to ensure maximum progress ofher FYP. The research taken with the methodology mentioned allows the author to fulfill progress of design requirements planned in completion of the robot with reference to the scope of study for the project. Progress and modification made throughout project are discussed in detail, to reflect objective of project. Future improvisation and recommendations are also suggested atthe end for further research

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

sustainable and resilient building design:

The challenges to which contemporary building design needs to respond grow steadily. They originate from the influence of changing environmental conditions on buildings, as well as from the need to reduce the impact of buildings on the environment. The increasing complexity requires the continual revision of design principles and their harmonisation with current scientific findings, technological development, and environmental, social, and economic factors. It is precisely these issues that form the backbone of the thematic book, Sustainable and Resilient Building Design: Approaches, Methods, and Tools. The purpose of this book is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). The book starts with the exploration of the origin, development, and the state-of-the-art notions of environmental design and resource efficiency. Subsequently, climate change complexity and dynamics are studied, and the design strategy for climate-proof buildings is articulated. The investigation into the resilience of buildings is further deepened by examining a case study of fire protection. The book then investigates interrelations between sustainable and resilient building design, compares their key postulates and objectives, and searches for the possibilities of their integration into an outreaching approach. The fifth article in the book deals with potentials and constraints in relation to the assessment of the sustainability (and resilience) of buildings. It critically analyses different existing building certification models, their development paths, systems, and processes, and compares them with the general objectives of building ratings. The subsequent paper outlines the basis and the meaning of the risk and its management system, and provides an overview of different visual, auxiliary, and statistical risk assessment methods and tools. Following the studies of the meanings of sustainable and resilient buildings, the book focuses on the aspects of building components and materials. Here, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method for quantifying the environmental impact of building products is introduced and analysed in detail, followed by a comprehensive comparative overview of the LCA-based software and databases that enable both individual assessment and the comparison of different design alternatives. The impact of climate and pollution on the resilience of building materials is analysed using the examples of stone, wood, concrete, and ceramic materials. Accordingly, the contribution of traditional and alternative building materials to the reduction of negative environmental impact is discussed and depicted through different examples. The book subsequently addresses existing building stock, in which environmental, social, and economic benefits of building refurbishment are outlined by different case studies. Further on, a method for the upgrade of existing buildings, described as ‘integrated rehabilitation’, is deliberated and supported by best practice examples of exoskeleton architectural prosthesis. The final paper reflects on the principles of regenerative design, reveals the significance of biological entities, and recognises the need to assign to buildings and their elements a more advanced role towards natural systems in human environments

Machine Learning Methods with Noisy, Incomplete or Small Datasets

In many machine learning applications, available datasets are sometimes incomplete, noisy or affected by artifacts. In supervised scenarios, it could happen that label information has low quality, which might include unbalanced training sets, noisy labels and other problems. Moreover, in practice, it is very common that available data samples are not enough to derive useful supervised or unsupervised classifiers. All these issues are commonly referred to as the low-quality data problem. This book collects novel contributions on machine learning methods for low-quality datasets, to contribute to the dissemination of new ideas to solve this challenging problem, and to provide clear examples of application in real scenarios

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Buses in the European Context. Evaluation of relevant measures to support low-carbon mobility in the public transport sector

Goal and Background. Transport represents 27% of Europe's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and is the main cause of air pollution in cities. With the global shift towards a low-carbon economy, the EU set forth a lowemission mobility strategy with the aim of reducing the overall emissions in the transport sector. The High V.LO.-City project is part of this overarching strategy and addresses the integration of hydrogen fuel cell (H2FC) buses in the public transport. Methods. In this thesis, the environmental assessment of one H2FC bus and the related refuelling station is carried out using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, taking into account the following phases: (1) bus production, (2) hydrogen production pathways (water electrolysis, chlor-alkali electrolysis, and steam methane reforming), (3) hydrogen consumption during bus operation, and (4) the vehicles' end of life. The potential impacts are evaluated for magnitude and signi cance in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase, using Environmental Footprint (EF) method which is part of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method, established by the European Union (EU) in 2013. The calculated fuel economy is around 10.54 KgH2/100Km and the energy demand of a refuelling infrastructure may vary between 6 and 9 KWh/KgH2. Results. The results show that H2FC buses have the potential to reduce emissions during the use phase if renewables resources are used. The expected Global Warming Potential (GWP) bene t is about 85% in comparison to a diesel bus. Additionally, the emissions of the selected patterns of hydrogen production depend on how electricity is produced and on the chemical-based or fossil-based feedstocks used to drive the production process. Conclusions and Outlook. The improvement of the environmental pro le of hydrogen production requires to promote clean electricity sources to supply a low-carbon hydrogen and to sharpen policy focus with regard to life cycle management, and to counter potential setbacks, in particular those related to problem-shifting and to grid improvement