Tahap penguasaan, sikap dan minat pelajar Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi MARA terhadap mata pelajaran Bahasa Inggeris

Kajian ini dilakukan untuk mengenal pasti tahap penguasaan, sikap dan minat pelajar Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi Mara Sri Gading terhadap Bahasa Inggeris. Kajian yang dijalankan ini berbentuk deskriptif atau lebih dikenali sebagai kaedah tinjauan. Seramai 325 orang pelajar Diploma in Construction Technology dari Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi Mara di daerah Batu Pahat telah dipilih sebagai sampel dalam kajian ini. Data yang diperoleh melalui instrument soal selidik telah dianalisis untuk mendapatkan pengukuran min, sisihan piawai, dan Pekali Korelasi Pearson untuk melihat hubungan hasil dapatan data. Manakala, frekuensi dan peratusan digunakan bagi mengukur penguasaan pelajar. Hasil dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris pelajar adalah berada pada tahap sederhana manakala faktor utama yang mempengaruhi penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris tersebut adalah minat diikuti oleh sikap. Hasil dapatan menggunakan pekali Korelasi Pearson juga menunjukkan bahawa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara sikap dengan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dan antara minat dengan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris. Kajian menunjukkan bahawa semakin positif sikap dan minat pelajar terhadap pengajaran dan pembelajaran Bahasa Inggeris semakin tinggi pencapaian mereka. Hasil daripada kajian ini diharapkan dapat membantu pelajar dalam meningkatkan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dengan memupuk sikap positif dalam diri serta meningkatkan minat mereka terhadap Bahasa Inggeris dengan lebih baik. Oleh itu, diharap kajian ini dapat memberi panduan kepada pihak-pihak yang terlibat dalam membuat kajian yang akan datang

Orbital Angular Momentum Waves: Generation, Detection and Emerging Applications

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) has aroused a widespread interest in many fields, especially in telecommunications due to its potential for unleashing new capacity in the severely congested spectrum of commercial communication systems. Beams carrying OAM have a helical phase front and a field strength with a singularity along the axial center, which can be used for information transmission, imaging and particle manipulation. The number of orthogonal OAM modes in a single beam is theoretically infinite and each mode is an element of a complete orthogonal basis that can be employed for multiplexing different signals, thus greatly improving the spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we comprehensively summarize and compare the methods for generation and detection of optical OAM, radio OAM and acoustic OAM. Then, we represent the applications and technical challenges of OAM in communications, including free-space optical communications, optical fiber communications, radio communications and acoustic communications. To complete our survey, we also discuss the state of art of particle manipulation and target imaging with OAM beams

Statistical Region Based Segmentation of Ultrasound Images

Segmentation of ultrasound images is a challenging problem due to speckle, which corrupts the image and can result in weak or missing image boundaries, poor signal to noise ratio, and diminished contrast resolution. Speckle is a random interference pattern that is characterized by an asymmetric distribution as well as significant spatial correla- tion. These attributes of speckle are challenging to model in a segmentation approach, so many previous ultrasound segmentation methods simplify the problem by assuming that the speckle is white and/or Gaussian distributed. Unlike these methods, in this paper we present an ultrasound-specific segmentation approach that addresses both the spatial correlation of the data as well as its intensity distribution. We first decorrelate the image and then apply a region-based active contour whose motion is derived from an appropri- ate parametric distribution for maximum likelihood image segmentation. We consider zero-mean complex Gaussian, Rayleigh, and Fisher-Tippett flows, which are designed to model fully formed speckle in the in-phase/quadrature (IQ), envelope detected, and display (log compressed) images, respectively. We present experimental results demon- strating the effectiveness of our method, and compare the results to other parametric and non-parametric active contours

GUARDIANS final report

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for firefghters. The large dimensions together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The Guardians robot swarm is designed to assist fire fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this report we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots searching and assisting fire fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms which provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also one of the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus the robot swarm is able to locate itself and provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the re ghters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm based information to human beings

A 360 VR and Wi-Fi Tracking Based Autonomous Telepresence Robot for Virtual Tour

This study proposes a novel mobile robot teleoperation interface that demonstrates the applicability of a robot-aided remote telepresence system with a virtual reality (VR) device to a virtual tour scenario. To improve realism and provide an intuitive replica of the remote environment for the user interface, the implemented system automatically moves a mobile robot (viewpoint) while displaying a 360-degree live video streamed from the robot to a VR device (Oculus Rift). Upon the user choosing a destination location from a given set of options, the robot generates a route based on a shortest path graph and travels along that the route using a wireless signal tracking method that depends on measuring the direction of arrival (DOA) of radio signals. This paper presents an overview of the system and architecture, and discusses its implementation aspects. Experimental results show that the proposed system is able to move to the destination stably using the signal tracking method, and that at the same time, the user can remotely control the robot through the VR interface

Navigating the Corridors of Power : Using RFID and Compass Sensors for Robot Localisation and Navigation

Localisation and navigation are still of the most important issues in mobile robotics. In certain indoor application scenarios Radio frequency identification (RFID) based absolute localisation has been found to be especially successful in supporting navigation. In this paper we examine the feasibility of an RFID and compass based approach to robot localisation and navigation for indoor environments that are dominated by corridors. We present a proof of concept system and show how it can be used to localized within and navigate through an environment

Sensor Network-Based Localization for Continuous Tracking Applications: Implementation and Performance Evaluation

The increasing interest in systems able to provide users with immersive services (e.g., domotics, context-aware applications, and immersive distance learning tools) has encouraged the development of cheap and effective platforms aimed at tracking objects and people within a certain space. In this context, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can play a very important role, since specialized sensors can be fruitfully exploited in order to generate/receive signals by means of which the WSN can derive the position of nodes joined to the objects to be tracked. The paper presents an original localization platform that exploits a single-hop WSN, based on a Microchip MCU and a Cypress RF device, to track its moving nodes. Specifically, the nodes of the network are divided into three sets: the first set consists of anchor nodes that, according to the commands from the sink (the central node of the WSN), generate ultrasonic pulses. These pulses are received by the second set of (moving) nodes, which estimate the pulse time trip and communicate it to the sink. Finally, the last set is constituted by general purpose nodes that collect any kind of data from the surrounding field. The sink gathers all the data, computes the position of moving nodes, and transfers information to external users on the Internet. The algorithms adopted to manage the network and to localize moving nodes are discussed. A working prototype based upon the hardware platform, software, and protocol described in this paper has been deployed and tested, and some results are shown. Simulation results of the localization system are presented to show system scalability

A Comprehensive Review on Autonomous Navigation

The field of autonomous mobile robots has undergone dramatic advancements over the past decades. Despite achieving important milestones, several challenges are yet to be addressed. Aggregating the achievements of the robotic community as survey papers is vital to keep the track of current state-of-the-art and the challenges that must be tackled in the future. This paper tries to provide a comprehensive review of autonomous mobile robots covering topics such as sensor types, mobile robot platforms, simulation tools, path planning and following, sensor fusion methods, obstacle avoidance, and SLAM. The urge to present a survey paper is twofold. First, autonomous navigation field evolves fast so writing survey papers regularly is crucial to keep the research community well-aware of the current status of this field. Second, deep learning methods have revolutionized many fields including autonomous navigation. Therefore, it is necessary to give an appropriate treatment of the role of deep learning in autonomous navigation as well which is covered in this paper. Future works and research gaps will also be discussed