Towards a Driving Training System to Support Cognitive Flexibility

Driving under unfamiliar conditions, such as unfamiliar traffic system and unfamiliar vehicle configuration during overseas holidays, might cause fatality, injury or property damage. In these cases, a driver needs to apply their prior knowledge to a new driving situation in order to drive safely. This ability is called cognitive flexibility. Prior research has found that left/mixed-handed people show superior cognitive flexibility in tasks required such ability than right-handed people. This paper aims to explore the relationships among cognitive flexibility, handedness and the types of errors drivers make, specifically at roundabouts and intersections in an unfamiliar driving condition. We conducted an experiment using a right-hand driving simulator and a left-hand simulated traffic scenario as a driving condition to collect the related data to driving at roundabout and intersection. All participants were not familiar with that condition. We found that left/mixed-handed drivers show a significantly superior cognitive flexibility at a turn-left roundabout and intersection. Also left/mixed handed drivers make a significantly fewer number of errors than right-handed drivers when entering the roundabout and approaching the intersection

Allocation and migration of virtual machines using machine learning

Cloud computing promises the advent of a new era of service boosted by means of virtualization technology. The process of virtualization means creation of virtual infrastructure, devices, servers and computing resources needed to deploy an application smoothly. This extensively practiced technology involves selecting an efficient Virtual Machine (VM) to complete the task by transferring applications from Physical Machines (PM) to VM or from VM to VM. The whole process is very challenging not only in terms of computation but also in terms of energy and memory. This research paper presents an energy aware VM allocation and migration approach to meet the challenges faced by the growing number of cloud data centres. Machine Learning (ML) based Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) is used to rank the VM with respect to the load while considering the energy efficiency as a crucial parameter. The most efficient virtual machines are further selected and thus depending on the dynamics of the load and energy, applications are migrated from one VM to another. The simulation analysis is performed in Matlab and it shows that this research work results in more reduction in energy consumption as compared to existing studies

Lidar Point Cloud compression, processing and learning for Autonomous Driving

As technology advances, cities are getting smarter. Smart mobility is the key element in smart cities and Autonomous Driving (AV) are an essential part of smart mobility. However, the vulnerability of unmanned vehicles can also affect the value of life and human safety. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of 3D Point-Cloud (3DPC) processing and learning in terms of development, advancement, and performance for the AV system. 3DPC has recently attracted growing interest due to its extensive applications, such as autonomous driving, computer vision, and robotics. Light Detection and Ranging Sensors (LiDAR) is one of the most significant sensors in AV, which collects 3DPC that can accurately capture the outer surfaces of scenes and objects. Learning and processing tools in the 3DPC are essential for creating maps, perceptions, and localization devices in AV. The intention behind 3DPC learning and practical processing tools is to be considered the most essential modules to create, locate, and perceive maps in an AV system. The goal of the study is to know ``what has been tested in AV system so far and what is necessary to make it safer and more practical in AV system.'' We also provide insights into the necessary open problems that are required to be resolved in the future

Global overview of the management of acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic (CHOLECOVID study)

Background: This study provides a global overview of the management of patients with acute cholecystitis during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: CHOLECOVID is an international, multicentre, observational comparative study of patients admitted to hospital with acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on management were collected for a 2-month study interval coincident with the WHO declaration of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and compared with an equivalent pre-pandemic time interval. Mediation analysis examined the influence of SARS-COV-2 infection on 30-day mortality. Results: This study collected data on 9783 patients with acute cholecystitis admitted to 247 hospitals across the world. The pandemic was associated with reduced availability of surgical workforce and operating facilities globally, a significant shift to worse severity of disease, and increased use of conservative management. There was a reduction (both absolute and proportionate) in the number of patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 3095 patients (56.2 per cent) pre-pandemic to 1998 patients (46.2 per cent) during the pandemic but there was no difference in 30-day all-cause mortality after cholecystectomy comparing the pre-pandemic interval with the pandemic (13 patients (0.4 per cent) pre-pandemic to 13 patients (0.6 per cent) pandemic; P = 0.355). In mediation analysis, an admission with acute cholecystitis during the pandemic was associated with a non-significant increased risk of death (OR 1.29, 95 per cent c.i. 0.93 to 1.79, P = 0.121). Conclusion: CHOLECOVID provides a unique overview of the treatment of patients with cholecystitis across the globe during the first months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The study highlights the need for system resilience in retention of elective surgical activity. Cholecystectomy was associated with a low risk of mortality and deferral of treatment results in an increase in avoidable morbidity that represents the non-COVID cost of this pandemic

Gesture Vocabularies for Hand Gestures for Controlling Air Conditioners in Home and Vehicle Environments

With the growing prevalence of modern technologies as part of everyday life, mid-air gestures have become a promising input method in the field of human–computer interaction. This paper analyses the gestures of actual users to define a preliminary gesture vocabulary for home air conditioning (AC) systems and suggests a gesture vocabulary for controlling the AC that applies to both home and vehicle environments. In this study, a user elicitation experiment was conducted. A total of 36 participants were filmed while employing their preferred hand gestures to manipulate a home air conditioning system. Comparisons were drawn between our proposed gesture vocabulary (HomeG) and a previously proposed gesture vocabulary which was designed to identify the preferred hand gestures for in-vehicle air conditioners. The findings indicate that HomeG successfully identifies and describes the employed gestures in detail. To gain a gesture taxonomy that is suitable for manipulating the AC at home and in a vehicle, some modifications were applied to HomeG based on suggestions from other studies. The modified gesture vocabulary (CrossG) can identify the gestures of our study, although CrossG has a less detailed gesture pattern. Our results will help designers to understand user preferences and behaviour prior to designing and implementing a gesture-based user interface

User evaluation of hand gestures for designing an intelligent in-vehicle interface

Driving a car is a high cognitive-load task requiring full attention behind the wheel. Intelligent navigation, transportation, and in-vehicle interfaces have introduced a safer and less demanding driving experience. However, there is still a gap for the existing interaction systems to satisfy the requirements of actual user experience. Hand gesture as an interaction medium, is natural and less visually demanding while driving. This paper aims to conduct a user-study with 79 participants to validate mid-air gestures for 18 major in-vehicle secondary tasks. We have demonstrated a detailed analysis on 900 mid-air gestures investigating preferences of gestures for in-vehicle tasks, their physical affordance, and driving errors. The outcomes demonstrate that employment of mid-air gestures reduces driving errors by up to 50% compared to traditional air-conditioning control. Results can be used for the development of vision-based in-vehicle gestural interfaces

Designing a user-defined gesture vocabulary for an in-vehicle climate control system

Hand gestures are a suitable interface medium for in-vehicle interfaces. They are intuitive and natural to perform, and less visually demanding while driving. This paper aims at analysing human gestures to define a preliminary gesture vocabulary for in-vehicle climate control using a driving simulator. We conducted a user-elicitation experiment on 22 participants performing two driving scenarios with different levels of cognitive load. The participants were filmed while performing natural gestures for manipulating the air-conditioning inside the vehicle. Comparisons are drawn between the proposed approach to define a vocabulary using 9 new gestures (GestDrive) and previously suggested methods. The outcomes demonstrate that GestDrive is successful in describing the employed gestures in detail.5 page(s

Multilabel CNN-Based Hybrid Learning Metric for Pedestrian Reidentification

Pedestrian reidentification has recently emerged as a hot topic that attains considerable attention since it can be applied to many potential applications in the surveillance system. However, high-accuracy pedestrian reidentification is a stimulating research problem because of variations in viewpoints, color, light, and other reasons. This work addresses the interferences and improves pedestrian reidentification accuracy by proposing two novel algorithms, pedestrian multilabel learning, and investigating hybrid learning metrics. First, unlike the existing models, we construct the identification framework using two subnetworks, namely, part detection subnetwork and feature extraction subnetwork, to obtain pedestrian attributes and low-level feature scores, respectively. Then, a hybrid learning metric that combines pedestrian attributes and low-level feature scores is proposed. Both low-level features and pedestrian attributes are utilized, thus enhancing the identification rate. Our simulation results on both datasets, i.e., CUHK03 and VIPeR, reveal that the identification rate is improved compared to the existing pedestrian reidentification methods

Analysis and Identification of Non-Impact Factors on Smart City Readiness Using Technology Acceptance Analysis: A Case Study in Kampar District, Indonesia

Most countries start to implement Smart Cities as an innovation for urban strategy. However, not all Smart Cities implementations worked and were implemented well, because the community still not ready for the implementation of Smart City. The aim of this research is to investigate community readiness and finding low impact factors for implementing smart cities based on 5 factors, namely AU, PEOU, ATU, BIU, and PU. This research was using a qualitative study with the Technology Acceptance Model approach (TAM) to investigate the relationship between 5 factors. Based on the results of data distribution, there are 2 clusters, namely people who know about public service applications and people who are not aware of any public service applications. Furthermore, there are 3 tests conducted in this research namely T-test, F-test and Coefficient Determination Test to determine the impact and influence of the relationship between each factor. However, from the results of the t-test it was found that there were 2 relationships that had no impact because the t-count was negative and the 2 relationships between these factors were between PU - AU and AU - PU