132 research outputs found
Source Localization Using Virtual Antenna Arrays
Using antenna arrays for direction of arrival (DoA) estimation and source localization is a well-researched topic. In this paper, we analyze virtual antenna arrays for DoA estimation where the antenna array geometry is acquired using data from a low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU). Performance evaluation of an unaided inertial navigation system with respect to individual IMU sensor noise parameters is provided using a state space based extended Kalman filter. Secondly, using Monte Carlo simulations, DoA estimation performance of random 3-D antenna arrays is evaluated by computing Cramér-Rao lower bound values for a single plane wave source located in the far field of the array. Results in the paper suggest that larger antenna arrays can provide significant gain in DoA estimation accuracy, but, noise in the rate gyroscope measurements proves to be a limiting factor when making virtual antenna arrays for DoA estimation and source localization using single antenna devices
R2S100K: Road-Region Segmentation Dataset For Semi-Supervised Autonomous Driving in the Wild
Semantic understanding of roadways is a key enabling factor for safe
autonomous driving. However, existing autonomous driving datasets provide
well-structured urban roads while ignoring unstructured roadways containing
distress, potholes, water puddles, and various kinds of road patches i.e.,
earthen, gravel etc. To this end, we introduce Road Region Segmentation dataset
(R2S100K) -- a large-scale dataset and benchmark for training and evaluation of
road segmentation in aforementioned challenging unstructured roadways. R2S100K
comprises 100K images extracted from a large and diverse set of video sequences
covering more than 1000 KM of roadways. Out of these 100K privacy respecting
images, 14,000 images have fine pixel-labeling of road regions, with 86,000
unlabeled images that can be leveraged through semi-supervised learning
methods. Alongside, we present an Efficient Data Sampling (EDS) based
self-training framework to improve learning by leveraging unlabeled data. Our
experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly
improves learning methods in generalizability and reduces the labeling cost for
semantic segmentation tasks. Our benchmark will be publicly available to
facilitate future research at https://r2s100k.github.io/
Deriving and Evaluating a Detailed Taxonomy of Game Bugs
Game development has become an extremely competitive multi-billion-dollar
industry. Many games fail even after years of development efforts because of
game-breaking bugs that disrupt the game-play and ruin the player experience.
The goal of this work is to provide a bug taxonomy for games that will help
game developers in developing bug-resistant games, game testers in designing
and executing fault-finding test cases, and researchers in evaluating game
testing approaches. For this purpose, we performed a Multivocal Literature
Review (MLR) by analyzing 436 sources, out of which 189 (78 academic and 111
grey) sources reporting bugs encountered in the game development industry were
selected for analysis. We validate the proposed taxonomy by conducting a survey
involving different game industry practitioners. The MLR allowed us to finalize
a detailed taxonomy of 63 game bug categories in end-user perspective including
eight first-tier categories: Gaming Balance, Implementation Response, Network,
Sound, Temporal, Unexpected Crash, Navigational, and Non-Temporal faults. We
observed that manual approaches towards game testing are still widely used.
Only one of the approaches targets sound bugs whereas game balancing and how to
incorporate machine learning in game testing is trending in the recent
literature. Most of the game testing techniques are specialized and dependent
on specific platforms
Significance of Internet Marketing in Promoting Consumer Goods in Subcontinent
The purpose of this article is to uncover the major factors that organizations consider when opting to add Internet Marketing as a part of their marketing communication mix found in the research. Especially now in Pakistan marketing tools and techniques are becoming either too expensive or just plain monotonous. The Internet as a new media is a perfect opportunity for Multinational and Local Consumer Organizations to exploit this type of tool for reaching their customers. This article will try to understand what exact role Internet Marketing has in affecting the processes, image, and brands of a company learned from the research. We will determine the various aspects that can be measured to see the success or failure of Pakistani Consumer Goods Industry in utilizing this new technique
Design and Implementation of a Wearable Health Device
Many situations arise every day where humans have to worry about their health and fitness. Further monitoring critical human body parameters in reliable and regular manner helps clinical practitioners and common person to take critical decisions and improve life quality. With advancements in microelectronics and sensor technology, it has become possible to design and develop small size wearable devices for clinical and home usage that give and record regular health related data. The current work presents design and development of a small wearable device that measures pulse rate, oxygen saturation, skin and body temperature using high-accuracy pulse Oximeter sensor and temperature sensors. The Pulse/Oxygen saturation and skin/body temperature data from sensors is fed to Analog Front End (AFE) devices AFE 4490 and LMP 90100 by Texas Instruments respectively. The data is further processed at an ultra low-power Mixed Signal Micro-Controller, MSP430F5338 of Texas Instruments and fed to Bluetooth transceiver. The processed data giving the requisite health parameters is further displayed on the hand held device and can be periodically send to PDAs or to a central server through Bluetooth transceiver
Collaborative Public Participatory Web Geographic Information System: A Groupware-Based Online Synchronous Collaboration to Support Municipal Planning
Co-PPGIS has a wide variety of applications like municipal planning, emergency response, public health and security, etc. The main focus of this paper is on the development and design of a web collaborative PPGIS (Co-PPGIS) infrastructure. As part of municipality’s planning and management services, Co-PPGIS is developed for real-time map sharing application system. Co-PPGIS is an effective and essential online meeting system for supporting group collaborations on geographic information such as maps and imageries and capturing and sharing of local/domain knowledge in real time. Co-PPGIS permits amalgamation of geospatial data and collaborator’s input in the form of geo-referenced notations. It incorporates coherent components such as map sharing, real-time chat, video conferencing, and geo-referenced textual and graphical notations. The study aims to focus on public participation and geo-collaboration facilitated with information sharing, interactive geo-conferencing, real-time map, and data sharing with tools to draw features or add annotation to the map while discussions, uploading documents, and live communication. Co-PPGIS provides an efficient and reliable platform that will significantly reduce the time to acquire, process, and analyze data. The significance of this study is to contribute to existing public participation practices, to municipal planning, to decision-making, or to geographic information science
Extraction and characterization of pectin from grapefruit (Duncan cultivar) and its utilization as gelling agent
Globally, agro-industrial by products such as fruit waste has attained immense recognition to be used for the extraction of valuable functional ingredients. Pectin is naturally occurring biopolymer that is widely recognized in food industry as well as in biotechnology. Keeping in view, current research was conducted for extraction, characterization and utilization of grapefruit peel pectin from Duncan cultivar. The extracted pectin was characterized for different parameters that explored its role in value added products. Acid extraction was carried out and then pectin was characterized for equivalent weight, ash content and methoxyl content. With the addition of extracted pectin, jam was prepared and analysed for physicochemical analysis and sensory attributes. The maximum extraction (22.55%) was done from grapefruit peel at temperature-120°C with pH-1.5, while minimum extraction (0.41%) was obtained at temperature-120°C with pH-2. Moreover, adding pectin in jam formulation resulted in significant effect on texture of the final product. Conclusively, pectin holds a great potential to be extracted and utilized in fruit based products for best quality and value addition
Towards secure private and trustworthy human-centric embedded machine learning: An emotion-aware facial recognition case study
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge is transforming every aspect of the lives of human beings from scheduling daily activities to personalized shopping recommendations. Since the success of AI is to be measured ultimately in terms of how it benefits human beings, and that the data driving the deep learning-based edge AI algorithms are intricately and intimately tied to humans, it is important to look at these AI technologies through a human-centric lens. However, despite the significant impact of AI design on human interests, the security and trustworthiness of edge AI applications are not foolproof and ethicalneither foolproof nor ethical; Moreover, social norms are often ignored duringin the design, implementation, and deployment of edge AI systems. In this paper, we make the following two contributions: Firstly, we analyze the application of edge AI through a human-centric perspective. More specifically, we present a pipeline to develop human-centric embedded machine learning (HC-EML) applications leveraging a generic human-centric AI (HCAI) framework. Alongside, we also analyzediscuss the privacy, trustworthiness, robustness, and security aspects of HC-EML applications with an insider look at their challenges and possible solutions along the way. Secondly, to illustrate the gravity of these issues, we present a case study on the task of human facial emotion recognition (FER) based on AffectNet dataset, where we analyze the effects of widely used input quantization on the security, robustness, fairness, and trustworthiness of an EML model. We find that input quantization partially degrades the efficacy of adversarial and backdoor attacks at the cost of a slight decrease in accuracy over clean inputs. By analyzing the explanations generated by SHAP, we identify that the decision of a FER model is largely influenced by features such as eyes, alar crease, lips, and jaws. Additionally, we note that input quantization is notably biased against the dark skin faces, and hypothesize that low-contrast features of dark skin faces may be responsible for the observed trends. We conclude with precautionary remarks and guidelines for future researchers. 2022 The Author(s)This publication was made possible by NPRP grant # [13S-0206-200273] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.Scopu
General practice pharmacists in England : integration, mediation and professional dynamics
Background: A number of key publications in recent years have advocated a more integrated vision of UK primary care involving increased multi-professional communication and understanding. This has resulted in a marked change in the roles being undertaken by pharmacists. Community pharmacists have traditionally provided a medicine supply function and treated minor ailments in addition to delivering a suite of locally commissioned services; however these functions have not necessarily been part of a programme of care involving the other clinicians associated with the patient. An integrated model of care would see much closer working between pharmacy and general practice but also with pharmacists not only working with, but in the practice, in an enhanced patient-facing role, trained as independent prescribers. This has implications for the dynamics amongst professionals in this environment.
Objectives: This exploratory multiple case study attempts to explore these changing dynamics across ten GP surgeries throughout the South-East of England.
Methods: Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with one nurse, one pharmacist and one physician from each clinic, and survey data was collected from 38 patients who had appointments with a pharmacist.
Results: The data suggested that the pharmacists who had enhanced roles perceived some uncertainty about their professional role and identity, which resulted in instability and insecurity and that this uncertainty led to both professional and interprofessional tension with their primary care colleagues. The survey data revealed that n = 35 (92%) patients stated they were 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with their appointment. And n = 37 (97%) were 'very comfortable' or 'comfortable' discussing their medications with the pharmacist. In addition, 36 patients (95%) reported that they strongly agreed or agreed with the clinical recommendations made by the pharmacist.
Conclusions: These findings are discussed in relation to role expansion and professional/interprofessional relations before key practical suggestions are offered.
Keywords: Enhanced pharmacists' role; Integration; Primary healthcare; Professional dynamics
Novel Stimuli-Responsive Pectin-PVP-Functionalized Clay Based Smart Hydrogels for Drug Delivery and Controlled Release Application
Stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems are urgently required for injectable site-specific delivery and release of drugs in a controlled manner. For this purpose, we developed novel pH-sensitive, biodegradable, and antimicrobial hydrogels from bio-macromolecule pectin, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), 3-aminopropyl (diethoxy)methyl silane (3-APDEMS), and sepiolite clay via blending and solution casting technique. The purified sepiolite (40 um) was functionalized with 3-APDEMS crosslinker (ex-situ modification) followed by hydrogels fabrication. FTIR and SEM confirmed crosslinked structural integrity and rod-like morphology of hydrogels respectively. The swelling properties of hydrogels could be controlled by varying the concentration of modified clay in pectin/PVP blends. Moreover, the decrease in pH increased the swelling of hydrogels indicating the pH-responsiveness of hydrogels. All hydrogels were degraded after 21 days in phosphate buffer saline pH 7.4 (human blood pH). In-vitro cytotoxicity against 3T3 mouse fibroblast cell line analysis confirmed cytocompatibility of all hydrogels. Ceftriaxone sodium (CTX-S) was selected as a model drug. The release profile of the hydrogel showed 91.82% release in PBS for 2 h in a consistent and controlled manner. The chemical structure of the drug remained intact during and after release confirmed through UV-Visible spectroscopy. Overall, these hydrogels could be used as potential scaffolds for future biomedical applications
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