Multisensor Data Fusion for Reliable Obstacle Avoidance

In this work, we propose a new approach that combines data from multiple sensors for reliable obstacle avoidance. The sensors include two depth cameras and a LiDAR arranged so that they can capture the whole 3D area in front of the robot and a 2D slide around it. To fuse the data from these sensors, we first use an external camera as a reference to combine data from two depth cameras. A projection technique is then introduced to convert the 3D point cloud data of the cameras to its 2D correspondence. An obstacle avoidance algorithm is then developed based on the dynamic window approach. A number of experiments have been conducted to evaluate our proposed approach. The results show that the robot can effectively avoid static and dynamic obstacles of different shapes and sizes in different environments.Comment: In the 11th International Conference on Control, Automation and Information Sciences (ICCAIS 2022), Hanoi, Vietna

A Novel Parallel Hardware Architecture for Inter Motion Estimation in HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, generated by ITU, can provide compression ratio twice more than current H.264/ MPEG-4. To date, only a few hardware have been implementated for Integer Motion Estimation (IME) to date. In this paper, a parallel hardware architecture for IME in HEVC encoder is proposed. This design uses Rot-WDiamond (RWD) algorithm to reduce computational load and parallelism to improve processing speed. Therefore, this design can reach 4K (4096×2160) video in real time at 60 frames per second (fps) and achieve the frequency of 125MHz

Survival Mechanisms of Campylobacter hepaticus Identified by Genomic Analysis and Comparative Transcriptomic Analysis of in vivo and in vitro Derived Bacteria

Chickens infected with Campylobacter jejuni or Campylobacter coli are largely asymptomatic, however, infection with the closely related species, Campylobacter hepaticus, can result in Spotty Liver Disease (SLD). C. hepaticus has been detected in the liver, bile, small intestine and caecum of SLD affected chickens. The survival and colonization mechanisms that C. hepaticus uses to colonize chickens remain unknown. In this study, we compared the genome sequences of 14 newly sequenced Australian isolates of C. hepaticus, isolates from outbreaks in the United Kingdom, and reference strains of C. jejuni and C. coli, with the aim of identifying virulence genes associated with SLD. We also carried out global comparative transcriptomic analysis between C. hepaticus recovered from the bile of SLD infected chickens and C. hepaticus grown in vitro. This revealed how the bacteria adapt to proliferate in the challenging host environment in which they are found. Additionally, biochemical experiments confirmed some in silico metabolic predictions. We found that, unlike other Campylobacter sp., C. hepaticus encodes glucose and polyhydroxybutyrate metabolism pathways. This study demonstrated the metabolic plasticity of C. hepaticus, which may contribute to survival in the competitive, nutrient and energy-limited environment of the chicken. Transcriptomic analysis indicated that gene clusters associated with glucose utilization, stress response, hydrogen metabolism, and sialic acid modification may play an important role in the pathogenicity of C. hepaticus. An understanding of the survival and virulence mechanisms that C. hepaticus uses will help to direct the development of effective intervention methods to protect birds from the debilitating effects of SLD

Efficient inference of large prokaryotic pangenomes with PanTA

Pangenome inference is an indispensable step in bacterial genomics, yet its scalability poses a challenge due to the rapid growth of genomic collections. This paper presents PanTA, a software package designed for constructing pangenomes of large bacterial datasets, showing unprecedented efficiency levels multiple times higher than existing tools. PanTA introduces a novel mechanism to construct the pangenome progressively without rebuilding the accumulated collection from scratch. The progressive mode is shown to consume orders of magnitude less computational resources than existing solutions in managing growing datasets. The software is open source and is publicly available at https://github.com/amromics/panta and at 10.6084/m9.figshare.23724705

Rheological properties of emulsion of crude oil and water

In the paper the rheological properties of crude oil of White Tiger oil-field (Vietnam) and its emulsion with sea-water, including measurement results and analytical approximation formulae for wide range of pressure, temperature and water concentration, are presented. As it is known, the crude oil of White Tiger oil-field is a high-paraffin and high-viscous oil. At the low temperature (T ≤ 40°C) it behaves as non-Newtonian fluid of Bingham-Shvedov group. Therefore, beside the effective viscosity, the effective dynamic shear stress is also measured and approximated. The rheological properties of crude oil and emulsion of crude oil and water are also measured and approximated for the case when the mixture contains 0.1% chemical reagent ES-3363

Characteristics of Antibiotic-resistant E. coli Isolated from Perfume River in Hue City, Vietnam

Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in aquatic environments is attracting increasing attention. However, the spread of ARB along Perfume River in Hue City is poorly understood. This study aimed to phenotypically and genotypically characterize β-lactam- and fluoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli isolates from this river. Water samples were collected from the urban, rural, agricultural, and less-affected areas in March 2020. E. coli susceptibility to seven commonly employed antibiotics was analyzed using the disk diffusion method, and the antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), qnrA, qnrB, qnrS, TEM, SHV, and CTX-M, were identified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing. The antibiotic susceptibility patterns of E. coli revealed that the rate of amoxicillin resistance was the highest (60%). PCR assays and sequencing of 12 β-lactam-resistant E. coli isolates indicated the presence of blaTEM and blaCTX-M-15 in 58.3% and 16.7% of the isolates, respectively. Only one of four fluoroquinolon -resistant E. coli isolates harbored the qnrS, while qnrA or qnrB genes were not detected. These findings suggest that this water may be an essential source of transmissible ARGs in Hue City, which may have a detrimental impact on the people living in this area

The Impact of Innovation on the Firm Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility of Vietnamese Manufacturing Firms

Innovation is a complex process and has been shown to be influential towards different types of stakeholders. From the viewpoint of stakeholder theory, shareholders and creditors are more likely to be concerned about corporate financial performance. However, in the new era an enterprise’s responsibilities have to extend to other stakeholders, including its employees, suppliers and communities. This study aims to extend the literature by examining the individual effects of product and process innovations, and then their interactions with external collaboration, on firm performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in terms of local contributions for a sample of Vietnamese manufacturing firms during 2011–2013. Research findings suggest that process and product innovations are beneficial to firm performance in terms of market share, but not return on total assets. This implies that investment in innovative activities requires time to make positive changes in profitability, but it may help with winning customer loyalty. We also find evidence suggesting that innovation could make firms more obscure, especially when there are external parties involved. This motivates firms to send signals about their sustainability and goodwill through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. With regard to CSR activities, we are the first to provide a breakdown of categories of corporate social contribution towards the local well-being, and elaborate evidence on the effect of innovation on each category, rather than just a composite index of CSR as in some extant studies

Partial protection with a chimeric tetraspanin-leucine aminopeptidase subunit vaccine against Opisthorchis viverrini infection in hamsters

Opisthorchiasis is a serious public health problem in East Asia and Europe. The pathology involves hepatobiliary abnormalities such as cholangitis, choledocholithiasis and tissue fibrosis that can develop into cholangiocarcinoma. Prevention of infection is difficult as multiple social and behavioral factors are involved, thus, progress on a prophylactic vaccine against opisthorchiasis is urgently needed. Opisthorchis viverrini tetraspanin-2 (Ov-TSP-2) was previously described as a potential vaccine candidate conferring partial protection against O. viverrini infections in hamsters. In this study, we generated a recombinant chimeric form of the large extracellular loop of Ov-TSP-2 and O. viverrini leucine aminopeptidase, designated rOv-TSP-2-LAP. Hamsters were vaccinated with 100 and 200 mu g of rOv-TSP-2-LAP formulated with alum-CpG adjuvant via intraperitoneal injection and evaluated the level of protection against O. viverrini infection. Our results demonstrated that the number of worms recovered from hamsters vaccinated with either 100 or 200 mu g of rOv-TSP-2-LAP were significantly reduced by 27% compared to the adjuvant control group. Furthermore, the average length of worms recovered from animals vaccinated with 200 mu g of rOv-TSP-2-LAP was significantly shorter than those from the control adjuvant group. Immunized hamsters showed significantly increased serum levels of anti-rOv-TSP-2 IgG and IgG1 compared to adjuvant control group, suggesting that rOv-TSP-2-LAP vaccination induces a mixed Th1/Th2 immune response in hamsters. Therefore, the development of a suitable vaccine against opisthorchiasis requires further work involving new vaccine technologies to improve immunogenicity and protective efficacy