Optimal Monitoring of Server Rooms with Home Assistant Platform

High-performance IT systems with high computing power resources, used especially for processing large volumes of data or performing laborious calculations at significant speeds, are installed in special server rooms. Such a room specially built for High-Performance Computing systems, also called HPC, involves soundproofing and fireproofing of the walls, air conditioning equipment, as well as permanent monitoring of the room with a series of sensors, among which can be mentioned: temperature and humidity sensors, smoke sensors, air quality sensors, water and flood sensors, motion sensors, video cameras for realtime remote viewing. Given the wide variety of smart devices on the market equipped with such sensors, it is advisable to choose a suitable software environment, which offers the possibility to integrate, monitor, and control all these smart devices. One of the most popular free, opensource automation applications is Home Assistant. This software platform brings an improvement in the server rooms through the capabilities of monitoring, automation, and notification of events through text messages (email, SMS) or acoustic and video alerts. The paper presents an IoT implementation of a server room monitoring system, applied at INCD INSEMEX headquarters

Effect of sitagliptin on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: Data are lacking on the long-term effect on cardiovascular events of adding sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor, to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. METHODS: In this randomized, double-blind study, we assigned 14,671 patients to add either sitagliptin or placebo to their existing therapy. Open-label use of antihyperglycemic therapy was encouraged as required, aimed at reaching individually appropriate glycemic targets in all patients. To determine whether sitagliptin was noninferior to placebo, we used a relative risk of 1.3 as the marginal upper boundary. The primary cardiovascular outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for unstable angina. RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 3.0 years, there was a small difference in glycated hemoglobin levels (least-squares mean difference for sitagliptin vs. placebo, -0.29 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.32 to -0.27). Overall, the primary outcome occurred in 839 patients in the sitagliptin group (11.4%; 4.06 per 100 person-years) and 851 patients in the placebo group (11.6%; 4.17 per 100 person-years). Sitagliptin was noninferior to placebo for the primary composite cardiovascular outcome (hazard ratio, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.88 to 1.09; P<0.001). Rates of hospitalization for heart failure did not differ between the two groups (hazard ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.20; P = 0.98). There were no significant between-group differences in rates of acute pancreatitis (P = 0.07) or pancreatic cancer (P = 0.32). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease, adding sitagliptin to usual care did not appear to increase the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events, hospitalization for heart failure, or other adverse events

The Remote Experiment in the Light of the Learning Theories

The interference of technology in education requires the development of new theories of learning. The paper analyzes connectivism as the most important representative of the theories related to the “digital age.” From the point of view of the environment, called a remote experiment, learning occurs initially at the individual level, encompassing all three classic theories of learning: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. It shows that the virtual environment has introduced a powerful lever of imbalance for the real environment. This is how we arrived at the explanation of learning theories in real-virtual environments through the theory of chaos or complex environments. Like any knowledge storage network with nodes between which connections can be made, even the remote experiment is subject to random laws. The addition of knowledge is not simply the sum of the effects produced by each individual node (the system is not linear). A distinction is made between information and knowledge. Even if the information in the nodes can be read, this aspect does not represent learning. The remote experiment not only expanded the realm of knowledge but also emphasized the critical role of time. The time remained constant, while the amount of information increased. The teacher, as a knowledge synthesizer, can help orient the student to this vast amount of information, especially when time is limited. Additionally, the student can also play an active role in organizing and systematizing the information. Two examples of experiments are given, which, being inter- and transdisciplinary, can contribute to the introduction of the elements of non-linearity and unpredictability as a method of designing the educational environment, precisely to be able to transform it into a thinking system suitable for the mixture between real and virtual environments in which we live more and more intensely

The use of numerical models as a modern tool in fire investigation

Investigating the fire type events is characterized by a high degree of complexity, due to the fact that it has to find answers to aspects coming from multidisciplinary fields: technical-scientific, legal, organizational, psychological, etc. The management of the findings, the analyzed samples, and the resulting data implies a series of complex activities, based on the use of advanced procedures and techniques. Fire investigation aims to determine the source of ignition and all the components that contribute to define the cause of the fire, to assess the motivations of the involved persons and to decipher the mechanism of heat transfer or burning processes that describes the propagation and development of a fire. Often, in order to understand the mechanism of the pyrogenic phenomenon, the following approaches are used in the current practice: technical-scientific expertises, reconstruction of the event on the field or in the laboratory, sample analysis, and, last but not least, computer simulations. This paper aims to highlight the role of the numerical models used in the field of fire safety, respectively in the elaboration of the post-event, technical-scientific expertises, by presenting some results obtained from the computer simulations, used to substantiate the fire mechanism and to formulate the conclusions

The use of numerical models as a modern tool in fire investigation

Investigating the fire type events is characterized by a high degree of complexity, due to the fact that it has to find answers to aspects coming from multidisciplinary fields: technical-scientific, legal, organizational, psychological, etc. The management of the findings, the analyzed samples, and the resulting data implies a series of complex activities, based on the use of advanced procedures and techniques. Fire investigation aims to determine the source of ignition and all the components that contribute to define the cause of the fire, to assess the motivations of the involved persons and to decipher the mechanism of heat transfer or burning processes that describes the propagation and development of a fire. Often, in order to understand the mechanism of the pyrogenic phenomenon, the following approaches are used in the current practice: technical-scientific expertises, reconstruction of the event on the field or in the laboratory, sample analysis, and, last but not least, computer simulations. This paper aims to highlight the role of the numerical models used in the field of fire safety, respectively in the elaboration of the post-event, technical-scientific expertises, by presenting some results obtained from the computer simulations, used to substantiate the fire mechanism and to formulate the conclusions

The role of numerical modeling in scientific fire investigation

Fire risk is perhaps the most common risk in the category of special emergencies, being a phenomenon that affects important areas of economic and social life, such as buildings, industrial facilities, public spaces, forests, crops, or transportation. Scientific investigation of fires is constituted as a set of organized actions, of technical nature, undertaken to determine the causes that led to the occurrence of fires, the source of ignition, and the circumstances that favored the event. Numerical fire modeling is a widely recognized and accepted tool for analysis in fire research. The results of the investigation carried out on-site are compared with the results of fire evolution obtained by computer simulation, using numerical models based on known input data, to verify different hypotheses regarding the cause of the fire. The advantages over experimental methods are expressed by low costs and substantial time savings. Moreover, several simulations can be run simultaneously, for different scenarios of the event or the analysis of different consequences. The paper presents the main advantages that numerical modeling by FDS methods brings in the technical-scientific expertise of fire, with implications in the data analysis, development, and testing of hypotheses, respectively in the selection process of the final hypothesis. words

On Self-Motions of Planar Stewart-Gough Platforms

Given five pairs of attachment points of a planar platform, there exists a sixth point pair so that the resulting planar architecturally singular platform has the same solution for the direct kinematics. This is a consequence of the Prix Vaillant problem posed in 1904 by the French Academy of Science. The theorem discusses the displacements of certain or all points of a rigid body that move on spherical paths. Borel and Bricard awarded the prizes for two papers in this regard, but they did not solve the problem completely. In this paper, the theorem is extended to the elliptic paths in order to determine the displacements of certain or all points of a rigid body that move on super-ellipsoid surfaces. The poof is based on the trajectories of moving points which are intersections of two implicit super-ellipsoid surfaces

Residential security through the Home Assistant Platform

The etymology of the word safety means: lack of danger; feeling of peace and confidence; shelter from any danger; feeling of security. A security system of goods, values and protection of people can be implemented through an automated platform, under the name of Home Assistant. This server software application can communicate with an easy control system for fast and two-way access, which can be mounted to a restricted main entrance. The automatic opening of the access door is controlled both by stand-alone RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) modules, which act on an electric closing mechanism, and by an automation system configured in the Home Assistant application. The ultimate goal is the security of the premises through a system that can operate both locally and online via internet connection. The research methodology was based on the study of intelligent applications for residential access, described in the literature, aiming at integration into the open-source HA platform, by developing new code sequences. I come with this paper in support of those who want to bring an improvement in the existing automation system, respectively to encourage those who want an automated residence at a higher level