Fuzzy controller for better tennis ball robot

This paper aims at designing a tennis ball robot as a training facility for tennis players. The robot is built with fuzzy controller which provides proper techniques for the players to gain practical experience as well as technical skills; thus, it can effectively serve the community and train athletes in the high-performance sport. It is found that it is more economically efficient by using the sensorless fuzzy control algorithm to replace the high-resolution optical encoders traditionally used in two main servo motors. From our simulation and practical experiment, the tennis ball robot can provide accurate speed and various directions as expected

Potential for allocative harm in an environmental justice data tool

Neighborhood-level screening algorithms are increasingly being deployed to inform policy decisions. We evaluate one such algorithm, CalEnviroScreen - designed to promote environmental justice and used to guide hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding annually - assessing its potential for allocative harm. We observe the model to be sensitive to subjective model decisions, with 16% of tracts potentially changing designation, as well as financially consequential, estimating the effect of its positive designations as a 104% (62-145%) increase in funding, equivalent to \$2.08 billion (\$1.56-2.41 billion) over four years. We also observe allocative tradeoffs and susceptibility to manipulation, raising ethical concerns. We recommend incorporating sensitivity analyses to mitigate allocative harm and accountability mechanisms to prevent misuse

The impact of cataract surgey on vision-related quality of life for bilateral cataract patients in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: a prospective study

BACKGROUND: To determine the impact of cataract surgery on vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) and examine the association between objective visual measures and change in VRQOL after surgery among bilateral cataract patients in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. METHODS: A cohort of older patients with bilateral cataract was assessed one week before and one to three months after first eye or both eye cataract surgery. Visual measures including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and stereopsis were obtained. Vision-related quality of life was assessed using the NEI VFQ-25. Descriptive analyses and a generalized linear estimating equation (GEE) analysis were undertaken to measure change in VRQOL after surgery. RESULTS: Four hundred and thirteen patients were assessed before cataract surgery and 247 completed the follow-up assessment one to three months after first or both eye cataract surgery. Overall, VRQOL significantly improved after cataract surgery (p < 0.001) particularly after both eye surgeries. Binocular contrast sensitivity (p < 0.001) and stereopsis (p < 0.001) were also associated with change in VRQOL after cataract surgery. Visual acuity was not associated with VRQOL. CONCLUSIONS: Cataract surgery significantly improved VRQOL among bilateral cataract patients in Vietnam. Contrast sensitivity as well as stereopsis, rather than visual acuity significantly affected VRQOL after cataract surgery

Readiness of Digital Transformation in Vietnamese Universities

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Viet Nam higher education has both highlighted and accelerated the digital transformation agenda at universities. National level policy has also shaped and driven forward the digital transformation agenda. Positive and rapid progress has been made to date. Some universities were actively engaged in this process prior to Covid-19 through the transformation of institutional processes and systems, engaging in a range of collaborative partnerships focused on digital transformation nationally, regionally and internationally and providing a range of support for students and staff. However, a range of challenges remain both nationally and in particular for those institutions that have only recently embarked on digital transformation. The report presents a snapshot of the current state, and potential, of digital transformation in Viet Nam higher education and current collaboration with UK universities to support the digital transformation agenda. A holistic approach to address national issues accompanied by increased support to ensure that all HEIs, and their staff and students, are actively involved and supported appropriately in this process is key. Ensuring that support is equitably distributed is also key to ensure that all universities are able to effectively embark on their own digital transformation journey and participate in a range of collaborations. This report makes a series of recommendations and also suggests a series of recommendations for collaboration to support different types of activity between UK and Viet Nam universities

Silver and Palladium Complexes of a Bis(benzimidazolin-2-ylidene)pyridine Pincer Ligand

Reaction of 2,6-bis(3-butylbenzimidazol-1-ium)pyridine dibromide with silVer oxide affords a dinuclear complex of the type [L2Ag2]2+ [L ) 2,6-bis(3-butylbenzimidazolin-2-ylidene)pyridine]. 1H NMR spectroscopic studies suggest that the dinuclear structure is also present in solution. Transmetalationof the silVer-NHC complex with PdCl2(CH3CN)2 yields a mononuclear palladium complex of the type [LPdCl]+, with a chelating C,N,C pincer ligand

Joint Communication and Computation Offloading for Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency with Multi-tier Computing

In this paper, we study joint communication and computation offloading (JCCO) for hierarchical edge-cloud systems with ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). We aim to minimize the end-to-end (e2e) latency of computational tasks among multiple industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices by jointly optimizing offloading probabilities, processing rates, user association policies and power control subject to their service delay and energy consumption requirements as well as queueing stability conditions. The formulated JCCO problem belongs to a difficult class of mixed-integer non-convex optimization problem, making it computationally intractable. In addition, a strong coupling between binary and continuous variables and the large size of hierarchical edge-cloud systems make the problem even more challenging to solve optimally. To address these challenges, we first decompose the original problem into two subproblems based on the unique structure of the underlying problem and leverage the alternating optimization (AO) approach to solve them in an iterative fashion by developing newly convex approximate functions. To speed up optimal user association searching, we incorporate a penalty function into the objective function to resolve uncertainties of a binary nature. Two sub-optimal designs for given user association policies based on channel conditions and random user associations are also investigated to serve as state-of-the-art benchmarks. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in terms of the e2e latency and convergence speed

The TIANSHAN Radio Experiment for Neutrino Detection

An antenna array devoted to the autonomous radio-detection of high energy cosmic rays is being deployed on the site of the 21 cm array radio telescope in XinJiang, China. Thanks in particular to the very good electromagnetic environment of this remote experimental site, self-triggering on extensive air showers induced by cosmic rays has been achieved with a small scale prototype of the foreseen antenna array. We give here a detailed description of the detector and present the first detection of extensive air showers with this prototype.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figures. Astroparticle Physics (in press

Lanthanide-doped inorganic nanoparticles turn molecular triplet excitons bright.

The generation, control and transfer of triplet excitons in molecular and hybrid systems is of great interest owing to their long lifetime and diffusion length in both solid-state and solution phase systems, and to their applications in light emission1, optoelectronics2,3, photon frequency conversion4,5 and photocatalysis6,7. Molecular triplet excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) are 'dark states' because of the forbidden nature of the direct optical transition between the spin-zero ground state and the spin-one triplet levels8. Hence, triplet dynamics are conventionally controlled through heavy-metal-based spin-orbit coupling9-11 or tuning of the singlet-triplet energy splitting12,13 via molecular design. Both these methods place constraints on the range of properties that can be modified and the molecular structures that can be used. Here we demonstrate that it is possible to control triplet dynamics by coupling organic molecules to lanthanide-doped inorganic insulating nanoparticles. This allows the classically forbidden transitions from the ground-state singlet to excited-state triplets to gain oscillator strength, enabling triplets to be directly generated on molecules via photon absorption. Photogenerated singlet excitons can be converted to triplet excitons on sub-10-picosecond timescales with unity efficiency by intersystem crossing. Triplet exciton states of the molecules can undergo energy transfer to the lanthanide ions with unity efficiency, which allows us to achieve luminescent harvesting of the dark triplet excitons. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the triplet excitons generated in the lanthanide nanoparticle-molecule hybrid systems by near-infrared photoexcitation can undergo efficient upconversion via a lanthanide-triplet excitation fusion process: this process enables endothermic upconversion and allows efficient upconversion from near-infrared to visible frequencies in the solid state. These results provide a new way to control triplet excitons, which is essential for many fields of optoelectronic and biomedical research