Human Activity Recognition Based On Wearable Flex Sensor and Pulse Sensor

In order to fulfill the needs of everyday monitoring for healthcare and emergency advice, many HAR systems have been designed [1]. Based on the healthcare purpose, these systems can be implanted into an astronaut’s spacesuit to provide necessary life movement monitoring and healthcare suggestions. Most of these systems use acceleration data-based data record as human activity representation [2,3]. But this data attribute approach has a limitation that makes it impossible to be used as an activity monitoring system for astronavigation. Because an accelerometer senses acceleration by distinguishing acceleration data based on the earth’s gravity offset [4], the accelerometer cannot read any type of acceleration when it is in the actual free fall environment. Since astronauts will experience microgravity and/or zero environments in outer space, all existing acceleration data-based HAR systems cannot fulfill this requirement. Therefore, it is necessary to design a new data attribute for HAR systems to specifically work under microgravity and zero gravity environments. The angular change of body joints during activity can be a good solution. By attaching sensors onto body joints, the system can recognize an activity by analyzing the change pattern of bend angles similarly to how people recognize others’ activity by looking at their posture during movement. Considering the possibility of overlapping data from multiple different activities that may have similar angular changes, a life activity related data called Beats Per Minute (BPM) is thus used to differentiate overlapping activities. With the new compilation and format of activity data, the HAR system should be able to work under both microgravity and non-gravity environments with similar or better accuracy than existing HAR system implementations. This paper demonstrates the implementation of new data attributes based on existing HAR systems by using angular data and BPM data, then makes comparison between acceleration data-based HAR and angular data-based HAR systems to verify the performance similarities, and comparison among different neural network structures to analyze and provide the most suitable machine learning technique to train the system

Synapse: Interactive Guidance by Demonstration with Trial-and-Error Support for Older Adults to Use Smartphone Apps

As smartphones are widely adopted, mobile applications (apps) are emerging to provide critical services such as food delivery and telemedicine. While bring convenience to everyday life, this trend may create barriers for older adults who tend to be less tech-savvy than young people. In-person or screen sharing support is helpful but limited by the help-givers' availability. Video tutorials can be useful but require users to switch contexts between watching the tutorial and performing the corresponding actions in the app, which is cumbersome to do on a mobile phone. Although interactive tutorials have been shown to be promising, none was designed for older adults. Furthermore, the trial-and-error approach has been shown to be beneficial for older adults, but they often lack support to use the approach. Inspired by both interactive tutorials and trial-and-error approach, we designed an app-independent mobile service, \textit{Synapse}, for help-givers to create a multimodal interactive tutorial on a smartphone and for help-receivers (e.g., older adults) to receive interactive guidance with trial-and-error support when they work on the same task. We conducted a user study with 18 older adults who were 60 and over. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that Synapse provided better support than the traditional video approach and enabled participants to feel more confident and motivated. Lastly, we present further design considerations to better support older adults with trial-and-error on smartphones

Comparison of Three Assembly Strategies for a Heterozygous Seedless Grapevine Genome Assembly

BackgroundDe novo heterozygous assembly is an ongoing challenge requiring improved assembly approaches. In this study, three strategies were used to develop de novo Vitis vinifera ‘Sultanina’ genome assemblies for comparison with the inbred V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome and a published Sultanina ALLPATHS-LG assembly (AP). The strategies were: 1) a default PLATANUS assembly (PLAT_d) for direct comparison with AP assembly, 2) an iterative merging strategy using METASSEMBLER to combine PLAT_d and AP assemblies (MERGE) and 3) PLATANUS parameter modifications plus GapCloser (PLAT*_GC).ResultsThe three new assemblies were greater in size than the AP assembly. PLAT*_GC had the greatest number of scaffolds aligning with a minimum of 95% identity and ≥1000 bp alignment length to V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome. SNP analysis also identified additional high quality SNPs. A greater number of sequence reads mapped back with zero-mismatch to the PLAT_d, MERGE, and PLAT*_GC (\u3e94%) than was found in the AP assembly (87%) indicating a greater fidelity to the original sequence data in the new assemblies than in AP assembly. A de novo gene prediction conducted using seedless RNA-seq data predicted \u3e 30,000 coding sequences for the three new de novo assemblies, with the greatest number (30,544) in PLAT*_GC and only 26,515 for the AP assembly. Transcription factor analysis indicated good family coverage, but some genes found in the VCOST.v3 annotation were not identified in any of the de novo assemblies, particularly some from the MYB and ERF families.ConclusionsThe PLAT_d and PLAT*_GC had a greater number of synteny blocks with the V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome than AP or MERGE. PLAT*_GC provided the most contiguous assembly with only 1.2% scaffold N, in contrast to AP (10.7% N), PLAT_d (6.6% N) and Merge (6.4% N). A PLAT*_GC pseudo-chromosome assembly with chromosome alignment to the reference genome V. vinifera, (PN40024 12X.v2) provides new information for use in seedless grape genetic mapping studies. An annotated de novo gene prediction for the PLAT*_GC assembly, aligned with VitisNet pathways provides new seedless grapevine specific transcriptomic resource that has excellent fidelity with the seedless short read sequence data

WiParkFind: Finding Empty Parking Slots Using WiFi

With ever increasing number of vehicles, shortage of parking space is becoming a serious problem. Going to shopping, school, and workplace can be a headache as finding an available parking spot is getting harder causing wasted time and gas. In this paper, we present WiParkFind: a low-cost, non-intrusive, and real- time parking occupancy monitoring system based on WiFi signals. The channel state information (CSI) of received WiFi signals is analyzed by using a machine learning technique to capture distinctive characteristics of CSI data that are strongly correlated with the number of empty parking slots in order to detect whether there is an empty slot, and how many empty slots are available. Compared with contemporary approaches based on magnetic sensors deployed on individual parking slots, WiParkFind utilizes low-cost off- the-shelf WiFi devices, dramatically reducing the cost for purchasing, installing, and maintaining a large number of sensors, and backend server systems. A proof-of-concept system of WiParkFind was developed and deployed in a department parking lot. The results demonstrate that the average classification accuracy of WiParkFind over a week of data collection is 78.2%, and the accuracy is improved to 90.8% with a tolerance of one empty slot

Dynamic analysis of planetary gear train system with double moduli and pressure angles

The planetary gear transmission with double moduli and pressure angles gearing is proposed for meeting the low weight high reliability requires. A dynamic differential equation of the NGW planetary gear train system with double and pressure angles is established. The 4-Order Runge-Kutta numerical integration method is used to solve the equations from which the result of the dynamic response is got. The dynamic load coefficients are formulated and are compared with those of the normal gear train．The double modulus planetary gear transmission is designed and manufactured. The experiment of operating and vibration are carried out and provides

Dynamic analysis of planetary gear train system with double moduli and pressure angles

The planetary gear transmission with double moduli and pressure angles gearing is proposed for meeting the low weight high reliability requires. A dynamic differential equation of the NGW planetary gear train system with double and pressure angles is established. The 4-Order Runge-Kutta numerical integration method is used to solve the equations from which the result of the dynamic response is got. The dynamic load coefficients are formulated and are compared with those of the normal gear train．The double modulus planetary gear transmission is designed and manufactured. The experiment of operating and vibration are carried out and provides

Obstacle avoidance of mobile robots using modified artificial potential field algorithm

Abstract In recent years, topics related to robotics have become one of the researching fields. In the meantime, intelligent mobile robots have great acceptance, but the control and navigation of these devices are very difficult, and the lack of dealing with fixed obstacles and avoiding them, due to safe and secure routing, is the basic requirement of these systems. In this paper, the modified artificial potential field (APF) method is proposed for that robot avoids collision with fixed obstacles and reaches the target in an optimal path; using this algorithm, the robot can run to the target in optimal environments without any problems by avoiding obstacles, and also using this algorithm, unlike the APF algorithm, the robot does not get stuck in the local minimum. We are looking for an appropriate cost function, with restrictions that we have, and the goal is to avoid obstacles, achieve the target, and do not stop the robot in local minimum. The previous method, APF algorithm, has advantages, such as the use of a simple math model, which is easy to understand and implement. However, this algorithm has many drawbacks; the major drawback of this problem is at the local minimum and the inaccessibility of the target when the obstacles are in the vicinity of the target. Therefore, in order to obtain a better result and to improve the shortcomings of the APF algorithm, this algorithm needs to be improved. Here, the obstacle avoidance planning algorithm is proposed based on the improvement of the artificial potential field algorithm to solve this local minimum problem. In the end, simulation results are evaluated using MATLAB software. The simulation results show that the proposed method is superior to the existing solution

A Transaction Model and Profit Allocation Method of Multiple Energy Storage Oriented to Versatile Regulation Demand

This study proposes a day-ahead transaction model that combines multiple energy storage systems (ESS), including a hydrogen storage system (HSS), battery energy storage system (BESS), and compressed air energy storage (CAES). It is catering to the trend of a diversified power market to respond to the constraints from the insufficient flexibility of a high-proportion renewable energy system (RES). The model is a double-layer game based on the Nash–Stackelberg–cooperative (N–S–C) game. Multiple users in the upper layer form the Nash game with the goal of maximizing their own benefits, while the multiple ESSs in the lower layer form a cooperative game with the goal of maximizing the overall benefits; the two layers form a Stackelberg game. Moreover, an allocation mechanism is proposed to balance the overall and individual rationality and promote the sustainable development of multiple ESSs, considering the operational characteristics. A numerical simulation is carried out using the rationality and effectiveness of the proposed model, which is based on data from the renewable energy gathering area in northwest China. The results show that this strategy shortens the energy storage payback period and improves the energy storage utilization. The simulation results indicate that small-scale energy storage with a rated power of less than 18 MWh does not have a price advantage, indicating the need to improve the configuration capacity of energy storage in the future from decentralized energy storage to independent/shared energy storage

Comparison of Three Assembly Strategies for a Heterozygous Grapevine Genome Assembly

Each folder includes the following files. Assembly.fa: Genome assembly in scaffolds. Blast2GO_results.b2g: The full annotation of coding sequences. Coding_sequences.fa: The predicted coding sequences from masked assembly. Gene_models.gff: Gene predictions from masked assembly. Masked_assembly.fa: The masked genome assembly. Protein.fa: The predicted protein sequences. PLAT*_GC contains chromosomal assembly and annotation as pseudo_chromosomal_assembly folder. SnpEff folder contains results from SnpEff as SnpEff_summary, genes affected are described as vini_snp.txt.genes and vini_snpeff is output from SnpEff