Smart environment monitoring through micro unmanned aerial vehicles

In recent years, the improvements of small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in terms of flight time, automatic control, and remote transmission are promoting the development of a wide range of practical applications. In aerial video surveillance, the monitoring of broad areas still has many challenges due to the achievement of different tasks in real-time, including mosaicking, change detection, and object detection. In this thesis work, a small-scale UAV based vision system to maintain regular surveillance over target areas is proposed. The system works in two modes. The first mode allows to monitor an area of interest by performing several flights. During the first flight, it creates an incremental geo-referenced mosaic of an area of interest and classifies all the known elements (e.g., persons) found on the ground by an improved Faster R-CNN architecture previously trained. In subsequent reconnaissance flights, the system searches for any changes (e.g., disappearance of persons) that may occur in the mosaic by a histogram equalization and RGB-Local Binary Pattern (RGB-LBP) based algorithm. If present, the mosaic is updated. The second mode, allows to perform a real-time classification by using, again, our improved Faster R-CNN model, useful for time-critical operations. Thanks to different design features, the system works in real-time and performs mosaicking and change detection tasks at low-altitude, thus allowing the classification even of small objects. The proposed system was tested by using the whole set of challenging video sequences contained in the UAV Mosaicking and Change Detection (UMCD) dataset and other public datasets. The evaluation of the system by well-known performance metrics has shown remarkable results in terms of mosaic creation and updating, as well as in terms of change detection and object detection

Analytical Solution for the Pressure Oscillations Caused by Trains of Solitary Waves within Confined Coastal Aquifers

An exact analytical solution is proposed for the pressure oscillations within deep coastal aquifers under the action of tidal level time-variations attributable to train of solitary waves originating off-shore. The purpose of the study is to relate the characteristics of the response of the system to amplitude, steepness, and asymmetry of the soliciting waves, in order to assess its vulnerability to events like violent seaquakes and consequent tsunamis. The time needed by the forcing perturbations, approximated by consecutive triangular impulses, to attain their maximum is assumed to be always smaller than the aquifer diffusive time, in order to evaluate the consequences of the sudden raise of water level along the shoreline, typical of those quite extreme phenomena

Modeling left ventricle perfusion in healthy and stenotic conditions

A theoretical fluid mechanical model is proposed for the investigation of myocardial perfusion in healthy and stenotic conditions. The model hinges on Terzaghi’s consolidation theory and reformulates the related unsteady flow equation for the simulation of the swelling–drainage alternation characterizing the diastolic–systolic phases. When compared with the outcome of experimental in vivo observations in terms of left ventricle transmural perfusion ratio (T.P.R.), the analytical solution provided by the present study for the time-dependent blood pressure and flow rate across the ventricle wall proves to consistently reproduce the basic mechanisms of both healthy and ischemic perfusion. Therefore, it could constitute a useful interpretative support to improve the comprehension of the basic hemodynamic mechanisms leading to the most common cardiac diseases. Additionally, it could represent the mathematical basis for the application of inverse methods aimed at estimating the characteristic parameters of ischemic perfusion (i.e., location and severity of coronary stenoses) via downstream ventricular measurements, possibly inspiring their assessment via non-invasive myocardial imaging techniques

Grace-Based Faith Discipleship Approach of Adults in South Rock Christian Church: Addressing the Contemporary Legalistic Lifestyle of Disciples

Discipleship often evokes different responses. However, contemporary Christians have a faithfulness dilemma driven by the constant messages they hear. This DMIN project seeks to develop and promote a ministry structure that educates, equips, and enriches the Christian life based on God’s grace. The project seeks to provide a framework for participants to be transformed holistically by God’s grace. Often, the members of South Rock Christian Church understand grace as the entry point into salvation, but not the identifying trait of their faithful life in Christ. This action project consists of qualitative research that demonstrates a gap between belief and action in its participants. Therefore, this project will explore the breakdown of what the disciple believes and what they put into action. It also consists of qualitative research which entails a six-week Participation Group examining the identity marks of a disciple. The research promotes a grace-based discipleship approach that demonstrates God’s grace as His transformative presence in the disciple’s life. The approach will combat the lies that disciples believe about God, self, and others. The results of the research show that the discipleship problem at South Rock Christian Church is not a belief problem, but one that is not based on God’s grace. The research confirms the reality of a contemporary legalistic lifestyle. Therefore, this DMIN project seeks to provide a fresh approach to the church’s discipleship efforts that are based on God’s grace rather than on human achievement

Annosseurantajärjestelmän käyttö röntgenhoitajan työssä

Tietokonetomografiatutkimus altistaa potilaan merkittävälle määrälle ionisoivaa säteilyä. Säteilyn aiheuttamien haittojen vuoksi sen määrää on pyrittävä kaikin keinoin vähentämään. Tässä röntgenhoitajalla on keskeinen rooli. Potilaan oikea asettelu ja kuva-alan tarkka rajaus ovat röntgenhoitajan merkittävimmät keinot pienentää potilaan säteilyannosta. Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena on annosseurantajärjestelmään liittyvän tiedon lisääminen röntgenhoitajien keskuudessa ja mahdollisuuksien esiintuonti sekä sen käyttökynnyksen madaltaminen. Tätä kautta tavoitteena on potilasturvallisuuden ja toiminnan laadun parantaminen. Opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena on kartoittaa yhdessä Varsinais-Suomen kuvantamiskeskuksen kuvantamisyksikössä käytössä olevan annosseurantajärjestelmän (DoseWatch) käyttöä. Käyttöä tarkasteltiin tietokonetomografiassa työskentelevien röntgenhoitajien näkökulmasta. Opinnäytetyö on kvalitatiivinen, ja aineisto kerättiin ryhmähaastatteluna. Haastatteluun osallistui kuusi kuvantamisyksikössä tietokonetomografiassa säännöllisesti työskentelevää röntgenhoitajaa. Haastattelu tehtiin marraskuussa 2017. Haastattelusta tehtiin äänitallenne, joka analysoitiin tutkimuskysymyksittäin. Haastattelun tulosten perusteella röntgenhoitajat käyttävät järjestelmää hyvin vähän. Tärkeimmät syyt käyttämättömyydelle olivat järjestelmään kirjautumisen vaikeus, tiedon puute, järjestelmän hyödyttömäksi kokeminen sekä kiire työssä. Hyödyiksi röntgenhoitajalle koettiin mahdollisuus tarkastella potilaan asettelun onnistumista sekä järjestelmän hyödyntäminen opiskelijaohjauksessa. Eniten hyötyä potilaalle nähtiin koituvan pitkäaikaisesta annosseurannasta ja mahdollisuudesta laitteiden väliseen annosvertailuun. Myös mahdollisuus tarkastella kuvausprotokollien toimintaa ja sitä kautta optimoida niitä nähtiin hyötynä. Eniten parannusta haluttiin järjestelmään kirjautumiseen ja järjestelmän ominaisuuksista tiedottamiseen. Tärkeäksi koettiin myös se, että mahdollisuutta edellä mainittuun optimointiin ja kumulatiivisen sädeannoksen seurantaan myös käytännössä hyödynnettäisiin. Jos annosseurantajärjestelmän käyttö halutaan laajentaa osaksi röntgenhoitajan työtä, olisi perusteltua helpottaa siihen kirjautumista. Järjestelmän linkittäminen suoraan potilastietojärjestelmään nopeuttaisi sen käyttöä, ja helpottaisi potilaan tietojen hakemista. Yhteiskäyttötunnusten tulisi olla helposti kaikkien saatavilla. Rajallinen yhtäaikainen käyttäjämäärä yhteiskäyttötunnuksilla olisi myös poistettava.A computed tomography examination exposes the patient to a significant amount of ionizing radiation. Because of it´s negative effects the aim must be to minimize that by all means. The radiographer has a crucial role in this. The most significant ways the radiographer can reduce ionizing radiation exposure are correct patient positioning and limitation of the field of view. The objectives of the thesis are to increase knowledge about the dose monitoring system among radiographers, to present its capabilities and to lower the threshold for its use. Thus, the aims are improving patient safety and quality of the overall procedure. The purpose of this thesis is to survey the use of the dose monitoring system (DoseWatch) in the imaging unit of the Southwest Finland imaging centre. The perspectives of radiographers working in computed tomography were studied by means of a group interview. The study is qualitative, and the method used is a group interview. Six radiographers working regularly in computed tomography at the imaging unit participated. The interview was conducted in November 2017. It was recorded and afterwards analyzed by each research question. Based on the results of the interview, the system was used very little. The main reasons for not using it were the difficulty in system authentication, the lack of information, work load and the perception the system was “useless”. The possibility to view how well the patient positioning was performed and using the system in student tuition were deemed as benefits to the patient and staff. The radiographers considered the long-term monitoring of the patient radiation dose and the possibility to compare different devices as the most beneficial features of the system. In addition, the possibility to examine the scanning protocols and therefore optimize them was seen to be beneficial. The radiographers considered the system log in and knowledge about the system as areas requiring improvement. Radiographers also considered the possibility of optimizing and monitoring the cumulative radiation doses important within practice. Improving the system authentication is justifiable, if the aim is expanding the use of dose monitoring system to be a part of radiographer´s work. Linking it directly to the patient information system would make using it faster and retrieving patient information easier. Access to the system could be improved by ensuring shared user IDs are available for all staff and removing limits to the number of simultaneous users with shared IDs

The converse of Kelly’s lemma and control-classes in graph reconstruction

summary:We prove a converse of the well-known Kelly’s Lemma. This motivates the introduction of the general notions of $\mathcal{K}$-table, $\mathcal{K}$-congruence and control-class