Advantages of using voiced questionnaire and image capture application for data collection from a minority group in rural areas along the Thailand–Myanmar border

Aims To compare the quality of data collection via electronic data capture (EDC) with voiced questionnaire (QNN) and data image capture features using a tablet versus standard paper-based QNN, to assess the user’s perception of using the EDC tool, and to compare user satisfaction with the two methods.Study design Randomised cross-over study.Study sites This study was conducted in two villages along the Thailand– Myanmar border.Methodology This study included 30 community health volunteers (CHVs) and 120 Karen hill tribe villagers. Employing a cross-over study design, the CHVs were allocated randomly to two groups, in which they performed interviews in different sequences using EDC and QNN.Results Data discrepancies were found between the two data-collection methods, when data from the paper-based and image-capture methods were compared, and when conducting skip pattern questions. More than 90% of the CHVs perceived the EDC to be useful and easy to use. Both interviewers and interviewees were more satisfied with the EDC compared with QNN in terms of format, ease of use, and system speed.Conclusion The EDC can effectively be used as an alternative method to paperbased QNNs for data collection. It produces more accurate data that can be considered evidence-based

User Interface of Blockchain-Based Agri-Food Traceability Applications: A Review

Blockchain technology is a secure distributed ledger for lists of transactions, which has immense potential to solve traditional agri-food supply chain issues. An increasing number of research on blockchain-based traceability applications aims to improve food quality and safety. Still, relatively few works considered user interfaces when developing and reporting their applications, which could lead to usability issues. This paper aims to address this gap by reviewing existing works from user interface perspectives. We gathered 25 review papers on blockchain or agri-food supply chain and 39 research papers that presented screenshots of user interfaces of related applications. We first reviewed 7 review papers that focused on the blockchain-based agri-food supply chain to understand the benefits and challenges in the blockchain applications. We then analyzed 14 blockchain-based agri-food traceability applications and 10 non-blockchain-based agri-food traceability applications. The analysis resulted in categorizations of 5 target user groups, 3 main approaches for collecting data, 5 main approaches for visualizing data, and a discussion of other aspects of user interfaces. However, we found insufficient details and discussions on the user interfaces and design decisions of the applications for further usability assessment. Additionally, user involvement for evaluation is lower in blockchain-based researches than in non-blockchain-based researches. This trend could lead to usability problems of blockchain applications, causing blockchain technology to be underutilized. Finally, we discussed research gaps and future research directions related to user interface design, which should be addressed to ease future blockchain adoption

Abstract: Automatic Digicromatography: Colorizing the Images of the Russian Empire

A hundred years ago, before color photography existed, a Russian scholar Prokudin-Gorskii attempted to create color photographs by taking three black and white exposures of the same scene through three filters: blue, green and red, to be displayed using a special triple lens projector. Today, 1,902 three-channel negatives of these photographs survive and are available in digital format on the Library of Congress website. A color image can be reconstructed from a three-channel negative by manual alignment and careful color adjustment, termed digicromatography. However, the manual process is too time-consuming to be used on the entire collection, so an automated approach is needed. In this work we have investigated several ways of automating digichromatography. After the initial automatic color alignment using the Gaussian pyramid and affine warping, there are three types of image artifacts that must be fixed: 1) local level artifacts such as extreme red/green/blue spots from dirt particles on the negatives; 2) mid-level artifacts such as gradual region color change; and 3) global artifacts such as unnatural or bleak color in the whole picture. We have applied different image processing techniques for each of these types of artifacts. Our fully automatic approach demonstrates promising results on many of the images. (a) (b) Figure 1: shows a negative (a) from Prokudin Gorskii’s collection, and a manually composite image (b) of the negative by Alex Gridenko This demonstrates the ideal goal of our work, which is to create a program that takes a negative and produce a beautiful image like in (b) 1

Applications of Smartphone-Based Sensors in Agriculture: A Systematic Review of Research

Smartphones have become a useful tool in agriculture because their mobility matches the nature of farming, the cost of the device is highly accessible, and their computing power allows a variety of practical applications to be created. Moreover, smartphones are nowadays equipped with various types of physical sensors which make them a promising tool to assist diverse farming tasks. This paper systematically reviews smartphone applications mentioned in research literature that utilize smartphone built-in sensors to provide agricultural solutions. The initial 1,500 articles identified through database search were screened based on exclusion criteria and then reviewed thoroughly in full text, resulting in 22 articles included in this review. The applications are categorized according to their agricultural functions. Those articles reviewed describe 12 farming applications, 6 farm management applications, 3 information system applications, and 4 extension service applications. GPS and cameras are the most popular sensors used in the reviewed papers. This shows an opportunity for future applications to utilize other sensors such as accelerometer to provide advanced agricultural solutions

Content-Aware Dynamic Timeline for Video Browsing

When browsing a long video using a traditional timeline slider control, its effectiveness and precision degrade as a video’s length grows. When browsing videos with more frames than pixels in the slider, aside from some frames being inaccessible, scrolling actions cause sudden jumps in a video’s continuity as well as video frames to flash by too fast for one to assess the content. We propose a content-aware dynamic timeline control that is designed to overcome these limitations. Our timeline control decouples video speed and playback speed, and leverages video content analysis to allow salient shots to be presented at an intelligible speed. Our control also takes advantage of previous work on elastic sliders, which allows us to produce an accurate navigation control. ACM Classification: H5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation]

A Streaming Algorithm for Online Estimation of Temporal and Spatial Extent of Delays

Knowing traffic congestion and its impact on travel time in advance is vital for proactive travel planning as well as advanced traffic management. This paper proposes a streaming algorithm to estimate temporal and spatial extent of delays online which can be deployed with roadside sensors. First, the proposed algorithm uses streaming input from individual sensors to detect a deviation from normal traffic patterns, referred to as anomalies, which is used as an early indication of delay occurrence. Then, a group of consecutive sensors that detect anomalies are used to temporally and spatially estimate extent of delay associated with the detected anomalies. Performance evaluations are conducted using a real-world data set collected by roadside sensors in Bangkok, Thailand, and the NGSIM data set collected in California, USA. Using NGSIM data, it is shown qualitatively that the proposed algorithm can detect consecutive occurrences of shockwaves and estimate their associated delays. Then, using a data set from Thailand, it is shown quantitatively that the proposed algorithm can detect and estimate delays associated with both recurring congestion and incident-induced nonrecurring congestion. The proposed algorithm also outperforms the previously proposed streaming algorithm

Blockchain for smart cities: applications for IoT and video surveillance systems

The recent revolution of the Internet of Things introduces new engaging operat- ing scenarios. The IoT paradigm enables the intertwined use of physical and soft- ware components through the interconnection of devices that exchange data with each other without direct human interaction in several fields, especially in industrial and home environments. In the framework of the Italian-Vietnamese cooperation on the topics of smart cities and Blockchain, we present two applications of the blockchain technology, which can be applied, respectively in indoor, for monitoring and controlling smart homes, and in outdoor, for visual monitoring through video surveillance systems. In both cases, we propose decentralised architectures that aim at solving common IoT problems and vulnerabilities, with a specific focus on pri- vacy issues. The introduced flexibility, extensibility and security in indoor IoT en- vironments and outdoor video surveillance systems permit to foresee smarter cities that assist citizens with innovative services both in indoor and outdoor environ- ments. We propose a reinterpretation of the role of the IoT gateway, making it blockchain-aware and handling IoT transactions without a central trusted authority. As for video surveillance, we focus on two different directions. First, we provide the capability to analyse multiple video-flows from different cameras deployed around the city by heterogeneous owners, guaranteeing the integrity of the timestamps and camera settings. Second, the system ensures that the positions of cameras, their orientation and their mechanical parameters are not physically ma- nipulated; otherwise, the platform generates a warning. We guarantee citizens' pri- vacy monitoring and tracking camera settings and storing video flows. The absence of digital and physical manipulations guarantees citizens against possible violations of their privacy. To face these risks, we introduce a blockchain-based video surveil- lance system that jointly provides validation and immutability to camera settings and surveillance videos, making them readily available to authorised users in case of events and paving the way to new distributed city-wide monitoring systems