A design of a short course with COTS UAV system for higher education students

This paper aims to propose a short course with a commercial off the shelf unmanned aerial vehicle (COTS UAV) system. From the short course, students can have a conception of a UAV system, and they would have not only the knowledge about the hardware integration but also the theoretical background of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) and the situation awareness system. The proposed course consists of two parts; the GNC system for holding the position and the situation awareness system with the marker detection and tracking. A Pixhawk is selected for a flight controller with an open source autopilot, i.e. px 4, and a Raspberry Pi with a downward camera is utilised for the visual navigation of the situation awareness system. The Pixhawk and Raspberry Pi are integrated into the robot operating system (ROS) via the WIFI network, and the MAVROS is adopted for the communication between the Pixhawk and the Raspberry Pi. The first part of the course is designed as the hands-on based lectures, and the second part of the course is adopted the problem-based project

Target Detection, Tracking and Avoidance System for Low-cost UAVs using AI-Based Approaches

An onboard target detection, tracking and avoidance system has been developed in this paper, for low-cost UAV flight controllers using AI-Based approaches. The aim of the proposed system is that an ally UAV can either avoid or track an unexpected enemy UAV with a net to protect itself. In this point of view, a simple and robust target detection, tracking and avoidance system is designed. Two open-source tools were used for the aim: a state-of-the-art object detection technique called SSD and an API for MAVLink compatible systems called MAVSDK. The MAVSDK performs velocity control when a UAV is detected so that the manoeuvre is done simply and efficiently. The proposed system was verified with Software in the loop (SITL) and Hardware in the loop (HITL) simulators. The simplicity of this algorithm makes it innovative, and therefore it should be used in future applications needing robust performances with low-cost hardware such as delivery drone applications.Comment: IEEE RED-UAS 2019 Conferenc

Retrieval of NO2 Column Amounts from Ground-Based Hyperspectral Imaging Sensor Measurements

Total column amounts of NO2 (TCN) were estimated from ground-based hyperspectral imaging sensor (HIS) measurements in a polluted urban area (Seoul, Korea) by applying the radiance ratio fitting method with five wavelength pairs from 400 to 460 nm. We quantified the uncertainty of the retrieved TCN based on several factors. The estimated TCN uncertainty was up to 0.09 Dobson unit (DU), equivalent to 2.687 ?? 1020 molecules m???2) given a 1?? error for the observation geometries, including the solar zenith angle, viewing zenith angle, and relative azimuth angle. About 0.1 DU (6.8%) was estimated for an aerosol optical depth (AOD) uncertainty of 0.01. In addition, the uncertainty due to the NO2 vertical profile was 14% to 22%. Compared with the co-located Pandora spectrophotometer measurements, the HIS captured the temporal variation of the TCN during the intensive observation period. The correlation between the TCN from the HIS and Pandora also showed good agreement, with a slight positive bias (bias: 0.6 DU, root mean square error: 0.7 DU)

Neuroprotective Activity of Sibjeondaebo-tang on Aβ Peptide-Induced Damages

Background. Sibjeondaebo-tang (SJDBT) has been used to treat diverse disorders including neuropsychiatric disabilities in traditional Korean medicine. Objective. The present study aims to investigate the potential effects of SJDBT on neuroprotection against Aβ peptide-induced damage using in vitro culture and in vivo rat brain systems. Materials and Methods. PC12 cell viability was analyzed by MTT assay, and neurite arborizations and caspase 3 protein signals in cultured PC12 cells and in vivo cortical neurons were analyzed by immunofluorescence staining. Phospho-Erk1/2 protein was analyzed by immunofluorescence staining and western blot analysis. Results. In PC12 cells, atrophied cell body and reduced neurite extension by Aβ treatment were recovered by SJDBT treatment. Caspase 3 protein signals were increased in Aβ-treated PC12 cells, but SJDBT treatment decreased apoptotic cell death. Caspase 3 activation in cortical neurons, which was induced similarly by Aβ treatment, was reduced by SJDBT treatment. Furthermore, phospho-Erk1/2 protein levels, which had been decreased by Aβ treatment, were elevated in the cortical neurons by SJDBT treatment. Conclusion. These data show that SJDBT may play a role in protecting from damages induced by Aβ in neuronal tissue and further suggest that SJDBT can be explored as the potential therapeutic target for AD treatments in human

M3FPolypSegNet: Segmentation Network with Multi-frequency Feature Fusion for Polyp Localization in Colonoscopy Images

Polyp segmentation is crucial for preventing colorectal cancer a common type of cancer. Deep learning has been used to segment polyps automatically, which reduces the risk of misdiagnosis. Localizing small polyps in colonoscopy images is challenging because of its complex characteristics, such as color, occlusion, and various shapes of polyps. To address this challenge, a novel frequency-based fully convolutional neural network, Multi-Frequency Feature Fusion Polyp Segmentation Network (M3FPolypSegNet) was proposed to decompose the input image into low/high/full-frequency components to use the characteristics of each component. We used three independent multi-frequency encoders to map multiple input images into a high-dimensional feature space. In the Frequency-ASPP Scalable Attention Module (F-ASPP SAM), ASPP was applied between each frequency component to preserve scale information. Subsequently, scalable attention was applied to emphasize polyp regions in a high-dimensional feature space. Finally, we designed three multi-task learning (i.e., region, edge, and distance) in four decoder blocks to learn the structural characteristics of the region. The proposed model outperformed various segmentation models with performance gains of 6.92% and 7.52% on average for all metrics on CVC-ClinicDB and BKAI-IGH-NeoPolyp, respectively.Comment: 5pages. 2023 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP). IEEE, 202

Session D5: Current Status of Fish Passages in South Korea

Abstract: Weirs are important for countries that agriculture is the primary industry due to the stable supply of water to agricultural fields. Because agriculture is still important in Korean peninsula, weirs have been constructing until now from small streams to large rivers. However, only limited fish passages were installed in weirs, and there were no managements. As a results, streams and rivers have become highly fragmented, with fish migration being severely impeded. Thus, ministry of agriculture, food and rural affairs investigated entire fish passages in Korea in 2010-2011, and estimated current status and problems. A total of 33,718 weirs were installed (until year 2012), and this means that weirs are arithmetically located every 0.81km of the total stream length in Korea. Fish passages, however, were constructed only in 4,496 weirs (13.3% of installation rate). The weir type fish passages with Ice- Harbor type fishways (8.1%) which are favoured nowadays was showed the greatest number (36%), and the vertical slot type passages was in the second place (31%). The denil type and nature-like type were rarely installed. Only 18.1% of installed fish passages were left whole, and urgent repair is needed for 56.7%. Fish passages of 31.3% were incorporated into the recommended slope range of Korea (1:20). Most of problems are related discharge, poor entrance, breakage and sedimentation. With these structural problems, discontinuous installation of fish passages generates poor continuity of streams. Currently, to improve stream connectivity many projects from Korean government are now conducting and preparing, and additionally development of fish passages specialized for Korean fishes are required

ZNF746/PARIS overexpression induces cellular senescence through FoxO1/p21 axis activation in myoblasts

Various stresses, including oxidative stress, impair the proliferative capacity of muscle stem cells leading to declined muscle regeneration related to aging or muscle diseases. ZNF746 (PARIS) is originally identified as a substrate of E3 ligase Parkin and its accumulation is associated with Parkinson’s disease. In this study, we investigated the role of PARIS in myoblast function. PARIS is expressed in myoblasts and decreased during differentiation. PARIS overexpression decreased both proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts without inducing cell death, whereas PARIS depletion enhanced myoblast differentiation. Interestingly, high levels of PARIS in myoblasts or fibroblasts induced cellular senescence with alterations in gene expression associated with p53 signaling, inflammation, and response to oxidative stress. PARIS overexpression in myoblasts starkly enhanced oxidative stress and the treatment of an antioxidant Trolox attenuated the impaired proliferation caused by PARIS overexpression. FoxO1 and p53 proteins are elevated in PARIS-overexpressing cells leading to p21 induction and the depletion of FoxO1 or p53 reduced p21 levels induced by PARIS overexpression. Furthermore, both PARIS and FoxO1 were recruited to p21 promoter region and Trolox treatment attenuated FoxO1 recruitment. Taken together, PARIS upregulation causes oxidative stress-related FoxO1 and p53 activation leading to p21 induction and cellular senescence of myoblasts. © 2020, The Author(s).1

Histological confinement of transglutaminase-mediated nit sheath crosslinking is essential for proper oviposition and egg coating in the human head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis

Background Head louse females secrete liquid gel, which is mainly composed of the louse nit sheath protein 1 (LNSP1) and LNSP2, when they lay eggs. The gel is crosslinked by transglutaminase (TG) to form the nit sheath, which covers most of the egg except the top operculum area where breathing holes are located. Knowledge on the selective mechanism of nit sheath solidification to avoid uncontrolled crosslinking could lead to designing a novel method of louse control, but no information is available yet. Methods To elucidate the crosslinking mechanisms of nit sheath gel inside the reproductive system of head louse females, in situ hybridization in conjunction with microscopic observation of the oviposition process was conducted. Results Histochemical analysis revealed that LNSP1 and LNSP2 are expressed over the entire area of the accessory gland and uterus, whereas TG expression site is confined to a highly localized area around the opening of posterior oviduct. Detailed microscopic observations of oviposition process uncovered that a mature egg is positioned in the uterus after ovulation. Once aligned inside the uterus, the mature egg is redirected so that its operculum side is tightly held by the ventral end of the uterus being positioned toward the head again and its pointed bottom end being positioned toward the dorsal end of the uterus, which functions as a reservoir for the nit sheath gel. Conclusions Physical separation of the TG-mediated crosslinking site from the ventral end of the uterus is necessary to avoid uncontrolled crosslinking inside the uterus and to ensure selective crosslinking over only the lower part of egg without any unwanted crosslinking over the operculum during oviposition. Graphical Abstrac