Machine Vision based Grabbing Objects with Manipulator System Design

In recent years, machine vision technology and robot control technology have attracted lots attention of the researchers. They provide people with fast and efficient services in many fields, which have an increasingly important impact on the modern manufacturing industry and the inspection industry. In this paper, a mechanical vision-based grab control system based on machine vision is developed and analyzed accordingly. This design employs industrial cameras with Gigabit Ethernet ports, six-degree-of-freedom servo drive robots. The Host computer control software is designed on the development platform provided by Microsoft and processed in machine vision image processing. The software has implemented an image processing algorithm. It aims to combine machine vision, robot control and other technologies to achieve precise positioning, recognition and capture of targets. In the end, the proposed method is displayed in the upper computer accordingly

SEER-MCache: A Prefetchable Memory Object Caching System for IoT Real-Time Data Processing

Memory object caching systems, such as Memcached and Redis, have been proved to be a simple and high-efficient middleware for improving the performance of Internet of Things (IoT) devices querying the database in cloud. However, its performance guarantee is built on the fact that the target data, queried by the IoT device, will be accessed many times and hit in the caching system. Therefore, when database system is handling the unrepeated IoT queries, it usually presents the suboptimal performance, which greatly impairs the efficiency of real-time data processing on IoT devices. To improve this issue, we propose Seer-MCache, the memory object caching system with a smart prefetching (read-ahead) function, to fill up the caching system with the desired data before the intensive IoT queries arriving. Seer-MCache includes a set of rules to launch the specific behaviors of read-head. These rules are able to be customized according to the workload characteristics and system load. We implement a prototype system in Redis (caching layer) and MySQL server (database system). Extensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of Seer-MCache, the results show that Seer-MCache can improve the performance of read-intensive workload up to 61% (39.5% in average). Meanwhile, the cost of the read-ahead behavior is moderate and controllable

The potential of the Medical Digital Twin in diabetes management: a review

Diabetes is a chronic prevalent disease that must be managed to improve the patient's quality of life. However, the limited healthcare management resources compared to the large diabetes mellitus (DM) population are an obstacle that needs modern information technology to improve. Digital twin (DT) is a relatively new approach that has emerged as a viable tool in several sectors of healthcare, and there have been some publications on DT in disease management. The systematic summary of the use of DTs and its potential applications in DM is less reported. In this review, we summarized the key techniques of DTs, proposed the potentials of DTs in DM management from different aspects, and discussed the concerns of this novel technique in DM management

Recent advances of antioxidant low-dimensional carbon materials for biomedical applications

As the primary cause of many tissue damage and diseases, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are well known to be extremely harmful to a variety of biological components in cells including lipids, proteins and DNA. Numerous antioxidative nanomaterials have been artificially designed and rationally synthesized to protect cells from the oxidative damage caused by reactive oxygen species/reactive nitrogen species. Recent studies demonstrate that low dimensional carbon antioxidative nanomaterials have received a lot of attention owing to their tiny nanoscales and unique physicochemical property. As a result, a brief overview of recent advancements in antioxidant low-dimensional carbon materials is provided. Typically, carbon nanomaterials are classified according to their nanostructure dimensions, which are zero-dimension, one-dimension, and two-dimension. Last but not least, the challenges and perspectives of these high-performance low-dimensional materials in biomedical fields and further clinical usages are discussed as well

Interactions between curcumin and human salt-induced kinase 3 elucidated from computational tools and experimental methods

Natural products are widely used for treating mitochondrial dysfunction-related diseases and cancers. Curcumin, a well-known natural product, can be potentially used to treat cancer. Human salt-induced kinase 3 (SIK3) is one of the target proteins for curcumin. However, the interactions between curcumin and human SIK3 have not yet been investigated in detail. In this study, we studied the binding models for the interactions between curcumin and human SIK3 using computational tools such as homology modeling, molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations, and binding free energy calculations. The open activity loop conformation of SIK3 with the ketoenol form of curcumin was the optimal binding model. The I72, V80, A93, Y144, A145, and L195 residues played a key role for curcumin binding with human SIK3. The interactions between curcumin and human SIK3 were also investigated using the kinase assay. Moreover, curcumin exhibited an IC50 (half-maximal inhibitory concentration) value of 131 nM, and it showed significant antiproliferative activities of 9.62 ± 0.33 µM and 72.37 ± 0.37 µM against the MCF-7 and MDA-MB-23 cell lines, respectively. This study provides detailed information on the binding of curcumin with human SIK3 and may facilitate the design of novel salt-inducible kinases inhibitors

The Spatial-Temporal Evolution of Population in the Yangtze River Delta, China: An Urban Hierarchy Perspective

The reason for changes in ranking within urban systems is the subject of much debate. Employing the census data from 1990 to 2020, this paper investigates population dynamics across urban hierarchies and its influencing factors in the Yangtze River Delta. The results reveal an upward pattern of population dynamics and show that the advantages of high-ranking cities in population gathering are obvious, though they have declined recently. Based on a framework of urban amenity and the ridge regression model, the authors argue that concerns of residents in choosing cities in which to settle are gradually changing from economic opportunities to multidimensional amenities, finding that the influencing mechanisms vary across time. This is slightly different from Glaeser’s consumer cities; economic gains, as physiological needs, are always important for population growth. As higher-level needs, social and natural amenities, including Internet accessibility and urban green space, did not affect growth until the turn of the new millennium. In terms of negative factors, the ‘crowding-out effect’ of living costs and environmental pollution are not significant, as theoretically expected, suggesting that residents tend to care more about development opportunities than the negative impacts of living in high-ranking cities. Finally, policies are proposed to promote population growth and the coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities in the Yangtze River Delta

Measuring the Inclusive Growth of China’s Coastal Regions

Inclusive growth captures the need to alleviate the problems of global income disparity and poverty, particularly in Asia. The study’s goal is to construct an indicator system that measures the inclusive growth of 11 coastal provinces and cities in China from five aspects, namely, survival, capacity, development, freedom, and opportunity, examining the area from 2000 to 2015. The system is based on Bossel’s basic orientor indicator framework. Dynamic changes in overall levels in the five fields are investigated and spatial differences calculated using the Gini coefficient. Among the provinces, Guangxi shows the strongest survival conditions, giving it an advantage over other regions. Shanghai has the highest level of capacity and freedom. Guangdong has the strongest development momentum, but this appears to be weakening. Finally, Shandong shows many more social opportunities. The study suggests that inclusive growth in the area has increased as a result of the area’s rapid development, but the growth rates remain low. The level of inclusive growth shows a large gap across the regions. Gini coefficient differences show that the eastern coastal areas have strong development trends, whereas the northern and southern coastal areas show weaker ones. We also offer suggestions on how to promote inclusive growth in these regions

Market opportunity analysis of fashion blog-shops in Singapore.

A new phenomenon in the form of blog shopping is becoming increasingly prevalent amongst Singapore consumers in recent years. Blog shopping refers to the act of visiting online shops which originated from blogging platforms. This study seeks to investigate the phenomenon of blog shopping in Singapore, and also to identify market opportunities for blog-shop owners. In this study, we investigated the different expectations of female blog-shoppers from different age groups, in terms of differing preferences for payment modes, style of apparel, responses towards blogs. We also investigated the reasons why females do not blog shop. In addition, the expectations of blog-shop owners were investigated to identify any potential gaps between expectations of blog-shoppers and blog-shop owners. Finally, after identifying potential gaps or interesting trends, recommendations are provided to blog-shop owners on ways to improve their mode of operations to better meet the needs of blog-shoppers so as to capture a larger market share.BUSINES