Smart Digital Signage With Eye Tracking System

Digital signage is a more effective advertising solution compared to the traditional sign board since it is able to show multimedia contents and the advertising information can be easily updated. Current digital signage system has limited user interactive capability. Besides that, current system also lacks a way to collect viewer’s behaviour for analytic purposes. With the advancement of information technology, smart signage system allows some interactions between the viewer and the signage. In this project, a smart digital signage system which is capable of interaction between a user’s mobile device and the signage system is proposed. The user’s application on the mobile device provides a convenience way for navigating and storing the digital advertisements shown on the signage system instead of having paper brochure. Besides interactive capability, the proposed system is also able to detect faces and eyes to count the users viewing duration for each advertisement shown on the display. The faces and eyes detection were implemented using Haar Cascaded classifier available in the OpenCV library. A sanity checking algorithm is proposed to filter out the wrong detected eyes and improve the overall detection rate. Test results showed that the implemented face and eyes detection function can achieve 82.5% of true positive rate and 17.5% of false negative rate. Test on the complete system showed that the proposed smart signage system is able to work as expected. It is able to collect the users’ viewing duration for each advertisement with an average error of less than 12%

Petroleum hydrocarbon in surface sediment from coastal area of Putatan and Papar, Sabah

Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and percent total organic carbon (TOC) were investigated in surface sediments from coastal area of Papar and Putatan, Sabah. Samples were collected in five different stations in each area by using Ponar grab sampler. Samples were extracted with Soxhlet, concentrated and analyzed by using UV/VIS spectrophotometer. The overall mean and range of TPH concentrations in the sediments from coastal area of Papar and Putatan were 1.95 (0.53 – 4.59 mg/kg dw Miri crude oil equivalents) and 0.85 (0.26 – 1.64 mg/kg dw Miri crude oil equivalents) respectively. Meanwhile, the TOC ranged from 0.81 – 2.32% and 0.35 – 0.81% respectively. Statistical analysis using Pearson correlation showed no significant differences between TPH and TOC (p < 0.05) in both areas

Estuary and sea-associated wetlands as final sink for organic pollutants: a case study in Sabah, Malaysia

Estuaries and sea-associated wetlands are the final destination for organic pollutants due to their chemical and physical properties. The current research studied Parai River and estuary adjacent to the southern South China Sea in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Six samples of surface sediment were taken during January 2012. The samples (top 3 cm) were extracted by Soxhlet using Dichloromethane, subjected to 2 steps of column chromatography for clean-up and fractionation followed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. The results indicated that the highest concentration of alkane in a full range of even and odd carbon numbers is dominant in the estuary and sea-associated wetland. Estuaries receive the highest level of suspended materials due to continuous interaction between marine saline and riverine fresh water. The high amount of Unresolved Complex Mixture (UCM) indicated an incomplete cycle of degradation and decomposition. Terrestrial input was the most dominant natural entry to the study area where C31/C19 ratio was employed. The study concluded that sea-associated wetlands around the estuary may act as the final sink of organic pollutants in the environmen

Mechanical and durability performance of marine sand and seawater concrete incorporating silicomanganese slag as coarse aggregate

This experimental investigation has validated the feasibility of utilizing silicomanganese (SiMn) slag, marine sand and seawater in concrete production. Compressive and splitting tensile strengths of concrete were evaluated. Assessment was also performed on concrete durability which included water absorption, sorptivity, chloride penetration and sulphate resistance. SiMn slag was found to reduce concrete compressive and tensile strengths by 9.2% and 17.5% respectively. Nevertheless, the concrete exhibited comparable durability to conventional concrete at 90-day age, though it showed reduced value at 28-day age. The research also illustrated that marine sand improved concrete durability by at least 42.3% and 11.5% in aspect of sorptivity and chloride penetration respectively, while seawater showed little effect. More durable concrete can be produced by utilizing SiMn slag, marine sand and seawater for potential industrial application

Deterioration of marine concrete exposed to wetting-drying action

The adverse effects of hostile marine environment on concrete structure have inevitably resulted in huge economic loss and may contribute to catastrophic failure. Concrete is susceptible to weathering, particularly under wetting-drying action (WDA), although its current state of the art is well established. The diverse characteristics of WDA at different site locations have compromised the reliability of laboratory works. The objective of this study is to review the impact of WDA on concrete and to provide an overview of the research trend, aiming to identify the research gap. Concrete deterioration mechanisms in marine environment in respect of WDA are identified. The influential factors of WDA are analyzed. The physical and mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of concrete exposed to WDA are discussed. WDA aggravates concrete deterioration by hastening intrusion of inimical compounds such as chloride, sulphate and carbon dioxide. Chloride convection zone can be expanded by two to three times to cause a significant concrete cover loss. Physical damage of concrete starts with efflorescence staining, followed by mortar delamination, aggregate detachment and concrete spalling, leading to loss of mechanical properties. The use of mineral admixtures such as fly ash and silica fume improves concrete resistance against corrosion, but its refining effect may lead to over-accumulation of chloride, risking the long-term durability. Limited research works are identified on synergy between physical and chemical deteriorations, validation of simulated experiment, volume expansion, mass change and tensile strength of concrete

Combination Therapy Strategy of Quorum Quenching Enzyme and Quorum Sensing Inhibitor in Suppressing Multiple Quorum Sensing Pathways of P. <i>aeruginosa</i>

Abstract The threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria has called for alternative antimicrobial strategies that would mitigate the increase of classical resistance mechanism. Many bacteria employ quorum sensing (QS) to govern the production of virulence factors and formation of drug-resistant biofilms. Targeting the mechanism of QS has proven to be a functional alternative to conventional antibiotic control of infections. However, the presence of multiple QS systems in individual bacterial species poses a challenge to this approach. Quorum sensing inhibitors (QSI) and quorum quenching enzymes (QQE) have been both investigated for their QS interfering capabilities. Here, we first simulated the combination effect of QQE and QSI in blocking bacterial QS. The effect was next validated by experiments using AiiA as QQE and G1 as QSI on Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasR/I and RhlR/I QS circuits. Combination of QQE and QSI almost completely blocked the P. aeruginosa las and rhl QS systems. Our findings provide a potential chemical biology application strategy for bacterial QS disruption

Effects of Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) warm-up on vertical jump performance among volleyball players

This study aims to examine the effects of resistance versus complex exercise with the retention of post-activation potentiation (PAP) on vertical jump among volleyball players. A total of 30 volleyball players (mean age = 16.5 ± 1.106 years old) were recruited as participants of this study. The participants were requested to attend two different testing sessions, with two days between each session. Each session had a different exercise routine, namely, resistance and complex. A one-way repeated measure was used to analyse the performance of the vertical jump, while a pairwise comparison was applied to compare the retention of PAP between the resistance and complex exercises. The findings show that there is a significant interaction for both warm-up exercises; [(F(1,29)=1275.57, p=0.000] for resistance exercise and [(F(1,29) = 1456.83, p= 0.000] for complex exercise. The retention analysis for PAP effect also indicates that there is a significant difference between the two warm-up activities in vertical jump performance. In conclusion, this study reveals that both exercises managed to increase PAP among volleyball players. However, complex exercise is suggested to be combined with the warm-up method as it can maintain a longer retention than resistance exercise

Curbing adult student attrition: Evidence from a field experiment

Roughly 20% of adults in the OECD lack basic numeracy and literacy skills. In the UK, many colleges offer fully government subsidized adult education programs to improve these skills. Constructing a unique dataset consisting of weekly attendance records for 1179 students, we find that approximately 25% of learners stop attending these programs in the first ten weeks and that average attendance rates deteriorate by 20% in that time. We implement a large‐scale field experiment in which we send encouraging text messages to students. Our initial results show that these simple text messages reduce the proportion of students that stop attending by 36% and lead to a 7% increase in average attendance relative to the control group. The effects on attendance rates persist through the three weeks of available data following the initial intervention

Giant thermal hysteresis in Verwey transition of single domain Fe3O4 nanoparticles

Most interesting phenomena of condensed matter physics originate from interactions among different degrees of freedom, making it a very intriguing yet challenging question how certain ground states emerge from only a limited number of atoms in assembly. This is especially the case for strongly correlated electron systems with overwhelming complexity. The Verwey transition of Fe3O4 is a classic example of this category, of which the origin is still elusive 80 years after the first report. Here we report, for the first time, that the Verwey transition of Fe3O4 nanoparticles exhibits size-dependent thermal hysteresis in magnetization, 57Fe NMR, and XRD measurements. The hysteresis width passes a maximum of 11 K when the size is 120 nm while dropping to only 1 K for the bulk sample. This behavior is very similar to that of magnetic coercivity and the critical sizes of the hysteresis and the magnetic single domain are identical. We interpret it as a manifestation of charge ordering and spin ordering correlation in a single domain. This work paves a new way of undertaking researches in the vibrant field of strongly correlated electron physics combined with nanoscience.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Fabrication and Characterization of Collagen-Immobilized Porous PHBV/HA Nanocomposite Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

The porous composite scaffolds (PHBV/HA) consisting of poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and hydroxyapatite (HA) were fabricated using a hot-press machine and salt-leaching. Collagen (type I) was then immobilized on the surface of the porous PHBV/HA composite scaffolds to improve tissue compatibility. The structure and morphology of the collagen-immobilized composite scaffolds (PHBV/HA/Col) were investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA). The potential of the porous PHBV/HA/Col composite scaffolds for use as a bone scaffold was assessed by an experiment with osteoblast cells (MC3T3-E1) in terms of cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. The results showed that the PHBV/HA/Col composite scaffolds possess better cell adhesion and significantly higher proliferation and differentiation than the PHBV/HA composite scaffolds and the PHBV scaffolds. These results suggest that the PHBV/HA/Col composite scaffolds have a high potential for use in the field of bone regeneration and tissue engineeringclose2