PALS/PRISM Software Design Description (SDD): Ver. 0.51

This Software Design Description (SDD) provides detailed information on the architecture and coding for the PRISM C++ library (version 0.51). The PRISM C++ library supports consistent information sharing and in- teractions between distributed components of networked embedded systems, e.g. avionics. It is designed to reduce the complexity of the networked sys- tem by employing synchronous semantics provided by the architectural pat- tern called a Physically-Asynchronous Logically-Synchronous (PALS) system.unpublishednot peer reviewe

Contemporary Art Authentication With Large-Scale Classification

Art authentication is the process of identifying the artist who created a piece of artwork and is manifested through events of provenance, such as art gallery exhibitions and financial transactions. Art authentication has visual influence via the uniqueness of the artist’s style in contrast to the style of another artist. The significance of this contrast is proportional to the number of artists involved and the degree of uniqueness of an artist’s collection. This visual uniqueness of style can be captured in a mathematical model produced by a machine learning (ML) algorithm on painting images. Art authentication is not always possible as provenance can be obscured or lost through anonymity, forgery, gifting, or theft of artwork. This paper presents an image-only art authentication attribute marker of contemporary art paintings for a very large number of artists. The experiments in this paper demonstrate that it is possible to use ML-generated models to authenticate contemporary art from 2368 to 100 artists with an accuracy of 48.97% to 91.23%, respectively. This is the largest effort for image-only art authentication to date, with respect to the number of artists involved and the accuracy of authentication

Indoor Smoking Detection Based on YOLO Framework with Infrared Image

This study recommends combining the efficacy of YOLO with the greater visibility provided by infrared imaging to create a better indoor smoking detection system. The YOLO system divides photos into a grid and anticipates bounding boxes and class probabilities at the same time, making it an obvious choice for its real-time item detection capabilities. The approach improves its robustness by identifying heat signals associated with smoking sessions and overcoming limitations posed by low-light or blocked circumstances. The addition of infrared images significantly improved the system's performance in low-light conditions. A dual spectrum thermal camera is used in the entire indoor smoking detection system to obtain a large collection of infrared images representing various interior locations with documented smoking episodes. During the training phase, data augmentation processes such as random rotations, flips, and brightness and contrast fluctuations were used to improve the system's performance. The CIoU loss function improved the system's localization accuracy significantly, reducing false positives and improving overall detection performance. The combination of YOLO and infrared photography, in conjunction with data augmentation and the CIoU loss function, not only improves indoor smoking detection but also demonstrates the benefits of merging several technologies in the development of more effective and adaptive systems

Traffic Congestion in Bangladesh- Causes and Solutions: A study of Chittagong Metropolitan City

One of the most challenging and complicated issues in city management in the present decade for Bangladesh is the traffic problem. It is a very common phenomenon in almost all the cities of Bangladesh. Presently, traffic congestion problem in Bangladesh are increasing at an alarming rate. The traffic problem has become to a very dangerous arena and has already implicit agonizing extent in the cities of Bangladesh. This type of study has been conducted in Dhaka but not in Chittagong city. Traffic management in Chittagong is not well organized as Dhaka so that the problem is becoming more complicated as the number of people in Chittagong is increasing and it is getting the priority after Dhaka. This article is dedicated to determine the current condition of traffic management in Chittagong City. This article explore the causes involved in traffic congestion including heavy concentration of vehicles, absence of adequate public transport, inadequate road infrastructure, faulty signaling equipment and poor enforcement of traffic rules. At the end of the paper the researchers tried to identify the solution of traffic jam in Chittagong Metropolitan City

Is the Stock Market Overvalued: A Study in the Context of Bangladesh?

The primary objective of this paper is to analyze if the Market overvalued. We studied prices of 17 actively companies in the Market from 2006 to 2010 and used three Valuation Ratios with an explicit corporate sector along with overall market index data and found that the Stock Marke overvalued. The analysis was completed in two stages. At first we analyzed each of the 17 companies to determine the condition of each company .This part shows that among 17 companies most of the companies’ share prices are overvalued and they are also inefficient in managing costs. The second stage of the analysis is composed of 17 companies share prices along with examination of capital accumulation in corresponding period. This result also shows that the market overvalued. From my analysis a relationship has been found between mass capital accumulation and Market Overvalued

Wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance to monitor the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in developing countries with onsite sanitation facilities

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a valuable approach for forecasting disease outbreaks in developed countries with a centralized sewage infrastructure. On the other hand, due to the absence of well-defined and systematic sewage networks, WBE is challenging to implement in developing countries like Bangladesh where most people live in rural areas. Identification of appropriate locations for rural Hotspot Based Sampling (HBS) and urban Drain Based Sampling (DBS) are critical to enable WBE based monitoring system. We investigated the best sampling locations from both urban and rural areas in Bangladesh after evaluating the sanitation infrastructure for forecasting COVID-19 prevalence. A total of 168 wastewater samples were collected from 14 districts of Bangladesh during each of the two peak pandemic seasons. RT-qPCR commercial kits were used to target ORF1ab and N genes. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic materials was found in 98% (165/168) and 95% (160/168) wastewater samples in the first and second round sampling, respectively. Although wastewater effluents from both the marketplace and isolation center drains were found with the highest amount of genetic materials according to the mixed model, quantifiable SARS-CoV-2 RNAs were also identified in the other four sampling sites. Hence, wastewater samples of the marketplace in rural areas and isolation centers in urban areas can be considered the appropriate sampling sites to detect contagion hotspots. This is the first complete study to detect SARS-CoV-2 genetic components in wastewater samples collected from rural and urban areas for monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. The results based on the study revealed a correlation between viral copy numbers in wastewater samples and SARS-CoV-2 positive cases reported by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) as part of the national surveillance program for COVID-19 prevention. The findings of this study will help in setting strategies and guidelines for the selection of appropriate sampling sites, which will facilitate in development of comprehensive wastewater-based epidemiological systems for surveillance of rural and urban areas of low-income countries with inadequate sewage infrastructure.This research was supported by Water Aid Bangladesh, North South University, Dhaka, COVID-19 Diagnostic Lab, Department of Microbiology, Noakhali Science and Technology University (NSTU), Noakhali, Bangladesh, the International Training Network of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (ITN-BUET) - Centre for Water Supply and Waste Management, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. We acknowledge the sincere help and support of the staff and volunteers of NSTU-COVID-19 Diagnostic Lab, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh during the different phases of the study. PB and MTI acknowledge the Life Science Technology Platform, Science for Life Laboratory for the seed funding to initiate the wastewater-based epidemiological studies for SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh. We would also like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments as well as their thoughtful insights, which has significantly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewe

The Holocene humid period in the Nefud Desert: Hunters and herders in the Jebel Oraf palaeolake basin, Saudi Arabia

Archaeological surveys and excavations in the Jebel Oraf palaeolake basin, north-western Saudi Arabia, have identified a well-preserved early- to mid-Holocene landscape. Two types of occupation site can be distinguished: nine small and ephemeral scatters from single occupation phases on the slopes of sand dunes and three hearth sites indicative of repeated occupation on palaeolake shorelines. In addition, 245 rock art panels, 81 cairns, and 15 stone structures were recorded. This diverse dataset provides an opportunity to reconstruct occupation patterns and changes in landscape use. A particularly important site, Jebel Oraf 2, documents two episodes of lake high stands at ca. 6500 BC and 5300 BC, flooding parts of the locality. Neolithic pastoralists likely occupied the site after the end of the wet season, when the terrain was dry. Earlier sites are located in dune embayments some 7–14 m above the shore of the palaeolake. These locations are consistent with hunting strategies identifiable in the rock art that suggest wildlife was ambushed at watering places. Later rock art at Jebel Oraf also documents the hunting of wild camel in the Iron Age. The lithic industries documented in the Jebel Oraf basin support arguments of repeated contact with Levantine populations

Performance Evaluation of the Illinois Cloud Computing Testbed

Cloud computing has the potential to bring sophisticated computing facility at the door-steps of users. The performance of services hosted at a cloud generally depends on its computation, storage and networking models. Since the storage and communication costs in a data-intensive application usually dominate the overall cost, we analyze the performance of the storage and communication facilities of a cloud. Little work has been done to measure the performance of existing cloud facilities. In this project, we experiment on the Open Cirrus cloud computing research testbed located at the University of Illinois. We evaluate the performance of this cloud environment while providing service to users located at different parts of the world. We use PlanetLab and Emulab as part of our experiments to mimic distributed users and cloud facilities. We observe that the performance mostly vary because of the network characteristics between the cloud facility and its users. Performance also depends on internal cloud architecture. Based on our experiences, we suggest different possible enhancements of existing cloud computing environments.unpublishednot peer reviewe

Modeling and Complexity Comparison of Different Designs

unpublishednot peer reviewe

Synchronous AADL and its Formal Analysis in Real-Time Maude

Distributed Real-Time Systems (DRTS), such as avionics systems and distributed control systems in motor vehicles, are very hard to design because of asynchronous communication, network delays, and clock skews. Furthermore, their model checking typically becomes unfeasible due to the large state spaces caused by the interleavings. For many DRTSs, we can use the PALS methodology to reduce the problem of designing and verifying asynchronous DRTSs to the much simpler task of designing and verifying their synchronous versions. AADL is an industrial modeling standard for avionics and automotive systems. We define in this paper the Synchronous AADL language for modeling synchronous real-time systems in AADL, and provide a formal semantics for Synchronous AADL in Real-Time Maude. We have integrated into the OSATE modeling environment for AADL a plug-in which allows us to model check Synchronous AADL models in Real-Time Maude within OSATE. We exemplify such verification on an avionics system, whose Synchronous AADL design can be model checked in less than 10 seconds, but whose asynchronous design cannot be feasibly model checked.Boeing/C8088CNS 08-34709CCF 09-05584The Research Council of Norwayunpublishednot peer reviewe