Showing papers on "Personal computer published in 2016"

FIT2D: a multi-purpose data reduction, analysis and visualization program

Abstract: FIT2D is one of the principal area detector data reduction, analysis and visualization programs used at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and is also used by more than 400 research groups worldwide, including many other synchrotron radiation facilities. It has been developed for X-ray science, but is applicable to other structural techniques and is used in analysing electron diffraction data and microscopy, and neutron diffraction and scattering data. FIT2D works for both interactive and `batch'-style data processing. Calibration and correction of detector distortions, integration of two-dimensional data to a variety of one-dimensional scans, and one- and two-dimensional model fitting are the main uses. Many other general-purpose image processing and image visualization operations are available. Commands are available through a `graphical user interface' and operations common to certain types of analysis are grouped within `interfaces'. Executable versions for most workstation and personal computer systems, and web page documentation, are available at http://www.esrf.eu/computing/scientific/FIT2D.

An interactive environment for agile analysis and visualization of ChIP-sequencing data

Abstract: To empower experimentalists with a means for fast and comprehensive chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) data analyses, we introduce an integrated computational environment, EaSeq. The software combines the exploratory power of genome browsers with an extensive set of interactive and user-friendly tools for genome-wide abstraction and visualization. It enables experimentalists to easily extract information and generate hypotheses from their own data and public genome-wide datasets. For demonstration purposes, we performed meta-analyses of public Polycomb ChIP-seq data and established a new screening approach to analyze more than 900 datasets from mouse embryonic stem cells for factors potentially associated with Polycomb recruitment. EaSeq, which is freely available and works on a standard personal computer, can substantially increase the throughput of many analysis workflows, facilitate transparency and reproducibility by automatically documenting and organizing analyses, and enable a broader group of scientists to gain insights from ChIP-seq data.

Workforce scheduling and routing problems: literature survey and computational study

Abstract: In the context of workforce scheduling, there are many scenarios in which personnel must carry out tasks at different locations hence requiring some form of transportation. Examples of these type of scenarios include nurses visiting patients at home, technicians carrying out repairs at customers’ locations and security guards performing rounds at different premises, etc. We refer to these scenarios as workforce scheduling and routing problems (WSRP) as they usually involve the scheduling of personnel combined with some form of routing in order to ensure that employees arrive on time at the locations where tasks need to be performed. The first part of this paper presents a survey which attempts to identify the common features of WSRP scenarios and the solution methods applied when tackling these problems. The second part of the paper presents a study on the computational difficulty of solving these type of problems. For this, five data sets are gathered from the literature and some adaptations are made in order to incorporate the key features that our survey identifies as commonly arising in WSRP scenarios. The computational study provides an insight into the structure of the adapted test instances, an insight into the effect that problem features have when solving the instances using mathematical programming, and some benchmark computation times using the Gurobi solver running on a standard personal computer.

Digital Technology Use Among Individuals with Schizophrenia: Results of an Online Survey

Abstract: Background: Despite growing interest in the use of digital technology by individuals with schizophrenia, little is known about how these individual relate to, own, and use technology in their daily life and in the context of their symptoms. Objective: The goal of this study is to better characterize technology use in those with schizophrenia. Methods: A Web-based survey of individuals’ use of and attitudes toward technology for those 18 years and older self-identifying as having schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia spectrum disorders was conducted. Consumer input was sought in the design of the survey. Results: In total, 457 individuals responded to this Web-based survey. Ninety percent owned more than one device (personal computer, landline telephone, tablet, public computer, mobile phone without applications or Internet, or smartphone), with many reporting high utilization of multiple devices, and 61% having 2 devices. The respondents reported that Web-based technology helped with support from family and friends, as well as in gathering information. Many respondents used Web-based technology to help identify coping strategies (24% very often or often) including music to help block or manage voices (42%), while others used technology to set alarms/reminders for medication management (28%). Younger respondents in particular anticipated the role of technology growing over time with respect to their recovery. Conclusions: Survey respondents reported that technology access was common, with utilization involving coping, reminders for medications and appointments, and connection. Overall, attitudes were largely positive. Overuse was a concern for 30% of respondents. The study is limited in its generalizability as the population was highly engaged in mental health treatment (87%), self-identified as living with the disorder, and had awareness of their illness. This survey demonstrates high engagement for a subset of technology-oriented individuals living with schizophrenia. It is not known what percent of individuals with schizophrenia are represented by these technology-oriented survey respondents.

IoT enabled environmental monitoring system for smart cities

Abstract: A smart city enables the effective utilization of resources and better quality of services to the citizens. To provide services such as air quality management, weather monitoring and automation of homes and buildings in a smart city, the basic parameters are temperature, humidity and CO 2 . This paper presents a customised design of an Internet of Things (IoT) enabled environment monitoring system to monitor temperature, humidity and CO2. In developed system, data is sent from the transmitter node to the receiver node. The data received at the receiver node is monitored and recorded in an excel sheet in a personal computer (PC) through a Graphical User Interface (GUI), made in LabVIEW. An Android application has also been developed through which data is transferred from LabVIEW to a smartphone, for monitoring data remotely. The results and the performance of the proposed system is discussed.

PL-SVO: Semi-direct Monocular Visual Odometry by combining points and line segments

Abstract: Most approaches to visual odometry estimates the camera motion based on point features, consequently, their performance deteriorates in low-textured scenes where it is difficult to find a reliable set of them. This paper extends a popular semi-direct approach to monocular visual odometry known as SVO [1] to work with line segments, hence obtaining a more robust system capable of dealing with both textured and structured environments. The proposed odometry system allows for the fast tracking of line segments since it eliminates the necessity of continuously extracting and matching features between subsequent frames. The method, of course, has a higher computational burden than the original SVO, but it still runs with frequencies of 60Hz on a personal computer while performing robustly in a wider variety of scenarios.

TimeAware: Leveraging Framing Effects to Enhance Personal Productivity

Abstract: To help people enhance their personal productivity by providing effective feedback, we designed and developed TimeAware, a self-monitoring system for capturing and reflecting on personal computer usage behaviors. TimeAware employs an ambient widget to promote self-awareness and to lower the feedback access burden, and web-based information dashboard to visualize people's detailed computer usage. To examine the effect of framing on individual's productivity, we designed two versions of TimeAware, each with a different framing setting-one emphasizing productive activities (positive framing) and the other emphasizing distracting activities (negative framing), and conducted an eight-week deployment study (N = 24). We found a significant effect of framing on participants' productivity: only participants in the negative framing condition improved their productivity. The ambient widget seemed to help sustain engagement with data and enhance self-awareness. We discuss how to leverage framing effects to help people enhance their productivity, and how to design successful productivity monitoring tool.

The Eh-pH Diagram and Its Advances

Abstract: Since Pourbaix presented Eh versus pH diagrams in his “Atlas of Electrochemical Equilibria in Aqueous Solution”, diagrams have become extremely popular and are now used in almost every scientific area related to aqueous chemistry. Due to advances in personal computers, such diagrams can now show effects not only of Eh and pH, but also of variables, including ligand(s), temperature and pressure. Examples from various fields are illustrated in this paper. Examples include geochemical formation, corrosion and passivation, precipitation and adsorption for water treatment and leaching and metal recovery for hydrometallurgy. Two basic methods were developed to construct an Eh-pH diagram concerning the ligand component(s). The first method calculates and draws a line between two adjacent species based on their given activities. The second method performs equilibrium calculations over an array of points (500 × 800 or higher are preferred), each representing one Eh and one pH value for the whole system, then combines areas of each dominant species for the diagram. These two methods may produce different diagrams. The fundamental theories, illustrated results, comparison and required conditions behind these two methods are presented and discussed in this paper. The Gibbs phase rule equation for an Eh-pH diagram was derived and verified from actual plots. Besides indicating the stability area of water, an Eh-pH diagram normally shows only half of an overall reaction. However, merging two or more related diagrams together reveals more clearly the possibility of the reactions involved. For instance, leaching of Au with cyanide followed by cementing Au with Zn (Merrill-Crowe process) can be illustrated by combining Au-CN and Zn-CN diagrams together. A second example of the galvanic conversion of chalcopyrite can be explained by merging S, Fe–S and Cu–Fe–S diagrams. The calculation of an Eh-pH diagram can be extended easily into another dimension, such as the concentration of a given ligand, temperature or showing the solubility of stable solids. A personal computer is capable of drawing the diagram by utilizing a 3D program, such as ParaView, or VisIt, or MATLAB. Two 3D wireframe volume plots of a Uranium-carbonate system from Garrels and Christ were used to verify the Eh-pH calculation and the presentation from ParaView. Although a two-dimensional drawing is still much clearer to read, a 3D graph can allow one to visualize an entire system by executing rotation, clipping, slicing and making a movie.

Estimating motor unit numbers from a CMAP scan

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) scans are detailed stimulus-response curves which provide information about motor unit properties in neuromuscular disorders. This study assessed a method of automatic motor unit number estimation (MUNE) from 5-min CMAP scans. METHODS: A preliminary model, derived from the variance and slope of the scan, is refined to fit the CMAP scan more closely. The method was tested by application to 60 simulated scans, generated from between 5 and 160 motor unit potentials. RESULTS: The fitting procedure took an average of 1.5 min on a standard personal computer. Small unit numbers (5-20) were on average correctly estimated, but large unit numbers (>40) were slightly underestimated. Overall, the absolute MUNE error averaged 6.9%. CONCLUSIONS: This new MUNE method takes all excitable motor units into account and provides realistic estimates of unit numbers over the range 5 to 160. Validation as a clinical tool awaits further study.

Fluorescence analyzer based on smartphone camera and wireless for detection of Ochratoxin A

Abstract: This manuscript describes an innovative approach to quantify the concentrations of ochratoxin A (OTA) using the smartphone as fluorescence device. The detection through the smartphone is based on the fluorescence phenomenon. It occurs when the sample is excited with ultraviolet (UV) light, the fluorescence from excited sample passes through a lens to smartphone camera. Finally, it is send by wireless to personal computer. The fluorescence image data from the smartphone camera is analyzed by a personal computer; then, the images are represented in its Red, Green and Blue (RGB) components. It is reported that OTA is naturally fluorescent, hence when the light is emitted through solution with OTA; it provides a blue fluorescence, so the image is captured with the smartphone camera whereas for blank solution, no fluorescence was observed. To process the image, a graphical user interface (GUI) in MATLAB R2011a was made. The best linear range with the developed system was in the range 2–20 μg/L and the limit of detection (LOD) was 2 μg/L. This is comparable with commercial equipment in a portable system and employing smartphone as a power source also.

A flexible field-limited ordered ZnO nanorod-based self-powered tactile sensor array for electronic skin

Abstract: A tactile sensor is an essential component for realizing biomimetic robots, while the flexibility of the tactile sensor is a pivotal feature for its application, especially for electronic skin. In this work, a flexible self-powered tactile sensor array was designed based on the piezoelectricity of ZnO nanorods (NRs). The field-limited ordered ZnO NRs were synthesized on a flexible Kapton substrate to serve as the functional layer of the tactile sensor. The electrical output performances of the as-fabricated tactile sensor were measured under pressing and bending forces. Moreover, we measured the human-finger pressure detection performance of the tactile sensor array, suggesting that the corresponding mapping figure of finger pressure could be displayed on the monitor of a personal computer (PC) in the form of lighted LED and color density through a LabVIEW system. This as-grown sensory feedback system should be of potential valuable assistance for the users of hand prostheses to reduce the risk and obtain a greater feeling of using the prostheses.

Efficient Implementation of the Backpropagation Algorithm in FPGAs and Microcontrollers

Abstract: The well-known backpropagation learning algorithm is implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board and a microcontroller, focusing in obtaining efficient implementations in terms of a resource usage and computational speed. The algorithm was implemented in both cases using a training/validation/testing scheme in order to avoid overfitting problems. For the case of the FPGA implementation, a new neuron representation that reduces drastically the resource usage was introduced by combining the input and first hidden layer units in a single module. Further, a time-division multiplexing scheme was implemented for carrying out product computations taking advantage of the built-in digital signal processor cores. In both implementations, the floating-point data type representation normally used in a personal computer (PC) has been changed to a more efficient one based on a fixed-point scheme, reducing system memory variable usage and leading to an increase in computation speed. The results show that the modifications proposed produced a clear increase in computation speed in comparison with the standard PC-based implementation, demonstrating the usefulness of the intrinsic parallelism of FPGAs in neurocomputational tasks and the suitability of both implementations of the algorithm for its application to the real world problems.

Key Compression for Isogeny-Based Cryptosystems.

Abstract: We present a method for key compression in quantumresistant isogeny-based cryptosystems, which allows a reduction in and transmission costs of per-party public information by a factor of two, with no e ect on security. We achieve this reduction by associating a canonical choice of elliptic curve to each j-invariant, and representing elements on the curve as linear combinations with respect to a canonical choice of basis. This method of compressing public information can be applied to numerous isogeny-based protocols, such as key exchange, zero-knowledge identi cation, and public-key encryption. We performed personal computer and ARM implementations of the key exchange with compression and decompression in C and provided timing results, showing the computational cost of key compression and decompression at various security levels. Our results show that isogeny-based cryptosystems achieve by far the smallest possible key sizes among all existing families of post-quantum cryptosystems at practical security levels; e.g. 3073-bit public keys at the quantum 128-bit security level, comparable to (non-quantum) RSA key sizes.

EpicRec: Towards Practical Differentially Private Framework for Personalized Recommendation

Abstract: Recommender systems typically require users' history data to provide a list of recommendations and such recommendations usually reside on the cloud/server. However, the release of such private data to the cloud has been shown to put users at risk. It is highly desirable to provide users high-quality personalized services while respecting their privacy. In this paper, we develop the first Enhanced Privacy-built-In Client for Personalized Recommendation (EpicRec) system that performs the data perturbation on the client side to protect users' privacy. Our system needs no assumption of trusted server and no change on the recommendation algorithms on the server side; and needs minimum user interaction in their preferred manner, which makes our solution fit very well into real world practical use. The design of EpicRec system incorporates three main modules: (1) usable privacy control interface that enables two user preferred privacy controls, overall and category-based controls, in the way they understand; (2) user privacy level quantification that automatically quantifies user privacy concern level from these user understandable inputs; (3) lightweight data perturbation algorithm that perturbs user private data with provable guarantees on both differential privacy and data utility. Using large-scale real world datasets, we show that, for both overall and category-based privacy controls, EpicRec performs best with respect to both perturbation quality and personalized recommendation, with negligible computational overhead. Therefore, EpicRec enables two contradictory goals, privacy preservation and recommendation accuracy. We also implement a proof-of-concept EpicRec system to demonstrate a privacy-preserving personal computer for movie recommendation with web-based privacy controls. We believe EpicRec is an important step towards designing a practical system that enables companies to monetize on user data using high quality personalized services with strong provable privacy protection to gain user acceptance and adoption of their services.

Consensus Control Under Communication Delay in a Three-Robot System: Design and Experiments

Abstract: A consensus-control protocol is designed and implemented here on a three-robot system arranged on a horizontal platform, in which a camera system is used to track robot positions, and a personal computer broadcasts commands to the robots based on this protocol via a Bluetooth connection, where such commands are affected by time delays. The design involves some salient features of this protocol based on a graph-based approach, an input–output linearization scheme, and addressing uncertainties in the control problem. By implementing this design on experiments, we show that consensus of the robots can be successfully achieved, and their speed of reaching consensus can be systematically improved. Experimental results also strongly agree with those obtained from nonlinear simulations.

A Wireless BCI and BMI System for Wearable Robots

Abstract: To increase the performance of a brain–computer interface and brain–machine interface system, we propose some methods and algorithms for electroencephalograph (EEG) signal analysis. The recorded EEG signal is transmitted to the computer and the upper limb robotic arm interface via a bluetooth. To obtain effective commands from brain, the recorded EEG signal is processed by a front filter, denoise filter, feature extraction, and classification, while the personal computer software and upper limb arm are driven by EEG-based commands. Through the encoders and gyroscopes on the upper limb arm, we can acquire some feedback signals in real time, such as joint angle, arm accelerated speed, and angular speed. The theory of wavelet denoising method, common spatial pattern algorithm and linear discriminant analysis algorithm are investigated in this paper. The simulations and experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of these algorithms on EEG signal denoising, feature extraction, and classification.

Digital pain drawings: assessing touch-screen technology and 3D body schemas

Abstract: OBJECTIVES To assess the consistency and level of agreement between pain drawings collected on (1) paper and a personal computer tablet; and (2) between a 2-dimensional (2D) line drawing and 3-dimensional (3D) body schema. MATERIALS AND METHODS Pain-free participants (N=24) recreated a premarked "pain" area from a 2D line drawing displayed on paper onto paper or tablet, and individuals with chronic neck pain (N=29) expressed their current pain on paper and tablet. A heterogeneous group (N=26) was recruited from cross-disciplinary pain clinic and expressed their pain on a 2D line drawing and a 3D body schema, as displayed on a tablet, and then completed an user-experience questionnaire. RESULTS Pain drawings showed moderate to high level of consistency and a high level of agreement for paper and tablet and between 2D line drawing and 3D body schema. A fixed bias (-1.0042, P<0.001) revealed that pain areas were drawn slightly smaller on paper than on tablet, and larger on the 2D than the 3D body schema (-0.6371, P=0.003), as recorded on a tablet. Over one-third of individuals with chronic pain preferred and/or believed that the 3D body schema enabled a more accurate record; 12 believed they were equal, and 3 preferred the 2D line drawing. DISCUSSION Pain drawings recorded with touch-screen technology provide equal reliability to paper but the size of the drawing slightly differs between the platforms. Although, 2D line drawings and 3D body schemas were similar in terms of consistency and reliability, it remains to be confirmed whether 3D body schemas increase the accuracy and precision of pain drawings.

Concentration profiles, source apportionment and risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in dumpsite soils from Agbogbloshie e-waste dismantling site, Accra, Ghana.

Abstract: The concentrations of eighteen (18) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including the 16 USEPA's priority PAHs as well as two alkyl-substituted naphthalenes were determined in dumpsite soils collected from different sampling sites within the Agbogbloshie e-waste dismantling site in Accra, Ghana. Following their isolation with ultrasonic-assisted extraction technique, the concentrations of the PAHs were determined by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Loss-on-ignition (LOI) method was employed for the determination of total organic carbon (TOC) of the soil samples. The mean Σ18PAHs obtained were 3006, 5627, 3046, 5555, and 7199 ng g(-1) dry weight (dw) for sampling sites A (mosque), B (dismantling site), C (residential house/police station), D (personal computer repairers' shop) and E (e-waste open burning area), respectively. In all cases, the prevalence of phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene was generally observed across the sampling sites. In this study, PAHs with two to three rings and four to six rings exhibited strong positive correlations, whereas BbF and BkF showed weak positive and negative correlations with other PAHs investigated. With the exception of BbF and BkF, all the PAHs had moderate to strong positive correlations with the TOC. Benzo[a]pyrene equivalent (BaPeq) concentration is a useful indicator of the carcinogenic potency of environmental matrices and these ranged between 111 and 454 ng g(-1), which are generally below the 'safe' level of 600 ng g(-1) established for the protection of the environment and human health. Interestingly, the seven carcinogenic PAHs were the major contributors to the BaPeq concentrations accounting between 97.7 and 98.3 %. Despite the minimal risk to cancer via exposure to the investigated dumpsite soil as indicated in the present study, the prolonged exposure to these pollutants via various exposure pathways may result in increased risk to cancer over time. The application of several methodological approaches for PAH source apportionment, including the use of molecular diagnostic ratios, mostly implicated pyrogenic processes as the main sources of PAHs into the investigated dumpsite soils. Furthermore, their compositional profiles across the sampling sites also suggest similar sources of PAHs into the dumpsite soil.

VCF-Miner: GUI-based application for mining variants and annotations stored in VCF files

Abstract: Next-generation sequencing platforms are widely used to discover variants associated with disease. The processing of sequencing data involves read alignment, variant calling, variant annotation and variant filtering. The standard file format to hold variant calls is the variant call format (VCF) file. According to the format specifications, any arbitrary annotation can be added to the VCF file for downstream processing. However, most downstream analysis programs disregard annotations already present in the VCF and re-annotate variants using the annotation provided by that particular program. This precludes investigators who have collected information on variants from literature or other sources from including these annotations in the filtering and mining of variants. We have developed VCF-Miner, a graphical user interface-based stand-alone tool, to mine variants and annotation stored in the VCF. Powered by a MongoDB database engine, VCF-Miner enables the stepwise trimming of non-relevant variants. The grouping feature implemented in VCF-Miner can be used to identify somatic variants by contrasting variants in tumor and in normal samples or to identify recessive/dominant variants in family studies. It is not limited to human data, but can also be extended to include non-diploid organisms. It also supports copy number or any other variant type supported by the VCF specification. VCF-Miner can be used on a personal computer or large institutional servers and is freely available for download from http://bioinformaticstools.mayo.edu/research/vcf-miner/.

System for visually detecting workpiece appearance defects based on image processing

Abstract: The invention discloses a system for visually detecting workpiece appearance defects based on image processing, comprising an industrial personal computer, a coaxial light source, a CCD (charge coupled device) industrial camera, an image acquisition card and a rejecting mechanism; both the coaxial light source and the rejecting mechanism are connected with the industrial personal computer; the CCD industrial camera is connected with the industrial personal computer through the image acquisition card; wherein the coaxial light source is used for providing a diffuse reflection light source for a workpiece to be detected; the CCD industrial camera is used for taking an image of the workpiece at a detection station; the rejecting mechanism is used for rejecting from a production line, workpieces detected to be defective; the industrial personal computer has a defect detection module based on image processing; the system is high in detection efficiency and easy to implement.