Diversified Scenarios Research Articles

A decoupler assisted optimised controller design for the greenhouse system

This paper presents the novelty of the feedback feed-forward linearisation integrated with the optimised PID controller for the greenhouse system (GHS). The GHS is a group of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems with highly coupled, disturbed, and nonlinear dynamics. Using the proposed novel approach, initially, the nonlinear MIMO system is decoupled into two independent linearised single-input single-output (SISO) systems (i.e., temperature loop and humidity loop). After the decoupling, the separated loops are regulated by the genetic algorithm-based optimised PID controllers. The extensive simulation study is carried out for the stabilising and the tracking control for both the loops of the GHS in the presence of various initial conditions, and various load disturbances (e.g., canopy temperature, external temperature, external humidity, and solar radiation). Finally, the performance robustness of the proposed control structure is compared with the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller, conventional PID controller, and the Ziegler-Nichols tuned PID controller under diversified scenarios.

Evolutionary breakpoint regions and chromosomal remodeling in Harttia (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) species diversification.

The Neotropical armored catfish genus Harttia presents a wide variation of chromosomal rearrangements among its representatives. Studies indicate that translocation and Robertsonian rearrangements have triggered the karyotype evolution in the genus, including differentiation of sex chromosome systems. However, few studies used powerful tools, such as comparative whole chromosome painting, to clarify this highly diversified scenario. Here, we isolated probes from the X1 (a 5S rDNA carrier) and the X2 (a 45S rDNA carrier) chromosomes of Harttia punctata, which displays an X1X1X2X2/X1X2Y multiple sex chromosome system. Those probes were applied in other Harttia species to evidence homeologous chromosome blocks. The resulting data reinforce that translocation events played a role in the origin of the X1X2Y sex chromosome system in H. punctata. The repositioning of homologous chromosomal blocks carrying rDNA sites among ten Harttia species has also been demonstrated. Anchored to phylogenetic data it was possible to evidence some events of the karyotype diversification of the studied species and to prove an independent origin for the two types of multiple sex chromosomes, XX/XY1Y2 and X1X1X2X2/X1X2Y, that occur in Harttia species. The results point to evolutionary breakpoint regions in the genomes within or adjacent to rDNA sites that were widely reused in Harttia chromosome remodeling.

Bovine tuberculosis due to Mycobacterium bovis and other mycobacteria among water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) from the Brazilian Amazon.

Zoonotic tuberculosis is a disease of public health importance worldwide, especially in developing countries. The present study aimed to investigate the role played by Mycobacterium bovis and other mycobacteria as etiologic agents of bubaline tuberculosis (TB) in the Brazilian Amazon region. Granulomatous lesions suggestive of TB obtained from 109 buffaloes (n =109) during sanitary inspection at slaughter were subjected to histopathological evaluation, immunohistochemical (IHC) detection of Mycobacterium antigens, and to molecular tests (PCR) to detect hsp65, IS6110 and RD4 genes, which are specific to Mycobacterium spp., Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex (MTBC) and M. bovis, respectively. PCR results indicated Mycobacterium infection in 87.2% of the cases, of which 69.5% were positive for M. bovis, 27.4% belonged to MTBC, and 3.1% were probably non-TB mycobacteria. There was good agreement between the genus-specific molecular technique and the histopathological analysis. This high frequency of TB cases caused by non-M. bovis suggests a diversified scenario of mycobacteria associated with bubaline TB in the Brazilian Amazon region. The results reinforce the need of discussing the inclusion of more accurate techniques in examinations carried out by Inspection Services in Brazil.

Impact of organizational culture and its influences

In the midst of a diversified scenario due to globalization, therefore, fast, dynamic and more competitive, portrait of the current times, seeks to explain about the impact of Organizational Culture in order to contribute to the dynamics of adding knowledge to society in a systemic way. These reasons lead us to study about Organizational Culture, its impacts and contributions. Therefore, the objectives are: 1. To expose the configuration of the Organizational Culture from the interest of the creators of the business, through the bibliographical review (What is it? How does it appear? In what does it contribute?); 2. To know the influences that the culture exercises in the business, based on the expectations of the creators, to assure a position in the market and the commitment of the members with the organization; 3. To question some variables of the Organizational Culture from the factors that impose its permanence or modification in the current state. The research on the Impact of Organizational Culture is justified by the current changes that are increasingly faster, more competitive and with a demanding audience that, in addition to price, seeks for quality in service and practicality in the development of labor. This contributes to accelerated production and, above all, dynamics of services provided. According to the importance that the collaborators have been conquering, their work space each day counts on a globalized context. As for methodology, the research is characterized as a bibliographic review, with an exploratory aspect for the interaction of the problem, and explanatory about the exposure of the studies, through a proposal of qualitative nature. Based on the researches raised, it was portrayed that the Organizational Culture is revealed through the values, mission, vision of the business creator, and exerts influence on the attitudes and behaviors of the collaborators through the impacts that involve the performance, development and engaged commitment of all members, in search of ensuring the competition of the market and the attitudes of all that compose the collaborators' staff. Therefore, it is important to take into account the actions and reactions of both parties involved in the manner of appropriate treatment to maintain the organizational climate that impacts and influences behaviors, in particular. It was also found that the decision on the leadership style developed exerts influences and changes in the organizational climate, which may arise in a positive or negative manner, depending on the look of the employees and management of the leader.

Visual cryptography in single-pixel imaging.

Two novel visual cryptography (VC) schemes are proposed by combining VC with single-pixel imaging (SPI) for the first time. It is pointed out that the overlapping of visual key images in VC is similar to the superposition of pixel intensities by a single-pixel detector in SPI. In the first scheme, QR-code VC is designed by using opaque sheets instead of transparent sheets. The secret image can be recovered when identical illumination patterns are projected onto multiple visual key images and a single detector is used to record the total light intensities. In the second scheme, the secret image is shared by multiple illumination pattern sequences and it can be recovered when the visual key patterns are projected onto identical items. The application of VC can be extended to more diversified scenarios by our proposed schemes.

Intelligent Spectrum Sensing: When Reinforcement Learning Meets Automatic Repeat Sensing in 5G Communications

Spectrum sensing, which helps to resolve the coexistence issue and optimize spectrum efficiency, plays an important role in future wireless communication systems. However, the upcoming 5G communication involves diversified scenarios with different characteristics and diverse requirements. This tendency makes it difficult for spectrum sensing methods to flexibly serve various applications while maintaining satisfactory performance. Motivated by such a challenge, this article combines the reinforcement learning concept with spectrum sensing technique, seeking a feasible way to adaptively deploy spectrum sensing configurations so as to optimize system performance under multifarious scenarios in 5G communications. In this article, we first categorize several major optimization targets for spectrum sensing in future communications. Then we elaborate the full details of the proposed sensing technique. Three dedicated modes with respective optimization objectives are designed thereafter. Numerical results manifest that the proposed sensing technique has the capability of adapting to various scenarios, which is appealing in practice.

Migrants' Fertility in Italy: A Comparison Between Origin and Destination.

Previous research has analyzed the effect of migration on fertility, and a number of hypotheses have been developed: namely adaptation, socialization, selection, disruption and interrelation of events. Comparison among stayers in the origin countries, migrants and non-migrants in the destination country is essential to gain better understanding of the effects of migration on fertility. However, this joint comparison has been rarely conducted. We sought to fill this gap and analyze migrants' fertility in Italy. By merging different data sources for the first time, we were able to compare our target group of migrant women, respectively, born in Albania, Morocco and Ukraine with both Italian non-migrants and stayers in the country of origin. Considering the first three orders of births, multi-process hazard models were estimated in order to provide a more exhaustive and diversified scenario and to test the existing hypotheses. The results show that there is no single model of fertility for migrants in Italy. In addition, some hypotheses provide a better explanation of the fertility behavior than others do. Among women from Morocco, the socialization hypothesis tends to prevail, whereas Albanians' fertility is mostly explained in terms of adaptation. Disruption emerged as the main mechanism able to explain the fertility of migrants from Ukraine, and a clear interrelation between fertility and migration is apparent for women from Albania and Morocco, but only for the first birth.

Application of multi energy optimal scheduling in intelligent energy management and control platform

This paper analyzes the physical architecture and functional requirements of the regional smart energy management and control platform, and points out the key technologies applied in the platform development. Based on the consideration of multi energy balance, diversified user demands and changeable scenarios, the day ahead economic optimal scheduling model of smart park is established, and the optimal scheduling operation results are given.

Variation in the expression of stance across varieties of English

AbstractVariational pragmatics, one of the youngest branches of pragmatics, studies the different pragmatic values of items across varieties, and the different realisations of the same pragmatic function across varieties through different forms. Studies on (inter)subjectivity, and on pragmatically sensitive items in general, have started to include Inner Circle, Outer Circle and learners’ varieties of English, also thanks to the increased availability of computerised material. In particular, the expression of stance, one of the crucial functions of several language forms that undergo pragmaticisation, is increasingly the focus of variation studies. The paper aims at contributing to such studies, focusing on the parenthetical construction I'm afraid across texts included in the GloWbE corpus in different varieties of English. This discourse marker shows a range of stance‐expressing functions and a complex pragmaticisation path, as demonstrated by previous studies. The marker appears with widely diverging frequencies across the corpus – the study attempts to map this diversified scenario, which could point to a predominance, in different varieties of English, of different pragmatic strategies for the expression of stance.

Enhancing QoE for Mobile Users by Environment-Aware HTTP Adaptive Streaming.

HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) has become a dominated media streaming paradigm in today’s Internet, which enriches the user’s experience by matching the video quality with the dynamic network conditions. A range of HAS mechanisms have been proposed to enhance the Quality of Experience (QoE). However, existing mechanisms ignore the environmental impact in the QoE evaluation of mobile users, while the popularity of mobile video allows users to watch videos in diversified scenarios. In this paper, we propose an environment-aware HAS scheme that fully concentrates on the different criteria for evaluating video QoE under different environments. Using the advantage of the sensors in mobile phones, the scheme constructs and validates a video QoE model based on environment perception and then designs a model-driven, environment-aware HAS rate adaptation algorithm. We also evaluate the scheme with an environment-aware DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) player in real mobile environments. Compared to the benchmark HAS mechanism, the experimental results demonstrate that our scheme can provide appropriate differentiated rate adaptation for different environments, resulting in a higher QoE.

New discoveries of the Huangniliang site and cultural diversity in North China during early MIS 3

The Huangniliang site, located in the coastal province of Shandong, in North China, was excavated in 2013. Optically stimulated luminescence results show that the age of the deposits ranges from 59 to 54 ka, corresponding to the initial part of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3. This study introduces the detailed analyses of the stone artefacts from the site, and provides a review of the major Paleolithic sites dated to early MIS 3 in North China. Analyses of the Huangniliang lithic assemblage show that the principal flaking technique was direct hard-hammer percussion, but core preparations and systematic percussion are also present. A series of assemblages in North China show a diversified scenario before the Late Paleolithic (LP). Dominated by the simple flake-core tradition, lithic industries in northern China dated to 35–60 ka occasionally include a Mousterian-like industry, a macroblade technology, Acheulian-type large cutting tools, systematic percussion and diversified toolkits. Lithic technological organization expressed by systematic percussion and incipient organization on the land-use expressed by the organized acquisition of raw materials during early MIS 3 are indicators of behavioral complexity.

R-Node: New Pipelined Approach for an Effective Reconfigurable Wireless Sensor Node

The pipeline of reconfiguration is a novel approach that gives a decision making mechanism for any system of tasks when several reconfiguration scenarios are required. These scenarios represent the run-time operations that allow automatic functional modification of the system behavior. In the case of their frequent income, the pipeline follows a specific set of steps in order to figure out the scenarios that need to be applied without altering its own performance. The steps are represented by a sequence of modules. The first module checks the availability of the resources needed by the tasks. The second maintains the stability by rejecting any insupportable flow of software reconfigurations that can destabilize a system. The third module checks the availability of memory for each software reconfiguration request, whereas the fourth verifies the availability of energy for the execution of a new system software configuration. The last module checks the schedulability of this configuration by changing the priorities of the finally accepted tasks in order to reduce their response and blocking times, and to meet their deadlines. The feasibility of the reconfiguration through this approach allows its implementation in wireless sensor nodes. Known by their important requirements in terms of memory and energy, this proposition is adequate when it comes to guaranteeing a maximum lifespan of the nodes. Therefore, the pipeline of reconfiguration is integrated as a middleware within the software architecture of a node. The functionality of this middleware is coordinated by the mean of a set of threads that manage the communication between the pipeline of reconfiguration and the operating system. A tool has been developed within LISI Laboratory to encode this proposition and show its impact on a large range of real devices under diversified scenarios of reconfigurations.

Research and Implementation of ECG-Based Biological Recognition Parallelization

Nowadays, biological recognition technologies attract more attention in electrocardiograph (ECG) signals, which vary among different people and are difficult to counterfeit. However, the robustness of recognition cannot be well sustained in the case of diversified application scenarios and huge human crowds. In order to tackle this problem, this paper puts forward a fiducial and non-fiducial mixed feature extraction method, which can effectively complete the multidimensional feature modeling of ECG signal. In addition, this paper proposes a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on multiple features (LOMF) algorithm based on ECG mixed feature to solve time-overhead problem of big data training. LOMF includes ECG signal preprocessing, sub-block division, and block training. By combining the MapReduce distributed computing framework and the secondary retrieval method based on the multi-dimensional feature space, LOMF is parallelized to improve recognition rate and computing efficiency at the same time. The experiment results show that, in the diversified scenarios, utilizing ECG mixed feature can return a higher recognition rate than the traditional ECG 1-D feature. Moreover, compared with the traditional LDA and support vector machine algorithms, the precision of LOMF increases by 7%–8%, which depends on the most competitive advantage of using LOMF. LOMF fits MapReduce parallel framework well so it is more effective than traditional algorithms, especially on diversified application scenarios (such as Internet) where the amount of data grows rapidly.

Visual Tracking using Invariant Feature Descriptor

The process of identifying the state of an object in a video sequence is referred as visual tracking. It is mainly achieved by using the appearance information from a reference image to recognize the similar characteristics from the other images. Since a digital image is built-up with rows and columns of pixels that are represented with finite set of digital values, the appearance information is measured with a mathematical formulation that is known as image intensity. The problem of distinguishing the intensity of the object of interest from the other objects and the surrounding background is always the main challenge in visual tracking. In this study, a novel invariant feature descriptor model is introduced to address the aforesaid problem. The proposed framework is inspired by the theoretical model of local features that has been widely-used for image recognition. From the large number of diversified scenarios in the surveillance applications, the performance of the proposed model is demonstrated with the benchmarked dataset of single-target tracking. The experiment results shown the advantage of our proposed model for tracking non-rigid object in the changing background as compared to other state-of-the-art visual trackers. In addition, the important aspects of the proposed model are analyzed and highlighted as well in the experimental discussions.

Disaggregation of remotely sensed land surface temperature: A simple yet flexible index (SIFI) to assess method performances

Disaggregation of land surface temperature (DLST), the aim of which is to generate LSTs with fine resolution, has been attracting increasing attention since the 1980s. The past three decades have been witness to the emergence of DLST methods in large numbers, the accuracies of which were often assessed by comparing the disaggregated with fine spatial resolution LSTs using error indexes such as the root mean square error (RMSE). However, the majority of previous error indexes are, by their nature, insufficient for assessing the performances of DLST methods. This insufficiency is due in part to their lower competence at distinguishing the DLST error from LST retrieval errors and in part to their inability to remove the process controls resulting from different thermal contrasts, temperature units, and resolution ratios among different scenarios in which DLST is conducted. This is also because they are unable to denote the sharpening statuses of the DLST results (e.g., under- or over-sharpening). This status quo has made the evaluation of method performances challenging and sometimes unreliable.To better assess DLST method performances under diversified scenarios, we formulated five protocols, through which a simple yet flexible index (SIFI) was subsequently designed. The establishment of an SIFI includes the following four steps: (1) a detail-based evaluation, which is designed primarily to exclude the impacts of systematic deviations on estimated LSTs; (2) a Gaussian normalization, which is primarily intended to remove the differences in temperature units and thermal contrasts; (3) a triple comparison, with the aim of attenuating the influence of the difference in the resolution ratio in comparisons of method performances; and (4) a piecewise comparison, which is primarily scheduled to distinguish among the three sharpening statuses, under-sharpening, acceptable over-sharpening, and unacceptable over-sharpening. The evaluation ability of SIFI was compared with those of the RMSE, Erreur Relative Globale Adimensionnelle de Synthèse (ERGAS), and image quality index (Q) using simulation tests and actual thermal data. The results illustrate that SIFI generally outperforms the other indexes; it is able to mitigate the impacts from process errors and controls during evaluation and is able to indicate the sharpening statuses accurately. We believe this new index will likely promote the design of future DLST algorithms and procedures.

Moving Object Detection in Heterogeneous Conditions in Embedded Systems.

This paper presents a system for moving object exposure, focusing on pedestrian detection, in external, unfriendly, and heterogeneous environments. The system manipulates and accurately merges information coming from subsequent video frames, making small computational efforts in each single frame. Its main characterizing feature is to combine several well-known movement detection and tracking techniques, and to orchestrate them in a smart way to obtain good results in diversified scenarios. It uses dynamically adjusted thresholds to characterize different regions of interest, and it also adopts techniques to efficiently track movements, and detect and correct false positives. Accuracy and reliability mainly depend on the overall receipt, i.e., on how the software system is designed and implemented, on how the different algorithmic phases communicate information and collaborate with each other, and on how concurrency is organized. The application is specifically designed to work with inexpensive hardware devices, such as off-the-shelf video cameras and small embedded computational units, eventually forming an intelligent urban grid. As a matter of fact, the major contribution of the paper is the presentation of a tool for real-time applications in embedded devices with finite computational (time and memory) resources. We run experimental results on several video sequences (both home-made and publicly available), showing the robustness and accuracy of the overall detection strategy. Comparisons with state-of-the-art strategies show that our application has similar tracking accuracy but much higher frame-per-second rates.

A survey and analysis of the first 40 years of scholarly literature in DEA: 1978–2016

In recent years there has been an exponential growth in the number of publications related to theory and applications of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1978) introduced DEA as a tool for measuring efficiency and productivity of decision making units. DEA has immediately been recognized as a modern tool for performance measurement. Since then, a large and considerable amount of articles has been appeared, including significant breakthroughs in theory and a great portion of works on DEA applications, both public and private sectors, to assess the efficiency and productivity of their activities. Although there have been several bibliographic collections reported, a comprehensive analysis and listing of DEA-related articles covering its first four decades of history is still missing. This paper, thus, aims to report an extensive listing of DEA-related articles including theory and methodology developments and "real" applications in diversified scenarios from 1978 to end of 2016. Some summary statistics of the publications' growth, the most utilized academic journals, authorship analysis, as well as keywords analysis are also provided.

A descriptive framework for an excellent social accountability

Despite the creation of several guidelines for social accountability, there is not a model able to describe how a social accountability document should be. This paper aims at proposing a framework of characteristics for excellent social reports, useful for those organisations that choose the path of social accountability. After a review of literature on the typologies and features of this kind of accountability, the paper analyses the Italian social accountability awarded in the period 2012-2015. Research findings show how the benchmark documents are all characterised by high standards of communication while a more diversified scenario can be emphasised for the standards of content. Despite this paper is only an explorative study, it could represent a good guideline towards excellence in social reporting and could provide suggestions for their development.

Diagnosis of Faulty Sensors in Phased Array Radar Using Compressed Sensing and Hybrid IRLS–SSF Algorithm

In this work, a compressed sensing technique for diagnosis of faulty sensor in an array antenna is proposed. This technique starts from collecting the measurement of the far field pattern. The system relating the difference among the field measured using the healthy reference array and the field radiated by the array under test is analyzed using a parallel coordinate descent (PCD) algorithm, separable surrogate functionals (SSF) algorithm, iterative-reweighted-least-squares (IRLS) algorithm and hybrid IRLS---SSF. These algorithms are applied for complete and partial defective sensors in an array antenna. The simulation results indicate that the proposed hybrid algorithm outperforms in terms of localization of failure sensor with a less number of measurements. It has been shown that the hybrid IRLS---SSF algorithm provides an accurate diagnosis of complete and partial defective sensors as compared to PCD, SSF or IRLS alone. Variety of simulations has been provided to validate the performance of the designed algorithms in diversified scenarios.

Easy network: the way to go for 5G

To satisfy the explosive growth of mobile data traffic and communication connections in the year 2020 and beyond, the 5th generation (5G) mobile network will have to support more access schemes, frequency bands and diversified scenarios compared with the existing networks. Throughout the development of communication systems, the diversified combination of different technologies always makes the network more and more heavy, e.g., heavy deployment, heavy investment, heavy operation and maintenance (O&M), which has brought great challenges to the network applications. Therefore, 5G system should be designed as an easy network, characterized by easy deployment, low investment, easy O&M and delightful experience. According to this discussion, this paper identifies several technical components which can make up an Easy Network for 5G air interface, and the details of the Easy Network features are analyzed. Our study aims to make efforts to promote a healthy and sustainable environment for 5G at the beginning of the system design.