Mass-market Technology Research Articles

LOW-COST MULTI-FREQUENCY GNSS RECEIVERS: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FOR POSITIONING AND NAVIGATION

Abstract. In recent years, the possibility of using interoperable global constellations, the growing number of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) and the technological progress of instrumentation, computing algorithms and GNSS products are significantly marking the evolution of the various satellite survey techniques and the diffusion of mass-market technologies contributing to innovation transfers in different sectors including smart cities, smart mobility, connected automated driving, precision farming and others (Egea-Roca et al., 2022).Currently, the study of low-cost GNSS systems for navigation and precision positioning especially utilised in monitoring applications is the focus of numerous research activities (Joubert et al., 2020; Raza et al., 2022; Bellone et al., 2016; Hamza et al., 2020).The aim of this work is to test the performance of some of the latest generation multi-constellation and multi-frequency GNSS medium and low-cost sensors, evaluating their possible application in the mentioned fields. Differential and undifferential techniques were compared (Dardanelli et al., 2021; Ocalan et al.,2016); Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has become a valid alternative to differential methods allowing to obtain comparable accuracy offering greater flexibility (Lin, 2021). The multi-constellation permanent stations network GPS-Umbria was utilised for differential mode tests (Radicioni and Stoppini, 2019).The tests were carried out in different modes (static and kinematic) and operating conditions; various intermediate and low-cost sensors were employed, while the data of a high precision geodetic receiver were used as reference for the comparison of the different solutions.

Augmented Reality in Manufacturing: Exploring Workers’ Perceptions of Barriers

Augmented reality (AR) integrates virtual information realistically into a user's field of view. While research and industry forecasts agree that it will take several years for AR to be developed into a mass market technology, companies have already started rolling it out as an enterprise tool. By providing their workers virtual work-related information into the field of view, companies expect higher levels of efficiency. While some studies have tackled the positive aspects of AR, very little is known about potential barriers to AR in manufacturing. In this article, we constitute the first attempt to close this research gap by drawing on technology resistance research, incorporating findings from pilot studies, and analyzing data received from 263 manufacturing workers. As a result, it complements the extant literature by identifying multiple barriers to AR adoption on the worker level, assessing the magnitude of these barriers across different groups of workers, and identifying their relationships with technology resistance and acceptance factors. The findings extend technology resistance research, contribute to AR user research, and provide multiple recommendations for AR managers.

Development of Non Expensive Technologies for Precise Maneuvering of Completely Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

In this paper, solutions for precise maneuvering of an autonomous small (e.g., 350-class) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are designed and implemented from smart modifications of non expensive mass market technologies. The considered class of vehicles suffers from light load, and, therefore, only a limited amount of sensors and computing devices can be installed on-board. Then, to make the prototype capable of moving autonomously along a fixed trajectory, a “cyber-pilot”, able on demand to replace the human operator, has been implemented on an embedded control board. This cyber-pilot overrides the commands thanks to a custom hardware signal mixer. The drone is able to localize itself in the environment without ground assistance by using a camera possibly mounted on a 3 Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) gimbal suspension. A computer vision system elaborates the video stream pointing out land markers with known absolute position and orientation. This information is fused with accelerations from a 6-DOF Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to generate a “virtual sensor” which provides refined estimates of the pose, the absolute position, the speed and the angular velocities of the drone. Due to the importance of this sensor, several fusion strategies have been investigated. The resulting data are, finally, fed to a control algorithm featuring a number of uncoupled digital PID controllers which work to bring to zero the displacement from the desired trajectory.

An agent-based model for energy investment decisions in the residential sector

Energy-related investment decisions in the buildings sector are heterogeneous in that the outcome for each individual varies according to budget, values, and perception of a technology, even if an apparently identical decision task is faced. In particular, the rate of adoption of new energy-efficient technologies is often hard to model and underlines the need for an advanced approach to capture diversity in decision-making, and enable the inclusion of economic, comfort, environmental and social aspects. This paper presents an enhanced agent-based model that captures several characteristics of consumer behaviour that influence investment decisions. Multiple agents with different objectives, search strategies, and decision methods are implemented. A case study is presented which illustrates the benefits of the approach for the residential sector in the UK. The agent-based method shows diversity in investment decisions, without requiring the constraints on uptake needed in many models. This leads to a range of technologies in the market during a transition phase, continuous investment in low capital cost technologies, and eventually the emergence of a low carbon system based on new mass market technologies. The system that emerges is vastly different from one observed when economically rational investment is assumed and uptake constraints are applied.

Role of Occupational Therapy Practitioners in Mass Market Technology Research and Development.

Performance of many activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living involve technology, such as an electric toothbrush or a self-checkout register at the grocery store. Unfortunately, more than 60 million people with disabilities in the United States struggle to use these technologies because of inaccessible designs. Occupational therapy practitioners have a unique expertise in the design of accessible equipment. Practitioners have been involved in the design of adaptive and assistive equipment targeting use by people with disabilities since occupational therapy's beginnings. However, few occupational therapy professionals currently work in the research and development of everyday technologies. This article explores the role of the occupational therapy practitioner on the technology design team, discusses barriers to current practice, and makes recommendations to the profession.

Assembling mass-market technology for the sake of wellbeing: a case study on the adoption of ambient intelligent systems by older adults living at home

Everyday more and more ubiquitous applications are developed to support aging in place and ambient assisted living. Although these technologies typically adhere to the functional requirements defined by their developers, many of these solutions evidence limitations for being adopted by end-users, i.e., older adults. This paper reports the authors’ experience in the design and deployment of several iterations of the SocialConnector system—a computer-supported family communication mediator—as a case study that helps identify key factors that ease the adoption of ambient intelligent systems encouraging intergenerational family communication at home. The particularity of the followed approach is to assemble widely available mass-market technology—such as commercial Tablet PCs and TV displays—glued together with innovative software, as a way to drive system adoption through economically affordable hardware running over empirically-driven considerations for designing effective software in this study domain. The case study results help researchers and practitioners to conceive technology that has a better chance of being embraced by older adults and their supporting family networks; particularly, when such a technology is going to be deployed in their homes. Therefore, the key design factors identified in this paper can be used to inform the conception and modeling of ambient intelligent systems that help older adults address several aspects of their aging in place process, like health monitoring, personal security, social engagement, support to daily activities, and ultimately, fostering wellbeing.

Evaluation Of Mass Market Devices For The Documentation Of The Cultural Heritage

Abstract. The cultural and artistic heritage has always been at the center of activities aimed at its preservation and enhancement. Italy is a country particularly rich in terms of heritage to be protected, where the high-risk due to natural hazard, as earthquakes, landslides and floods, which are adds to human activities, contribute to make the heritage more frail, land needs to be safeguarded and enhanced and new mass market technology can be considered as innovative tools for the documentation of cultural heritage. In order to increase our country on the artistic point of view, it must be known in an historical and cultural way. Moreover, it is important also to define the cultural heritage on metric terms, to be able to describe and represent it with the best approach, with the purpose to offer to the people who comes to visit our beautiful country, the reliable model of some important object, that is no longer in exposition. The possibility to use the mass-market devices can allow us to realize it, because they are available for the greater part of the visitors, in a photogrammetric way to reconstruct our models. In the last years, these devices have been very improved and the embedded sensors are becoming more and more efficient in terms of precision and reliability. Also several small video cameras are now used to document our travels and activities and to share them through Internet. In this scenario, the aim of this research is to study and validate the possibility to use mass-market technology for this purpose, testing four different devices (smartphones and video cameras) for the documentation of the cultural heritage.

Qualification Tests of Micro-camera Modules for Space Applications

Visual capability is very important for space-based activities, for which small, low-cost space cameras are desired. Although cameras for terrestrial applications are continually being improved, little progress has been made on cameras used in space, which must be extremely robust to withstand harsh environments. This study focuses on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) CMOS digital cameras because they are very small and are based on an established mass-market technology. Radiation and ultrahigh-vacuum tests were conducted on a small COTS camera that weighs less than 100 mg (including optics). This paper presents the results of the qualification tests for COTS cameras and for a small, low-cost COTS-based space camera.

Blogging Your PACS

Acquiring, implementing, and maintaining a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) is an enduring and complex endeavor. A large-scale project such as this requires efficient and effective communication among a large number of stakeholders, sharing of complex documentation, recording ideas, experiences, and events such as meetings, and project milestones to succeed. Often, mass-market technologies designed for other purposes can be used to solve specific complex problems in healthcare. In this case, we wanted to explore the role of popular weblogging or "blogging" software to meet our needs. We reviewed a number of well-known blog software packages and evaluated them based on a set of criteria. We looked at simplicity of installation, configuration, and management. We also wanted an intuitive, Web-based interface for end-users, low cost of ownership, use of open source software, and a secure forum for all PACS team members. We chose and implemented the Invision Power Board for two purposes: local PACS administrative purposes and for a national PACS users' group discussion. We conclude that off the shelf, state-of-the-art, mass-market software such as that used for the currently very popular purpose of weblogging or "blogging" can be very useful in managing the variety of communications necessary for the successful implementation of PACS.

Reading Publics, Theater Audiences, and the Little Magazines of the Abbey Theatre

In their introduction to The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography (1946), William Hoffman, Charles Allen, and Carolyn R Ulrich provide a sem inal definition of magazine as organ strictly anticommercial because of its commitment to publishing cerebral and unorthodox work. That charac terization has until recently been uncritically embraced by scholars of this genre. By focusing largely on American magazines like Poetry The Mass es, and The Little Review, Hoffman, Allen, and Ulrich further explain that these advance guard magazines were described as little because the word desig nated above everything else ... a limited group of intelligent readers1 In his recent study The Public Face of Modernism: Little Magazines, Audiences, and Reception 1905-1920 (2000), Mark Morrisson usefully and convincingly argues that in fact these journals in both England and America adapted techniques of mass-market press in a quest to popularize modernist ideals and aes thetics. Though never achieving vast recognition accorded magazines like England's Tit Bits, these magazines suggest for Morrisson an early opti mism about power of mass market technologies and institutions to trans form and rejuvenate contemporary culture, owing in part to their efforts to assert widely public function of art.2 These radically different perceptions of intended audience for magazine?insights separated by half a century?reflect transformation in how literary criticism depicts mod ernism's relationship to mass culture. Hoffman and his fellow editors advocate in their definition narrowly anticommercial elitism of a New Critical mod ernism, whereas Morrisson insists these publications bridged great divide separating high art and popular art.3

Near Real-Time Image Reconstruction

In recent years, post-facto image-processing algorithms have been developed to achieve diffraction-limited observations of the solar surface. We present a combination of frame selection, speckle-masking imaging, and parallel computing which provides real-time, diffraction-limited, 256×256 pixel images at a 1-minute cadence. Our approach to achieve diffraction limited observations is complementary to adaptive optics (AO). At the moment, AO is limited by the fact that it corrects wavefront abberations only for a field of view comparable to the isoplanatic patch. This limitation does not apply to speckle-masking imaging. However, speckle-masking imaging relies on short-exposure images which limits its spectroscopic applications. The parallel processing of the data is performed on a Beowulf-class computer which utilizes off-the-shelf, mass-market technologies to provide high computational performance for scientific calculations and applications at low cost. Beowulf computers have a great potential, not only for image reconstruction, but for any kind of complex data reduction. Immediate access to high-level data products and direct visualization of dynamic processes on the Sun are two of the advantages to be gained.

The Public Face of Modernism: Little Magazines, Audiences, and Reception 1905-1920

Between the 1890s and the 1920s, mass consumer culture and grew up together, by most accounts as mutual antagonists. This provocative work of cultural history tells a different story. By delving deeply into the publishing and promotional practices of the modernists in Britain and America, however, Mark Morrisson reveals that their engagements with the commercial mass market were in fact extensive and diverse. phenomenal successes of new advertising agencies and mass market publishers did elicit what Morrisson calls a crisis of for some modernists and for many concerned citizens in both countries. But, as Morrisson demonstrates, the vast influence of these industries on consumers also had a profound and largely overlooked effect upon many modernist authors, artists, and others. By exploring the publicity and audience reception of several of the most important modernist magazines of the period, The Public Face of Modernism shows how modernists, far from lamenting the destruction of meaningful art and culture by the new mass market, actually displayed optimism about the power of mass-market technologies and strategies to transform and rejuvenate contemporary culture and, above all, to restore a function to art. This reconstruction of the public face of modernism offers surprising new perceptions about the class, gender, racial, and even generational tensions within the culture of the early part of the century, and provides a rare insight into the actual audiences for modernist magazines of the period. Moreover, in new readings of works by James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and many others, Morrisson shows that these contexts also had an impact on the techniques and concerns of the literature itself.