Smart Techniques Research Articles

Intelligent Technique for Human Authentication using Fusion of Finger and Dorsal Hand Veins

Multimodal biometric systems have been widely used to achieve high recognition accuracy. This paper presents a new multimodal biometric system using intelligent technique to authenticate human by fusion of finger and dorsal hand veins pattern. We developed an image analysis technique to extract region of interest (ROI) from finger and dorsal hand veins image. After extracting ROI we design a sequence of preprocessing steps to improve finger and dorsal hand veins images using Median filter, Wiener filter and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) to enhance vein image. Our smart technique is based on the following intelligent algorithms, namely; principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm for feature extraction and k-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) classifier for matching operation. The database chosen was the Shandong University Machine Learning and Applications - Homologous Multi-modal Traits (SDUMLA-HMT) and Bosphorus Hand Vein Database. The achieved result for the fusion of both biometric traits was Correct Recognition Rate (CRR) is 96.8%.

Managing Events of your Dreams using Smart Techniques

This application expect to tackle the issues of spreading news and data, and furthermore reduce the issue of conventional events overseeing methodology, for example, loads of paper work, or long line at the requirement work zone. The target of this venture is to build up an android application which gives fascinating information about different events. Also, clients will be ready to deal with their occasion interest, for example, holding their seats in occasions, enlisting at the occasion site, etc. With the headway of civilization arranging various occasions is one of the center pieces of scholastic life. In this time of ICT, sites are viewed as perhaps the best approach to contact individuals. Subsequently the majority of the occasions picked sites as a method of correspondence. Notwithstanding, it values the coordinator a decent measure of cash and time. Again for any generalized individual it is random to keep up and make such sites for several types of occasions namely wedding, reception, birthday, and so forth incessantly. By using many technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning this application is being implemented.

Materiality Disclosure in Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Malaysia

Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This paper aims to examine the determinants that influence companies to report material sustainability information in their corporate annual reports. Design/Methodology/Approach: To validate the determinants influencing materiality disclosure, content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of the top 113 Malaysian public listed companies in 2016, and the smart partial least squares technique was employed to examine the proposed relationships. Research findings: The empirical results indicate that board activity and board independence play a significant role in the determination of materiality disclosure. The results also reveal that board size, company size, profitability, leverage and industry are insignificant predictors of materiality disclosure. The results indicate that many listed companies in Malaysia disclose some amount of material sustainability information. However, the level of disclosure remains relatively low. Theoretical contribution/Originality: Notwithstanding that materiality is regarded as a key reporting principle in the preparation of sustainability reports, research on the application of the materiality concept in sustainability reporting remains to be an unexplored theme in Malaysia. This work sheds light on materiality disclosure in sustainability reporting of large companies operating in Malaysia through the combined views of the stakeholder and legitimacy theories. Practitioner/Policy implications: The results should be of great interest to policymakers who are concerned with formulating sustainability policies to achieve greater materiality disclosure. It also provides strategic insights to companies that board characteristics, such as board activity and board independence, influence materiality disclosure. Board members are urged to consider the importance of the reporting materiality determination process; otherwise, poor reporting may result in conflict with major stakeholder groups who do not see the material issues disclosed in the sustainability reports. Research limitation/Implications: The results are limited to the context of Malaysia. Future researchers can compare materiality disclosure with other countries, such as Singapore and Thailand, to enrich the sustainability reporting literature.

An Implementation for Smart Home System based on Internet of Things

The Internet of Things has a critical role in smart home systems techniques. A smart home system provides a major change in the life of humans that gives home appliances intelligent operation. These changes encouraged us to create a solution for controlling certain home appliances, such as doors and lights. This system is used to monitor the status of the door and windows, temperature, humidity, and measuring distance by using various sensors such as IR, DHT22, and ultrasonic sensors. In the main parts of these applications, NodeMCU ESP8266, relay module, and Arduino Uno used. The system presented in this workable to monitor and control home appliances from any corner of the world at any time and efficiently utilize by properly controlling the appliances. Ubidots IoT platform and Blynk application were used to check and read data from sensor modules placed in the home and, also to control home appliances by turning on/off relay switches such as doors and lights. The work also focused on protecting user's data by using the AES method to ensure that a system encrypts and encodes Wi-Fi information before sending it to a destination. Eventually, the system decrypts and decodes the data to restore the original data.

IoT in Agriculture

The agriculture sector in India is facing a lot of problems due to lack of water supply, instability of monsoon primitive farming techniques. But since a few years the farming has undergone tremendous changes, and is becoming more technology driven, by adopting various smart agriculture techniques, farmers have obtained greater control over the process of growing crops. Therefore making agriculture more efficient and predictable. In this research paper, we will explore the IoT techniques that can be employ ed in agriculture and examine their benefits.

Optimal Network Reconfiguration in Presence of Renewable Distributed Generation Using Evolutionary Algorithm

Utilization of new technologies and people lifestyle has greatly affected the world’s electricity market. This demands to design innovative renewable energy systems for efficient use of green energy. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, electricity from traditional energy supplies has become particularly harmful for the world. To decrease the reliance on fossil fuels, it is need of time to enhance the renewable energy integration in the conventional energy systems. Renewable DGs integration in existing energy systems is not a simple task. To overcome challenges caused by enhanced penetration of renewable energy systems in existing networks, adaptation of smart techniques is essential. DGs Optimal size and selection of their suitable location for integration is crucial for cost effective power delivery to the consumers without compromising the quality of power. This paper presents impartial performance management by optimal network reconfiguration in parallel with renewable DGs and selecting suitable size for reducing active power losses, pollutant gas emissions and costs of annual operation. For analysis of active power losses, Fuzzy and SPEA2 based algorithms are used in MATLAB with IEEE BUS14 acting as load bus. While the cost of power generation and pollutant gases emissions are estimated using HOMER Pro software.

Sustainable Finance, Current and Future Implications for Banks and Monetary Policy: Assessing COVID Impacts

The implications of COVID developments for monetary policy will certainly extend beyond the increased use of digital platforms and payments. The current environment is also focused on smart green techniques and green initiatives aimed at promoting a transition to a net zero based carbon emissions economy. During the onset of the pandemic, it was initially thought that carbon emissions would fall drastically – given the impact of the pandemic, not only on the airlines industry, but also as a result of “Stay at Home” measures imposed by jurisdictions, which even made it illegal to drive to certain places, where purposes for doing so were unjustified.However, the pandemic has also witnessed unprecedented levels in digital subscriptions, online sales and marketing – also fueled through digital payments and the use of digital platforms and distributed ledger technologies in facilitating cashless payments – cash, namely bank notes and coins, also being considered to be a medium of COVID transmission. Coupled with attributes such speed, convenience and ease, the need for financial inclusion has also become an objective in facilitating the era of innovative digital means of payments.As well as considering the current implications of measures that have been instigated to address the impacts of the pandemic, drawing from past and current lessons from selected jurisdictions, this paper also considers why the transition to a net zero carbon economy may prove more challenging than may first appear. However, jurisdictional differences and historical developments will play a part in determining how sustainable certain implemented policies and measures are – as well as in facilitating a transition to normality.

Значимість основних чинників економічної конкуренції у підприємництві через призму використання інструментів проєктного менеджменту

The main factors of economic competition are considered, namely: people, time, money and quality. The ability to manage these factors through specific project management tools is reflected. The practical significance of each of the factors of economic competition is emphasized and the appropriate project management tool for the management of each of the factors on the example of companies in various sectors of the economy, based on research results or statistics. In particular, when considering the factor of economic competition "people", it is recommended to pay special attention to their role in improving the effectiveness of strategies implementation and changing the goal as a key quintessence of the organization, and for the development of this factor improved stakeholder assessment process is proposed, which is often used in project management to increase its competitiveness. Another tool in people management is analyzed - SCRUM teams, which have become especially popular globally. Research data on the level of their use in various areas of management are presented. To control the time parameter of economic competition, it is recommended to pay attention to the SMART technique, according to which the goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and limited in time. The importance of the "time" factor in the competitive environment is demonstrated by the example of postal companies and compared their level of competitive advantage according to this criterion, as well as those companies that responded quickly to restrictive measures during the Covid-19 pandemic and changed their priority projects to those that are more urgent today. Regarding the "quality" factor, analyzing the world's achievements, attention was paid to the effectiveness of using 14 principles of E. Deming, which still remain relevant. The "costs" factor is governed by classical and further tools such as budgeting and the popular E. Deming cycle. It is concluded that the use of various project management tools in the field of economic competition to increase the positive impact of its factors allows ensuring the desired level of competitiveness of the organization of any field of activity and at any stage of its life cycle. These tools are easy to use, versatile and practical.

A Smart Technique to Remove Ruptured Inflatable Bone Tamp From the Vertebral Body in Balloon Kyphoplasty.

Accidental rupture of the inflatable bone tamp is a rare but possible complication during balloon kyphoplasty. We describe an easy and minimal invasive technique to remove this foreign body from fractured vertebra. A 62-year-old female patient with severe osteoporosis had a low energy trauma and sustained burst fracture of the 12th thoracic (Th12) vertebra. The inflated bone tamp was not possible to be fully deflated and during the maneuvers to withdraw the balloon, it was disassembled and trapped under the distal end of working cannula, remaining within the bone cavity formed by balloon. Since no standard recommendation for this complication exists in current literature, we faced the dilemma of either leaving ruptured bone tamp in situ or removing it with a more extensive approach. We decided to use an alternative minimal invasive technique and managed to remove it through the right pedicle using a small size straight pituitary rongeur forceps under biplane continuous image intensifier and neuromonitoring. Subsequently, balloon kyphoplasty (BK) was performed through the left cannula accompanied with pedicle screw fixation of the adjacent vertebrae. The patient was followed up to our outpatient department for one year without complications. This extremely rare complication during BK consists of a challenge for spine surgeons and interventional radiologists. The described technique is relatively easy, safe, minimal invasive, time-saving and avoids further complications related with trapping of foreign bodies within the vertebral body.

Human identification driven by deep CNN and transfer learning based on multiview feature representations of ECG

Increasingly smart techniques for counterfeiting face and fingerprint traits have increased the potential threats to information security systems, creating a substantial demand for improved security and better privacy and identity protection. The internet of Things (IoT)-driven fingertip electrocardiogram (ECG) acquisition provides broad application prospects for ECG-based identity systems. This study focused on three major impediments to fingertip ECG: the impact of variations in acquisition status, the high computational complexity of traditional convolutional neural network (CNN) models and the feasibility of model migration, and a lack of sufficient fingertip samples. Our main contribution is a novel fingertip ECG identification system that integrates transfer learning and a deep CNN. The proposed system does not require manual feature extraction or suffer from complex model calculations, which improves its speed, and it is effective even when only a small set of training data exists. Using 1200 ECG recordings from 600 individuals, we consider 5 simulated yet potentially practical scenarios. When analyzing the overall training accuracy of the model, its mean accuracy for the 540 chest-collected ECG from PhysioNet exceeded 97.60 %, and for 60 subjects from the CYBHi fingertip-collected ECG, its mean accuracy reached 98.77 %. When simulating a real-world human recognition system on 5 public datasets, the validation accuracy of the proposed model can nearly reach 100 % recognition, outperforming the original GoogLeNet network by a maximum of 3.33 %. To some degree, the developed architecture provides a reference for practical applications of fingertip-collected ECG-based biometric systems and for information network security.

Design and Implementation of Solar Based Dc Grid using Arduino Uno

Renewable Energy Sources (RES) such as Solar Photovoltaic (PV) became more popular over the last decade due to increasing environmental awareness and tax exemption policies on the solar PV systems. Integration of solar PV using various smart load management techniques will boost the efficiency of the overall system by reducing the massive cost of electricity bills. There is a need to find efficient and expert ways to enjoy these RES exclusively. Besides providing the connection between different loads, this system has the ability to collect information and execute control commands for the households by providing continuous observations and information about both load and supply profile, convincing the end user to take preventive measures by switching the auxiliary load to save power. This paper presents implementation of a low cost Solar based DC grid using Arduino. In the proposed system, the node which acts as a microcontroller reads the power consumption by the loads in each unit through current sensor. When the excess amount of power is consumed at particular unit, the controller makes the relay cut off the supply to the loads, which will be continuously displayed through LCD. This DC based power system helps to eliminate the requirement of converters systems, reducing converter cost, power system complexity, improve efficiency and reliability.

How to ease the fixation of carpal bones? Twenty-four lesions treated by 1,5 mm headless compression screws

BackgroundCarpal bone lesions are common, even in acute injuries or as sequalae of missed fractures. If not correctly diagnosed and treated, can lead to loss of function, especially in active patients. The surgical management remain difficult particularly in case of small, atypical or non-unions fragments. The treatment of heterogenic shape fractures should require a fragment specific fixation using, traditionally, Kirschner-wire (K-wire). This method of treatment remains the most popular but could be prone to some complication as: not stable fixation, need to long time immobilization and wire mobilization. Methods Nineteen patients presented with carpal bone lesions were treated by the use of HCS 1,5 mm headless compression screws. Patients were evaluated post-operative by Patient-Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE), the Visual Analogic Scale (VAS), Quick-DASH Score and the grip strength was measured by Jamar dynamometer. ResultsAuthors observed improvement of pain control and common activity; fine movements were restored; we observed no post-operative functional instability. ConclusionsHCS 1,5 mm headless compression screws are suitable and smart technique to treat these uncommon fractures to achieve a stable primary fixation and allow an early mobilization and conciliate the versatility of K-wire and the compression action due to screws also in small bone fragment.

Six-Gear Roadmap towards the Smart Factory

The fourth industrial revolution is the transformation of industrial manufacturing into smart manufacturing. The advancement of digital technologies that make the trend Industry 4.0 are considered as the transforming force that will enable this transformation. However, Industry 4.0 digital technologies need to be connected, integrated and used effectively to create value and to provide insightful information for data driven manufacturing. Smart manufacturing is a journey and requires a roadmap to guide manufacturing organizations for its adoption. The objective of this paper is to review different methodologies and strategies for smart manufacturing implementation to propose a simple and a holistic roadmap that will support the transition into smart factories and achieve resilience, flexibility and sustainability. A comprehensive review of academic and industrial literature was preformed based on multiple stage approach and chosen criteria to establish existing knowledge in the field and to evaluate latest trends and ideas of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing technologies, techniques and applications in the manufacturing industry. These criteria are sub-grouped to fit within various stages of the proposed roadmap and attempts to bridge the gap between academia and industry and contributes to a new knowledge in the literature. This paper presents a conceptual approach based on six stages. In each stage, key enabling technologies and strategies are introduced, the common challenges, implementation tips and case studies of industrial applications are discussed to potentially assist in a successful adoption. The significance of the proposed roadmap serve as a strategic practical tool for rapid adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies for smart manufacturing and to bridge the gap between the advanced technologies and their application in manufacturing industry, especially for SMEs.

A 3-D morphological approach on spatial form and cultural identity of ethnic mountain settlements: Case from Guizhou, China

Ethnic mountain settlements are living heritage of varied vernacular cultures. The preservation of both the built form and the intangible socio-cultural associations with them are global concern in process of urbanization, and in the notion of sustainable development. However, there is a lack of multi-dimensional and cross-cultural quantitative research in settlement morphology, making it difficult to guide practice effectively. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring an automatic or semi-automatic quantification and classification method for the morphological identity of ethnic mountain settlements. We introduce and combine 3-D morphological indicators with existing 2-D indicators to build and test three different sets of indication systems for semi-automatic classification for the settlements’ ethnic attribute basing on spatial morphology. Taking the Miao, Dong, and Tunpu (Han) ethnic settlements in Guizhou province, southwest China as research samples, we applied factor analysis and hierarchical clustering methods to compare the classification accuracy under the three systems using data from topographic map, field investigation map, satellite imageries, and ethnography or local chronicle. The results showed that, the 3-D indication system has succeeded in semi-automatic quantification and classification of settlement morphology and ethnic identity by greatly increasing the classification accuracy to 96.30%, which is a huge improvement compared with the basic 2-D indication system (42.59%) and the advanced 2-D indication system (61.11%). The settlement samples are further divided into two sub-types with significant morphological differences in each major ethnic category under the 3-D indication system. We then discussed the potential improvement and future large-scale application of this method with the help of machine learning and other smart techniques. We hope to provide a comprehensive quantitative perspective and a more scientific reference for the future preservation and sustainable development of the massive and diverse vernacular heritages across the world.

Real-time human detection for electricity conservation using pruned-SSD and arduino

Electricity conservation techniques have gained more importance in recent years. Many smart techniques are invented to save electricity with the help of assisted devices like sensors. Though it saves electricity, it adds an additional sensor cost to the system. This work aims to develop a system that manages the electric power supply, only when it is actually needed i.e., the system enables the power supply when a human is present in the location and disables it otherwise. The system avoids any additional costs by using the closed circuit television, which is installed in most of the places for security reasons. Human detection is done by a Modified-single shot detection with a specific hyperparameter tuning method. Further the model is pruned to reduce the computational cost of the framework which in turn reduces the processing speed of the network drastically. The model yields the output to the Arduino micro-controller to enable the power supply in and around the location only when a human is detected and disables it when the human exits. The model is evaluated on CHOKEPOINT dataset and real-time video surveillance footage. Experimental results have shown an average accuracy of 85.82% with 2.1 seconds of processing time per frame.

Amphiphilic antifouling membranes by polydopamine mediated molecular grafting for water purification and oil/water separation

A polydopamine mediated amphiphilic molecular grafting approach was designed by combining hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments into the same moiety for creating amphiphilic surfaces with enhanced antifouling properties. Polydopamine (PDA) coating was performed on microporous polysulfone (PSF) membranes to form an active mediating layer. After that N,N-dimethyl ethylenediamine (DMEDA) was grafted on the PDA layer via Michael addition reaction and the tertiary amine functionality of DMEDA was reacted with 1-Iodo-1H,1H,2H, 2H-perfluorodecane to obtain amphiphilic molecular functionalization. All modification steps were confirmed by characterizations using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, capillary flow porometry, and surface wetting using a dynamic contact angle method. The antifouling study by protein adsorption shows that the hydrophilic-hydrophobic molecular layers in proximity effectively prevent nonspecific protein adsorption compared to the virgin PSF membrane. The antifouling property was further evaluated by real-time cyclic filtration with a 5 mg ml−1 bovine serum albumin (BSA) solution. The final modified amphiphilic surface has shown reduced irreversible protein bounded properties on and inside the membrane surfaces along with high flux recovery. Furthermore, the oil-in-water emulsion filtration shows excellent oil rejection at a high flux rate with nearly complete flux recovery. These findings indicate a promising and smart membrane surface modification technique that can be readily tailored for water filtration and separation applications.

The Convergence of Struggles! Reusability Assessment of Inner‐Source Components for Product Lines

ABSTRACTInner source is establishing open source‐like collaborations within an organization. Product Line Engineering (PLE) is the approach for engineering a related product portfolio in an efficient manner, taking advantage of products’ similarities while managing their differences. These two well‐documented approaches propose smart techniques for reuse, but they use different terminology. A language characteristic is to be polysemic and polymorphic. Indeed, PLE and inner source do not use the same words to refer to equivalent concepts. This could badly affect project performance when evolving in a multi‐domain context. What if there was a way to better integrate PLE, inner source, modeling, data management, hardware and software engineering, and integration, verification, validation, and qualification (IVVQ) through the similarity concept?This paper shows it is possible to build a common way to assess the components (also called building blocks) contributing to a product line, thanks to a process to determine the component maturity levels using the similarity approach. After detailing the commonalities between the inner source and PLE domains, we present the Inner Sourcing Process Maturity Level (ISPML) as a key engineering practice. Why is it important for engineering? If engineers reuse components defined by their engineering assets, it is important to have a formalized, common way to do this across the company to integrate reusable multi‐domain assets with a certain confidence level. This paper introduces a simple method for multi‐domain organizations to better determine whether sharing an engineering asset is favorable or not.

Hybrid Detection for Cooperative Cognitive Radio Using AWT and HDWT

A lot of research shows that spectrum is not effectively used in wireless communications. There are several gaps in spectrum that are unused. Cognitive radio (CR) is a smart technique of addressing inefficient usage of spectrum resources. Spectrum sensing is a vital task in cognitive radio systems. The objective of the spectrum sensing process is to investigate the presence and absence of primary user signals in different spectrum holes. To increase the feasibility of the spectrum sensing process, it can be implemented in a cooperative mode. The cooperative spectrum sensing depends on a decision making task at a group of secondary users. One of the most popular spectrum sensing techniques is the energy detection. Unfortunately, this technique fails in low SNR scenarios to give high detection results. So, there is a need for cooperative spectrum sensing in addition to noise reduction techniques to enhance the performance of the CR system. This paper presents noise reduction techniques based on additive wavelet transform (AWT) with homomorphic decomposition and Haar discrete wavelet transform (HDWT) with homomorphic decomposition to reduce the noise prior to the decision making process. This scenario is investigated with several fusion rules that are used for the cooperative spectrum sensing with fixed-time sensing. Simulation results prove that with OR fusion rule, the proposed scenario increases the probability of detection in the range of SNR from − 20 to − 15 dB using the AWT with homomorphic decomposition. The achievable throughput increases using the HDWT with homomorphic decomposition. The AND fusion rule is not recommended with the HDWT, but the probability of detection is high with the AWT. The majority fusion rule achieves high throughput with the HDWT and a high probability of detection with the AWT.

Two Decades of Condition Monitoring Methods for Power Devices

Condition monitoring (CM) of power semiconductor devices enhances converter reliability and customer service. Many studies have investigated the semiconductor devices failure modes, the sensor technologies, and the signal processing techniques to optimize the CM. Furthermore, the improvement of power devices’ CM thanks to the use of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence technologies is rising in smart grids, transportation electrification, and so on. These technologies will be widespread in the future, where more and more smart techniques and smart sensors will enable a better estimation of the state of the health (SOH) of the devices. Considering the increasing use of power converters, CM is essential as the analysis of the data obtained from multiple sensors enables the prediction of the SOH, which, in turn, enables to properly schedule the maintenance, i.e., accounting for the trade-off between the maintenance cost and the cost and issues due to the device failure. From this perspective, this review paper summarizes past developments and recent advances of the various methods with the aim of describing the current state-of-the-art in CM research.

An accelerated solution for some classes of nonlinear partial differential equations

In this paper, we apply an accelerated version of the Adomian decomposition method for solving a class of nonlinear partial differential equations. This version is a smart recursive technique in which no differentiation for computing the Adomian polynomials is needed. Convergence analysis of this version is discussed, and the error of the series solution is estimated. Some numerical examples were solved, and the numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of this version.