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Advancements in technology have led to the use of smartphones as biosensor detectors. However, it is difficult to obtain stable color information of colorimetric sensors using multiple smartphones owing to different light conditions and image correction operations. In this study, we attempted color detection of the colorimetric paper chip using smartphone-embedded light-emitting diode (LED) and simple transformation calculation. This method enables the acquisition of stable color information using different smartphones by reducing the influence of external light sources. Moreover, we studied characteristics such as convergence and distinction of detection result details by the manufacturers and smartphones. These findings suggested the necessity of classification criteria for the use of smartphones to achieve optimal detection. In addition, white and black references were used to set the standard for color correction of various light sources. Based on our results, we conclude that this approach presents the possibility of smartphone-based colorimetric detection in practical applications.

International audience; This paper focuses on the problem of the hierarchical multi‐label classification of research papers, which is the task of assigning the set of relevant labels for a paper from a hierarchy, using reduced amounts of labelled training data. Specifically, we study leveraging unlabelled data, which are usually plentiful and easy to collect, in addition to the few available labelled ones in a semi‐supervised learning framework for achieving better performance results. Thus, in this paper, we propose a semi‐supervised approach for the hierarchical multi‐label classification task of research papers based on the well‐known Co‐training algorithm, which exploit content and bibliographic coupling information as two distinct papers' views. In our approach, two hierarchical multi‐label classifiers, are learnt on different views of the labelled data, and iteratively select their most confident unlabelled samples, which are further added to the labelled set. The success of our suggested Co‐training‐based approach lies in two main components. The first is the use of two suggested selection criteria (i.e., Maximum Agreement and Labels Cardinality Consistency) that enforce selecting confident unlabelled samples. The second is the appliance of an oversampling method that rebalances the labels distribution of the initial labelled set, which reduces the reinforcement of the label imbalance issue during the Co‐training learning. The proposed approach is evaluated using a collection of scientific papers extracted from the ACM digital library. Performed experiments show the effectiveness of our approach with regards to several baseline methods.

To explore whether the brain contains pattern differences in the rock–paper–scissors (RPS) imagery task, this paper attempts to classify this task using fNIRS and deep learning. In this study, we designed an RPS task with a total duration of 25 min and 40 s, and recruited 22 volunteers for the experiment. We used the fNIRS acquisition device (FOIRE-3000) to record the cerebral neural activities of these participants in the RPS task. The time series classification (TSC) algorithm was introduced into the time-domain fNIRS signal classification. Experiments show that CNN-based TSC methods can achieve 97% accuracy in RPS classification. CNN-based TSC method is suitable for the classification of fNIRS signals in RPS motor imagery tasks, and may find new application directions for the development of brain–computer interfaces (BCI).

This paper aims at defining, analyzing and evaluating barriers and drivers for eco-design implementation to the Finnish pulp and paper industry by using multi-criteria decision-making methods and consolidated ranking methodology. The drivers and barriers are identified through literature research and a survey is conducted for their evaluation. The results show that barriers more commonly present and interconnected in companies originate from internal management, while drivers often originate from external stakeholders. The paper concludes with policy recommendation, which will facilitate the adoption of eco-deign practices for sustainable manufacturing in the Finnish pulp and paper industry. The ranking of the barriers and drivers from different point of view will help the decision-makers and managers in government and industry to mitigate these barriers in an effective manner.

Biologically inspired or mimetic approaches have been traditionally widely adopted in robotic creative design. Generally, the most considered source for biorobotics and soft robotics are animals. Rarely, plants have been considered as a model of inspiration for innovative engineering solutions owing to their inconspicuous motion principles. In this work, a new type of plant-inspired soft robotic gripper was created by reconstructing and simulating the leaf structure and head formation mechanisms of cabbage. Firstly, according to the research reports of biological morphology and curling development mechanism of cabbage leaves, we determined that the flexible leaf with special hierarchical veins is the biological structure basis of curling formation. In the light of this observation, we designed a cabbage-inspired leaf bionic structure using paper substrate as a leaf body and using polylactic acid (PLA) polymer as leaf veins. This bionic design schema of cabbage leaves first has the advantage of ease of manufacture using 3D printing technology. In addition, due to the shape memory effect of PLA, we can control the reciprocal deformation of bionic leaves by controlling the temperature field. Undoubtedly, when two or more pieces of such bionic leaves are assembled together, they can be considered as a soft robotic gripper. Furthermore, we thoroughly studied the embodiment design of this bionic design concept as well as its 3D printing process. Finally, we built a prototype of this cabbage-inspired soft robotic gripper and successfully performed small objects (e.g., spitballs and cylinders) grasping experiments. Obviously, this research achievement first successfully integrated the bionic structure of plant deformation, direct digital manufacturing, and the control of shape memory materials. Secondly, this work realized the unified design of the structure, function, driving, and fabrication of robotics, and further expanded the family of the bionic robot, especially plant-like or plant-inspired robotic solutions.

An improved paper-based analytical device (PAD) using color screening to enhance device performance is described. Current detection methods for PADs relying on the distance-based signalling motif can be slow due to the assay time being limited by capillary flow rates that wick fluid through the detection zone. For traditional distance-based detection motifs, analysis can take up to 45 min for a channel length of 5 cm. By using a color screening method, quantitation using distance-based PAD can be achieved in minutes using a “dip-and-read” approach. A colorimetric indicator line deposited onto a paper substrate using inkjet-printing undergoes a concentration-dependent colorimetric response for a given analyte. This color intensity-based response has been converted to a distance-based signal by overlaying a color filter with a continuous color intensity gradient matching the color of the developed indicator line. As a proof-of-concept, Ni quantification in welding fume was performed as a model assay. The results of multiple independent user testing gave the mean absolute percentage error and average relative standard deviations of 10.5% and 11.2% respectively, which were an improvement upon analysis based on simple visual color comparison with a read guide (12.2%, 14.9%). In addition to the analytical performance comparison, an interference study and a shelf life investigation were performed to further demonstrate practical utility. The developed system demonstrates an alternative detection approach for distance-based PADs enabling fast (~ 10 min), quantitative, and straightforward assays.

For a suspected forgery that involves the falsification of a document or its contents, the investigator will primarily analyze the document&rsquo, s paper and ink in order to establish the authenticity of the subject under investigation. As a non-destructive and contactless technique, Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) is gaining popularity in the field of forensic document analysis. HSI returns more information compared to conventional three channel imaging systems due to the vast number of narrowband images recorded across the electromagnetic spectrum. As a result, HSI can provide better classification results. In this publication, we present results of an approach known as the t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) algorithm, which we have applied to HSI paper data analysis. Even though t-SNE has been widely accepted as a method for dimensionality reduction and visualization of high dimensional data, its usefulness has not yet been evaluated for the classification of paper data. In this research, we present a hyperspectral dataset of paper samples, and evaluate the clustering quality of the proposed method both visually and quantitatively. The t-SNE algorithm shows exceptional discrimination power when compared to traditional PCA with k-means clustering, in both visual and quantitative evaluations.

Purpose Electrocardiogram (ECG) is one of the most essential tools for detecting heart problems. Till today most of the ECG records are available in paper form. It can be challenging and time-consuming to manually assess the ECG paper records. Hence, automated diagnosis and analysis are possible if we digitize such paper ECG records. Methods The proposed work aims to convert ECG paper records into a 1-D signal and generate an accurate diagnosis of heart-related problems using deep learning. Camera-captured ECG images or scanned ECG paper records are used for the proposed work. Effective pre-processing techniques are used for the removal of shadow from the images. A deep learning model is used to get a threshold value that separates ECG signal from its background and after applying various image processing techniques threshold ECG image gets converted into digital ECG. These digitized 1-D ECG signals are then passed to another deep learning model for the automated diagnosis of heart diseases into different classes such as ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB), Right Bundle Branch Block (RBBB), and T-wave abnormality. Results The accuracy of deep learning-based binarization is 97%. Further deep learning-based diagnosis approach of such digitized paper ECG records was having an accuracy of 94.4%. Conclusions The digitized ECG signals can be useful to various research organizations because the trends in heart problems can be determined and diagnosed from preserved paper ECG records. This approach can be easily implemented in areas where such expertise is not available. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40846-021-00632-0.

The study of eco-design practices has become an important aspect of sustainable manufacturing. Therefore, the identification and selection of key drivers for eco-design implementation is becoming essential. However, further research is needed in order to understand what are the key drivers that increase the efficiency of eco-design implementation and improve the company’s sustainability performance. The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate the drivers for implementation of eco-design in the Finnish pulp and paper industry. The drivers are identified through literature research and a survey is conducted for their evaluation. Data analysis is performed by using ranking methodology in order to investigate and identify the key drivers for eco-design implementation practices in the Finnish pulp and paper industry. Driver for implementation “Management’s idea” and driver “Customer demand” for both continuation and implementation have the highest rank in all scenarios. In contrast, driver ‘One or few employees pushed idea’ for implementation and drivers ‘Personal quest for a better environment’ and ‘Increased employee satisfaction through environmental initiatives’ from for continuation have the lowest rank for the all scenarios. This study adds knowledge into the current literature of sustainable manufacturing and will provide insights to practitioners and decision makers in terms of eco-design implementation issues in an effective and efficient manner.

Thermal papers are replacing the conventional form of printing and are being extensively used across the globe. This study encompasses a non-destructive approach to examine thermal papers by using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and Video Spectral Comparator (VSC), where the former technique helps in characterizing and discriminating different samples and the latter helps in deciphering the faded prints on thermal paper. The qualitative analysis of the spectroscopic data based on peak to peak comparison and quantitative analysis using chemometrics has been done to obtain high discriminating power. Multivariate analysis using HCA gave a discriminating power of 83.82% and PCA showed a variance of 95.64%. The strength of the study is portrayed through the decipherment of artificially and naturally faded thermal papers using VSC and analyzing the effect of different storing conditions on their rate of fading.

In this paper, we analyze the intelligent subdesign of the simulated marking system through an in-depth study of it. This paper proposes a correlation analysis-based quantification of N-element sense values and a rationality enhancement-based scoring fitting algorithm for English essays. This paper also extracts word features, sentence features, and chapter structure features in essays to fit English composition scores. Since not all students can complete the essays according to the topic requirements, a triage scoring model is used to separate the normal essays from the low-scoring essays. Statistically, it was found that the essay scores also showed a certain normal distribution. The standard support vector regression algorithm is prone to data skewing problems, so this paper addresses this problem by using a rationality enhancement method that gives a corresponding penalty factor according to the distribution of the dataset. The results show that the English essay scoring fitting algorithm proposed in this paper can well improve the prediction accuracy of some data and solve the problem of skewed data where the scores show a normal distribution. This paper designs and implements an online mock examination system that incorporates an intelligent scoring system for essays, enabling it to meet the needs of teachers and students for online examinations and intelligent scoring.

Machine learning (ML) has increasingly been adopted in safety-critical systems such as autonomous vehicles (AVs) and industrial robotics. In these domains, reliability and safety are important considerations, and hence it is critical to ensure the resilience of ML systems to faults and errors. On the other hand, soft errors are becoming more frequent in commodity computer systems due to the effects of technology scaling and reduced supply voltages. Further, traditional solutions for masking hardware faults such as Triple-Modular Redundancy (TMR) are prohibitively expensive in terms of their energy and performance overheads. Therefore, there is a compelling need to ensure the resilience of ML applications to soft errors on commodity hardware platforms.We first experimentally assess the resilience of safety-critical ML applications to soft errors. We demonstrate through fault injection experiments that even a single bit flip due to a soft error can lead to misclassification in Deep Neural Network (DNN) applications deployed in AVs, leading to safety violations. However, not all the errors in an DNN will result in serve consequences such as safety violations, and hence it is sufficient to protect the DNN from the ones that do. Unfortunately, finding all possible errors that result in safety violations is a very compute intensive task. We propose BinFI, a fault injection approach that efficiently injects critical faults that are highly likely to result in safety violations, based on the unique properties of DNNs. Finally, we propose Ranger, an approach to protect DNNs from critical faults with minimal performance overheads and no accuracy loss. We will conclude by presenting some of our ongoing work, and the future challenges in this area.

To improve the accuracy of color reproduction for camouflage printing, a new color matching method, named monitor-paper-fabric, was proposed by importing color management into textiles, which matched the printing pastes according to the color of the paper card printed by the ink-jet printer after color management. Not like the traditional color matching method, it matched the printing pastes according to the color from computer monitor after color correction. Two color matching methods were analyzed by comparing the color difference. It was found that the “monitor-paper-fabric” color matching method could be considered as a convenient and feasible color matching method. Most color differences between the monitor and the fabric in the camouflage pattern were reduced to lower than 4, except for color blocks 5 and 6. In addition, the color differences of six color blocks between the paper and the fabric were all less than 3.5, and were lower than those between the monitor and the fabric. The color consistency between the paper and the fabric was better than that between the monitor and the fabric.

Educational evaluation helps to improve the learning and teaching process. The learning process can be assessed by the examination system. In the examination system, the learners have to answer a set of questions. The learning assessment ensures improved performance in the educational system. The success of the learning assessment is highly dependent on the listening and understanding ability of each student. The assessment of the question paper can be at two levels—cognitive level assessment and difficulty level. The cognitive level assessment is purely based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and the difficulty level assessment is purely based on the examination marks of each student. This article presents a technical method called Question Paper’s Difficulty Level (QPDL) that helps to identify the difficulty level of each question in the question paper. The QPDL method is incorporate in the implementation of ‘QAUDIT’ web application to assess the difficulty level of the question paper systematically. The systematic analysis to identify the difficulty level of the question paper is made for 239 question papers. Each question paper can be recognized based on three difficulty levels such as High, Moderate and Low.

Paper surfaces under the microscopic view are observed to be formed by intertwisted wood fibers. Such structures of paper surfaces are unique from one location to another and are almost impossible to duplicate. Previous work used microscopic surface normals to characterize such intrinsic structures as a “fingerprint” of paper for security and forensic applications. In this work, we examine several key research questions of feature extraction in both scientific and engineering aspects to facilitate the deployment of paper surface-based authentication when flatbed scanners are used as the acquisition device. We analytically show that, under the unique optical setup of flatbed scanners, the specular reflection does not play a role in norm map estimation. We verify, using a larger dataset than prior work, that the scanner-acquired norm maps, although blurred, are consistent with those measured by confocal microscopes. We confirm that, when choosing an authentication feature, high spatial-frequency subbands of the heightmap are more powerful than the norm map. Finally, we show that it is possible to empirically calculate the physical dimensions of the paper patch needed to achieve a certain authentication performance in equal error rate (EER). We analytically show that log(EER) is decreasing linearly in the edge length of a paper patch.

With the arrival of the Internet and social media, at the same time as masses of humans have benefitted from the full-size reassets of records available, there was an full-size boom with inside the upward push of cyber-crimes, mainly targeted closer to women. According to a 2019 file with inside the Economics Times, India has witnessed a 457% upward push in cybercrime with inside the 5 years span among 2011 and 2016. Most speculate that that is because of effect of social media inclusive of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter on our day by day lives. While those simply assist in growing a legitimate social network, advent of consumer debts in those websites normally desires simply an email-id. A actual lifestyles man or woman can create more than one fake IDs and for this reason impostors can effortlessly be made. Unlike the actual international state of affairs in which more than one policies and guidelines are imposed to become aware of oneself in a completely unique manner (as an instance at the same time as issuing one’s passport or driver’s license), with inside the digital international of social media, admission does now no longer require this kind of checks. In this paper, we study the one-of-a-kind debts of Instagram, specifically and try and verify an account as fake or actual the use of Machine Learning strategies specifically Logistic Regression and Random Forest Algorithm.

Most of the on-site approaches for inferring of the post-mortem interval are still based on observative data from the direct body inspection, whereas, objective and quantitative analyses, such as potassium in the vitreous humor, are require laboratory instrumentation and skilled personnel. The present paper presents a simple and low cost analytical method suitable for use at the crime scene for inferring the time since death. The method uses a microfluidic paper-based device (μPAD) for the determination of ammonium in the vitreous humor (VH) based on the selective interaction between the ammonium and the Nessler's reagent. The color change was measured in terms of “RGB distance” by using a simple and free smartphone application. The optimized device showed a limit of detection of 0.4 mmol L−1, with between days precision less than 9.3% expressed as relative standard deviation, and accuracy between days from 94.5% to 104.5%. The selectivity of the Nessler's reaction was tested towards the main vitreous humor compounds, and no significant interferences were found. This paper-based analytical device was successfully used for the determination of ammonium ion in VH samples from forensic autopsies. The results obtained with the proposed method, although for a limited number of cases (n = 25), showed a close correlation with the data obtained with an instrumental analysis based on capillary electrophoresis. Moreover, in order to make the evaluation of results as simple as possible, a direct correlation between the color intensity, expressed as RGB distance, and the post-mortem interval was studied and a significant correlation was found (R2 > 0.78). In conclusion, the present preliminary study showes that the proposed device could be an additional tool to the traditional methods for a more accurate, although still presumptive, estimation of the time of death directly at the crime scene.

A flexible pressure sensor with a rudimentary, ultra-low cost, and solvent-free fabrication process is presented in this paper. The sensor has a graphite-on-paper stacked paper structure, which deforms and restores its shape when pressure is applied and released, showing an exceptionally fast response and relaxation time of &asymp, 0.4 ms with a sensitivity of &minus, 5%/Pa. Repeatability of the sensor over 1000 cycles indicates an excellent long-term stability. The sensor demonstrated fast and reliable human touch interface, and successfully integrated into a robot gripper to detect grasping forces, showing high promise for use in robotics, human interface, and touch devices.

This paper presents an extended briefing of the recently published UK-Robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) network Whie Paper in RAS for resilient infrastructure. It aims at setting out a vision of what RAS systems will be able to deliver in infrastructure, what are the current barriers and challenges to achieve that vision and what can the UK Government do to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront in this field.

Paper-based assay platforms play an important role among rapid test methods. It is essential to combine these promising platforms with smartphones which make on-site analysis possible without using external image processors. In this study, the performance of paper-based glucose assay methods was investigated by using the L*a*b* color space as the quantitative measurement. For this purpose, two glucose assay methods, namely quinone and iodine, were compared in terms of linearity, limit of detection (LOD) and reliability. A lower LOD and higher sensitivity were obtained by the quinone method while the iodine method may lead to large indeterminate errors due to the formation of non-uniform color distribution. Moreover, color measurement strategies were tested by using both computer software and mobile applications. For this purpose, scanned images were processed on a computer and the results were compared with smartphone based color measurements. The lowest LOD value of 0.38 mM glucose was obtained with the mobile application running on an Android operating system. Finally, glucose assay was performed on sour cherry nectar and honey and the results were compared with the spectrophotometric glucose assay. Using smartphones and the L*a*b* color space appears to be promising for reliable paper-based sensing as they are totally portable.

Paper-based devices are an excellent match for low-cost point-of-care testing (POCT) tools. Their user-friendliness, portability, and short time of analysis, coupled with ease of local manufacture make these devices the best option for inexpensive diagnostic testing tools. However, despite all their positive features, these low-cost diagnostic devices must present good performance indicators, such as sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. We developed and validated a paper-based ELISA for toxoplasmosis diagnosis through the detection of Toxoplasma gondii immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies in 100 human serum samples. From among the different ways to define the cut-off value, we chose Youden's J index (cut-off = 21.73 A.U.), which presented a higher sensitivity value. Our paper-based assay presented a sensitivity of 0.96, a specificity of 0.87, and a gray zone comprising 16 samples (±15% of the cut-off value, with 3 false positive outputs). The accuracy of the test was estimated by using ROC curves (AUC = 0.97). We also created a macro in Microsoft Excel® to estimate the accuracy of the test (m-Accuracy) based on a non-parametric method, which evidenced a value = 0.88, which classifies our test as moderately to highly accurate. We also provide the m-Accuracy macro for download and the paper-based microplate designs for printing, in order to collaborate with the scientific community and facilitate further studies using this platform. The improvement of these diagnostic tools can bring this technology for those who need it, contributing to population health and well-being.

Eco-design initiatives are gaining importance due to changing environmental conditions and the industry is developing different solutions. The purpose of this paper is the identification and evaluation of barriers related to the implementation of eco-design initiatives in pulp and paper industry. This study identifies the key barriers through literature research and provides information flow dependencies using design structure matrix through a case study of a company in Finland. This method differs from traditional management tools because it focuses on representing information flow rather than workflow. The findings provide policy recommendations to policy makers for managing eco-design implementation.

Paper-based digital microfluidic biochips (or P-DMFBs) are becoming highly impelling due to its low-cost and in-place fabrication of electrodes and control wiring on a single piece of paper having an inkjet printer and conductive ink. Despite enormous advantages, several complex design rules also subsist, such as avoidance of induced control interference, minimum separation among the control lines, and congestion-free wiring on a single layer, which is to be correlated leading toward overall feasibility of the design. Several cost raising issues, such as schedule length, control pin count, and wire length, must be considered for attaining a successful fluid-control codesign. Moreover, design gaps exist among the subtasks of the fluid level, control level, and fluid-control design as a whole, which undeniably impose expensive design cycles increasing overall cost. This article builds a machine learning-based model for the pin-constrained P-DMFBs to predict violation in control design beforehand and accordingly guides the fluid-control codesign to tackle important cost-driving issues while attaining congestion- and conflict-free wiring. This model effectively eliminates the design cycles producing a low-cost platform. The predictive model has been evaluated over a balanced data set. Several benchmarks for assessing the performance are studied.

This paper presents a critical review of laser pyrolysis. Although this technology is almost 60 years old, in literature many researchers, both from academia and industry, are still developing and improving it. On the contrary industrial applications are struggling to take off, if not in very restricted areas, although the technology has undoubted advantages that justify future development. The aim of this work consists in analysing a representative pool of scientific papers (230) and patents (121), from the last 20 years, to have an overview about the evolution of the method and try to understand the efforts spent to improve this technology effectively in academia and in industry. This study is important to provide a complete review about the argument, still missing in the literature. The objective is to provide an overview sufficiently broad and representative in the sources and to capture all the main ways in which laser pyrolysis has been used and with what distribution. The main focuses of the study are the analyses of the functions carried out by laser technologies, the application fields, and the types of used laser (i.e. models, power and fluence). Among the main results, the study showed that the main use of laser pyrolysis is to produce nanoparticles and coatings, the main materials worked by laser pyrolysis are silicon and carbon dioxide and the main searched properties in the products of laser pyrolysis are catalysts activity and electrical conductivity. CO2 lasers are the most used and the have high versatility compared to others. In conclusion, the study showed that laser pyrolysis is a consolidated technology within its main application fields (nanoparticles and coatings) for several years. Within this context, the technology has been developed on very different sizes and processes, obtaining a very wide range of results. Finally, these results may also have stimulated new areas of experimentation that emerged mainly in recent years and which concern biomedical applications, additive manufacturing, and waste disposal. Graphical abstract

We present a deep learning-based framework to design and quantify point-of-care sensors. As its proof-of-concept and use-case, we demonstrated a low-cost and rapid paper-based vertical flow assay (VFA) for high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP) testing, a common medical test used for quantifying the degree of inflammation in patients at risk of cardio-vascular disease (CVD). A machine learning-based sensor design framework was developed for two key tasks: (1) to determine an optimal configuration of immunoreaction spots and conditions, spatially-multiplexed on a paper-based sensing membrane, and (2) to accurately infer the target analyte concentration based on the signals of the optimal VFA configuration. Using a custom-designed mobile-phone based VFA reader, a clinical study was performed with 85 human serum samples to characterize the quantification accuracy around the clinically defined cutoffs for CVD risk stratification. Results from blindly-tested VFAs indicate a competitive coefficient of variation of 11.2% with a linearity of R2 = 0.95; in addition to the success in the high-sensitivity CRP range (i.e., 0-10 mg/L), our results further demonstrate a mitigation of the hook-effect at higher CRP concentrations due to the incorporation of antigen capture spots within the multiplexed sensing membrane of the VFA. This paper-based computational VFA that is powered by deep learning could expand access to CVD health screening, and the presented machine learning-enabled sensing framework can be broadly used to design cost-effective and mobile sensors for various point-of-care diagnostics applications.

Flying insect detection, identification, and counting are the key components of agricultural pest management. Insect identification is also one of the most challenging tasks in agricultural image processing. With the aid of machine vision and machine learning, traditional (manual) identification and counting can be automated. To achieve this goal, a particular data acquisition device and an accurate insect recognition algorithm (model) is necessary. In this work, we propose a new embedded system-based insect trap with an OpenMV Cam H7 microcontroller board, which can be used anywhere in the field without any restrictions (AC power supply, WIFI coverage, human interaction, etc.). In addition, we also propose a deep learning-based insect-counting method where we offer solutions for problems such as the “lack of data” and “false insect detection”. By means of the proposed trap and insect-counting method, spraying (pest swarming) could then be accurately scheduled.

Technology is shaping our lives in a multitude of ways. This is fuelled by a technology infrastructure, both legacy and state of the art, composed of a heterogeneous group of hardware, software, services, and organisations. Such infrastructure faces a diverse range of challenges to its operations that include security, privacy, resilience, and quality of services. Among these, cybersecurity and privacy are taking the centre-stage, especially since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. Traditional security and privacy techniques are overstretched and adversarial actors have evolved to design exploitation techniques that circumvent protection. With the ever-increasing complexity of technology infrastructure, security and privacy-preservation specialists have started to look for adaptable and flexible protection methods that can evolve (potentially autonomously) as the adversarial actor changes its techniques. For this, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Deep Learning (DL) were put forward as saviours. In this paper, we look at the promises of AI, ML, and DL stated in academic and industrial literature and evaluate how realistic they are. We also put forward potential challenges a DL based security and privacy protection system has to overcome. Finally, we conclude the paper with a discussion on what steps the DL and the security and privacy-preservation community have to take to ensure that DL is not just going to be hype, but an opportunity to build a secure, reliable, and trusted technology infrastructure on which we can rely on for so much in our lives.

The development of microfluidic devices for point-of-care (POC) testing has been widely applied for food quality control, environmental monitoring, and clinical diagnoses. Regarding the latter, microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (µPADs) have a great potential in developing portable and disposable platforms for fast disease-relevant biomarker detection in remote areas. In this work, k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) classifiers were applied to demonstrate the reliability of using chemical data obtained from µPADs for diagnosis of diseases like diabetes mellitus and hyperuricemia. Predictors based on glucose, lactate, and uric acid biomarkers were evaluated to reach this goal. Healthy adults were differentiated from the diagnosed patients with a perfect success rate. Metabolic disorders were suitably predicted with 95.0% overall accuracy. This model also showed sensitivities and specificities in the ranges 75–100% and 93–100%, respectively, indicating that the classification protocol is robust. The k-NN modeling proved the potential of the µPADs to be applied in telemedicine for reliable off-site diagnoses.

In this paper, we propose an end-to-end approach to addressing QRS complex detection and measurement of Electrocardiograph (ECG) paper using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Unlike conventional detection solutions that convert images to digital data, our method can directly detect QRS complex in images using Faster-RCNN, then the R-peak can be located and measured through a CNN. Validated by clinical ECG data in the St.-Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics 12-lead Arrhythmia Database and real ECG paper from Peking University People’s Hospital, the proposed method can achieve the recall of 98.32%, the precision of 99.01% in detecting and 0.012 mv of mean absolute error in measuring. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our method over conventional solutions, which would pave the way to detect and measure ECG paper using CNNs.

A non-destructive method based on Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) was proposed to estimate the date of paper from different years in this article. For the paper samples, dated from 1940 to 1980, naturally aged and conserved in library. Partial least squares-discriminate analysis (PLS-DA), Logistic regression and convolutional neural network (CNN), were employed to evaluate the date of paper, with the accuracy 60.74%, 95.31% and 98.77%, respectively. Based on the characteristics of CNN model and with the help of network localization, active variables could be recognized in the whole spectrum. Although the localization of active variables showed a discriminative pattern, the selected spectral regions were similar. Most important variables focused on the 1700–1400 cm−1, were corresponding to cellulose crystallinity, which was consisted with the ageing processing. The present work gave the potential of FT-IR combined with chemometric techniques could estimate the dating of unknown paper. Meanwhile, the analysis of active variables obtained further indicated the worthy of CNN model for document dating.

During the folding process substrates are exposed to high-localized stresses, which in the case of coated papers and boards, can lead to decreased aesthetic features or complete loss of functionality. Production efficiency of the folding process could be improved by an automated, computer vision-based inspection system. For such a task, different existing computer-aided fold-crack evaluation approaches were analyzed. A detailed research was conducted to propose an image processing based fold cracking assessment via finding optimal sample preparation and digitization techniques and developing an algorithm for the digital image analysis and feature extraction. The analysis of the applicability of different sample preparation and digitization parameters, as well as the proposed digital image feature, was done by correlation evaluation, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and corresponding post hoc tests. The results indicated that the developed algorithm fulfils the set requirements and the proposed feature of digitized samples faithfully describes the analyzed fold-cracks.

The confluence of significant computational power and inexpensive sensors provides the opportunity to reliably collect large volumes of information from the world and extract humanly useful information resources. This paper reviews a coherent body of work over the last 20+ years focused on development of advanced bio-inspired computing techniques, and their applications primarily for human related data in behaviour and human centered computing. We close with a synthesis proposing an experiment analysis methodology combining these tools.

Exam paper generation is an indispensable part of teaching. Existing methods focus on the use of question extraction algorithms with labels for each question provided. Obviously, manual labeling is inefficient and cannot avoid label bias. Furthermore, the quality of the exam papers generated by the existing methods is not guaranteed. To address these problems, we propose a novel approach to generating exam papers based on prediction of exam performance. As such, we update the quality of the initially generated questions one by using dynamic programming, as well as in batches by using genetic algorithms. We performed the prediction task by using Deep Knowledge Tracing. Our approach considered the skill weight, difficulty, and distribution of exam scores. By comparisons, experimental results indicate that our approach performed better than the two baselines. Furthermore, it can generate exam papers with adaptive difficulties closely to the expected levels, and the related student exam scores will be guaranteed to be relatively reasonable distribution. In addition, our approach was evaluated in a real learning scenarios and shows advantages.

Photographs are taken as valid evidences in various scenarios of our day to day life. Because of the developments in the field of Image Processing, altering images according to ones need is not a difficult task. Techniques of Image Forensics play its crucial role at this juncture. One of the mostly found types of image tampering is Copy-Move forgery. A copy-move forgery is performed by copying a region in an image and pasting it on another region in the same image, mostly after some form of post-processing like rotation, scaling, blurring, noise addition, JPEG compression etc. Two types of copy-move forgery detection techniques exist in literature. They are the Block based methods and Key-point based methods. Both the methods have their own advantages and limitations. This paper presents a survey on the recent developments in block based methods. As forgeries have become popular, the importance of forgery detection is much increased. Copy-move forgery, one of the most commonly used methods, copies a part of the image and pastes it into another part of the image. In this paper, we propose a detection method of copy-move forgery that localizes duplicated regions using Zernike moments. Since the magnitude of Zernike moments is algebraically invariant against rotation, the proposed method can detect a forged region even though it is rotated. Our scheme is also resilient to the intentional distortions such as additive white Gaussian noise, JPEG compression, and blurring. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is appropriate to identify the forged region by copy-rotate-move forgery.

Paper recommendation is a research topic to provide users with personalized papers of interest. However, most existing approaches equally treat title and abstract as the input to learn the representation of a paper, ignoring their semantic relationship. In this paper, we regard the abstract as a sequence of sentences, and propose a two-level attentive neural network to capture: (1) the ability of each word within a sentence to reflect if it is semantically close to the words within the title. (2) the extent of each sentence in the abstract relative to the title, which is often a good summarization of the abstract document. Specifically, we propose a Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) network with attention to learn the representation of sentences, and integrate a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) network with a memory network to learn the long-term sequential sentence patterns of interacted papers for both user and item (paper) modeling. We conduct extensive experiments on two real datasets, and show that our approach outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches in terms of accuracy.

Because of the cost and complexity of implementing an optical paper sorting system, the demand for an intelligent system for waste paper sorting has increased. This research focused on the development of a smart intelligent system (SIS) for recyclable waste paper sorting. The basis for selecting the regions of interests (ROIs) is the margin area of a paper object image because almost all printed documents keep the margin area intact. The paper grade is identified using a proximity search. The SIS with the HSI colour space offered maximum success rates of 99 %, 82 % and 89 %, while with the RGB model, the classification success rates were 94 %, 93 % and 98 % for white paper, old newsprint paper and old corrugated cardboard, respectively. The SIS is clearly superior to other prevailing techniques because of the faster decision making and lower cost of implementation.

To improve the accuracy of user implicit rating prediction, we combine the traditional latent factor model (LFM) and bidirectional gated recurrent unit neural network (BiGRU) model to propose a hybrid model that deeply mines the latent semantics in the unstructured content of the text and generates a more accurate rating matrix. First, we utilize the user’s historical behavior (favorites records) to build a user rating matrix and decompose the matrix to obtain the latent factor vectors of users and literature. We also apply the BERT model for word embedding of the research papers to obtain the sequence of word vectors. Then, we apply the BiGRU with the user attention mechanism to mine the research paper textual content and to generate the new literature latent feature vectors that are used to replace the original literature latent factor vectors decomposed from the rating matrix. Finally, a new rating matrix is generated to obtain users’ ratings of noninteractive research papers and to generate the recommendation list according to the user latent factor vector. We design experiments on the real datasets and verify that the research paper recommendation model is superior to traditional recommendation models in terms of precision, recall, F1-value, coverage, popularity and diversity.

The clustering coefficient has been widely used for identifying the local structure of networks. In this paper, the weighted spectral distribution with 3-cycle (WSD3) that is similar (but not equal) to the clustering coefficient is studied on evolving social networks. It is demonstrated that the ratio of the WSD3 to the network size (i.e., the node number) provides a more sensitive discrimination for the size-independent local structure of social networks in contrast to the clustering coefficient. Moreover, the difference of the WSD3’s performances on social networks and communication networks is investigated, and it is found that the difference is induced by the different symmetrical features of the normalized Laplacian spectral densities on these networks.

A non-destructive methodology based on Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) is proposed in this research to estimate the age of documents of different ages. Due the variability in the samples caused by their different chemical compositions, chemometric approaches were proposed to build one unique regression model able to determine the age of the paper regardless of its composition. PLS models were built employing Generalized Least Squares Weighting (GLSW) and Orthogonal Least Squares (OLS) filters to reduce the variability of samples from the same year. Afterwards, sparse PLS, which is an extension of the PLS model including a variable selection step, was applied to compare its performance with the preprocessing filters. All techniques proposed were compared to the initial PLS models, showing the potential of the chemometric approaches applied to FTIR data to estimate the age of unknown documents., CAPES (Coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior)

Colorimetric tests are becoming increasingly popular in point-of-need analyses due to the possibility of detecting the signal with the naked eye, which eliminates the utilization of bulky and costly instruments only available in laboratories. However, colorimetric tests may be interpreted incorrectly by nonspecialists due to disparities in color perception or a lack of training. Here we solve this issue with a method that not only detects colorimetric signals but also interprets them so that the test outcome is understandable for anyone. It consists of an augmented reality (AR) app that uses a camera to detect the colored signals generated by a nanoparticle-based immunoassay, and that yields a warning symbol or message when the concentration of analyte is higher than a certain threshold. The proposed method detected the model analyte mouse IgG with a limit of detection of 0.3 μg mL–1, which was comparable to the limit of detection afforded by classical densitometry performed with a nonportable device. Whe...

Patent terminology relation extraction is of great significance to the construction of patent Knowledge graph. In order to solve the problem of long-distance dependency in traditional depth learning, a new method of patent terminology relation extraction is proposed, which combines attention mechanism and bi-directional LSTM model and with keyword strategy. Category keyword features in each sentence obtained by the improved TextRank with the patent text information vectorization added. BiLSTM neural work and attention mechanism are employed to extract the temporal information and sentence-level global feature information. Moreover, pooling layer is added to obtain the local features of the text. Finally, we fuse the global features and local features, and output the final classification results through the softmax classifier. The addition of category keywords improves the distinction of categories. Substantial experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model outperform the state-of-art neural model in patent terminology relation extraction.

Number plate recognition brings a drastic improvement for the city traffic enhancement. It provides the direction in which the steps should be taken for working of an effective intelligent transportation system. ANPR have become necessity for traffic control management due to rapid increment of vehicles. The main aim of ANPR is to monitor traffic and for security purpose. Recognition of number plate uses image processing techniques and latest technology in detecting characters on vehicle license plates automatically. In recent years, there are many technological developments in recognizing license plate area of research. Image processing protocols like OCR technology allow the traffic surveillance to deal with several problems that occurs in criminal investigation, toll collection, monitoring traffic, controlling speed, parking management etc. For efficient management of traffic and mass surveillance in transportation system, an ANPR system is essential. With the aid of image processing algorithms and vehicle images dataset, it becomes possible to monitor traffic at a large scale. Vehicle images are helpful for recognizing characters on license plates by performing image segmentation, feature extraction and character recognition. Data collected through captured images are utilized in the commercial applications, law enforcement, traffic applications etc. The software examines the vehicle picture as an input image that results in displaying the plate numbers. The system with image processing used reliably for traffic detection where modification of the technologies enables an accurate acknowledgement of vehicle number plates. There are several ANPR systems developed, working on character recognition of LP by the help of image processing technique. This paper reviews the performance by researchers in this particular area towards meeting goals of transportation system. It also provides major issues and challenges in this field.

Back within the 1950s, Minsky and McCarthy described AI as any task performed by a program or a machine that, if a person administered an equivalent activity, we can say that he had to use his intelligence to accomplish the task. Neural networks help us to train and process Machines. These are brain-inspired networks of interconnected layers, called neurons, that feed data into one another. During the training of those neural networks, the weights attached to different inputs will still be varied until the output from the neural network is extremely on the brink of what is desired, at which point the network will have 'learned' the way to perform a specific task. A subset of machine learning is deep learning, where neural networks are expanded into sprawling networks with an enormous number of layers that are trained using massive amounts of knowledge. It is these deep neural networks that have fuelled the present breakthrough within the ability of computers to hold out tasks like speech recognition and computer vision.

Due to the increasing size of s (s), their design and optimization phases (i.e., ) grow increasingly complex. At design time, a large design space needs to be explored to find an implementation that fulfills all specifications and then optimizes metrics like energy, area, delay, reliability, etc. At run time, a large configuration space needs to be searched to find the best set of parameters (e.g., voltage/frequency) to further optimize the system. Both spaces are infeasible for exhaustive search typically leading to heuristic optimization algorithms that find some trade-off between design quality and computational overhead. ML can build powerful models that have successfully been employed in related domains. In this survey, we categorize how () may be used and is used for design-time and run-time optimization and exploration strategies of s. A meta-study of published techniques unveils areas in that are well-explored and underexplored with, as well as trends in the employed algorithms. We present a comprehensive categorization and summary of the state of the art on for. Finally, we summarize remaining challenges and promising open research directions.

The aim of this study was to examine the effects that reading on screens (using digital devices with different screen sizes) and on paper have on reading time and comprehension. The study group was...

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an important analysis technique with applications in many industrial branches and fields of scientific research. Nowadays, the advantages of LIBS are impaired by the main drawback in the interpretation of obtained spectra and identification of observed spectral lines. This procedure is highly time-consuming since it is essentially based on the comparison of lines present in the spectrum with the literature database. This paper proposes the use of various computational intelligence methods to develop a reliable and fast classification of quasi-destructively acquired LIBS spectra into a set of predefined classes. We focus on a specific problem of classification of paper-ink samples into 30 separate, predefined classes. For each of 30 classes (10 pens of each of 5 ink types combined with 10 sheets of 5 paper types plus empty pages), 100 LIBS spectra are collected. Four variants of preprocessing, seven classifiers (decision trees, random forest, k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, probabilistic neural network, multi-layer perceptron, and generalized regression neural network), 5-fold stratified cross-validation, and a test on an independent set (for methods evaluation) scenarios are employed. Our developed system yielded an accuracy of 99.08%, obtained using the random forest classifier. Our results clearly demonstrates that machine learning methods can be used to identify the paper-ink samples based on LIBS reliably at a faster rate.

The age of a relatively old document is one of the pending issues to be resolved in the field of forensic documentary examination. Although nowadays there are a variety of analytical methodologies focused in the analysis of inks for dating documents, the paper analysis has attained little attention. This work aims to develop two complementary approaches for estimating the age of documents based on paper analysis employing the pyrolysis technique coupled to gas chromatography with detection by mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS): (i) a direct approach using the pyrolytic fingerprints and multivariate regression with artificially aged samples, and (ii) an indirect approach based on the identification of compounds characteristic of the document period. The direct approach has successfully allowed the age estimation of relatively old documents under police custody (up to 30 years of age) and the determination of a relation between the natural and the accelerated aging of paper under the used conditions. This approach is applicable to papers that have the same (or similar) composition and have been stored under comparable storage conditions. Additionally, the indirect approach is presented as an interesting perspective to ratify valuable information of the document age.

International audience; An analytical approach based on the multivariate analysis of on-line pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) data is proposed for the identification of traditional East Asian handmade papers from different fiber material origins. This approach utilized several biomarkers detected during Py-GC/MS analysis of the paper samples. At first, the total ion chromatogram (TIC) was taken as the response and then the extracted ion chromatograms (EICs) were considered to improve the discrimination of papers. The influence of different data pretreatment (raw responses vs normalized values) including different weighting of the variables (weighting as 1 vs weight as 1/STD, where STD stands for standard deviation) for principal component analysis was also investigated. The results showed that compared to the commonly used microscopy techniques, the Py-GC/MS technique proved to be able to discriminate against handmade paper materials that have similar microscopic morphologies such as Morus species vs. Broussonetia species. The data pretreatment influenced the PCA modeling: the analysis based on normalized values showed more interpretable PCA group features for Moraceae species. PCA without weighting resulted unsurprisingly in discrimination through the presence of high intensity response biomarkers, while when applying weight as 1/STD, PCA loading plot was shown to provide a group of compounds, most of them being present at low levels, to be discriminating. Additionally, the characteristic EICs can provide data matrix for statistical analysis avoiding the interference from co-eluting compound and background compared to the data matrix obtained from the TIC. As a result, a quick Py-GC/MS based handmade paper identification procedure using PCA modeling of characteristic EICs was for the first time proposed in the identification of traditional East Asian handmade papers. This procedure could be very beneficial in cultural heritage applications.

The dating of documents is one of the pending issues to be resolved in many fields. Although there are a variety of analytical methodologies focused on the inks of documents to estimate the dating of documents, the analysis of documents itself attracted little attention. A non-destructive method based on Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) was proposed in this research to estimate the dating of documents. First, FTIR spectra of journals dated from 1940 to 1980, naturally aged and conserved in the China Agriculture University library were collected. Second, the least squares support vector machines (LS-SVM) was applied to distinguish documents of different dating, and the accuracy was 99.26%. In order to find interested wavenumber that influence the dating process of documents, sparse partial least squares (sPLS) was applied to select informative variables. The average of selected variables was 483 after 100 runs, and the selected variables were focused on the absorption peaks of inorganic components and cellulose. Splicing sPLS with LS-SVM (sPLS–LS-SVM) built model to see the effective of selected variables. Average accuracy of sPLS–LS-SVM model was 99.34%, even the best result could reach 100.00% after 100 circle times. The present work indicates that the possibility of FTIR combined with chemometrics can estimate the dating of documents accurately. Additionally, the wavenumber which influence the dating of documents are mostly focused on cellulose and inorganic components.

We explored the paper augmentation technique where a tablet computer is placed under the paper to modify its content appearance and create the illusion of a static object appearing perceptually dynamic. Our approach is based on the Deformation Lamps (DL) technique commonly used with front projection. However, we applied it to rear projection, which removes the need for a fixed hardware setup or handling and wearing dedicated hardware. The key challenge was to ensure the appropriate mixing of light reflecting from the paper (to see what is printed on the paper) and the light passing though the paper (to see what the tablet screen is projecting) since (i) a tablet screen is a relatively weak light source when being used in rear projection and (ii) commonly, paper has high opacity so the content from one side is not visible on the other side. In order to achieve the appropriate mixing of light, we reduced the opacity of the paper by perforating it (thus allowing more light to pass through), and modified the algorithm for generating dynamic luminance animation by adding gamma and brightness correction. The outcomes provide a guide on how to modify the paper and the algorithm in order to achieve the DL effect with rear projection using a tablet computer.