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COVID-19 disease is characterized by serious clinical manifestations which could require urgent hospitalization. Prolonged hospitalization, with catabolism and immobilization, induces a decrease in weight and muscle mass which can result in sarcopenia, a condition that impairs respiratory and cardiac function, worsening the prognosis. In this scenario there is an urgent need of nutritional indications aimed to prevent or contrast hospital malnutrition by improving the patient's response to therapy and to facilitate healthcare professionals in managing nutritional interventions on patients, reducing their already high workload due to the state of emergency.

Objective Examination of de-classified Monsanto documents from litigation in order to expose the impact of the company's efforts to influence the reporting of scientific studies related to the safety of the herbicide, glyphosate. Methods A set of 141 recently de-classified documents, made public during the course of pending toxic tort litigation, In Re Roundup Products Liability Litigation were examined. Results The documents reveal Monsanto-sponsored ghostwriting of articles published in toxicology journals and the lay media, interference in the peer review process, behind-the-scenes influence on retraction and the creation of a so-called academic website as a front for the defense of Monsanto products. Conclusion The use of third-party academics in the corporate defense of glyhphosate reveals that this practice extends beyond the corruption of medicine and persists in spite of efforts to enforce transparency in industry manipulation.

BACKGROUND: Computer works are associated with Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs). There are several methods have been developed to assess computer work risk factor related to MSDs. OBJECTIVE: This review aims to give an overview of current techniques available for pen-and-paper-based observational methods in assessing ergonomic risk factors of computer work. METHODS: We searched an electronic database for materials from 1992 until 2015. The selected methods were focused on computer work, pen-and-paper observational methods, office risk factors and musculoskeletal disorders. This review was developed to assess the risk factors, reliability and validity of pen-and-paper observational method associated with computer work. Two evaluators independently carried out this review. RESULTS: Seven observational methods used to assess exposure to office risk factor for work-related musculoskeletal disorders were identified. The risk factors involved in current techniques of pen and paper based observational tools were postures, office components, force and repetition. From the seven methods, only five methods had been tested for reliability. They were proven to be reliable and were rated as moderate to good. For the validity testing, from seven methods only four methods were tested and the results are moderate. CONCLUSION: Many observational tools already exist, but no single tool appears to cover all of the risk factors including working posture, office component, force, repetition and office environment at office workstations and computer work. Although the most important factor in developing tool is proper validation of exposure assessment techniques, the existing observational method did not test reliability and validity. Futhermore, this review could provide the researchers with ways on how to improve the pen-and-paper-based observational method for assessing ergonomic risk factors of computer work.

Background The prevalence of MSS among office workers is high worldwide, having a significant effect on medical costs, absenteeism, and quality of life. In Bangladesh, there are many office workers but there is no data on the prevalence and impact of MSS. Objective The aim of this pilot study was to determine the prevalence and distribution of MSS among paper based office workers from one local office in order to determine whether or not an ergonomic intervention is required and the focus of the intervention needed. Methods A cross sectional study was conducted among 200 paper based office workers using a proportional stratified random sample. The Standardized Nordic Questionnaire was used to determine the prevalence and distribution of MSS. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Results The mean age of the respondents was 43.0 years with a mean of 12.0 years work experience. 76.0% (n=152) of the respondents reported having MSS during the last 12 months. MSS complaints were reported primarily in the lower back region. 40.5% (n=81) of the respondents reported interruption of their normal daily activities within the last 12 months reportedly due to MSS. Conclusion The current study showed the high prevalence rate of MSS among office workers in one workplace in Bangladesh. This was a pilot study, but it suggests that there is likely a need for further study into office workers' work sites and work practices to prevent work related injuries.

Scientific communication is gradually changing. In the web era the genre of the printed paper has survived in digital format as static PDF, but annotations, multimedia and access to data are appearing as new interactive features of innovative scholarly journals. Together they justify the term Rich Internet Publication (RIP) as name for a new emerging genre. Because of the authoritative role of publications in highly ranked journals, a RIP is mostly used as a ‘showcase’ to publish supplementary material that could not be made available otherwise, and to generate a broader interest in a project. The traditional authoring of linear text does not adequately fit the new situation, in which the author has to deal with much more information in various formats and has access to new options for presentation. This paper describes a strategy to transform a regular paper into a RIP. The strategy is divided into a conceptual stage, in which focal points are created and a balanced mixture of different media are achieved divided over different levels, and the implementation.

In our data driven society in which we expect that all major decisions are backed up by empirical evidence based on high quality data, broad access to these data is a must. However, the benefits of broad data access need to be balanced against potential risks of disclosure. Most data gathered by government agencies are collected under the pledge of confidentiality and the agencies have a legal and moral obligation to guarantee this pledge. Furthermore, if respondents get the impression that their data are not sufficiently protected they might refuse to participate or purposely provide wrong answers jeopardizing the quality of the collected data. Statistical agencies thus have to address this trade-off and much progress has been made in the last decades increasing the amount of data available for the general public while maintaining the confidentiality of the survey respondents. Still, there are certain types of data for which addressing this trade-off is particularly difficult. Medical records containing sensitive information on health status are one example, another example are business data. These data are particularly difficult to protect since a few variables usually suffice to identify larger businesses in the data. At the same time the collected information is often sensitive since other establishments might gain an edge if they learn certain attributes

Intelligent systems on Paper currency recognition and verification are inevitable for modern banking services. These systems are used in Auto-seller machines, vending machines etc. Extracting sufficient and reliable monetary characteristics are essential for accuracy and performance of such systems. This paper proposes a new intelligent system for paper currency recognition. Pakistani paper currency has been considered, as a case study, for intelligent recognition. This paper identifies, introduces, and extracts robust features from Pakistani banknotes. After extracting these features, the paper proposes to use three layers feed-forward Backpropagation Neural Network (BPN) for intelligent classification. The proposed technique and system are simple and comparatively less time consuming which makes it suitable for real-time applications. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed technique, experiments have been conducted on 175 Pakistani banknotes. The results indicate that system has 100% recognition ability on properly captured images.

The purpose of this paper is to present a hybridized technique for analyzing the behavior of an industrial system stochastically by utilizing vague, imprecise, and uncertain data. In the present study two important tools namely Lambda-Tau methodology and particle swarm optimization are used to formulate the hybridized technique PSOBLT Particle swarm optimization based Lambda-Tau for analyzing the behavior of the complex industrial system stochastically up to a desired degree of accuracy. Expressions of reliability indices like failure rate, repair time, mean time between failures MTBF, expected number of failures ENOF, reliability and availability for the system are obtained by using Lambda-Tau methodology and particle swarm optimization is used to construct the membership function. Fault tree is used to model the system. The press unit of a paper mill situated in a northern part of India, producing approximately 200 tons of paper per day, has been considered to demonstrate the proposed approach. Sensitivity analysis of a system's behavior has also been done. The behavior analysis results computed by PSOBLT technique have a reduced region of prediction in comparison of existing Lambda-Tau and GABLT Genetic algorithm based Lambda-Tau technique region, i.e. uncertainties involved in the analysis are reduced. Thus, it may be a more useful analysis tool to assess the current system conditions and involved uncertainties. Thus the paper suggests an approach to improve the systems' performance.

The Alternative Uses Test is a measure of divergent thinking in which participants are asked to list non-obvious uses for a common object in a fixed amount of time. The goals of this study were to better understand this creativity test, explore how original ideas emerge, and provide suggestions for improvement to the test. Participants were asked to list alternative uses for a paperclip in three minutes. 293 participants, including engineers, designers and students, were tested and evaluated. Using infrequency of responses as a measure of originality, it was found that participants that produced more responses had more original responses. Later responses were significantly more original than early responses and originality of responses increased with quantity. On average, a participant would list 9 responses before arriving at highly original responses. Participants that did not reach 9 responses in the study were likely to have few if any highly original responses. Participants that were more elaborate in their responses had fewer responses in total and therefore fewer original responses. If this test maps to real world idea generation, it suggests that the first ideas we think of are likely to have been suggested already by others and thus not original. The results of this study can help restructure the format of the Alternative Uses Test and provide a database for a digital version of this test.

Image authentication is an important research topic of maintaining the integrity of digital image contents. Fragile image authentication is the technique for achieving the goal of image content integrity maintenance. This article presents a fragile image authentication scheme based on the concept of wet paper codes. The proposed scheme modifies dry pixels on an image to conceal an image signature. The proposed authentication scheme can exactly detect the tampered area on a tampered image. For saving computation cost of signature embedding, an exclusive-or operation is used in the proposed authentication scheme. The experimental results show that the proposedmethod not only has good visual quality of an authorized image but also successfully detects tampered areas on a tampered image.

This paper is based on the experiences from a project, the purpose of which was to support people with mild to moderate developmental disabilities in using the Internet. During the first year of the project, we studied how a web site should be designed so that people in the target group could understand and make use of it. The goal was to develop guidelines that cognitively supported the user [2]. Since each user is unique, it is also desirable to let him or her control the design to as great an extent as possible. In another study within the framework of the project, we examined how people with mild to moderate developmental disabilities managed to navigate the Internet. Seven test subjects were asked to move between different web sites using Microsoft Internet Explorer’s tools. Observations were made of how they managed to move forward, back, up, down and to open or close a web site. Their ability to carry out a search or type in a URL address was also observed. The results from this study demonstrated that the test persons managed to navigate without much difficulty [3]. Problems arose, however, when navigation required the subjects to process text. The study indicated that there were two cog

The authors of Muscle Imbalances – Fact or Fiction, have correctly identified the complexities of quantifying muscle imbalances as related to predisposition to injury. It seems intuitive that significant muscle imbalance would predispose one to injury during high performance sport or strenuous activities common with laborers in industrial settings. However, scientific evidence in support of this impression requires prospective research paradigms involving pre-injury screening of large numbers of uninjured subjects. One good analogy is the clinical assumption that stretching and muscle extensibility reduces sports injury risk. Thacker et al. [1] conducted a systemic review and meta-analysis of the literature in an attempt to find evidence that stretching prevents or reduces injuries in sports. The authors found that stretching is not significantly associated with a reduction in injury risk, and concluded that the evidence for or against stretching is equivocal. The authors have also correctly pointed out that single-factor-related analysis (e.g., uniplanar strength ratios) of muscle function reflects an insufficient approach to identifying a higher risk of overuse or traumatic injury or re-injury. However, I continue to contend that open chain analysis of single muscle group performance is the best way to identify preor postinjury deficits in torque, power, and work, that can be overlooked with more functional closed chain analysis. For example, Kowalk et al. [2] evaluated bilateral joint angles, moments, powers, and work in uninjured and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) deficient subjects during stair climbing preand 6 months post-operatively. Post-operative deficits were found for peak moment, power, and work in the injured knee, yet these reductions were compensated by increases in excursion, moment, and power in the contralateral ankle. Ernst et al. [3] conducted a video analysis of ACL reconstructed and matched uninjured subjects during vertical jump, lateral step-up, and hop activities. They found that the ACL-injured side had lower knee extension moments compared to the uninjured side and matched subjects. However, no differences in hip+knee+ankle summated moments were found, and the injured side hip was found to have compensated for the knee moment deficits. These studies provide evidence that while closed chain functional analysis is important, it alone is insufficient in identifying single muscle group deficits that can be masked with proximal or distal joint, or contralateral extremity compensations. I agree with the authors that a detailed analysis of muscle function that includes passive and active characteristics of muscle lengthening (flexibility, stiffness) and sensorimotor function parameters (e.g., stabilometry, proprioceptive aspects, reflex and electromyographic activity) would more comprehensively assess injury risk. However, this comprehensive analysis of muscle function is impractical for screening large num

Since 2017, the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology e.V. (GMDS) offers the submission of full papers to the annual meetings, optional in Studies in Health Technologies and Informatics (Stud HIT) or in GMS Medical Informatics, Biometrics, and Epidemiology (MIBE). GMDS’ aim is to increase the attractiveness of the conference and paper submission process in particular for young scientists and to increase the visibility of the conference. A standardized peer review process was established. Since 2017, a 25–35% of the contributions have been submitted as full papers. A total of 177 papers were published in Stud HTI. With an unofficial journal impact factor of 1.088 (2019) and 0.540 (2020), the papers were cited with a frequency similarly to national medical journals or full paper contributions of International medical informatics conferences.

Zero energy technologies and sustainable energy production are the two major concerns of present day researches. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bioreactors that extract chemical energy stored in organic compounds, into electric potential, through bio-degradation. The core reason for the high strength of effluent generated from slaughterhouses is animal blood. The current study evaluates the potential of MFC technology to reduce the pollution strength of cattle blood in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD). The current study was piloted in three stages using lab scale two chambered MFC: The first stage was to determine the best oxidising agent as compared to natural aeration from three accessible options, KMnO4, diffused aeration and tape grass aquatic plant. KMnO4 was found to be the superlative with a 30% reduction in COD in 100 hrs batch reactor and a maximum power of 0.97 mW using 125 mL livestock blood. The second stage of the study optimised the concentration of KMnO4. At 500 mg/L KMnO4 concentration, 50% COD removal efficiency was acquired in a batch reactor of 60 hrs with an average energy output of 1.3 mW. In the final stage on the addition of coconut shell activated carbon with an Anolyte at a rate of 40 mL/125 mL of substrate COD removal efficiency increased to 74.9%.

Background: Motor complications are a consequence of the chronic dopaminergic treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and include levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LIDs) and motor fluctuations (MF). Currently, evidence is on lacking whether patients with GBA-associated PD differ in their risk of developing motor complications compared to the general PD population. Objective: To evaluate the association of GBA carrier status with the development of LIDS and MFs from early PD. Methods: Motor complications were recorded prospectively in 884 patients with PD from four longitudinal cohorts using part IV of the UPDRS or MDS-UPDRS. Subjects were followed for up to 11 years and the associations of GBA mutations with the development of motor complications were assessed using parametric accelerated failure time models. Results: In 439 patients from Europe, GBA mutations were detected in 53 (12.1%) patients and a total of 168 cases of LIDs and 258 cases of MF were observed. GBA carrier status was not associated with the time to develop LIDs (HR 0.78, 95%CI 0.47 to 1.26, p = 0.30) or MF (HR 1.19, 95%CI 0.84 to 1.70, p = 0.33). In the American cohorts, GBA mutations were detected in 36 (8.1%) patients and GBA carrier status was also not associated with the progression to LIDs (HR 1.08, 95%CI 0.55 to 2.14, p = 0.82) or MF (HR 1.22, 95%CI 0.74 to 2.04, p = 0.43). Conclusion: This study does not provide evidence that GBA-carrier status is associated with a higher risk of developing motor complications. Publication of studies with null results is vital to develop an accurate summary of the clinical features that impact patients with GBA-associated PD. publishedVersion

The current base of knowledge around Parkinson’s disease has been assembled in partnership with a cohort of participants that does not resemble the diversity of people with the disease. This poor representation in research results in an incomplete picture of the disease and disparities in care. The Michael J. Fox Foundation has defined four major areas of action: 1) identifying barriers and solutions to research participation; 2) funding inclusive research with greater participant diversity; 3) building a clinician/researcher workforce committed to health equity; and 4) supporting a more holistic understanding of PD. While factors driving disparities, including broader societal challenges, are complex, it is imperative that the PD research, care, and patient communities move in a decisive and coordinated fashion to identify and implement strategies that advance treatments for everyone with PD and eliminate care inequities.

Tumor tracking is performed during patient set-up and monitoring of respiratory motion in radiotherapy. In the clinical setting, there are several types of equipment for this set-up such as the Electronic Portal imaging Device (EPID) and Cone Beam CT (CBCT). Technically, an optical positioning system tracks the difference between the infra ball reflected from body and machine isocenter. Our objective is to compare the clinical positioning error of patient setup between Cone Beam CT (CBCT) with the Optical Positioning System (OPS), and to evaluate the traditional positioning systems and OPS based on our proposed approach of patient positioning. In our experiments, a phantom was used, and we measured its setup errors in three directions. Specifically, the deviations in the left-to-right (LR), anterior-to-posterior (AP) and inferior-to-superior (IS) directions were measured by vernier caliper on a graph paper using the Varian Linear accelerator. Then, we verified the accuracy of OPS based on this experimental study. In order to verify the accuracy of phantom experiment, 40 patients were selected in our radiotherapy experiment. To illustrate the precise of optical positioning system, we designed clinical trials using EPID. From our radiotherapy procedure, we can conclude that OPS has higher precise than conventional positioning methods, and is a comparatively fast and efficient positioning method with respect to the CBCT guidance system.

The purpose of the present work is to present some aspects of the Assistive Technology Assessment (ATA) process model compatible with the Position Paper 2012 by AAATE/EASTIN. Three aspects of the ATA process will be discussed in light of three topics of the Position Paper 2012: (i) The dimensions and the measures of the User eXperience (UX) evaluation modelled in the ATA process as a way to verify the efficient and the evidence-based practices of an AT service delivery centre; (ii) The relevance of the presence of the psychologist in the multidisciplinary team of an AT service delivery centre as necessary for a complete person-centred assistive solution empowering users to make their own choices; (iii) The new profession of the psychotechnologist, who explores user's needs by seeking a proper assistive solution, leading the multidisciplinary team to observe critical issues and problems. Through the foundation of the Position Paper 2012, the 1995 HEART study, the Matching Person and Technology model, the ICF framework, and the pillarsof the ATAprocess, thispaper sets fortha concept and approach that emphasise the personal factors of the individual consumer and UX as key to positively impacting a successful outcome and AT solution. 1. Background and purpose The model of the Assistive Technology Assess- ment (ATA) process was developed by Federici and Scherer (1) with the contribution of 55 scholars from five continents. It models the functioning process of centres for assistive technology (AT) evaluation and provision independentlyfrom the model of local or na- tional service delivery systems. The aim is to suggest practical guidelines for a quality control of effective processes of matching individual users with the most appropriate technology. The ATA process borrows a user-driven working methodology from the Matching Person and Technology (MPT) model of Scherer (3,4).

Whilst common sense knowledge has been well researched in terms of intelligence and in particular artificial intelligence, specific, factual knowledge also plays a critical part in practice. When it comes to testing for intelligence, testing for factual knowledge is, in every-day life, frequently used as a front line tool. This paper presents new results which were the outcome of a series of practical Turing tests held on 23rd June 2012 at Bletchley Park, England. The focus of this paper is on the employment of specific knowledge testing by interrogators. Of interest are prejudiced assumptions made by interrogators as to what they believe should be widely known and subsequently the conclusions drawn if an entity does or does not appear to know a particular fact known to the interrogator. The paper is not at all about the performance of machines or hidden humans but rather the strategies based on assumptions of Turing test interrogators. Full, unedited transcripts from the tests are shown for the reader as working examples. As a result, it might be possible to draw critical conclusions with regard to the nature of human concepts of intelligence, in terms of the role played by specific, factual knowledge in our understanding of intelligence, whether this is exhibited by a human or a machine. This is specifically intended as a position paper, firstly by claiming that practicalising Turing's test is a useful exercise throwing light on how we humans think, and secondly, by taking a potentially controversial stance, because some interrogators adopt a solipsist questioning style of hidden entities with a view that it is a thinking intelligent human if it thinks like them and knows what they know. The paper is aimed at opening discussion with regard to the different aspects considered.

The design of public assistive technology (AT) service delivery systems in Europe varies according to each country's culture, disability policy, socio-economic context, health care system organization and history. Though it is recognized by the AT community that it is impossible and not useful to develop a "perfect" or "standard" model for AT service delivery, a way to reduce the fragmentation and increase the collaboration among AT providers has been recently highlighted by the AAATE Position Paper on Service Delivery Systems in Europe. In particular, this document emphasizes the importance for AT providers to share their practices of service delivery in order to "understand to which extent good practices could be exported from one country to another"; and implement common strategies for the evaluation of the quality of the service delivery. In keeping with these recommendations, the present paper illustrates an interdisciplinary AT assessment model targeting children with multiple disabilities which is grounded on the experience of the Centre for Assistive Technology (CAT) operating in the municipality of Bologna, Italy. In addition, a proposal for a conceptual framework for evaluating the quality of service delivery is developed.

The world has undergone dramatic changes due to the pervasive spread of the Internet, the marriage of computers and telecommunication, and the shift to a global economy. Cities, regions, and nations everywhere face an uncertain challenge in the wake of globalization. What we do in the next few years to reinvent our civilization, our political, social and economic institutions, and, importantly, our schools to meet the challenges of this new economy will determine whether our cities and communities survive and succeed or atrophy and die. This white paper examines the challenges to cities, local and regional communities; and to politicians and policymakers in the U.S. and indeed, across the world.

The scientific and information communities have largely mastered the presentation of, and linkages between, text-based electronic information by assigning persistent identifiers to give scientific literature unique identities and accessibility. Knowledge, as published through scientific literature, is often the last step in a process originating from scientific research data. Today scientists are using simulation, observational, and experimentation techniques that yield massive quantities of research data. These data are analyzed, synthesized, interpreted, and the outcome of this process is generally published as a scientific article. Access to the original data as the foundation of knowledge has become an important issue throughout the world and different projects have started to find solutions. Global collaboration and scientific advances could be accelerated through broader access to scientific research data. In other words, data access could be revolutionized through the same technologies used to make textual literature accessible. The most obvious opportunity to broaden visibility of and access to research data is to integrate its access into the medium where it is most often cited: electronic textual information. Besides this opportunity, it is important, irrespective of where they are cited, for research data to have an internet identity. Since 2005, the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) has offered a successful Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration service for persistent identification of research data. In this white paper we discuss the possibilities to open this registration to a global consortium of information institutes and libraries.

In its Green Paper entitled Public sector information: a key resource for Europe, published in January 1999, the Commission expresses concern about the low level of dissemination of public sector information by EU countries. The report states that “the ready availability of public information is an absolute prerequisite for the competitiveness of European industry. In this respect, EU companies are at a serious competitive disadvantage compared to their American counterparts, which benefit from a highly developed, efficient public information system at all levels of the administration”. Geographical information is no exception to this rule. European diversity in data policy and its interpretation, in data specification, in pricing and access rules, in private/public sector relationships, is holding back the development of a single market and the growth of the European economy. In the near future, in Europe, the governments should freely access and exploit GI in decision making and solving the pressing political bottlenecks in society, such as a social exclusion, security and health. The public sector should work in full partnership with, and encouraging, the private sector to provide information via electronic systems. European citizens should use GI for participation in the public decision making processes, and use many services. GI usage should be far more embedded in education programs. The research community should build up a knowledge infrastructure to be exploited through many knowledge centres. A way to achieve all these objectives is to create a European Geographic Information Infrastructure. The paper prepared by Eurostat describes the initiatives already taken by the Commission in this direction: GI2000, the creation of EUROGI, the RD projects, the drafting of a first document on a vision for the EGII and the creation of an interservice group to discuss the use of GI and GIS inside the Commission.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify atherosclerotic risk using pulse wave velocity (PWV) in steel workers employed in different shift-work rotations, and to elucidate its relationship to social jetlag and shift schedule details.PARTICIPANTS: Male workers in a steel factory (n=77, 32 fast clockwise (CW), 30 slow counterclockwise (CC), 15 day workers (DW); mean age 42 ± SD 7.6 yrs) with at least 5 years of experience in their current work schedule participated.METHODS: All workers completed questionnaires on demographics, health, psychotropic agents, sleep, social and work life, social jetlag (difference between mid-sleep time on workdays and days off used as a marker of circadian disruption) and chronotype (mid-sleep time on free days corrected for sleep deficit on workdays). In 63 workers we measured PWV, blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) between 08:00 and 12:30 h in controlled posture conditions (no caffeine/smoking/exercise).RESULTS: There was no significant difference in PWV (covariates: age, BP) between the different shift-rotations (CW, CC and DW). In all workers combined, HR and social jetlag were significantly positively correlated. Demographic variables did not differ between shift-workers and day workers; shift-workers (CW, CC) reported significantly more stomach upsets, digestion problems, weight fluctuations, and social jetlag. The CW and CC workers did not differ in ratings of how shift-work affected sleep, social and work life.CONCLUSIONS: PWV was not different between the two shift-rotations. This pilot study shows first evidence that HR is related to social jetlag, and therefore warrants more studies in different shift schedules.

This is a short paper on the “Trivia Challenge” which is a social media initiative to combine science and fun to raise awareness of the Science.gov information portal. Science.gov operated under the Science.gov Alliance and is sponsored by the federal interagency group CENDI.

The power transmission tower’s ground electrode defect will affect its normal current dispersion function and threaten the power system’s safe and stable operation and even personal safety. Aiming at the problem that the buried grounding grid is difficult to be detected, this paper proposes a method for identifying the ground electrode defects of transmission towers based on single-side multi-point excited ultrasonic guided waves. The geometric model, ultrasonic excitation model, and physical model are established, and the feasibility of ultrasonic guided wave detection is verified through the simulation and experiment. In actual inspection, it is equally important to determine the specific location of the defect. Therefore, a multi-point excitation method is proposed to determine the defect’s actual position by combining the ultrasonic guided wave signals at different excitation positions. Besides, the precise quantification of flat steel grounding electrode defects is achieved through the feature extraction-neural network method. Field test results show that, compared with the commercial double-sided excitation transducer, the single-sided excitation transducer proposed in this paper has a lower defect quantization error in defect quantification. The average quantization error is reduced by approximately 76%.

The data revolution has increased data demands for leveraging on Big Data in the production of statistics. The paper assesses the adoption of Big Data in research institutes in Kenya. Data were collected from 64 data practitioners based in the 24 research institutes that have a mandate to produce and analyse official statistics. The paper establishes the risks and challenges of using Big Data in statistics, identifies the determinants of adoption of Big Data in statistics and validates the relevance of a Technology Adoption Model (TAM) for predicting the adoption. It is the conclusion that there are immense opportunities for Big Data in statistics if the associated risks and challenges are addressed and the identified key determinants prioritized to promote the adoption.

In Dempster-Shafer theory, belief structure plays a key role, which provides a useful framework for information representation of uncertain variables. Basic Probability Assignment (BPA) is the most important component, which is difficult to be determined due to the uncertainty of information. Generally, there are two ways to get BPA of evidential theory: One is a subjective judgment of the expert’s experience, Interval Belief Structure (IBS) can solve the fuzziness and uncertainty of expert’s judgment. The other is an objective calculation by sampling existing data, in which BPA is viewed as the point estimate. Therefore, one of the contributions of this paper is that the definitions and theories of Confidential Interval Belief Structure (CIBS) is developed to describe BPA in Dempster-Shafer theory, which can give a range of population parameter values and contain more information to deal with the uncertainty and fuzziness of existing data. And then, based on evidential reasoning rule for counter-intuitive behavior, another contribution of this paper is that the extended evidential reasoning approach with CIBS is proposed to obtain the combined belief degree. The proposed method can be flexibly adjusted by appropriate errors and confidence levels, which is the main advantage. Finally, a case of sustainable operation of Shanghai rail transit system to verify the feasibility of proposed method and great performance of the extended method is shown.

Iris segmentation is one of the most important steps in iris recognition. The current iris segmentation network is based on convolutional neural network (CNN). Among these methods, there are still problems with the segmentation networks such as high complexity, insufficient accuracy, etc. To solve these problems, an improved low complexity DenseUnet is proposed to this paper based on U-net for acquiring a high-accuracy iris segmentation network. In this network, the improvements are as follows: (1) Design a dense block module that contains five convolutional layers and all convolutions are dilated convolutions aimed at enhancing feature extraction; (2) Except for the last convolutional layer, all convolutional layers output feature maps are set to the number 64, and this operation is to reduce the amounts of parameters without affecting the segmentation accuracy; (3) The solution proposed to this paper has low complexity and provides the possibility for the deployment of portable mobile devices. DenseUnet is used on the dataset of IITD, CASIA V4.0 and UBIRIS V2.0 during the experimental stage. The results of the experiments have shown that the iris segmentation network proposed in this paper has a better performance than existing algorithms.