BIC Bratislava (Slovakia)

Abstract A new Slovak speech database EWA-DB was created for research purposes aimed at early detection of neurodegenerative diseases from speech. It contains 1649 speakers performing various speech and language tasks, such as sustained vowel phonation, diadochokinesis, naming and picture description. The sample of speakers consists of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, and healthy controls. In this article we describe the EWA-DB development process, the language and speech task selection, patient and healthy control recruitment, as well as the testing and recording protocol. The structure and content of the database and file formats are described in detail. We assume that the presented database could be suitable for the development of automatic systems predicting the diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, and Parkinson’s disease from language and speech features.

Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are prime candidates for use in applications like inventory checking of large warehouses. They facilitate access to the tall racks while being agile to maneuver through the confined space of the corridors of the warehouse. They are capable of carrying the sensors needed to perform the application of warehouse inspection and are capable of sustaining flight during extended periods of time. While the environment of an industrial warehouse is well structured, it is also a challenging surrounding for visual odometry due to reflections, moving parts and light sources which might be occurring at the same time. At low altitudes, the movement of the drone is less stable because of turbulence caused by a backflow of air from the drone. The goods in the warehouse are man-placed, which might cause damage to inspection targets or create obstacles in the space. In spite of all the challenges present in this environment, the drone has to perform effortlessly its application of inventory checking. In this paper, we will focus on extending the automated process of inventory checking, presented in previous work, to the real environment of an existing warehouse and provide approaches to problems that arise from practice. We will present our approach to mission planning considering the presented challenges. The system of capturing and processing application data is introduced. The developed solution uses a UAV called AV Discovery built by Airvolute s.r.o. deployed into a real environment of an active warehouse.

This study focuses on computer simulations of groundwater flow and salinization with the presence of geochemical reaction processes in carbonate-rock aquifers. The mathematical model for this phenomenon is based on the fluid mass conservation equation, Darcy’s equation and transport equations for reactive salt, dissoluble minerals and reaction products. The simulations are obtained by implementing a pseudospectral numerical method with the aid of parallelization, which reduces the total computational time to one-half the time needed for performing corresponding serial computations. This study is carried out for different cases depending on how the liquid density varies with the concentrations of the salt and products. For the case of the strong dependence of the liquid density on the salt concentration, the results show that the average salt flux from the source into the system significantly increases with the increasing salt reaction rate. Furthermore, when the liquid density is strongly dependent on the concentrations of both salt and products, the products generated by the reactive infiltration affect the flow structure and salt transport in the system. These results form the basis for further theoretical and computational research in more complex natural settings. The research findings can be used to enhance groundwater security and prevent widespread contamination of groundwater reserves in the carbonate-rock aquifers.

Due to the increasing trend of photonic element miniaturisation and the need for optical splitting, we propose and simulate a new type of three-dimensional (3D) optical splitter based on multimode interference (MMI) for the wavelength of 1550 nm. We present various designs and simulations of various parameters for the optimized MMI splitter. We focus on the possibility of its integration on an optical fiber. The design is focused on a possible production process using 3D laser lithography for the prepared experiments. The MMI splitter was prepared by laser lithography using direct writing process and finally investigated by output characterisation by the near-field measurement.

Objectives: Radon, a radioactive gas, is among the leading causes of lung-cancer worldwide. While public health authorities emphasize radon’s health risks, there are spas across Europe which claim health benefits of radon. This study investigates how websites of European radon spas frame radon gas, in order to understand the potential controversy between “radon as carcinogen” and “radon as cure,” and its potential impact on public health interventions. Methods: A two-phased frame analysis of websites of radon spas (n = 26) situated in the European Union. Results: Five frames are identified, which present radon as a 1) source of health, 2) natural gas, 3) (non) risk, 4) luxury and 5) fountain of youth. These five partly overlapping frames are at times in clear contrast with the ways in which radon is presented in a public health context. Conclusion: Being aware of the existence and contents of radon frames, which potentially challenge or contradict public health interventions, helps responsible authorities in designing more effective campaigns and interventions.

Abstract We conduct a field experiment to test the non‐monotonic effect of deadline length on task completion. Participants are invited to complete an online survey in which a donation goes to charity. They are given either 1 week, 1 month, or no deadline to respond. Responses are lowest for the 1‐month deadline and highest when no deadline is specified. No deadline and the 1‐week deadline feature a large number of early responses, while providing a 1‐month deadline appears to give people permission to procrastinate. If they are inattentive, they might forget to complete the task.

This article, unlike the vast existing literature on political trust, focuses on trust in post-socialist countries and, more specifically, on trust of young people rather than on trust of general populations. Studying young people is important in the context of establishing democracy and the survival of democracy. The authors examine the continuous effect of socialism and stipulate that the legacy of the type of socialist regime is a major determinant of political trust in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries. Utilizing individual-level data from an institutional survey, the authors find that distinguishing between different types of socialism is instrumental in explaining political trust. Results on the former Yugoslavia, however, suggest that the effects of socialism might be temporarily overshadowed in the short run by drastic post-socialist events such as warfare. The findings have implications for policies aimed at fostering political trust in post-socialist countries and for discerning future patterns of political and social developments.