A Digitized Fuel Load Surveying Methodology Using Machine Vision

BackgroundMobile electronic devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs, have emerged as potentially useful tools in the facilitation and maintenance of weight loss. While RCTs have demonstrated a positive impact of mobile interventions, the extent to which mobile electronic devices are more effective than usual care methods is still being debated.ResultsElectronic databases were systematically searched for RCTs evaluating the effectiveness of mobile electronic device interventions among overweight and obese adults. Weighted mean difference for change in body weight was the primary outcome. The search strategy yielded 559 citations and of the 108 potentially relevant studies, six met the criteria. A total of 632 participants were included in the six studies reporting a mean change in body weight. Using a random-effects model, the WMD for the effect of using mobile electronic devices on reduction in body weight was −1.09 kg (95% CI −2.12, −0.05). When stratified by the type of mobile electronic device used, it suggests that interventions using mobile phones were effective at achieving weight loss, WMD = −1.78 kg (95% CI −2.92, −0.63).ConclusionsThis systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that mobile electronic devices have the potential to facilitate weight loss in overweight and obese populations, but further work is needed to understand if these interventions have sustained benefit and how we can make these mHealth tools most effective on a large scale. As the field of healthcare increasingly utilizes novel mobile technologies, the focus must not be on any one specific device but on the best possible use of these tools to measure and understand behavior. As mobile electronic devices continue to increase in popularity and the associated technology continues to advance, the potential for the use of mobile devices in global healthcare is enormous. More RCTs with larger sample sizes need to be conducted to look at the cost-effectiveness, technical and financial feasibility of adapting such mHealth interventions in a real clinical setting.

Summary Bauxite mines rehabilitated in the early 1980s in Western Australia have built up substantial fuel loads that may be reduced through prescription burning. Fuel characteristics, vegetation structure and fire behaviour of 11–15 year-old rehabilitated bauxite mines were examined. Fuel loads were high in all pre-burn rehabilitation areas (23.4–35.1 t ha−1) although large ranges in fuel load estimates of sample plots (6.3–49.3 t ha−1) indicated the heterogenous nature of the fuel distribution that led to heterogeneity in fire behaviour. The vegetation structure of the rehabilitated areas differed from that of the native jarrah forest due to a lower proportion of live to dead plant material and the presence of a prominent mid-storey layer composed of dead Acacia plants. This mid-storey layer contributed 45% of the total fuel load and led to increased flame heights and subsequent higher levels of crown scorch regardless of the soil and litter moisture conditions. Seven prescription burns were carried out between 1994 and 1996 encompassing a range of fire intensities and seasons of burning. Autumn burns were generally of higher intensity than spring burns due to the drier nature of the fuel following summer drought. Re-accumulation of fuel in the first year following burning was rapid (6.4–9.5 t ha−1) but had levelled off by the second year (6.1–10.3 t ha−1). Vegetation structure of rehabilitated areas one and two years after burning indicated that the prescription burns had removed the mid-storey layer of senescent Acacia material and stimulated an increase in the proportion of live plant material, particularly following autumn burning. Maximum soil temperatures recorded by heat-sensitive crayons exceeded 200°C in the autumn burns and were generally well below 100°C in the spring burns. Hard-seeded species would have been stimulated to germinate in the top 2–5 cm following autumn burning and only in the top I cm following spring burning. Some seeds in the top 1 cm of soil may have been killed in the autumn burns. The fire management of rehabilitated areas will have to be different to that of the native jarrah forest due to differences in fuel characteristics, vegetation structure and fire behaviour of these two sites.

In the last decade, a progressive and continuous increase in devastating forest fires has been observed. The changes in wildfire characteristics show higher levels of fire danger, longer fire seasons, and intense and rapidly spreading "mega-fires". In this context, the Interreg IT-FR Maritime (cross-border Interreg Italy-France Maritime 2014–2020 programme) MED-Star project (Strategies and measures for fire risk mitigation in the Mediterranean area), co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), aims to strengthen capacities in fire forecasting, prevention, and suppression. In order to evaluate wildfire risk, a better understanding of distribution and characteristics of different forest fuels is crucial. Within the MED-Star project, we carried out a field survey to collect information about fuel loads on accessible areas and investigated a geostatistical approach to extend forest fuel distribution quantification to the rest of the territories. The field survey campaign acquired more than 12.000 observations on fuel loads recorded by FuelGeoData App, a mobile device application, which was developed in the project by vanzotech srl (Rimini, Italy) and is based on the photoload sampling method designed by Keane in 2007. The recorded fuel loads were modelled using information related to stands height and Sentinel missions' remotely sensed data. The stands height was obtained as a crown height model (CHM) produced by NASA as part of the GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation) project. Other remote sensed information was derived by Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 cloud free images recorded in July 2021 (same period of the field survey). Our geostatistical approach was based on the random forest algorithm using the 70% of observations to train the model and the 30% to test model accuracy. The model results showed a general prediction accuracy higher than other previous studies in most of the fuel types investigated, highlighting how the number of observations and, as a consequence, the training sample size influence the predictive potential of the model.

Most people nowadays are always occupied with their mobile devices. Mobile devices were utilized not just as a means of communication but also to launch applications installed to aid routine activities. The deployment of cloud storage applications to access cloud storage accounts is one of the most popular uses. Consumers have rapidly adopted cloud storage services from mobile devices, often available over the internet. However, this situation allows criminals to engage in illegal acts such as child pornography and violence. Since cloud services are virtual, non-local, and primarily proprietary technologies, digital forensics investigators encounter a significant challenge in resolving such issues. For investigators, data from mobile devices is vital. It will be stored on the mobile device and provide an overview of the user's cloud storage contents. This study focuses on Android devices and employs the MediaFire and Sync.com applications along with 20 data sets in various formats as samples. The mobile device will then be extracted using MSAB XRY under various circumstances (after the process of file modification, data cleanup, cache clearance, and application removal). The study contributes to the design of a data extraction framework guided by NIST 800–101 rev 1 and SWGDE Best Practices, as well as the documentation of the extraction procedure, as a step in ensuring that the data extraction process adheres to digital forensics standards. This research is projected to offer a fundamental reference for conducting digital forensic investigations of mobile cloud storage services.

The use of metaphor is essential in user interface design, particularly for the mobile landscape, as the visual environment continues to be populated with more and more mobile electronic devices. A metaphor allows us to understand one concept in terms of another. Although considerable research has gone into the mobile technology, little attention has been paid to mobile interface metaphor, which is the key to user interaction. This paper explores the role of metaphor in interfaces in facilitating user interaction with mobile devices. It presents a classification of metaphors. It also proposes a framework with salient factors in relation to visual communication with metaphors. It also offers some thoughts on the use of new metaphors.

In this study, the purpose was to evaluate the effect of mobile electronic devices (MEDs) use on the sleep states of university students. The study was conducted in a cross-sectional fashion between April 21, 2019 and May 31, 2019 with the participation of the students registered in a public university at medical faculties and faculty of health sciences. Television viewing, MED and desktop computer use form, Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and Sleepiness Severity Index (SSI) were used as data collection tools. The data of 752 students (56.5% girls, mean age: 20.57 [SD = 1.54] years) were analyzed. In this study, overall MED use times and PSQI, ESS, and SSI total scores were higher in students who had an evening-oriented chronotype. There was a negative relationship between overall and evening MED use times and the chronotype scores of the students. As a result of the regression analyses applied to the PSQI, ESS, and SSI dependent variables, a positive and significant relationship was detected with smartphone use times (P < 0.05, P = 0.05, and P < 0.001, respectively). In addition, there was a positive relationship between PSQI and ESS variables and iPod touch use times (P < 0.001 and P < 0.05, respectively). Overall MED use times were determined to be higher in students who had Type E chronotype. It was also determined that their sleep quality was poorer and their insomnia severity was higher, and there was more sleepiness in the students with chronotype E. Comprehensive interventions must be planned by professional healthcare staff for students on the topics of sleep hygiene and conscious media use.

Smart sensor-equipped mobile devices sense, collect, and process data generated by the edge network to achieve intelligent control, but such mobile devices usually have limited storage and computing resources. Mobile cloud storage provides a promising solution owing to its rich storage resources, great accessibility, and low cost. But it also brings a risk of information leakage. The encryption of sensitive data is the basic step to resist the risk. However, deploying a high complexity encryption and decryption algorithm on mobile devices will greatly increase the burden of terminal operation and the difficulty to implement the necessary privacy protection algorithm. In this paper, we propose ENSURE (EfficieNt and SecURE), an efficient and secure encrypted search architecture over mobile cloud storage. ENSURE is inspired by edge computing. It allows mobile devices to offload the computation intensive task onto the edge server to achieve a high efficiency. Besides, to protect data security, it reduces the information acquisition of untrusted cloud by hiding the relevance between query keyword and search results from the cloud. Experiments on a real data set show that ENSURE reduces the computation time by 15% to 49% and saves the energy consumption by 38% to 69% per query.

BackgroundPatient activation has an impact on the management of patients’ health, clinical outcomes, and treatment costs. Mobile electronic devices (MEDs) have shown the potential to engage patients in wellness behavior. Furthermore, the potentially positive role of MEDs is evident in supporting health professionals in their practice.ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the impact of MEDs on patient activation to search for information on chronic conditions and medications and the impact of MEDs on the empowerment of health professionals or future health professionals.MethodsWe conducted 6 focus groups—2 with health sciences students, 2 with health professionals, and 2 with hospitalized patients with chronic conditions. A protocol comprising eight questions was used to guide discussions. Audio-recorded data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically; a ranking system was used to analyze the relevance of identified themes and subthemes, using a coding system depicted by the + symbol, to indicate different relevance levels.ResultsOur results suggest that MEDs can positively affect patient activation to search for chronic conditions and medication information by facilitating patients’ information-seeking behavior. Key drivers leading to patients’ activation to seek information related to chronic conditions and medications through MEDs were the accessibility and abundance of available and detailed information, reduced search time, information updates, and convenience in finding information at any time and place. The lack of accurate information in one’s native language, access to incorrect information, and limited access to the internet were key obstacles to seeking information related to chronic conditions and medications via MEDs. In addition, findings of this study suggest that MEDs in general and mobile apps, in particular, may have a positive impact on the work routine of health care professionals as they enable them to make quicker decisions by accessing the required information faster, thus improving practice efficiency. Furthermore, the appropriate usage of MEDs by patients for seeking information about their chronic conditions and medications may positively impact the physician-patient relationship. All focus groups recognized the questionable reliability of health information on the internet and its potential negative effects on patients. Therefore, our findings suggest the need for an additional role of health professionals in assisting patients in using MEDs to search for health and medication information, such as providing reliable websites and mobile apps where patients can safely search for health-related information on the web.ConclusionsThe use of MEDs may help activate patients to seek chronic conditions and medication-related information, potentially leading to better management of their chronic conditions and medications. Our findings also highlight the positive impact MEDs may have on empowering health professionals in their practice and the need for health professionals to help patients through specific education that addresses MEDs utilization for chronic conditions and medication information seeking.

The many sensors hosted by mobile electronic devices are commonly used to recognize user activities and context, in order to provide new functionalities, such as tracking physical activity and sleep cycles. Despite its potential, such context recognition is only employed for power management purposes in very specific scenarios (e.g. in-pocket detection). In this work we present a novel context recognition system able to reliably identify whether a mobile device is not being looked at, and to consequently trigger power management actions such as turning off the display and moving to suspended mode. Our method takes as input the readings from common low-power sensors present in virtually all mobile devices and classifies them using a Convolutional Neural Network. Most importantly, the power-hungry camera sub-system is not used, resulting in an extremely energy-efficient detection strategy. Results show that our system is able to identify scenarios in which a device is not being used with 95.6% accuracy, thus reducing the energy overheads by 91% compared to a standard timeout-based power management and by 58% compared to a system relying on the camera.

This study investigated the relation between preschoolers’ mobile electronic device (MED) use and sleep disturbances. A national sample of 402 predominantly college-educated and Caucasian mothers of 3–5-year-olds completed a survey assessing their preschoolers’ MED use, bedtime resistance, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness. Heavier evening and daily tablet use (and to some extent, smartphone use) were related to sleep disturbances. Other forms of MED use were not consistently related to sleep disturbances. In addition, playing games on MEDs at bedtime was related to compromised sleep duration, although other forms of MED use at bedtime were not related to sleep outcomes. Although the relations between MED use and sleep disturbances were small in size, they were larger than the relations between sleep and other predictors in the models. Continued work should investigate how MED exposure is related to children’s cognitive, psychological, emotional, and physiological development, particularly given the popularity and widespread use of these devices.

The image of a license plate is scanned by the camera attached to a mobile PDA device and the numbers on the plate are detected by the image processing parts in the proposed Mobile system. Then the numbers and the location of a mobile PDA device are encoded and transmitted along with the location information to a remote server through a wireless communication network. Finally, the server decodes the transmitted data as a text format and transmits it to the destination user. Consequently, this paper contributes a case study on the embedded system for designing of intelligent interface between a moving vehicle and a mobile PDA device, using a spatial relative distance scheme. The experimental results show that detection and tracking of a location of moving vehicle can be conducted efficiently with a mobile PDA device in real-time through wireless communication system and Internet.

With the advent of GPS and the spread of smart phones (iPhone, Android, etc.) have proliferated applications dealing with geographic information. Many of these applications are beginning to provide semantic information through: 1) the classification of tourist attractions in categories (thesauri tourism categories Open Street Map, etc.), and 2) the representation of metadata (Linked Geo Data, Crossing, etc.). However, mobile devices do not still uses all this potential. This paper presents a comprehensive study on the main formalisms to include Semantic and Geographic Data within a mobile device, and how to get them work efficiently just in the mobile, without internet connection. The article presents several options to implement these technologies and, for every option shows the limitations of such implementation. Therefore provides a glimpse into the various options available to implement semantic geographic applications on mobile devices. To mark the goal, the study shows a case study where ontologies have been used to provide semantics to a travel assistant that runs on mobile devices. The goal is an application able to offer personalized touristic routes different for every single user, that take into account, for example, the user interests and time available, and all the processes must be run within the mobile device. The main contribution of the paper is to manage and combine semantic data and geographic information within a mobile device, and doing it without internet connection, and for an end-user application.

There is tremendous growth in the amount of digital video creation and communication with the proliferation of mobile consumer electronic devices such as cellular phones with video capture and display capabilities. This trend will continue with the demand for higher spatial and temporal video resolutions accompanied by 3D and multiview video. Since it is not practical to store or transmit the raw digital video data, it is essential to reduce it with digital video compression. To cope with the vast amount of raw digital video data, digital video compression standards use increasingly more complex algorithms. These algorithms achieve higher compression at the same quality at the expense of significant computational complexity. Therefore, it is essential to design low power digital video compression hardware especially for mobile devices. In this talk, I will present two sets of power reduction techniques for digital video compression hardware. The ones in the first set reduce the power consumption with no impact on the video quality. The ones in the second set trade off video quality for power consumption which also enables adjusting video quality based on available energy in the battery of a mobile device for graceful degradation. I will show the impact of these techniques on the power consumption of digital video compression hardware implementing H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC standards.

Low operating temperature micro solid oxide fuel cell (micro-SOFC) systems which utilize liquid fuels are attractive for high energy efficiency and density. Long time operation is possible for micro-SOFCs by refueling and it is not restricted by battery charge. Hence, it is expected to alternative power source for compact mobile electronic devices which consume a large amount of power. In previous, diverse types of micro-SOFCs focused on its performance was reported and a maximum power density of 1 W/cm2 at 500oC was achieved. However, they have many problems of durability and repeatability for practical use. Additionally, it is necessary to consider how to heat up micro-SOFC cells to operating temperature, compatibility with other electronic circuits and thermally self-sustained condition. In this study, micro-SOFC system was proposed in order to adopt the micro-SOFCs into a power source of compact mobile electric devices. We designed the micro-SOFC package with thermal insulation and heat exchanger. Its insulation performance was experimentally confirmed and power generation test with micro heater in the micro-SOFC package was performed. Micro-SOFC packages require thermal insulation to keep the surface temperature below about 85oC, which is the maximum operating temperature of other electronic circuits. We applied vacuum insulation widely used for thermal insulation in MEMS devices to the package. The heat of the exhaust gas was recovered by the liquid fuel through heat exchanger. From the calculation of temperature distribution by the finite element method, surface temperature of the package was kept from 57 to 88oC when operating temperature is 500oC. As long as the liquid is evaporated, temperature of the heat exchanger is kept constant. Therefore, heat conduction from high temperature glass flow channels to vacuum insulator was prevented and low surface temperature was achieved. Applying micro-SOFC system as independent power sources, thermally self-sustained condition is required, i.e. micro-SOFC packages should keep operating temperature more than 300oC only by the generated heat from reaction of fuel cells during power generation. For thermally self-sustained condition, the amount of heat generated during power generation needs to exceed that of heat loss from surface of the package and transferred heat by exhaust gas. We calculated thermally self-sustained condition of a micro-SOFC system with 4 W output fueled by methanol and water that has reformer and heat exchanger from exhaust gas. From the result, generated heat from reaction of fuel cells was 4.8W, heat loss from surface was 1.5 W and transferred heat by exhaust gas was 4.6 W at 500oC. The result confirmed that transferred heat by exhaust gas was dominated in this system. Hence, recovering the heat of exhaust gas with the gas-liquid heat exchanger was essential to achieve thermally self-sustained condition. Micro-SOFC cells and micro heater were fabricated in general MEMS technology. Power generation test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy of micro-SOFC (Pt-Pd | 15 mol% Y-doped BaZrO3 | Pt-Pd) by micro heater were measured in the temperature range of 200-330oC. A maximum power density of 1.12 mW/cm2 and open circuit voltage of 1.09 V at 330oC were obtained using wet H2 as fuel and air as the oxidant. As a result of impedance measurement, electrode reaction resistance was very high in cell total resistance. Therefore, the improvement of electrode will reduce cell resistance to a level for actual utility. We actually fabricated the micro-SOFC package installed vacuum structure and heat exchanger to evaluate cooling performance of the insulation package and performed power generation test in the package. In the case of heat exchanger filled with 50 vol% ethanol solution, surface temperature was 89.6oC when micro heater temperature was 500oC. In accordance with the result, it was possible to keep surface temperature of the package sufficiently low with heat exchanger. As a result of power generation test of micro-SOFC inside the package, a maximum power density of 1.27 mW/cm2 and open circuit voltage of 0.94 V at 300oC were obtained using wet 25% or 50% H2 as fuel and air as the oxidant. Additionally, surface temperature of the package was kept under 80oC. Therefore I achieved power generation in compact micro-SOFC system with thermal insulation. The micro-SOFC package was designed for applying micro-SOFCs to power source of mobile electronic devices in this study. As a result of calculation, the package installed vacuum insulation and heat exchanger could achieve thermally self-sustained condition and low surface temperature. Power generation test of micro-SOFC inside the prototype package was achieved and the package kept low surface temperature. Hence, this study presented that applicability of micro-SOFC system to power source for compact mobile electronic devices.

Background/Objectives: Running out of battery on phones, laptops and iPads while in public places is a problem that we are trying to avoid. Power consumption of smartphone and other mobile electronics applications is one of the major concerns due to the limited battery capacity. In public places, the grid power supply socket is difficult to find. This paper describes the development of the electric source vending machine for public used. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Development of this machine involves the structural mechanical design and electronic system. The photo sensor is used to detect the Light-Emitting Diode (LED) blinking from the digital electric meter to count the total power use by the different loads. Standard coin acceptor used to determine whether coins are genuine or counterfeit. Adruino microcontroller serves as the main system that controls and process the entire machine system. Findings: The systems are able produce stable 240 V AC and 5 V DC output voltage. Mobile electronic devices can use the electric source from the machine by connecting the adapter or Universal Serial Bus (USB) wire into the ports in the vending machine. Applications/Improvements: An electric source vending machine was developed. It can it can provide an electric source system in public places. This system provides a stable source of electrical 240 V AC and 5 V DC for charging various mobile electronic devices.