Gaze-based Cursor Control Impairs Performance in Divided Attention.

Seeing the eyes in acquired prosopagnosia

Convenient intelligent cursor control web systems for Internet users with severe motor-impairments

The work of fitting ceiling boards is one of the hardest in carpentry, as it requires large muscular power. Hence there is a need to develop assisting apparatus for such work. In order to use this apparatus anywhere a wearable robot is the most suitable. As the robot must be autonomous and lightweight, a design requiring low power is proposed. A semi-active control method has been developed using springs, which requires low energy but satisfies the requirements of compliance and assistive force. In this paper several aspects of design, control and experiments of the developed prototype is explained. The experimental results prove that the robot reduces the muscular fatigue of carpentry worker by providing suitable assistive force.

Due to their heavy weight and elevated center of gravity, the safe operation of heavy construction machinery, including drilling rigs and pile drivers, on soft ground conditions is related to significant challenges. While the dimensioning of working platforms in engineering practice often relies on empirical assumptions, these characteristics require the use of adequately dimensioned working platforms to prevent equipment overturns. Overturns can result in severe injuries, fatalities, property damage, production downtime, increased costs, and reputational harm. To address these risks, the European Federation of Foundation Contractors (EFFC) and the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) have collaborated on the second edition of the “Guide to Working Platforms” for the design and construction of working platforms, set for publication in 2024. This edition aims to improve safety, simplicity, and productivity in on-site operations under challenging conditions, targeting geotechnical engineers, clients and all those involved in construction, including operatives on construction sites. An international consortium of industry, business, and research experts is developing the guide, focusing on three core areas: realistic ground pressure distributions beneath construction machinery (FRS#2), suitable geotechnical design methods for working platforms (FRS#3), and field test evaluations for verification and quality control of executed working platforms (FRS#1). The Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Stuttgart, was commissioned by DFI and EFFC, with research work on FRS#1 and FRS#3. This proposed paper will present the findings and recommendations based on these research projects. Field tests conducted across nearly 40 sites in Europe, the USA, and the UK revealed significant variability in results due to subbase and substrate conditions and test execution differences (FRS#1). The study identified various testing methods' sensitivities to material heterogeneity, underscoring the need for site-specific test selection and testing concepts. Recommendations on particularly suitable testing methods will be presented. The assessment of design methods for working platforms includes a comparison of calculation methods, the investigation of their sensitivity against input parameters as well as their application on representative case studies. The findings highlight significant deviation in required platform thicknesses depending on the chosen design method and emphasize the importance of a holistic approach of design methods including the selection of geotechnical input parameters, realistic track pressures, and appropriate calculation method and a related safety concept. As part of guidance formulated, it is demonstrated that the friction angles of granular platform layers and the subsoil shear strength decisively impact the required platform thickness.

Speech recognition can be a powerful tool for individuals with physical disabilities that hinder their ability to use traditional input devices. State-of-the-art speech recognition systems typically provide mechanisms for both data entry and cursor control, but the researchers continue to investigate methods of improving these interactions. Numerous researchers are investigating methods to improve the underlying technologies that make speech recognition possible and others focus on understanding the difficulties users experience using dictation-oriented applications, but few researchers have investigated the issues involved in speech-based cursor control. In this article, we describe a study that investigates the efficacy of two variations of a standard speech-based cursor control mechanism. One employs the standard mouse cursor while the second provides a predictive cursor designed to help users compensate for the delays often associated with speech recognition. As expected, larger targets and shorter distances resulted in shorter target selection times while larger targets also resulted in fewer errors. Although there were no differences between the standard and predictive cursors, a relationship between the delays associated with spoken input, the speed at which the cursor moves, and the minimum size for targets that can be reliably selected emerged that can guide the application of similar speech-based cursor control mechanisms as well as future research.

Time driven activity-based costing is a new way to overcome the problems in the traditional ABC, where the first stage of the allocation of resources is removed and used resources are expressed by the time equations. The present research focuses on the behavioral aspects (staff public participation and leadership style) of system design and shows that how behavioral aspects can lead to operational improvements during the design process of time driven activity-based costing. In this study, two types of costing system are examined by reviewing and analyzing the case study used by Hozee and Bergman about setting up the costing system in various warehouses of a company in Belgium. In the first type, the participation of all members of the organization, especially at low levels, has led to discussions about the input parameters in the costing model and when this group discussions about costing data are driven by aware responsible (people-centered management style), operational improvement will be appeared. In the second type, the operational staff in the design process are not participated and are intimidated of the new costing system and have perforce implemented the system that finally no operational improvements have been reached. Hence, the findings of the research show that the staff public participation and appropriate management styles (Thoughtful leadership style - based on participation rather than absolute - authoritarian leadership style ) are unavoidable to achieve operational improvement during the design process of Time Driven Activity-based costing system, increase the chances of system success and finally lead to operational improvements.

The ability to communicate without using speech or hand gestures poses a great improvement in the quality of life of patients that suffer from movement impairment. Human-machine interaction tools are being studied and developed in order to optimize the usage of biological signals not affected by the individual’s disease. Among different approaches electrooculography signals are an alternative for those who can still move their eyes. This work proposes the use of Genetic Programming to interpret bio signals in the control of a mouse cursor. A digital system was designed to record and filter the EOG signal. Thereafter a Genetic Programming algorithm was used to find the best description for the cursor movement. We show that the algorithm was able to find an equation that describes the moment with 92.5 and 93.0% hit rate for each subject respectively. These preliminary results are compatible with the literature and show that Genetic Programming can be used to find a description of a cursor movement in a simple EOG system with no need of prior knowledge about the movement neither threshold definition.

Reproducibility of cell culture experiments between laboratories needs to be improved by ensuring more complete reporting of methodology in scientific papers. The minimum reporting standards sug-gested here cover various cell culture methods including monolayers, stem cells, organoids, and microphysiological systems (MPS). The standards build on existing guidance like Good Cell Culture Practice (GCCP 2.0) and OECD test reporting guidelines on how to quality-assure in vitro work, focusing on transparency and completeness of reporting. Key elements to be reported include full details of cell source and identity, cell quality control and characterization, materials and reagents used, culture conditions and protocols, experimental design, data analysis, data availability, and legal and ethical aspects. For complex models, additional details need to be provided such as cell ratios, microenvironment conditions, functional characterization, etc. The guidance for Good In Vitro Reporting Standards (GIVReSt) is part of a broader initiative of evidence-based toxicology encompassing the improvement of the quality of in vitro studies for safety assessments and regulatory decisions. In summary, GIVReSt addresses incomplete reporting as a major factor affecting repro-ducibility of cell culture experiments by providing clear standards around transparency and rigor in reporting. The integration of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is envisioned to streamline compliance checking, providing real-time feedback and accelerating scientific discovery by making high-quality evidence more accessible. This should lead to more reliable cell culture research overall.

Developing teaching of Mechanical principle on the basis of innovative thinking and engineering practice ability training is a need of training engineering students under new situation. In the paper the requirements of this training object to teach Mechanical principle is described, some constraints of current teaching system is analyzed, including that course system is dated, teaching method emphasizes on imparting knowledge, and knowledge directional exams are not conducive to engineering ability training, most experiments fail to achieve the purpose of training engineering ability, etc. And then, how to cultivate students’ innovative thinking and project practice ability is discussed, and suggest that teaching method, experiment, examination mode, curriculum design, class discussion and other aspects need to be certain reform and innovation. Engineering ability training is a systemic process and needs persistent efforts in all aspects.KeywordsMechanical principleTeachingEngineering Ability

This chapter summarizes basic experimental setup and precautions to be made for successful measurements in analytical ultracentrifugation. There are two types of ultracentrifuge, XL-A and XL-I from Beckman Coulter Co. Ltd. A new ultracentrifuge, CFA analytical ultracentrifuge, is described in Chap. 3.

Design and simulation of skate scooter made of composite material

Predicting pyrolysate fuel generation rate form a condensed fuel is an important component of fire models. For validating or tuning these subgrid models, mass loss rate (MLR) of small samples exposed to known radiant heat flux is measured in standard devices such as the cone calorimeter and Fire Propagation Apparatus (FPA). In order to accurately predict the MLR, pyrolysis model input parameters should represent actual fuel degradation process. The pyrolysis process is intricately coupled to heat transfer in the fuel. A few experimental studies on non-charring polymers [1][2] have shown that these results are sensitive to back boundary, therefore, special care should be taken in interpreting results from these bench-scale instruments. To elucidate the effect of back boundary on the pyrolysis process, here a numerical investigation is carried out for both charring and non-charring fuel material. In this work heat transfer process into the fuel is determined to understand the pyrolysis process. Heat transfer process in the two categories of fuel are quite different. For each fuel category study is carried out for 1 mm and 10 mm thick fuels exposed to low (20kW) and high (100 kW) fluxes. This work aims improve the understanding of burning process in these bench-scale instruments especially for charring substances which have not been addressed in literature in this regard. The study shed important insight for proper use bench tests as a versatile tool for fire safety engineers.

Neural network modeling of sorption of pharmaceuticals in engineered floodplain filtration system

A real-time mouse cursor control system using static gestures was designed to achieve the goal of human-computer interaction (HCI) in this paper. The system uses the computer’s own camera or external USB camera to collect video data, detect and recognize gestures of people in the video, and control the cursor movement or click in real time based on the gesture. To improve the recognition accuracy of hand gesture images detection, a method of hand gesture images detection based on PHOG + Improved LBP + K-NN was proposed in this paper. In order to improve the real-time performance of the system, the system determines whether the current frame has human hands by skin color detection. When human hands are detected, Pyramid Histogram of Oriented Gradients (PHOG) features and the improved Local Binary Pattern (LBP) features are further extracted. After fusing PHOG features and improved LBP features, k-nearest neighbor classification (K-NN) is used to implement gesture recognition. Six different gestures were tested 50 times with different angles, different lights and no skin tone in the background. The experimental results show that the system has good recognition performance.

Mouse cursor control with eye movement using OpenCV and machine learning