Human tracking in real-time video for varying illumination

A numerical simulation tool for predicting the impact of outdoor thermal environment on building energy performance

Providing high data rates and wide bandwidth applications are the most important challenges that mobile systems and radio networks are trying to accomplish. Radio over Fiber-RoF systems is a promoting research field since it benefits of Passive Optical Network (PON) advantages and unlicensed large bands in 60 GHz millimeter band (57-64GHz). In this study, we consider a complete RoF system from the central office to the end-user passing by the base station and we study the impact of propagation environment on the whole system performance and radio coverage by considering different scenarios for multipath propagation (Line of Sight-LOS, Non Line of Sight-NLOF). In particular, we have been interested in Rayleigh and Rice propagation models for both indoor and outdoor environments. Optisystem/ADS Co-simulation has been investigated to simulate RoF network coverage for indoor and outdoor environments while considering high data rates.

Language acquisition by children depends on the learning environment when they were in kindergarten to some extent. The goals of this study were to find out the impact of the indoor and outdoor environment on children's language development. Structural equation modeling was adopted. Children randomly selected from 270 preschool classes of five provinces in China were recruited in this study (1642 children aged between 36 and 72 months). We concluded that language achievement of children cannot be directly predicted by indoor and outdoor facilities and play materials, and an intermediate transmission pathway was needed. As an intermediary variable, the curriculum implementation partially mediated the influence of the indoor learning center on children's language achievement. The psychological atmosphere and curriculum implementation have a chain mediation effect between indoor and outdoor facilities and play material quality and childhood language achievement, and the influence effect of indoors was different from that of outdoors. In terms of the influence of indoor learning center planning and play materials, the effect on children's language achievement accounted for 61.5%, while when it came to that of outdoor learning center facilities and equipment, it was 60.7%. This indicated that the impact of the indoor and outdoor environment on children's language development could not be ignored. The indoor environment was more dependent than the outdoor environment on the chain role played by class curriculum implementation, psychological atmosphere and curriculum implementation quality. Therefore, teachers should create a positive psychological atmosphere, organically combine the curriculum implementation with environmental planning and material delivery, cultivate a prepared language environment for children and support their active learning and development.

In recent years, Channel State Information (CSI)-based Human activity recognition (HAR) has received extensive attention for its low cost and privacy protection property. Existing CSI-based HAR systems utilize single classifier to accomplish recognition, which results in poor robustness and relatively low recognition accuracy. In this paper, a random subspace classifier ensemble method is proposed for classification, which utilizes the frequency domain feature instead of the time domain feature and each kind of feature is selected in the same amount. We evaluate its performance both in typical indoor and outdoor environment. Our results show, the recognition accuracy can reach 91.2% and 90.2% in outdoor and indoor environment, respectively.

Micro-level energy sources from the ambient environment can be a viable alternative to increase the life of the sensor nodes from a WSN network. Harvesting energy from the environment - particularly solar energy, is a technique that can support the operation of the sensor nodes. The power extracted from the luminous radiation is extremely variable, depending on day/night alternation, atmospheric conditions, temperature, geographical location, indoor or outdoor environment - which makes the energy harvested insufficient for use as an exclusive power source to supply sensor nodes. A special case is the indoor environment, in which the solar radiation is strongly reduced, compared to the outside environment, and artificial lighting levels are usually below 1000 Lux. We made experiments on an indoor solar cell using illumination from three different sources: fluorescent, incandescent, LED. Detailed measurements, performance comparisons, and conclusions are presented.

Towards a systematic understanding of the dynamic fate of polychlorinated biphenyls in indoor, urban and rural environments

In this paper we propose multiple cameras using real time tracking for surveillance and security system. It is extensively used in the research field of computer vision applications, like that video surveillance, authentication systems, robotics, pre-stage of MPEG4 image compression and user inter faces by gestures. The key components of tracking for surveillance system are extracting the feature, background subtraction and identification of extracted object. Video surveillance, object detection and tracking have drawn a successful increased interest in recent years. A object tracking can be understood as the problem of finding the path (i.e. trajectory) and it can be defined as a procedure to identify the different positions of the object in each frame of a video. Based on the previous work on single detection using single stationary camera, we extend the concept to enable the tracking of multiple object detection under multiple camera and also maintain a security based system by multiple camera to track person in indoor environment, to identify by my proposal system which consist of multiple camera to monitor a person. Present study mainly aims to provide security and detect the moving object in real time video sequences and live video streaming. Based on a robust algorithm for human body detection and tracking in videos created with support of multiple cameras.

Environmental and occupational allergies

Carcinogenic potential, levels and sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures in indoor and outdoor environments and their implications for air quality standards

In thermal face detection, researchers have generally assumed manual face detection or have designed algorithms that focus on indoor environment. However, facial properties are dependent on body temperature, surrounding environment, and any accessories or occlusion present on the face. For instance, the presence of scarfs, glasses, or any disguise accessories will alter the emitted heat pattern, thereby making it challenging to detect the face in thermal images. Similarly, daytime outdoor image acquisition has certain effects on the heat pattern compared to nighttime (or indoor controlled) image acquisition settings that affect automatic face detection performance. In this research, we provide a thorough understanding of challenges in thermal face detection along with an experimental evaluation of traditional approaches. Further, we adapt the AdaBoost face detector to yield improved performance on face detection in thermal images in both indoor and outdoor environments. We also propose a region of interest selection approach designed specifically for aiding occluded/disguised thermal face detection. Experiments are performed on the Notre Dame thermal face database as well as the IIITD databases that include variations such as disguise, age, and environmental (day/night) factors. The results suggest that while thermal face detection in semi-controlled environments is relatively easy, occlusion and disguise are challenges that require further attention.

The increasing human population and the increasing number of vehicles in Tirana, Albania, emerges the need for extensive measurements of noise levels. The 831 measurements of noise levels were taken in Tirana in November 2015 for education purposes. Measurements were collected in eight locations in indoor like a classroom in a school building environment, a library and a healthcare facility and in outdoor environments like five crossroads. Noise levels were then compared with domestic and World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The logarithmic average of noise levels and the maximum value of noise level measured for the period of measurement (LAFmax) were interpolated using Interpolated Noise Levels for Observer Points in ArcGIS producing noise level maps for crossroads. The logarithmic average of noise levels and LAFmax measurements were respectively above domestic and WHO standards in 96% and 100% of outdoor environment and indoor environment locations. Interpolated values of logarithmic average of noise levels and LAFmax for five crossroads were above domestic and WHO standards indicating noise levels in road traffic could remain high. A yearly acoustic measurement for vehicles should be implemented. Participatory measurements of noise levels in quite indoor environments can be used to increase the awareness of inhabitants in Tirana.

In this paper, a thorough research to the small unmanned aerial vehicle localization technology based on the fusion of optical flow and inertial navigation information has been conducted. An experiment platform based on Pixhawk and PX4FLOW is built to test the performance of optical flowAnertial localization system Experiment results shows that this system can work at both indoor and outdoor environment. In the indoor environment, the optical flowAnertial positioning system has better accuracy compared with the system using pure optical flow information. In the outdoor environment, the results proves that this system is a potential solution for UAV positioning in GPS-denied environment-with an error of 5 meters.

The demand for pedestrian navigation has increased along with the rapid progress in mobile and wearable devices. This study develops an accurate and usable Step Length Estimation (SLE) method for a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) system with features including a wide range of step lengths, a self-contained system, and real-time computing, based on the multi-sensor fusion and Fuzzy Logic (FL) algorithms. The wide-range SLE developed in this study was achieved by using a knowledge-based method to model the walking patterns of the user. The input variables of the FL are step strength and frequency, and the output is the estimated step length. Moreover, a waist-mounted sensor module has been developed using low-cost inertial sensors. Since low-cost sensors suffer from various errors, a calibration procedure has been utilized to improve accuracy. The proposed PDR scheme in this study demonstrates its ability to be implemented on waist-mounted devices in real time and is suitable for the indoor and outdoor environments considered in this study without the need for map information or any pre-installed infrastructure. The experiment results show that the maximum distance error was within 1.2% of 116.51 m in an indoor environment and was 1.78% of 385.2 m in an outdoor environment.

We describe an integrated navigation system based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), an Inertial Navigation System (INS) and terrestrial ranging technologies that can support accurate and seamless indoor-outdoor positioning. To overcome severe multipath disturbance in indoor environments, Locata technology is used in this navigation system. Such a “Locata-augmented” navigation system can operate in different positioning modes in both indoor and outdoor environments. In environments where GNSS is unavailable, e.g. indoors, the proposed system is designed to operate in the Locata/INS “loosely-integrated” mode. On the other hand, in outdoor environments, all GNSS, Locata and INS measurements are available, and all useful information can be fused via a decentralised Federated Kalman filter. To evaluate the proposed system for seamless indoor-outdoor positioning, an indoor-outdoor test was conducted at a metal-clad warehouse. The test results confirmed that the proposed navigation system can provide continuous and reliable position and attitude solutions, with the positioning accuracy being better than five centimetres.

Occupants’ windows opening behaviour in residences during heating season in Tianjin, China