Search Results (27)

There has been an increase in the use of education technology (EdTech) within post-secondary institutions, which has resulted in an unprecedented overflow of EdTech in the market. Institutions then make decisions on which EdTech to procure. This procurement process occurs on a continuum, where on one extreme, an institution takes a decentralized (bottom–up) approach where individuals within an institution independently decide on EdTech procurement, or a centralized (top–down) approach where the institution decides on criteria and standards that the EdTech must meet. This study administered a questionnaire and conducted structured interviews to explore how important standards are, and to identify the associated challenges with implementing centralized procurement. It was distributed to individuals involved in EdTech procurement at universities and colleges across Canada. The results showed that standards related to Privacy and Security, Accessibility, and Care of Data Practices play a larger role in EdTech procurement within most institutions. The use of standards is increasing as institutions become more centralized; however, they are not yet relied on in a structured way. This study suggests ways to move towards a procurement process that incorporates standards and addresses many of the identified challenges with procuring EdTech, thus, improving the efficiency and efficacy of EdTech procurement. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for a paradigm shift in supply chain and logistics operations to respond to myriad disruptions. However, this paradigm shift has changed the supply chain to be more resilient, agile, flexible, and adaptable to upcoming disruptions. Hence, a comprehensive guide to understanding, implementing, and harnessing the power of digitization in the face of disruption, leading to a more resilient and adaptive global community, is greatly appreciated. Thus, this study aims to identify the strategies used in the complex and dynamic nature of the contemporary supply chain landscape for these disruptions. Among several strategies adopted and proposed, this systematic review examines overall efficiency and operational resilience, particularly supplier diversification, investment in digital supply chain technology, and adopting flexible manufacturing models. Following a rigorous four-step identification, screening, qualification, and inclusion process, this review focuses on real-time visibility, robust risk management, and data-driven decision making to determine whether future disruptions under digitization are conducive. Therefore, this systematic review, along with these enhanced resilience strategies, will provide a comprehensive resource for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers seeking to navigate and improve logistics and supply chain operations in the face of future disruptions. Full article

This paper presents a low-voltage CMOS four-stage amplifier operating in the subthreshold region. The first design technique includes the cross-feedforward positive feedback frequency compensation (CFPFC) for obtaining better bandwidth efficiency in a low-voltage multi-stage amplifier. The second design technique incorporates both the bulk-drain-driven input stage topology in conjunction with a low-voltage attenuator to permit operation at a low voltage, and improves the input common-mode range (ICMR). The proposed circuit is implemented using TSMC-40 nm process technology. It consumes 0.866 μW at a supply voltage of 0.5 V. With a capacitive load of 50 pF, this four-stage amplifier can achieve 84.59 dB in gain, 161.00 kHz in unity-gain bandwidth, 96 deg in phase margin, and 5.7 dB in gain margin whilst offering an input-referred noise of 213.63 $\mathrm{n}\mathrm{V}/\sqrt{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}$ @1 kHz, small-signal power-bandwidth FoM_ss of 9.31 (MHz∙pF/μW), and noise-power per bandwidth-based FoM_npb of 1.15 × 10⁻⁶ (($\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{V}/\sqrt{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}$)·µW/Hz). Compared to the conventional bulk-driven input stage design technique, it offers improved multi-parameter performance metrics in terms of noise, power, and bandwidth at a compromising tradeoff on ICMR with respect to bulk-driven amplifier design. Compared with conventional gate-source input stage design, it offers improved ICMR. The amplifier is useful for low-voltage analog signal-processing applications. Full article

Plastic contamination in cotton lint poses significant challenges to the U.S. cotton industry, with plastic wrap from John Deere round module harvesters being a primary contaminant. Despite efforts to manually remove this plastic during module unwrapping, some inevitably enters the cotton gin’s processing system. To address this, a machine-vision detection and removal system has been developed. This system uses inexpensive color cameras to identify plastic on the gin stand feeder apron, triggering a mechanism that expels the plastic from the cotton stream. However, the system, composed of 30–50 Linux-based ARM computers, requires substantial effort for calibration and tuning and presents a technological barrier for typical cotton gin workers. This research aims to transition the system to a more user-friendly, plug-and-play model by implementing an auto-calibration function. The proposed function dynamically tracks cotton colors while excluding plastic images that could hinder performance. A critical component of this auto-calibration algorithm is the hand intrusion detector, or “HID”, which is discussed in this paper. In the normal operation of a cotton gin, the gin personnel periodically have to clear the machine, which entails running a stick or their arm/hand under the detection cameras. This results in the system capturing a false positive, which interferes with the ability of auto-calibration algorithms to function correctly. Hence, there is a critical need for an HID to remove these false positives from the record. The anticipated benefits of the auto-calibration function include reduced setup and maintenance overhead, less reliance on skilled personnel, and enhanced adoption of the plastic removal system within the cotton ginning industry. Full article

Offshore drilling operations consist of complex and high-risk processes. Lack of situational awareness in drilling operations has become an important human factor issue that causes safety accidents. Prolonged work shifts and fatigue are some of the crucial issues that impact performance. Eye tracking technology can be used to distinguish the degree of awareness or alertness of participants that might be related to fatigue or onsite distractions. Oculomotor activity can be used to obtain visual cues that can quantify the drilling operators’ situational awareness that might enable us to develop warning alarms to alert the driller. Such systems can help reduce accidents and save non-productive time. In this paper, eye movement char-acteristics were investigated to differentiate the situational awareness between a representa-tive expert and a group of novices using a scenario-based Virtual Reality Drilling Simulator. Significant visual oculomotor activity differences were identified between the expert and the novices that indicate an eye-tracking based system can detect the distraction and alert-ness exhibited by the workers. Results show promise on developing a framework which implements a real-time eye tracking technology in various drilling operations at drilling rigs and Real Time Operation Centers to improve process safety. Full article

Natural gas flaring, with its harmful environmental, health, and economic effects, is common in the Nigerian oil and gas industry because of a lower tax regime for flared gases. Based on the adverse effects of flared gas, the Nigerian government has renewed and improved its efforts to reduce or eliminate gas flaring through the application of natural gas utilisation techniques. However, because the conventional approach to flare gas utilisation is heavily reliant on achieving scale, fuel, and end-product prices, not all technologies are technically and economically viable for typically capturing large and small quantities of associated gas from various flare sites or gas fields (located offshore or onshore). For these reasons, this paper reviews and compares various flare gas utilisation options to guide their proper selection for appropriate implementation in the eradication of routine gas flaring in Nigeria and to promote the Zero Routine Flaring initiative, which aims to reduce flaring levels dramatically by 2030. A qualitative assessment is used in this study to contrast the various flare gas utilisation options against key decision drivers. In this analysis, three natural gas utilisation processes—liquefied natural gas (LNG), gas to wire (GTW), and gas to methanol (GTM)—are recommended as options for Nigeria because of their economic significance, technological viability (both onshore and offshore), and environmental benefits. All these gas utilisation options have the potential to significantly reduce and prevent routine gas flaring in Nigeria and can be used separately or in combination to create synergies that could lower project costs and product market risk. This article clearly identifies the environmental benefits and the technical and economic viability of infrastructure investments to recover and repurpose flare gasses along with recommendation steps to select and optimise economies of scale for an associated natural gas utilisation option. Full article

Real-time communication has witnessed a dramatic increase in recent years in user daily usage. In this domain, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a well-known protocol found to provide trusted services (voice or video) to end users along with efficiency, scalability, and interoperability. Just like other Internet technology, SIP stores its related data in databases with a predefined data structure. In recent, SIP technologies have adopted the real advantages of in-memory databases as cache systems to ensure fast database operations during real-time communication. Meanwhile, in industry, there are several names of in-memory databases that have been implemented with different structures (e.g., query types, data structure, persistency, and key/value size). However, there are limited resources and poor recommendations on how to select a proper in-memory database in SIP communications. This paper provides recommended and efficient in-memory databases which are most fitted to SIP servers by evaluating three types of databases including Memcache, Redis, and Local (OpenSIPS built-in). The evaluation has been conducted based on the experimental performance of the impact of in-memory operations (store and fetch) against the SIP server by applying heavy load traffic through different scenarios. To sum up, evaluation results show that the Local database consumed less memory compared to Memcached and Redis for read and write operations. While persistency was considered, Memcache is the preferable database selection due to its 25.20 KB/s for throughput and 0.763 s of call–response time. Full article

Digital technologies are being introduced in all areas of the construction industry with the overarching goals of increasing productivity while simultaneously simplifying work and reducing errors. Nevertheless, their use and the associated implementation in construction companies is currently still inhibited. One reason for this is the lack of a holistic implementation process for digital technologies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to deliver a concept for such a holistic digital-technology-implementation-process which addresses current barriers. For this purpose, a qualitative literature analysis was conducted first, which reveals the current focus of research on digital technologies. In a second step, current barriers regarding the implementation of digital technologies were identified by conducting interviews with experts from German construction companies. The interview concept combined and adapted the survey instruments Technology Commitment by Neyer et al. and Technophobia by Sinkovics. Based on the findings of the qualitative literature research and the expert interviews, a holistic implementation process for the introduction of digital technologies for construction companies was developed, which specifically addresses the currently prevailing barriers. Therefore, the barriers Acceptance, Control and Competence were classified in a temporal context within the implementation process and recommendations for action are presented for the individual process steps of implementing digital technologies. Full article

This article identifies the essential technologies and considerations for the development of an Automated Cow Monitoring System (ACMS) which uses 3D camera technology for the assessment of Body Condition Score (BCS). We present a comparison of a range of common techniques at the different developmental stages of Computer Vision including data pre-processing and the implementation of Deep Learning for both 2D and 3D data formats commonly captured by 3D cameras. This research focuses on attaining better reliability from one deployment of an ACMS to the next and proposes a Geometric Deep Learning (GDL) approach and evaluating model performance for robustness from one farm to another in the presence of background, farm, herd, camera pose and cow pose variabilities. Full article

We present our own Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) technology, which was developed at ISC Konstanz and implemented in mass production with and at SPIC Solar in Xining, China, with production efficiencies of over 24%. To our knowledge, this is the highest efficiency achieved in the mass production of crystalline silicon solar cells without the use of charge-carrier-selective contacts. With an adapted screen-printing sequence, it is possible to achieve open-circuit voltages of over 700 mV. Advanced module technology has been developed for the IBC interconnection, which is ultimately simpler than for conventional double-sided contacted solar cells. In the next step, we will realize low-cost charge-carrier-selective contacts for both polarities in a simple sequence using processes developed and patented at ISC Konstanz. With the industrialisation of this process, it will be possible to achieve efficiencies well above 25% at low cost. We will show that with the replacement of silver screen-printed contacts by copper or aluminium metallisation, future IBC technology will be the end product for the PV market, as it is the best performing c-Si technology, leading to the lowest cost of electricity, even in utility-scale applications. Full article

Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic (PV) technologies are considered to be key drivers towards climate neutrality. Thin-film PVs, and particularly copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technologies, will play a crucial role in the turnaround in energy policy due to their high efficiencies, high product flexibility, light weight, easy installation, lower labour-intensiveness, and lower carbon footprint when compared to silicon solar cells. Nonetheless, challenges regarding the CIGS fabrication process such as moderate reproducibility and process tolerance are still hindering a broad market penetration. Therefore, cost-efficient and easily implementable in-line process control methods are demanded that allow for identification and elimination of non-conformal cells at an early production step. As part of this work, a practical approach towards industrial in-line photoluminescence (PL) imaging as a contact-free quality inspection tool is presented. Performance parameters of 10 CIGS samples with 32 individually contacted cells each were correlated with results from PL imaging using green and red excitation light sources. The data analysis was fully automated using Python-based image processing, object detection, and non-linear regression modelling. Using the red excitation light source, the presented PL imaging and data processing approach allows for a quantitative assessment of the cell performance. Full article

Memristive technology is a promising game-changer in computers and electronics. In this paper, a system exploring the optimal paths through a maze, utilizing a memristor-based setup, is developed and concreted on a FPGA (field-programmable gate array) device. As a memristor, a digital emulator has been used. According to the proposed approach, the memristor is used as a delay element, further configuring the test graph as a memristor network. A parallel algorithm is then applied, successfully reducing computing time and increasing the system’s efficiency. The proposed system is simple, easy to scale up and capable of implementing different graph configurations. The operation of the algorithm in the MATLAB (matrix laboratory) programming enviroment is checked beforehand and then exported to two different Intel FPGAs: a DE0-Nano board and an Arria 10 GX 220 FPGA. In both cases, reliable results are obtained quickly and conveniently, even for the case of a 300 × 300 nodes maze. Full article

The need for high-quality communications networks is urgent in data-based farming. A particular challenge is how to achieve reliable, cost-efficient, secure, and broadband last-mile data transfer to enable agricultural machine control. The trialed ad hoc private communications networks built and interconnected with different alternative wireless technologies, including 4G, 5G, satellite and tactical networks, provide interesting practical solutions for connectivity. A remotely controlled tractor is exemplified as a use case of machine control in the demonstrated private communication network. This paper describes the results of a comparative technology analysis and a field trial in a realistic environment. The study includes the practical implementation of video monitoring and the optimization of the control channel for remote-controlled unmanned agricultural tractors. The findings from this study verify and consolidate the requirements for network technologies and for cybersecurity enablers. They highlight insights into the suitability of different wireless technologies for smart farming and tractor scenarios and identify potential paths for future research. Full article

The accessibility of Cultural Heritage content for the diverse user population visiting Cultural Heritage Institutions and accessing content online has not been thoroughly discussed. Considering the penetration of new digital media in such physical and virtual spaces, lack of accessibility may result in the exclusion of a large user population. To overcome such emerging barriers, this paper proposes a cost-effective methodology for the implementation of Virtual Humans, which are capable of narrating content in a universally accessible form and acting as virtual storytellers in the context of online and on-site CH experiences. The methodology is rooted in advances in motion capture technologies and Virtual Human implementation, animation, and multi-device rendering. This methodology is employed in the context of a museum installation at the Chios Mastic Museum where VHs are presenting the industrial process of mastic processing for chewing gum production. Full article

Security presents itself as one of the biggest threats to the enabling and the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT). Security challenges are evident in light of recent cybersecurity attacks that targeted major internet service providers and crippled a significant portion of the entire Internet by taking advantage of faulty and ill-protected embedded devices. Many of these devices reside at home networks with user-administrators who are not familiar with network security best practices, making them easy targets for the attackers. Therefore, security solutions are needed to navigate the insecure and untrusted public networks by automating protections through affordable and accessible first-hand network information sharing. This paper proposes and implements a proof of concept (PoC) to secure Internet Service Providers (ISPs), home networks, and home-based IoT devices using blockchain technologies. The results obtained support the idea of a distributed cyber threat intelligence data sharing network capable of protecting various stakeholders. Full article