Radio frequency-based device-free passive perception (RF-DFPP) is considered as one of the most promising techniques for ubiquitous smart applications in the WiFi field due to its extremely low deployment cost. Existing RF-DFPP methods typically employ received signal strength indicator (RSSI), ignoring the potential benefits of fine-grained sensing accuracy of channel state information (CSI). In addition, the robustness of such sensing methods is not good at present. To solve the problem, in this paper, we propose a robust CSI-based RF-DFPP method using a combination network of convolutional neural networks (CNN) and attention-based bi-directional long short term memory (LSTM). The combined network can extract the signal features of the collected CSI through CNN, and then realize RF-DFPP recognition through the training of LSTM and attention layers. Simulation results show that the proposed method significantly improves the recognition accuracy compared with the existing methods. Moreover, it performs robustly even if the model training is done under the different datasets.

The flexibility introduced with the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture allows us to think beyond static configurations in all parts of the network. This paper addresses the issue related to predicting the power consumption of different radio schedulers, and the potential offered by O-RAN to collect data, train models, and deploy policies to control the power consumption. We propose a black-box (Neural Network) model to learn the power consumption function. We compare our approach with a known hand-crafted solution based on domain knowledge. Our solution reaches similar performance without any previous knowledge of the application and provides more flexibility in scenarios where the system behavior is not well understood or the domain knowledge is not available.

Pelotherapy is the application of thermal muds (peloids) for therapeutic purposes. Artificial peloids were prepared usingpyrophilite shale maturated in three different types of thermal water in terms of their pH values. The samples after 30and 60 days of maturation were examined by X-ray diffraction. No significant variations in the mineralogical compositionand diffractograms of pyrophillite peloids were detected after maturation. Only the influence of the maturation processof pyrophillite on the pH value of mineral water with high and low pH value is noticed.

Congenital anomalies (CA) are any abnormality present at birth, either structural or functional, that may potentially affect an infant’s health, development, and/or survival. There is a paucity of studies on clinical characteristics and outcomes of CA in Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly due to the lack of a nationwide congenital malformations monitoring system. A 5-year hospital-based study was conducted to determine the prevalence at birth and clinical characteristics of selected major CA in Sarajevo Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ninety-one CA were observed from 2012 to 2016 (the overall prevalence was 39.6 cases/10,000 live births). The mean age of neonates at diagnosis was 3 days. The gastrointestinal tract was the most commonly affected system (76.9%), with esophageal atresia (EA) being the most frequent (17.6% of all CA). Major CA were more prevalent among preterm infants than term infants (P = .001), particularly in males (61.5% vs. 38.5%; P = .028; M:F ratio was 1.59). Multiple CA were seen in 37.4% of neonates. The overall mortality rate of neonates was 11%, and the median length of hospital stay was 19.8 days. Our study revealed the distribution and clinical patterns of common major CA in the largest tertiary care facility in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also confirmed a relatively high mortality rate, which requires further efforts to improve the quality of neonatal care in the country.

Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) are a promising approach to accurately predict an individual’s risk of developing disease. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of PRSs in their population are often only reported for models that are adjusted for age and sex, which are known risk factors for the disease of interest and confound the association between the PRS and the disease. This makes comparison of PRS between studies difficult because the genetic effects cannot be disentangled from effects of age and sex (which have a high AUC without the PRS). In this study, we used data from the UK Biobank and applied the stacked clumping and thresholding method and a variation called maximum clumping and thresholding method to develop PRSs to predict coronary artery disease, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, stroke and type 2 diabetes. We created case-control training datasets in which age and sex were controlled by design. We also excluded prevalent cases to prevent biased estimation of disease risks. The maximum clumping and thresholding PRSs required many fewer single-nucleotide polymorphisms to achieve almost the same discriminatory ability as the stacked clumping and thresholding PRSs. Using the testing datasets, the AUCs for the maximum clumping and thresholding PRSs were 0.599 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.585, 0.613) for atrial fibrillation, 0.572 (95% CI: 0.560, 0.584) for coronary artery disease, 0.585 (95% CI: 0.564, 0.605) for type 2 diabetes, 0.559 (95% CI: 0.550, 0.569) for hypertension and 0.514 (95% CI: 0.494, 0.535) for stroke. By developing a PRS using a dataset in which age and sex are controlled by design, we have obtained true estimates of the discriminatory ability of the PRSs alone rather than estimates that include the effects of age and sex.

This book provides a solution to the control and motion planning design for an octocopter system. It includes a particular choice of control and motion planning algorithms which is based on the authors' previous research work, so it can be used as a reference design guidance for students, researchers as well as autonomous vehicles hobbyists. The control is constructed based on a fault tolerant approach aiming to increase the chances of the system to detect and isolate a potential failure in order to produce feasible control signals to the remaining active motors. The used motion planning algorithm is risk-aware by means that it takes into account the constraints related to the fault-dependant and mission-related maneuverability analysis of the octocopter system during the planning stage. Such a planner generates only those reference trajectories along which the octocopter system would be safe and capable of good tracking in case of a single motor fault and of majority of double motor fault scenarios. The control and motion planning algorithms presented in the book aim to increase the overall reliability of the system for completing the mission.

Wastewater from industrial process of uranium ore mining contains a large amount of this radioactive pollutant. Regarding the advantages of biosorption, it was found that varieties of biomasses such as agricultural waste, algae and fungi are effective for uranium removal. However, there is limited research on cyanobacteria, therefore, cyanobacteria, Anagnostidinema amphibium (CAA) was investigated by batch method for the first time for biosorption of uranium (VI). Optimization of biosorption parameters showed that maximum removal efficiency of 92.91% was reached at pH range of 9-11 with 50 mg of cyanobacteria to 100 mg/L U(VI) initial concentration, at 25 °C within 40 min. Used biosorbent exhibited very good selectivity for U(VI) ions and reusability in IV sorption/desorption cycles. Characterization of CAA surface was performed by FTIR, EDS, EDXRF and SEM analysis and it has shown various functional groups (CONH, COOH, OH, PO alkyl group) and that it is very rich in elements such as iron, potassium and calcium. In binary systems, contained of U(VI) and selected ions, CAA exhibits very good selectivity towards U(VI) ions. Kinetic data revealed the best accordance of experimental data with the pseudo-second-order model, and isotherms data agreed with Freundlich model. Thermodynamic data implied that U(VI) biosorption process by A. amphibium exhibited spontaneity and modelling of the investigated process showed that the adsorption of uranium ions occurs mainly via peptidoglycan carboxyl groups. Overall results show that these cyanobacteria with a maximum sorption capacity of 324.94 mg/g have great potential for the processing of wastewater polluted with uranium (VI).

Abstract Cathodic protection system is commonly employed approach for the protection of the metallic infrastructure placed in electrolyte against corrosion. Adequate design of the cathodic protection system requires the determination of electrical potential and current density distribution on the protected object surface that meets the defined criteria. In this paper, the application of the direct boundary element method in conjunction with Newton-Raphson method was considered for the calculation of the electric potential and current density distribution on the surface of the cathodically protected underground object. The considered method was applied on the sacrificial anode cathodic protection system of the underground pipeline. The non-linear boundary conditions of the electrode surfaces of the cathodic protection system are taken into account. The method was used to determine the current density and electric potential distribution on the external wall of the protected pipeline.

Industry 4.0 has a significant impact on the automation of production processes, by causing numerous changes in three segments: companies, technology and workers. Developed countries worldwide have their own strategies on Industry 4.0, which offer guidelines on its implementation in production processes, with the aim of their complete flexible automation. The core technologies on which Industry 4.0 rests have led to a complete transformation in production processes, especially in the automotive industry. The basic technology of Industry 4.0 is robot technology, i.e., the implementation of industrial and service robots in production processes. The paper provides an analysis of the implementation of industrial robots and service robots in the automation of production processes in the automotive industry with a focus on China. The analysis of the automation of production processes of the automobile industry in China was carried out for two reasons. The first is that China has a growing middle-class population, so demographic trends are encouraging the growing demand for certain products, such as cars. Another reason is that in China (as in Japan, Russia and Western Europe) the average age of factory workers is increasing (the labor force is older), thus the performance of certain tasks becomes more difficult so greater efficiency is not achieved. The paper analyzes vehicle production in China, as well as the readiness of production processes in the automotive industry for the implementation of Industry 4.0.

Using the CO molecule as target, we investigate high-order harmonic generation by a bichromatic elliptically polarized laser field. This field consists of two elliptically polarized components with the commensurable frequencies and mutually orthogonal semi-major axes. Both odd and even harmonics are emitted and their ellipticity can be large depending on the values of the laser-field parameters. It is often the case that the ellipticity of subsequent odd and even harmonics is substantially different so that, in order to produce a series of high-order harmonics with similar ellipticity, it is beneficial if the emission of odd or even harmonics is suppressed. In this paper we explore how this can be achieved using the ellipticity of the laser-field components and the relative phase as control parameters. For some values of these parameters it is possible to produce a comb of odd or even harmonics with similar ellipticity. These harmonics can later be employed for various applications the example of which is the generation of an elliptically polarized attosecond pulse train.

Abstract Frequent changes in fiscal policies are the main cause of credit risk. To prevent households from increasing their non-performing loans, the government can use various policies and instruments. One of these tools is tax regulations, with a particular focus on the value-added tax. This paper examines whether tax policies have affected non-performing household loans in Turkey over the period from 2017 to 2021. To acquire meaningful empirical results, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration model have been applied. The results of analysis indicated that the effect of tax regulations on non-performing household loans is quite strong. It can be demonstrated that the strength of the income effect generated by tax cuts might be robust.

The research relates to determining the dependence of the strength and hardness, as well as the pH factor and solubility in water, of pellets made based on dolomite powder on the type and concentration of the binder. During the research, the technological parameters of the pelletizing device (speed and inclination of the disk, dosing speed of powder and binder suspension, and mixing time) were kept constant. Variations were made in the concentration of starch and molasses binder at values of 1.0, 2.5, and 4.0% and the control sample of 2.0 %. The purpose of pellets made of dolomite powder is to correct the pH factor of agricultural soil. The obtained results indicate that the production of pellets for the stated purpose requires an optimal choice of binder and its concentration due to the influence on the qualitative indicators of the pellet itself from dolomite powder. The research results are a partial extract of the Study: “Investigation of the optimal technology for the production of dolomite pellets from the “Očura” deposit for agriculture, Phase I”. Keywords: pellet, agriculture, binder concentration, strength, hardness, pH of pellets.

Abstract The global Covid-19 pandemic led to the turn toward online learning and the need to adapt to new ways of English foreign language (EFL) teaching. This mixed-methods research aimed to examine teacher attitudes, well-being, and coping strategies related to online EFL teaching. The results indicated that Croatian EFL teachers had a positive attitude toward online teaching and acknowledged the importance of being digitally competent. EFL teachers were unsure about their ability to deal with online teaching and indicated their need to improve their IT skills. They revealed more negative than positive responses regarding their well-being and showed that they tried to actively cope during the pandemic. Results also showed better coping strategies among female teachers.