8364 research outputs found
Sort by
AI in Acoustics - A London branch event
Full text linkOn the 22nd May 2024 the Institute of Acoustics London Branch with the support of UKAN+ (www.acoustics.ac.uk) held an all-day meeting at the Hub of London South Bank University. The event was entitled, “AI in Acoustics “ and was attended by 103 delegates. They enjoyed ten presentations divided in to four sessions given by Architects, Software Engineers , AI programmers, Academics and Acousticians. The hosts were Professor David Waddington of the University of Salford and Professor Mark Plumbley of the University of Surrey, see Photo 1. Each of the sessions ended with a discussion panel, except for the morning session which ended in an unscheduled fire alarm. The summary was AI is useful to acousticians if used ethically. The training dataset is never big enough and the power consumption appears to be growing exponentially
Can the language we choose help us reduce alcohol-related harms?
No full textDr James Morris and Dr Gemma Mitchell will discuss the implications of language on stigma, problem recognition and help-seeking
Investigating the influence of outdoor temperature variations on fire-induced smoke behavior in an atrium-type underground metro station using hybrid ventilation systems
Full text linkUnderground metro systems are expanding rapidly worldwide, necessitating research on energy-efficient ventilation systems, fire safety, and smoke control. This study investigates the optimisation of hybrid mechanical-natural ventilation for smoke control in complex metro stations. Full-scale winter/summer experiments and numerical simulations examined a double-deck atrium-type station. Results demonstrate the atrium fires are more significantly impacted by outdoor temperature variations versus concourse/platform fires, with a 70 K versus 30 K temperature rise above the fire respectively. The heat of the gathered high-temperature smoke inside the atrium can reach up to 900 K under a 5 MW train fire energy release. The dimensionless Archimedes number (Ar) defines the ratio of thermal buoyancy to gravitational forces. Cold exterior winter air (Ar1), airflow velocity only changed slightly. Empirical models predict internal temperature profiles as a function of external meteorology. The findings provide crucial engineering insights into integrating weather data and adaptable ventilation protocols for scenario-based smoke prevention/mitigation. Further work should examine seasonal variations beyond the tested -20‒40 °C range. Overall, considering outdoor climate effects allows 30 % optimisation of hybrid ventilation systems for fire safety in underground metro stations. This study promotes technological advances in energy-efficient transport infrastructure resilience
Editor’s Introduction
Full text linkIn this issue of the Engineering Management Journal (EMJ), we are delighted to present seven new articles that address key areas across the field of engineering management. EMJ seeks to provide readers with timely access to the tools, techniques and underpinning knowledge to operate in the increasingly technology-driven world and manage arising complexities [...
Infection Prevention and the Protective Effects of Unidirectional Displacement Flow Ventilation in the Turbulent Spaces of the Operating Room
Full text linkBackground: Unidirectional displacement flow (UDF) ventilation systems in operating rooms are characterized by a uniformity of velocity 80% and protect patients and operating room personnel against exposure to hazardous substances. However, the air below the surgical lights and in the surrounding zone is turbulent, which impairs the ventilation system’s effect.
Aim: We first used the recovery time (RT) as specified in International Organization for Standardization 14644 to determine the particle reduction capacity in the turbulent spaces of an operating room with a UDF system. Methods: The uniformity of velocity was analyzed by comfort-level probe grid measurements in the protected area below a hemispherical closed-shaped and a semi-open column-shaped surgical light (tilt angles: 0/15/30) and in the surrounding zone of a research operating room. Thereafter, RTs were calculated.
Results: At a supply air volume of 10,500 m3/h, the velocity, reported as average uniformity+standard deviation, was uniform in the protected area without lights (95.8% + 1.7%), but locally turbulent below the hemispherical closedshaped (69.3% + 14.6%), the semi-open column-shaped light (66.9% + 10.9%), and in the surrounding zone (51.5%+17.6%). The RTs ranged between 1.1 and 1.7 min below the lights and 3.5+0.28 min in the surrounding zone and depended exponentially on the volume flow rate.
Conclusions: Compared to an RT of 20 min as required for operating rooms with mixed dilution flow, particles here were eliminated 12–18 times more quickly from below the surgical lights and 5.7 times from the surrounding zone. Thus, the effect of the lights was negligible and the UDF’s retained its strong protective effect
MM DialogueGAT- A Fusion Graph Attention Network for Emotion Recognition using Multi-model System
Full text linkEmotion recognition is an important part of human-computer interaction and human communication information is multi-model. Despite advancements in emotion recognition models, certain challenges persist. The first problem pertains to the predominant focus in existing research on mining the interaction information between modes and the context information in the dialogue process but neglects to mine the role information between multi-model states and context information in the dialogue process. The second problem is in the context information of the dialogue where the information is not completely transmitted in a temporal structure. Aiming at these two problems, we propose a multi-model fusion dialogue graph attention network (MM DialogueGAT). To solve the problem 1, the bidirectional GRU mechanism is used to extract the information from each model. In the multi-model information fusion problem, different model configurations and different combinations use the cross-model multi-head attention mechanism to establish a multi-head attention layer. Text, video and audio information are used as the main and auxiliary modes for information fusion. To solve the problem 2, in the temporal context information extraction problem, the GAT graph structure is used to capture the context information in the mode. The results show that our model achieves good results using the IMEOCAP datasets
“Battling, not Bottling”: the transformative power of WI activism
Full text linkThis is a short commissioned piece for the Women's Institute magazine WI Life
Chapter 8. Strutting with Streets of Rage: When Dance Music Enters the Fight
No full textThis chapter investigates the experience, pleasure, and intertextuality of the soundtracks of the first three game versions of the beat ‘m up home console title Streets of Rage (SEGA 1991, 1992, 1994), the first version composed by Yuzo Koshiro, and the following two in collaboration with Motohiro Kawashima.
A Wiki page was created to aid cross-referencing of musical inspiration, supported by archival materials that include existing interviews with the composer(s), and game reviews from the time of release. The game-soundtracks offer a snapshot of electronic dance music of the early to mid 1990s, when this musical meta-genre gained global popularity. Structures of electronic dance music suit the looped character of video game music. The first two versions offer pastiches of existing recordings, but the third version offers an original contribution to techno music.
In addition, extensive long game play underpins an understanding of the experience of the soundtracks. Through a process of entrainment, the tempo of the music’s repetitive beats affects the player’s engagement and their game action. As a result, the fighting moves can be experienced as dance moves, making the fighting scenes feel as energetic as the dancefloors of the era, adding a sense of nostalgia to the three-decade later game play
Cellulose based materials to accelerate the transition towards sustainability
Full text linkSeveral significant sectors use cellulose, including paper manufacturing, cellophane, textiles (including rayon and viscose), and food and medicine additives. It can be utilised as a raw materials in production of fuel sources like cellulosic ethanol. Crystalline cellulose possesses a tensile strength of about 7.5 GPa, Young’s modulus of 110-220 GPa and as the most abundantly available natural polymer, with excellent biocompatibility, good degradation and regeneration properties, it is considered as a remarkable biomaterial. Cellulose-based materials can be fabricated with tuneable magnetic properties, electrical conductivity, photosensitivity, sensing abilities, catalytic activity, and other specific properties by incorporating nanoparticles. These qualities make cellulose a sustainable multifunctional material. To harness such properties, strenuous efforts are being made to manufacture cellulose based materials through a wide number of manufacturing processes. This review provides an overview of the current readiness in producing cellulose-based functional materials by surveying the manufacturing procedures, characteristics and their potential applications for the end users. Future directions and opportunities of work are suggested and the limitations inherent with every process and the challenges that needs to be overcome in scalable manufacturing of cellulose-based materials are also discussed
Variable structure based control strategy for treatment of HCV infection
Full text linkHepatitis C is such a harmful disease which can lead to serious health problems and it is caused by the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) which causes liver inflammation and sometimes liver cancer. In this work, the control treatment strategy for HCV infection has been proposed. The advanced nonlinear dynamical mathematical model of HCV that has two control inputs and three state variables such as virions, infected hepatocytes and uninfected hepatocytes are considered for controller design in this research work. Moreover, four nonlinear controllers such as the Fractional Order Terminal Sliding Mode Controller (FOTSMC), Integral Terminal Sliding Mode Controller (ITSMC), Double Integral Sliding Mode Controller (DISMC) and Integral Sliding Mode Controller (ISMC) have been proposed in this work for HCV infection control inside the human body. In order to control the amount of uninfected hepatocytes to its required maximum safe limit, controllers are designed for antiviral therapy in which the amount of virions and infected hepatocytes are tracked to zero. One control input is ribavirin which blocks virions production and the other is pegylated interferon (peg-IFN-a) that acts as reducing infected hepatocytes. By doing so, uninfected hepatocytes increase and achieve the required maximum safe limit. To prove the stability of the whole system, Lyapunov stability analysis is used in this work. Simulation results and comparative analysis are carried out by using MATLAB/Simulink. It can be depicted from the given results that the virions and infected hepatocytes are reduced to their required levels completely using FOTSMC and the Sustained Virologic Response (SVR) rate is also enhanced in it. It reduces the treatment period as compared to previous strategies introduced in the literature and also system behaves very nicely even in the presence of un-modeled disturbances