Month: January 2021

The Department of Oral Hygiene at Kaohsiung Medical University has co-operated with EPED Inc., which is headquartered in Kaohsiung at the Southern Taiwan Science Park, to establish the very first “virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) Oral Health Care lab”.

The VR/ AR training courses can provide the simulation of different physical conditions of patients, train future caregivers in better home caring and oral health caring skills of elderly people, and provide for self-assessment of their oral care skills.

During the course, learners understand and correct their brushing skills through the results of the system evaluation. The individualized learning courses provide a good chance for students to learn and practice by themselves in VR or AR-equipped classrooms. That in turn allows them to grasp a better understanding of how to provide complete oral care methods for the elderly in different situations. Ultimately, VR/ AR training courses allow students to learn correct oral health care methods, strengthen their brushing skills, and promote appropriate oral health care habits among young people.

To minimize infectious diseases spreading by being far away from traditional classrooms crowded with learners, the virtual classroom simulation is loaded with effective oral care methods designed for the health workers and caregivers. VR/ AR teaching adopts individual learning in an independent space at selective times allowing students to operate the courses by themselves. The VR/ AR system also includes other valuable content for students to learn oral health care skills.

Nowadays, virtual education is vital for every school curriculum since it reduces the risk of epidemic transmissions like the current global COVID‐19 pandemic. Moreover, in conjunction with Taiwan’s “New Southbound Policy”, VR/ AR oral care resources developed in Taiwan can be promoted to other Asian countries to achieve technology sharing and medical resources’ sharing, to ultimately improve the quality of global oral health care.

More than 50% of Indians use devices embedded with AI-based speech recognition technology, but these are dominated by English-speaking assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant. Owing to its expertise in Language and Speech Processing, the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) has now joined forces with the Indian government to assist with the automatic speech recognition (ASR) module for the translation of Indian languages.

This project supports the Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) initiative by The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology which aims to enable the widespread proliferation of ICT in all Indian languages. This involves automatic speech recognition (ASR), speech-to-speech translation, and speech-to-text translation.

The project is being headed by Prakash Yalla, Head, Technology Transfer Office and Dr. Anil Kumar Vuppala, Associate Prof, Speech Processing Centre.

To build ‘Indian language Alexas’ requires over 1000s of hours of speech data, along with the transcribed text of the same. Dr. Vuppala says,” In our lab, we have been working on speech recognition technology for the last 10 years and have collected 50-60 hours of data. But we now need 1000s of such hours which is very laborious.”

To reach out to the common man, conversational AI in as natural a setting as possible assumes importance. For that, as a cost-effective measure, the project is looking towards crowdsourcing of speech data. Leveraging its physical location of Hyderabad, in the pilot, volunteers are being invited to contribute to Telugu language speech data.

“The idea is to collect around 2000 hours of spoken Telugu over the course of a year. This can be through liaisoning with academic institutions across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well as via the existing Telugu Wikipedia community,” says Prakash.

The team is also working with industry partners such as OzoneTel and Pactera Edge and utilizing their network to get access to data. The initial collection of Telugu speech data is expected to lead to the establishment of protocols and systems in place for crowdsourcing of data for all Indian languages – the largest such exercise undertaken in the country.

National Research Council of Thailand (NRTC) had invited the interested public to submit their works to be considered for the NRTC Awards in the annual fiscal year 2021. Thammasat University was awarded 19 prizes which is the highest number of awards it has ever received in the past three years. In 2019, Thammasat received 15 awards and 14 awards in 2020.

Two National Outstanding Researcher Awards have been won by Professor Dr. Kesara Na-bangchang (Science and pharmacy), Chulabhorn Internation College of Medicine
and Professor Dr. Watchara Ngamchitcharoen (Philosophy), Faculty of Liberal Arts.

One Distinguished Research Reward has been won by Assistant Professor Dr. Potchanee Srimanoch (co-researcher), Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, for his research titled “The Study Aimed at Rhodomyrthon from the Herb Bai Kra-tu (Wong Chompoo) as a New Class of Antibiotics and the Use of Technology to Further Develop into Commercial Use”

Six Outstanding Research awards have been won by Associate Professor Dr. Arunporn Itthara OF Faculty of Medicine, Assistant Professor Dr.Prajak Kongkirati OF Faculty of Political Sciences, Associate Professor Dr.Juthathip Jongwanich from Faculty of Economics, Associate Professor Dr. Boonlert Visetpreecha from Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Assistant Professor Dr. Chantanee Charoensri from Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, and Dr. Kanjanee Phanphiroj, Faculty of Nursing.

The Distinguished Dissertation Award has been won by Assistant Professor Dr. Lalin Kovudhikulrungsri, Faculty of Law for his work on “The Right to Travel by Air of Persons with Disabilities,” dissertation from Leiden University, The Netherlands

Additionally, four Outstanding Dissertation Awards were won by Acting Sub Lt. Dr.Prempreeya Montienthong, Dr.Peera Charoenvattananukul, Faculty of Political Sciences, Assistant Professor Wilasinee Pananakhonsab from Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, and  Dr.Somchart Fugkeaw, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology.

TU also received five Invention Awards. The award for the Distinguished Invention was won by Assistant Professor Dr. Banyong Rungruangdouyboon, Faculty of Engineering, Thammasat School of Engineering, for his innovation “Design and development of a walking aid with partial weight support system: Space Walker”.

The “Sperm dye BR set” by Assistant Professor Dr. Chollanot Kaset and Assistant Professor Dr. Sirinat Chumian, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences won the Outstanding Innovation Award.

“Smart Sensor for the Detection of Food and Environmental Contaminants” by Associate Professor Dr. Napaporn Youngvises of Faculty of Science and Technology, “AIChest4All” by Associate Professor Dr.Charturong Tantibundhit of Faculty of Engineering, and “Infant Respiratory Care Simulation for Nursing Training” by co-researcher Supawadee Tubglam, a teacher at the Faculty of Nursing have won the honorable mentions in the invention category.

The UOB Painting of the Year 2020 for the Malaysia edition has been won by Sabri bin Idrus, an alumnus of the Faculty of Art & Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) for his work Silence Fortrees (2020).  The theme for the 2020 competition was ‘Solidarity’.

Sabri received the prize money of  RM100,000 and will be representing Malaysia at the UOB South East Asia Painting of the Year 2021. The winner will be granted an Artist Resident Programme at the renowned Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan for a month.

Sabri’s work Silence Fortrees (2020) artistically depicts the scenario between the real and the ideal, whether we are confronting a Pandemic Covid-19, economic downturn, political differences, or global warming.

Khabir Ali bin Roslan, a final year student with his Solidarity Tanah Air (2020) bagged  The Most Promising Artist of the Year Award with a cash prize of RM15,000. He metaphorically portrayed solidarity through his creative process. Exploring the materials (soil and bandage), Kabir Ali used the repeating geometric pattern as a metaphor of “Zikir” which means ‘remembering  God’. The intention of Solidarity Tanah Air (2020) is to foster harmonic value in society.

For the emerging artist category, Muhamad Amir bin Mansor won a Silver Award with a cash prize of RM6,000. A Master’s in Fine Art & Technology graduate, his painting entitled Toge-Together’s Theory (2020) depicted reimagining our human nature and questioning the meaning of freedom.

In the same category, the Bronze Award of  RM3,800 was won by Abdullah Ehlid Al Walid bin Luli, a  Master of Fine Art and Technology student. In his acrylic painting Pandemic: A Quite City-2020, Abdullah creatively expressed the current situation and community isolation measures implemented by the Malaysian government to flatten the Covid-19 curve.

Since its inauguration in 1982, the UOB Painting of the Year competition has been one of the pioneer Art competition in Singapore and also Southeast Asia’s most prestigious annual art awards. This competition which has been organized in many countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, aims to discover the next generation of great Southeast Asian artists and contribute to greater awareness and appreciation of art.

The annual UOB Painting of the Year competition currently is in its 10th year in Malaysia and the 2020 Malaysian edition presented two categories, namely, emerging artist and established artist. Each category offers bronze, silver, and gold awards for the most promising artist of the year which also includes cash money.

The Faculty of Art & Design, UiTM Shah Alam, has been involved in the UOB Painting of the Year competition since its first edition and they have always been successful in receiving nominations for the award winner.

The award ceremony was shown live via the Youtube channel on 19^th  November 2020.

The usage of disposable masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increase in mask waste. To overcome this issue, two students from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Rosalia Kurniasari from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Avelyne Christianti from the Department of Civil Engineering, have created Zero Mask Waste Box as a trash bin to process the mask waste.

The idea of this invention was inspired by the lack of people’s awareness of waste management of disposable masks. People tend to throw it away after wearing it without a proper process. This may lead to another form of virus transmission. Therefore, this issue requires innovation so that the mask waste does not mix with other domestic waste. The invention of the Zero Mask Waste Box was also intended to reduce the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission.

In the front of the Zero Mask Waste Box, there is a sensor as a tool to open the trash bin automatically. This device is equipped with buttons to make processing easier. On the inside, this device has several functions, from a mask cutter, disinfectant spray, to a suction pump. This device is also equipped with a garbage disposal tube as a final disposal space for mask waste processing. A hand sanitizer dispenser is provided as a disinfectant for users after processing the trash.

ITS students’ innovation in protecting the environment from mask waste has managed to amaze the judges in the final presentation at the 2020 Mechatronics Essay Competition last December. This invention has successfully defeated the other 80 teams and won first place in the competition held by the Mechatronics Engineering Student Association, Trunojoyo University, Madura. Rosalia hopes that this invention can be further developed to prevent more people from COVID-19 exposure.

The Centre of Studies for Interior Architecture (CoSIA), from the Faculty of Architecture, Planning, and Surveying (FSPU), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia conducted an international webinar on 23 October 2020, to discuss the topic of ‘Challenges in Design Education’.

This panel session aimed to identify and discuss the challenges of design education and how we can move forward. Both panelists agreed on how design education will always be relevant, while technology plays its part in delivering the pedagogy and executing design skills. The process and critical design thinking are still significant in the interdisciplinary design field.

The two panelists were from Turkey and Malaysia, which provided an opportunity to exchange perspectives on the challenges in design education, especially in the context of the global Covid-19 crisis. CoSIA lecturer, Muhammad Danial Ismail played the role of moderator for this discussion session. This webinar was also attended by the Dean of FSPU, Prof. TPr. Dr. Jamalunlaili Abdullah.

The first panelist, Assistant Professor Dr. Moira Valeri from Yeditepe University Istanbul, has been teaching since 2013. In 2015 she was the co-curator of EcoWeek Istanbul-Contemporary Archeology, an international symposium, and workshop held at Yeditepe University. In 2016 she coordinated the research and installation – Factory Reloaded – within the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial frame. Two years later she participated at the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial as a tutor at the workshop and exhibition – Bosphorus SMLXL.

The panelist from Malaysia, Mohd Noor Ariffin, is currently the Coordinator of Design for the Centre of Studies for Interior Architecture and has design teaching experience for more than 20 years at the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). He is also the Managing Director for RUANG STUDIO and Principal for the RUANG DESIGN company based in Selangor, Malaysia.

CoSIA on behalf of FSPU are thankful to Assistant Professor Dr. Moira Valeri and Senior Lecturer Mohd Noor Ariffin for the beneficial exchange of knowledge during this webinar session. This dialogue between two regions gives new impetus to design academia to resiliently move forward in 21st-century education.

In a recent study at Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, scientists have developed a novel non-destructive technique with enhanced depth resolution, which will bolster the development of efficient SiC devices for power generation and distribution systems. This new technique will help in the research and development of efficient high-voltage semiconducting devices for power systems.

Silicon carbide (SiC), a versatile and resistant material that exists in multiple crystalline forms, has attracted much attention thanks to its unique electronic properties. From its use in the first LED devices, to its applications in high-voltage devices with low power losses, SiC displays exceptional semiconductor behavior. So far, the operating voltages for unipolar SiC devices are below 3.3 kV. Though useful for the electronic systems of cars, trains, and home appliances, unipolar SiC-based devices cannot be used in power generation and distribution systems, which operate at voltages above 10 kV.

Some researchers believe that the solution to this conundrum lies in bipolar SiC devices, which offer low on-resistance (and hence lower losses) through conductivity modulation. However, the conductivity modulation effect is tightly related to the lifetime of excited charge carriers in the semiconductor; longer carrier lifetimes in the thick voltage blocking layer of SiC devices lead to increased modulation. On the other hand, excessively long carrier lifetimes increase the switching losses, and this trade-off has to be appropriately balanced by accurately controlling the distribution of carrier lifetimes within the semiconductor.

Unfortunately, most available techniques for measuring the carrier lifetime distribution of a semiconductor are destructive; the sample has to be cut for its cross-section to be analyzed. This motivated a research team from Japan, led by Associate Professor Masashi Kato from Nagoya Institute of Technology, to focus on improving one of the two existing non-destructive methods: time-resolved free-carrier absorption with intersectional lights (IL-TRFCA). In their new study published in Review of Scientific Instruments, the researchers present some impactful changes made to this technique (which they had previously pioneered) along with some very promising results.

The IL-TRFCA method essentially consists of excitation laser, which creates photoexcited carriers and a probe laser plus a detector, which measure their lifetime. By pointing both lasers at the edges of an objective lens (see Figure 1), they are made to converge at the surface of the sample with opposite incidence angles. Then, the sample is moved towards the lens in micrometric steps, which causes the excitation and probe lasers to intersect not at the surface of the sample, but at progressively deeper regions. In this way, the scientists managed to measure the distribution of carrier lifetimes within the sample without the need to cut it.

Two substantial changes the researchers made to the IL-TRFCA method were the adoption of a larger incidence angle of 34° (34 degrees) for both lasers and a higher numerical aperture in the objective lens and detector. These modifications resulted in enhanced depth resolution and also made it possible to use IL-TRFCA in thicker SiC layers.

Excited about the results, Dr. Kato remarks, “Our non-destructive approach for measuring the distribution of carrier lifetimes allows one to determine the non-uniformity of a material without destroying the sample, which can then be used to fabricate devices, and research and develop bipolar SiC technology, such as high-voltage diodes and transistors.”

Having appropriate measurement techniques at one’s disposal is one of the most essential factors in materials research, and IL-TRFCA could easily pave the way for the study—and ultimately adoption—of SiC in ultrahigh-voltage applications.

In this regard, Dr. Kato comments, “SiC devices can operate with lower power consumption compared with conventional semiconductors, and their commercialization could result in a substantial reduction in energy consumption in power systems throughout the world. In turn, this could alleviate serious environmental threats such as the accumulation of greenhouse gases.”

Now that the tools have been laid out, it is time to delve deeper into how carrier lifetime distributions can be tuned in thick SiC and other semiconductors. Let us hope this leads us to more efficient devices and a more eco-friendly future!

Modern solid-formed drugs can be more efficient if their solubility increases. The international team of researchers verified supercritical technology that is applied in pharmaceutic for solubility enhancement of poorly soluble drugs and revealed ways that can be used for the design of preparation of nanomedicines at an industrial scale. The research was published in the highly ranked journal “Nature Scientific Reports”(Q1).

In the pharmaceutical industry, approximately 70% of drugs are produced in solid form or solid suspension form. The major issue of it is low solubility: more than 60% of drugs are not soluble enough in the water, and as a result, high dosage must be taken to provide efficient therapeutic effects. However, a high dosage of drugs will have adverse side effects for patients. For instance, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can enhance the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Nanomedicine can be a method of solving this problem; nano-size drugs have higher efficiency, and lower dosage is required to be taken, so the side effects can be minimized.

In recent research that was made by scientists from Iran, Vietnam, Ireland and Russia attention was paid to Tolmetin drug taken for osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. The researchers studied the effectiveness of supercritical technology using the example of a drug. They measured the solubility of Tolmetin in supercritical solvent and the effect of pressure and temperature of the solubility. There were used the theoretical models to simulate and predict the solubility values.

“If a drug introduces a low solubility in water, it can be subjected to a micronization process to reduce its size to a value below 10 microns since particle size reduction can substantially enhance the drug bioavailability of poorly soluble substances. The solubility data vary in different processing conditions, i.e. temperature and pressure. In the current research, we obtained several semi-empirical correlations for Tolmetin which can be used for the design of preparation of nanomedicines at industrial scale, and also to predict the performance of drug at a wide range of operations.” Saeed Shirazian, a senior researcher of Computer-Aided Drug Design Laboratory (South Ural State University) says.

Supercritical technology helps for solubility enhancement of poorly soluble drugs, so the main application of the research results would be actual for the pharmaceutical industry and can help them exploit the green supercritical technology to manufacture drugs with high efficacy. Indeed, supercritical carbon dioxide is considered a green solvent, and the developed new process can be classified as a green technology for the preparation of nanomedicines because no harmful organic solvent is used in the preparation of the medicines.

The researchers are planning to implement the relevant PAT (Process Analytical Technology has been defined for pharmaceutical manufacturing processes) tools to online control the process and the progress of drug solubility at different times. Also, the temperature and pressure need to be controlled to obtain highly reproducible data.

 

International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) has replaced all traditional energy meters with state-of-the-art IoT enabled devices on campus. While such a large scale deployment on an academic campus is unprecedented in itself, what is even more novel is that the meters are based on the next-gen LoRaWAN communication protocol. With over 80 energy meters, this is a one-of-a-kind deployment of such a scale in the country.

LoRaWAN is a Long Range low power Wide Area Network, developed by Semtech as a communication standard for IoT networks. It allows the transfer of information at low power over a wide range, thus forming a basis for cost-effective, long-range and power-efficient sensor systems.

“The range covered by a single LoRaWAN gateway is about 100 times more than Wi-Fi. While each WiFi access point can cover a range of 100 or 200 meters, a single LoRaWAN gateway can cover 10+ km,” explains Dr. Aftab Hussain who is spearheading the deployment of LoRaWAN on campus.

The 80 new 3-ph energy meters on-campus help in monitoring the energy, pf, voltage, current, peak demand for all phases. The data is transmitted at 15-minute intervals to a network server through LoRaWAN, decrypted, and archived using the OneM2M (Machine to Machine) standard. OneM2M is a global standards initiative that covers requirements, architecture, API specifications, security solutions, and interoperability for machine-to-machine and IoT technologies.

Thanks to the LoRaWAN network, IoT devices can be deployed anywhere on campus. “If you have a sensor node based on Arduino, you can ask it to communicate through a LoRaWAN transceiver with the network on campus. The transceiver can also be attached to anything, making the development and deployment of LoRaWAN-based sensors convenient” says Dr. Hussain.

One such planned project of the smart campus initiative deals with monitoring water quality in the overhead tanks. With the help of sensors for detecting PH, turbidity, salinity, conductivity, and temperature, water quality can be continuously monitored and the data collected from the sensors will go via LoRaWAN to the cloud. While the energy meters were industrially manufactured and procured, the setup for monitoring water quality will be made completely in-house by the students.

Interestingly, IIITH is serviced with LoRaWAN connectivity through two different network providers, also a first of its kind for an academic campus in the country.

“Having two different networks operational on the campus provides flexibility in deployment, particularly when large amounts of sensors and data are to be supported. I believe the data generated will give a boost to our efforts in AI/ML as well. I am sure the analysis of such high-resolution energy data can provide interesting insights in the future,” says Dr. Hussain.