Pre-training on real-image datasets has been widely proven effective for improving instance segmentation. However, industrial applications face two key challenges: (1) legal and ethical restrictions, such as ImageNet's prohibition of commercial use, and (2) limited transferability due to the domain gap between web images and industrial imagery. Even recent vision foundation models, including the segment anything model (SAM), show notable performance degradation in industrial settings. These challenges raise critical questions: Can we build a vision foundation model for industrial applications without relying on real images or manual annotations? And can such models outperform even fine-tuned SAM on industrial datasets? To address these questions, we propose the Instance Core Segmentation Dataset (InsCore), a synthetic pre-training dataset based on formula-driven supervised learning (FDSL). InsCore generates fully annotated instance segmentation images that reflect key characteristics of industrial data, including complex occlusions, dense hierarchical masks, and diverse non-rigid shapes, distinct from typical web imagery. Unlike previous methods, InsCore requires neither real images nor human annotations. Experiments on five industrial datasets show that models pre-trained with InsCore outperform those trained on COCO and ImageNet-21k, as well as fine-tuned SAM, achieving an average improvement of 6.2 points in instance segmentation performance. This result is achieved using only 100k synthetic images, more than 100 times fewer than the 11 million images in SAM's SA-1B dataset, demonstrating the data efficiency of our approach. These findings position InsCore as a practical and license-free vision foundation model for industrial applications.
This work presents a compact, easy-to-manufacture, low-cost, and friendly mechanism capable of producing samples encapsulated in a polymeric material of the same quality as those obtained from commercial equipment. The device is easy to manufacture, has efficient maintenance, is low-cost, and can also be used in any commercially available hydraulic press. It was designed considering factors such as the requirements of the system, the geometry of the sample, and the dissipation of heat. The House of Quality (HoQ), a key tool within the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology, was utilized in the design of a this device to ensure it met both customer needs and technical requirements effectively. The HoQ matrix was then used to ensure that the operation of the device was safe, which included a prioritized list of customer requirements, their relative importance, and their correlation with technical specifications, as well as benchmarks comparing the device’s performance against competitors. It affirms that the designed devices are capable of mounting a metallography specimen, allowing easy handling and conditioning of the surface of interest. It also adapts to any commercial hydraulic press, making it a versatile and accessible solution.
ABSTRACT The objectives of the study are to analyse the perception of consumers on piped water supply, the consumers’ willingness to pay for improved water supply, and the factors that affect it. The sample unit is the consumer household of the public health divisions. The sample size is 181. A multistage random sampling procedure was adopted to choose the sample household. Descriptive statistics and structural equation models are used to analyse the data. This study found that consumer satisfaction is influenced by water supply quantity, pressure, timing, and visual aspects. The main factors causing interruptions include pipeline breakage, cyclone impact, summer water depletion, construction work, motor damage, and reservoir cleaning. Households are not well-informed about advance payment, its benefits, and the proper procedure for obtaining a receipt. Household income, education, satisfaction with water quality, the period of the service association, supply water price, and sufficiency of water during summer directly affect consumers’ willingness to pay. Discontent with appearance and taste affects quality dissatisfaction and indirectly willingness to pay.
Understanding the dynamic nature of the semiconductor-water interface is crucial for developing efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting catalysts, as it governs reactivity through charge and mass transport. In this study, we employ ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the structural and dynamical properties of water at the $β$-TaON (100) surface. We observed that a well-defined interface is established through the spontaneous dissociation of water and the reorganization of surface chemical bonds. This leads to the formation of a partially hydroxylated surface, accompanied by a strong network of hydrogen bonds at the TaON-water interface. Consequently, various proton transport routes, including the proton transfer through "low-barrier hydrogen bond" path, become active across the interface, dramatically increasing the overall rate of the proton hopping at the interface. Based on our findings, we propose that the observed high photocatalytic activity of TaON-based semiconductors could be attributed to the spontaneous water dissociation and the resulting high proton transfer rate at the interface.
As part of the Internet of Things, industrial devices are now also connected to cloud services. However, the connection to the Internet increases the risks for Industrial Control Systems. Therefore, a threat analysis is essential for these devices. In this paper, we examine Industrial Internet of Things devices, identify and rank different sources of threats and describe common threats and vulnerabilities. Finally, we recommend a procedure to carry out a threat analysis on these devices.
The supply of domestic hot water (DHW) on college and university campuses is indispensable and is also one of the main components of campus energy consumption. The density of residential patterns and similar occupancy behavior of college students make it economical to use centralized systems to cover the DHW demand, and utilization of solar energy can make the systems more economical. Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) is a promising key technology that can minimize the imbalance between the availability of solar energy and thermal energy demand. In this paper, a solar-assisted ground-coupled heat pump (SAGCHP) system that meets the DHW demand of 960 students was investigated by means of dynamic simulation and energy-economic analysis. The simulation results in terms of the underground heat balance are compared with a standalone GCHP system and a SAGCHP system without STES. Results show that heat recharging operations during university summer and winter breaks (when there are minimal students on campus) lead to improved underground heat balance and energy performance. Finally, a sensitivity analysis on system performance was carried out by varying solar collector arrays. It was found that there exists an optimal value of solar collector area to achieve the lowest system lifecycle cost (LCC).
The year of 2020 has witnessed the unprecedented development of 5G networks, along with the widespread deployment of 5G base stations (BSs). Nevertheless, the enormous energy consumption of BSs and the incurred huge energy cost have become significant concerns for the mobile operators. As the continuous decline of the renewable energy cost, equipping the power-hungry BSs with renewable energy generators could be a sustainable solution. In this work, we propose an energy storage aided reconfigurable renewable energy supply solution for the BS, which could supply clean energy to the BS and store surplus energy for backup usage. Specifically, to flexibly reconfigure the battery's discharging/charging operations, we propose a deep reinforcement learning based reconfiguring policy, which can adapt to the dynamical renewable energy generations as well as the varying power demands. Our experiments using the real-world data on renewable energy generations and power demands demonstrate that, our reconfigurable power supply solution can achieve an energy saving ratio of 74.8%, compared to the case with traditional power grid supply.
Natural and anthropogenic disasters frequently affect both the supply and demand side of an economy. A striking recent example is the Covid-19 pandemic which has created severe disruptions to economic output in most countries. These direct shocks to supply and demand will propagate downstream and upstream through production networks. Given the exogenous shocks, we derive a lower bound on total shock propagation. We find that even in this best case scenario network effects substantially amplify the initial shocks. To obtain more realistic model predictions, we study the propagation of shocks bottom-up by imposing different rationing rules on industries if they are not able to satisfy incoming demand. Our results show that economic impacts depend strongly on the emergence of input bottlenecks, making the rationing assumption a key variable in predicting adverse economic impacts. We further establish that the magnitude of initial shocks and network density heavily influence model predictions.
Meysam Mahjoob, Seyed Sajjad Fazeli, Soodabeh Milanlouei
et al.
Excessive greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector have led companies to move towards a sustainable supply chain network design. In this study we present a new bi-objective non-linear formulation where multiple inventory components are integrated into the location and routing decisions throughout the supply chain network. To efficiently solve the proposed model, we implement an exact method and four evolutionary algorithms for small and large-scale instances. Extensive computational results and sensitivity analysis are performed to validate the efficiency of the proposed approaches, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Besides, we run a statistical analysis to investigate whether there is any statistically significant difference between solution methods.
Aminu Hamisu Auwal, Nura Isyaku Bello, Abdulkadir Bello
et al.
The problem of portable water supply has become an issue of global concerned as governments all over the world are trying to make house-holds water accessible to all as easier as possible to meet the challenges for sustainable development goals. This research has been conducted to determine the people’s perception on domestic water supply situation in Kano metropolis, Northwestern Nigeria. A self-designed questionnaire developed and distributed to the subjects using stratified sampling technique, and the data obtained has been presented in frequency and percentage. The results obtained revealed that, there is a scarcity of portable water supply to households in Kano metropolis. The problem emanated from lack of pipe-borne water which necessitated the dependence of the house-holds water supply on vendors that obtained water from boreholes and some hand-dug wells lacking proper hygienic practices. More so, the respondents were willing to pay for pipe borne water delivery, yet, they depend on vendors as their major water suppliers as alternatives. The unhygienic practices of the vendors and water sources posed threat to public health concerned
The orientation of water molecules is the key factor for the fast transport of water in small nanotubes. It has been accepted that the bidirectional water burst in short nanotubes can be transformed into unidirectional transport when the orientation of water molecules is maintained in long nanotubes under the external field. In this work, based on molecular dynamics simulations and first-principles calculations, we showed without external field, it only needs 21 water molecules to maintain the unidirectional single file water intrinsically in carbon nanotube at seconds. Detailed analysis indicates that the surprising result comes from the step by step process for the flip of water chain, which is different with the perceived concerted mechanism. Considering the thickness of cell membrane (normally 5-10 nm) is larger than the length threshold of the unidirectional water wire, this study suggests it may not need the external field to maintain the unidirectional flow in the water channel at the macroscopic timescale.
Three of the seven rocky planets (e, f, and g) in TRAPPIST-1 system orbit in the habitable zone of the host star. Therefore, water can be in liquid state at their surface being essential for life. Recent studies suggest that these planets formed beyond the snow line in a water-rich region. The initial water reservoir can be lost during the planet formation due to the stellar activity of the infant low-mass star. However, a potential subsequent water delivery event, like the late heavy bombardment (LHB) in the Solar System, can replenish planetary water reservoirs. To study this water delivery process, we set up a simple model in which an additional 5 M_Earth--50 M_Earth planet is embedded in a water-rich asteroid belt beyond the snow line of TRAPPIST-1. Asteroids perturbed out from the chaotic zone of the putative planet can enter into the inner system and accreted by the known planets. Our main finding is that the larger is the orbital distance of planet, the higher is the amount of water delivered to the planet by an LHB-like event.
H. I. M. Lichtenegger, K. G. Kislyakova, P. Odert
et al.
The influence of the hydrogen hydrodynamic upper atmosphere escape, driven by the solar soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation (XUV) flux, on an expected magma ocean outgassed steam atmosphere of early Venus is studied. By assuming that the young Sun was either a weak or moderate active young G star, we estimated the water loss from a hydrogen dominated thermosphere due to the absorption of the solar XUV flux and the precipitation of solar wind produced energetic hydrogen atoms (ENAs). The production of ENAs and their interaction with the hydrodynamic extended upper atmosphere, including collision-related feedback processes, have been calculated by means of Monte Carlo models. ENAs that collide in the upper atmosphere deposit their energy and heat the surrounding gas mainly above the main XUV energy deposition layer. It is shown that precipitating ENAs modify the thermal structure of the upper atmosphere, but the enhancement of the thermal escape rates caused by these energetic hydrogen atoms is negligible. Our results also indicate that the majority of oxygen arising from dissociated H$_2$O molecules is left behind during the first 100 Myr. It is thus suggested that the main part of the remaining oxygen has been absorbed by crustal oxidation.
Industry 4.0 relies heavily on wireless technologies. Energy efficiency and device cost have played a significant role in the initial design of such wireless systems for industry automation. However, high reliability, high throughput, and low latency are also key for certain sectors such as the manufacturing industry. In this sense, existing wireless solutions for industrial settings are limited. Emerging technologies such as millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication are highly promising to address this bottleneck. Still, the propagation characteristics at such high frequencies in harsh industrial settings are not well understood. Related work in this area is limited to isolated measurements in specific scenarios. In this work, we carry out an extensive measurement campaign in highly representative industrial environments. Most importantly, we derive the statistical distributions of the channel parameters of widely accepted mmWave channel models that fit these environments. This is a highly valuable contribution, since researchers in this field can use our empirical model to understand the performance of their mmWave systems in typical industrial settings. Beyond analyzing and discussing our insights, with this paper we also shareoour extensive dataset with the research community.
Marc Oliver Berner, Viktor Scherer, Martin Mönnigmann
In order for biomass drying processes to be efficient, it is crucial to achieve the target residual water content within a close margin, since more conservative drying would result in a waste of energy. A method for a reliable estimation of the water content is therefore of obvious importance. Ideally, such a method does not require any expensive sensors. We show reduced order models and extended Kalman filters can be combined to reliably determine the water content and temperature of wood particles based on only surface temperature measurements. The proposed observer works reliably if measurements are only available for parts of a particle face. It can therefore still be applied if particle surfaces are partially obstructed, which is a prerequisite for use in industrial processes and units, such as rotary dryers. The extended Kalman filter uses a reduced order model that is obtained by applying proper orthogonal decomposition and Galerkin projection to coupled PDEs that model heat conduction and water diffusion in anisotropic particles. In contrast to the original PDE simulation model, the reduced model and the filter based on it are suitable for real time computations and monitoring.
Nidal Mahmoud, William Hogland, Michael Sokolov
et al.
Rainwater harvesting in Palestine is a principal water resource that had been adopted since ancient times. However, the system had not been subjected to a thorough assessment. This paper aims at assessing the feasibility of rainwater harvesting for domestic water supply in Palestinian rural areas with special emphasis on socio-cultural and financial aspects as well as harvested water quality. Different methods were used to collect necessary data from a case study village, including literature review, observations, questionnaires and water quality measurement of freshly fallen and harvested rainwater samples. Moreover, domestic water demand and water supply from such a system were compared, and economic feasibility of applying this system was checked. The results revealed that harvested rainwater is a viable resource that can contribute considerably to minimizing water shortage.
A safe rural domestic water supply project has been initiated based on different consumption uses. Long-term computation method and the water balance principle are used to analyze the yearly water demand. Water supply and demand balance is achieved through regulated planning of the rainwater collection surface area and water storage capacity. The best combination of collection area and storage capacity is then determined for various rainfall zones in order to satisfy safe domestic water needs. Ultimately, an optimum matching model is developed to utilize rainwater harvesting for providing safe domestic water in rural areas.
Bruno H. S. Mendonça, Patricia Ternes, Evy Salcedo
et al.
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the diffusion of water inside deformed carbon nanotubes with different degrees of deformation at 300 K. We found that the number of hydrogen bonds that water forms depends on nanotube topology, leading to enhancement or suppression of water diffusion. The simulation results reveal that more realistic nanotubes should be considered to understand the confined water diffusion behavior, at least for the narrowest nanotubes, when the interaction between water molecules and carbon atoms is relevant.
Biplav Srivastava, Sandeep Sandha, Vaskar Raychoudhury
et al.
Water is a crucial pre-requisite for all human activities. Due to growing demand from population and shrinking supply of potable water, there is an urgent need to use computational methods to manage available water intelligently, and especially in developing countries like India where even basic data to track water availability or physical infrastructure to process water are inadequate. In this context, we present a dataset of water pollution containing quantitative and qualitative data from a combination for modalities - real-time sensors, lab results, and estimates from people using mobile apps. The data on our API-accessible cloud platform covers more than 60 locations and consists of both what we have ourselves collected from multiple location following a novel process, and from others (lab-results) which were open but hither-to difficult to access. Further, we discuss an application of released data to understand spatio-temporal pollution impact of a large event with hundreds of millions of people converging on a river during a religious gathering (Ardh Khumbh 2016) spread over months. Such unprecedented details can help authorities manage an ongoing event or plan for future ones. The community can use the data for any application and also contribute new data to the platform.
Wine counterfeiting has been posing significant challenges to wine industry, and has undermined the international wine trading market and the global economy hugely. The situation of counterfeiting has even been exacerbating in wine industry and global supply chain. There has been a number of anti-counterfeiting approaches which have been proposed and adopted utilizing different authentication technologies, in response to growing threats of counterfeiting to wine industry. The proposed NFC-Enabled Anti-Counterfeiting System (NAS) is developed for luxury-good industry such as wine industry, aiming at upholding provenance and authenticity of wine products from counterfeits via the product pedigree, transaction records and supply chain integrity maintained along the supply chain. Consumers can therefore safeguard their stake by authenticating a specific wine product with their NFC-enabled smartphones before purchasing at the retail points. NAS utilizes Near-field Communication (NFC), which has emerged as a promising technology and communication protocol for developing innovative alternatives, to facilitate the wine record processing of wine products and in turn combat wine and spirit counterfeiting. The integrated NAS is consisted of a wide range of hardware and software components, and the best combination of settings, parameters and deployments will therefore be identified. Other possible implementation issues, such as tag selection, tag programming and encryption, setup of back-end database servers and the design of NFC mobile application will also be discussed in this project. The critical design of NAS is vital not only to the key of product anti-counterfeiting of wine industry, but also to the strong foundation for other innovative supply chain solutions, such as the NFC-enabled purchasing system, developed on top of NAS with improved and integrated anti-counterfeiting functionalities.