A novel numerical method for calculating the contributions of individual diodes in a set of light emitting diodes (LEDs), aimed at simulating a blackbody radiation source, is examined. The intended purpose of the light source is to enable calibration of various types of optical sensors, particularly optical radiation pyrometers in the spectral range from 700 nm to 1070 nm. This numerical method is used to determine and optimize the intensity coefficients of individual LEDs that contribute to the overall spectral distribution. The method was proven for known spectral distributions: “flat” spectrum, International Commission on Illumination (CIE) standard daylight illuminant D65 spectrum, Hydrargyrum Medium-arc Iodide (HMI) High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamp, and finally blackbody radiation spectra at various temperatures. The method enables achieving a broad range of continuous spectral distributions and compares favorably with other methods proposed in the literature.

Although intensively investigated, the procedures for assessment and monitoring of scoliosis are still a subject of controversies. The aim of this study was to assess validity and reliability of a number of physiotherapeutic measurements that could be used for clinical monitoring of scoliosis. Fifteen healthy (symmetric) subjects were subjected to a set of measurements two times, by two experienced and two inexperienced physiotherapists. Intra-observer and inter-observer reliability of measurements were determined. Following measurements were performed: body height and weight, chest girth in inspirium and expirium, the length of legs, the spine translation, the lateral pelvic tilt, the equality of the shoulders, position of scapulas, the equality of stature triangles, the rib hump, the existence of m. iliopsoas contracture, Fröhner index, the size of lumbar lordosis and the angle of trunk rotation. Intraclass correlation coefficient was high (> 0.8) for majority of measurements when experienced physiotherapists performed them, while inexperienced physiotherapists performed precisely only basic, easy measurements. We showed in this pilot study on healthy subjects, that majority of basic physiotherapeutic measurements are valid and reliable when performed by specialized physiotherapist, and it can be expected that this protocol will gain high value when measurements on subjects with scoliosis are performed.

Solid-State Drives (SSDs) enabled the implementation of real-time cloud services, with a primary focus on high performance and high availability. SSD failure prediction can improve overall system availability by preventing data loss and service interruption. SSDs employ a built-in SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) system to predict failures when certain operating parameters exceed predefined thresholds. Such univariate SMART-based models can predict a limited set of drive failures. Research in SSD failure prediction is focused on multivariate models, which can exploit the complex interactions between SMART attributes that lead to drive failure in order to detect a much larger set of failures. This paper presents an anomaly detection model, based on the Mahalanobis distance measure, which is used for the failure prediction of SSD drives. The model is able to rank the features according to their influence on failure prediction by using a forward feature selection algorithm. The proposed model is tested on a publicly available Alibaba SSD dataset, where the six highest-ranked SMART features were identified. Using this subset of SMART features, our model was able to detect 64% of failures with 81% accuracy while keeping a high precision of 96%.

A major concern in many electrical drives is the reliability of sensors and actuators. In the paper, the usage of the Drools expert system (ES) for Fault detection and isolation (FDI) of the additive actuator and sensor DC Motor faults using the Structured residuals design technique (SRDT) is presented. The SRDT is used to obtain essential knowledge about the system. Afterward, an expert system that can isolate faults based on the developed structure matrix and generated residuals is designed. Accordingly, following the structure matrix each residual becomes able to answer to a desired subset of faults and stands insensitive to the others. The proposed method is successfully applied in an analyzed laboratory system and can be used for online FDI.