TWO Information Technology graduates from the University of San Jose Recoletos in Cebu were granted master’s degree program scholarships by the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Bien Grenier Sasing and Ma. Thea Cabral received their grants in the first quarter of 2020. They are pursuing Master of Science in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Internet of Things.

“A year ago, these two scholars participated in a student exchange program with STUST together with alumni, Leigh Ann Concon. They had their internship from December 8, 2018 to June 22, 2019 in Taiwan,” the university said.

Both scholars were part of an all-student development team with Sasing in the SEER system and Cabral with BeatTrak track.

“The SEER system was developed to alleviate the problems of the VIBs (visually impaired or blind people) through a portable obstacle detection device that concurrently acquires spatial data which is used by the VIBs for exploration of their environment,” the university explained.

“Natural language processing and tactile sensors are used for event updates and commands through audio and haptic feedback and the use of the robotic operating system as the modular framework to provide a future-proof system that can be improved further,” it added.

Meanwhile, BeatTrak is a digital stethoscope prototype that can record heart sound data and send the processed audio signal to computer processing.

“The computer processing introduced a machine learning model that has been trained to classify the signal as normal or abnormal. Subsequently, data is then transmitted to clinic computers via Bluetooth to a web-based application. If results are abnormal, patients can choose to consult with a doctor,” STUST said.

After completing their scholarship, Sasing and Cabral will be invited to teach on a part-time basis at the USJ-R School of Computer Studies and help in the advising program for student and faculty research projects.