Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self‐Assembled InAs Quantum Dots on InP(001) for Long‐Wavelength Laser Applications

Self‐assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in an InAlGaAs matrix were grown on an InP (001) using a solid‐source molecular beam epitaxy and investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. TEM images indicated that the QD formation was strongly dependent on the growth behaviors of group III elements during the deposition of InAlGaAs barriers. We achieved a lasing operation of around 1.5 µm at room temperature from uncoated QD lasers based on the InAlGaAs‐InAlAs material system on the InP (001). The lasing wavelengths of the ridge‐waveguide QD lasers were also dependent upon the cavity lengths due mainly to the gain required for the lasing operation.
Use and Usability of a Discovery Tool in an Academic Library

In order to assess the use and usability of a new discovery tool, staff at the University of Kansas Libraries conducted usability tests with 27 users and analyzed three semesters of the tool's usage as measured by custom event tracking implemented in Google Analytics and usage statistics drawn from the discovery tool and server logs. An initial study with sixteen users was conducted prior to launching the new tool, and a subsequent study with eleven users was conducted a semester after the launch. This article describes test participants’ success using the new tool to complete basic library research tasks, details the specific features they used in their attempts (e.g., facets, “did you mean” suggestions), and identifies areas where changes were made to address problems identified in the studies, including changes outside the tool itself. In addition, comparisons between feature use in the discovery system as observed in usability testing and feature use as measured by event tracking and log analysis are discussed, including implications for the design of future tests.
Why research without theory is not research A reply to Seymour, Crook and Rooke

Construction management researchers have for too long ignored the centrality of theory to human activity. A simple analogy from everyday life, the quest for a suitable life partner, will demonstrate that all productive action depends on theory if it is to be shared and form a worthwhile addition to the body of knowledge. This analogy provides a useful introduction to the philosophy of science, and a criticism of those who propose a non-scientific approach to construction management research.
A low power transregional MOSFET model for complete power-delay analysis of CMOS gigascale integration (GSI)

A new compact transregional model for conventional surface channel inversion MOSFETs with continuous and smooth transitions at regional boundaries is introduced. The model, verified against MEDICI and HSPICE, describes all regions of operation, namely, subthreshold, linear, and saturation while including the effects of 1) carrier velocity saturation, 2) vertical and lateral high field mobility degradation, and 3) threshold voltage roll-off, all prominent characteristics of sub-micron devices. The key contribution of this model is the physical insight into the on/off current trade-off that ensues with voltage scaling and will be vital to future low power design. Utilizing the model for a complete power-delay analysis of CMOS circuit designs, analytical expressions are derived for: 1) propagation delay, 2) short circuit power (P/sub SC/), and 3) static power (P/sub Static/). Results from the total power (P/sub Total/) consumption analysis indicate that P/sub SC/ and P/sub Static/ may constitute over 1/3 of P/sub Total/ in future low power/high performance CMOS GSI.
Micromagnetics of thin film cobalt‐based media for magnetic recording

Methods of fabrication and characterization for thin films of CoCr, CoPt, CoPtCr, and similar alloys of interest in longitudinal magnetic recording are reviewed and certain interesting features of their magnetic behavior, revealed recently with modern high‐resolution observation techniques, are described. The micromagnetics of these polycrystalline thin film media has been studied by large‐scale simulations on the massively parallel Connection Machine. Methods and results of these simulations are presented.
Degraded text recognition using visual and linguistic context

To improve the performance of an OCR system on degraded images of text, postprocessing techniques are critical. The objective of postprocessing is to correct errors or to resolve ambiguities in OCR results by using contextual information. Depending on the extent of context used, there are different levels of postprocessing. In current commercial OCR systems, word-level postprocessing methods, such as dictionary-lookup, have been applied successfully. However, many OCR errors cannot be corrected by word-level postprocessing. To overcome this limitation, passage-level postprocessing, in which global contextual information is utilized, is necessary. This thesis addresses problems in degraded text recognition and discusses potential solutions through passage-level postprocessing. The objective is to develop a postprocessing methodology from a broader perspective. In this work, two classes of inter-word contextual constraints, visual constraints and linguistic constraints, are exploited extensively. Given a text page with hundreds of words, many word image instances can be found visually similar. Formally, six types of visual inter-word relations are defined. Relations at the image level must be consistent with the relations at the symbolic level if word images in the text have been interpreted correctly. Based on the fact that OCR results often violate this consistency, methods of visual consistency analysis are designed to detect and correct OCR errors. Linguistic knowledge sources such as lexicography, syntax, and semantics, can be used to detect and correct OCR errors. Here, we focus on the word candidate selection problem. In this approach an OCR provides several alternatives for each word and the objective of postprocessing is to choose the correct decision among these choices. Two approaches of linguistic analysis, statistical and structural, are proposed for the problem of candidate selection. A word-collocation-based relaxation algorithm and a probabilistic lattice parsing algorithm are proposed. There exist some OCR errors which are not easily recoverable by either visual consistency analysis or linguistic consistency analysis. Integration of image analysis and language-level analysis provides a natural way to handle difficult words.
The Community College Transfer Calculator: Identifying the Course-Taking Patterns That Predict Transfer

Using a newly developed software application entitled The Community College Transfer Calculator©, this article both quantifies the effect of specific course-taking patterns and stresses the need for an easy to understand tool for community college academic advisors, faculty, and students. The “Calculator” calculates the likelihood of transfer given specific demographic and courses taken and/or scheduled. Moreover, the user can see the difference in the likelihood of transfer that changes in course-taking predict.
Detecting a Problem Is Half the Battle: The Relation Between Error Type and Spelling Performance

Proofreading a text for misspellings involves detecting spelling errors and then correcting those errors. We examined differences in spelling error detection and correction in adults as a function of type of spelling error. We modified student essays to include phonological (e.g., incredibul), orthographic (e.g., decisian), and morphological (e.g., extention) errors. Participants read and identified spelling errors in an unmarked copy of the essay. They were then given a second copy of the essay and asked to correct the marked spelling errors. Participants detected significantly more phonological errors than orthographic and morphological errors and detected morphological errors the least. There were no significant differences across error type in correction. These findings indicate that knowledge of how to correct an error may be sufficient for detection of phonological errors but is not always sufficient for detection of orthographic and morphological errors. Detection of morphological errors varied with spelling skill. Our results are consistent with the view that good spellers may have a larger memory for word-specific spellings and may have a greater familiarity with orthographic conventions than do average spellers.
The Evolution of Knowledge Transfer Boundary Networks in Healthcare

2 DECLARATION 3 DEDICATION 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 LIST OF TABLES 12 LIST OF FIGURES 16 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 17 1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY 17 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM 17 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION AND OBJECTIVE 19 1.4 RESEARCH METHODS AND ANALYSES 20 1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY 20 1.6 MAJOR AREAS OF CONTRIBUTION 21 1.7 THESIS STRUCTURE 23 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 25 2.1 CHAPTER OVERVIEW 25 2.2 NARRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW APPROACH 25 2.3. INTRODUCTION 28 2.4 KNOWLEDGE MOBILISATION 32 2.4. 1 EXPLICIT AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE 33 2.4. 2 KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER PROCESS 35 2.4. 3 ABSORPTIVE AND DISSEMINATIVE CAPACITY 35 2.4. 4 KNOWLEDGE USE 37 2.4. 5 SUMMARY 38 2.5 NETWORKS 39 2.5. 1 KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS 40 2.5. 2 SUMMARY 44 2.6 BOUNDARIES 45
Nucleus-Satellite Analysis and Conjugation Mediation in Coptic and Later Egyptian

The syntactic analysis of the class of elements known as 'preverbal extensions,' 'conjugation mediators' or 'preverbals' is known to be problematic, specifically with regard to nucleus-satellite analysis. In short, it is a matter of debate whether or not the conjugation mediator is to be analyzed as the head of its construction. In the first section of this article, the specific criteria for assessing nuclear status are made explicit, and it is suggested that the conjugation mediators cannot be analyzed as heads or satellites, as for the most part, they do not belong to the verb phrase as such and do not contract a relationship of dependence with the verbal lexeme itself. In the second section, a Demotic construction is analyzed as a pre-Coptic conjugation modifier, closest to Bohairic x∈. In the third section, some Late Egyptian patterns involving pre-lexemic spatial adverbials are discussed in light of conjugation mediation. The Demotic and Late Egyptian evidence suggests that the phenomenon of conjugation mediation is not an innovation of Coptic, but rather existed as a structural option already in pre-Coptic Egyptian.
Superconductor-magnet bearings with inherent stability and velocity-independent drag torque

A hybrid superconductor magnet bearing system has been developed based on passive magnetic levitation and the flux pinning effect of high-temperature superconductivity. The rationale lies in the unique capability of a high-temperature superconductor (HTS) to enhance system stability passively without power consumption. Characterization experiments have been conducted understand its dynamic behavior and to estimate required motor torque for its driving system design. These experiments show that the hybrid HTS-magnet bearing system has a periodic oscillation of drag torque due mainly to the nonuniform magnetic field density of permanent magnets. Furthermore, such a system also suffers from a small superimposed periodic oscillation introduced by the use of multiple HTS disks rather than a uniform annulus of HTS material. The magnitude of drag torque is velocity independent and very small. These results make this bearing system appealing for high-speed application. Finally, design guidelines for superconducting bearing systems are suggested based on these experimental results.
Computation-Efficient Image Signal Processing for CMOS Image Sensors

This paper presents an efficient image signal processing method proposed for CMOS image sensors. In the proposed method, the color correction is moved to the front of the color demosaic to reduce the arithmetic complexity required in the color correction to one third, and a new color correction method is suggested to achieve good images with less data. In spite of the reduced complexity, experimental results show that the peak-signal-to-noise ratio is increased by 0.59dB compared to the conventional method.
Data mining and knowledge discovery resources for astronomy in the web 2.0 age

The emerging field of AstroInformatics, while on the one hand appears crucial to face the technological challenges, on the other is opening new exciting perspectives for new astronomical discoveries through the implementation of advanced data mining procedures. The complexity of astronomical data and the variety of scientific problems, however, call for innovative algorithms and methods as well as for an extreme usage of ICT technologies. The DAME (DAta Mining and Exploration) Program exposes a series of web-based services to perform scientific investigation on astronomical massive data sets. The engineering design and requirements, driving its development since the beginning of the project, are projected towards a new paradigm of Web based resources, which reflect the final goal to become a prototype of an efficient data mining framework in the data-centric era.
The relevance of the U-shaped learning model to the acquisition of the simple past tense in the Arab Learners of English context

Building on previous studies of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Applied Linguistics theories related to the acquisition of the simple past tense, this empirical study focuses on two recent models which are proposed in order to explain and predict language acquisition behaviour which may be relevant to the SLA of the simple past and the grammatical construction. These models are the U-shaped learning model (Pinker, 1984), and the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational ACT-R model (Taatgen and Anderson, 2002). This article only focuses on the relevance of the U-shaped learning model. An empirical study was conducted on 74 Arab Learners of English (ALEs) which lasted four months. A detailed analysis was made of the simple past tense forms in 222 written texts produced by ALEs. Written texts were collected from each subject at three stages in the experiment (after two weeks, after two months and after four months). Quantitative and qualitative analysis in addition to descriptive analysis of the target and non-target-like forms show that there is little evidence of the U-shape in the forms produced by the learners within the beginning, middle and end phases of this investigation. We cannot, however, exclude the possibility of the U-shape appearing in a longitudinal study of learners' development of the simple past tense forms over a number of years.
FOREIGN AID INFLOWS AND THE REAL EXCHANGE RATE IN THE CFA FRANC ZONE

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between foreign aid inflows and the real exchange rate in the countries of the CFA Franc zone. Using panel data analysis we find that foreign aid inflows are associated with the appreciation of the real exchange rate in the CFA countries between 1980 and 2000. However, our results also suggest that the potential "Dutch Disease" effects associated with these inflows could be offset if appropriate policies are implemented.
Consensus of heterogeneous first‐ and second‐order multi‐agent systems with directed communication topologies

In this paper, we consider the consensus problem for heterogeneous multi‐agent systems composed of some first‐order and some second‐order dynamic agents in directed communication graphs. Consensus protocols are proposed for the second‐ and first‐order dynamic agents, respectively. Under certain assumptions on the control parameters, for fixed communication topologies, necessary and sufficient conditions for consensus are given, and the consensus values of all agents are established. For switching topologies, sufficient conditions are given for all agents to reach consensus. Finally, simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rijndael FPGA implementation utilizing look-up tables

An FPGA Rijndael encryption design is presented, which utilizes look-up tables to implement the entire Rijndael Round function. A comparison is provided between this design and similar existing implementations. Hardware implementations of encryption algorithms prove much faster than equivalent software implementations and since there is a need to perform encryption on data in real time, speed is very important. In particular, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are well suited to encryption implementations due to their flexibility and an architecture, which can be exploited to accommodate typical encryption transformations. A look-up table based Rijndael design achieves a speed of 12 Gbits/sec, which is a factor 1.2 times faster than an alternative design in which look-up tables are utilized to implement only one of the Round function transformations, and 6 times faster than other previous implementations.
Derivation of context axioms and semantics of data with the Domain Model Editor

The Context Interchange Strategy [Siegel and Madnick, 1991] presents a novel perspective for mediated data access in which the Context Mediator detects and reconciles semantic conflicts among heterogeneous systems through comparison of contexts associated with any two systems such as a database and a web site. Examples of conflicts are use of different currencies and scale factors for representing the money amounts. To resolve these conflicts, the Context Interchange System generates mediated queries that take into account all the possible conflicts when retrieving the data from the sources. This involves the Context Mediation process [Goh, 1996], which is made possible by representing semantics of the data source in the form of contexts and domain models, which will be interpreted by the context mediator and transformed into a mediated query. A User can define and hand-code the context of a data source, but it is difficult to visualize and understand how each semantic type relates to the others in text format. It also requires users a lot of time to learn how to do the coding. To solve this problem, I designed a system, which consists of: 1) the domain model editor, a graphical tool which enables the users to define the domain model graphically using a web browser; 2) the domain-to-context translator, which generates the domain model into source code written in PENNY; and 3) the remote method invocation tool, which stores the data source information in the host machine obtained from the client, and allows the PENNY compiler to generate the information to be evaluated by the Context Mediator. Thesis Supervisor: Stuart Madnick Title: John Norris Maguire Professor of Information Technology
Combining the benefits of electronic and online dictionaries with CALL web sites to produce effective and enjoyable vocabulary and language learning lessons

To more thoroughly analyze and compare the types of dictionaries being used by Japanese college students in three college engineering classes, two kinds of surveys were designed. The first was a general survey about purchase, use and preferences regarding electronic dictionaries. The second survey asked questions about how various computerised functions were used at each major phase of lexical processing to help learners maximise these eight essential steps of vocabulary learning: (1) assessing degree of word knowledge; (2) accessing new word meanings; (3) archiving new information for study; (4) analysing word parts and origins; (5) anchoring new words in short-term memory; (6) associating words in related groups for long-term retention; (7) activating words through productive written or oral use; and (8) reviewing/recycling and re-testing them. After re-evaluating how well new words are learned by post-tests, any words not fully understood should be re-met through planned reencounters, retellings and activities that encourage learners to repeat the vocabulary learning cycle again so that relearning and reactivation can take place. The first survey describes Japanese college students' preferences and reasons for purchasing electronic dictionaries (EDs). The second shows self-reported use of portable electronic dictionaries, and how their respective functions were seen to aid different phases of L2 vocabulary learning. Students compared their use to that of print dictionaries. Finally, the author's CALL4All.US web site used in a new EAP online reading course for Japanese graduate school engineering students is shown. Appended tables highlight how other learners and teachers may use its extensive encyclopedia of pre-organised online dictionaries and language learning links to produce more effective and enjoyable reading and vocabulary learning lessons. These include the use of word-surfing, online reading labs, vocabulary profilers, etc.
Speech recognition using an auditory model with pitch-synchronous analysis

An auditory model with two-tone suppression has previously been shown to perform better in speech recognition experiments than a conventional filterbank representation, particularly with noisy or distorted speech. It was, however, known to have several defects including an uneven response across the spectrum and a tendency to detect harmonics of F0rather than F1. We show that instants of glottal excitation can be derived from the model even with noisy speech. By using this information to carry out pitch-synchronous analysis in a slightly modified model the problem of interaction with harmonics of F0can be solved. An analysis of the behavior of the model leads to a specification of a class of processes showing two-tone suppression and hence to a redesigned model avoiding the known defects. The pitch-synchronous analysis is then no longer necessary, but the robust indication of excitation points may have other uses. Spectrograms from the old and new models illustrate the improvements obtained.
Metal Mountable Ladder Feed Line UHF-RFID Tag Antenna

A microstrip dipole UHF-RFID tag antenna that can be mounted on metal object is presented in this paper. The antenna, which has a very simple structure without any shorting pin and shorting plate, is composed of ladder feed line, rectangular loop, capacitive tip-loading and T-match structure. The insertion of ground plane in the tag antenna design reduces the negative impact of metal object to the performance of the tag antenna. The tag is designed to operate in the Malaysia frequency range with the center frequency of 921 MHz. The performance of the tag is evaluated through simulation and measurement in terms of impedance matching, antenna reflection coefficient and tag reading range. The measured reading range obtained when the tag is in free air and on metal object is 2.3 m and 2.2 m respectively.