Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mikrostrukturelle Einflüsse auf das R-Kurvenverhalten bei Siliciumnitridkeramiken

In dieser Arbeit wurden Risswiderstandskurven (R-Kurven) fur vier verschiedene Siliciumnitridkeramiken gemessen. Die R-Kurven zeigen einen sehr steilen Anstieg und erreichen nahezu den Plateauwert in 10 bis 20µm Rissverlangerung. Aus den R-Kurven wurden mit Hilfe der Gewichtsfunktion die jeweiligen Bruckenspannungsverteilungen berechnet. Des Weiteren wurde ein neuer Ansatz zur Beschreibung der Verstarkungsmechanismen in Siliciumnitridkeramiken herausgearbeitet.
Parameter Estimation for Systems of Ordinary Differential Equations

Parameter Estimation for Systems of Ordinary Differential Equations Jonathan Calver Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 2019 We consider the formulation and solution of the inverse problem that arises when fitting systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to observed data. This parameter estimation task can be computationally intensive if the ODEs are complex and require the use of numerical methods to approximate their solution. The thesis focuses on addressing a common criticism of the single shooting approach, which is that it can have trouble converging to the globally optimal parameters if a sufficiently good initial guess for the parameters is unavailable. We demonstrate that it is often the case that a good initial guess can be obtained by solving a related inverse problem. We show that gradient based shooting approaches can be effective by investigating how they perform on some challenging test problems from the literature. We also discuss how the approach can be applied to systems of delay differential equations (DDEs). We make use of parallelism and the structure of the underlying ODE models to further improve the computational efficiency. Some existing methods for the efficient computation of the model sensitivities required by a Levenberg-Marquardt least squares optimizer are compared and implemented in a parallel computing environment. The effectiveness of using the adjoint approach for the efficient computation of the gradient required by a BFGS optimizer is also investigated for both systems of ODEs and systems of DDEs. The case of unobserved components of the state vector is then considered and we demonstrate how the structure of the model and the observed data can sometimes be exploited to cope with this situation.
Exploring the Progression of Early Programmers in a Set of Computational Thinking Challenges via Clickstream Analysis

In recent years, many initiatives have aimed to develop basic computational thinking skills. Despite the popularity of online platforms for early programmers, we still lack detailed information to analyze how these skills are acquired. In the present study we analyzed clickstream data from 3,355 participants enrolled in several Computational Thinking workshops using Kodetu, an online platform with fine grained logging features. Participants used Kodetu's coding blocks to solve challenges of increasing difficulty while we gathered their clickstream in the platform. Here, we present our findings after evaluating these data in regards of participants’ characteristics (age, sex, previous knowledge), similarity with previously submitted solutions, and degree of discrepancy from the optimal solution. To facilitate collaboration with other researchers in this area, we released our dataset under an open license. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest Computational Thinking-related datasets publicly available.
Intercomparisons of Cloud Mask Products Among Fengyun-4A, Himawari-8, and MODIS

In this paper, we developed a unified and operational cloud mask algorithm for the new-generation geostationary (GEO) meteorological satellite imagers of the Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager (AGRI) aboard Fengyun-4A (FY-4A) and the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) aboard Himawari-8 (H08). We investigated the all-round performance of the cloud mask algorithm. Spatiotemporally, the algorithm matches the official Collection-6 cloud mask products of a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from both the Terra and Aqua platforms, which we employed as the benchmark for performing intercomparisons and validations. The robust cloud mask algorithm can show high consistency between FY-4A/AGRI and H08/AHI. The MODIS-based validation results suggest that cloudy scene identification is better than that observed for clear skies for both FY-4A/AGRI and H08/AHI; there is also a relatively low false-alarm ratio (FAR). Moreover, the algorithm is more reliable during daytime hours, with a hit rate (HR) of approximately 92% for both FY-4A/AGRI and H08/AHI. We found slightly higher accuracy in cloud-masking results over water than those over land. Furthermore, we found that more than 67% of the matched pixels for both advanced GEO imagers had no bias when taking MODIS as the benchmark. Overall, HR values were approximately 91.04% and 91.82% for FY-4A/AGRI and H08/AHI, respectively. These results confirm the high quality of the algorithm for retrieving real-time cloud mask products.
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) Programs in R

We provide a brief overview of two R packages that can conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA): psych and EFAutilities. After introducing EFA and the exemplar data used in this paper we discuss best practices for EFA. Next, we describe the approaches used in the two packages for EFA. During this explanation, we provide sample code and discuss the usage and results of two empirical datasets. Finally, we highlight the similarities and distinctions of each package on modeling EFA.
Finite-Time Fault-Tolerant Control for Nonlinear Systems With Input Quantization and Its Application

This brief studies the control problem for nonlinear systems with uncertain actuator failures and input quantization. First, a hysteretic quantizer is applied to reduce chattering in the quantized signals. Then, using the backstepping technique, a finite-time fault-tolerant controller is designed. In addition, the control input is quantized by the hysteretic quantizer. It is proved that the global finite-time stability can be ensured for the nonlinear systems with uncertain actuator failures and quantized input signals. Finally, the simulation example of the hydraulic system is presented to verify the established control method.
Do we see word order patterns from silent gesture studies in a new natural language

Typological analysis clearly shows that the world’s languages are not evenly distributed among all logically possible patterns. Of the six possible orderings of Subject (S), Object (O), and Verb (V), SOV and SVO orders are vastly overrepresented in the world’s languages. Studies on the emergence of word order regularities in silent gesture by hearing non-signers (e.g., Goldin-Meadow, et al., 2008; Gibson et al., 2013) overwhelmingly find evidence for SOV ordering. Based on this type of evidence, it has been proposed that SOV ordering is the most basic ordering from which all other orders emerged. However, semantic properties of the meanings to be conveyed also influence word order in silent gesture. For instance, for intensional events (in which the object is possibly non-existent or dependent on the action; e.g., ‘man thinks of guitar’, ‘woman builds house’) a cross-linguistic preference for SVO was found (Schouwstra & de Swart, 2014). Recent work finds that meaning-dependent word order patterns typical of silent gesture disappear under the influence of interaction (Christensen et al., 2016) and cultural transmission (Schouwstra et al., 2016), in favor of more consistent word order usage. However, in these studies, word order usage never becomes completely regular. Here we investigate whether traces of the SOV/SVO pattern found in silent gesture can be observed in a new natural language: Nicaraguan Sign Language. This sign language, one of the youngest languages known to science, was born in the late 1970s with the founding of a new school for special education. Though instruction was in Spanish, students soon began to communicate with one another manually. As succeeding cohorts of students learn NSL, the language itself is changing rapidly. Though somewhat variable, NSL word order is strongly verb-final and predominantly SOV (Flaherty, 2014). However, these data are based exclusively on analysis of extensional events. If NSL word order is also influenced by semantic properties of the utterance’s intended meaning, we would expect to see deviation from this SOV patterning. 125
PROSPEK PENGEMBANGAN APARATUR SIPIL NEGARA BERBASIS MERIT

Untuk membangun Aparatur Sipil Negara (ASN) yang tangguh dibutuhkan sumber daya pegawai yang profesional, kompeten, dan berintegritas. Namun demikian, upaya tersebut bukanlah perkara yang mudah dan menuntut perubahan sistematis dalam pengelolaan ASN. Tulisan ini mencoba untuk menganalisis kondisi saat ini yang terkait dengan pengembangan pegawai negeri sipil. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa terdapat sejumlah peluang yang mendukung pengembangan ASN berbasis merit seperti akses menjadi pegawai negeri yang bebas gender, tingkat pendidikan pegawai yang makin tinggi, dan perubahan sistem penilaian kinerja. Namun demikian, ditemukan juga sejumlah tantangan seperti rekrutmen dan pengembangan karier yang bias kepentingan politik dan gender, dan sistem remunerasi yang belum berdampak pada kinerja. Saran yang dapat diajukan adalah pengembangan ASN berbasis merit harus didukung dengan kelembagaan yang independen baik dalam rekrutmen maupun pengawasan pengelolaan ASN.Kata kunci: aparatur sipil negera, merit, pengembangan karier, penilaian kinerja, rekrutment, remunerasi .
A genome‐wide analysis of the USDA Soybean Isoline Collection

The USDA Soybean Isoline Collection has been an invaluable resource for the soybean genetics and breeding community. This collection, established in 1972, consists of 611 near‐isogenic lines (NILs) carrying one or multiple genes conferring traits that had been determined to exhibit Mendelian inheritance. It has been used in multiple studies on the genetic basis, physiology, and agronomy of these qualitative traits. Here, we used publicly available genotype (SoySNP50K), phenotype, and pedigree data on this collection to characterize the isogenicity of the NILs and identify chromosomal positions of unmapped genes. A total of 368 NILs had at least 80% identity to their recurrent parent and, thus, were useful for what can be called introgression mapping. Both on‐target and off‐target introgressions were evaluated. The size of on‐target introgressions into individual NILs ranged from 61 kb to 8.4 Mb, whereas off‐target introgressions ranged from 2.6 kb to 54.8 Mb. The observed large off‐target introgressions indicated that some NILs carry introgressions nearly the size of an entire chromosome. By applying introgression mapping to genes that had never been mapped, we identified the likely chromosomal positions of six such genes: ab, im, lo, Np, pc, and Rpm. The size of mapping intervals was large in some cases (10.28 Mb for im) but small in others (0.21 Mb for Np). The results reported herein will provide future researchers with a resource to help select informative NILs for future studies, and provide a starting point to further fine map, and ultimately clone and functionally characterize these six soybean genes.
Nodal solutions bifurcating from infinity for some singular p-Laplace Equations: flat and compact support solutions

We study the existence and multiplicity of nodal solutions with normal exterior derivative different or equal to zero (case of flat solutions) or having a free boundary (the boundary of the set where the solution vanishes) of some one-dimensional p-Laplace problems of eigenvalue type with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions and a, possibly singular, nonlinear absorption term.
New Amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O Thin-Film Transistor-Based Optical Pixel Sensor for Optical Input Signal With Short Wavelength

This paper presents an optical sensor based on amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O (a-IGZO) photo thin-film transistors (TFTs). To maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the optical sensor against a variety of ambient white light, this paper employed a-IGZO photo-TFTs for detecting optical input signal sensitive only to short-wavelength light. Measurements of the photosensitivity for optical signal with different wavelengths and optical response for optical input signal under various white light irradiances are proposed to support the reliability of the a-IGZO photo-TFTs under different ambient white light conditions. This paper also simulates a-IGZO photo-TFTs under various white light conditions to predict and design the proposed new sensors and circuits. The simulation results indicated that the proposed optical sensor can maintain the obvious difference in the output voltages with or without optical input signal under the white light irradiances of 0, 268, and $750~\mu \text{W}$ /cm2, demonstrating the feasibility and the reliability of the proposed optical pixel sensor.
Sur une notion d'hyperbolicité des variétés localement plates

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Sur une notion d’hyperbolicité des variétés localement plates Jacques Vey
A Unifying Framework and Comparison of Algorithms for Non‐negative Matrix Factorisation

Non‐negative matrix factorisation (NMF) is an increasingly popular unsupervised learning method. However, parameter estimation in the NMF model is a difficult high‐dimensional optimisation problem. We consider algorithms of the alternating least squares type. Solutions to the least squares problem fall in two categories. The first category is iterative algorithms, which include algorithms such as the majorise–minimise (MM) algorithm, coordinate descent, gradient descent and the Févotte‐Cemgil expectation–maximisation (FC‐EM) algorithm. We introduce a new family of iterative updates based on a generalisation of the FC‐EM algorithm. The coordinate descent, gradient descent and FC‐EM algorithms are special cases of this new EM family of iterative procedures. Curiously, we show that the MM algorithm is never a member of our general EM algorithm. The second category is based on cone projection. We describe and prove a cone projection algorithm tailored to the non‐negative least square problem. We compare the algorithms on a test case and on the problem of identifying mutational signatures in human cancer. We generally find that cone projection is an attractive choice. Furthermore, in the cancer application, we find that a mix‐and‐match strategy performs better than running each algorithm in isolation.
Impact of Type of Filling on the Quality of Cream Cheese

The effect of cold and hot filling on the chemical, microbiological and organoleptic properties of cream cheese was studied. Cheese was made from standardized buffalo's milk (5-12% milk fat). Results showed that the hot filling extended the shelf life of cream cheese up 6 weeks, while cold-pack cheese suffered from quick spoilage. Hot filling also improved the sensory properties and overall acceptability of single and double cream cheese.
The Lagrangian averaged Navier-Stokes equations with rough initial data

NATHAN PENNINGTON: The Lagrangian Averaged Navier-Stokes equations with rough initial data (Under the direction of Professor Michael Taylor) Turbulent fluid flow is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, given in their incompressible formulation as (0.0.1) ∂tu + (u · ∇)u− ν4u = −∇p, where the incompressibility condition requires div u = 0, ν is a constant greater than zero due to the viscosity of the fluid and u is the velocity field of the fluid. Because of the difficulty of working with the Navier-Stokes equations, several different approximations of the Navier-Stokes equations have been developed. One recently derived approxmation is the Lagrangian Averaged Navier-Stokes equations, which are given in their incompressible, isotropic form as (0.0.2) ∂tu + (u · ∇)u + div τα(u)− ν4u = −(1− α24)−1∇p. This thesis will focus on three main areas. First, we seek local solutions to the Lagrangian Averaged Navier-Stokes equations with initial data in Sobolev space H(R) with the goal of minimizing r. We generate these results by following the program of [6]
Remote Sensing of Sea Ice Thickness and Salinity With 0.5–2 GHz Microwave Radiometry

An ultrawideband radiometer was used to measure microwave brightness temperature spectra over Arctic sea ice in the Lincoln Sea near the north coast of Greenland. Spectra over the range of 0.5–2 GHz were compared to thermal infrared images collected during the airborne campaign and also compared to nearly concurrent Sentinel-1 C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Based on those comparisons, spectral signatures were associated with thick multiyear ice and thin ice. A radiative transfer (RT) model consisting of a homogeneous slab of sea ice bounded by sea water and air was then used to invert the spectra for sea ice thickness and salinity. Inferred thicknesses were consistent with ice thickness climatology for ice floes in the Lincoln Sea. Salinities are higher than expected which may be a consequence of neglecting surface and volume scattering contributions in the models.
Microwave Photonic Multifunctional Phase Coded Signal Generator

A novel phase coded signal generator is proposed and experimentally verified. The scheme consists of a dual-polarization quadrature phase shift-keying (DP-QPSK) modulator and a phase modulator in a Sagnac loop. By properly adjusting the bias voltages of the DP-QPSK modulator and the polarization direction of the signal, two-order optical sideband is polarization separated from the carrier and −2-order sideband. We can modulate the two-order optical sideband with phase coded data and two phase coded signals will be generated which are the beating products between the modulated two-order optical sideband and the unmodulated optical sidebands in balanced detector. The distinct advantage of our approach is that we integrate multiple functions into a compact system which can simultaneously generate dual-band and multi-phase coded signal with doubled and quadrupled frequency. In the experiment, 1-Gbit/s binary and quaternary phase coded signals with 11 and 22 GHz carrier frequencies are generated by using of a 5.5 GHz local oscillator signal.
Intermittency properties of space-time fractional stochastic partial differential equations

This dissertation focuses on the analyses of the non-linear time-fractional stochastic reactiondiffusion equations of the type ∂ t ut(x) = −ν(−∆)ut(x) + I1−β[b(u) + σ(u) · F (t, x)] (0.0.1) in (d+ 1) dimensions, where ν > 0, β ∈ (0, 1), α ∈ (0, 2] and d is a positive integer. The operator ∂ t is the Caputo fractional derivative while −(−∆) is the generator of an isotropic α-stable Lévy process and I1−β is the Riesz fractional integral operator. The forcing noise denoted by · F (t, x) is a Gaussian or white noise. These equations might be used as a model for materials with random thermal memory. The first part of the dissertation studies intermittency fronts for the solution of the stochastic equation of Eq.(0.0.1) when b ≡ 0. Under some appropriate conditions on the parameters we prove that solutions to the initial value problem of Eq.(0.0.1) with nonempty measurable initial function with compact support and strictly positive on an open subset of (0,∞) have positive intermittency lower front. Furthermore, we also identified the parameters regions ensuring that the solutions to the initial value problem of Eq.(0.0.1) with the same condition on the initial function also have finite intermittency upper front. Our results recovers as particular cases some known results in the literature. For example, Mijena and Nane proved in [48] that : (i) absolute moments of the solutions of this equation grow exponentially; and (ii) the distances to the origin of the farthest high peaks of those moments grow exactly linearly with time. The last result was proved under the assumptions α = 2 and d = 1. Here, we extend this result to the case α = 2 and d ∈ {1, 2, 3}. Next, we study the phenomena of finite-time blow up and non-existence of solutions of (0.0.1). In particular, when the term σ(u) satisfies σ(u) > |x| for some positive number γ, we prove that solution to the initial value problem of Eq.(0.0.1) with strictly positive initial distribution have infinite second moment for t large enough. We derive non-existence (blow-up) of global random field solutions
Homogénéisation de composites élastiques périodiques à fort contraste : Conception de métamatériaux de second gradient

Ces dernieres decennies ont vu un renouveau d’interet pour les materiaux composites elastiques qui s’averent tres utiles dans la conception de structures. Pour comprendre le comportement macroscopique de ces materiaux, on fait appel aux methodes d’homogeneisation. Dans cette these, nous nous interessons a etudier rigoureusement le comportement macroscopique des materiaux composites elastiques periodiques presentant des heterogeneites a fort contraste dans le cadre de l'elasticite lineaire. Dans un premier temps, nous etudions l’homogeneisation de structures periodiques constituees d’un materiau elastique lineaire isotrope homogene de grande rigidite. Sous certaines hypotheses sur la geometrie des structures considerees, nous montrons que leur etude peut se reduire a l’etude de systemes discrets correspondant a des reseaux periodiques de nœuds relies entre eux par des interactions elastiques. Ensuite, en prenant en compte les differents ordres de grandeur des raideurs en extension, en flexion et en torsion, nous montrons que l’homogeneisation des structures considerees peut conduire a des materiaux de « second gradient », c’est-a-dire, des materiaux dont l’energie elastique homogeneisee depend des composantes du premier gradient et du second gradient du champ de deplacement. Dans un deuxieme temps, nous realisons des essais de traction sur des structures pantographiques pour etudier la faisabilite des materiaux de second gradient.
A Hybrid Method for Extraction of Low-Order Features for Speech Recognition Application

—The concept of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic is widely used in the proposal of several methods applied to systems modeling, classiﬁcation and pattern recognition problem. This paper proposes a genetic-fuzzy system for extraction of low-order features for speech recognition application. In addition to pre-processing, with mel-cepstral coefﬁcients, the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to generate a two-dimensional time matrix with the features of low-order for each pattern to be recognized. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize a Mamdani fuzzy inference system in order to obtain the best model for ﬁnal recognition. The proposed method used in this paper was named Hibrid Method for Extraction of Low-Order Features for Speech Recognition Application (HMFE). Experimental results for speech recognition applied to Brazilian language show the efﬁciency of the proposed methodology compared to methodologies widely used and cited in the literature.