Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Ultra-low-voltage CMOS VCO Using Parallel Capacitor for Phase Noise Reduction

In this work, a 7.92GHz ultra-low-voltage LC-tank voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is introduced. The proposed LC-tank VCO adopts a NMOS cross-coupled topology and additional parallel capacitors for low voltage operation and phase noise reduction. The measured phase noise at 600KHz frequency ofiset is i98dBc/Hz and at 1MHz ofiset is i108dBc/Hz, respectively. The proposed VCO achieves a flgure-of-merit (FOM) value of i187dBc/Hz, drawing 0.87mW from a 0.62V supply. The proposed circuit topology is designed for ultra wide-band (UWB) applications and implemented in TSMC 0.18"m 1P6M CMOS technology.
Remote Continuous Evaluation of a Bridge Constructed Using High-Performance Steel

Of the approximately 25,000 bridges in Iowa, 28% are classified as structurally deficient, functionally obsolete, or both. The state of Iowa thus follows the national trend of an aging infrastructure in dire need of repair or replacement with a relatively limited funding base. Therefore, there is a need to develop new materials with properties that may lead to longer life spans and reduced life-cycle costs. In addition, new methods for determining the condition of structures are needed to monitor the structures effectively and identify when the useful life of the structure has expired or other maintenance is needed. High-performance steel (HPS) has emerged as a material with enhanced weldability, weathering capabilities, and fracture toughness compared to conventional structural steels. In 2004, the Iowa Department of Transportation opened Iowa's first HPS girder bridge, the East 12th Street Bridge over I-235 in Des Moines, Iowa. The objective of this project was to evaluate HPS as a viable option for use in Iowa bridges with a continuous structural health monitoring (SHM) system. The scope of the project included documenting the construction of the East 12th Street Bridge and concurrently developing a remote, continuous SHM system using fiber-optic sensing technology to evaluate the structural performance of the bridge. The SHM system included bridge evaluation parameters, similar to design parameters used by bridge engineers, for evaluating the structure. Through the successful completion of this project, a baseline of bridge performance was established that can be used for continued long-term monitoring of the structure. In general, the structural performance of the HPS bridge exceeded the design parameters and is performing well. Although some problems were encountered with the SHM system, the system functions well and recommendations for improving the system have been made.
Evaluation of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Antibody in Dental Students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences

Objective: Herpes viruses are ubiquitous human pathogenswhich canall be found in the oral environment. Dental practitioners have a close relationship with many patients and are at risk of cross-infection. So, HSV-1 infectionas a potential occupational hazard for dental workers is important. The aim of this study was to determine the level of HSV1 antibody in dental students of Birjandin 2018-2019.Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 100 dental students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences during a six-month period, who were selected by random cluster sampling. After taking written consent, demographic information and positive history of genital or oral lesions were recorded based on a researcher-made questionnaire. Then, a peripheral blood sample (5 ml) was taken from participants and an anti-virus antibody was examined using an Anti-Herpes-1 IgG kit with ELISA by a pathologist. Finally, the data were analyzed by SPSS 21.Results: About half of the subjects (41%) had contact with HSV1 virus and were carrier of antibodies. The prevalence of HSV1 antibody in pre-clinical and clinical level was higher than in basic science, but there was no significant relationship between students' level of education and antibody prevalence (p = 0.77). Also, there was no significant difference in prevalence of HSV1 antibody by age, sex and marital status of students (p> 0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of HSV1 antibodies in this study is lower than that of European countries, which may be due to regional culture, which requires further study on different groups and more individuals
Walking and safer routes to school

This paper first addresses some current trends and issues related to school travel, then focuses on two areas where some action might be taken to promote walking to and from schools. Surveys in the UK show a consistent trend of rising car usage and falling proportion of pupils walking, suggesting that between one quarter and one third of school journeys are now made by car. Some reasons are given for increasing school car escort trips, and their effect on children's learning of healthy habits is discussed. In considering walking to school, it is necessary to disaggregate the school journey by age of pupil, because this has an important effect on the probability of walking. Therefore, analyses are made of the prospects of walking by primary and secondary school pupils and further education students. Secondly, 'key players' may be able to take some actions to collaborate and coordinate their policies more to encourage and enable more pupils to walk to and from school. The possible roles of schools, central government, and local government are discussed. Some encouraging signs have already emerged to show that the decline of walking in school travel is not inevitable. Preliminary findings by Sustrans show evidence of modal split changes towards walking and cycling at its Demonstration Project schools.
Identification of Reasons Behind Infant Crying Using Acoustic Signal Processing and Deep Neural Network for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Abstract. The infants admitted in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) always need a Hygienic environment and round the clock observations. Infants or the just born babies always express their physical and emotional needs through cry. Thus, the detection of the reasons behind the infant cry plays a vital role in monitoring the health of the babies in the NICU. In this paper, we have proposed a novel approach for detecting the reasons for Infant's cry. In the proposed approach the cry signal of the infant is captured and from this signal, the unique set of features are extracted using MFCCs, LPCCs, and Pitch. This set of features is used to differentiates the patters signals to recognize the reasons for the cry. The reasons for cry such as hunger, pain, sleep, and discomfort are used to represent different classes. The Neural Network Multilayer classifier is designed to recognize the reasons for the cry using the standard dataset of infant cry. The proposed classifier can achieve accuracy of 93.24% from the combined features of MFCCs, LPCCs and Pitch using
Pitch Perception, Production and Musical Development of Hearing Impaired Children

Children with cochlear hearing loss are offered a range of intervention devices to manage their hearing impairment. The most common devices fitted are hearing aids, cochlear implants or a combination of both (bimodal stimulation with a cochlear implant on one ear and hearing aid on the other). The main goal of these devices is to improve listening and communication for speech and language development. However in more recent years additional focus has been given to non-speech sounds such as music. Pitch is an important aspect of music because it carries the melody; however it is represented differently by the different devices used. The impact this has on children’s musical ability is not fully understood. This thesis explores this area and aims to determine if groups of hearing impaired children who use different intervention devices have a differential impact on pitch perception, singing and general musical ability. The primary research question addressed within the thesis was, do differences exist between different groups of hearing-impaired children who use different amplification devices for general musical ability, pitch perception and singing ability? Fifty seven children aged between 4 and 9 years old (15 Cochlear implantees, 21 hearing aid users, 8 children with bimodal stimulation and 13 normally hearing children) were assessed for pitch perception and singing while their parents completed a questionnaire on their general musical ability. Results indicated that children using purely electrical stimulation (bilateral cochlear implants) performed more poorly for pitch perception, than children using acoustic information either through bilateral hearing aids or bimodal stimulation. This result was not demonstrated for singing competency, however a reduced comfortable singing range and greater voice irregularity was observed for the cochlear implantees when singing. Normally hearing children performed better with respect to pitch perception and singing competency but did not show a significantly better score for musical enjoyment or involvement in comparison to all three hearing impaired groups. The results indicate that the bimodal configuration could provide some benefits for pitch perception for hearing-impaired children that have useable residual hearing. This doesn’t however extend to pitch production in terms of singing competency. The findings derived from this research study are important not only to build on current research literature but also to inform future clinical practice.
The Effects of Coupling Delay and Amplitude / Phase Interaction on Large Coupled Oscillator Networks

Title of dissertation: THE EFFECTS OF COUPLING DELAY AND AMPLITUDE / PHASE INTERACTION ON LARGE COUPLED OSCILLATOR NETWORKS Wai Shing Lee, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Edward Ott Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Thomas M. Antonsen Jr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering The interaction of many coupled dynamical units is a theme across many scientific disciplines. A useful framework for beginning to understanding such phenomena is the coupled oscillator network description. In this dissertation, we study a few problems related to this. The first part of the dissertation studies generic effects of heterogeneous interaction delays on the dynamics of large systems of coupled oscillators. Here, we modify the Kuramoto model (phase oscillator model) to incorporate a distribution of interaction delays. Corresponding to the continuum limit, we focus on the reduced dynamics on an invariant manifold of the original system, and derive governing equations for the system, which we use to study stability of the incoherent state and the dynamical transitional behavior from stable incoherent states to stable coherent states. We find that spread in the distribution function of delays can greatly alter the system dynamics. The second part of this dissertation is a sequel to the first part. Here, we consider systems of many spatially distributed phase oscillators that interact with their neighbors, and each oscillator can have a different natural frequency, and a different response time to the signals it receives from other oscillators in its neighborhood. By first reducing the microscopic dynamics to a macroscopic partial-differentialequation description, we then numerically find that finite oscillator response time leads to many interesting spatio-temporal dynamical behaviors, and we study interactions and evolutionary behaviors of these spatio-temporal patterns. The last part of this dissertation addresses the behavior of large systems of heterogeneous, globally coupled oscillators each of which is described by the generic Landau-Stuart equation, which incorporates both phase and amplitude dynamics. Our first goal is to investigate the effect of a spread in the amplitude growth parameter of the oscillators and that of a homogeneous nonlinear frequency shift. Both of these effects are of potential relevance to recently reported experiments. Our second goal is to gain further understanding of the observation that, at large coupling strength, a simple constant-amplitude sinusoidal oscillation is always a solution for the dynamics of the global order parameter when the system has constant nonlinear characteristics. THE EFFECTS OF COUPLING DELAY AND AMPLITUDE / PHASE INTERACTION ON LARGE COUPLED OSCILLATOR NETWORKS
Real-time radioxenon measurement using a Compton-suppressed well-type phoswich detector for nuclear explosion monitoring

approved: __________________________________________________________________ Abdollah T. Farsoni Radioxenon detection is a technique used to monitor nuclear explosion and verify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Because of an ultra-low concentration of radioxenon at radioxenon monitoring stations, radioxenon detection systems must have high sensitivity. This sensitivity is measured in terms of detector's minimum detectable concentration (MDC). It is required that radioxenon monitoring systems should have a MDC of less than or equal to 1 mBq/m for Xe. A Well-type Actively Shielded Phoswich Detector (WASPD) for radioxenon detection was designed and assembled at the Radiation Detection and Dosimetry lab at Oregon State University. The active shielding mechanism is integrated into the phoswich detector to improve the MDC of the radioxenon by reducing unwanted background events. Anode pulses were processed using a userprogrammable digital pulse processor. All digital processing functions were implemented in a FPGA device in real-time. The detector was characterized for different radioxenon isotopes. MDC calculation of the detector showed that the results are close or below 1 mBq/m for all radioxenon isotopes.
Perceived militating factors to the practice of preventive measures for COVID-19 pandemic among health professionals in public health facilities of southern Ethiopia: a phenomenological study

Background: Novel coronavirus is a global pandemic and killed many individuals, including health care professionals. It caused stress on the health care system of all countries. Presently, studies are emerging regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in different aspects. However, a few have explored militating factors that affecting the practice of preventive measures for the COVID-19. As such, the study aimed to fill these research gaps in the study setting.Methods: A semi-structured interview guide used to conduct this phenomenological study among 16 key informants. Key informants recruited by the purposive sampling method. The data analyzed inductively by using a thematic content analysis approach in NVivo 12 Pro software. Results: In this study, six main themes identified with the sub-themes. Overview of COVID-19 pandemic, consequences (with the two sub-theme), perceived practice (with four sub-theme), perceived militating factors (with four sub-theme), newfangled activities (with three sub-theme), and suggestion for improvement (with seven sub-theme) were the major themes. The participants perceived the influence of shortage of personal protective equipment and solutions for hand hygiene, negligence and ignorance, inadequate infrastructure, lack of training, and lack of attention and recognition for the staff on the practice of preventive measures. Conclusions: Conclusions: This study showed that there were gaps in the practice of preventive measures for the COVID-19 among health professionals in the health care system. Community influences, health care provider related factors, institutional factors, and lack of communication and support affect the practice. Hence, attention should give to fulfill the necessary supplies in the health facilities, improve the infrastructures, and equip health professionals by providing capacity-building activities. Besides, health care professionals must recognize, and credit should consider.
New Cluster of Readiness Affecting Perceived Usefulness of Open Distance Learning Readiness During Cov?d-19 Outbreak

During the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, it was observed that students faced problems of readiness towards the Open Distance Learning (ODL). It could be said that these issues could reduce students’ perceptions with regards to perceived usefulness towards ODL implementations and academic performance. This study expounded a new cluster to measure the readiness with regards to perceived usefulness of ODL implementation: 1) technological readiness, 2) psychological readiness and 3) sociological readiness. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the impact of technological, psychological, and sociological readiness on perceived usefulness of ODL implementation. A survey was conducted on full time undergraduate students (n= 656) in UiTM Melaka (UiTMCM) campus. By using descriptive statistical analysis, it was found that technological and sociological readiness among undergraduate students has a strong significant predictor of perceived usefulness of ODL implementation, while psychological readiness reported no significant predictor on perceived usefulness of ODL implementation. This study has a twofold significance. Firstly, the findings are significant to higher education institutions, especially for developing countries such as Malaysia which has just experienced a full swing of the ODL implementation during the nation’s movement control order. Moreover, the findings was essential to the campus Academic Affairs unit to assist academicians and the academics department to present the best approaches in terms of ODL course design, implementation, and measurement to assist students to experience the best processes during ODL teaching and learning situations forced upon them in 2020.
Developing and Validating a Virtual Reality Tool for Evaluating Cognitive and Physical Performance during a Simulated Loaded March

Background Athletes, soldiers, and rescue personnel must often perform intense, prolonged, and physically demanding activities while maintaining cognitive focus. As cognitive and physical functions are believed to share central nervous system resources, their simultaneous activation can cause reciprocal disruptions in the performance of both. Methods In the current study, we aimed to develop and validate a virtual reality-based experimental protocol enabling rigorous exploration of the effects of prolonged high-load physical and cognitive efforts, by comparing novel cognitive tasks presented in the context of a simulated loaded march to a battery of established neurocognitive tests. We then used this protocol in a pre-post pilot study exploring the effects of high-load physical and cognitive activity on physical and cognitive performance. Twelve participants underwent a simulated 10-km loaded march on a treadmill in our virtual reality environment, with or without integrated cognitive tasks (VR-COG). At each of three experimental visits, participants underwent pre-activity and post-activity evaluations, including the Color Trail Test, the Synthetic Work Environment (SYNWIN) battery for multitasking evaluation, and physical tests (i.e., ‘time to exhaustion’). Results In general, strong or moderate correlations (r ≥ 0.58 p ≤ 0.048) were found between VR-COG scores and scores on the validated cognitive tests. Together, VR-COG and CTT measures were able to successfully predict the effects of the combined physical and cognitive load on multitasking performance, as assessed by SYNWIN score. Conclusions As virtual environments are ideal for studying high performance professional activity in realistic but controlled settings, the novel protocol is optimal for measuring the effects of prolonged, high-load physical and cognitive activity, and can therefore contribute to our knowledge on physical-cognitive interactions.
Precursors of School Shootings

Abstract This paper analyzes mass school shootings in the United States, stressing their root causes, indicators, demographics, and suggestive guidelines for preventable measures. Data draws associations between bullying, social dominance, and devalued masculinity amongst high school boys. Further, these trends emphasize homophobic harassment and the reassertion of lost dominance through violence. Moreover, research upholds media coverage and self-absorbed behavior as an additional precursor for inspired acts of malice. Journalistic representations of mass school shootings are identified as a source of motivation for vengeful and easily malleable youth. Studies also stress the importance of school inclusivity and interconnectedness, emitting a stark correlation to the level of violence in schools across America. In turn, applicable solutions are best represented by Effective Behavioral Support and violence prevention methods practiced by teachers and campus staff. In addition, school security upheld positive results as well, whether executed by armed guards or fencing.
Target tracking in a multisensor environment using neural networks

The advent of technology has brought to the field of engineering many tools that were once considered impractical. For example, the increased processing speed of microprocessors now allows measurements from image sensors to be used for target tracking or target identification in real time—a task once thought unachievable. Of late the advances made in artificial intelligence (AI), specifically the artificial neural network, have sprung many different applications among which the implementation of AI controllers being the most popular. However, these advances have been slow in their implementation in the field of target tracking for several reasons. First, there seems to be a lack of sound tracking architectures that can exploit the use of artificial intelligent agents. Second, there is some difficulty in fusing the different forms of information that can be measured from the various available sensors such as the image sensor, millimeter wave radar, Doppler radar, etc. Third, the increased computational complexity due to the employment of the various sensors could limit the practical usefulness of such a tracking system. This dissertation presents a novel framework in which various dissimilar sensors can be used simultaneously to track a highly agile and non-cooperative target. The proposed framework not only allows the usage of multiple sensors to yield a robust and accurate tracker but also maintain a reasonable computational requirement. Unlike the methods proposed in the literature for the design of multi-sensor tracking systems, this dissertation presents an AI-based system that can accept, process, and fuse measurements from any number of sensors of dissimilar forms. The principal contributions of this dissertation are the following: (i) a novel architecture of a three-layer feedforward neural-network-based tracking system with the ability to fuse measurements from dissimilar sensors; (ii) a powerful optimization algorithm for training the neural network; (iii) a novel mathematical target motion model to simplify the training and implementation of the proposed tracking system.