Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
3D Numerical Modeling of Large Piled-Raft Foundation on Clayey Soils for Different Loadings and Pile-Raft Configurations

Abstract In a piled-raft foundation, the interaction between structural elements and soil continuum can be simulated very precisely by numerical modeling. In the present study, 3D finite element model has been used to examine the settlement, load-sharing, bending moment, and shear force behavior of piled-raft foundation on different soil profiles for different load configurations and pile-raft configurations (PRCs). The model incorporates the pile-to-soil and raft-to-soil interactions by means of interface elements. The effect of parameters such as pile spacing and raft thickness are also studied. For any soil profile, larger pile spacing is observed to be more efficient in reducing the average settlement and enhancing the load-sharing coefficient. The smaller pile spacing is observed to be efficient in reducing the differential settlement. For any soil profile, the behavior of piled-raft foundation is significantly affected by the PRCs and load configurations. Furthermore, the raft thickness has significant effect on settlement, bending moment, and shears force. Thus, the results of the present study can be used as guidelines for analyzing and designing large piled-raft foundation.
An Online Identification Algorithm to Determine the Parameters of the Fractional-Order Model of a Supercapacitor

Supercapacitors exhibit different capacitance values under varying operating conditions, due to the porous nature of their electrodes. As a result, the conventional resistor-capacitor (R-C) model or ladder R-C network models fail to accurately represent the dynamics of the supercapacitors. Fractional-order models (FOMs) that have been utilized in recent times, to represent these dynamics are more accurate. But, they too, are prone to inaccuracies because their parameters vary due to the changes in the operating voltage, current, and frequency. To address this issue, this article presents an online FOM for supercapacitors, which employs a two-stage least square fitting algorithm for identifying the parameters in real time. The first stage of the algorithm identifies the derivative order, “α” whereas the second stage calculates the capacitance and resistance values based on the voltage and current measurements. The proposed online FOM is implemented using Grunwald–Letnikov derivative in a DSP and the effectiveness is verified with experimental results. Furthermore, comparison of the online FOM with an existing offline FOM for state of charge estimation is presented. Additionally, certain issues related to the choice of the initial values and sampling time, encountered in the real time implementation of the proposed FOM, are also reported.
Reuse of Waste Material “Waste Sludge Water” from a Concrete Plant in Cement Composites: A Case Study

This paper presents the results of research dealing with the use of recycled waste sludge water from a concrete plant (CP) as partial or complete replacement of mixing water in cement mixtures. The need to recycle waste sludge water generated as a by-product (waste sludge water) during the production of fresh concrete in the concrete plant results from the environmental and economic problems associated with the operation of the concrete plant. Mixing water was replaced with recycled waste sludge water in the amount of 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. In order to determine the effect of partial or complete replacement of mixing water with waste sludge water from the concrete plant in the production of cement composites, laboratory tests of waste sludge water were carried out to determine whether the waste sludge water complies with the requirements for mixing water defined in CSN EN 1008. The tests also determined the properties of fresh cement mortar and hardened cement composites. These were tests of the beginning and end of cement mortar setting, and the strength characteristics (flexural strength, compressive strength). The results of these tests show that it is possible to replace the mixing water by waste sludge water from the concrete plant in the amount of up to 25% without significantly affecting the tested properties, in comparison with the formula containing pure mixing water.
Enhanced carrierless amplitude and phase modulation for optical communication systems

This thesis develops and investigates enhanced techniques for carrierless amplitude and phase modulation (CAP) in optical communication systems. The CAP scheme is studied as the physical layer modulation technique due to its implementation simplicity and versatility, that enables its implementation as a single carrier (CAP) or multi-carrier technique (m-CAP). The effect of timing jitter on the error performance of CAP is first investigated. The investigation indicates that synchronization is a critical requirement for CAP receiver and as a result, a novel low-complexity synchronization algorithm is developed with experimental demonstration for CAP-based visible light communication (VLC) systems. To further reduce the overall link complexity, a fractionally-spaced equalizer (FSE) is considered to mitigate the effects of inter-symbol interference (ISI) and timing jitter. The FSE implementation, which eliminates the need for a separate synchronization block, is shown through simulation and VLC experimental demonstration to outperform symbol-spaced equalizers (SSE) that are reported in literature for CAP-based VLC systems. Furthermore, in this thesis, spectrally-efficient index modulation techniques are developed for CAP. The proposed techniques can be divided into two broad groups, namely spatial index CAP (S-CAP) and subband index CAP (SI-CAP). The proposed spatial index techniques leverage the fact that in VLC, multiple optical sources are often required. The spatial CAP (S-CAP) transmits CAP signal through one of Nt available LEDs. It is developed to reduce equalization requirement and improve the spectral efficiency of the conventional CAP. In addition to the bits transmitted through the CAP symbol, the S-CAP encodes additional bits on the indexing/spatial location of the LEDs. The generalised S-CAP (GS-CAP) is further developed to relax the S-CAP limitation of using a single LED per symbol duration. In addition to the S-CAP scheme, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques of repetitive-coded CAP (RC-CAP) and spatial multiplexing CAP (SMux-CAP) are investigated for CAP. Low-complexity detectors are also developed for the MIMO schemes. A key challenge of the MIMO schemes is that they suffer power penalty when channel gains are similar, which occur when the optical sources are
Eigenvalue-Oriented Dynamic Stability Examination to Enhance Designing a Microgrid Hosting Clusters of Inertial and Non-Inertial Distributed Generators

Self-governing microgrids may consist of several conventional synchronous generators, converter-based distributed resources, and energy storages. In this paper, an eigenvalue-oriented stability assessment method is established to study the small signal stability of such systems that have complex dynamic characteristics. A new index referred to as the microgrid’s marginal frequency stability index is established. This index is then used to determine the influence and correlation between sizes, quantities and internal parameters of the resources and loads on the microgrid’s stability. Likewise, using this index, the impact of the isolation and coupling impedance amongst resources and loads are studied on the microgrid’s stability. The findings of this study can be employed when designing microgrids to realize more stable systems.
Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Hydrodynamic Journal Bearing Under the Combined Influence of Texture and Slip

The drive to maintain the environmental sustainability and save the global energy consumption is urgent, making every powertrain system component a candidate to enhance efficiency. In this work, the combined effects of the slip boundary and textured surface in hydrodynamic journal bearing as one of the critical components in industrial powertrain and engine systems are assessed using a multiphase computational fluid dynamic analysis that allows for phase change in a cavitation process and arbitrary textured geometry. The texture studied consists of regularly spaced rectangular dimples through two-dimensional (infinitely long) journal bearing. The modified Navier–slip model is employed to describe the slip boundary condition. A systematic comparison is made for various textured configurations varying the texture depth and the length of the texturing zone with respect to the performance of a smooth (untextured) bearing for several eccentricity ratios. The effectiveness of the texture with or without slip at enhancing the load support over a corresponding smooth bearing is investigated with the parameters. The detrimental or beneficial effect of surface texturing as well as the slip promotion is explained in terms of the mechanisms of pressure generation for several eccentricity ratios. The results of the present work indicate that journal bearing textured by a proper texturing zone and dimple depth are characterized by substantial load support levels. However, in the range of high eccentricity ratios, the promotion of texturing and slip can significantly degrade the performance of the load support.
DSP-Based Flexible-Waveform and Multi-Application 5G Fiber-Wireless System

This article reports the implementation and experimental performance investigation of a DSP-based flexible-waveform fiber-wireless (FiWi) system for 5G enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and new vertical applications. Our radio over fiber-based fronthaul solution uses a wavelength-division-multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON) infrastructure, from a commercial Internet service provider, to enable 5G operation over multiple frequency bands, including: a DSP and flexible waveform-based signal at 788 MHz, which can be set as generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) or filtered orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (F-OFDM); 5G new radio (NR) signals at 3.5 or 26 GHz in accordance to 3GPP Release 15; an additional vector 26 GHz signal with bandwidth of up to 800 MHz. The DSP-based functionality provides digital pre-distortion (DPD), besides the real-time waveform generation. Experimental results demonstrate 4.41 Gbit/s total throughput in the air in accordance to the 3GPP requirements, as well as an innovative low-latency M2M application based on PROFINET standard.
Synchronization of Lurie Systems Under Limited Network Transmission Capacity With Quantization and One-Step Packet Dropout: An Active Method

This article considers the synchronization problem of drive–response Lurie systems with sampled output error transmitted through a limited network channel with a one-step packet dropout. Two kinds of strategies, that is, quantizer-based triggered control (without packet dropout) and active quantizer and packet dropout-based triggered control (with one-step packet dropout), are put forward. By thoroughly exploring quantizer, sampling interval, and one-step packet dropout information and merging them together, the quantizer and packet dropout related triggering method is proposed to actively deal with the negative effects caused by packet dropout and sampling sensor. With the proposed method, it is demonstrated that synchronization can be ensured and the output error will always be bounded by the quantizer range. In addition, the relationship between the sensor sampling interval and the triggering parameter is provided to match up with our proposed methods. Lower transmission bit rate is also obtained to save more channel resources. Synchronization of two Chua’s circuits is given as an example to demonstrate the validity of our presented results.
A 77-GHz Mixed-Mode FMCW Generator Based on a Vernier TDC With Dual Rising-Edge Fractional-Phase Detector

A 77-GHz frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) generator is presented for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radar applications. The FMCW chirp is provided by a mixed-mode phase-locked loop (PLL). A dual rising-edge fractional-phase detector based on time-to-digital converter (TDC) is proposed to overcome the problem caused by the rising and falling time mismatch. A 2.3 ns detection range, 10 ps resolution Vernier TDC is employed in the detector to cover the two consecutive rising edges with less power consumption. A self-calibrated delay chain is employed in the Vernier TDC to overcome process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations. Furthermore, sampling-edge selection technique is utilized to avoid the glitch during phase detection. A divider-less frequency error estimator is presented to save area and power. By employing a coarse-fine segmented digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the generator supports triangular and sawtooth-like FMCW chirp with reconfigurable period and bandwidth. An LC voltage- controlled oscillator (VCO) with split varactor is proposed to improve the linear tuning range. Implemented in 65 nm CMOS, the FMCW generator consumes 99 mW power and 0.7 mm $\times $ 0.8 mm chip area. The measurement results show that the phase noise from 78.7 GHz carrier is −87.4-dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. The measured root-mean-square (RMS) frequency error of a sawtooth-like FMCW chirp with 4 GHz bandwidth and 0.1 ms period is 205 kHz.
Application of Diode Laser in Oral Biopsy: Removal of White Patch Over Tongue - A Case Report

Lasers have been used by oral and maxillofacial surgeons since 1970s since then number of reports have been published concerning laser applications in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Use of laser is a routine surgical practice including implant dentistry, endodontic treatment and periodontal therapy as well. White lesion excision is a procedure usually done for diagnostic reasons. The advantages of oral-laser surgery i.e., a relatively bloodless surgical and post-surgical course, minimal swelling and scarring and reduction of postsurgical pain are discussed. A case of removal of a white patch on the tongue with diode laser is presented.
A New Primary PWM Control Strategy for CCM Synchronous Rectification Flyback Converter

A new primary PWM (pulsewidth modulation) control strategy for continuous conduction mode (CCM) synchronous rectification (SR) flyback converter is proposed in this letter. The PWM signal for the primary switch has been divided into two pulses in a switching period (dual-pulse PWM, DP-PWM). The first pulse is a fixed narrow pulse, which is used to turn off the SR, whereas the second pulse is a regulated pulse for output voltage regulation. With the proposed DP-PWM control scheme, the shoot-through currents exist on both the primary side and secondary side of the CCM SR flyback converter can be effectively reduced. Meanwhile, the efficiency has been improved obviously. Detailed theoretical analysis has been presented and verified by a 12 V/2.5 A CCM flyback experimental prototype.
Extensions of Leading-Edge Modulated One-Cycle Control for Totem-Pole Bridgeless Rectifiers

Totem-Pole Bridgeless Rectifier (TPBR) is a promising power circuit topology for power factor correction, but low-cost input current sensing is a challenge in this topology that needs to be solved for its adoption in cost-sensitive applications. This article presents two new extensions to leading-edge modulated one-cycle control (LEM-OCC) that can achieve stable control of the TPBR using a shunt resistor connected to the low side of the output voltage for current sensing. Besides that, the proposed extensions also improves the performance of LEM-OCC, where one of them shows a reduction of 60% of the input current total harmonic distortion (THD) at light load and high input voltage, while the other shows a reduction of 45% of the input current THD. The higher performance extension requires a digital controller, but the second extension can be implemented with analog circuits. A 300-W prototype is used to validate the control equations and stability analysis.
Design and Investigation of a Dual Material Gate Arsenic Alloy Heterostructure Junctionless TFET with a Lightly Doped Source

This paper designs and investigates a novel structure of dual material gate-engineered heterostructure junctionless tunnel field-effect transistor (DMGE-HJLTFET) with a lightly doped source. Similar to the conventional HJLTFET, the proposed structure still adopts an InAs/GaAs0.1Sb0. 9 heterojunction at source and channel interface and employs a polarization electric field at the arsenic heterojunction induced by the lattice mismatch in the InAs and GaAs0.1Sb0. 9 zinc blende crystal to improve band to band tunneling (BTBT) current. However, the gate electrode is divided into three parts in DMGE-HJLTFET namely the auxiliary gate (M1), control gate (M2) and tunnel gate (M3) with workfunctions ΦM1, ΦM2 and ΦM3, where ΦM1 = ΦM3 < ΦM2, which not only improves ON-state current but also decreases the OFF-state current. In addition, a lightly doped source is used to further decrease the OFF-state current of this device. Simulation results indicate that DMGE-HJLTFET provides superior metrics in terms of logic and analog/radio frequency (RF) performance as compared with conventional HJLTFET, the maximum ON-state current and transconductance of the DMGE-HJLTFET increases up to 5.46 × 10−4 A/μm and 1.51 × 10−3 S/μm at 1.0 V drain-to-source voltage (Vds). Moreover, average subthreshold swing (SSave) of DMGE-HJLTFET is as low as 15.4 mV/Dec at low drain voltages. Also, DMGE-HJLTFET could achieve a maximum cut-off frequency (fT) of 423 GHz at 0.92 V gate-to-source voltage (Vgs) and a maximum gain bandwidth (GBW) of 82 GHz at Vgs = 0.88 V, respectively. Therefore, it has great potential in future ultra-low power integrated circuit applications.
Discrete Space Vector Modulation-Based Model Predictive Torque Control With No Suboptimization

This article presents a simplified discrete space vector modulation (DSVM)-based predictive torque control (PTC) scheme in order to improve the performance of a two-level inverter-fed induction motor drive. DSVM technique creates a number of virtual vectors which are evaluated in the conventional all vector-based discrete space vector modulation-based model predictive torque control (DSVM-MPTC) method. The high number of admissible vectors increases the computational burden of DSVM-MPTC, significantly. In this article, an efficient optimal voltage vector selection method is proposed to reduce the computational load of DSVM-MPTC from 37 to 13 enumerations. The vector selected from the reduced set of admissible voltage vectors produces the same cost function value as that of all vector-based DSVM-MPTC in the entire range of operation of induction motor (IM) drives. The proposed method reduces the computational burden effectively without causing any suboptimization issues in both transients and steady states. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and its superior performance compared to the switching-table-based DSVM-MPTC and the classic finite-control-set model-predictive-control which only utilizes the real voltage vectors.
The Association of Discharge Aspirin Dose With Outcomes After Acute

Background — Aspirin is the most widely used antiplatelet drug post-myocardial infarction (MI), yet its optimal maintenance dose after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with stenting remains uncertain. Methods and Results — We compared outcomes of 10,213 MI patients who underwent PCI and were discharged on dual antiplatelet therapy at 228 United States hospitals in the TRANSLATE-ACS study from 2010–2012. Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and bleeding within 6 months post-discharge were compared between high- (325 mg) and low-dose aspirin (81 mg) using regression models with inverse probability-weighted propensity adjustment. Overall, 6,387 patients (63%) received high-dose aspirin at discharge. MACE risk was not significantly different between groups (high vs. low: unadjusted 8.2% vs. 9.2%; adjusted hazard ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85–1.17). High-dose aspirin use was associated with greater risk of any Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC)-defined bleeding events (unadjusted 24.2% vs. 22.7%; adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.19, 95% CI 1.06–1.33), driven mostly by minor BARC type 1 or 2 bleeding events not requiring hospitalization (unadjusted 21.4% vs. 19.5%; adjusted OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.05–1.34). Bleeding events requiring hospitalization were similar by aspirin dosing groups (unadjusted 2.8% vs. 3.2%, adjusted OR 1.22, 95% CI 0.87–1.70). Similar associations were observed in landmark analyses accounting for aspirin dosing change over time, and across subgroup analyses by age, sex, baseline aspirin use, and type of ADP receptor inhibitor (clopidogrel vs. prasugrel/ticagrelor). different between groups (high vs. low: unadjusted 8.2% vs. 9.2%; adjusted hazard rrataaio 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85–1.17). high- versus
Performance characterization of a direct evaporative cooling pad based on pottery material

ABSTRACT Evaporative cooling pad systems are recognized by their eco-friendly aspect in achieving a cooling effect. They are made of different materials that are imported from abroad. For Morocco and other low-and middle-income countries, the cost of the importing and shipping the systems may lead to high acquisition cost. To reduce this cost, using local materials is an important option. Within this context, the study of the performance of a new direct evaporative cooling pad based on pottery tubular rods is investigated experimentally. The current cooling pad is designed and constructed locally; it consists of tubular rods arranged in a staggered configuration. The length, the diameter and the space between the rods are 25 cm, 2 cm, and 2 cm respectively. The main performance indicators of this system such as the coefficient of performance, the saturation efficiency, the cooling efficiency, the convective heat, and mass transfer coefficient are deducted experimentally. Under the investigated conditions, the experimental findings show that the effect of the volumetric airflow rate on the energy-thermal-mass indicators is significant.
Ocular Manifestations of HIV/AIDS patients in Gondar University Hospital, north west Ethiopia

Abstract Background: AIDS is a disease with protean clinical manifestations that leave no organ of its victim unaffected. Ocular involvement in HIV/AIDS cases occurs in about 70% of patients. However, data regarding eye manifestations in HIV/AIDS patients in Ethiopia remain scarce. Objective: To describe the ocular manifestations of HIV/AIDS documented at Gondar University Hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional clinical evaluation of HIV/AIDS patients at Gondar Hospital University was undertaken between Jan and June 2004. Results: One hundred and twenty five adult patients were enrolled in the Hospital from January to June 2004. The majority were males (N=69) and the mean age was 34 (range: 16-80 years). About 90% of the patients were in clinical stages III & IV determined according to the WHO clinical staging method in resource limited areas and 60% of them had at least one ocular manifestation. The ocular manifestations noted included: retinal microvasculopathy (24%), neuro-opthalmic disorders (9.6%), uveitis (7.4%), ophthalmic Herpes Zoster (5.6%), Molluscum contageousum (4.8%), and Conjunctival carcinoma (4%). One patient was found to have bilateral blindness due to CMV retinitis, while unilateral blindness was observed in six patients. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that HIV/AIDS affects the eyes of a significant proportion of patients. It is, hence, recommended that eye care should be a part of the package of medical care in the management of HIV/AIDS patients. [Ethiop.J.Health Dev. 2006;20(3):166-169]