Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Static and Seismic Performance of Geosynthetics- Strengthened Pile Foundations

Geosynthetic reinforcement in earth structures has been used extensively over the last two decades. Extensive research has been carried out to investigate solutions to enhance the lateral stability of pile foundations. This research is motivated by the need to install piles in sites characterized by soft subsurface soil conditions, and often times, in seismic active areas. This research work explores an innovative use of geosynthetics to enhance the lateral performance of pile foundations. The static and seismic soil-structure-interaction behaviors of geosynthetics-reinforced pile foundation systems were evaluated using a series of reduced scale physical model tests performed on a shaking table in a 1G environment. A laminar shear box containing a pile foundation model supporting a single degree of freedom structure installed in different soil bed models was used in the experiments. The soil models included: a layer of synthetic clay (Modified Glyben) underlain by a sand layer (simulating a base case of soft soil); a layer of synthetic clay sandwiched between a sand layer and an aggregate layer (simulating the case of conventional ground replacement for the top soft soil); and a layer of synthetic clay sandwiched between a sand layer and a geosynthetic-reinforced aggregate layer (simulating the case of ground replacement of the top soft soil combined with geosynthetic reinforcement using a microgrid mesh). A series of sine-sweep, harmonic and scaled earthquake tests have been performed to identify the amplification and resonance conditions of the foundation system and to identify various aspects of seismic-soil-pile-geosynthetic reinforcement interaction effects. Lateral static load tests of this system were performed using a one directional load system that was fixed on the laminar shear box. The dynamic and static tests were simulated employing numerical models developed using the finite element program Plaxis 3D. The results of both static and dynamic tests showed that the microgrid reinforcement improved the lateral performance of the pile foundation and reduced the vibration amplitudes of the supported structure. The numerical analysis results were in close agreement with the dynamic and static experimental results. The results of a parametric study for the investigated foundation configuration and seismic loading demands showed that the requirements for engineered backfill can be reduced by more than 50% and the lateral seismic response can be reduced by 50% by using geosynthetic reinforcement.
Bushfire-enhanced wind load on structures

The association of bushfires with wind has long been recognised, but the mechanism of this interaction has not received due attention. In the current study, a computational fluid dynamics approach was used to reveal the impact of fire-enhanced wind on low-rise building structures. This paper presents the results of a numerical study on bushfire, wind and structure interactions. The fire-enhanced wind was found to significantly distort the wind velocity profile and enhance turbulence properties, and alter the pressure coefficient distributions around a simple building structure represented by a 6 m cube. In particular, the simulated results revealed a significant increase in windward wall pressure coefficient due to the presence of a fire source upstream compared to that without fire. These findings are expected to have a significant impact on the development of improved design practice for the protection of buildings from fire-induced wind storms.
Application of Optimization Techniques to Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded Waveform Design

Abstract : A design process is demonstrated for a coexistent scenario containing Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded (SMSE) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) signals. Coexistent SMSE-DSSS designs are addressed under both perfect and imperfect DSSS code tracking conditions using a noncoherent delay-lock loop (DLL). Under both conditions, the number of SMSE subcarriers and subcarrier spacing are the optimization variables of interest. For perfect DLL code tracking conditions, the GA and RSM optimization processes are considered independently with the objective function being endto- end DSSS bit error rate. A hybrid GA-RSM optimization process is used under more realistic imperfect DLL code tracking conditions. In this case, optimization is accomplished using a correlation degradation metric with the GA process being first applied to generate a ? coarse? solution followed by RSM processing which provides the final optimized solution. This work has successfully expanded the practical utility of a previously developed tool, the original SMSE framework, by demonstrating a more efficient, structured means for coexistent waveform design that replaces previous trial and error methods.
Yabancı Dil Olarak İngilizce Öğrenen Türk Öğrencilerin İlgi Alanına Dayalı Okuma ile Sözlüksel Bilgilerinin Geliştirilmesi

Vocabulary acquisition in terms of lexical knowledge is one of the basic elements of second language acquisition. Interesting reading studies presented in the classroom positively affects the learners’ acquisition of new words. In this context, this study aims to demonstrate that Turkish EFL learners have a positive effect on the vocabulary knowledge by the help of topic interest-based reading passages. This study carried out experimentally in the context of pre-test and post-test was conducted with 52 Turkish EFL learners who were divided into two groups as experimental and control. While the experimental group was exposed to reading components for 12 weeks, the control group was trained with traditional reading passages. According to the results, vocabulary knowledge of the students exposed to topic interest-based reading passages increased significantly when they were compared to the control group. Consequently, interesting reading activities increase vocabulary knowledge of the students incidentally.
Design Facilitates Discovery in Causal Learning

We assess whether an artifact’s design can facilitate recognition of abstract causal rules. In Experiment 1, 152 three-year-olds were presented with evidence consistent with a relational rule (i.e., pairs of same or different blocks activate a machine) using a machine with one of two designs. In the standard-design condition, pairs were placed on top; in the relational-design condition, blocks were placed into openings on either side. Experiment 2 assessed whether this design cue could facilitate adults’ (N=102) inference of a distinct, conjunctive cause (i.e., that two blocks, together, activate the machine). Results of both experiments demonstrate that causal inference is sensitive to design: participants in the design conditions were more likely to infer the a priori unlikely rules. Findings suggest that reasoning failures may result from difficulty generating the relevant rules as cognitive hypotheses, but that artifact design aids causal inference, with clear implications for creating intuitive learning environments.
Climate change and road freight safety: impacts and opportunities

This thesis aims to apply recent conceptual frameworks for climate change impact assessment to the road freight sector of Great Britain in order to identify potential future safety issues. The freight sector is a key component of Great Britain’s economy, and one which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of adverse weather. An assessment of the current patterns in weather related freight accidents is produced, and existing studies on accident causation are elaborated upon to arrive at relationships between key meteorological parameters and freight accident rates. These relationships are extrapolated onto various climate scenarios under low, medium and high emissions for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s using UKICP09 climate tools to arrive at projections of possible impacts at a regional scale. This thesis also addresses a key criticism of the previous climate change impact assessment literature; that studies usually neglect the consideration of what the network will look like in the future, how it will be used, and how this will impact upon its vulnerability to meteorology. The way in which the network is designed, the resilience of the vehicles that operate on it and the split of usage between the various modes will all affect the impacts that are likely to be seen, and are all determined by the broader socio-economic pathway of the country. Delphi techniques are used for short term forecasts of growth and to identify emerging issues with the industry. UKCIP data is used to extend these projections to 2050. By combining social and physical techniques, a more holistic picture of future impacts is found. Although the confluence of safer technology and a reduction of winter road icing and summer precipitation events could potentially lead to a safer operating environment, certain scenarios which promote high emissions, a larger freight fleet and low investment in infrastructure could cause problems, especially for winter precipitation events.
Analysis of the resistance increase in waves of a fast cargo ship

A new method to calculate the added resistance of a ship in longitudinal waves is discussed. For the particular case of a fast cargo-ship the calculated values are compared with experimental results, and a satisfactory agreement is shown. In addition the experiments with the considered shipform confirm that added resistance varies as the squared wave height for constant speed and wave length.
SU-8 micromachined terahertz waveguide circuits and coupling matrix design of multiple passband filters

This thesis presents the designs and measurement performance of nine SU-8 micromachined waveguide circuits operating at WR-10 band (75-110 GHz), WR-3 band (220-325 GHz) and WR-1.5 band (500-750 GHz). Two thick SU-8 photoresist micromachining processes, namely, the separate single-layer process and the joint two-layer process, are developed to fabricate these terahertz waveguide circuits. In order to achieve accurate and secure interconnections with measurement network analyzers, two calibrated measurement methods for micromachined waveguide circuits are proposed. The measurement performance of these micromachined circuits is excellent in terms of very low insertion loss. The design of multiple-passband filters using coupling matrix optimisation is also discussed in this thesis. The optimisation is performed on the coupling matrix and a genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to generate initial values for the control variables for a subsequent local optimisation (sequential quadratic programming - SQP search). The novel cost function presented in this thesis measures the difference of the frequency locations of reflection and transmission zeros between the response produced by the coupling matrix and the ideal response. An eighth-order X-band dual-band waveguide filter with all capacitive coupling irises is fabricated and measured to verify the design technique.
Reconceptualising project management methodologies for a post-postmodern era

As populations grow, technology advances, and socioeconomic complexity rises, organisations are required to recurrently adapt to their particular environments in order to survive. Project management methodologies are one relatively recent adaptation to the organisations’ faculty for means of production. A literature review provides a framework to trace the evolution of modern project management methodologies through time and illustrates how they have been shaped by the various and particular pressures and constraints of their environments. The analysis reveals how modern project management methodologies are inherently ‘old technology’ and how a reconceptualization of their function and structure is required if they are to enable organisations to recurrently gain the competitive edge in an increasingly complex and demanding world. Conclusions are drawn about the convergent evolutionary nature of the various forms of methodologies and reasoned speculations are made about their future function, design, and significance as a strategic organisational device.
Load Balancing in Hop-by-Hop Routing With and Without Traffic Splitting

This dissertation presents an exploration on solving traffic load balancing problems concentrating on the IP layer in hop-by-hop networks. The first part of the traffic load balancing research is focused on bandwidth-sensitive routing for premium class traffic in Differentiated Service (DiffServ) networks, where we assume that the traffic in a network cannot be split. If the traffic in a network is splittable, then the second part of the load balancing research is intra-domain traffic engineering in the network, where the bandwidth-sensitive routing solutions in the first part can be used to achieve better traffic load balancing results. In hop-by-hop DiffServ networks, the premium class traffic, due to its highest priority, may impose negative inter-class effects onto other classes of traffic. The negative inter-class effects are strongly related to bandwidth utilization on links, leading us to address a bandwidth-sensitive hop-by-hop routing problem called the Optimal Premium Routing (OPR) problem. We prove that the OPR problem is NP-hard. We concentrate on Dijkstra-based heuristic algorithms to provide approximate solutions to the problem. By simulation we show that our Inverse Capacity with Exponential Penalty (ICEP) scheme outperforms other existing heuristic solutions. Traffic engineering (TE) is crucial in hop-by-hop OSPF networks. We present a novel, edge-based traffic engineering method to approximate the optimal traffic allocation. The new method uses bandwidth-sensitive hop-by-hop routing algorithms as its core. It has three significant advantages. First, it keeps the network core simple and therefore scalable. Second, traffic can be partitioned following flow boundaries at the network edges. Because there is no further splitting in the core, traffic from the same TCP flow is able to travel along the same path, eliminating the out-of-order delivery problem from which other TE approaches may suffer. Finally, since uneven traffic splitting can be implemented at the edges, the new method performs well to approximate the optimal traffic load balancing.
Genetic diversity of the critically endangered Ferula sinkiangensis K. M. Shen (Apiaceae) and the implications for conservation

: Research on the genetic diversity and structures of endangered plant species with small population sizes is a prerequisite for developing reasonable conservation strategies. Ferula sinkiangensis K.M. Shen is a critically endangered herbaceous perennial and monocarpic medical plant growing in semiarid steppe ecosystems with a small population size within the Yili Valley in Xinjiang, China. Unfortunately, the lack of genetic information has limited our ability to initiate effective conservation strategies for the species. In this study, 14 polymorphic microsatellite primers of F. sinkiangensis were developed and characterized using Illumina HiSeq paired-end reads from genomic DNA. Primers were used to assess the genetic diversity and structure of the species in the Yili Valley. A total of 92 alleles were detected across 14 microsatellite loci from 65 specimens of F. sinkiangensis . Moderate to high levels of genetic diversity ( He = 0.446, I = 0.821, PPB = 92.86%) were found within the species. Our results contradict the general hypothesis that rare and endangered species with small population sizes and narrow ranges of distribution exhibit low levels of genetic diversity. The moderate to high levels of genetic diversity within the species can be explained by the mating system, life history traits, and human activities in recent years. Several reasonable conservation and reintroduction strategies are proposed, including maintenance of the plant’s natural habitats, seeds or seedlings collection for germplasm storage, and artificial breeding of the species.
Optimizing Control-Display Interfaces: An Evaluation of Display/Control Gain.

Abstract : Display/control gain is the amount of movement that occurs on a display in response to a unit amount of movement on the control. Two studies were conducted to determine the adequacy of identifying the optimum gain for an interface as a method of control display interface optimization. The first study examined the effects of changes in both the maximum control input and the display width on target acquisition performance with a touch tablet and a trackball. The hypothesis that an interaction between the control input and the display output would determine performance was not supported for either device. There was a main effect of the control input for the touch tablet, and significant effects of the control input and the display width for the trackball. The results also indicate that, at least for the touch tablet, gain is not a sufficient specification for performance. The second study evaluated the effects of changes in the display amplitude, the display target width, and the control amplitude. There were significant interactions among these three factors for both touch tablet and trackball target acquisition performance. These results extend the findings of the first study with respect to the inability of gain to predict performance. In addition, the inadequacy of Fitts' Law as it applies to the given interfaces is discussed. (SDW).
Refrigeration With And Of Solid State Devices

An adhesive tape pack, in which an adhesive layer (3), preferably a hot-melt adhesive layer, is arranged on at least one carrier element (2). In order to provide adhesive tape packs of this type with tape sections (5), which can be easily separated from one another, the present invention provides for providing the carrier element (2) with notches (4) transversely to the longitudinal direction of the tape, which cut through the carrier element (2), but not the adhesive layer (3). In this way, the tape sections (5) are held together by means of the adhesive layer (3) and can be separated by lightly cutting through the adhesive layer (3) along the notches (4).
Prevalence of asthma and allergic disorders in school children of Karachi

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the frequency of asthma and allergic diseases and to identify the associated risk factors in school-aged children of Karachi.Methods: This prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted from August 2019 to January 2020 on school-aged children (4-15 years) of Karachi. Non-probability purposive sampling technique was used, data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.Results: The prevalence of allergic rhinitis and eczema in the study population was 22.1%, asthma 14% and 34% had a history of wheezing in the last 12 months. Food allergy was present in 15.5% of the study population. The predisposing factors were exposure to dust in 32.6%, passive smoking in 30.8%, perfume smell in 27.3% and the presence of pets in the house in 23.2%. Male gender and maternal asthma were significantly associated with the development of these allergic disorders in children (p=0.033). Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of allergic disorders and asthma amongst the school children of Karachi. Environmental factors such as exposure to dust and passive smoking are significant predisposing factors. There is an urgent need to conduct further epidemiological studies to identify high-risk groups and key modifiable factors.
Hybrid Stochastic Models for Remaining Lifetime Prognosis

Abstract : The United States Air Force is developing its next generation aircraft and is seeking to reduce the risk of catastrophic failures, maintenance activities, and the logistics footprint while improving its sortie generation rate through a process called autonomic logistics. Vital to the successful implementation of this process is remaining lifetime prognosis of critical aircraft components. Complicating this problem is the absence of failure time information; however, sensors located on the aircraft are providing degradation measures. This research has provided a method to address at least a portion of this problem by uniting analytical lifetime distribution models with environment and/or degradation measures to obtain the remaining lifetime distribution.
NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model

Abstract : Two key realities dominate thinking about command and control (C2) in the 21st century. The first is the nature of the 21st century military mission space. This space is characterised by its extreme uncertainty. In addition to the high intensity combat operations that are traditionally associated with military operations, the 21st century mission space has expanded to include a wide spectrum of mission challenges, ranging from providing support to multi-agency disaster relief operations to complex coalition efforts within a political-military environment involving a large variety of military and non-military actors; which we describe as Complex Endeavours. The second reality is the ongoing transformation of 21st century militaries, and for that matter, other 21st century institutions and actors from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. With this transformation comes the ability to leverage new information technologies. This has had, and will continue to have, a profound effect on how institutions manage themselves and how they can work with coalition partners. These fundamental realities put the emphasis on command and control (C2), interpreted in its broadest sense to include acquiring, managing, sharing and exploiting information, and supporting individual and collective decision-making. In particular, more mature C2 includes the ability to recognise situational change, and to adopt the C2 approach required to meet that change which we term C2 Agility. The NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model (N2C2M2) we have developed builds on dearly won insights from the past, but goes beyond them in order that we can exploit Information Age approaches to address these new mission challenges. This way of thinking about C2 is thus entirely compatible with current NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) thinking on Future Capable Forces which puts the emphasis on Mission Command within federated complex environments and ad hoc coalitions.
VISUAL SEARCH OF TRAFFIC SCENES: ON THE EFFECT OF LOCATION EXPECTATIONS

THE PRESENT STUDY INVESTIGATES TOP-DOWN GOVERNED VISUAL SELECTION IN NATURAL TRAFFIC SCENES. THE SUBJECTS HAD TO SEARCH FOR A TARGET OBJECT (FOR EXAMPLE, A TRAFFIC SIGN, OR OTHER ROAD USERS) WHICH WAS EMBEDDED IN A NATURAL TRAFFIC SCENE. GIVEN A PARTICULAR PROTOTYPICAL SCENE, THE TARGET WAS LOCATED EITHER AT A LIKELY (EXPECTED) ON UNLIKELY (UNEXPECTED) POSITION. THE PROBABILITY THAT A TARGET OBJECT APPEARED AT A LIKELY LOCATION WAS VARIED BETWEEN GROUPS OF SUBJECTS. THE RESULTS SHOWED THE EXISTENCE OF SCENE DEPENDENT SCANNING STRATEGIES: SEARCH IN THE UNEXPECTED CONDITION WAS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE ERROR PRONE THAN SEARCH IN THE EXPECTED CONDITION. THIS SUGGESTS THAT SUBJECTS STRATEGICALLY PREPARE FOR THE UPCOMING STIMULUS AND ONLY SEARCH THOSE LOCATIONS WHICH ARE LIKELY TO CONTAIN A TARGET. IF THE TARGET IS NOT FOUND AT THOSE LIKELY LOCATIONS, SUBJECTS TEND TO GIVE A NEGATIVE RESPONSE. THIS EFFECT REMAINED AFTER REPEATED PRESENTATION. THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE FINDINGS FOR SEARCH DURING ACTUAL DRIVING IS DISCUSSED. (A) FOR THE COVERING ABSTRACT OF THE CONFERENCE SEE IRRD 858984.