Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fibre reinforced polymer nanocomposites

In this thesis the results are described of the research on a combination of two types of composites: thermoplastic nanocomposites and continuous fibre composites. In this three-phase composite the main reinforcing phase are continuous glass or carbon fibres, and the matrix consists of a polyamide 6 / layered silicate nanocomposite. To be able to produce and understand this new type of thermoplastic composite, the properties of the nanocomposite matrix materials have been investigated, followed by an investigation of the properties the new three-phase composite. The influence of the following parameters on the properties of the nanocomposites is studied: the type and concentration of the layered silicate, the surface modification of the particles, the type of polyamide and the testing temperature. The measured properties are the modulus, strength, toughness, moisture diffusion, melt viscosity and adhesion with the fibres. The moduli, diffusion coefficients en viscosities are related to the shape, size and degree of dispersion of the particles using various models. Based on the properties some nanocomposites have been selected and used as matrix for fibre composites. The flexural strength of the fibre composites with nanocomposite matrix has been measured over a large temperature range and with different amounts of absorbed moisture. Compared to normal PA6 fibre composites the strength is increased with more than 40% at elevated temperatures. The temperature at which these composites can be used at equal strength increases by 40-50 C. With the use of nanocomposites as matrix the properties of fibre composites can be strongly improved without any changes in the processing conditions.
Algorithms and tools for network on chip based system design

Network on chip (NoC) is a new paradigm for designing core based system on chip. It supports a high degree of reusability and is scalable. In this paper, an efficient two-step genetic algorithm and the correlated software is described, mapping concurrent applications, which are described by a parameterized multi-task-graph, onto an NoC with a 2D mesh of switches as a communication backbone and populated with a known set of IP cores as computational resources. The algorithm proposes mathematical delay models and finds a good method of mapping vertices of the multi-task-graph to available cores so that every single task graph can meet its respective deadline. The correlated software has two separate tools. One can freely generate any NoC backbone and multi-task-graph for test. The other achieves the two-step genetic algorithm and can give the design result within one minute on a PC platform. It also provides facilities for viewing synthetic task graphs and the working progress of the genetic algorithm.
Split spectrum algorithms rely on instantaneous phase information-a geometrical approach (US NDE)

Split spectrum algorithms for suppression of interference noise in ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation are known to work well when properly tuned. However, the algorithms are sensitive to certain parameter values and it is not clear how the algorithms use the phase and amplitude information available. This is partly because most split spectrum algorithms have been suggested heuristically without any detailed signal and noise model. A first step towards a model based approach to split spectrum is initiated. Based on a fairly detailed signal model, geometrical interpretations of the split spectrum concept are presented in an attempt to trace the phase and amplitude information utilized by the algorithms. In the light of gained theoretical knowledge, the conventional algorithms, polarity thresholding, minimization and geometric mean are evaluated. The geometrical approach is related to statistical pattern recognition and neural network approaches and the signal model is verified experimentally on real ultrasonic signals. <<ETX>>
Visual servoing with quick eye-vergence to enhance trackability and stability

Visual servoing methods for hand-eye configuration are vulnerable for hand's dynamical oscillation, since nonlinear dynamical effects of whole manipulator stand against the stable tracking ability (trackability). Our proposal to solve this problem is that the controller for visual servoing of the hand and the one for eye-vergence should be separated independently based on decoupling each other, where the trackablity is verified by Lyapunov analysis. Then the effectiveness of the decoupled hand & eye-vergence visual servoing method is evaluated through simulations incorporated with actual dynamics of 7-DoF robot with additional 3-DoF for eye-vergence mechanism by amplitude and phase frequency analysis.
Interactive Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization using Dominance-based Rough Set Approach

We present basic ideas related to application of Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) in interactive Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization (EMO). In the proposed methodology, the preference information elicited by the decision maker in successive iterations consists in sorting some solutions in the current population into “relatively good” and “others”, or in comparing some pairs of solutions with respect to preference. The “if …, then …” decision rules are then induced from this preference information using Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA). These rules are used within EMO in order to focus on populations of solutions satisfying the preferences of the decision maker, speeding up convergence to the most preferred region of the Pareto-front. The resulting interactive schemes, corresponding to the two types of preference information, are called DRSA-EMO and DRSA-EMO-PCT, respectively. The proposed methodology permits also to take into account robust concerns in multiobjective optimization.
Free-Standing 2D Silicon Nanocrystals Stabilized with Perfluorophenyl Ligands: Experiment and Ab Initio Research

Silicon (Si) is currently the basis of most of nanodevice technology, therefore ultrathin materials based on Si have the great advantage of easy integration into existing circuitry. First flat silicon nanoparticles have been obtained with perfluorophenyl (PFPh) ligand coating. The size of these particles varied from 15 to 50 nm. Their thickness evaluated with the atomic force microscopy was about 3.3 nm. Based on ab initio DFT calculations we investigate the geometries and electronic structures of free-standing PFPh-stabilized 2D silicon in order to see if such systems have promising electronic and optical properties. We also examined the effect of doping PFPh-stabilized 2D silicon by the Mn atoms.
Ad-hoc Network Communication Infrastructure for Multi-robot Systems in Disaster Scenarios

Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are communication networks that do not rely on fixed, preinstalled communication devices like base stations or predefined communication cells. MANETs are wireless networks consisting of mobile nodes which are characterized by their decentralized organization and the potentially high dynamics of the network structure. Therefore, MANETs are ideally suitable for applications with multi-robot systems. One of the most promising applications of a multi-robot system is to assist humans in urban search and rescue (USAR) scenarios in the aftermath of natural or man-made disasters. We are focusing on an ad-hoc network communication system with the mobile robots being communication nodes offering a robust communication infrastructure. Main disaster scenario covered by our system is a large industrial warehouse in fire, described in the GUARDIANS project funded by the European Union. In this scenario, black smoke may fill large space of the warehouse that makes it very difficult for the firefighters to orientate themselves in the building which in turn will usually limit the action space of the firefighters. In order to increase the coverage area of the fire fighters the ad-hoc network has to provide position data to support localization of the mobile robots and humans, which might be of great importance to guide the humans and robots to specific targets and locations or to quickly exit the search area. In our proposed approach a cell-based network with master nodes in each cell forms the basic structure of the network. Some nodes formed by speciallyequipped robots act as beacons to uniformly span the network. These robots have a role as reference points when positioning other mobile robots or humans and at the same time form the infrastructure to support communication all over the search area. A combination of distance and radio signal quality measurements as well as dedicated swarming behaviors of the robots are capable of maintaining suitable distribution of the robots even in the presence of walls that obstruct the radio signals. Communications standards considered for the ad-hoc network are Wireless LAN, Bluetooth and QigBee. All are integrated on a miniature robot for real experiments. The features of the network are studied analytically, in simulations as well as in experiments to verify the results. Furthermore, frequency and power managements are also taken into consideration to ensure robustness of communication in the network.
Query Processor Runtime Execution Code Generator Query Optimizer Query Parser Storage Manager Data Programming Interface

Commercial database management systems (DBMS) have come a long way with respect to efficiency and more recently, with respect to quality and user friendliness. Not only do they provide an efficient means to store large amounts of data and intuitive query languages to access the data; popular DBMS also provide a whole suite of tools to assess, store, manage, clean, and retrieve data in a user-friendly way. Some of these feature address database experts, others are targeted at end-users with little or even no database knowledge. The recent developments in the field of autonomic computing drive the ease-of-use even further. In this report we study how well a typical DBMS meets the goal of providing a high-quality data storage and retrieval facility. To this end, we draw on an established set of information quality criteria and assess how well an exemplary DBMS fares. While quality criteria are usually defined for a set of data, we extend, wherever possible, the definitions to the systems that manage this data.
Fabrication and comparison of MoS2 and WSe2 field-effect transistor biosensors

The authors present a study on the evolution behaviors of the transfer characteristics of MoS2 and WSe2 field-effect transistor biosensors when they are subjected to tumor necrosis factor-alpha and streptavidin solutions with varying analyte concentrations. Both MoS2 and WSe2 sensors exhibit very low detection limits (∼60 fM for tumor necrosis factor-alpha detection; ∼70 fM for streptavidin detection). However, WSe2 sensors exhibit the higher linear-regime sensitivities in comparison with MoS2 sensors. In particular, WSe2 sensors exhibit high linear-regime sensitivities up to ∼1.54%/fM for detecting streptavidin at a concentration of ∼70 fM. Such relatively higher sensitivities obtained from WSe2 sensors are attributed to their intrinsic ambipolar transfer characteristics, which make their ON-state carrier concentrations significantly lower than those of MoS2 sensors, and therefore, the target-molecule-induced doping effect results in more prominent channel conductance modulation in WSe2 transistor sensor.
Low number of examined lymph nodes in node-negative breast cancer patients is an adverse prognostic factor.

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to determine whether the number of lymph nodes removed at axillary dissection is associated with recurrence and survival in node-negative breast cancer (NNBC) patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 1606 women with pathologically node-negative T1-T3 invasive breast cancer. Median follow-up was 61 months (range 2-251). Potential prognostic factors assessed included: number of axillary lymph nodes examined, age, menopausal status, tumor size, histological type, tumor grade, estrogen receptor(ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2. RESULTS At 5 years, relapse-free survival (RFS) rate was 85% and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) rate was 94%. In univariate analysis, factors significantly associated with lower RFS and BCSS were: fewer than six lymph nodes examined (RFS, P = 0.01; BCSS, P = 0.007), tumor size >2 cm, grade III, negative ER or PR. Statistically significant factors for lower RFS and BCSS in multivariate analysis were: fewer than six lymph nodes examined [RFS, hazard ratio (HR) 1.36, P = 0.029; BCSS, HR 1.87, P = 0.005], tumor size >2 cm, tumor grade III and negative PR. CONCLUSIONS Examination of fewer than six lymph nodes is an adverse prognostic factor in NNBC because it could lead to understaging. Six or more nodes need to be examined at axillary dissection to be confident of a node-negative status. This may be useful, in conjunction with other prognostic factors, in the assessment of NNBC patients for adjuvant systemic therapy.
Sugar Palm Tree: A Versatile Plant and Novel Source for Biofibres, Biomatrices, and Biocomposites

The use of green materials is a vital component in tackling problems of environmental protection. At the same time, these materials help solve problems arising from the shortage and undegradable nature of petroleum-based materials. Among the numerous green material sources in Malaysia, the sugar palm tree is a versatile plant that can produce biofibres, biomatrices, and biocomposites for a wide range of applications. This paper focuses mainly on the significance of the unutilised part of sugar fibres, as they are highly durable and easy to process. Besides discussing recent advances in research into sugar palm fibres and their biocomposites, this paper also addresses recent advances in research into the development of new biodegradable polymers derived from sugar palm starch. Fibre surface treatment, product development, and efforts to enhance the properties of sugar palm fibre composites are also considered.
The impact of resolving the Rossby radius at mid-latitudes in the ocean: results from a high-resolution version of the Met Office GC2 coupled model

Abstract. There is mounting evidence that resolving mesoscale eddies and western boundary currents as well as topographically controlled flows can play an important role in air–sea interaction associated with vertical and lateral transports of heat and salt. Here we describe the development of the Met Office Global Coupled Model version 2 (GC2) with increased resolution relative to the standard model: the ocean resolution is increased from 1/4 to 1/12° (28 to 9 km at the Equator), the atmosphere resolution increased from 60 km (N216) to 25 km (N512) and the coupling period reduced from 3 hourly to hourly. The technical developments that were required to build a version of the model at higher resolution are described as well as results from a 20-year simulation. The results demonstrate the key role played by the enhanced resolution of the ocean model: reduced sea surface temperature (SST) biases, improved ocean heat transports, deeper and stronger overturning circulation and a stronger Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Our results suggest that the improvements seen here require high resolution in both atmosphere and ocean components as well as high-frequency coupling. These results add to the body of evidence suggesting that ocean resolution is an important consideration when developing coupled models for weather and climate applications.
TVLAN: Trusted and Virtualised Local Area Networks

Today most of the desktops, laptops are being shipped with the TPM and Virtualisation technology is widely being deployed. On the other hand, we are witnessing an increasing number of zero day attacks. Our analysis confirms that Local Area Networks are highly vulnerable to such attacks since there is free communication between the hosts in the LAN. A single compromised host can severely degrade the services in the traditional LAN and it is extremely difficult task for the security administrator to determine the compromised host that is generating attack traffic. In this paper we propose techniques to enhance the security in traditional LAN by making use of the trusted computing and virtualisation technologies. Often virtualisation is considered as a technology which enables to run multiple computers on a single server. We will show that virtualisation technology has significant benefits even if a single virtual machine is hosted on each VMM. Our model enables the security administrator to enforce security policies on the traffic that can be placed on the LAN medium. Hence our model efficiently deals with the attack at the VMM that is hosting the compromised virtual machine. The security can be enhanced furthermore by using the TPM technology to secure the virtualized local area networks. We will also present detail analysis of different cases scenarios on how the proposed model can enhance the security of the local area networks. There are several advantages with our model. Emerging attacks such as Conficker remain dormant in our proposed architecture in order to avoid detection. Hence our model can transform the highly vulnerable traditional LANs into trust enhanced and secure virtualized local area networks.
PERFORMANCE-BASED DESIGN METHOD FOR RAILWAY ASPHALT ROADBED

鉄道のバラスト軌道では，軌道沈下の抑制，列車荷重の路床への分散および雨水の路床への浸透の防止を目的として，アスファルト路盤が広く適用されている．従来のアスファルト路盤の設計は路床の剛性に応じてその厚さを定める仕様規定であったが，鉄道構造物の設計における性能規定化の一環として，アスファルト路盤についても列車本数の影響を考慮した性能照査型の設計方法を導入することが求められていた．そこで，本研究ではFEM解析によってアスファルト混合物層のひずみを推定し，疲労破壊規準式を適用することで路盤の厚さを求められる設計方法を提案した．この設計方法は鉄道土構造物の新しい設計標準に反映され，性能規定化に対応したアスファルト路盤の設計が可能となった．
Block-Suffix Shifting: Fast, Simultaneous Medical Concept Set Identification in Large Medical Record Corpora

Owing to new advances in computer hardware, large text databases have become more prevalent than ever.Automatically mining information from these databases proves to be a challenge due to slow pattern/string matching techniques. In this paper we present a new, fast multi-string pattern matching method based on the well known Aho-Chorasick algorithm. Advantages of our algorithm include:the ability to exploit the natural structure of text, the ability to perform significant character shifting, avoiding backtracking jumps that are not useful, efficiency in terms of matching time and avoiding the typical "sub-string" false positive errors.Our algorithm is applicable to many fields with free text, such as the health care domain and the scientific document field. In this paper, we apply the BSS algorithm to health care data and mine hundreds of thousands of medical concepts from a large Electronic Medical Record (EMR) corpora simultaneously and efficiently. Experimental results show the superiority of our algorithm when compared with the top of the line multi-string matching algorithms.
Dynamic and adaptive allocation of applications on MPSoC platforms

— Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoC) are an increasingly important design paradigm not only for mobile embedded systems but also for industrial applications such as automotive and avionic systems. Such systems typically execute multiple concurrent applications, with different execution modes. Modes define differences in functionality and computational resource demands and are assigned with an execution probability. We propose a dynamic mapping approach to maintain low power consumption over the system lifetime. Mapping templates for different application modes and execution probabilities are computed offline and stored on the system. At runtime a manager monitors the system and chooses an appropriate pre-computed template. Experiments show that our approach outperforms global static mapping approaches up to 45%.
A Reshaping Technology With Joule Heat For Three Dimensional Silicon Structures

This paper presents a new basic reshaping technology which is efficient to realize real three dimensional silicon microstructures. In this process, the elastically deformed polysilicon structure is annealed by Joule heating generated by the current passing through the structure. Plastic deformation occurs resulting in permanent three-dimensional shapes. The application of this basic process to different polysilicon structures is successfully performed. Some quantitative characteristics of the annealing effects are also investigated by means of structure deformation measurements.
Large Scale Metagenomic Sequence Clustering via Sketching and Maximal Quasi-clique Enumeration on MapReduce Clusters

Taxonomic clustering of species from millions of DNA fragments sequenced from their genomes is an important and frequently arising problem in metagenomics. High-throughput next generation sequencing is enabling the creation of large metagenomic samples, while at the same time making the clustering problem harder due to the short sequence length supported and sampling of hitherto unknown species. In this paper, we present a parallel algorithm for taxonomic clustering of large metagenomic samples with support for overlapping clusters. We develop sketching techniques akin to those created for web document clustering to deduce significant similarities between pairs of sequences without resorting to expensive all vs. all comparison. We formulate the metagenomic classification problem as that of maximal quasi-clique enumeration in the resulting similarity graph, at multiple levels of the hierarchy as prescribed by different similarity thresholds. We cast execution of the underlying algorithmic steps as applications of the map-reduce framework to achieve a cloud ready implementation. Apart from solving an important problem in metagenomics, this work presents a map-reduce algorithm for finding quasi-cliques in graphs, and demonstrates the applicability of map-reduce in relatively complicated algorithmic settings.
Correlated Topic Model for Web Services Ranking

With the increasing number of published Web services providing similar functionalities, it’s very tedious for a service consumer to make decision to select the appropriate one according to her/his needs. In this paper, we explore several probabilistic topic models: Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA), Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Correlated Topic Model (CTM) to extract latent factors from web service descriptions. In our approach, topic models are used as efficient dimension reduction techniques, which are able to capture semantic relationships between word-topic and topic-service interpreted in terms of probability distributions. To address the limitation of keywords-based queries, we represent web service description as a vector space and we introduce a new approach for discovering and ranking web services using latent factors. In our experiment, we evaluated our Service Discovery and Ranking approach by calculating the precision (P@n) and normalized discounted cumulative gain (NDCGn).
Vision-based quadrotor stabilization using a pan and tilt camera

This paper proposes a nonlinear control architecture for the stabilization of a quadrotor vehicle based on image measurements of a set of landmarks obtained from a pan and tilt camera. The vehicle is stabilized vertically using an additional vertical position sensor and lateral-longitudinal stabilization is achieved with a nested saturation control law by feedback of image measurements, body attitude, and angular rate. Additionally, the pan and tilt camera is actively actuated to to keep the landmarks visible in the image sensor for most operating conditions. Simulation results are presented to assess the performance of the proposed control architecture.