Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Remote Sensor Data to Estimate Pavement Performance Models

This paper proposes state-space specifications of autoregressive moving average models and structural time series models as a framework to develop and estimate incremental performance/deterioration models for transportation infrastructure facilities. State-space specifications are consistent with the infrastructure management using latent performance approach, which means that they rigorously account for uncertainty in forecasting infrastructure condition when data are gathered using multiple technologies. Moreover, these specifications fit the optimization framework using time series analysis to support maintenance and rehabilitation decision-making, which means that they constitute an alternative to the use of Markovian transition probabilities. Through an empirical study, we verify that the proposed methodology can be used to generate infrastructure condition forecasts when data are gathered with multiple technologies. The models in the study are estimated using deflection and pressure measurements generated by sensors embedded in an asphalt pavement. Analysis of the results corroborates earlier findings that question the universal validity of the Markovian assumption in the context of infrastructure deterioration.
Workforce Outcomes of Program Completers in High-Needs Endorsement Areas

Purpose: For decades, federal and state agencies have identified teacher shortages in high-needs endorsement areas (HNEAs), including science, mathematics, and special education, as a critical problem. Many states have implemented policies and practices to recruit HNEA teachers, but little is known about how their workforce outcomes compare with other teachers. Research Methods: We leverage statewide longitudinal data in Tennessee to analyze the workforce outcomes of teachers prepared in the state between 2010 and 2016. We model our outcomes of interest using linear and logistic multilevel regression. Findings: We observe that the number of teachers who receive HNEA endorsements has increased over time even as the overall number of teachers prepared in the state has declined. HNEA teachers are employed at higher rates and retained at similar rates as other teachers. HNEA teachers have similar student achievement gains as non-HNEA teachers. Though HNEA and non-HNEA teachers also have similar first-year observation ratings, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and special education teachers improve at slower rates subsequently. Implications: Our results suggest that potential policy solutions to the recruitment, retention, and development of highly effective HNEA teachers might require policies targeted to individual HNEAs, as each area might have unique needs and challenges. The positive results on preparation and employment of HNEA teachers suggest that Tennessee’s policies to train, employ, and retain HNEA teachers have been largely successful. However, our findings also suggest that HNEA teachers may need additional supports in instructional development.
RTL-Aware Dataflow-Driven Macro Placement

When RTL designers define the hierarchy of a system, they exploit their knowledge about the conceptual abstractions devised during the design and the functional interactions between the logical components. This valuable information is often lost during physical synthesis. This paper proposes a novel multi-level approach for the macro placement problem of complex designs dominated by macro blocks, typically memories. By taking advantage of the hierarchy tree, the netlist is divided into blocks containing macros and standard cells, and their dataflow affinity is inferred considering the latency and flow width of their interaction. The layout is represented using slicing structures and generated with a top-down algorithm capable of handling blocks with both hard and soft components, aimed at wirelength minimization. These techniques have been applied to a set of large industrial circuits and compared against both a commercial floorplanner and handcrafted floorplans by expert back-end engineers. The proposed approach outperforms the commercial tool and produces solutions with similar quality to the best handcrafted floorplans. Therefore, the generated floorplans provide an excellent starting point for the physical design iterations and contribute to reduce turn-around time significantly.
Student Assessment in Higher Education: A Handbook for Assessing Performance

Section A The place of assessment in higher education: purposes of higher education functions of assessment cognitive educational objectives, learning outcomes and levels of testing measuring the outcomes of non-cognitive objectives stages of intellectual and ethical development. Section B Some assessment methods: timing of assessment tasks essays theses objective tests assessing group projects practical skills and field work designing a final examination. Section C Examining assessment: reporting on assessment evaluation of assessment procedures the issue of academic (dis)honesty current and future developments.
Versatility and manufacturability considerations for a new 3-watt X-band power MMIC

The authors present a two-stage power amplifying monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) capable of delivering 3 W at X-band with high efficiency. They describe the utilization of the MMIC designed in applications differing both in frequency range and in bias conditions. This MMIC was designed for operation with external matching circuits on separate ceramic substrates. By customizing these circuits, the same MMIC can cover an entire array of different applications. The versatility of this approach was demonstrated by the implementation of this MMIC in four power modules specified for different bandwidths, power levels, and bias voltages. The small chip size and the tunability allowed by the external circuits resulted in increased manufacturing yields and made possible significant cost reductions. <<ETX>>
Caratteristiche della carcassa e delle carni di vitelloni piemontesi allevati in Toscana

RIASSUNTO Per valutare la possibilita di allevare la razza bovina Piemontese in Toscana, sono state prese in considerazione le carcasse e la carne di 6 vitelloni maschi di tale di razza, macellati ad un eta media di 14 mesi. Le carcasse sono state valutate per conformazione e stato di ingrassamento e, su di esse, sono state rilevate alcune misure lineari; dopo 7 giorni di frollatura dalla mezzena destra sono stati prelevati i muscoli longissimus dorsi e semitendinosus, analizzati per la determinazione dei principali parametri di qualita della carne. Dai risultati ottenuti e emerso che sarebbe opportuno aumentare l’eta di macellazione per permettere la completa estrinsecazione delle potenzialita produttive della razza ed ottenere maggiore sviluppo muscolare e carni piu mature. La carne analizzata ha mostrato pregevoli caratteristiche qualitative sia dal punto di vista organolettico che dietetico-nutrizionale, incoraggiando quindi la diffusione dell’allevamento della razza Piemontese. SUMMARY Carcass and meat of 6 Piemontese male veals were studied to evaluate the possibility to rear Piemontese veal in Tuscany. Veals were weighed and slaughtered at about 14 monthes of age; after 24 h at 4°C carcasses were evaluated for conformation and state of fattening and some linear measurementes were taken. After 7 days of ageing longissimus dorsi and semitendinosus muscles were excised from right half carcass and analyzed to determine the main quality parameters. Even if live weight was slighlty low, dressing percentage was high (68.55%). Evaluation in EU grid showed a medium score of conformation (R-) and of state of fattening (ranging between 3 and 3+). Quality characteristics of meat derived from the two muscles analyzed were different: semitendinosus muscle appeared agreeable due to its paler and lighter meat, but was less tender and had less water holding capacity. Instead longissimus dorsi muscle, altough slightly darker, gave meat which was more tender and had better water holding capacity. Fatty acid composition and cholesterol content were similar between the muscles analyzed, showing a good dieteic properties for human health. This study confirmed the good quality of Piemontese meat but even showed that it will be better to slaugheter veal at higer age to have better carcass conformation and therefore more meat.
Assessing Entrustable Professional Activities Using an Orientation OSCE: Identifying the Gaps.

Background A residency program's intern cohort is comprised of individuals from different medical schools that place varying levels of emphasis on Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency (CEPAERs). Program directors have expressed concerns about the preparedness of medical school graduates. Though guiding principles for implementation of the CEPAERs have been published, studies using this framework to assess interns' baseline skills during orientation are limited. Objective A CEPAER-based objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) was implemented with the aims to (1) assess each intern's baseline clinical skills and provide formative feedback; (2) determine an intern's readiness for resident responsibilities; (3) inform individualized education plans; and (4) address identified gaps through curricular change. Methods During orientation, all 33 interns from internal medicine (categorical, preliminary, and medicine-psychiatry) participated in the OSCE. Six 20-minute stations evaluated 8 EPAs. Faculty completed a global assessment, and standardized patients completed a communications checklist and global assessment. All interns completed a self-assessment of baseline skills and a post-OSCE survey. Results Stations assessing handoffs, informed consent, and subjective, objective, assessment, and plan (SOAP) note were the lowest-performing stations. Interns performed lower in skills for which they did not report previous training. Formal instruction was incorporated into didactic sessions for the lowest-performing stations. The majority of interns indicated that the assessment was useful, and immediate feedback was beneficial. Conclusions This OSCE during orientation offers just-in-time baseline information regarding interns' critical skills and may lead to individualized feedback as well as continuous curricular improvement.
Pulverised biomass and coal co-firing simulation using computational fluid dynamics:A numerical investigation into the aerodynamics of non-spherical particles and full scale combustion for pulverised fuel applications

Recent national and international emissions legislation, in particular sulphur-dioxide, and the rapid depletion of fossil fuels are forcing power producing industries to look at various alternatives, such as biomass and co-firing techniques. Biomass may be transported to the burners of a pulverised fuel (PF) boiler either mixed with the primary fuel, in general coal, or used in dedicated pipelines. In both cases, the transportation of biomass is different due to its composition, size and shape to the transportation of coal. This thesis investigates the computational modelling techniques for a biomass and biomass blend particle transportation (arboreal and flour) in a pipeline with a transverse elbow, the three-phase flow of a coal and biomass co-fire blend in the primary air annulus of a swirl burner and the combustion of a coal and pelletised straw mixture in a full scale furnace using dedicated burners for the biomass injection. The comparison of spherical and non-spherical drag models, under gravity, as well as Saffman lift, inter-particle collision and randomised impulsive wall collision models has been investigated. Good agreement was observed between the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and the experimental data, using a non-spherical drag model. In both cases, due to the dilute volume fraction and secondary air flow, inter-particle collisions and lift were insignificant. In the annulus, lateral regions of high particle concentration were predicted, which are not observed physically. Numerical simulations of a 300MWe tangentially fired furnace, co-firing bituminous coal and pelletised straw, have been performed and compared to experimental data. Bituminous coal was co-fired with pelletised straw. Good agreement was obtained between the CFD predictions and the experimental data so that the trends of furnace temperature, NOx emissions and carbon burnout reduction, as biomass load is increased, were observed. Quantitative prediction of unburnt carbon (UBC) and NOx require a more detailed picture of the processes within the furnace at higher temperatures than that currently provided by experimental data.
System Integrity Analysis on the PMS Designed with the ALS Platform

FPGA technology based ALS platform was designed by WEC as the next generation 1E class platform for protection and monitoring system development for nuclear power plants and had been approved by NRC in 2013. Based on the features of the platform and typical PMS function requirements, a new overall architecture based on ALS for PMS is designed and the consistency with system integrity requirements in SRP is analyzed. The evaluation indicates that the design meets the response time, determinism and self-diagnostics, test and calibration capabilities requirements. Keywords: ALS, response time, determinism, self-diagnostics, test and calibration, FPGA, PMS Cite this Article Xu Zhi, Lei Qing. System Integrity Analysis on the PMS Designed with the ALS. Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Technology . 2015; 5(2): 1-12p.
Objective Evaluation of Seam Pucker

Seam pucker is one of the most important aspects of garment quality in the sewing process. Recently, automatic sewing systems have been developed and seam pucker or other defects would have to be automatically inspected in these systems. Two systems of automatic, contactless measurement of seam pucker have been developed. One of the measurement systems, with which surface shape of seam pucker was measured, is based on laser technology. Intensity of reflected ultrasonic wave is measured using another measurement system. The laser measurement system has been applied to moderate or severe seam pucker and the ultrasonic wave system has been applied to the accurate evaluation of very small seam pucker. The result of the evaluation by machine has to match the result of subjective evaluation by humans. To verify this, samples of seam pucker were evaluated using five judges. With the measurement data of surface shape of these samples, the power spectra of the wave form of seam pucker are calculated. Analyses and correlates the relationship between objective measurement and subjective evaluation by discriminant analysis, with the result of subjective evaluation and the power spectra of the samples. Having obtained these relationships, the degree of seam pucker can be measured objectively by both systems.
Mpls: Technology and Applications

A detailed analysis and practical guide to Multiprotocol Label Switching, MPLS: Technology and Applications does a good job of explaining why you'd want to deploy MPLS on your network, before it gives you the details on how to go about the task. The authors, two senior Cisco Systems engineers who are involved directly in the development of MPLS standards and equipment, explain the problems that are inherent in providing IP routing service over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) links, and show how MPLS does its job. Also, they helpfully discuss emerging ways of providing Virtual Private Network (VPN) services with MPLS. Throughout, the focus is on minimizing network traffic, optimizing routing, and generally using the MPLS toolkit to solve otherwise difficult networking problems. This is a book as much about traffic engineering as any specific technology. Coverage suffers a bit from a shortage of flow charts, state diagrams, and conceptual drawings. Readers are expected to decode some very long, very dense passages of text without assistance. On the other hand, they are assumed also to know relatively little. MPLS concepts that are probably new to most readers are explained carefully and connected to more familiar internetworking terms and concepts. This book deals with MPLS comprehensively, adequately preparing the network administrator to implement better traffic management. --David Wall Topics covered: Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), treated comprehensively, both IP-switching and tag-switching approaches to label switching, and the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP). Quality of Service (QoS) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) coverage give the book some practical flavor.
Conflict Handling Styles and Project Manager Effectiveness

Abstract : The purpose of this thesis was to determine the conflict handling styles of effective and less effective project managers. The project managers in this study, both military and civilian, worked in an Air Force matrix organizational structure. Since the study used a hierarchical or 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approach in order to obtain multiple measures of the project managers' conflict handling styles and effectiveness, it included not only project managers, but their superiors, and the functional personnel who worked with the project managers. The superiors who participated in this study were the organization's senior level managers. Two notes of caution need to be made about this study. (1) the number of project managers was small. This limitation was due to the incompatibility between the amount of time it takes to collect sufficient data from three organizational levels and the short nature of this masters program. (2) the organization chosen was unique in that it was composed primarily of young and relatively inexperienced project managers. This study demonstrates that effective project managers tend to use the integrating style for handling conflicts with their superior, other project managers, and their functional personnel, and that the less effective project managers do not. This finding was based on the superiors' and functionals' perspectives of the project managers styles, not from self reporting. The self reporting of conflict handling styles by effective and less effective project managers resulted in there being no significant differences in the styles they used.
Network Dynamics in the 12 Regional Clusters (Japanese)

It has been observed that the origination of innovation tends to concentrate in areas in which environmental conditions are formed as clusters. It is networks with "small-world" architecture that underpin the high level of creative power for innovation that clusters possess. If it were possible, through policy efforts, to form networks of a highly small-world character that provide an environment that can facilitate a good balance between short-distance interaction and long-distance interaction, that would lead to the enhancement of a region's creative power for innovation. The cluster policy currently being implemented has completed its first phase and has reached a watershed at which it moves into the second phase. In this paper we attempt to formulate a method of objectively grasping and evaluating network architecture from the standpoint of these two types of interaction. Specifically, with regard to the architecture of major networks formed domestically, we use network analysis methods to conduct a comparative analysis of the 12 regions and fields before (in 2000) and after (in 2005) the implementation of cluster policy. As a result of this, we have clarified the following points. (1) Networks are expanding in all regions, (2) the networks that excel in long-distance interaction also excel in short-distance interaction, (3) with a small number of exceptions, the bigger the network is, the more both of these characteristics are enhanced, (4) during this five-year period there have been no major changes with regard to the comparative advantage of each region or field, (5) there is some degree of correlation between the independence of modules and the extent of their small-world character, and (6) disparities between regions are greater than disparities between industry sectors. Through the use of this analytical method it was possible to obtain a quantitative grasp of network architecture in a form that made possible comparisons with other regions and fields, and from this to extract objective information necessary for policy-making. We hope that efficient networking activity will be carried out in the future on the basis of the results of analysis of this kind.
Experimental Study on Cold Micro-Surfacing with Crumb Rubber

This paper describes how environmental sustainability is one of the main issues that developed countries have to deal with nowadays. The paper evaluates the possibility of adding crumb rubber coming from reclaimed tires as a dry ingredient in cold micro-surfacing mixes. In fact, these innovative cold bituminous mixtures could allow the recycling of waste tires and reduce tire/road noise. In this paper, the mechanical performance of cold microsurfacing mixes prepared with crumb rubber added in different dosages and sizes was investigated in the laboratory by means of the cohesion test, the modified British wheel tracking test and an innovative test method, expressly designed for thin cold mixes. Moreover, a cold micro-surfacing with the dry addition of crumb rubber was also laid down on a very busy urban road. Acoustic and skid measurements were carried out both in situ and in the laboratory in order to evaluate the functional properties of this new road material.
Aeroelastic stability of wind turbine blades

The second degree nonlinear aeroelastic equations for a flexible, twisted, nonuniform wind turbine blade were developed using Hamilton's principle. The derivation of these equations has its basis in the geometric nonlinear theory of elasticity. These equations with periodic coefficients are suitable for determining the aeroelastic stability and response of large wind turbine blades. Methods for solving these equations are discussed.
An embedded controller for quad-rotor flying robots running distributed algorithms

Multiple collaborating quad-rotor flying robots are useful in a broad range of applications, from surveillance with onboard cameras to reconfiguration of wireless networks. For these applications, it is often advantageous to have the robot team be a distributed system. In this thesis, an embedded controller capable of running distributed algorithms is presented for the quad-rotor flying robot. The robot platform is first characterized to help guide the design of the embedded control module. These modules are fabricated and tested on the quad-rotor flying robots in both indoor and outdoor environments. To propagate state estimates throughout the robot team, a location-based multi-hop algorithm is proposed. Network limitations, such as sub-optimal bandwidth and finite communication range, are implemented in hardware-in-the-loop simulations to determine system performance. A novel coverage algorithm for multiple hovering robots with downward facing cameras is then demonstrated on the embedded controller. The results from numerous indoor and outdoor experiments are discussed. Thesis Supervisor: Daniela L. Rus Title: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Agronomic Effects of Land Application of Water Treatment Sludges

Economic, regulatory, and legal constraints on alternative disposal methods are raising interest in land application of water treatment sludges. Understanding the agronomic and environmental issues is essential before a land-based disposal program is implemented. Water treatment sludges may favorably modify the pH and water-holding capacity of soils but generally have little fertilizer value. Supplemental phosphorus (P) fertilizer will usually be needed to offset the strong P-binding capacity of these sludges. Heavy metal concentrations can be limited in sludges primarily by controlling the purity of the coagulant chemicals.