Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficiency-Optimized High-Current Dual Active Bridge Converter for Automotive Applications

An efficiency-optimized modulation scheme and design method are developed for an existing hardware prototype of a bidirectional dual active bridge (DAB) dc/dc converter. The DAB being considered is used for an automotive application and is made up of a high-voltage port with port voltage V<sub>1</sub>, 240 V ≤ V<sub>1</sub> ≤ 450 V, and a low-voltage port with port voltage V<sub>2</sub>, 11 V ≤ V<sub>2</sub> ≤ 16 V; the rated output power is 2 kW. A much increased converter efficiency is achieved with the methods detailed in this paper: The average efficiency, calculated for different voltages V<sub>1</sub> and V<sub>2</sub>, different power levels, and both directions of power transfer, rises from 89.6% (conventional phase shift modulation) to 93.5% (proposed modulation scheme). Measured efficiency values, obtained from the DAB hardware prototype, are used to verify the theoretical results.
Correlation between Article Level Views, Google Citations and Scopus

The paper is an attempt to highlight the importance of adopting various metric to evaluate scholarship. Article level views and citations metric (Scopus & Google Citation) of Annals of Library and Information Studies were extracted from 2011 to 2015 to establish the relationship between them using Pearson correlation. Findings of the study indicate that there was a positive correlation between the number of views and Google Scholar (r = 0.22, p < 0.01) (1% significant), however, no correlation between views and Scopus (r=0.06, p< 0.01). However, the study shows that positive correlation in cumulative article views and citation, the top 10 viewed articles and citations do not complement each other, articles that have receives maximum views do not necessary result to citation except for one article.
Blood Sampling ReduceS annual SuRvival in cliff SwallowS (Petrochelidon Pyrrhonota)

u Abstract . —Researchers commonly collect blood samples from wild birds, and most workers assume that blood sampling has no adverse effect on the birds' survival. Few studies, however, have done controlled comparisons among bled and non-bled individuals and estimated survival using modern statistical methodology. We used a data set on Cliff Swallows ( Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) that included 2,945 bled and 7,822 non-bled birds captured at the same times and sites in southwestern Nebraska from 1986 to 2006 to estimate annual survival and recapture probabilities of each group. Blood was collected with brachial venipuncture in amounts varying from 0.3% to 1.2% of the birds' body mass. Apparent survival of bled birds was lower than that of non-bled birds: bled birds experienced a 21-33% reduction in average survivorship, depending on amount of blood taken and whether the individuals were resident at a fumigated (parasite-free) or non-fumigated colony at the time of sampling. The percent reduction in annual survival was higher for individuals at non-fumigated colonies. All effects of blood sampling applied only in the year after sampling, and there were no effects in later years. Our results suggest that brachial blood sampling is not a benign technique. Researchers following the 1%-of-body-mass guideline may be collecting too much blood from wild birds, especially when research requires repeated samples over short periods
Exploring the user-generated content (UGC) uploading behavior on youtube

YouTube is the world's largest video sharing platform where both professional and non-professional users participate in creating, uploading, and viewing content. In this work, we analyze content in the music category created by the non-professionals, which we refer to as user-generated content (UGC). Non-professional users frequently upload content (UGC) that are parodies, remakes, or covers of the music videos uploaded by professionals, namely the official record labels. Along with the success of official music videos on YouTube, we find the increased participation of users in creating the UGC related to the music videos. In this study, we characterize the UGC uploading behavior in terms of what, where, and when. Furthermore, we measure the relationship between the popularity of the original content and creation of the related UGC. We find that the UGC uploading behavior is different depending on the types of the UGC and across different genres of music videos. We also find that UGC sharing is a highly global activity; popular UGC is created from all over the world despite the fact that the popular music videos originate from a very limited number of locations. Our findings imply that utilizing the information on re-created UGC is important in order to understand and to predict the popularity of the original content.
Taiwan UniCloud: A Cloud Testbed with Collaborative Cloud Services

This paper introduces a prototype of Taiwan UniCloud, a community-driven hybrid cloud platform for academics in Taiwan. The goal is to leverage resources in multiple clouds among different organizations. Each self-managing cloud can join the UniCloud platform to share its resources and simultaneously benefit from other clouds with scale-out capabilities. Accordingly, resources are elastic and sharable with each other such as to afford unexpected resource demands to each cloud. The proposed platform provides a web portal to operate each cloud via a uniform user interface. The construction of virtual clusters with multi-core VMs is supplied for parallel and distributed processing models. An object-based storage system is also delivered to federate different storage providers. This paper not only presents the architectural design of Taiwan UniCloud, but also evaluates the performance to demonstrate the possibility of current implementation. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed platform as well as the benefit from the cloud federation.
Entry, Exit and the Shape of Aggregate Fluctuations in a General Equilibrium Model with Capital Heterogeneity

Examining standard business cycle moments and impulse responses, we find that changes in entry and exit rates and the age-size composition of firms amplify responses over a typical business cycle driven by a disturbance to aggregate productivity and, to a lesser extent, protract them. Both results stem from an endogenous drag on TFP induced by a missing generation effect, whereby an usually small number of entrants fails to replace an increased number of exitors; this effect is most injurious several years out as the reduced cohorts of young firms approach maturity. Declines in the number of firms, and most notably in the numbers of young firms, were dramatic over the U.S. 2007-9 recession. In an exercise designed to emulate that unusual episode, we consider a second shock that more directly affects entry and the exit decisions of younger firms. We find that it sharpens the missing generation effect, delivering far more anemic recovery.
Energy requirements during pregnancy and lactation.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the energy requirements of pregnant and lactating women consistent with optimal pregnancy outcome and adequate milk production. DESIGN Total energy cost of pregnancy was estimated using the factorial approach from pregnancy-induced increments in basal metabolic rate measured by respiratory calorimetry or from increments in total energy expenditure measured by the doubly labelled water method, plus energy deposition attributed to protein and fat accretion during pregnancy. SETTING Database on changes in basal metabolic rate and total energy expenditure during pregnancy, and increments in protein based on measurements of total body potassium, and fat derived from multi-compartment body composition models was compiled. Energy requirements during lactation were derived from rates of milk production, energy density of human milk, and energy mobilisation from tissues. SUBJECTS Healthy pregnant and lactating women. RESULTS The estimated total cost of pregnancy for women with a mean gestational weight gain of 12.0 kg, was 321 or 325 MJ, distributed as 375, 1200, 1950 kJ day(-1), for the first, second and third trimesters, respectively. For exclusive breastfeeding, the energy cost of lactation was 2.62 MJ day(-1) based on a mean milk production of 749 g day(-1), energy density of milk of 2.8 kJ g(-1), and energetic efficiency of 0.80. In well-nourished women, this may be subsidised by energy mobilisation from tissues on the order of 0.72 MJ day(-1), resulting in a net increment of 1.9 MJ day(-1) over non-pregnant, non-lactating energy requirements. CONCLUSIONS Recommendations for energy intake of pregnant and lactating women should be updated based on recently available data.
Depleted Iceland mantle plume geochemical signature: Artifact of multicomponent mixing?

The geochemical variations in basalts from Iceland and the Reykjanes Ridge have for a long time been attributed to mixing between the depleted mid‐ocean ridge basalt (MORB) asthenosphere source and the enriched Iceland mantle plume (Schilling, 1973; Hart et al., 1973; Sun et al., 1975). In contrast, the occurrence of some Iceland basalts with relatively depleted incompatible trace element ratios and low Pb and Sr isotope ratios compared to normal MORB (NMORB) have been interpreted to indicate that the Iceland mantle plume transports both geochemically enriched and depleted material from the lower mantle into the upper mantle and that the depleted MORB asthenosphere source does not contribute significantly to the generation of the Iceland basalts (Thirlwall et al., 1994; Thirlwall, 1995; Hards et al., 1995; Kerr, 1995; Kerr et al., 1995; Fitton et al., 1997; Hardarson and Fitton, 1997; Hardarson et al., 1997; Kempton et al., 1998, 1999; Nowell et al., 1998). As a follow‐up to this controversy, we show on the basis of new Nb, Zr, Y, La, and Sm elemental abundances and Hf isotope ratios reported here, and published trace element and isotope data for Iceland and the North Atlantic MOR (50°–79°N), that the apparent distinction between Iceland basalts and MORB can readily be accounted for by a three‐component mixing model involving two incompatible trace element enriched components, one with relatively high, the other with low 206Pb/204Pb ratios, and the usual surrounding depleted MORB mantle source as the third component. The radiogenic 206Pb‐rich component represents the hot Iceland mantle plume source, while the enriched but low‐206Pb/204Pb EM1‐like component most likely represents entrained subcontinental lithospheric material embedded in the North Atlantic depleted MORB source. The incompatible element and isotope ratio variations do not require a depleted Iceland plume (DIP) component, nor do they exclude the presence of a MORB depleted asthenosphere source component for some of the Iceland basalts, particularly in recent time.
Jute seed production as influenced by dates of sowing and topping in red and laterite zone of West Bengal

An experiment was carried out during thekharif season of two consecutive years 2014 and 2015 at Regional Research Sub-station, Raghunathpur, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Purulia, West Bengal with the view to maximise the jute seed yield by manipulating certain non-monetary techniques like dates of sowing and topping associated with crop production. The Capsularis variety Bidhan pat-3 was sown in three different dates (1st-25th June, 2nd-15th July and 3rd-5th August) with 3 topping (clipping of apical portion) practices at 30, 45 and 60 days after sowing (DAS) as separate treatment with no topping as control. These different agronomic practices significantly (at 5 % probability level) influenced the performance of the crop in various aspects. The 1st date of sowing showed its supremacy in terms of expression of the crop in the field in all the aspects achieving a seed yield of 709.50 kg ha-1 and 737.85 kg ha-1 during first and second year respectively, whereas, the last date of sowing showed its inferiority obtaining a seed yield of 590.10 kg ha-1 and 647.13 kg ha-1all through the first and second year respectively.1stdate of sowing also recorded higher net return(Rs. 33721.50 ha-1& Rs.35989.50 ha-1 during first and second year) and benefit: cost ratio (1.46 and 1.56 in first and second year) over the other two date of sowing. How-ever, maximum seed yield was achieved when the crop was topped on 45 DAS (728.80 kg ha-1 and 773.57 kg ha-1 during first and second year) irrespective of the date of sowing.
Theoretical Foundation of Co-Training and Disagreement-Based Algorithms

Disagreement-based approaches generate multiple classifiers and exploit the disagreement among them with unlabeled data to improve learning performance. Co-training is a representative paradigm of them, which trains two classifiers separately on two sufficient and redundant views; while for the applications where there is only one view, several successful variants of co-training with two different classifiers on single-view data instead of two views have been proposed. For these disagreement-based approaches, there are several important issues which still are unsolved, in this article we present theoretical analyses to address these issues, which provides a theoretical foundation of co-training and disagreement-based approaches.
The warped disc of NGC 4258

We consider the properties of the warped accretion disc in NGC 4258 which is delineated by maser emission. We use our analytical models to consider whether the disc could be warped by Lense-Thirring precession. We show that such models fit the shape of the disc well and we determine the goodness of fit for various combinations of the warp radius and the disc and black hole configurations. Though the fits are compelling evidence, we note that such a model has implications for the formation and longevity of the disc which might be problematic for the current understanding of Seyfert galaxies.
Near-Infrared Extinction Law in the ρ Ophiuchi and Chamaeleon Dark Clouds

We determine and compare the color excess ratios EJ-H/E for the ρ Ophiuchi and Chamaeleon dark clouds with the J-, H-, and Ks-band simultaneous camera, SIRIUS, on the IRSF 1.4 m telescope at SAAO. Determining accurate ratios is indispensable for discussions of the extinction law. However, previous surveys suffered from uncertainties in transforming one photometric system to another when comparing data on different systems. To overcome the problem, we observe both clouds in exactly the same photometric system on the same telescope, greatly simplifying the comparison of the extinction laws between two clouds. From our surveys covering about 1.56 deg2 (ρ Oph) and 2.77 deg2 (Chamaeleon), which are complete for J ~ 19.0, H ~ 18.3, and KS ~ 17.0 mag at a 10 σ limiting magnitude, we did not find a significant difference in the extinction law EJ-H/E for the two clouds, in contrast to previous work. From calculations of a model star with the effects of filter and atmosphere transmissions, the differences of the color excess ratios EJ-H/EH-K for two clouds described in the past literature can be attributed to the different photometric systems so far employed. We also note a change of the color excess ratio that occurs with increasing optical depth.
Modélisation atmospherique régionale du cycle des isotopes stables de l'eau

Climate change has recently become a major concerning among scientists and the general public. A better knowledge of past climates helps forecasting the future evolution of climate. Stable water isotopes stand as an outstanding paleo-climate proxy. Physical properties of heavy stable water isotopes (H182 O; HDO) cause fractionation processes related to temperature and degree of distillation. If the isotopic signal is correctly inverted, past climate change can be inferred from isotopic archives. Andean ice-cores offer a unique records of tropical climate and its variability through time. However, the interpretation of the isotopic signal is difficult because of complex atmospheric dynamic over South America. For this purpose, we developed a module handling the stable water isotope fractionation processes within the regional circulation model REMO and applied it to South America. The manuscript outlines the major milestones of the present PhD. We first introduce the research topic in the wider scope of climate change; the description of the stable water isotope enabled regional circulation model REMOiso; an initial validation of REMOiso over Europe; an investigation of the seasonal variations of precipitation, atmospheric circulation and isotopic signal over South America; and at last the recording of the south American monsoon system (SAMS) by stable water isotope diagnostics.
A study of the failure of GaN-based LEDs submitted to reverse-bias stress and ESD events

This paper describes an extensive analysis of the degradation of InGaN-based LEDs submitted to reverse-bias stress and Electrostatic Discharge events. Results described within the paper indicate that: (i) reverse-bias current flows through localized leakage paths, related to the presence of structural defects; (ii) the position of these paths can be identified by means of emission microscopy; (iii) reverse-bias stress can induce a degradation of the electrical characteristics of the devices (decrease in breakdown voltage); (iv) degradation is due to the injection of highly accelerated carriers through the active region of the LEDs, with the subsequent generation/propagation of point defects; (v) the localized leakage paths responsible for reverse-current conduction can constitute weak regions with respect to reverse-bias ESD events.
A Review of Color Blindness for Microscopists: Guidelines and Tools for Accommodating and Coping with Color Vision Deficiency

Abstract “Color blindness” is a variable trait, including individuals with just slight color vision deficiency to those rare individuals with a complete lack of color perception. Approximately 75% of those with color impairment are green diminished; most of those remaining are red diminished. Red-Green color impairment is sex linked with the vast majority being male. The deficiency results in reds and greens being perceived as shades of yellow; therefore red-green images presented to the public will not illustrate regions of distinction to these individuals. Tools are available to authors wishing to accommodate those with color vision deficiency; most notable are components in FIJI (an extension of ImageJ) and Adobe Photoshop. Using these tools, hues of magenta may be substituted for red in red-green images resulting in striking definition for both the color sighted and color impaired. Web-based tools may be used (importantly) by color challenged individuals to convert red-green images archived in web-accessible journal articles into two-color images, which they may then discern.
Physical stress-induced secretion of adrenal and pituitary hormones in patients with atopic eczema compared with normal controls.

Atopic eczema is a chronic inflammatory skin disease which shares some psychological and neuroendocrine disturbances with patients suffering from depression. In view of recent findings of an attenuated response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system in patients with atopic eczema during a human corticotropin-releasing hormone (hCRH) challenge paradigm fourteen consecutive non-specifically trained in-patients with atopic eczema (8 men, 6 women) and an age-matched control group (8 men, 6 women) performed exhausting incremental graded bicycle exercise to evaluate cortisol, adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), beta-endorphin, epinephrine and norepinephrine releases induced by physical stress. The exercise yielded significant increases in cortisol, ACTH, beta-endorphin, epinephrine and norepinephrine concentrations in both groups. Patients with severe eczema displayed a significantly lower increase in norepinephrine levels when compared with the less affected patient group. In contrast to the challenge with exogenous hCRH no substantial difference in the net responses of ACTH and cortisol could be detected between patients with atopic eczema and controls using the physical stress paradigm. These substantial differences in the net outcome between both challenges may be related to the potential synergizing effects of various neuropeptides, e.g. CRH and vasopressin, when activating the HPA system by challenges at a suprapituitary site which may override subtle disturbances in the responsivity of the HPA system as revealed by CRH challenge alone in patients with atopic eczema.
An efficient fuzzy classifier with feature selection based on fuzzy entropy

This paper presents an efficient fuzzy classifier with the ability of feature selection based on a fuzzy entropy measure. Fuzzy entropy is employed to evaluate the information of pattern distribution in the pattern space. With this information, we can partition the pattern space into nonoverlapping decision regions for pattern classification. Since the decision regions do not overlap, both the complexity and computational load of the classifier are reduced and thus the training time and classification time are extremely short. Although the decision regions are partitioned into nonoverlapping subspaces, we can achieve good classification performance since the decision regions can be correctly determined via our proposed fuzzy entropy measure. In addition, we also investigate the use of fuzzy entropy to select relevant features. The feature selection procedure not only reduces the dimensionality of a problem but also discards noise-corrupted, redundant and unimportant features. Finally, we apply the proposed classifier to the Iris database and Wisconsin breast cancer database to evaluate the classification performance. Both of the results show that the proposed classifier can work well for the pattern classification application.
A Projection-Based Approach to General-Form Tikhonov Regularization

We present a projection-based iterative algorithm for computing general-form Tikhonov regularized solutions to the problem $\min_x\{\| Ax-b \|_2^2+\lambda^2\| Lx \|_2^2\}$, where the regularization matrix $L$ is not the identity. Our algorithm is designed for the common case where $\lambda$ is not known a priori. It is based on a joint bidiagonalization algorithm and is appropriate for large-scale problems when it is computationally infeasible to transform the regularized problem to standard form. By considering the projected problem, we show how estimates of the corresponding optimal regularization parameter can be efficiently obtained. Numerical results illustrate the promise of our projection-based approach.
Increasing robotic wheelchair safety with collaborative control: Evidence from secondary task experiments

Powered wheelchairs play a vital role in bringing independence to the severely mobility-impaired. Our robotic wheelchair aims to assist users in driving safely, without undermining their capabilities or curtailing the natural development of their skills. An important research question is to determine the conditions under which shared control is most beneficial. In this paper, we describe an experiment, where a distracting secondary task caused the majority of participants to crash the wheelchair when driving without assistance. However, when they were assisted by our collaborative controller, not only did they drive safely, but they also increased their performance in the secondary task. We demonstrate that a degree of shared control is beneficial even to proficient drivers under certain circumstances, for instance when they are under a heightened workload.