Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization and analytical modeling of 4H-SİC VDMOSFET in the forward operation

4H-SiC MOSFET have been fully characterized in the forward conduction over the temperature range -30°C to 150°C. The distinct characteristics of SiC MOSFET and the Si MOSFET counterpart are compared and explained. A physics-based analytical model for SiC MOSFET has been developed by using the MAST language and simulated with SABER. The influences of the geometry (short channel effects), channel mobility, temperature and the threshold voltage on transistor properties have been taken into account. The parameters used to define the device were extracted from measurements using MATLAB and datasheet.
Virtual synchronous-machine control of voltage-source converters in a low-voltage microgrid

In order to facilitate the further integration of distributed renewable generation into existing power systems, enhanced control schemes for grid-tied power electronic converters are necessary to ensure non-synchronous power sources can provide power and support to the grid. The virtual-synchronous-machine concept proposes the use of control schemes to enable static generators to operate with the dynamics of rotating synchronous generators. In this paper, a control scheme is presented based on the principle of active-power synchronization to regulate the active power of a grid-tied voltage-source converter based on an emulation of the synchronous-machine swing equation. Design of a cascaded inner-loop voltage and resonant current control is presented to regulate the output voltage as specified via the outer-loop virtual-machine control scheme responsible for power regulation. The performance of this control scheme is investigated within the context of microgrid operation for the provision of active and reactive power to the system, and microgrid frequency support. Experimental validation is provided via the use of a 15 kVA three-phase VSC in a 90 kVA 400V microgrid.
Strategic manufacturing effectiveness

Hayes and Wheelwright, in postulating a more proactive strategic role of manufacturing, provided a four‐stage framework for the evaluation of manufacturing effectiveness. Reports on some results of an empirical study on the assessment of manufacturing effectiveness based on the Hayes‐Wheelwright (H‐W) framework. Highlights the operationalization of the H‐W framework as a strategic manufacturing audit tool and applies this tool to the manufacturing operations within a specific industry, namely the electronics industry. Aggregates and reports the results of the strategic manufacturing audits. In this way, provides an industry‐wide summary average of the strategic thinking and practices of manufacturing operations. This can then be used as the industry benchmark against which specific operations may be compared. Adds to the empirical database of manufacturing strategy and strategic manufacturing effectiveness as reported in the open literature. Provides a pragmatic strategic manufacturing audit tool that is based on the previously reported works of Hayes and Wheelwright.
Contexts in a paper recommendation system with collaborative filtering

Making personalized paper recommendations to users in an educational domain is not a trivial task of simply matching users’ interests with a paper topic. Therefore, we proposed a context-aware multidimensional paper recommendation system that considers additional user and paper features. Earlier experiments on experienced graduate students demonstrated the significance of this approach using modified collaborative filtering techniques. However, two key issues remain: (1) How would the modified filtering perform when target users are inexperienced undergraduate students who have a different pedagogical background and contextual information-seeking goals, such as task- and course-related goals, from those of graduate students? ; (2) Should we combine graduates and undergraduates in the same pool, or should we separate them? We conducted two studies aimed at addressing these issues and they showed that (1) the system can be effectively used for inexperienced learners; (2) recommendations are less effective for different learning groups (with different pedagogical features and learning goals) than they are for the same learning groups. Based on the results obtained from these studies, we suggest several context-aware filtering techniques for different learning scenarios.
Utilization bound revisited

Utilization bound is a well-known concept introduced in the seminal paper of Liu and Layland (1973), which provides a simple and practical way to test the schedulability of a real-time task set. The original utilization bound for the fixed-priority scheduler was given as a function of the number of tasks in the periodic task set. In this paper, we define the utilization bound as a function of the information about the task set. By making use of more than just the number of tasks, better utilization bound over the Liu and Layland bound can be achieved. We investigate in particular the bound given a set of periods for which it is still unknown if there is a polynomial algorithm for the exact bound. By investigating the relationships among the periods, we derive algorithms that yield better bounds than the Liu and Layland bound and the harmonic chain bound. Randomly generated task sets are tested against different bound algorithms. We also give a more intuitive proof of the harmonic chain bound and derive a computationally simpler algorithm.
Issuer Credit Quality and the Price of Asset Backed Securities

Following the financial market crisis of the past few years, critics and scholars have identified numerous problems related to all parties associated with securitization, including investors, rating agencies, issuers, underwriters, and borrowers. Some of this research focuses on the rating process itself. Adam Ashcraft, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and James Vickery (2009) show that observable credit fundamentals deteriorated relative to ratings between 2005 and 2007. Efraim Benmelech and Jennifer Dlugosz (2009) find that collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) rated by only one rating agency are more likely both to be downgraded and to suffer more severe downgrades than CDOs rated by more than one agency. Joshua Coval, Jakub Jurek, and Erik Stafford (2009a) point out that ratings of CDOs were highly unreliable due to models that were highly sensitive to even small errors in economic projections or losses and that underestimated the correlation of risks across various debt securities. Other research focuses on the conflicts of interest between parties who participate in the underlying processes of originating and bundling loans and collecting payments from delinquent borrowers. Chris Downing, Dwight Jaffee, and Nancy Wallace (2009) find that some residential mortgage backed securities trade in a market for lemons where originators can use private information to determine which mortgage Issuer Credit Quality and the Price of Asset Backed Securities
Image Semantic Extraction Using Latent Semantic Indexing on Image Retrieval Automatic-Annotation

This research proposed a new method Latent Semantic Indexing to overcome semantic problem on image retrieval based on automatic image annotation. Statistical machine translation used to automatically annotates the image. This approach considers image annotation as the translation of image regions to words, similar to the translation of text from one language to another. The "lexicon" for the translation is learned from large annotated image collections, which consist of images that are associated with text. Images are segmented into regions with grid segmentation. A pre-specified feature vector represents each region. The regions then clustered into a finite set of blobs. The correspondences between the blobs and the words are learned using Expectation Maximization algorithm. These correspondences are used to predict words associated with whole images (auto-annotation). The auto-annotation performance is evaluated using Normalized Score (ENS) algorithm. The experimental results show that the average precision of clause queries achieved best result than word queries, 0.544 and 0.251 for clause queries and word queries respectively. The proposed method of latent semantic indexing succeeds to exploit semantic value of automatic-annotation-based image retrieval.
Hedonic prices and multitask incentives

Human tasks are often multidimensional. Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991) concluded that ghigh-powered h incentives cannot work unless all dimensions of these tasks are observable in the firm. However, as this study shows, if the firm can observe the price vector of its products in the market, distinguish each dimension of the price vector, and connect the information with signals from workers in the firm, then the use of multitask ghigh-powered h incentives becomes feasible. Product differentiation with committed quality satisfies those conditions, which has been practiced by Japanese, but not by Western, manufacturing for a century.
The Influence of Power Shifts in Data Collection and Analysis Stages: A Focus on Qualitative Research Interview

This paper analyzes the power relation between the interviewer and the interviewee in the qualitative research interview methodology. The paper sets out to grapple with the extent to which the dynamisms in power shifts influence data collection and analysis in the interview methodology. The exploration of power shifts in the qualitative research interview facilitates comprehensive understanding of the nuances of the data by providing more information about the interviewee and the interviewer. This enhances a deeper discerning into the research process, and the topics discussed. This paper also elaborates on how interviewees as well as interviewers display their countermeasures to each other in the course of the interview situation and presents a greater understanding of the power dynamics that exist between the interviewer and interviewee. Power asymmetry seems to be an exasperating circumstance in the interview methodology as pointed out by the discussions in this article. This article also discusses practical recommendations for minimizing the power dynamics during data analysis in the qualitative research interview.
Innate immune response by ficolin binding in apoptotic placenta is associated with the clinical syndrome of preeclampsia.

BACKGROUND Unidentified circulating factors derived from placenta are thought to be responsible for the exaggerated systemic inflammation leading to preeclampsia. Our aim was to identify the circulating factors present in preeclampsia and to investigate their relationship to the underlying systemic immune response responsible for the associated clinical manifestations. METHODS We obtained blood samples from pregnant women with and without preeclampsia and performed comparative proteomic analyses to identify the abnormal circulating factors by 2-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight for protein separation and identification. In placentas from preeclamptic pregnancies, we evaluated the potential role of the candidate proteins identified by Western and immunohistochemical analysis. We also used proinflammatory cytokine antibody arrays to investigate local and systemic immune responses. RESULTS We found that ficolins, the pattern-recognition proteins involved in the lectin-complement pathway, were differentially expressed in plasma from preeclamptic pregnancies. Ficolins were present in low concentrations in plasma but at high concentrations in the placenta, particularly in syncytiotrophoblasts undergoing apoptosis. The binding of ficolins in apoptotic trophoblasts induced innate immunity through local and systemic cytokine activation and correlated with the clinical manifestation of preeclampsia. CONCLUSIONS We identified specific in vivo circulating factors derived from the placenta that are responsible for the local immune recognition and systemic inflammatory response in the development of clinical manifestations of preeclampsia. These findings may have predictive value and also therapeutic applications to lessen adverse clinical outcomes of preeclampsia.
Identification in Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper we address the concept of how nodes in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) should be identified and authenticated. After discussing related works and the concept of identities and identifiers in MANETs, we present the MANET-ID system which can be used to reliably identify nodes in an ad hoc network with properties like uniqueness, irreversible ties with the identified object, immutability throughout the lifetime of the object and non-transferability. We also evaluate the overhead and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our approach. We conclude the paper with a summary and outlook to future work.
Professors’ Perspectives on Educational Cohorts

: Cohort educational models (CEM) are used to support students in graduate degree completion. Studies around CEMs focus mainly on student benefits. Voices of professors who organize and ultimately teach educational cohorts have been missing from this dialog. This study seeks to uncover professors’ perspectives on CEMs. The study examines professors’ perspectives on the cohort educational model (CEM). A cohort is a group of students bound together by a program of study that takes the majority of coursework together (Barnett, Basom, Yerkes, & Norris, 2000; Miller & Irby, 1999; Potthoff, Fredrickson, Batenhorst, & Tracy, 2001). To increase degree completion success rates, CEMs in higher education are placing students in groups, moving them through coursework together (Barnett & Cafarella, 1992). and asking
Error Detection and Copyrights Protection Scheme for MPEG-2 Based on Channel Coded Watermark Signal

This paper proposes an error detection and copyrights protection scheme for MPEG-2 video based on digital watermarking algorithm using channel coding. The watermark signal is generated by applying copyrights information of video data to convolutional encoder, and it is embedded into every block in intra frames while encoding to MPEG-2 video stream. In the decoder, the embedded signal is detected from each block of intra frames, and the detected signal is used to localize errors in the video stream. The detected signal can also be used to claim ownership of the video data by decoding it to copyrights information. In this stage, errors in the detected watermark signal can be corrected by channel decoder. Experimental results show that the proposed method can detect errors in the video stream while decoding and reconstruct copyrights information more correctly than the conventional method
Comparative Proteomics Reveals Strain-Specific β-TrCP Degradation via Rotavirus NSP1 Hijacking a Host Cullin-3-Rbx1 Complex

Rotaviruses (RVs) are the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in young children, accounting for half a million deaths annually worldwide. RV encodes non-structural protein 1 (NSP1), a well-characterized interferon (IFN) antagonist, which facilitates virus replication by mediating the degradation of host antiviral factors including IRF3 and β-TrCP. Here, we utilized six human and animal RV NSP1s as baits and performed tandem-affinity purification coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry to comprehensively characterize NSP1-host protein interaction network. Multiple Cullin-RING ubiquitin ligase (CRL) complexes were identified. Importantly, inhibition of cullin-3 (Cul3) or RING-box protein 1 (Rbx1), by siRNA silencing or chemical perturbation, significantly impairs strain-specific NSP1-mediated β-TrCP degradation. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that NSP1 localizes to the Golgi with the host Cul3-Rbx1 CRL complex, which targets β-TrCP and NSP1 for co-destruction at the proteasome. Our study uncovers a novel mechanism that RV employs to promote β-TrCP turnover and provides molecular insights into virus-mediated innate immunity inhibition.
Investigating How Participation In a Techonology-Based Project Has Influenced Education Faculty Members' Beliefs and Practices with Technology Integration: Factors That Influence Faculty Technology Integration and Implications for Faculty's Integration of Technology

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Capital Flows in the Euro Area

We investigate the behaviour of gross capital flows and net capital flows for euro area member countries. We highlight the extraordinary boom-bust cycles in both gross flows and net flows since 2003. We also show that the reversal in net capital flows during the crisis has been very costly in terms of macroeconomic and financial outcomes for the high-deficit countries. Finally, we describe the reforms that can improve macro-financial stability across the euro area.
Haptic rendering of rigid body collisions

This paper addresses the haptic rendering of rigid body collisions. A new method is proposed in which collision rendering is achieved in two steps. First, the haptic simulation uses a contact model whose stiffness is infinite during collisions and finite during sustained contact. This model is combined with a passive collision resolution scheme to compute collision impulses when new contacts arise. Second, the impulses are applied to the user's hand by a controller that coordinates forces and positions between the virtual environment and the haptic interface. Haptic rendering of rigid body collisions imparts forces that generate large hand accelerations when new contacts arise without requiring increased contact stiffness and damping. Experiments with a planar rigid virtual world validate the proposed approach.
Patterns of Clinical Functioning Over Time for Young People Served in a System of Care

Few studies have examined the longitudinal impact that systems of care (SOCs) have on the clinical functioning of young people. This study investigated patterns of clinical improvement over time in an SOC and explored the degree to which demographic characteristics and referral source affected those patterns. Data were gathered at the time of enrollment in the SOC and collected at 6-month intervals, up to 36 months. Clinical change was assessed with three measurement tools, using hierarchical linear modeling to examine change patterns longitudinally. Results indicated that there were several clinical differences at the time of enrollment that were associated with specific demographic characteristics or referral source. Findings also indicated that clinically and statistically significant improvements occurred over time, with little regard to participants' demographic characteristics or source of referral. These findings lend support to the potential of SOCs to improve youth outcomes and suggest that such improvements appear regardless of individual-level differences among participants.
Improving Process Quality Using Factorial Design and Taguchi Methods

In this paper, factorial design experiments and Taguchi methods have been used to monitor the quality of the incoming raw material, product quality during processing, and the final product quality of a process industry. The data collected and results obtained are presented and discussed. The analysis made on the experimental results provided information to improve the quality of the process industry in all three phases with cost effectiveness.
Desulfovibrio sp. Genes Involved in the Respiration of Sulfate during Metabolism of Hydrogen and Lactate

ABSTRACT To develop a better understanding of respiration by sulfate-reducing bacteria, we examined transcriptional control of respiratory genes during growth with lactate or hydrogen as an electron donor. RNA extracts of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans subsp. aestuarii were analyzed by using random arbitrarily primed PCR. RNA was reverse transcribed under low-stringency conditions with a set of random primers, and candidate cDNAs were cloned, sequenced, and characterized by BLAST analysis. Putative differentially expressed transcripts were confirmed by Northern blot analysis. Interestingly, dissimilatory bisulfite reductase was upregulated in the presence of hydrogen. To link these transcriptional changes to the physiology of sulfate-reducing bacteria, sulfide was measured during growth of several strains of Desulfovibrio on hydrogen or lactate, and this revealed that hydrogen-grown cells produced more sulfide per unit of cell mass than lactate-grown cells. Transcription of other redox proteins was characterized by Northern blotting to determine whether or not they were also transcribed to higher levels in hydrogen-grown cells. Growth on lactate produced greater transcription of [NiFe] hydrogenase. H2-grown cells transcribed the adenylylsulfate reductase b subunit and HmcA to higher levels. The results we describe here provide new insight into the continuing debate over how Desulfovibrio species utilize redox components to generate membrane potential and to channel electrons to sulfate, the final electron acceptor.
Masked Beamforming in the Presence of Energy-Harvesting Eavesdroppers

This paper considers a multiple-input single-output downlink system consisting of one multiantenna transmitter, one single-antenna information receiver (IR), and multiple single-antenna energy-harvesting receivers (ERs) for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. The design is to keep the message secret to the ERs while maximizing the information rate at the IR and meeting the energy harvesting constraints at the ERs. Technically, our objective is to optimize the information-bearing beam and artificial noise energy beam for maximizing the secrecy rate of the IR subject to individual harvested energy constraints of the ERs for the case where the ERs can collude to perform joint decoding in an attempt to illicitly decode the secret message to the IR. As a by-product, we also solve the total power minimization problem subject to secrecy rate and energy harvesting constraints. Both scenarios of perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter are addressed. For the imperfect CSI case, we study both eavesdroppers' channel covariance-based and worst case-based designs. Using semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques, we show that there always exists a rank-one optimal transmit covariance solution for the IR. Furthermore, if the SDR results in a higher rank solution, we propose an efficient algorithm to always construct an equivalent rank-one optimal solution. Computer simulations are carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms.
Two-frame 3D particle tracking

A whole-field three-dimensional (3D) particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) tool for diagnostics in fluid mechanics is presented. Specifically, it is demonstrated why and when PTV is the natural choice in 3D applications compared to particle image velocimetry (PIV). Three different tracking methods are investigated, namely the nearest neighbour, the neural network and the relaxation method. In order to demonstrate the use of PTV for 3D applications, the selected tracking schemes are implemented for use with the defocusing digital particle image velocimetry (DDPIV) technique. The performance of the tracking algorithms is evaluated based on synthetic 3D information. Furthermore, the potential benefit of a merging between the PIV and PTV approaches is explored within the DDPIV framework. The results show that the relaxation tracking method is the most robust and efficient, while the combined PIV/PTV analysis brings significant improvements solely with the neural network scheme. In terms of errors, PTV is found to be more sensitive to particle reconstruction errors than the DDPIV cross-correlation analysis.