Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nonlinear robust dynamic surface controller design for twin rotor control system

This paper demonstrates a nonlinear robust controller design for the twin rotor control system (TRCS). TRCS is a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system having nonlinear, unstable and coupled dynamics. The proposed controller is designed using dynamic surface control (DSC) technique. The DSC is advance version of integral Backstepping control approach through the use of dynamic low pass filters. The closed loop stability analysis of the TRCS plant with proposed controller has been exhibited in the sense of Lyapunov theory. Finally, the simulation studies have been done to demonstrate the suitability of proposed scheme.
PERFORMANCE of TWO-DIMENSIONAL DATA MODELS for I/O LIMITED NON-NUMERIC APPLICATIONS

It was not too long ago that designers were looking to dedicated hardware to solve the “I/O problem”. However, despite the claimed improvements of such back-end processors, with few exceptions, they never reached commercial viability. With today’s exponential growth in data, there is growing concern that we are once again reaching a “memory wall” and there is talk of intelligent processing by I/O. While the basic I/O performance characteristics are governed by physics, we can adjust how we view, store, and process data so as to be more in consonance with the I/O devices themselves. Key factors are data granularity and achieving synchronous operation. This paper examines the performance issues of non-numeric applications that are primarily I/O bound. By using a two dimensional data model, logical topology of data is physically preserved on disk. This enables the disk to operate more in a synchronous fashion with granular data access. Using several benchmarks, we contrast the performance of the 2D model with a lineal model and find that improvements are on the order of 10-100X and roughly in proportion to the granularity of the data. By using intelligent controllers, each controlling a set of spindles, a high degree of parallelism can be achieved without the overhead usually associated with parallel architectures.
Analysis of Trends of the Types of Pesticide Used, Residues and Related Factors among Farmers in the Largest Vegetable Producing Area in the Philippines

The objective of study is to provide an analysis of data trends on the type of pesticide used, exposure factors, and the pesticide-related concerns among the farmers from 2005 to 2010 in one of the largest vegetable producing areas in the Philippines. This is to determine and analyze changes that have occurred for the last five years in order to provide necessary basis in promoting safe usage of pesticides. It is shown in the studies that the most commonly used type of pesticide was Tamaron (methamidophos) which is an organophosphate. The top five pesticide-related symptoms confirm findings in other studies. The risk factors to pesticide exposure were also identified in the reviewed studies such as improper mixing and loading of pesticides, and re-entering previously sprayed area. Pesticide residues were also found in vegetables, soil and water samples. This points to environmental contamination due to pesticide. It is suggested that government agencies implement programs on monitoring, surveillance, information dissemination, and training on proper use of pesticides, and seek alternative farming such as organically grown vegetables, or use of integrated pest management as well as good agricultural practices.
Integrating Ethics and Responsibility Into Organizational Communication Research

Discussions of ethics are typically addressed at the very end of our organizational textbooks, in gray sidebars that students and faculty alike tend to skip, or in specific, ethics-focused journals and textbooks. When and how to cover ethics in our organizational classes is a dilemma; should we have a separate week on ethics at the beginning or the end of the semester, should it be explicitly addressed each week, and/or should we teach an additional course on ethics in organizational communication? We face similar questions in our research and conferences. Where and how should we take up ethical questions and implications? In this essay, I highlight some of the ways we have been addressing ethics in our field, considering some of the reasons for these stances based on themes from the recent conference, while advocating for a more integrative consideration of ethics in our scholarship. In a stance befitting a forum, I offer more questions here than answers, hoping that sharing these issues and questions will inspire future research across our field.
Evaluating the use of IT by the third party logistics in South East Asia to achieve competitive advantage and its future trend

As the number of using 3PL providers are increasing rapidly in recent years, 3PL providers play a major role in the logistics industry. Due to customers demands are raising and changing, it has facilitated 3PL providers to invest IT systems that could meet customer requirements and create competitive advantage. The use of IT systems could assist 3PL providers to achieve supply chain visibility and enhance supply chain collaboration with business partners. In this paper, it is mainly focus on the Europe and Far East 3PL providers in terms of current and future IT systems, IT motivators and barriers, as well as the future supply chain demands that address by IT systems. The common IT system that implemented in both regions is information technology, which is mainly used to collaborate and share information with supply chain partners. Some of the common motivations and barriers were existed and 3PL providers need to be understood. Given the future demands of IT implementation and supply chain collaboration, IT systems such as RFID and integration systems would be strongly focus in the future. The suggestion about the advanced integration system such as business process management (BPM) could be the next key IT systems in the future logistics industry.
Tuning three-term controllers for power station processes

This paper presents a new approach for tuning three-term control loops encountered in power station processes. The proposed approach is based on the Pseudo-Derivative Feedback (PDF) control configuration. Simple methods are presented for tuning the PDF controller for dead-time processes. The methods are based on appropriate manipulations of the exponential dead-time term in the denominator of the closed-loop transfer function for a servo problem, and, subsequently, on appropriately matching the coefficients of corresponding powers of s in the numerators of the resulting transfer functions and those in their denominators. This technique gives simple algebraic systems of equations for the controller parameters. Simulation results obtained from their application on power station processes show that our methods provide improved performance as compared to known PI/PID controller tuning methods as well as sufficient robustness against parametric uncertainty.
An Ultra-Wideband 7-Bit 5 Gsps ADC Implemented in Submicron InP HBT Technology

An ultra-wideband 7-bit 5 Gsps analog-to-digital converter (ADC), fabricated in a 4-level interconnect, 0.8 um InP HBT technology, is presented. This monolithic ADC achieves 6 effective number of bits (ENoB) Nyquist performance at a sample rate of 5 Gsps. Furthermore, an ENoB performance of greater than 5.5 is maintained at analog input frequencies up to 7.5 GHz. This effective resolution-bandwidth product performance is significantly higher than any other previously reported monolithic ADC with sample rate ges 3 Gsps.
Self-fulfilling Fire-sales, Bank Runs and Contagion: Implications for Bank Capital and Regulatory Transparency *

The paper presents a model where fire-sales and bank runs are self-fulfilling and mutually reinforcing. When creditors anticipate low prices for a bank’s asset sales, a run is triggered, which generates fire-sales and the corresponding collapses in asset prices, thus fully justifying the panics of creditors. The reasoning extends to contagion when banks have common risk exposures. As one bank fails, asset buyers become more pessimistic and perceive all banks’ assets less valuable. The decline in asset prices precipitates runs onto all other banks. Hence runs and fire-sales fuel each other, a phenomenon that explains the extent of sub-prime crisis in spite of the small amount of sub-prime lending in the total credit supply. The model delivers two policy implications. (1) Since a run on a well-capitalized bank signals unusually high risk and can strongly reduce asset prices, high capital can have unintended consequences on bank illiquidity and contagion. (2) Regulators should be very careful about disclosing information on banks’ common risk: While favorable opinions save illiquid banks, acknowledging a crisis will cause contagion due to buyers’ pessimistic belief updating.
“We're All in the Same Boat”: A Review of the Benefits of Dragon Boat Racing for Women Living with Breast Cancer

This narrative review summarizes findings from quantitative and qualitative research literature that has been published over the past 15 years since an initial, community-based pilot study first challenged the long-held medical belief that vigorous, upper-body exercise would lead to lymphedema in women who were at risk due to treatments for breast cancer. Dragon boat racing originated in China more than 2000 years ago and has become a popular recreational and competitive support around the world. From the advent of the world's first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team, Abreast in a Boat launched in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1996, there are now more than 140 breast cancer survivor dragon boat teams paddling and competing in 12 different countries. The wealth of quantitative and qualitative research that has ensued since that pilot study further supports the initial hypothesis that resistance exercise, for example, dragon boat paddling, is not only safe for women recovering from conventional breast cancer therapies but also shows that dragon boating has been embraced as a complementary exercise therapy by the cancer survivors participating in this magical sport.
Direct inverse deformation field approach to pelvic-area symmetric image registration

This paper presents a novel technique for a consistent symmetric deformable image registration based on an accurate method for a direct inversion of a large motion model deformation field. The proposed image registration algorithm maintains one-to-one mapping between registered images by symmetrically warping them to another image. This makes the final estimation of forward and backward deformation fields anatomically plausible and applicable to adaptive prostate radiotherapy. The quantitative validation of the method is performed on magnetic resonance data obtained for pelvis area. The experiments demonstrate the improved robustness in terms of inverse consistency error and estimation accuracy of prostate position in comparison to the previously proposed methods.
Integrating Action Calculi and AgentSpeak: Closing the Gap

Existing action calculi provide rich, declarative formalisms for reasoning about actions. BDI-based programming languages like AgentSpeak, on the other hand, are procedural and geared towards practical applications of cognitive agents. In this paper, we close the gap between these two lines of research by integrating action calculi and AgentSpeak programs. Specifically, we develop a new and purely declarative semantics for AgentSpeak, which paves the way for combining this language with any suitable action calculus in a strictly modular fashion. As the main technical result, we prove that the new declarative semantics is correct wrt. the standard operational semantics for AgentSpeak. This provides the basis for a modular integration of a BDI-based agent programming language with sophisticated methods for reasoning about actions.
Metformin inhibits proliferation of human keratinocytes through a mechanism associated with activation of the MAPK signaling pathway

In the present study, the effects of metformin on the proliferation of human immortalized keratinocytes (HaCaTs) and the underlying mechanisms were investigated. HaCaT cells in the logarithmic growth phase were treated with 50 mM metformin for 24, 48 and 72 h. Cell morphology after 24 h of treatment was observed under a microscope. Cell proliferation was detected using a colorimetric cell proliferation and cytotoxicity assay kit. Western blot analyses were performed to detect the protein phosphorylation levels of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and extracellular signal-related kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2). Metformin treatment resulted in morphological changes of the HaCaT cells. The survival rates of HaCaT cells treated with metformin were 36.18, 12.70 and 10.12% at 24, 48 and 72 h, respectively. As the treatment time extended, the survival rates of HaCaT cells decreased. Western blot analysis results showed that the mean level of phosphorylated (p)-AMPK in the HaCaT cells without metformin treatment was 2.856±0.323. However, the mean p-AMPK level following metformin treatment for 24 h increased to 5.198±0.625, indicating a significant difference between these two groups (P<0.05). The mean absorbance ratio of p-ERK1/2 was 7.550±1.087 for the untreated cells, but the levels in cells following metformin treatment for 24 h increased to 10.430±1.217, indicating a significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). In conclusion, metformin treatment upregulated the levels of p-AMPK and p-ERK1/2 in HaCaT cells, and significantly inhibited HaCaT cell proliferation in vitro by a mechanism associated with activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway.
Classification of web pages on attractiveness: A supervised learning approach

Random surfers spend very little time on a web page. If the most important web page content fails to attract his attention within the short time span, he will move away to some other page, thus defeating the purpose of the web page designer. In order to predict if the contents of a web page will catch a random surfer's attention or not, we propose a machine learning based approach to classify web pages into “bad” and “not bad” classes, where the “bad” class implies poor attention drawing ability. We propose to divide web page contents into “objects”, which are coherent regions of web page conveying the same information, to develop the classifier approach. We surveyed 100 web pages sampled from the Internet to identify the type and frequency of objects used in web page design. From our survey, we identified six types of objects that are most important in determining the class of a web page, in terms of its attention drawing capability. We used the WEKA tool to implement the machine learning approach. Two different strategies of percentage split and three different strategies of cross validation are used to check for accuracy of the classifier. We have experimented with 65 algorithms supported by WEKA and found that the algorithms RBF network and Random subspace, among the 65, gives the best performance, with about 83% accuracy.
A 1-THz superconducting hot-electron-bolometer receiver for astronomical observations

In this paper, we describe a superconducting hot-electron-bolometer mixer receiver developed to operate in atmospheric windows between 800-1300 GHz. The receiver uses a waveguide mixer element made of 3-4-nm-thick NbN film deposited over crystalline quartz. This mixer yields double-sideband receiver noise temperatures of 1000 K at around 1.0 THz, and 1600 K at 1.26 THz, at an IF of 3.0 GHz. The receiver was successfully tested in the laboratory using a gas cell as a spectral line test source. It is now in use on the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory terahertz test telescope in northern Chile.
Transdifferentiation is a driving force of regeneration in Halisarca dujardini (Demospongiae, Porifera)

The ability to regenerate is widespread in the animal kingdom, but the regenerative capacities and mechanisms vary widely. To understand the evolutionary history of the diverse regeneration mechanisms, the regeneration processes must be studied in early-evolved metazoans in addition to the traditional bilaterian and cnidarian models. For this purpose, we have combined several microscopy techniques to study mechanisms of regeneration in the demosponge Halisarca dujardini. The objectives of this work are to detect the cells and morphogenetic processes involved in Halisarca regeneration. We show that in Halisarca there are three main sources of the new exopinacoderm during regeneration: choanocytes, archaeocytes and (rarely) endopinacocytes. Here we show that epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET) occur during Halisarca regeneration. EMT is the principal mechanism during the first stages of regeneration, soon after the injury. Epithelial cells from damaged and adjacent intact choanocyte chambers and aquiferous canals assume mesenchymal phenotype and migrate into the mesohyl. Together with archaeocytes, these cells form an undifferentiated cell mass beneath of wound, which we refer to as a blastema. After the blastema is formed, MET becomes the principal mechanism of regeneration. Altogether, we demonstrate that regeneration in demosponges involves a variety of processes utilized during regeneration in other animals (e.g., cell migration, dedifferentiation, blastema formation) and points to the particular importance of transdifferentiation in this process. Further studies will be needed to uncover the molecular mechanisms governing regeneration in sponges.
Political communication of crime

This thesis seeks to develop our understanding of the contemporary crime communication landscape. While this landscape is considered in its constituent parts, including specific features of current British politics, the evolving media sphere and the voice of the public, this thesis argues for a conceptualization of this realm that grasps its fluid and dynamic character. Original research is conducted through case studies of the 2010 UK General Election, the Phone Hacking Scandal and the 2011 Riots. Discourse analysis is employed in order to enhance our awareness of supralinguistic behaviour and of the play of power in the construction of crime narratives. This is contrasted with influential current accounts of ‘populism’ which, it is argued here, tend to be unduly deterministic and to err towards the dystopian. The research suggests that structural shifts in the media landscape, specifically the recent ubiquity of new media coinciding with an undermining of the singular tabloid narrative, have enabled a redistribution of power in the symbolic construction of crime which can make it harder for political actors to capture the crime question for populist purposes. Furthermore, this shift has empowered the public voice and has infused political debate with a chaotic plurality of views. Nevertheless, the symbolic weight of crime issues remains prominent in this landscape and Randall Collins’ Interaction Ritual Chains (2004) is employed to add a microsociological picture of the escalation from small scale narrative to broad righteous anger. This requires an adaptation of this model to address interactions that occur outside the context of physical co-presence. Such perspectives on the plurality of mediated communication today both broaden and update our grasp of the political communication of crime and in so doing argue for a degree of optimism concerning the scope for democratic debate about criminal justice issues.
Smoking-related self-concepts and value expressive messages: Effects on the determinants of smoking cessation

Despite well-known risks, millions of Americans smoke cigarettes. Researchers have called for new approaches to smoking cessation messages that persuade smokers to quit their habit. Through a series of five web-based studies, this dissertation examines the relationship between smoking-related self-concepts and determinants of smoking cessation. Two smoking-related self-concepts are considered: the smoker selfconcept (SSC) and the abstainer self-concept (ASC). This dissertation answers whether value-expressive messages with ASC or SSC frames have potential to increase smoking cessation intentions, self-efficacy, and attitudes. The first study uses a cross-sectional design to describe the relationship between the smoking-related selfconcepts and the determinants of smoking cessation. The second study pilot tests messages with ASC and SSC frames and examines their priming and persuasion effects. The third study explores value priorities among smokers and identifies values with the highest and lowest priority. The fourth and fifth studies pilot test ASC and SSC frame messages with values content to ensure that the messages adequately express their respective values. The final study is a web-based survey experiment with a two frame (SSC x ASC) by two value (high priority vs low priority) design with a no message control group. Results provide evidence that smoking-related self-concepts explain variation in the determinants of smoking cessation above and beyond the effects of other smoking-related individual characteristics. ASC and SSC message frames have potential to prime these constructs. Smokers place the highest priority on the value of self-direction, and the least priority on the value of power. Messages that combine an ASC frame with the high priority value of self-direction increase the determinants of smoking cessation among individuals who have low identification with the SSC, but may have unintended boomerang effects on individuals who identity highly with the SSC. The findings support the role of smoking-related self-concepts as individual difference variables that moderate the effects of smoking cessation messages on the determinants of smoking cessation behaviors. Implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research are proposed. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Communication First Advisor Joseph N. Cappella This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/edissertations/2001
Graph Based Semi-supervised Non-negative Matrix Factorization for Document Clustering

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) approximates a non-negative matrix by the product of two low-rank matrices and achieves good performance in clustering. Recently, semi-supervised NMF (SS-NMF) further improves the performance by incorporating part of the labels of few samples into NMF. In this paper, we proposed a novel graph based SS-NMF (GSS-NMF). For each sample, GSS-NMF minimizes its distances to the same labeled samples and maximizes the distances against different labeled samples to incorporate the discriminative information. Since both labeled and unlabeled samples are embedded in the same reduced dimensional space, the discriminative information from the labeled samples is successfully transferred to the unlabeled samples, and thus it greatly improves the clustering performance. Since the traditional multiplicative update rule converges slowly, we applied the well-known projected gradient method to optimizing GSS-NMF and the proposed algorithm can be applied to optimizing other manifold regularized NMF efficiently. Experimental results on two popular document datasets, i.e., Reuters21578 and TDT-2, show that GSS-NMF outperforms the representative SS-NMF algorithms.