Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Moving Object Imaging from Compressively Sensed SAR Data in the Presence of Dictionary Mismatch

We present compressed sensing (CS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) moving target imaging in the presence of dictionary mismatch. Unlike existing work on CS SAR moving target imaging, we analyze the sensitivity of the imaging process to the mismatch and present an iterative scheme to cope with dictionary mismatch. We analyze and investigate the effects of mismatch in range and azimuth positions, as well as range velocity. The analysis reveals that the reconstruction error increases with the mismatch and range velocity mismatch is the major cause of error. Instead of using traditional Laplacian prior (LP), we use Gaussian-Bernoulli prior (GBP) for CS SAR imaging mismatch. The results show that the performance of GBP is much better than LP. We also provide the Cramer-Rao Bounds (CRB) that demonstrate theoretically the lowering of mean square error between actual and reconstructed result by using the GBP. We show that a combination of an upsampled dictionary and the GBP for reconstruction can deal with position mismatch effectively. We further present an iterative scheme to deal with the range velocity mismatch. Numerical and simulation examples demonstrate the accuracy of the analysis as well as the effectiveness of the proposed upsampling and iterative scheme.
Wide‐band ÷3 injection locked frequency divider in 0.35 μm SiGe BiCMOS

A wide‐band ÷3 injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) has been proposed, and it is based on a single‐stage voltage‐controlled oscillator with active‐inductor and HBT diodes, and was fabricated in the 0.35 μm silicon‐germanium 3P3M BiCMOS technology. The ILFD has wide operation range and was performed by injecting a differential signal to the bases of the injection HBTs. At the supply voltage VDD = 1.8 V, the oscillation frequency of the ILFD with two tuning voltages is tunable from 4.17 to 2.12 GHz, and at the incident power of 0 dBm, the ÷3 operation range is 5.93 GHz, from the incident frequency 6.3 to 12.23 GHz. The die area is 0.59 × 0.63 mm2. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:609–611, 2011; View this article at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25771
Intelligent Bearing Diagnostics Using Wavelet Support Vector Machine

This paper deals with implementation of intelligent system for fault diagnostics of rolling element bearing. In this work, the proposed intelligent system was basically created using support vector machine (SVM) due to its excellent performance in classification task. Moreover, SVM was modified by introducing wavelet function as kernel for mapping input data into feature space. Input data were vibration signals acquired from bearings through standard data acquisition process. Statistical features were then calculated from bearing signals, and extraction of salient features was conducted using component analysis. Results of fault diagnostics are shown by observing classification of bearing conditions which gives plausible accuracy in testing of the proposed system.
THIN-WALLED BEAM-COLUMNS. I: SEQUENTIAL LOADING AND MOMENT GRADIENT TESTS

This paper presents tests on thin-walled I-sections in combined compression and minor-axis bending. The tests were conducted in a rig consisting of two interlinked actuators applying axial force and end moment. Tests were performed using sequential application of axial force and moment, as well as proportional loading with a moment gradient. The results are compared with the results of proportionally loaded members described in a companion paper. It is shown that sequential loading produces beam-column strengths that are greater than or equal to those obtained using proportional loading. It is also shown that the beam-column strength of members loaded with a moment gradient exceeds that of beam-columns in uniform bending. The latter result is attributed to the effect of greater amplitude modulation of the local buckling deformations in beam-columns with moment gradient.
Development of Residential Building Stock and Population Databases and Modeling the Residential Occupancy Rate for Iran

AbstractSeismic risk mitigation planning relies on the assessment of possible losses because of destructive scenario earthquakes. In turn, realistic risk assessment procedures must be supported by an adequate element at risk data sets. In this research, two major investigations in Iran examine (1) the development and augmentation of fine resolution population and building databases through data fusion and modeling, and (2) the derivation of the residential occupancy rate for a 24-h period for a normal working day in large cities. The basic population and building data sources are obtained from the national census program, which exhibits very limited spatial details. A fine resolution global dataset is fused together with the census data to gain much detailed spatial information. The residential occupancy modeling is completed according to the distribution of the residential population during normal working days. The empirical modeling was completed using two sets of temporal data for both census and traff.
Acute effects of barefoot, minimal shoes and running shoes on lower limb mechanics in rear and forefoot strike runners

Barefoot or minimal footwear running is currently a highly debated topic among runners and researchers. Several footwear companies have developed minimal running footwear to simulate barefoot running but few studies have compared minimal footwear to barefoot and shoes during running. The primary goal of this study was to compare acute changes in three-dimensional (3D) ground reaction forces (GRFs) and lower limb kinematics and kinetics of habitually shod rearfoot strike (RFS) and forefoot strike (FFS) runners between minimal shoes (MSH), barefoot and neutral cushion running shoes (SH). Lower extremity joint biomechanical variables of RFS and FFS runners were analysed using a 3D motion capture system and a force platform during overground running in barefoot, MSH and running shoes. Barefoot and MSH showed a more anterior foot strike than shoes. The loading rate of the impact peak GRF was greater in barefoot and MSH than in shoes. MSH showed greater ankle plantarflexor moment and negative power in early stance compared to shoes, which indicates greater eccentric plantarflexor muscle involvement in MSH than in shoes. Running shoes had greater peak knee extensor moment, early stance eccentric knee power and late stance concentric knee power compared to MSH and barefoot indicating less knee joint involvement. The current findings only pertain to acute changes between shoe conditions, and therefore training interventions in minimal footwear are warranted to further understand the adaptation effects of shod to barefoot or RFS to FFS running on lower limb biomechanics and running performance.
Habitual Dietary Intakes of Fat were Associated with Apelin Gene Expression in Visceral and Subcutaneous Adipose Tissues

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate the association of habitual intake of total fatty acids, saturated-, monounsaturated-, polyunsaturated fatty acids, n-3, n-6, and n-9 fatty acids with apelin gene expression in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue. Methods: We obtained visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues from 179 participants (71 non-obese and 105 obese), who had undergone open abdominal surgery. Dietary intake information was gathered with a valid and reliable food frequency questionnaire. The mRNA expression of apelin gene was analyzed by Real-Time PCR. Results: Apelin gene expression was found to be more increased in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissues in obese than in non-obese participants. Dietary intake of n-3 and polyunsaturated fatty acids was associated with apelin gene expression in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissues among all categories of weight status after adjusting for total energy intake. Among obese individuals, visceral adipose tissue apelin mRNA levels were associated with total fat intake. Conclusion: Higher apelin gene expression in adipocytes had an association with habitual intake of total fat and n-3 fatty acids in obese and non-obese individuals, indicating a determinative role of quality and quantity of fatty acid intake in a regular diet in adipose tissue adipokine.
Automatic Music Transcription dedicated to Chinese Traditional Plucked String Instrument Pipa using Multi-string Probabilistic Latent Component Analysis Models

The Probabilistic Latent Component Analysis (PLCA) provides a flexible and highly interpretable framework to model a diversity of music features such as note event specific features (e.g. pitch, duration, amplitude, frequency shifting) and higherlevel knowledge like instrument timbre for Automatic Music Transcription (AMT). In this paper, Multi-String PLCA (MSPLCA) is proposed and allows to model the timbre of individual string characterized by different thickness and materials for polyphonic music transcription of pipa, the head of Chinese traditional plucked string instruments, which is barely studied in the Music Information Retrieval (MIR) community. A dataset, composing 9 famous pieces of Chinese folk music and the notelevel annotation, is created with help of musicians and music experts. As a result, MS-PLCA and its 2 variants adapted to the pipa acoustic features reach AMT performance similar to those found in literature for other instrument transcription. Finally, we illustrate the importance of modeled acoustic features over 2 most common playing techniques, vibrato and tremolo reflecting the periodic pitch and amplitude modulation.
On the Determination of the Crossing-Point Temperatures for Evaluating Reactivity of Solids

In this paper, we study the physical basis of the crossing-point temperature (CPT) techniques and seek guidelines for attaining reliable evaluation on the kinetic parameters of the exothermic reactions that occurred during the self-heating of solids. By numerically simulating the thermal response of a solid sample placed in a convective thermal environment, the variation in the trend of the enthalpy change term together with the heat generation term in the sample central elementary volume was monitored, which allowed a close observation on the formation of a CPT. It was found that a true CPT is the transition temperature at which the heat transfer from the surroundings to the central neighborhood goes into reverse. The CPT values measured during practical testing may be altered by experimental settings for finding equal temperatures between the sample centre and a reference point, which is more evident at the conditions of enlarged sample sizes and elevated oven temperatures. Relaxation on the criterion of the equality between the enthalpy change term and the heat generation term in the central elementary volume yielded a theoretical correlation for determining the maximum distance for the reference temperature sensor to be placed in order to perform reliable measurement of a CPT. This correlation is in excellent agreement with the experimental settings for the reference point adopted by various research groups.
A 300 kHz High-Frequency Underwater Transducer

A new type of piezoelectric composite ultrasonic transducer with high frequency in radial vibration is studied. A high-frequency acoustic transducer has been designed and prepared with pzt-5-type piezoelectric ceramic cylinder. When the piezoelectric ceramic cylinder vibrates along the direction of its radial direction, the working frequency is high. It is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic tube and a steel bracket which is inserted in the inner of the ceramic tube. Use the finite element method by ANSYS for analyzing the radial vibration of a piezoelectric tube. On that basis, through managing ANSYS simulation the vibration mode of transducer system is obtained, and analyzed the working frequency of transducer. According to the simulation, the high-frequency cylindrical acoustic transducer has been produced. Comparing the products and the traditional cylindrical transducers, the products haven’t only a good all-round circle directional, but it also has a high working frequency (300 kHz).
A novel broadband magic‐T using microstrip‐slotline transitions

A novel broadband magic‐T for microwave integrated circuits (MICs) is described. It consists of a microstrip T‐junction and a slotline T‐junction. The microstrip T‐junction is constructed on one side of a substrate, and the slotline T‐junction is on the opposite side. They are electrically coupled via two conventional microstrip‐slotline transitions, which are arranged to be close to the slotline T‐junction, so that its configuration is very compact. The magic‐T is investigated experimentally and the measured result shows that it has an operation bandwidth of more than an octave. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 46: 585–588, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21058
Performance of Superpave Projects in Louisiana

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (Louisiana DOTD) initiated the implementation of the Superpave® system by the end of the past decade. This study evaluated 8 to 10 years of field performance of 21 Louisiana Superpave projects, which included five Interstates, four U.S. routes, and 12 Louisiana routes. The evaluation was limited to the field performance of projects relative to age and did not consider factors associated with materials or construction. The criteria used to evaluate performance were confined to rutting, the international roughness index (IRI), alligator cracking, and random cracking. Superpave distress data were collected and stored in the pavement management system database of the Louisiana DOTD every 2 years. The collected data sets were analyzed and compared with Louisiana performance prediction models. These models were developed in the late 1990s by an expert panel from the Louisiana DOTD to predict the deterioration of pavement near the end of its design life. The original performance prediction models were reevaluated in 2002, and roughness models were implemented in 2003. The analysis indicated that after 8 to 10 years of service, most of the projects on Interstate and state highways were in good condition relative to the distress factors evaluated. Superpave seemed to control the early rutting and cracking in hot-mix construction while maintaining good IRI over the years. Points of concern, however, were the few issues of rutting on U.S. highways and cracking on Louisiana routes. In general, the rate of deterioration for rutting and IRI was lower than the prediction from the performance models.
Qualification of polymeric components for use in PV modules

The aim of these investigations was to develop, implement and evaluate an appropriate procedure in order to qualify new polymeric components for the use in PV modules and to predict the lifetime of materials and modules. A test program concerning five accelerated artificial aging tests (varying UV, temperature and humidity levels) was set up and the degradation behavior of six polymers was investigated. Visual transmittance and strain-at-break were identified as most significant degradation indicators. A suitable material specific material degradation model was obtained, where changes of the material properties are accurately related to the applied environmental stresses. For the modeling of service life time the micro-climate, to which the encapsulation materials are exposed in a PV-module, was considered and reasonable end-of-life criteria were defined. Accelerated aging tests showed that effects of heat and humidity are dominating in optical properties, whereas changes in mechanical properties are equally effected by UV and humidity. An exact description of the micro-climate was found to be most critical for the accuracy of the material degradation model. For first qualification of the principal applicability of new materials both, a standard damp heat test and a UV test have to be done in order to validate all degradation effects properly.
Multialgorithmic Approach for ECG Based Human Recognition

This article investigates a new approach based on combination of Autocorrelation based method and wavelet transform method used in parallel in single system. The proposed approach utilizes the fusion at decision level. This approach has been tested on the normal PTB database and a larger in-house data set of 100 subjects recorded using BIOPAC MP-150 system with a gap of 2 months between training and testing samples. The results obtained have shown improvement in performance in comparison to the system's performance where single approach was used individually. Moreover, the results on in-house database also validate the permanence characteristic of Electrocardiogram (ECG).
Prediction of Oxygen Consumption of BF in Iron & Steel Factories Based on Least Squares Support Vector Machine

In this paper, we presented a prediction model of oxygen consumption of blast furnace (BF) based on least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) with the production data of an iron and steel factory. This method utilizes data pre-processing and parameters optimization to improve the fitting precision and operation speed of the model. By comparing the prediction results using different models with actual production data, we found out that the modified regression model of LSSVM is more suitable to predict the trend of oxygen consumption than others. The prediction accuracy is satisfactory and is helpful for oxygen system dispatch and production practice.
Scale-adaptive simulation of a hot jet in cross flow

The simulation of a hot jet in cross flow is of crucial interest for the aircraft industry as it directly impacts aircraft safety and global performance. Due to the highly transient and turbulent character of this flow, simulation strategies are necessary that resolve at least a part of the turbulence spectrum. The high Reynolds numbers for realistic aircraft applications do not permit the use of pure Large Eddy Simulations as the spatial and temporal resolution requirements for wall bounded flows are prohibitive in an industrial design process. For this reason, the hybrid approach of the Scale-Adaptive Simulation is employed, which retains attached boundary layers in well-established RANS regime and allows the resolution of turbulent fluctuations in areas with sufficient flow instabilities and grid refinement. To evaluate the influence of the underlying numerical grid, three meshing strategies are investigated and the results are validated against experimental data.
Numerical Simulation of Flare Safe Separation

Numerical simulations are conducted to study the characteristics of a burning flare and their effects on the flare motion as it is released from an aircraft. Models concerning the shrinkage of the flare, mass addition to the flow, and heat addition to flow are devised and examined. The results show that the heat addition to the flow has the largest effect on the flare motion especially on its angular motion. The results also show that the angular motion has a small effect on the flare trajectory.
Data-Mining Techniques for Exploratory Analysis of Pedestrian Crashes

Exploratory analysis was made of data from pedestrian crashes to detect interdependence and dissimilarities between crash patterns and to provide insight for the development of safety improvement strategies focused on pedestrians. Data-mining techniques, such as classification trees and association rules, were used on data related to 56,014 pedestrian crashes that occurred in Italy from 2006 to 2008. Crash severity was the response variable most sensitive to crash patterns. The most influential crash patterns were road type, pedestrian age, lighting conditions, vehicle type, and interactions between these patterns. Notable results included associations between fatal crashes and rural areas, urban provincial and national roads, pedestrians older than 75 years, nighttime conditions, pedestrians older than 65 years in nighttime crashes, drivers' young age and male gender in nighttime crashes, and truck involvement. To mitigate the fatal crash patterns identified by the classification trees and association rules, several measures are suggested for implementation. Results of the study are consistent with results of previous studies that used other analytic techniques, such as probabilistic models of crash injury severity. The data-mining techniques used in the study were able to detect interdependencies among crash characteristics. The use of classification trees and association rules, however, must be seen not as an attempt to supplant other techniques, but as a complementary method that can be integrated into other safety analyses.
Realization of an Inexpensive Embedded Mini-Datalogger for Measuring and Controlling Photovoltaic System

This article describes the design and the realization of an automatic recording device for measurements and controls of multiple physical parameters, in order to manage and monitor a mini central photovoltaic (PV) electricity. It is based on an 8-bit microcontroller, a PIC16F716, which is the lowest cost in the midrange portfolio from Microchip. The automatic recording device (or datalogger) measures the following parameters: the current sourced by a set of PV panels to solar batteries, the voltage across these batteries, the internal and the external temperatures, through a 4 channel multiplexed 8-bit analog–digital converter (ADC) integrated module. This datalogger is clocked with a real time clock and calendar (RTCC), which controls also the periodic measurements. These are stored in an external 8 kB flash electrically erasable/programable read-only memory (EEPROM), a 24LC64, using the I2C protocol, which allows us to easily increase the storage capacity by adding, if necessary, in parallel, up to eight external flash EEPROM.
Surface EMG Recordings as a Risk Assessment Tool for Musculoskeletal Disorders

Injury models for musculoskeletal disorders are considered. It is suggested that several injury mechanisms may coexist in the same body region. This has implications for data reduction procedures used in risk evaluation by surface EMG (SEMG). Biomechanical exposure as an injury risk may conceptually be characterized by the three exposure dimensions: amplitude, duration and repetitiveness. The time dimension has become increasingly important since many work tasks are performed at low exposure amplitude. For practical purposes, static activity levels higher than 2% EMGmax appear to signify increased risk of musculoskeletal disorders. However, a lower activity level does not guarantee good health, as risk factors apparently unrelated to muscle activity also exist. Mental stress may be one such risk factor.
Three-phase four wire voltage controlled AC line conditioner with unity input power factor and minimised output voltage harmonics

The paper presents a new high performance AC line conditioner isolating any configuration of nonlinear loads for three-phase four wire applications. The proposed conditioner is composed of a switch mode rectifier (SMR) and a ROM based sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) inverter. The three-phase half bridge type SMR operates under voltage mode control. No current sensing is required. The inverter is also a half bridge type controlled by a ROM based SPWM modulator. Preoptimised SPWM control patterns rejecting the effects of DC link voltage ripples and dead times are programmed. Owing to the nature of the three-phase scheme, the voltage imbalance problem between the DC link capacitors can be lessened. High quality three-phase AC outputs can be obtained while nearly sinusoidal input currents are drawn.