Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
3D-CariNet: End-to-end 3D Caricature Generation from Natural Face Images with Differentiable Renderer

Caricatures are an artistic representation of human faces to express satire and humor. Caricature generation of human faces is a hotspot in CG research. Previous work mainly focuses on 2D caricatures generation from face photos or 3D caricature reconstruction from caricature images. In this paper, we propose a novel end-to-end method to directly generate personalized 3D caricatures from a single natural face image. It can create not only exaggerated geometric shapes, but also heterogeneous texture styles. Firstly, we construct a synthetic dataset containing matched data pairs composed of face photos, caricature images, and 3D caricatures. Then, we design a graph convolutional autoencoder to build a non-linear colored mesh model to learn the shape and texture of 3D caricatures. To make the network end-to-end trainable, we incorporate a differentiable renderer to render 3D caricatures into caricature images inversely. Experiments demonstrate that our method can achieve 3D caricature generation with various texture styles from face images while maintaining personality characteristics.
Comparison of the Effect of Milk and Pistachio Snacks on Anthropometric Indices in Overweight or Obese Women: A Randomized Crossover Trial

Background: Weight management is the key to prevent and treat the adverse consequences of overweight and obesity. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of consuming milk and pistachio snacks on anthropometric indices in overweight or obese women. Methods: In this randomized crossover trial, 60 overweight or obese women with a mean age of 24 ± 4.2 years were randomly divided into two groups. Women in the milk group received 200 mL/day low-fat milk while women in the other group received 30 g/day pistachio for 4 weeks. After a 6-day washout period, the participants received a similar intervention in a crossover manner. Results: Out of the total 60 participants, 52 completed the study. At the end of the study, the weight of women in the milk group significantly decreased (70.8 ± 8.4 vs. 69.9 ± 8.3, P value = 0.001). No statistically significant changes were observed in the weight of participants in the pistachio group (70.3 ± 8.4 vs. 70.6 ± 8.3, P value = 0.06). Further analyses showed a slightly significant beneficial effect on waist circumference (WC) (P-value =0.068) and body mass index (BMI) in the milk group P value = 0.01). Conclusions: Based on the observed positive effects of milk intake on weight loss in this crossover study, milk consumption may be considered an appropriate snack in weight loss programs in overweight or obese women.
Automatic First Arrival Time Identification Using Fuzzy C-Means and AIC

Accurate first arrival picking plays a crucial role in microseismic data processing. However, it is challenging to guarantee satisfactory accuracy with conventional approaches when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of data is low. This article proposes an automatic first arrival time picking method based on fuzzy $C$ means clustering (FCM) and Akaike information criterion (AIC). The proposed method consists of three steps: clustering, rough picking, and adjusting. First, we employ FCM to divide each data point into the signal cluster and the noise cluster according to a fuzzy partition. Second, unlike conventional FCM-based picking approaches, we utilize Otsu’s method to determine a data-dependent threshold, instead of an artificially predefined one, to obtain a coarse result of the microseismic event interval from clustering partition. Finally, note that the microseismic event data points are concentrated in amplitude and also correlated in time. Therefore, we employ the AIC of the clustering partition to seek time-varying information to adjust the coarse result. Besides, we investigated several commonly used characteristic factors to introduce a supervised guideline for feature selection in first arrival picking with FCM. At last, we carried out simulations and real field data tests to verify the reliability of the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the short-and long-time average ratio (SLTA) method, the AIC method, and the conventional FCM-based picking method.
Wideband Circularly Polarized Stacked Patch Antenna Based on TM11 and TM10

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) stacked patch antenna based on TM11 and TM10 is proposed in this paper. This four-port antenna consists of a circular patch and a square patch, where the square patch is located above the circular patch. Taking into account the mutual coupling between four ports, the active reflection coefficient (ARC) is adopted to describe the impedance matching of the antenna, and a simplified form of ARC is derived. The abnormal electric field distribution generated in the square patch is attributed to the superposition of the electric fields of two orthogonal TM10 modes, which is theoretically verified. Due to the coupling between TM11 mode and TM10 mode, a new resonance mode appears in square patch, where the abnormal electric fields on the two diagonals are generated simultaneously. The effect of the square patch on the circular patch is equivalent to a capacitor at the lower frequency end and the higher frequency end of -10dB impedance bandwidth, while it acts as an inductor at the middle frequency band. Besides the horizontal patch of Γ-shaped feed is sandwiched between two radiators to enhance coupling. Finally, a wideband feed network composed of Wilkinson power divider and phase shifter is devised to provide four signals of equal magnitude and quadrature phase for proposed antenna. To verify the design concept, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The results show that left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) radiation is achieved. The 3-dB gain variation bandwidth is 44.6%, ranging from 1.48 GHz to 2.33 GHz, in which VSWR < 1.5 and AR < 1.5 dB. Besides the peak gain is 9.5 dBic and antenna efficiency is not less than 64%.
Comparative Toxicity of Nitenpyrem and Neem Oil Against Amrasca biguttula biguttula in Okra

The Jassid, Amarasca bigutulla bigutullaa is an important sucking pest of the okra crop. An experimental study was conducted during 2018 to check the comparative toxicity of nitenpyrem and neem oil against jassid under okra field conditions. The study revealed that 24 hours after treatment, nitenpyrem was found more toxic and effective with maximum reduction of jassid population (72.15%). Whereas, 120 hours after treatment with 4% neem oil, 15.05% jassid reduction was observed. The mortality rate of the jassid was increased with increasing in time after application of chemical insecticides. The study concluded that insecticide was most toxic and gives higher mortality of jassid as compared to neem oil. Keywords: Abelmoschus esculentus, Malvaceae, Amarasca bigutulla bigutullaa, botanicals, insecticides, Pakistan
A Combined Inverse Source and Scattering Technique for Dielectric Profile Design to Tailor Electromagnetic Fields

This paper augments existing gradient-based inverse scattering algorithms to enable the design of reflectionless lossless permittivity profiles within a given design domain that can transform an input incident field into an output field of desired characteristics. These desired characteristics are often some user-defined far-field performance criteria such as main beam directions, null directions, and half-power beamwidth (HPBW). To this end, two extra steps will be performed prior to the inverse scattering step. Firstly, an inverse source algorithm inverts the desired far-field performance criteria to infer a set of equivalent surface currents on a boundary close to the design domain. These equivalent currents are then converted to a set of fields values that constitute the required aperture fields. Secondly, these aperture fields are scaled such that the input incident power to the design domain is approximately equal to the output power leaving the design domain. Finally, the desired scattered fields are formed and then inverted by an inverse scattering algorithm to reconstruct a lossless reflectionless dielectric profile within the design domain. We also show that the inverse scattering algorithm can employ appropriate regularization methods, in particular a binary regularization term, to facilitate the physical implementation of reconstructed dielectric profiles.
Acoustic noise reduction in sinusoidal PWM drives using a randomly modulated carrier

Acoustic noise in an inverter-driven AC electric machine can be reduced by avoiding the concentration of harmonic energy in distinct tones. One method to spread out the harmonic spectrum without the use of programmed PWM (pulse-width modulation) is to cause the switching pattern to be random. It is proposed that the switching pattern can be randomized by modulating the triangle carrier in sinusoidal PWM (pulse-width modulation) with bandlimited white noise. All the advantages of sinusoidal PWM are preserved with this technique. These include real-time control, linear operation, good transient response, and a constant average switching frequency. By controlling the bandwidth and RMS value of the pink noise modulation, it is shown that the instantaneous variation in switching frequency as well as the bandwidth of the energy spectrum in the machine can be specified within predetermined limits. Experimental results show the absence of acoustic noise concentrated at specific tones which is present with conventional sinusoidal modulation. <<ETX>>
Structural Stress Analysis of 32x32 InSb Infrared Focal Plane Array with Underfill

Based on viscoplastic Anand's model, the structural stress of 8� 8 InSb infrared focal plane array detector with underfill is systematically analyzed by finite element method, and the impacts of design parameters including indium bump diameters, heights on both Von Mises stress and its distribution are discussed in this manuscript. Simulation results show that for the given indium bump height, the maximum stress existing in InSb chip is almost unchanged with reduced indium bump diameters, and with thicker indium bump, the stress is smaller, when the indium bump height is over than 15� m, the stress reduces slowly with decreased standing off height. When the InSb IRFPA format increases from 8� 8 to 32� 32, the maximal Von Mises stress increases from 500MPa to 900Mpa, almost twice over, and is not proportional to array format scale.
State Prediction for Development of Helping Behavior in Robots

Robots are less and less programmed to execute a specic behavior, but develop abilities through the interactions with their environment. In our previous studies, we proposed a robotic model for the emergence of helping behavior based on the minimization of the prediction-error. Our hypoth- esis, dierent from traditional emotion contagion models, suggests that minimizing the dierence (or prediction-error) between the prediction of others' future action and the cur- rent observation can motivate infants to help others. Despite promising results, we observed that the prediction of others' actions generated strong perspective dierences, which ul- timately diminished the helping performance of our robotic system. To solve this issue, we propose to predict the eects of actions instead of predicting the actions per se. Such an ability to predict the environmental state has been observed in young infants and seems promising to improve the per- formance of our robotic system.
Current Status of Insecticide Susceptibility in the Principal Malaria Vector, Anopheles gambiae in Three Northern States of Nigeria

Background: Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria with 97% of its population with high morbidity and mortality. Mosquitoes play an important role in the transmission of malaria parasites. This study was conducted to evaluate the current resistance status of Anopheles gambiae to insecticides. Methods: Larvae of An. gambiae was collected from three zones; A, B and C differentiated on the basis of variation in agricultural ecosystems between August and November, 2018 in the northeast and northwestern parts of Nigeria. They were carefully reared to adult stage and insecticidal susceptibility tests were conducted. Results: The mosquitoes tested showed high levels of resistance to all the insecticides used with the exception of malathion. Study zone A, recorded 74% mortality after 24h to deltamethrin compared to 81% from zone B and 82% from zone C, respectively. Mosquitoes from zone B exposed to DDT had the highest level of resistance at 37% compared to 40% and 53% from zones A and C, respectively. Resistant to bendiocarb was also observed, with zone A having the lowest mortality of 44% compared to 48% from zone C and 55% from Zone B, respectively. According to the results of knockdown tests, mosquitoes from Zone A exposed to deltamethrin recorded the lowest knockdown across the study locations while zone B recorded the lowest knockdown for DDT. Conclusion: The results of the study provide an insight into the current status of An. gambiae to four major insecticides in northern Nigeria as guideline for mosquitocontrol.
Residential House Prices, Commercial Real Estate Lending and Bank Failures

We investigate factors leading to bank failures during and after the Great Recession and banking crisis (2008–2015). The FHFA residential real estate house price index (HPI) for each of the 9 Census regions is used to interact with bank mortgage loans and bank financial statement variables. We find that these variables isolate different regional effects on the likelihood of a bank failing. Since we use changes from region to region, we find that regional location and HPI changes have an effect on banks’ commercial lending activity. Other more traditional and associated factors, like construction and land development lending or multifamily real estate lending, similarly explain bank failures during the main period of the banking crisis. By using this approach we better isolate the relationship between residential house prices and builders’ and land developers’ desire to borrow and the willingness of banks to concentrate portfolio lending in commercial real estate.
Technique for assessment of voltage stability in ill-conditioned radial distribution network

A technique is proposed in this letter to study the voltage collapse situation in a radial distribution network. The radial distribution network has been reduced to a single line equivalent circuit and then represented through a /spl pi/ network. A stability index is developed that indicates the severity of the loading situation of the system. The index can have a maximum value of one (1.00) when the system is at the point of collapse and a minimum value of zero (0) when there is no load in the system. Voltage collapse can be assessed based on the value of the developed index. If the system yields a value exceeding its maximum limit of stability index (1.00) it indicates a voltage collapse situation. The proposed technique is tested on a practical system of a 12-bus radial system (main feeders only) and on a 27-bus radial distribution system with laterals. The results obtained are encouraging and indicate that the technique has the potential to be used as a tool for system monitoring and future load planning.
How does Outward Foreign Direct Investment Affect Enterprise Green Technology Innovation? — Based on the Moderating effect of Resources

with the increasing strict environmental regulations in the green transition process, outward foreign direct investment is considered to be an effective approach to promote enterprises’ green technology innovation. Thus, this paper establishes a comprehensive research framework that integrates OFDI and green technology innovation from the micro level of the enterprise to analyze it. The findings show that: First, OFDI will positively affect corporate green-tech innovation as expected; Government subsidies have a U-shaped regulation on the relation between OFDI and green-tech innovation; Absorbed slack plays an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the relation between OFDI and green-tech innovation, and the unabsorbed slack positively affect this process. As for the heterogeneity of property rights, the test results of non-state-owned enterprises and state-owned enterprises are basically consistent with the baseline results, except for the following two points: the unabsorbed slack of state-owned enterprises has no regulatory effect between OFDI and enterprise green technology innovation, and the absorbed slack of non-state-owned enterprises has no regulatory effect between OFDI and enterprise green technology innovation.
High fill-factor micromirror array using a self-aligned vertical comb drive actuator with two rotational axes

We present a two-axis micromirror array with high fill-factor, using a new fabrication procedure on the full wafer scale. The micromirror comprises a self-aligned vertical comb drive actuator with a mirror plate mounted on it and electrical lines on a bottom substrate. A high-aspect-ratio vertical comb drive was built using a bulk micromachining technique on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The thickness of the torsion spring was adjusted using multiple silicon etching steps to enhance the static angular deflection of the mirrors. To address the array, electrical lines were fabricated on a glass substrate and combined with the comb actuators using an anodic bonding process. The silicon mirror plate was fabricated together with the actuator using a wafer bonding process and segmented at the final release step. The actuator and addressing lines were hidden behind the mirror plate, resulting in a high fill-factor of 84% in an 8 × 8 array of micromirrors, each 340 µm × 340 µm. The fabricated mirror plate has a high-quality optical surface with an average surface roughness (Ra) of 4 nm and a curvature radius of 0.9 m. The static and dynamic responses of the micromirror were characterized by comparing the measured results with the calculated values. The maximum static optical deflection for the outer axis is 4.32° at 60 V, and the maximum inner axis tilting angle is 2.82° at 96 V bias. The torsion resonance frequencies along the outer and inner axes were 1.94 kHz and 0.95 kHz, respectively.
Tillage for Continuous Corn and Corn-Soybean Rotation

ABSTRACT CONSERVATION and conventional tillage systems were evaluated for continuous production of corn (Zea mays L.) and for production of corn and soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ] in rotation. The fall moldboard plow system had the highest 5-yr average yield for con-tinuous corn production. Tillage systems did not signifi-cantly affect yields of either corn or soybeans in the corn-soybean rotation study. The percentage of the soil sur-face covered with plant residue following soybeans, in the corn-soybean rotation, was nearly as great as following corn. However, the soybean residue cover was much more easily destroyed by tillage than was the corn residue.
Design participation through the Internet: a case study

Cambridge University and Microsoft are planning a shared computer research and teaching laboratory on a green-field site to the west of the city. The clients wished to use Internet based communication between themselves and their architects, including email, a website and virtual reality. We explain how this is to be achieved, and describe experiences during the first half of a two year project. Particularly successful has been the use of games software (Quake II) for 3D presentation of the emerging building design.
Varying salience in indoor landmark selection for familiar and unfamiliar wayfinders: evidence from machine learning and self-reports

For human-centered mobile navigation systems, a computational landmark selection model is critical to automatically include landmarks for communicating routes with users. Although some empirical studies have shown that landmarks selected by familiar and unfamiliar wayfinders, respectively, differ significantly, existing computational models are solely focused on unfamiliar users and ignore selecting landmarks for familiar users, particularly in indoor environments. Meanwhile, it is unclear how the importance of salience metrics employed by machine learning approaches differs from that reported by human participants during landmark selection. In this study, we propose a LambdaMART-based ranking approach to computationally modelling indoor landmark selection. Two models, one for familiar and one for unfamiliar users, respectively, were trained from the human-labelled indoor landmark selection data. The importance of different salience measures in each model was then ranked and compared with human participants’ self-report results of a survey. The evaluation results demonstrate that familiarity does indeed matter in the computational modelling of indoor landmark selection. The ranking differences of salience measures in the trained models show that the salience varies with the familiarity of wayfinders. Moreover, the calculated intraclass correlation coefficients (0.62 for familiar, 0.65 for unfamiliar) illustrate the median consistency between the computational results on feature importance and the self-reported importance results by human participants, confirming the reliability and interpretability of the proposed approach.
Development of a Low-cost, Portable Hardware Platform to Support Hands-on Learning in the Teaching of Control and Systems Theory

Abstract This paper describes the development of a hardware platform designed to support the teaching of a variety of systems engineering concepts to students at all stages of the curriculum. From concept, the hardware was designed to be low-cost, portable and robust allowing sufficient numbers of hardware units to be acquired. This enabled each student on the course to be loaned their own piece of equipment, either to work with in class or for use as a ‘take home lab’. This provided the students with a more flexible, experimental based learning experience than traditional classroom based teaching. The hardware platform consisted of a miniature three degrees-of freedom helicopter that is interfaced to a personal computer (PC) via a National Instruments myDAQ data acquisition module. This was housed in a small, foam-lined carrying case for portability. Details of the course and assessment, based around the hardware platform, are presented, along with feedback received from the students. This feedback was from the first run of a new MSc course in the spring semester of 2013, and indicated that the new hardware was received positively with the students appreciating the hands-on nature of the teaching it provided.
Experimental comparisons of space vector neutral point balancing strategies for three-level topology

Three-level neutral point clamp topology has attracted applications in medium-voltage high-power drive systems. Since the topology utilizes the neutral point voltage to achieve half bus voltage withstand of power devices and three-level output voltage delivery, it is critical to balance the neutral point voltage in occasions of disturbed or even continuous unbalance load conditions. This paper proposes a couple of balancing techniques based on space vector modulation principle and experimentally compares their effectiveness against the existing method.