Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LFT model reduction and controller synthesis for a pressurized water reactor

We consider model reduction of and control design for the pressurized water reactor (PWR) of a nuclear power plant. Less conservative design and analysis results are obtained using a recent model reduction technique for uncertain systems modelled as linear fractional transformations (LFT) on repeated scalar uncertainty sets. Controllers for the PWR are then designed using /spl mu/-synthesis techniques. The change in both the operating power and reactivity of the fuel are modelled as slowly time-varying uncertainty, and the objective is to maintain performance over all parameter variations. The resulting closed loop performance of the PWR is compared to previous design results.
The “Open House,” an Effective Library Public Relations and Instruction Tool

Summary This article presents the Open House as a viable public relations and instruction technique to introduce incoming students to basic library facilities and services in a fun and relaxing atmosphere. An overriding goal of the Open House is to empower participating students with the self-sufficiency skills that will allow them to smoothly navigate the library on their own. Includes a comprehensive blueprint for detailing successes, innovations, and pitfalls. Outlines the specific steps to take regarding fundraising and donation solicitation. Ultimately, an Open House event can strengthen a library's outreach potential; an important-yet often neglected-facet of academic librarianship.
Analysis and comparison of switch-based frequency converters

Among radio amateurs a variation of the sampling mixer with 25% duty cycle is used, which is known under several names: Tayloe Product Detector, van Graas Detector or Quadrature Sampling Detector. Although the circuit has been in use for several years no thorough analysis of its properties has been made and it has not been noticed in professional scientific literature. The experimental data suggests that the circuit has low conversion loss and noise figure, while having a high linearity. The goal of this Master Thesis is to investigate the precise properties of this mixer and to compare its performance with better known mixer circuits. The outcome is to be verified using circuit simulations. Also the feasibility of designing a RF receiver front end in 65 nm CMOS using this mixer should be explored. A comparison has been made between the topologies of the switching, sampling and Tayloe mixer. A model topology has been found that describes all three mixers, called the frequency converter model. This model has been analyzed using Linear Periodically Time-Variant theory and closed form expressions for the periodic transfer function have been derived. From these expressions, properties like conversion gain, noise figure and baseband bandwidth can be derived. Also an approximation of the periodic transfer function has been formulated for narrowband channels, which directly translates the duty cycle parameter to conversion gain and Noise Figure, and the bandwidth parameter to the baseband bandwidth. It was concluded that a double balanced Tayloe mixer with 25% duty cycle provides the best balance between noise figure and conversion loss. Using these results a RF receiver front end was designed and simulated in 65 nm CMOS. The channel was chosen at 1 GHz with 20 MHz bandwidth. A conversion gain of 10.5 dB was achieved with a noise figure of 5.0 dB. Furthermore, the IIP3 is +12 dBm and the -1dB compression point is -5 dBm. Therefore, it can be concluded that a receiver front end with high linearity and moderate noise figure can be implemented using the Tayloe mixer.
Location service design and simulation in ad hoc wireless sensor networks

Platform-Based Design (PBD) is relatively a new methodology for the design of embedded systems. In this paper, its adoption is proposed and investigated for the design of an Ad hoc Wireless Sensor Network (AWSN), in particular for supporting a positioning application and a general protocol architecture is presented as well. The primary purpose is to abstract the set of lower layers (platform) in a way that allows its behaviour to be effectively accounted for in performance assessment of a protocol running on the upper layer. A comprehensive simulation framework is then proposed, which includes i) OMNeT++ for performance estimation in an efficient discrete event simulation environment and ii) TOSSIM as a behavioural simulator that allows compiling a TinyOS application to native and take advantage of traditional programming tools such as debuggers.
Page segmentation for document image analysis using a neural network

In this paper we present a method for segmenting document page images into text and nontext regions. The underlying assumption made by this approach is that the two regions can be viewed as different textures. We do not use any a priori knowledge of the document format. A convolution-based method is used to generate the texture feature im- ages. The coefficients of the convolution masks are obtained using a single-layer artificial neural network that generates eigenvectors of the correlation matrix of the input data. The coefficients of these masks have been ''learned'' from examples of the document images and have a po- tential of being considerably more powerful than masks with preset co- efficients. A thresholding scheme based on a measure of entropy is used to segment the feature images into the homogeneous regions. © 1996 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. Subject terms: document page segmentation; texture analysis; artificial neural networks; convolution; entropy thresholding.
Compression of hyperspectral imagery based on compressive sensing and interband prediction

An efficient compression algorithm for hyperspectral imagery based on compressive sensing and interband linear prediction is proposed which has the advantages of high compression performance and low computational complexity by exploiting the strong spectral correlation. At the encoder, the random measurements of each frame are made, quantized and transmitted to the decoder independently. The prediction parameters between adjacent bands are also estimated using the linear prediction algorithm and transmitted to the decoder. At the decoder, a new reconstruction algorithm with the proposed initialization and stopping criterion is employed to reconstruct the current frames with the assistance of the prediction frame, which is derived from the previous reconstructed neighboring frames and the received prediction parameters using the same prediction algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm not only obtains about 1.1 dB gains but greatly decreases decoding complexity. Furthermore, our algorithm has the characteristics of low-complexity encoding and facility in hardware implementation.
[Influence of socio-demographic correlates on the adherence to physical activity recommendations in adults aged from 15-to 74 years].

BACKGROUND To know the adherence to physical activity recommendations of the population is of clinical and social interest. The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of Spanish adults adhering to the physical activity recommendations, and to examine the influences of socio-demographic correlates. METHODS In the present cross-sectional study we conducted a telephone survey of 1,500 Spanish adults (15-74 years old) from Madrid (Spain). Physical activity (work place, transport and leisure time) was assessed with the version 2 of the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQv2). Participants were categorized in three physical activity levels (low, moderate and high). The socio-demographic correlates included: gender, age, educational level, employment status, marital status, smoking status, and self-perceived health. The association between socio-demographic factors and physical activity was examined with multinomial logistic regression analysis. RESULTS A total of 82% of men and 78% of women (total 80%) had moderate to high levels of physical activity, yet, when considering the leisure time physical activity, only 40,1% of mean and 22,6% of women (total 31.1%) reach the recommendations. Participants with university degree (OR: 2.05; 95%IC: 1.48-2.86), those who were smokers (OR: 1.41; 95%IC: 1.04-1.90), and those who perceived their health as bad (OR: 3.58; 95%IC: 2.39-5.38) were more likely to not to reach the recommendations. In contrast, those participants aged 35-44 years (OR: 0.61; 95%IC: 0.39-0.95) and 45-54 years (OR: 0.52; 95%IC: 0.32-0.83) were less likely not to reach the recommendations. CONCLUSIONS The 20% of adults from Madrid did not reach the physical activity recommendations, and when considering only leisure time physical activity, only 69% reached the recommendations. The findings suggest that the educational level, smoking status, and the self-perceived health seem to be key determinants. There is a large diversity in the physical activity levels in the population subgroup; therefore, there is a need of developing social-ecological approaches to physical activity promotion.
The effect of seasonal and weather conditions to land cover class separability in ERS radar data

The effect of seasonal and weather conditions to the separability of land cover classes were studied using ERS SAR intensity and coherence images. Generally, the classes are more separable in individual coherence images than in individual intensity images. The exception is springtime during snowmelt, when intensity images are better. Temporal averaging and some texture measures increase class separability.
Estimation of the carrier-to-interference ratio in cellular radio systems

The problem to track time-varying parameters in cellular radio systems is studied. The focus is on estimation based only on the signals that are readily available. Previous work has demonstrated very good performance relying on analog measurement. In a real system most of the information is lost due to quantization and sampling at a rate that might be as low as 2 Hz (GSM case). Therefore a different approach is required and for that matter a maximum likelihood estimator has been designed and exemplified in the case of GSM. The needed probability functions of the measurements cannot be described analytically. Instead point-mass approximations can be obtained from Monte-Carlo simulations for each point in a grid covering the interesting parameter space. The proposed algorithm can be tuned to track both slowly and fast varying parameters individually. Since most computations take place in the base stations, the estimator is ready for implementation in a second generation wireless system. No update of the software in the mobile stations is needed.
Cost savings and enhanced hospice enrollment with a home-based palliative care program implemented as a hospice-private payer partnership.

BACKGROUND In the United States, 5% of the population is responsible for nearly half of all health care expenditures, with a large concentration of spending driven by individuals with expensive chronic conditions in their last year of life. Outpatient palliative care under the Medicare Hospice Benefit excludes a large proportion of the chronically ill and there is widespread recognition that innovative strategies must be developed to meet the needs of the seriously ill while reducing costs. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a home-based palliative care program, implemented through a hospice-private payer partnership, on health care costs and utilization. METHODS This was a prospective, observational database study where insurance enrollment and claims data were analyzed. The study population consisted of Home Connections (HC) program patients enrolled between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2012 who subsequently expired (n=149) and who were also Independent Health members. A control group (n=537) was derived using propensity-score matching. The primary outcome variable was overall costs within the last year of life. Costs were also examined at six months, three months, one month, and two weeks. Inpatient, outpatient, ancillary, professional, and pharmacy costs were compared between the two groups. Medical service utilization and hospice enrollment and length of stay were also evaluated. RESULTS Cost savings were apparent in the last three months of life—$6,804 per member per month (PMPM) cost for palliative care participants versus $10,712 for usual care. During the last two weeks of life, total allowed PMPM was $6,674 versus $13,846 for usual care. Enhanced hospice entry (70% versus 25%) and longer length of stay in hospice (median 34 versus 9 days) were observed. CONCLUSIONS Palliative care programs partnered with community hospice providers may achieve cost savings while helping provide care across the continuum.
Beyond knowledge sharing: the management of transactive knowledge systems

Most approaches to organizational learning and knowledge management concentrate on implicit and shared knowledge as basis for organizational competencies and competitive advantage. In this paper we argue that it is explicit and unshared expertise rather than implicit and shared knowledge which is valuable for organizations. We ground our argument in a psychological concept of personal knowledge held by individuals and on the theory of transactive knowledge systems, which accounts for the social integration of individual knowledge. Transactive knowledge systems as webs of knowledge about knowledge are the core of organizational knowledge. We discuss challenges for knowledge management derived from this view, namely the requirement to view knowledge management as a social interactive process. Furthermore, conclusions concerning the role of information technology and human resource management are drawn. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Big deal and long tail: e‐journal usage and subscriptions

Purpose – This paper is aimed primarily at academic library managers and acquisition librarians. By analogy to Pareto studying the relationship between clients and turnover, the paper will study subscriptions to e‐journals and usage statistics. The aim is to evaluate the long tail of usage statistics and to compare it with subscription lists of individually selected titles and packages (big deals). Design/methodology/approach – The paper exploits usage statistics and subscription data from a national usage study of an academic publisher. Data are from 2010.Findings – Usage statistics are partly shaped by the long tail effect. Individual subscriptions of journals are more selective than big deals, and trend towards a traditional retail curve. Unlike subscriptions through packages, usage and individual subscriptions can be related by a similar inclination. But both types of subscriptions fail to predict the popularity of a title in its usage.Research limitations/implications – The paper uses data from a nati.
Cryospheric applications of MISR data

This work is a demonstration of potential uses of combined multiangle and multispectral remote sensing imagery for mapping and characterizing seasonal snow cover, sea ice, and ice sheet surfaces. We use data from the Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) and demonstrate how multiangle data can augment multispectral mapping in unique and valuable ways.
Limitation of degree information for analyzing the interaction evolution in online social networks

Previously many studies on online social networks simply analyze the static topology in which the friend relationship once established, then the links and nodes will not disappear, but this kind of static topology may not accurately reflect temporal interactions on online social services. In this study, we define four types of users and interactions in the interaction (dynamic) network. We found that active, disappeared, new and super nodes (users) have obviously different strength distribution properties and this result also can be revealed by the degree characteristics of the unweighted interaction and friendship (static) networks. However, the active, disappeared, new and super links (interactions) only can be reflected by the strength distribution in the weighted interaction network. This result indicates the limitation of the static topology data on analyzing social network evolutions. In addition, our study uncovers the approximately stable statistics for the dynamic social network in which there are a large variation for users and interaction intensity. Our findings not only verify the correctness of our definitions, but also helped to study the customer churn and evaluate the commercial value of valuable customers in online social networks.
Intelligent tools for the state space analysis of nonlinear controllers

The author describes research on automating the state space analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems by combining artificial intelligence with numerical software. The resulting programs can assist control theorists in the stability and robustness analysis of continuous and discrete nonlinear systems. A program POINCARE, that analyzes one-parameter systems with two state variables is described. It computes the stable states as a function of the parameter value and describes the basins of attraction qualitatively. It computes basins numerically for fixed parameter values. The algorithm extends to systems where two parameters vary independently. It extends partially to systems with three or more state variables; tracking attractors is feasible, but estimating basins requires more research. <<ETX>>
A full electromagnetic CAD tool for microwave devices using a finite element method and neural networks

A relevant automated electromagnetic (EM) optimization method is presented. This optimization method combines a rigorous and accurate global EM analysis of the device performed with a finite element method (FEM) and a fast analytical model deducted from its segmented EM analysis applying a neural network approximation. First we present our optimization tools, then we describe our full EM optimization method with the definition of the analytical model. Afterward, we apply it to optimize three volumetric dielectric resonator (DR) filters, considering the novel topology of the dual-mode filter. The accuracy of this automated method is demonstrated considering the good agreement between theoretical optimization results and experimental ones. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An Improved Method of Short Text Feature Extraction Based on Words Co-Occurrence

In Chinese text clustering, short text is very different from traditional long text, principally in the low frequency of words. As a result, traditional text feature extraction and the method for weight calculating is not directly suitable for short text clustering . To solve the problem of clustering drift in short text segments ,this paper proposes an method for feature extraction through improving the method of weight calculating based on words co-occurrence. Experiments show the method can get better performance in Chinese short-text clustering compared with the traditional method TF-IDF.
A literature survey on traffic dispersion

Aggregation of resources is a means to improve performance and efficiency in statistically shared systems in general, and communication networks in particular. One approach to this is traffic dispersion, which means that the traffic from a source is spread over multiple paths and transmitted in parallel through the network. Traffic dispersion may help in utilizing network resources to their full potential, while providing quality-of-service guarantees. It is a topic gaining interest, and much work has been done in the field. The results are, however, difficult to find, since the technique appears under many different labels. This article is therefore an attempt to gather and report on the work done on traffic dispersion in communication networks. It looks at a specific instance of this general method. The processes are communication processes, and the resource is the link capacity in a packet switched network.
Novel Collision Detection Algorithm for Physics-based Simulation of Deformable B-spline Shapes

AbstractA structured computational framework to efficiently detect collision between deformable B-spline shapes and calculate reactive forces and deformation based on mass spring system in a virtual reality environment is described in this paper. The proposed technique utilizes the fact that the transformation matrices used to discretize the B-spline surface are independent of the position of the control points and, therefore, can be pre-calculated. The density of the points is dynamically increased at lower levels of detail. Finally, the regions which are likely to undergo collision are tessellated using these points. The algorithm is compatible with a mass spring system to calculate forces and deformation of the model, based upon its physical material properties. The algorithm is ideally suited for virtual sculpting and validating conceptual design models before extensive product detailing is performed using readily available commercial CAD software. A comparison based on the worst case scenario is pres.
Bayesian And Quadratic Methods In System Identification And Iterative Learning Control

This paper describes the methods used by the 2005 Cornell RoboCup team to generate and execute trajectories for its holonomic omnidirectional robots. The vehicles are described and equations of motion are presented. The estimation, motion planning, and control methods are described in the order in which they are executed by the system components. Alternative methods are briefly described. Experimental results are included.
Warndarrang and Marra: A Diffusional or Genetic Relationship?

Warndarrang and Marra have a high level of shared vocabulary, 54%, and also share some grammatical morphemes and structures. The question is whether these commonalities result from borrowing, inheritance from a lower level proto-language, inheritance from a higher level proto-language, or a mixture of all three. If the shared lexicon results principally from borrowing, then this would establish a significant new peak for lexical borrowing in Australia, as the highest reliable level otherwise attested is 40%. There are proposals for a low level proto-language including Warndarrang and Marra, most commonly known as Proto-Marran. This paper shows that there is not sufficient evidence to include Warndarrang within the putative Marran family. Consequently, the 54% shared lexicon between Warndarrang and Marra does establish a new peak in lexical borrowing. However, despite this peak, the paper shows that there has only been minimal grammatical borrowing between Warndarrang and Marra, and that most shared grammatical morphemes reflect inheritance from a higher level proto-language, possibly Proto-Australian.
Infective endocarditis in transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

An 85-year old man with a history of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) for severe symptomatic aortic stenosis was readmitted with cerebral stroke accompanied by fever. An infected prosthetic valve was revealed by echocardiography (Supplementary Video 1) and retrieved successfully with a surgical approach (Fig. 1). Supplementary material (Video 1) is available at EJCTS online. Video 1: Transoesophageal echocardiographic evaulation showing shaggy materials attached to the prosthetic valve with 1-cm floating linear vegetations.