Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analytical Model of ALOHA and Time- and Frequency-Asynchronous ALOHA with Forward Error Correction for IoT Systems

The blooming of internet of things (IoT) services calls for a paradigm shift in the design of communications systems. Short data packets sporadically transmitted by a multitude of low-cost low-power terminals require a radical change in relevant aspects of the protocol stack. For example, scheduling-based approaches may become inefficient at the medium access (MAC) layer, and alternatives such as uncoordinated access policies may be preferred. In this context random access (RA) in its simplest form, i.e., additive links on-line Hawaii area (ALOHA), may again become attractive as also proved by a number of technologies adopting it. The use of forward error correction (FEC) can improve its performance, yet a comprehensive analytical model including this aspect is still missing. In this paper, we provide a first attempt by deriving exact expressions for the packet loss rate and spectral efficiency of ALOHA with FEC, and extend the result also to time- and frequency-asynchronous ALOHA aided by FEC. We complement our study with extensive evaluations of the expressions for relevant cases of study, including an IoT system served by low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Non-trivial outcomes show how time- and frequency-asynchronous ALOHA particularly benefit from the presence of FEC and become competitive with ALOHA.
Advantages and limitations of 3D printing a dual‐ridged horn antenna

Conventional and additive manufacturing (three‐dimensional [3D] printing) techniques for a dual‐ridged horn antenna (DRHA) are presented. The different aspects of the conventional manufacturing of a DRHA and the limitations incurred during additive manufacturing are discussed in detail. The antenna design was further optimized for fused deposition modeling and was 3D printed using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The polymer‐based print was painted with nickel‐based aerosol spray. The coaxial transition is also included in the 3D printed prototype. The antenna was manufactured with the intention of improving the learning and education of electromagnetism and antennas of undergraduate students using a low‐cost personal desktop 3D printer. The painted DRHA has a 10 dB return‐loss bandwidth of 6621 MHz (1905–8526 MHz) with a peak gain of 11 dBi. The average cross‐polarization isolation achieved was more than 25 dB. Rapid prototyping was possible with additive manufacturing, and limitations were addressed with conventional machining processes whenever required. This prototype is the first known ABS‐based horn antenna with the coaxial transition embedded into it. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2110–2117, 2016
Effects of Yeast Culture Supplementation on Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Blood Metabolites, and Immune Response in Geese

Simple Summary Antibiotics benefit animal growth performance and health. However, an overuse of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic residue and the development of drug-resistant bacteria. Considering the possible serious consequences of antibiotic overuse, non-antibiotic alternatives, such as yeast and yeast products, are widely used in animal diets to improve growth and productive performance. Geese are important poultry, and their meat provides high-quality protein to humans, but studies showing how yeast culture affect geese are limited. On this basis, the effects of dietary yeast culture supplementation on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood metabolites, and immune functions of geese were studies. The results showed that the dietary addition of yeast culture could improve growth performance and nutrient digestibility and can modulate the immune response of geese. This dietary strategy based on feed additives is an effective method for improving the growth efficiency of the geese. Abstract The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary yeast culture (YC) supplementation on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood metabolites, and immune functions in geese. One-day-old Sichuan white geese (n = 300) were randomly divided into five groups containing 0 (control), 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.0%, and 4.0% of YC in the diet for 70 days. In general, the dietary supplementation of YC significantly increased the average daily gain and feed conversion ratio (p < 0.05) in which the 1.0% or 2.0% levels were better and significantly reduced the average daily feed intake at the 2.0% level (p < 0.05). YC supplementation increased digestibility of P (quadratic, p = 0.01) and gross energy (quadratic, p = 0.04) from days 23 to 27 and crude protein from days 23 to 27 and days 64 to 68 (quadratic, p ≤ 0.05), with the 2.0% level being the most effective. Serum metabolites were significantly affected by dietary YC (p < 0.05). Supplemental YC increased IL-2 on day 28 (linear, p = 0.01; quadratic, p = 0.04) and lysozyme on day 70 (quadratic, p = 0.04) and decreased complement C4 on day 70 (linear, p = 0.05). Interferon-γ, interleukin-2, and tumor necrosis factor-α genes were mostly up-regulated after YC supplementation, and interferon-γ and interleukin-2 gene expression levels were significantly increased at the 2.0% level (p < 0.05). Taken together, dietary YC supplementation improved growth performance and affected nutrient digestibility, serum metabolites, and immune function in geese, which was optimized at the 2% YC level in the present study.
Smooth flows, unhurried stays: everyday organizing in a downtown commercial centre

Abstract This study explores local actors’ participation in everyday organizing and thereby in the production and maintenance of social space in the urban milieu of a downtown commercial centre. By local actors, the study refers to retailers and maintenance workers such as security guards, cleaners and facility managers. The study is based on extensive empirical research being conducted in the Kamppi Centre, located in the heart of the city of Helsinki, Finland. The Kamppi Centre consists of a complex of commercial shops, offices, residential housing and public transportation terminals. It is a hectic urban milieu in a Finnish context and operates 24/7. The study identifies critical locations in the Kamppi Centre, particularly entrances, as well as the central indoor shopping plaza and the corridors where local actors are constantly negotiating the social space with the public. These places provide endless challenges to local actors’ everyday dealings with people and to the material flows and stopovers at the site. The study elaborates on local actors’ careful management of those places and on the organization of both people and material flows and visits as a way of producing and maintaining social space in a complex urban environment.
Solution focused brief therapy and depression

Solution focused brief therapy is a psychotherapeutic technique which focuses on solutions rather than the causes of the problems. The therapy mainly progresses on the basis of optimistic approach and is based on the premise that individuals are equipped with skills to solve their problems. This therapy is called as goal-oriented therapy. The goal is achieved by asking questions pertaining to resilience ability and tools which can help them face the life challenges. The focus of SFBT is the health of the person, proficiencies, strengths, resources as well as coping skills rather than his/her problem, weaknesses and deficits. The present study examined the efficiency of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) on depression and reviewed various studies conducted to support or oppose SFBT as an effective treatment approach for the same.
Real-time Construction Inspection in an Immersive Environment with an Inspector Assistant Robot

Construction project management requires frequent inspections to ensure the quality and progress of the construction work. Multiple stakeholders are involved in the inspection process during the project lifecycle. Some project stakeholders, such as architects, owners, structural engineers are involved with multiple construction projects at a time and are responsible to conduct timely inspection and monitoring tasks. This paper studies the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) and robotics for real-time remote inspection. The benefits and challenges of using VR for construction inspection and monitoring were identified and ranked through a systematic literature review. The top 5 benefits were found to be enhanced collaboration, realistic and immersive visualization, remote presence, reduction in inspection time, and support for decision-making. The top 5 challenges identified in this study include low- resolution displays, limited integration with existing technologies (such as BIM), causing disorientation and dizziness for the user, cost of adoption, and job site internet access limitations. Finally, a new approach was investigated for using VR to enable an immersive experience in remote inspection with an inspector assistant robot for real-time remote construction inspection. The experimental investigation verified the identified benefits and challenges.
Solution of Irving's Ramsey problem

In [1] the following question was posed by R. W. Irving (see also Conjecture 4.10 in [4]): Is there an edge 2-colouring of the complete bipartite graph K13,17 with no monochromatic K3,3? We give a negative answer in this note (Theorem 2). Furthermore we prove Conjecture 4.11 (i) of [4] (Theorem 1), that is, any edge 2-coloured K2n+1,4n−3 contains a monochromatic K2,n with the 2 and n vertices a subset of the 2n+1 and 4n−3 vertices, respectively. Theorem 1 is a consequence of Satz 4 in [3], however, we give a direct proof here.
Process for integration of energetic porous silicon devices

We have developed new procedures for etching porous silicon (PSi) which allow PSi devices to be more easily integrated with other devices used for controlling or utilizing the output of the PSi devices. The output from energetic PSi devices may be used for MEMS actuation or energy harvesting applications. Initial proof-of-concept energy harvesting with a macro-scale, piezo cantilever has been demonstrated. Of the 2 etch processes developed, the sacrificial electrode process is the simplest, but it produces an inhomogeneous PSi thickness across the wafer and introduces surface topography due to electropolishing. By using the anchored electrode method, which incorporates a dielectric layer, more controllable etch depths and patterned devices are obtained. However, a proximity effect is observed where features closer to the electrode etch more rapidly. A simple voltage divider model can be used to predict these relative etch depths, but more work is required to develop a quantitative model.
Investigation of 3D effects in stellarator configurations using extended MHD

The maximum achievable β in stellarators is thought to be due to equilibrium considerations, rather than instability-induced disruption processes that limit tokamak operation. That is, the equilibrium magnetic topology changes in response to increasing pressure, resulting in production of regions of stochasticity that envelop the plasma rather than the growth of pressure-driven instabilities which cause major disruptions. Furthermore, time-dependent effects can be important as the equilibrium evolves. The primary aim of the present work is to investigate how the equilibrium evolves using the self-consistent initial value MHD code NIMROD. Here the NIMROD code is used to investigate two broad classes of 3-D magnetic topology evolution. In the first class, helically-symmetric straight stellarator configurations are heated and the deterioration of flux surfaces is observed. These cases are compared with their spoiled-symmetry counterparts. Especially interesting are cases where a pressuredriven instability appears but nonlinearly saturates as the equilibrium magnetic structure evolves. Next, in the second class of problems studied, current is driven by application of a toroidal loop voltage in a model of the Compact Toroidal Hybrid. The resulting gradients drive island formation which depends on the periodicity of the device and also on the rotational transform profile. In addition to these numerical simulations, 3-D pressure-induced magnetic islands are analytically investigated in the context of finite parallel thermal transport. The inclusion of finite parallel thermal transport has the effect of attenuating pressure effects and neoclassical effects, but this additional physics does not affect island size driven by Pfirsch-Schüter currents.
Requirements for a Pattern Language for Event-driven Business Activity Monitoring

To measure and evaluate the productivity of service processes in near real-time, the fusion of Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) for Business Process Management (BPM) has been proposed under umbrella terms such as event-driven BAM or event-driven BPM. However, evaluations of the resulting architectures have shown that there is a need for structured design methods which allow for the consistent engineering and management of the respective models. Since we observed repetitive patterns in BAM queries for service monitoring, we have started the engineering of a pattern language to increase consistency and generally ease the design process. Based on an evaluation of related work, we present more than two dozen requirements of general nature as well as requirements for sourcing, calculation, and evaluation definitions and discuss these.
Potential role of biochar in water treatment

Through it is possible to the of as well as the problem of water shortage. As a circular or closed loop economy solution, the organic waste such as biomass can be renewed in biochar, a carbon rich product by means of thermochemical conversion methods. Biochar demonstrates an incredible potential in water treatment for removing different pollutants considering low-cost, widely accessible feed- stock, and easy surface modifications for enhancing contamination remediating properties as well. Hence, this manuscript focuses on an overview of remediating toxic pollutants employing biochar. The biochar production methods and different feedstocks have been discussed. Process parameters like selection of biomass as a raw material, pyrolyzing temperature, residence time, pre-treatment of biomass, and post treatment methods, etc. are the determining factors of carbonaceous biochar yields in a thermochemical conversion method. The key mechanisms like pore-filling, precipita- tion, complexation, ion-exchange, diffusion, partitioning, π–π electron-donor-acceptor interactions, H-bonding, and electrostatic attraction, etc. drive the specific type of contaminant to be phased out from polluted environments whether organic/inorganic in nature. Activation/modification (physi-cal/chemical) of biochar is another aspect for its rising utilization in the field of expelling specific contaminations. The application of biochar in water treatment has many limitations. In order to meet the challenges, biochar-based materials may be developed with improved physicochemical properties and efficiency of biochar, along with combined advantages of biochar and other materials. This manuscript covers different perspectives of biochar viz. biochar and production tech- niques, mechanisms involved in removal of toxic contaminants from aqueous medium using biochar, modification/activation methods used to improve the characteristics of biochar, biochars and different biochar-based materials for remediating aqueous environments, associated challenges and future directions. This compilation of evidences focused on biochar technology in water treat- ment will assist new researchers in their studies through developing a thorough understanding of the research and development of eco-friendly biochar-based environmental remediation.
HSP Datasets: Insights on Song Popularity Prediction

Estimating the success of a song before its release is an important music industry task. This work uses audio descriptors to predict the success (popularity) of a song, where typical measures of success are chart measures such as peak position and streaming measures such as listener-count. Currently, a wide range of datasets is used for that purpose, but most of them are not publicly available; likewise, available datasets are restricted either in size, available features, or popularity measures. This substantially impedes the evaluation of the predictive power of a wide range of models. Therefore, we present two novel datasets called HSP-S and HSP-L based on data from AcousticBrainz, Billboard Hot 100, the Million Song Dataset, and last.fm. Both datasets contain audio features, mel-spectrograms as well as streaming listener- and play-counts. The larger HSP-L dataset contains 73,482 songs, whereas the smaller HSP-S dataset contains 7736 songs and additionally features Billboard Hot 100 chart measures. In contrast to the previous publicly available datasets, our datasets contain substantially more songs and richer and more diverse features. We solely utilize data from the public domain, allowing us to evaluate and compare a wide range of models on our datasets. To demonstrate the use of the datasets, we perform regression and classification (popular/unpopular) tasks on both datasets using a wide variety of models to predict song popularity for all provided target measures of success.
Target localization in passive and active systems: Performance bounds

TARGET LOCALIZATION IN PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SYSTEMS: PERFORMANCE BOUNDS by Vlad Mihai Chiriac The main goal of this dissertation is to improve the understanding and to develop ways to predict the performance of localization techniques as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and of system parameters. To this end, lower bounds on the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) performance are studied. The Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for coherent passive localization of a near-field source is derived. It is shown through the Cramer-Rao bound that, the coherent localization systems can provide high accuracies in localization, to the order of carrier frequency of the observed signal. High accuracies come to a price of having a highly multimodal estimation metric which can lead to sidelobes competing with the mainlobe and engendering ambiguity in the selection of the correct peak. The effect of the sidelobes over the estimator performance at different SNR levels is analyzed and predicted with the use of ZivZakai lower bound (ZZB). Through simulations it is shown that ZZB is tight to the MLEs performance over the whole SNR range. Moreover, the ZZB is a convenient tool to assess the coherent localization performance as a function of various system parameters. The ZZB was also used to derive a lower bound on the MSE of estimating the range and the range rate of a target in active systems. From the expression of the derived lower bound it was noted that, the ZZB is determined by SNR and by the ambiguity function (AF). Thus, the ZZB can serve as an alternative to the ambiguity function (AF) as a tool for radar design. Furthermore, the derivation is extended to the problem of estimating target’s location and velocity in a distributed multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar system. The derived bound is determined by SNR, by the product between the number of transmitting antennas and the number of receiving antennas from the radar system, and by all the ambiguity functions and the cross-ambiguity functions corresponding to all pairs transmitter-target-receiver. Similar to the coherent localization, the ZZB can be applied to study the performance of the estimator as a function of different system parameters. Comparison between the ZZB and the MSE of the MLE obtained through simulations demonstrate that the bound is tight in all SNR regions. TARGET LOCALIZATION IN PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SYSTEMS: PERFORMANCE BOUNDS by Vlad Mihai Chiriac A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NJIT
Performance analysis of a novel planetary speed increaser used in single-rotor wind turbines with counter-rotating electric generator

The paper presents a study on the kinematic and static performances of a new type of 1DOF (Degree Of Freedom) planetary speed increaser to be implemented in wind turbines, a transmission with three operating cases: a) one input and one output, b) one input and two outputs, in which the speed of the secondary output is equal to the input speed, and c) with one input and two outputs, where the secondary output speed is higher than the input speed. The proposed speed increaser contains two sun gears and a double satellite, allowing operation with an output connected to the fixed stator of a classic generator (case I) or with two counterrotating outputs that drive a counter-rotating generator (with a mobile stator). A new variant of planetary transmission capable of providing the speed increase of the generator stator and, thus, the increase of the relative speed between the generator rotor and stator is obtained by the parallel connection of the speed increaser with a planetary gear. The three conceptual variants of planetary transmission are analytically modelled and comparatively analysed based on a set of kinematic and static parameters. The proposed transmission has higher performances compared to the same transmission with one input and one output, the increase of the kinematic amplification ratio and efficiency being achieved simultaneously.
Microgels Formed by Spontaneous Click Chemistries Utilizing Microfluidic Flow Focusing for Cargo Release in Response to Endogenous or Exogenous Stimuli

Protein therapeutics have become increasingly popular for the treatment of a variety of diseases owing to their specificity to targets of interest. However, challenges associated with them have limited their use for a range of ailments, including the limited options available for local controlled delivery. To address this challenge, degradable hydrogel microparticles, or microgels, loaded with model biocargoes were created with tunable release profiles or triggered burst release using chemistries responsive to endogenous or exogeneous stimuli, respectively. Specifically, microfluidic flow-focusing was utilized to form homogenous microgels with different spontaneous click chemistries that afforded degradation either in response to redox environments for sustained cargo release or light for on-demand cargo release. The resulting microgels were an appropriate size to remain localized within tissues upon injection and were easily passed through a needle relevant for injection, providing means for localized delivery. Release of a model biopolymer was observed over the course of several weeks for redox-responsive formulations or triggered for immediate release from the light-responsive formulation. Overall, we demonstrate the ability of microgels to be formulated with different materials chemistries to achieve various therapeutic release modalities, providing new tools for creation of more complex protein release profiles to improve therapeutic regimens.