Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental Validation of Nominal Model Characteristics for Pneumatic Muscle Actuator

Pneumatic artificial muscles belong to a category of nonconventional pneumatic actuators that are distinctive for their high power/weight ratio, simple construction and low price and maintenance costs. As such, pneumatic artificial muscles represent an alternative type of pneumatic actuator that could replace the traditional ones in certain applications. Due to their specific construction, PAM-based systems have nonlinear characteristics which make it more difficult to design a control system with good performance. In the paper, a gray-box model (basically analytical but with certain experimental parts) of the one degree-of-freedom PAM-based actuator is derived. This model interconnects the description of pneumatic and mechanical part of the system through a set of several nonlinear differential equations and its main purpose is the design of intelligent control system in simulation environment. The model is validated in both open-loop and closed-loop mode using the measurements on real plant and the results confirm that model performance is in good agreement with the performance of real actuator.
Innovations in domotics: fulfilling potential or hampered by prevailing technological regime?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning, as well as the drivers, of innovation in theory and practice for gaining insight into the reasons why the diffusion of innovative technologies fails; even though they promise a superior performance compared to incumbent technologies. The paper describes an explorative study of the diffusion of domotics technologies in residential construction.Design/methodology/approach – Innovation systems theory, which points to the “technological regime” in the actor network as a key element in the diffusion, acceptance, and application of new technologies was used to analyse the diffusion of domotics technologies in residential construction.Findings – The results underscored the expected “bottlenecks” in the technological regime of the innovation system that curtailed the diffusion of domotics technologies in construction.Originality/value – The novelty of the paper is in the approach of the research and the collected data on the technological regime among.
Manufacturability considerations in designing optical monitoring methods for control of plasma etch processes

Robustness and reliability are among the most important requirements of semiconductor manufacturing processes. Their importance grows with the need to continuously improve yield and contribute to reduced cost of ownership. This necessitates including manufacturability considerations in the fundamental design of methods and instruments for in situ control of plasma etch processes. Optical monitoring methods and equipment for broadband (UV-VIS-IR) reflectometry have been developed to meet these advanced needs. The hardware is optimized for sufficiently accurate in situ metrology capabilities in a harsh plasma processing environment with minimal maintenance requirements. Novel model-based approaches are used to determine the absolute wafer state in real time. This facilitates compensating for incoming material variation with minimal reliance on operator input and interpretation. No special test structures on the wafer are required while the process chamber is only minimally modified for diagnostic equipment access. The methods facilitate development of fault detection schemes that help prevent misprocessing of wafers. Thus, demanding process control requirements are met on a wafer-to-wafer basis. The applicability of the technique has been successfully demonstrated for critical silicon-based etch applications such as shallow trench isolation (STI), recess for DRAM and embedded DRAM (eDRAM), and polysilicon gate.
Heavy metal ions removal from wastewater using various low-cost agricultural wastes as adsorbents: a survey

Toxic heavy metals have an important role in water pollution. Because of their toxicity and non-biodegradability which affects humans, animals, and also plants. Researchers in the field of environment used various heavy metal removal methods, such as ion exchange, precipitation, evaporation, membrane filtration and adsorption. Low cost, high efficiency and easy regeneration make the adsorption process as an effective technique in the heavy metal removal. The purpose of this review is to gather sufficient information about various agricultural waste adsorbents and their removal capacity for heavy metals.
Piezoresistive cantilever as portable micro force calibration standard

Design, fabrication and test of cantilever-type sensors for active micro force calibration are described. The cantilever comprises a probing tip at its free end where a force can be applied which is measured using a piezoresistive strain gauge at the cantilever suspension. The stiffness of the cantilever is approximately given by the spring constant of a beam with a rectangular cross section as confirmed by finite element modelling. Prototypes with a stiffness of 0.66 N m? 1 and 7.7 N m? 1 are realized using standard silicon bulk micromachining technology. Testing is performed using a high-resolution micro force measuring set-up. In either case a highly linear relationship between the gauge output voltage and the probing force is revealed in the ? N range. Low scatter and drift corresponding to a standard deviation of ? 0.22% was found for the resulting force sensitivity.
Opto-electronic hybrid components for optical concurrent communications in peer-to-peer self-organizing network

We have demonstrated our newly considered self-organizing network nodes which realize optical concurrent communications. Using optical devices such as light emitting diode (LED) and photo diode (PD), we have experimentally composed the non-linear characteristics required for the practical adaptive nodes. We also have accomplished to incorporate some functions which realize the optical concurrent communications into our opto-electronic hybrid circuits. Therefore, without any problem of cross talking or miss formation of the propagation routes, a number of potential communicator pairs may have concurrent access to this self-organizing network formed by interconnecting our nodes. We confirmed the performance of our present nodes experimentally as well as numerically. As a consequence, our present optical nodes have been proved to be practical for the optical peer-to-peer self-organizing network in which concurrent communications are allowed.
Development of National Standard Class Reference Divider for impulse voltage measurements

This paper describes the details of the recently constructed Japan's 500kV National Standard Class Divider whose unit response parameters are measured to be better than the already developed 700kv Reference Divider's, which fulfils IEC-60060 requirements. The 500kV divider has a specially tuned compensating circuit in the low voltage arm, making its unit step response quite close to an ideal. Also in the paper, the tuning technique, which makes the experimental response time almost zero, is discussed.
Artificial Intelligence toward Personalized Medicine

In current medical practice when a patient feels symptoms he/she would consult the doctor. The doctor then gives medication in a one-fits-all fashion. However, recent genetics studies had shown that different genetic makeup can results in different effects on medication, so the medication should be customed for every individual. The main idea of “personalized medicine” is to provide the right intervention including medication to the right patient at the right time and dose. With this approach, the medication paradigm would shift from curative to preventive. The rise of personalized medicine had been possible because the information from ever-increasing biomolecular (proteomics, genomics, and other omics) and health-related data are successfully “mined” by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. In this paper, we proposed that AI systems toward personalized medicine must have acceptable performance, be readily interpretable by the clinical community, and be validated in a large cohort. We examined a few landmark papers with the keyword “AI for personalized medicine application”; 1) automatic image-based patient classification, 2) automatic gene-based cancer classification, and 3) automatic health-record heart failure with preserved ejection fraction patient phenotyping. All the examples are evaluated by their performance, interpretability, and clinical validity. From the analysis, we concluded that AI for personalized medicine could benefit by five factors: (1) standardization and pooling of genetics and health data, nationally and internationally, (2) the use of multi-modalities data, (3) disease specialist to guide the development of AI model, (4) investigation of AI-finding by clinical community, and (5) follow-up of AI-finding by the large clinical trial.
Development of an acetylene optical frequency standard at 1.5 μm and its applications

We report the recent progress of our work on the development of an optical frequency standard in the 1.5 micrometer region based on a Doppler-free acetylene absorption. We have developed compact and portable acetylene-stabilized diode lasers for practical use. We have realized the frequency stability and reproducibility of about 2 X 10-13 and 2 X 10-11 respectively using a third-harmonic signal detection. We have measured the absolute frequency of the acetylene transition with an uncertainty of about 10-10 using a frequency chain based on a two-color mode-locked fiber laser. One of the important applications of the acetylene optical frequency standard is the WDM optical communication system, which requires precise absolute frequency references for a hundred of channel frequencies in the wavelength region of 1530 - 1565 nm. We have developed a wide-range heterodyne optical phase-locked diode laser using the acetylene-stabilized laser as a master in order to realize the WDM channel frequency standards.
Ultrafast all-optical 4-bit digital encoders using differential phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifier-Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration

Abstract. A novel approach for all-optical digital encoder for both binary-to-gray code and gray-to-binary code have been proposed. Design is based on the basic concept of digital encoder using the exclusive OR (XOR) addition. The XOR gate used in these encoders has been implemented using differential phase modulation between two arms of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), in which a semiconductor optical amplifier is placed symmetrically in both arms of MZI. For the most severely degraded output bit, i.e., least significant bit for gray-to-binary encoder, the extinction ratio obtained is 2.35 while the minimum bit error rate is zero at 10 GB/s. For the second most significant bit of gray-to-binary encoder and for all the three bits except the most significant bit of binary-to-gray encoder, the extinction ratio obtained is around 27 dB. For the most significant bit, as input and output bits are same, the extinction ratio is very high, approaching infinity.
Cloud-Oriented XML Metadata Generation between Heterogeneous Navigation Systems for Unknown Roads

The roadmap DB update for unknown roads is a very important factor for car navigation systems. In this paper, we propose a cloud computing based roadmap generation method for use between heterogeneous navigation system for unknown roads. While the drivers drive on unknown roads, the proposed method extracts the road attribute information, and then generates the metadata in an XML format that is available for the heterogeneous navigation systems in a cloud environment. The metadata is proposed to be used as a replacement for conventional proprietary roadmap formats which used by roadmap providers, which is efficient for heterogeneous navigation system providers in a cloud computing environment. Then, this metadata is provided to the roadmap DB providers through the cloud computing interfaces. With the proposed method, the roadmap DB providers update the own roadmap DB for navigation systems in real time. Therefore, the proposed method can reduce the costs of an actual traveling test and the maintenance for the roadmap DB provides. Thus, the cloud-oriented road map generation method can more efficiently update the unknown road information.
Development of a PCR assay for amplification of mating-type loci of Alternaria spp. and related fungi.

A large number of ascomycete anamorphs including Alternaria spp. are considered asexual, but carry structurally conserved genes in a mating-type locus (MAT1) with two alternate idiomorphs, MAT1-1 and MAT1-2. Since the locus has lost its main function in many species, different directions of natural selection acting on the idiomorphs can be observed. Thus identification of mating types can be used in population biology studies. Also analysis of MAT1 locus sequences is needed for evolution and phylogeny reconstruction. Eighteen primers from previous works and this study were assessed for their ability to amplify MAT1 in 25 Alternaria and 7 Ulocladium, Embellisia and Alternariaster species. The most suitable primer pairs for 6 sections of Alternaria and several Ulocladium species were revealed.
Detection of lower hybrid waves at the plasma edge of a diverted tokamak

In this thesis, two experimental investigations are presented in an attempt to understand the loss of lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) efficiency in reactor-relevant, high-density plasmas on the diverted Alcator C-Mod tokamak. While the previous work has identified that edge interactions, such as collisional absorption and excessive up-shift of the parallel refractive index due to full-wave effects, could potentially explain the observed loss of LHCD efficiency in a wide range of line-averaged densities, these simulations still over-predict the fast electron population generated by LHCD above line-averaged densities of 1 x 1020 m3. It is critical to identify remaining mechanisms in order to demonstrate advanced tokamak operation at reactor-relevant densities. The first investigation is to perform microwave backscattering experiments to detect electrostatic lower hybrid (LH) waves in the scrape-off layer (SOL), where a significant amount of the injected LH power may be deposited due to a number edge loss mechanisms. An existing ordinary-mode (0-mode) reflectometer system has been modified to measure the backscattered O-mode wave as a result of Bragg backscattering of the incident O-mode wave off the LH wave. The detection of LH waves in a region that is not magnetically connected to the launcher implies a weak single pass absorption of LH waves in high density plasmas. The observed spectral width of the backscattered signals indicates the presence of non-linear effects on the propagation of LH waves, but no experimental evidence is found to confirm whether the non-linear mechanism that is responsible for the observed spectral broadening is responsible for the observed loss of LHCD efficiency. The second investigation is to examine the change in LH frequency spectra due to density-dependent non-linear effects, such as parametric decay instability (PDI) above the line-averaged density of 1 x 1020 m3, using the probes installed on the launcher, outer divertor, and inner wall. Ion cyclotron PDI is found to be excited above line-averaged densities of 1 x 1020 m -3, suggesting that ion cyclotron PDI may be a remaining mechanism to understand the loss of LHCD efficiency. Ion cyclotron PDI is observed to be excited not only at the low-field-side edge but also at the
Investigation of filtering techniques applied to the dynamic shape estimation problem

This paper investigates the use of filtering techniques, such as the Kalman filter, to perform dynamic shape estimation of structures. Existing dynamic shape estimation techniques use static estimation techniques at each time step. This approach has been shown to be unsatisfactory, since aliasing of the higher modes, which is generally not seen in the static case, occurs strongly in the dynamic case. In many cases aliasing produces signal to noise ratios significantly greater than unity. Two approaches are proposed. The first approach improves upon existing techniques by using low-pass filters that are designed to roll-off after the natural modes that contribute significantly to the deformation of the structure, reducing effect of high-frequency noise and aliasing. The second approach uses a Kalman filter to sift out the desired low-frequency modes, since they contribute most to the displacements, while treating the higher modes as a component of the noise present in the system. Unlike static estimation techniques, the Kalman filter-based technique easily allows consideration of a number of modes larger than the number of sensors and takes into account the measurement errors. Numerical simulations were conducted to compare various dynamic estimation techniques and the results show that the Kalman filtering technique can reduce the error from 1000% down to less than 1% for an ideal cantilever beam. Experimental data, susceptible to modeling and sensing errors, show that the proposed methods result in significant improvement over existing techniques.
Design of Single Star Simulator Based on LED Light Source

This paper use a single LED light source with wide spectrum to develop a single star simulator of compact structure and high precision. In order to select the spectrum of LED as the light source of star simulators, the spectrum range of simulated star magnitude is researched through Main Star Sequence Diagram. It is found that the spectrum between 2m~7m magnitudes is basically in accordance with the spectrum range of white light. The PWM current control system with 16 bites controller is employed to adjust LED luminescence through changing the duty ratio of PWM, which ensures the error of drive current less than 0.1%. The experiments show that the LED star simulator has the characteristics of compact structure, economical and easily controlled. The simulated precision of star magnitude attains ±0.1m .
Review of Ambient Aerosol Test Procedures in ASAE Standard S525

In November 1997, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) approved ASAE Standard S525. This standard provides performance specifications for environmental enclosures that are intended to protect operators from pesticide exposures during application. As part of ASAE Standard S525, optical particle counters and ambient aerosol are used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of these enclosures. This consensus standard specifies that the enclosure shall provide a 50:1 reduction in exposures for particles in a range of 2 to 4 µm aerodynamic diameter. ASAE Standard S525 also states that the filters shall be at least 99% efficient for particles larger than 3 µm. Data collection involves using two optical particle counters to measure aerosol concentrations inside and outside the cab during at least four different sessions. Statistical tests, specifically t-tests, are used to evaluate adherence to the standard. Because the test procedure can be complicated by aerosol generation in the cab, sophisticated judgment is needed before testing and data accumulation begin. The article’s purpose is to review the basis for the ambient aerosol testing procedures, as specified in ASAE Standard S525, and to point out the standard’s pitfalls.
Non-inverted multiple wavelength converter at 40 Gbit/s using 1550 nm quantum dot SOA

Error-free and low penalty ( < 2.5 dB) 1 times 4 multiwavelength conversion at 40 Gbit/s in a 1550 nm quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier (QD-SOA) is demonstrated. The suggested converter makes use of a simplified filtering scheme based on a standard telecom grade dense wavelength division multiplexing demultiplexer (Demux). By detuning the wavelength of the continuous-wave probes out of the Demux s passband, a non-inverted wavelength converted signal is available at each of the Demux s outputs. Albeit significant fibre-to-fibre losses of the non-packaged QD-SOA (~10 dB), only a low penalty is reported, mainly due to the low noise at the amplifier s output, with similar performance for a single and multiple wavelength conversion operation of the setup.
Atomic scale study of silver sulfide leaching with cyanide and thiourea

Understanding of atomic scale interactions of molecular species with mineral surfaces is needed to bring about mineral processing innovation. In this regard, Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods are well suited. In this work, the outcome of leaching synthetic acanthite a surrogate for a silver-containing sulfide orewith both cyanide ion and thiourea are studied with DFT considering solvent effects. The results are correlated to the experimental percentage of silver extracted with each of the leaching agents under similar conditions of molar concentration, temperature and percentage of solids. Our calculations show both leaching reactions to be exergonic and of the same order of magnitude in Gibbs energy of reaction than values determined from thermodynamic tables. Also, less favorable Gibbs reaction energies are obtained for cyanidation in absence of oxygen and thioureation in absence of Fe(III) highlighting the impact of oxidants on the exergonicity of the respective global leaching reactions. Finally, analyzing the percentage of silver extracted from acanthite and the absolute value of Gibbs energies of the respective reaction, we conclude that the more exergonic a leaching reaction, the higher percentage of silver is extracted from acanthite, provided that there is no kinetic control of each of the leaching reactions.
Modelling and Simulation of Bicycle Dynamics

In this paper the authors present an experimental validation of the bicycle simulator developed by two IFSTTAR laboratories: LEPSIS and LPC. In the first part, we focus on improving the dynamics of the bicycle model and simulate the effects of road geometry and surface characteristics such as radius of curvature, road adhesion and unevenness of road profile. In order to verify the accuracy of the developed model, experimental results are shown. For future work, the authors will study the effect of these characteristics on user behaviour to improve the safety and stability of bicycles, particularly in bad weather conditions.
Flow Assurance of Deepwater Oil and Gas Production: A Review

Flow assurance is essential for economic and reliable production of oil and gas in deep water environment. The present paper discusses the complex physical phenomena involved in deep water production and the challenging engineering problems of flow assurance; and reviews recent works to understand the processes and tackle the problems. The following topics are discussed: flow regime transition, pressure drop, flow pattern, slug flow and severe slugging, transient multiphase flow, thermal insulation, insulation materials, active heating and wax deposition.Copyright © 2003 by ASME