Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Work transformation following the implementation of an ERP system: an activity-theoretical perspective

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce the Human Resources (HR) module of the SAP suite in the Italian branch of a leading multinational pharmaceutical company. This study can be re-conducted within the interpretive tradition of information technology studies focusing on the attempt to understand and describe how software users in the HR department interpreted the enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology, how they changed their work practices and the changes that occurred in organizational discourses and meanings alongside the process. Design/methodology/approach The case study/intervention took start with the impulse of the Italian HR department manager, who was struck by the way that the ERP system technology implementation was affecting work life of the employees in the department. This research/intervention used interviews, focus groups and internal documents as sources of data. The authors conducted and analyzed 20 narrative interviews and 3 focus groups with middle managers, and they analyzed about 120 pages of internal memos. Findings The implementation of ERP systems is almost invariably accompanied by great expectations of increased process rationalization, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and upper managers’ discourses make large use of what Engestrom et al., 2010 have called process efficiency rhetoric. But the ERP technology, most likely, will neither revolutionize management nor will it become a “complete calculation machine” that runs an entire work organization (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005, p. 731). Originality/value The implementation of the ERP system has caused conflicts and disturbances, aggravating contradictions that already existed between activity systems and introducing new types of contradictions. Pre-existent contradictions become clearer; there is a stronger interconnection between activity systems. The individual agents could experiment an expansion in their activities if only they will initiate a movement of expansive learning and if they are not prevented from doing so by coercive control. The natural expansion of the subjects’ scope of activity and horizons of possibilities could be sustained by the ERP technology if it is not used as a tool for domination and if the upper management does not try and separate what cannot in actuality be separated: The actors’ capabilities of improvised learning, which makes the institution of a new mode of the activity possible, and their capacity to assume collective control of the meaning and direction of the transformation of the activity. ERPs are technologies that can naturally bring transformations in the activity system and networks where they are introduced, but in some cases, they can easily and in a non reflective manner be intended as tools for oppression by the upper management.
A Phase Sensitive Voltmeter For A High-speed, High-precision Electrical Impedance Tomograph

Many potential applications for Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) have been investigated, many of which are particularly suited to real-time imaging [I]. The ill-posedness of the inverse problem of reconstructing the interior impedance distribution from boundary measurements requires that the boundary data be measured with great precision. As speed and precision are in general conflicting requirements, the construction of an instrument having both has proven to be a challenge. We describe here the phase-sensitive voltmeter to be used in ACT 111, Rensselaer's third generation impedance tomograph [2],[3].
Exploration of Pinned Photodiode Radiation Hardening Solutions Through TCAD Simulations

The use of pinned photodiode (PPD)-based CMOS image sensors (CIS) in harsh radiation environment (such as space) is limited by their tolerance to ionizing radiation. Technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations are performed to reproduce the radiation-induced defect and therefore the dark current increase in PPD pixels up to 1 kGy (i.e., 100 krad) of total ionizing dose (TID). To do so, the TCAD models are calibrated with measurements performed on irradiated pixels. Then, the influence on the PPD radiation hardness of various manufacturing process and pixel design modifications are explored. This work shows that the proposed modification can improve the radiation hardness of PPD CIS against ionizing.
Developing of Reliability-Centered Maintenance Methodology in Second Power Plant of South Baghdad

Electric equipments of power station must be operated in the state of high reliability with its responsibility in the seamless power supply. Maintenance is one of the important and most costly phases in the lifecycle of any power generation systems, to improve maintenance management and system reliability and maintain the continuity of work of the system. Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) is one of the most recent maintenance techniques. In this research, an enhanced RCM methodology based on quantitative relationships implemented at system component level and the overall system reliability was applied to identify the distribution components that are critical to system reliability. Only unit one of the Second Power Plant of South Baghdad were selected as a case study in this research application. The major contribution of the study is to create a maintenance plan through applying statistical, historical data to generate a failure probability distribution model by using the combined methods of Failure Mode of Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) and Faul t Tree Analysis (FTA). Evaluation criteria and matrixes of criticality are used to evaluate the criticality level of failure modes. The overall approach developed offers a cost-effective model, which can be applied prior to testing and inspection procedures during the RCM application. The results obtained from this case study show that the application of proposed RCM methodology based on preventive maintenance planning will decrease the total cost value of maintenance about 463469.85 $. That Indicates saving about 59% of the total downtime cost compared with current maintenance. As well as Proposed maintenance program reduce the required time to repair the plant components annually at a rate 6 day so that represent that the labor cost will minimized about 424 6 $. KeywordsRCM, Reliability Engineering, Maintenance Planning, Failure Mode, FMECA, FTA, Cost Analysis. How to cite this article: A.B. Adulghafour, D.H. Dhayef, “Developing of Reliability-Centered Maintenance Methodology in Second Power Plant of South Baghdad,” Engineering and Technology Journal, Vol. 36, Part A, No. 8, pp. 842-852, 2018.
Numerical study of boundary layer transition using intermittency model

Purpose In this paper, the applicability of shear stress transport k-ω model along with the intermittency concept has been investigated over pitching airfoils to capture the laminar separation bubble (LSB) position and the boundary layer transition movement. The effect of reduced frequency of oscillations on boundary layer response is also examined. Design/methodology/approach A two-dimensional computational fluid dynamic code was developed to compute the effects of unsteadiness on LSB formation, transition point movement, pressure distribution and lift force over an oscillating airfoil using transport equation of intermittency accompanied by the k-ω model. Findings The results indicate that increasing the angle of attack over the stationary airfoil causes the LSB size to shorten, leading to a rise in wall shear stress and pressure suction peak. In unsteady cases, both three- and four-equation models are capable of capturing the experimentally measured transition point well. The transition is delayed for an unsteady boundary layer in comparison with that for a static airfoil at the same angle of attack. Increasing the unsteadiness of flow, i.e. reduced frequency, moves the transition point toward the trailing edge of the airfoil. This increment also results in lower static pressure suction peak and hence lower lift produced by the airfoil. It was also found that the fully turbulent k-ω shear–stress transport (SST) model cannot capture the so-called figure-of-eight region in lift coefficient and the employment of intermittency transport equation is essential. Practical implications Boundary layer transition and unsteady flow characteristics owing to airfoil motion are both important for many engineering applications including micro air vehicles as well as helicopter blade, wind turbine and aircraft maneuvers. In this paper, the accuracy of transition modeling based on intermittency transport concept and the response of boundary layer to unsteadiness are investigated. Originality/value As a conclusion, the contribution of this paper is to assess the ability of intermittency transport models to predict LSB and transition point movements, static pressure distribution and aerodynamic lift variations and boundary layer flow pattern over dynamic pitching airfoils with regard to oscillation frequency effects for engineering problems.
Measurement System of Metal Magnetic Memory Method Signals around Rectangular Defects of a Ferromagnetic Pipe

Oil and gas pipeline networks require the periodic inspection of their infrastructure, which can cause gas and oil leakage with several damages to the environment and human health. For this, non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques of low-cost and easy implementation are required. An option is the metal magnetic memory (MMM) method, which could be used for real-time monitoring defects of ferromagnetic structures based on the analysis of self-magnetic leakage fields distribution around each defect. This method only requires magnetic sensors with high resolution and a data processing system. We present a measurement system of tangential and normal MMM signals of three rectangular defects of an ASTM A-36 steel pipe. This system is formed by a magnetoresistive sensor, an Arduino nano and a virtual instrumentation. The measured magnetic signals have non-uniform distributions around the rectangular defects, which have small differences with respect to the results obtained of a 2D magnetic dipole model. The size of each rectangular defect is related to the amplitude and shape of its tangential and normal MMM signals. The proposed system could be used for real-time monitoring of the size and location of rectangular defects of ferromagnetic pipes. This system does not require expensive equipment, operators with high skill level or a special treatment of the ferromagnetic samples.
Empirical-Bayes Approaches to Recovery of Structured Sparse Signals via Approximate Message Passing

In recent years, there have been massive increases in both the dimensionality and sample sizes of data due to ever-increasing consumer demand coupled with relatively inexpensive sensing technologies. These high-dimensional datasets bring challenges such as complexity, along with numerous opportunities. Though many signals of interest live in a high-dimensional ambient space, they often have a much smaller inherent dimensionality which, if leveraged, lead to improved recoveries. For example, the notion of sparsity is a requisite in the compressive sensing (CS) field, which allows for accurate signal reconstruction from sub-Nyquist sampled measurements given certain conditions. When recovering a sparse signal from noisy compressive linear measurements, the distribution of the signal’s non-zero coefficients can have a profound effect on recovery mean-squared error (MSE). If this distribution is apriori known, then one could use computationally efficient approximate message passing (AMP) techniques that yield approximate minimum MSE (MMSE) estimates or critical points to the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation problem. In practice, though, the distribution is unknown, motivating the use of robust, convex algorithms such as LASSO–which
Using a Hybrid Pedagogical Method in Undergraduate Interior Design Education.

A flipped-classroom pedagogical method has been adopted by some educators over several past decades both knowingly and unknowingly. In this pedagogical method, the traditional classroom lecture and homework settings are flipped. Students are required to watch short video lectures as homework while the regular class sessions are devoted to in class activities. Flipped-classroom methods have been used as a pedagogical approach in different classroom environments from k-12 to college or university level class settings. There are several evidences of this pedagogical approach being adopted in both social science and pure science class settings. In this study, the author discusses the effectiveness of a flipped classroom method as a successful pedagogical approach for interior design students in achieving educational objectives. The author investigated a flipped classroom pedagogical method by adopting it in a sophomore level Interior Construction class. The choice to implement a flipped classroom method in this class was due to a rigid lecture and lab component which required the students to work on projects based on the lecture materials covered in the class. The course was taught by the same instructor covering similar content in three consecutive years; using a traditional pedagogical method, a flipped classroom pedagogical method and using a hybrid approach of traditional method and flipped classroom method. A one-way ANOVA results of the student test scores suggested a significant effect of the pedagogical method on student performances for the three classes. Results suggest a flipped classroom as an effective way forward when combined with traditional method as adopted under the hybrid approach.
Modeling and solving sequential decision problems with uncertainty and partial information

The idea of developing General Problem Solvers (GPS) has been in Artificial Intelligence (AI) since its inception. A GPS is a computer system comprised of a general description language and algorithms used to model and solve sequential decision problems. This dissertation focuses in developing a GPS aimed at sequential decision problems involving uncertainty and partial information. The general approach proposed here addresses the task of building a GPS from three different and orthogonal dimensions of (i) mathematical models that characterize the problems, their solutions and optimal solutions, (ii) high-level description languages used to describe the mathematical models in an economical and amenable way, and (iii) general algorithms, based on heuristic search, used to solve the resulting models. This work starts from the mathematical models of control theory and proposes novel representation techniques and algorithmic solutions superior to the ones traditionally used. The new algorithms are the result of casting the general sequential decision problem as a search problem in a suitable space that is then tackled using basic principles from AI. The dissertation thus presents a new perspective on sequential decision making that allows for a fruitful cross-fertilization between control theory and AI. The contributions of this work are diverse. We show new theoretical results about the existence and characterization of solutions for the mathematical theory of Markov decision processes. On the algorithmic side, we propose new algorithms based on heuristic search that compute partial optimal policies, together with new heuristic functions. We show the correctness and complexity of the algorithms, and the formal properties of the heuristic functions. The performance of the new algorithms is shown to be superior, through a number of experiments, to the current state-of-the-art algorithms. On the representation side, we introduce a new and very expressive representation language for planning problems involving uncertainty and partial information. This is one of the first general representation languages capable of coping with a broad range of planning problems including robot navigation, game playing, synthesis of circuits, medical diagnosis, sequential knowledge acquisition, etc. Several extensions of the approach are also included. They give formal characterization of models known up to a certain degree of precision, and novel proposals for trading off sub-optimality of solutions against performance. These extensions are built upon methods from qualitative decision theory (as the kappa functions proposed by Spohn and used by Pearl and others to model qualitative information), methods of propositional satisfiability, and the novel data structures used in formal verification.
System‐level reliability sensitivity analysis by using weighted average simulation method

In addition to reliability analysis, investigation of the uncertainties' effect on the safety of structures can be regarded as one of the great concerns in engineering fields. The present study provides an efficient perturbation‐based reliability sensitivity analysis approach based on weighted average simulation method (WASM) to attain uncertainties effects on the structures safety. Without asking additional samplings and/or requiring to function derivation (that is necessary in score function method), the proposed approach simultaneously uses the finite difference and weight flexibility feature of WASM to estimate the parameter sensitivities of a reliability problem. The proposed method has also been successfully applied to the improved version of WASM to obtain reliability based sensitivity results with very few samples. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method is examined by solving five analytical and engineering examples with highly nonlinear performance functions and system‐level reliability problems. For each example, results are compared with those obtained by Monte Carlo simulation and common reliability methods. It is shown that the method is capable of solving real world system‐level engineering problems efficiently and accurately.
What component content management systems do to technical documentation and technical communication: a qualitative study

A component content management system (CCMS) is a type of content management system (CMS) used for managing content at a component level. It has been used in technical documentation. In a CCMS-based working environment, technical authors experience both benefits and challenges. Antecedent studies have discussed the benefits including reuse, consistency, collaboration, workflow, separation of content and layout and publishing, as well as challenges such as usability and the cost; however, these studies were done years ago, and most of them were based on case studies instead of extensive empirical studies. Therefore, the first research question of this study investigated the benefits and challenges of CCMSs that are recognized in current technical documentation. A CMS is used for content management in the field of technical communication. Now as technical communication sees the emergence of innovative devices that support multimedia like audios, videos, virtual reality, augmented reality, together with the new changes of readership and authorship, the second research question in this study examined what possibilities CMSs have in the future of technical communication. 37 interviews with practitioners in the field of technical communication were made to find the answers to the two research questions. The findings are as follows: the benefits of CCMSs recognized by practitioners, include reuse, single sourcing & consistency, separated layout, filtering, variable & conditional publishing, the single-sourcing reuse of images, predefined template, metadata and open standard, version management, workflow & collaboration among roles, translation & language management, good accessibility, safety and searchablity. The challenges of predefined layout and template, workflow and collaboration among roles, use of image, overview, component-based writing, translation and language management, publishing, bad usability, slow response time, negative attitudes of technical communicators, search, version management, metadata, filtering & conditional publishing, and restricted genres still occur, while most of the challenges can be resolved or reduced by a careful and proper implementation process of CCMSs. A CMS driven by metadata will still be a suitable tool for the content management in the future of technical communication.
Integrating Qualitative Research Approaches in Traditional Introductory Statistics Courses: Pros and Cons

In this paper we seek to add to a scholarly dialogue concerning the arguments for and against integrating selected qualitative research approaches in traditional introductory statistics courses. Given recurring concerns about students' motivation, achievements, and eventual understanding of the role of (quantitative and qualitative) data in providing answers to real-world problems, we look beyond the strict borders of the discipline of statistics. We advocate a guided exposure of learners to qualitative methods based on a 'triangle model' of context, demands of the learning process, and learners' acquired knowledge and skills. Some of our arguments pertain to expectations and needs of learners and their prospective employers; emerging knowledge regarding the nature and complexity of the learning of statistics; and the structure of real-world data-based queries. The model points to a need for a broad multi-method-grounded knowledge as well as communicative and interpretive skills that are not being developed in many introductory statistics courses.
Authoring effective depictions of reality by combining multiple samples of the plenoptic function

Cameras are powerful tools for depicting the world around us, but the images they produce are interpretations of reality that often fail to resemble our intended interpretation. While photographs provide a strong illusion of realism, they are not always effective at depicting what the author hoped to depict. The recent digitization of photography and video offers the opportunity to move beyond the traditional constraints of analog photography and improve the techniques we use to create depictions from light in a scene. In this thesis, I explore one approach to addressing this challenge. My approach begins by capturing multiple digital photographs and videos of a scene. I present algorithms and interfaces that identify the best pieces of this captured imagery, as well as algorithms for seamlessly fusing these pieces into new depictions that are better than any of the originals. As I show in this thesis, the results are often much more effective than what could be achieved using traditional photographic techniques. I apply this approach to three projects in particular. The "photomontage" system is an interactive tool that partially automates the process of combining the best features of a stack of images. The user authors a composite image by specifying high-level objectives that the composite should exhibit; the system then constructs a depiction from pieces of the input images by maximizing these objectives while also minimizing visual artifacts. In the next project, I extend the photomontage approach to handle sequences of photographs captured from shifted viewpoints. The output is a "multi-viewpoint panorama" that is useful for depicting scenes too long to effectively image with the single-viewpoint perspective produced by a traditional camera. In the final project, I extend my approach to video sequences. I introduce the "panoramic video texture," which is a video with a wide field of view that appears to play continuously and indefinitely. The result is a new medium that combines the benefits of panoramic photography and video to provide a more immersive depiction of a scene. The key challenge in this project is that panoramic video textures are created from the input of a single video camera that slowly pans across the scene; thus, although only a portion of the scene has been imaged at any given time, the output must simultaneously portray motion throughout the scene. Throughout this thesis, I demonstrate how these novel techniques can be used to create expressive visual media that more effectively depicts reality.