Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Doctoral Consortium Dissertation Abstract

Broadly, my current research focuses on two areas. One area is Knowledge Representation. I co-invented First Order Decision Diagrams (FODD) and Generalized First Order Decision Diagrams (GFODD). (G)FODDs are a formalism for compactly representing real and Boolean valued functions over relational structures. We developed algorithms for composition and logical simplification (reduction) of these functions by theorem proving and model checking methods. We discovered properties and proved several theoretical results for (G)FODDs. (G)FODDs have many potential applications. We have already demonstrated their utility in representing and solving Relational Markov Decision Processes (RMDP). The other area focuses on building agents that can take actions in complex, dynamic and stochastic environments to achieve a predefined objective. Decision Theoretic Planning (DTP) has been one of the most successful frameworks for this task. The idea is to represent such problems as Markov Decision Processes (MDP), exploit structure in the problem definition and solve the MDP using Dynamic Programming methods. We extended the field of DTP by developing algorithms to represent and solve RMDPs using (G)FODDs. Based on this we also developed a planning system FODD-P LANNER that demonstrated performance comparable to top ranking systems from the international planning competition. Later we invented a new paradigm for planning by learning within the framework of the FODD-P LANNER and achieved drastic improvement in planning efficiency by leveraging model checking methods for FODD reduction. Building agents (Russel and Norvig 2002) that adapt and thrive in their environment is a very important problem within Artificial Intelligence (AI). Usually such agent s become able to take actions in the environment, towards achieving their objective, either by searching, by reasoning or by learning. In fact, in one view it is theproblem of AI. This is because humans are agents that adapt and act in complex environments in order to achieve an objective the maximization of total happiness. This broad research area can then be seen to encompass various other fields of AI like Problem Solving, Knowledge Representation, Planning and Copyright c © 2010, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. Acting, and Machine Learning. Research work in this field has always been of deep interest to me. Milestones along this way help to solve relevant practical problems of interest. To that extent I am interested in a variety of sub-fields of AI. My dissertation reflects this.
The Economic Value of Changes in Harvest Regulations to Anglers on Charter and Private Boat Trips: Results from a Choice Experiment Survey in Southeastern U.S. Waters

We estimate the economic value of changes in saltwater fishing regulations to anglers fishing on charter and private boat trips in southeastern U.S. waters. Our new estimates of angler willingness to pay (WTP) are for hypothetical changes in the bag limits for dolphinfish, Coryphaena hippurus; red snapper, Lutjanus campechanus; other/aggregate snappers, Lutjanidae spp. ; grouper, Epinephelus spp. and Mycteroperca spp. ; and king mackerel, Scomberomorus cavalla. We use a multispecies choice experiment with varying levels of regulations (e.g., bag limits), not catching or keeping fish. The focus on changes in regulations, instead of catch, allows us to explicitly consider how angler WTP might vary over the range of potential regulation levels, including closure. We compare three specifications of WTP for regulations that span the range of economically reasonable behavior: no decreasing marginal WTP (linear increasing WTP), piece-wise linear WTP, and absolute among trip attributes in the SPCE. In our approach, the choice situation faced by respondents in our survey more closely reflects the actual choice situation prior to a fishing trip, where regulations are known but fishing success is not. Our SPCE modeling also explicitly considers how angler values might vary over the range of potential bag limits, including zero which represents the case when the fishing season is closed. Much of the research on angler preferences assumes that the relationship between angler WTP and catching or keeping fish is linear or other simple function. A constant marginal WTP, i.e., a non-decreasing marginal WTP, is convenient for regulatory analysis, but, if incorrect, could lead to inaccurate estimates of changes in economic value. Furthermore, anglers’ value for regulations and catching or keeping fish might change in discrete ways that are crucial to consider in economic analyses. Anglers might place a large value on the opportunity to keep at least one fish, but value subsequently kept fish relatively less or not at all. We refer to the case where the angler does not value subsequently kept decreasing marginal WTP, where only the first unit has value (i.e., anglers care about the opening of the season but not about how many fish they may keep). We find absolute decreasing marginal WTP for four out of the five cases we can evaluate. We also test whether the WTP for regulations depends on the mode of fishing (charter or private boat). After controlling for differences in party size, we find no statistical evidence that the WTP differs between the two modes.
It’s All in the Interval - An imperfect measurements approach to estimate bidders’ primitives in auctions

A novel method to measure bidders’ costs (valuations) in descending (ascending) auctions is introduced. Based on two bounded rationality constraints bidders’ costs (valuations) are given an imperfect measurements interpretation that is robust to behavioral deviations from the traditional rationality assumptions. Theory provides no guidance as to the shape of the cost (valuation) distributions while empirical evidence suggests them to be positively skew. Consequently, a flexible distribution is employed in an imperfect measurements framework. An illustration of the proposed method on Swedish public procurement data is provided along with a comparison to a traditional Bayesian Nash Equilibrium approach.
Design a Low Voltage Band Gap Reference by Utilizing CMOS 0 . 18 μm

The present study examined a Bandgap voltage references (BGRs) with CMOS 0.18 μm technology by using Cadence software. Bandgap voltage references (BGRs) are essential blocks in most analog systems. BGRs are independent of process, independent of supply voltage and independent of temperature. Dependent temperature is the important challenge in BGRs. There are different approaches for design BGRs. One efficient method is using opamp in configuration of BGRs. In this work we utilized an opamp in configuration of BGR by using CMOS 0.18 μm with low supply voltage 1.1v. The results indicated temperature coefficient 540 PPM in range 0 to 100 C o .
Compositional characterization of Etruscan earthen architecture and ceramic production

This study presents the results of new research into Etruscan technology for earthen architecture as well as ceramic production in the upper Tiber Valley in central Italy, using as a case study the Etruscan settlement of Col di Marzo (Perugia). It determines the compositional differences of the raw material employed as building material and for ceramic production by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTG), Fourier-transform infrared analysis (FTIR) and geotechnical analyses. The research also advances the knowledge of ceramic manufacturing technology, with a focus on impasto production, at Col di Marzo between the fifth and mid-third centuries BCE and the surrounding territory on the left bank of the River Tiber. The compositional analysis of building material compared with the ceramics provides answers to questions related to their sourcing and deepens the understanding of the exploitation of natural resources.
General theory of heat diffusion dynamics

A detailed theoretical investigation of the influence of heat diffusion processes on the low-frequency dispersion in macroscopic elastic susceptibilities is presented. In particular, a general solution of the heat diffusion equation is derived for arbitrary boundary conditions and externally imposed periodic and spatially inhomogeneous stress. In contrast to other calculations found in the literature, our results indicate that in elastic experiments on monodomain samples of macroscopic dimensions the isothermal-adiabatic crossover function necessarily reduces to a Debye-like dispersion. Experimentally, this is illustated by measurements of the complex dynamic elastic susceptibilities of KSCN and KMnF 3 . Our approach also allows to discuss heat diffusion in polydomain crystals and heterogeneous systems, for which one obtains dispersions of a non-Debye type. While explicitly derived in an elastic context, the present theory also applies to heat diffusion in dielectric materials.
Forecasting exchange rates: An iterated combination constrained predictor approach

Forecasting exchange rate returns is of great interest to both academics and practitioners. In this study, we forecast daily exchange rate returns of six widely traded currencies using combination and dimensionality reduction methods. We propose a hybrid iterated combination with constrained predictor approach. In addition, we examine the impact of positivity constraints on the forecasting ability of each method. Our results indicate that the proposed hybrid method outperforms the simple linear bivariate method and both the iterated combination and the predictor constrained approaches. Positivity constraints significantly improve the forecasting ability of all methods.
Differential Speed Rolling: A New Method for a Fabrication of Metallic Sheets with Enhanced Mechanical Properties

This chapter presents an actual progress in the usage of a new processing method called differential speed rolling (DSR) to a fabrication of metallic sheet materials with enhanced mechanical properties. An introduction of the rolls speed differentiation to a rolling process results with qualitative and quantitative changes of imposed strain and thus to new structural effects as compared to a conventional rolling. The presence of additional high through-thickness shear strain in the DSR technique is utilized to a substantial grain refinement (to a fabrication of high-strength ultrafine-grained materials) and therefore is regarded as one of the severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods. In this chapter, mechanical properties of selected DSRed metals are compared to those of their counterparts processed by competitive hydrostatic SPD methods. Moreover, the imposed complex strain state in the DSR method significantly affects a crystallographic texture of fabricated sheet materials leading to more favorable anisotropic characteristics and to an improved formability that is especially important in the case of aluminum and magnesium alloys. formation of linkage between various aspects of mechanical metallurgy, the physics or material’s mechanics.
Power density of rectangular microstrip patch antenna arrays for 5G indoor base station

The fifth-generation (5G) network has been broadly investigated by many researchers. The capabilities of 5G include massive system capacity, incredibly high data rates everywhere, very low latency and the most important point is that it is exceptionally low device cost and low energy consumption. A key technology of 5G is the millimeter wave operating at 28 GHz and 38 GHz frequency bands which enable massive MIMO and small cell base station densification. However, there has been public concern associated with human exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) from 5G communication devices. Hence, this paper studies the power density of a 5G antenna array that can be used for the indoor base station. The power density is the amount of power or signal strength absorbed by a receiver such as the human body located a distance from the base station. To achieve this, the design of array antennas using CST software at 28 GHz, fabrication and measurement were carried out in an indoor and hallway environment. The measurement processes were set up at IC5G at UTM Kuala Lumpur in which the distance of the transmitter to receiver where 1 m, 4 m, 8 m, and 10 m. In this study, the measured power density is found to be below the set limit by ICNIRP and hence no health implication is feared. Regardless, sufficient act of cautionary has to be applied by those staying close to small cell base stations and more studies are still needed to ensure the safety of use of 5G base stations.
Joary Paulo Wanzeler Fortuna FPGA-Based Testbed for Fronthaul Signal Compression: Implementation and Validation

In recent years the world has seen an increasing demand for mobile services with high capacity and low cost. Such requirements forced the radio access technologies to be rethought. Among the different architectures proposed in literature, one that has got a lot of attention was the Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN). This strategy proposes to share the network resources through the centralization of the base-band processing and, as a result, reduce the network cost. Even though the centralization can bring several benefits, it also increases the distance between the point where the signal is captured and the point where it is processed. The link connecting both points is called fronthaul. In this scenario, the existing fronthaul technologies do not fit in the flexibility and cost requisites expected for the next generation mobile network, mainly due to the usage of dedicated optical links. One solution to these problems is the usage of Ethernet to transport fronthaul data, due to its ubiquitous presence, flexibility and low cost. In this work, a testbed for fronthaul based on Ethernet is presented, along with the implementation details and validation results. Also motivated by the Ethernet’s bandwidth limitation, this work presents the VHDL implementation of a compression technique for LTE signals, evaluated in real transport conditions with the testbed. The obtained results indicate that it is possible to utilize the Ethernet network infrastructure for fronthaul transport. Although, it is necessary to reduce the requirements of Fronthaul stream through, for example, the application of signal compression techniques and synchronization methods.
PONGAMIA PINNATA ( L . ) PANIGRAHI AQUEOUS EXTRACT ALLEVIATES MERCURIC CHLORIDE INDUCED STRESS ON SEEDLING GROWTH OF MAIZE

Aqueous extract of Pongamia pinnata (PALE) was accessed to alleviate mercuric chloride (HgCl2) induced stress on seed germination and early seedling growth of Zea mays L. Maize seeds were soaked in 5 and 2.5% PALE prior to sowing in the pots and HgCl2 was applied at rate of 1 and 0.5 mg kg 1 to the soil to induce an artificial stress for the germination and seedling growth. The results showed that seed germination (%), root dry weight and photosynthetic pigments were significantly reduced by HgCl2 at 1 mg kg, which resulted in accumulation of phenolic compounds in maize leaves. It was found that the total soluble phenolic content was negatively correlated with shoot dry weight (r = -0.656, p = 0.001). On the other hand, seed soaked with PALE significantly alleviated adverse effects of HgCl2 stress on seed germination and growth attributes of maize, thus it was found to be effective to protect maize plants from adverse effects of mercury and can be recommended for application in mercury contaminated areas of farmer’s field.
Computation and stability of waves in equivariant evolution equations

Travelling and rotating waves are ubiquitous phenomena observed in time dependent PDEs modelling the combined effect of dissipation and non-linear interaction. From an abstract viewpoint they appear as relative equilibria of an equivariant evolution equa- tion. In numerical computations the freezing method takes advantage of this structure by splitting the evolution of the PDE into the dynamics on the underlying Lie group and on some reduced phase space. The approach raises a series of questions which were answered to a certain degree by the project: linear stability implies non-linear (asymp- totic) stability, persistence of stability under discretisation, analysis and computation of spectral structures, first versus second order evolution systems, well-posedness of partial differential algebraic equations, spatial decay of wave profiles and truncation to bounded domains, analytical and numerical treatment of wave interactions, relation to connecting orbits in dynamical systems. A further numerical problem related to this topic will be discussed, namely the solution of non-linear eigenvalue problems via a contour method.
The effect of network size and density to the choice of zone radius in ZRP

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a network that consists of several nodes that connect without using a permanent infrastructure. Each node in MANET moves inside and outside of the network freely and randomly. The free and random movements of nodes may cause the topology of the network to change constantly. Therefore, the task of finding routes between nodes is a big challenge. Routing protocols in MANET can be divided into three categories, namely, proactive, reactive and hybrid routing protocols. Hybrid routing protocols such as the zone routing protocol (ZRP) combines the advantages of both proactive and reactive routing protocols by dividing the network area into many overlapping zones. Data transmission to nodes within the zone is done using a proactive routing mechanism, while data transmission to nodes outside the zone is done using a reactive routing mechanism. The zone radius in ZRP determines how much proactive and reactive routing is used, and therefore plays a key role in determining the performance of the network. In this paper, the performance of the ZRP routing protocol is evaluated using the NS2.33 network simulator. The focus of the research is to evaluate the ZRP performance concerning the network size and density to identify an optimum ZRP zone size that will provide good performance. The performance is evaluated by using four performance metrics which are normalized routing load, average end-to-end delay, throughput, and packet delivery fraction. The results show that ZRP produces the best performance when the zone radius size is equal to two hops.
Breakthrough Technologies Generation of Backbone-Free , Low Transgene Copy Plants by Launching T-DNA from the Agrobacterium Chromosome 1 [ W ] [ OA ]

In both applied and basic research, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is commonly used to introduce genes into plants. We investigated the effect of three Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains and five transferred (T)-DNA origins of replication on transformation frequency, transgene copy number, and the frequency of integration of non-T-DNA portions of the T-DNAcontaining vector (backbone) into the genome of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and maize (Zea mays). Launching T-DNA from the picA locus of the Agrobacterium chromosome increases the frequency of single transgene integration events and almost eliminates the presence of vector backbone sequences in transgenic plants. Along with novel Agrobacterium strains we have developed, our findings are useful for improving the quality of T-DNA integration events.
Lessons from schools with high levels of support for students with Type 1 diabetes: A qualitative study

Schools have an important role to play in supporting the psychosocial and physical health of students with Type 1 diabetes (T1D). Good school-based support for students with T1D is related to better diabetes management and quality of life. However, support for students with T1D appears inconsistent across schools in Western Australia. Strategic capacity-building for schools, including attention to policy and practice, is needed to support students with chronic and other health conditions. This project aimed to investigate how schools provide support for the psychosocial wellbeing and disease management of students with T1D. Ten schools, identified by a hospital-to-school transition team as being supportive of students with T1D, participated in this generic qualitative study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with school staff, students with T1D and their parents at each school. Inductive and deductive thematic analysis identified three overarching themes to encapsulate the various ways schools provided support: (a) school characteristics; (b) interpersonal support; and (c) organisational support, and eleven sub-themes outlined this support. Based on these findings, a conceptual model of support is presented. This can be used as a foundation for a professional learning tool to enhance the capacity of schools to support the wellbeing of students with T1D.
Indigenous tourism and cultural justice in a Tz’utujil Maya community, Guatemala

Abstract Despite explicit links to justice issues inherent in indigenous rights movements, little research has been undertaken to understand Indigenous Tourism from a justice perspective. This study employs ethnographic interviewing, participant observation, and archival data to study tourism in the Tz’utujil Maya community of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. Findings emphasize emic views of local community members that offer valuable insights for understanding justice as it relates to Tz’utujil culture. We argue that the loss of Indigenous culture, ways of living, and ways of knowing would almost certainly be hastened if tourism and the associated cultural valuation were not present. Furthermore, direct participation in negotiation on tourism related matters is a key principle to facilitate autonomy, agency, fairness and equity in cultural justice. Authenticity, similarly, is a negotiated concept, requiring direct participation to facilitate fairness and equity in cultural tourism, as seen being practiced by the Tz’utujil people. The cultural justice framing here makes a valuable contribution to recent writing in tourism studies on indigenous environmental justice.
Analysis of Five-Point Bending Test for Multilayer Surfacing System on Orthotropic Steel Bridges

The French five-point bending (5PB) test provides a laboratory-scale test that allows studying the fatigue resistance of surfacing systems on orthotropic steel deck (OSD) bridges. The surfacing structure for OSD bridges in the Netherlands is mostly a multilayer system: top porous asphalt (PA) layer, guss asphalt (GA) layer, steel deck, and two membrane layers. In this paper, an analytical solution for the 5PB test setup is presented first. To understand better the influence of geometrical, mechanical, and structural parameters on the performance of the typical multilayer surfacing system of OSD bridges in the Netherlands, the 5PB test specimens with five structural layers have been investigated. The parametric study was performed at the numerical platform CAPA-3D, which was developed at the Section of Structural Mechanics of the Delft University of Technology. The thicknesses of the top PA layer, middle GA layer, and the steel plate were varied. The influences of the mechanical properties of both top and bottom membrane layers were studied. The sensitivities of those influence factors were evaluated by examination of the maximum tensile stress at the top surface of the PA layers and the strain distributions through the entire thickness of the specimen at two cross sections.