Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Highly-selective electronically-tunable cryogenic filters using monolithic, discretely-switchable MEMS capacitor arrays

A low loss electronically tunable filter was demonstrated using HTS/Au MEMS switched capacitor arrays. The two-pole filter was tuned by simultaneously varying the capacitance of each resonator by equal amounts. A K factor of between 3,500 and 5,000 was demonstrated for single pole resonators. The total tuning range was about 25% with an average Q of 7,000 at 77 K.
Tissue Engineering in Congenital Heart Disease

Congenital heart disease is one of the most prevalent birth defects. Approximately 1% of babies are born with a structural heart defect. Components of the cardiovascular system that may be affected by congenital heart disease include the cardiac wall, septum, heart valves and blood vessels. Many of these cardiac anomalies require surgical correction; however current methods have some limitations. Pediatric patients often require multiple operations as they grow to replace their grafts, which may be either failing or becoming too small in size. Additionally, current materials for organ reconstruction can still not fully integrate with the host tissue and lack regenerative properties. Tissue engineering potentially offers a solution to the pressing problem of tissue damage and shortage of transplant organs. This review article provides an overview of congenital heart defects and outlines the unique needs of children as a patient population. Advances in tissue engineering of cardiac patches, heart valves and blood vessels relevant to congenital heart disease are described. Furthermore, this report outlines the challenges in the field that need to be overcome before tissue engineered myocardium, septum, valves and vessels can become clinical reality for the treatment of pediatric cardiac patients.
Promoting construct validity in instruments for the analysis of transcripts of online asynchronous discussions

This paper describes the testing and refinement of an instrument for identifying and measuring Problem Formulation and Resolution (PFR) in online asynchronous discussions (OADs). The instrument was used to analyse a transcript of an OAD designed specifically for PFR with 30 participants in an undergraduate course for teachers in training. Results revealed construct under‐representation, construct irrelevance, as well as lack of discriminant capability, or mutual exclusivity in some of the instrument's processes and indicators. The paper presents a second iteration of the instrument, which is informed by analysis of the transcript. The process of testing and redesign provides an approach to investigating and promoting construct validity using instruments for the analysis of communication and learning in transcripts of OADs. Förderung der Zuverlässigkeit von Instrumenten zur Analyse von Transkriptionen von Asynchronen Online Diskussionen (OAD) Dieser Beitrag beschreibt das Testen und Verbessern eines Instruments zur Feststellung und Messung von Problemformulierung und – Lösung (PFR) bei asynchronen Onlinediskussionen (OAD). Das Verfahren wurde zur Analyse einer Niederschrift einer OAD benutzt, die speziell zu einer PFR mit 30 Teilnehmern eines Lehrerausbildungskurses angesetzt war. Die Ergebnisse enthüllten sowohl Unterrepräsentanz als auch Bedeutungslosigkeit von Gedankengängen, Fehlen von Unterscheidungsmöglichkeiten wie auch gegenseitiges Ausschließen von Methoden und Indikatoren des Programms. In diesem Beitrag wird die nach der Analyse der Niederschrift verbesserte zweite Version des Werkzeugs vorgestellt. Der Prozess des Testens und der Weiterentwicklung stellt gleichzeitig eine Verbesserung der Erforschung und des Validitätszuwachses von Analyseinstrumenten für die Kommunikation und das Lernen mit Hilfe von Transkriptionen von OADs dar. Comment favoriser la validation des variables dans les instruments d'analyse des transcriptions de discussions asynchrones en ligne Cet article décrit les essais et l'affinage d'un instrument servant à identifier et à mesurer la Formulation et al Résolution des Problèmes(FRP) dans les discussions asynchrones en ligne(DAO). Cet instrument a été utilisé pour analyser la transcription d'une DAO conçue spécialement pour la FRP avec 30 participants inscrits dans un cours de premier cycle de formation initiale des professeurs. Les résultats ont fait apparaître des variables en cours de représentation, des variables non pertinentes, un manque de capacité de discrimination, voire même des incompatibilités, dans quelques uns des processus et indicateurs de l'instrument. Cet article présente un deuxième emploi de l'instrument qui se fonde sur l'analyse de la transcription. Le processus d'essai et de refonte fournit un mode d'approche pour l'étude et la promotion de la validité des variables lorsqu'on emploie des instruments pour analyser la communication et l'apprentissage dans les transcriptions des DAOs.
Archetypes of Service Innovation

Service innovation is a key source of competitive differentiation across firms and markets. Despite growing attention from practitioners and academics alike, systematic scholarly inquiry into service innovation’s diverse theoretical foundations has to date been limited. This article explores different approaches to service innovation and proposes a typology of four archetypes, each informed by a distinct theoretical perspective and by different underlying assumptions. Process-based and output-based archetypes focus on value-adding phases and output value, respectively. Experiential and systemic archetypes have attracted less attention but become central for firms seeking to cocreate phenomenologically determined value within the service ecosystem. The article also contributes to service innovation research and practice by bringing together the existing archetypes, which were previously treated separately. Juxtaposing these archetypes and emphasizing value and value cocreation, the article proposes an integrative view of how novel value cocreation can be enhanced in service innovations. Finally, we develop an agenda for future research, encouraging researchers and managers to plan service innovations systematically, deploying each archetype in value cocreation, and combining them within an integrative approach.
Reproductive Success Increases with Local Density of Conspecif ics in a Desert Mustard (Lesquerella fendleri)

We investigated the effects of plant density on reproduction for an insect‐pollinated desert mustard (Lesquerella fendleri [Brassicaceae]). Individual reproductive success, as measured by seeds per fruit, proportion of flowers setting fruit, and total seed production, increased with the density of conspecifics within 1 m. However, including the density of conspecifics at greater distances (1–3 m) did not significantly increase the amount of variation in reproductive success explained by the regression model. This implies that processes occurring on a scale of 1 m or less have important effects on reproduction. Total seed production also was greater for high‐density plants than for otherwise similar plants with a low‐density of conspecifics. We argue that increased pollinator visitation is the most likely cause of this facilitation and that investigations of the effects of rarity on reproductive success should directly consider density along with more commonly used attributes such as population size and fragmentation.
Speech Command Recognition with Convolutional Neural Network

—This project aims to build an accurate, small-footprint, low-latency Speech Command Recognition system that is capable of detecting predefined keywords. Using the Speech Commands Dataset provided by Google’s TensorFlow and AIY teams, we have implemented different architectures using different machine learning algorithms. Our models include: Vanilla Single-Layer softmax model, Deep Neural Network and Convolutional Neural Network. The Convolutional Neural Network proves to outperform the other two models and can achieve accuracy of 95.1% for 6 labels.
Effect of power cycling duration on coupled power and thermal cycling reliability of board-level chip-scale packages

To evaluate conjointly the effects of ambient temperature fluctuation and operation bias on the reliability of board-level electronic packages, a coupled power and thermal cycling test has been proposed. In this study, the sequential thermal-mechanical coupling analysis, which solves in turn the transient temperature field and subsequent thermomechanical deformations, is performed to investigate thermal characteristics along with fatigue reliability of board-level thin-profile fine-pitch ball grid array chip-scale packages under coupled power and thermal cycling test conditions. Effects of different power cycling durations are studied. Pure thermal cycling and pure power cycling test conditions are also examined and compared. Numerical results indicate that, for the coupled power and thermal cycling test, a shorter power cycling duration in general leads to a shorter fatigue life. However, the temperature compensation effect elongates the fatigue life under certain power cycling durations
A putative RNA binding protein from Plasmodium vivax apicoplast

Malaria is caused by Apicomplexa protozoans from the Plasmodium genus entering the bloodstream of humans and animals through the bite of the female mosquitoes. The annotation of the Plasmodium vivax genome revealed a putative RNA binding protein (apiRBP) that was predicted to be trafficked into the apicoplast, a plastid organelle unique to Apicomplexa protozoans. Although a 3D structural model of the apiRBP corresponds to a noncanonical RNA recognition motif with an additional C‐terminal α‐helix (α3), preliminary protein production trials were nevertheless unsuccessful. Theoretical solvation analysis of the apiRBP model highlighted an exposed hydrophobic region clustering α3. Hence, we used a C‐terminal GFP‐fused chimera to stabilize the highly insoluble apiRBP and determined its ability to bind U‐rich stretches of RNA. The affinity of apiRBP toward such RNAs is highly dependent on ionic strength, suggesting that the apiRBP–RNA complex is driven by electrostatic interactions. Altogether, apiRBP represents an attractive tool for apicoplast transcriptional studies and for antimalarial drug design.
A practical fuzzy controller with Q-learning approach for the path tracking of a walking-aid robot

This study tackles the path tracking problem of a prototype walking-aid (WAid) robot which features the human-robot interactive navigation. A practical fuzzy controller is proposed for the path tracking control under reinforcement learning ability. The inputs to the designed fuzzy controller are the error distance and the error angle between the current and the desired position and orientation, respectively. The controller outputs are the voltages applied to the left- and right-wheel motors. A heuristic fuzzy control with the Sugeno-type rules is then designed based on a model-free approach. The consequent part of each fuzzy control rule is designed with the aid of Q-learning approach. The design approach of the controller is presented in detail, and effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated by hardware implementation and experimental results under human-robot interaction environment. The results also show that the proposed path tracking control methods can be easily applied in various wheeled mobile robots.
Hierarchical Compression of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks on Large Scale Visual Recognition for Mobile Applications

This paper present hierarchical compression scheme in deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) on the ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) for mobile devices. In hierarchical compression, we reduce the size of parameters and layers in VGG16 and GoogLeNet by using the iterative synapse pruning and grouping and quantization schemes hierarchically. We use the own simulation framework based on caffe to execute the hierarchical network compression and compare the test accuracy of reference model with compressed ones. The proposed scheme reduces the network parameter size to 91.61% and 67% in VGG and GoogLeNet, respectively. And with less 16bit fixed point parameters, we achieve good compression rates again, with only negligible loss of classification accuracy.
A FORMAÇÃO DE VALORES NO AMBIENTE ESCOLAR

Os valores morais existem porque sao o alicerce sobre o qual se estrutura o ser humano, motivo pelo qual, atualmente, e comum falar da necessidade de educar com valores. Nessa perspectiva, a escola e o corpo docente tem o dever de tentar promover uma reflexao aos alunos sobre os valores humanos, que andam esquecidos. O objetivo da pesquisa e analisar os valores morais, considerando-se as transformacoes sociais de uma geracao a outra, em periodos cada vez mais curtos. Nesse intuito, foram entrevistados seis professores da rede publica do municipio de Xaxim, SC, dos quais dois sao professores atuantes na Educacao Infantil e quatro, nos Anos Iniciais. Os resultados mostram que os professores entrevistados se preocupam em instigar o aluno a refletir sobre virtudes e relacionam valores como fonte original da identidade. Alem disso, constatou-se que, em geral, a familia e a primeira matriz da socializacao, nesse sentido, nao basta somente os pais amarem seus filhos; estes filhos devem sentir sua aceitacao como pessoa, que tem valor pessoal, realizando, ou nao, algo grande em sua vida. E necessario entender que atitudes, normas e valores comportam uma dimensao social e uma dimensao pessoal. Pode-se concluir que a escola, ao preocupar-se com o desenvolvimento de virtudes, busca a superacao da transmissao de conhecimentos, aprende a conhecer, a viver junto, a ser espirito, corpo, inteligencia, sensibilidade, sentido estetico, responsabilidade pessoal e espiritualidade. Palavras-chave:Educacao. Valores. Familia. Ambiente escolar.
Detecting Side Channels at the ISA Level with Static Analysis Techniques

Side channels attacks can steal sensitive information from programs and exploit hardware behavior to bypass traditional security measures. These side channels often come from inherent flaws in a computer system’s design rather than individual errors in a system’s implementation. Conducting extensive security reviews over a system by hand can be costly and time-consuming. This paper presents a system to automatically detect potential side channels in an instruction set architecture (ISA) specification, drastically reducing the search space a human needs to investigate. Although our analysis is limited to the ISA, the methodology we present in this paper can be applied to discover side channels in the microarchitecture. Our analysis finds six different information leaks that can occur at the ISA level.
Expanding the operating range of the pulse-driven AC Josephson voltage standard

In this paper the operating range of the pulse-driven AC Josephson voltage standard is investigated. The lower frequency limit has been successfully decreased from 450 Hz down to 7 Hz by modification of the pulse-drive electronics. Furthermore, preliminary test results using an inductive voltage divider (IVD) indicate that at frequencies between typically 50 Hz and 5 kHz uncertainties better than 1 μV/V seem to be within reach for voltages well above 1 V.
Enhancement of power quality using solar PV integrated UPQC

This paper deals with the mitigation of grid-side and load-side power quality problems using a single-phase solar PV integrated UPQC (PV-UPQC). The solar PV array (SPV) is interfaced with the DC-link of UPQC using a simple boost DC-DC converter. The shunt VSC of the UPQC compensates for the load power quality problems such as load current harmonics and reactive power. Apart from this, the shunt voltage source (VSC) supplies the active power from the SPV into the grid while maintaining the DC-link voltage at a preset voltage level. The series VSC compensates for the grid-side voltage power quality problems such as voltage sags/swells and harmonics so that the critical loads receive sinusoidal voltage supply. The boost converter operates the PV array at MPP to extract maximum power. The performance of PV-UPQC with a combination of linear and nonlinear loads is simulated at conditions of varying irradiation and grid voltage disturbances using Matlab-Simulink.
Stopover ecology of American Golden-Plovers (Pluvialis dominica) in Midwestern agricultural fields

ABSTRACT Stopover locations represent critical habitat in the life cycle of migratory birds and the alteration of this habitat can profoundly influence a population. American Golden-Plovers (Pluvialis dominica) migrate though the Midwestern United States each spring, where most natural habitat has been converted to row crop agriculture. We investigated the stopover ecology of the golden-plover in the agricultural matrix of east-central Illinois and west-central Indiana between 2008 and 2012. We found that golden-plovers remained in the region for ∼45 days and individuals spent on average 24 days in the area before departing to the northwest. During a period of peak migration, golden-plovers preferred fields with standing water and, to a lesser extent, soybean fields. Over the 45-day stopover duration, golden-plovers moved extensively (shown by a dynamic occupancy model and area used estimation), with some evidence for tilled fields becoming unoccupied at greater rates than untilled fields. The tendency to use fields with standing water and the movement of individuals from tilled fields suggests that food accessibility, rather than food abundance, is likely a critical factor associated with the prolonged stay, movement, and field type selection of golden-plovers. Food accessibility is important to the golden-plover because they undergo molt into breeding plumage in the region and must refuel for the next leg of their migration. The Midwest is a key stopover location for American Golden-Plovers and promoting foraging conditions by manipulating the drainage of agricultural fields, via the temporary blockage of drain tiles, should be a management focus.
A novel probe station for helium temperature measurements

A novel automated wafer-level RF measurement system is presented. It includes a wafer prober and dedicated on-wafer probe tips and calibration standards. Probe station related design issues are discussed leading to a system for automated testing of wafers up to 300mm by using a programmable positioning stage. Using on-wafer SiGe HBT measurements, noise characterization and VNA calibration verification, the long-term stability and reliability of the setup is illustrated. Tests are carried out both with liquid nitrogen as well as liquid helium as coolant, equal to temperature range from 400K down to 4K.
One-dimensional photonic bandgap resonators and varactor tuned resonators

Using photonic bandgap (PBG) structures, we demonstrated new high Q resonators of planar and one-dimensional (1-D) microstrip-line, coplanar waveguide, coplanar strip-line, and slot-line with full-wave simulation and measurement results. These structures for Fabry-Perot resonators consist of a center resonant-line with two sides of PBG reflectors, achieved a loaded Q of 247.3 and unloaded Q of 299.1. Electronically tunable resonators with a flip-chip packaged varactor are implemented with these 1-D PBG resonators, and show a wideband tuning capability of 20% near 10 GHz.
PACT : G : From Near-Data Processing to In-Data Processing-in-Storage

Near-data in-storage processing research has been gaining momentum in recent years. Typical processing-in-storage architecture places a single or several processing cores inside the storage and allows data processing without transferring it to the host CPU. Since this approach replicates von Neumann architecture inside storage, it is exposed to the problems faced by von Neumann architectures, especially the bandwidth wall. The goal of this work is to design a storage device that does not suffer from the von Neumann bandwidth bottleneck and can provide high performance on massively parallel big data workloads. To achieve this, a novel processing-in-storage system based on Resistive Content Addressable Memory (ReCAM) is presented. ReCAM functions simultaneously as storage and as a parallel associative processor. ReCAM processing-in-storage resolves the bandwidth wall by keeping computation inside the storage array, thus implementing in-data, rather than near-data, processing. This work shows that ReCAM based processing-in-storage architecture may outperform existing near-data and accelerator based designs. ReCAM processing-in-storage implementation of Smith-Waterman DNA sequence alignment reaches a speedup of almost five over a GPU cluster. For K-means, ReCAM processingin-storage achieves speedup of 4.6—68 relative to CPU, GPU and FPGA, and for K-Nearest Neighbors, ReCAM processing-instorage achieves speedup of 17.9—17,470. 1 Finally, an implementation of in-storage inline data deduplication is presented and shown to achieve orders of magnitude higher throughput than traditional CPU and DRAM based systems.
Low-Loss Elliptical Response Filter at 100 GHz

The design, method of fabrication and experimental validation of a pseudo-elliptical four-poles asymmetric response filter at 100 GHz with 10% of fractional bandwidth is presented. The designed filter is part of an image radar system and must fulfill stringent specifications. The proposed topology and method of fabrication improves the out of band rejection above the pass band in comparison with other classical structures, while keeping a low insertion loss level. A two-fold geometry for implementing a transmission zero is proposed, avoiding the excitation of the first higher order mode and easing the manufacturing without any tuning element. A low-cost milling process is used for the fabrication of the device. The final design fulfills the desired specifications and presents 0.6 dB of insertion loss level at 100 GHz. The excellent agreement between simulations and measurements at this frequency band in both, return loss and insertion loss, is pointed out.
Wannier-based calculation of the orbital magnetization in crystals

We present a first-principles scheme that allows the orbital magnetization of a magnetic crystal to be evaluated accurately and efficiently even in the presence of complex Fermi surfaces. Starting from an initial electronicstructure calculation with a coarse ab initiok-point mesh, maximally localized Wannier functions are constructed and used to interpolate the necessary k-space quantities on a fine mesh, in parallel to a previously developed formalism for the anomalous Hall conductivity [X. Wang, J. Yates, I. Souza, and D. Vanderbilt, Phys. Rev. B 74, 195118 (2006)]. We formulate our new approach in a manifestly gauge-invariant manner, expressing the orbital magnetization in terms of traces over matrices in Wannier space. Since only a few (e.g., of the order of 20) Wannier functions are typically needed to describe the occupied and partially occupied bands, these Wannier matrices are small, which makes the interpolation itself very efficient. The method has been used to calculate the orbital magnetization of bcc Fe, hcp Co, and fcc Ni. Unlike an approximate calculation based on integrating orbital currents inside atomic spheres, our results nicely reproduce the experimentally measured ordering of the orbital magnetization in these three materials.
Lizard malaria: cost to vertebrate host's reproductive success

SUMMARY Plasmodium mexicanum is a common malarial parasite of the western fence lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis, in northern California, USA. Infected female lizards store substantially less fat during the summer activity season and produce smaller clutches of eggs than do non-infected animals. Stored fat is utilized in the production of eggs; the energy content of the decrement in stored fat is approximately equal to the energy content of the average reduction in number of eggs. Thus, there is ongoing strong selective pressure on the host to evolve appropriate anti-parasite measures.