Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LANDFILLS NEEDS ASSESSMENT IN GAZA STRIP AND SITES SELECTION USING GIS

II ABSTRACT Currently, Gaza Strip is facing solid waste management (SWM) issues as landfills are rapidly filling up, increasing amount of waste are generated, shortage of disposal land, resulting of serious environmental and human health impacts. This research aims to conduct a baseline for landfilling planning by focusing on three issues related to SWM in Gaza Strip, the first is the lack of updated information about the solid waste characteristics especially the composition of it. The second issue is the absence of a unified vision for landfilling system and landfill numbers in Gaza Strip because there is no real integration between all stakeholders in SWM. The third issue is the disappearance of defining the suitable locations of landfills in Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, many approaches and tools are used namely; a field work was conducted in the main landfills to determine the composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) according to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards; structured interviews, questionnaire, and DEFINITE (Decisions on a Finite Set of Alternative) model are adapted to find out the optimal needed number of landfills; geographical information system (GIS) technology is exploited to select the best locations of landfills. It is found that the potential of recycling in MSW of Gaza Strip is high since its composition constitutes of 47.5% Organic wastes, 14.5% Paper, 12% Plastic, 11.5% Other inorganics, 8% Metals, and 6.5% Glass. According to the multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and based on the stakeholders feedbacks, it is found that central landfill, area equals 1000 dunum, would be efficient and enough to manage the produced waste in Gaza Strip. However, some requirements are required for that such that the location of this landfill should be appropriate for all districts, transfer stations should be constructed to facilitate the transfer of waste, and adequate trucks with spare parts should be secured to transfer the waste. The results obtained from implementing a loose scenario of sitting criteria and using GIS show that the available areas for landfill sitting are less than 30 km divided to seven candidate areas. Because of its location in middle distance between all solid waste generation centers, the fourth site is considered the most suitable site for a landfill location. It is recommended that additional studies should be done on the characteristics of MSW like seasonal variations, laboratory experiments, and volume of MSW components. Also other studies should be done to conduct recycling plans for potential recyclables. These plans could contain the required recycling techniques for each material, feasibility studies, cost benefit analysis, and the responsibilities of all stakeholders. Furthermore, detailed investigations should be required for choosing the best location specifically by conducting MCDA based on experts’ opinions and field studies. Integrated Approaches for Conducting A Baseline of Landfilling Planning
Temporal Dynamics of MOG Antibodies in Children With Acquired Demyelinating Syndrome

Background and Objective The spectrum of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibody–associated disorder (MOGAD) comprises monophasic diseases such as acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), optic neuritis (ON), and transverse myelitis and relapsing courses of these presentations. Persistently high MOG antibodies (MOG immunoglobulin G [IgG]) are found in patients with a relapsing disease course. Prognostic factors to determine the clinical course of children with a first MOGAD are still lacking. The objective of the study is to assess the clinical and laboratory prognostic parameters for a risk of relapse and the temporal dynamics of MOG‐IgG titers in children with MOGAD in correlation with clinical presentation and disease course. Methods In this prospective multicenter hospital-based study, children with a first demyelinating attack and complete data set comprising clinical and radiologic findings, MOG-IgG titer at onset, and clinical and serologic follow-up data were included. Serum samples were analyzed by live cell-based assay, and a titer level of ≥1:160 was classified as MOG-IgG–positive. Results One hundred sixteen children (f:m = 57:59) with MOGAD were included and initially diagnosed with ADEM (n = 59), unilateral ON (n = 12), bilateral ON (n = 16), myelitis (n = 6), neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (n = 8) or encephalitis (n = 6). The median follow-up time was 3 years in monophasic and 5 years in relapsing patients. There was no significant association between disease course and MOG-IgG titers at onset, sex, age at presentation, or clinical phenotype. Seroconversion to MOG-IgG–negative within 2 years of the initial event showed a significant risk reduction for a relapsing disease course. Forty-two/one hundred sixteen patients (monophasic n = 26, relapsing n = 16) had serial MOG-IgG testing in years 1 and 2 after the initial event. In contrast to relapsing patients, monophasic patients showed a significant decrease of MOG-IgG titers during the first and second years, often with seroconversion to negative titers. During the follow-up, MOG-IgG titers were persistently higher in relapsing than in monophasic patients. Decrease in MOG-IgG of ≥3 dilution steps after the first and second years was shown to be associated with a decreased risk of relapses. In our cohort, no patient experienced a relapse after seroconversion to MOG-IgG–negative. Discussion In this study, patients with declining MOG-IgG titers, particularly those with seroconversion to MOG-IgG–negative, are shown to have a significantly reduced relapse risk.
A VO2 film-based multifunctional metasurface in the terahertz band

Ziyu Liu (刘紫玉), Limei Qi (亓丽梅), Feng Lan (兰 峰), Chuwen Lan (兰楚文), Jun Yang (杨 君), and Xiang Tao (陶 翔) 1 School of Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China 2 Collaborative Innovation Center of Light Manipulations and Applications, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China 3 The Yangtze Delta Region Institute (Huzhou), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Huzhou 313001, China 4 Shenzhen Research Institute, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Shenzhen 518000, China 5 School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Learning in complex public systems: the case of MINUSMA’s intelligence organization

ABSTRACT Public systems are facing increasingly complex challenges such as poverty and terrorism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the theoretical as well as practical value of complexity science, by investigating how key characteristics of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) work out in practice within the intelligence organization of the ongoing nation-building mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Our main finding is that the learning properties of the CAS suffer when its structural properties are not sufficiently developed. In MINUSMA, major improvements can especially be made in (re)developing the minimum specs – in which strategic and operational demands, ideally, converge.
Measuring downstream supply chain performance

Purpose – Downstream supply chain (DSC) performance metrics provide a standard framework to assess internal performance. DSC performance metrics can also help balance performance tradeoffs among firms. The purpose of this paper is to develop a survey instrument to determine whether observed performance metrics correspond to the literature and to determine if performance metric systems are used to improve inter‐firm performance.Design/methodology/approach – The survey instrument used in this study was based on SCOR performance attributes consisting of: delivery reliability, responsiveness, flexibility, costs, and asset management efficiency. The survey was completed by 73 members of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) consisting of high‐level managers representing US companies.Findings – One factor explained the underlying one‐dimensional structure of the surveyed Supply‐chain operations reference (SCOR) model as an internal metrics system but the authors did not find convincing su.
An Overview of Service-Oriented Architecture

This report is a literature review of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA). An SOA is a loosely couple network of communicating services. The key elements and characteristics of SOAs are outlined to guide the CORE project in creating a Virtual Research Environment (VRE). The benefits of using SOA concepts in implementing the VRE are presented and justifications of their use in the CORE project are also discussed.
Self-Paced Two-dimensional PCA

Two-dimensional PCA (2DPCA) is an effective approach to reduce dimension and extract features in the image domain. Most recently developed techniques use different error measures to improve their robustness to outliers. When certain data points are overly contaminated, the existing methods are frequently incapable of filtering out and eliminating the excessively polluted ones. Moreover, natural systems have smooth dynamics, an opportunity is lost if an unsupervised objective function remains static. Unlike previous studies, we explicitly differentiate the samples to alleviate the impact of outliers and propose a novel method called Self-Paced 2DPCA (SP2DPCA)algorithm, which progresses from `easy’ to `complex’ samples. By using an alternative optimization strategy, SP2DPCA looks for optimal projection matrix and filters out outliers iteratively. Theoretical analysis demonstrates the robustness nature of our method. Extensive experiments on image reconstruction and clustering verify the superiority of our approach.
VIRTUAL DESIGN AND MODELING OF VARIOUS MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FOR REMOTE FABRICATION OF TRANSMUTER FUEL

Virtual Design and Modeling of Various Manufacturing Processes for Remote Fabrication of Transmuter Fuel by Jamil Mohamad Renno Dr. Georg F. Mauer, Examination Committee Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering University of Nevada, Las Vegas As currently envisioned, over 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste would be stored inside the planned Yucca Mountain repository. After emplacement, the site must be maintained and guarded for over 10,000 years. The reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is a possible alternative to geological storage. Here, depleted Uranium would be separated from Plutonium and Minor Actinides. While Plutonium can be ‘burned’ in commercial nuclear reactors, the minor actinides would be transmuted into other elements. The large-scale deployment of remote fabrication and refabrication processes (approx. 100 tons of Minor Actinides (MA) annually) will be required. Process automation has the potential to decrease the cost of remote fuel fabrication and to make transmutation a more economically viable process. Reprocessing and transmutation would reduce the high-level waste volume by over 99%, and reduce the lifetime of the repository to approximately 300 years. The objective of this thesis is the virtual design and simulation of manufacturing processes for transmuter fuel fabrication. Properly designed robotic work cells would
Complete Power-Line Narrow Band System for Urban- Wide Communication

Typical applications for narrow band PLC are remote metering, value added services for utility companies, intelligent power management, security services and home automation. All these different services have to be integrated into one system and share the same medium. Most utility companies have a communication gateway in their high-voltage medium-voltage transformer stations. From this point hardly any communication lines to the end user are available. In this paper we want to present a complete communication system for low and medium-voltage distribution lines and a communication server to integrate different utility service and home automation software. This system DLC-1000 developed by the company is based on the ASIC with powerful forward error correction and possible data rates up to 100 kbps presented on the ISPLC99 [1], the packet-oriented master-slave network management system optimised for a large number of participants presented on the ISPLC 2000 [2] and a communication server that was developed as service in Windows NT / 2000.
Validating Affective Agent Ecosystems

Non-player characters, or agents, in video games have not advanced at the same pace as computer graphics. Newer games have become more aesthetically pleasing and game worlds have grown in size and detail, but the agents living in them are often perceived as stupid and predictable by players. Enriching these agents with emotional capabilities is one way to make them more believable and engaging. Computational models of emotion can give agents autonomous emotional behaviour based on events in the game world. Nonetheless, agents with such models are rare in modern games as studios opt for simpler hard-coded solutions. We seek to formally answer the question why video games lack emotional agents. We believe lack of control over these agents to be a key factor. With autonomous emotional reasoning it becomes hard to predict their behaviour, as many things influence their emotional state. This is particularly true for large game worlds with many agents and plethora of possible situations. Results from a questionnaire on the subject of emotional agents in games, sent out to game designers in the gaming industry, showed that there is little pressure from players and publishers to include these agents. The recipients said that it is expensive to include them and that there are more cost effective ways to enhance the gaming experience for players. Their responses indicated that it is hard to incorporate emotional agents in the game design and difficult to test their behaviour. We took a first step towards solving this problem by designing and implementing a prototype version of a general purpose testing tool for emotional agents. Our tool was designed to be emotion engine independent and generic. It receives data, logged during a game session, from web services and stores it in a database. The data can be queried and visualized from a web-based front-end by interacting with several data visualization. Users can look at high-level map visualizations and spot something interesting and then zoom in on that part to inspect it further using low-level timelines. We validated the tool by conducting two rounds of user tests with a pilot group consisting of three individuals with industry experience. The results suggest that such a tool can be useful to debug and test the behaviour of emotional agents and help motivate game studios to include them in their games.
Numerical Modeling of Composite Concrete Walls

Dynamic tests of three reinforced concrete samples and six Dynablok samples were performed in the blast simulator facility at the University of California San-Diego (UCSD). The purpose of these tests was to evaluate the performance of a novel protective wall design. These tests were numerically simulated at the Protective Technologies Research and Development Center (PTR&DC) of the Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in Beer-Sheva, Israel. The simulations were carried out using two commercial hydro-codes: LS-Dyna and Dytran. The purpose of these simulations was to calibrate the parameters of the material models available in the above codes. Once calibrated, the simulation results showed good agreement with the test results for largely deflected yet moderately damaged specimens.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Quality Prediction of Wearable Apps in the Google Play Store

Play Store reviews play an important role in demonstrating that decisions are made from the user’s perspective, and contain a wealth of knowledge that can be used to understand quality issues and help developers build higherquality mobile applications. Even for very important information, it can ensure the authenticity of user-generated content. In Play Store, wearable applications were recently launched, and are always open and easy to use, and are gradually being welcomed by users. Driven by popularity and self-interest, profit-incentive developers are developing low-quality applications and hiring robots to exaggerate ratings, reviews, or install counts. This is how spam in applications increases. Low-quality applications reduce the user’s quality experience and trust, because after users download an application, they will know the irrelevant and annoying content of the application. As a result, the reputation of the Play Store is damaged. Therefore, we analyzed the review content of different wearable applications and proposed a regression model that has a wide range of recommended features, including sentiment, content similarity, language and time features, to detect wearable applications in the Play Store. We use advanced machine learning techniques to evaluate and verify the quality of the model. Compared with existing models, the performance of our proposed model is very good, with an error rate as low as 0.40 MSE. Therefore, our regression model is most suitable for deep neural network (DNN) training.
Analysis and Design of CMOS Ultra Wideband Receivers

This research focuses on the design and analysis of Ultra Wideband receivers for Multiband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing systems. A comprehensive analysis of distortion effects in UWB receivers for different interference scenarios is performed. Analytical expressions for the power spectral density of all relevant distortion products (cross-modulation, intermodulation and harmonic distortion) are derived for the first time. Calculations are presented to show the effect of these distortion effects on overall system performance. Expressions developed will help circuit and system designers to come to an optimum power consumption versus performance trade-off. An RF receiver front-end for MB- OFDM based UWB systems is designed. The receiver is the first to be designed without using any on-chip inductors or off-chip matching components. The receiver occupies only 0.35 mm sq. in a 0.18uM CMOS process, consists of a low-noise amplifier, downconverter and a bandpass filter. The measured receiver gain is 21 dB, Noise Figure is less than 6 dB, input IIP3 is -5 dBm and the receiver consumes 19.5 mA from a 2.3V supply. The receiver covers all the MB -OFDM bands from 3.1 GHz to 8 GHz
A fully differential LC-VCO using a new varactor control structure

This paper presents a fully differential inductor-capacitor voltage-controlled oscillator (LC-VCO) with a new differentially-tuned varactor structure. The proposed LC-VCO has lower phase noise and better robustness to the injected common-mode noise than the differentially-tuned LC-VCO using the previous antiparallel structure. The LC-VCO implemented using 0.5-/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS technology is tunable from 4.251 to 4.428 GHz and the measured phase noise is -119 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset over the entire tuning range. Its core current is only 1.7 mA at 2.5-V supply voltage.
Theoretical study on the sensitivity of dynamic acoustic force measurement through monomodal and bimodal excitations of rectangular micro-cantilever

We present a detailed analysis on measurement sensitivity of dynamic acoustic forces via numerical simulation of the micro-cantilever responses. The rectangular micro-cantilever is regarded as a point mass in the dynamic model of forced and damped harmonic oscillator. We use single- and bimodal-frequency excitation schemes for actuation of the micro-cantilever in the presence of dynamic acoustic forces. In bimodal-frequency excitation scheme, the micro-cantilever is excited at its first two eigenmode frequencies simultaneously as opposed to single-frequency excitation. First, we numerically obtain micro-cantilever deflections by solving the equations of Motions (EOMs) constructed for the first two eigenmodes. Then, we determine oscillation amplitude and phase shift as a function of acoustic force strength within different frequency regions. Moreover, we relate amplitude and phase shift to virial and energy dissipation in order to explore the interaction between flexural modes in multifrequency excitation. The simulation results point out that bimodal-frequency excitation improves the measurement sensitivity of dynamic acoustic forces at particular frequencies. Herein, simultaneous application of driving forces enables higher sensitivities of observables and energy quantities as acoustic force frequencies become around the eigenmode frequencies. For our case, we obtain the highest phase shift (∼178°) for the acoustic force strength of 100 pN at the frequency of around 307.2 kHz. Therefore, this method can be easily adapted to improve measurement sensitivity of dynamic acoustic forces in a wider frequency window.
E-Shaped Coaxial Feed Microstrip Patch Antenna for WLAN and WIMAX Applications

In this paper, an E-shaped coaxial feed microstrip patch antenna has been presented. The proposed antenna is designed to operate between 5.725 to 5.85 GHz frequency bands. The Ansot’s HFSS software has been used for designing the proposed antenna. The FR4 epoxy dielectric material of relative permittivity 4.4 and loss tangent of 0.0013 with the thickness of 1.6 mm is used as a substrate of the proposed antenna. High performance characteristics and good return loss values for 5.725-5.85 GHz frequency band have been obtained for the proposed antenna.
An Improved Solution for Simultaneous Measurement of Current and Temperature on Terfenol-D FBG Optical Sensor

This article presents a proposal for an alternative approach for simultaneous measurement of electric current and temperature using an optical sensor based on magnetostrictive material that employs a single Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG). The sensor head is of simple design and allows easy installation on the existing conductors of the underground distribution network. This proposal measures the root mean square (RMS) current from 50 to 600 A at any temperature between 10°C to 60°C, real values for a distribution network. The approach consists of obtaining surface curves of two key parameters of the sensor’s waveform response, $\lambda ({t})$ . The main parameters are the peak-to-peak and minimum wavelengths as a function of temperature and current. When determining these parameters from the waveform, the crossing point of the contour graphics is used to uniquely determine the current and temperature in the sensor head in real-time, without the need for any correction process.
State-Space Model Generation for Flexible Aircraft

Accurate simplification of the equations of motion of an aircraft, in a way that incorporates aeroelastic effects, is important to facilitate the development of reliable time-domain dynamic models. Such time-domain models are useful for control design and for the prediction of dynamic loads early in the design cycle. Various techniques reported in the literature for such model development are critically reviewed. A particular example case is used to illustrate the different methods. The issues involved are highlighted, and two possible error quantification methods are suggested.