Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Continuous observation planning for autonomous exploration

Many applications of autonomous robots depend on the robot being able to navigate in real world environments. In order to navigate or path plan, the robot often needs to consult a map of its surroundings. A truly autonomous robot must, therefore, be able to drive about its environment and use its sensors to build a map before performing any tasks that require this map. Algorithms that control a robot’s motion for the purpose of building a map of an environment are called autonomous exploration algorithms. Because resources such as time and energy are highly constrained in many mobile robot missions, a key requirement of autonomous exploration algorithms is that they cause the robot to explore efficiently. Planning paths to candidate observation points that will lead to efficient exploration is challenging, however, because the set of candidates, and, therefore, the robot’s plan, change frequently as the robot adds information to the map. The main claim of this thesis is that, in situations in which the robot discerns the large scale structure of the environment early on during its exploration, the robot can produce paths that cause it to explore efficiently by planning observations to make over a finite horizon. Planning over a finite horizon entails finding a path that visits candidates with the maximum possible total utility, subject to the constraint that the path cost is less than a given threshold value. Finding such a path corresponds to solving the Selective Traveling Salesman Problem (S-TSP) over the set of candidates. In this thesis, we evaluate our claim by implementing full horizon, finite horizon, and greedy approaches to planning observations, and comparing the efficiency of these approaches in both real and simulated environments. In addition, we develop a new approach for solving the S-TSP by framing it as an Optimal Constraint Satisfaction Problem (OCSP). Thesis Supervisor: John J. Leonard Title: Associate Professor of Ocean Engineering Thesis Supervisor: Brian C. Williams Title: Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Simulation and verification of the axial force of a linear permanent magnet synchronous actuator

A methodology has been developed for the simulation and experimental verification of the axial force exerted by an electromagnet on a concentric permanent magnet. This comprises four stages. The first involves the modeling of the permanent magnet as a current sheet based on the permanent magnet material and its dimensions. This current sheet model is then discretised into a number of coils. The second stage involves the prediction of the radial magnetic flux density from the electromagnet at any point off its axis. The third stage involves the calculation of the axial force exerted by the electromagnet onto a concentric current carrying ring along its axis. The fourth stage involves the calculation of the axial force exerted by the electromagnet onto a number of contiguous rings that represent the model of the permanent magnet developed in the first stage. Experimental verification has been carried out for the fourth stage by the measurement of the resultant force by the use of weights. The method was implemented in matlab for all the four stages. In addition to the experimental verification, PC based verification was also carried out against a FEM software for the results from all the four stages.
Improving the Isolation of MIMO Antennas Using Split Ring Resonators

This paper proposes a method for improving the isolation characteristic of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antennas using a split ring resonator (SRR) array structure between the two radiating elements. The fabricated antenna satisfies the 10 dB return loss requirement in the Mobile-WiMAX frequency band from 3.4 GHz to 3.6 GHz. The isolation between the two radiating elements is improved by approximately 20 dB at the center frequency by inserting a SRR array structure. The measured peak gains of the two elements are 2.3 dBi and 2.4 dBi, respectively.
Passive Real-world Interface Props for Neurosurgical

We claim that physical manipulation of familiar real-world objects in the user`s real environment is an important technique for the design of three-dimensional user interfaces. Thesereal-world passive interface props are manipulated by the user to specify spatial relationships between interface objects. By unobtrusively embedding free-space position and orientation trackers within the props, we enable the computer to passively observe a natural user dialog in the real world, rather than forcing the user to engage in a contrived dialog in the computer-generated world. We present neurosurgical planning as a driving application and demonstrate the utility of a head viewing prop, a cutting-plane selection prop, and a trajectory selection prop in this domain. Using passive props in this interface exploits the surgeon`s existing skills, provides direct action-task correspondence, eliminates explicit modes for separate tools, facilitates natural two-handed interaction, and provides tactile and kinesthetic feedback for the user. Our informal evaluation sessions have shown that with a cursory introduction, neurosurgeons who have never seen the interface can understand and use it without training.
An adaptive, preconditioned, electromechanical model for the simulation of cardiac arrhythmias

In this thesis a coupled model of cardiac electromechanical activity is presented, using the finite element method to model both electrophysiology and mechanics within a deforming domain. The efficiency of the electrical model was improved using adaptive mesh refinement and the mechanical system performance was improved with the addition of preconditioning. Unstructured triangular meshes were used throughout. The electrophysiology model uses the ten Tusscher-Panfilov 2006 detailed cellular model, and includes anisotropic diffusion, uses a semi-implicit time stepping scheme, stores data in an efficient sparse storage format and applies a Reverse Cuthill-McKee ordering algorithm to reduce the matrices’ bandwidths. Linear elements were used to approximate the transmembrane voltage and spatial and temporal convergence tests were undertaken. Local mesh adaptivity is added to the electrical component of the model and improvements to the performance and efficiency gained by this technique were investigated. Two different monitor functions were utilised and these demonstrated that by targeting adaptive mesh refinement at the front of the electrical wave significant efficiency and performance benefits could be achieved. The cardiac mechanical model is based on finite deformation elasticity theory, enforces the incompressibility of the tissue and incorporates anisotropic tension to simulate fibre orientation. This uses isoparametric quadratic elements for deformation, linear elements for pressure, was integrated with numerical quadrature and the resulting non-linear system solved with the iterative Newton method. Preconditioning was added to the mechanical component of the model and improvements in the performance of the solver due to this were investigated. An ILUT (Incomplete Lower Upper factorisation with drop Tolerance) preconditioner was implemented and this demonstrated performance improvements of up to 27 times on the meshes tested. The resulting cardiac electromechanical solver was then used to consider how known changes in cardiac electrophysiology, which are manifest in end-stage heart disease, affect the stability of the electrical wave. Specifically, investigations were undertaken into the introduction of fibrotic regions (with different sizes and concentrations) and electrical remodelling caused by end-stage cardiac disease. These were modelled on both static and deforming domains to consider whether deformation can alter the stability of a spiral wave. These simulations demonstrated that fibrotic regions and tissue deformation can have significant disruptive effects on the stability of a re-entrant spiral wave and that remodelling the electrophysiology stabilises the wave.
Electronic transport, field effect and doping in pentacene nanorods and monolayer thin film prepared by combination of nano-fabrication and self-assembly

The transport in organic semiconductors is investigated on the nanometer scale. Field eﬀect transistor with device-active layers in the monolayer (ML) range are characterized in-situ right after the controlled deposition of pentacene. By using a bottom contact geometry, the thickness of the channel is varied in several steps and the thin ﬁlm transistors (TFTs) are characterized after each additional deposition. The mobility is found to saturate at a channel thickness of 3-4 ML. This allows for the operation ofML TFT, where the eﬀect of dopant molecules deposited on top of the channel is studied. Fluorinated tetracyanoquinodimethane (F4 TCNQ) is found to increase the charge carrier concentration by a charge transfer process with pentacene without degradation of the mobility. For a separation of contact eﬀects from bulk eﬀects, TFTs with channel length between 20 µm and 200 µm have been processed in parallel. The contact resistance Rc and the contact free mobility µcf have been extracted and analyzed by the transmission line method (TLM). In temperature dependent studies, an approximately linear log(µ) vs. 1/T relation describes the experimental results. The ﬁt is slightly better for the undoped TFT compared to the doped TFT. This is consistent with the accepted theoretical models based on a disordered Gaussian density of states (DOS). In fact, the experimental determination of the DOS in doped TFTs shows an additional broad peak at 0.14 eV above the HOMO edge caused by the dopant molecules. A second pronounced effect of doping is the reduction of the Rc by a factor 20 between the gold electrode and pentacene. The gate field dependent decrease of Rc in undoped TFTs is related to a lowering of the Schottky barrier at the interface. In doped TFTs, the opposite effect is observed. This demonstrates the influence of the dopant molecules on the interface barrier. The injection process determining Rc is found to change from a thermionic emission mechanism to a tunneling regime. For the investigation of the injection properties at the interface, a new manufacturing method to produce metallic nanojunction is presented. In combination with a self-assembly process leading to pentacene rod-like islands connecting the two electrodes right through their growth, the transport in the 10-nm scale is investigated. At this scale length, the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of pentacene is changing from rectifying Schottky-like behavior to fully linear behavior upon F4TCNQ doping. Variable temperature investigations show that the conduction in the doped pentacene nanojunction is thermally activated, with an activation energy very close to the energy position of the dopant induced peak in the DOS and to the thermal activation energy of Rc.
Vulnerability management using a formalized description

The article considers the main stages of vulnerability management and the problems arising in risk assessment and decision making during vulnerability management in the information and telecommunications system. It is assumed that modern techniques are not sufficient for effective vulnerability management. There is a need for creating a risk assessment system to improve decision-making procedures. The comparison of the formalized and informal description of the information and telecommunication system is described. The conclusion from the comparison results is that the formalized description has a number of advantages, so it is necessary that it should be built based on a formalized description of the information and telecommunication system. When adding qualitative vulnerability assessments (such as Common Vulnerability Scoring System vulnerabilities), this system will be unambiguous, clear, flexible, and easy to use. An additional advantage of such a system is the ability to automate assessment and decision-making processes, which will eliminate human influence and minimize the subjective factor in the management of vulnerabilities in the information and telecommunications system. Such a system will not exclude the influence of the security administrator, but will help him in decision-making, risk assessment, reduce the likelihood of errors, will help new staff in choosing decisions.
An interference alignment scheme based on limited feedback with differentiation in heterogeneous networks

The traditional limited feedback scheme can use imperfect channel state information to achieve interference alignment (IA) in a fully connected situation. But these solutions could no longer be used directly in heterogeneous networks where partial connectivity is considered. To solve this problem, this article proposes an IA scheme based on limited feedback with differentiation for the two‐tiered heterogeneous network. First, users who are affected by different types and numbers of interference and corresponding base stations are divided into different units according to the partial connectivity of heterogeneous networks. Then, we design interference alignment algorithm for each unit separately. Next, considering the imperfect channel state information, we derive the leakage of interference caused by the limited feedback, and give expressions for the upper bound of sum rate loss in various units. Finally, dynamic feedback bit allocation is carried out to each unit with the goal of minimizing the throughput loss in the limited feedback system. The simulation results show that the proposed IA scheme can eliminate interference well and efficiency of limited feedback can be improved through dynamic feedback bit allocation, so that system can obtain higher sum rate than other schemes.
RMST: reliable data transport in sensor networks

Reliable data transport in wireless sensor networks is a multifaceted problem influenced by the physical, MAC, network, and transport layers. Because sensor networks are subject to strict resource constraints and are deployed by single organizations, they encourage revisiting traditional layering and are less bound by standardized placement of services such as reliability. This paper presents analysis and experiments resulting in specific recommendations for implementing reliable data transport in sensor nets. To explore reliability at the transport layer, we present RMST (Reliable Multi-Segment Transport), a new transport layer for Directed Diffusion. RMST provides guaranteed delivery and fragmentation/reassembly for applications that require them. RMST is a selective NACK-based protocol that can be configured for in-network caching and repair.
Radiative contribution to the thermal conductivity of fibrous insulations

Design studies on the reuseable surface insulation (RSI) systems for the Space Shuttle require accurate data on the thermal conductivity of ceramic-fiber insulations. Well-established laboratory techniques, such as the guarded hot plate experiment, are available for such measurements; however, caution must be exercised in applying laboratory data to widely different reentry thermal environments. The heat-transfer associated with infrared radiation transmitted through the fibrous materials must be considered. Various analytical models have been developed to account for this radiant heat transfer, but their verification has often been incomplete. A new approach has now been applied in which infrared transmission measurements were made with an optical system that collected all the scattered radiation transmitted through the back surface of fibrous samples. Experimental data were analyzed using a "two-flux" model for the radiation scattered and absorbed in the materials and excellent correlation was obtained between theory and experiment. To account for the wavelength dependence of the scattering cross-sections of many materials, a "four-flux" model was developed. This model was used to compute the contribution of the radiation transmission to the total thermal conductivity of samples measured on the guarded hot plate equipment. The contribution was shown to be as high as 75 percent of the total conductivity at temperatures above 1000 K. The significance of this result is that data obtained from such instruments should not be used in heat-transfer design computations without regard to the radiation transmission. Such regard will be particularly important in the thermostructural analyses of RSI for the Space Shuttle and other reentry vehicles.
Distance running as play/work:Training-together as a joint accomplishment

This chapter considers a mundane activity that can be characterized as both hard (physical) work and ‘play’ of a certain kind, in that it can be undertaken as a pleasurable, playful and relaxing leisure activity. For us as ‘veteran’ runners, apart from in the early days of our youthful running biographies, when first introduced to running as a ‘fun’ leisure activity, running constitutes an activity we define as mundane, but ‘serious leisure’ (Stebbins 1993, 2011), immersing us in a culture of commitment in leisure (Tomlinson 1993). We briefly describe below our running biographies in order to situate the ethnomethodological analysis of our ‘running-together’ as a crafted co-production, accomplished on a quasi daily basis over many years. Whilst running is therefore defined as a ‘serious’ activity for us, it also constitutes outdoors ‘play’ when juxtaposed against the long hours of arduous ‘headwork’ indoors, as required by our paid jobs as academics. In order to address our topic of running-together (specifically in training, rather than in racing), this chapter is structured as follows. We first examine the general theoretical framework of ethnomethodology, and consider the literature that utilizes an ethnomethodological approach to sports and physical activity participation, as this body of work relates more directly to our own lived experience of running than does literature examining other forms of ‘play’, such as the game of chequers/checkers (Livingston 2006), for example. We then proceed to describe briefly the collaborative autoethnographical/autophenomenographical research project from which our illustrative data are drawn, before portraying these data via an ethnomethodological analytic lens.
Strategizing knowledge management in the Malaysian Armed Forces : towards knowledge-centric organization / Ismail Manuri and Raja Abdullah Yaacob

Military knowledge management (KM) is about the processes and techniques used to swiftly transfer experience and provide a common understanding from an experienced soldier to an inexperienced soldier. As an integral part of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) transformation to achieve Future Force, the KM strategy will play a valuable role in leveraging existing knowledge and converting new knowledge into action. A study on military officers of the MAF attitudes towards' KM applications was conducted to show the importance of KM in the military environment. Focus of the study is to examine the attitudes of MAF personnel toward KM key drivers, which include the knowledge creation, processes, applications, and technology. The findings of the study may be used as the basis to develop a KM implementation strategy in the MAF which should focussed on the tenet of people, process, and technology. The results of the study indicated that the KM key drivers that include knowledge creation, KM processes, KM application and technology were perceived as key elements in the military organization. In order to develop KM implementation strategy successfully, the MAF needs to focus on factors that include people, KM processes, and infostructure.
The Hearing-Aid Speech Quality Index (HASQI)

Signal modifications in audio devices such as hearing aids include both nonlinear and linear processing. An index is developed for predicting the effects of noise, nonlinear distortion, and linear filtering on speech quality. The index is designed for both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. It starts with a representation of the auditory periphery that incorporates aspects of impaired hearing. The cochlear model is followed by the extraction of signal features related to the quality judgments. One set of features measures the effects of noise and nonlinear distortion on speech quality, whereas second set of features measures the effects of linear filtering. The hearing-aid speech quality index (HASQI) is the product of the subindices computed for each of the two sets of features. The models are evaluated by comparing the model predictions with quality judgments made by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners for speech stimuli containing noise, nonlinear distortion, linear processing, and combinations of these signal degradations.
A Method to Find out Perceptional Sound Composition of the Vowels in the Contemporary Turkey Turkish

Objective: The speech sounds are used in audiology and audio-verbal therapy. Perception of speech sounds is related with their acoustic properties and inner ear physiology. Therefore, a perceptional aspect of the acoustic content should not be overlooked. In this study, we evaluated linear and perceptional changes in the vowels’ sound content at and over the comfortable hearing level according to dBA-filter. Methods: Recordings of 8 vowels (<a, e, i, ı, o, ö, u, ü>) of the contemporary Turkey Turkish were filtered by a dBA-filter. Then linear frequency data (Hz) of both original and dBA-filtered files were analyzed for fundamental frequency (F0) and formants (f1 to f5) by Praat; subsequently, the data were transferred to the perceptional range (Critical Bark Bands, CBB). Results: Our data demonstrated that linear values of F0 and f4,5 did not reveal any relationship with vowels, while f1-3 presented phoneme-specific patterns. dBA-filtering did not affect linear data of f3,4 (<u> was the only exception) and f5. Linear f1values were increased by dBA-filter (particularly in < ı,u,ü>). f2 of <ı, u> presented major deviations. Vowels’ CBB-changes were evident in f1 (the only exception was <e>), and it was evident in only f2 of <ı, u>. Conclusion: It is apparent that speech sound content at and over the comfortable hearing level stimulates higher frequency bands than found in original voice. Only <e> presented no perceptional change while major changes were particularly seen in <ı, u>. Thus, we could pronounce that perceptional aspect by dBA-filter would provide us with a new perspective for understanding the results of speech tests.
Service Quality and Guest Satisfaction in Egyptian Eco-lodge

Eco-lodges are an increasingly popular accommodation form. This research aims to investigate the service quality perception of the Eco-tourists in Eco-lodge context by developing an adapted version of the SERVQUAL& SERPERF in general, traditional hotel and ecotourism scale named ECO-SERVQUAL. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data from 202 Eco-guests in Eco-lodge on Fayoum and Dakhla Oasis. A random sample-sampling plan was used to collect samples. Regression Model and F tests were calculated to analyze data. The highest being assurance and the lowest Eco- activities and sustainable practices. Eco-lodge administrators should focus their efforts on specific areas of quality that had a greater influence in explaining the customer’s intent to behave and their satisfaction. Results indicate that ECO- SERVQUAL dimensions had a positive and significant impact on Eco-guest service quality perception and satisfaction.