Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genome sequencing and comparative genomic analysis of highly and weakly virulent strains of Sclerotium rolfsii, the causal agent of peanut stem rot

Background Stem rot caused by Sclerotium rolfsii is a very important soil-borne disease to peanut worldwide. S. rolfsii is a necrotrophic plant pathogenic fungus with an extensive host range and worldwide distribution. It can infect peanut stems, roots, pegs and pods, leading to varied yield losses. S. rolfsii strains GP3 and ZY collected from peanut in different provinces of China exhibited significant difference in virulence on peanut by artificial inoculation test. In this study, de-novo genome sequencing of these two distinct strains was performed in the hopes of revealing the genomic basis of virulence differentiation. Results Scleotium rolfsii strains GP3 and ZY, with weak and high virulence on peanut, respectively, exhibited similar growth rate and oxalic acid production in laboratory. The genomes of S. rolfsii strains GP3 and ZY were sequenced by Pacbio long read technology and exhibited 70.61 Mb and 70.51 Mb, with contigs of 27 and 23, and encoded 17,097 and 16,743 putative protein genes, respectively. Comparative genomic analysis revealed that the pathogenicity-related gene repertoires, which might be associated with the virulence, diverged between GP3 and ZY. Detailed analysis further revealed 58 and 45 unique pathogen-host interaction (PHI) genes in GP3 and ZY, respectively. The ZY strain had more carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) in its secretome than GP3, especially in the glycoside hydrolase family (GH), the carbohydrate esterase family (CBM), and the polysaccharide lyase family (PL). GP3 and ZY also had different effector candidates. These results indicated that differences in PHI, secreted CAZymes, and effectors may play important roles in virulence differentiation between these two strains. Conclusions The data provided a further understanding of the S. rolfsii genome. Detailed comparative genomic analysis provided clues into the genomic basis of its necrotrophic lifestyle and virulence diversification.
Characteristics of Some Asymmetrical Coupled Transmission Lines (Short Paper)

In this paper, expressions for the characteristics of some asymmetrical coupled transmission lines are derived. These include expressions for the capacitances, impedances, and phase velocities of asymmetrical coplanar strips, asymmetric coupled striplines, and asymmetric coupled microstriplines. Accuracy of these expressions is compared against available numerical results obtained rising varous numerical methods.
Statistical mixture design of ternary blends for controlling ASR

Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are long proven to control alkali–silica reaction (ASR) in concrete. Some SCMs such as slag and high-calcium fly ash are less effective than others and need high replacement levels, which may not be practical for various construction purposes. Combining two SCMs with Portland cement (i.e. ternary blend) offers design flexibility for the desired performance. This study investigates the use of statistical mix design in formulating ternary blends for ASR. Thirty-one mixtures were prepared based on statistical mixture design and tested using the accelerated mortar bar method. Five groups of ternary blends were investigated: Portland cement/metakaolin/brick powder, Portland cement/metakaolin/high-calcium fly ash, Portland cement/metakaolin/low-calcium fly ash, Portland cement/high-calcium fly ash/low-calcium fly ash and Portland cement/high-calcium fly ash/slag. The performances of the ternary blends were analysed using statistical models. The results showed that SCM.
Load-dependent production planning for an assemble-to-order system

Assemble-to-order (ATO) systems enable manufacturing firms to be cost-effective and at the same time responsive to changing customer orders. In this paper, we study an assemble-to-order (ATO) system, where raw materials are released into a capacitated production stage. Inventory of produced components is kept in stock ready for final assembly once specific orders for products are received. An important planning issue is to find an optimal trade-off between capacity utilisation and components inventory holding cost with the aim to meet uncertain demand of end products. In this paper, we formulate two integrated production/inventory planning models using clearing functions while considering demand uncertainty. In the first model, we assume that demand is normally distributed and propose a chance constrained formulation. In the second model, we consider the case of unknown demand distributions and use a robust optimisation approach. The proposed models are linear programmes that provide safe production plans. We illustrate the proposed models using a real case study from the literature and analyse the effect of congestion and demand uncertainty.
Optimization of Bridge Management under Budget Constraints

Bridge management is a complex engineering issue with public safety and financial implications. It is a challenge to provide efficient bridge management systems, taking into account uncertainties in the structural degradation process, the loads and resistance of the structure, the decisions that are made concerning assessment strategies—such as inspections or structural health monitoring (SHM)—and maintenance and rehabilitation strategies. It is important to determine optimal management strategies that satisfy budget constraints, because efficient use of available financial funds is a primary objective of stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a probabilistic framework based on SHM results for optimization of management strategies under multiple criteria, including budget availability. To take into account uncertainties in the decision process, an event tree–based approach is used. This enables quantification of the expected inspection, SHM, maintenance and failure costs, and accuracy of the decision process according to the occurrence and duration of future SHM programs. To include budget constraints, the probability distribution of management cost—defined as the sum of inspection, SHM, and maintenance costs—is determined at each decision time and compared with an ideal budget distribution. The proposed approach is applied to an existing bridge.
Interactive Selection on Calculated Attributes of Large-Scale Particle Data

We present a GPU-based technique for efﬁcient selection in interactive visualizations of large particle datasets. In particular, we address multiple attributes attached to particles, such as pressure, density, or surface tension. Unfortunately, such intermediate attributes are often available only during the simulation run. They are either not accessible during visualization or have to be saved as additional information along with the usual simulation data. The latter increases the size of the dataset signiﬁcantly, and the required variables may not be known in advance. Therefore, we choose to compute intermediate attributes on the ﬂy. In this way, we are even able to obtain attributes that were not calculated by the simulation but may be relevant for data analysis or debugging. We present an interactive selection technique designed for such attributes. It leverages spatial regions of the selection to efﬁciently compute attributes only where needed. This lazy evaluation also works for intelligent and data-driven selection, extending the region to include neighboring particles. Our technique is evaluated by measurements of performance scalability and case studies for typical usage examples.
Junction Flow between Drop Shaft and Diversion Tunnel in Lyss, Switzerland

A diversion tunnel is planned for flood protection in the City of Lyss, Switzerland. This tunnel includes a junction, from which water from a side creek is added to the tunnel flow. The latter is sensitive to choking, so that the junction had to be optimized in a hydraulic laboratory investigation. Its setup finally consists of a drop shaft and an injector generating annular flow in the tunnel. Free surface tunnel flow then occurred for all relevant discharges. This setup is also of interest in sewer systems as well as in spillway and diversion tunnels, where similar problems may occur. The concept was optimized for a specific prototype. General recommendations may be derived for similar situations.
Powerfarm: A power and emergency management thread-based software tool for the ATLAS Napoli Tier2

The large computing power and the storage systems available in a Grid site or in a computing center are composed of several servers and devices, each with its own specific role in the center. A management and fault recovery system is of primary importance for management operations and to preserve the integrity of the systems in case of emergencies, such as power outages or temperature peaks. We developed Powerfarm, a customizable thread-based software system that monitors several parameters such as, for example, the status of power supplies, room and CPU temperatures and it promptly reacts to values out of range with the appropriate actions. Powerfarm enforces hardware and software dependencies between devices and it is able to switch them on/off in the particular order induced by the dependencies, so it's also useful for the site administrator to speed up the management of scheduled downtimes.
Tunable filtering balun with enhanced stopband rejection

For the first time a tunable balun with bandpass response by loading tunable capacitors in the split ring resonators is proposed. By tuning the capacitors’ values, the operating frequency of the balun can be tuned continuously. A shunt stub is employed to realise an additional transmission zero in the higher stopband without any influence on the bandpass response. Theoretical analysis of the filtering balun is conducted and presented. The fabricated balun indicates that the frequency-tuned range of the passband is more than 400 MHz with acceptable insertion loss, and the differences between the two output ports is 180°±5° in phase and within 0.5 dB in magnitude in this tuning range.
Determinants of construction duration for building projects in Germany

Purpose – Construction duration is referred to as one of the most crucial success elements for a construction project along with quality and cost. Modelling construction duration supports decision making at the early stages of a project. Exploring the complex structure of construction duration is necessary; hence this forms a basis to develop a predictive model. Therefore the main aim of this study is to determine the subset of variables for a descriptive model that explains the most substantial part of the variation in construction duration.Design/methodology/approach – Secondary data set which includes 1,695 observations with 30 quantitative and four qualitative variables was utilized. Multiple linear regression was employed to define the relationship between explanatory variables and construction duration. General procedure for variable selection was presented in detail for data sets that suffer multicollinearity and singularity.Findings – Analysis indicated that gross external floor area and cost of c.
Air Dynamics Characteristics Analysis of Air Splicer

Air splicing technology is the key technology to realize high speed, high quality and automatic winding in modern textile industry. However the current research of splicing mechanism is still in qualitative analysis, theoretical and experimental exploration stage. By modern computational mechanics method, with the air flow analysis results in different structures and shapes of splicer chamber, the air flow patterns under high pressure are determined; and the optimized structural characteristics of the splicing chamber are obtained in this paper. The results provide theoretical support on the innovative splicer chamber design, promote the development of the new air splicing technology, create important practical value, and provide the feasible means and methods in the air splicer theory research and optimization design.
Fabrication and electrical characterization of high aspect ratio poly-silicon filled through-silicon vias

This paper presents the fabrication and the electrical characterization of poly-Si filled through-silicon vias, which were etched in a 180 µm thin silicon device wafer, bonded to a handle wafer by plasma activated oxide-to-silicon bonding. Heavily doped poly-Si was used as interconnection material, which was deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition. Two different via geometries, i.e. stadium shaped, and circular shaped, were tried. Sputtered aluminum metallization layers as double-side redistribution lines and contact pads, were used. Both Kelvin structures and daisy chains were fabricated and their electrical resistances were measured. The electrical resistance of a single stadium-shaped via was measured to be about 24 Ω. The electrical resistance was varying from 60 Ω to 90 Ω for two-vias daisy chains. Measured results indicate that this via-first technology can be used for varying range of sensor applications like microphone, oscillator, resonator, etc where CMOS compatibility and high temperature processing are the prime requirements.
Extraction method for non-quasi-static gate resistance of RF MOSFETs

Using a new extraction method based on the physical input equivalent circuit separating the overlap component from the gate capacitance, the non-quasi-static gate resistance in a small-signal RF MOSFET model is accurately determined. This new method results in much better agreements up to 30GHz between the measured and modelled data of Y 11 +Y 12 than a conventional one.
Modelling and simulation-based performance study of a transformerless single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic system in Indian ambient conditions

This paper presents a transformerless single-stage full-bridge inverter for a grid-connected photovoltaic system (GCPVS) and its performances based on power loss, efficiency, and total harmonic distortion for the conditions: (a) seasonal variations of inputs in the photovoltaic (PV) system, (b) variation of grid voltage, and (c) variation of carrier frequency and Modulation Index of sinusoidal pulse-width modulation of the inverter. A typical 2.8 kWp, 368 V nominal PV array-based GCPVS is modelled and simulated to evaluate proper load matching in Indian ambient and grid conditions prior to practical implementation. Detailed analyses on system powers, power losses, efficiency, and harmonic distortions as well as selection of parameters for the simulation model are presented. The impacts of penetrating PV power into electric grid are investigated in order to predict the possible unwanted consequences.
Compact dual‐antenna with π‐shape grounded strip for enhanced bandwidth and decreased coupling for LTE tablet computer application

A compact dual‐antenna for the long term evolution (LTE) operation in its high band of 1710–2690 MHz is presented for the LTE tablet computer application. The dual‐antenna occupies a small volume of 10 × 45 × 0.8 mm3 and comprises two back‐to‐back folded loops separated by a π‐shape grounded strip. Each folded loop is directly fed to generate its half‐wavelength mode at about 2.6 GHz, and one arm of the π‐shape grounded strip is parasitically excited to provide a quarter‐wavelength resonant mode at about 1.9 GHz. The two resonant modes are formed into a wide operating band of about 1.7–2.7 GHz, which covers the desired LTE high band. Furthermore, the other arm of the π‐shape grounded strip provides a resonant path to direct the excited surface currents on the device ground plane. In this case, the surface currents flowing along the top edge of the device ground plane is greatly suppressed, thereby decreasing the coupling between the two feeding ports of the dual‐antenna. The dual‐antenna provides acceptable isolation better than about 10 dB and good antenna efficiency better than about 55% over a wide operating band of larger than 1 GHz. This leads to acceptable envelope correlation coefficient (<0.3 for the proposed dual‐antenna) obtained for the LTE high‐band (1710–2690 MHz) operation. Operating principle of enhanced bandwidth and decreased coupling of the dual‐antenna is described. Results of the fabricated dual‐antenna are presented, and the MIMO performance of the dual‐antenna is also discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:104–111, 2015
Evaluation of a Self-Propelled Citrus Fruit Pick-Up Machine

Mechanical harvesting of citrus is becoming popular due to shortage of labor. A citrus fruit pick-up machine developed by Oxbo International Corp. (Clear Lake, Wis.) was tested for its performance and productivity. The machine was evaluated for its picking rate, picking efficiency, field capacity, and its efficiency for removing undesirable fruit and trash. The performance test was conducted under different ranges of forward speed and grove conditions. The average picking rate was 161, 97, and 94 kg/min for ridge, bed, and swale citrus orchard conditions, respectively. The picking efficiency was 97%, 91%, and 80% for ridge, bed and swale grove conditions, respectively. The average field capacity was about 0.14 ha/h. No major undesired materials were picked up by the pick-up machine during the evaluation test.
Inverse Design of Turbine and Compressor Stages Using a Commercial CFD Program

An aerodynamic inverse method that is developed for viscous flow over airfoils, is implemented into ANSYS-CFX as a User-Defined Function (UDF). The implementation is validated, it is then assessed in the redesign of a compressor and a turbine stage in two-dimensional visocus flow. In the inverse method, one of the design choices is to prescribe a target pressure distribution on the airfoil surfaces. The airfoil walls are assumed to be moving with a virtual velocity that would asymptotically drive the airfoil to the shape that would correspond to the specified target pressure distribution. This virtual velocity distribution is computed from the difference between the current and the target pressure distributions. The inverse design approach is fully consistent with the viscous flow assumption and is independent of the CFD approach taken. The Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation of the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes equations is solved in a time accurate fashion with the airfoil motion being the source of unsteadiness. At each time step, the airfoil shape is modified and dynamic meshing is used to remesh the fluid flow domain. An axial compressor stage and turbine stage are redesigned using ANSYS-CFX running in inverse mode so as to demonstrate the ability of this approach to improve the aerodynamic performance of both compressor and turbine stages.Copyright © 2013 by ASME
A 26–47.9 GHz ultrawideband CMOS dual injection‐locked frequency divider

A 26–47.9 GHz ultrawideband CMOS dual injection‐locked frequency divider (dual‐ILFD) with high input impedance is demonstrated. As the differential input signal is injected into the gate of the PMOS tail transistor and NMOS switch transistor, the proposed divider has high input impedance and can be driven easily by the preceding driving circuits. Meanwhile, the locking range of the proposed divider is extended significantly by fully utilizing the dual‐injection technique. The proposed dual‐ILFD is fabricated in a standard 90‐nm CMOS process and on‐wafer measurements are performed. The measurements show that the free‐running frequency of the divider is 19.11 GHz. At an incident power of 0 dBm, a total locking range from 26 to 47.9 GHz is achieved. The power consumption is 2.88 mW at a supply voltage of 1.2 V. The total chip size is 0.62 × 0.42 mm2. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2126–2129, 2014
Modelling of the Waterbomb Origami Pattern and its Applications

The waterbomb pattern is a well-known origami pattern and has been employed to construct foldable cylinders as stent grafts and deformable robot wheels. It is known that the cylinders made from the waterbomb pattern are, in general, not rigidly foldable. This feature makes construction and numerical simulation of those cylinders difficult because a distortion-free initial configuration for the cylinders cannot be identified. A geometrical analysis of the cylinders formed from the waterbomb pattern reveals that by properly selecting pattern geometry, there exist particular configurations at which a cylinder of a uniform radius can be rigidly assembled out of the pattern. In other words, the pattern can be perfectly connected together to form a cylinder without distortion. Those particular configurations can be used as the initial configuration of the cylinders when they are constructed and as the starting configuration of the cylinders in a numerical analysis.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Harvard's Glass Flowers: A Case Study in Traveling a Fragile Collection

Abstract In the year 2000, a selection of the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, popularly known as the Glass Flowers, were loaned by Harvard University to the 2000 French National Millennium exhibition La Beauté in Avignon. This paper will present an overview of the history of the Glass Flowers and their creators, the materials, techniques and methods of fabrication, and a brief discussion of the conservation of the collection, before broaching the topic of traveling them. Aside from the inherent conservation challenges and unique packing problems presented by the fragile models, there were compromises and decisions to be made among collections manager, curator, and conservator. This paper touches on one international venue, La Beauté, to explicate the problems faced in packing and transporting a select group of 22 Glass Flower models, the lessons learned, and the subsequent successful outcome.
Direct wind tunnel modelling of natural ventilation for design purposes

The paper describes an investigation into the feasibility of natural ventilation design by means of direct wind tunnel modelling of ventilation rates. The investigation covers the three cases encountered in practice, i.e. wind alone, buoyancy alone and wind and buoyancy combined. The direct determination of ventilation rates from a wind tunnel model is potentially a very powerful tool for natural ventilation design of nondomestic buildings, where the design aim is to specify the size and position of purpose-provided openings. It offers more accuracy in the determination of wind effects than either the indirect use of wind tunnels (where pressure coefficients are measured for use in a mathematical model) or the salt-bath technique. From an analysis of experimental and theoretical results it is concluded that the direct technique is feasible for a wide range of building sizes. Some desirable improvements to the technique have also been identified. Further work is also required to clarify why the observed values of discharge coefficients are larger than might be expected.
Valuation of Different Types of Travel Time Reliability in Route Choice: Large-Scale Laboratory Experiment

Travelers sometimes experience extremely long travel times on a route. The Travel Simulator Laboratory (TSL) of Delft University of Technology is used to study the effect of these extreme experiences on route choice. The TSL allows for a completely controlled experiment and good research methodology. It is hypothesized that together with the average travel time and the variance, the most extreme travel times experienced influence a person's perception of the attractiveness of the route. Travel information is assumed to be able to alter this perception. Data from 2,500 respondents were gathered with the TSL. Route switching behavior after a regular experience and after an extreme experience was analyzed. People switched routes after an extreme experience significantly more often when the information that they received before the route choice was wrong than they did when it was correct. Moreover, travelers clearly preferred a route that is sometimes bad and most of the time good over a route that is symmetr.