Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
System clarification through systematic controller design for a forward converter with power factor corrector

A nonlinear controller is systematically designed on the basis of nonlinear model for a forward converter with power factor corrector. The systematic controller design clearly analyzes the behavior of a nonlinear system to improve the performance. It is clarified that a nominal load resistance characterizes the controller performance. Finally, computer simulations demonstrate efficiencies of the approach.
Designing National Freight Maritime Network in Indonesia: A Supporting Study For Maritime Highway Policy (Kebijakan Tol Laut) in Some Future Scenarios

Indonesian new government (under new President from 2014 election) issues ‘Maritime-highway’ policy by developing 24 strategic ports to form mainline of national maritime transportation network (Indonesian Ministry of Development Planning, 2015). This policy aims to reduce transportation cost as well as economy (price) disparities between west and east region in Indonesia. However, as a new policy from the new government, it still needs more supporting studies to optimize maritime network between selected strategic ports for freight transportation. In addition, as a national level policy, it also needs to consider macro economy future perspective since it will be implemented in a long term period. Therefore, a comprehensive study is conducted to develop a design of Indonesia’s freight maritime network using a multi-objectives optimization model with main objectives to minimize total cost and total distance simultaneously. Literatures review and analysis of Indonesia’s freight maritime network current situation are required to identify important factors for the model implementation. An Origin-Destination (OD) demand matrix for year 2030 is generated as the main input for simulation model analysis. There are three scenarios in the model simulation. First scenario uses OD matrix based on growth factor for each province that is calculated from Growth Domestic Regional Product (GDRP) realization (until 2013) and GDRP target from Indonesian government (until 2019 and continue the 2019 target to the year 2030). In the second scenario, a more balance demand especially in east region is applied by increasing growth factor for provinces with very low GDRP value. Finally, third scenario uses more equal handling cost among ports in the network with the same OD matrix from the second scenario. Furthermore, analysis and selection of alternatives in maritime network design are performed based on the results of the model simulation for each scenario. The final result of this study shows that the recommended maritime network designs have noticeable differences compare to initial network in maritime highway policy especially in the second and the third scenario. In these scenarios, the number and composition of hub and feeder ports are significantly changed due to more balance demand between provinces and more balance ports handling cost in the third scenario. There are also some additional routes, hub ports, and feeder ports for the east region in the recommended design for these two scenarios.
NetrinG1+ Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Generate Unique Extracellular Vesicles that Support the Survival of Pancreatic Cancer Cells Under Nutritional Stress

It is projected that, in 5 years, pancreatic cancer will become the second deadliest cancer in the United States. A unique aspect of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is its stroma; rich in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and a dense CAF-generated extracellular matrix (ECM). This fibrous stroma, known as desmoplasia, causes the collapse of local blood vessels rendering a nutrient-deprived milieu. Hence, PDAC cells are nurtured by local CAF-secreted products, which include, among others, CAF-generated small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). It is well-accepted that upon culturing functionally tumor-promoting CAFs under pathophysiological-relevant conditions (e.g., within self-produced ECM), these cells express NetrinG1 (NetG1) and sustain endosomal pools rich in active α5β1-integrin; traits indicative of poor patient survival. We herein report that NetG1+ CAFs generate sEVs that rescue PDAC cells from nutrient-deprived induced apoptosis. Two unique sEVs, NetG1+ and α5β1-integrin+, were uncovered. The former constitutes cargo of CAF-generated exomeres, and the latter is detected in classic exosomes. Proteomic and metabolomic analyses showed that the sEV-dependent PDAC survival is, at least in part, dictated by the cargo packaged within sEVs in a NetG1-dependent manner. Indeed, despite producing a similar number of vesicles, selected key proteins and metabolites (e.g., glutamine) were incorporated within the unique sEVs. Finally, we found that NetG1 and α5β1-integrin were detected in sEVs collected from plasma of PDAC patients, while their concomitant levels were significantly lower in plasma of sex/age-matched healthy donors. The discovery of these tumor-supporting CAF sEVs opens a new investigative avenue in tumor-stroma interactions and stroma staging detection.
SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta have extended ACE2 receptor host-ranges

Following the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in China in late 2019 a number of variants have emerged, with two of these – Alpha and Delta – subsequently growing to global prevalence. One characteristic of these variants are changes within the Spike protein, in particular the receptor binding domain (RBD). From a public health perspective these changes have important implications for increased transmissibility and immune escape; however, their presence could also modify the intrinsic host-range of the virus. Using viral pseudotyping we examined whether the variants of concern (VOCs) Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta have differing host ACE2 receptor usage patterns, focusing on a range of relevant mammalian ACE2 proteins. All four VOCs were able to overcome a previous restriction for mouse ACE2, with demonstrable differences also seen for individual VOCs with rat, ferret or civet ACE2 receptors, changes which we subsequently attribute to N501Y and E484K substitutions within the Spike RBD.
Microbial community analysis of biofilters reveals a dominance of either comammox Nitrospira or archaea as ammonia oxidizers in freshwater aquaria

Nitrification by aquarium biofilters transforms toxic ammonia waste (NH3/NH4+) to less toxic nitrate (NO3-) via nitrite (NO2-). Ammonia oxidation is mediated by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), and the recently discovered complete ammonia oxidizing (comammox) Nitrospira. Prior to the discovery of comammox Nitrospira, previous research revealed that AOA dominate among ammonia oxidizers in freshwater biofilters. Here, we characterized the composition of aquarium filter microbial communities and quantified the abundance of all three known groups of ammonia oxidizers. Aquarium biofilter and water samples were collected from representative freshwater and saltwater systems in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Using extracted DNA, we performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing and quantitative PCR (qPCR) to assess community composition and quantify the abundance of amoA genes, respectively. Our results show that aquarium biofilter microbial communities were consistently represented by putative heterotrophs of the Proteobacteria and Bacteroides phyla, with distinct profiles associated with fresh versus saltwater biofilters. Among nitrifiers, comammox Nitrospira amoA genes were detected in all 38 freshwater aquarium biofilter samples and were the most abundant ammonia oxidizer in 30 of these samples, with the remaining biofilters dominated by AOA, based on amoA gene abundances. In saltwater biofilters, AOA or AOB were differentially abundant, with no comammox Nitrospira detected. These results demonstrate that comammox Nitrospira play an important role in biofilter nitrification that has been previously overlooked and such microcosms are useful for exploring the ecology of nitrification for future research.
Recovery of consolidation after sleep following experimental stroke – interaction of slow waves, spindles and GABA

Sleep is known to be important for promoting recovery after brain injuries such as stroke. Yet, it remains unclear how such injuries affect neural processing during sleep and how to precisely enhance sleep-dependent memory processing during recovery. Using an experimental model of focal cortical stroke in rats along with long-term electrophysiological monitoring of neural firing and sleep microarchitecture, here we show that sleep-dependent neural processing is altered after stroke induction. Specifically, we found that the precise coupling of spindles to global slow- oscillations (SO), a phenomenon that is known to be important for memory consolidation, appeared to be disrupted by a pathological increase in “isolated” local delta waves. The transition from this pathological to a more physiological sleep state – with both a reduction in isolated delta waves and increased spindle coupling to SO – was associated with sustained performance gains after task training during recovery. Interestingly, post-injury sleep processing could be pushed towards a more physiological state via a pharmacological reduction of tonic GABA. Together, our results suggest that sleep processing after cortical brain injuries may be impaired due to an increase in local delta waves and that restoration of physiological processing is important for recovery of task performance.
Energy oasis [vanadium redox battery system in power distribution application]

As electrical demand on the power distribution circuit in South-Eastern Utah has increased, the utility has been forced to find a way to increase load, and improve reliability and power quality. The utility, PacifiCorp, finally decided that an energy storage technology would make the most attractive solution. This article describes the installation, which is an electrical energy storage system containing a vanadium based, redox regenerative fuel cell, with a proton exchange membrane. The system's actual response and state-of-charge curves have correlated well with predictions. The current system is capable of delivering 350 kVA and has a capacity of 15,500 Ah or 2.3 MWh, which exceeds initial specifications.
RGB-D Based Multimodal Convolutional Neural Networks for Spacecraft Recognition

Spacecraft recognition is a significant component of space situational awareness (SSA), especially for applications such as active debris removal, on-orbit servicing, and satellite formation. The complexity of recognition in actual space imagery is caused by a large diversity in sensing conditions, including background noise, low signal-to-noise ratio, different orbital scenarios, and high contrast. This paper addresses the previous problem and proposes multimodal convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for spacecraft detection and classification. The proposed solution includes two models: 1) a pre-trained ResNet50 CNN connected to a support vector machine (SVM) classifier for classification of RGB images. 2) an end-to-end CNN for classification of depth images. The experiments conducted on a novel SPARK dataset was generated under a realistic space simulation environment and has 150k of RGB images and 150k of depth images with 11 categories. The results show high performance of the proposed solution in terms of accuracy (89 %), F1 score (87 %), and Perf metric (1.8).
Performance Analysis of Node Placement in Linear Wireless Sensor Networks

Linear wireless sensor networks (LWSNs) are captivating significant attention because of their suitability for wide-range of applications. These applications dictate the topology of the network (i.e., placement of nodes) and introduce unique challenges such as non-uniform energy consumption. Moreover, these applications require LWSNs to operate for decades. However, sensor nodes with severe energy constraints may not be able to meet that expectation. Therefore, the network lifetime is one of the most prominent barriers in deploying LWSN for large-scale applications.Strategic placement of nodes can significantly improve the network performance. This paper investigates the state-of-the-art node placement schemes and analyzes their performance for LWSN. First, we analyze the performance of random and uniform placement schemes in linear sequential configuration while placing the gateway (GW) at the edge of the deployment region. Then, we present a non-uniform scheme called linearly decreasing distance (LDD) and analyze its performance. To make uniform energy consumption, LDD gradually decreases the distance between nodes and place them closer to each other towards the GW. We also analyze the impact of GW location on the network performance. Simulation results suggest that non-uniform sensor placement schemes such as LDD and strategic deployment of GW can significantly improve network performance.
Wideband MIMO Antenna for 5G Smartphone Applications

In this letter, we presented a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system with wideband performance for 5G smartphone applications. Firstly, a planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is designed to born a monopole-like mode. Secondly, an inverted-T shaped open slot is etched in PIFA to generate a loop mode and a slot mode. As a result, the antenna-element realizes a wide bandwidth of 83 % ranging from 3.3 to 8 GHz with a size of 14 × 7 mm2. Finally, eight such antenna-elements are arranged as an 8 × 8 MIMO antenna system. The simulated results show that the proposed antenna system has promising performances.
Psychoacoustic Properties Analysis on Interior Noise of High-Speed Trains

In order to analyze the noise properties and promote the sound comfort of the high-speed train, the noise samples are collected in passengers cars, dining cars and car joint parts at different speeds. By means of 18 sound samples, the psychoacoustic parameters of the high-speed train are discussed. Before calculation of other psychoacoustic properties, the calculation method of loudness must be properly chosen through analysis of all loudness calculation method. In the paper, the Filter/ISO 532B method is selected to obtain the loudness of the high-speed train and based on the loudness; other psychoacoustic properties are obtained and analyzed. The discussion of psychoacoustic properties is the basis of further noise evaluation and control of high-speed trains.
Design of MIMO Antennas for WiFi/5G Small Cell Applications

In this paper, a 4×4 MIMO antenna for small cell is presented. The proposed antenna operates at the WiFi 2.4/6E (2400~2484 MHz, 5000~7125 MHz) and 5G (3300~5000 MHz) bands. In order to excite these three bands with omnidirectional radiation and good isolation, the antenna consists of two vertical and a horizontal substrates. The vertical structure is operated at WiFi bands and is composed of PIFA and monopole antenna. The horizontal one is an element of 5G band and made up of four slot antennas with a 90 degree phase difference. Then two vertical substrates are cross-soldered to the horizontal one, a 4×4 MIMO antenna is obtained. In this way omnidirectional radiation and good isolation can be achieved. The final antenna has an overall size of 120 × 120 × 24.8 mm3. Experimental results are in good agreement with simulated values.
A Ferry Path Online Decision Method Based on Estimation of Message Packet Generation Rate

After the disaster, roads, bridges and power supply facilities can be damaged, which cause some areas to be cut off and unable to communicate with the outside world. Establishing an emergency communication network based on delay tolerant networks (DTNs) by using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one of the effective ways to ensure communication in disaster areas, especially for isolated areas. However, with limited resources and dynamic changes in the disaster situation, traditional DTNs have poor performance. In this paper, an online decision method of ferry path based on message packet generation rate estimation is proposed to improve the transmission delay in DTN-based emergency communication network. When the UAV, as a ferry node, cruises the central nodes of each local area to achieve cross-regional data transmission, it estimates the message transmission demand of each local area based on the historical delivery data, and selects the area that can deliver the most data packets per unit time as the next hop destination, which can optimize the cruise path to reduce data transmission delay. Simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively improve the network performance, especially significantly reduce the average transmission delay.
TEACHING MECHANICAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS ABOUT MANUFACTURING PROCESS SELECTION USING ASHBY CHARTS

Mechanical engineers are often faced with the problem of choosing the best possible material and the best manufacturing process for a given designed product based on the constraints involved in making and using the product. Based on the geometry and the function of the designed products, the engineer should be aware of the alternative materials suitable for the product and the processes available for the manufacture the product using the different materials. For any candidate material, usually there are several alternative processes available for making the product and the best possible process for that combination of product and material. Needless to say, mechanical engineering students would be greatly benefited by being educated on these aspects. In this paper an engineered product is chosen as the designed product and the suitable materials for the part are examined and the best possible material chosen using CES 4 software developed by Granta Design Limited. The software has extensive facilities for selection of the suitable materials based on the required properties of the part. The software also has facilities for choosing the processes interactively with the materials using charts developed by Ashby. Information on environmental, safety issues and cost can also be obtained from this software. Using all these data interactively the alternative processes for the combination of the part and the material are examined. This exercise gives the students an in-depth knowledge of manufacturing processes in the context of materials and designed products
Cloud Based Surveillance using ESP32 CAM

The idea of surveillance has always lingered around from community to guards to police to CCTV to Drones. It is just getting upgrade with the time. The recent times with the involvement of artificial intelligence the surveillance and cloud monitoring has changed the way and efficiency. This work involves similar surveillance techniques in which we intend to detect people not wearing a mask. The project was an inspiration for the current pandemic situation and to be ready for the future. The work also includes cloud monitoring and streaming the live footage on the server. A Convolutional Neural Network is developed to predict whether someone is wearing a mask or not. It is deployed on a self-made server and can be monitored remotely. The camera used to capture the video is ESP32. This proposed work has huge implementation around the world given the present situation and has the potential to be used in the future.
Cross‐slot coupled elliptical patch antenna circularly polarized for localization

This paper reports a circularly polarized cross‐slot coupled elliptical patch antenna for implementation in a new radio‐frequency identification and localization system currently under development. The radio‐frequency localization system in this work is composed of a reader and a semiactive tag (a battery feeds the tag to increase its reading range but the backscattering modulation principle is used to decrease its power consumption). The overall system is designed in the ISM frequency band of 5.8 GHz. This frequency band is a good compromise that permits a large bandwidth and a good range for use in a local positioning system (∼10 m). This antenna is to be used by the reader as its radiation pattern is semispherical. It provides the circular polarization required by the targeted application to allow the tag identification within any physical position. The antenna bandwidth and axial ratio were enhanced using a proper design and a cross‐slot feeding of the patch. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 336–339, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22136
Exploration of Edge of Chaos in Bio-Inspired Devices, Circuits, and Systems

With Moore's era approaching an inevitable end, much research is currently focused on multi-purpose nano-devices, which may endow traditional purely-CMOS circuits with add-on functionalities, allowing to boost the performance of integrated circuits, despite further reductions in transistor dimensions shall no longer be viable. One of the most promising nanotechnologies for fostering progress in electronics in the years to come allows to fabricate memristors, which, depending upon their constitutive materials, may pave the way toward the circuit realisation of disruptive in-memory computing or mem-computing paradigms of great appeal to the Internet-of- Things industry. Moreover, with their extraordinary capability to capture the rich dynamics of neural structures, memristors shall play a key role in the development of miniaturised hardware systems operating according to principles similar to the mechanisms underlying the functionalities of the human brain. In this regard this work sheds light into the conditions, under which electronic systems, leveraging the locally-active behaviour of a NbO device stack, may enter a particular operating regime, hosting the seed for complexity, and referred to as Edge of Chaos, similarly as axon membranes on the verge to generate all-or-none spikes, which, travelling across neural structures, enable the development of intelligence in human beings.
QoS Flow Mapping Method of Multi-service 5G Communication for Urban Energy Interconnection

5G is rapidly becoming a pivotal technology to support power systems with the advantages of high bandwidth and low latency. However, due to the rapid growth of data traffic in power services, the 5G communication system would be unable to cope with the growing traffic demand and still faces some application challenges for the specific QoS requirements of different service streams. Based on 3GPP TS23.501 wireless communication network architecture and IEC TR 61850-90-12 power automation system communication protocol, this paper applies the power service flow port and QoS delay indicators as the basis for discrimination, and provides the B5G QoS mapping method of the power service flow based on IP DSCP for the first time with a goal of solving the communication challenges of power mass data transmission and multiple types of services.
A Multi-Bit In-Memory-Computing SRAM Macro Using Column-Wise Charge Redistribution for DNN Inference in Edge Computing Devices

This paper presents a charge-redistribution inmemory-computing (IMC) macro that realizes multi-bit multiply-and-accumulation (MAC) operation based on 5T static random-access memory (SRAM). The charge-domain MAC operation based on capacitor array allows the IMC-SRAM macro to achieve high linearity and improved energy efficiency. Also, an optimized 5T SRAM structure saves area consumption, increasing bit density of the macro. The proposed IMC-SRAM 64 × 64 macro was designed using 28nm CMOS process.