Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Falling through the Cracks: Method and Practice at the CSR Site, Pyrmont

This paper discusses the excavation methodology and analysis of underfloor deposits at the CSR Site, a CRM archaeological project undertaken by Casey & Lowe in late 1996. This site is located in Pyrmont, on the foreshores of Sydney Cove, not far from the earlier areas of settlement in the Rocks and Millers Point. The sets of archaeological evidence investigated are from the underfloor spaces of seven houses at this site. This paper examines aspects of the analysis of these deposits, with a focus on the detailed distribution of artefacts, the results of the analysis and our interpretation of their meaning and how this added to our understanding of working-class lives in Sydney. Some links in the archaeological process between research design, excavation, post-excavation analysis and interpretation are discussed.
Anti-ageing peptides and proteins for topical applications: a review

Abstract Skin ageing is a cumulative result of oxidative stress, predominantly caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Respiration, pollutants, toxins, or ultraviolet A (UVA) irradiation produce ROS with 80% of skin damage attributed to UVA irradiation. Anti-ageing peptides and proteins are considered valuable compounds for removing ROS to prevent skin ageing and maintenance of skin health. In this review, skin ageing theory has been illustrated with a focus on the mechanism and relationship with anti-ageing peptides and proteins. The effects, classification, and transport pathways of anti-ageing peptides and proteins across skin are summarized and discussed. Over the last decade, several novel formulations and advanced strategies have been developed to overcome the challenges in the dermal delivery of proteins and peptides for skin ageing. This article also provides an in-depth review of the latest advancements in the dermal delivery of anti-ageing proteins and peptides. Based on these studies, this review prospected several semi-solid dosage forms to achieve topical applicability for anti-ageing peptides and proteins. Graphical Abstract
Oversaturated Freeway Flow Algorithm for Use in Next Generation Simulation

Existing simulation models have difficulty in accurately modeling oversaturated traffic conditions on freeways. A new behavioral algorithm for oversaturated freeway flow can be used in microscopic simulation models; it was developed as part of the Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) project, sponsored by FHWA. The proposed algorithm is an integrated car-following and lane-changing modeling framework that is consistent with the kinematic wave theory. The algorithm can explicitly model mandatory and discretionary lane changing, including cooperation during lane changing. As an extension of the algorithm, a new on-ramp merging model was developed and incorporated into the model. The proposed algorithm also accounts for the relaxation process following lane changing. The proposed model includes a small number of parameters that can be readily measured in the field. The proposed model was implemented into a microscopic simulator, and it was validated with both vehicle trajectory data and macroscopic detector data from an NGSIM test site. The results show good agreement with real-world traffic behavior. The study products, including an algorithm description, analysis results, and computer code, are documented and made available to developers and users of traffic simulation tools.
COVID-19 Daily Realities for Families: A South African Sample

The COVID-19 pandemic affected families globally. Empirical research has been explored to understand the impact of COVID-19 on families across countries, however, there are limited findings of how COVID-19 has affected the daily realities of families in South Africa. This study used an exploratory qualitative research approach to explore the experiences of COVID-19 for South African families. Findings suggest that the negative outcomes of COVID-19 experienced by South African families included a shift in the daily routines, restrictions on family events, lack of socialization and loss of connections, family conflicts, financial constraints as well as psychological impacts. On the contrary, the positive outcomes included increased family time and communication, cleanliness, and good health status, and improved financial management. Implications for future research should include research focused on the health impacts of COVID-19 on diverse family structures, family compositions, and family dynamics. In-depth research and findings can assist in developing policies and interventions for families.
Current Advances in the Biodegradation and Bioconversion of Polyethylene Terephthalate

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a widely used plastic that is polymerized by terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG). In recent years, PET biodegradation and bioconversion have become important in solving environmental plastic pollution. More and more PET hydrolases have been discovered and modified, which mainly act on and degrade the ester bond of PET. The monomers, TPA and EG, can be further utilized by microorganisms, entering the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle) or being converted into high value chemicals, and finally realizing the biodegradation and bioconversion of PET. Based on synthetic biology and metabolic engineering strategies, this review summarizes the current advances in the modified PET hydrolases, engineered microbial chassis in degrading PET, bioconversion pathways of PET monomers, and artificial microbial consortia in PET biodegradation and bioconversion. Artificial microbial consortium provides novel ideas for the biodegradation and bioconversion of PET or other complex polymers. It is helpful to realize the one-step bioconversion of PET into high value chemicals.
Large population speaker recognition using wideband and telephone speech

The two largest factors affecting automatic speaker identification performance are the size of the population to be distinguished among and the degradations introduced by noisy communication channels (e.g., telephone transmission). To experimentally examine these two factors, this paper presents text-independent speaker identification results for varying speaker population sizes up to 630 speakers for both clean, wideband speech and telephone speech. A system based on Gaussian mixture speaker models is used for speaker identification and experiments are conducted on the TIMIT and NTIMIT databases. The aims of this study are to (1) establish how well text-independent speaker identification can perform under near ideal conditions for very large populations (using the TIMIT database), (2) gauge the performance loss incurred by transmitting the speech over the telephone network (using the NTIMIT database), and (3) examine the validity of current models of telephone degradations commonly used in developing compensation techniques (using the NTIMIT calibration signals). This is believed to be the first speaker identification experiments on the complete 630 speaker TIMIT and NTIMIT databases and the largest text-independent speaker identification task reported to date. Identification accuracies of 99.5% and 60.7% are achieved on the TIMIT and NTIMIT databases, respectively.
A Hierarchical Approach to Managing Dairy Routing

We designed and implemented a decision support system to organize the delivery network for the products of a large dairy. To deal with this complex problem, we employed a five-level hierarchic structure distributing the clients among the sales promoters in the levels of greater aggregation and assigning shops to individual drivers in the level with the greatest detail, which corresponds to a version of the traveling salesman problem with time windows. We implemented the model on a microcomputer, importing the necessary data from the company mainframe.
Opto-Microfluidic Fabry-Perot Sensor with Extended Air Cavity and Enhanced Pressure Sensitivity

An opto-microfluidic static pressure sensor based on a fiber Fabry-Perot Interferometer (FPI) with extended air cavity for enhancing the measuring sensitivity is proposed. The FPI is constructed in a microfluidic channel by the combination of the fixed fiber-end reflection and floating liquid surface reflection faces. A change of the aquatic pressure will cause a drift of the liquid surface and the pressure can be measured by detecting the shift of the FPI spectrum. Sensitivity of the sensor structure can be enhanced significantly by extending the air region of the FPI. The structure is manufactured by using a common single-mode optical fiber, and a silica capillary with the inner wall coated with a hydrophobic film. A sample with 3500 μm air cavity length has demonstrated the pressure sensitivity of about 32.4 μm/kPa, and the temperature cross-sensitivity of about 0.33 kPa/K.
The Effect of Dia2 Protein Deficiency on the Cell Cycle, Cell Size, and Recruitment of Ctf4 Protein in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Cells have evolved elaborate mechanisms to regulate DNA replication machinery and cell cycles in response to DNA damage and replication stress in order to prevent genomic instability and cancer. The E3 ubiquitin ligase SCFDia2 in S. cerevisiae is involved in the DNA replication and DNA damage stress response, but its effect on cell growth is still unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the absence of Dia2 prolongs the cell cycle by extending both S- and G2/M-phases while, at the same time, activating the S-phase checkpoint. In these conditions, Ctf4—an essential DNA replication protein and substrate of Dia2—prolongs its binding to the chromatin during the extended S- and G2/M-phases. Notably, the prolonged cell cycle when Dia2 is absent is accompanied by a marked increase in cell size. We found that while both DNA replication inhibition and an absence of Dia2 exerts effects on cell cycle duration and cell size, Dia2 deficiency leads to a much more profound increase in cell size and a substantially lesser effect on cell cycle duration compared to DNA replication inhibition. Our results suggest that the increased cell size in dia2∆ involves a complex mechanism in which the prolonged cell cycle is one of the driving forces.
Demystifying the cost barriers to offsite construction in the UK

Offsite construction has long been reported as an effective alternative to conventional construction, with wide-ranging benefits. However, a wider take-up has been inhibited by perceived cost barriers which are insufficiently studied. Such cost barriers are addressed, drawing on an examination of the cost performance of four types of construction method: pre-cast concrete cross-wall panel, in-situ reinforced concrete (RC) frame, steel frame and timber frame. Data were collected for 20 medium to high rise residential buildings of eight projects by a leading UK housebuilder over a five-year period (2004–08). In all cases, detailed cost comparisons were completed for build method selection. Cross-wall was found to be consistently cheaper than RC frame or steel frame by 11% to 32% in the projects. The process of developing and innovating cross-wall technology led to sustained cost savings up to 25% from its first use. Cross-wall construction also improved cost effectiveness of 20-storey high rise buildings over other solutions. Cost engineering means for achieving cost reduction and effectiveness are identified, which included efficiency learning, technological innovation, multinational partnering, and ‘in-house’ build management. The results prove the logic of the experience curve in improving the cost efficiency of offsite construction, and should encourage offsite construction in the future.
Characterization of a Quasi-optical NbN Superconducting Hot-electron Bolometer Mixer

In this paper, we report the performance of a quasi-optical NbN superconducting HEB (hot electron bolometer) mixer measured at 500 GHz. The quasi-optical NbN superconducting HEB mixer is cryogenically cooled by a 4-K close-cycled refrigerator. Its receiver noise temperature and conversion gain are thoroughly investigated for different LO pumping levels and dc biases. The lowest receiver noise temperature is found to be approximately 1200 K, and reduced to about 445 K after correcting the loss of the measurement system. The stability of the mixer’s IF output power is also demonstrated.
0.18 mum CMOS Low Power ADPLL with a Novel Local Passive Interpolation Time-to-Digital Converter Based on Tri-State Inverter

The objective of the thesis is to design a novel ADPLL with local passive interpolation time-to-digital (LPI-TDC) based on a tri-state inverter for clock synchronization, clock recovery, and noise and jitter suppression in modern microprocessors. When compared to traditional implementations of PLLs, an all-digital approach turns out to be more suitable for the integrated circuits in order to improve overall system timing issues. In order to accomplish a fast lock of ADPLL, the higher resolution of TDC is needed. An All-Digital Phase-Locked Loop (ADPLL) design is proposed to achieve short locking time using a circuitry of the LPI-TDC based on tri-state inverter. Unlike the conventional LPI-TDC, the proposed LPI-TDC has a tri-state inverter delay cell in only first delay chain. Other delay cells are composed of only normal inverters that have the same delay as tri-state inverter. LPI-TDC based on a tri-state has the advantages in the aspects of higher resolution (1.5 times) and reduced (smaller) number of gates than the conventional LPI-TDC. In addition, the simplified digital loop filter (DLF) is developed and implemented. In the DLF, the shift registers are used to avoid complex multiplication using the approximation method. These facts directly affect to the locking cycles in the proposed ADPLL. The results show that the proposed ADPLL, implemented in 0.18um CMOS technology, needs only 80 clock cycles to lock at 700MHz. The proposed LPI-TDC consumes 13% more power than the conventional LPI-TDC. However, the overall power consumption of the proposed ADPLL is decreased 11% than the ADPLL with the conventional LPI-TDC because of the fast locking time. Average power consumption is 43.47mW at 700MHz with 1.8 supply voltage. The peak-peak jitter is 32.86ps, and the operating frequency range of the proposed ADPLL is 400MHz-860MHz. The proposed ADPLL design is a viable solution for a variety of applications which require precise time intervals.
A REVIEW ON LATEST GUIDELINES ON PROCESS VALIDATION OF EUROPEAN MEDICINES AGENCY

Validation is an act of proving and documenting that a process functions efficiently. Process validation can be well-defined as documented proof that the process functions within established restrictions, can execute effectively and reproducibly to produce a pharmaceutical product meeting its determined conditions and quality features. The former note for guidance on process validation (1 March, 2001) of European Medicines Agency (EMA) emphasizes on traditional process validation. It describes the relationship between development studies and process validation data, connection between method of manufacture and process validation data, relationship between process validation and specification of the finished product. The latest draft of guidelines on process validation (29 march 2012) by EMA, is prepared based on the guidelines of ICH Q 8, Q9, and Q10. It describes the utility of continuous process verification principles to replace traditional process verification. Continuous process verification (CPV) has been presented to cover a substitute method to process validation centered on a continuous monitoring of manufacturing process. It is intended to apply to medicinal products for human and veterinary use. The document provides guidance on the information to be consider ed for dossier submission and as such is mainly aimed at industry and assessors.
Seismic Performance of High-Strength Concrete Columns

This experimental investigation was conducted to examine the behaviour of eight one-third scale columns made of high-strength concrete. The columns were subjected to a constant axial load corresponding to 30% of the column axial load capacity and a cyclic horizontal load-inducing reversed bending moment. The variables studied in this research are the volumetric ratio of transverse reinforcement (ρs = 1·58, 2·25%), tie configuration (Type H, Type C, Type D) and tie yield strength (fyh = 548·8 and 779·1 MPa). Test results show that the flexural strength of all the columns exceeds calculated flexural capacities based on the equivalent concrete stress block used in the current design code. Columns with 42% higher amounts of transverse reinforcement than that required by seismic provisions of ACI 318-02 showed ductile behaviour. With an axial load of 3% of the axial load capacity, it is recommended that the yield strength of transverse reinforcement be held equal to or below 548·8 MPa. Relationships between th.
ANNSTLF-Artificial Neural Network Short-Term Load Forecaster- generation three

This paper describes the third generation of an hourly short-term load forecasting system known as ANNSTLF (Artificial Neural Network Short-Term Load Forecaster). This forecaster has received wide acceptance by the electric utility industry and is being used by 35 utilities across the US and Canada. The third generation architecture is substantially changed from the previous generation. It includes only two ANN forecasters, one predicts the base load and the other forecasts the change in load. The final forecast is computed by adaptive combination of these two forecasts. The effect of humidity and wind speed are considered through a linear transformation of temperature. A novel weighted interpolation scheme is developed for forecasting of holiday loads, giving improved accuracy. The holiday peak load is first estimated and then the ANNSTLF forecast is re-shaped with the new peak forecast. The performance on data from ten different utilities is reported and compared to the previous generation.
Environmental factors in intelligent transport systems

Increased car use has highlighted the problem of congestion, not only as a threat to economic growth but also as a substantial contributor to poor air quality, noise, health risk and global warming. This paper draws on the literature to try to heighten the awareness of the issues regarding the environment and health impacts of traffic related pollution. It shows how vehicle technologies and intelligent transport systems can play an important role in addressing environmental problems in urban areas. This review aims to stimulate interest that will hopefully result in a change in perspective so that intelligent transport system implementation is considered, not simply as a tool to reduce delays and lower the risk of accident, but also, through integration of technologies, to deliver good air quality and quieter soundscapes, and thus better quality of life and long-term sustainability of towns and cities.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF AGE DISPARITIES IN CONIFER CHARCOAL FROM ARCHAEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES AND APPLICATIONS FOR TREE-RING-RADIOCARBON DATING

ABSTRACT Age disparities between charcoal samples and their context are a well-known problem in archaeological chronometry, and even small offsets could affect the accuracy of high-precision wiggle-matched dates. In many cases of taphonomic or anthropogenic loss of the outermost rings, sapwood-based methods for estimating cutting dates are not always applicable, especially with charcoal. In these instances, wiggle-matched terminus post quem (TPQ) dates are often reconciled with subjective or ad hoc approaches. This study examines the distribution of age disparities caused by ring loss and other factors in a large dendroarchaeological dataset. Probability density functions describing the random distribution of age disparities are then fit to the empirical distributions. These functions are tested on an actual wiggle-matched non-cutting date from the literature to evaluate accuracy in a single case. Simulations are then presented to demonstrate how an age offset function can be applied in OxCal outlier models to yield accurate dating in archaeological sequences with short intervals between dated episodes, even if all samples are non-cutting dates.
RadiaCopter – UAS Gamma spectrometry for detection and identification of radioactive sources

With an unmanned helicopter (UAS), known as drones, equipped with a gamma spectrometer, one can achieve both a high spatial resolution and good range, and be able to approach a radioactive source closely. Linkoping University, Sweden, is proposing a microdrone system that will fill a gap between man-portable measurement systems and full-sized airborne systems, complementing the car-driven measurement systems. The system may play a unique role in many of our contingency scenarios in terms of accessibility, versatility, efficiency, and is advantageous from the viewpoint of radiation protection as it can be controlled at a safe distance.
Self-commissioning compensation of inverter non-idealities for sensorless AC drives applications

High performance sensorless AC drives require the exact knowledge of the motor phase voltage in the whole speed range. The use of specific voltage sensors can be avoided if the reference voltage signals can be used instead of the actual (measured) phase voltages. Thus, an accurate compensation of most of inverter non-idealities is essential in modern sensorless control as well as in all applications that foresee flux-estimation. This paper presents a step towards the optimal inverter nonidealities compensation for high-performance sensorless drives application. The proposed start-up offline procedure does not require the exact power components parameters, and it can be readily implemented on existing hardware structure, without any additional external circuit. For validation purposes, the algorithm has been merged with a full-digital sensorless control of an induction motor drive, exploiting the computation facilities of the floating point DSP TMS320C31. Extensive experimental results and comparisons with existing techniques are given in the paper.
Mid-Infrared Light-Emitting Diodes and Photodiodes for Hydrocarbon Sensing

The properties of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodetectors have been investigated to establish their suitability for methane sensing. Using these components it is possible to achieve good signal-to-noise values at both the char- acteristic absorption wavelength and also at , an attractive wavelength for use as a reference channel. A limit of sensitivity of approximately 400 ppm, with an integration time of 10 s and a path length of 5 cm, was estimated for methane detection Index Terms—Gas detectors, infrared detectors, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), semiconductor devices.
Development of interactive support system for visual inspection of bridges

A prototype of an interactive support system for visual inspection of bridges has been developed. The aims of this system are to complement a technical knowledge of skilled inspectors and to suggest several alternatives concerned with decision-making to inspectors who are carrying out their tasks on a bridge site. A client/server architecture has been adopted in order to reduce the client-terminals' load, to compute at high speed, and to store and centralize a great amount of information on bridge inspection. Open- source software packages were installed in the server and a Web application tied-up with a database system containing past records of bridge visual inspections and technical information on bridge inspection was constructed. By using a wearable computer and a mobile communication device, a hands-free operation and a seamless communication between the client and the server are implemented so that the system will not spoil the performance of an inspector. Regarding the support information, the system can offer the possible causes of defects which an inspector finds during the inspection and the criteria of fatal defects which need urgent measures.