Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Size discrimination of transient signals

The importance of spectral cues in size discrimination of transient signals was investigated, and a model for this ability, tAIM, was created based on the biological principles of human hearing. A psychophysics experiment involving 40 participants found that the most important cue for size discrimination of transient signals, created by striking different sizes of polystyrene spheres, was similar to that of speakers listening to vowels – the relative positions of the resonances between comparison signals. It was found possible to scale the sphere signals in order to confuse listeners into believing the signal source was a different size, but two methods of scaling signals in order to sound the same size as another proved inconclusive, suggesting the possibility that transient signals cannot be scaled in a linear fashion as has been shown possible for vowels. Filtering the signals in a number of different ways found that the most important cue in size discrimination of transient signals is the difference between the most prominent resonances available in the spectra of the comparison signals. A model of the auditory system using the dynamic compressive Gammachirp filterbank, and based on the well-known AIM, was created to produce auditory images of transient signals that could be normalised for size. Transient-AIM, or tAIM used the Mellin transform to produce images that showed size normalisation was possible due to the spectral envelope similarities across the sizes of the spheres. tAIM was extended to carry out size discrimination of the spheres using the information contained within the Mellin images. There was a systematic association between Mellin phase and size of objects of various shapes, which suggests that tAIM is able to infer object size from sound recordings of objects being struck.
Symbols, Colours, and Narratives: Basketry Ornamenting Motifs of the Gurene People of Ghana

Tutsi basketry interlocking of triangles, diamonds, and chevrons. The author elaborates further geometric Zulu basketry articles seen stylized motifs imageries shields, trees, flags. Abstract: The Gurene people of the Upper East Region of Ghana, are reputed for producing a plethora of irresistible basketry articles, which are used locally or sold to generate income. A good number of these basketry objects are mostly ornamented with colourful motifs of different sizes, shapes, and orientations. Though a limited number of studies have been carried out on the basketry articles, the basketry motifs have not received much attention. This study therefore, investigates the repertory of basketry motifs and their symbolism in the Gurene socio-cultural system. The study, which used an ethnographic design, collected information from 85 respondents, who were sampled using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Data was collected from the informants using observations, interview guides and focus group discussions. The transcribed data were thematically analysed with the help of NVivo 9 data management and analysis programme. The study unearthed 12 variety of symbolic and representational motifs. These motifs are named after celestial bodies, animals, animal parts, farming practices, farm products, as well as natural and artificial objects. The research established that the motifs, generally, derived their meanings from Gurene oral traditions, cosmology, narratives, moral values, philosophical constructs, proverbs, and heroic achievements.
A multi-modal device for application in microsleep detection

Microsleeps and other lapses of responsiveness can have severe, or even fatal, consequences for people who must maintain high levels of attention on monotonous tasks for long periods of time, e.g., commercial vehicle drivers, pilots, and air-traffic controllers. This thesis describes a head-mounted system which is the first prototype in the process of creating a system that can detect (and possibly predict) these lapses in real time. The system consists of a wearable device which captures multiple physiological signals from the wearer and an extensible software framework for implementing signal processing algorithms. Proof-of-concept algorithms are implemented and used to demonstrate that the system can detect simulated microsleeps in real time. The device has three sensing modalities in order to get a better estimate of the user’s cognitive state than by any one alone. Firstly, it has 16 channels of EEG (8 currently in use) captured by 24-bit ADCs sampling at 250 Hz. The EEG is acquired by custom-built dry electrodes consisting of spring-loaded, gold-plated pins. Secondly, the device has a miniature video camera mounted below one eye, providing 320× 240 px greyscale video of the eye at 60 fps. The camera module includes infrared illumination so that it can operate in the dark. Thirdly, the device has a six-axis IMU to measure the orientation and movement of the head. These sensors are connected to a Gumstix computer-on-module which transmits the captured data to a remote computer via Wi-Fi. The device has a battery life of about 7.4 h. In addition to this hardware, software to receive and analyse data from the headmounted device was developed. The software is built around a signal processing pipeline that has been designed to encapsulate a wide variety of signal processing algorithms; feature extractors calculate salient properties of the input data and a classifier fuses these features to determine the user’s cognitive state. A plug-in system is provided which allows users to write their own signal processing algorithms and to experiment with different combinations of feature extractors and classifiers. Because of this flexible modular design, the system could also be used for applications other than lapse detection—any application which monitors EEG, eye video, and head movement can be implemented by writing appropriate signal processing plug-ins, e.g., augmented cognition or passive BCIs. The software also provides the ability to
Large-scale physical separation of depleted uranium from soil

Abstract : Dry physical separation processes were tested at large-pilot scale (1,000 kg soil batches) at Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) to evaluate this technique for removal of depleted uranium (DU) metal from soil. Two sample locations, the Catch Box and the Buried DU Penetrator Test Site (DU Garden) were evaluated. These locations were chosen since previous small-scale testing confirmed that soils from these sites had varied uranium concentration, degrees of weathering, and aging of fired DU munition residues. Vibratory soil screening (dry sieve separation) was found to be effective for DU metal removal from Catch Box sand of YPG. On average, 50% of the mass of DU was removed with a single dry sieve separation of the Catch Box sand. The soil fines still contained DU, so control of fugitive dust emissions may be required. The degree of DU fragment weathering was found to be important to the success of the physical separation technology. The penetrator rod excavated from the DU Garden was highly weathered resulting in ineffective physical separation. The lesser degree of weathering of DU fragments in the Catch Box soil made successful physical separation possible. The difference in weathering of DU in the DU Garden versus the Catch Box could be due to increased exposure time (4 to 7 years in the garden versus approximately 18 months in the Catch Box), differences in soil chemistry (the DU garden was a desert soil, the Catch Box construction grade sand), and/or better aqueous drainage in the sandy Catch Box media. Non-uranium metals concentration were also increased in the DU Garden compared to both background soil concentrations and the concentrations detected in the Catch Box sands. Results indicate that periodic screening of Catch Box soils, coupled with dust control measures, could considerably increase the useful lifetime of Catch Box soil.
Physiological comparison of fire fighter turnout suits with and without a microporous membrane in the heat

Physiological stress in fire fighters caused by a turnout suit with and without a water barrier composed of a microporous membrane was measured during simulated fire fighting work. Eight experienced fire fighters (23 - 47years old) were randomly exposed to three wear trials consisting of a standardized treadmill test of 25 min of hard work at T a of 50 °C, and P of 1440 W/m 2 , interrupted by a 25-min break at T a of 22 °C, and followed by 30 min of moderate work at T a of 40 °C, and P of 258 - 177 W/m 2 . Body temperatures and heart rate increased steadily during the work periods up to the individual heat tolerance limits. The body temperatures were higher when the suit with a membrane was worn. The difference in rectal temperature was not significant, but the difference in mean skin temperature was statistically significant at the end of the hard work (p=0.05). More sweat condensated in the underclothing, and the subjective evaluation of physical exertion, thermal discomfort and sensation were higher for the suit with the membrane, but only slight statistically significant differences were found. The corrected thermal insulation (I T c o r r ) and the water vapor permeability (M e ) measured with the aid of a sweating thermal manikin were higher for the suit without the membrane.
Free-space optical mode division multiplexing for switching between millimeter-wave picocells

For connectivity between millimeter-wave radio femtocells or picocells, a free-space optical link may be used in a ubiquitous radio-over-free-space-optics (Ro-FSO) platform. This work introduces a new optical Hermite-Gaussian mode division multiplexing scheme for multiplexing radio signals between different picocells in a Ro-FSO network using a spatial correlator. Distinct 2.5GHz 10GHz radio-modulated subcarrier data streams from two picocells over two 850nm optical Hermite-Gaussian mode carriers were successfully multiplexed to two picocells separated by 500 meters. At the receiver, the signals were retrieved on the two modes using nonintermetric decomposition and spatial correlation optical Hermite-Gaussian modes into linearly polarized modes. Optical signal-to-noise ratios, bit-error-rates and modal decomposition results demonstrate effective data transmission between the picocells.
Excellent multi-stakeholder acceptability and reimbursable costs in a pilot pragmatic trial of an evidence-based physical activity counseling intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes

Background: Physical activity (PA) improves important health outcomes for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), including physical function. We iteratively adapted the implementation strategies of pragmatic and evidence-based PA counseling programs to meet primary care stakeholders’ needs, resulting in the “Be ACTIVE” program. In a pilot randomized pragmatic trial, we evaluated the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of Be ACTIVE. Methods: Formative activities involved engaging multi-level stakeholders (patients, clinicians, coaches) to tailor implementation strategies for Be ACTIVE to the primary care context, while taking care to preserve the core “functions” of Be ACTIVE. Be ACTIVE included: a PA tracker (FitBit©), six theory-informed PA counseling phone calls, and three in-person clinician visits. Sedentary patients with T2D from two academic primary care clinics were randomized to Be ACTIVE vs. enhanced usual care. We used mixed methods to assess implementation outcomes of feasibility and acceptability among multi-level stakeholders, including costs. Objective effectiveness outcomes included PA (primary outcome, steps/week), physical function (secondary outcomes, including Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB)), and behavioral PA predictors. Results: Multi-level stakeholders were engaged in formative activities to design a feasible pragmatic intervention. Fifty patients were randomized to Be ACTIVE or enhanced usual care. Acceptability was >90% for patients and clinic staff. In-person visits were fully reimbursed, and counseling costs of ~$90/patient would be reimbursable by Medicare. Pre-post PA increased by ~11% absolute in the Be ACTIVE group and by ~6% in controls (group difference: 1574 ± 4391 steps/week, p = 0.72) — less than the clinically important threshold of 4200 steps/week. Be ACTIVE participants’ physical function improved more than controls (SPPB: +0.9 ± 0.3 versus -0.1 ± 0.3, p = 0.01, changes >0.5 points are clinically important for preventing falls), and for PA predictors of self-efficacy (p=0.02) and social-environmental support (p<0.01). Conclusions: In this pilot trial, Be ACTIVE was feasible and highly acceptable to stakeholders and yielded significant improvements in objective physical function consistent with lower fall risk, while changes in PA were less than anticipated. Be ACTIVE may need adaptation or longer duration to clinically improve PA outcomes. Further optimizing the implementation strategies for sustainability is also needed.
Analytical Evaluation of Residual Strength for Steel Frame in case of Column Member Loss

When impacts by falling objects are applied to the structures, vertical resisting member(column or column group) results in progressive collapse. By knowing clearly load-deformation relationship of a structural frame, to prevent progressive collapse by absorbing potential energy of falling objects though column groups are lost by the impact of falling object accidently. If residual strength in vertical direction exceeds vertical load, which the sum of the weight of falling objects and usual supportive vertical load as the result of absorbing released location energy, it does not result in progressive collapse. On the other hand, in case when weight of falling objects is included in usual supportive vertical load. In this paper, 1-story 4-spans model is analyzed by non-linear FEM and to examine the level of deterioration, limit analysis of 1-story 4-spans plane frame was carried out.
A sensor network for the Internet of Things ￼Integrated with a bidirectional backend

Internet of Things is rapidly evolving. This thesis includes a study of single-board computers suitable for machine-to-machine communication together with the developing process of a sensor network integrated with a bidirectional communication platform. Raspberry Pi was selected as the single-board computer used in the proposed system. The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol was selected as main communication protocol to handle all exchange of information between the network and the bidirectional communication platform. It was selected because of its reliability, low bandwidth and publish/subscribe architecture. Decision-making procedures were implemented to work with both local sensor data and data from different Message Queuing Telemetry Transport streams, such as GPS data, used to calculate the distance between the user’s smart phone and the office to prepare the workstation, temperature sensors and ambient light sensors controlling Philips HUE light bulbs. The finished sensor network was design to work within office environments to prepare workstations and monitor the work climate. The number of sensors connected to the single-board computer has a major impact in the CPU usage. Measurements and calculations show that 17 connected physical sensors will cause a CPU usage of 96%.
Dependable System Design for Reconfigurable Safety-Critical Applications

Scaling of transistor's channel length is entering the realm of atomic and molecular geometries making possible the design of powerful miniature sized computing device and enabling their omnipresence in every aspect of human life including safety-critical applications, for example, automotive, space and avionics and bio-medicine. However, these scaled nanoelectronic systems are increasingly vulnerable to transients and permanent faults posing severe threat to life and expensive equipment. Therefore, safety-critical applications should consider dependability from design, implementation, layout, fabrication to in-field operations. The evaluation of dependability of such systems is equally important. State-of-the-art SRAM-based FPGAs are interesting devices because they are not only the early adopters of latest technology nodes making them vulnerable to all sorts of nanoelectronic faults but their reconfiguration properties have potential counter-measure applications in dependable system design. This dissertation is focused on the usage of reconfiguration for improving and evaluating the dependability of nanoelectronic systems. The main research problem pursued in this work is the effective mitigation of soft errors like Single Event Upsets (SEUs) and Multiple Bit Upsets (MBUs) in FPGA's configuration memory, optimizing the reconfiguration times for fault injection and fault removal and emulation of permanent faults. To address these problems this work proposes solutions based on applying redundancy and reconfiguration at different levels of granularity leveraging the basic building blocks of FPGA's architecture and reconfiguration capabilities in an unconventional manner usually not supported by standard tools. The solutions presented effectively mitigate MBUs by using techniques of fine-grain and coarse-grain redundancy and reliability-oriented placement. Recovery times are optimized with fine-grain error detection, error localization and local repairing. The usage of carry-chain based error detectors promises very fast error detection times in orders of nanoseconds and has extremely low-area overhead. The programmable nature of LUTs is exploited for permanent stuck-at fault emulation of custom ICs using controlled LUT-mapping resulting in significant speed up against traditional fault simulation times
Lockdown Learning: Changes in Online Study Activity and Performance of Dutch Secondary School Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns and sudden school closures around the world in spring 2020, significantly impacting the education of students. Here, we investigate how the switch to distance learning affected study activity and performance in an online retrieval practice tool used for language learning in Dutch secondary education. We report insights from a rich data set consisting of over 116 million retrieval practice trials completed by more than 133 thousand students over the course of two consecutive school years. Our findings show that usage of the tool increased substantially at the start of lockdown, with the bulk of study activity occurring on weekday mornings. In general, students' progress through the material was largely unaffected by lockdown, although students from the highest educational track were somewhat more likely to be on or ahead of schedule than students from lower tracks, compared to the previous year. Performance on individual study trials was generally stable, but accuracy and response time on open answer questions went up, perhaps as a result of students being more focused at home. These encouraging findings contribute to a growing literature on the educational ramifications of distance learning during lockdown.
Modeling War as a Business Process with the Assistance of Service Oriented Architecture

The pace of war is increasing since militaries ar e adopting the ideas of Network Centric Warfare (NCW). Therefore, the process of war has to be modeled int o the Business Process in order to benefit from available resources in real-time. There is an increasing need to automate command and control tools utilized in military operations b ecause of the versatility and increased tempo of operations. Oper ations can be commanded and orchestrated with the assistance of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). SOA is currently seen as a technology that can satisfy these needs of network centric operations (NCO). The Business Processes are chains of logic that request SOA services. This paper argues that i n the case of a military setting, in order to achieve maximum imp act with minimal effort (cf. downsizing), military operation s need to be modeled as Business Processes (BP) (e.g., a dismoun ted company attack). This asks for using a Resource Manager (RM), a Scheduler and a Battle Secure Scheduler (BSS) in allocating the requested services (e.g. processing a fire support order). In the future, a single Future Force Warrio r (FFW), an essential performer in military operations, can ben efit from the Business Processes approach via enhanced performance, improved Situational Awareness (SA) and with decreased instances of fratricide.
Computational Analysis of Shielding Problems for System in Package Using VEMC System

This paper presents modelling, simulation and optimization of a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC)/system-in-package (SiP) for its shielding problems using a self-developed virtual electromagnetic compatibility (VEMC) system. The system is designed and proved for computational electromagnetics needs in high performance distributed and parallel computation and visualization. Optimal shielding effectiveness is found in relation with shield thickness, permeability and frequency.
Virtual Screening of Heterocyclic Molecules to Identify Potential SARS-COV2 virus Mpro Protease Inhibitors for Further Medicinal Chemistry design

In this work, we aimed to identify potential SARS-COV2 virus Mpro protease inhibitors using molecular docking. As a validation step of our docking approach, we used 7 known Mpro inhibitors and predicted their binding energies. We found a very good correlation (R = -0.86) between the binding energies and the pIC50 (-LogIC50) values. We then undertook virtual screening of 50753 heterocyclic molecules from the PubChem Database. The screened molecules were first filtered out using Lipinski, Veber and Ghose rules resulting in 21 142 which was submitted to the docking phase. The docked compounds were ranked according to their predicted binding energy to the protease and a threshold of -9.0 Kcal/mol was applied resulting in a set of 2711 hits. These hits were split into different groups according to their chemical class using a rule-based classification approach. The best compound from each of the most populated classes were subjected to binding mode analysis which led to ligand-receptor interaction maps and suggested some medicinal chemistry-oriented modifications to further optimize the potency of the obtained hits. Predicted IC50 of the hit molecules ranged from 0.85 to 0.43 µM against SARS-COV2 virus Mpro protease.