Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of the compressed air-usage in South African mines

The critical electricity supply in South Africa has necessitated the implementation of demand-side management (DSM) projects. Load shifting and energy efficiency projects were introduced on mining sectors to reduce the electricity usage during day peak time. As the compressed air networks is using a large amount of mines' electricity, we investigate in this paper the possibility of improving and optimizing the compressed air usage at two different mines to reduce the electricity consumption on the compressed air system.
Technical Note: Vapor pressure estimation methods applied to secondary organic aerosol constituents from α-pinene oxidation: an intercomparison study

Abstract. We applied and compared seven vapor pressure estimation methods to the condensable compounds generated in the oxidation of α-pinene, as described by the state-of-the-art mechanism of the BOREAM model Capouet et al., 2008. Several of these methods had to be extended in order to treat functional groups such as hydroperoxides and peroxy acyl nitrates. Large differences in the estimated vapor pressures are reported, which will inevitably lead to large differences in aerosol formation simulations. Cautioning remarks are given for some vapor pressure estimation methods.
A concept-based retrieval method for entity-oriented search

Entity-oriented retrieval aims to return a list of relevant entities rather than documents to provide exact answers for user queries. The nature of entity-oriented retrieval requires identifying the semantic intent of user queries, i.e., understanding the semantic role of query terms and determining the semantic categories which indicate the class of target entities. Existing methods are not able to exploit the semantic intent by capturing the semantic relationship between terms in a query and in a document that contains entity related information. To improve the understanding of the semantic intent of user queries, we propose concept-based retrieval method that not only automatically identifies the semantic intent of user queries, i.e., Intent Type and Intent Modifier but introduces concepts represented by Wikipedia articles to user queries. We evaluate our proposed method on entity profile documents annotated by concepts from Wikipedia category and list structure. Empirical analysis reveals that the proposed method outperforms several state-of-the-art approaches.
Shifting the fixed-frequency beam scanning range of a leaky-wave antenna by slot loading

This paper presents a slot-loaded half-width microstrip leaky-wave antenna (MLWA) for fixed-frequency beam scanning. Digital switches are used in the design for controlling the beam direction at a fixed-frequency. Dynamically changing the `On' and `Off' states of the switches, the main beam of the antenna is steered in discrete steps. Addition of slots in the microstrip line results in shifting of the scanning range away from broadside. Operation of the antenna is demonstrated for selected frequencies. This research demonstrates the ability to steer the main beam from 23° to 60° at 6.5 GHz and 46° to 70° at 7 GHz, in discrete steps.
High mobility epitaxial graphene devices via aqueous-ozone processing

We find that monolayer epitaxial graphene devices exposed to aggressive aqueous-ozone processing and annealing became cleaner from post-fabrication organic resist residuals and, significantly, maintain their high carrier mobility. Additionally, we observe a decrease in carrier density from inherent strong n-type doping to extremely low p-type doping after processing. This transition is explained to be a consequence of the cleaning effect of aqueous-ozone processing and annealing, since the observed removal of resist residuals from SiC/G enables the exposure of the bare graphene to dopants present in ambient conditions. The resulting combination of charge neutrality, high mobility, large area clean surfaces, and susceptibility to environmental species suggest this processed graphene system as an ideal candidate for gas sensing applications.
Multi-modal Visual Data Registration and Web-based Visualisation

Recent developments of video and sensing technology can lead to large amounts of digital media data. Current media production rely on both video from the principal camera together with a wide variety of heterogeneous source of supporting data (photos, LiDAR point clouds, witness video camera, HDRI and depth imagery). Registration of visual data acquired from various 2D and 3D sensing modalities is challenging because current matching and registration methods are not appropriate due to differences in formats and noise types of multi-modal data. A combined 2D/3D visualisation of this registered data allows an integrated overview of the entire dataset. For such a visualisation a web-based context presents several advantages. In this paper we propose a unified framework for registration and visualisation of this type of visual media data. A new feature description and matching method is proposed, adaptively considering local geometry, semi-global geometry and colour information in the scene for more robust registration. The resulting registered 2D/3D multi-modal visual data is too large to be downloaded and viewed directly via the web browser while maintaining an acceptable user experience. Thus, we employ hierarchical techniques for compression and restructuring to enable efficient transmission and visualisation over the web, leading to interactive visualisation as registered point clouds, 2D images, and videos in the browser, improving on the current state of the art techniques for web-based visualisation of big media data. This is the first unified 3D web-based visualisation of multi-modal visual media production datasets. The proposed pipeline is tested on big multimodal dataset typical of film and broadcast production which are made publicly available. The proposed feature description method shows two times higher precision of feature matching and more stable registration performance than existing 3D feature descriptors.
Image enhancement and compression of deep-sea floor image for acoustic transmission

One of the important missions of AUVs is to take deep-sea images and make maps of sea floor to contribute the understanding of deep-sea biology and geology. The sea floor images include lots of information such as distributions of creatures, minerals and so on. The next mission expected for AUVs is to bring the samples back concurrently with taking interesting photos, autonomously. However, this mission is difficult to perform fully-autonomous without the knowledge of biologists or geologists, as the AUVs don't know which objects are interesting or important for them and it takes long time to teach AUVs all features of target samples. It is necessary for AUVs to work semi-autonomously by collaborating with scientists on the ship and getting commands to indicate the important samples. In this research, we proposed an image enhancement and compression method for acoustic transmission with limited communication density. The proposed method enhances the effect of light attenuation in the deep-sea floor image and reduces the image depth from 24-bit of original images to 4-bit. The method is evaluated by transmission experiment using a new AUV "TUNA-SAND 2".
The dynamics and relationships of precipitation, temperature and convection boundaries in the dayside auroral ionosphere

Abstract. A continuous band of high ion temperature, which persisted for about 8h and zigzagged north-south across more than five degrees in latitude in the dayside (07:00-15:00MLT) auroral ionosphere, was observed by the EISCAT VHF radar on 23 November 1999. Latitudinal gradients in the temperature of the F-region electron and ion gases (T e and T i , respectively) have been compared with concurrent observations of particle precipitation and field-perpendicular convection by DMSP satellites, in order to reveal a physical explanation for the persistent band of high T i , and to test the potential role of T i and T e gradients as possible markers for the open-closed field line boundary. The north/south movement of the equatorward T i boundary was found to be consistent with the contraction/expansion of the polar cap due to an unbalanced dayside and nightside reconnection. Sporadic intensifications in T i , recurring on ~10-min time scales, indicate that frictional heating was modulated by time-varying reconnection, and the band of high T i was located on open flux. However, the equatorward T i boundary was not found to be a close proxy of the open-closed boundary. The closest definable proxy of the open-closed boundary is the magnetosheath electron edge observed by DMSP. Although T e appears to be sensitive to magnetosheath electron fluxes, it is not found to be a suitable parameter for routine tracking of the open-closed boundary, as it involves case dependent analysis of the thermal balance. Finally, we have documented a region of newly-opened sunward convecting flux. This region is situated between the convection reversal boundary and the magnetosheath electron edge defining the open-closed boundary. This is consistent with a delay of several minutes between the arrival of the first (super-Alfvenic) magnetosheath electrons and the response in the ionospheric convection, conveyed to the ionosphere by the interior Alfven wave. It represents a candidate footprint of the low-latitude boundary mixing layer on sunward convecting open flux.
The challenge of syntactic dependency parsing adaptation for the patent domain

Patents are legal documents with a proper complex discourse making it difficult to use off-the-shelf syntactic parsers to adequately process them. The annotation of a training corpus is a titanic task that cannot be afforded for a single project. In this paper, we present a methodology for adapting a dependency parser to the patent genre which only requires the addition of minimal genre specific annotated sentences and minor domain-adaptations to the treebank. After identifying the principal problems faced by the parser, we added to the training corpus sentences that condense and maximize the information brought to the model. The resulting models allow parsing of patents with performances similar to newspaper data.
QRS complex detection using cuckoo search optimization algorithm

Accurate detection of QRS complexes is a prerequisite of all ECG signal processing applications. In this paper, a new adaptive filter (AF), employing cuckoo search optimization algorithm (COA), is proposed for generating feature for QRS complex detection. An efficient peak detection algorithm, coupled with search-back mechanism for detecting missed peaks, is also proposed. The combination of COA with AF and an effective peak detection algorithm with search-backs for missed peaks are the novelties presented in this paper. The performance results of proposed methodology are evaluated and compared with state-of-the-art methods. It is proved from the results that the proposed COA-AF based QRS detector gives efficient performance with sensitivity (%Se), positive predictivity (%P+), and detection error rate (%DER) of 99.75%, 99.79%, and 0.44% respectively.
Optimal Integration of Disparate C37.118 PMUs in Wide-Area PSS With Electromagnetic Transients

The present paper investigates the effective application of phasor measurement units (PMUs) with different technologies and filtering dynamics to the design of wide-area power system stabilizer (WAPSS). Two frequency-adaptive PMU algorithms shown to exceed the C37.118 class-M requirements based on FIR- and Kalman-bandpass filtering are selected for study. Their sharp dynamic differences are characterized using accurate fourth-order transfer functions derived from step responses using system identification techniques. While FIR-based PMUs have no overshoot in their phase and amplitude step responses, the adaptive Kalman filter allows for better out-of-band interference rejection at the cost of a phase step response with overshoot and a higher computational burden. These PMUs are implemented in Simulink and then embedded in electro-magnetic transients (EMT) simulations to experiment the realistic WAPSS behavior with the discrete-time devices in the loop. It is shown that WAPSSs with optimized settings can improve the damping performance of EMT models of a test system and a simplified Hydro-Québec network including PMU filtering dynamics and transmission delays. However, WAPSSs based on EKF-PMUs yielded better performances, thanks to their shorter group delay compared with FIR-PMUs. PMU devices and algorithms meeting standard C37-118 can thus behave quite differently under stressed dynamics.
ICT and Education: Evidence from Student Home Addresses

Governments are making it a priority to upgrade information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase available internet connection speeds. This paper presents a new strategy to estimate the causal effects of these policies, and applies it to the questions of whether and how ICT upgrades affect educational attainment. We draw on a rich collection of microdata that allows us to link administrative test score records for the population of English primary and secondary school students to the available ICT at their home addresses. To base estimations on exogenous variation in ICT, we notice that the boundaries of usually invisible telephone exchange station catchment areas give rise to substantial and essentially randomly placed jumps in the available ICT across neighboring residences. Using this design across more than 20,000 boundaries in England, we find that even very large changes in available internet speeds have a precisely estimated zero effect on educational attainment. Guided by a simple model we then bring to bear additional microdata on student time and internet use to quantify the potentially opposing mechanisms underlying the zero reduced form effect. We find that jumps in the available ICT have no significant effect on student time spent studying online or offline, or on their productivity. Finally, while faster connections appear to increase student consumption of online content, we find that the elasticity of student demand for online content with respect to its time cost is negative but bounded by -1.
Technical issues of sizing Lead-Acid batteries for application in residential renewable energy systems

Lead acid batteries are one of the most commonly used storage devices in residential renewable energy systems. This paper explains the procedure of calculating required capacity of lead acid battery for a residential based renewable energy system. A renewable energy system (RES) is introduced based on a topology of multi-port converter. The basic required stored energy is defined using averaged load energy demand and renewable energy generation profiles. The required capacity of lead-acid battery is calculated on the basis of required stored energy considering technical factors such as battery efficiency, operation temperature and number of autonomy days. The technical issues of using Lead Acid batteries are discussed and presented based on the factory provided manuals.
A capacitively coupled chopper instrumentation amplifier with a ±30V common-mode range, 160dB CMRR and 5μV offset

This paper describes a capacitively coupled chopper instrumentation amplifier (CCIA) for current-sensing applications. A capacitively driven input chopper enables a ±30V input common-mode (CM) range and an input offset less than 5μV. The CCIA does not draw supply current from its input terminals or require a separate high-voltage (HV) supply; and has a common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) in excess of 160dB, both of which represent significant improvements on the state-of-the-art [1-3]. Implemented in a HV CMOS 0. 7μm technology, the CCIA achieves an NEF of 6.1 (6.5× better than [1-3]), while drawing only 26μA from a 3V supply.
Asynchronous Distributed Data Parallelism for Machine Learning

Distributed machine learning has gained much attention due to recent proliferation of large scale learning problems. Designing a high-performance framework poses many challenges and opportunities for system engineers. This paper presents a novel architecture for solving distributed learning problems in framework of data parallelism where model replicas are trained over multiple worker nodes. Worker nodes are grouped into worker groups which enable model replicas to be asynchronously aggregated via peer-to-peer communication. Merits of this framework include elastic scalability, fault tolerance, and efficient communication.
Large Deviations for the Extended Heston Model: The Large-Time Case

We study here the large-time behaviour of all continuous affine stochastic volatility models [in the sense of Keller-Ressel (Math Finan 21(1):73–98, 2011)] and deduce a closed-form formula for the large-maturity implied volatility smile. We concentrate on (rescaled) strikes around the money, which are the most common in practice, and extend the results in Forde and Jacquier (Finan Stoch 15(4):755–780, 2011) and Gatheral and Jacquier (Quant Finan 11(8):1129–1132, 2011).
An exploratory data analysis on social media and youth online political participation in Nigeria and Malaysia

This article examined the exploratory data analysis on social media and youth online political participation in Nigeria and Malaysia. Specifically the data screening procedures and preliminary analysis of the data collected were explored.A total of 369 Nigerian undergraduates of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Malaysian undergraduates of Universiti Utara Malaysia completed a self-administered questionnaire on a 7-point semantic differential scale with bipolar adjectives as anchors.The data collected was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) application software version 18. To fulfil the requirement for a multivariate analysis, response bias, missing values, outliers, normality and multi-collinearity test were conducted and the results indicated that the data for the study were fit and could be used for further multivariate analysis.
THE REAL NATURE OF PRAGMATISM AND CHICAGO SOCIOLOGY

It has been some time since pragmatism was examined systematically by sociologists, and in American Sociology and Pragmatism J.David Lewis and Richard L. Smith attempt not only to revise ideas that the philosophies of C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead form a continuous tradition, but also that Mead, currently the most well-known of these pragmatists among American sociologists, was in fact marginal to the Chicago school of sociology with whom he now is so closely associated. Two other notable sociological studies of pragmatism that come to mind are C. Wright Mills’ posthumously published dissertation, Sociology and Pragmatism, and Durkheim’s Pragmatisme et Sociologie. Mills was interested primarily in examining the social context of pragmatism in American intellectual life, not its influences on the development of Chicago sociology, and Durkheim gave a lecture course in 1913-14 later published from student notes in 1955 as Pragmatisme et Sociologie. In these lectures Durkheim concentrated on James, Dewey, and F.C.S. Schiller, and to a lesser extent Peirce, but Mead is not even mentioned in Durkheim’s text. Similarly Mills devoted whole chapters to Peirce, James, and Dewey, and Mead is mentioned only in a few passing references, although Mills regretted his scant attention to Mead in a postscript. Though Mead may have exerted much influence on colleagues and students at the University of Chicago, these omissions suggest that he was not regarded widely as one of the major pragmatists until after the publication of his writings and lectures as books in the 1930s. American Sociology and Pragmatism attempts to carry out two purposes: first, to show two “clearly separable” forms of pragmatism-a realist version characterized by Peirce and approximated by Mead, and a nominalist variety illustrated by James and Dewey; and second, to separate Mead from the mainstream of early Chicago sociology and from symbolic interactionism. The authors’ argument hangs by a single thread, illustrated by their methodological statement that:
Relationship between Level of Compliance with Statement of Accounting Standards and Performance of Nigerian Banks ( Mrs . )

In Nigeria, the Statement of Accounting Standards (SAS), Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directives and regulations provide guidelines to banks in preparation and presentation of records of financial transactions. In recent time, some Nigerian banks appear to be engaging in non-standardized and unprofessional practices, which could lead to distress and liquidation. The objective of this study therefore was to investigate the relationship between level of compliance with Statement of Accounting Standards and performance of Nigerian banks. Twenty selected banks quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange formed the target sample and these were banks whose Annual Financial Reports for the period of study were fully available. Both primary and secondary sources of data were employed in carrying out the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to obtain data from Senior and Managerial staff of each of the banks. The instrument was structured to accommodate the sixteen Statements of Accounting Standards which are related to banks and used in the assessment of banks’ compliance. Five hundred questionnaires were administered to the Senior and Managerial staff of the selected quoted banks. The Annual Financial Reports of the selected banks from 2005-2009 (post-consolidation era) were also used. The collected data were analyzed using CAMEL Ratios, and Pearson correlation analysis. The findings of the study indicated a significant positive relationship between level of compliance with SAS and banks’ performance. In line with the findings, it was recommended that the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board (NASB) should ensure effective monitoring of banks in order to enforce compliance, especially among banks that are performing below standard. The need to adopt International Accounting Standard practice among Nigerian banks was also emphasized.