Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy efficient microarchitectures for on-chip voltage regulation and low noise computing

Powerand energy-efficiency are significant requirements in virtually all computer systems, from mobile devices to large-scale data centers. Power delivery is a process that distributes stable supply voltages to gates within an integrated circuit (IC). The design of such a delivery network is a critical task to guarantee functionality, timing, and operation reliability, and significantly affects the powerand energy-efficiency of a high performance IC. Therefore, microarchitectural solutions that are aware of the power delivery system, should be capable of exploring a larger optimization space for energy efficient computer systems. This thesis proposes two microarchitectural techniques that leverage the design tradeoffs of the underlying power delivery networks to achieve energy-efficient computing. First, the use of MOS current-mode logic (MCML) is explored as a fast and lownoise alternative to static CMOS logic in microprocessors, thereby improving the performance, energy-efficiency, and signal integrity of future computer systems. The power and ground noise generated by an MCML circuit is typically 10 × −100× smaller than the noise generated by a static CMOS circuit, and therefore can significantly relax the typical design constraints imposed on the power delivery network. Unlike a static CMOS circuit, in which dynamic power is proportional to the clock frequency, an MCML circuit dissipates a constant power independent of the clock frequency. Although these traits make MCML highly energy-efficient when operating at high speeds, the constant static power of MCML poses a challenge for a microarchitecture that operates at a modest clock rate and with a low activity factor. To address this challenge, this thesis explores a single-core microarchitecture for MCML that takes advantage of the C-slow retiming technique, and runs at a high frequency with low complexity to save energy. This design principle differs fundamentally from the contemporary multicore design paradigm for static CMOS, which relies on a large number of gates running in parallel at modest speeds. The proposed architecture generates 10−40× lower power and ground noise, and operates at a level of performance within 13% of a conventional, eight-core static CMOS system, while exhibiting 1.6× lower energy and 9% less area. Moreover, the operation of the MCML processor is
Fire safety design of composite slim floor structures

A structural fire safety design method for composite steel-concrete slim floor structures was developed, including the characterization of fully-developed compartment fire curves and the equivalent fire exposure, temperature analysis of the composite structures, and the structural response analysis of composite slim floor structures subjected to fire. Special interest was given to the structural responses of the slim floor beam both as an isolated member and a part of the frame structure. The mechanical interaction behind the global deformation response of the frame was emphasized. Although the analyzed objects concentrated on composite slim floor structures, the according fire safety design method and the explored structural response mechanism in fire are equally applicable to other types of building structures.
Groundwater-Based Drinking Water Supply in Sri Lanka: Status and Perspectives

Drinking water is largely from groundwater in Sri Lanka, so quality management is of great concern. In order to achieve the 6th goal of United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), more efforts are being undertaken to secure drinking water quality. In this paper, the current status, challenges and opportunities of groundwater quality management and improvement in Sri Lanka were reviewed and discussed, based on previous studies. There are Ca-HCO3 type, Ca–Mg-HCO3 type and Na–SO4–Cl type groundwater dominated in the wet zone, intermediate and the dry zone, respectively. Elevated levels of hardness, fluoride, DOC, and alkalinity, and salinity are reported in the groundwater in the dry zone controlled by geology and arid climate. Although groundwater in some regions contain significant levels of nitrates, arsenic, cadmium and lead, the majority remain at acceptable levels for drinking purposes. As for treatment technologies, existing membrane-based drinking water treatment technologies such as RO (Reverse Osmosis) stations can produce safe and clean drinking water to the community, but this has still a limited coverage. To achieve a safe drinking water supply for all, especially in rural communities of Sri Lanka under the 6th goal of the UN SDG, more efforts in building up the infrastructure and man power are needed to monitor and assess groundwater quality regularly so as to develop management strategies. Research and development can be directed towards more cost-effective water treatment technologies. Protection of groundwater from being polluted, and educational and awareness programs for the stakeholders are also essential tasks in the future.
Productivity Enhancement and Gap Analysis of Moth Bean (Vigna acontifolia (Jacq.)) through Improved Production Technologies on Farmers’ Participatory Mode

A total 81 of frontline demonstrations were conducted on farmers’ fields in villages viz., Kalali, Rampura, Jhitra, Dalpatgarh and Mukanpura of Pali district in Rajasthan state during 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 to demonstrate production potential and economic benefit of improved technologies comprising sowing method, nutrient management and chemical weed control and adoption of whole package of practices for the crop. Pre-emergence application of herbicide Pendimethalin at 1.0 kg a.i/ha in 550 liters of water used for effective control of the weeds during kharif season in rainfed condition. The findings of the study revealed that improved technology recorded a mean yield of 629 kg/ha which was 53.5% higher than obtained by farmers’ practice (414 kg/ha). The higher mean net income of 24730/-ha with a Benefit: Cost ratio of 3.6 was obtained with improved technologies in comparison to farmers’ practices (12950/ha). Yield gap analysis revealed that though there was mean additional return of 11780/ha with a mean additional gain of 7820/ha, still there was an extension gap of 215 kg/ha seed yield, indicating that along with many move front line demonstrations there is a need to disseminate the improved technologies among the farmers with effective extension methods like training and demonstrations. However, the mean technology gap of 639 kg/ha seed yield clearly indicates that research efforts are needed in realizing the potentiality of the moth bean crop in Rajasthan state.
The control methods of Knee‐Ankle‐Toe Active Transfemoral Prosthesis in stance phase

In this paper, a Knee‐Ankle‐Toe Active Transfemoral Prosthesis (KATATP) is designed for improving the walking performance of the amputees. The main contents are as follows: First, the mechanical model of the prosthesis with three joints is established to help analyze the kinematics and dynamics characteristics of the joints; second, the Drive Torque Calculation cell is proposed to calculate the torque required for the movement of prosthesis joints; third, the motor, which provides the desired torque, drives the prosthesis; finally, experimental results indicate that the KATATP can help the amputee obtain more natural and symmetrical walking gaits. Moreover, the plantar pressure information of the amputated side is close to that of the sound side.
ADEL-Wheat: a 3D Architectural Model of wheat development

A 3D architectural model of winter wheat development is presented. The model simulates the kinetics of elongation of individual organs, together with their geometric shape. With the inclusion of two additional parameters, it was possible to model the development of tillers using the same parameter values as for the main stem. The duration of organ extension was found to be the same amongst phytomers, and the kinetics of extension of any organ could be simulated from its final length and two parameters. Finally, lengths of mature organs were found to follow simple functions of phytomer position. The resulting model simulates development of the whole plant with a small number of parameters, characterising the size and geometry of mature organs and the timing of collar appearance.
Structural health monitoring technology for a full-scale aircraft structure under changing temperature

Abstract This paper presents optimal operating modes for the factors to maximise the detection capability of a given SHM technology in service environment. Firstly, an orthogonal experiment was performed to determine the importance ranking of the influence factors. Through the test, it is found that operating temperatures for SHM hardware and excitation frequencies for PZT actuator were the most critical factors. Then, numerical model of Lamb waves generated and received by PZT sensors were presented to predict the distribution of response signal amplitudes under changing temperature. Verification tests were carried out on a glass fibre reinforced composite plate at different temperatures. The comparison between the analytical prediction and test results was presented and temperature-dependent optimal frequencies for PZT actuators were obtained. Finally, SHM experiments of full-scale horizontal composite structures are presented. The detection capability of the SHM technology applications of aircrafts in real world is verified by the experimental results.
Design of hand detection based on attention and feature enhancement pyramids

Abstract. Hand detection plays an important role in human–computer interaction. Because of the convenient and natural advantages of hands, hand detection is increasingly used in virtual reality, remote control, and other fields. However, since the complex background and the diversity of hand postures, the YOLOv4 algorithm for hand detection suffers from low accuracy and robustness. Therefore, A YOLOv4-HAND network, improved from YOLOv4, is proposed to solve the problem. We first use the dilation convolution to build the feature enhancement pyramid that enables the network to expand semantic information. Second, for better detection of different hand scales, we design a multiscale attention module to capture the correlation of channel information within different scales. Third, we design a head that incorporates a spatial attention module to compensate for the network’s lack of spatial contextual location information correlation. Finally, we use soft nonmaximum suppression to reduce the impact of occlusion. The results show that the YOLOv4-HAND detection network can achieve 83.22% and 93.95% mAP on the publicly available datasets Oxford hand and Egohands datasets. Compared with the most recent method, the YOLOv4-HAND network effectively improves the accuracy of hand detection for practical applications.
Genomic engineering of Escherichia coli for improved ethanol tolerance and ethanol production

With tremendous advancements in the genomics era, engineered microbes are being used as biological factories to produce an array of products, including pharmaceuticals, bioplastics, commodity chemicals, and biofuels. The microbial machinery can be tailored through genetic modifications that result in traits which enable these industrial processes, such as new products, nonnative feedstocks, more efficient production, or more robust cellular biocatalysts. Nevertheless, identifying these trait-conferring genetic modifications is often laborious, and the toxicity of the product is a key challenge for commercial production of fuels and chemicals. In this thesis research, we have used the E. coli model system to study genome-wide approaches to identify trait-conferring genetic modifications for improved tolerance to and production of ethanol, an industrially-relevant biofuel. We mapped the genome for ethanol tolerance in a wild-type strain using the high resolution multiscalar analysis of library enrichments (SCALEs) approach. By testing the highest fitness genes identified, we confirmed nine novel genetic targets that confer improved ethanol tolerance. Transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of the ethanol stress response in these engineered ethanol-tolerant clones identified expression changes relating to a subset of biological processes shared among these clones. We constructed an E. coli ethanol production platform strain containing fully characterized genetic modifications that produces ethanol comparable to the best previously reported, and this strain is openly available from the ATCC. Using the LW06 production platform, we tested ethanol tolerance-conferring genes we previously identified, and the tolerance-conferring quality of these genes was largely dependent on the system, such as the host genotype, metabolism, and media. Based on this finding, we designed a genome-wide selection for ethanol production using SCALEs and mapped the fitness of the entire genome under ethanol production conditions. We selected for clones with both improved ethanol tolerance and production and through combinatorial testing, identified genes which confer improved ethanol tolerance and increased rates of ethanol production. From the quantitative genome-wide mapping, we propose future work to further engineer complex, multigenic traits for improved E. coli ethanol production. Collectively, the work presented here has identified strategies applicable to engineering improved production of inhibitory products.
Innovation of Surgical Techniques for Screw Fixation in Patients with Osteoporotic Spine

Osteoporosis is a common disease in elderly populations and is a major public health problem worldwide. It is not uncommon for spine surgeons to perform spinal instrumented fusion surgeries for osteoporotic patients. However, in patients with severe osteoporosis, instrumented fusion may result in screw loosening, implant failure or nonunion because of a poor bone quality and decreased pedicle screw stability as well as increased graft subsidence risk. In addition, revision surgeries to correct failed instrumentation are becoming increasingly common in patients with osteoporosis. Therefore, techniques to enhance the fixation of pedicle screws are required in spinal surgeries for osteoporotic patients. To date, various instrumentation methods, such as a supplemental hook, sublaminar taping and sacral alar iliac screws, and modified screwing techniques have been available for reinforcing pedicle screw fixation. In addition, several materials, including polymethylmethacrylate and hydroxyapatite stick/granules, for insertion into prepared screw holes, can be used to enhance screw fixation. Many biomechanical tests support the effectiveness of these augmentation methods. We herein review the current therapeutic strategies for screw fixation and augmentation methods in the surgical treatment of patients with an osteoporotic spine.
Hierarchical Nested Information Extraction in Electric Power Domain

During the long-term power construction process, the power dispatching department has saved many notification texts related to adjustment of grid operation mode. There is an urgent need to study named entity recognition techniques to automatically recognize the power equipment and operation mode, in order to support automatic verification of grid operation mode. By analyzing the characteristics of notification texts, a classification method of hierarchical nested named entities is proposed for the first time in power domain. The entities are divided into two layers with nested relationships, and the corpus of grid operation mode is constructed. We further propose a joint model based on character-word feature fusion and attention mechanism. The model is based on the parameter sharing approach for joint recognition of hierarchical nested entities in the corpus and further introduces an attention mechanism to optimize the feature interaction between hierarchical nested entities. In addition, we splice embeddings of characters and words as feature input to obtain richer semantic features. Experimental results show that our model achieves state-of-the-art results. Eventually, the recognition results can be stored as a standardized verification information chain, providing effective data support for automatic verification of the grid operation mode and ensuring safe and stable operation of the grid.
Intellectual capital between measurement and reporting: a structured literature review

PurposeIn the past decade, intellectual capital (IC) measurement and reporting have been feeding scientific debate; however, only few studies address these issues together. The present research aims to provide an integrated view of the topics covered by the existing literature and to highlight the emerging research trends and set the agenda for future research.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops a structured literature review (SLR) of the extant research concerned with IC measurement and reporting, using a comprehensive sample of 1,021 articles extracted from the Scopus database.FindingsThe findings of the SLR show that the existing literature focuses on seven research areas: IC and public sector; IC university and education; IC evaluation method; internal and external IC disclosure; IC and CSR; management of IC in organizations; other. Overall, findings indicate that IC measurement and reporting are highly researched topics that continue to attract the interests of scholars. Finally, the SLR analysis has allowed outlining a future research agenda, with particular reference to the IC evaluation method and internal and external IC disclosure research areas.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of this research lies in the manual screening of relevant studies, which entails some degree of subjectivity. Furthermore, another limitation research could be considered the use of a single database (Scopus). Originality/valueThe present study brings potential contributions for scholars and practitioners. From a scholarly perspective, the paper provides a systematization of scientific contributions that have dealt with IC measurement and reporting. In particular, it contributes to the scholarly debate bringing into focus various IC measurement and reporting issues in the landscape of private and public organizations. Referring to practical implications, our research supports the strategic use of IC measurement and reporting as a key lever for improving the management of firms. Using an analytical framework that combines insights from the agency, stakeholder and legitimacy theories, this study highlights that IC reporting activity should be used strategically as a means to engage with all firm's stakeholders, in particular with a view to reducing information asymmetry and improving firm reputation.
Should I stay or should I switch? An analysis of transitions between modes of vocational education and training

How established is the horizontal permeability between modes of vocational education and training (VET) in Switzerland? Formally encouraged by the Swiss law on VET, horizontal permeability refers to transitions across VET modes, i.e. between dual and school-based VET. This paper first discusses why horizontal permeability is indeed relevant and then empirically examines the horizontal permeability of the Swiss VET system for a given occupation – commercial VET. The latter is the largest VET domain in Switzerland and, importantly, a domain in which school-based VET is well established. The empirical analysis uses panel data following a cohort for over 10 years in the Canton of Geneva. Results show that going from school-based to dual VET within commercial VET increases chances to earn a qualification, however students changing modes lose half a year in the process. These findings suggest that, at least in commercial VET, horizontal permeability is only partial.
Improvement of microalgae lipid productivity and quality in an ion-exchange-membrane photobioreactor using real municipal wastewater

To improve the productivity and quality of microalgae-based biodiesel when using municipal wastewater (MW) as nutrients source, an ion-exchange-membrane photobioreactor (IEM-PBR) was used in this study to eliminate the negative effects of pollutants in MW on microalgae Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus. In the IEM-PBR, the real MW and microalgae cultures were separated in two chambers by the ion-exchange-membranes (IEMs). Nutrients (N, P, etc.) in the MW permeated into microalgae cultures through the IEMs, while pollutants (suspended solids, competitors, etc.) in the MW could hardly permeate into microalgae cultures. As a result, the lipid productivity in the IEM-PBR was improved to 85.7 mg/(L•d) for C. vulgaris and 111.8 mg/(L•d) for S. obliquus, which was slightly higher than that in the traditional photobioreactor (T-PBR) with real MW after centrifugation (82.5 mg/(L•d) for C. vulgaris and 105.8 mg/(L•d) for S. obliquus), but much higher than that in the T-PBR with untreated MW and primary MW (with lipid productivity of 20-30 mg/(L•d)). Besides, the lipid quality obtained in the IEM-PBR had higher proportion of cetane number (ca. 60%) and lower linolenic acid content (ca. 8%), which showed a superior quality in the IEM-PBR to that in the T-PBR. It demonstrated that the IEM-PBR is an effective approach to improve the productivity and quality of microalgae biodiesel. Keywords: microalgae, photobioreactor, lipid productivity, real municipal wastewater, ion-exchange-membrane DOI: 10.3965/j.ijabe. 20171001.2706 Citation: Chang H X, Fu Q, Huang Y, Xia A, Liao Q, Zhu X. Improvement of microalgae lipid productivity and quality in an ion-exchange-membrane photobioreactor using real municipal wastewater. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2017; 10(1): 97－106.
Highly Sensitive Ultrasonic Sensor Based on Polymer Bragg Grating and its Application for 3D Imaging of Seismic Physical Model

A miniaturepolymer Bragg grating (PBG) sensor is fabricated and employed for ultrasonic imaging of seismic physical models (SPMs). The sensing Bragg grating is inscribed into an ultraviolet (UV) glue polymer waveguide with a femtosecond laser. The uniform polymer waveguide is fabricated by sealing the UV glue into a capillary fibre through capillary effect. By using line-by-line inscription technique, the laser beam is scanned transversely to periodically modulate the refractive index of the polymer waveguide, leading to the formation of the PBGs with various grating lengths. The sensor response to ultrasonic waves are investigated experimentally. When compared to single-mode fiber Bragg grating and phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating, the PBG with the same reflectivity presents a higher response amplitude due to its lower Young’s modulus. Besides, the sensor has a good spectral stability when transferred from air to water due to the waterproof coating on the sensor end. Finally, the sensor is used to scan a large-scale 3D SPM and the structural features, such as fault, fluctuation, and depositional termination, can be distinctly reconstructed. The proposed PBG sensor provides a new technique with easy fabrication, high sensitivity, and good stability for high-fidelity ultrasonic imaging of seismicphysical models.