Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Politics of Women's Presence on High Courts: Bias and the Conditional Nature of Cultivating Legitimacy

Abstract While we know that women's presence in the legislature positively impacts how citizens view the institution, little is known about the impact of women's presence on the legitimacy of high courts. We argue that despite differences in public expectations for courts, women's presence on the high court does impact citizen perceptions of legitimacy. However, this effect is dependent on both the level and the type of bias held by citizens. That is, when a person feels hostile bias toward women, the bias disrupts the potential legitimacy that the court could gain. On the other hand, we argue that benevolent sexism does not trigger any change in how citizens view the high court in a democracy. Using evidence from an experiment, we find that the presence of women on the high court has a strong positive impact on citizen perceptions of court legitimacy, though not among those with hostile gender bias.
Rainfall nowcasting: predictability of short-term extremes in Sweden

Our current knowledge of the character of rainfall events in Sweden associated with extreme short-term accumulations and their predictability by forecasting, is very limited. In this study, observations from automatic stations and weather radars in Sweden were analysed to identify and characterise extreme short-term events. Often shorter-duration (1–6 h) extreme events were associated with small-scale structures, dominated by single cells, and longer-duration (12–24 h) events with less variable, larger-scale fields. For lead time 3 h, ∼20% of the events were forecasted at the correct place with an error of < 25% by the operational Swedish nowcasting system. If allowing for a 25 km displacement of the forecasted events, the hit rate increased by 10–15 percentage points. Some predictability was found for lead time 8 h but not for 24 h. The results suggest a potential added gain of increasing the temporal resolution of the Swedish flood forecasting system to sub-daily steps.
Wideband high dynamic range CMOS variable gain amplifier for low voltage and low power wireless applications

A high frequency CMOS variable gain amplifier (VGA) employing a new gain stage cell is proposed. A design technique based on the proposed VGA enables enhancement of its operating frequency up to about 350 MHz with a gain control range of 84 dB. The power consumption of the VGA implemented using a 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS standard process is about 3 mA at 1.8 V supply voltage.
Fast mixing by lamination

A micro mixer based on multi-stage multi-layer lamination is presented. The micro mixer has been designed as an integrated part of a micromachined chemical analysis system. The fabrication technology is based on wet chemical etching of PYREX-glass and silicon substrates which are subsequently bonded anodically. The micro mixer is designed to work in the flow range 1-10 /spl mu/l/min with a Reynolds number less than 1 and an undisturbed laminal flow pattern. Comprehensive theoretical studies and computer simulations have been carried out in order to understand the detailed flow behaviour and diffusion in the mixer, and to set up design criteria needed to obtain perfect or near perfect multi-layer lamination. As a result of the study of a generic type of micro mixer and flow simulations, the need of a "separation plate" inside each mixer stage is revealed. The performance of micro machined single stage mixers has been verified by mixing experiments using the fast reaction of phenol-red and an acid. The experimental set-up takes advantage of the transparent PYREX-glass plate offering the possibility to study mixing phenomena by video microscopy.
EMG mean power frequency determination using wavelet analysis

Surface electromyography (EMG) is routinely used to characterize muscle activity and fatigue in many physiological and pathological circumstances. Commonly-used parameters describing the spectral content of EMG signals include Fourier-based mean and median power frequencies. The application of the Fourier transform to a data stream assumes wide-sense stationarity of the data over the sampled window. In cases where repetitive or non-constant muscular activity is considered, stationarity constraints are violated. The authors propose the use of multiresolution wavelet analysis, which provides both temporal and frequency resolution of a signal, as an alternative method by which to determine the mean power frequency (MPF) of signals with rapidly-varying frequency content. In order to determine the ability of this method to accurately predict MPF, Fourier- and wavelet-derived analyses of isometric, constant-force contractions are compared. Fourier and wavelet-derived MPF calculations from EMG of the large hand flexor muscle group recorded during 20-second isometric contractions at 40% maximum voluntary contraction were compared. The results indicate that the wavelet analysis method consistently over-estimates the Fourier-derived MPF, but that the signal characteristics and shapes of MPF curves are similar.
Comparative Study of Markerless Vision-Based Gait Analyses for Person Re-Identification

The model-based gait analysis of kinematic characteristics of the human body has been used to identify individuals. To extract gait features, spatiotemporal changes of anatomical landmarks of the human body in 3D were preferable. Without special lab settings, 2D images were easily acquired by monocular video cameras in real-world settings. The 2D and 3D locations of key joint positions were estimated by the 2D and 3D pose estimators. Then, the 3D joint positions can be estimated from the 2D image sequences in human gait. Yet, it has been challenging to have the exact gait features of a person due to viewpoint variance and occlusion of body parts in the 2D images. In the study, we conducted a comparative study of two different approaches: feature-based and spatiotemporal-based viewpoint invariant person re-identification using gait patterns. The first method is to use gait features extracted from time-series 3D joint positions to identify an individual. The second method uses a neural network, a Siamese Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) network with the 3D spatiotemporal changes of key joint positions in a gait cycle to classify an individual without extracting gait features. To validate and compare these two methods, we conducted experiments with two open datasets of the MARS and CASIA-A datasets. The results show that the Siamese LSTM outperforms the gait feature-based approaches on the MARS dataset by 20% and 55% on the CASIA-A dataset. The results show that feature-based gait analysis using 2D and 3D pose estimators is premature. As a future study, we suggest developing large-scale human gait datasets and designing accurate 2D and 3D joint position estimators specifically for gait patterns. We expect that the current comparative study and the future work could contribute to rehabilitation study, forensic gait analysis and early detection of neurological disorders.
Including User Cost and Risk Analysis During Construction in Highway Bridge Structure Selection

Selection of bridge type is traditionally based on the finished structure. This study presents a more comprehensive analysis that includes user costs and accidents during the construction phase. The objective is to incorporate more fully the total costs to society of constructing a facility. These can then be combined with the project cost and the benefit to society of the completed structure. This approach can lead to a total cost optimization for more effective and efficient bridge project designs for the public. From a total of 163 Colorado bridges constructed during the period 2000–2007, bridge, roadway, traffic, and region data were used to select 43 candidate bridges targeted for study. Unfortunately, complete data were not obtainable for a number of these bridges, and for others the engineers involved in the project were no longer working at Colorado Department of Transportation so they were not available to complete questionnaire information for this research. Complete data were available on 20 bridges, and these were selected for the study. Information for these study bridges included not only the direct construction and traffic management information, but also the detour, delay, and accident data. Delay and bridge costs are compared for each structure, and also for trends by region, average daily traffic (ADT) volume construction duration, and bridge type. Accident rates are compared during construction with those before and after. Statistical factor analysis is used to isolate key factors among the bridges studied. Delay costs exceeded bridge construction cost for approximately one half of the bridges studied, and construction period accident rates for injury accidents saw an almost 20% increase. Delay costs are significant as a ratio to bridge costs when ADT exceeds 10,000, construction when duration exceeds 20 months, and for concrete box girder prestressed bridges that are built with current Colorado construction practices.
LEADING TO SUCCESS VIA MENTORSHIP

Numerous studies in the past decade have proven that mentoring benefits college students' lives on campus. A survey was conducted at the beginning of the spring semester in 2009 and 2010 to investigate the degree of assistance the students expected from their mentors. The population was selected from the computer science foundation course: CS146 - Introduction to Algorithms & Programming. 120 out of 145 (82.8%) students completed the Computer Science Pre Mentoring Program survey. The results showed that the students agree the mentoring program should be able to assist them in the following areas, ordered from greatest to least: (a) assisting their success in the CS146 course, (b) building a solid foundation in computer science, (c) embracing them as a family member of the Computer Science Department, (d) assisting their success in college life, (e) joining the mentoring program, and (f) selecting their future career path. After reviewing the results of the survey, we suggested that the stakeholders of vulnerable departments ought to maintain a long term mentoring program to lead their students to success.
Design, fabrication, and operation of submicron gap comb-drive microactuators

Making submicron interelectrode gaps is the key to reducing the driving voltage of a micro comb-drive electrostatic actuator. Two new fabrication technologies, oxidation machining and a post-release positioning method, are proposed to realize submicron gaps. Two types of actuator (a resonant type and a nonresonant type) with submicron gaps were successfully fabricated and their operational characteristics were tested experimentally. The drive voltage was found to be lower than that of existing actuators. The stability of comb-drive actuators is discussed. >
ISAR motion compensation via adaptive joint time-frequency technique

A novel approach for inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging is presented for both target translational motion and rotational motion nonuniformity compensation. The basic idea is to perform Doppler tracking to individual scatterers via an adaptive joint time-frequency (AJTF) projection technique. After maximizing the projection of the phase function to a set of basis functions in time-frequency plane, the Doppler frequency drift of the strongest scatterer in the range bin is automatically tracked out and the multiple prominent point processing (PPP) scheme is implemented to eliminate both the translational motion error and rotational motion nonuniformity. Further the azimuth spacing can be estimated, which permits polar reformatting of the original collected data.
Study on flow and heat transfer characteristics for propane in twisted oval and the two-start twisted helically wound tube

In this paper, the numerical simulation was used to study the flow and heat transfer characteristics for twisted oval and two-start twisted helically wound tubes with Reynolds numbers 4000–16,000. The significant factors that affect the flow and heat transfer characteristics were analyzed. The range of twist pitch p is 0.02–0.10 m, and ellipse ratio r is 1.2–2 for twisted oval tube, the groove depth e is 0.4–2 mm for two-start twisted tube. The result showed that the relative friction coefficient and Nusselt number increased with the increase of ellipse ratio r and decreased with the increase of twist pitch p for twisted oval helically wound tube. With the growth of Reynolds number, the effects of twist pitch p and ellipse ratio r on the flow characteristics decreased. In addition, the average level of the thermal enhancement factor TEF of the two-start twisted was higher than that of the twisted oval helically wound tube. The maximum enhancements factor TEF of 1.1312 is obtained with groove depth of 2.0, twisted pitch of 0.02, and Reynolds number of 4000 for the two-start twisted tube. Finally, new empirical formulas for flow and heat transfer in helically wound tubes were proposed for two kinds of enhanced tubes.
Understanding consumers’ addiction to online mobile games and in apps purchase intention: Players stickiness as the mediation

Research on consumer behavior, particularly on online mobile games, is an emerging topic that must be more deeply explored. As a relatively new topic, the approach and discussion of consumer behavior based on the online mobile games environment challenge researchers to describe it in a theoretical study. This research investigates the user's addiction to online mobile games (OMG) in apps purchase intention through a stickiness mediation variable. The samples were determined by using purposive random sampling, which consisted of gamers or people who were playing online mobile games and ever purchase a games feature. Therefore, a total of 439 responses were collected through an online survey. This research employs SmartPLS 2.0 to test both measurement and structural models. The results showed that the addiction to online mobile games influenced app purchase intention, and stickiness also mediated the relationship between addiction to online mobile games and app purchase intention. The contribution of this research emphasizing that the addiction to online mobile games had become a behavior that created stickiness and intention is also discussed in this research.
A high torque density, direct drive in-wheel motor for electric vehicles

The use of in-wheel motors as a source of propulsion for electric vehicles is particularly attractive because they offer new levels of controllability in the vehicle, whilst also freeing up space within the main body of the car. The in-wheel motor is housed in the rim, alongside existing mechanical brakes and suspension systems. This produces tight space constraints, so that the motor and drive electronics must both be power dense and compact. The motor must also offer high efficiency, low cogging torque and be intrinsically fail safe. This paper examines the design options for a direct drive in-wheel motor for use in passenger and light commercial vehicles. The study focuses on achieving high torque density whilst considering magnetic, mechanical, electrical and physical limitations posed on the motor. (6 pages)
Computational Geometrically Nonlinear Vibration Analysis of Uncertain Mistuned Bladed Disks

The recent improvements in turbomachinery design requires the analysis of exceptional operating regime of bladed disks corresponding to geometrical nonlinear effects induced by the large displacements/deformations. In addition, the random nature of the mistuning has also to be modeled. First, a mean nonlinear reduced-order model of the tuned bladed disk is explicitly constructed in the context of the finite element method. The investigation is then devoted to the modeling of the mistuning through the nonparametric probabilistic approach extended to the nonlinear geometric context. The stochastic nonlinear equations are solved in the time domain using the Monte Carlo numerical simulation coupled with advanced arc-length methods adapted to high nonlinear response levels. Finally, the methodology is applied through a numerical example of a bladed disk and a nonlinear analysis is performed in both time and frequency domain.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Optimization of the specific on-resistance of the COOLMOS/sup TM/

The optimized values for the physical and geometrical parameters of the p- and n-regions used in the voltage-sustaining layer of the COOLMOS/sup TM/ are presented. Design of the parameters is aimed to produce the lowest specific on-resistance, R/sub on/ for a given breakdown voltage, V/sub B/. A new relationship between the R/sub on/ and V/sub B/ for the COOLMOS/sup TM/ is developed as R/sub on/=C/spl middot/V/sub B//sup 1.32/, where the constant C is dependent on the cell dimension and pattern geometry. It is also found that by putting a thin layer of insulator between the p-region and its neighboring n-regions, the value of R/sub on/ can be further reduced. The possibility of incorporating the insulating layer may open up opportunities for practical implementation of the COOLMOS/sup TM/ for volume production.
General noise analysis of nonlinear microwave circuits by the piecewise harmonic-balance technique

This paper presents a self-consistent set of algorithms for the numerical computation of noise effects in forced and autonomous nonlinear microwave circuits. The analysis relies upon the piecewise harmonic-balance method, and thus retains all the peculiar advantages of this technique, including general-purposeness in the widest sense. The noise simulation capabilities include any kind of forced or autonomous nonlinear circuit operated in a time-periodic large-signal steady state, as well as microwave mixers of arbitrary topology. The limitations of the traditional frequency-conversion approach to noise analysis are overcome. The analysis takes into account the thermal noise generated in the passive subnetwork, the noise contributions of linear and nonlinear active devices, and the noise injected by sinusoidal driving sources of known statistical properties. The nonlinear noise models of two representative families of microwave devices (FET's/HEMT's and Schottky-barrier diodes) are discussed in detail, and several applications are illustrated. >
Stress Analysis of Gas Pipeline in Tunnels on Pressure Testing Condition

At present the gas transmission pipeline stress analysis is mainly aimed at ordinary buried pipe. Stress analysis is less for gas pipeline in tunnels, especially on the pressure testing condition. Usually testing pressure is greater than working pressure. It is necessary to know the stress distribution of passing-through gas pipeline on pressure testing condition. This paper established pipe stress analysis model for XX gas transmission pipeline in shaft of shield tunnel on pressure testing condition by CAESAR II software. This paper obtained the gas pipe stress distribution, clearly determined the stress key points, and checked the strength of the pipeline. This method provides guidance for gas pipeline stress analysis.
Construction of WSN and Application of Localization for In-Home Healthcare of the Elderly

The problem of population aging is very severe in China; in-home healthcare of the elderly has become an urgent important topic. Wireless sensor networks in many areas have been applied widely, the purpose of this work is to construct wireless healthcare network by using the ZigBee communication technology, and to achieve the real-time localization for healthcare of the elderly. The indoor data acquisition and simulation analysis show that this wireless sensor network has the characteristics of easy to construct and high precision localization. This study to promote the elderly healthcare has positive effect.
TimeFloating General MutualExclusion Constraints (TFGMEC)

Inthis paper, wepropose adesign methodology forPetri netcontrollers fortheforbidden state-transition problembytaking intoaccount thetimeconstraints. The aimoftheproposed approach istosolve aForbidden state- transitions timedepending andsocalled TimeFloating GeneralMutualExclusion Constraints. The proposed methodology isbasedontheRamadge-Wonham approach andthetheory ofregions togenerate asetofcontrol places toaddtotheplant Petri netmodel. Thecomplexity ofdiscrete event systems (DES)makes moredifficult therealization ofaneffective andrealistic control device. Inthis paper, bounded Petri netsareused formodelling DES,hereafter also referred toasplants. Foradiscrete modelofaplant andasetofspecifications, thegoal ofcontrol synthesis istodetermine asupervisor represented bya givensetoflegal markings which guarantees thedesired behaviour. Supervisory control allows theavoidance ofasetofforbidden states defined bysomeGeneral Mutual Exclusion Constraints (GMEC) byadding somecontrol places. Consideration of timeis crucial forrealistic characterization ofsystems andhence leads totwotypes ofconcerns: thechecking orvalidation ofcertain temporal specifications, andthecontrol whichrequires temporal specifications. Itistherefore important to integrate timeinthespecifications andsynthesis. Forthis purpose, we introduce anewclass ofGeneral Mutual Exclusion Constraints (GMEC)called TimeFloating General Mutual Exclusion Constraints (TFGMEC), for whichwe propose a solution methodinspired bya supervisor modelled bycontrol places added totheinitial Petri netmodel. This paper isorganized asfollows. Section 2presents the TimeFloating General MutualExclusion Constraints. Section 4iscomprised ofthree subsections. Inthefirst one,we givesometerminology anddefinitions ofthe supervisory control problem. Theory ofregions andthe syntheses methodology arethenintroduced insubsections 3.2and3. 3.
Bronchopneumonia in sheep associated with Providencia stuartii

Bacteria of the genus Providencia are opportunistic pathogens in humans, widely distributed in the environment and associated with greater resistance to antibiotics, and this being uncommon the association with clinical diseases. This study reports the isolation of P. stuartii in two sheep that presented clinical signs of pneumonia. At necropsy there was severe and acute fibrinopurulent bronchopneumonia. Histologically, there were infiltrated neutrophils and fibrin in the alveolar lumen, and the alveolar septa presented multifocal thickening with moderate proliferation of pneumocytes and mononuclear interstitial infiltrate. Providencia sp. was isolated in the microbiological tests of the lung and tracheal secretions. The isolate was subjected to DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the 16SrRNA gene and sequencing of genomic DNA, which demonstrated 100% homology with P. stuartii. This is the first report of the presence of this microorganism as a cause of interstitial and fibrinopurulent bronchopneumonia in sheep. Therefore, it is suggested that epidemiological surveillance strategies should be carried out in animals to better understand their role in the dissemination of this pathogen.
Kicker pulsers for recycler NOVA upgrades

An upgrade of the Recycler injection kicker system required a faster rise time pulser. This system required a field rise and fall time of < 57 ns and a field flattop of 1.6 {\mu}s. This paper describes the variety of improvements made over the years that have resulted in this latest thyratron pulser. The effects of the trigger, the reservoir and the load impedance on delay and rise time will be discussed.