Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A DUAL-BAND PLANAR QUASI YAGI-UDA ANTENNA WITH OPTIMIZED GAIN FOR LTE APPLICATIONS

A printed Yagi-Uda antenna with two closely-spaced driven dipole elements and truncated ground plane is presented for dual-band operation. It is designed on a low-cost FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant 4.6, loss tangent of 0.02, and thickness of 1.6 mm. The dipole, operating in the lower band (centered at 1.8 GHz), is elliptical-bow-tie in shape with rounded edges, whereas a J-shaped dipole enables its operation in the upper band (centered at 2.6 GHz). A trapezoid-shaped director is employed to achieve maximum gain over the required frequency bands. Measurements indicate that the antenna operates from 1.71 to 1.9 GHz and from 2.5 to 2.7 GHz with |S11| < −10 dB. The behavior of the proposed antenna has been investigated by studying different parameters to achieve the maximum gains of 6 and 7.7 dB in LTE band 3 and band 7, respectively, with optimal size. It is found that the experimental results of the final packaged antenna agree with the simulated ones in terms of reflection coefficients, gain, and radiation patterns.
Helping shy employees with career success: The impact of organizational socialization

As shy people have been reported to experience interpersonal and professional difficulties at work, this study examined the extent to which shy employees have lower perceptions of their career success and whether organizational socialization could favorably moderate the relationship between shyness and subjective career success. Questionnaires containing personality and socialization measures were given to 375 full-time employees. Confirming the hypotheses, t-test results revealed that shy (compared to non-shy) employees scored significantly lower on Subjective Career Success, Self-Confidence, and Emotional Intelligence; while scoring significantly higher on work-related Emotional Exhaustion. Regressions revealed that the four facets of organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) all had significant moderating effects that yielded increases in the levels of Subjective Career Success for the shy employees. Implications for management are discussed.
Counterinsurgency Policy in Phase IV of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was launched on 20 March 2003 to move the regime of Saddam and help Iraqi people to rebuild allegedly new Iraq. The outcomes of the operations show us that plans and preparations were done in a hasty mood with a lack of contingency plans. The role given to civilian agencies to work with new Baghdad regime in the post war era weren’t implemented successfully. The post war period’s desired endstates weren’t achieved as were planned theoretically. What were the assumptions of CENTCOM before the OPLAN 1003? On which bases did the counterinsurgency policy rely on? What was the reaction of Iraqi people against OIF army? How does this policy effect the desired endstate? The aim of this article is to reply the mentioned questions above. This paper seeks to show the weaknesses of counterinsurgency policy pursed in OIF and the measures taken in wake of the failure. Finally the lessons learnt are depicted and suggestions are given. Keywords- Counterinsurgency; Iraq; Operation Iraqi Freedom; OPLAN 1003, Policy.
Adaptive efficiency optimization for digitally controlled DC -DC converters

The design optimization of DC-DC converters requires the optimum selection of several parameters to achieve improved efficiency and performance. Some of these parameters are load dependent, line dependent, components dependent, and/or temperature dependent. Designing such parameters for a specific load, input and output, components, and temperature may improve single design point efficiency but will not result in maximum efficiency at different conditions, and will not guarantee improvement at that design point because of the components, temperature, and operating point variations. The ability of digital controllers to perform sophisticated algorithms makes it easy to apply adaptive control, where system parameters can be adaptively adjusted in response to system behavior in order to achieve better performance and stability. The use of adaptive control for power electronics is first applied with the Adaptive Frequency Optimization (AFO) method, which presents an auto-tuning adaptive digital controller with maximum efficiency point tracking to optimize DC-DC converter switching frequency. The AFO controller adjusts the DC-DC converter switching frequency while tracking the converter minimum input power point, under variable operating conditions, to find the optimum switching frequency that will result in minimum total loss and thus the maximum efficiency. Implementing variable switching frequencies in digital controllers introduces two main issues, namely, limit cycle oscillation and system instability. Dynamic Limit Cycle iii Algorithms (DLCA) is a dynamic technique tailored to improve system stability and to reduce limit cycle oscillation under variable switching frequency operation. The convergence speed and stability of AFO algorithm is further improved by presenting the analysis and design of a digital controller with adaptive auto-tuning algorithm that has a variable step size to track and detect the optimum switching frequency for a DC-DC converter. The Variable-Step-Size (VSS) algorithm is theoretically analyzed and developed based on buck DC-DC converter loss model and directed towered improving the convergence speed and accuracy of AFO adaptive loop by adjusting the converter switching frequency with variable step size. Finally, the efficiency of DC-DC converters is a function of several variables. Optimizing single variable alone may not result in maximum or global efficiency point. The issue of adjusting more than one variable at the same time is addressed by the Multivariable Adaptive digital Controller (MVAC). The MVAC is an adaptive method that continuously adjusts the DC-DC converter switching frequency and dead-time at the same time, while tracking the converter minimum input power, to find the maximum global efficiency point under variable conditions. In this research work, all adaptive methods were discussed, theoretically analyzed and its digital control algorithm along with experimental implementations were presented.
Implementing a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Workshop at Aga Khan University: reflections on the implementation and outcomes of an Instructional Skills Workshop in the context of Pakistan

The Teaching and Learning Enhancement Workshop (TLEW) is an indigenous name for the Canadian-based Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW). TLEW is a teaching development workshop aimed at enhancing faculty members’ stances towards student-centred teaching and reflective practice at the higher education level. This short paper discusses the initiation, implementation and institutionalisation of the TLEW at Aga Khan University (AKU) across entities in Asia and Africa. In total, 77 faculty members drawn from different entities of AKU participated in the workshop in 2016-2017. Empirical evidence collected from TLEW graduates through a survey and interviews suggests that the intense episode of planning, teaching and receiving peer feedback during TLEW helped participants in sensitising them to effective planning for teaching in order to engage and enrich students’ learning. Furthermore, the repertoire of pedagogical strategies has permeated graduates’ classrooms. Nevertheless, for sustainability a mechanism needs to be in place for providing faculty with institutional support and recognition for their contribution in teaching and learning. A need is advocated for TLEW to evolve as a mandatory component for all teaching staff at the university to help serve as a fundamental base for initiating and sustaining change through ongoing professional development opportunities and establishing a community of practice. How to cite this reflective piece: RODRIGUES, Sherwin; BHUTTA, Sadia Muzaffar; SALIM, Zeenar; CHAUHAN, Sahreen; RIZVI, Naghma. Implementing a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Workshop at Aga Khan University: reflections on the implementation and outcomes of an Instructional Skills Workshop in the context of Pakistan. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 1, p. 100-110, Apr. 2019. Available at: https://sotl-south-journal.net/? journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=78&path%5B%5D=42 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Characterizing and Optimizing Irregular Applications on Graphics Processing Units

In recent years, GPGPUs have experienced tremendous growth as general-purpose and high-throughput computing devices. Applications from various domains achieve significant speedups using GPGPUs. However, irregular applications do not perform well due to the mismatches between irregular problem structures and SIMD-like GPU architectures. The lack of in-depth characterization and quantifying the ways in which irregular applications differ from regular ones on GPGPUs has prevented users from effectively making use of the hardware resource. To characterize the performance aspects and analyze the bottlenecks, a suite of representative irregular applications are examined on a cycle-accurate GPU simulator as well as a real GPU. The experimental results identify control-flow divergences,
Extraction of Visual Landmarks Using Improved Feature Matching Technique for Stereo Vision Applications

Abstract Stereo vision is becoming more and more common in three-dimensional visualization, autonomous vehicle navigation, path finding, object recognition, and other computer vision applications. In this paper, we present an approach for extracting visual landmarks from images acquired by a stereoscopic camera. The scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) technique with self-organizing map is used to detect and recognize visual landmarks. Our methodology is based on winner calculation technique, and the main idea is to keep in the database only distinctive features or landmarks in order to minimize detection time. We will demonstrate that this methodology is more efficient than ordinary SIFT algorithm or speeded up robust features (SURF) matching technique. Improved feature group matching with computation time better than SIFT and the SURF has been observed in the experiments with a variety of stereo image pairs.
Delay characteristics and sound quality of digital waveguide model by spatial sampling

The movement of wave can be interpreted by time or space in digital waveguide model that is commonly used as a sound synthesis model. Time based models are generally used because of the sound sample is based on a time interval. We tried to model the string of the string instrument by the spatial sampling. And we appended the body model of string instrument to the space based waveguides model. In that manner, we could improve the synthesized sound quality and added the additional parameters which control the tone color. In this thesis, we discuss the fractional delay error that arises from the string and body in space based sampling and we showed the method to handle the fractional delay using FD filter. And we explained the change of synthesized sound by number of delays.
Visualizations to Facilitate Online Tabular Presentation of Product Data

In a growing number of domains, users are presented with huge volumes of data that they are required to parse in order to accomplish their goals. Interface designers are experimenting with a variety of design manipulations to facilitate user's identification and analysis of these data. Many domains present information in grids, such as the side-by-side comparison of products prevalent at many e-commerce web sites. Further assistance can be provided by using color-coding, ranking systems and other visualization techniques. This study investigates the use of color-coding and ranking on tasks that require either focused or integrative analysis of tabular data. The results show that each provides some benefit, but color-coding is superior. The presence of both manipulations degrades performance, suggesting some degree of information overload. Furthermore, despite the prevalence of these techniques, instructions that explained how they were relevant to the task were necessary to achieve the performance improvement. The implications of these results are discussed.
HANDOFF BASED SECURE CHECKPOINTING AND LOG BASED ROLLBACK RECOVERY FOR MOBILE HOSTS

An efficient fault tolerant algorithm based on movement-based secure checkpointing and logging for mobile computing system is proposed here. The recovery scheme proposed here combines independent checkpointing and message logging. Here we consider mobility rate of the user in checkpointing so that mobile host can manage recovery information such as checkpoints and logs properly so that a mobile host takes less recovery time after failure. Mobile hosts save checkpoints when number of hand-off exceeds a predefined hand-off threshold value. Current approaches save logs in base station. But this approach maximizes recovery time if message passing frequency is large. If a mobile host saves log in its own memory, recovery cost will be less because log retrieval time will be small after failure. But there is a probability of memory crash of a mobile host. In that case logs can not be retrieved if it is saved only in mobile node. If the failure is transient then logs can be retrieved from the memory of mobile node. Hence in this algorithm mobile hosts also save log in own memory and base station. In case of crash recovery, log will be retrieved from base station and in case of transient failure recovery logs will be retrieved from mobile host. In this algorithm recovery probability is optimized and total recovery time is reduced in comparison to existing works. Logs are very small in size. Hence saving logs in mobile hosts does not cause much memory overhead. Hand-off threshold is a function of mobility rate, message passing frequency and failure rate of mobile hosts. This algorithm describes a secure checkpointing technique as a method for providing fault tolerance while preventing information leakage through the checkpoint data.
An Efficient Search Method for Human Movement in Video Steam

The motion information in video clip often plays an important role in characterizing the contents of the clip. Therefore a lot of methods have been proposed to analyze and retrieve video contents using the motion information. In this paper, a novel shape-based movement matching algorithm to search the human movement in video streams is presented. The movement information is first represented a sequence of 2D shape of the human extracted from input video frames, and then 2D shape information is converted 1D shape feature using the shape descriptor. Human movement in video can be searched using the sequence of shape feature as searching a word in a text. The experimental result shows that proposed method is simple and effective to describe the human movement and can be applicable to movement retrieval applications.
A new segmentation technique of Arabic text

Character recognition has attracted an immense research interest. Hand printed Latin text and printed Arabic text are cursive script. One of the difficulties involved in processing such text is the segmentation of the text into distinct characters. Thereafter, the recognition of these characters. The paper proposes a new segmentation technique for Arabic text. <<ETX>>
Benchmarking Graph Database Backends - What Works Well with Wikidata?

Knowledge bases often utilize graphs as logical model. RDF-based knowledge bases (KB) are prime examples, as RDF (Resource Description Framework) does use graph as logical model. Graph databases are an emerging breed of NoSQL-type databases, offering graph as the logical model. Although there are specialized databases, the so-called triple stores, for storing RDF data, graph databases can also be promising candidates for storing knowledge. In this paper, we benchmark different graph database implementations loaded with Wikidata, a real-life, large-scale knowledge base. Graph databases come in all shapes and sizes, offer different APIs and graph models. Hence we used a measurement system, that can abstract away the API differences. For the modeling aspect, we made measurements with different graph encodings previously suggested in the literature, in order to observe the impact of the encoding aspect on the overall performance.
User centered gesture development for smart lighting

The aim of this study is to investigate hand gesture expression and to understand it when controlling smart lighting system. The technology development has brought us the smart device which we can control multifunction of one or more systems. In order to fully utilize the functions, however, we need Natural User Interface (NUI) and intuitive control hand gesture. Therefore we conducted an experiment of hand gesture expression on 20 subjects to investigate and identify what kinds of hand gestures can be used to control the smart lighting system. The results identify categorization of hand gestures into three types. Also, differences between the gesture types were identified. In addition, the use of hand such as dominant hand and both hands affect the capability of people to express the hand gesture. This preliminary study can identify many important issues regarding hand gesture based interface for the smart lighting system. It can be further improved by verifications with consideration of context of use, preference test of hand, application of different devices or systems, and gesture evaluation.
To share or not to share: a behavioral perspective on human participation in security information sharing

Security information sharing (SIS) is an activity whereby individuals exchange information that is relevant to analyze or prevent cybersecurity incidents. However, despite technological advances and increased regulatory pressure, individuals still seem reluctant to share security information. Few contributions have addressed this conundrum to date. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, our study proposes a behavioral framework that theorizes how and why human behavior and SIS may be associated. We use psychometric methods to test these associations, analyzing a unique sample of human Information Sharing and Analysis Center members who share real security information. We also provide a dual empirical operationalization of SIS by introducing the measures of SIS frequency and intensity. We find significant associations between human behavior and SIS. Thus, the study contributes to clarifying why SIS, while beneficial, is underutilized by pointing to the pivotal role of human behavior for economic outcomes. It therefore extends the growing field of the economics of information security. By the same token, it informs managers and regulators about the significance of human behavior as they propagate goal alignment and shape institutions. Finally, the study defines a broad agenda for future research on SIS.
Multi - Class Active Learning to Classify and Map Ecological Zones across the Dune - Beach Interface

: The main goal of Active Learning (AL), is to empower the learning process by reducing the cost of obtaining the labels with a limited training samples and by selecting the most informative samples from the unlabelled set. AL was implemented to solve a wide range of problems in all fields [1]. In this paper, we will go forward to utilize a multi-class active learning model over an ecological zones dataset in order to classify the dune-beach interface to a divided sub-environments category. Pool, ranked & stream-based sampling were used as an active learning frames where three query strategies were tested with each frame to achieve the best performance. The performance metrics values would be illustrated in three different comparative statements, in term of different framework implemented by different query strategies, in term of incremental learning process behaviour in a pool-based sampling frame work by selecting 20 different query quires from the unlabelled set to present the incremental learning process behaviour with each query strategy (random, entropy & margin) and finally in term of incremental learning process behaviour above a three different AL frame works and three different query strategies in term of accuracy metric.
Emma's mathematical thinking, problem solving and affect

This paper aims to understand one pupil's mathematical thinking through problem solving and mathematics related affect. The results reveal a successful, though quite unsure, problem solver whose affective state (connected to problem solving) seems to tell the same story as her affective trait (view of mathematics). The differences between results on affective state and trait seem to be connected mostly to emotions.
POTENTIAL GEOLOGIC ISSUES OF VON KÁRMÁN CRATER REVEALED BY MULTISOURCE REMOTE SENSING DATA

Abstract. Von Kármán crater is the landing area for CE-4 mission, which provides a chance to further study the evolution of South-Pole Aitken basin. In this paper, the topography, composition, temperature and deep structures of Von Kármán crater are systematically studied with LRO LOLA data, Clementine UV-VIS data, CE-2 CELMS data, and GRAIL data. Several potential geologic issues are postulated as follows: (1) There exists a difference for the southern and northern parts of the crater floor in topography. The surface topography is influenced by Leibnitz and Finsen events. (2) There exists an FTA-rich material in depth layer of the crater floor, and the later bombardments exposed the original material in the crater floor. And the material in depth is homogeneous. (3) The composition apparently changes with depth, and there exist a warm anomaly in the northern part of the crater floor and a cold anomaly in the southern part. (4) A large amount of magma has been uplifted after Von Kármán M impact event, and the crust has been melted several times and condensed into dense basalt layer. Generally, this is a good place to measure the material from the original SPA basin and the material from the depth layer of the Moon for the CE-4 landing site.
Basestation modulation diversity for digital simulcast

A base station modulation diversity scheme is proposed for simulcast systems which use linear QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) type modulation. With this method the bandwidth efficiency is fully preserved because each base station uses the same base pulse. Modulation diversity is achieved by filtering the input symbols with a symbol-spaced finite impulse response (FIR) filter prior to QAM modulation. The tap weights of the FIR filters at different base stations are different. They are chosen such that a necessary condition for optimum diversity gain in time-selective fading is satisfied. Examples for simulcast with two base stations are given. They demonstrate the impact of the choice of tap weights on the energy efficiency, the system complexity, and the performance in the presence of a propagation delay difference between the signals of different base stations. <<ETX>>
A general Approach to find Non-Zero Multiplier Weights in DEA

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models can be stated as two mutually dual linear programs referred to as the envelopment and multiplier models. The multiplier models are stated in terms of variable input and output weights (multipliers). Zero multiplier weight for an input or output causes efficient problems in multiplier model. This paper concentrates on a previously proposed DEA model developed by Wang and Chin (2010) and later improved by Wang et al. (2011) to find non-zero multi-plier weights. We will show that these models reveal shortcoming for certain classes of DMUs. In addition, we propose a general developed model to find a maximal element for a multiplier DEA model.