Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Output feedback control of supercapacitors parallel charging system for EV applications: Theoretical design and experimental validation

In this paper, the problem of controlling parallel charging system with supercapacitors for electric vehicle applications is considered. When the vehicle parks at the station, the charging process of supercapacitors needs to be completed in less than 30 seconds. The control objective is then to tightly regulate the supercapacitors state of charge (SOC) to a given reference constant and to ensure an adequate current sharing between different parallel chargers. Indeed, the current sharing is a critical issue for parallel charging system with supercapacitors, which is a nonlinear system with control inputs constraints. Besides, the SOC depends on the supercapacitors internal voltage, which is not accessible for measurement. Therefore, based on a large‐signal model of the parallel‐chargers‐supercapacitors system, an output feedback controller (combining a state observer and a nonlinear control laws) is designed. The controller is formally shown to meet all objectives, namely, closed‐loop stability, SOC reference tracking, and equal current sharing. The effectiveness of the proposed output feedback controller approach is verified both by simulation and by experimental tests.
Nonlinear Optical Signatures of the Transition from Semiconductor to Semimetal in PtSe2

The demand for an ultrabroad optical material with a bandgap tunable from zero to at least 1–2 eV has been one of the driving forces for exploring new 2D materials since the emergence of graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and black phosphorus. As an ultra‐broadband 2D material with energy bandgap ranging from 0 to 1.2 eV, PtSe2 shows much better air stability than its analogue, black phosphorous. In this work, the superior nonlinear optical performance and ultrafast dynamics of layered PtSe2, and signatures of the transition from semiconductor to semimetal are systematically studied. Combining with rate equations, first‐principles calculation, and electrical measurements, a comprehensive understanding about the evolution of nonlinear absorption and carrier dynamics with increasing layer thickness is provided, indicating its promising potential in nanophotonic devices such as infrared detectors, optical switches, and saturable absorbers.
A Blind Baud-rate CDR and Zero-forcing Adaptive DFE for an ADC-based Receiver

This thesis describes two design ideas in the area of ADC-based receivers. The first contribution of thesis is a 10Gb/s blind baud-rate CDR. The blind baudrate operation, which is made possible by using a 2UI integrate-and-dump filter, creates intentional ISI in adjacent bit periods. The blind samples are interpolated to recover center-of-the-eye samples for a speculative Mueller-Muller PD and a 2-tap DFE operation. The 65nm CMOS test chip has a measured high-frequency jitter tolerance of 0.19UIPP at ±300ppm of frequency offset. The second contribution of this thesis is a digital zero-forcing adaptive DFE. The DFE coefficients are calculated by correlating data samples with the recovered bits. Simulations show that the adaptive taps converge to the ISI values on the pulse response of the data signal. The CDR and adaptive 2-tap DFE have a high-frequency jitter tolerance of 0.28UIPP when simulated at 10Gb/s with an 8” FR4 channel.
IMAGE AND VIDEO COLORIZATION

: Image and Video colorization is the process of assigning realistic, plausible colors to a gray-scale image/video. Image colorization is simpler than video colorization. In the LAB color scheme, ‘L’ represent luminance, ‘a’ and ’b’ represents green-red and blue-yellow color components. For Image colorization, we used CNN to build a model which will take a grayscale image as an input and extract the ‘L’ channel from it, and using it to predict the corresponding ‘ab’ value. For Video Colorization, this whole method is used for each frame and then combine to get a colorized video. The only problem in Video Colorization is stuttering while combining the frames, we tried to overcome as much as we can.
Computer Human Interaction: A Blessing or Curse for Ghanaian Youth?

Information and Communication Technology ICT and Traditional African Religion TAR (Voodoo/Vodou) promote the integration of socio-cultural, political and economic system of the people in Africa. However, the youth, (Sakawa Boys) merge technology with religion to commit internet fraud. Sakawa is the use of evil occult powers to commit internet fraud by possessing the mind of the foreign cyber target. These Sakawa boys manipulate vodou powers by performing certain frightening rituals for spiritual empowerment before logging into the internet. This has brought different changes to the socio-cultural and ideological bases of Ghanaians. This study reviewed literature on the causal factors, their modus operandi and the consequences of technology human interaction in Ghana. The Internet and Vodou rituals are found to be the major driving force for Sakawa boys to practice their trade. The consequences of the activities of these boys included infertility, mental illness, sickness or death for the perpetrators and the victims of their ritual sacrifices. Based on traditional ethos, this has transformed the preferences and social values of the youth in Ghana.
A High-efficiency FPGA-based Accelerator for Convolutional Neural Networks using Winograd Algorithm

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used in many computer vision applications. Previous FPGA implementations of CNNs are mainly based on the conventional convolutional algorithm. However, the high arithmetic complexity of conventional convolution algorithm for CNNs restricts the performance of accelerators and significantly increases the challenges of design. It has been proved that the Winograd algorithm for CNNs can effectively reduce the computational complexity. Although a few FPGA approaches based on the Winograd algorithm have been implemented, their works are lake of evaluation on the performance for different tile sizes of the Winograd algorithm. In this work, we focus on exploring the possibility of using the Winograd algorithm to accelerate CNNs on FPGA. First, we propose an accelerator architecture applying to both convolutional layers and fully connected layers. Second, we use high level synthesis tool to expediently implement our design. Finally, we evaluate our accelerator with different tile sizes in terms of resource utilization, performance and efficiency. On VUS440 platform, we achieve an average 943 GOPS for overall VGG16 under low resource utilization, which reaches higher efficiency than the state-of-the-art works on FPGAs.
Feedback Control Design for MARLO, a 3D-Bipedal Robot.

Feedback Control Design for MARLO, a 3D-Bipedal Robot by Alireza Ramezani Chair: Professor Jessy W. Grizzle This work develops feedback controllers for bipedal walking in 3D on level ground, both in simulation and experimentally. MARLO is a new robot that has been designed for the study of 3D-bipedal locomotion, with the aim of combining energy efficiency, speed, and robustness with respect to natural terrain variations in a single platform. The robot is highly underactuated, having six actuators and, in single support, 13 degrees of freedom. Its sagittal plane dynamics are designed to embody the spring loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP), which has been shown to provide a dynamic model of the body center of mass during steady running gaits in a wide diversity of terrestrial animals. A detailed dynamic model is used to optimize walking gaits with respect to the cost of mechanical transport (cmt), a dimensionless measure of energetic efficiency. A feedback controller is designed that balances the robot during the quiet standing mode, and another feedback policy is developed such that the robot can take a transition step from quiet standing to walking. A feedback controller is designed that stabilizes steady-state 3D walking gaits, despite the high degree of underactuation of the robot. These controllers are combined through a state machine that handles switching among the three controllers controllers. In experiments on planarized
Breast tumor detection using empirical mode decomposition features

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide. Microwave-based breast cancer detection has attracted increasing attention over the past two decades. Rather than recovering the image of the breast area and accurately determining the tumor location, machine-learningbased algorithms concentrate on detecting the existence of a tumor. Feature extraction is a key step in machine learning, and this step strongly impacts the final detection accuracy. Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most widely used feature extraction methods; however, PCA is negatively impacted by signal misalignment. This paper presents an empirical mode decomposition (EMD)-based feature extraction method that is more robust to signal misalignment. The statistical features are extracted from the decomposed subbands of the original signal. The experimental results obtained from clinical data indicate that the detection accuracy is improved by the combination of features from EMD and PCA.
Spatial trajectory tracking control for unmanned airships based on active disturbance rejection control

In this paper, to address the spatial trajectory tracking problem of unmanned airships, a robust controller based on active disturbance rejection control is presented. By transforming the airship model to a standardized form, a straightforward design approach is adopted for the design of the controller. Active disturbance rejection control is composed of a tracking differentiator, an extended state observer, and a nonlinear state error feedback. The proposed controller replaces the conventional tracking differentiator with a third-order differentiator. The new tracking differentiator provides higher tracking precision and smoother transient process. The external disturbances and model uncertainties are observed by the extended state observer and compensated in the controller design, subsequently. Comparisons with technologies frequently used in the trajectory tracking are made through numerical simulation. The comparisons validate that the proposed controller provides satisfying performance and robustness in the presence of model uncertainty and external disturbance.
Critical Care Nurses’ Experiences With Death and Dying: A South African Perspective

The aim of this study was to explore experiences of South African critical care nurses regarding grief, death and dying in a critical care environment. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and was analyzed using Giorgi’s thematic data analysis method. Available literature suggests that critical care nurses have varied experiences in relation to their experiences in relation to end-of -life patient care. However, few studies have examined the involvement of South African intensive care nurses’ in caring for the dying patient, their grief, their reactions to death in the workplace and the extent to which their nursing practice is based on shared beliefs, experiences and attitudes. Findings from this study revealed many predisposing factors and circumstantial occurrences shaping both, the nature of care of the dying and subsequent grief that, affected the nurse. Repeated exposure to grief, leads to occupational stress and burn out, causing emotional disengagement from caring for the dying, which ultimately affect the quality of care rendered for both the dying patient and their family. Issues, such as communication, multicultural diversity, education and coping mechanisms are essential in nursing education and practice and nurses caring for the critically ill or dying patient, need to have support networks and strategies put in place, not only to assist in providing care, but also for their own emotional support and well-being.
Describing Paris: Automated 3D Scene Analysis via Distinctive Low-Level Geometric Features

The automated analysis of 3D point clouds has become a topic of great importance in photogrammetry, remote sensing, computer vision and robotics. One avenue of research directly addresses the analysis of urban environments, where recent investigations focus on 3D reconstruction [18, 33, 13], consolidation of imperfect scan data [32, 5], object detection [24, 28, 4], extraction of roads and curbstones or road markings [2, 34, 9], urban accessibility analysis [25], recognition of powerline objects [12], extraction of building structures [27], vegetation mapping [31], large-scale city modeling [14], semantic perception for ground robotics [10] and semantization of complex 3D scenes [1]. A common task for many of these different applications consists of point cloud classification [11, 19], where each 3D point is assigned a specific class label. Addressing the issue of urban point cloud classification – where the spatial 3D data may be collected via airborne, terrestrial and/or mobile laser scanning – we face a variety of challenges arising from the complexity of respective 3D scenes caused by an irregular sampling and very different types of objects. Since the results of urban 3D scene analysis may vary from one dataset to another, publicly available standard datasets are desirable in order to compare the performance of different methodologies. Consequently, there has been a steadily increasing avail-
Determinants of Mental Illness Among Humanitarian Migrants: Longitudinal Analysis of Findings From the First Three Waves of a Large Cohort Study

Background: As refugee numbers grow worldwide, understanding prevalence and determinants of mental illness in this population becomes increasingly important. Methods: We used longitudinal data to examine the initial years of resettlement in Australian refugees with a focus on ethnic-like social support. Three annual waves from a longitudinal, nationally representative cohort of 2,399 humanitarian migrants recently resettled in Australia were examined for two mental illness outcomes: post-traumatic stress disorder indicated by positive PTSD-8 screen and “high risk of severe mental illness” (HR-SMI) by Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) ≥19. Generalized linear mixed models examined demographic and resettlement factors. Findings: Contrary to predictions, high prevalence of positive screens for mental illness persisted over 3 years. At baseline, 30.3% (95% CI, 28.5–32.2) screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 15.4% (95% CI, 14.0–16.9) had HR-SMI. Over the 3 years, 52.2% met screening criteria for mental illness. PTSD was associated with older age, females, Middle Eastern birthplace, increasing traumatic events, more financial hardships, having a chronic health condition, and poor self-rated health. HR-SMI was associated with females, Middle Eastern birthplace, unstable housing, more financial hardships, having a chronic health condition, poor self-rated health, and discrimination. Also contrary to predictions, like-ethnic social support was positively associated with PTSD (OR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.10–2.09). Interpretation: There is high prevalence of positive screens for mental illness throughout initial years of resettlement for refugees migrating to Australia. Our unexpected finding regarding like-ethnic social support raises future avenues for research. Predictors of mental illness in the post-migration context represent tangible opportunities for intervention and are likely relevant to similar resettlement settings globally.
Out at work: The relation of actor and partner workplace policy and internalized homophobia to disclosure status

Those who identify as gay male or lesbian must make decisions about whether to disclose their sexual orientation in work environments that may be discriminatory. As part of a larger Web-based survey of love, work, and health in gay male and lesbian couples, the authors examined the predictors of individuals' workplace disclosure status in 118 couples. Findings indicated that, at the individual level, having a workplace nondiscrimination policy and less internalized homophobia were positively associated with the extent to which an individual was out at work. Beyond these individual effects, an individual's disclosure status at work was also positively associated with her or his partner having a workplace nondiscrimination policy and less internalized homophobia. The implications for counseling and for wider interventions at the policy level are discussed.
Implementation intentions as a predictor of applicant withdrawal

ABSTRACT Despite withdrawal from the job application being a serious concern for organizations, limited research exists that examines this phenomenon. Utilizing the broad intention-behavior framework as suggested in the Theory of Planned Behavior, we examined whether the type of intentions formed when applying for a job (i.e., goal vs. implementation intentions) predicts later withdrawal from the job application. Using a field experimental strategy, half of the applicants in a large applicant pool (N = 5,346) were randomly made to form implementation intentions. It was found that forming implementation intentions was indeed effective in reducing applicant withdrawal, albeit with a small effect size. Theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed.
MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN MADRASAH DINIYAH AS PREVENTION OF RELIGIOUS CONSERVATISM

This article is written to give an overview of the conceptual view of Multicultural Education in Madrasah Diniyah (Islamic Primary School) as a Prevention of Religious Conservatism. This paradigm is based on issue anxiety which often assumes that Islamic education as an agent of change has not revealed its function to change moderate and tolerant religious perspectives. The model offered is planting the values of multicultural education in theMadrasah Diniyah. The existence of Madrasah Diniyah as a non-formal Islamic education institution, both those in the boarding school environment and those that stand independently, has played a large role in engendering to Muslim intellectuals through education and teaching that have given starting from the basic level to the upper levels of religious understanding.
Harm Reduction, Stigma and the Problem of Low Compassion Satisfaction:

Background & Objective: Canada is in the midst of an opioid crisis. Given the sheer magnitude of the crisis and escalating death toll, the mobilization of harm reduction interventions is an important priority. Currently, little is known about the role played by stigmatization, particularly in terms of how this may impact the endorsement and uptake of harm reduction strategies and initiatives among front-line providers. Materials & Methods: Opening Minds, the anti-stigma initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, undertook a one-and-a-half-year research project to understand the qualities, characteristics, sources, consequences, and solutions to the problem of stigmatization on the front-lines of the opioid crisis. A qualitative key informant design was selected. Participants included various first responder and health provider groups, people with lived experience of opioid or other drug use, and people in key policy or programming roles. Eight focus groups were held across Canada, and 15 one-on-one key informant interviews were completed. Results: Analysis of focus group and key informant interviews revealed three main ways in which stigma shows up on the front lines of the opioid crisis among providers. These themes coalesced around a central main problem, that of low compassion satisfaction. Suggestions for how these concerns can be addressed were also identified. Conclusion: The findings from this research revealed several key ways that stigma ‘shows up’ in the experiences and perceptions of front-line providers and provide several promising avenues for combatting stigmatization related to opioid use and harm reduction. An important avenue for future research is to develop and elaborate on the theoretical connections between the concepts of stigmatization and compassion satisfaction as a way to better understanding the problem of stigmatization in helping environments.
How do young people with special educational needs experience the transition from school to further education? a review of literature

ABSTRACT Participation rates are low in further education (FE). In attempts to increase participation for disadvantaged young people (YP), government initiatives, such as raising the participation age to 18, A Level reform, enhancing the quality of apprenticeships and work-based learning and placing emphasis on English and Maths qualifications have, been employed. Additionally, The Department for Education (DfE) has committed to supporting young people in their transition from school to FE, emphasising the link between transition experiences and retention. In this literature review, we aim to answer the broad research question above.Drawing on literature searches across relevant databases, and hand and citation searches, a meta-ethnography using six relevant articles led to construction of a line of argument. Four overarching themes (each with sub-themes) were constructed: a new social world – new beginnings and peer relationships; motivation – feeling valued, motivation to progress and aspirations; challenges – uncertainty and adjusting to change; support – expectations of support and teacher support. These themes appear to be important to YP in their transition and they are mediated through development of relationships with others and with the environment. The themes are situated within psychological theory and policy literature, in particular, the Preparing for Adulthood (PfA) Framework.
Super multi-view augmented reality glasses

Nowadays, the main directions of augmented reality (AR) glasses development are: increasing of field of view (FoV) and eye-motion box; reducing weight of AR glasses; solving vergence-accomodation conflict. All these requirements should be obtained and combined with high image quality and decreasing dimensions of AR Glasses. We propose the optical system of AR glasses based on Schmidt Camera scheme for achievement of wide FoV and eye-motion box, and with using of Super Multi-View (SMV) technique for providing multifocal system. Provided optical design has huge benefits: eye motion box about 10 mm and field of view 60° and represents lightweight, eye fatigue free solution with low aberrations. Finally, our system has high opportunities for further modifications and improvements by using different image sources and projection system.
Analyzed Selfie: Stereotype Enactment, Projection, and Identification Among Digitally Native Black Girls

Abstract This article explores identity development among adolescent Black girls in the context of digitized social media environments. In the age of Web 2.0 technology, Black girls are able to project their image and verbiage to articulate self. In this conceptual article, the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST) framework is used to understand the identity development of intersecting racial and gender identities among Black adolescent girls. This process of identity development is deemed in relation to and through enactment of sociocultural narratives (stereotypes) of a pending Black womanhood. We consider the psychological implications for mental health and wellness for identity development among digitally native Black adolescent girls, as it occurs publicly and against the backdrop of the constant, dynamic, and interactive social and consumptive media. Implications for clinical work to guide psychological intervention with adolescent digitally native Black girls will be presented.