Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of switch angles on second‐order current harmonic and resonance in switched reluctance motors

This study investigates the origin of resonance in switched reluctance motor (SRM). It has been found that the second-order harmonic component of phase current is one of the major origins, which may cause resonance when its frequency multiplied by three caused by three phases coincides with natural frequency. It has also been demonstrated that there is a natural-frequency-centred band, saying that as long as the excitation frequency or its harmonics locates in the band, resonance will be excited. Accordingly, influence of critical parameters such as turn-on and turn-off angles on second-order current harmonic and corresponding vibration caused by resonance have been fully studied. Based on the study, optimal switch angles can be used to reduce second-order current harmonic, and thus to reduce vibration and noise caused by resonance. Both simulation and experimental results show that resonance can be effectively reduced by selection of optimal switch angles.
The Mu3e Tile Detector

The Mu3e experiment is designed to search for the lepton flavour violating decay μ→eee with a sensitivity of one in 10^16 decays. An observation of such a decay would be a clear sign of physics beyond the Standard Model. Achieving the targeted sensitivity requires a high precision detector with excellent momentum, vertex and time resolution. The Mu3e Tile Detector is a highly granular sub-detector system based on scintillator tiles with Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) readout, and aims at measuring the timing of the muon decay products with a resolution of better than 100 ps. This thesis describes the development of the Tile Detector concept and demonstrates the feasibility of the elaborated design. In this context, a comprehensive simulation framework has been developed, in order to study and optimise the detector performance. The central component of this framework is a detailed simulation of the SiPM response. The simulation model has been validated in several measurements and shows good agreement with the data. Furthermore, a 16-channel prototype of a Tile Detector module has been constructed and operated in an electron beam. In the beam tests, a time resolution up to 56 ps has been achieved, which surpasses the design goal. The simulation and measurement results demonstrate the feasibility of the developed Tile Detector design and show that the required detector performance can be achieved.
Heat conduction model for the calculation of the volume of molten metal in electric discharges

The craters obtained by electric sparks in electro-discharge machining are numerically calculated by use of a thermal model. The computational procedure is based on the exact solution of the related two-dimensional transient heat conduction problem in a finite or semi-infinite body subjected to a stepwise or time-dependent uniform heat flux over a small circular part of its upper surface. Optimal geometrical conditions, relative to a fast convergence and negligible influence of the boundaries, are demonstrated. By superposition of rectangular heat flux pulses over circular parts with different diameters, the influence of the channel widening can be investigated. It is shown that a theoretical model should include the possibility of accounting for the plasma channel widening in order to obtain acceptable agreement with experimental data or to predict the optimal operating conditions.
Dose optimization of proton and heavy ion therapy using generalized sampled pattern matching

We have proposed a new dose optimization method for proton and heavy ion therapy using generalized sampled pattern matching, where an optimal beam weight distribution for scanning is obtained as a solution. Using water phantom models, one-dimensional lateral and depth dose distributions were separately optimized, each resulting in a uniform dose distribution within a target region and minimum dose fall-off to minimize undesired irradiation onto neighbouring tissues. Subsequently, we have applied the technique to broad beam three-dimensional proton therapy, leading to a homogeneous dose distribution inside a target and minimized distal and lateral dose fall-off for most convex tumour shapes.
Infrared interference patterns for new capabilities in laser end point detection

Standard laser interferometry is used in dry etch fabrication of semiconductor and MEMS devices to measure etch depth, rate and to detect the process end point. However, many wafer materials, such as silicon are absorbing at probing wavelengths in the visible, severely limiting the amount of information that can be obtained using this technique. At infrared (IR) wavelengths around 1500 nm and above, silicon is highly transparent. In this paper we describe an instrument that can be used to monitor etch depth throughout a thru-wafer etch. The provision of this information could eliminate the requirement of an `etch stop' layer and improve the performance of fabricated devices. We have added a further new capability by using tuneable lasers to scan through wavelengths in the near IR to generate an interference pattern. Fitting a theoretical curve to this interference pattern gives in situ measurement of film thickness. Whereas conventional interferometry would only allow etch depth to be monitored in real time, we can use a pre-etch thickness measurement to terminate the etch on a remaining thickness of film material. This paper discusses the capabilities of, and the opportunities offered by, this new technique and gives examples of applications in MEMS and waveguides.
Quasi-1D Bose-Einstein condensates in the dimensional crossover regime

We study theoretically the dimensional crossover from a three-dimensional elongated condensate to a one-dimensional condensate as the transverse degrees of freedom get frozen by tight confinement, in the limit of small density fluctuations, i.e. for a strongly degenerate gas. We compute analytically the radially integrated density profile at low temperatures using a local density approximation, and study the behavior of phase fluctuations with the transverse confinement. Previous studies of phase fluctuations in trapped gases have either focused on the 3D elongated regimes or on the 1D regime. The present approach recovers these previous results and is able to interpolate between them. We show in particular that in this strongly degenerate limit the shape of the spatial correlation function is insensitive to the transverse regime of confinement, pointing out to an almost universal behavior of phase fluctuations in elongated traps.
The Project Manager/Functional Manager Partnership

Project Management Journal 7 The collaborative relationship between functional managers (FMs) and project and program managers (PMs) is critical to effective project performance and to the well-being of any organization. This paper defines PM and FM roles, discusses issues regarding FM/PM relations, and offers recommendations that promote collaborative relationships aimed at furthering the organization’s success. There is no cookbook approach—PMs, FMs, and their management must creatively adapt project management ideas and practices to their situations. The principle issues addressed are these: stabilizing project resources, functional manager involvement in planning, project manager authority, accountability, custodianship vs. ownership of functional resources, and the functional manager’s role in project performance and direction.
Traffic Peak Period Detection from an Image Processing View

Traffic peak period detection is very important for the guidance and control of traffic flow. Most common methods for traffic peak period detection are based on data analysis. They have achieved good performance. However, the detection processes are not intuitional enough. Besides that, the accuracy of these methods needs to be improved further. From an image processing view, we introduce a concept in corner detection, sharpness, to detect the traffic peak periods in this paper. The proposed method takes the traffic peak period detection problem as a salient point detection problem and uses the image processing strategies to solve this problem. Firstly, it generates a speed curve image with the speed data. With this image, the method for detection of salient points is adopted to obtain the peak point candidates. If one candidate has the lowest speed value, this candidate is the peak point. Finally, the peak period is gotten by moving forward and backward the corresponding time of the peak point with a time interval. Experimental results show that the proposed method has achieved higher accuracy. More importantly, as the proposed method solves the traffic peak period detection problem from an image processing view, it has more intuition.
Finger Angle-Based Hand Gesture Recognition for Smart Infrastructure Using Wearable Wrist-Worn Camera

The arising of domestic robots in smart infrastructure has raised demands for intuitive and natural interaction between humans and robots. To address this problem, a wearable wrist-worn camera (WwwCam) is proposed in this paper. With the capability of recognizing human hand gestures in real-time, it enables services such as controlling mopping robots, mobile manipulators, or appliances in smart-home scenarios. The recognition is based on finger segmentation and template matching. Distance transformation algorithm is adopted and adapted to robustly segment fingers from the hand. Based on fingers’ angles relative to the wrist, a finger angle prediction algorithm and a template matching metric are proposed. All possible gesture types of the captured image are first predicted, and then evaluated and compared to the template image to achieve the classification. Unlike other template matching methods relying highly on large training set, this scheme possesses high flexibility since it requires only one image as the template, and can classify gestures formed by different combinations of fingers. In the experiment, it successfully recognized ten finger gestures from number zero to nine defined by American Sign Language with an accuracy up to 99.38%. Its performance was further demonstrated by manipulating a robot arm using the implemented algorithms and WwwCam to transport and pile up wooden building blocks.
High-efficiency filters for photonic integrated networks: a brief analysis

In this paper, wide band pass filters (BPFs) and narrow band stop filters (BSFs) based on photonic crystals with large tunability have been achieved by using the resonance effect of crystal rings. The crystal structure (pillars) situated over the substrate of air is silicon, with permittivity contrast of 1/11.7 and a 2D lattice of the hexagonal system with appropriate permittivity contrast value of 1/8.9. The proposed structure is designed for the waveguide width 0.2 µm and wafer dimension 20 µm × 20 µm. The diamond ring square pillar filter possesses the highest quality factor (QF) of 1066.429 for 1493 nm drop signal with a narrow bandwidth of 1 nm. The hexagonal ring circular pillar filter acquires the highest QF of 134.5133 among the designed BPFs. The wider bandwidth of 100.4 nm is achieved by the diamond ring elliptical pillar BPF in the range of 1800–1900 nm. A bi-periodic circular pillar BSF is obtained with the large QF of 702.2727 and with the narrow bandwidth of 1.8 nm. Both the BPFs and the BSFs work at the second and third windows of an optical system, making the filters suitable for wavelength division multiplexing and networking applications.
Project Management in the Information Systems and Information Technologies Industries

For many enterprises, sustainable success is closely linked to information systems (IS) and information technologies (IT). Despite significant efforts to improve software project success, many still fail. Current literature indicates that most of the software project problems are related to management, organizational, human, and cultural issues—not technical problems. This paper presents results of a survey of 36 software owners/sponsors, contractors/suppliers, and consultants on 12 projects. The empirical results address answers to questions related to success, performance metrics, and project business drivers. A lack of alignment on these critical issues emerge consistently by phase as well as across the entire project. The results of this study also are compared with others that span seven additional industry sectors. As a result, the authors have developed an approach that links project critical success factors (CSFs) to corporate strategy, and project metrics to the CSFs. An important finding of this study is the critical need to identify and manage realistic expectations of the stakeholders to achieve perceived project success.
No Clamp Robotic Assembly with Use of Point Cloud Data from Low-Cost Triangulation Scanner

The paper shows the clamp-less assembly idea as a very important one in the modern assembly. Assembly equipment such as clamps represent a significant group of industrial equipment in manufacturing plants whose number can be effectively reduced. The article presents the concept of using industrial robot equipped with a triangulation scanner in the assembly process in order to minimize the number of clamps that hold the units in a particular position in space. It also shows how the system searches for objects in the point cloud based on multi-step processing algorithm proposed in this work, then picks them up, transports and positions them in the right assembly locations with the use of industrial robot manipulator. The accuracy of the positioning of parts was also examined as well as the impact of the number of iterations of the algorithm searching the models in the point cloud on the accuracy of determining the position of the objects. The tests show that presented system is suitable for assembly of various items as plastic packaging and palletizing of products. Such kind of system is the basis for modern, fully flexible assembly systems.
Centralised vs. decentralised control decision in card-based control systems: comparing kanban systems and COBACABANA

Kanban systems are simple yet effective means of controlling production. Production control is decentralised or exercised locally on the shop floor, i.e. a downstream station signals to an upstream station that an item is needed. If items are always the same and known, then demands can be satisfied instantaneously from stock; but if items differ and are unknown, demands must first be propagated backwards from station to station before being satisfied. The former is defined as an inventory control problem and the latter as an order control problem. Handling the order control problem via kanban involves a decentralised card acquisition process (during which information is propagated from station to station) that is separated from the actual production process. COBACABANA (control of balance by card-based navigation), an alternative card-based solution, shares kanban’s control structure but centralises the card acquisition process. Evaluating the two systems therefore provides a unique opportunity to compare decentralised and centralised control. Using simulation, we demonstrate that it is specifically the centralised card acquisition process that allows COBACABANA to balance the workload across resources and thus to outperform kanban in an order control problem. This has major implications for research and practice.
A Novel High Directive Willis-Sinha Tapered Slot Antenna for GPR Application in Detecting Landmine

A novel Ultra-wideband Willis-Sinha Tapered Slot antenna for landmine detection using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) system with enhanced gain and directivity is presented. The structure is constructed on a 235 × 270mm2 FR4 dielectric substrate. The antenna is fed by a novel tapered coplanar waveguide (CPW) to coplanar stripline (CPS) transition feed. The antenna’s impedance bandwidth is extended by adding an antenna arm constructing parabola shape with the antenna element. The antenna has a corrugated structure along the antenna outer edges to improve radiation efficiency and get higher directivity. Also, a mushroom-like circular EBG structure is used in the lower side of the antenna arm to reduce interference and enhance front-to-back ratio (F/B ratio). A partial substrate removal, like circular cylinders inside the substrate, is aligned with the antenna tapered profile to obtain better radiation efficiency and enhance antenna gain. The operational bandwidth of this antenna extends from 0.18 to 6.2 GHz. The minimum return loss reaches 60 dB. The average directivity reaches 12.2 dBi while the gain and radiation efficiency are 11.8 dBi and 92%, respectively with gain enhancement of 195% due to using corrugated structure and air cavities. The front-to-back ratio (F/B ratio) is 23 dB. Also, a size reduction of 48% is achieved due to using extended arm. The antenna performance was simulated and measured. Good agreement was found between numerical and experimental results. The proposed antenna is suitable for various ultra-wideband applications especially in landmine detection. The design of the proposed antenna is given in very simple five design steps.
Carbon nanotubes from the dissociation of C2Cl4 using a dc thermal plasma torch

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are produced using a 100 kW dc non-transferred plasma torch and C2Cl4 as the carbon precursor. Catalytic metallic nanoparticles are generated in situ using the tungsten metal vapours emitted by the electrode erosion process. Large quantities of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and spherical (onion-like) carbon structures are observed under FE-SEM and TEM. Preliminary results are given here on the effect of the type and pressure of the gas in the reactor on the zone of CNT nucleation. A large amount of CNTs, over 50 µm in length, is observed to grow within the torch nozzle at 0.26 atm pressure in helium and argon. Increasing the pressure to 0.66 atm in both gases has the effect of pushing the CNT production downstream in the gas phase within the main reactor.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Ambiguities in the calibration of carbon cycle models

The conventional approach to calibration global carbon cycle models using 14C from nuclear weapons tests is known to be equivalent to a chain of poorly conditioned deconvolutions. A simple approximate model, relating excess 14C from nuclear testing and anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean surface layer, is used to explore the calibration problem in more detail. Analysis of this model reveals that the calibration is particularly sensitive to the time response describing the uptake of excess 14C by the terrestrial biota.
Semi-uniform ergodic theorems and applications to forced systems

In nonlinear dynamics an important distinction exists between uniform bounds on growth rates, as in the definition of hyperbolic sets, and non-uniform bounds as in the theory of Liapunov exponents. In rare cases, for instance in uniquely ergodic systems, it is possible to derive uniform estimates from non-uniform hypotheses. This allowed one of us to show in a previous paper that a strange non-chaotic attractor for a quasiperiodically forced system could not be the graph of a continuous function. This had been a conjecture for some time. In this paper we generalize the uniform convergence of time averages for uniquely ergodic systems to a broader range of systems. In particular, we show how conditions on growth rates with respect to all the invariant measures of a system can be used to derive one-sided uniform convergence in both the Birkhoff and the sub-additive ergodic theorems. We apply the latter to show that any strange compact invariant set for a quasiperiodically forced system must support an invariant measure with a non-negative maximal normal Liapunov exponent; in other words, it must contain some `non-attracting' orbits. This was already known for the few examples of strange non-chaotic attractors that have rigorously been proved to exist. Finally, we generalize our semi-uniform ergodic theorems to arbitrary skew product systems and discuss the application of such extensions to the existence of attracting invariant graphs.
Multi-Objective Jaya Algorithm for Optimal Scheduling of DGs in Distribution System Sectionalized into Multi-Microgrids

ABSTRACT In this paper, the power dispatch problem of distributed generators (DGs) for optimal operation of the islanded distribution system has been addressed. In order to mitigate the number of customers being affected by a fault at any remote location of the system, the islanded distribution system is sectionalized into several self-supplied microgrids such that reliable power can be supplied to maximum loads. These microgrids can be operated individually or joining with other microgrids such that rescheduling of DGs can be performed for attaining desired objective. The objectives considered in this paper are minimization of operating cost of DGs, system losses, voltage deviation individually. Furthermore, a multi-objective problem is formulated considering minimization of operating cost & losses, operating cost & voltage deviation and losses & voltage deviation simultaneously. While scheduling the distribution system, dispatchable DGs are used. A novel, algorithm-specific parameter-free meta-heuristic algorithm named Jaya algorithm is used in this paper for solving the stated optimization problem. The feasibility of the proposed technique is verified with the modified 33 bus distribution network and obtained results have been validated by comparison with prior-art algorithm available in the literature. Graphical Abstract Abbreviation: : Active power generation of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Reactive power generation of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Active power loss in the microgrid ‘i’; : Reactive power loss in the microgrid ‘i’; : Active power demand in the microgrid ‘i’; : Reactive power demand in the microgrid ‘i’; : Minimum active power generation limit of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Maximum active power generation limit of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Minimum reactive power operating limit of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Maximum reactive power operating limit of unit ‘j’ in microgrid ‘i’; : Minimum voltage limit of bus ‘k’ in microgrid ‘i’ in P.U; : Maximum voltage limit of bus ‘k’ in microgrid ‘i’ in P.U; : Actual voltage magnitude at bus ‘k’ in microgrid ‘i’ in P.U; : Specified voltage magnitude at bus ‘k’ in microgrid ‘i’ in P.U; : Objective function-1 with cost minimization as objective; : Objective function-2 with loss minimization as objective; : Objective function-3 with voltage deviation minimization as objective; x: Admissible decision vector; : Actual cost of generation in the microgrid(s); : Maximum cost of generation in the microgrid(s); : Actual value of voltage deviation in P.U in the microgrid(s); : Maximum value of voltage deviation in P.U in the microgrid(s); : Actual losses in the microgrid(s); : Maximum losses in the microgrid(s); : Weight vector for cost function; : Weight vector for loss function; : Weight vector for voltage deviation function; A1:Microgrid-1; A2:Microgrid-2; A3:Microgrid-3; : no. of generators; n: no. of buses in the microgrid(s); m:no. of microgrids; K:normalization factor; : cost coefficients of generator ‘i’