Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sparse virtual array synthesis for MIMO radar imaging systems

Multiple ‐ input ‐ multiple ‐ output (MIMO) radar imaging systems require a high angular resolution to realize a high detectability level of the target directly related to the aperture size of the virtual array. Since in MIMO radars, the virtual array topology depends on the transmit and receive array topologies, two methods are proposed for the synthesis of sparse virtual arrays by designing the sparse transmit and receive arrays using a two ‐ step synthesis procedure (TSP) for antenna array sparsity via convex optimization. Both methods are formulated in detail, and it is shown that adjustments in formulations with respect to physical constraints in design specifications are feasible. In the first method, both the sparse transmit and the sparse receive array are synthesized using the TSP independently of each other. In the second method, the sparse receive array is synthesized based on the transmit array topology or vice versa using the method of least squares. With the help of numerical examples, it is shown that a sparse virtual array has better performance in terms of beamwidth and side lobe level compared with the traditional dense virtual array with the same number of transmit and receive array elements. It is also shown that the proposed design methods lead to broadband performance.
Termite Occurrence And Damage Assessment In Urban Trees From Different Parks Of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

Termite infestation is one of the fundamental problems associated with the loss of urban trees and ecological services. However, no such study has been performed in Pakistan to investigate the termite occurrence and assess such damages to urban trees caused by termites. For Lahore, research and comparable data on urban tree damages are rare or missing. This study surveyed six different microhabitats, including Bagh-e-Jinnah, Canal vegetation, Model Town Park, Jallo forestry, Race-course Park, and F.C. College vegetation employing three belt transects (100×5 m) method. We geo-referenced termite infested trees to investigate the termite occurrence on living and dead standing trees, termite diversity and assess the tree damage by termites' attack. We recorded four termite species (Odontotermes obesus, Coptotermes heimi, Heterotermes indicola, and Microtermes obesi) representing two families (Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae). However, the diversity indices result revealed that O. obesus (higher termite) and C. heimi (lower termite) were dominant and key species with 46.60 and 36% of occurrence among observed trees, respectively. Kernel density function indicated that the Lahore Canal and Bagh-e-Jinnah plantation shared all four termites' infestation evenly compared to other study sites. We observed the maximum number of damaged trees by termites in canal plantations with the most damaged exotic tree species Populus euramericana along the canal green belt.Additionally, we observed significant (P < 0.05) termite-tree interactions with exotic, living, and dead standing tree species and found termite colony size positively (R = 0.985) correlated with the tree trunk diameter up to breast height DBH. The average population of termites per unit volume of deadwood log was (0.39/cm3) within all plantations-sites. In conclusion, this study provides simple, reckless, and inexpensive knowledge about the assessment of termite damage of trees, which may give a better idea in making decisions on tree selection and management in urban ecosystems.
Human Activity Recognition with Deep Learning: Methods, Progress & Possibilities

Over the past decade, recognition of human activities (HAR) has become a vibrant field of research, in particular, the spread in our everyday lives of electronics such as mobile phones, smart cell phones, and video cameras. Furthermore, the advancement in the field of deep methodologies and other paradigms have enabled scientists to enable HAR in many areas, consisting of activities in fitness and wellness. For instance, HAR is one of many resorts to support older people through day-to-day activities to support their cognition and physicality. This study is centered on the key aspects deep learning plays in the development of HAR applications. Although numerous HAR examination studies were carried out previously, there have been no overall studies on this subject, in all the earlier studies there were only specific HAR-related subjects. A detailed review covering all the main subjects in this area is therefore essential. This study discusses the latest developments and works in HAR. It separates the methods and the advantages and disadvantages of each method group. This paper finally addresses many problems in the current HAR subject and provides recommendations for potential study.
Uma Proposta de Sintaxe Concreta para Caso de Uso

Problems in requirements elicitation and documentation may affect the entire software development process. Out of the possibles problems there are ambiguity, inconsistency, not in conformance to a standard, unclear documentation, etc. One way to avoid these problems is by using techniques that tries to mitigate the informality of this process. In this work we use the concepts of Model Driven Engineering (MDE) to represent behavioral requirements using the use case representation. We propose a concrete syntax for an existing abstract syntax and semantics. By using MDE it is possible to clearly indentify use case elements and their relationship, creating an structured format that improves model quality. Resumo. Problemas na elicitação e documentação de requisitos podem afetar todo o desenvolvimento do software. Dentre os possı́veis problemas estão ambiguidade, inconsistência, conteúdo fora do padrão e documentação não clara. Um dos meios de evitar tais problemas é através de técnicas que buscam reduzir a informalidade deste processo. Neste trabalho foram aplicados conceitos de Engenharia Dirigida por Modelos (MDE) para representar requisitos funcionais seguindo a representação de caso de uso, propondo uma sintaxe concreta para uma sintaxe abstrata e semântica já existentes. O uso de MDE permite uma identificação mais clara dos elementos do caso de uso e suas relações, criando um formato estruturado de modo a aumentar a qualidade do modelo. 1. Introdução A Engenharia de Requisitos (ER) é uma abordagem sistemática e disciplinada para tratar dos requisitos de um sistema [Pohl and Rupp 2011]. A execução adequada das atividades de ER ajuda a reduzir falhas no processo de desenvolvimento de software [Pohl and Rupp 2011]. Porém a ER pode ser afetada por diversos problemas. No caso da documentação, que é uma das atividades principais da ER, alguns problemas da representação de requisitos estão relacionados à informalidade da linguagem (por exemplo, ambiguidade, documentação fora do padrão e inconsistência). O objetivo deste trabalho é minimizar esses problemas. Nele foram aplicados conceitos da Engenharia Dirigida por Modelos (Model Driven Engineering, MDE) para apresentar uma proposta de sintaxe concreta para uma representação de requisitos: o caso de uso. A sintaxe concreta é baseada em uma semântica e sintaxe abstrata já existentes [Nguyen et al. 2015] e é capaz de representar casos de uso tı́picos de uma forma padronizada em uma ferramenta, denominada UCWriter, desenvolvida como um dos resultados desta pesquisa. Anais Estendidos do XVII Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas de Informação (SBSI 2021)
Inclusive communications in COVID-19: a virtual ethnographic study of disability support network in China

Abstract In the absence of accessible and inclusive emergency communication provided by the government and public service providers, this article examines a self-initiated and volunteer-driven Disability Support Network. This Network emerged as a civil response during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The study highlights the communication difficulties and multiple disadvantages experienced by people with disabilities in emergency situations. This reveals the gaps between policies and practices regarding the digital accessibility infrastructure in China. Adopting a WeChat ethnography research method, the researchers collect data from both participant-observation in the virtual field of online chat rooms and semi-structured interviews with Network participants. The study examines the empowering role of the Disability Support Network and the use of inclusive information and communication technologies. The mechanism and deliverables of Disability Support Network, along with important lessons and inclusive communication practices used by the Network, are presented in the article. We argue that comprehensive and inclusive communication strategies for people with disabilities should consider multiple dimensions including formats, content, and situations. We advocate that government and public service entities in China need to take more active measures providing inclusive communications and information in emergency situations for people with disabilities. Points of interests This study examines the effects of civil society response and communication inequalities in public health disasters in China. The study identifies difficulties experienced by disabled people who are excluded from mainstream information channels. The study provides examples of the best practices in effective communication for disabled people during the COVID-19 outbreak. We especially study an unprecedented volunteer-driven disability support network that emerged in response to COVID-19. The study details how a disability support network is organized, what the network has achieved, and the role social media played in the network’s activism and organization. This study highlights the response, self-determination, and self-help actions generated from disability communities in China.
Arabic speech recognition using end-to-end deep learning

Arabic automatic speech recognition (ASR) methods with diacritics have the ability to be integrated with other systems better than Arabic ASR methods without diacritics. In this work, the application of state ‐ of ‐ the ‐ art end ‐ to ‐ end deep learning approaches is inves-tigated to build a robust diacritised Arabic ASR. These approaches are based on the Mel ‐ Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and the log Mel ‐ Scale Filter Bank energies as acoustic features. To the best of our knowledge, end ‐ to ‐ end deep learning approach has not been used in the task of diacritised Arabic automatic speech recognition. To fill this gap, this work presents a new CTC ‐ based ASR, CNN ‐ LSTM, and an attention ‐ based end ‐ to ‐ end approach for improving diacritisedArabic ASR. In addition, a word ‐ based language model is employed to achieve better results. The end ‐ to ‐ end approaches applied in this work are based on state ‐ of ‐ the ‐ art frameworks, namely ESPnet and Espresso. Training and testing of these frameworks are performed based on the Standard Arabic Single Speaker Corpus (SASSC), which contains 7 h of modern standard Arabic speech. Experimental results show that the CNN ‐ LSTM
Effect of freeze–thaw cycles on soil physicochemical properties and fractions of Pb and Cr in the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Simulation experiments were conducted using soils in the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau to explore the effects of freeze–thaw cycles on soil physicochemical properties, Pb and Cr distribution, and fraction transformation. Soils were incubated at −15°C for 24 h and at 5°C for 24 h to complete a freeze–thaw cycle. The soil physicochemical properties and fractions of Pb and Cr were analyzed after serial freeze–thaw treatments. The results showed that different freeze–thaw cycles and water content affected soil physicochemical properties and fractions of Pb and Cr to some extent. The cation exchange capacity increased significantly in agricultural and pastoral soils after five freeze–thaw cycles. The sand proportion of soil in an urban area decreased at 60 cycles. Freeze–thaw cycles did not change the functional groups and mineral constituents of the soils. The infrared peaks of soils with different freeze–thaw conditions were very similar. The freeze–thaw treatment influenced the mobility, chemical fractions of Pb and ecological risk in most of the soils. The exchangeable Pb in agricultural and pastoral areas increased from 0.19 to 1.52/0.90% after 5/10 freeze–thaw cycles with 60% water content. The ecological values of Pb in urban soil were 8.32/7.38% higher at 10/15 freeze–thaw cycles compared with the control treatment. Hence, these findings provide useful information on physicochemical properties and fraction transformation of Pb and Cr in soils undergoing freeze–thaw cycles, and offer an additional insight on Pb and Cr behaviors in cold and freezing environments. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Hydrochemistry related to exploration and environmental issues collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection. org/cc/hydrochemistry-related-to-exploration-and-environmental-issues
Enzymes involved in hypoxia response : characterization of the in vivo role of HIF-P4H-2 in mouse heart, of a novel P4H in human and zebrafish and of the catalytic properties of FIH

Oxygen homeostasis is critical to all animals, as both excess (hyperoxia) and reduced (hypoxia) levels of oxygen can result in pathological changes and ultimately in the loss of cellular and organismal viability. Complex systems have evolved to sense and adapt to changes in cellular oxygen availability, and the hypoxia-inducible factor HIF plays a pivotal role in this elaborate molecular network. In normoxic conditions the α-subunit of HIF becomes hydroxylated by HIF prolyl 4-hydroxylases (HIF-P4Hs 1-3), earmarking HIF-α for proteasomal degradation. Additionally, in the presence of oxygen the hydroxylation of an asparagine residue by the HIF asparaginyl hydroxylase FIH inhibits the transactivation of HIF-target genes by blocking the interaction of HIF-α with a transcriptional coactivator. In addition to being a feature of an organism’s normal life, hypoxia is also characteristic of many common diseases such as severe anemia and myocardial infarction, and it notably decreases these hydroxylation reactions, as HIFP4Hs and FIH have an absolute requirement for oxygen as a cosubstrate. HIF-α thus escapes degradation and translocates into the nucleus, where it dimerizes with HIF-β and recruits transcriptional coactivators to the hypoxia-response elements of target genes, inducing their transcription and triggering the hypoxia response aimed at restoring cellular oxygen homeostasis. In this study we generated a genetically modified HIF-P4H-2 hypomorphic mouse line that expresses only 8% of the wild-type HIF-P4H-2 mRNA in the heart. We showed that chronic cardiac HIF-P4H-2 deficiency leads to stabilization of HIF-1α and HIF-2α and protects the heart against acute ischemia-reperfusion injury without causing any adverse effects. Furthermore, we identified and cloned a novel human transmembrane prolyl 4-hydroxylase P4H-TM and showed that it regulates HIF-1α protein levels in cellulo and hydroxylates HIF-1α in vitro similarly to the HIF-P4Hs, but may also have other physiological substrates. Using forward genetic tools we showed that lack of P4H-TM during development leads to basement membrane defects and compromised kidney function in zebrafish embryos. Finally, we demonstrated that FIH displays substrate selectivity in terms of hydroxylation and binding of HIF-1α and novel substrates Notch1-3. We showed that FIH has higher affinity for oxygen with Notch1 than with HIF-1α as a substrate, implying that FIH-mediated hydroxylation of Notch can continue in oxygen concentrations where HIF-1α hydroxylation would be markedly reduced.
Agave flower visitation by pallid bats, Antrozous pallidus, in the Chihuahuan Desert

Pallid bats, Antrozous pallidus, despite being primarily insectivorous gleaning predators, consume nectar of the cardón cactus, Pachycereus pringlei, in the Sonoran Desert. It is unknown whether nectar feeding occurs in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, where pallid bats covered in pollen have been captured. We collected pollen samples from 67 pallid bats in Brewster County, Texas, United States, between April and August 2018. Pollen-covered pallid bats were captured in every month sampled. Pollen densities were three times higher on wings than on the head or ventral body. In all samples collected, the pollen was homogeneous and identified as Agave pollen. Although two species of Agave, A. havardiana and A. lechuguilla, occur in this region of Texas, linear discriminant analysis classified 701 of 723 (97%) of pollen grains analyzed as A. lechuguilla. Additional evidence from infrared video footage collected in August 2018 indicated that pallid bats became covered in A. lechuguilla pollen while consuming nectar. Pallid bats might be engaging in facultative nectarivory across their range and could be important nocturnal pollinators.
Simultaneous detection of three amphenicol antibiotics in shrimp and surface water samples by LC–MS/MS using two-antibodies-immobilized immunoaffinity clean-up technique

ABSTRACT Amphenicol antibiotics including chloramphenicol (CAP), florfenicol (FF) and thiamphenicol (TAP) have been widely used in aquaculture and veterinary to treat various infections. Because of their high toxicity, it is important to detect these amphenicol antibiotics simultaneously. Using the monoclonal antibody against CAP (mAbCAP) binding CAP only and the mAbFF recognizing both FF and TAP, the two antibodies were covalently coupled to CNBr-activated Sepharose-4B for the simultaneous extraction of CAP, FF and TAP from samples. The bound CAP, FF and TAP were eluted from the Sepharose-4B and measured by LC–MS/MS. The extraction conditions of the two-antibodies-immobilized immunoaffinity clean-up (IAC) for CAP, FF and TAP were optimized and the maximum capacity was investigated. The extraction efficiency of IAC for CAP, FF and TAP was 1.1–2.1 times higher than that of SPE. The LC–MS/MS coupled with IAC was a powerful analytical method for the detection of CAP, FF and TAP simultaneously.
Aqueous Ammonia With Sodium Sulfite Pretreatment For Enhancing Enzymatic Saccharification and Bioethanol Production of Sugarcane Bagasse

Background: Bioethanol is considered as a promising alternative fuel. Lignocellulosic biomass can be used for the production of bioethanol, but its recalcitrant structure makes it difficult to be utilized. Thus, proper pretreatment is a crucial step to break this structure and enhance enzymatic saccharification. Aqueous ammonia with sodium sulfite pretreatment (AAWSSP) was first applied to enhance the enzymatic saccharification and bioethanol production of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) in this research.Results: Response surface methodology was applied to optimize the conditions of pretreatment. Under optimal parameters, 16.92 g/L of total sugar concentration (P1 SCB: 202.08℃, 11.06% aqueous ammonia, 13.37% sodium sulfite, 1.22 h) and 0.51 g/g of total sugar yield (P2 SCB: 199.47℃, 10.17% aqueous ammonia, 13.11% sodium sulfite, 1.17 h) were achieved, respectively. The results of ethanol fermentation showed that separate hydrolysis and fermentation performed better than that of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, and the maximum ethanol yields of 143.30 g/kg for P1 SCB and 145.33 g/kg for P2 SCB, were obtained, respectively. Conclusions: This research indicated that aqueous ammonia and sodium sulfite in pretreatment solution might have a synergistic effect on delignification and enzymatic saccharification. AAWSSP might be a prospective method for enhancing enzymatic saccharification and bioethanol production of SCB, which provided new guidance for the bio-refinery of lignocellulose.
Induced EMF THD Reduction Design of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generators for Diesel Engine Generators

This paper deals with design of permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG) for diesel engine generators. The PMSG is required to reduce the total harmonic distortion (THD) reduction of the induced electromotive force (EMF) for the enhancement of power quality. In this paper, a design method is proposed to reduce the THD of the induced EMF for power quality enhancement in the PMSG. First, the selection process for the number of poles and slots is described. Second, the rotor shape design is proposed using an eccentric curve and slit shape. Based on the results of the first process, the optimal rotor shape is selected to achieve the additional THD reduction of the induced EMF. Finally, the performance for the optimal rotor shape is verified through a 2-dimensional finite element analysis (2D FEA) and prototype.
INVESTIGATION ON THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SULFIDE CAPACITY AND PHOSPHATE CAPACITY OF METALLURGICAL SLAGS

Relationships between sulfide capacity or sulfide capacity index and sulfur partition ratio and between phosphate capacity or phosphate capacity index and phosphorus partition ratio were derived. The effect of slag chemical composition. presented by complex basicity, optical basicity and basic component content, on both sulfide capacity and phosphate capacity of various slag systems was summed up. Furthermore, the relationship between the two capacities was also discussed for several metallurgical key slags, and a linear relation between those two capacities was observed on a logarithmic scale.Based on the investigated correlation, the principles of choosing proper operation conditions for simultaneous desulfurization and dephosphorization process were pointed out.
Leakage Current Suppression of Single-Phase Power-Decoupled Current-Source Inverters

Recently, single-phase power-decoupled current-source inverters (PD-CSIs) have been proposed to eliminate the use of electrolytic capacitor (E-cap) having a short lifespan. This type of inverter also features a high-efficiency and compact circuit design via multiplexing use of circuit components. However, it is found in this article that component sharing inevitably renders coupled switching states for incorporating charging and discharging phases of decoupling buffers, e.g., film and ceramic capacitors. The resultant effect will be a significant increase in the common-mode voltage, which may lead to an unpleasant leakage current. In this article, a generalized modulation technique is proposed for the PD-CSIs to perform active power decoupling (APD) operation without generating much leakage current. The generic operating principles of the PD-CSIs are analyzed synthetically. The formation of leakage current in the coupled switching states is analyzed. The design of the proposed modulation technique and the power-decoupling controller is provided. Simulation and experimental results of typical types of PD-CSIs in a 110-V ac grid are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed modulation scheme. With the proposed modulation scheme, the leakage current of the PD-CSI can be reduced by 56%.