Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling and control of a Forward DC-DC converter for Battery Voltage Balancing

This paper addresses the modeling and control of a novel Forward dc-dc converter with multiplexer for active voltage cell balancing of a bank of Lithium-Ion batteries. The modeling of the converter is developed using a state-space averaging model. The control system is based on a cascade feedback linearization approach for the forward converter and an event-driven control based on the voltage of the cells. Simulation results in time-domain allow to evaluate the performance of the proposed voltage balancing system control.
Attention Based R&CNN Medical Question Answering System in Chinese

This paper proposes a Chinese medical question answering system based on CNN s with self-attention embedded model. The key idea of the proposed framework is first understanding whole sentences via LSTM, obtaining the feature map by the convolution layer of CNN, then further-comprehending of question and answer by self-attention and finally pass through to polling layer of CNN to enhance accuracy. In addition, due to the word segmentation issue in the Chinese especially in medical field, character embedding is applied to enhance the accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed framework improves the accuracy around 80%.
Precision Analysis of Bresenhams Algorithm on Low-power Intelligent Seeding System

Todays, the use of technology has increased significantly. The human's life activities are dependent on the technology in order to accomplish the daily tasks. By considering the emerging of agriculture and automation technology, it is possible to apply small intelligent embedded devices to improve the precision of automated agriculture. In this paper, an automated farming seeding system with the mechanical design concept of Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine and 3D printer to perform the whole operation has been proposed. A line-precision algorithm based on Bresenham Algorithm has developed to determine the exact position for automated watering and seeding functions. The algorithm is test using a G and M code movement mechanism. The proposed system also includes a web based user interface, Node-Red to allow the users to access and use to facilitate easily and hassle free. The results were obtained based on three different experiment tests of movement of position location, accuracy performance on positioning and analysis on seeding tools.
LSTM Learn Policy from Dynamical System of Demonstration Motions for Robot Imitation Learning

Robot imitation learning has recently been studied extensively. There have been many methods for robot imitation learning. The main problem, however, is that the learned strategy is susceptible to external interference and thus deviates from the expected trajectory. In this paper we propose a method for robot learning human motion that combines the strengths of LSTM and dynamical system. Such an approach can learn policy effectively from dynamical system of motions while robot interacting with human demonstrators or other teachers. And this method effectively improves the ability of robot trajectory adjustment. Simulation experiments show that the proposed method which learn policy can effectively avoid the disturbance in the robot working environment.
Using Content Knowledge to Improve Reconstruction Performance by Semantic Compressive Sensing

Compressive sensing (CS) provides a method to perform sampling and compression simultaneously when a signal is sparse or compressible. The conventional CS is established on the prior knowledge of sparsity and cannot reconstruct the signals if they fail to be represented explicitly in a sparse form. Semantic CS is a new approach for sensing a signal based on its content knowledge, which can reduce the sensing rate and the sparsity constraint. However, the effects of content knowledge on the reconstruction quality is still not clear. In this paper, we provide an approach for designing a sensing matrix for semantic CS and experimentally study how content knowledge affects the reconstruction performance of the proposed CS.
A Survey of Voice Pathology Surveillance Systems Based on Internet of Things and Machine Learning Algorithms

The incorporation of the cloud technology with the Internet of Things (IoT) is significant in order to obtain better performance for a seamless, continuous, and ubiquitous framework. IoT has many applications in the healthcare sector, one of these applications is voice pathology monitoring. Unfortunately, voice pathology has not gained much attention, where there is an urgent need in this area due to the shortage of research and diagnosis of lethal diseases. Most of the researchers are focusing on the voice pathology and their finding is only to differentiating either the voice is normal (healthy) or pathological voice, where there is a lack of the current studies for detecting a certain disease such as laryngeal cancer. In this paper, we present an extensive review of the state-of-the-art techniques and studies of IoT frameworks and machine learning algorithms used in the healthcare in general and in the voice pathology surveillance systems in particular. Furthermore, this paper also presents applications, challenges and key issues of both IoT and machine learning algorithms in the healthcare. Finally, this paper highlights some open issues of IoT in healthcare that warrant further research and investigation in order to present an easy, comfortable and effective diagnosis and treatment of disease for both patients and doctors.
A Two Element Patch Slot Antenna with Defected Ground System for Communication Applications

A compact 60x60x1.6mm3 antenna is being designed and simulated. The antenna structure contains two patch elements with separate ports is being introduced. Each port will resonate at different frequency. Since it has two ports, they may interfere. In order to avoid interference slots have being introduced in the ground plane. This is called Defected Ground System (DGS). The advantages of having defected ground system is for achieving size compactness and isolation. The proposed antenna can be used for mobile satellite applications. The two-port patch slot antenna is being simulated by using High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) and is being implemented on a FR4 substrate. By using defected ground system there is no further need for employing an external circuit for isolation and hence it becomes cost-effective. The simulated return loss for both port is less than 10dB. The designed antenna can be integrated into the communication devices.
Deep Learning Based Fingerprinting Scheme for Wireless Positioning

Deep learning (DL) will be served as powerful technique in the fourth industrial revolution. It provides efficient applications for various fields. Fingerprinting is popular wireless positioning scheme for challenging environment such as indoor. It consists of two phases for positioning, training and estimation, which is similar to DL. Therefore, positioning with fingerprinting scheme is appropriate problem for using DL. In this paper, we employ DL for wireless positioning with fingerprinting scheme. Under our system model and assumptions, we generate data set with fixed or arbitrary positions and corresponding received signal strengths (RSSs). Then, generated data set is utilized with our deep neural network (DNN) model. We analyze our DNN model via position estimation error compared to non-DL model.
Design of Muscle Reflex Control for Human Upright Standing Push- recovery based on Series Elastic Actuator

Ankle joint muscle reflex control plays an important role in the human bipedal posture. With the neuromuscular control mechanism and muscle-tendon biomechanical dynamic properties, our joints exhibit excellent performance in external environment physical interaction. Researching and understanding the mechanism of muscle reflex not only helps to reveal human movement control rules, but also provides a useful tool for robotic system design. In this paper, an ankle joint muscle reflex control strategy for human upright standing push-recovery is proposed. In order to focus attention on muscle reflexes and exclude other control mechanisms from the central nervous system (CNS) as much as possible, only ankle joint strategy without foot tilting is evoked by a limited external disturbance. A proportional derivative-like (PD-like) muscle reflex control algorithm is presented to understand the action mechanism for human upright standing push-recovery. A series elastic actuator (SEA) based mechanical ankle joint is designed as a platform for testing activities. The experimental results show that the proposed reflex control method can help subjects maintain balance, without stepping, while receiving external disturbances. With the unique control mechanism, the ankle joint behaves like a spring-damping system. And, under such a simple and effective control strategy, it is practical to realize human upright standing push-recovery.
Human odour thresholds are tuned to atmospheric chemical lifetimes

In this study, the odour thresholds (OT) and atmospheric lifetimes (AL) were compared for a suite of volatile organic compounds. It was found that odour threshold, as determined by the triangle bag method, correlated surprisingly well with atmospheric lifetime for a given chemical family. Molecules with short atmospheric lifetimes with respect to the primary atmospheric oxidant OH tend to be more sensitively detected by the human nose. Overall the correlation of odour threshold with atmospheric lifetime was better than with mass and vapour pressure. Several outliers from the correlations for particular chemical families were examined in detail. For example, diacetyl was an outlier in the ketone dataset that fitted the trend when its more important photolysis lifetime was included; and similarly, the relatively low odour threshold of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) was interpreted in terms of uptake by vegetation. The OT/AL relationship suggests that OH rate constants can be used as a first-order estimate for odour thresholds (and vice versa). We speculate that the nose's high sensitivity to chemicals that are reactive in the air is likely an evolved rather than a learned condition. This is based on the lack of dependence on ozone in the aliphatics, that the anthropogenically emitted aromatic compounds had the worst correlation, and that OCS had a much lower than predicted OT. Finally, we use the OT/AL relationships derived to predict odour thresholds and rate constants that have not yet been determined in order to provide a test to this hypothesis. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Olfactory communication in humans’.
Evaluating the Mechanical Behavior of ARB Processed Aluminum Composites Using Shear Punch Testing

Multi-layered metal composites have received considerable attention due to their improved mechanical and physical properties. In this study, Al6061/Al2024 composite was processed by accumulative roll bonding (ARB) as a severe plastic deformation technique. Mechanical properties of processed material were evaluated using the uniaxial tensile test and shear punch test method (SPT). The correlation between the results of the tension experiments and shear strengths was calculated. Experimental results demonstrated that the shear strength enhanced with increased number of ARB passes. However, the elongation under shear manifested a reduction when the number of ARB passes increased. Inspection of the results of tensile tests and SPT revealed that they follow a similar trend for both strength and ductility. Therefore, it can be asserted that the shear punch test represents a useful and complementary tool in the mechanical analysis of the ARB sample.
Microscopy Investigation of Platinum Ternary Alloy Catalysts on N-Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide Supporter for Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell (DEFC)

Platinum (Pt) is widely used as anode catalyst for direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) but toxic CO gas was produced in the system. Pt bimetallic catalysts can increase the reaction rate, current density and reduce CO gas production. However, some bimetallic catalysts are still expensive and give the low reaction rate. Trimetallic catalysts on carbon supporter were represented instead due to their better catalytic activities, long life time of operation and higher current density. In this study, we synthesized trimetallic alloy on N-doped reduced graphene oxide (NrGO) catalysts using as DEFC anode. The percentage of metals composition in the synthesized catalysts was varied. NrGO was prepared by Modified Hummers Method, then reduced by annealing under Nitrogen gas atmosphere and N-added by annealing with melamine. The preparation method for trimetallic alloy catalysts on NrGO was NaBH4 reduction. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns displayed their alloy phase of PtMRu (M = Au, Sn) which compose of Pt main structure and NrGO supporter. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images showed the dispersion of alloy metal particles on NrGO surface. The composition of catalysts could be confirmed by Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) data and the phase of alloy particles were verified by electron diffraction (SAD) patterns. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) images showed the particle size of PtAuRu and PtSnRu in various specific percentage on NrGO. The approximate particle size for 10Pt2Au8Ru = 4.88±1.02 nm, 10Pt5Au5Ru = 58.45±42.16 nm, 10Pt8Au2Ru = 11.05±2.29 nm, 10Pt2Sn8Ru = 3.31±1.44 nm, 10Pt5Sn5Ru = 3.50±0.73 nm and 10Pt8Sn2Ru = 4.09±0.97 nm. Catalytic activity of these materials related to their particle size.
The state-of-the-art of “high-sensitivity” immunoassay for measuring cardiac troponin I and T

The international guidelines “on the Redefinition of AMI”, published in 2000 by the Joint European Society of Cardiology/American College of Cardiology (ESC/ACC) Committee, for the first time recommended that an increase of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) or T (cTnT) values over the 99 th percentile upper reference limit (99 th URL) should be considered as clinically significant, and they also specifically indicated that this thresholds value should be measured with an imprecision ≤10 coefficient of variation (CV%) (1).
Predicting the effect of electric and hybrid-electric aviation on acoustic pollution

Abstract In the quest for the reduction of noise pollution, novel hybrid-electric or fully-electric power-trains promise to provide a substantial contribution. Especially closer to airfields, where acceptability issues tend to limit air operations with conventional fuel-burning engines, such novel power-trains allow to fly terminal maneuvers with a dramatically reduced impact on pollution. Considering the General Aviation (GA) field, where such new types of propulsion are more likely to gain a significant market share thanks to their favorable characteristics for this weight category, the reduction of the noise impact on ground may increase the infrastructural value of smaller airfields, often located in densely populated areas. This in turn would help in making novel power-train technologies economically advantageous at a system level. Despite these evident advantages, a methodology to quantify noise emissions of a novel type of power-train has not been identified yet – a fundamental step towards the assessment of the potential contribution of hybrid-electric or fully-electric aircraft to the global scenario of future aviation. This work introduces and discusses a possible procedure to provide such estimation. While mainly focused on the field of propeller-driven GA aircraft, the procedure presented herein can be easily scaled to cope with the specific features of heavier categories.
The Cost-Effectiveness of Conventional Discectomy Compared to Other Surgical Techniques for Lumbar Disk Herniation: A Systematic Review

Background: The current study reviews the literature on the cost-effectiveness of conventional diskectomy compared to other surgical techniques, by assessing studies with economical evaluation and studies using proxy measures of cost-effectiveness. Methods: In April 2016, a comprehensive search was conducted in Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Database. Reference lists of retrieved articles were perused for further relevant publications. Randomized controlled trials and comparison studies, comparing conventional diskectomy to other surgical interventions for patients with lumbar disk herniation, were included and reviewed by the authors. Data were gathered on the methodology of the studies, including study design, randomization, follow-up period, cost-estimation, etc. and the quality of the published studies was quantified using a modified version of the Drummond checklist. Results: Twenty-four articles were included in the review, 9 retrieved from the original search, and an additional 15 from reference lists. Four studies included an economical evaluation and 20 reported proxy measures of cost-effectiveness. The quality of studies varied considerably and results were ambiguous; the four economic studies favored conventional diskectomy, but none were randomized trials. Of the twenty proxy studies some favored the alternatives, and some reported no clear difference. Conclusions: The available literature does not allow for strong conclusions due to the sparsity of high quality economic studies. The available evidence, however, suggests that any cost-effectiveness difference between conventional diskectomy and the alternatives is unlikely to be great. Correspondence to: Thorsen MTH, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5000 Odense M, Denmark, Tel: +47 936 18 222; E-mail: Mayt101@yahoo.no
Microstructural Characterization of ULC Steel

Abstract In the present study, microstructure of the ULC steel was investigated by using the X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical microscopy (OM) and electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD) analysis. The pure ferrite phase consisting of various crystalline orientations, e.g. (110) and (200) etc., existed in the ULC steel. Ultra-fine grains of ferrite were observed in the ND-TD cross-section (⊥ RD), meanwhile, typical lamina were seen in the ND-RD cross-section (// RD) of the steel sheet. Grain size of the annealed steel was observed to be coarser and equiaxed in all direction. According the EBSD results, intensities of the beneficial texture {111}<001> increased in the annealed steel, but weakened in the cross-section that was parallel to rolling direction. Ratio of low-angle grain boundaries (1°< LAGBs < 15°) in the annealed steel was estimated as the higher value (93.1 %) than that in the cold-rolled steel (69.1 %).
Comparing the performance of forced aligners used in sociophonetic research

Abstract Forced aligners have revolutionized sociophonetics, but while there are several forced aligners available, there are few systematic comparisons of their performance. Here, we consider four major forced aligners used in sociophonetics today: MAUS, FAVE, LaBB-CAT and MFA. Through comparisons with human coders, we find that both aligner and phonological context affect the quality of automated alignments of vowels extracted from English sociolinguistic interview data. MFA and LaBB-CAT produce the highest quality alignments, in some cases not significantly different from human alignment, followed by FAVE, and then MAUS. Aligners are less accurate placing boundaries following a vowel than preceding it, and they vary in accuracy across manner of articulation, particularly for following boundaries. These observations allow us to make specific recommendations for manual correction of forced alignment.
Cardiac Autonomic Neuropathy in Diabetes Mellitus Patients – Are We Aware of the Consequences?

Abstract Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy is the most frequent clinical form of autonomous diabetic neuropathy and appears secondary to cardiac autonomous fibre involvement, actively involved in cardiac rhythm impairment. Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients can present cardiac autonomic neuropathy early in the disease. Autonomous nerve function in DM patients should be assessed as early as the diagnosis is set in order to establish the optimal therapeutic strategy. The most frequent cardio-vagal test used is heart rate variability. An abnormal heart rate variability in the presence of orthostatic arterial hypotension indicates a severe cardiac autonomic neuropathy diagnosis. The development of cardiac autonomic neuropathy is subjected to glycaemic control, duration of the disease and associated risk factors. The glycaemic control is extremely important, especially early in the disease. Therefore, a poor glycaemic control carries unfavourable long-term effects, despite an ulterior optimal control, a phenomenon named “hyperglycaemic memory”. In type 2 diabetes mellitus patients, the association of cardiac autonomic neuropathy with intensive glycaemic control increases the mortality rate, due to the fact, that, secondary to autonomous impairment, the patients do not present the typical symptoms associated with hypoglycaemia. Stratifying the cardiac autonomic neuropathy aids the clinician in assessing the morbidity and mortality risk of diabetes mellitus patients, because it is an independent risk factor for mortality, associated with silent myocardial infarctions and the risk of sudden death.
An Empirical Investigation of E-Banking in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: The Moderating Effect of Attitude

Abstract The banking industry is one of the most important industries in developing countries, thus it plays a major role in the financial industry. Moreover, e-banking has simplified financial transactions. This study investigates the effect of individual factors on user behaviour and the moderating effect of attitude on the relationship between individual factors and user behaviour based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. A model suggests a second-order components research framework that improves current explanations of electronic banking channel services acceptance and sheds light on the role of attitude on the acceptance of electronic banking channel services which is the most important key concern. Data were collected using an online questionnaire with 476 valid responses from academic staff who work at the University of Sulaimani; the model has been tested using the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling approach. The results show that individual factors have a positive effect on user behaviour and also show that attitude has a negative effect on the relationship between individual factors and user behaviour as a moderator.
Targeting Atypical Protein Kinase C Isoforms for the Prevention of Blood-Retinal Barrier Dysfunction in Ophthalmic Disease

82 Introduction 83 Results 85 Discussion 89 Figures 93 Tables 96 CHAPTER 5 ATYPICAL PROETIN KINASE C INHIBITOR AMELIORATES VEGF/TNF-INDUCED RETINAL PERMEABILITY AND EDEMA 103 Abstract 103 Introduction 104 Results 106 Discussion 110 Figures 114 CHAPTER 6 USING SYSTEMS BIOLOGY TO UNCOVER VEGF DEPENDENT PHOSPHORYLATION EVENTS DOWNSTREAM OF ATYPICAL PROTEIN KINASE C ISOFORMS 120 Abstract 120 Introduction 121 Results 122 Discussion 125 Figures 129 Tables 131 CHAPTER 7 GENERAL DISCUSSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 133 Overall Conclusions 133 Unanswered Questions and Future Directions 134 Figure 144 REFERENCES 145 APPENDIX A Supplemental Material from Chapter 3 170 APPENDIX B Chemical Synthesis from Chapter 3 178 APPENDIX C Synthetic Routes from Chapter 4 179 APPENDIX D Chemical Synthesis from Chapter 4 183