Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stiffness of Cable-based Parallel Manipulators With Application to Stability Analysis

The stiffness of cable-based robots is studied in this paper. Since antagonistic forces are essential for the operation of cable-based manipulators, their effects on the stiffness should be considered in the design, control, and trajectory planning of these manipulators. This paper studies this issue and derives the conditions under which a cable-based manipulator may become unstable because of the antagonistic forces. For this purpose, a new approach is introduced to calculate the total stiffness matrix. This approach shows that, for a cable-based manipulator with all cables in tension, the root of instability is a rotational stiffness caused by the internal cable forces. A set of sufficient conditions are derived to ensure the manipulator is stabilizable meaning that it never becomes unstable upon increasing the antagonistic forces. Stabilizability of a planar cable-based manipulator is studied as an example to illustrate this approach.
On Parametrizations of State Feedbacks and Static Output Feedbacks and Their Applications

In this chapter, we provide an explicit free parametrization of all the stabilizing static state feedbacks for continuous-time Linear-Time-Invariant (LTI) systems, which are given in their state-space representation. The parametrization of the set of all the stabilizing static output feedbacks is next derived by imposing a linear constraint on the stabilizing static state feedbacks of a related system. The parametrizations are utilized for optimal control problems and for pole-placement and exact pole-assignment problems.
An Accurate Formula for the Gamma Function (Letters)

The residue calculus method of investigation of certain waveguide configurations makes use of the asymptotic properties of the gamma function. Usually the range of the variables concerned is such that this approximation is quite adequate. In a recent investigation of a very narrow waveguide junction peculiar numerical effects were traced to a condition where the variables were much too small to warrant the use of the usual asymptotic formula. A new and very simple modification extends the asymptotic form right down to zero with an error of, at most, only a few percent.
Toward Online Virtual Safety Training in the Manufacturing and Service Industries

This paper describes the first in a series of studies aimed at understanding risk perception and decision-making in virtual environments. A test is done to determine if virtual reality training in the optimum cutting condition will allow subjects to determine the optimum ‘safe’ cutting condition on a real machine. This would imply that sound cues in the virtual environment can help operators train to correctly perceive a hazardous condition that is different from what one would predict based on psychophysics. It is believed that a better understanding of perception in virtual environments will allow better prediction of the impact on decision-making after virtual training. This can provide a clearer justification for virtual safety training, including remote and online Internet-based systems. Potential implications of these recent studies on the service industries are discussed.
A Finite Element Analysis on SAW Sensor for Torque Measuring

When detecting torque with surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator sensors, the real strain of the host structure is not exactly consistent with the strain of SAW resonator due to material mismatch and the finite-thickness adhesive problem. A 3-layer (host structure, adhesive, and resonator layer) model is established. Finite-element Analysis (FEA) was used to investigate the strain transfer from the metal substrate to the SAW resonator (SAWR) through a bonding layer. The results show that the values of the strain transfer rate of FEA agree well with the experimental data. It can be concluded that FEA is of great value for SAW sensor design and sensing applications.
Accessing Data Transfer Reliability for Duty Cycled Mobile Wireless Sensor Network

Mobility in WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks) introduces significant challenges which do not arise in static WSNs. Reliable data transport is an important aspect of attaining consistency and QoS (Quality of Service) in several applications of MWSNs (Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks). It is important to understand how each of the wireless sensor networking characteristics such as duty cycling, collisions, contention and mobility affects the reliability of data transfer. If reliability is not managed well, the MWSN can suffer from overheads which reduce its applicability in the real world. In this paper, reliability assessment is being studied by deploying MWSN in different indoor and outdoor scenarios with various duty cycles of the motes and speeds of the mobile mote. Results show that the reliability is greatly affected by the duty cycled motes and the mobility using inherent broadcast mechanisms.
Analyzing Madeira and Bermuda as Two Different Destinations: A Text Mining Approach

Abstract This study explores how tourists perceive two island destinations (Madeira and Bermuda) through reviews on social network platforms. An Artificial intelligence data mining methodology is used (text mining) to address the research problem. Authors collected TripAdvisor reviews, 1148 from Madeira and 635 from Bermuda (total pool of 1783 reviews). A database with three coding was generated, based on literature: Tourism Experience Model (TEM), Membership Level of reviewers (ML) and Categories. Data was analyzed through Meaning Cloud software. Results point out an overall customer satisfaction regarding both islands, but slightly superior for Madeira’s island. This research also discusses reviewers ranking level, the type of language in use, and the generation of negative content. It is possible to conclude that reviews can persuade others, namely their booking intention.
Low-voltage low-power CMOS current conveyors

New CMOS rail to rail second generation current conveyor circuits are proposed. First a class A current conveyor circuit which operates from a single supply of 1.5 V with a rail to rail voltage swing capability is given. The circuit is then modified to work as a class AB while maintaining the rail to rail swing capability. The class AB circuit works from supply voltages down to +1.1 V with standby current of 56 /spl mu/A. These new current conveyor realizations are insensitive to the threshold voltage variation caused by the body effect, which minimizes the layout area and makes both circuits a valuable addition to the analog VLSI libraries. PSpice simulation confirms the attractive properties of the proposed circuits.
Partnering research in construction

Since the emergence of partnering in the construction industry in the late 1980s, it has received a great deal of attention from practitioners and researchers. The published research that is presented in the major journals typically advocates guidelines and models for implementing partnering. To date, however, no paper has attempted to summarize and present a critique of the existing partnering literature. This paper, therefore, reviews the partnering literature that has been published in four high quality rating journals, these being Construction Management and Economics. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management and ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering. It is concluded that there were four major themes of empirical studies, which were research on project partnering, examining a dual relationship, international partnering and a special application of partnering. Moreover, nonempirical studies were classified as the types of partnering, partnering models, partnering processes and partnering structure. The review provided in this paper ‘polishes the signposts’ and offers new directions for partnering research and its application in construction. Future studies are recommended to emphasize on the identification of performance measures and critical success factors, development and test of partnering models and processes, and the formation and selection of partnering strategy.
HOTFUZ: Cost‐effective higher‐order mutation‐based fault localization

Fault localization techniques are used to deduce the exact source of a failure from a set of failure indications while debugging software and play a crucial role in improving software quality. Mutation‐based fault localization (MBFL) techniques are proposed to localize faults at a finer granularity and with higher accuracy than traditional fault localization techniques. Despite the technique's effectiveness, the immense cost of mutation analysis hinders MBFL's practical application in the industry. Various mutation alternative strategies are utilized to lower the cost of MBFL, but they sacrifice the accuracy of localization results. Higher‐order mutation testing was proposed to search for valuable mutants that drive testing harder and reduce the overall test effort. However, higher‐order mutants (HOMs) never have been used to address the cost problem of MBFL to the extent of our knowledge. This paper proposes a novel, cost‐effective MBFL technique called HOTFUZ, Higher‐Order muTation‐based FaUlt localiZation, that employs HOMs to reduce the cost while minimizing the accuracy degradation. HOTFUZ combines mutants of a program under test into HOMs to decrease the number of mutants by more than half, depending on the order of HOMs. An experimental study is conducted using 65 real‐world faults of CoREBench to assess the proposed approach's cost‐effectiveness. The experimental results show that HOTFUZ outperforms the extant mutation alternative strategies by localizing faults more accurately using the same number of mutants executed. HOTFUZ has three main benefits over existing mutant reduction techniques for MBFL: (a) It keeps the advantage of using the whole set of mutation operators; (b) it does not discard generated mutants randomly for the sake of efficiency; and, finally, (c) it significantly decreases the proportion of equivalent mutants.
Secondary Infertility in Port Harcourt: Pattern and Socio-Dermographic Relationship

Background: Secondary Infertility is viewed as a social stigma, especially in Nigeria, due to the high premium placed on procreation. Observation suggests that this condition is on the increase in our environment. Hence, the need to determine the pattern and the relationship between the socio-demographic factors with infective causes of this condition; which will subsequently allow the tailoring of the individual investigation and subsequent treatment. Objective: To determine the prevalence and pattern as well as the relationship between the socio-demographic factors with infective causes of secondary infertility among women who attended the gynaecological clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) between January 2012 and December 2016 Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study design, based on findings from the folders, admission and outpatient registers, of infertile couples presenting at the gynaecology clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, over a five-year period (January 2012 – December 2016). Data were collected from all documented and laboratory findings. The data extracted from the case records were the socio-demographic characteristics of the patient, the duration of infertility as well as the causes. They were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: The mean age of women was 33.14±4.93 years. The prevalence of secondary infertility was 12% of all outpatient gynaecological consultation. The mean duration of secondary infertility was 3 years. The infective causes of secondary infertility [recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease(PID), sexually transmitted infections(STI), post abortal sepsis, puerperal sepsis, HIV/AIDS, mumps orchitis were commoner among the 31-40 years’ category, (45.8%), the infective causes were also commoner among women with primary level of education, (62.5%, p-value=0.001) as well as women who were self-employed (49%, p-value=0.041). Recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease was identified in majority of cases (37.1%). Abnormal semen analysis, hyper-prolactinaemia and uterine fibroid, also contributed significantly to infertility; 18.5%, 19.7% and 24.3% respectively. Conclusion: Infective causes are at the root cause of secondary infertility; the more educated the couple, the higher their socioeconomic status, the lesser the impact of infection on secondary infertility.
Distinct evolution of infection-enhancing and neutralizing epitopes in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variants (from alpha to omicron) : a structural and molecular epidemiology study

Infection-enhancing antibodies may limit the efficiency of Covid-19 vaccines. We analyzed the evolution ofneutralizing and facilitating epitopes in 1,860,489 SARS-CoV-2 genomes stored in the Los Alamos databasefrom June to November 2021. The structural dynamics of these epitopes was determined by molecular modelingof the spike protein on a representative panel of SARS-CoV-2 variants. D614, which belongs to an antibody-dependent-enhancement (ADE) epitope common to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, has mutated to D614G in2020, which could explain why ADE has not been detected following mass vaccination. A second epitopelocated in the N-terminal domain (NTD), specific of SARS-CoV-2, is highly conserved among most variants. Incontrast, the neutralizing epitope of the NTD showed extensive variations in SARS-CoV-2 variants. The balancebetween facilitating and neutralizing antibodies is in favor of neutralization for the Wuhan strain, alpha and betavariants, but not for gamma, delta, lambda, and mu. The recently emerging omicron variant is atypic as itsmutational profiles affects both neutralization and ADE epitopes. Overall, our data reveal that the evolution ofSARS-CoV-2 has dramatically affected the ADE/neutralization balance. Future vaccines should consider thesefindings to design new formulations adapted to SARS-CoV-2 variants and lacking ADE epitopes in the spikeprotein.
About Heating Plants Control System Developing on Basis of Neural Network Usage for PID-Regulator Parameters Optimization

An adaptive control system implementation is described. Such system is based on a neural network, used for online PID-regulator coefficients tuning. The backpropagation online training method is used. It is modified by adding a rule base. It contains conditions on choosing neural network learning rate. PID-regulator with neural tuner and conventional PID-regulator were used as regulators during the process of heating furnace control modeling. Such experiments were made for different loading furnace modes and setpoint schedules. The 11% economy of time on setpoint schedule realizing was achieved with the help of proposed neural tuner.
Robot systems reliability and safety: a review

This paper presents a review of published literature on robot reliability and safety. The literature is classified into three main categories: robot safety; robot reliability; and miscellaneous. Robot safety is further categorized into six classifications: general; accidents; human‐factors; safety standards; safety methods; and safety systems/technologies. The period covered by the review is from 1973 to 2001.
Mesoscopic model of hydrogen embrittlement in particle strengthened materials

ABSTRACT This work focuses on the constitutive modelling of damage development in particle strengthened materials in the presence of hydrogen. We apply the model to an area at the interface of a dissimilar weld of 8630 steel/IN625 nickel alloy which is known as the ‘featureless region’. This region contains an array of carbides each measuring about 40 nm. Cleavage-like fracture has been observed only in the presence of hydrogen and it is attributed to a combination of two types of hydrogen embrittlement mechanisms: hydrogen-induced decohesion (HID) along the -matrix interface of and a ductile-type fracture (Hydrogen Enhanced Local Plasticity, HELP). Modelling the constitutive behaviour of this region at a continuum level is not appropriate as the major role in the material response is the interaction of the carbide particles with dislocations which is captured at the mesoscopic level. Here we propose a constitutive model of the ‘featureless zone’ that accurately represents the effect of hydrogen on the constitutive response of the region at the mesoscopic scale. Hydrogen enhances the evolution of dislocations around the carbides, therefore the stress locally increases affecting the interfacial strength. The result is that, in the region of high hydrogen concentration, the material exhibits softening.
Trauma Coping Strategies for the Catholic Religious Men and Women Survivors of Kidnapping in the Southern Ecclesiastical Provinces of Nigeria

: The study aimed at investigating the effective trauma coping strategies among Catholic religious men and women survivors of kidnap in Southern Ecclesiastical Provinces of Nigeria. It had a phenomenological design. Twenty-one survivors of which twelve were males and nine females were interviewed in a focus group using a semi-structured interview guide. A thematic analysis was of the data showed emerging themes of Relating with more people, having a wider social support network, not paying too much attention to the fact that they experienced the kidnapping, finding a rational and realistic explanation to the situation, being open to learning positive lessons from a very difficult situation, being compassionate towards their abductors, actively looking forward to ways to replace the losses they have encountered, plunging themselves into the depth of their prayers, praying for their abductors, and receiving some kind of professional counseling or therapeutic support have helped them to cope and navigate the path that leads to posttraumatic growth. Other themes that emerged from participants who seem to be struggling and are still traumatized are Inadequate understanding of their trauma by their conferrers, poor understanding of mental health issues by their superiors, fear of the costs of therapy, and that the recommendations of counselors and therapists are not often respected. The study recommends that Catholic Institutes of religious men and women, family members, and the society at large can incorporate these positive coping strategies into the trauma intervention and care of the survivors of kidnapping for them to navigate the path of posttraumatic growth.
Model Evaluation at the Energy Information Administration

The Energy Information Administration's model quality program is based on objective information about model assumptions, equations, and data sources, and the ability of outside examiners to review models and replicate results. Agency standards and management enforce incentives for preparing and submitting timely documentation and building archive versions of models throughout the development process. Programs require regular review of models during the development process by outside experts and the detailed mathematical, statistical, and econometric review and software verification at key developmental stages of development. The agency gauges the effectiveness of the model quality program by the numbers of models documented and reviewed and by compliance with recommendations to retire, modify, or enhance the models reviewed.
Correction of wavelength error of white-light interference phase-shifting algorithm

In phase-shifting interferometry, phase unwrapping is an important algorithm for obtaining actual detection data. In general, fringe contrast is approximated to reduce the difficulty of operation. However, in the actual white light interference detection, the fringe contrast will vary with the change of the optical path difference as the wavelength is more abundant. In this paper, the three-step phase-shifting algorithm is taken as an example to derive the phase expression of the white light interference fringe contrast without approximation processing. A hemisphere with a radius of 10μm and an irregular object with a size of less than 6μm are applied to topography reconstruction. Compared with the topography reconstruction error of the three-step phase-shifting algorithm before and after the correction, it has proved that the three-step phase-shifting algorithm after the correction can increase the reconstruction accuracy by about two times, which provides a theoretical method to improve the reconstruction accuracy of the phase-shifting algorithm.
Enforcing Privacy Preservation on Edge Cameras Using Lightweight Video Frame Scrambling

Protecting privacy is a very challenging task in a highly surveilled world with zillions of surveillance cameras deployed ubiquitously. The difficulty mainly lies in the facts: (i) there is not a distinctively defined boundary between usability and privacy, (ii) video frames indiscriminately created and collected by the edge cameras could be abused and intercepted, and (iii) it is difficult to enforce the commonly used compute-intensive standard techniques as-is on the edge cameras because of limited computational resources. In this paper, we propose a lightweight and secure scheme to Enforce Privacy-preservation on Edge Cameras (EnPEC) using deep learning and a sinusoidal chaotic-map. The proposed EnPEC architecture comprises a lightweight frame classifier designed to label frames as offensive and harmless depending on their content to ensure the practice of selective surveillance following a frame approximation process and a novel sinusoidal-map-based chaotic image scrambling technique that enciphers frames color-channel wise to ensure end-to-end (E2E) privacy of frame contents. The extensive analysis of the functionality, performance and security of the EnPEC scheme, and comparison with related works verify that the EnPEC scheme is more feasible, robust and secure when it runs in real-time on edge cameras equipped with a computational power equivalent to the Raspberry PI 4.
Curcumin Nanoparticles Inhibiting Ferroptosis for the Enhanced Treatment of Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Background Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a form of severe stroke, the pathology of which is tied closely to a recently discovered form of programmed cell death known as ferroptosis. Curcumin (Cur) is a common phenolic compound extracted from the rhizome of Curcuma longa capable of hematoma volume and associated neurological damage in the context of ICH. Despite exhibiting therapeutic promise, the efficacy of Cur is challenged by its poor water solubility, limited oral bioavailability and inability to efficiently transit across the physiological barriers. Polymer-based nanoparticles (NPs) have widely been employed to aid in drug delivery efforts owing to their ideal biocompatibility and their ability to improve the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of specific drugs of interest. Methods In this study, we encapsulated Cur in NPs (Cur-NPs) and explored the effect of these Cur-NPs to enhance Cur delivery both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we evaluated the anti-ferroptosis effect of Cur-NPs in ICH model mice and erastin-treated HT22 murine hippocampal cells. Results The resultant Cur-NPs were spherical and exhibited a particle size of 127.31±2.73 nm, a PDI of 0.21±0.01 and a zeta potential of −0.25±0.02 mV. When applied to Madin Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells in vitro, these Cur-NPs were nonspecifically internalized via multiple endocytic pathways, with plasma membrane microcapsules and clathrin-mediated uptake being the dominant mechanisms. Within cells, these NPs accumulated in lysosomes, endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. Cur-NPs were capable of passing through physiological barriers in a zebrafish model system. When administrated to C57BL/6 mice, they significantly improved Cur delivery to the brain. Most notably, when administered to ICH model mice, Cur-NPs achieved superior therapeutic outcomes relative to other treatments. In a final series of experiments, these Cur-NPs were shown to suppress erastin-induced ferroptosis in HT22 murine hippocampal cells. Conclusion These Cur-NPs represent a promising means of improving Cur delivery to the brain and thereby better treating ICH.