Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Dovetail Permanent Magnet Rotor Solutions for Various Pole Numbers

A buried magnet rotor structure, which is supported only by permanent magnets, is proposed for medium-speed permanent magnet machines. Many design aspects of the dovetail-shaped rotor structure have been found. Various machine solutions, with pole numbers 6 to 14, are studied with electromagnetic and structural finite element simulations. A simple model is created for making comparison with the different pole numbers easier. Main dimensions of the machine are kept the same. Optimal solutions for various pole numbers are searched and discussed. It is shown that for lower pole numbers, the structure is electrically better, while for higher pole numbers, the structure is mechanically stronger against centrifugal forces. In addition, the optimal electromagnetic structures for each pole number are shown to be similar to the optimal mechanical structures. Electrically and mechanically critical areas are also shown to be almost the same. The optimized results are also compared to three manufactured prototypes. The obtained results demonstrate the feasibility of the construction and the design method.
Motion detection and tracking using space-time interest points

Space-Time Interest Points (STIP) are among all the interesting features which can be extracted from videos; they are simple, robust and they allow a good characterization of a set of regions of interest corresponding to moving objects in a three-dimensional observed scene. In this paper, we show how the resulting features often reflect interesting events that can be used for a compact representation of video data as well as for tracking. For a good detection of moving objects, we propose to apply the algorithm of the detection of spatiotemporal interest points on both components of the decomposition which is based on a partial differential equation (PDE): a geometric structure component and a texture component. Proposed results are obtained from very different types of videos, namely sport videos and animation movies.
Cross-Cultural Study of the Predictors of Learning in Children Ages 11-15 Years Old

Academic achievement is deemed a significant indicator for a successful future. Cognitive ability, home environment, and metacognition are among the many factors research has posited to contribute to academic achievement and later success (Alloway & Alloway, 2010; Bradley & Caldwell, 1984, Veenman, Wilhelm, & Beishuizen, 2004). The present study examines the relation between cognitive ability (working memory (WM) and nonverbal ability), metacognitive awareness, implicit theories of IQ, home environment (socioeconomic status (SES), home life, and parental involvement in homework), and learning outcomes (grades) in two distinct sample populations. The study used a sample of 11-15-year-olds and their parents from two high schools in Carriacou, Grenada (n=50) and Lakeshore Middle School in Florida (n=38). A stepwise regression revealed that cognitive ability, implicit theories of IQ, and home environment predicted overall grades of the Grenada sample. Several differences between the two cultures emerged including what predicted their implicit theories of IQ. The present study will benefit the educational community, as the findings could provide new insight into how students’ cognitive ability, implicit theories of IQ, and home life influence learning outcomes in a developed and developing population. The practical implications suggest more effective culturally responsive educational programs for students based on their learning style and learning needs. The present study has significance with reference to Grenada, in that because of little to no research available investigating this topic it will provide a basis for subsequent research to occur.
A Hybrid Task Schedule Algorithm for Real-Time System Employing Trusted Computing Technology

Security has been a serious concern in more and more embedded systems. But restricted by the constrained resources in embedded system, security may damage the system real-time performance, we refer to this challenge as the "security real-time gap". To bridge this gap, trusted computing technology can be a good candidate, however, researches focusing on real-time performance in embedded systems employing trusted computing is still blank. In this paper, we investigate the dynamic scheduling of hybrid tasks with trusted computing constraint, and present a hybrid tasks model to describe the tasks which need trusted computing resources and a strategy to manage the trusted requests. Furthermore, an advanced dynamic hybrid task schedule algorithm based on total bandwidth server (TBS) algorithm is presented in this paper, used for enhancing responsiveness performance of aperiodic tasks. In the evaluation by simulation, the proposed method reduced average response times of the aperiodic task by up to 30.4%.
The Family Experience of the Crisis of Involuntary Treatment in Mental Health

ABSTRACT While policy and practice standards emphasise the importance of engaging and supporting families of people with mental health problems, many families have reported feeling unsupported and distanced from treatment and care planning in acute inpatient units. There has been little systematic interest in the changing role and experiences of families throughout the emergence of illness, crisis, seeking of treatment, and subsequent recovery. Nineteen in-depth interviews were conducted with the next of kin of 17 people who had been admitted under an Involuntary Treatment Order in a large metropolitan hospital in the Brisbane region. A general inductive approach was used to analyse the data. While hospital admission was described as a time where, ideally, families were able to let go of being responsible for their relative's behaviour and let the health care professionals take over, for many this did not occur. We suggest four critical elements for providing recovery-oriented support to families. These include: (a) ensuring that families feel that their relative is safe and receiving the care needed; (b) keeping the family informed about their relative's progress; (c) ensuring families have access to information about the mental health system, and (d) working in partnership with the families. IMPLICATIONS Family wellbeing is improved when they feel part of a supportive team. Instituting an open policy where families can contact ward staff easily and access information about the person they care for may alleviate families’ anxieties and minimise stress. Family work is enhanced when health professionals acknowledge families’ relationships, expertise, and understanding of their family member.
Voice-based gender identification via multiresolution frame classification of spectro-temporal maps

This paper presents a novel approach to gender identification based on adaptive multiresolution (MR) classification of spectro-temporal maps. The images of speech signals in this work are mainly provided by auditory inspired spectro-temporal representations: mel-spectrogram, cochleagram and auditory spectrogram. The 2-D representation of a segment of an utterance is used as the input to the system. The system adds MR decomposition in front of a generic classifier consisting of feature extraction and classification in each MR subspace, finally combined into a global decision using a weighting algorithm. It has been shown that the accuracy of the proposed method, by rising up to 99%, significantly outperforms the accuracy of most of other common algorithms which combine pitch and acoustical features for gender identification.
Exploring synergistic DVFS control of cores and DRAMs for thermal efficiency in CMPs with 3D-stacked DRAMs

The three-dimensional (3D) integration technology that utilizes low-latency and high-density Through-Silicon Vias (TSVs) to integrate DRAMs and Chip-Multiprocessors(CMPs) in the third dimension has been demonstrated as a promising way to mitigate the memory wall problem in CMPs. In addition to the improved interconnection performance and heterogeneous integration, the 3D IC technology also provides the advantages of high packaging density and small chip area. However, the power density of 3D ICs increases with the number of active devices. Therefore, alleviating the thermal stress issue of 3D ICs is one of the major design challenges.
Selective pressures on the once and future contents of ethnic stereotypes: effects of the communicability of traits.

It is hypothesized that traits that are most likely to be the subject of social discourse (i.e., most communicable) are most likely to persist in ethnic stereotypes over time and that this effect is moderated by the extent to which an ethnic group is the subject of social discourse. Study 1 yielded communicability ratings of 76 traits. Study 2 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its presence in stereotypes of 4 Canadian ethnic groups. Study 3 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its persistence over time in stereotypes of 8 American ethnic groups. Results supported the hypotheses. A communication-based analysis of stereotypes appears helpful in predicting persistence and change in the contents of stereotypes of real groups in the real world.
A Reservation-Based Multiple Access Protocol for OFDMA Networks with Adaptive Backoff Strategy

In this paper, a new wireless protocol is proposed for implementing a reservation window multiple access scheme in OFDMA networks. This scheme offers an improvement to a multichannel environment such as OFDMA by providing a controllable access scenario. A simple and practical backoff algorithm is introduced based on an adaptive backoff strategy. Each user maintains an estimate of its average traffic and adapts its backoff window size accordingly. A discrete time Markov chain analysis is applied to this protocol. Protocol performance measures such as throughput, packet acceptance probability and average energy are studied. The results obtained show that this scheme is a very effective multiple access protocol for point-to-multipoint (PMP) OFDMA applications such as IEEE 802.16d networks.
The Proposal of an Expression of the Instructional Model of Information Education based on Ontology Theory

A goal of information education is to enable students to acquire the ability of using information in order to live in a modern information-oriented society. Such meta-ability cannot be learned in the traditional Japanese instructional way of knowledge being transmitted by teachers. When a teacher designs an instruction plan for information education, it is necessary to include not only the target goal of the unit but also other related goals determined by types of teaching tools and teaching materials. The purpose of this study is to support the teacher of information education in the process of designing the instruction plan. First, we propose a process for instructional design that is different from the traditional one and which is adapted to information education. Next, we present concepts, which comprise designed instruction and information education clearly and systematically based on ontology theory.
The impact of institutional discrimination on psychiatric disorders in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVES We examined the relation between living in states that instituted bans on same-sex marriage during the 2004 and 2005 elections and the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations. METHODS We used data from wave 1 (2001-2002) and wave 2 (2004-2005) of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (N = 34,653), a longitudinal, nationally representative study of noninstitutionalized US adults. RESULTS Psychiatric disorders defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, increased significantly between waves 1 and 2 among LGB respondents living in states that banned gay marriage for the following outcomes: any mood disorder (36.6% increase), generalized anxiety disorder (248.2% increase), any alcohol use disorder (41.9% increase), and psychiatric comorbidity (36.3% increase). These psychiatric disorders did not increase significantly among LGB respondents living in states without constitutional amendments. Additionally, we found no evidence for increases of the same magnitude among heterosexuals living in states with constitutional amendments. CONCLUSIONS Living in states with discriminatory policies may have pernicious consequences for the mental health of LGB populations. These findings lend scientific support to recent efforts to overturn these policies.
Recursive non linear models for on line traffic prediction of VBR MPEG coded video sources

Any performance evaluation of broadband networks requires modeling of the actual network traffic. Since multimedia services and especially MPEG coded video streams are expected to be a major traffic component over these networks, modeling of such services and traffic prediction are useful for the reliable operation of the broadband based an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks. In this paper, a recursive implementation of a Non linear AutoRegressive model (RNAR) is presented for on line traffic prediction of Variable Bit Rate (VBR) MPEG-2 video sources. This is accomplished by using an efficient weight adaptation algorithm so that the network provide good performance even in case of highly fluctuated traffic rates. In particular, the network weights are adapted so that the output is approximately equal to the current data while preserving the former knowledge of the network. Experimental results are presented to show the good performance of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, comparison with other linear or non linear techniques is presented to show that the adopted method yields better results than the other ones.
A Nonlinear Theory for El Niño Bursting

Abstract A new mechanism is proposed that explains two key features of the observed El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon—its irregularity and decadal amplitude changes. Using a low-order ENSO model, the authors show that the nonlinearities in the tropical heat budget can lead to bursting behavior characterized by decadal occurrences of strong El Nino events. La Nina events are not affected, a feature that is also seen in ENSO observations. One key result of this analysis is that decadal variability in the Tropics can be generated without invoking extratropical processes or stochastic forcing. The El Nino bursting behavior simulated by the low-order ENSO model can be understood in terms of the concept of homoclinic and heteroclinic connections. It is shown that this new model for ENSO amplitude modulations and irregularity, although difficult to prove, might explain some features of ENSO dynamics seen in more complex climate models and the observations.
Platelet Rich Plasma and Knee Surgery

In orthopaedic surgery and sports medicine, the knee joint has traditionally been considered the workhorse. The reconstruction of every damaged element in this joint is crucial in achieving the surgeon's goal to restore the knee function and prevent degeneration towards osteoarthritis. In the last fifteen years, the field of regenerative medicine is witnessing a boost of autologous blood-derived platelet rich plasma products (PRPs) application to effectively mimic and accelerate the tissue healing process. The scientific rationale behind PRPs is the delivery of growth factors, cytokines, and adhesive proteins present in platelets and plasma, as well as other biologically active proteins conveyed by the plasma such as fibrinogen, prothrombin, and fibronectin; with this biological engineering approach, new perspectives in knee surgery were opened. This work describes the use of PRP to construct and repair every single anatomical structure involved in knee surgery, detailing the process conducted in ligament, meniscal, and chondral surgery.
Static and dynamic scheduling algorithms for scalable Web server farm

Multiprocessor-based servers are often used for building popular Web sites which have to guarantee an acceptable Quality of Web Service. In common multi-node systems, namely Web server farms, a Web switch (say, Dispatcher) routes client requests among the server nodes. This architecture resembles a traditional cluster in which a global scheduler dispatches parallel applications among the server nodes. The main difference is that the load reaching Web server farms tends to occur in waves with intervals of heavy peaks. These heavy-tailed characteristics have motivated the use of policies based on dynamic state information for global scheduling in Web server farms. This paper presents an accurate comparison between static and dynamic policies for different classes of Web sites. The goal is to identify main features of architectures and load management algorithms that guarantee scalable Web services. We verify that a Web farm with a Dispatcher with full control on client connections is a very robust architecture. Indeed, we demonstrate that if the Web sire provides only HTML pages or simple database searches, the Dispatcher does not need to use sophisticated scheduling algorithms even if the load occurs in heavy bursts. Dynamic scheduling policies appears to be necessaly for scalability only when most requests are for Web services of three or more orders of magnitude higher than providing HTML pages with some embedded objects.
A Batteryless Vibration-based Energy Harvesting System for Ultra Low Power Ubiquitous Applications

This paper proposed a vibration driven energy harvesting platform based on piezoelectric material. A new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method for this platform is also presented. This platform harvests ambient vibration energy as its power source, and is capable of self-starting, and self-powered operation without the need of a battery. The proposed MPPT methodology consumes very little power, and is especially suitable for the environments, where ambient harvested power is very low. System modeling, analysis, and implementation are developed. Simulation results show that the power harvesting efficiency with the proposed MPPT scheme is higher than 90% and the power utilization efficiency of the overall platform is higher than 50%.
S2P2P: Semantic Search in Unstructured Peer-to-Peer Networks

In this paper, we present a semantic-driven k-walkers-based search scheme, called S2P2P, for data information dissemination and query routing in unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. In S2P2P, each peer maintains its observation on the semantics of received queries (demands) and data information (supplies), as well as a local view on network topology. On top of this, each peer, in line with forwarding a query, disseminates its known data information to a selected set of remote peers by taking advantage of query piggybacked data. For routing a query, each peer, instead of merely introducing an immediate neighbor or remote peer, suggests a query routing path containing a sequence of peers with expertise on the similar topic of query. This is achieved by a path suggestion heuristics that iteratively applies Dijkstra's algorithm in a greedy manner. Each iteration manages to detect one more expert peer and augments the current path suggestion with the shortest path from its tail to the detected expert peer. The comparative experimental evaluation shows that S2P2P outperforms a semantic flooding based search strategy in terms of search precision and recall. In addition, our evaluation reveals that S2P2P is as least as robust against the network dynamics than the semantic flooding approach.
Mosaicing Touchless and Mirror-Reflected Fingerprint Images

Touchless fingerprint sensing technologies have been explored to solve problems in touch-based sensing techniques because they do not require any contact between a sensor and a finger. While they can solve problems caused by the contact of a finger, other difficulties emerge such as a view difference problem and a limited usable area due to perspective distortion. In order to overcome these difficulties, we propose a new touchless fingerprint sensing device capturing three different views at one time and a method for mosaicing these view-different images. The device is composed of a single camera and two planar mirrors reflecting side views of a finger, and it is an alternative to expensive multiple-camera-based systems. The mosaic method can composite the multiple view images by using the thin plate spline model to expand the usable area of a fingerprint image. In particular, to reduce the affect of perspective distortion, we select the regions in each view by minimizing the ridge interval variations in a final mosaiced image. Results are promising as our experiments show that mosaiced images offer 29% more true minutiae and 28% larger good quality area than one-view, unmosaiced images. Also, when the side-view images are matched to the mosaiced images, it gives more matched minutiae than matching with one-view frontal images. We expect that the proposed method can reduce the view difference problem and increase the usable area of a touchless fingerprint image. Furthermore, the proposed method can be applied to other biometric applications requiring a large template for recognition.
MOLECULAR AND BIOLOGIC CHARACTERISTICS OF TOXOPLASMA GONDII ISOLATES FROM WILDLIFE IN THE UNITED STATES

Toxoplasma gondii isolates can be grouped into 3 genetic lineages. Type I isolates are considered more virulent in outbred mice and have been isolated predominantly from clinical cases of human toxoplasmosis, whereas types II and III isolates are considered less virulent for mice and are found in humans and food animals. Little is known of genotypes of T. gondii isolates from wild animals. In the present report, genotypes of isolates of T. gondii from wildlife in the United States are described. Sera from wildlife were tested for antibodies to T. gondii with the modified agglutination test, and tissues from animals with titers of 1:25 (seropositive) were bioassayed in mice. Toxoplasma gondii was isolated from the hearts of 21 of 34 seropositive white- tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from Mississippi and from 7 of 29 raccoons (Procyon lotor); 5 of 6 bobcats (Lynx rufus); and the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), and coyote (Canis latrans) from Georgia. Toxoplasma gondii was also isolated from 7 of 10 seropositive black bears (Ursus americanus) from Pennsylvania by bioassay in cats. All 3 genotypes of T. gondii based on the SAG2 locus were circulating among wildlife.