Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive performance-guaranteed control of UPS systems

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is widely utilized to provide stable and high quality electricity for varying loads. Moreover, it is a critical means to maintain the voltage level of a microgrid with low-inertia. The control performance of UPS system directly affects the reliability and electricity quality of a microgrid. A large voltage deviation could result in component failure or even grid shutdown. In this paper, an adaptive performance-guaranteed controller is proposed for UPS integrated microgrid suffering from unknown parameters and nonlinear loads. A constrained state-space model of the plant is firstly developed and transformed into an equivalent unconstrained one via an error transformation technique. An adaptive controller is subsequently designed for the transformed system by using backstepping scheme. By this means, the bus voltage can be guaranteed to stay within arbitrarily user-defined bounds. Furthermore, all signals within the closed-loop system are proved to be bounded thru Lyapunov synthesis. Finally, the feasibility of the theoretical results is demonstrated via extensive simulation and experimental studies.
S&OP, FORECASTING, AND THE KNOWLEDGE-CREATING COMPANY

Organizational Knowledge can serve as a competitive advantage for companies. John and Terry draw examples from audits of the forecasting process at many companies to demonstrate how firms can use sales forecasting and sales and operations planning to gather and refine information about changing business environments, create organizational knowledge, and transform that knowledge into actionable plans. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2007
P+resonant control of a Z-source inverter for mains voltage drop compensation

Z-Source inverters, consisting of both inductors and capacitors as DC-link components, provide unique boost capability in contrast to conventional inverters. The simple structure needs no additional switching elements and only small step-up chokes. Due to the oscillatory arrangement of both inductors and capacitors in the DC-link, voltages and currents exhibit a characteristical six-pulse ripple when using the Z-source inverter with an AC supply. The consequences are distortion of" the output voltage and self-boosting due to unwanted shoot-through states and oscillating DC-link voltage due to mains voltage rectifying. An active rectifier topology in combination with a damped mains filter is proposed to prevent any unwanted shoot-through states. Besides, regenerating operation of the Z-source inverter with AC supply is enabled. Resting on this new structure with minimized passive components, a state space description is given. Subsequently, a simple and robust P+resonant closed loop control is designed to avoid load current harmonics caused by mains voltage rectifying. For each frequency component of the six-pulse ripple, a separate controller is employed. The phase-shift of the Z-source network is compensated by additional all-pass filters. Experimental results verify the suitability.
Value of Information Analysis in Dynamic Decision Models

Decision-making under dynamic environments is an important problem frequently encountered in the practice. In this paper, we reveal some properties of value of information in dynamic environment, and compare the results with that in different representations by other researchers. We study the time invariant features in dynamic influence diagrams (DID) to enhance the value of information calculation in dynamic decision models. We identify the structure in DIDs which could be decomposed to temporal invariant sub-DIDs and then be constructed into sub-junction trees to improve the efficiency in calculation of the total expected value and the value of information. We also discuss issues including finding spreading variables which will complicate the calculation, adding mapping variables directly into the sub-junction trees to enable a simple calculation for value of information for decisionintervening variables, and discounting benefits among the sub-junction trees according to time. Finally, we propose an algorithm based on these discussions which is polynomial to the size of the network when there are no spreading variables in the DID.
ANALYSIS OF TCP ALGORITHMS IN THE RELIABLE IEEE 802 . 11 b LINK

IEEE 802.11b technology networks have become increasingly common and an increasing number of devices are communicating with each other over lossy links. Unfortunately, TCP performs poorly over lossy links as it is unable to differentiate the loss due to packet corruption from that due to congestion. This paper presents systematic analysis and modeling results of TCP Reno, Vegas and Veno algorithms in the IEEE 802.11b networks link. In this work the following questions are analyzed: principles of operations, and the throughput dependence on random loss and long links delays, that emerge as using from MAC layer reliable protocols. The aim of the presented modeling is to sift features of TCP protocol algorithms and find its dependence on throughput in the IEEE 802.11 networks.
Search for magnetically quiet CHAMP polar passes and the characteristics of ionospheric currents during the dark season

Abstract. The magnetic activity at auroral latitudes is strongly dependent on season. During the dark season, when the solar zenith angle in the polar region is larger than 100° at all local times, the ionospheric conductivity is much reduced, and generally low activity is encountered. These time intervals are of special interest for the main field modelling, because then the geomagnetic field readings, in particular the field magnitude, are only slightly affected by ionospheric currents. Based on CHAMP data, this study examines how these quiet periods are reflected in the different magnetic field components. The peak FAC density is used as a possible proxy for the deviation of the total field. As a second option, the transverse field component, which is aligned with the auroral oval, is investigated, because it presents a measure for the FAC total current. Correlation analyses with the scalar residuals are performed and both proxies are tested for their suitability of predicting the intensity of the auroral electrojet during the dark polar seasons. The indicators based on the local FAC strength or on the amplitude of the transverse component show a reasonable correlation with the electrojet intensity for these periods, but fail when limited to small amplitudes. The predictability improves considerably if the time sector is limited to dayside hours (08:00–16:00 MLT). As the activity at high latitudes is strongly controlled by the solar wind input, we also consider IMF quantities which may support very quiet conditions. Correlations of the magnetic field scalar residuals with the merging electric field are strongest if only passes in the dayside sector are considered. Best selection results for quiet passes are obtained by combining four conditions: dark season, small average merging electric field, Em 1.2 mV/m during a time interval of 40 min centred at the polar crossing, and limitation to the dayside sector (08:00–16:00 MLT). The set of quiet polar passes identified by these criteria may be used beneficially in crustal field modelling of the polar regions.
Essays in macroeconomics

Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation benefited from the contribution, support and guidance of a great number of people and I am very grateful to all of them. Special thanks go to my supervisor Gernot Müller for his continuous support and invaluable advice during my dissertation. I would also like to thank Zeno Enders for agreeing to be on my thesis committee, for insightful discussions and suggestions, and for his input and contribution to the second chapter. It has been great working with my co-authors Benjamin Born and Johannes Pfeifer and I want to thank them for stimulating discussions and their countless and invaluable comments and suggestions, not only on our joint project. I am thankful to Michael Evers for his inspiration and comments on the first chapter. Many thanks go to the managing team of the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE), Urs Schweizer, Silke Kinzig, and Pamela Mertens for their enduring efforts in creating the inspiring research environment of the BGSE. Financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged. I enjoyed my time in Bonn very much thanks to great friends and fellow grad students, will miss the great research atmosphere in the office and our great times outside the office, including cooking sprees, hiking trips and movie nights. I would also like to thank Matthias Wibral for his great job in organizing the BGSE soccer and my fellow soccer players. iii I am deeply grateful to my family, my uncle Marcus, without whom I might have never studied economics, my brother and especially my parents. Thanks for always supporting me and believing in me. Finally, I thank Benni for everything! iv Contents Introduction 1 Introduction This thesis contains three chapters, each dealing with a specific macroeconomic topic. While these topics are quite diverse, covering aspects such as international portfolio holdings, the banking sector, crisis transmission and fiscal policy, there are still several links between the individual chapters. The first two chapters both analyze aspects of international macroeconomics, focusing on trade in goods and financial assets. More specifically, the first chapter examines how bilateral trade flows and trade openness influence a country's foreign asset holdings, and thus risk sharing. The second chapter also takes up linkages via goods and financial trade, however, it investigates the effects of a decline in trade flows and the value of foreign asset holdings on macroeconomic activity in the domestic …
Usable artificial intelligence

"The AI and HCI communities have often been characterized as having opposing views of how humans and computers should interact" observes Winograd in "Shifting Viewpoints". Reconciling these views requires a thoughtful balancing of assistance and control, of mental and system representations, and of abstract process and contextualized workflow. This workshop examines the gap between HCI and artificial intelligence, with the goal of improving usability of AI systems.
Optimal Policy for Financial Market Liberalizations: Decentralization and Capital Flow Reversals

Abstract Financial market liberalizations are an integral part of economic development. While initial booms in investment and output are commonly seen as signs of successful deregulation, they often reverse at a later stage as international capital flows turn negative and economic growth slows markedly. Such reversals of fortunes have commonly been attributed to incorrect policies that supposedly followed the initial, appropriate measures. It is unclear, however, if capital flow reversals are actually the result of policy reversals, or if they occur as part of the normal transition when financial liberalization is accompanied by a single suboptimal policy. The later hypothesis has not been explored in the theoretical literature. We construct a general equilibrium growth model of a small open economy, in which capital flow reversals are the result of a single, suboptimal policy imposed at the beginning of the financial liberalization. We show how improper taxation of foreign borrowing initially leads to strong growth fuelled by an investment boom and foreign borrowing. Still along the transition, however, the model predicts that capital flows must reverse endogenously at a later stage, as the debt burden rises and the country-specific risk premium increases. Our data on the Latin American and East Asian countries provide strong support for our hypothesis.
Fiscal Deficits and Current Account Deficits

Recent fiscal stimulus packages depend for their effectiveness on the assumption of non-Ricardian savings behavior. We show that, under the same assumption, higher fiscal deficits can have problematic implications if they turn out to be permanent. First, if they occur in large countries they significantly raise the world real interest rate. Second, they cause a short run current account deterioration equal to around 50% of the fiscal deficit deterioration. Third, the longer run current account deterioration equals almost 75% for a large economy such as the United States, and almost 100% for a small open economy.
The Internet Generation: Engaged Citizens or Political Dropouts

Despite rising levels of education and mounting calls for increased democratic participation, recent years have seen a significant decline in voter turnout in many countries and the erosion of the sense of civic duty that brought earlier generations to the polls. Henry Milner looks at the United States, Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, and the European Union to probe the decline of youth voting and attentiveness to politics, drawing lessons from observations of institutions, which could break down the wall between political life and"real" life that underlies political abstention among the Internet generation. Finding civic education the key to instilling habits of attentiveness to public affairs, especially among potential political dropouts, Milner sets out a series of ways to bring the issues-and the political parties' stance on them-to the classroom, including visits, simulations, and innovative use of media, old and new.
Consensus statement for inert gas washout measurement using multiple- and single- breath tests

Inert gas washout tests, performed using the single- or multiple-breath washout technique, were first described over 60 years ago. As measures of ventilation distribution inhomogeneity, they offer complementary information to standard lung function tests, such as spirometry, as well as improved feasibility across wider age ranges and improved sensitivity in the detection of early lung damage. These benefits have led to a resurgence of interest in these techniques from manufacturers, clinicians and researchers, yet detailed guidelines for washout equipment specifications, test performance and analysis are lacking. This manuscript provides recommendations about these aspects, applicable to both the paediatric and adult testing environment, whilst outlining the important principles that are essential for the reader to understand. These recommendations are evidence based, where possible, but in many places represent expert opinion from a working group with a large collective experience in the techniques discussed. Finally, the important issues that remain unanswered are highlighted. By addressing these important issues and directing future research, the hope is to facilitate the incorporation of these promising tests into routine clinical practice.
Power Aware Job Scheduling with Quality of Service Guarantees : A Preliminary Study

In large scale server systems, Quality of Service (QoS) performance cannot be guaranteed if only the objective is to minimize the total power consumptions separately. In this paper a power aware feedback control based power aware job scheduling algorithm (PFM) is proposed to minimize power consumption in computing system and to provide QoS guarantees. Simulations and experiments show that the proposed algorithm can reduce power consumptions significantly while still providing QoS guarantees and the performance degradation is acceptable. The results also show that conventional hardware based per-component and system-wide power management methods can save more power consumptions if they are in assistance with job-level adaptation.
Effects of the Home Learning Environment and Preschool Center Experience upon Literacy and Numeracy Development in Early Primary School

This study investigates the influence of aspects of home and preschool environments upon literacy and numeracy achievement at school entry and at the end of the 3rd year of school. Individuals with unexpected performance pathways (by forming demographically adjusted groups: overachieving, average, and underachieving) were identified in order to explore the effects of the home learning environment and preschool variables on child development. Multilevel models applied to hierarchical data allow the groups that differ with regard to expected performance to be created at the child and preschool center levels. These multilevel analyses indicate powerful effects for the home learning environment and important effects of specific preschool centers at school entry. Although reduced, such effects remain several years later.
Distributed Detection over Random Networks: Large Deviations Analysis

We show by large deviations theory that the performance of running consensus is asymptotically equivalent to the performance of the (asymptotically) optimal centralized detector. Running consensus is a stochastic approximation type algorithm for distributed detection in sensor networks, recently proposed. At each time step, the state at each sensor is updated by a local averaging of its own state and the states of its neighbors (consensus) and by accounting for the new observations (innovation). We assume Gaussian, spatially correlated observations, and we allow for the underlying network to be randomly varying. This paper shows through large deviations that the Bayes probability of detection error, for the distributed detector, decays at the best achievable rate, namely, the Chernoff information rate. Numerical examples illustrate the behavior of the distributed detector for finite number of observations.
Fluid-Flow Analysis of the Packet Timed Token Service Discipline

– Integrated services networks face the challenge of managing several traffic classes at the same time. Service disciplines devised for integrated services networks therefore need to be flexible, i.e. able to provide different types of service, in order to accommodate different traffic classes efficiently. In this paper we focus on the integration of rate-guaranteed and best-effort traffic, and we argue that service disciplines based on the Generalized Processor Sharing paradigm, which schedule flows according to their weights, lack the flexibility needed to efficiently manage both classes at the same time. We propose that a different service paradigm, the Dual-Class paradigm, which considers the two traffic classes at the same time, be used as a reference to devise flexible and efficient service disciplines for integrated services networks. We then present an innovative Packet Timed Token Service Discipline, which approximates a Dual-Class paradigm. This is shown by means of a fluid-flow analysis on PTTSD.
Inter-language differences in the mcgurk effect for dutch and Cantonese listeners

A group of Dutch and Cantonese listeners were compared on a audio-visual speech perception task. Using video techniques, lipmovements of syllables were dubbed on a speech signal such that the heard and seen place of articulation did not match [4]. The Cantonese participants were more influenced by vision than the Dutch. We suggest that the phonological repertoire has an influence on audio-visual speech perception.
Some exact Ramsey–Turán numbers

Let r be an integer, f(n) be a function, and H be a graph. Introduced by Erdős, Hajnal, Sós, and Szemerédi, the r‐Ramsey–Turán number of H, RTr(n, H, f(n)), is defined to be the maximum number of edges in an n‐vertex, H‐free graph G with αr(G)⩽f(n), where αr(G) denotes the Kr‐independence number of G.
Visual representation of information as communicative practice

Anyone who has clarified a thought or prompted a response during a conversation by drawing a picture has exploited the potential of image making to convey information. Images are increasingly ubiquitous in daily communication due to advances in visually enabled information and communication technologies (ICT), such as information visualization applications, image retrieval systems, and virtual collaborative work tools. Although images are often used in social contexts, information science research concerned with the visual representation of information typically focuses on the image artifact and system building. To learn more about image making as a form of social interaction and as a form of information practice, a qualitative study examined face‐to‐face conversations involving the creation of ad hoc visualizations (i.e., “napkin drawings”). Interactional sociolinguistic concepts of conversational involvement and coordination guided multimodal analysis of video‐recorded interactions that included spontaneous drawing. Findings show patterns in communicative activities associated with the visual representation of information. Furthermore, the activity of mark making contributes to the maintenance of conversational involvement in ways that are not always evident in the drawn artifact. This research has implications for the design and evaluation of visually enabled virtual collaboration environments, visual information extraction and retrieval systems, and data visualization tools.
Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

" "Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing "intifada," is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren s magnificent "Six Days of War," an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive account of this epoch-making event. Writing with a novelist s command of narrative and a historian s grasp of fact and motive, Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, "Six Days of War" is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation. "
Velocity alignment for multiple agents based on topological distance with external disturbances

This paper studies a multi-agent system consisting of mobile robots with second-order dynamics and assumes topological distance for velocity alignment problem. This problem is investigated for directed networks of agents in the presence of external disturbances with fixed and switching topologies. A set of sufficient conditions are proposed to guarantee the velocity alignment with the desired H∞ performance. Also, the simulation shows that whit the proposed algorithm a group of robots can form a cohesive flock even with the existence of external disturbance.
Intergenerational Transmission of Income and Wealth

Parents can transmit income and wealth to their offspring directly through bequests and gifts of financial assets. Parents can augment a child's skills and traits through the provision of, for example, education, diet and doctors. Biological parents also supply the genetic endowments which provide skills useful in the labor market. Although practically a virgin territory, it is important to estimate the effects of genetic endowments and common (mostly family) environment on earnings and on other indices of individual attainment in order to gauge the effectiveness of programs designed to improve equality of opportunity. Also if genetics and common environment are not controlled for, biased estimates of regression coefficients of observable variables, such as years of education, often are obtained.