Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel High Efficiency Three-Port Bidirectional Step-up/Step-down DC/DC Converter for Photovoltaic Systems

This paper proposes a novel high efficiency three-port bidirectional DC/DC converter for photovoltaic (PV) systems. A PV system output is stepped up to supply to a DC bus or DC load while charging the battery. When the PV output is insufficient, battery voltage will be stepped up to the DC bus, and when the DC bus has excess energy, it will be stepped down to charge the battery. Thus, a three-port bidirectional high step-up / step-down converter is achieved.In this paper, a common core coupled inductor is designed and adopted in the proposed converter. Power switches and diodes in the circuit are shared to achieve the bidirectional operation. In the step-up mode, the clamp capacitor is used to reduce the voltage spike on the main switches; in addition to the voltage-doubling capacitor is recovered energy from the secondary side leakage inductance. Also, the input capacitors recover the primary side leakage inductance energy in the step-down mode, so that the converter can improve the conversion efficiency. Finally, this paper implements a 500W three-port bidirectional converter to verify the feasibility and practicability of the proposed topology. According to the measurement results, the highest efficiency of the PV step-up mode is 94.3%, and the highest efficiency of the battery step-up mode is 94.1%, while the highest efficiency of the step-down mode is 95.2%.
An Area Efficient 19.25 GHz to 77 GHz Gilbert Cell Frequency Quadrupler with 55% Shrinked Delay Lines in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS

This paper presents an area-efficient 19.25 GHz to 77 GHz frequency quadrupler for automotive radar applications. To reduce chip area, the delay lines of each doubler stage have been drastically shrunk by means of meandering, slow wave structures, and capacitive loading. Additional circuit techniques were applied to further reduce chip area. Compared to previously published Gilbert cell frequency multipliers the presented quadrupler achieves the shortest electrical length of the delay lines reported so far allowing for compact, low-cost radar transceivers. The chip was implemented in a IHP 130nm SiGe BiCMOS technology (fT/fmax =240/340GHz). It dissipates 91.5mW from a 3.3V supply.
A Scalable Mixed Synthesis Framework for Heterogeneous Networks

We present a new logic synthesis framework which produces efficient post-technology mapped results on heterogeneous networks containing a mix of different types of logic. This framework accomplishes this by breaking down the circuit into sections using a hypergraph k-way partitioner and then determines the best-fit logic representation for each partition between two Boolean networks, And-Inverter Graphs (AIG) and Majority-Inverter Graphs (MIG), which have been shown to perform better over each other on different types of logic. Experimental results show that over a set of Open Piton Design Benchmarks (OPDB) and OpenCores benchmarks, our proposed methodology outperforms state-of-the-art academic tools in AreaDelay Product (ADP), Power-Delay Product (PDP), and EnergyDelay Product (EDP) by 5%, 2%, and 15% respectively after performing Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) technology mapping as well as showing a 54% improvement in runtime over conventional MIG optimization.
An Efficient MILP-Based Aging-Aware Floorplanner for Multi-Context Coarse-Grained Runtime Reconfigurable FPGAs

Shrinking transistor sizes are jeopardizing the reliability of runtime reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), making them increasingly sensitive to aging effects such as Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI). This paper introduces a reliability-aware floorplanner which is tailored to multi-context, coarse-grained, runtime reconfigurable architectures (CGRRAs) and seeks to extend their Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) by balancing the usage of processing elements (PEs). The proposed method is based on a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation, the solution to which produces appropriately-balanced mappings of workload to PEs on the reconfigurable fabric, thereby mitigating aging-induced lifetime degradation. Results demonstrate that, as compared to the default reliability-unaware floorplanning solutions, the proposed method achieves an average MTTF increase of 2.5× without introducing any performance degradation.
Personalization, Screen design and E-learning System Acceptance: An Empirical Analysis

In The study investigates Personalization, Screen design and E-learning System Acceptance through a modified technology acceptance model. Electronic learning (E-learning) system acceptance has attracted significant interest from the researchers and academia. Several models have been developed and extended to examine the decision-making process of individuals towards using those systems, and to understand new insights into E-learning system acceptance models. Among the models applied, technology acceptance model (TAM) has been considered a substantially effective model to understand the usage behaviour, specifically when innovative and continuously changing systems are brought under investigation. However, the TAM model has also been criticized for its limited capability to explain individuals' acceptance behaviour across technologies and information systems (such as E-learning system). In this regard, we have proposed an extended TAM by adding two important factors, i.e. personalization and screen design in order to investigate and understand E-learning acceptance behaviour. We tested our extended model with a sample of 308 users (university students) of E-learning system. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. For the analysis of the gathered data, the Analysis of Moment Structures Software (AMOS) with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques was used. Results suggest a significant support for the model. On the whole, the model explained 47.3 % of shared variance (i.e. R2). This study provides valuable insights into the factors that have an impact on the acceptance of E-learning system, and offers new ideas in understanding the systems acceptance in developing countries contexts.
Arbuscular Mycorrhiza in the Living Collections at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Most plants have mutualistic symbioses (mycorrhizas) with certain fungi that occupy their roots, the most common of which fall into the category known as arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM). Although most of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are entirely subterranean, some form spore masses or sporocarps sufficiently large to be seen with the unaided eye on the surface of the substrate. During several decades of casual observation in the research greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), such clumps of spores from several species of AMF have been recorded. A brief introduction to mycorrhizas, with an emphasis on AM, is provided. A list of host plants grown in botanic gardens or similar situations from which AMF have been identified is given. The possible value of AMF is discussed in relation to the ‘ecosystems’ that develop in mature botanic garden greenhouses. Ways of using AMF to improve the establishment or growth of plants are discussed, including a suggestion that adequate controls must always be used, particularly when using previously untested commercially available products.
Minimum delay scheduling under average power constraint for 802.11ax uplink

The 802.11ax WLAN standard promises four times higher throughput compared with the previous standards. In the uplink, the standard includes OFDMA based scheduled access in which the associated stations can be scheduled by an 802.11ax access point (AP). The quality of service for the associated stations can therefore be enhanced by intelligent scheduling of the stations on the OFDMA uplink. The AP is responsible for partitioning the available spectrum to resource units, allocating the resource units to the stations, and transmit power control at the station. In this paper, we consider the design of joint policies for resource unit allocation and power control for the 802.11ax uplink with the objective of minimizing the average latency (or average queue length) of packets queued at the station destined for the AP, while the average transmit power is constrained. Using the drift plus penalty approach we propose two heuristic scheduling policies for the above problem. The achievable average queue lengths and average powers for these scheduling policies are obtained using simulations.
Application of a Mesh Free Monte-Carlo Method to the Analysis of Dielectric Slabs in Electromagnetics

In this paper, we present a probabilistic MonteCarlo method to simulate the electromagnetic field in multiple interface problems based on transmission lines. We present numerical results for the simplest case of the propagation of gaussian pulses and sinusoidal sources in lossy and lossless dielectric slabs which demonstrate the applicability of the method to solve network problem in microwave theory. We also present a methodology to obtain the amplitude and phase associated with every point in the domain without resorting to fourier transformations. This method is an important achievement in the development of our Monte-Carlo method because otherwise we would have to integrate the field over time to achieve similar results, which would be unpractical for a Monte-Carlo method. Finally, we compare our results with well established theory to validate the methods.
A Full-Color Micro LEDs Display Based on IGZO TFT

Micro LED has shown a great potential for next generation of display owing to their fascinating optoelectronic characteristics and power efficient. In this paper, we investigated full-color Micro LED display through integrating three color RGB Micro LEDs to glass backplane. Utilizing IGZO-TFT as drive backplane realized an active matrix to drive pixel. Based on such architecture, a 4-inch, PPI=92, full-color display are successfully demonstrated, with over 100% NTSC color gamut.
Automatic Skin Cancer (Melanoma) Detection by Processing Dermatoscopic images

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer if not treated early. The best way to cure melanoma is to treat it in its earliest stage of development. Since melanoma is similar to benign moles in its shape and appearance, it is often mistaken for moles and left untreated. Automatic melanoma detection is an essential way to increase the survival rate of patients by detecting melanoma in its early stages. In this paper, a new method for automatic diagnosis of melanoma using segmented dermatoscopic images is provided. Almost all related methods follow similar approaches but using different features. We have introduced several new features which could improve the accuracy of diagnosing melanoma. For evaluation we have implemented and tested all methods on the ISIC archive, which is the largest openly available dataset of dermatoscopic melanoma images. Our method outperforms most recent previous works’ accuracy on the ISIC dataset by 1.5 percent. It also achieves a 2.32-point higher F1 score while obtaining a comparable sensitivity.
Baylisascaris spp. in non-raccoon procyonid hosts and assessment of potential risk of human exposure

Parkanzky, Max Carlin. M.S., Purdue University, May 2015. Prevalence of Baylisascaris spp. in Non-Raccoon Procyonid Hosts and Assessment of Risk of Human Exposure. Major Professor: Kevin Kazacos. Baylisascaris procyonis (Bp) is a large roundworm of the common raccoon (Procyon lotor) which serves as the definitive host. Bp is an important cause of clinical larva migrans, including severe neurological disease, across numerous taxa including humans. Other procyonids, as well as occasionally dogs, can act as definitive hosts for this or other Baylisascaris spp. Many of these animals are becoming more common as household pets, posing a risk to people who come in contact with these animals. We have investigated whether patent Baylisascaris spp. infection exists in captive non-raccoon procyonids and if humans who contact these animals are at risk of infection. Fecal samples from captive solution and examined for parasite eggs and oocysts. Fecal samples were provided by pet owners, breeding facilities, and zoos for examination. A standard dosage of fenbendazole was recommended when treatment advice was requested. An epidemiological survey was distributed to assess the risk of human exposure in cases where Baylisascaris eggs were seen. Findings suggest that many zoo facilities and pet owners are aggressive with routine fecal
THE EFFECTS OF YELLOW PASSION FRUIT, Passiflora Edulis Flavicarpa, PHYTOCHEMICALS ON CELL CYCLE ARREST AND APOPTOSIS OF LEUKEMIA LYMPHOMA MOLT-4 CELL LINE

of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science THE EFFECTS OF YELLOW PASSION FRUIT, Passiflora Edulis Flavicarpa, PHYTOCHEMICALS ON CELL CYCLE ARREST AND APOPTOSIS OF LEUKEMIA LYMPHOMA MOLT-4 CELL LINE By Cindy Marie De Neira August 2003 Chair: Susan S. Percival Major Department: Food Science and Human Nutrition Yellow passion fruit, Passiflora edulis flavicarpa, has become increasingly popular in the United States as a tropical fruit juice commodity, and is mainly imported from Brazil and Ecuador. The fruit, known for its natural sweet taste and medicinal purposes, is mainly consumed as juices, jellies, and jams. The nutrient content of passion fruit, which consists mainly of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium, carotenoids and polyphenolics. However, little research has been conducted on the health benefits of passion fruit, especially its anticancer properties. Certain non-nutritive phytochemicals, also present in passion fruit, carotenoids and polyphenols have been found to inhibit cell proliferation of leukemia and induce apoptosis. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of stock passion fruit juice and its carotenoid and polyphenolic components on cell cycle, apoptosis, and cell viability of the MOLT 4 lymphoma cell line. The cell cycle was analyzed by flow cytometry, apoptosis by caspase-3 activity and cell viability by MTT activity. Stock passion fruit juice and the unbound aqueous
The Ancestral Developmental Tool Kit of Land Plants

The origin of land plants from aquatic ancestors and their subsequent evolutionary radiation was due to major modifications in an ancestral developmental program allowing for plants of increasing complexity and stature. By comparing the developmental programs in different kinds of plants, we can understand how developmental differences lead to morphological differences. The ability to dissect the developmental genetic pathways of model angiosperm taxa such as Arabidopsis and maize has revealed many important developmental gene families that comprise the tool kit for flowering plant growth, patterning, and differentiation. This knowledge has been used to a limited extent as the basis for candidate gene approaches to explore the distribution and expression/function of a few developmental gene families in other flowering plants, gymnosperms, and to some extent, more distantly related plants. With the addition of nearly complete sequenced genomes for the moss Physcomitrella and the lycophyte Selaginella, comparisons of many more gene families are becoming possible. We performed searches of the unassembled Physcomitrella and Selaginella genomic sequences for some key developmental families. We combine these new data with information available in the literature from candidate gene approaches and present a first estimate of a suite of developmental genes that may have comprised the ancestral patterning tool kit of land plants. We conclude that the genome of the earliest embryophytes encoded homologues of many of the important developmental genes that have been identified in model angiosperm taxa, but the roles of these were probably somewhat different than the roles attributed to them in Arabidopsis and maize. Developmental gene families have diversified during land plant evolution, and genome complexity may correlate well with phylogenetic position.
A Spatial Analysis of Factors Affecting Nesting Success of Shorebirds in the Canadian Prairies

Abstract. Conversion of natural grassland to cropland has been postulated as a cause for population declines among grassland birds. We evaluated nest-site habitat characteristics and landscape composition for three species of prairie-breeding shorebirds nesting across the agricultural landscape of prairie Canada. Nests of the Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda) and Willet (Tringa semipalmata) were found disproportionately in natural grazed (57%) or natural idled (21%) patches, whereas Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa) nests were in habitats in proportion to their availability on the landscape. We examined multiple landscape variables (proportions of crop, natural idled, natural grazed, and wetland habitats, edge density, and patch area) across a broad geographic scale, using relatively large samples of nests, and found no strong relationships. Neither nest-site habitat characteristics nor landscape-level effects influenced daily survival rates of Upland Sandpiper or Willet nests. Variation in landscape composition at three different spatial scales (200, 600, and 2000 m) also did not influence daily nest-survival rates. To adequately inform land-use management programs aimed at shorebird conservation, further research should examine site-selection patterns and characteristics of nest sites that maximize survival of chicks and adults during subsequent stages in reproduction.
Tuning the ISA for increased heterogeneous computation in MPSoCs

Heterogeneous MPSoCs are crucial to meeting energy efficiency and performance, given their combination of cores and accelerators. In this work, we propose a novel technique for MPSoCs design, increasing their specialization and task-parallelism within a given area and power budget. By removing the microarchitectural support of costly ISA extensions (e.g., FP, SIMD, crypto) from a few cores (transforming them into PartialISA Cores), we make room to add extra (full and simpler) inorder cores and hardware accelerators. While applications must migrate from Partial-ISA cores when they need the removed ISA support, they also execute at lower power consumption during their ISA-extension-free phases, since partial cores have much simpler datapaths compared to their full-ISA counterparts. On top of it, the additional cores and accelerators increase task-level parallelism and make the MPSoC more suitable for application-specific scenarios. We show the effectiveness of our approach by composing different MPSoCs in distinct execution scenarios, using the FP instructions and RISC-V ISA as a case study. To support our system, we also propose two scheduling policies, performance- and energy-oriented, to coordinate the execution of this novel design. For the former policy, we achieve 2.8× speedup for a neural network road sign detection, 1.53x speedup for a video-streaming app, and 1.2x speedup for a taskparallel scenario, consuming 68%, 75%, and 33% less energy, respectively. For the energy-oriented policy, partial-ISA reduces energy consumption by 29% over a highly efficient baseline, with increased performance.
GSM based smart wireless controlled digital energy meter

Smart meter is an electronic device that measures the energy consumption by different time intervals, this time interval may be in minutes, hours, days or months. The proposed technology collects the data from meter and transfer that data to central database for storing data, analyzing and also monitoring the safety related issues. Moreover, it also includes the module which has provision of on demand units loading facility from the energy provider company by just sending a request SMS. The proposed design has been first implemented in software and then a prototype model has been developed, which communicates with the energy service provider for the consumed energy data through GSM network. The purpose of this paper is to present theory and implementation related to remote monitoring and controlling of the energy meter by using GSM architecture. This GSM based system enables the electricity department to get the meter readings regularly while avoiding manual meter reading. The work also enables prepaid billing, electricity management, energy saving and implements a mechanism for electricity theft detection.
A New Single Point Preview-Based Human-Like Driver Model on Urban Curved Roads

To make intelligent vehicles obtain human drivers’ steering characteristic, a new single point preview-based human-like driver model is proposed, which contains a preview decision module and a steering wheel angle calculation module. Enlightened by the visual gaze mechanism of human drivers when passing a curved road, the preview decision module is established using Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy inference system (T-S FIS) to adaptively adjust the preview point position in both longitudinal and lateral direction, and the steering angle calculation module would use the adjusted preview point to generate steering command based on pure pursuit algorithm. Ant colony optimization (ACO) method is used to optimize the fuzzy rules in the preview decision module according to the similarity of trajectories between the proposed driver model and human drivers. The proposed human-like driver model is verified on a two-lane urban curved road. Five experienced human drivers’ driving trajectories under different speeds are collected for the verification. After the preview decision module optimization done in the PreScan/Simulink simulation platform, the proposed human-like driver model shows higher similarity with experienced human drivers than the driver model with fixed preview distance or the driver model only with changeable longitudinal preview distance.
Evaluación de la nisina como sustancia inactivadora de Bacillus licheniformis en el extracto líquido de café Evaluation of the nisin as inactivator substance of Bacillus licheniformis to coffee liquid extract

Objetive. To evaluate the effect of nisin on the inactivation of Bacillus licheniformis to coffee liquid extract. Materials and methods. The action of nisin on Bacillus licheniformis into liquid coffee extracts was evaluated by varying its concentration, incubation time, concentration of soluble solids (°Brix) and bacterial contaminant concentration. Results. The results indicated that the concentration of nisin to achieve the inhibitory effect without affecting the physicochemical and sensory properties of the product is 500 IU/ml corresponding to 12.5 mg/L. Additionally, High levels of nisin 1000 IU/ ml can act successfully in bacterial populations lower than 5x10 4 CFU/ml over a period of 48 hours. Furthermore, the concentration of soluble solids did not show a statistically significant effect for values from 15 to 45 °Brix. Conclusions. From this study it can be concluded that nisin may be used as a preservative in liquid coffee extract without sensorially affecting the product, taking into account the bacterial contaminant concentration and incubation time.