Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selective clock gating by using wasting toggle rate

In this paper, we propose a RT level power reduction scheme which can be used for any applications that have power problem when designers use traditional design flow. A novel wasting-toggle-rate based clock power reduction technique is introduced and verified along with traditional design flow. The proposed technique can choose optimal clock-gating style selectively to minimize the power based on proposed wastingtoggle-rate analysis at RT level, and the optimization is based on proposed power equations without simulating the design at gate level. We have tested the proposed technique on real industrial multimedia-mobile-processor design. For the accuracy of the power optimization results, all of them are measured at gate level after synthesis by using industrial 65 nanometer technology library. The experimental results show that the technique reduces average 35.84% power comparing with non-clock gating design and 19.28% power comparing with clock-gating design by Power Compiler. The design overhead of the proposed technique is 1.79% increase of area and 2.55% increase of the critical path delay for whole circuit comparing with the original circuit.
Information and Distribution : The Role of Merchants in the Market Economy with Demand Risk (特集 情報とリスク : 森將豪教授の退職を記念して)

This paper deals with the relationship between information and distribution, with a focus on the role of the merchant in the market economy. Since the consumer and the producer act as two main players on the stage of economics profession, the intermediate role of the distributor has been undervalued as a minor supporting actor, or even completely ignored . The purpose of this paper aims to more or less mend such unfair treatment in economic science, thus shedding a new light on the informational role of a variety of merchants in a right perspective. Konosuke Matsushita (1894-1989), the famous founder of the powerful Matsushita group of manufacturers and a legendary figure who made his business career from rags to riches, once observed:
Understanding "disengagement from knowledge sharing": engagement theory versus adaptive cost theory

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is using competing hypotheses (a spillover hypothesis, based on Engagement Theory, and a provisioning hypothesis, based on Adaptive Cost Theory) to help explain why employees become disengaged from knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach – Employed knowledge workers completed an online questionnaire regarding their job characteristics, their general health and wellness, perceived organizational support, job engagement and disengagement from knowledge sharing. Findings – The findings provide empirical support for Adaptive Cost Theory and illustrate the relationship between Engagement Theory and the Disengagement from Knowledge Sharing. In particular, this research illustrates the importance of health and wellness for preventing disengagement from knowledge sharing. In addition, the findings introduce a new finding of tensions between job engagement and knowledge sharing, which supports knowledge workers’ complaints of “being too busy” to share. Research limitation.
SPARTACUS: Self-Powered Augmented RFID Tag for Autonomous Computing and Ubiquitous Sensing

In recent years, besides the advances made in canonical UHF radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, intense research efforts are being made to design new passive augmented tags that enable RFID-based sensing. These efforts stimulate continued research aimed at providing tags with additional functionalities, besides identification and sensing. In this work, an innovative device, representing a new class of fully passive augmented UHF RFID tags, is presented. It is named SPARTACUS, an acronym for self-powered augmented RFID tag for autonomous computing and ubiquitous sensing. The device, based on an accurate electromagnetic design that exploits polarization diversity of two antennas, which perform both energy harvesting and communication, enables a full two-way proactive interaction with any standard RFID Class-1 Generation-2 reader. It conjugates identification, sensing, local computing, and actuation control, besides being compact, energy-efficient, and easy to use. This paper presents detailed designs of both RF interfaces and digital section, besides discussing system validation and performance evaluation, followed by demonstrating the significance of SPARTACUS in paving the way to new classes of applications in the Internet of Things.
Factors influencing online group buying service quality based on the consumers' perspective

Online group buying is a new electronic commerce model launched in America in 2008. From that time on, tens of thousands of group buying websites have spread all over the world with no exception of China. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the online group buying from the view of service quality based on the consumers' perspective. We first give the literature review about the theory of e-service quality dimensions. Then, we suggest a comprehensive conceptual framework to capture the service quality aspects of the virtual service transaction. Next, a five-dimension influence model about group buying service quality is proposed by analyzing these key items mentioned above. As a result, we identify the five dimensions of online group buying. Finally, we give five positive suggestions on improving Chinese online group buying service quality.
Small Wind Turbine Technology

Small wind turbines are an attractive alternative for off-grid electrification and water pumping, both as stand-alone applications and in combination with other energy technologies such as photovoltaic, small hydro or Diesel engines. Under these conditions, the cost of energy alone is often not the only criterion to consider, and aspects like system performance, suitability for a given wind regime, reliability under normal and extreme wind conditions, and overall system life are often equally important. Where no grid connection is available or the grid is unreliable, it is the energy-providing service that matters, not its precise cost. In grid-connected situations, the actual vs. the rated performance may be of more interest in order to achieve the cost saving benefits proposed in the design of the project. In either case, an uninterrupted service with a performance close to the one specified by the provider is a key requirement for a successful small wind project. While all wind turbines, both MW-class utility turbines and small wind generators, are subject to the fluctuating nature of the wind, there are several reasons why it is more difficult to guarantee the performance of a small wind turbine. First, the smaller inertia of rotor/generator leads to significant transient effects in response to changing wind speeds. Moreover, often small wind turbines rely on passive mechanisms for aligning the rotor with the wind direction, such as lifting forces acting on a tail vane in the case of an upwind rotor or axial (drag and lift) forces acting on the rotor in the case of a downwind turbine. Therefore, under conditions of varying wind directions, an incomplete alignment of wind turbine and wind direction may occur, and the alignment error can be expected to be a function of the turbulent time scales present at the site. In the case of furling systems, a technology used by many manufacturers to passively protect the turbine from overspeeding and generator overheating, the situation is still far more complex since the mechanism can be triggered both by sustained high winds and gusts, also exhibiting a hysteresis depending on the specific design parameters chosen. Another important aspect relates to maintenance. While large wind turbines are routinely serviced as part of an ongoing service agreement during the lifetime of a wind farm and are constantly monitored by means of a SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system, small wind generators are expected to function largely unsupervised and with only occasional maintenance. Therefore, the only indication for a typical owner of a small wind turbine is the charge level of the battery, which is only very indirectly related to the (integrated) wind turbine system performance in the period prior to the observation.
Features Selection Procedure for Prognostics: An Approach Based on Predictability

Abstract Prognostic aims at estimating the remaining useful life ( RUL ) of a degrading equipment, i.e at predicting the life time at which a component or a system will be unable to perform a desired function. This task is achieved through essential steps of data acquisition, feature extraction and selection, and prognostic modeling. This paper emphasizes on the selection phase and aims at showing that it should be performed according to the predictability of features: as there is no interest in retaining features that are hard to be predicted. Thereby, predictability is defined and a feature selection procedure based on this concept is proposed. The effectiveness of the approach is judged by applying it on a real-world case: through comparison is made in order to show that the better predictable features lead to better RUL estimation.
Fast Codebook Index Searching Algorithm for a Quantized EGT in MIMO Systems

A Simple, effective, fast codebook index searching algorithm for quantized equal gain transmission (QEGT) in MIMO systems is presented. Rough Searching based on the newly defined metric selects a few candidates, then, Accurate Searching based on the conventional method determines the optimal one. This strategy reduces the overall searching time, while maintain- ing almost the same link-level performance. Moreover, as the codebook size increases, the searching time is greatly decreased, compared to the conventional method. I. INTRODUCTION
Design and Implementation of Self-securing Disk

Self-securing storage devices prevents intruders from undetectably tampering with or permanently deleting stored data. To accomplish this, We design an efficient self-securing disk architecture, which is based on traditional self-securing storage prototype S4: 1)On the confidentiality protection side, authenticated encryption mode GCM is adapted to process disk block in parallel ,and authentication latency is overlapped with disk access latency so that our scheme is more efficient and secure than Windows BitLocker. 2) On the integrity protection side, GHASH proposed in GCM is used to generate MAC which is more efficient than SHA-1, MD5. Moreover, “Minimum Integrity Verification Tree” is put forward to decrease performance loss at a maximum. 3) On the access control protection side, we propose a cryptographically featured capability based access control model, which is based on existing OSD access control model. We use hybrid hard drive as an instance to build a self-securing disk prototype which is implemented by simulation. The encryption/authentication overheads are significantly reduced due to buffer techniques and combined GCM/Flash scheme. According to the simulation results, the performance overhead is less than 18%, which is efficient and practical.
Modeling and control on passenger posture behavior considering seat angle of electrical wheelchair

This paper presents a passenger posture behavior model that considers the seat angle and the comfortable driving control based on a proposed model. This model consists of a double inverted pendulum as the upper body and a cantilever as the thigh, and it has spring and damper elements in each joint. Moreover, the elements of the wheelchair's seat and backrest are added to the model. The proposed model can represent passenger posture behavior as influenced by the inclination of the seat. The driving control system with sway suppression of passenger's posture is designed by using the proposed model. The effectiveness of the proposed wheelchair driving control system is verified through simulation using a motion analysis simulator, MADYMO.
A multi-modal dialogue system for information navigation and retrieval across spoken document archives with topic hierarchies

Unlike the written documents, the spoken documents are difficult to be shown on the screen and browsed by the user during retrieval. In this paper, we propose to use multi-modal dialogues to help the user to "navigate" across the spoken document archives and retrieve the desired documents based on a topic hierarchy constructed by the key terms extracted from the retrieved spoken documents. An initial prototype system for such functions has been developed, in which the broadcast news in Mandarin Chinese was taken as the example spoken documents, and the named entities (NEs) are taken as the key terms to construct the topic hierarchy
Strategizing by the Government: Industrial Policy and Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Despite their common emphasis on resource heterogeneity as the basis of competitive advantage, the literature on strategic management (SM) and industrial policy (IP) have mostly evolved as separate strands. In an attempt at integration, I model the link between IP and competitive advantage as a dynamic process mediated by the evolution and churning of resources and capabilities which can be either flexible or specialized. I also introduce the concept of support-adjusted sustainable competitive advantage to accommodate policy regimes that may distinctively affect the observed performance of worldwide competitors. In my framework, support-adjusted sustainable competitive advantage is created by the interplay of three key factors: external integration, geographical specificity, and policy-making ambidexterity. I discuss implications for both SM and IP and suggest avenues for future research.
Dose-related vincristine-induced peripheral neuropathy with unexpected off-therapy worsening

This study describes the natural course of vincristine-induced peripheral neuropathy in patients with lymphoma (n = 114) receiving vincristine in two different dose intensities. Neuropathic changes were observed in both dose intensity groups, but the higher dose intensity group reported significantly more symptoms during therapy, whereas neurologic signs were significantly more prominent after a cumulative dose of 12 mg vincristine. Furthermore, off-therapy worsening of symptoms (24%) and signs (30%) occurred unexpectedly.
Is a glass of Merlot the symbol of globalization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how underlying globalization could influence Asian consumers' wine drinking patterns and behaviors. Specifically, a theoretical framework that explains the underlying motivations of Asian wine consumers is developed.Design/methodology/approach – A broad range of literature is reviewed in an attempt to develop a theoretical framework for the impacts of globalization on the Asian wine market.Findings – Three key forces that drive change in the Asian wine markets are identified; these changes explain the explosive growth of wine consumption in Asian countries.Research limitations/implications – A theoretical framework is developed in an effort to explain the impacts of globalization on Asian wine consumption. Therefore, no empirical tests are conducted to validate the theoretical framework. Future studies could test the theoretical model by conducting an empirical study.Practical implications – Multi‐faceted global progress in terms of economic, technolog.
Efficiency analysis of low- and medium- voltage DC distribution systems

In this paper, sustainability aspects connected to the use of dc for power delivery in low- and medium-voltage distribution systems are treated. The efficiency of an example AC system, a DC system and a mixed AC-DC system are calculated and compared. It is shown that, under the assumption of a substantial reduction in semiconductor losses, the total system losses decrease using DC. This means that for the same energy delivered, less energy must be produced from the available sources, thereby indirectly reducing the environmental impact of energy production. Moreover, the DC system seems to lead to better utilization of the HV/MV transformer, so that the same system can be expanded to supply a higher load without changing the transformer.
ARE THERE GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE PERFORMANCE OF CHINESE ENTREPRENEUERS

The author analyzes the differences between Chinese female entrepreneurs and their male counterparts and also looks at how these differences affect company performance. The author’s study shows that Chinese female entrepreneurs are more risk averse, have less horizontal social capital, are less innovative and make more major decisions by themselves, compared to their male counterparts. There is no gender difference in economic resources, human resources or vertical social capital, except that there are more women involved in party membership. However, only the female’s management style is found to be significantly negatively correlated with performance. Further study on performance should focus on gender-similar traits of Chinese entrepreneurs rather than gender-difference. And female entrepreneurship should be promoted in China for inclusive social development.
A Hybrid Escalating Evolutionary Algorithm for Multi-objective Flow-Shop Scheduling

A hybrid escalating evolutionary algorithm, which aims at solving multi-objective flow-shop scheduling problems, is proposed in this paper. The new algorithm takes an escalating evolutionary structure, which helps it escaping from premature, and an elitism strategy is introduced to improve its convergence, besides, a problem-dependent meta- heuristic variable local search strategy is adopted to enhance its local search ability. To assess the performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of the new algorithm, a series of standard bi-objective test problems and a typical tri-objective case study are employed. Empirical results have shown that, our new algorithm has outperformed some well-known algorithms like NSGA-II, ENGA and MOGLS.
WOMEN's ACCESS TO CREDIT FACILITIES FROM COMMERCIAL BANKS IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s / L'ACCES DES FEMMES AU CREDIT DES BANQUES COMMERCIALES AU NIGERIA: UN DEFI POUR LES ANNEES '90

This study was meant to determine the extent of women's limited access to credit facilities from commercial banks in Nigeria, factors inhibiting them (particularly gender-related ones), and to make policy recommendations. The results of the findings can be summarized as: (a) Nigerian women do not have limited access to commercial bank credit, rather there are fewer women credit applicants due to ignorance and general illiteracy. There is rather widespread participation in borrowing in the informal credit market. (b) Nigerian commercial banks do not discriminate against women on the basis of gender in approving credit applications. Nigerian women are not also constrained generally by tradition and/or religion, age, educational level, occupational group, physical/biological conditions, cost of credit, distance, language, etc. (c) However, the size of women's business and income, lack of collaterals, and perceiv ed risk costs act as limitations to their access to commercial bank credit in Nigeria. Based on these findings, policy options were proffered.
Analysis of top cited papers in library and information science that have stood the test of time

Analysis of 10 top cited papers in the field of library and information science was carried out to understand their main characteristics and features such as bibliographic details, authorship collaboration, author affiliation, citation counts and specialty. This list of classic papers was extracted from Google Scholar Metrics in June 2018. These most cited articles were published in 2006 and the list was released in June 2017. The findings indicate that these 10 papers originated from 10 different institutions in six countries mostly in North America and Europe. The number of citations ranged from 410 to 3051, the mean number of authors per article is 2.3 and the mean number of citations per year was 98. Nine out of the 10 articles reported citation analyses. This suggests that LIS research has shifted towards exploring scientific publications and their impact through citation analysis, bibliometrics and scientometrics
The limit of tactile spatial resolution in humans

The sensory neural pathways serving the lip, tongue, and finger are specialized for spatial information processing; thus, damage to these pathways is likely to be manifested most prominently as a loss of spatial acuity. For that reason, accurate measurement of spatial resolution at these regions is particularly important. The conventional test, the two-point discrimination task, does not measure the limit of spatial resolution and it yields variable results because it does not control nonspatial cues. The aim of this study was to quantify the limits of spatial resolution at the lip, tongue, and finger and to study the repeatability of those measurements using a stimulus that does not introduce nonspatial cues. We employed a grating orientation discrimination test, which has been studied extensively in relation to the underlying neural mechanisms. We obtained psychophysical thresholds for tactile spatial resolution from 15 normal, young adult subjects over seven test sessions. The finest gratings whose orientations were discriminated reliably had groove widths (gratings had equal groove and bar widths) that averaged 0.51 mm at the lip, 0.58 mm at the tongue, and 0.94 mm at the finger. These threshold measurements were highly reproducible between sessions with an overall improvement of 2% per session. These data suggest that the grating orientation discrimination task provides a stable, reliable measure of the human capacity for spatial resolution.
The effect of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibition on diabetic nephropathy. The Collaborative Study Group.

BACKGROUND Renal function declines progressively in patients who have diabetic nephropathy, and the decline may be slowed by antihypertensive drugs. The purpose of this study was to determine whether captopril has kidney-protecting properties independent of its effect on blood pressure in diabetic nephropathy. METHODS We performed a randomized, controlled trial comparing captopril with placebo in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in whom urinary protein excretion was > or = 500 mg per day and the serum creatinine concentration was < or = 2.5 mg per deciliter (221 mumol per liter). Blood-pressure goals were defined to achieve control during a median follow-up of three years. The primary end point was a doubling of the base-line serum creatinine concentration. RESULTS Two hundred seven patients received captopril, and 202 placebo. Serum creatinine concentrations doubled in 25 patients in the captopril group, as compared with 43 patients in the placebo group (P = 0.007). The associated reductions in risk of a doubling of the serum creatinine concentration were 48 percent in the captopril group as a whole, 76 percent in the subgroup with a baseline serum creatinine concentration of 2.0 mg per deciliter (177 mumol per liter), 55 percent in the subgroup with a concentration of 1.5 mg per deciliter (133 mumol per liter), and 17 percent in the subgroup with a concentration of 1.0 mg per deciliter (88.4 mumol per liter). The mean (+/- SD) rate of decline in creatinine clearance was 11 +/- 21 percent per year in the captopril group and 17 +/- 20 percent per year in the placebo group (P = 0.03). Among the patients whose base-line serum creatinine concentration was > or = 1.5 mg per deciliter, creatinine clearance declined at a rate of 23 +/- 25 percent per year in the captopril group and at a rate of 37 +/- 25 percent per year in the placebo group (P = 0.01). Captopril treatment was associated with a 50 percent reduction in the risk of the combined end points of death, dialysis, and transplantation that was independent of the small disparity in blood pressure between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Captopril protects against deterioration in renal function in insulin-dependent diabetic nephropathy and is significantly more effective than blood-pressure control alone.