Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mathematical Optimization Models in the Sugarcane Harvesting Process

Over the past few decades, due to environmental and economic factors, the sugarcane has been considered a versatile and important plant to the several countries. The energy-sugar-ethanol agro-industries are seeking to take advantage of all its material, with the main products produced being renewable energy, sugar and ethanol. In this chapter, we propose to present a review of the important works that use mathematical and computa- tional tools, aiming to optimize the sugarcane harvesting, in the past 30 years.
Adopting Smartphone-Based Blended Learning: An Experimental Study of the Implementation of Kakao Talk and Mocafe

Recently, the use of digital social networks in the field of English education has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers. However, previous research has tended to focus on resources like Facebook. In this study we focused instead on smartphone applications and determined that they are a critical and valuable resource for engaging students as active and social language learners. In this vein, this paper aims to present a strategic learning design for L2 writing classes in a smartphone-based blended learning environment. This paper discusses how the smart-phone-based applications Mobile Community (Mocafe) and Kakao Talk can be implemented and blended with offline classes to teach writing. This study also evaluates the effectiveness of this experimental blended learning and the impact of its adoption upon peer and teacher feedback. Eight students aged 14-15 from a private language institute participated in this study, and a mixed methods approach was used to acquire both quantitative and qualitative data. This included questionnaires, pre- and post-tests, and interviews. The study found that this experimental blended learning approach increased students` written output in both quantity and quality. In addition, this study determined that students preferred doing asynchronous writing activities through Mobile cafe (Mocafe) to synchronous writing activities through Kakao Talk. We found that a blended learning approach positively shaped peer and teacher feedback and activated social interaction and student` participation. These findings concur with the work of other researchers in the field of collaborative and digital learning including Swain (2006).
A local connected neural oscillator network for sequential character segmentation

This paper proposes local connected neural oscillators network using new local connection updates method for the sequential character segmentation. In the network each neural oscillator is applied a learning method to control its phase and frequency. Since the learning method has an ability to control the phase adjustment of each neural oscillator the information expression in the phase space is achievable. Furthermore, it is considered that the network has the ability to achieve real time image processing and information processing in a time series. The learning method is possible under the assumption that synapses have plasticity. However, since it is supposed that only the feedback synapse has plasticity we can construct a network with high simplicity. Simulation results show the efficiency of this proposed network to realize the sequential character segmentation.
Methodology for integrated MEMS designs

A design methodology and CAD infrastructure has been developed to support integrated fabrication processes that combine silicon-gate MOS with double-poly surface micromachining. To facilitate the re-use of existing circuit designs, circuit layout rules closely resemble those defined by the MOS Implementation System (MOSIS). Sensor/actuators are laid out on an independent set of abstract layers which can be automatically adapted to meet the photomask requirements of different processes. A closed-loop, micromotor control system and an integrated (MEMS/NMOS) micromechanical shear stress sensor have served as the first test cases for the design system. The former application exercised the schematic design capability, which features mixed-signal behavioral modeling. The latter device has driven the development of the physical design capability, and the first lot of wafers yielded functional devices. The methodology can be readily extended to support a MEMS/CMOS process that is under development.
Accrual Failure Detectors

Failure detection is a fundamental building block for ensuring fault tolerance in distributed systems. For this reason, many people have been advocating that failure detection should be provided as some form of service [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], similar to IP address lookup (DNS) or time synchronization (e.g., NTP). Unfortunately, in spite of important technical breakthroughs, this view has met little success so far. We believe that one of the main reasons is the conventional binary interaction (i.e., trust vs. suspect) that makes it difficult to meet the requirements of several distributed applications running simultaneously. For this reason, we advocate a different abstraction that helps decoupling application requirements from issues related to the underlying system. It is well-known that there exists an inherent tradeoff between (1) conservative failure detection (i.e., reducing the risk of wrongly suspecting a running process), and (2) aggressive failure detection (i.e., quickly detecting the occurrence of a real crash). Thre exists a continuum of valid choices between these two extremes, and what defines an appropriate choice is strongly related to application requirements.
Interactions in Online Courses and Student Academic Success

The Sloan Foundation reported a phenomenal 17% annual growth in online course enrollment from 2002 through 2012, while the overall enrollment in higher education has shown only a 2.5% annual growth. Despite the growth in enrollment, McFadden and others have reported that drop out rates were as much as seven times higher for online courses. To address these concerns, this study investigated how three types of interactions (student-student, studentcontent and student-instructor) in the first two weeks of fully asynchronous online courses were associated with student academic success. This investigation analyzed archived tracking data from a learning management system for 1,703 students in 200 semester-long, fully online community college courses. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to consider the relationship between the three types of online interactions and academic success. The three types of independent interaction variables were measured as follows. Student-student interaction was the number of student posts to the discussion forums. Student-content interaction was the total number of pages the students accessed. Student-instructor interaction was a measure of the number of instructor posts and the number of instructor emails. The outcome measure, academic success, fell into three groups: successful completers (students completing the course with A, B, or C grades), low score completers (students completing the course with D or F grades), and non-completers (students who did not complete the course). Odds ratios derived from the regression analysis were used to determine the percentage of change in academic success attributable to each type of interaction, holding all other factors constant. The multinomial logistic regression was statistically significant (chi square = 461.96 p<. 001), indicating that the predictors reliably distinguished between the three outcome groups.
Implementations of Baseband Functions for Digital Receivers

With ever higher data rates, the complexity of baseband processing increases basically for two reasons. Firstly, the required processing rate is proportional to the bit rate and, secondly, with higher data rates, more demanding and sophisticated algorithms must be applied. For example, new wireless telecommunications systems like 3G long term evolution (LTE) can have even a 100 Mbps data rate and multipleinput multiple-output (MIMO) transmission methods are applied. Thus, the problem domain of implementation of baseband functions includes both addressing the high computational complexity and describing the implementations in a flexible way so that even complex algorithms can be used without extensive efforts. In this Thesis, implementations and implementation methods of baseband processing functions are proposed. Computational complexity and flexibility of implementation are approached with application-specific processors (ASP). The computing demands can be met with high parallelism when parallelization of the targeted algorithm is possible, and the software description of the computation possesses flexibility. Especially, the error correction decoding, matrix decomposition, and symbol detection tasks of the baseband processing chain are targeted in this Thesis. Both processor implementations and implementations of assisting hardware units are presented. With all the presented principles and implementations, programmable ASPs are targeted even though other platforms could also be used. As a result, the essential computational challenges and the design space of wireless receivers is clarified. The work in this Thesis shows how the computation of the addressed baseband functions can be implemented efficiently, and the work shows how they can be implemented when a programmable platform is targeted. The results show that the benefits of the programmability do not sacrifice efficiency of the implementation.
The strategy of enhancing article citation and H-index on SINTA to improve tertiary reputation

Development of technology as it is today, most students or lecturers in education community write documents or articles digitally. However, there are still many obstacles when searching for a legitimate source of reference and to know whether it contains plagiarism or not. Until present, there are still many students and lecturers who seek references from sources that have not been valid and not yet trusted, but it is considered a fatal mistake for writing articles and also writing thesis or dissertation from untrusted resources. Therefore, Google Scholar system helps to alleviate this problem. Google also facilitates the use of citations or references. The purpose of this research is to identify the number of citation H-Index owned by lecturers at tertiary education and score ranking achieved at tertiary education SINTA (Science and Technology Index) Ristekdikti. Citing an article from another publication is one form of scientific communication by the author or researcher. The large number of citations obtained from an article published in the publication indicates how significant the contributions of the author in improving the quality of the study field. In this study, citation analysis is used as an analysis of all citations which indicate the type of information sources used by students and lecturers in writing the journal as a result of their research. The following research use two methods of analysis: Mind Mapping methods and SWOT Analysis. After conducting research and executing the research strategy, it will result in improving the reputation by increasing the number of citation and lecturer H-Index at Google Scholar which can automatically also increase the affiliations of authors at tertiary education in Google Scholar. Lecturers who have already verified authors in SINTA (Science and Technology Index) Ristekdikti can contribute in improving the rank and number of tertiary education scores on Ristekdikti Science and Technology Index (SINTA). This research produces a comprehensive and straightforward mathematical formula that can be used in understanding SINTA index calculation which will hence improve the enthusiasm of education community in pursuing research as a team as well as individually. Hopefully, with this research, students and lecturers are able to increase their citation and H-index on articles in publications so as to contribute in improving the reputation and quality of universities in the countries.
Digital Reference Services in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) based Environment: A Study

The digital reference service refers to the task of providing assistance to the library users in fulfilling their various information needs. The digital reference services has become an important part and parcel of the library services in the changing technological environment. The paper is an attempt to provide an overview of the digital reference services in libraries in the present day world.
Simple Design of Transmitter Circuit and Optimization Design of Receiver Circuit for Wireless Power Transfer

Two important parts of wireless power transfer are transmitter circuit and receiver circuit. Previous research has been completed which use CMOS H-Bridge in transmitter and full wave rectifier in receiver. This paper presented simple design of transmitter circuit and optimization of receiver circuit in rectifier circuit with transient analysis and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) from LT spice software. The simple transmitter circuit used an integrated circuit (IC) NE555 with push-pull as oscillator circuit and LC resonant, while the receiver circuit used LC resonant, rectifier circuit, CLC filter for smoothing direct current (DC) output and 500 Ohm as load. The circuit design had resonant frequency of 250 kHz on both of transmitter and receiver, which comply with Power Matters Alliance (PMA) standard. The optimization of rectifier circuit had been done by comparing output of power load when it used basic rectifier (full wave), voltage doubler (dickson circuit and Villard circuit) and voltage multiplier (cockcroft-walton circuit). The results showed the receiver with Dickson circuit as rectifier has the highest efficiency compared to other rectifier circuits with efficiency of 10.93 % when it used coupling coefficient of 0.99, because Dickson rectifier has resonant frequency that is closest to 250 kHz and the highest level power, compared to other rectifier circuits.
Design and Development of Grid-connected Quasi-Z-Source PV Inverter

An inverter system applied with the PV source typically has a problem of lower input voltage due to constraint in the PV strings connection. As a countermeasure a DC-DC boost converter is placed in between to achieve a higher voltage at the inverter DC link for connection to the grid and to realize the MPPT operation. This additional stage contributes to losses and complexity in control thus reducing the overall system efficiency. This work discussed on the design and development of a grid-connected quasi-Z-source PV inverter which has different topology and control method compared to the conventional voltage source inverter and able to overcome the above disadvantages. Modelling and performance analysis of the voltage and current controller to achieve a good power transfer from the PV source, as well sycnchronization with the grid are presented in detail. Results from both simulation and experimental verification demonstrate the designed and developed grid-connected qZSI PV inverter works successfully equivalent to the conventional voltage source inverter system.
Walking the Path

This study presents the findings of an online survey of program directors of ACME and MEAC-accredited midwifery educational programs in the United States. We explored the logistics of ethics education in their curricula, including the topics covered, learning formats used, amount of time dedicated to ethics learning, and use of evaluation tools. We developed a 13-question, primarily multiple-choice questionnaire, which was modeled after surveys of other disciplines, and which was adapted to include topics specific to midwifery education. A total of 25 of 49 eligible programs participated in the survey, providing a response rate of 51%. Survey results showed that there is considerable variation in ethics education in terms of content, format, and evaluation among accredited midwifery education programs in the United States. Midwifery
Análisis cuasi-dinámico de la inclusión de generación distribuida en sistemas eléctricos de potencia, caso de estudio: Sistema IEEE de 30 nodos

espanolLos ultimos avances en los sistemas de Generacion Distribuida (GD), han abierto un nuevo escenario en las estrategias de planeacion de los sistemas electricos. Toma gran importancia determinar el impacto economico y tecnico que acarrea la instalacion y puesta en operacion de GD en aquellos lugares del sistema de potencia donde antes solo estaban instaladas. En esta investigacion, un proceso de optimizacion del despacho economico permite encontrar los valores optimos de potencia a los cuales deben despachar todas las unidades del sistema IEEE de 30 nodos, modificado con nodos de GD, procurando minimizar los costos de generacion en las unidades convencionales. Los resultados de este proceso de optimizacion se implementan en unas “Simulacion Cuasi-dinamica” que permiten identificar y analizar los parametros que varian en el sistema a lo largo del tiempo, ademas de dimensionar los valores de perdidas de potencia en las lineas y transformadores del sistema. EnglishThe latest advances in Distributed Generation (GD) systems have opened a new stage in planning strategies for electrical systems. It is of great importance to determine the economic and technical impact of the installation and commissioning of GD in those parts of the power system where they were previously installed. In this research, the process of optimization of the economic dispatch allows to find the optimum power values to which all the units of the 30-node IEEE system, modified with GD nodes, must be dispatched, trying to minimize generation costs in conventional units. The results of this optimization process are implemented in a "Quasi-Dynamic Simulation" that allows to identify and analyze the parameters that vary in the system over time, in addition to dimensioning the values of power losses in the lines and transformers of the system.
Experiment of telecom/broadcasting mission using a high-altitude solar-powered aerial vehicle Pathfinder Plus

A series of telecommunication and broadcasting tests using a high-altitude platform in the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 km was carried out on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in June-July 2002. For the high-altitude platform, we used a NASA solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Pathfinder Plus. The tests were successfully completed, and the first in the world. This paper provides the configuration of the tests and reports some of their results.
A Survey on SDN: An Unprecedented approach in Networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging architecture in the field of networking in which the control plane and forwarding plane of traditional networking devices (e.g. Switches, Routers) are decoupled. The network-wide traffic flow can be directly programmed. SDN plays an important role in today’s enterprises and applications with drastically changing requirements which are monitored and adapted by the change in traffic flows through the networking devices. This survey paper on SDN provides an outline on the standard communication interface, characteristics of SDN and the pros and cons that are associated with SDN architecture.
Fractal image coding for emission tomographic image compression

With the increasing use of teleradiology systems, large amount of data is acquired and transmitted, thus raising the issue of medical image compression. The goal of image compression is to represent an image with as few number of bits as possible while preserving the quality required for the given application. Standard lossless compression schemes can only yield compression ratios of about 2:1 that is insufficient to compress volumetric tomographic image data. Common standards available in industry for lossy image compression are usually used in non-medical applications and their application to medical image compression is still under investigation. Fractal image coding is a new compression technique that has received much attention recently. This study investigates the feasibility of applying fractal image coding approach to nuclear medicine image compression. A quadtree-based partition scheme was used in the encoding phase to partition an image frame into small irregular segments that after decoding process, yield an approximate image to the original. Our preliminary results show that compression ratios higher than 10:1 can be achieved in clinical images. It was also found that there is no diagnostic loss in the parametric images computed from the reconstructed images as compared to those obtained from the original raw data. We conclude that fractal image coding could be used to compress tomographic images and it may be useful in telemedicine.
STRUCTURING DIDACTIC MATERIALS ON THE WEB (STRUCT)

There is a universal agreement that the structuring of didactic materials helps the student in his/her learning process when dealing with such materials. It is then important for the teacher or a student to choose among different structures so to use the one that best conveys the desired knowledge. This need is nowadays a priority also in the e-learning world since several e-learning courses exist on the web and many more are created every day. Unfortunately, most of the existing e-learning platforms offer just a single way to organize the course contents (book structure). Whoever is interested in organizing the course contents in a different way (e.g, with a concept map) must use specific tools that are external to the e-learning environment and are often difficult to use. This work presents the details of the tool we have created to overcome the problems and limitations presented above. We have implemented an on-line application, called STRUCT, that allows teachers and students to easily publish didactic materials on the web and to organize them by choosing the most appropriate structure among different alternatives. STRUCT has been built in a way to be easily integrated inside the most popular e-learning platforms such as Moodle or ATutor.
Réseaux de neurones profonds et fusion de données pour la segmentation sémantique d'images aériennes

Ce travail porte sur l'utilisation des reseaux de neu-rones convolutifs profonds pour la classification dense des images d'observation de la Terre. En particulier, nous en-trainons une variante de l'architecture SegNet sur des images aeriennes en zone urbaine et etudions differentes strategies de segmentation semantique. Nos contributions sont les suivantes : 1) nous etudions la capacite de trans-fert des caracteristiques apprises sur des images classiques aux images aeriennes en utilisant un reseau entierement convolutif ; 2) nous realisons la fusion de donnees hetero-genes (optique et Lidar) en utilisant un nouveau module neuronal dit de correction residuelle. Nous demontrons la pertinence de ces contributions sur le jeu de donnees IS-PRS Vaihingen 2D Semantic Labeling. Mots Cle Apprentissage profond, segmentation semantique, telede-tection, cartographie semantique, fusion de donnees. Abstract This work investigates the use of deep fully convolutional neural networks (DFCNN) for pixel-wise scene labeling of Earth Observation images. Especially, we train a variant of the SegNet architecture on remote sensing data over an urban area and study different strategies for performing accurate semantic segmentation. Our contributions are the following : 1) we transfer efficiently a DFCNN from generic everyday images to remote sensing images ; 2) we perform data fusion from heterogeneous sensors (optical and laser) using residual correction. Our framework improves state-of-the-art accuracy on the ISPRS Vaihingen 2D Semantic Labeling dataset.