Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Winners, Losers & Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology

From the Book: In what for many readers will be the most exciting portion of the book, the authors go on to examine histories of alleged market failures, starting with QWERTY. Were producers and consumers actually locked into inferior market solutions? And if not, what devices were employed to escape the supposed trap? I will say no more on this topic here, so as not to take the edge off the authors' accounts of the creativity and ingenuity displayed by both suppliers and consumers in the competitive battle for critical mass. The fascinating history and analysis in Winners, Losers and Microsoft can guide us toward a better understanding of the newer forms of competition that have been mainly responsible for the success of the modern American economy in recent decades.  Jack Hirshleifer, Professor of Economics; University of California, Los Angeles
Lince: Uma Ferramenta para Ofuscação Automática de Textos em Português

Atualmente existem diversas abordagens que fornecem anonimato na Internet. No entanto, usuários anônimos ainda podem ser identiﬁcados pelo seu estilo de escrita. Com o avanço das pesquisas em redes neurais e processamento de linguagem natural, a chance de sucesso de um classiﬁcador identiﬁcar corretamente o autor de um texto tem crescido cada vez mais. Por outro lado, novas abordagens que utilizam redes neurais para geração automática de textos ofuscados também têm surgido para combater os adversários do anonimato na Internet. Neste trabalho, nós apresentamos Lince, uma ferramenta que implementa duas abordagens do estado da arte baseadas em aprendizado de máquina para ofuscação de textos.
Switching behaviour of fast high voltage SiC pn-diodes

4H-SiC p-n diodes with an active area of 1 mm/sup 2/ and up to 3 kV blocking voltage have been fabricated, characterized and compared to simulations. The static forward characteristics demonstrate the expected forward power loss with a negative temperature coefficient. The diodes exhibit a stable avalanche breakdown, showing a small positive temperature coefficient (0.3 V/K). The turn-on switching behaviour shows a relatively small voltage overshoot as compared to silicon diodes. The turn-off resembles that of a Schottky diode. In both cases, the dynamics can be attributed to a rapid recombination of the storage charge, even under high forward injection conditions. Numerical simulations may point to a local lifetime reduction at the p-n junction.
A Regional Study of the Agricultural Mechanics Knowledge and Skills Needed by School-based Agricultural Education Teachers

A priority of agricultural teacher education programs is to develop technically competent, prepared school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers. SBAE teachers should be knowledgeable in various agricultural subject matter, such as agricultural mechanics. Using Roberts and Ball’s (2009) Content-based Model for Teaching Agriculture as the conceptual framework for our study, we used a three-round Delphi technique to identify the agricultural mechanics knowledge and skills SBAE teachers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas need to successfully teach agricultural mechanics courses. Spread across all four states, a panel of 47 SBAE teachers with expertise in agricultural mechanics contributed data for our study. Thirty-five teachers participated in all three rounds. After all three rounds were completed, 71 technical agricultural mechanics knowledge and skill items (e.g., circular saw use, computer numerical control [CNC] systems use , etc.) and 49 agricultural mechanics “teacher skill” / laboratory management knowledge and skill items (e.g., budget management, developing a student traffic control system, etc.) were identified. We recommend various efforts to help expand teachers’ competence in these items should be undertaken within these states, including: (1) establishing and expanding partnerships with agricultural industry stakeholders to provide professional development opportunities for SBAE teachers, (2) realigning agricultural teacher education courses and experiences to better reflect teachers’ agricultural mechanics knowledge and skill needs, and (3) facilitating opportunities for teachers to develop competence in agricultural mechanics through SBAE teacher-led training. To help provide systematic, consistent examination of teacher competence needs in agricultural mechanics, replication of our study should occur at regular intervals.
Effect of Circadian Rhythm - Autonomic Nervous System - Endocrine Hormone Axis on The Occurrence and Development of Diabetes: A Review and Perspective

There are obvious circadian rhythms in organisms. In modern society, circadian rhythm disorders can be caused by factors such as shift work, staying up late for a long time, outbound tourism, psychological stress, various diseases and so on, and the disorders will regulate the physiological and biochemical functions of various tissues and organs through the autonomic nervous system, including the secretion and release of hormones, and then affect the occurrence and development of the disease further. At present, diabetes has become the sixth leading cause of death, and gradually tends to be younger. Considering the effects of systematic and holistic changes, such as circadian rhythm, autonomic nervous system and endocrine hormones, on the occurrence and development of diabetes, this paper summarizes the regulation of circadian rhythm-autonomic nervous system-endocrine hormone axis to blood glucose metabolism in order to find a new pathogenesis of diabetes and provide a new drug target for the treatment of diabetes.
New Results in Driver Steering Control Models

The dynamic control properties of drivers and driver/vehicle systems in steering operations have been widely investigated. This paper presents a short review of the combined compensatory, pursuit, and precognitive features needed to describe the total properties of the driver as a controller. Specific combinations of these features are associated with particular driving maneuvers. Some recent results are presented to confirm previous hypotheses and more completely quantify the models. The driver-organized system structure for regulation control is reviewed with emphasis on the loops closed and adjustments made by the driver in compensating for vehicle dynamic changes. Pursuit structures are given which describe steering control with preview and as one explanation for lane change maneuvers. Precognitive behavior is then presented as the most skilled mode utilized in rapid lane changes and other well-practiced maneuvers including obstacle avoidance. For all three categories of control, full-scale or simulator data are presented as indications of model verification.
Applying Centrality Analysis to Solve the Cold-Start and Sparsity Problems in Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative Filtering (CF) suffers from two major problems：sparsity and cold-start recommendation. This paper focuses on the cold-start problem for new customers with no purchase records and the sparsity problem for the customers with very few purchase records. For the purpose, we propose a method for the new customer recommendation by using a combined measure based on three well-used centrality measures to identify the customers who are most likely to become neighbors of the new customer. To alleviate the sparsity problem, we also propose a hybrid approach that applies our method to customers with very few purchase records and CF to the other customers with sufficient purchases. To evaluate the effectiveness of our method, we have conducted several experiments using a data set from a department store in Korea. The experiment results show that the combination of two measures makes better recommendations than not only a single measure but also the best-seller-based method and that the performance is improved when applying the hybrid approach.
Hairs, Textures, and Shades: Improving the Realism of Plant Models Generated with L-Systems

High-quality, realistic visualization of plant models is a long-standing goal in computer graphics. Plants are often modeled using L-systems. Strings of symbols generated by the L-systems may be interpreted graphically as drawing commands to a rendering system. In this research, techniques for improving the appearance of plants generated from Lsystems are proposed. A method of incorporating dynamic material specifications in Lsystem strings is presented, along with shading and lighting considerations for leaves and petals. Texture mapping of generalized cylinders is revisited in order to properly fit leaf and petal textures onto surfaces, and procedural methods for generating venation patterns and translucent rims on these surfaces are introduced. Finally, a method of generating hairs and controlling their parameters with L-systems is proposed. The importance of these techniques is illustrated in numerous state-of-the-art plant renderings.
BLO/spl kappa//sup TM/-a low-/spl kappa/ dielectric barrier/etch stop film for copper damascene applications

A low-/spl kappa/ dielectric barrier/etch stop film has been developed for use in copper damascene processes. The film is deposited using Dow Corning/sup R/ organosilicon gas as a precursor in a single-wafer PECVD chamber, and has a lower dielectric constant (/spl les/5) compared to the SiC film (>7) generated by SiH/sub 4/ and CH/sub 4/ and plasma silicon nitrides (>7). This film is amorphous and composed of silicon, carbon and hydrogen (a-SiC:H). The film characterization, including physical, electrical, copper diffusion barrier properties, and etch selectivity demonstrated that this film is a good barrier/etch stop for low-/spl kappa/ copper damascene applications. Due to its low dielectric constant, low effective /spl kappa/ values can be achieved in damascene devices. This film has been named BLO/spl kappa//sup TM/ (barrier low /spl kappa/) (Pai and Ting, 1989).
Design and Analysis of Three-Phase Three-Level PWM Inverter

Design of three-phase three level PWM inverter and analysis of the output current harmonics are presented in this paper. The three-level inverter is designed to supply three-phase load and it is controlled by FPGA under several modulation techniques (Sinusoidal PWM and Third Harmonic Injection PWM). Selection of semiconductor switches and other component of the inverter are described. Inverter output current harmonics under several modulation techniques will be analysed and compared.
Some references

• Barndorff-Nielsen, Kendall and van Lieshout, Stochastic Geometry: Likelihood and Computation, Chapman and Hall, 1999. • Stoyan, Kendall and Mecke, Stochastic Geometry and its Applications, 2nd edition, Wiley, 1995. • A modern Approach to Probability Theory, Bert Fristedt and Lawrence Gray, Birkhauser, 1997. • Statistics for Spatial Data, 1993, Noel A.C. Cressie, Wiley. • Introduction to Stochastic Processes, 1975, Erhan Cinlar, Prentice-Hall. • Krause and Olson, Statistics and Computing: The basics of S and S-Plus, 2002. • Sheldon Ross: Simulation, 3rd Edition, 2002.
Investigating reducing building energy use at urban scale in Taipei

Sustainable development related design and research has shown a focus shift from new building projects to existing ones; from the building scale to the regional and the urban scale; from construct and assessing the energy performance of buildings to participating at an earlier design stage. Taipei has been selected as the subject of this research due to its extremely high urbanization and huge pressure from the existing built environment. In order to achieve the national goal for reducing CO2 emissions, appropriate localized guidelines for buildings are urgently needed. Therefore, this research aims to understand, analyze and predict the energy performance of the architectures in Taipei, and offers a series of design strategies to help reduce the energy demand at building and urban scales. This will be achieved through the application of modelling, integrating SketchUp (@Last Software 2000), HTB2 v2.10 (WSA 2008; Alexander 2008), and Virvil Plugins (WSA 2012; Jones et al. 2011). The whole research process is a two-phase study. The first phase is to create models at different scales based on observation of the practical building environment, analysis of architecture related data and practical situations in Taipei, and then simulate them in a bottom-up method to understand the fundamental energy performance of different buildings, groups, blocks and districts. In the second phase, the model is extended to examine important variables and related strategies at both building and urban scales. This research finds that lighting, equipment efficiency, temperature settings of AC systems, orientation, glazing ratio, shading devices, and wall-to-volume ratio are important variables for architectures at building scale. Furthermore, development intensity, block usage type, wall-to-volume ratio, volume rate, building coverage ratio, average building height, surrounding road width, over-shading, insulation and outdoor environment are comparatively critical at urban scale. Additional interesting findings showed that the impacts brought by orientation, shading device, and insulation are not consistent at different scales. Lastly, some guidelines are presented to be used as a reference for new and existing buildings.
Inhibitors of Ecologically Sustainable Development in the Australian Construction Industry

The introduction of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) is considered to be critical for the construction industry and yet progress has been slow to date. Despite an extensive literature on the topic, little empirical research has been conducted to determine why this has been the case. This paper reports on a 2004 questionnaire survey of a cross-section of construction stakeholders in Australia to gain an understanding of the factors that contribute to the lack of ESD in the construction industry. Of the 134 questionnaires despatched, 53 were returned completed from variety of locations including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. A further 16 were completed by means of telephone interviews, mostly in Queensland. The results indicate the existence of a range of significant inhibitors, comprising: stakeholders’ or decision-makers’ lack of knowledge in terms of lack of awareness, understanding, appreciation and expertise; lack of capacity within the construction industry, in terms of lack of interest, initiative, research and development, and cooperation and consensus; and inadequacy of governing policy, in terms of lack of implementation, appropriate and well defined policy and failure of policy makers and politicians.
Tracking system for photon-counting laser radar

The purpose of this thesis is to build the tracking system for a photon-counting laser radar specifically a laser radar that has the ability to perform direct and coherent detection measurement at low signal levels with common laser, optics and detector hardware. The heart of the tracking algorithm is a Kalman filter, and optimal Kalman filter parameters are determined using software simulations. The tracking algorithm was tested against various simulated (software only) and emulated (with actual hardware) trajectories. We also built and tested the real-time tracking system hardware. The algorithms and methods proposed in this thesis achieve the objective of tracking a target at 1,500 km range to within 1-cm accuracy. VI-A Company Thesis Supervisor: Leaf A. Jiang, Ph.D. Title: LL-Technical Staff M.I. T. Thesis Supervisor: James K. Roberge, Sc.D. Title: Professor of Electrical Engineering This work is sponsored by the United States Air Force under Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C0002. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government. Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my mentor at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Dr. Leaf Jiang, for teaching me what research really means, answering all of my questions, nurturing me to understand each and every facet of my thesis , encouraging me when portions of the software or hardware did not work, and overall, making this thesis move from concept to reality. I would also like to thank Dr. Jane Luu for her questions, which helped me realize what I did and did not really understand. Ted Square is yet another member of the staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory that helped make this thesis a reality. His willingness to stay extra hours to help debug portions of my code, as well as his willingness to develop other programs for my benefit has definitely helped me finish my thesis on time. I would also like to thank Dr. Adam Milstein for his immeasurable help in understanding Kalman filters and their implementations. I would also like to thank family and friends who have been encouraging me through this process, whether it is by verbal or written means of communication, or by providing food, or by helping me get to and from work at odd hours. Above all, I would like to thank God for the strength and energy He has given to me throughout this entire experience, for providing me with the best mentors and the best staff to assist me, and for providing friends and family who have been a constant encouragement. In the words of Johann Sebastian Bach Soli Deo Gloria To God Alone be the Glory. Table of
The Effectiveness of Hot Fomentation with Epsom Salt Versus Common Salt on Knee Joint Pain among Elderly in the Selected Old Age Home of Pune City

Background & Objective: Aging is a multidimensional process of change in the physical, psychological and social. In India Osteoarthritis 2nd most cause of knee joint pain with the prevalence of 22 to 39%. Our aim was to assess the effectiveness of hot fomentation with Epsom salt versus Common salt on knee joint pain among elderly Methods: A Quasi Experimental, Non- randomized one group pre-test post-test control group design was adopted involving 40 elderly who have knee joint pain. After obtaining informed consent elderly were allocated into two groups of 20 each by using the Non-probability purposive sampling technique. Hot fomentation (100 ml of water at the temperature of 30-40 degree Celsius) with 2gm of Epsom salt for the experimental group and common salt for the attention control group for 5 days once a day. Global pain scale was used to assess the level of pain. Results: The significant change was observed in Pain level as evident that the t-value is 26.29, p-value of Epsom is 0.00001 that is less than 0.05 and the t-value is -21.03, p-value of Common salt is 0.0001 that is less than 0.05, both the interventions were effective but Epsom salt is more effective than common salt on knee joint pain. Hence, null hypothesis (H 0 ) was rejected. None of the demographic variables are found to have significant association with the level of knee joint pain. Conclusion: The effectiveness of hot fomentation with Epsom salt is higher than the common salt so null hypothesis is rejected.
Front end environmental analysis

The author describes research on methods for influencing the design of products to reduce environmental impacts. The research reported is based on the successful development of front end analysis methods for design of products to reduce support cost and improve system availability. The methods discussed involve use of a concurrent engineering team, supplemented by analytical tools which relate design parameters to environmental impacts of the product over the life cycle. A simplified analysis tool for conducting environmental impact trade studies during initial design is discussed. Examples of experimental applications of the front end environmental process are presented, as well as a walk through of the applications of the process to a simple electronic product. <<ETX>>
Analiza sieci w badaniach struktury organizacji

Zastosowanie analizy sieci spolecznych do badan organizacji pozwala dokladniej poznac sposoby rzeczywistego organizowania sie pracownikow. Jest to wiedza potoczna, czesto nieuświadomiona, ale o zasadniczym znaczeniu dla sprawnego funkcjonowania firmy. Artykul prezentuje sposob prowadzenia badan i analiz sieci w celu odwzorowania relacji pomiedzy pracownikami i uzyskania obrazu struktury firmy. Badania takie są najcześciej prowadzone przy uzyciu pytan ankietowych, ktore w artykule zostają przedstawione (wspolpraca, przeplyw informacji, przeplyw wiedzy i rozwiązywanie problemow oraz przeplyw decyzji) i zinterpretowane w kontekście analizy struktury rzeczywistej organizacji. W prezentowanym badaniu odwzorowano i zanalizowano strukture innowacyjnej firmy z branzy IT zatrudniającej 125 pracownikow, ktorych odpowiedzi pozwolily na analize 3097 relacji. Analiza sluzyla weryfikacji zalozen odnośnie integracji calej firmy, poziomie centralizacji wladzy, sposobie koordynacji pracy oraz mozliwych blokadach w przeplywie wiedzy. (abstrakt oryginalny)
Harmonic Analysis Of Svpwm Techniques For Three-Phase Inverter

In PWM methods switching instants are chosen so that the desired fundamental component is obtained while acceptable harmonic performance is achieved. Space Vector Modulation (SVM) is the popular PWM method and possibly the best among all the PWM techniques as it generates higher voltages with low total harmonic distortion and works very well with field oriented (vector control) schemes for motor control. High quality output spectra can be obtained by eliminating several lower order harmonics by adopting a suitable harmonic elimination technique. In this paper, a mathematical model of space vector modulated three phase inverter is generated. Further, a method to eliminate the most significant harmonic components of line voltage waveforms of the inverter by SHE is also formulated. The harmonic spectrum analysis of the proposed model shows the effect of eliminating the lower order harmonics in SVM. Simulation results are implemented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model. The developed model is used to study the performance of SVM in terms of its harmonic spectrum and associated losses