Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal inspection and maintenance for stochastically deteriorating systems

This thesis concerns the optimisation of maintenance and inspection for stochastically deteriorating systems. The motivation for this thesis is the problem of determining condition based maintenance policies, for systems whose degradation may be modelled by a continuous time stochastic process. Our emphasis is mainly on using the information gained from inspecting the degradation to determine efficient maintenance and inspection policies. The system we shall consider is one in which the degradation is modelled by a Levy process, and in which failure is defined to occur when the degradation reaches a critical level. It is assumed that the system may be inspected or repaired at any time, and that the costs of inspections and repairs may depend on the level of system degradation. Initially we look at determining optimal inspection policies for systems whose degradation may be directly and perfectly observed, before extending this analysis to the case where the degradation is unobservable, and a related covariate process is used to determine maintenance decisions. In both cases it is assumed the replacement policy is fixed and known in advance. Finally we consider the case of joint optimisation of maintenance and inspection, for cases in which the maintenance action has either deterministic or random effect on the degradation level. In all of these cases we use the properties of the Levy process degradation model to form a recursive relationship which allows us to determine integral and functional equations for the maintenance cost of the system. Solutions to these determine optimal periodic and non-periodic inspection and maintenance policies. Throughout the thesis we use the gamma process degradation model as an example. For this model we determine optimal perfect inspection policies for the cases when inspections are periodic and non-periodic. As a special case of a covariate process we consider the optimal imperfect periodic inspection policy. Finally we obtain jointly optimal deterministic-maintenance and periodic-inspection policies.
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO LINEHAUL-BACKHAUL PROBLEMS: A GUIDED LOCAL SEARCH APPROACH FOR THE VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM

This report develops a heuristic algorithm and prototype software for solving the Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and Time Windows (VRPBTW). The problem differs from the well known VRP in that customers can demand either delivery (linehaul) or pickup (backhaul), and each customer has a service window. In words, the VRPBTW is as follows - Given: 1. Single depot; 2. Set of customers with known demands (pickups and/or deliveries); 3. Customer service time windows consisting of a ready time (earliest time allowed for truck arrival) and a due time (latest time allowed for truck arrival); 4. Homogenous fleet of vehicles (trucks) of fixed capacity; Find: Set of vehicle routes that minimize the number of vehicles and the total distance traveled (a surrogate for total cost); Subject To: 1. Each customer's demand (pickup or delivery) must be satisfied; 2. A customer's demand may not be split between different vehicles; 3. Customer time window are "hard" - they may not be violated; 4. Fleet size (number of vehicles) is unconstrained; and 5. Customer precedence (whether or not linehauls must precede backhauls).
Element partitioning in foraminifera and implications for calcification

Paleo-oceanographers use element to calcium ratios of foraminiferal tests to reconstruct past climate conditions. Calcite Mg/Ca is used to reconstruct past seawater temperatures. In addition to temperature Mg/CaSW also influences Mg/CaCC and - although not yet shown for foraminifers – Sr/CaCC. To reliably use such proxy relationships it is necessary to understand calcification mechanisms. Here we culture two benthic foraminifers at different seawater [Mg] and [Ca]. Growth rates are monitored during the culture experiment. Organic matter is removed with the bleaching agent NaOCl and test weight as well as calcite Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca is analyzed with LA-ICP-MS. Results show optimal growth and test thickness at Mg/CaSW near ambient. Different timespans of bleaching or concentrations of NaOCl had no influence on element to calcium ratios. Calcite Mg/Ca increases with increasing Mg/CaSW, while the partition coefficient DMg decreases. Relative Mg/CaSW, and not the absolute [Mg] and [Ca] play the crucial role in determining growth, thickness as well as Mg/CaCC. Results allowed to test a conceptual biomineralization model by Nehrke et al. (2013) and confirmed that a mixture of transmembrane transport and passive transport via leakage or vacuolization provides the necessary ions needed for chamber formation. A refined mixing model is presented, which is based on these assumptions, but assumes a weaker ion fractionation during transmembrane transport and accounts for the Mg/CaCC and DMg observed. Results furthermore showed that increasing Mg/CaCC increases Sr/CaCC, which can be explained by stress in the crystal lattice, caused by increasing Mg2+. This stress can be compensated by additional incorporation of Sr2+. This inorganic process is not yet accounted for in the mixing model. The mixing model needs further attention in future studies to finally develop a generalized biomineralization model which can explain the incorporation of all elements into foraminiferal tests.
En quoi différentes approches de l’activité collective des relations de services interrogent la pluralité des modèles de l’activité en ergonomie ?

L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que la diversite des activites de relations de service selon leurs buts et les demandes d’intervention necessite d’etre prudent sur ce que l’on nomme « activite ». L’etude des tâches de differents metiers des services (soignant, guichetier, policier, conseiller funeraire, auxiliaire petite enfance, educateurs specialises, …) montre qu’ils ne font pas le meme travail : leurs objectifs, le type d’interaction entre le « client » et l’agent, les conditions de travail et son organisation, correspondent a divers possibilites de relations de service. Dans un but de transformation de ces situations de travail pour ameliorer la sante des agents et l’efficacite du systeme, il est necessaire de depasser une analyse behavioriste, basee sur la description des tâches ou l’observation des comportements pour acceder aux conditions de realisation du travail. Pour cela, nous avons besoin de mieux prendre en compte des modeles internes de l’activite pour comprendre le fonctionnement physiologique, affectif et cognitif de l’agent. L’activite sera decrite par les regulations mises en œuvre par le travailleur en fonction des ses motivations, de ses buts et de ses possibilites d’interaction avec les conditions environnementales. Le cadre theorique mobilise est celui de l’analyse pragmatique et systemique de l’activite, qui permet l’existence de differentes theories de l’activite, selon les objectifs de la recherche et de ces conditions.
Masking, crowding, and grouping: Connecting low and mid-level vision

Abstract An important task for vision science is to build a unitary framework of low- and mid-level vision. As a step on this way, our study examined differences and commonalities between masking, crowding and grouping—three processes that occur through spatial interactions between neighbouring elements. We measured contrast thresholds as functions of inter-element spacing and eccentricity for Gabor detection, discrimination and contour integration, using a common stimulus grid consisting of nine Gabor elements. From these thresholds, we derived a) the baseline contrast necessary to perform each task and b) the spatial extent over which task performance was stable. This spatial window can be taken as an indicator of field size, where elements that fall within a putative field are readily combined. We found that contrast thresholds were universally modulated by inter-element distance, with a shallower and inverted effect for grouping compared with masking and crowding. Baseline contrasts for detecting stimuli and discriminating their properties were positively linked across the tested retinal locations (parafovea and near periphery), whereas those for integrating elements and discriminating their properties were negatively linked. Meanwhile, masking and crowding spatial windows remained uncorrelated across eccentricity, although they were correlated across participants. This suggests that the computation performed by each type of visual field operates over different distances that co-varies across observers, but not across retinal locations. Contrast-processing units may thus lie at the core of the shared idiosyncrasies across tasks reported in many previous studies, despite the fundamental differences in the extent of their spatial windows.
Open-Source SCA Implementation-EmbeddedandSoftware Communication Architecture : OSSIE and SCA Waveform Development

Software Defined Radios (SDRs) are redefining the current landscape of wireless communications in both military and commercial sectors. The rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics are making it possible to execute significant amounts of signal processing on general purpose processors ratherthan using special-purpose hardware. As a consequence of the availability of SDR, applications can be used to implement flexible communication systems in an operating prototype within a very short time. However, the initial lack of standards and design rules leads to incompatibility problems when using products from different manufacturers. This problem is critical for the military and public safety sectors, for this reason the US Army was interested in SDR and carried out research into the specification of a common software infrastructure for SDR. This initiative started in the mid-1990s and evolved into the Software Communications Architecture (SCA). SCA is a non-proprietary, open architecture framework that allows a designer to design interoperable and platform independent SDR applications. At the same time the SCA framework, by abstracting the radio communication system, speeds up waveform development because developers no longer have to worry about hardware details. This thesis project uses OSSIE, an open source SCA implementation, to illustrate the process of developing a waveform. Today companies are exploiting open source solutions and investing money to evaluate and improve available technologies rather than developing their own solutions: OSSIE provides a working SCA framework without any license cost. OSSIE also provides some tools to develop SCA waveforms. Of course open source software comes with some limitations that a designer must take into account. Some of these limitations will be described for OSSIE (specifically the limited documentation and lack of libraries), along with some suggestions for how to reduce their impact. This thesis project shows in detail the development process for SCA waveforms in OSSIE. These details are examined in the course of successfully implementing a target waveform to enable the reader to understand the advantagies and disadvantages of this technology and to facilitate more people using OSSIE to develop waveforms. Although a waveform was successfully implemented there were unexpected issues with regard to the actual behavior of the waveform when implemented on the hardware used for testing.
The influence of laccase/histidine system on the properties of OCC pulp fibers, and of handsheets made thereof

Abstract For improving the physical properties of old corrugated container (OCC) fiber, the laccase/histidine system was used in this paper. Firstly, the paper studied the optimum conditions that the laccase/histidine system modified the OCC fiber, including enzyme dosage, histidine dosage, reaction time, reaction temperature, and pH. Experimental results showed that the optimum reaction conditions of laccase/histidine system for OCC pulp were: dose of enzyme 1 U· g − 1 {\text{g}^{-1}}, 4 h reaction time, pH 4.5, dose of histidine 1 %. Under the optimum reaction conditions, the tensile and burst indexes of the sheet made from laccase/histidine treatment were increased by 25.2 % and 34.0 %, compared with that of the control sample. The SEM results showed that compared with the control sample, the fibrillation of the fiber modified with laccase/histidine was more obvious. Finally, the content of acid-insoluble lignin of the fiber was determined. The content of acid-insoluble lignin of the control sample was 29.2 %, and the content of acid-insoluble lignin of the fiber treated by laccase/histidine system in optimum reaction conditions was 16.0 %, which decreased by 13.2 %. Laccase/histidine system could improve the physical properties of recycled fiber, alleviate fiber decay, which are of great significance to solve the resource shortage and environment pollution of the paper-making industry.
Molecular Switch by Adsorbing the Au6 Cluster on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Role of Many-Body Effects of vdW Forces

Advanced molecular switches are essential for constructing the basic components of nanodevices. Herein, a molecular-scale switchable system based on the bistable configurations of the Au6 cluster on the N-doped single-walled carbon nanotube is proposed by using the density functional theory method with many-body dispersion (MBD) forces. The delicate balance among Pauli repulsion, chemical binding, electrostatic interactions, and MBD forces is found to be critical for achieving this molecular switch, while the many-body effects of dispersion forces are identified to be controllable by the two former interactions. These results demonstrate that chemical binding and Pauli repulsion transform the many-body effects of dispersion forces in low-dimensional adsorption systems from negative to positive, which are adjustable by adsorption distance, atomic volume, and anisotropy as well as adsorption configuration of adsorbates. These findings provide a means for tuning the stability of a given complex and promise a.
A Direct Comparison of Reentry F Heat-Transfer-Rate Data to Ground Facility Measurements

Abstract : Correlation parameters are developed to compare ground test facility surface heating-rate data on non-ablating sharp slender cones directly to data obtained during a full-scale hypersonic reentry flight. Surface data under laminar and fully developed turbulent boundary layers are compared. The problem of failure to fully simulate local Mach number, Reynolds number, and boundary- layer temperature is shown to be of secondary importance. Sufficient information is provided to allow the reader to add additional experimental results.
Think Global/Design Glocal.

Abtract. The technologies underlying virtual environments like videogames and the methodologies of the learning sciences create an important intersection for work in educational technology. Coupling these fields enables us to consider participatory learning in terms of the ways that “context” shapes a process of making meaning. In this essay, I report on efforts that aim to leverage an increasingly global academic play space called Quest Atlantis (Barab et al, 2007) in order to understand and adapt the soft and hard technologies of schooling for the goals and value systems prioritized locally, in this case, in Singapore. In particular, I detail a school-based partnership to co-develop a Singapore curriculum through a distributed collaboration organized around the Quest Atlantis learning framework.
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Open-Circuit Faults Diagnosis in Direct-Drive PMSG Wind Turbine Converter

The condition monitoring and fault diagnosis have been identified as the key to achieving higher availabilities of wind turbines. Numerous studies show that the open-circuit fault is a significant contributor to the failures of wind turbine converter. However, the multiple faults combinations and the influence of wind speed changes abruptly, grid voltage sags and noise interference have brought great challenges to fault diagnosis. Accordingly, concerning the open-circuit fault of converters in direct-driven PMSG wind turbine, a diagnostic method for multiple open-circuit faults is proposed in this paper, which is divided into two tasks: The first one is the fault detection and the second one is the fault localization. The detection method is based on the relative current residuals after exponential transformation and on an adaptive threshold, and the localization method is based on the average values of fault phase currents. The scheduled diagnosis method is available to both the generator-side converter and the grid-side converter, allowing to detect and locate single and double open-circuit faults. For validating this, robustness test and multiple open-circuit faults diagnosis are presented in a 2-MW direct-driven PMSG wind turbine system, the results validate the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed method.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE MICROBIOLOGICAL SAFETY OF FOOD INFORMATION PAPER OUTBREAKS OF INFECTION ASSOCIATED WITH READY-TO-EAT FOOD

ACM/1014 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE MICROBIOLOGICAL SAFETY OF FOOD INFORMATION PAPER OUTBREAKS OF INFECTION ASSOCIATED WITH READY-TO-EAT FOOD At the 68 meeting of ACMSF in September 2008, the Health Protection Agency briefed the Committee on the microbiological safety of ready-to-eat foods, focusing on fruit and vegetables (paper ACM/922). Following discussion members requested for an update at a future meeting. Members have previously received updates on the microbiological safety and status of ready-to-eat food in the UK focused on fresh produce. The attached paper provides an update on outbreaks of infection associated with the consumption of ready-to-eat foods.
Dynamic frequency broker and Cognitive Radio

Traditional frequency allocation and assignment are relatively slow processes that are inadequately suited for satisfying and exploiting the dynamic spectrum needs of various communication and broadcast systems. This leads to poor average utilization of the spectrum, yet with the demand for assigned spectrum in some bands and locations exceeding availability. Cognitive radio (CR) attempts to increase the spectrum utilization by sensing and reusing available spectrum bands, e.g. in the 802.22 standard the CR system attempts to reuse spectrum bands allocated to TV transmitters. A fundamental problem is, however, that although the CR does not detect any transmitter in a specific band, e.g. due to how the CR is located in the terrain, it may still create disturbance for a receiver, commonly known as a 'hidden node' problem. To allow improved utilization of the spectrum resources, but at the same time avoiding that this improvement comes at the expense of interfering hidden nodes, we describe the dynamic frequency broker (DFB) system. The DFB acts as a local computerized frequency coordination authority. It keeps a complete list of frequency assignments within an area and keeps an updated terrain propagation path loss model of its area. It assigns frequencies on a temporary basis based upon transmitted signal power, spectral density, receive and transmitter antenna properties and the required received signal to interference level. It receives by Internet and radio, information about the active transmitters, and revokes permissions to transmit if they are idle over a certain period. (5 pages)
Understanding Self and Other: Exploring How Relational Processes Contribute to the Korean-American Cultural Experience Depicted in Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker

The link between culture and language has been the focus of many recent studies. The study of culture and language offers an understanding of how ‘reality’ is constituted on the one hand and maintained on the other. As different cultures dictate certain patterns of thoughts and certain language structures, the integration of different cultures may cause a conflict of identity. In this study, the struggle between eastern and western identities is under investigation. The discourse chosen for analysis is Native Speaker, a novel written by the KoreanAmerican novelist Chang-Rae Lee. The study is conducted through an analysis of the relational processes present in the novel. Relational processes depict an external and internal perspectives of participants’ reality, as they offer attributes that describe and identify the relationship between participants. The analysis of such relationships presents a clearer understanding of the Korean-American cultural experience and of Lee’s governing ideologies toward this representation. Results: The study of the relational processes in Lee’s Native Speaker with their variant participants allows the reader a chance to draw relations between the protagonist’s view of himself and of the participants around him. These relations contribute to his journey of discovering his identity as a Korean-American, a product of two cultures. خىاشت بتانلا ٘ٓاّر في ٘ٔىْئنلا لاعفلأا ٘سارد :ًٓزخلآاّ ٕسفيل ٕماردإ هٍاست تيلا "ولأا ٘غللاب ثدرتلما" ٕل ٖر ٘ٔنٓزملأا ٘ٓرْنلا ٘ٔفاقثلا ٘بزحتلا زْٓصت في فسْٓ دنمح ٕىزق ًٓدلا رْى تفلأ . أ