Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study on the Structural Characteristics of Bird Necks and Their Static Motion Features in the Sagittal Plane

The necks of birds that possess complex structures, graceful curves, and flexible movements are perfect natural motion actuators. Studying their structural features, mechanic characteristics, and motion rules can provide valuable references for imitating such actuators and motion functions artificially. Previous studies have analyzed the influence of two-dimensional motion geometric features and anatomical structure of the neck on motion efficiency and motion stability. However, the mechanism of motion flexibility from the perspective of neck structure has not been investigated. This study investigates the general law of the relationship between the structural parameters and motion characteristics of birds’ necks using tomography technology and 3D reconstruction technology. The results show that the structural characteristics of geese and ducks are similar, and there are significant differences in joint motion characteristics. Geese obtains complex neck postures through active intervertebral joints and highly flexible facet joints and possesses higher neck flexibility than ducks. This study provides a generic measuring method for obtaining birds’ cervical spinal vertebral structural dimensional parameters and offers a new theoretical concept for bionic robotic structural design and manufacture.
Autistic adults anticipate and integrate meaning based on the speaker's voice: Evidence from eye-tracking and event-related potentials.

Typically developing (TD) individuals rapidly integrate information about a speaker and their intended meaning while processing sentences online. We examined whether the same processes are activated in autistic adults and tested their timecourse in 2 preregistered experiments. Experiment 1 employed the visual world paradigm. Participants listened to sentences where the speaker's voice and message were either consistent or inconsistent (e.g., "When we go shopping, I usually look for my favorite wine," spoken by an adult or a child), and concurrently viewed visual scenes including consistent and inconsistent objects (e.g., wine and sweets). All participants were slower to select the mentioned object in the inconsistent condition. Importantly, eye movements showed a visual bias toward the voice-consistent object, well before hearing the disambiguating word, showing that autistic adults rapidly use the speaker's voice to anticipate the intended meaning. However, this target bias emerged earlier in the TD group compared to the autism group (2240 ms vs. 1800 ms before disambiguation). Experiment 2 recorded ERPs to explore speaker-meaning integration processes. Participants listened to sentences as described above, and ERPs were time-locked to the onset of the target word. A control condition included a semantic anomaly. Results revealed an enhanced N400 for inconsistent speaker-meaning sentences that was comparable to that elicited by anomalous sentences, in both groups. Overall, contrary to research that has characterized autism in terms of a local processing bias and pragmatic dysfunction, autistic people were unimpaired at integrating multiple modalities of linguistic information and were comparably sensitive to speaker-meaning inconsistency effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Controller Development for a Separate Meter-In Separate Meter-Out Fluid Power Valve for Mobile Applications

In most mobile vehicles which are used within construction, agriculture, material handling, forestry, garbage handling etc. a fluid power system is used for power transport and power distribution. The transported/distributed power is usually generated by a diesel engine or from an electrical battery. The largest advantages of the fluid power system are its high energy density and its robustness. Currently there is no cost effective and robust alternative to using a fluid power system for the power transport in the kilowatt range necessary to establishing a linear motion of tools in mobile machinery. For a rotary motion electrical motors controlled by using power electronics is a competing technology because of their high energy efficiency. Additionally, the energy density of electrical devices is still increasing. In fluid power systems where more consumers (cylinders or motors) are supplied by a single pump the fluid is distributed through valves. A valve works by controlling a fluid stream through the valve by varying the opening of an orifice. The disadvantage by this is that when controlling the fluid flow rate a pressure drop is created across the orifice. This results in a throttle loss equal to the controlled flow rate times the pressure drop across the orifice. By a constant flow rate the best energy efficiency is therefore obtained by keeping the pressure drop across the orifice as low as possible. More orifices are commonly included in a single valve. A specific type of valve, which is commonly used in many types of mobile applications, is a 4-way proportional valve. In this type of valve two fluid streams are controlled: One fluid stream from a pump to a fluid consumer and one fluid stream from the fluid consumer to a fluid reservoir. In a 4-way proportional valve it is necessary to use a separate control of the two fluid streams to minimise the throttling losses. The purpose of the research documented in this dissertation is to investigate how a 4-way proportional valve may be build to fulfil the increasing demands with regard to energy efficiency and functionality. And to develop controllers for a valve prototype whereby the two mentioned fluid streams may be controlled separately. First an introduction to mobile fluid power systems is given. It is explained that the future trend within mobile fluid power systems goes towards integration of sensors and microprocessors into the components. The particular research area is motivated by the use of two examples. They explain how a separate control of the meter-in and the meter-out flow of proportional valves, together with integration of sensors, may minimise throttling losses and give increased functionality of the fluid power system.
Product development : success through product and cycle-time excellence

Part 1 Product development - the next battleground: competitive advantage through product development cutting time-to-market in half achieving product excellence. Part 2 The product development process: the overall product development process new product planning technology strategy in product planning the core team approach to project organization project team leadership the phase review process and effective management decision making structured product development cross project management design techniques. Part 3 Implementation: changing the culture getting started.
Mjerenje i analiza bočnog ubrzanja u prometu vozila

Accelerations and braking are needed in traffic to allow a vehicle to travel from one place to another. Also present during the drive are lateral accelerations, which are active in curves. The accelerations and braking active during the drive are usually in the range of one fifth to one third of maximum value. In critical and unexpected situations, the accelerations and braking are increased up to maximum values. Maximum values of acceleration and braking depend on roughness of ground, type of ground, quality of tires, quality of vehicle brakes, etc. Because of critical and unexpected situations, there are many accidents on the roads. In these cases, accelerations or braking reach their limit values and many times the vehicle becomes uncontrollable. In this paper the system for measurement and analyses of accelerations and braking in traffic of vehicles is presented. These systems are necessary for analyses of different accidents in traffic and to define maximal longitudinal accelerations, maximal lateral accelerations and maximal braking in different situations. Also presented in this article are practical measurements and analyses of maximal accelerations and braking for selected cars, which were measured on a straight road, and comparisons of these measurements with the producer data and accelerations and braking measured on a racetrack.
Design and Implementation of 802.15.4 Transceiver for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) on FPGA

The IEEE 802.15. 4 standard provides mainly accessing, monitoring, and controlling capability of the Wireless devices. This standard supports short-range wireless communications and Low Rate (LR) - Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs). This manuscript presents the fully integrated digital 802.15. 4 Transceiver, which suitable to ZigBee Device Standard at 2.4GHz range. The 802.15. 4 Transceiver design includes an 8-bit input data sequence mapped to lower and Upper Symbols followed by Chip-sequence conversion as per the IEEE standard. The chip sequences are mapped separately as even and odd sequences used for the Offset-QPSK Modulation. The chip synchronization achieved by using a proper clocking mechanism on the receiver side. The 802.15. 4 Transceiver design is implemented on Artix-7 FPGA using Xilinx Environment. The hardware constraints like Area (Slices), Frequency, and Power are analyzed. The proposed work also compared with existing similar approaches with more significant improvements in chip area and Power.
Theoretical and Practical Research on the Consequences of Work-related Accidents registered in the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs

In police institutions, the most frequently reported risk factors are linked to painful work positions, like sitting at the office for a long time, or other risks such as working with difficult or dangerous citizens, the risk of injury caused by motor vehicle driving during work, poor communication or cooperation within the organization, the lack of influence of employees on the pace of work or their working conditions, the pressure of time and the insecurity of the workplace. All these risk factors, related to how work is organized and managed, , sometimes cause serious workplace injuries and illnesses that can damage the mental and physical health of the policeman and result in both tangible and intangible costs for them and for the organization in which they work. The main reason for this study is the general lack of knowledge that police organizations have regarding the actual cost of occupational injuries. Because there is little available literature on the topic of police occupational injury costs, this micro study aims to scan the research available on macro studies regarding accidents costs and furthermore to analyze the frequency and severity of work-related accidents in Romanian police organizations by comparison with existing data on work-related injuries for all occupations at national level. The severity and frequency variables presented in this study can be helpful in the future to calculate the total cost of work accidents in spite of the fact that statistical institutions and police organizations in Romania do not keep full records regarding injury costs.
Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs

Using a list of more than 2,000 successful innovations, including Cirque du Soleil, early IBM mainframes, the Ford Model-T, and many more, the authors applied a proprietary algorithm and determined ten meaningful groupings—the Ten Types of Innovation—that provided insight into innovation. The Ten Types of Innovation explores these insights to diagnose patterns of innovation within industries, to identify innovation opportunities, and to evaluate how firms are performing against competitors. The framework has proven to be one of the most enduring and useful ways to start thinking about transformation.
Advanced millimeter-wave technologies : antennas, packaging and circuits

Chapter 1: Intruduction (Gaucher). Chapter 2: mmWave Packaging (Pfeiffer). Chapter 3: Dielectric Properties at mmWave and THz Bands (Dougherty, Lanagan, Rajab). Chapter 4: mmWave Interconnects (Grzyb). Chapter 5: Printed millimeter antennas - Multilayer technologies (Mohamed, Lafond). Chapter 6: Planar Waveguide-Type Slot Arrays (Ando, Hirokawa). Chapter 7: Antenna Design for 60 GHz Packaging Applications (Liu). Chapter 8: Monolithic Integrated Antennas (Ojefors, Rydberg). Chapter 9: Metamaterial for Antenna Applications (Itoh, Lai, Lee). Chapter 10: EBG Materials and Antennas (Weily, Esselle, Bird). Chapter 11: System to Circuit and Technology Implementation of RF and mmWave Switches (Plouchar). Chapter 12: MEMS Switches (Hoivik). Chapter 13: Phased Arrays (Pao, Aguirre). Chapter 14: Integrated Phased Array (Hajimiri). Chapter 15: mmWave/THz Imaging (Luhmann, Yang, Shen). Chapter 16: Millimeter-Wave System Overview (Reynolds). Chapter 17: Special MMW Measurement Techniques (Zwick, Pfeiffer). Chapter 18: Micromachining and Silicon Processing (Tsang, Andry, Steen)
Adapting Clicker Technology to Diversity Courses: Lessons from the Field

The “core technology” (Thompson, 1967) of teaching has evolved in the last decades to include the use of a variety of innovations including on-line teaching, WebCT/Blackboard, and, most recently, “student response systems” (SRS), known colloquially as “clickers. ” An SRS allows a professor to pose questions to which students can respond on the spot using their individuallyidentified, hand-held devices. Aggregate answers can be displayed instantaneously in the form of percentages and graphs and, in turn, these can be “crossed” with demographic or opinion data (e.g., sex, partisan identification, etc.). In this paper, we report our experiences with adapting clickers to the social science classroom and, particularly, to the challenging setting of mandated “diversity” courses – in this case, two semester-length Gender and Politics courses taught by Schwartz-Shea and Holland. Doctoral student Yim served as the teaching assistant for both courses. Based on an array of evidence (open-ended student assessments, student surveys, clicker data bases, interviews, comparison of syllabi and motives for use), we analyze our understandings of the ways in which clicker technology may (or may not) contribute to the goals of effective teaching and learning in diversity courses
Starting and steady state characteristics of axial-type high T/sub c/ superconducting bulk motor

This paper presents the starting and steady state characteristics of axial-type superconducting bulk motor in which Bi-2223 is utilized. 3-phase and 4-pole armature windings are introduced in order to produce a rotating magnetic field in an air-gap with a speed of 1800 rpm. The no-load tests are performed, respectively, at 77.3 K and 64.0 K in order to examine the difference of the flux pinning strength on the rotating characteristics. The relation between the phase voltage and the armature current is discussed from the point of view of the shielding property of the Bi-2223 bulk rotor. The experimental results of resistance and reactance as a function of the phase voltage are also to be shown and discussed.
Horticultural Crops Research and Development in Ethiopia: Review on Current Status

Ethiopia is a country with great variety of climate and soil types that can grow diverse horticultural crops for home consumption and foreign markets. Currently, the majority of the horticultural crops product comes from the smallholder farms. However, their areas of production and their contribution to the country's total agricultural output were not well known. The development and expansion of horticulture sector is constrained with various production and research related problems and does not support efforts to transform the smallholder subsistence irrigated horticultural sector to a more market-oriented to contribute to the new Growth and transformation plan set by the country. The crops are very diverse and it has different constraints in every step along the value chain. Among several constraints, lack of high yielding and high quality cultivars for local market and export, appropriate management techniques, appropriate disease and insect pest control measures, quality seed supply, availability of inputs, lack of proper post-harvest technology, trained manpower and research facilities, lack of marketing and production infrastructure; and lack of seed production and distribution scheme are the major once. Despite the existing potentials the sector did not contribute as it supposed to be. This is mainly because of the limited resource allocation to research and development including the extension services. Therefore, diagnosis of problems and opportunities of the horticultural crops production in Ethiopia necessitates identifying, prioritizing and well document them at national level for possible recommendations, action research and intervention works. In addition, the existence of many actors and stakeholders in the horticulture value chain desires strong and dedicated institutional set up for successful development of horticulture in the country. Moreover, little or no actions are implemented in creating and strengthening linkages with local and international actors along the value chain of horticultural research and development. This paper summarizes the current horticultural crops research and development status; its achievements and challenges and suggests possible future actions that sustain the development of the sector in the country with special emphasis on fruit, vegetable and root and tuber crops.
Understanding the Evaluation Abilities of External Cluster Validity Indices to Internal Ones

: Evaluating internal Cluster Validity Index (CVI) is a critical task in clustering research. Existing studies mainly employ the number of clusters (NC-based method) or external CVIs (external CVIs-based method) to evaluate internal CVIs, which are not always reasonable in all scenarios. Additionally, there is no guideline of choosing appropriate methods to evaluate internal CVIs in different cases. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation abilities of external CVIs to internal CVIs, and propose a novel approach, named external CVI's evaluation Ability MEasurement approach through Ranking consistency (CAMER), to measure the evaluation abilities of external CVIs quantitatively, for assisting in selecting appropriate external CVIs to evaluate internal CVIs. Specifically, we formulate the evaluation ability measurement problem as a ranking consistency task, by measuring the consistency between the evaluation results of external CVIs to internal CVIs and the ground truth performance of internal CVIs. Then, the superiority of CAMER is validated through a real-world case. Moreover, the evaluation abilities of seven popular external CVIs to internal CVIs in six different scenarios are explored by CAMER. Finally, these explored evaluation abilities are validated on four real-world datasets, demonstrating the effectiveness of CAMER.
X-43C Flight Demonstrator Project Overview

The X-43C Flight Demonstrator Project is a joint NASA-USAF hypersonic propulsion technology flight demonstration project that will expand the hypersonic flight envelope for air-breathing engines. The Project will demonstrate sustained accelerating flight through three flights of expendable X-43C Demonstrator Vehicles (DVs). The approximately 16-foot long X-43C DV will be boosted to the starting test conditions, separate from the booster, and accelerate from Mach 5 to Mach 7 under its own power and autonomous control. The DVs will be powered by a liquid hydrocarbon-fueled, fuel-cooled, dual-mode, airframe integrated scramjet engine system developed under the USAF HyTech Program. The Project is managed by NASA Langley Research Center as part of NASA’s Next Generation Launch Technology Program. Flight tests will be conducted by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center off the coast of California over water in the Pacific Test Range. The NASA/USAF/industry project is a natural extension of the Hyper-X Program (X-43A), which will demonstrate short duration (~ 10 seconds) gaseous hydrogen-fueled scramjet powered flight at Mach 7 and Mach 10 using a heavy-weight, largely heat sink construction, experimental engine. The X-43C Project will demonstrate sustained accelerating flight from Mach 5 to Mach 7 (~ 4 minutes) using a flight-weight, fuel-cooled, scramjet engine powered by much denser liquid hydrocarbon fuel. The X-43C DV design flows from integrating USAF HyTech developed engine technologies with a NASA Air-Breathing Launch Vehicle accelerator-class configuration and Hyper-X heritage vehicle systems designs. This paper describes the X-43C Project and provides the background for NASA's current hypersonic flight demonstration efforts. BACKGROUND NASA's Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program is developing and maturing advanced propulsion technologies, vehicle systems technologies, and flight vehicle concepts to enable development of safer and more economic future launch systems. Figure 1 illustrates the NGLT role in NASA's Integrated Space Transportation Plan. Within NGLT, NASA is developing advanced air breathing propulsion systems and demonstrating these systems in hypersonic flight vehicles. The flight demonstrations are necessary to validate these technologies and advance the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) to TRL=6, making them ready for application to future space launch vehicles and other hypersonic flight systems. Figure 1. NGLT is a Key Component of NASA’s Strategic Plan Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. https://ntrs.nasa. gov/search.jsp? R=20040042495 2020-04-17T19:33:15+00:00Z
Allopurinol inhibits excess glucose-induced trophoblast IL-1b and ROS production.

Pre-gestational diabetes is a risk factor for preeclampsia, a condition associated with inflammatory markers, a dysregulated angiogenic profile, and impaired placentation. Using an in vitro model, we previously reported that hyperglycemic levels of glucose induced a pro-inflammatory (IL-1β, IL-8, RANTES, GRO-α, anti-angiogenic (sFlt-1), and anti-migratory profile in a human trophoblast cell line. The IL-1β response to excess glucose was mediated by uric acid-induced activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Allopurinol is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that inhibits uric acid and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Thus, we sought to test the effects of allopurinol on the IL-1β and other inflammatory, angiogenic and migratory responses that are triggered in the trophoblast by excess glucose. Under excess glucose conditions, allopurinol significantly inhibited trophoblast secretion of inflammatory IL-1β; caspase-1 activity; IL-8; RANTES; and GRO-α. Allopurinol also significantly inhibited excess glucose induced trophoblast secretion of anti-angiogenic sFlt-1. The presence of IL1Ra significantly inhibited excess glucose-induced trophoblast IL-8 and GRO-α secretion but had no effect on RANTES or sFlt-1. Conversely, DPI, a ROS inhibitor, significantly inhibited excess glucose-induced trophoblast GRO-α and sFlt-1 secretion, but had no effect on IL-8 or RANTES. Together, our findings indicate that the xanthine oxidase inhibitor allopurinol inhibited excess glucose induced trophoblast IL-1β secretion. Additionally, through its inhibition of both IL-1β and ROS production by the trophoblast, allopurinol reduced the additional pro-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic responses to excess glucose. Thus, allopurinol may be a candidate medication to prevent placental dysfunction and adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preeclampsia, in pregnant women with diabetes.