Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The experimental study of high TCR Pt thin films for thermal sensors

Presents some results of temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) measurements on platinum (Pt) thin films as a detecting resistive material for thermal type sensors. We have shown that by using an oxidized Si substrate with a SiNx layer and an Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ buffer layer, the obtained TCR value is 3.7/spl times/10/sup -3///spl deg/C after annealing at 1100/spl deg/C in air. It is expected that this result will lead to the improvement of thermal microsensors.
Porcine 2′,5′-oligoadenylate synthetase-like protein inhibits replication of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus

Background : Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is a serious pathogen that causes $664 million losses per year to the swine industry. There are few useful vaccines that can provide protection against PRRSV infection. 2′, 5′-oligoadenylate synthetase-like protein (OASL) has antiviral activity, this has not been shown for PRRSV and the mechanism is unknown. Methods : Expression of OASL in porcine alveolar macrophages induced by interferon (IFN)-b stimulation and PRRSV infection was examined by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Exogenous expression and knockdown of OASL were used to determine the role of OASL in the PRRSV replication cycle. The type I IFN signaling pathway was evaluated after OASL overexpression. Results : In this study, we found that the expression of OASL in porcine alveolar macrophages was significantly increased by IFN-b stimulation and PRRSV infection. Porcine-OASL-specific small interfering RNA (siRNA) promoted PRRSV replication, whereas exogenous expression of porcine OASL inhibited replication of the virus. The anti-PRRSV activity of porcine OASL was lost after knockdown of retinoic acid-inducible gene I ( DDX58 , also known as RIG-I ). Conclusions : Porcine OASL suppresses PRRSV replication.
Nonlinear model predictive control of wind turbines using LIDAR

LIDAR systems are able to provide preview information of wind disturbances at various distances in front of wind turbines. This technology paves the way for new control concepts in wind energy such as feedforward control and model predictive control. This paper compares a nonlinear model predictive controller with a baseline controller, showing the advantages of using the wind predictions in the optimization problem to reduce wind turbine extreme and fatigue loads on tower and blades as well as to limit the pitch rates. The wind information is obtained by a detailed simulation of a LIDAR system. The controller design is evaluated and tested in a simulation environment with coherent gusts and a set of turbulent wind fields using a detailed aeroelastic model of the wind turbine over the full operation region. Results show promising load reduction up to 50% for extreme gusts and 30% for lifetime fatigue loads without negative impact on overall energy production. This controller can be considered as an upper bound for other LIDAR assisted controllers that are more suited for real time applications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cup Builder - Applicability of Gamification when Designing for Behavior Change towards Sustainability in Public Places

Gamification is a widely studied concept and is applied to various contexts such as marketing, healthcare and education. Sustainability is another issue that more and more people claim to be concerned about at home, when buying food and clothes or when travelling. But this principle does not always come into practice, especially out of home, either because individuals are not aware of what impact they can have among the crowd or because it is difficult to change habits. Gamification in the context of sustainability has already been investigated claiming to succeed in increasing people’s awareness about sustainability and in turn decreasing their energy consumption. The studies have however mainly been conducted in familiar environments, such as home or workplaces where people know each other. In the context of public places, such a relation to strangers does not exist and the individual’s sense of responsibility is commonly rather low. These aspects bring along the need to find out what the addition of game elements really affects and how it should be applied to achieve a general change of behavior with this new challenge. This thesis aims to investigate gamification related to behavior change within the frame of the research project TRIBE. Bringing together several European partners, among whom the Interactive Institute Swedish ICT, the focus of this 3 year research program is set on gamification in public buildings to lower energy consumption. The specific context to be explored within this thesis is cafes on the campus and the consequent focus on the consumption of paper cups and reusable cups. A concept of a game has been developed resulting in the implementation of a high-fidelity prototype which has then been tested in a user field study. It was aimed to find out how the application of game elements can encourage people to use more reusable cups. Therefore the design solution consists of two versions, one being a visualization of the general consumption of cups at the cafe, the second one adding several game elements to it. Additionally, as a result of thorough investigation of former work combined with the findings of this thesis, a set of guidelines has been formulated which intends to support designers and researchers investigating in a similar area.
Intrusion detection in real-time in a multi-node, multi-host environment

Abstract : While there exist many tools and methods used to recognize intrusions into single system environments, there are few that can recognize and handle attacks in real time. This group is further reduced when adding the complexity of recognizing and handling intrusions occurring in a heterogeneous networked environments. The results of the thesis are an open architecture design for a real-time intrusion detection system to handle intrusions in a heterogeneous network and the system requirements, specifications, protocols and software module design to support an implementation of a system using this architecture. The architecture presented herein comprises a distributed system of autonomous agents that reside on the various hosts in a network. These agents communicate with each other in a coordinated effort to identify and respond to intrusions into the network by sending messages to each other detailing the identity and threat level of a potential or imminent attack. To quantify the threat level of an ongoing attack, this thesis also presents an alert level hierarchy based on the danger level and transferability of the threat to the various hosts within the network.
A longitudinal study of customers perceptions of their confidence in, and satisfaction with, the South African Sugar Association Cane Testing Service division

Customer satisfaction is a critical component of a business' competitive strategy. The Cane Testing Service (CTS) division of the South African Sugar Association is operating in a deregulated market environment and thus has to ensure that customers are always satisfied with the quality of service received from CTS. This study aimed to establish the change in customer satisfaction levels between 1998 and 2003. The study set out to determine customer satisfaction levels with specific customer groupings of combined millers and growers, millers-only and growers-only of all fourteen Mill Group Boards. The study investigated customer satisfaction levels for each of the sixteen service characteristics for the fourteen Mill Group Boards. Regular measurement of customer satisfaction allows CTS to continuously improve the levels of customer satisfaction and thereby minimise the threat to CTS of competitors entering the sugar industry laboratory services market. Customer satisfaction levels were determined by conducting a longitudinal, quantitative survey on one hundred and sixty-eight miller and grower members of all Mill Group Boards using the CTS developed questionnaire, containing CTS and customer verified service attributes. I I I The 2003 study shows a statistically significant improvement in customer satisfaction levels with CTS service delivery across all customer groupings in comparison with the 1998 customer satisfaction levels. The specific Mill Group Board analyses shows an improvement in customer satisfaction levels for twelve of the fourteen boards. Specific strategies are to be developed for those boards and service attributes that did not show an improvement. It is recommended that CTS customer surveys be conducted every three years and the Balanced Scorecard management tool be used to monitor the effectiveness of customer improvement strategy implementation. It is proposed that future research consider benchmarking CTS service delivery against other similar service providers and that focus groups be employed to obtain feedback from key customers.
Biomechanical Evaluation Of Periprosthetic Femoral Fracture Fixation

This study proposes a bone plate fixation method to reduce the stress shielding effect on the fractured periprosthetic femur fixed with a metallic bone plate. The goal of this study is to design the finite element models of 5 bone plate attachment configurations applied to the periprosthetic femur fractured at 2 different levels (one with simple transverse fracture at mid-shaft with 1mm gap, and the other with 5mm gap at the fracture site simulating bone loss), and to validate the results by comparing with the experimental study. The average stiffness of the intact femur construct was 2502 N/mm which decreased to 1803 N/mm and 801 N/mm for a 1mm and 5mm gap construct, respectively. The finite element model predicted the stiffness results of the experiments within 10% for the 1mm gap fracture case. The finite element model was less reliable when used to predict the stiffness values in the 5mm gap fracture case. The construct fixed only with cables in the proximal femur resulted in the least amount of stress shielding while maintaining a similar level of stiffness compared to the other configurations.
Calibration verification of a low-cost method for MEMS accelerometers

This paper presents a new low-cost method for calibration of microelectromechanical system accelerometers. A guide way with low friction that can provide a one-directional linear transversal motion is used. For collecting data sets, the accelerometer is moved manually from one reference point to another, and this movement is measured. A function is developed that relates this movement to acceleration. To verify the proposed calibration method, a three-axis table is used to collect data sets and a least-squares algorithm is applied to find the appropriate function. With this low-cost method, the scale factor matrix, the sensitivity matrix, the non-linear scale factor matrix and bias vector are found.
Development of a Screen-Printable Carbon Paste to Achieve Washable Conductive Textiles

Conductive tracks are key constituents of wearable electronics and e-textiles, as they form the interconnective links between wearable electrical devices/systems. They are made by coating or printing conductive patterns or tracks on textiles or by weaving, knitting, or embroidering conductive yarns into textiles. Screen printing is a mature and cost-effective fabrication method that is used in the textile industry. It allows a high degree of geometric freedom for the design of conductive patterns or tracks. Current screen-printed conductive textiles have the limitations of low durability when washed or when placed under bending, and they typically require encapsulation layers to protect the printed conductor. This paper presents a printable paste formulation and fabrication process based on screen printing for achieving a flexible and durable conductive polyester–cotton textile using an inexpensive carbon as the conductor. The process does not require an interface, the smoothing of the textile, or an encapsulation layer to protect the conductor on the textile. A resistivity of 4 × 10−2 Ω·m was achieved. The textile remains conductive after 20 standard washes, resulting in the conductor’s resistance increasing by 140%. The conductive textile demonstrated less than ±10% resistance variation after bending for 2000 cycles.
Guidelines for corrective replacement based on low stochastic structure assumptions

This paper presents corrective replacement decisions, e.g. for machines in a production process or other technical systems. In an attempt to base decisions on observed failure times only, some guidelines are provided for replacing failed machines. The method does not provide an optimal strategy in all situations, indicating that sometimes more information or assumptions are needed. The optimal policy indicates how to act if the low assumptions model recommends action. If the model does not strongly indicate an action, more data need to be collected or more sophisticated modelling is needed. Further modelling would require additional assumptions or input from expert judgements, and could be an expensive exercise. A method that gives clear guidelines if the data are strongly indicative may save time and money. This paper presents the model in an elementary form and is intended as a first step towards modelling more realistic maintenance situations.
1-800 worlds : embodiment and experience in the Indian call center economy

ed from the body (Pateman 1986). Across the stories of men and women in call centers, one could identify a tendency toward a kind of implicitly masculine “objectivity” in the service a nightly routine. There was a partial will or at the least, an intent to refuse the abnormality of night work. Whether as a masculine rite of passage, an act of carefree rebellion or a pragmatics of corporate mobility, workers attempted to render possible the inversion of night and day. One would think obsessive newspaper coverage of the ill-effects and disturbing experience of working at night in the call center to have been manufactured by 30 The corporate evaluation of performance thus parodies the unproblematic acceptance of a scientific experiment wherein “all other conditions being constant, productivity has no gender”. What it conveniently glosses over is that all
Printed Circuit Board Design of a Low Power, Lightweight and Compact 3D Structured Air Quality Monitoring System

This paper presents wireless integrated compact, lightweight and portable printed circuit board (PCB) device of air quality monitoring system (AQMS). The system is fabricated in double-sided three PCBs to observe real-time data of CO2, CO, NO2 and weather parameters. For the convenience of 3D stacking, the PCB design is built on three boards so that it consumes minimum area. The volume of the entire board is found 110 mm × 80 mm × 24 mm. Strategy of power reduction has been adopted in the design. To reduce power consumption, switching technique is applied to the electronic sensors. This technique is controlled by the use of demultiplexer device. This low power switching technique enhances the battery life of the AQMS structure has been enhanced. Experimental results show that with the chosen batery bank, average power is 1.0588992 Watt during runtime operation of the device. Thus, AQMS runs in safe mode for 33.75 hours continuously using a fully charged power bank. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection has been introduced in the PCB to prevent the circuit damage from high voltage during data transmission. The system is capable of being powered by natural resources such as the solar system, which is installed to charge lithium-ion battery. Moreover, the physical weight of the fabricated device is 172gm excluding the weight of the package.
Increased risk of hyperlipidemia in patients with anxiety disorders: A population-based study

Objective This study examined the prevalence and incidence of hyperlipidemia among patients with anxiety disorders in Taiwan. Methods We used a large dataset containing random samples, and more than 766,000 subjects who were aged 18 years or older in 2005 were identified. Subjects who had more than one primary or secondary diagnosis of anxiety disorders were identified. Individuals who had a primary or secondary diagnosis of hyperlipidemia or medication treatment for hyperlipidemia were also identified. The prevalence rate of hyperlipidemia in patients with anxiety disorders with that of the general population in 2005 was compared. We then followed this cohort to monitor incident cases of hyperlipidemia in anxiety patients, and assessed whether a difference existed from the general population during the period 2006–2010. Results A higher prevalence rate of hyperlipidemia in patients with anxiety disorders was observed as compared with the general population (21.3% vs. 7.6%, odds ratio 2.14; 95% confidence interval, 2.07–2.22) in 2005. Additionally, a higher average annual incidence rate of hyperlipidemia in patients with anxiety disorders was also found as compared with the general population (5.49% vs. 2.50%, risk ratio 1.64; 95% confidence interval, 1.58–1.70) from 2006 to 2010. Conclusions Patients with anxiety disorders had higher prevalence and incidence rates of hyperlipidemia than the general population. Risk factors that were found to be associated with the higher incidence rate of hyperlipidemia among anxiety patients included a greater age, the female gender, and the presence of diabetes and hypertension.
Spacer Grid Effects on Turbulent Flow in Rod Bundles

The local hydrulic characteristics in subchannels of 55 nuclear fuel bundles with spacer grids were measured at upstream and downstream of the spacer grid for the investigation of the spacer grid effects on turbulent flow structure by using an LDV(Laser Doppler Velocimeter). The measured parameters are axial velocity and turbulent intensity, skewness factor, and flatness factor. Pressure drops were also measured to evaluate the loss coefficient for the spacer grid and the friction factor for rod bundles. From these data, it was found that the turbulent mixing and forced mixing occur up to and 20 from the spacer grid, respectively. The turbulence decay behind spacer grid behaves in the similar decay rate as turbulent flow through mesh grids or screens. Mixing factors useful in subchannel analysis code were correlated from the data and show the highest value near spacer grid and then have a stable values.
Innovation and interorganizational cooperation: a synthesis of literature

Purpose – In construction, literature interorganizational cooperation is argued to be an important aspect of construction innovation. From this perspective, several distinct bodies of literature provide relevant insights. In literature on complex product systems (CoPS), it is argued that construction industry is a CoPS industry and that in CoPS industries systems integrators set-up and coordinate interorganizational innovation. Furthermore, various bodies of literature provide information about factors that affect the success of innovation and interorganizational cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the findings from these bodies of literature. Design/methodology/approach – To uncover the present state of knowledge about systems integrators, a comprehensive literature review is conducted. Furthermore, the paper analyzes various fields of literature to derive an overview of factors which have been empirically related to the success of innovation and interorganizational cooperation. Findings – First, this paper structures the current knowledge on the role and characteristics of systems integrators. Subsequently, the paper translates this knowledge to the context of construction industry and discusses the basis for classifying a firm as a systems integrator in construction industry. Furthermore, the paper presents a list of relevant success factors derived from literature on new product development, strategic networks and alliances, open innovation, and construction innovation. Originality/value – By integrating various bodies of literature, this paper provides a solid base for future theory development on how firms achieve interorganizational innovation in construction industry.
A hybrid MIMO antenna scheme based on channel condition in OFDM systems

Space-time block code and spatial multiplexing are promising approaches that exploit the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel to provide high diversity and multiplexing gain without sacrifice in bandwidth. In this paper, a hybrid MIMO scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems is proposed to achieve various multiplexing gains according to the channel condition. The existing hybrid MIMO schemes are appropriate for limited integer multiplexing rates without taking into account the channel condition, whereas the proposed scheme can attain various multiplexing rates according to the channel condition.
Optimum design on refrigeration system of high-repetition-frequency laser

A refrigeration system with fluid cycle, semiconductor cooler and air cooler is designed to solve the problems of thermal lensing effect and unstable output of high-repetition-frequency solid-state lasers. Utilizing a circulating water pump, water recycling system carries the water into laser cavity to absorb the heat then get to water cooling head. The water cooling head compacts cold spot of semiconductor cooling chips, so the heat is carried to hot spot which contacts the radiating fins, then is expelled through cooling fan. Finally, the cooled water return to tank. The above processes circulate to achieve the purposes of highly effective refrigeration in miniative solid-state lasers.The refrigeration and temperature control components are designed strictly to ensure refrigeration effect and practicability. we also set up a experiment to test the performances of this refrigeration system, the results show that the relationship between water temperature and cooling power of semiconductor cooling chip is linear at 20°C-30°C (operating temperature range of Nd:YAG), the higher of the water temperature, the higher of cooling power. According to the results, cooling power of single semiconductor cooling chip is above 60W, and the total cooling power of three semiconductor cooling chips achieves 200W that will satisfy the refrigeration require of the miniative solid-state lasers.The performance parameters of laser pulse are also tested, include pulse waveform, spectrogram and laser spot. All of that indicate that this refrigeration system can ensure the output of high-repetition-frequency pulse whit high power and stability.
Gap and Curvature: Two Promising Three-Dimensional Emergent Features Displays

In this study two three-dimensional information displays were designed and tested which could provide alternative display formats to traditional two-dimensional bar graphs. The intent was to design displays that supported both low level focused attention tasks and high level integration of information. The proposed display representations were generated, based on perceptual emergent features theories, in the form of a curvature and gap display. An empirical comparison of the three-dimensional displays versus a two-dimensional bar graph indicated marginally enhanced performance for both focused attention and integrated tasks when using the curvature and gap displays. The novelty of the three-dimensional displays was suggested to contribute to a learning effect which was may have reduced the reliability of the results. Future research should examine similar displays with extended sessions to overcome this learning effect.