Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of variation in loading protocol on the strength and deformation capacity of ductile reinforced concrete beams

Understanding the impact of prior earthquake damage on residual capacity is important for postearthquake damage assessment of buildings; however, interpretation of such impact is challenging when based on tests using traditional reversed‐cyclic loading protocols. A new loading protocol, consisting of a dynamic earthquake displacement history followed by quasi‐static reversed‐cyclic loading to failure, is presented as an alternative to traditional simulated seismic loading protocols. Data are analyzed from a set of 12 nominally identical ductile reinforced concrete beams that were tested by using variations of this protocol and traditional reversed‐cyclic and monotonic protocols. Differences in the cycle content of the earthquake displacement histories applied to the test specimens allowed for the effects of load history variation below 2.2% drift to be isolated. It is found that such variation had no effect on the beam deformation capacities. The effects of dynamic loading rates are also analyzed and compared against control quasi‐static specimens. Relative strength increases due to dynamic loading are found to be more significant at yield than at ultimate. Dynamic loading rates led to modest reductions in the beam deformation capacities, but the presence of causality between these variables remains uncertain.
Improving residential building arrangement design by assessing outdoor ventilation efficiency in different regional spaces

ABSTRACT Using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, the correlation between residential building arrangement designs and ventilation efficiency of various outdoor spaces is explored. Three indices—purging flow rate (PFR), visitation frequency (VF) and air residence time (Tp)—are adopted to quantify the ventilation efficiency of regional outdoor spaces. Using these indices, changes in residential building lateral spacing, building length, and stagger size were investigated under the effects of different surrounding building arrays for different wind directions. The simulation results indicated that wind direction is the most important factor for improving the residential wind environment, regardless of the patterns of the surrounding building arrays. When the angle between the wind direction and the building’s main façade orientation is more than 30°, the ventilation of different outdoor spaces improves. Staggered surrounding building arrays lower the spatial ventilation of the studied areas. However, this staggering does not affect the variation trend of spatial ventilation influenced by building arrangement design changes.
Sleep studies for sleep apnoea

Sleep studies have grown to encompass a broad range of technologies employed to study and diagnose a variety of sleep disorders. From their inception in neurophysiology laboratories interested in investigating primary disorders of sleep architecture from psychiatric illness, their remit has widened such that their most common role is currently to diagnose secondary sleep disruption from respiratory, cardiovascular or other systemic causes. This review outlines the pathophysiology of obstructive sleep apnoea in particular and how sleep studies have improved our understanding of the complex dynamic changes in blood gas tensions, cardiovascular control and cerebral arousal that occur with these repetitive events. We review the historical development of standard laboratory-based sleep studies and discuss their limitations in staging sleep, reflecting the episodes of increased upper airway resistance that underlie these disorders and their ability to predict individuals' symptoms or response to medical or surgical therapies. We then describe some alternative signals that have been employed to monitor the physiological changes in upper airway resistance and arousal with a discussion of some of the evidence that these ‘limited’ studies may provide diagnostic information that can guide clinical decision making and may predict the outcome without the need, in some cases, for more complex and costly laboratory-based studies.
Key performance indicators for assessing inherent energy performance of machine tools in industries

Increasing attention has been paid toward enhancing energy retrofitting in machine tools due to its enormous energy consumption and high energy-saving potential. Developing energy-efficient machine tools and selecting appropriate machine tools in procurement processes are two effective approaches for saving energy. However, existing studies on the evaluation of energy performance to support the design and selection of machine tools, rarely consider various process controls, which have considerable impact on the energy performance of machine tools. This study proposes a group of key performance indicators, which are referred to as ‘inherent energy performance’ (IEP) indexes, to support the design and selection of machine tools with the consideration of the main process controls in the usage phase and their interaction. A systematic method is introduced to acquire the IEP indexes. The method involves a simplified measurement of basic data and the calculation of the indexes from the data. A case study indicates that the proposed indicators succeed in obtaining the energy demand information of almost all machine system activities and can be used to provide basic data for developing energy information labels, selecting matching machine tools, and designing energy-efficient machine tools.
Osmangazi University score to reduce ionizing radiation in renal colic patients in emergency department

Objective: Computerized tomography remains the gold standard imaging in renal colic patients. In this study, we develop a scoring system to select patients in emergency department for unnecessary computerized tomography imaging in order to decrease radiation exposure. Methods: Computerized tomography imaging of patients with renal colic in emergency department were retrospectively reviewed. Symptoms, laboratory results were recorded. Significant parameters were determined by univariate and multivariate analysis. Coefficients were found to obtain score points and receiver operating curve was used to find a cut-off value. Results: A total of 123 patients with a mean age of 42 years (18–75 years) were enrolled in the study. About, 20.3% of patients were stone-free in computerized tomography. Mean stone size was 6.1 ± 1.89 mm. According to analysis, four parameters were significant; nausea, stone history, creatinine, and hematuria with a total score 9 called as Osmangazi University STONE score. Cut-off value was found as >3, which computerized tomography imaging is recommended. Conclusion: Osmangazi University STONE score is useful and simple tool in emergency department to reduce unnecessary computerized tomography imaging in renal colic patients and also lowers cost and ionizing radiation exposure.
Confined spaces industrial inspection with micro aerial vehicles and laser range finder localization

This work addresses the problem of semi-automatic inspection and navigation in confined environments. A system that overcomes many challenges at the state of the art is presented. It comprises a multirotor able to inspect an industrial combustion chamber thus working in a GPS-denied environment with poor lighting conditions, in the presence of magnetic and communication disturbances, iron dust and repetitive patterns on the structure walls. The presented system is able to pass through narrow entrances but still capable of acquiring high resolution images and to allow operators to perform inspection of the structures. Starting from the captured data, the system is able to provide a 3D reconstruction of the inspected environment for offline analysis.
White layer formation mechanism in dry turning hardened steel

Dry-hard high speed turning has advantages in high efficiency, environmental protection and so on compared with traditional machining, so it is more and more used in machining hardened steel( Guo and Waikar, 2010; Zhang et al., 2017). However, the researches have shown that the microstructure of machined surfaces produced by dry-hard turning is different from that of substrate and the white layers can be observed under optical microscope ( Guo and Waikar, 2010; Huang et al., 2015). White layer is at top surface of machined surface, so the microstructure and formation law of white layer have great effect on performance and service life of workpiece. The studies have been conducted on white layer formation mechanism, one viewpoint is that white layer is a product of phase transformation(Kundrák et al., 2012; Pálmai and Kundrák, 2016; Umbrello, 2013). Chou and Evans (1999)used the Al2O3-TiC ceramic tool to cut hardened AISI52100 steel, the result shows the volume fraction of austenite in the white layer is more than that in the substrate, so they consider that large amount of cutting heat generated in cutting process causes surface temperature up to austenite phase transformation temperature, then the machined surface is rapidly cooled after contacting with air and undergoes martensite transformation. Another viewpoint is that the plastic deformation is a main factor in formation process of white layer(Hosseini et al., 2015; Ranganath et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 1997). Rice et al.(1991) observed the white layer through transmission electron microscopy(TEM),the result shows that the dislocations with high density exist in the machined surface. Severe plastic deformation forms a mass of dislocation, resulting in the refinement of grain size. The third viewpoint is that the white layer is a result of combined action between cutting heat and plastic deformation(Bosheh and Mativenga, 2006; Han et al., 2008; Rancic et al., 2017). Ramesh et al.(2005) investigated the white layers at different cutting speed, they demonstrate that the white layers are produced by grain refinement caused by plastic deformation at low cutting speed, while it is produced by phase transformation induced by cutting heat when cutting speed is high. Hard turning is a process of thermal-mechanical coupling, the formation of white layer is accompanied by both cutting heat and plastic deformation, so the formation
Research on Big Data Technology Applied in Smart Grid

With the big data and smart grid more and more valued, the power big data will become an inevitable trend. The power big data has a complex structure and various kinds, with the characteristics of dispersion, diversity and complexity. The traditional data processing method can not meet the requirements of smart grid development. Therefore, the application of big data technology in smart grid is very essential.
Crystallization of In2Se3 semiconductor thin films by post-deposition heat treatment. Thickness and substrate effects

Polycrystalline thin films of -In2Se3 were grown on various substrates by sequential thermal evaporation of In and Se. The crystallization was achieved by annealing the as-deposited films in flowing nitrogen. The depositions were carried out for different atomic ratios (1.5 R = [Se]/[In]5) and the annealings performed at 400 °C for 0.5 h. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray analysis, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman scattering have shown that thin films of high crystalline quality were obtained. The influence of the substrate nature as well as the film thickness on the crystallite preferential orientation and size is studied.
Integrable Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom. The topological structure of saturated neighbourhoods of points of focus-focus and saddle-saddle type

One of the key problem in Hamiltonian mechanics is to describe the behaviour of integrable Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom in neighbourhoods of singular leaves of the Liouville foliation. In 1988 Lerman and Umanskii announced a classification theorem for such systems in the case when the singular leaf contains one point of rank zero. The proof was published in 1992 and 1993. In the solution of classical problems in physics and mechanics, integrable Hamiltonian systems arise which have a singular leaf with several points of rank zero. This paper concerns the topological classification of integrable Hamiltonian systems in the neighbourhood of singular leaves that contain an arbitrary number of points of rank zero.
An Efficient Power Management Circuit Based on Quasi Maximum Power Point Tracking With Bidirectional Intermittent Adjustment for Vibration Energy Harvesting

A power management (PM) circuit based on quasi maximum power point tracking (qMPPT) by maintaining it in maximum power point (MPP) adjacent area is proposed to improve the vibration energy harvesting efficiency. A larger filter capacitor is used to keep the system working in the MPP adjacent area in a long period of time, and the PM circuit can shut down the dc–dc converter for reducing the overall power consumption. When the system deviates from the MPP, a bidirectional buck–boost dc–dc converter turns on to regulate the filter capacitor voltage or extract energy quickly in a short period of time. The experimental results show that the PM circuit can adjust the optimized operating point with the variation of the vibration, the maximum qMPPT efficiency can reach 98.4%, and the maximum end-to-end energy harvesting efficiency can reach 80.6%. The proposed PM circuit can be used in environments permeated with vibration energy to provide energy for the wireless sensor network nodes.
External optical feedback phenomena in semiconductor lasers

In optical fiber networks, the semiconductor laser source may be subjected to unavoidable optical feedback from fiber pigtails, fiber connectors and other components, unless expensive optical isolators are used. Therefore, a good understanding of external optical feedback phenomena in semiconductor lasers is required. This paper will review these phenomena, including linewidth narrowing and broadening, mode hopping phenomena and the transition to the so-called coherence-collapse regime. In particular, laser designs with high endurance against optical feedback will be discussed.
Generic 3D obstacle detection for AGVs using time-of-flight cameras

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are useful for a variety of transportation tasks. They usually detect obstacles on the path they are following using 2D laser scanners. If an AGV should be deployed in a shared space with people, 3D information has to be considered as well to detect unforeseen obstacles. These can be small objects on the floor or overhanging parts of larger objects, which cannot be seen by the standard 2D safety scanners. We propose a generic object detection pipeline using 3D time-of-flight cameras, that can be used in real-time on AGVs of low height and demonstrate its robustness to different measurement artefacts.
Diffusive propagation of cosmic rays from supernova remnants in the Galaxy. II: anisotropy

In this paper we investigate the effects of stochasticity in the spatial and temporal distribution of supernova remnants on the anisotropy of cosmic rays observed at Earth. The calculations are carried out for different choices of the diffusion coefficient D(E) experienced by cosmic rays during propagation in the Galaxy. The propagation and spallation of nuclei (with charge 1 ⩽ Z ⩽ 26) are taken into account. At high energies (E > 1 TeV) we assume that D(E)∝(E/Z)δ, with δ = 1/3 and δ = 0.6 being the reference scenarios. The large scale distribution of supernova remnants in the Galaxy is modeled following the distribution of pulsars with and without accounting for the spiral structure of the Galaxy. Our calculations allow us to determine the contribution to anisotropy resulting from both the large scale distribution of SNRs in the Galaxy and the random distribution of the nearest remnants. The naive expectation that the anisotropy amplitude scales as δA∝D(E) is shown to be a wild oversimplification of reality which does not reflect in the predicted anisotropy for any realistic distribution of the sources. The fluctuations in the anisotropy pattern are dominated by nearby sources, so that predicting or explaining the observed anisotropy amplitude and phase becomes close to impossible. Nevertheless, the results of our calculations, when compared to the data, allow us to draw interesting conclusions in terms of the propagation scenario to be preferred both in terms of the energy dependence of the diffusion coefficient and of the size of the halo. We find that the very weak energy dependence of the anisotropy amplitude below 105 GeV, as observed by numerous experiments, as well as the rise at higher energies, can best be explained if the diffusion coefficient is D(E)∝E1/3. Faster diffusion, for instance with δ = 0.6, leads in general to an exceedingly large anisotropy amplitude. The spiral structure introduces interesting trends in the energy dependence of the anisotropy pattern, which qualitatively reflect the trend seen in the data. The inhomogeneous spatial distribution of the sources in the Galactic disc induces a large scale anisotropy which is not sensitive to the stochastic nature of nearby SNRs: we find that this additional contribution to δA becomes more important for large values of the size of the halo, H. The two terms are comparable in size for H ∼ 2 kpc which corresponds to the scale height of the gradient of the spatial distribution of SNRs in the Galaxy. The dependence on energy of δA(E) is close to monotonic when the large-scale, regular term dominates, and does not seem to reflect the observed anisotropy amplitude. Both contributions to the total anisotropy are illustrated and discussed with the help of semi-analytical results.
Parity violation in the Cosmic Microwave Background from a pseudoscalar inflaton

If the inflaton ϕ is a pseudoscalar, then it naturally interacts with gauge fields through the coupling ∝ϕ Fμν F̃μν. Through this coupling, the rolling inflaton produces quanta of the gauge field, that in their turn source the tensor components of the metric perturbations. Due to the parity-violating nature of the system, the right- and the left-handed tensor modes have different amplitudes. Such an asymmetry manifests itself in the form of non-vanishing TB and EB correlation functions in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We compute the amplitude of the parity-violating tensor modes and we discuss two scenarios, consistent with the current data, where parity-violating CMB correlation functions will be detectable in future experiments.
Revisiting Cardinality Estimation in COTS RFID Systems

With 30 billion RFID tags sold worldwide in 2021, a common basic functionality needed by RFID-enabled applications is cardinality estimation --- to quickly estimate the number of distinct tags in an RFID system. Although many advanced solutions have been proposed over the past decade, they suffer from one major limitation in practical use: they need to either modify the existing RFID standard or obtain MAC-layer information, both of which however cannot be supported by commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices. In this paper, we revisit the counting problem and propose a novel counting scheme called average time duration based counter (ATD) that quickly estimates the number of distinct tags in a standards-compliant manner. Compared with existing work, the competitive advantage of ATD is that it can be directly deployed on a COTS RFID system, with no need for any hardware modifications. In ATD, we found a new and measurable indicator --- the time duration between two adjacent singleton slots, which depends on the number of tags. Following this observation, we derive the theoretical relationship between the time indicator and the number of tags and then give the proof of the estimation as well as its parameter settings. Additionally, we propose a flag-flipping solution to address the overlapping problem in the multi-reader case. We implement ATD in a COTS RFID system with 1000 tags. Experimental results show that ATD is 4.2× faster than the baseline of tag inventory; the performance gain will be further increased in a larger RFID system.
A contribution to the linear no-threshold discussion

The paper approaches the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis, currently used as the basis for recommendations in radiological protection, from the point of view of the radiation mechanism. All considerations of the validity of the LNT hypothesis based on experiment or epidemiology are dismissed because of the impossibility of deriving statistically significant data at very low doses. Instead, the LNT hypothesis is assessed from a consideration of the mechanism of radiation action. The DNA double-strand break is proposed to be the crucial radiation-induced molecular lesion. A trace is made using a series of correlations that link the DNA double-strand break to effects at the cellular level and these cellular effects are linked to the induction of cancer. Multistep modelling of carcinogenesis is used to take the link through to a consideration of radiation risk. It is concluded that, from the point of view of radiation mechanism, at very low doses the LNT hypothesis of radiation action is valid, that is, the risk function has a positive slope from zero dose.
Towards Learning an Optimal Metric for Fingerprint-based Localisation

Fingerprinting is a common localisation approach that often estimates a device's position by comparing an observed vector to a set of prior vectors labelled with a ground truth location, typically using methods like k-NN. In Wi-Fi fingerprinting, these vectors represent visible access points and their signal strength. Thus, the choice of metric to compare the fingerprints is crucial. In this work, we discuss our main findings regarding the extent to which metrics in the fingerprint vector space preserve relationships among locations in the 2D/3D geometric/real world. In summary, traditional metrics are not optimal on their own, and while combining them into a learned meta-metric offers slight improvements, deep metric learning, i.e., learning similarities in an end-to-end fashion with deep neural networks, appears much more effective. However, this approach has its challenges given that in the literature the problem has only been formulated for binary similarities rather than continuous ones.
MMORF—FSL’s MultiMOdal Registration Framework

We present MMORF—FSL’s MultiMOdal Registration Framework—a newly released nonlinear image registration tool designed primarily for application to MRI images of the brain. MMORF is capable of simultaneously optimising both displacement and rotational transformations within a single registration framework by leveraging rich information from multiple scalar and tensor modalities. The regularisation employed in MMORF promotes local rigidity in the deformation, and we have previously demonstrated how this effectively controls both shape and size distortion, and leads to more biologically plausible warps. The performance of MMORF is benchmarked against three established nonlinear registration methods—FNIRT, ANTs and DR-TAMAS—across four domains: FreeSurfer label overlap, DTI similarity, task-fMRI cluster mass, and distortion. Results show that MMORF performs as well as or better than all other methods across every domain—both in terms of accuracy and levels of distortion. MMORF is available as part of FSL, and its inputs and outputs are fully compatible with existing workflows. We believe that MMORF will be a valuable tool for the neuroimaging community, regardless of the domain of any downstream analysis, providing state-of-the-art registration performance that integrates into the rich and widely adopted suite of analysis tools in FSL.