Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of LabVIEW for Undergraduate Lab Experiments On Materials Testing

This paper describes the implementation of LabVIEW, in a torsion experiment in the Mechanics Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of New Haven, to allow the acquisition of real time data for display, analysis, control and storage. The input moment and the angle of twist are measured directly from torsion transducers. The real-time measurements and display acquired waveforms are displayed on a PC screen and the data associated with these waveforms are stored for later use. The aim is to be able to control and apply moment to a specimen, and collect data from the resulting deformation in the material. In the torsion test, the mechanical properties of the materials to a twisting moment are obtained by two transducers mounted on the bottom of the grips of the torsion machine. The torque and angle of twist are then acquired using LabVIEW software to obtain the yield shear stress, modulus of rigidity and the ultimate strength. The data acquisition system is provided using the following products from National Instruments: application programming interface; and LabVIEW, software development package. The Excel spreadsheet is used to analyze the results. This work demonstrates that instrumentation experience is greatly enhanced by integration LabVIEW into the Laboratory. The incorporation of computer data acquisitions into the undergraduate laboratory provides students with a valuable tool for data collection and analysis.
Simulation based planning processes for the integration of inductively charged vehicles into public transportation services

Economy and reliability are requirements that innovative vehicle concepts for public transport operations need to fulfil. In the context of inductive charging, the interdependency between the dimensioning of power electronics and drive aggregates of the vehicles and the charging infrastructure need to be taken into consideration. Life-cycle costs of stationary infrastructure and compatible vehicles need to be reflected. The battery significantly determines the investment and the vehicle weight. This has to be weighed up against the required high level of operational availability. The planning process of the introduction of electrically charged vehicles aims for the maximization of operational availability. The evaluation of the application of novel energy-supplies and drive concepts requires a tool that combines several systems and aspects. These include transportation scheduling, the influence of and the interaction with general traffic and also kinematic models. The open source software SUMO can be applied. Real operational data from vehicles that are currently in service allows appropriate model calibration. In Brunswick (Germany), the line M19 was taken into consideration for the electrification with inductively charged buses. The simulation clearly showed that not only varying traffic conditions have to be reflected, but also the passenger occupancy. The energy consumption of a single drive-cycle varies by about 20 % for the measured cycles and might vary by about 40 % in for theoretical passenger rates. The capacity of available batteries proved sufficient, though. The project proves that results of traffic flow simulations with an integrated energy consumption model are useful for operational planning prior to the start of operation of busses with alternative power trains.
An RF CMOS transmitter integrating a power amplifier and a transmit/receive switch for 802.11b wireless local area network applications

A transmitter integrating a passive FET Quad up-conversion mixer, a power amplifier with output P/sub 1dB/ of 23 dBm, a transmit/receive (T/R) switch with an insertion loss of 1.1 dB and output P/sub 1dB/ of 21 dBm has been implemented in a 0.25-/spl mu/m foundry CMOS process. The transmitter at the output power level of 16.5 dBm is compliant to the 802.11b specifications at 11 Mbps. This circuit is the first 802.11b transmitter to have the entire function integrated including a PA and a T/R switch.
Revealing the Power of Impact between Recruitment, Selection and Career Planning and Achieve Innovation then Entrepreneurship: A Study in U.A.E.

This article investigates the power of impact between some human resource management (HRM) functions (or policies) and achieve innovation then entrepreneurship. It provides pragmatic evidence of the abovementioned relationships through means of descriptive statistics and subsequently. It clarifies the effects over a regression analysis in the united arab emirates (UAE). The examination is made with statistical data collected from population of (10) pharmaceutical organizations which producing (manufacturing) drugs and medications out of (16) organizations were registered and licensed in this industry. Reference and data were used, carried out, and gathered between 2016 and 2019 respectively.
Faster Repetition Rate Sharpens the Cortical Representation of Echo Streams in Echolocating Bats

Abstract There is consensus that primary auditory cortex (A1) utilizes a combination of rate codes and temporally precise population codes to represent discreet auditory objects. During the response to auditory streams, forward suppression constrains cortical rate coding strategies, but it may also be well positioned to enhance temporal coding strategies that rely on synchronized firing across neural ensembles. Here, we exploited the rapid temporal dynamics of bat echolocation to investigate how forward suppression modulates the cortical ensemble representation of complex acoustic signals embedded in echo streams. We recorded from auditory cortex of anesthetized free-tailed bats while stimulating the auditory system with naturalistic biosonar pulse-echo sequences covering a range of pulse emission rates. As expected, increasing pulse repetition rate significantly reduced the number of spikes per echo stimulus, but it also increased spike timing precision and doubled the information gain. This increased spike-timing precision translated into more robust inter-neuronal synchronization patterns with >10-dB higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at the ensemble level. We propose that forward suppression dynamically mediates a trade-off between the sensitive detection of isolated sounds versus precise spatiotemporal encoding of ongoing sound sequences in auditory cortex.
6H silicon carbide MOSFET modelling for high temperature analogue integrated circuits (25–500°C)

The authors report on the effects of elevated ambient and substrate temperatures (25-500/spl deg/C) on the electrical characteristics of 6H polytype silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs. The work focuses primarily on modelling the temperature variations of the large- and small-signal parameters of the devices with a view to assessing their suitability for high-temperature integrated electronics. These parameters include threshold voltages, leakage currents, body-bias effects, and small-signal transconductances and output conductances. Where relevant, the authors' results are compared to silicon MOSFETs and GaAs MESFETs. Above 225/spl deg/C, the parameter variations of their SiC MOSFETs, including the observation of zero temperature coefficient (ZTC) drain currents, are qualitatively similar to those of Si MOSFETs and of GaAs MESFETs. In contrast with silicon MOSFETs. However, the gate transconductance (g/sub m/) and the channel mobility (/spl mu/) increase with increasing temperature up to 225/spl deg/C approximately because of a high interface state density. The ON/OFF current ratio of their SIC MOSFETs is at least two orders of magnitude higher than for Si and GaAs FETs above 200/spl deg/C. Junction leakage current densities measured up to 500/spl deg/C are several orders of magnitude lower than in high quality Si and GaAs devices, as expected from the higher bandgap energy for their SiC material (/spl ap/3 eV). While the junctions retained their electrical integrity, their MOSFETs displayed large gate-to-drain leakage currents above 300/spl deg/C, apparently due to an oxide reliability problem. Pin-to-pin package leakage is also observed above the same temperature. Despite this partial form of damage, the authors believe that their results confirm the expected potential of SIC MOSFETs for integrated circuit applications above 250/spl deg/C. The data reported in the paper, for this novel SIC process, are used to derive MOSFET models and SPICE parameters for analogue IC design, and an NMOS operational amplifier (OPAMP) is presented which is expected to operate in the range 25/spl deg/C to 500/spl deg/C, where silicon and GaAs technologies are unsuitable.
The Research and Design of Card Reader Based on RFID

This paper designed a RFID-based card reader system, which is based on Cortex-M3 LM3S9B90 chip controller, using MRC531 as the base station chip and Mifare1S50 as card read-write. The system realizes the identification and data reading and writing of Mifare1S50 card with a frequency of 13.56MHz, while it can also communicate with the host computer conveniently. The communications use open-source TCP / IP protocol stack LWIP.
Editorial: How are product development and engineering processes enhanced by involving research?

Biographical notes: Regine Vroom holds an MSc Diploma with distinction in Industrial Design Engineering. After working for industry at Volvo Car, she had various faculty positions at TU Delft, such as member of the faculty board, Quality Manager of Education, and Senior Lecturer. She served as a Reviewer for research projects for the European Committee and earned her PhD at TU Delft in 2001. She has completed four special issues for scientific journals, and initiated a design wiki. She has achieved scientific results in the field of integrated product engineering, especially computer-aided design, engineering and product data exchange, information and knowledge management, research in industry, design tools, and cyber-physical systems.
Wavelength tunable single longitudinal mode fiber laser pinned to 25 GHz spacing

A wavelength tunable single longitudinal mode (SLM) fiber laser is demonstrated with a high power Er‐Yb codoped fiber amplifier (EDFA) used as gain medium. A fiber Fabry‐Perot filter and a bandpass filter ensure single wavelength lasing. To realize SLM operation, a section of unpumped EDF in a Sagnac loop is adopted as a saturable absorber, which results in a self‐induced FBG (frequency band gap) with an ultranarrow bandwidth. The proposed laser is very stable and in SLM operation. The signal to noise ratio is measured about 65 dB. The output laser has a tuning range over 30 nm from 1535 to1565 nm. The tuning step of the proposed laser is 0.20 nm pinned to the ITU grid. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2404–2406, 2014
Abstractions and Runoff from Fescue Plots Receiving Poultry Litter and Swine Manure

This study was conducted to assess the effects of animal manure type (poultry litter vs. swine manure), application rate (218 vs. 435 kg nitrogen/ha), rainfall intensity (50 vs. 100 mm/h), and interactions on initial abstraction, runoff, total abstraction, and curve number for a simulated storm occurring one day after application to plots covered with “tall” fescue. Manure application rate had no significant effects on the hydrologic parameters. The data were then averaged across manure application rates and incorporated with control plot data to determine the effects of manure treatment (control, poultry litter, and swine manure), rainfall intensity, and interaction on the four hydrologic parameters. No differences in mean hydrologic parameter values between the control and litter-treated plots were detected. Initial and total abstractions for the swine manure-treated plots were only approximately 50% of those observed from the control and poultry litter-treated plots. Runoff from the swine manure-treated plots was three times that observed for the control and poultry litter-treated plots at the 50 mm/h rainfall intensity. Curve number for the plots receiving swine manure was 15% greater than that for the control and poultry litter-treated plots. The short-term differences in hydrologic characteristics of the swine manure-treated plots may be attributed to the addition of water via the liquid manure and to soil surface sealing by fine manure particles. Additional work was performed to determine whether the application of the manures affected the hydrologic parameters for longer (4 to 14 days) drying intervals between application and first simulated storm. The results indicated that when the manures were applied at 218 kg nitrogen/ha, hydrologic parameters for the manure-treated plots were no different from those for untreated plots for drying intervals of four days or greater.
Improving Heuristic Process Discovery Methods through Determining the Optimal Split/Join Patterns of Dependency Graphs

Identifying the split and join patterns of dependency graphs is an essential step in Heuristics Mining process discovery methods. The existing methods determine the split/join patterns (consisting of AND, and XOR relations) according to the event log information about the activities involved in the splits and joins. Hence, they neglect the event log information available for the other activities on the paths from split points to join points. On the other hand, the current methods determine the patterns of each split/join separately and do not aim to select the best set of patterns. Therefore, the outputs of the existing methods can be non-optimal. Furthermore, the current methods cannot guarantee that for each AND-split there is a matching And-join, and vice versa. This can make some split/join patterns incapable of being activated. To handle these issues, this paper, for the first time, presents an integer linear programming model which identifies the optimal patterns of splits/joins with regard to all succession information that is available in the event log; simultaneously, it ensures that for each AND-split there is at least one matching AND-join, and vice versa. The objective function of the proposed model is inspired by replay fitness and precision dimensions of process model quality. According to the assessments, the process models obtained by the proposed method are superior to the results of the most prominent methods of determining split/join patterns in terms of replay fitness, precision, simplicity, and matching AND-splits with AND-joins.
Novel PWM scheme to control neutral point voltage variation in three-level voltage source inverter

This paper proposes a simple PWM scheme which alleviates the neutral point voltage fluctuation problem of the three level inverter applications. The new scheme employs modified version of well known multi-level sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) scheme. This modification shows a great potential of reducing neutral point voltage fluctuation and retained better sinusoidal shape at the output. This method avoids the requirement of high capacity DC link capacitors, which are unavoidable in most of the present three-level inverter industrial applications. Moreover the new PWM scheme is less complex than most of the other available neutral point clamping control methods.
Transient Thermal Behavior of Hot–Mix Asphalt Pavement

A heat transfer model was developed to predict a transient thermal behavior of asphalt concrete during service life at different weather conditions. The developed model has the capability to predict the distribution of temperature field with respect to time within the Hot-Mix asphalt body based on surrounding environmental conditions. This will greatly help pavement engineers to select the suitable asphalt grade to achieve the best pavement performance and avoid pavement distresses might be caused due to extreme pavement temperatures. These distresses include fatigue cracks, rutting, and thermal cracking. The resulted model required data on asphalt mixture, incident radiation, surface, and ambient temperatures in addition to thermal properties of Hot-Mix asphalt including absorptivity, heat transfer coefficient, and the emissivity. A sensitivity analyses wasperformed to study the impact of a number of thermalenvironmental and pavement geometric parameters on predicted temperature responses. The results of analysis indicated that the incident radiation, absorptivity, and the heat transfer coefficient have the most significant effect on Hot-Mix asphalt temperature. Also, the emissivity has insignificant effect on surface temperature Hot-Mix asphalt.
Case Study - Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System - An illustration of ineffectual decision making

Synopsis Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport Baggage System project in the 1990's is a classic example. Although several case studies have been written about the Denver project, the following paper reexamines the case by looking at the key decisions that set the project on the path to disaster and the forces behind those decisions.
TECHNOLOGY FOR AUTONOMOUS SPACE SYSTEMS

Abstract To meet the demands of operating in distance space environments, there is a need for more autonomous space systems. This document presents a survey of the state-of-the-art in space autonomy. This includes technologies relevant to space system autonomy makes recommendations for future research. These technologies include underlying technologies, component technologies, and space systems. Underlying technologies are general approaches to artificial intelligence. Component technologies are aspects of autonomous system implementation using underlying technologies. The space systems discussed in this survey include all past, current, and near-future missions with significant levels of autonomous behavior as well as a representative, though not exhaustive, discussion of many of the (more typical) directly controlled space systems used. The recommendations for future research in space autonomy consists of a list of five thrust areas requiring further development in order to progress toward higher levels of autonomy for space systems.
Three-Dimensional Dynamic Analysis of Flexible Conventional Pavement Foundation

The paper examines the dynamic response of flexible conventional pavement systems to single wheel traffic loads in terms of the pavement design criteria, namely the fatigue strain at the bottom of the asphalt concrete layer and rutting strain at the top of the subgrade material. Model setup including geometry, boundary conditions, and load wave characterization are presented. The effect of elastoplasticity of the base material and elastoplasticity with strain hardening of the subgrade material on the dynamic response of the pavement system are first investigated. A detailed model parametric study then follows to show the effect of the base strength and thickness and the subgrade quality on the fatigue and rutting strains and the vertical surface deflection. The study, conducted with program ADINA, employs a three-dimensional, implicit dynamic, finite element method.
Performance Analysis of Annular Passive Silencers – An Update

One dimensional analysis of the performance of annular silencers containing porous absorbers was presented in early 1990s. The impact of the perforated covering of the porous materials was not included in the earlier results. The multi-physics software, COMSOL, can handle three dimensional propagation as well as the effect of perforated sheets. Six simple annular silencers which were tested using ATM standard test procedures were used in a two-D and three-D models developed in the multi-physics simulation software. The impact of the perforated sheet was also included in the simulations. The predicted results were compared to the test data. The main aim of the current investigation is create updated versions of design curves for performance evaluations of passive silencers. The comparison results are presented in this paper.
“It’ll Never Be Safe, But You Can Limit the Harms”. Exploring Adolescents’ Strategies to Reduce Harms Associated with Psychoactive Substance Use

Abstract Introduction: Harm reduction strategies are behaviors that may be applied in order to reduce adverse consequences associated with psychoactive substance use. Adolescents who use substances make up a large population that may benefit from applying such strategies. However, previous research in this area has focused on adults. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and examine harm reduction strategies among adolescents who use psychoactive substances. Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 72 adolescents of equal sex distribution (aged 17–18 years) who had used various substances at least three times in the past 12 months and had no history of substance use disorders (SUD) treatment. Data were transcribed and then analyzed thematically based on the Consensual Qualitative Research approach. Findings: Adolescents who use substances described the harm reduction strategies they use. According to the meaning youth attributed to these strategies, five themes were developed, that included approaches to risk, substance use safety conditions, preparation for use, manner of use, and controlled use. Most of the identified strategies correspond to those found in studies on adults. The main source of adolescents’ knowledge about these strategies was the Internet. Peers appeared to play an important role in reducing substance-related risks. Conclusions: Despite risk-taking, adolescents in our study showed active engagement in reducing their substance-related risks and harms. Practical implications are provided, including supporting harm reduction strategies, enhancing the active role of peers and the Internet as communication channels in preventing SUDs as well as other substance-related problems among adolescents. Highlights Adolescents in our study showed an active approach toward reducing substance use-related risks and harms A wide range of adolescent’s harm reduction strategies were described by study participants Most of the harm reduction strategies described by adolescents correspond to those found in adult studies Internet is the main source of adolescent’s knowledge about harm reduction strategies Peers play an important role in reducing the substance-related risks
Simvastatin regulates the proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion of human acute myeloid leukemia cells via miR-19a-3p/HIF-1α axis

ABSTRACT Statins are mainly used to lower plasma cholesterol level. In addition, the anti-leukemia effect of statins has been reported, but the mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the bioregulation of simvastatin and its mechanism in acute leukemia cell lines. Cell viability was detected by CCK-8 analysis. Apoptosis was detected through flow cytometry. Cell invasion and migration both were observed by transwell and wound healing separately. RT-qPCR and Western blot were used for determination of genes and proteins. We found that that simvastatin could regulate the biological functions of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells, including its proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis, which may be carried out by down-regulating miR-19a-3p. Overexpression of miR-19a-3p had the opposite effect in AML cells, suggesting simvastatin-inhibited AML by reducing miR-19a-3p expression. Following researches showed that HIF-1α was directly regulated by the target of miR-19a-3p. Simvastatin could reverse the adverse effects caused by miR-19a-3p mimics. Conversely, the increased expression of Mcl-1, the inhibition of caspase-3 could promote the growth of AML cells. In conclusion, simvastatin could inhibit the proliferation, migration, invasion and promote apoptosis in AML cells through miR-19a-3p/HIF-1α axis.