Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulsed microwave discharge at atmospheric pressure for NOx decomposition

A 3.0 GHz pulsed microwave source operated at atmospheric pressure with a pulse power of 1.4 MW, a maximum repetition rate of 40 Hz, and a pulse length of 3.5 µs is experimentally studied with respect to the ability to remove NOx from synthetic exhaust gases. Experiments in gas mixtures containing N2/O2/NO with typically 500 ppm NO are carried out. The discharge is embedded in a high-Q microwave resonator, which provides a reliable plasma ignition. Vortex flow is applied to the exhaust gas to improve gas treatment. Concentration measurements by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirm an NOx reduction of more than 90% in the case of N2/NO mixtures. The admixture of oxygen lowers the reductive potential of the reactor, but NOx reduction can still be observed up to 9% O2 concentration. Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering technique is applied to measure the vibrational and rotational temperature of N2. Gas temperatures of about 400 K are found, whilst the vibrational temperature is 3000-3500 K in pure N2. The vibrational temperature drops to 1500 K when O2 and/or NO are present. The randomly distributed relative frequency of occurrence of selected breakdown field intensities is measured by a calibrated, short linear-antenna. The breakdown field strength in pure N2 amounts to 2.2×106 V m-1, a value that is reproducible within 2%. In the case of O2 and/or NO admixture, the frequency distribution of the breakdown field strength scatters more and extends over a range from 3 to 8×106 V m-1.
Cosmic Mach Number: a sensitive probe for the growth of structure

We investigate the potential power of the Cosmic Mach Number (CMN), which is the ratio between the mean velocity and the velocity dispersion of galaxies as a function of cosmic scales, to constrain cosmologies. We first measure the CMN from 4 catalogs of galaxy peculiar velocity surveys at low redshift (z∊[0.002,0.03]), and use them to contrast cosmological models. Overall, current data is consistent with the WMAP7 ΛCDM model. We find that the CMN is highly sensitive to the growth of structure on scales k∊[0.01,0.1] h/Mpc in Fourier space. Therefore, modified gravity models, and models with massive neutrinos, in which the structure growth generically deviates from that of the ΛCDM model in a scale-dependent way, can be well differentiated from the ΛCDM model by using future CMN data.
The Hamiltonian property of an evolutionary flow on the set of stationary points of its integral

,i (u, ui), . , ΐί(Ό) dx that the flow Xl is Hamiltonian on the set of fixed points of X, where the Hamiltonian i-Qn) of X j on the space of solutions of the equation —— = — h, h — constant, is defined by the relation (-г 1— Λ 1 s-^Ξ .—±£. Moreover, it was conjectured in [ 11 that the theorem is true for \ Ou I dx Ou dx other Poisson brackets. The theorem was generalized in [3] , [4] to systems of Lax type, Lt — [L, A]. (The fact that the stationary problem is Lagrangian and Hamiltonian for operators L and A of coprime orders was proved in [5].) We prove in this note that the Bogoyavlenskii-Novikov principle is valid for all Hamiltonian formalisms. In addition, we prove that the Hamiltonian condition on the original non-stationary problem is not at all essential. A more general principle holds: every translationinvariant evolutionary flow is Hamiltonian on the set of stationary points of its local integral. We consider an arbitrary translation-invariant evolutionary system of equations: , . ~^ ~~ . , j gxi ' Let
Degrading bouc-wen model parameters identification under cyclic load

The purpose of this article is to describe the Bouc–Wen model of hysteresis for structural engineering which is used to describe a wide range of nonlinear hysteretic systems, as a consequence of its capability to produce a variety of hysteretic patterns. This article focuses on the application of the Bouc–Wen model to predict the hysteretic behaviour of reinforced concrete bridge piers. The purpose is to identify the optimal values of the parameters so that the output of the model matches as well as possible the experimental data. Two repaired, retrofitted and reinforced concrete bridge pier specimens (in a 1:6 scale of a real bridge pier) are tested in a laboratory and used for experiments in this article. An identification of Bouc–Wen model's parameters is performed using the force–displacement experimental data obtained after cyclic loading tests on these two specimens. The original model involves many parameters and complex pinching and degrading functions. This makes the identification solution unmanageable and with numerical problems. Furthermore, from a computational point of view, the identification takes too much time. The novelty of this work is the proposal of a simplification of the model allowed by simpler pinching and degrading functions and the reduction of the number of parameters. The latter innovation is effective in reducing computational efforts and is performed after a deep study of the mechanical effects of each parameter on the pier response. This simplified model is implemented in a MATLAB code and the numerical results are well fit to the experimental results and are reliable in terms of manageability, stability, and computational time.
The effect of urgency of take-over requests during highly automated driving under distraction conditions

Highly automated driving may improve driving comfort and safety in the near future. Due to possible system limits of highly automated driver support, the driver is expected to take over the vehicle control if a so-called take-over request is issued. One example of these system limits are missing or ending lines on motorways. This study focuses on the design of take-over requests in such situations. Using a motion-based driving simulator, N = 16 participants encountered different take-over situations in congested traffic that varied in their difficulty: ending lines on straight road (easy), temporary lines due to a work zone (moderate) and loss of lines in a situation with high curvature (difficult). The driver support consisted of a hands-off system that was taking over longitudinal and lateral control. Participants were asked to perform a secondary task while driving. Take-over requests were presented either visually or visual-auditory. Drivers’ hands-on times (i.e., time until driver puts hands back on the steering wheel) are lower if visual-auditory take-over requests are used in comparison to purely visual ones. Measures of lateral vehicle control also show an advantage of visual-auditory take-over requests. Differences between the take-over concepts are especially pronounced in difficult take-over situations.
Functional Separable Solutions to Nonlinear Diffusion Equations by Group Foliation Method

We consider the functional separation of variables to the nonlinear diffusion equation with source and convection term: ut = (A(x)D(u)ux)x+B(x)Q(u), Ax≠0. The functional separation of variables to this equation is studied by using the group foliation method. A classification is carried out for the equations which admit the function separable solutions. As a consequence, some solutions to the resulting equations are obtained.
Airline Simulation Model - Modeling Competition and Passenger Choice

In this thesis, a contribution has been made to the development of a simulation framework which is capable of realistically simulating market dynamics with respect to competition and passenger choice in the European aviation market. In total, 22 routes have been included into the simulation framework, with airports including those in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London and Madrid. To achieve this, a demand generation model, demand allocation model and market competition model have been combined. Additionally, the simulation framework is compatible with exogenous competitor inputs to create a game environment while hosting dynamic competition by the computer player.
Offset Pipelining for Coarse Grain Reconfigurable Arrays

This dissertation presents an execution model and compilation algorithms to advance the utility of coarse-grained reconfigurable arrays (CGRAs). These time multiplexed, spatial architectures can provide improved energy efficiency and performance compared to FPGAs or commodity processor systems. Conventional CGRAs are generally modulo scheduled for efficiently pipelining computationally intensive code. However, as the control complexity of an application increases, the performance of modulo scheduled CGRAs is diminished. An application composed of a series of phases and complex control flow may yield poor device utilization and limited performance on conventional CGRAs. In this work, I present Offset Pipelining, a new execution model, along with supporting Offset Pipelined Scheduling and EveryTime routing algorithms for improved application mapping to CGRAs. Offset Pipelining provides a mechanism to support different phases of application execution. The approach increases the flexibility of CGRAs by supporting independent initiation intervals for the different phases and interleaving loop iterations across the device, similar to modulo scheduling. This allows portions of an application to be optimized in isolation and also maximize resource sharing on the device. It is particularly effective in cases where an application requires infrequent setup or teardown steps around a shorter inner loop that executes for many iterations. I also introduce pipelined program counter CGRAs in order to support the proposed execution style. The new algorithms presented perform the scheduling and routing for an Offset Pipelined CGRA. The Offset Pipelining Scheduling algorithm creates a schedule in the Offset Pipelining style. It takes an iterative approach to adjusting the schedule, balancing the needs of each phase by positioning operations and issue slots to maximize performance. The proposed EveryTime router manages new complexity resulting from the Offset Pipelining execution model. This includes signals with run time dependent paths and variable flight time. The Offset Pipelined Scheduling and EveryTime routing algorithms are joined by a more conventional simulated annealing placement phase to form a prototype tool chain to demonstrate the feasibility of Offset Pipelining for CGRAs. These components provide improvements to the utility of CGRAs compared to existing techniques. The Offset Pipelining execution model increases the flexibility of CGRAs on a practical hardware architecture. It offers better performance by allowing each phase to execute independently rather than fused into a single monolithic schedule for the entire application. This work hopefully advances the development of CGRA architectures and tools.
Field-programmable analogue arrays for the sensorless control of DC motors

ABSTRACT This work presents the analogue implementation of a sensorless controller for direct current motors based on the super-twisting (ST) sliding mode technique, by means of field programmable analogue arrays (FPAA). The novelty of this work is twofold, first is the use of the ST algorithm in a sensorless scheme for DC motors, and the implementation method of this type of sliding mode controllers in FPAAs. The ST algorithm reduces the chattering problem produced with the deliberate use of the sign function in classical sliding mode approaches. On the other hand, the advantages of the implementation method over a digital one are that the controller is not digitally approximated, the controller gains are not fine tuned and the implementation does not require the use of analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converter circuits. In addition to this, the FPAA is a reconfigurable, lower cost and power consumption technology. Simulation and experimentation results were registered, where a more accurate transient response and lower power consumption were obtained by the proposed implementation method when compared to a digital implementation. Also, a more accurate performance by the DC motor is obtained with proposed sensorless ST technique when compared with a classical sliding mode approach.
A Graph Representation Composed of Geometrical Components for Household Furniture Detection by Autonomous Mobile Robots

This study proposes a framework to detect and recognize household furniture using autonomous mobile robots. The proposed methodology is based on the analysis and integration of geometric features extracted over 3D point clouds. A relational graph is constructed using those features to model and recognize each piece of furniture. A set of sub-graphs corresponding to different partial views allows matching the robot’s perception with partial furniture models. A reduced set of geometric features is employed: horizontal and vertical planes and the legs of the furniture. These features are characterized through their properties, such as: height, planarity and area. A fast and linear method for the detection of some geometric features is proposed, which is based on histograms of 3D points acquired from an RGB-D camera onboard the robot. Similarity measures for geometric features and graphs are proposed, as well. Our proposal has been validated in home-like environments with two different mobile robotic platforms; and partially on some 3D samples of a database.
Local bifurcation analysis of a four-dimensional hyperchaotic system

Local bifurcation phenomena in a four-dimensional continuous hyperchaotic system, which has rich and complex dynamical behaviours, are analysed. The local bifurcations of the system are investigated by utilizing the bifurcation theory and the centre manifold theorem, and thus the conditions of the existence of pitchfork bifurcation and Hopf bifurcation are derived in detail. Numerical simulations are presented to verify the theoretical analysis, and they show some interesting dynamics, including stable periodic orbits emerging from the new fixed points generated by pitchfork bifurcation, coexistence of a stable limit cycle and a chaotic attractor, as well as chaos within quite a wide parameter region.
Quantum conductance of a lateral microconstraint in a magnetic field

The G(d) function for a microconstraint was studied in the presence of a magnetic field (where G and d are respectively the conductance and diameter of a constraint). It is shown that spin splitting of a quantum step in the G(d) function increases with the step number n; hence the spin effects should be more pronounced at greater numbers. The study revealed that the effect of magnetic field on electron orbits does not destroy the adiabatic propagation of an electron wave through the constraint. The adiabaticity condition is maintained if d is small compared to the curvature radius of a constraint. Accordingly, the step-plateau width ratio is small for all values H under consideration. Each width, however, increases parametrically at rc (H) to d(rc is the cyclotron radius). The conductance properties in question are in agreement with the experimental data.
Affordable Reference in Different Techniques of Switched Reluctance Motor Driving and Controlling

The presented paper studies different types of strategies for Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) controlling. In SRM control, the rotor position is the most important parameter which all controlling methods try to achieve it. Two strategies are used in SRM driving: direct and indirect strategies. Direct strategies use position detection sensors in order to detect the rotor position. Indirect techniques don’t use any detection sensor and rotor position find out by using the relationship between some parameters of the motor like phase current, coil flux, etc. Indirect strategies have many advantages over direct strategies but their implementation is more complex. The most attractive SRM controlling methods are studied and explained in this paper and at the end the best methods are introduced based on the best efficiency, simplicity and cost.
Competency‐based IT personnel selection using a hybrid SWARA and ARAS‐G methodology

In the knowledge economy, human capital is a key factor in any organization to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Thus, selection of competent personnel is the most important function of human resource managers. However, because of a wide range of criteria and organizational factors that affect the process, personnel selection is often regarded as a complex problem that can be answered through multicriteria decision‐making (MCDM) procedures. Despite the great importance of determining a comprehensive set of criteria, it has not gained enough attention in the literature. This study presents a competency framework with five criteria for choosing the best information technology (IT) expert from five alternatives. The stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and grey additive ratio assessment (ARAS‐G) methods are also used to derive the criteria weights and provide the final alternative, respectively. The results reveal that subject competency is the major criteria in IT personnel selection.
Gravitational Waves and Extra Dimensions: A Short Review

We give a brief review on the recent development of gravitational waves in extra-dimensional theories of gravity. Studying extra-dimensional theories with gravitational waves provides a new way to constrain extra dimensions. After a flash look at the history of gravitational waves and a brief introduction to several major extra-dimensional theories, we focus on the sources and spectra of gravitational waves in extra-dimensional theories. It is shown that one can impose limits on the size of extra dimensions and the curvature of the universe by researching the propagations of gravitational waves and the corresponding electromagnetic waves. Since gravitational waves can propagate throughout the bulk, how the amplitude of gravitational waves decreases determines the number of extra dimensions for some models. In addition, we also briefly present some other characteristics of gravitational waves in extra-dimensional theories.
A flow field investigation in the diffuser of a high-speed centrifugal compressor using digital particle imaging velocimetry

Digital particle imaging velocimetry (DPIV) has become a widely used optical diagnostic technique for the study of both transient and steady state flows. The DPIV technique provides instantaneous planar maps of the flow velocity. The challenges remaining are in implementing the PIV technique in real world test facilities, where the instantaneous, planar velocity measurements provide researchers with information in less time than traditional point-based measurement techniques. The instantaneous planar velocity measurements obtained using PIV make it an attractive technique for use in the study of the complex flow fields encountered in turbomachinery. This paper discusses techniques for optical access, light sheet delivery, CCD camera technology and particulate seeding requirements for the successful application of PIV to turbomachinery. Time-averaged results obtained in the diffuser region of a high-speed centrifugal compressor are presented and discussed. In addition, combined correlation/particle-tracking results yielding super-resolution velocity measurements are presented.
THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. IV. STATISTICAL LENS SAMPLE FROM THE FIFTH DATA RELEASE

We present the second report of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From extensive follow-up observations of 136 candidate objects, we find 36 lenses in the full sample of 77,429 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 5. We then define a complete sample of 19 lenses, including 11 from our previous search in the SDSS Data Release 3, from the sample of 36,287 quasars with i < 19.1 in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 2.2, where we require the lenses to have image separations of 1″ < θ < 20″ and i-band magnitude differences between the two images smaller than 1.25 mag. Among the 19 lensed quasars, three have quadruple-image configurations, while the remaining 16 show double images. This lens sample constrains the cosmological constant to be ΩΛ = 0.84+0.06−0.08(stat.)+0.09−0.07(syst.) assuming a flat universe, which is in good agreement with other cosmological observations. We also report the discoveries of seven binary quasars with separations ranging from 1. ″1 to 16. ″6, which are identified in the course of our lens survey. This study concludes the construction of our statistical lens sample in the full SDSS-I data set.
On the existence of positively charged single-substitutional nitrogen in diamond

Infra-red (IR) absorption results on irradiated and annealed synthetic diamond are presented which confirm an earlier proposal that a component found in the defect-induced one-phonon region of some diamonds arises from positively charged single-substitutional nitrogen . The concentration ratio of to neutral substitutional nitrogen centres may be changed by shining light of various energies onto the examined samples. By correlating changes in absorption of the IR component associated with centres with changes in the component, and using a previously determined relation between the concentration of centres and peak absorption coefficient at 1130 , the relationship between peak absorption at 1332 and concentration of centres has been derived, namely 1 of absorption is produced by ppm centres. Other defects may also give rise to absorption at 1332 , but the component is uniquely identified by further peaks at 1046 and 950 . The significance of this component is demonstrated by the fact that some samples can contain in excess of 80 ppm centres, and this must consequently be accounted for when assaying the total nitrogen concentration in such samples. Using the above relationship useful parameters relating the concentration of neutral vacancies, negative vacancies and negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centres to their respective zero-phonon line integrated absorptions have been derived.
Coupling-induced spectral splitting for plasmonic sensing with ultra-high figure of merit

We investigate a kind of spectral splitting effect in a plasmonic multilayer system, which consists of stacked Al2O3 and SiO2 layers, a thin metal film, and a dielectric prism substrate. The results illustrate that an obvious peak appears in the center of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-induced reflection spectral dip in the structure with the SiO2/Al2O3/SiO2 layers. This spectral splitting response can be regarded as an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) like effect, which is attributed to the coupling and interference between the SPR on the metal film and guided-mode resonance (GMR) in the Al2O3 layer. The theoretical calculations agree well with the numerical simulations. It is also found that the reflection spectrum will be further split by the introduction of another Al2O3 layer into the multilayer structure. The reintroduced GMR in the Al2O3 layer changes the coupling and interference process between the SPR and GMR field, giving rise to the generation of ultra-narrow reflection dip. Especially, the spectral splitting can facilitate the realization of plasmonic sensors with ultra-high figure of merit (583), which is about 5 times larger than that of traditional SPR sensors. These results will provide a new avenue to the light field manipulation and optical functionalities, especially biochemical and environmental sensing.