Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compact deep-space optical communications transceiver

Deep space optical communication transceivers must be very efficient receivers and transmitters of optical communication signals. For deep space missions, communication systems require high performance well beyond the scope of mere power efficiency, demanding maximum performance in relation to the precious and limited mass, volume, and power allocated. This paper describes the opto-mechanical design of a compact, efficient, functional brassboard deep space transceiver that is capable of achieving Mb/s rates at Mars ranges. The special features embodied to enhance the system operability and functionality, and to reduce the mass and volume of the system are detailed. System tests and performance characteristics are described in detail. Finally, lessons learned in the implementation of the brassboard design and suggestions for improvements appropriate for a flight prototype are covered.
ROIC for HgCdTe e-APD FPA

Ultra-low light imaging and passive/active dual mode imaging require very low noise optical receivers to achieve detection of fast and weak optical signal. HgCdTe electrons initiated avalanche photodiodes (e-APDs) in linear multiplication mode is the detector of choice thanks to its high quantum efficiency, high gain at low bias, high bandwidth and low noise factor. In my work, a passive/active dual mode readout integrated circuit (ROIC) of e-APD focal plane array (FPA) is designed. Unit cell circuit architecture of ROIC includes a capacitance feedback transimpedance amplifier (CTIA) as preamplifier of ROIC, a high voltage protection module, a comparator, a Sample-Hold circuit module, and output driver stage. There is a protection module in every unit cell circuit which can avoid ROIC to be damaged from avalanche breakdown of some diodes of detector. Conventional 5V CMOS process is applied to implement the high voltage protection with the small area rather than Laterally Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor (LDMOS) in high voltage BCD process in the limited 100um×100um pitch area. In CTIA module, three integration capacitances are included in the CTIA module, two of them are switchable to provide different well capacity and noise. Constraints such as pixel area, stability and power lead us design toward a simple one-stage cascade operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) as pre-amplifier. High voltage protection module can protect ROIC to be damaged because of breakdown of some avalanche diodes.
Experimental investigation of a new butler matrix using slotline technology for beamforming antenna arrays

The design and realisation of a 4 times 4 Butler matrix for multibeam antenna arrays operating at 5.8timesGHz are described. The matrix is implemented on a single layer slotline structure to avoid using air bridges as required in coplanar waveguide technology. In this design, a new hybrid coupler and a crossover using slotline technology were designed and fabricated, and they are used to build a new Butler matrix. To examine the performances of the proposed matrix, numerical simulations and experimental measurements were carried out; the comparison between simulated and experimental results shows a good agreement.
Improving learning and practice in the workplace through living theory research

Keeping the goals of IAL at the forefront of this keynote I shall focus on the use of Living Theory research and Action Research in raising capabilities, catalysing innovation, and leading research in workforce learning. I shall provide access to the evidence that demonstrates that a Living Theory approach to Action Research can facilitate the development of an effective, innovative and responsive CET sector that is able to meet the needs of industries and the workforce (see http://www.ial.edu.sg/). The evidence includes the use of multimodal narratives with digital technologies in workplace learning that have been accredited for higher degrees in continuing education and training and which are freely available from the Internet . The evidence will be drawn from the living - theories produced by individuals as they explore the implications of asking, researching and answering questions of the kind, i? ½How do I improve what I am doing in my workplace practice? i? ½ The international significance of this evidence will include living theories from workplaces in Si ngapore, South Africa, Canada,Europe, China, South Africa and Japan.
Flame Heat Fluxes in Pmma Pool Fires

A simple one-dimensional analytical model has been developed to describe the processes involved in the transient burning of non-charring thermoplastic materials. The model includes conduction, convection, and radiation effects for flaming materials. The burning rate solution is obtained by numerically solving an ordinary differential equation and an algebraic equation with flame radiative heat flux as a specified variable. The effect of convective blowing is also included in the model. The model is used to compute the flame heat fluxes for PMMA pool fires at various sizes. The results show the range of convective and radiative heat fluxes from the PMMA flame for pool fires ranging from 0.023 to 1.50 m 2 or 0.151 - 1.22 m diameter.
Modeling of Evaporation Reduction in Drip Irrigation System

Surface drip irrigation is an efficient system for delivering water to crops; however, conditions at the soil surface affect evaporation rate and efficiency. A method is proposed, sand tube irrigation (STI), to increase the efficiency of drip irrigation systems. This method is specific to permanent tree crops where soil is not tilled or turned. The STI method consists of removing a soil core beneath the emitter and filling the void with coarse sand. The SWMS_2D model, implemented in a 3D axisymmetric form, was used to simulate infiltration, water redistribution, evaporation from the soil surface, and rise of water inside the sand tube. Model simulations were compared with laboratory measurements determined from a weighing lysimeter. The simulated values of water height inside the sand tube and temporal position of the wetting front in both lateral and upward directions closely matched the experimental measurements. The advancements of the wetting front in the downward direction and evaporation estimates was predicted with less accuracy. Experiments showed that relative to surface drip irrigation, the STI method reduced evaporation by approximately 26% over a 4-day period.
DC-20 GHz N*M passive switches

The author demonstrate monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) switch networks with complexities up to 4*4 have been demonstrated using multiple chips, and up to 2*2 and 1*4 have been demonstrated using single chips. All the switches use a combination of series and shunt passive FET switching elements. The 1*2 and 1*4 switches are comprised of a single switching stage. The 2*2 switch comprised of two stages of 1*2 switches. The 4*4 switch is made of four stages of 1*2 switches. The insertion loss increases with switch complexity, and is equivalent to 1.5 to 2 dB per 1*2 switch. All the switches are passive and bidirectional, and all operate from DC to 20 GHz. <<ETX>>
Research of Clustering Algorithm Based on Different Data Field Model

Data field clustering algorithm possesses dynamic characteristics compared with other clustering algorithms. By changing the parameters of the data field model, the results can be dynamically adjusted to meet the target of feature extraction and knowledge discovery in different scales, but the selection and construction of data field model can give rise to different clustering results. This paper presents the different effectiveness of clustering based on various of data field models and its parameters, provides with the scheme to chose the best data field model fitting to the characteristics of the data radiation, and verifies that the best clustering effectiveness can be achieved with the value of radial energy in the golden section.
Digital control of a four leg inverter for standalone photovoltaic systems with unbalanced load

Three leg inverters for photovoltaic systems have a lot of disadvantages, especially when the load is unbalanced. These disadvantages are for example, small utilisation of the DC link voltage, the dependency of the modulation factor of the load current and the superposition of a DC component with the output AC voltage. In this paper a three dimensional space vector modulation of a four leg inverter for standalone photovoltaic systems is presented to solve these problems. A digital control strategy based on a load current observer is introduced to control the whole system with a microcontroller. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the performance of the proposed system.
An Empirical Investigation of the Export-Led Growth (ELG) and Import-Led Growth (ILG) Hypotheses in Sierra Leone

This paper seeks to empirically examine the export-led growth and import-led growth hypotheses in Sierra Leone from 1980 to 2020. It employed the ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration. The empirical results show that both the Export-led growth (ELG) and Import-led Growth (ILG) hypotheses are indeed valid in Sierra Leone. However, exports appear to be relatively more important than imports in driving economic growth in both the short and long run horizons. It is therefore recommended amongst others that the government continue to focus on strategies that will broaden the export base, while at the same time create a conducive environment for foreign investment that could result in the importation of capital goods into the country to support growth.
Dynamically reconfigurable router for NoC congestion reduction

Multiprocessor System-on-Chip (MPSoCs) are emerging as one of the technologies providing a way to support the growing design complexity of embedded systems including several types of cores. The interconnection among cores of a MPSoC is proposed to be provided by Networks-on-Chip (NoC). In real applications it is usual to find different interconnection needs amongst cores, so distinct bandwidth is needed in each node of a NoC. Since larger FIFOs in NoC routers provide larger throughputs and smaller latencies, depths are usually sized for the worst case, compromising not only the routing area, but power consumption. In this paper, a reconfigurable router with a dynamic sharing mechanism of buffers at the input channels is proposed to reduce congestion in the network. In this situation, a channel may dynamically lend or borrow some non-used buffer units to or from neighboring channels, in accordance to the connection rates. The proposed reconfigurable router architecture was embedded in the Hermes NoC. The main advantages of the Hermes are its small size and modular design. This, as well as the open source approach, have lead to the selection of this NoC. The basic element of Hermes is a router with five bi-directional ports employing an XY routing algorithm. FIFO buffering is present only at the input channel, with all channels having the same buffer depth defined at design time. The proposed reconfigurable router has been coded in VHDL at RTL level from the adaptation of the Hermes router to fit into the proposed scheme. Results obtained from the simulation of the router under scenarios with different traffic characteristics and percentage of shared buffer, show that mean latency can be reduced up to a 30% in comparison to the original router.
Evolution of hysteresis characteristic of shape memory alloys at incomplete phase transformation cyclic loading

The phase transformation ratchetting of shape memory alloys (SMAs) at incomplete phase transformation cyclic loading is experimentally and theoretically investigated. To this end, two different kinds of incomplete phase transformation cyclic loading tests on NiTi wires are performed, i.e. incomplete transformation cyclic loads are respectively applied at the stages of forward martensitic transformation and reverse martensitic transformation. When the cyclic load of incomplete transformation is applied in the forward martensitic transformation stage, a novel phenomenon is discovered: although there is no greater stress to drive the anstenite turn to martensite, the SMAs can still gradually undergo martensitic transformation and accumulation until martensite reaches saturation. The hysteretic behavior finally reaches a shakedown state where the strain–stress curve no longer changes with the number of cycles. When the cyclic load of incomplete transformation is applied in the reverse martensitic transformation stage, a similar phenomenon is obtained. According to the analysis of the temperature evolution during the deformation process of the SMAs, combined with the relationship between the phase transformation yield stress and the temperature of SMAs, the experimental results are reasonably explained. This research is of great significance for a more comprehensive grasp of the mechanical behavior of SMAs.
Remote Sensing Data Detection Based on Multiscale Fusion and Attention Mechanism

Remote sensing images are often of low quality due to the limitations of the equipment, resulting in poor image accuracy, and it is extremely difficult to identify the target object when it is blurred or small. The main challenge is that objects in sensing images have very few pixels. Traditional convolutional networks are complicated to extract enough information through local convolution and are easily disturbed by noise points, so they are usually not ideal for classifying and diagnosing small targets. The current solution is to process the feature map information at multiple scales, but this method does not consider the supplementary effect of the context information of the feature map on the semantics. In this work, in order to enable CNNs to make full use of context information and improve its representation ability, we propose a residual attention function fusion method, which improves the representation ability of feature maps by fusing contextual feature map information of different scales, and then propose a spatial attention mechanism for global pixel point convolution response. This method compresses global pixels through convolution, weights the original feature map pixels, reduces noise interference, and improves the network’s ability to grasp global critical pixel information. In experiments, the remote sensing ship image recognition experiments on remote sensing image data sets show that the network structure can improve the performance of small-target detection. The results on cifar10 and cifar100 prove that the attention mechanism is universal and practical.
The Hubei Memory and Aging Cohort Study: Study Design, Baseline Characteristics, and Prevalence of Cognitive Impairments.

BACKGROUND Despite the improved access to health services in China, inadequate diagnosis and management of dementia are common issues, especially in rural regions. OBJECTIVE The Hubei Memory & Aging Cohort Study was designed as a prospective study in Central China to determine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among urban and rural older adults. METHODS From 2018-2020, participants aged ≥65 years were screened, and data regarding their life behaviors, families, socio-economic status, physical and mental health, social and psychological factors, and cognition were collected. Diagnoses of MCI and dementia were made via consensus diagnosis using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition criteria. RESULTS Of 8,221 individuals who completed their baseline clinical evaluation, 4,449 (54.1%) were women and 3,164 (38.4%) were from remote rural areas (average age: 71.96 years; mean education period: 7.58 years). At baseline, 25.98%(95%confidence interval [CI]: 24.99-26.96) and 7.24%(95%CI: 6.68-7.80) of the participants were diagnosed with MCI and dementia, respectively. Prevalence showed a strong relationship with age. The substantial disparities between rural and urban regions in MCI and dementia prevalence and multiple dementia-related risk factors were revealed. Especially for dementia, the prevalence rate in rural areas was 2.65 times higher than that in urban regions. CONCLUSION Our results suggested that public health interventions are urgently needed to achieve equitable diagnosis and management for people living with dementia in the communities across urban and rural areas.
Trends in Community Fire Ordinances and Their Effects on Landscape Architecture Practice

Since 2000, the United States has experienced record wildfire seasons causing significant property damage. In response, communities are increasingly adopting or strengthening wildland fire ordinances to minimize wildfire damage. This paper examines nationwide municipal and county wildland fire codes containing provisions for landscape features, and summarizes their requirements for new or existing development. The research revealed twelve ordinance provisions that fall into four categories that affect the scope of work for landscape architects: vegetative fuel clearance, building requirements, roadway and driveway standards, and planning and assessment. The majority of community wildland codes primarily address 1) vegetative fuel clearance around structures, 2) vegetative maintenance, and 3) vehicular access requirements. Discussion of the research findings focuses on the role of the landscape architecture profession in high fire risk areas and concludes that landscape architects are integral in protecting the safety of communities that develop in the wildland-urban interface.
Automated Vehicle Merging Maneuver Implementation for AHS

Summary This paper presents a real-time implementation of a general merging algorithm for automated highway systems. A merging control problem is proposed first. A real-time algorithm is then presented, which is used to calculate a smooth reference speed trajectory for the merging vehicle based on the speed of the main lane vehicle. This algorithm can also be applied even when the main lane vehicles change speed. To make the algorithm adapt to different road layouts and to increase safety, a concept of virtual platooning is proposed. It effectively shifts the time of platoon formation forward prior to the start of real merging. Aspects closely related to real-time implementation are discussed, such as the controller adopted, the use of magnetometer based distance measurement and information passing by communication from main lane vehicles. Test results are presented and briefly analyzed.
Importance of the Pneumococcus in Community-acquired Pneumonia in Tender-age Infants on the Background of Vaccination

«IMPORTANCE OF THE PNEUMOCOCCUS IN COMMUNITY-ACQUIRED PNEUMONIA IN TENDER-AGE INFANTS ON THE BACKGROUND OF VACCINATION» The authors of the manuscript provide data demonstrating that una pneumonia against the background of vaccination is accompanied by a change in the etiological structure. The article is a new idea and overall it is well written and structured. However, simple study design, lack of patient baseline and follow-up data limit the conclusion of withdrawal. I invite the authors to solve the following questions: 1) There are many spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. Authors should correct mistakes and rewrite the article in a clear and understandable style. I have visited the authors with the help of a language expert on rewriting. 2) The main problem of the manuscript is poor statistical processing and statistical reporting. The authors stated: “All data were expressed as confidence intervals. Thus, it is unclear whether the etiological structure was normally distributed. Moreover, following normal scientific practice, authors should indicate specific statistical significance values ​​when comparing each test parameter. 3) The cited literature is relevant to the research and meets the requirements of the journal. But mentions of 9/19 were published over 10 years ago. I recommend reading current research on this topic. In conclusion, the work makes a good impression. On the other hand, it can be published after significant changes with reference to the comments mentioned above, including bug fixes and rewriting of the article in a clear and easily understandable style.
Corporate Board Diversity and Sustainability Reporting: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia Before and During COVID-19

Research aims: This study aims to investigate how the influence of board diversity before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/Methodology/Approach: The researchers used purposive sampling method. The research sample was 70 companies in the pre-pandemic period and 52 companies during the pandemic with the following criteria: all companies in Indonesia listed on the IDX that published complete sustainability reports and annual reports. In testing the hypotheses, multiple linear regression analysis was employed.Research findings: The presence of board diversity affected sustainability reporting in the pre-pandemic period, but during the pandemic, it did not affect the sustainability report disclosure.Theoretical contribution/Originality: This study is empirical evidence regarding the comparison of the effect of the presence of board diversity before the pandemic and during the pandemic.Research limitation/Implication: The sample period during the pandemic was still too short. As known that the initial COVID-19 pandemic entered Indonesia was in 2020, so the researchers experienced limited data regarding sustainability reports during the pandemic.
Obstetric hysterectomy: a retrospective study

Background: Obstetric hysterectomy (OH) is last resort usually opted to save life of a mother in critical obstetric conditions compromising her reproductive potential. With increasing caesarean deliveries incidence of morbidly adhered placenta is increasing, thus increasing need of OH. We aimed to study socio-demographic factors, incidence, indications, complications and feto-maternal outcomes associated with obstetric hysterectomy. Also, we aimed to study factors which affect the maternal and fetal outcome in obstetric hysterectomy case so as to minimize maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.Methods: We conducted a retrospective analytical study of 2 years 6 months in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at a tertiary and teaching institute of western Maharashtra.Results: The incidence of obstetric hysterectomy was 0.4%. Majority of women were between 25-35 years age group and parity two or more. Most common indication was postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) (41.1%) followed by uterine rupture (29.4%) and adhered placenta (23.5%). Most common risk factor found was previous caesarean delivery. Most common complication was need of intensive care unit (ICU) and vasopressor support.Conclusions: Proper antenatal care, screening for high-risk obstetric cases and registration of those patients at a well-equipped hospital and early referral and delivery at tertiary hospital by expert surgeon with timely decision, timely and adequate transfusions can prevent maternal and fetal complications.