Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Pedestrian Detection Based on Multi-Spectral Image Fusion and Convolutional Neural Networks

Nowadays, pedestrian detection is widely used in fields such as driving assistance and video surveillance with the progression of technology. However, although the research of single-modal visible pedestrian detection has been very mature, it is still not enough to meet the demand of pedestrian detection at all times. Thus, a multi-spectral pedestrian detection method via image fusion and convolutional neural networks is proposed in this paper. The infrared intensity distribution and visible appearance features are retained with a total variation model based on local structure transfer, and pedestrian detection is realized with the multi-spectral fusion results and the target detection network YOLOv3. The detection performance of the proposed method is evaluated and compared with the detection methods based on the other four pixel-level fusion algorithms and two fusion network architectures. The results attest that our method has superior detection performance, which can detect pedestrian targets robustly even in the case of harsh illumination conditions and cluttered backgrounds.
MonoEF: Extrinsic Parameter Free Monocular 3D Object Detection

Monocular 3D object detection is an important task in autonomous driving. It can be easily intractable where there exists ego-car pose change w.r. t. ground plane. This is common due to the slight fluctuation of road smoothness and slope. Due to the lack of insight in industrial application, existing methods on open datasets neglect the camera pose information, which inevitably results in the detector being susceptible to camera extrinsic parameters. The perturbation of objects is very popular in most autonomous driving cases for industrial products. To this end, we propose a novel method to capture camera pose to formulate the detector free from extrinsic perturbation. Specifically, the proposed framework predicts camera extrinsic parameters by detecting vanishing point and horizon change. A converter is designed to rectify perturbative features in the latent space. By doing so, our 3D detector works independent of the extrinsic parameter variations and produces accurate results in realistic cases, e.g., potholed and uneven roads, where almost all existing monocular detectors fail to handle. Experiments demonstrate our method yields the best performance compared with the other state-of-the-arts by a large margin on both KITTI 3D and nuScenes datasets.
Compact omnidirectional band-notch ultra-wideband antenna

A novel ultra-wideband printed monopole antenna with a band-notch characteristic and stable omnidirectional radiation is presented. The antenna design adopts a bevelled square patch as a monopole, a double-feed technique and a microstrip feeder embedded with an inverted U-shaped slot. Good agreement between simulation and experiment shows that the proposed antenna achieves an impedance bandwidth of 3.05-5.15 and 6.02-10.84 GHz for VSWRles2, a stable omnidirectional radiation and a low cross-polarisation level.
Use of Screencast in Distance Education GIS Lessons: Students' Views

This study aims to analyze the views of geography teacher students on the GIS course conducted with screencasts during the distance education process. Furthermore, the study reveals, along with the reasons, how the process of capturing and sharing screencasts with students can assist instructors. At the end of the term, 27 students studying in the second year of the geography teaching undergraduate program were asked about their opinions of the lesson. The data were collected through a structured evaluation form consisting of open-ended questions to evaluate the course. In the analysis of the comments obtained, MAXQDA software, which is frequently used in qualitative data analysis, was applied. The expressions in the answers were analyzed using the content analysis technique. Overall, the results prove that the beneficial aspects of the GIS course, which consists of applications and is conducted with screencast, outweigh the theory. Thanks to the screencast model, students can use their time efficiently and watch the videos repeatedly whenever and wherever they want. Nevertheless, the results reveal that extra methods are required to motivate students to transfer theoretical information and that screencasts have some disadvantages.
Exploring Values and Beliefs in a Complex Coastal Social-Ecological System: A Case of Small-Scale Fishery and Dried Fish Production in Sagar Island, Indian Sundarbans

The survivability of the small-scale fishery and dried fish production in Indian Sundarbans, despite increasing threats posed by climate, environmental, economic, and policy drivers, suggests that they possess certain unique strengths and capabilities. One thread of these strengths is connected to the fact that Sundarbans’ fishery system is strongly anchored in the values and beliefs of the local fishing communities. There is, however, limited empirical information available on the prevailing individual and collective attitudes, expectations, traditions, customs, and, above all, values and beliefs that strongly influence local fishing communities of Sundarbans. This manuscript aims to address this gap by drawing on qualitative data to (1) map the nature of values and beliefs associated with the Sundarbans’ Sagar Island fishing communities who are engaged in small-scale fishery and dried fish production; and (2) highlight the contributions of values and beliefs to the small-scale fishery and dried fish production systems of Sagar Island. Our study reveals that historical factors such as the patriarchal and patrilineal system prevalent in the Indian Sundarbans as well as the current drivers, including environmental and social-economic changes, create inconsistent values and beliefs among male and female members of its society. Issues around values and beliefs are heavily influenced by social-ecological realities comprising material, relational and subjective dimensions. They can range from being strictly personal to largely community-oriented as they are shaped by realities of gender, class, power dynamics, and politics. Values and beliefs are fundamental to human perception and cognition but often get neglected in mainstream literature covering human dimensions of resource management. Our research adds weight to the theoretical and place-based understanding of the contributions of values and beliefs to the small-scale fishery and dried fish production systems. We learn from the case study that values and beliefs can act as mirrors, reflecting the current as well as future realities of small-scale fisheries and dried fish production systems and provide important directions for sustainability and viability of the entire social-ecological system that hosts this sector.
Flexible Receivers in CMOS for Wireless Communication

Consumers are pushing for higher data rates to support more services that are introduced in mobile applications. As an example, a few years ago video-on-demand was only accessed through landlines, but today wireless devices are frequently used to stream video. To support this, more flexible network solutions have merged in 4G, introducing new technical problems to the mobile terminal. New techniques are thus needed, and this dissertation explores five different ideas for receiver front-ends, that are cost-efficient and flexible both in performance and operating frequency. All ideas have been implemented in chips fabricated in 65 nm CMOS technology and verified by measurements. Paper I explores a voltage-mode receiver front-end where sub-threshold positive feedback transistors are introduced to increase the linearity in combination with a bootstrapped passive mixer. Paper II builds on the idea of 8-phase harmonic rejection, but simplifies it to a 6-phase solution that can reject noise and interferers at the 3rd order harmonic of the local oscillator frequency. This provides a good trade-off between the traditional quadrature mixer and the 8- phase harmonic rejection mixer. Furthermore, a very compact inductor-less low noise amplifier is introduced. Paper III investigates the use of global negative feedback in a receiver front-end, and also introduces an auxiliary path that can cancel noise from the main path. In paper IV, another global feedback based receiver front-end is designed, but with positive feedback instead of negative. By introducing global positive feedback, the resistance of the transistors in a passive mixer-first receiver front-end can be reduced to achieve a lower noise figure, while still maintaining input matching. Finally, paper V introduces a full receiver chain with a single-ended to differential LNA, current-mode downconversion mixers, and a baseband circuity that merges the functionalities of the transimpedance amplifier, channel-select filter, and analog-to-digital converter into one single power-efficient block. (Less)
Association Between Common Variants of APOE, ABCA7, A2M, BACE1, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers in Alzheimer’s Disease: Data from the PUMCH Dementia Cohort

Background: The previous studies have identified several genes in relation to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), such as ABCA7, CR1, etc. A few studies have explored the association between the common variants, mainly in the non-coding regions of these genes, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. Fewer studies target the variants in the coding regions. Objective: To illustrate the association between the common variants within or adjacent to the coding regions of AD susceptible genes and CSF biomarkers in AD patients. Methods: 75 sporadic probable AD patients were extracted from the dementia cohort of Peking Union Medical College Hospital. They all had history inquiry, physical examination, blood test, cognitive assessment, brain MRI, CSF testing of Aβ42, 181p-tau, and t-tau, and next-generation DNA sequencing. Sixty-nine common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (minor allele frequency > 0.01) within or near the coding region of 13 AD susceptible genes were included in the analysis. Results: The rs7412-CC (APOE) genotype showed lower CSF Aβ42 level and higher p-tau/Aβ42 ratio than the rs7412-CT genotype. The rs3752246-C (ABCA7) allele correlated with lower CSF Aβ42 level. The alternate alleles of six ABCA7 SNPs were related to lower CSF p-tau, including rs3745842, rs3764648, rs3764652, rs4147930, rs4147934 and rs881768. The rs11609582-TT (A2M) genotype showed higher CSF p-tau than the rs11609582-TA genotype. The p-tau/Aβ42 ratio was higher in the rs490460-TT (BACE1) genotype relative to the rs490460-GT genotype. Conclusion: Some common variants within or near the coding regions of APOE, ABCA7, A2M, and BACE1 are associated with CSF Aβ42, p-tau. or p-tau/Aβ42.
Myriopoda and Arachnida

Of the twelve species of Myriopda obtained by Messrs. George Gulliver and H. H. Slater, seven are referable to the Chilognatha and five to the Chilopoda: all, with the exception of the two species of Scolopendra (and possibly Spirostreptus sorornus and the Mecistocephalus), appear to be new to science. So few naturalists have interested themselves in the study of these animals, that it is impossible at present even to form an opinion as to the geographical distribution of the species of Rodriguez; all that can be said is that, in all probability, the two forms of Scolopendra will be found abundantly in Madagascar.
Electromechanical Coupling and Signal Distribution of a Circular Cylindrical Shell Coupled With Segmented Sensors

The direct piezoelectric effect has long been recognized as an effective electromechanical coupling effect applied to designs of various transducers. Conventional sensor design usually follows three design principles: 1) the tension/compression design, 2) the bending or flexible design and 3) the shear design. These are mostly point-type transducers monitoring responses of discrete locations and, thus, they are not suitable to dynamic spatial monitoring of large-scale distributed structures, such as shells and plates. Accordingly, distributed designs and configurations, such as the segmentation and shaping techniques, have been proposed and evaluated in the last two decades. This study is to evaluate electromechanical coupling and signal generations of a coupled piezoelectric/elastic circular shell structure. A generic open-circuit signal equation of electromechanical coupling and signal generation is presented first, followed by a simplification to signal generation of a circular cylindrical shell case. The total signal generation and its contributing components are analyzed in the modal domain. Spatially distributed modal signals of various shell modes are calculated and the spatial signal distribution illustrates distinct modal characteristics resulting from microscopic modal strain behaviors. Thus, the optimal sensor location(s) for specific shell modes can be identified from the modal signal distribution plots.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Implementation of a sensorless stator flux oriented asynchronous motor drive with high performances at low-speed operation

A sensorless, stator flux oriented asynchronous motor drive has been realized, by using a low-cost, single chip microcontroller. A motor state observer has been implemented, which showed excellent performances, particularly at low speed operation. Two different experimental realizations have been developed, with rated powers equal to about 1.5 kW and 30 kW respectively, and good results have been obtained in both cases. The theoretical approach, the main design choices and the most significant experimental results are presented.
A Prediction Method for the RUL of Equipment for Missing Data

We present a prediction framework to estimate the remaining useful life (RUL) of equipment based on the generative adversarial imputation net (GAIN) and multiscale deep convolutional neural network and long short-term memory (MSDCNN-LSTM). The method we proposed addresses the problem of missing data caused by sensor failures in engineering applications. First, a binary matrix is used to adjust the proportion of “0” to simulate the number of missing data in the engineering environment. Then, the GAIN model is used to impute the missing data and approximate the true sample distribution. Finally, the MSDCNN-LSTM model is used for RUL prediction. Experiments are carried out on the commercial modular aero-propulsion system simulation (C-MAPSS) dataset to validate the proposed method. The prediction results show that the proposed method outperforms other methods when packet loss occurs, showing significant improvements in the root mean square error (RMSE) and the score function value.
Spatial and temporal requirement of Mlp60A isoforms during muscle development and function in Drosophila melanogaster

Many myofibrillar proteins undergo isoform switching in a spatio-temporal manner during muscle development. The biological significance of the variants of several of these myofibrillar proteins remains elusive. One such myofibrillar protein, the Muscle LIM Protein (MLP), is a vital component of the Z-discs. In this paper, we show that one of the Drosophila MLP encoding genes, Mlp60A, gives rise to two isoforms: a short (279 bp, 10 kDa) and a long (1461 bp, 54 kDa) one. The short isoform is expressed throughout development, but the long isoform is adult-specific, being the dominant of the two isoforms in the indirect flight muscles (IFMs). A concomitant, muscle-specific knockdown of both isoforms leads to late pupal lethality, with the surviving flies being majorly flight defective. Mlp60A null flies show developmental lethality, and muscle defects in the individuals surviving till the third instar larval stage. This lethality could be rescued partially by muscle-specific overexpression of the short isoform. Almost 90% of the long isoform-specific P-element insertion mutant flies show a compromised flight ability and have reduced sarcomere length. Hence, our data shows that the two Mlp60A isoforms are functionally specialized, to ensuring normal embryonic muscle development and adult flight muscle function.
Written standard sentence materials convey social information

The Harvard/IEEE (henceforth H/I) sentences are widely used for testing speech recognition in English. This study examined whether two talker characteristics, race and gender, are conveyed by 80 of the H/I sentences in their written form, and by a comparison set of sentences from the internet message board Reddit, which were expected to convey social information. As predicted, a significant proportion of raters reported perceiving race and gender information in the H/I sentences. Suggestions of how to manage the potential influence of this social information on measures of speech intelligibility are provided.
The design and implementation of microwave receiver front end components

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Different types of RF and Microwave receiver systems architectures are investigated. The superheterodyne receiver characteristics are studied qualitatively. A three components system (LNA, Mixer and VeO) is selected and the components are first measured individually, and then measured as a single system. A mono filar axial mode helix antenna is designed, simulated using FEKO and constructed. A narrow band interdigital bandpass filter is designed using the capacitance network and its transformation, and it is simulated using two different simulation packages, eST Microwave Studio and AWR Microwave Office. Two filter prototypes are fabricated using cylindrical rods. An open circuited microstrip resonator oscillator is designed and implemented through the negative resistance method. Its performance is verified using the harmonic balance simulator in AWR MWO. A single balanced mixer is designed and implemented using 1800 hybrid junction (rat-race) and it is also fabricated using microstrip transmission line technology. All designed components performed well in comparison to their predicted performance. The LNA and three of the designed components (Filter, Oscillator and a Mixer) are connected together and characterized as a single four block system. The system performed well except for the IF signal which shift to a lower frequency due to oscillator load pulling. %%%%AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die argitektuur van verskeie RF en Mikrogolf ontvanger stelsels word ondersoek. Die "superheterodyne" ontvanger eienskappe is kwalitatief bestudeer. 'n Stelsel wat uit drie komponente bestaan (LNA, Menger en VeO) is bestudeer. Die individuele komponente is eers gemeet en daarna die stelsel as 'n eenheid. 'n "Mono filar" aksiale modus heliks antenna is ontwerp, gesimuleer met FEKO en gebou. Verder is 'n nouband inter-digitale banddeurlaat filter ontwerp met behulp van die kapasitiewe network metode en sy transformasie. Hierdie ontwerp is gesimuleer deur van twee verskillende sagteware pakette gebruik te maak, naamlik eST Microwave Studio en AWR Microwave Office. Twee filter prototiepes is gebou met silindriese stafies. 'n Oopgeslote mikrostrook ossilator is ontwerp en geimplementeer deur negatiewe weerstand te gebruik. Die stelsel se prestasie is bevestig deur gebruik te maak van 'n harmoniese balans simulator in AWR MWO. Verder is 'n enkelbalans menger ontwerp en geimplimenteer via 'n 1800 hibriede verbinding ("rat-race"). Hierdie menger is gebou met mikrostrook transmisielyn. Al die ontwerpte komponente werk goed in vergelyking met die voorspelde resultate. Die LNA, filter, ossilator en menger word gekoppel en gekarakteriseer as 'n vier blok stelsel. Die stelsel werk goed behalwe vir 'n skuif in die IF-sein by laer frekwensies a.g. v. belasting.
A novel current regulated PWM technique for multi-converter active power line conditioner

This paper presents a multi-converter (modular) active power filter for high power nonlinear loads harmonic mitigation. The proposed system comprises of a Current Regulated Pulse Width Modulation inverter (CRPWM) modules that are utilizing a novel space vector modulation (SVM) based hysteresis current controller (HCC). The proposed methodology exploits the combined advantages of both HCC and SVM techniques. A set of space vectors including the zero vector, to reduce the number of switching, is determined from two sets of hysteresis comparators. One comparator set has larger hysteresis band than the other set. As a result, the proposed system significantly reduces the number of switching and, therefore, increases the efficiency of the power electronics modules.
Implementation of 16X16 SRAM Memory Array using 180nm Technology

Static Random access memory (SRAM) are useful building blocks in many applications such as a data storage embedded applications, cache memories, microprocessors. Large SRAM arrays that are widely used as cache memory in microprocessors and application-specific integrated circuits can occupy a significant portion of the die area. For high density circuits such as SRAM arrays, which are projected to occupy more than 90% of the SoC area in the next 10 years. In an attempt to optimize the performance of such chips, large arrays of fast SRAM help to boost the system performance. However, the area impact of incorporating large SRAM arrays into a chip directly translates into a higher chip cost. Balancing these requirements is driving the effort to minimize the footprint of SRAM cells. As a result, millions of minimum-size SRAM cells are tightly packed making SRAM arrays the densest circuitry on a chip. In this paper an effort is made to design 16X16 SRAM memory array on 180nm technology. For high-speed memory applications such as cache, a SRAM is often used. Access time, speed, and power consumption are the three key parameters for an SRAM memory design(SRAM). The integrated SRAM is operated with analog input voltage of 0 to 1.8v. The 16x16 SRAM memory has been designed, implemented & analysed in standard UMC180nm technology library using Cadence tool.
Problematic smartphone use on mental health: a systematic mapping study and taxonomy

ABSTRACT Although many benefits emerge from the growing capabilities of smartphones, there are also concerns related to the long-term hyper-connected experience. Based on a systematic mapping method, this study investigates the primary factors of problematic smartphone use (PSU). Initially, this mapping considered ten academic databases, which allowed the analysis of 436 studies, and the creation of a taxonomy that categorises technology addiction topics such as the Internet, Smartphones, Video games, and Electronic devices. After the initial search and filtering, the study selected and deeply analysed 115 articles concerning the PSU influences on mental health, proposing a taxonomy to classify mental disorders and common symptoms related to PSU. The outcomes suggest that those who fear missing out on important events, females, depressed, anxious, and bored people are prone to PSU, reinforcing the importance of understanding the factors that lead a person to use smartphones in a problematic way and alternatives to help people cope with PSU. Scales such as the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV) and strategies such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and limiting smartphone access are being used to handle PSU. Finally, this study presents implications and recommendations for future research in this area.