Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pocket implantation effect on drain current flicker noise in analog nMOSFET devices

The pocket implantation effect on drain current flicker noise in 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS process based high performance analog nMOSFETs is investigated. Our result shows that pocket implantation will significantly degrade device low-frequency noise primarily because of nonuniform threshold voltage distribution along the channel. An analytical flicker noise model to account for a pocket doping effect is proposed. In our model, the local threshold voltage and the width of the pocket implant region are extracted from the measured reverse short-channel effect, and the oxide trap density is extracted from a long-channel device. Good agreement between our model and the measurement result is obtained without other fitting parameters.
Multi-Objective Optimal Dispatch of Power System with Wind Power Based on Improved Particle Swarm Algorithm

With the increase of its proportion in power system, wind power not only brings economic and environmental benefits but also the potential security risks due to its fluctuation and uncertainty. In order to take the potential security risks into account, an environmental/economic/safe static dispatch (EESD) model of power system with wind power is built. A new multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm with standby selection and micro variation is proposed to solve the model. Two cases with and without wind power are simulated with the standard IEEE-30 system. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Analysis and design of a modular three-phase AC to DC converter using CUK rectifier module with nearly unity power factor and fast dynamic response

The analysis and design of a modular three-phase ac to dc converter using single-phase CUK rectifier modules is discussed based on power balance control technique. The control strategy consists of single output voltage loop control and three-inductor current calculator. The main objective of the proposed system is to reduce the number of stages and improve dynamic response of dc bus voltage for distributed power system. The proposed scheme offers simple control strategy, flexibility in either 3-phase delta or star-connected and simpler design. The simulation and experimental results indicate that the proposed control system offers the fast transient response and power factor closed to unity.
Problem-Focused Coping Strategies Used by Victims of Gender Violence Across the Stages of Change

This study compares the problem-focused emotion regulation strategies used by 200 female survivors of intimate partner violence (age: M = 40.16, SD = 11.27, 18 – 66 years) to cope with violence throughout various stages of change (SOC). It examines the relationship between problem-focused coping strategies and positive and negative affect, and the impact of these variables on the different SOC. Results suggest that victims differ and are flexible in the use of strategies throughout the various SOC. During the initial stages, victims tend to use passive/maladaptive behaviors that hamper change, while in the later stages they use more active/adaptive strategies to leave the abusive relationship.
Multiresolution expectation maximization reconstruction algorithm for positron emission tomography using wavelet processing

A number of algorithms based on estimation theory have been developed for image reconstruction in Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Maximum Likelihood estimation method based Expectation Maximization (EM) reconstruction algorithm has been shown to provide good quality reconstruction for PET. Conventional EM algorithm suffers from slow convergence and noisy reconstruction due to numerical errors which starts accumulating as the algorithm is iterated for longer duration. The multiresolution EM algorithm (MREM) is an attempt at improving the conventional EM through an effective use of multiresolution reconstruction grids and multiresolution detector space. The detectors comprising the PET detector ring are combined to result in a multiresolution detector space. This process leads to reorganization (rebinning) of the tube data thus generating data spaces at different detector levels. The algorithm begins iterating at the coarsest grid level using coarsest tube data. It switches both the grid and detector levels simultaneously until the finest detector and reconstruction grid resolution is reached. This algorithm incorporates a wavelet decomposition based transition criterion for switching grid levels and a wavelet spline based interpolation method for projecting the intermediate reconstruction from a specific grid level to the next finer grid.
Oral Health and Patterns of Dental Visits Among Diabetic Patients in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Purpose Diabetes is a big public health threat in Saudi Arabia. However, there is limited evidence about dental problems, oral hygiene practices, and dental visits among diabetic patients. The study aimed to evaluate self-perceived oral health status and patterns of dental attendance among diabetic patients in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Methodology This cross-sectional study included 486 diabetic patients (mean age 50.14±13.59 years) registered with the Saudi Diabetes Society, Saudi Arabia (October–November 2020). The World Health Organization’s oral health questionnaire for adults was administered to collect information about oral health status, oral hygiene practices, and dental attendance, in addition to sociodemographic data. Descriptive and analytical statistics were performed. Results Most participants (66.3%) reported having dental pain or discomfort during the last year. Bad breath (60.50%), tooth cavities (55.10%), difficulty in biting hard food (55.10%), tooth sensitivity (53.30%), and bleeding gums (52.90%) were common oral problems among participants. More than half the sample (55.1%) reported visiting the dental office during the last year. However, pain or trouble with teeth, gums or mouth was the most common (40.5%) reason for the last dental visit. Only 7.8% of participants visited the dentist for a routine dental check-up. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that Saudi nationality (AOR 2.68, P 0.008), family history of diabetes (AOR 1.88, P 0.022), and having pain during the last year (AOR 4.01, P <0.001) were the significant factors associated with the last dental visit due to pain. Conclusion This sample of participants demonstrated a high prevalence of dental problems. Few participants performed routine dental visits and most visits were due to pain. Saudis and patients with family history of diabetes and dental pain were more likely to perform pain related dental visits. Multidisciplinary efforts are needed to develop and implement preventive educational and clinical care models for positive oral and general health outcomes.
Design CPW Fed Slot Antenna for Wideband Applications

In this paper, a CPW-fed slot antenna for wideband application was designed and simulated. In order to examine the performances of this antenna, a prototype was designed at frequency 2.4GHz and simulated with various width of slot antenna in both sides for input impedances matching and simulated by IE3D software package of Zeland. The simulation result of bandwidth is 1.65GHz (2.1{3.75 GHz) which covers the standard frequency of IEEE 802.11 b/g (2.4{2.4835GHz) and Wimax (2.3{3.6GHz). With these performances, the proposed antenna can be used in wideband applications. DOI: 10.2529/PIERS061009084055
A Comparison between Chemical and Natural Dispersion of a North Sea Oil-spill

The application of dispersants to an oil-slick is a key remediation tool and thus understanding its effectiveness is vital. Two in situ oil slicks were created in the North Sea (off the coast of The Netherlands), one left to natural processes whilst dispersant (Slickgone NS) was applied to the other. GC-MS analysis of seawater from the surface slick, and at 1.5 and 5 m below the slick, revealed only two samples with measurable hydrocarbons (221 ± 92 μg ml−1 seawater), from the surface of the “Slickgone Dispersed” oil-slick ~25.5 hours after oil-slick formation, which was likely due to environmental conditions hindering sampling. Additionally, 16S rRNA gene quantitative PCR and amplicon analysis revealed extremely limited growth of obligate hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria (OHCB), detected at a relative abundance of <1×10-6 %. Furthermore, the Ecological Index of Hydrocarbon Exposure (EIHE) score, which quantifies the proportion of the bacterial community with hydrocarbon-biodegradation potential, was extremely low at 0.012 (scale of 0 – 1). This very low abundance of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria at the time of sampling, even in samples with measurable hydrocarbons, could potentially be attributed to nutrient limitation (~25.5 hours after oil-slick creation total inorganic nitrogen was 3.33 μM and phosphorus was undetectable). The results of this study highlight a limited capacity for the environment, during this relatively short period, to naturally attenuate oil.
SECURE AND EFFICIENT DATA AGGREGATION ARCHITECTURE

A wireless sensor network consists of spatially di stributed autonomous and efficient sensors to monitor environmental conditions and physical conditions. In wireless sensor network, one of the widely used techniques is data aggregati on. There has been many related papers and works proposed to address this data aggregation tec hnique. However less of them pay attention to the property of data integrity. An attacker can simply modify data to affect the decision of base station by compromised nodes. Therefore, a new efficient and secure data aggregation architecture is proposed to find the compromised nodes and help the base station to verify the final results.
Ultra-wideband circular slot antenna with reconfigurable notch band function

An ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is presented whose frequency characteristics can be reconfigured electronically to have either a single- or dual-band notch function to block interfering signals from C-band satellite communications systems, IEEE802.11a and HIPERLAN/2 WLAN systems for example. The proposed antenna is excited using a circular ring resonator fabricated on one side of the dielectric substrate with a circular slot etched on the ground plane. To realise a single- or dual-band notch characteristic the antenna includes a semi-circular parasitic strip located above the circular ring, and a T-shaped stub is located near the inner edge of circular ring. The parasitic strip and T-shaped stub are connected to the circular ring via PIN diodes to give the antenna reconfigurable capability by configuring the PIN diodes in a prescribed combination of ON and OFF states. It is shown that there is virtually no change in the antenna's E -plane and H -plane radiation patterns for the various PIN diode switching conditions. The proposed antenna's performance has been verified by measurements.
Probabilistic characterisation of metal-loss corrosion growth on underground pipelines based on geometric Brownian motion process

This article describes a geometric Brownian motion process-based model to characterise the growth rate of the depth of corrosion defects on underground steel pipelines based on inspection data subjected to measurement uncertainties. To account for the uncertainties from different sources, the hierarchical Bayesian method is used to formulate the growth model, and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation techniques are used to numerically evaluate the probabilistic characteristics of the model parameters. The growth model considers the bias and random scattering error associated with the in-line inspection (ILI) tool as well as the correlations between the random scattering errors associated with different ILI tools. The application of the growth model is illustrated through an example involving real ILI data collected from an in-service pipeline in Canada. The results indicate that the model in general can predict the growth of corrosion defects reasonably well. The proposed model can be used to facilitate the development and application of reliability-based pipeline corrosion management.
An analytical model for the power spectral density of a voltage-controlled oscillator and its analogy to the laser linewidth theory

We calculate the output power density spectrum for a simple voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) circuit. The power spectral density of the oscillator is composed of a term related to the high-frequency fluctuations in the feedback loop and a term related to the low-frequency fluctuations of the frequency control voltage. The latter is treated stochastically in a similar fashion to the inhomogeneous line broadening of gas lasers due to the Doppler effect. This additional broadening causes a deviation of the power spectral density from the Lorentzian shape, that is, from the phase noise decay of -6 dB per octave. This is specially pronounced at not-too-large frequency offsets. The analogy between electrical oscillators and optical oscillators (lasers) allows the methods used in optical spectroscopy to be applied. The approach may be employed to synthesize oscillator spectra from the equivalent circuit parameters with small numerical effort. Furthermore, it allows experimental power density spectra to be decomposed into the contributions stemming from the high-frequency noise in the feedback loop and the low-frequency noise of the oscillation frequency. This should give better insight into the origin of the phase noise. Besides VCO's, this concept may be useful for oscillators subject to Gaussian supply and substrate noise.
Evaluation of the Confidence and Competency of House Officers in Rapid Sequence Intubation (ECCHO-RSI) in Emergency Department of Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre during COVID-19 Pandemic

Rapid sequence intubation (RSI) is a procedural skill that house officers (HO) in Malaysia need to learn during their training in emergency department (ED) posting. This study aimed to evaluate the confidence and competency of HO in RSI after completed training in the ED of a university hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 44 HO. When they begin their posting in ED, a pre-test was done with a questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge and confidence level. A post-test was conducted three months later with a similar questionnaire. They underwent an objective structured clinical examination to evaluate their skill. A feedback survey form was filled in by the HO regarding their satisfaction in training in emergency rotation. The mean score for pre-test and post-test were 8.75 ± 3.005 and 14.86 ± 2.258, respectively (P = 0.000). There was an improvement in knowledge level and confidence level between pre-test and post-test (all P = 0.000). 43.2% were competent in knowledge, while 65.9% were competent in skill. 35 house officers filled in the feedback survey form. It showed that 42.9% (n = 15) were very satisfied and 28.6% (n = 10) were satisfied with the training in ED. There was an improvement in knowledge and confidence level in RSI among the HO after ED rotation. The clinical exposure in intubating real patients was limited among HO due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The training of HO for RSI in ED needs to be further improvised to optimize their learning process.
Fragment de description de la physique des transferts thermiques dans le sous-sol

Malgre une parfaite identification et une bonne connaissance des phenomenes physiques elementaires, l'elaboration de modeles conceptuels rigoureux, permettant de decrire les transferts thermiques dans le sol, se heurte a de nombreuses difficultes liees a la nature essentiellement heterogene du milieu. Lorsque certaines de ces difficultes peuvent etre levees, par recours au concept de milieu poreux dit homogene. la predetermination des transferts thermiques est rendue possible grâce a un formalisme theorique, dont la validite a ete appreciee par des experiences de laboratoire. Cette modelisation peut servir de base d'analyse et d'interpretation de certains phenomenes de transfert se developpant dans le sous-sol.
Rethinking User Participation in Information Systems Development: A Knowledge Perspective

Participation of users in the information systems development (ISD) process has been widely advocated by both academicians and practitioners. Most researchers utilize user participation as a behavioral construct when studying various ISD outcomes. However, both the ISD literature and the Participative Decision-Making (PDM) literature imply the insufficiency of the behavioral approach to participation, especially when studying productivity-related ISD outcomes. This research adopts an efficacy approach to participation, and proposes knowledge participation as a new construct to assess the effectiveness of participative activities performed by users in an ISD process. The construct of knowledge participation is studied to ascertain whether it has more predicative power than user participation when predicting productivity-related ISD outcomes. In addition, team cognition, specified here by its two elements - shared awareness of expertise location and shared task understanding, are proposed as a mediating mechanism that transforms the effect of knowledge participation on ISD productivity outcomes such as team performance and system quality. Some ISD environmental factors, such as business context complexity, system complexity, management support, and project size are studied as control variables. An experimental study and a field study are designed to test the proposed research model.
Marine Mammals and Respiration: Evidence of Poor Pulmonary Health in Bottlenose Dolphins Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) disaster resulted in large-scale contamination of bays, sounds, and estuaries in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM), home to multiple stocks of bottlenose dolphins. Inhalation, direct aspiration, ingestion with subsequent aspiration, and dermal absorption of oil and its toxic components were all considered possible routes of exposure for dolphins living within the oil spill footprint. To determine if dolphins were adversely impacted, capture-release health assessments were performed in heavily-oiled Barataria Bay (BB), Louisiana, and in Sarasota Bay (SB), Florida, a comparison site with no DWH oil contamination. Initial studies were conducted as part of a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (2011–2014), with follow-on studies supported by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (2016–2018). To specifically evaluate pulmonary health, transthoracic ultrasound techniques previously developed for managed dolphins were applied to wild dolphins. Results showed that BB dolphins were ~5 times more likely to have moderate to severe lung disease than SB dolphins in 2011, the year following the spill. Concurrent pathology investigations of dead dolphins in the northern GoM reported similar pulmonary findings. In 2013 and 2014, moderate to severe lung disease persisted among BB dolphins, and remained elevated relative to the prevalence at the SB comparison site. More recent live animal health assessments (2016–2018) showed long-term persistence and potential worsening of moderate to severe lung disease in BB dolphins, specifically in animals alive during the oil spill (prevalence of 0.20, 0.35, and 0.55 in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively). Long-term monitoring of dolphin populations is critical to fully understand the potential for and timeline of individual and population recovery from the impacts of a large-scale oil spill event, as well as the cost-benefit trade-offs for restoration activities. In particular, BB dolphins provide valuable insight into the long-lasting effects of oil and oil-related contaminants on animal, human, and ecosystem health.
Simulation analysis of a new temperature control method for poultry housing

A new control method for temperature control is presented which utilizes both a time-integrated value (TIV) and an instantaneous value of inside air temperature as the basis for making control decisions. Current control strategies neglect the thermal history of both the air space and the animal but there are gains to be made by using a control algorithm that employs dynamic control of the target control variable. It is demonstrated that increased economic efficiency is obtained using time-integrated control. Simulation analysis was used to predict energy savings and changes in bird performance for a series of TIV control algorithms. On the basis of these simulations, it was concluded that the TIV control strategy imporoved net returns compared with those obtained using a conventional control strategy. TIV control targets for temperature should be selected to reduce excessive fan usage and to prevent any mortality if at all possible. The economic parameters assumed for feed cost and meat value have a large impact on the selection of an optimal control strategy.
Evaluation of in-vehicle dynamic speed assistance in Spain: algorithm and driver behaviour

A method is presented to determine variable speed limits, taking account of road geometry and vehicle characteristics. This method is based on a mathematical vehicle model and a detailed digital map that contains every piece of data that may be relevant from a safety point of view. Objective safety criteria such as tyre–road friction and sight distance are used. The main purpose of calculating new limits is to improve safety and to increase the acceptance of these limits by drivers. These safe speed limits have been integrated into the Spanish intelligent speed adaptation system and a new interface has been developed in order to alert the driver before they reach dangerous stretches of road. Furthermore, this system has been tested under real driving conditions. Test results show that speeding on sharp bends is reduced and traffic is more homogeneous. Both effects lead to greater traffic safety.
Never landing drone: Autonomous soaring of a unmanned aerial vehicle in front of a moving obstacle

Increasing endurance is a major challenge for battery-powered aerial vehicles. A method is presented which makes use of an updraft around obstacles to decrease the power consumption of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. A soaring flight controller has been developed that can autonomously soar while the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps its relative position to that of a moving object. Multiple simulations have been performed to analyse the limitations of the soaring controller under different conditions. The effect of a change in wind velocity and updraft has been analysed. The simulations showed that an increase in updraft decreases the energy consumption of the flight controller. An increase in wind velocity results in a higher updraft requirement, while a decrease in the wind velocity requires less updraft. The simulations achieved sustained flight at 0% throttle. The controller has been validated experimentally using the updraft generated by a moving ship. The practical, autonomous tests reduced the average throttle down to 4.5% in front of a ship. The method presented in this study achieved successful hovering flight using an energy control module for longitudinal positioning.