Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"Excuse me, where's the registration desk?" Report on Integrating Systems for the Robot Challenge AAAI 2002

Abstract : In July and August 2002, five research groups -- Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, Swarthmore College, Metrica, Inc., and the Naval Research Laboratory -- collaborated and integrated their various robotic systems and interfaces to attempt The Robot Challenge held at the AAAI 2002 annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta. The goal of this year's Robot Challenge was to have a robot dropped off at the conference site entrance; negotiate its way at the site, using queries and interactions with humans and visual cues from signs, to the conference registration area; register for the conference; and then give a talk. Issues regarding human/robot interaction and interfaces, navigation, mobility, vision, to name but a few relevant technologies to achieve such a task, were put to the test. In this report we, the team from the Naval Research Laboratory, will focus on our portion of The Robot Challenge. We will discuss some lessons learned from collaborating and integrating our system with our research collaborators, as well as discuss what actually transpired -- what worked and what failed -- during the robot's interactions with conference attendees in achieving goals. We will also discuss some of the informal findings and observations collected at the conference during the interaction and navigation of the robot to complete its various goals.
Framework development for state-level appraisal indicators of sustainable construction

To keep pace with global trends in sustainable development, the construction industry worldwide also needs to examine their practices for sustainability. The purpose of this study is to establish a proper indexing system for assessing the performance of a nation in terms of sustainable construction. In this study, a framework for the assessment of state-level sustainable construction is established. The framework consists of five layers, from bottom to top: the indicator; the indicator category; the core cluster; the theme; and the overall performance. The max–min fuzzy Delphi method is employed to identify the proper items of each layer. In addition, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is applied to determine the weight of items in each layer. With the developed framework, Sustainable Construction Index of a nation can then be computed to assess its progress in sustainable construction. The result can help a nation to pinpoint areas needing improvement.
Small circularly polarised patch antenna

A small circularly polarised microstrip patch antenna, designed by cutting slots and adding tails, is proposed. The antenna is operated at 2.492 GHz and is built by using a microwave substrate of dielectric constant 3.367 with a coaxial probe feed. The impedance bandwidth (SWR<2) is 1.61% and the axial ratio bandwidth is 0.381%. The measured gain is 4.6 dBi. The total area of reduction is about 50% in comparison with a square patch antenna without any slots or tails.
Age and Sex-Related Associations between Marital Status, Physical Activity and TV Time

Marital status mediates an association between physical activity (PA) and TV time with health outcomes. However, population-based studies have revealed that the health effect of marriage or divorce is age-dependent and differs between women and men. The study aimed to identify the age and sex-related associations between marital status with PA and TV time. We used data from Vigitel, an annual telephone survey started in 2006 in Brazil. We applied a complex sample logistic regression model to estimate the odds for PA and TV time comparing marital statuses according to age and sex subgroups, independent of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, self-assessed poor health, and smoking. Our sample included 561,837 individuals from 18 to 99 years, with a TV time > 3 h/day (prevalence = 25.2%) and PA > 150 min/week (prevalence = 35%). Later, we divided our sample in seven age groups by marital status and sex. Compared to single individuals, married men and women were less likely to watch TV more than 3 h/day in participants >30 years old. When compared to single, married participants were less likely to do more than 150 min of PA/week at younger age groups. Married women older than 40 years were more likely to do more than 150 min of PA/week than the single ones, while there were no differences among married men by age group. In conclusion, our study suggests that the investments in public policies to encourage the practice of PA and reduction of TV time could be based on the marital status, sex, and age, prioritizing less active groups.
Study on the Lower Extremity Rehabilitation Device RHleg

This paper introduces a device to support lower extremity rehabilitation for stroke patients. First, the device's mechanical structure has been presented; the device has a simple structure and fully meets the exercise function for the patient. The equipment is controlled by control and monitoring software, which is designed from Visual Basic software. The control circuit is the Arduino 2560 circuit, responsible for receiving the angle sensor signal and measuring the current during operation. In addition, the control circuit provides control signals to the actuator and communicates with the software using the rs232 cable. Next, the mathematical model of the device has been established, and we use MatLab software to simulate the response of the device to the PID controller. Simulation results for fast response time and slight overshoot. Finally, an experiment on volunteers was conducted, the results showed that the device was stable and safe to operate. Thus, the RHleg device has been successfully designed and manufactured, tested on volunteers with good results, and this is the basis for us to continue moving towards patient testing.
The Effect of Reynolds Number on the Aerodynamic Performance of Micro Radial Flow Fans

Elevated heat dissipation and simultaneous reductions in package sizes are well documented for a range of electronics systems. The problem is heightened in portable systems where the space available for the implementation of an active cooling methodology is limited and conventional cooling products are too large. Using micro scale radial flow fans is a potential solution. However, little is known about the aerodynamic effects of reducing the fan scale and therefore Reynolds number to the extent required for typical portable electronic applications. This paper investigates this issue, by quantifying the reduction in aerodynamic performance which accompanies the reductions in scale. To do this, geometrically similar radial flow fans were fabricated with diameters ranging from 80 to 10mm. Measurements of the rotors’ geometries are presented, showing a high degree of geometric similarity between the fans. The aerodynamic performance of each of the fans was measured. Non-dimensional performance of each of the larger fans were almost identical, while the performance plot of the smallest fan differed significantly from the others. The paper tentatively concludes that a fundamental change in flow phenomena has emerged in the smallest scale fan which has altered its aerodynamic characteristics.Copyright © 2005 by ASME
Providing spatial decision support for evacuation planning: a challenge in integrating technologies

Computer‐aided decision‐support tools are part and parcel of the emergency planning and management process today. Much is dependent on using modern technology to gather and analyse data on damage assessment, meteorology, demography, etc. and provide decision support for prevention/mitigation, response and recovery. Diverse technologies are merged to provide useful functions to aid the emergency planner/manager. Complexities arise when attempting to link several streams of technology to achieve a realistic, usable and reliable decision‐support tool. This discussion identifies and analyses the challenging issues faced in linking two technologies: simulation modelling and GIS, to design spatial decision‐support systems for evacuation planing. Experiences in designing CEMPS, a prototype designed for area evacuation planning, are drawn on to discuss relevant managerial, behavioural, processual and technical issues. Focus is placed on modelling evacuee behaviour, generating realistic scenarios, validation, logistics, etc. while also investigating future trends and developments.
Upscaling DC resistance using a Josephson junction array

A ratio standard for DC resistance measurements in the range above about 10 k Omega using a three-terminal Josephson junction series array is described. Resistance ratios of two-terminal resistors from 1:1 to at least 1:10 are examined with a single device utilizing the voltage steps of the Josephson array as voltage sources of a potentiometer bridge configuration. Some features of the circuit are discussed. The system promises systematic ratio errors below 10/sup -8/ and uncertainties which depend only on the quality of the resistors. Preliminary measurements with a prototype instrument show a relative reproducibility of 1*10/sup -7/, limited by the noise of a commercial digital multimeter used as a detector. >
Analysis of single switch delta-sigma modulated pulse space modulation PFC converter effectively using switching power device

With recent advances of semiconductor switching power devices, high frequency switching mode power converters are able to be realized. In these converters, the pulse width modulation (PWM) technique is widely used, but by using this control scheme, large peak noise spectra appear with odd interval of carrier frequency. Therefore, there are problems to keep the regulation of EMI noise. By the way, to improve input power factor of AC source line, power factor correction (PFC) converters are widely used. And the hysteresis control scheme is usually used for these PFC converters. But in this control scheme, lower and upper limit of switching frequency can not be determined. In this paper, the authors propose a novel delta-sigma modulated PFC converter utilizing pulse space modulation scheme. The authors improve delta-sigma modulation scheme and conventional PWM control scheme to reduce current rating of switching devices. And the authors implemented evaluation of comparing performance of proposed and conventional control scheme. The authors confirmed that proposed system can improve power factor and can reduce input current harmonics and noise level by exhibiting spread spectrum nature. And the proposed scheme extinguishes noise peak spectra. Furthermore, by using current limiting control scheme, the proposed scheme can reduce current rating of switching power devices in spite of simple configuration circuit.
Bayesian Nash Equilibrium in Electricity Spot Markets: An Affine-Plane Approximation Approach

This article proposes a system of stochastic mixed complementarity problems (MCP) for calculating the Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE) in an electricity spot market. The generators submit strategic multilevel price-offer functions under incomplete information about their rivals’ marginal cost. This strategic multilevel price offering of each generator is modeled as a standard stochastic bilevel program which is then reformulated as its equivalent MCP. The merger concept is employed and formulated to model multilevel price-offer functions. We then propose the BNE-MCP model which solves the stochastic MCP models of all generators together. A scenario reduction technique is also developed to accurately model the wind and demand uncertainty in the proposed BNE-MCP model. The proposed BNE-MCP model is carefully studied on two illustrative examples. The modified IEEE 14-, 30-, and 57-node systems are also examined in our article.
Does Locomotive Syndrome, Associated with Sarcopenia or otherwise, Influence Quality of Life in Individuals Aged over 80 years? Third Wave of the LOCOMOV Project

Introduction: Locomotion is a determinant of intrinsic capacity ofolder people and can be limited by dysfunction in locomotory organs,characterizing Locomotive Syndrome (LoS). Knowledge on locomotiveproblems and sarcopenia, and their interface with quality of life, in theoldest old in the literature is scarce.Objective: To evaluate the correlation between LoS and sarcopenia andtheir influence on quality of life in oldest old.Methods: A cross-sectional study of an observational, descriptive andanalytical epidemiological survey in independent older adults aged 80and over from São Paulo, Brazil and who participated in the third waveof the LOCOMOV Project, was carried out. Sociodemographic data,comorbidities, functioning in activities of daily living, physical functioning,quality of life, and presence of sarcopenia and LoS were assessed. Thestatistical analyses included the Test-for-Comparing-Two-Proportions,Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, the chi-Square test and Student´s t-test.Results: Thirty oldest old with a mean age of 89.1 years were evaluated.The prevalence of LoS was high (53.3%) and correlated significantly withchronic pain (p-value 0.024), worse performance on the SPPB and Gaitspeed (p-value <0.001). Sarcopenia was not correlated with LoS, but worsequality of life on the physical domain was significantly associated with LoS(p-value <0.001) regardless of the presence of sarcopenia.Conclusions: LoS was highly prevalent among the oldest old studied andnegatively impacted their quality of life, regardless of the presence ofsarcopenia.
A comprehensive study and modeling of centre‐tap differentially driven single‐turn integrated inductors for 10‐GHz applications

This paper presents a complete characterization of single‐turn differentially driven high‐quality (Q) factor inductors at 10 GHz. The separate characterization of individual physical dimension through a series of 3D electromagnetic (EM) simulations allows us to evaluate their effects on the inductor's Q and inductance L separately. The results show that single‐turn inductors can generate Q greater than 20 at 10 GHz with inductance L at the sub‐nano Henry range. Finally, a lumped‐element equivalent circuit of the inductor was developed for predicting associated Q, L, and frequency behavior. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 38: 182–185, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.11008
Active Learning in Two First-Year Engineering Core Courses

In the fall of 2005 a new 6-course, 21-credit core curriculum was introduced in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Oakland University. One feature of the new core curriculum is the use of active learning techniques including group work and problembased learning. This paper will present the overall core curriculum and describe our experiences in engaging the students in active learning and problem-solving activities in the first 4-credit freshman core course and our experience thus far in the second active, problem-based 4-credit core course.
Tendon Tissue Repair in Prospective of Drug Delivery, Regenerative Medicines, and Innovative Bioscaffolds

The natural healing capacity of the tendon tissue is limited due to the hypovascular and cellular nature of this tissue. So far, several conventional approaches have been tested for tendon repair to accelerate the healing process, but all these approaches have their own advantages and limitations. Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are interdisciplinary fields that aspire to develop novel medical devices, innovative bioscaffold, and nanomedicine, by combining different cell sources, biodegradable materials, immune modulators, and nanoparticles for tendon tissue repair. Different studies supported the idea that bioscaffolds can provide an alternative for tendon augmentation with an enormous therapeutic potentiality. However, available data are lacking to allow definitive conclusion on the use of bioscaffolds for tendon regeneration and repairing. In this review, we provide an overview of the current basic understanding and material science in the field of bioscaffolds, nanomedicine, and tissue engineering for tendon repair.
Ambiguity function and Cramer-Rao bounds for universal mobile telecommunications system-based passive coherent location systems

The concerns are with the calculation of monostatic and bistatic ambiguity function (AF) of a quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal where the pulses are shaped with a root raised cosine (RRC) filter. The monostatic and bistatic modified Cramer-Rao lower bounds (MCRLBs) for the estimation of target range and velocity are also derived and analysed. The QPSK modulation is used in the downlink of a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) base station, hence the results of our analysis provide a useful tool to asses the performance of a passive coherent location (PCL) system where the non-co-operative transmitter of opportunity is a UMTS base station. The actual growing coverage of UMTS signals on the international territory makes multistatic radar configuration feasible, therefore these results can also be exploited for the dynamical selection of the transmitter in a multistatic radar system where multiple UMTS base stations are used.
Finite-element modeling of thermal and thermomechanical behavior for three-dimensional packaging of power electronics modules

The goal of realizing highly efficient and highly reliable energy conversion from source to load in power electronics has driven the exploration of thermal handling of power packaging to the 3rd dimension. Innovative 3-D interconnected power package designs have shown their advantages in higher power density, reduced interconnect resistance, noise and parasitic oscillations, better thermal management, higher level of system integration and lower cost. On the other hand, the complicated design and the fabrication process introduce more reliability concerns. 3-D design of power packaging has not yet been fully understood in its thermomechanical reliability. A detailed study in this respect will help in understanding the key issues of thermal management and thermomechanical reliability. In this work, we present a 3-D finite-element modeling of thermal and thermomechanical performance for a 3-D packaged power module fabricated by a stacked-plate processing technique. Thermal cycles simulating working conditions were applied to the model. Parametric study of interconnection geometry and cooling condition led to better understanding in thermal management, and the results are compared with those of a wire bond module. Thermally induced stresses and fatigue were also analyzed in detail.
Improved trilinear decomposition‐based method for angle estimation in multiple‐input multiple‐output radar

The joint direction of departure and direction of arrival estimation in bistatic multiple-input multiple-output radar is considered and an algorithm for the joint estimation is proposed. Through unitary transformation, the transmit direction matrix is transformed to be real-valued, and through data expansion based on the structure of the Vandermonde-like matrix, the receive array is twice as long as that of the conventional method. Then the trilinear decomposition can be used to obtain the estimations of the expanded receive direction matrix and real-valued transmit direction matrix, which contain the angle information. Finally the angles can be jointly estimated by using normalisation and least squares. The proposed algorithm requires no spectral peak searching and can achieve automatically paired estimations of angles, and it has better angle estimation performance and can detect more targets than the conventional trilinear decomposition-based method. Simulation results verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.
A Proportional-Integral Controller for Resistance Spot Welding Using Nugget Expansion

An electrode wear has been found to cause considerable quality variation in the process of resistance spot welding. This paper presents a study on the electrode wear growth and develops a microprocessor-based feedback controller that can compensate weld quality variation due to electrode deterioration. The controller developed in this study utilizes a PI control algorithm, incorporating the electrode movement as a feedback signal. A series of experiments was performed to clarify the wear growth phenomenon and to evaluate the performance of the controller. The experimental results show that the electrode wear can significantly cause quality deterioration, but this can be effectively compensated via application of this proposed control technique.
Theorical Underpinning to Successful Value Co-Creation

Value co-creation is one of the cornerstones of the S-D logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004, 2006, 2010). On discussing value co-creation it is necessary to acknowledge that there are different levels at which value co-creation can occur and that actors have different understandings of the nature of interaction required in the value cocreation process (Vargo and Lusch 2010). This paper will focus on the second aspect: the nature of interaction required in the value cocreation process. Within the marketing and strategy literature considerable attention has been given to value co-creation dating back the pioneering work by Prahalad and Ranmaswamy (2000). The paper starts by addressing the shift within the literature from value creation to value cocreation and the complexity associated to the co-creation process. Next, the paper’s interpretative lens, the Viable System Approach, is introduced. Third, the organizational theory (Configuration theory, Structuration theory, Effectuation theory and Governance theory) that look at issues of collaboration are briefly discussed and linked to the topic of value co-creation. Then the four The 2011 Naples Forum on Service - Service Dominant Logic, Network & System Theory and Service Science: Integrating Three Perspectives for a New Service Agenda organizational theories are integrated with the aid of the Viable System Approach. The paper closes with a set of conclusions and suggestions for future research.
Attitude dynamics of the Tether Elevator/Crawler System for micro-gravity applications

The Tether Elevator/Crawler System (TECS) consists of two end platforms tethered to opposite sides of the Space Station. A variable gravity laboratory is located on board an elevator which can crawl along the upper tether. This paper analyzes the elevator's attitude dynamics in order to evaluate its effect on microgravity applications. To this end, a simulation model is described and numerical results are given for a steady state case. It is shown that the elevator attitude dynamics, without attitude control, contributes additional spectral lines to the acceleration noise.
Spinal Cord Injury Management through the Combination of Stem Cells and Implantable 3D Bioprinted Platforms

Spinal cord injury (SCI) has a major impact on affected patients due to its pathological consequences and absence of capacity for self-repair. Currently available therapies are unable to restore lost neural functions. Thus, there is a pressing need to develop novel treatments that will promote functional repair after SCI. Several experimental approaches have been explored to tackle SCI, including the combination of stem cells and 3D bioprinting. Implanted multipotent stem cells with self-renewing capacity and the ability to differentiate to a diversity of cell types are promising candidates for replacing dead cells in injured sites and restoring disrupted neural circuits. However, implanted stem cells need protection from the inflammatory agents in the injured area and support to guide them to appropriate differentiation. Not only are 3D bioprinted scaffolds able to protect stem cells, but they can also promote their differentiation and functional integration at the site of injury. In this review, we showcase some recent advances in the use of stem cells for the treatment of SCI, different types of 3D bioprinting methods, and the combined application of stem cells and 3D bioprinting technique for effective repair of SCI.