Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The ATLAS Level-1 Calorimeter Trigger: PreProcessor implementation and performance

The PreProcessor system of the ATLAS Level-1 Calorimeter Trigger (L1Calo) receives about 7200 analogue signals from the electromagnetic and hadronic components of the calorimetric detector system. Lateral division results in cells which are pre-summed to so-called Trigger Towers of size 0.1 × 0.1 along azimuth () and pseudorapidity (η). The received calorimeter signals represent deposits of transverse energy. The system consists of 124 individual PreProcessor modules that digitise the input signals for each LHC collision, and provide energy and timing information to the digital processors of the L1Calo system, which identify physics objects forming much of the basis for the full ATLAS first level trigger decision. This paper describes the architecture of the PreProcessor, its hardware realisation, functionality, and performance.
Direct interfaces for smart skins based on FPGAs

Many artificial skins for robotics are based on piezoresistive films that cover an array of electrodes. Local preprocessing is a must in these systems to reduce errors and interferences and cope with the large amount of data provided by the sensor. This paper presents circuitry based on an FPGA to implement the interface to the artificial skin. The approach consists of a direct connection. The analog to digital conversion procedure is simple. It consists of measuring the discharging time of a capacitor through the resistance we want to read. This first proposed approach needs isolated tactels, so the raw sensor has to be fabricated in this way. If the tactile array is large, the strategy is not feasible. For instance, up to 288 pins are required to implement the interface with an array of 16x16 tactels. The proposal of this work for this case is to replace passive integrators by active ones. The result is a circuitry that allows the cancellation of interferences due to parasitic resistors and the sharing of the addressing tracks. Moreover, the FPGA allows the processing of data from the tactile sensor at a very high rate. This is because the high number of I/O pins of the device allows the conversion of many channels (in our case one per column) in parallel. The internal processing of the tactile image can also be done in parallel. This means we could be able to respond to very high demanding tasks in terms of dynamic requirements, like slippage detection. This also means we can run complex algorithms at real time, so a smart, programmable and powerful sensor is obtained.
Field testing methods for engineering geological investigations

Abstract This paper discusses some of the more commonly used field testing methods used to determine various geotechnical parameters needed to classify soils and rocks in engineering terms and to provide engineering design values. The methods of performing, and the application of, various penetration, shear strength, plate loading, pressuremeter and dilatometer and permeablity tests are described. The use of geophysical methods to obtain, indirectly, mechanical parameter values is also discussed.
Digital spectra of nonuniformly sampled signals: fundamentals and high-speed waveform digitizers

A digital spectral representation of a nonuniformly sampled signal is derived, and a spectrum analysis of a nonuniformly sampled sinusoid is presented. It is found that the spectrum of a nonuniformly sampled sinusoid comprises uniformly spaced line spectra; in addition, the signal-to-noise ratio is obtained in closed form. The theories are then applied to analyze the harmonic distortion introduced in high-speed waveform digitizers due to time-base errors. Specifically, waveform digitizers are analyzed which utilize interleaving/multiplexing and random equivalent time-sampling techniques and the monolithic A/D converter technology to extend their capabilities. Theoretical results are confirmed by experimental results with a real waveform digitizer. >
Characteristics of Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Coplanar Waveguides for Monolithic Microwave Circuits

Using a full-wave mode-matching technique, an extensive analysis is presented of the slow-wave factor, attenuation, and characteristic impedance of a metal-insulator semiconductor coplanar waveguide (MISCPW) as functions of the various structural parameters. Design criteria are given for low-attenuation slow-wave propagation. By a proper optimization of the structure, performances comparable with or even better than those of alternative structures proposed in the literature are theoretically predicted.
A Unified Approach to Driver Assistance Systems Based on Artificial Potential Fields

This paper presents an approach to vehicle control based upon the paradigm of artificial potential fields. Using this method, the dynamics of the vehicle are coupled with the environment in a manner that ensures that the system exhibits safe motion in the absence of driver inputs. The driver remains in control of the vehicle, however, with the control systems presenting a predictable and safe set of dynamics. With the control approach presented here, integration of various assistance systems can be easily achieved through simple superposition of individual potential and damping functions. A simple example of a combined lanekeeping and stability system demonstrates how this can be accomplished. Preliminary simulation results suggest that both safety and driveability are achievable with such a system, prompting further investigation.
Designing the Dynamic Behavior of an Engine Suspension System Through Genetic Algorithms

This work presents an innovative approach to dynamic design that has the significant advantage of allowing the dynamic requirements to be specified from the earliest design stage. The method applies genetic algorithms to optimize the dynamic behavior of the engine-subframe system and its links to the chassis. The optimization minimizes the sum of the amplitudes of the forces transmitted to the chassis from each mounting, while complying with the static and dynamic constraints. The genetic algorithm was applied to a multibody system model of the engine-subframe system and its links to derive new, improved configurations.
Objective measurement of biomechanics effects of brace use for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a comparison between standing and supine position

Although numerous studies reported on doubts about the effectiveness of brace treatment in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS; Dickson and Weinstein 1999; Goldberg et al. 1993; Winter 1994), the use of spinal bracing still remains the standard non-operative treatment of this 3D spine deformity which remains a pathology with unclear etiology. Various brace designs have been developed to manage spinal curvatures while waiting for skeletal maturation. Basically, brace treatment attempts to modify the spine deformity by applying mechanical pressure on the torso. However little is known about the effect of different brace designs and about the different time of bracing, especially full time and nightime bracing (Howard et al. 1998; D’Amato et al. 2001). Some studies used pressure sensors to measure contact pressure between the brace and torso to assess the brace’s effectiveness (Aubin et al. 1999; Wong et al. 2000; Mac-Thiong et al. 2004). Although effects of spinal orthosis treatment have been investigated in several studies, to the best of our knowledge, no previous authors have examined its biomechanics effects on different wearing positions (standing and supine). We hypothesised that nightime bracing induces different biomechanical effects on the torso than a daily bracing. The aim of the present study was to objectively quantify this influence to better understand the action of different braces or the action of different standing or supine position in braces. The study was conducted using two brace designs: CAEN and Cheneau–Toulouse–Munster (CTM) braces (Cheneau, 1981).
Developing a tendering strategy in two-envelope fee tendering based on technical score-fee variability

Consultants, in competing for work through two-envelope fee tendering, have been urged to consider variability differences between fees and technical scores, since the criterion with the greatest variability will influence which consultant is awarded the contract. Fee and technical score variability arising from different client fee tendering competitions is analysed in this paper, and a method proposed for determining whether a particular client's two-envelope fee tendering competition is likely to be dominated in terms of technical score or fee. Such information should be useful to consultants, as part of their bidding strategy, in deciding whether to aim for a higher technical score or submit a lower fee. Standard deviation is used to measure fee and technical score variability. Fee and technical score standard deviations are determined for each tendering competition, expressed as a ratio and aggregated over a series of competitions. A technical score-fee standard deviation ratio approximately equal to unity indicates that for future competitions consultants should adopt a balanced bidding strategy in putting equal emphasis on fee and technical score. A smaller ratio indicates that consultants should adopt a ‘low fee’ strategy whereas a larger ratio shows that consultants should adopt a ‘high technical score’ strategy. Fee tendering data from two large Hong Kong public sector clients were analysed. Fees were found to dominate the vast majority of tendering competitions, thereby indicating that consultants would be wise to adopt a low fee strategy in future competitions.
Distributed Design of Wireless Powered Fog Computing Networks With Binary Computation Offloading

This paper investigates a multi-user wireless powered fog computing (FC) network, where multiple energy-limited wireless sensor devices (WSDs) first harvest energy from a nearby hybrid access point (HAP), and then compute their tasks locally (i.e., the local computing (LC) mode) or offload the tasks to the HAP (i.e., the FC mode) via a binary offloading policy. In order to pursue the green computing network design, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the transmit power at the HAP by jointly optimizing the time allocation ratio and the computing mode selection vector, under the energy causality constraints and the WSDs’ computing rate requirements constraints. To efficiently solve the formulated non-convex problem in a distributed manner, it is first transformed into an approximate form, and then an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)-based algorithm is designed to solve the transformed problem, based on which the successive convex approximation (SCA) is adopted to improve the approximating precision in an iterative way. With the proposed ADMM-based distributed algorithm, each WSD is able to optimize its computing mode and offloading time with local channel state information (CSI), which thus is more suitable for large-scale networks. For comparison, a channel-sorting-based (CSB) centralized algorithm with global CSI is also presented, and the computational complexities of the proposed ADMM-based algorithm and the CSB algorithm are analyzed. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed algorithm achieves a comparable performance with the CSB centralized algorithm and the exhaustive search method. It is also observed that to minimize the transmit power at the HAP, the WSDs with the better channel quality are inclined to select the LC mode, which is much different from traditional sum-computation-rate maximization design.
Application of USB2.0 in infrared sequence image transmission

The paper presents a practical system based on DSP and USB2.0 to realize the transmission of digital infrared sequence images. The hardware design of system is analyzed in detail, in which USB interface controller is described, moreover the development of DSP software and the application program on host PC is also introduced. The system interfaces PC with EZ-USB chip CY7C68001. It is based on bulk transmission with one frame image as a unit, and the chip is configured in Slave FIFO, asynchronous read/write operating mode. Experimental results show that the developed system can work properly and achieves the data transfer speed of 50 Mbps, thus it can meet the requirement for real time transfer of infrared sequence image sized 256×256×8 bits per frame at 100 frames per second.
High-power 1060-nm InGaAs/GaAs single-mode laser diodes

High power, 1060 nm, InGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs graded-index, separate-confinement (GRINSCH), strained single quantum-well (SQW), single mode (SM) laser diodes grown by Metal-Organic Chemical-Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) are reported. The high quality quantum well with high strain, which is the key issue to make high performance 1060 nm laser diode, was obtained by optimizing growth conditions. For realizing SM lasers and modules, the ridge-waveguide lasers with 5 um width and 1500 μm cavity length are successfully fabricated and mounted epitaxial-side up onto AlN submounts using eutectic Au80Sn20 solder to allow easy access to the emission region for fiber coupling and to minimize the effects of die bonding stress on the ridge. These devices exhibit threshold current of less than 30 mA, slope efficiency of up to 1.0 W/A and high kink-free power of 500 mW at 25°C. The devices that were subjected to long-term aging test at 85°C, operating at 300 mW, first show very good reliability. The coupled module with more than 70% fiber coupling efficiency and more than 200 mW output power from a single mode fiber or polarization maintained (PM) fiber in 14-pin butterfly case is demonstrated.
Robust measure for camouflage effectiveness in the visual domain

A human-in-the-loop computer based camouflage assessment approach was already presented at the AeroSense 1998 conference.3 The same image sets were used for human photosimulation as well as for the computer assessment method. The human photosimulation results suggested four camouflage classes which were used to develop and verify the separability measure. Analyzing camouflage effectiveness using separability measures induces a very complex feature space. Best results were obtained using the C4.5 classifier as a separability measure. The size of the objects presented duing the photosimulation sessions and tactical knowledge of the observers had significant influence on the detectoin/recognition performance of humans. The most important advantage of our method is to make camouflage assessment more transparent and deterministic. Results of a selected experiment during a field test are shown in this paper.
Non-linear dynamics of a vibration energy harvester by means of the homotopy analysis method

This article reports on the modelling and experimental validation of a vibration energy harvesting approach that uses a permanent-magnet/ball-bearing arrangement and a wire-coil transducer. The harvester’s behaviour is modelled using a forced Duffing oscillator modified with quintic non-linearity, and the primary first-order steady-state resonant solutions are found using the homotopy analysis method. These solutions found are shown to compare well with measured ball-bearing displacements and harvested output power and are used to predict the wideband frequency response of this type of vibration energy harvester. A prototype harvester was found to produce a maximum output power of 16.4 mW from a 14.2 Hz, 400 milli-g excitation.
Simultaneous all‐optical amplification, inversion and format conversion based on self‐induced nonlinear effects in a semiconductor optical amplifier

We propose and experimentally demonstrate simultaneous all‐optical amplification, inversion and format conversion based on self‐induced nonlinear effects in a single semicondctor optcial amplifier. All these functions are verified for injected amplitude‐shift keying signals with variable extinction ratios from 5 to 12 dB. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:1320–1323, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26009
The optimal location of piezoelectric actuators and sensors for vibration control of plates

This paper considers the optimal placement of collocated piezoelectric actuator–sensor pairs on a thin plate using a model-based linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller. LQR performance is taken as objective for finding the optimal location of sensor–actuator pairs. The problem is formulated using the finite element method (FEM) as multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) model control. The discrete optimal sensor and actuator location problem is formulated in the framework of a zero–one optimization problem. A genetic algorithm (GA) is used to solve the zero–one optimization problem. Different classical control strategies like direct proportional feedback, constant-gain negative velocity feedback and the LQR optimal control scheme are applied to study the control effectiveness.
Sensorized Reconfigurable Soft Robotic Gripper System for Automated Food Handling

This article presents a versatile soft robotic gripper system whereby its fingers can be reconfigured into different poses such as scoop, pinch, and claw. This allows the gripper to efficiently and safely handle food samples of different shapes, sizes and stiffness such as uncooked tofu and broccoli floret. The 3D-printed fingers were tested to last up to 25 000 cycles without significant changes in the curvature profile and force output profile. A benchmark experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the gripper and state-of-the-art gripping solutions. Capability of versatile soft gripper was optimized by integrating vision and tactile sensing facilities. An object recognition system was developed to identify food samples such as potato, broccoli, and sausage. Position and orientation of food samples were identified and pick-and-place pathway was optimized to achieve the best gripping performance. Flexible tactile sensors were integrated into soft fingers and closed-loop force feedback control system was developed. This allowed the gripper to automatically explore and select the most stable grip pose for different food samples. Integration of vision and force feedback system ensure that objects detected by the system would be firmly gripped. The reconfigurable soft robotic gripper system has been demonstrated to perform high-speed pick-and-place tasks (∼3 s per item) with object recognition system, making it a potential solution to food and grocery supply chain needs.
New approach to deinterleaving for radar intercept receivers

We present a new approach to the design of deinterleavers for radar intercept receivers.We design the deinterleaver to target frequency and pulse repetition frequency (PRF)agile pulse Doppler emitters,a class of radar sources that is difficult to deinterleave with traditional approaches.Targeting this specific class of emitters al- lows us to take advantage of the coherent processing signal structure that is common to emitters in the class.The deinterleaver extracts constant pulse repetition interval (PRI) pulse packets from the receiver signal, and then clusters the pulse packets on the basis of coherency.Pulse packets that come from the same radar source form coherent signal structures,pulse packets from different sources do not. The paper describes the filtering algorithms that extract the pulse packets,presents an analysis of signal coherency that provides a priori estimate of the effectiveness of the design,and describes the clustering algorithms that separate the pulse packets into deinterleaved signal streams.
Phytoestrogen in skin ageing : the case of labisia pumilia

Labisia pumila locally known as Kacip Fatimah is a traditional Malaysian herb that has a wide range of therapeutic value especially in women"s health. Therefore, it is known as the "Queen of Plant" in Malaysia. Labisia pumila has been excessively studied by local researchers and it has been proven scientifically to have the potential of pre and post-natal treatment which involved much in hormonal regulation. Phytoestrogen is a plant estrogen that has been identified to be present in this herb. Phytoestrogen has been identified to have estrogen-like activity. Phytoestrogen has the ability to enhance the proliferation of cells in the epidermis, stimulate collagen synthesis and reduce the degradation of collagen by enzymatic reaction. These characteristics strongly support the huge potential of Labisia pumila in cosmeceutical applications.
Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection Systems Using Neural Network

To improve network security different steps has been taken as size and importance of the network has increases day by day. Then chances of a network attacks increases Network is mainly attacked by some intrusions that are identified by network intrusion detection system. These intrusions are mainly present in data packets and each packet has to scan for its detection. This paper works to develop a intrusion detection system which utilizes the identity and signature of the intrusion for identifying different kinds of intrusions. As network intrusion detection system need to be efficient enough that chance of false alarm generation should be less, which means identifying as a intrusion but actually it is not an intrusion. Result obtained after analyzing this system is quite good enough that nearly 90% of true alarms are generated. It detect intrusion for various services like Dos, SSH, etc by neural network
Printed silver circuits for FMCG packaging

Purpose – Printed flexible circuits that combined conventional silicon technology will enable the realisation of many value added products such as smart packaging for the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. This paper aims to describe an investigation into integrating silicon and printable circuits for the FMCG packaging industry and this would allow products with features such as brand protection, time temperature indicators, customer feedback and visual product enhancement. Responding to interest from the FMCG packaging industry, an investigation was carried out which investigated the printing conductive silver ink on common packaging substrates. Design/methodology/approach – Standard IC mounting patterns were screen printed using two conductive silver materials (one high silver content traditional paste and one lower silver content gel polymer) to four plastic and three paper substrates which represent common FMCG substrates (HDPE, BOPP, PET and three paper substrates). Materials were character.