Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Absorber theory applied to beam vibration

The design of vibration absorbers has been recurrently received attention from researchers due to the importance of efficiently control undesired vibration in structures. In this paper, the well-known two-degree of freedom vibration absorber theory is extended to multi-degree of freedoms and applied to the supression of beam vibrations. The analytical solution is based on the Euler/Bernoulli Beam Theory. A finite element model of the problem also presented here enriches the theoretical solution by including additional effects due to beam rotational inertia and shear deformation, approaching to the Timoshenko Beam Theory. A small scale experiment, with an unbalanced electrical fun as the excitation source of a beam, is explored in order to validate the presented theory. Finally, a parametric study is conducted in order to assist the design of vibration absorbers.
Conceptual design of ecological aircraft for commuter air transportation

A conceptual design study was carried out on the ecological aircraft for commuter air transportation. Morphing wing concept is adopted for cruise and take-off and landing performance, changing the wing shape between laminar airfoil and high lift airfoil. Elastic materials were applied for the smooth deformation as a morphing mechanism. A morphing wing model equipped with smooth deflection of leading and trailing edge was made and tested in the low speed wind tunnel. Experimental result shows that improvement of the lift coefficient was obtained by use of the morphing wing and possibility of the ecological commuter aircraft with morphing wing.
A Smart Cross-System Framework for Joint Allocation and Scheduling With Vehicle-to-Grid Regulation Service

The growing popularity and penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) bring in challenges and opportunities to the power grid. They represent a huge aggregate electricity consumption from the city power grid, while it is possible to make use of their batteries for supporting vehicle-to-grid (V2G) regulation service. Besides, there is a need to coordinate a collection of EVs in an intelligent manner through the smart transportation system in a smart city. In this paper, we propose a novel smart cross-system framework to support V2G regulation service in a smart city. Specifically, by considering electric buses (EBs) as a particular group of EVs with large battery packs installed and predictable operation schedules, we jointly solve the problems of EB allocation and scheduling with V2G regulation service. First of all, by using the deep learning approach, the short-term city traffic conditions can be predicted via the gated recurrent units (GRUs) neural network. With the predicted traffic conditions, we then formulate the EB allocation and V2G scheduling as a mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) problem. In order to solve this problem effectively, we utilize the Lagrangian dual decomposition method to decouple the main problem into subproblems for EBs and devise a distributed algorithm to solve each subproblem. The simulation results show that our proposed approach is effective in EB allocation and V2G scheduling for the regulation service. Through efficient EB routing strategies under accurate predicted traffic conditions, the power fluctuations of the city power grid can be well flatten by providing the V2G regulation service.
GNSS Tracking Performance Enhancement in Fading Environments Using Frequency Diversity Combining

In a multipath environment the fading observed in different frequency bands is independent of each other. These independent signals can be combined in a frequency diversity sense to enhance the SNR. Implementation of a closed loop tracking for frequency diversity combined signals and related performance analysis in different fading environments are the focus of this paper. Frequency selective fading of L1 and L2 signals in typical propagation channels is discussed. Potential benefits of combining correlation powers of signals in different frequency bands are presented. A closed loop tracking architecture is proposed towards achieving frequency diversity based combined tracking. Estimation accuracy enhancement resulting from the proposed method is analyzed on the data collected in dense foliage, suburban, indoors, and residential complex environments. Results show that diversity combined tracking always results in better tracking performance compared to single frequency (L1) tracking; however the level of improvement depends on fading environment. Foliage environment caused maximum decorrelation between L1 and L2, hence significant improvement (39% to 48% RMSE) in carrier Doppler estimation is observed for all PRNs. RMSE improvement in some cases reached up to 50% in carrier Doppler estimation and up to 86% in code Doppler estimation. RMS pseudorange error reduction achieved from proposed method is in the range of 2 m to 18 m depending on the fading conditions on different PRNs. Keyword GPS, fading, frequency diversity, estimation, combined tracking
High gain and improved waveguide slot antenna using a metallic superstrate as main radiator

A new waveguide slot antenna using radiating surface as the superstrate has been proposed. A simple metal sheet as the ultimate radiating surface due to its larger size leads to higher gain compared with a standalone slot. The proposed configuration is composed of an extended wall on a waveguide, incorporating a slot together with a metal sheet as superstrate. The proposed antenna, which can be classified as a resonance cavity antenna, compared with the conventional one, has improved antenna gain and bandwidth simultaneously. Based on cavity model, the distribution of currents on the radiating surface has been explained. It has been shown that the proposed configuration enhances the antenna peak gain from 6.7 to 12 dBi and in the same time, antenna bandwidth from 5.8% to around 23% compared with the conventional one. The design method is straight forward and based on optimisation using simulation software. In addition to gain and bandwidth enhancement, the proposed configuration has some advantages in terms of simple design method and fabrication cost. To validate the simulation results, the proposed antenna is designed, fabricated and measured. Measured and simulated results are in good agreement that confirms the performance of the proposed structure.
Current Knowledge and Perceptions of Bariatric Surgery among Diabetologists and Internists in Poland

Perioperative care and follow-up after bariatric surgery (BS) engage various medical professionals. It is key for them to be well informed about these procedures. However, knowledge and attitudes may be not satisfactory enough to provide proper care. We aimed to assess knowledge and perceptions of BS among diabetologists and internists. A total of 34 diabetologists and 30 internists completed the electronic questionnaire. There were no differences in self-estimated knowledge between them, except regarding items related to the treatment of diabetes and metabolic control. Several misconceptions were identified in the questions testing the understanding of key issues in BS. Most participants considered BS effective in weight loss and metabolic control. A total of 75% highlighted the lack of appropriate equipment for dealing with morbidly obese patients. Interestingly, in a multivariable linear regression model, self-estimated knowledge was the only variable associated with frequency of referrals to bariatric surgeons. A total of 92% of respondents were interested in broadening their knowledge. Guidelines for long-term follow-up and funding were the most frequently chosen topics to explore. The study showed a positive attitude of diabetologists and internists towards surgical treatment of obesity and identified some significant gaps in knowledge. The results may be helpful in planning trainings to provide the best care for patients suffering from morbid obesity.
The Relationship between Crawling and Emotion Discrimination in 9- to 10-Month-Old Infants

The present study examined whether infants’ crawling experience is related to their sensitivity to fearful emotional expressions. Twenty-nine 9- to 10-month-old infants were tested in a preferential looking task, in which they were presented with different pairs of animated faces on a screen displaying a 100% happy facial expression and morphed facial expressions containing varying degrees of fear and happiness. Regardless of their crawling experiences, all infants looked longer at more fearful faces. Additionally, infants with at least 6 weeks of crawling experience needed lower levels of fearfulness in the morphs in order to detect a change from a happy to a fearful face compared to those with less crawling experience. Thus, the crawling experience seems to increase infants’ sensitivity to fearfulness in faces.
Ultralow Power E-Band Low-Noise Amplifier With Three-Stacked Current-Sharing Amplification Stages in 28-nm CMOS

This letter presents a differential ultralow power low-noise amplifier (LNA) with stacked three-stage common-source (CS) amplification cells. A three-coil transformer is developed to boost each stage’s <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$g_{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and reuse current, which renders high gain, low noise, and low power consumption. The proposed LNA has been implemented in a 28-nm CMOS process and achieves a peak gain of 13.48 dB and a minimum noise figure (NF<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{\mathrm {min}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 4.56 dB. The measured 3-dB gain bandwidth (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\text {BW}}_{3\,\text {dB}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) is from 69.6 to 76.2 GHz. The LNA consumes 3.64-mW power from a 1.4-V supply and occupies 0.088-mm<sup>2</sup> area excluding pads.
Mobilising and Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogies – Entwicklung eines Frameworks für mobile Lernumgebungen

Im Rahmen des Erasmus+ Projekts „Mobilising and Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogies“ (www.mttep.eu) wird in Kooperation verschiedener europäischer Bildungseinrichtungen sowie der University of Technology Sydney ein Framework für mobile Lernumgebungen entwickelt, das Lehrer und Lehrerausbilder in der Entwicklung und Beurteilung mobiler Lernumgebungen unterstützen soll. Dazu werden ein online-Werkzeugkasten, ein offener online-Kurs und eBooks entwickelt. Der theoretische Hintergrund des Frameworks soll hier vorgestellt und an einem Beispiel erläutert werden.
Regulation of the Activities of JSC “Russian Railways”: Expert Evaluation of Options for Improving

Кибалов Евгений Борисович, д-р экон. наук, профессор, главный научный сотрудник, Институт экономики и организации промышленного производства (ИЭОПП) СО РАН, г. Новосибирск; kibalovE@mail.ru. E.B. Kibalov, kibalovE@mail.ru Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Crowdsourcing-based business model for online customer service: a case study

: Crowdsourcing has changed how people work and created new types of business models. Crowdsourcing can be utilised by outsourcing small organisational tasks that are usually performed in-house or building the whole business concept upon an unknown crowd. This paper presents how a literature-based framework can be applied to develop an innovative crowdsourcing-based business model in online customer service. The relevant literature on crowdsourcing, business models
Atmospheric simulation‐based precipitation datasets outperform satellite‐based products in closing basin‐wide water budget in the eastern Tibetan Plateau

Satellite‐based precipitation products (SBPs) have been widely used in hydrological applications in recent decades but may contain large uncertainties in mountainous regions. Atmospheric simulation‐based datasets (ABDs) have been greatly improved in recent years, but their applications in mountainous hydrology are rare and need further validation. This study compares the performance of three SBPs and two ABDs in the mountainous Minjiang River basin, focusing on their potential for closing the basin‐wide water budget. The three SBPs include the China Merged Precipitation Analysis (CMPA), the Integrated Multi‐satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) and the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP); the two ABDs are the fifth generation Reanalysis product of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ERA5) and the High Asia Refined Analysis Version 2 (HAR V2). The five products are validated with rain gauge data and results show that all the five products except IMERG can generally reproduce the spatial pattern and elevation dependence of observed precipitation. Particularly, precipitation amount in the two ABDs is close to gauge observations in the low elevations, but much more than the gauge observations in areas with a sharp rise in elevations. Assessment of water budget shows that all SBPs yield severe negative water imbalance (greater than 50.0% of corresponding runoff) at most sub‐basins, while the ABDs can better close the water budget with water imbalance values between ±30.0% in most sub‐basins, respectively. Further analyses show that large relative differences between SBPs and ABDs mainly occur in areas with large topographical relief and in winter, which is likely because the ABDs outperform the SBPs in capturing orographic precipitation in complex terrain and solid precipitation in winter.
Insect Diversity in an Organic Rice Farm in Brgy. Langkong, M’lang, North Cotabato, Philippines

Understanding the diversity of insects associated with rice cultivation can provide information about the composition and structure of such ecosystems, which can be applied to integrated pest management. The study identified and classified beneficial and harmful insects and determined the species richness, species evenness, and diversity in an organic rice field in Barangay Langkong, M’lang, North Cotabato, Philippines. Sweep net and light traps were used in collecting insects. Insects were identified morphologically up to the nearest possible taxa. It was found that among the 3,796 insects collected, 2,659 were identified as harmful and 1,137 as beneficial. The species richness in the area is 2.35, and the species evenness has a value of 0.737. Based on Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index, the study area is high in species diversity since the value of the species diversity is 2.21.
Víctimas de cyberbullying y su influencia en las Dificultades de Regulación Emocional en adolescentes del Ecuador

Introducción: El cyberbullying es un fenómeno de acoso entre pares que provoca efectos emocionales en las víctimas. Objetivo: Identificar la prevalencia de víctimas de cyberbullying y de Dificultades de Regulación Emocional, así como la relación y la predictibilidad en una muestra de adolescentes del Ecuador. Método: Estudio descriptivo correlacional y explicativo. Participantes: 904 adolescentes (53.5% mujeres y 46.5% hombres) con edades entre 15 a 18 años (M = 16.6 años; DT = 1.15), estudiantes de nueve ciudades del Ecuador. Resultados: La prevalencia de víctimas consolidadas de cyberbullying es baja (3%) y un 82% de casos que reportan ataques al menos una vez en la vida, mientras que en las Dificultades de Regulación Emocional existe presencia baja moderada con 9.3% de casos de riesgo. Existe relación moderada y positiva entre el Cyberbullying-victimización y las Dificultades de Regulación Emocional. El Cyberbullying-victimización explica en un 22.8% los cambios en la varianza de las Dificultades de Regulación Emocional a través de un modelo de ajuste adecuado. Conclusiones: La victimización por cyberbullying es un predictor importante en el desarrollo de Dificultades de Regulación Emocional en adolescentes del Ecuador, lo que permite identificar el efecto del acoso en las emociones.
Automatische Zusammenführung zertrennter Konstruktionspläne von Wasserbauwerken

Beim Planen, Bauen und Betreiben von Verkehrswasserbauwerken sind Bestandspläne von großer Bedeutung. Gerade für Instandsetzungen oder Ersatzneubauten, die im Wasserbau einen Großteil der Baumaßnahmen darstellen, beinhalten sie zentrale Informationen u. a. zur Konstruktion der bestehenden Bauwerke. Die Wasserstraßen‐ und Schifffahrtsverwaltung des Bundes (WSV) hat Anfang des Jahrtausends daher alle Pläne mit hohem Aufwand digitalisiert. In dem Digitalisierungsprozess wurden aus technischen Gründen etwa 35.000 Dokumente in Teilaufnahmen (TA) zerstückelt, was deren Übergabe und Nutzung erheblich stört. Diese, im Rahmen eines FuE‐Projekts der Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau (BAW) entstandene, Arbeit zeigt, dass mit Image Stitching, einer Methode aus dem Bereich des computerbasierten Sehens (Computer Vision), die Pläne zum Großteil automatisiert zusammengeführt werden können. Mit einem merkmalsbasierten Ansatz werden dafür die Zusammenhänge zwischen den einzelnen TA modelliert und diese in einer gemeinsamen Bildebene aneinander ausgerichtet. Beim Zusammenfügen zu einem Gesamtplan wird mit einer nahtbasierten Methode sichergestellt, dass die Elemente im Plan möglichst am Stück erhalten bleiben. Es wird gezeigt, wie mit innovativen Methoden die Gesamtqualität des Baubestandswerks der WSV automatisiert verbessert werden kann und diskutiert, wie weitere Techniken aus dem Bereich der Computer Vision eingesetzt werden können, um die Ergebnisse noch weiter zu verbessern.
Learning Interaction-Aware Guidance for Trajectory Optimization in Dense Traffic Scenarios

Autonomous navigation in dense traffic scenarios remains challenging for autonomous vehicles (AVs) because the intentions of other drivers are not directly observable and AVs have to deal with a wide range of driving behaviors. To maneuver through dense traffic, AVs must be able to reason how their actions affect others (interaction model) and exploit this reasoning to navigate through dense traffic safely. This paper presents a novel framework for interaction-aware motion planning in dense traffic scenarios. We explore the connection between human driving behavior and their velocity changes when interacting. Hence, we propose to learn, via deep Reinforcement Learning (RL), an interaction-aware policy providing global guidance about the cooperativeness of other vehicles to an optimization-based planner ensuring safety and kinematic feasibility through constraint satisfaction. The learned policy can reason and guide the local optimization-based planner with interactive behavior to pro-actively merge in dense traffic while remaining safe in case other vehicles do not yield. We present qualitative and quantitative results in highly interactive simulation environments (highway merging and unprotected left turns) against two baseline approaches, a learning-based and an optimization-based method. The presented results show that our method significantly reduces the number of collisions and increases the success rate with respect to both learning-based and optimization-based baselines.
Identification and charactering of APX genes provide new insights in abiotic stresses response in Brassica napus

Ascorbate peroxidase (APX) plays an important role in scavenging H2O2 and balancing ROS content in plant cells, which is of great significance for the growth and development of life and resistance to external stress. However, up to now, APXs in Brassica napus (B. napus) have not been systematically characterized. In this study, a total of 26 BnaAPX genes were identified, which were distributed on 13 chromosomes and divided into five phylogenetic branches. Gene structure analysis showed that they had a wide varied number of exons while BnaAPXs proteins contained more similar motifs in the same phylogenetic branches. qRT-PCR analysis of 26 BnaAPX gene expression patterns showed that three putative cytosol BnaAPX genes BnaAPX1, BnaAPX2, BnaAPX9, two putatice microsomal genes BnaAPX18 and BnaAPX25 were up-regulated rapidly and robustly under high salt, water shortage and high temperature stresses. In addition, the above three abiotic stresses led to a significant increase in APX activity. The results provide basic and comprehensive information for further functional characterization of APX gene family in B. napus.
Customer comfort limit utilisation: Management tool informing credit limit-setting strategy decisions to improve profitability

Abstract The key criteria for making business decisions is profit, so when making credit limit-setting strategy decisions, profitability will be the most important driver. The profitability of a credit limit-setting strategy is dependent on the customer’s utilisation of the limits set by the strategy. This points towards a need to determine the extent to which a limit can be increased before a customer’s utilisation will decline beyond the point of being profitable. This paper sets out to define a Customer Comfort Limit Utilisation (CCLU) measure that can be used to gauge a customer’s level of comfort (in terms of limit utilisation) with a newly proposed limit. The CCLU is defined as a function of the customer’s limit utilisation and credit limit; in simpler terms, it can be viewed as a function of balance growth vs limit growth. The neural network model that predicted utilisation first and then the CCLU based on the resulting utilisation values was selected as the final model. Once the final model was determined, it was then verified whether profitability could be improved by using a CCLU measure as a management tool when making limit-setting strategy decisions. It was found that strategies involving CCLU values could lead to increased profitability since CCLU values near 100 (i.e. the customer is 100% comfortable with the new limit and will utilise to the same extent as the previous one) are associated with higher key performance metrics levels.
Engineered Cu-PEN Composites at the Nanoscale: Preparation and Characterisation

As polymeric materials are already used in many industries, the range of their applications is constantly expanding. Therefore, their preparation procedures and the resulting properties require considerable attention. In this work, we designed the surface of polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) introducing copper nanowires. The surface of PEN was transformed into coherent ripple patterns by treatment with a KrF excimer laser. Then, Cu deposition onto nanostructured surfaces by a vacuum evaporation technique was accomplished, giving rise to nanowires. The morphology of the prepared structures was investigated by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed the distribution of Cu in the nanowires and their gradual oxidation. The optical properties of the Cu nanowires were measured by UV-Vis spectroscopy. The sessile drop method revealed the hydrophobic character of the Cu/PEN surface, which is important for further studies of biological responses. Our study suggests that a combination of laser surface texturing and vacuum evaporation can be an effective and simple method for the preparation of a Cu/polymer nanocomposite with potential exploitation in bioapplications; however, it should be borne in mind that significant post-deposition oxidation of the Cu nanowire occurs, which may open up new strategies for further biological applications.