Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A family of low EMI, unity power factor converters

A new family of soft switching, unity power factor converters with high input power factor and isolated output is presented. A feature of the converters is a significant reduction of conducted EMI. Six converter topologies have been identified that share a zero voltage switching phase arm on the input boost converter stage. Detailed analysis and experimental results are presented on the double ZVS phase arm, resonant transition converter, which is operated at constant switching frequency.
Face Recognition system using Local Object Appearance and Spatial Colour Layout

: Importance of Face biometric identification system, one of the easily accessible biometric systems has increased in the last few years. When comparing to other biometrics like fingerprint, iris, signature, etc, applicability of face recognition is easier and working range is larger. This paper proposes a system to extract the texture and colour features of face images for face recognition system. This is implemented by incorporating Local Object Appearance and Spatial Colour Layout (LOA & SCL). The proposed work gives better result than many of the previous works.
A modern MPPT control algorithm based on α-MPP pass-through detection and β-acceleration mechanism

A modern maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method based on the incremental conductance (IncCond) control algorithm is discussed. This method features a variable step iteration of duty ratio to get over the trade-off between dynamic performance and steady state oscillation around maximum power point (MPP). Moreover, in the aim to get an excellent precision and a swift response independently of the climatic conditions, an α-MPP pass through detection and β-acceleration mechanism are introduced.
A Security Framework for Clone Detection in Internet of Things

In the context of Internet of Things (IoT), cloning is very serious threat which needs to be handled. The purpose of this project is to propose a security framework known as Multi-Model based Clone Detection Framework (MM-CDF). It also defines a novel clone detection method known as Probabilistic Clone Detection (PCD) which employs efficient probability analysis to detect clones in IoT scenarios. The proposed method can detect clones and take necessary steps to ensure security in IoT environments. The existing clone detection methods suffer in false positives in finding clones. The proposed system overcomes this problem with probabilistic analysis which reduces false positives and ensures that the clones are correctly identified. Since IoT use cases deploy thousands of connected devices, it is essential to have such solution. This project is realized with a prototype application that simulates the nodes in IoT and detection of clones with the aforementioned approach.
Question Recommendation for Online Learning Recommendation Systems based on Rule-path in Knowledge Domain

-This study aims to perfect the online learning recommendation system. Online learning recommendation system provides recommendations to learners in the form of material links, learning materials that can be learned by learners, learning activities and others. This study provides recommendations for questions that are tailored to learning outcomes and bloom taxonomy levels. Using knowledge-based and rule-path, recommendation questions are given to learners who are predicted to be of value and are unlikely to achieve in their learning. The results of this study were evaluated using root means square error and produced a question-based recommendation system model for online learning. Our contribution in this research is machine learning based questions which are processed based on learning outcome outcomes and refer to bloom taxonomy levels.
Designing of Cleaning System for Garbage and Sewage of Smart City with Cloud Based Predictive Analytics

: The major objective of a smart city is to provide ripest and rightest services to its residents with minimal human intervention. The data collected from various sensors, receptors and receivers can be stored in a reliable, cost effective and manageable cloud storage. Predictive analytics such as predictive modelling and machine learning can be used to analyze the latest and past data from the cloud to forecast the near and far future. The predictive analytics will immediately send notifications and the appropriate actions to be taken to the concerned system so that the residents can get equable life. Waste management such as sewage management and trash management are one of the major exertions in a smart city. In this paper, predictive analytics is applied on the cloud data collected from various sensors attached on the waste management resources such as trash bins and sewage pipes. Firstly, group of trash bins and sewage pipes are attached with radio wave sensors which in turn connected to an IoT enabled receiver to provide cost effective data collection. Secondly, the data from the receivers are stored in a cloud. Thirdly, predictive analytics using K-means clustering are proposed for applying on the data in the cloud. Finally, actions like redirecting the trash collection truck and sewage clearing robot based on the priority can be done automatically and long-term actions can be directed to the concerned authorities with notifications and alerts to take necessary actions. In this paper, designing of an immaculate smart city is proposed which can be achieved by developing IoT based trash collection and sewage cleaning system. For analysis purpose synthetic data is considered where levels for garbage cleaning bins at different time and liquid levels of drainage pipes at different time are represented with different numbers
Towards optimum multilayer filter design

The turning point method was applied to the design of optical and infrared multilayer filters. Both indirect and direct designs were investigated. In the indirect approach, optimum equiripple filters were first designed for operation between a hypothetical incident medium and the substrate. Conversion for operation between air and the substrate was accomplished by matching at the air-multilayer interface. The direct approach optimises the filter performance operating under practical terminal conditions. Depending on design strategies, the two approaches have their relative merits. Between them they yield highpass and lowpass multilayers with performance approaching the best possible.
Rethinking the Ability-to-Pay and Equal Sacrifice Principles of Taxation: An Alternative Rationale for a Progressive Income Tax

Progressive income taxes have usually been justified on the basis of the ability-to-pay (ATP) and equal sacrifice principles, but how ATP and sacrifice should be measured remains unsettled. In this paper, I present an alternative rationale for progressive taxes on the basis of the concept of sustainable heterogeneity (SH). I conclude that income taxes have to be progressive for SH to be achieved, and therefore, progressive income taxes can be justified without relying on the ATP and equal sacrifice principles. In addition, for SH to be achieved, households should also be burdened with taxes to cover expenses for achieving policy objectives other than SH in proportion to their incomes, that is, roughly in relation to their consumption, such as the case with a value-added tax. JEL Classification code: D63, H21, H24
UTILIZING DATA FROM AUTOMOTIVE EVENT DATA RECORDERS

In March 2000, Vetronix Corporation unveiled a Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) system that allows users to download data from certain GM vehicles subjected to a crash event involving the deployment or near deployment of an airbag. The recording of crash event data is a by-product of the introduction of airbags and the need to measure or sense the severity of a crash by automobile manufacturers. GM has been using a Sensing and Diagnostic Module (SDM) to measure crash severity since 1994 and started recording pre-crash data, such as vehicle speed, engine RPM, throttle position, and brake status with some 1999 model year vehicles. This paper reviews the evolution of automatic recording devices in transportation, including the automotive Event Data Recorder (EDR). The recording and retrieval of data in the GM and Vetronix systems are examined with particular attention on using the data for accident reconstruction purposes. Twelve low speed tests investigate the current threshold and sensitivity for recording data, while five case studies investigate the usefulness and limitations of the recorded data.
THE INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENTIAL PHYSICAL CONTITION-Final Report ING REGIMENS ON SIMULATED AERIAL COMBAT MANEUVER-1976-1980

20. ABSTRACT (Continue on reverse side If necessary end identify by block number) The influence of physical conditioning on tolerance to a centri~ugation profile called the Simulated Aerial Combat Maneuvering (SACM)--was determined using 24 young men as subjects. These subjects were assigned to groups as "controls (C: * no physical training), runners (R), and weight trainers (W) and'followed a 12week protocol of specified physical training. During this study, tolerance to the SACM, maximum oxygen consumption, muscle strength, and body composition were periodically determined. SACM tolerance was defined as the total time that a subject could withstand continuous exposure to a 4.5 and 7.0 Gz centrifugation FORM DD JAN 73 1473 EDITION OF I NOV 65 S OBSOLETE UNCLASSIFIED
An inverse procedure for the return stroke current identification

We propose a procedure to identify the lightning return stroke current characteristics, in the context of return stroke engineering models. The main effort of the up-to-date literature is to find approximate current shapes, which best fit the experimental data. The method hereafter proposed does not follow these approaches, but proposes an inverse algorithm, which allows us to accurately identify the return stroke current for simulated data.
Plastic chip carrier package

Plastic QFP, SOIC packages have been dominant surface mount packages for several years for many of their attractive features like compactness and small form factor. The recent needs are for higher I/O packages, with small form factor has led to many novel packaging schemes like the chip scale package. Currently, the cost of a chip scale package is very high. In addition, the early adoption of a chip scale package technology suffers from the lack of an infrastructure to support it. A lower cost, plastic chip carrier approach is proposed. Although the plastic chip carrier may not always fit the rigid definition of a chip scale package (i.e. package area of less than 1.2 times the die area), it does have a smaller footprint than conventional molded packages with the same body size and pin count; it may also have a lower cost structure associated with it due to its simplified assembly. In addition, the chip carrier package in this design would not have lead coplanarity issues associated with it like other conventional surface mount packages. This paper will discuss proposed construction details of this packaging scheme. Issues like the reliability and performance of this package are important considerations, they need to be evaluated but will be addressed in later evaluations.
A PM synchronous servo motor drive with an on-line trained fuzzy neural network controller

A permanent magnet (PM) synchronous servo motor drive with integral-proportional (IP) position controller and a proposed on-line trained fuzzy neural network (FNN) controller is introduced in this paper. First, an IP position controller is designed according to the estimated plant model to match the time-domain command tracking specifications. Then the resulting closed-loop tracking transfer function is used as the reference model, and an adaptive signal generated from the proposed FNN controller, whose membership functions and connective weights are trained on-line according to the model-following error of the states, is added to the control system to preserve a favorable model-following characteristics under various operating conditions.
Simulation of thermal fields in permafrost around engineering constructions in presence of seasonal cooling devices

A new mathematical model of heat distribution in permafrost soils is considered taking into account dierent climatic and physical factors. The first group of factors includes consideration of solar radiation, seasonal changes of air temperature, leading to periodic thawing (freezing) of soil, and possible snow layers. The second group of factors is the heterogeneity of the soil (not only in horizontal layers), the presence of a number of piles, or foundation structures, seasonal cooling devices. Seasonal cooling devices (SCDs) are vapor‐fluid devices consisting of a hermetically sealed and seasoned with coolant, metal pipe with diameter 57 mm, length up to 10 meters or more, consisting of aerial parts (condenser fins) up to 2.5 meters and the underground part. These devices operate without external power sources only by the laws of physics. Taking into account these factors leads to the solution of three-dimensional quasilinear heat distribution equation (quasi-linear equation due to the dependence of the thermophysical parameters on temperature) of the Stefan problem in a rectangular parallelepiped, but also with a nonlinear boundary condition at the soil surface associated with solar radiation. It is assumed that the side faces of the computational domain are insulated and are chosen suciently far from the location of engineering structures, and a computational grid of large dimension to be used, with adaptation to the heat(cold) sources. Computational codes is designed for numerical simulation of thermal fields in permafrost and melted soil, taking into account thermal diusion properties of the soil and heat exchange between the soil and air, including also due to heat loss by radiation. The presentation is devoted to the results of numerical simulations carried out for the project work in several oil and gas fields in Russia, located in the permafrost zone.
Inspecting Initial Teacher Education in England: The Work of Ofsted 1

This paper was commissioned for the National Academy of Education project on Evaluation of Teacher Education Programs: Toward a Framework for Innovation, which was funded by the National Science Foundation. It was presented at a workshop in Washington, DC, February 25, 2013. Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and not those of the National Academy of Education or the National Science Foundation.
U‐99 uninhabited tactical aircraft preliminary systems design

The systems aspects of an uninhabited tactical aircraft (UTA) preliminary design are detailed. The study, performed at the post‐graduate level at Cranfield University, looks to investigate the feasibility of unmanned combat aircraft in a number of roles to reduce the risk to pilots and reduce life cycle costs (LCC). The scope of the work includes stealth, vulnerability, mission effectiveness, avionics, landing gear, secondary power, fuel systems, propulsion, performance and cost. The unusual depth to which the design work progressed enables insights to be gained that far exceed those available at the conceptual design phase. A Northrop Grumman concept of near‐identical configuration has subsequently reached the public domain.
Vacant residential buildings as potential reserves: a geographical and statistical study

Vacant housing has been associated with a variety of interests from economic implications and consequences for the urban structure to the possibility of providing housing for the homeless. In addition to these social and financial aspects, unused buildings have resources embedded in them. They take land from other activities and contain refined natural resources in the form of building components and materials. Therefore, empty buildings can be regarded as reserves for housing and repositories for urban mining, i.e. material extraction. In doing so, these buildings contribute to the resilience of cities. This geographical and statistical study on residential vacancies is situated in Finland, where empty homes may also keep using energy and producing emissions. The research material consists of a vast dataset of all residential buildings with vacancies in Finland in mid-2014, a total of 275 486 buildings with 1 100 267 occupied and 378 802 unoccupied dwellings (52% of the Finnish housing stock). The paper shows several characteristics that increase the understanding of vacancies and their role in the dynamics of the building stock. Public policy should address the issue of vacancy, not only because of social and economic implications but also because of its environmental impacts and opportunities.
Docking a UAV using a robotic arm and computer vision

The aim of this Thesis is to research the possibility of docking an airborne UAV using a robotic armand computer vision. In the scope of the SHERPA project on robot collaboration in Alpine rescue scenario‘s a robust and autonomous way of retrieving small scale UAV‘s is required. In a scenario where landing the UAV on a mobile ground station is not possible and landing on the ground could be harmful to the drone, docking the UAV while it is airborne using a robotic arm would be the best solution. In this work a system is presented to accurately follow and dock an UAV near a ground vehicle using an external monocular camera mounted on a robotic armand internal UAV sensors. The system combines the strengths of visual pose estimation and IMU motion tracking while minimizing the effect of their weaknesses. The result is a system with an accurate pose estimate and which is also robust through temporary occlusion or motion blur. A functional proof of principle system was implemented using Robotic Operating System and a KUKA LWR4+ robot armto show the advantages provided by the system.
Geometric Constraint Based Modeling and Analysis of a Novel Continuum Robot with SMA Initiated Variable Stiffness

Continuum robots exhibit promising adaptability and dexterity for soft manipulation due to their intrinsic compliance. However, this compliance may lead to challenges in modeling as well as positioning and loading. In this paper, a virtual-work based static model is established to describe the deformation and mechanics of continuum robots with a generic rod-driven structure, taking the geometric constraint of the drive rods into account. Following this, this paper presents a novel variable-stiffness mechanism powered by a set of embedded Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) springs, which can make the drive rods ‘locked’ on the body structure with different configurations. The resulting effects of variable stiffness are then presented in the static model by introducing tensions of the SMA and friction on the rods. Compared with conventional models, there is no need to predefine the actuation forces of the drive rods, but only actuation displacements are used in this new mechanism system with stiffness being regulated. As a result, the phenomenon that the continuum robot can exhibit an S-shaped curve when subject to single-directional forces is observed and analyzed. Simulations and experiments demonstrated that the presented mechanism has the stiffness variation over 287% and further demonstrated that the mechanism and its model are achievable with good accuracy that the ratio of positioning error has less than 2.23% at the robot endeffector to the robot length.
An illegal user model of communication channel with error correction codeс

The situation when an illegal user intercepts data from the communication channel of two legal users is considered. The data in the legal channel is protected from distortion by error correction codes. It is assumed that the intercept channel may be noisier than the legal channel. And, consequently, the interceptor receives low-quality data. The possibility of using a special type of error-correction code decoders by an illegal user to restore damaged data is discussed. The interceptor model is constructed. The model includes a receiving block of the intercept channel, as well as several auxiliary blocks, such as a memory device, a block for determining the quality of communication in the legal channel, databases with possible decoders and their parameters. Examples are given that show the potential capabilities of the interceptor. The examples demonstrate the difference in decoding quality between different decoders for LDPC codes and Reed-Muller codes. These examples show that an illegal user with the various decoders described in the open press can receive information with satisfactory quality even at a weak signal level in the intercept channel. The constructed model can be useful in the tasks of developing methods of protection against intruders who organize illegitimate data interception channels.
Automatic segmentation of the borders of the pathological focus in the macular area of the retina to calculate the area of the pathological focus

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a modern, non-contact method of diagnostic examination that enables the visualization of various tissues of the human eye in a cross-sectional view at the microscopic level with the required morphological information. The software pre-installed in such devices contains many different tools for analyzing scans and has almost all the functionality necessary for the doctor to make a correct diagnosis. However, as time passes, more and more advanced methods of analyzing the images appear, which actualizes new tasks of developing additional software that can supplement and expand the functionality of the diagnostic equipment. This paper proposes an algorithm for automatic segmentation of the borders of a pathological focus in the macular area of the retina to calculate the area of the pathological focus, which together with other algorithms for analysis of morphometric parameters of the human eye, which are still under development, will be used for more accurate diagnosis of the stage of age-related macular degeneration.
Two-step Bayesian Structure Health Monitoring Approach for IASC-ASCE Phase II Simulated and Experimental Benchmark Studies

This report uses a two-step probabilistic structural health monitoring approach to analyze the Phase II simulated and experimental benchmark studies sponsored by the IASC-ASCE Task Group on Structural Health Monitoring. The studies involve damage detection and assessment of the test structure using simulated ambient-vibration data and experimental data generated by various excitations. The two-step approach involves modal identification followed by damage assessment using the pre- and post-damage modal parameters based on the Bayesian updating methodology. An Expectation-Maximization algorithm is proposed to find the most probable values of the parameters. The results of the analysis show that the probabilistic approach is able to detect and assess most damage locations involving stiffness losses of braces in the braced frame cases, while the success of the approach in detecting rotational stiffness losses of the beam-column connections in the untraced cases may rely on sufficient prior information for the column stiffness.