Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A form finding method for post formed timber grid shell structures.

Timber grid shells provide efficient ways of covering large openings with relatively small amount of materials. With three-dimensional CAD software, it is now possible to model a free-form surface and discretize it in smaller straight elements, thus postponing the design of the node-connections geometry to the manufacturing process (i.e. by Computer-Aided-Manufacturing). A "low-tech" method for building free-form timber grid shell structures with standardized connections is that of assembling an initially flat grid of continuous rods and then, post-forming (bending) it in a double curved shape. Accordingly, the latter method doesn't require high-tech manufacturing processes. However, being the final shape influenced by equilibrium of the internal forces, a form-finding procedure is required. A novel "facilitating" numerical framework is introduced in this paper: For a given continuous reference shape, a geometrically similar discrete model is found by implementation of the Dynamic Relaxation method. Numerical methods to the finding of grid cutting pattern, as well as, a Newton-Raphson method to assess the allowable timber cross-section, are illustrated.
PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING AND THE USE OF NEW LEARNING- TEACHING METHODOLOGY

The introduction of new methodologies of teaching-learning in the Spanish University system is a revolution since it supposes to think in a new university, new methods, new role for the students and the faculty staff, material and personnel resources, really, a new University based on the quality of teaching, the learning and the continuous formation. The reform that supposes the European convergence has made in the recent years necessary to adapt the subjects to ECTS system for which the pilot groups and courses have been an extraordinarily valuable element, an indispensable work to reach the organization and the structure of the new Degree Studies and, on the other hand, to try the new methodologies of education and learning. Until now, , the knowledge transmission in the Spanish Universities has been based essentially on the mere exhibition of conceptual contents, having been the work of the student very limited to copy notes, to memorise data and concepts and to reproduce them in written examinations. The new concept of the university studies introduces new practices of quality in teaching that transfer the attention to the process of learning of the student who determine the activity of the teacher changing his role in the process. Therefore, the teacher becomes guide and support of a learning process that necessarily must motivate, foment the work and the self-training, all this related to the reasoning thought and to the professional reality. We understand that implementing the new educational methodology that grants an active paper to the student and a director role, as guide and adviser, to the teacher, implies the use of information and communication technologies that make Virtual Campus UCM an essential tool that it comprises inseparable of the methodology. In our educational work we granted some students works a new dimension in Virtual Campus UCM incorporating them to a web page and, on the other hand, we followed the line of active participation of the students and old students through the presentation of seminaries. Finally, we develope the learning-based problems using two types of cases: 1) cases presented by specialists to be analyzed by the students and used by the teacher as guide to reach objectives of knowledge, 2) cases presented/displayed to the students after its resolution applying principles and procedures.
Principles of electrical design of permanent magnet generators for direct drive renewable energy systems

Abstract: The objective of this chapter is to discuss the electromagnetic design of direct drive generators for renewable energy generation. It starts with a look at the requirements of these generator systems. Next, it discusses the main material choices and topology choices with their advantages and disadvantages. Then, as an example, the electromagnetic design of a 3 MW 15 rpm permanent magnet (PM) generator for a direct drive wind turbine is discussed. Next, it gives scaling laws that make it possible to estimate the size of direct drive generators. Finally, a number of issues that need further investigation are discussed.
Robotics: Growing maintenance option for utilities

The use of robots in powerplants is an option that can no longer be ignored. Robots can reduce worker exposure to harmful environments and minimize downtime. As a result, electric utilities are using them more than ever. As robots become more widely accepted, more are being developed to handle an expanding variety of applications. This report begins with an overview of the use of robotics in the electric-utility industry; following that are sections detailing applications for nuclear plants, fossil-fired stations, and transmission and distribution facilities.
coloring

Calling all artists, young and old. Enjoy the coloring book, read the story and color the pages to your heart's content. You may also learn new things about Covid and the vaccines that can protect you and I. Participate in the Coloring Book Challenge and have a chance to win art supplies. (If you need additional copies of the coloring book, please open the attached PDF where you can print a copy of it on a printer)
Over the rainbow : developments in exotic options and complex swaps

This is a useful compendium of over 50 articles tracking the advances that underpinned the growth of the derivatives industry of the early 1990s. It includes articles on innovations in financial derivatives published in "Risk" magazine between 1992 and 1995, and information on advances in exotic options, computational techniques, VAR and capital management.
Mitigating Botnet-based DDoS Attacks against Web Servers

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have become wide-spread on the Internet. They continuously target retail merchants, financial companies and government institutions, disrupting the availability of their online resources and causing millions of dollars of financial losses. Software vulnerabilities and proliferation of malware have helped create a class of application-level DDoS attacks using networks of compromised hosts (botnets). In a botnet-based DDoS attack, an attacker orders large numbers of bots to send seemingly regular HTTP and HTTPS requests to a web server, so as to deplete the server's CPU, disk, or memory capacity. Researchers have proposed client authentication mechanisms, such as CAPTCHA puzzles, to distinguish bot traffic from legitimate client activity and discard bot-originated packets. However, CAPTCHA authentication is vulnerable to denial-of-service and artificial intelligence attacks. This dissertation proposes that clients instead use hardware tokens to authenticate in a federated authentication environment. The federated authentication solution must resist both man-in-the-middle and denial-of-service attacks. The proposed system architecture uses the Kerberos protocol to satisfy both requirements. This work proposes novel extensions to Kerberos to make it more suitable for generic web authentication. A server could verify client credentials and blacklist repeated offenders. Traffic from blacklisted clients, however, still traverses the server's network stack and consumes server resources. This work proposes Sentinel, a dedicated front-end network device that intercepts server-bound traffic, verifies authentication credentials and filters blacklisted traffic before it reaches the server. Using a front-end device also allows transparently deploying hardware acceleration using network co-processors. Network co-processors can discard blacklisted traffic at the hardware level before it wastes front-end host resources. We implement the proposed system architecture by integrating existing software applications and libraries. We validate the system implementation by evaluating its performance under DDoS attacks consisting of floods of HTTP and HTTPS requests.
Hidden analyses: A review of current reporting practice and recommendations for more transparent reporting of initial data analyses

Background In the data pipeline from the data collection process to the planned statistical analyses, initial data analysis (IDA) typically takes place between the end of the data collection and do not touch the research questions. A systematic process for IDA and clear reporting of the findings would help to understand the potential shortcomings of a dataset, such as missing values, or subgroups with small sample sizes, or shortcomings in the collection process, and to evaluate the impact of these shortcomings on the research results. A clear reporting of findings is also relevant when making datasets available to other researchers. Initial data analyses can provide valuable insights into the suitability of a data set for a future research study. Our aim was to describe the current practice of reporting of initial data analyses in observational studies in five highly ranked medical journals with focus on data cleaning, screening, and reporting of findings which led to a potential change in the analysis plan. Methods This review was carried out using systematic search strategies with eligibility criteria for articles to be reviewed. A total of 25 papers about observational studies were selected from five medical journals. Each paper was reviewed by two reviewers and IDA statements were further discussed by all authors. The consensus was reported. Results IDA statements were reported in the methods, results, discussion, and supplement of papers. Ten out of 25 papers (40%) included a statement about data cleaning. Data screening statements were included in all articles, and 18 (72%) indicated the methods used to describe them. Item missingness was reported in 11 papers (44%), unit missingness in 15 papers (60%). Eleven papers (44%) mentioned some changes in the analysis plan. Reported changes referred to missing data treatment, unexpected values, population heterogeneity and aspects related to variable distributions or data properties. Conclusion Reporting of initial data analyses were sparse, and statements on IDA were located throughout the research articles. There is a lack of systematic reporting of IDA. We conclude the article with recommendations on how to overcome shortcomings in the current practice of IDA reporting in observational studies.
An Empirical Evaluation of Sampling Controversies in Ratio-Based Modelling of Corporate Collapse

Empirical investigations regarding ratio-based modelling of corporate collapse have been on going for decades. With any study of an empirical nature, a data sample is a necessary prerequisite. It allows testing the performance of the prediction model, thereby establishing its practical relevance. However, it is necessary to first ensure that the data sample used satisfies certain conditions, and these have lead to some choice controversies. This paper considers the controversial issues that arise in data sampling, provides a critical evaluation of these issues, and makes choice recommendations on the controversial aspects, by empirically examining the literature.
Development of an intelligent inspection system for detecting and classifying garment defects

This thesis is protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. By reading and using the thesis, the reader understands and agrees to the following terms: 1. The reader will abide by the rules and legal ordinances governing copyright regarding the use of the thesis. 2. The reader will use the thesis for the purpose of research or private study only and not for distribution or further reproduction or any other purpose. 3. The reader agrees to indemnify and hold the University harmless from and against any loss, damage, cost, liability or expenses arising from copyright infringement or unauthorized usage.
Efficient voltage regulation using switched capacitor DC/DC converter from battery and energy harvesting power sources

Recent portable electronic technologies require the power management circuit be efficient, small and cost effective. The switched-capacitor (SC) converter provides a tradeoff between the efficiency, the size and the cost that is desirable in many of these new portable technologies. This dissertation investigates different circuit techniques and SC converter topologies to make the SC converters fully adapt to the portable system requirements. To make the SC converter efficient over a wide range of input and output voltages, a family of SC power stages with multiple gain ratio (GR) is developed. Multiple GR allows the converter to provide step-down or step-up voltage conversion while increasing the average efficiency of the converter. These power stages are also capable of providing interleaving regulation that has been proved to be effective in reducing the input and the output noise of the converter. Unlike conventional interleaving, the technique developed in this research uses fewer switches and capacitors. The research also contributes in developing circuit techniques such as charge recycling in the bottom plate parasitic capacitors, local gate driving and adaptive body biasing to reduce the power loss in monolithic SC converter implementation. To control the SC power stage for accurate regulation and fast transient response, a control scheme named adaptive gain/pulse control is developed. The research also investigates the use of multipath compensation scheme in SC converters for ultra fast and low noise performance. The techniques and the topologies developed for SC converters in this research can be effectively implemented in the portable devices to reduce cost, and improve efficiency which leads to longer battery life and circuit implementation using smaller areas.
The dynamic role of elite coach : player and coach perspectives

As part of a larger study on talent development, ten top ranked players and ten coaches (nominated by the player) responded to open-ended questionnaires. Players and coaches were asked them to recall their background in tennis, describe the role of the coach and any changes in this role, and offer suggestions to coaches for nurturing talent. A series of inductive content analyses was conduct to analyze the data. These analyses revealed significant, and changing, roles of the coach during a player’s development to professional status. Recommendations to coaches highlighted the importance of coach philosophy, communication, and planning. Implications for coach education programs are discussed.
Integrasi basis data dan pipeline single nucleotide polymorphism untuk pemuliaan tanaman kedelai

MIFTAKHUL HUDA. Integration of Database and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Pipeline for Soybean Breeding. Supervised by WISNU ANANTA KUSUMA and HABIB RIJZAANI. Plant breeding using conventional approaches is high cost and time consuming. Researchers started elaborating the oportunities of plant breeding based on genome analysis in order to obtain an efficient process. This approach used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker and their association with phenotypes. The SNP identification process actually can be conducted using application software. SNP information is stored in a VCF file. However this file format is not easy to be undertood and managed by breeding researchers. This research aims to integrate software pipeline yielded by previous research and database for storing SNP candidates and their supporting information such as flanking area and the SNP’s ID which is automatically integrated to Soybean SNP reference from NCBI. Moreover, the system also provides a web based searching feature for helping researchers retrieving relevant SNP candidate information.
Transit-Assisted Emergency Evacuation of High-Density Clusters in Urban Areas

Emergency evacuation planning is a critical component of life safety. In many hazardous events, the best option is to relocate threatened populations to safer areas, often using transit. Efficient response to natural and man-made disasters requires fast and well organized efforts, which heavily depend not only on proactive planning but also on educated dynamically made decisions. Existing approaches for addressing evacuation issues are based primarily on proactive planning. A traffic network environment, however, raises more challenges, due to its dynamic structure, making planning ahead less effective in protecting the evacuees. The work presented in this paper deals with the issue of transit assisted emergency evacuation procedures in urban clusters using a dynamic network model. The ultimate goal is to present the integration of a state-of-the-art traffic microsimulation software package with transit based emergency evacuation models, demonstrating the use of transit for emergency evacuation under various conditions.
ACTIVE TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION FOR MICROMACHINED RESONATORS

Encapsulated micromechanical resonators have been fabricated from single crystal silicon and a method for stabilizing their resonant frequency over temperature has been demonstrated. The method uses high-frequency AC signals applied directly to the resonant structure in order to heat it. By adjusting the power of the heating signal, varying amounts of heat could be added to the resonant structure in order to compensate for the effects of changing external temperature and the variation in resonant frequency was reduced significantly. This method requires minimal changes to existing resonator designs and is applicable to any resonator with a current path through its structure. The resonators examined here exhibited temperature coefficients of resonant frequency of over 210 Hz/°C (170 ppm/°C) without temperature compensation. With compensation, the temperature coefficient was reduced to less than 5 Hz/°C (4 ppm/°C).
The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Kitchens in Context Indiana's settlement and early economy. Victorian kitchens. Urbanization. 2. Social and Material Influences on the Hoosier Cabinet's Development Women and the kitchen. The servant problem. Why Indiana? Wooton's Patent Cabinet Secretary. Ideas from Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Winslow Taylor, and Christine Frederick. 3. The Hoosier Becomes the Standard Founding of the Hoosier Manufacturing Company. Product development and efficiencies in production. Advertising, marketing, dealerships, and other secrets of the Hoosier cabinet's rise to kitchen prominence. 4. Eclipse Progress brings new products. The 18901930 building boom. Architectural millwork catalogs. The rise of modular cabinetry and the built-in kitchen. 5. Legacy Back to basics: the family kitchen. Freestanding kitchen furniture renaissance. Collectors, restorers, and reproductions. Using Hoosier-era documents for design inspiration and guidance. Conclusion: Saving Steps. Notes Bibliography Index
Analysis of meteors observed in the UV by the Mini-EUSO telescope onboard the International Space Station

<p>During its first six months of operations onboard the Zvezda module of the International Space Station, the Mini-EUSO wide-field telescope detected more than two thousand meteors in approximately 40 hours of data taking. Mini-EUSO observes the Earth&#8217;s atmosphere in the UV range (290 &#8211; 430 nm) with a field of view of about 44&#176; x 44&#176; through a nadir-facing, UV-transparent window with a focal surface of 48 x 48 pixels and a resolution of about 6.3 km on ground. While temporal resolution and triggering are at the timescales of 2.5 &#956;s to potentially record UHECR showers and TLEs, Mini-EUSO performs a continuous monitoring of the UV emission at a 40.96 ms timescale, where meteors are recorded. We developed an analysis pipeline able to offline detect, track and characterize meteor events and subsequently compute their physical parameters, such as tangential speed, magnitude, duration and trajectory azimuth. In this contribution, we present the implemented reduction methods and the results of the analysis of the sample, providing comparisons with existing databases of meteors observed in the optical band. </p>
Damage identification and condition assessment of building structures using frequency response functions and neural networks

This thesis investigated the viability of using Frequency Response Functions in combination with Artificial Neural Network technique in damage assessment of building structures. The proposed approach can help overcome some of limitations associated with previously developed vibration based methods and assist in delivering more accurate and robust damage identification results. Excellent results are obtained for damage identification of the case studies proving that the proposed approach has been developed successfully.
ACG Clinical Guidelines: Achalasia.

Achalasia is an esophageal motility disorder characterized by aberrant peristalsis and insufficient relaxation of the lower esophageal sphincter. Patients most commonly present with dysphagia to solids and liquids, regurgitation, and occasional chest pain with or without weight loss. High-resolution manometry has identified 3 subtypes of achalasia distinguished by pressurization and contraction patterns. Endoscopic findings of retained saliva with puckering of the gastroesophageal junction or esophagram findings of a dilated esophagus with bird beaking are important diagnostic clues. In this American College of Gastroenterology guideline, we used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation process to provide clinical guidance on how best to diagnose and treat patients with achalasia.
Interactive modelling tools for 3D building reconstruction

Fully automatic reconstruction of 3D city models is a topic of current research, while semi-automatic approaches are already applied for the acquisition of large databases. Examples for application areas are visualizations for architectural evaluation, town planning and city information systems as well as simulations for city climate, environmental evaluations and wave propagation. This paper reviews the available datasets and methods for efficient 3D reconstruction and some advancements that have been reported lately by the scientific community, focusing on interactive systems. Finally, the approach developed at the University of Stuttgart is presented and results of several projects are shown.