Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of Microsimulation Activity-Based Model for San Francisco: Destination and Mode Choice Models

A tour-based microsimulation approach to modeling destination choice and mode choice of San Francisco residents is presented. These models were developed as part of an overall tour-based travel demand forecasting model (SF model) for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to provide detailed forecasts of travel demand for various planning applications. The models described represent two of the nine primary components of the SF model. Both model components consist of multiple logit choice models and include both tour-level models (which refer to the primary activity of the tour) and trip-level models (other activities on the tour). A separate model was estimated for each tour purpose, including work, school, other, and work-based. The destination choice models combine the trip attraction and trip distribution components of the traditional four-step process and use a multinomial logit specification. The mode choice models utilize a nested logit formulation to capture the similarities among sets of similar modes. The two models are linked by incorporating the mode choice utility logsum in the destination choice models; the result is equivalent to a nested structure with a mode choice nest under destination choice. It is demonstrated that the microsimulation approach easily allows the inclusion of a number of key variables in destination and mode choice models that have a significant explanatory power compared with those in traditional models. It is also shown that this approach allows estimation of the effects of tour characteristics on the choice of destination and mode using widely available data and estimation procedures.
Finite set model predictive control with a novel online grid inductance estimation technique

This paper presents a novel finite control set Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach, for grid connected converters. The advantage of using MPC for this application lies in the fact that it does not require cascaded control loops, PWM modulators or PLLs. However, the supply impedance is generally unknown causing remarkable errors in the MPC control action, in the case its value is not negligible compared to the converter inductance. This paper presents a novel idea for estimating the supply inductance, based on the difference between the grid voltage magnitudes at two consecutive sampling instants. The grid voltage magnitudes are calculated on the basis of the supply current and converter voltage directly within the MPC algorithm, in order to achieve a fast estimation and integration between the controller and estimator. The proposed method is verified via simulation tests on a three-phase two level active front-end.
Adaptive dynamic event-triggered consensus control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper addresses the dynamic event-triggered consensus problem of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) via the adaptive control method. First, due to limited bandwidth resources, an adaptive dynamic event-triggered mechanism (ADEM) with coefficients automatically adjusted according to the triggering errors is proposed to reduce the transmission burden. second, for the AUV model, an auxiliary variable is introduced to simplify the AUV system to a first-order model that is easy to analyse. Meanwhile, a novel adaptive dynamic event-triggered consensus control protocol is developed for each AUV to achieve consensus. Third, it is shown that, with the ADEM, the minimum interevent time between any two consecutive triggering instants can be prolonged to avoid the Zeno phenomenon for each AUV. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed scheme.
Comparing distortion and power characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs between SiC and GaN substrates

In this paper, we compare the distortion and power characteristics between AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) with different epi-structures. Third-order intermodulation distortion (IM3) measurement evaluates distortion characteristics, and on-wafer load and source-pull measurements evaluate the power performance. The results show that the AlGaN/GaN HEMTs directly fabricated on GaN substrates without nucleation layer perform better than those fabricated on SiC substrates. Furthermore, the distortion performance is compared with and without field plate.
Earthquakes, Records, and Nonlinear Responses

The estimation of MDOF nonlinear structural response given an earth-quake of magnitude M at distance R is studied with respect to issues such as the benefits and harms of (1) first scaling the records, (2) selecting records from the “wrong” magnitude, (3) alternative choices for how to scale the records, and (4) scaling records to a significantly higher or lower intensity, etc. We find that properly chosen scaling can reduce the necessity of the number of nonlinear analyses by a factor of about four, and that proper scaling does not introduce any bias. Several global and local nonlinear damage measures are considered. A five-DOF model of a steel structure is used; other cases are under study. The paper finishes with a demonstration of the use of such results in the estimation of the annual probability of exceeding a specified interstory ductility (drift) or other damage measures.
Bend loss in neodymium-doped fiber lasers

This paper is concerned with the effect of a fixed radius bend upon the operation of a neodymium-doped fiber laser at a wavelength of 1064 nm. In particular, the threshold power, slope efficiency, and cavity lifetime were measured over a range of bend radii and lengths. Oscillations were observed in the variation of the experimentally measured laser parameters with bend length over a range of bend radii which was explained by the finite thickness of the cladding. The results are explained theoretically with the aid of a model in which the pure bend loss coefficient is a parameter in the relevant laser equations and the finite thickness of the cladding is taken into account.
Developing Self-Regulation Skills Of Children In Mathematics Lessons

The study focuses on developing the self-regulation skills of high school students when learning mathematics. The introduction of distance learning brings an urgent focus on the development of students' self-direction, cognitive activity and motivation during the online lesson. The authors analyse the research in this area and identify a list of methodological techniques for developing this skill. The purpose of the study is to assess the effect of methods aimed at developing self-regulated learning, to make a qualitative analysis of students' knowledge and to develop recommendations for the organization of teachers' activities aimed at developing self-regulation skills. The study involved 264 students from secondary schools in Kokshetau, Republic of Kazakhstan. The authors conducted the experiment among 11th-grade high school students and covered the sections of algebra and geometry. The experiment used active methods to assess their impact on the development of self-regulation skills. Due to the organization of distance learning, the authors applied different types of digital technologies and online learning platforms during the experiment. The online lesson series assesses students' beginning, intermediate and final tests according to predetermined assessment criteria. The results of the study showed an increase in students' learning ability and self-study. At the same time, these results point to isolated issues in the organization of online mathematics teaching and highlight gaps in key aspects of learning. This allows the authors to develop the necessary recommendations for the organization of student learning that contribute to the development of self-regulation skills. the in the number of low-performing students and an increase in the of and students.
Enhanced production of falcarinol-type polyacetylenes in hairy roots of cultivated carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus)

Polyacetylenes (PAs) are a large group of bioactive phytochemicals, which are primarily produced by higher plants of the families Apiaceae and Araliaceae. Especially aliphatic C17-polyacetylenes of the falcarinol-type such as falcarinol (FaOH) and falcarindiol (FaDOH) are known for their numerous positive effects on human health. In this study we investigate the potential of carrot hairy root cultures for production of PAs. Three individual plants of seven differently coloured carrot cultivars were used for the development of hairy root cultures by transformation of root discs with the wild-type Rhizobium rhizogenes strain 15834. A total of 51 individual hairy root (HR) lines were obtained and quantitatively analysed together with root, petiole and leaf tissue samples for FaOH and FaDOH. Among the five tissues sampled from the donor plants, root periderm samples generally exhibited the highest PA levels with FaDOH as prevailing PA and large differences between cultivars. In comparison to periderm tissue, FaOH levels were highly increased in HR lines of all cultivars. In contrast, FaDOH levels were not significantly altered. Considering the low to moderate PA concentration in root and leaf tissues of the orange cultivars there was an up to more than 10-fold increase of the FaOH concentration in HRs of these genotypes. Within this study a reproducible method for Rrhi-mediated transformation of carrot root discs was applied which provides an efficient tool to assess the function of candidate genes involved in the biosynthesis of key PAs in carrot but might be used in future also for the large-scale production of falcarinol-type PAs.
Safety and Security in Component-Based Software-Intensive Systems

McLean, VA 22102 Abstract: The increasing reliance on software to perform monitoring and control of the physical elements safety-critical systems means software engineering has become a significant portion of overall system engineering. And as with other types of systems, the temptation to avoid as much as possible the costs associated with custom coding of software has led to extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), open source, and other non- developmental software in the form of components—i.e., self-contained "black boxes" with standard interfaces via which they communicate with other components. Software engineering is no longer a matter of custom coding, compilation, and integration of units and modules; rather, software-intensive systems are the product of assembly of plug-and-play black boxes. But several aspects of components and component assembly present uncertainties, engender incomplete and incorrect assumptions, and introduce unavoidable weaknesses and hazards that have the potential to escalate into failures that could result in safety mishaps. This paper discusses (1) the types of unsafe behaviors that can emerge when components interact; (2) techniques for analyzing components to predict such behaviors; and (3) architectural countermeasures to prevent such behaviors from emerging or to constrain and rapidly recover from their impact. The behaviors considered include not only unintentional (accidental) events, but events intentionally-induced through an attack or execution of implanted malicious logic. A. Introduction Software engineering has become a significant portion of the overall engineering of modern safety-critical systems, ranging from avionic and space systems to industrial control systems to weapons systems to medical devices. In these systems, software is used to monitor and control physical processes, the failure of which could lead to loss of human life or other catastrophic mishaps. An increasing amount of the software used in safety-critical systems, including real-time and embedded systems, is no longer purpose-built. Instead COTS, GOTS, open source, and other non-developmental software items are used (or reused), sometimes without modification or specialized configuration changes. Much of this non- developmental software—particularly the COTS and open source software—comes in the form of components: stand-alone pieces of software that can be used as a building block to create larger, more complex software systems. 1 A component may or may not be the smallest autonomous unit of decomposition in a software-based system. In some cases, components are themselves assembled from smaller components. For a self-contained, autonomous piece of software to be useful as a component of a larger system it must include interface(s), usually based on standards, that enable it to be easily integrated or assembled with other components. 2
A micropower supervisor for wireless nodes with a digital pulse frequency modulator battery monitor

In the last few years the increased development of wireless technologies led to the development of micropower devices with power management and real time power control, aimed to maximize the battery life time.1 The main and simplest method to estimate residual battery life time is by voltage measurement. This kind of measurement is simple but is useless in many cases, especially when long term Lithium-Thionyl chloride batteries are used, since its voltage is flat for more than 90% of the battery discharge. In this case, a current control should be used. However, these kinds of devices have various problems as a limited range of measurement and not negligible quiescent current that may distort the measurements. In this work we developed a micropower supervisor for wireless sensor nodes with a charge battery monitor, whose features are aimed at solving the problems just described. The current measured by a sense resistor, is filtered by a super-capacitor, amplified by a current sense amplifier and then fed to a voltage to pulse frequency modulator. In this way, the charge consumption can be estimated without the saturation of the current sense amplifier, even if the wireless node consumes time limited high current spikes, for example during transmission.
Self-coordinating mobile robots using a specialized image processor

A system for autonomously coordinating the paths of a mobile robot in a multiple robot environment is described. It is based on a specialized image processor for recognizing structured environments. The image processing gives the position of one robot and the position of other robots that are in its field of view in real-time. Self-coordination is obtained for each robot by making a local analysis of positions and velocities of the mobile robots that appear in its field of view. The control system models the robots situations as a force field, and commands the necessary orders for navigation in a structured environment, adapting dynamically the trajectory to new situations. <<ETX>>
A 50% power reduction scheme for CMOS relaxation oscillator

In this paper, a CMOS relaxation oscillator is presented. The proposed oscillator has only one tail current source unlike the emitter coupled multivibrator. All the tail current flows through the timing capacitor and thus the charging slope of the timing capacitor is doubled. This enhances the operating speed without increasing the power consumption. The oscillator is fabricated in a standard 0.8 /spl mu/m CMOS process. The maximum operating frequency is 923 MHz at a 3.3 V single supply, while the oscillator draws 6 mA.
Overview of research on driver drowsiness definition and driver drowsiness detection

Four studies were recently undertaken, two of which have dealt with problems of drowsiness definition while two have dealt with on-line drowsiness detection. The first definitional study involved observer rating and the second involved prediction of reductions in task performance based on combinations of physiological measures. Both approaches appear promising. These definitions, as well as others, could then be related to measures taken from the vehicle itself (for instance measures of steering, lane position, and lateral acceleration), which could be combined to form drowsiness detection algorithms. The first detection study involved algorithm development and expected accuracy, and the second involved validation of typical algorithms. This paper provides an overview of the four studies and an assessment of the feasibility of on-line detection of drowsiness. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 894848.
Factors Motivating Forest Conservation Easement Adoption in Wisconsin's Northwoods

Abstract The diversity of ownership of forestlands in the Northwoods Region and the absence of strong local land use regulations represent critical barriers to protecting the health of natural resources. Seen by policymakers as a viable land protection strategy, conservation easements represent a voluntary alternative to land use regulation for forest land conservation. However, landowner adoption for privately owned forest lands remains low in Wisconsin despite more than 16 million acres nationally held by nonprofit state, local, and national land trust organizations. Despite these successes, resistance exists from non-industrial private forest landowners to the adoption of conservation easements. This study explores these barriers using data collected from mail survey responses from 470 forest landowners in Wisconsin's Northwoods. A typology of landowners is developed based on attitudes toward the adoption of conservation easements, revealing that current interest among forest landowners is below 20%, and land trusts currently lack standing as trusted partners in forest land management.
Opportunities for Gigascale Integration (GSI) Beyond 2003

Opportunities for GSI will be governed by a hierarchy of theoretical and practical limits whose levels can be codified as: 1) fundamental; 2) material; 3) device; 4) circuit; and 5 ) system. Using both the hierarchy of theoretical limits and the history of practical limits as guides, a one billion transistor chip is projected by the year 2000 and the possibility of more than one hundred billion transistor chip before the year 2020 is suggested.
Consequences of lightning strikes on nuclear power generating stations

Direct or indirect lightning strikes have caused reactor trips in nuclear power generating stations. If nuclear power generating stations do not have adequate lightning protection and grounding, such stations may be exposed to greater risk of loss of offsite power, fire, and damage to redundant trains of engineered safeguard equipment. The loss of offsite power is an important initiating event for design basis accidents. I studied the effects of lightning strikes on reactor trips or misoperation of the equipment from January 1984 through September 2000. From this study, I found that most of the lightning strikes operated the overvoltage protection devices for the control rod drive system. In others, the lightning strikes had partially damaged the main/startup transformers, tripped the switchyard breakers or tripped the transmission lines and, by that, affected the availability of the required stable offsite power sources to the nuclear power generating stations. Direct lightning strikes, electrostatic discharges, lightning electromagnetic impulse can disrupt the electrical and electronic equipment used in the reactor protection system and the other safety systems. The use of the integrated protection and microprocessor-based systems in simplified passive advanced light water reactors and the digital systems replacing the existing analog systems may be more vulnerable to a lightning strike. The protection from lightning could include the installation of lightning dissipation arrays, installation of ferrite shields, installation of a secondary shield or the addition of a short time delay on the power supply monitoring card to allow the transients to dissipate. The instruments and computer grounding system may be grounded through a separate radial grounding system that may be connected to the station grounding grid at only one point to avoid circulating currents. Advanced surge protection devices that include gas discharge tubes, Zener diodes for accurate and fast( picoseconds) voltage control, and metal oxide varistors can be used to protect the electrical and electronic safeguard equipment from high voltage transients associated with lightning.
Nanoparticles as Antimicrobial Agents and Drug Delivery Systems - A Review

The world is facing major issues related to antibiotic resistance, specific drugs targeting and its side effects. Such obstacles can be rectified by nanotechnology as they have essential characteristics with smaller size, target specificity, easy deliverable with lesser side effects. The prime nature of the nanoparticles are, it can probe into the cell wall of the pathogenic microbes and even have the capacity to intrude into cellular pathways. Nanoparticles themselves are capable of destroying unwanted foreign particles or toxic cells, which enter into our bodies. Nanoparticles can be treated as carriers, in which they combine with specific drugs and deliver to target specific cells with lesser side effects. Nanoparticles are used as a drug delivery agent for various kinds of diseases related to cancer. Nanoparticles with drugs increase the antibiotic release at the different target sites and these nanoparticles have a great tendency to deliver a large number of drugs to a cell. In this current review, we discuss the bright future of NPs as drug delivery agents as it can overcome all conventional problems.
Modelling and analysis of switch-mode cascade converters with a single active switch

In recent years, the development of new technologies is requiring wider conversion ratios. A possible solution to this problem is to use n -conventional converters connected in cascade; however, a complex control circuitry is required. An alternative solution is to use an n -stage cascade converter with a single active switch. Nonlinear and linear models, using averaged model techniques, are given for a class of positive output cascade buck and boost converters. These converters use a single active switch. It is shown that the proposed linear models are globally asymptotically stable for any number of stages. The continuous-mode conditions are given with the corresponding design values for the voltage ripples of the capacitors and current ripples of the inductors. Therefore the need of having models for a class of DC-DC cascade converters is satisfied.
Analysis and Design of Phase-Coupled Laser Arrays

Coupled-mode theory is employed for the analysis and, consequently, for the design of phase-coupled laser arrays that may have improved properties, such as better supermodes discrimination and a narrower far-field pattern. We start with a brief description of the improved coupled-mode formulation for multiwaveguide systems. The formulation encompasses real and imaginary index perturbations, which determine modal gains or losses. We proceed by presenting the analysis of various phase-coupled, index-guided laser arrays. A common problem in many cases is poor mode discrimination, which may result in excitation of several lateral supermodes and wider far-field patterns. Based on the improved coupled-mode theory, some new promising structures are presented, along with a few numerical examples which suggest a better mode discrimination between the lowest-order and higher-order lateral modes.
Strategies towards safer opioid analgesics—A review of old and upcoming targets

Opioids continue to be of use for the treatment of pain. Most clinically used analgesics target the μ opioid receptor whose activation results in adverse effects like respiratory depression, addiction and abuse liability. Various approaches have been used by the field to separate receptor‐mediated analgesic actions from adverse effects. These include biased agonism, opioids targeting multiple receptors, allosteric modulators, heteromers and splice variants of the μ receptor. This review will focus on the current status of the field and some upcoming targets of interest that may lead to a safer next generation of analgesics.