Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design and Characterization of Silicon-on-Insulator Passive Polarization Converter with Finite-Element Analysis

As optical fiber systems evolve to higher data rates, the importance of polarization control and manipulation steadily increases. Polarization manipulating devices, such as polarization splitters and converters, can be realized by introducing material anisotropy or geometric asymmetry. Compared to active devices, passive polarization converters are more simply fabricated and controlled, therefore they have attracted increasing attention during the past two decades. However, materials employed in previous polarization rotating waveguides are mainly limited to low index-contrast III-V semiconductors such as InP and GaAs. Such III-V devices possess large radiation loss, large curvature loss, and low coupling efficiency to single-mode fibers; in addition, due to the weak optical confinement, the device spacing has to be large, which prevents high-density and large-scale integration in optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEIC) and planar lightwave circuits (PLC). In this dissertation, the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology is introduced to the design and fabrication of passive polarization rotators (PR). Efficient and accurate full-vectorial finite-element eigenmode solvers as well as propagation schemes for characterizing novel SOI PRs are developed because commercial software packages based on finite-difference techniques are inefficient in dealing with arbitrary waveguide geometries. A set of general design procedures are accordingly developed to design a series of slanted-angle polarization converters, regardless of the material system (SOI or III-V), outer-slab layer configuration (symmetric or asymmetric), and longitudinal loading (singleor multi-section). In particular, our normalized design charts and simple empirical formula for SOI polarization converters are applicable to a wide range of silicon-guiding-film thickness, e.g., from 1 to 30 μm, enabling fast and accurate polarization rotator design on most commercial SOI wafers. With these procedures, in principle 100% polarization conversion efficiency can be achieved by optimizing waveguide geometric parameters. A novel configuration with asymmetric external waveguiding layers is proposed, which is advantageous for fabrication procedure, manufacturing tolerance, single-mode region, and conversion efficiency. By etching along the crystallographic plane, the angled-facet can be perfectly fabricated. Completely removing external waveguiding layer beside the sloped sidewall not only simplifies production procedures but also enhances fabrication tolerances.
LEADERSHIP CAPACITIES OF PRINCIPALS

Penelitian ini menelaah persepsi para calon kepaia sekolah mengenai kompetonsi kepemimpinan kepaia sekolah mereka sendiri. Sebanyak 47 orang guru yang sedang mengikuti program S2 Kepemimpinan Pendidikan di universitas-universitas di Malaysia dan 55 orang yang sedang mengikuti S2 Administrasi Pendidikan di berbagai universitas di Thailand dilibatkan dalam penelitian ini. Data dihimpun ckmgan menggunakan Principals Leadership Capacities Questionnaire yang dikembangkan oleh Luo (2004) yang suclah dimodifikasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa guru-guru Malaysia menilai kepaia sekolah mereka mempunyai kemarnpuan kepemimpinan yang bertaraf sedang sampai tinggi, sementara guru-guru Thailand menilai kepaia sekolah mereka mempunyai kemarnpuan sekitar sedang dalam enam ranah Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards. Dari penelitian ini diketahui pula bahwa tidak ada seorang pun kepaia sekolah yang dinilai tidak memiliki kemarnpuan kepemimpinan sedikitpun atau sangat tinggi kemampuannya. Kata kunci: Kepaia sekolah; kompetensi kepemimpinan.
VALUE PRICING PILOT PROGRAM

The Federal Highway Administration has initiated a Value Pricing Pilot Program. Projects under this program are designed to pilot test the use of value or congestion pricing as a means of reducing traffic congestion in urban and suburban areas. This article reviews four value pricing projects, including three that have received support from the pilot program and a fourth that is being carried out by the private sector. The three include operational projects in San Diego, California, Houston, Texas, and Lee County, Florida. The fourth project, priced express lanes on State Route 91 in Orange County, California, is being monitored and evaluated using program funds.
A Computational Modeling for Semi-Coupled Multiphase Flow in Atmospheric Icing Conditions

A two-dimensional second-order positivity-preserving finite volume upwind scheme is developed for a semi-coupled algorithm involving the air and droplet flow fields in the Eulerian frame in which shares the grid for each phase. Special emphasizes are placed on the computational modeling, which is induced from a strongly coupled algorithm, that satisfies the strict hyperbolicity and its numerical scheme based on the HLLC solver preserving the positivity to handle multiphase flow in the Eulerian frame, respectively. The proposed modeling associated with the semi-coupled algorithm including the Navier-Stokes and droplet equations takes into account different boundary conditions on the solid surface for each phase. The verification and validation studies show that the new scheme can solve the air and droplet flow fields in fairly good agreement with the exact analytical solutions and experimental data. In particular, it accurately predicted the maximum value of the droplet impingement intensity near the stagnation region and the droplet impingement area.
DRIERS IN PURSUIT OF PERCEPTUAL AND VIRTUAL TARGETS

In this paper, the authors focus on steering control and the lane keeping task as they are impacted by visual occlusion of the driver. A framework is used to formulate steering control as the pursuit of a perceived or virtual target. A target based driver model which offers a plausible and cognitively feasible characterization of how drivers may continue control during visual occlusions is presented. The approach is applicable to a wide range of steering tasks, is robust to disturbances and uncertainties, and is efficient in formulating the control task.
Design scheme for broadband Doherty power amplifier using broadband load combiner

This article proposes a design strategy for broadband Doherty power amplifier (PA) using broadband load combiner. The bandwidth of the Doherty PA based on the proposed combiner using packaged transistor is about 2.5 times the bandwidth of conventional Doherty PA using a quarter‐wave transformer. An easy to implement analytical design methodology has been presented for the proposed load‐combiner while describing the bandwidth enhancement strategy. The design methodology is validated with the design of a broadband Doherty PA based on CREE 10 W packaged GaN high electron mobility transistor devices using the proposed load combiner. Measurement results show more than 45% drain efficiency at 6 dB output power back‐off (OPBO) over 400 MHz frequency range, centred around 1.95 GHz. The peak drain efficiency at saturation is better than 60% over this band of operation. At 6 dB OPBO, the maximum improvement of 18.5% in drain efficiency is achieved as compared to the balanced mode PA. Measurement with single carrier wideband code division multiple access modulated signal shows the average drain efficiency of more than 44% at 36.6 dBm average output power at center frequency of operation. The adjacent channel power ratio is better than −45 dBc after applying digital predistortion. The circuit is realized with microstrip technology, which can be easily fabricated using conventional printed circuit processes. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:655–674, 2015.
Computer‐aided design and simulation of optical microring resonators

This paper contains results of the three‐dimensional full‐vectorial finite element (3D FEM) frequency‐domain simulations of microring silicon resonators intended for the add/drop multiplexing, switching, and sensor applications. The second‐order edge elements are used, and the computational domain is closed using the standard perfectly matched layer. The calculations are performed for add‐drop and all‐pass configurations in a wide spectral range covering the first and the second telecommunication windows. Although computationally very demanding, the three‐dimensional full‐vectorial finite element offers designers a feasible and efficient way to design and simulate complex integrated optical components containing microring resonators, especially in the case when the radii of rings are too small to approximate that theories were valid. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Simulator Cockpit Motion and the Transfer of Initial Flight Training

Transfer of flight training from a Singer-Link GAT-2 training simulator, modified to approximate a counterpart Piper Cherokee Arrow airplane, was measured for independent groups of nine flight-naive subjects, each trained in one of three simulator cockpit motion conditions: normal washout motion in bank with sustained pitch angles, washout banking motion in which the direction of motion relative to that of the simulated airplane was randomly reversed 50% of the time as the cab passed through a wings-level attitude, and a fixed-base condition. Subjects received predetermined fixed amounts of practice in the simulator on each of 11 flight maneuvers drawn from the Private Pilot flight curriculum. Transfer performance measures, including flight time and trials to FAA performance criteria and total errors made in the process, showed reliable transfer for all groups with differential transfer effects and cost-effectiveness implications depending upon the type of simulator motion.
NPS Defense Affordability Panel

Abstract : Agenda: WSARA & NDAA Legislation, Affordability, and Cost Growth. Items presented are Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, USD(AT&L) 2012 initiatives, affordability assessment, what is CIRCM and why does DoD need it, acquisition programs, cost growth summary, and acquisition visibility today.
The Atlantis Series and Other Deep Dives.

Copyright © 2007 by Divers Alert Network 6 West Colony Place Durham, NC 27705. This book is available for download at no cost as a PDF file from the Divers Alert Network website (http://www.DiversAlertNetwork.org/). Opinions and data presented at the Conference and in these Proceedings are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Divers Alert Network.
A three-dimensional numerical investigation of the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of a large-scale prototype repository

This thesis describes the modelling of the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of a large-scale experiment, carried out at SKB's underground research laboratory in Aspo, Sweden. The experiment, known as the Prototype Repository Project, was constructed in highly fractured granite rock and is scheduled to last 20 years. Results from the experiment are collected systematically by SKB from the initial rock characterisation to the highly instrumented installed material. The model applied is the thermo-hydro-mechanical model previously developed at the Geoenvironmental Research Centre (GRC). The GRC's current model was extended to successfully accommodate three-dimensional THM behaviour, including the development of a high-performance computing algorithm using both multi-threaded and message-passing programming paradigms to enable simulations to be completed in significantly reduced time. Model simulations have been conducted of both the pre-placement stage of the experiment and the post-placement operational phase. The results of the pre-placement phase have been used to aid the calibration of the simulation and provide confidence in the development of the operational phase simulation. In the pre-placement phase simulation, a pragmatic approach using a combination of an effective continuum model and a number of key discontinuities was employed. A domain of 100 x 100 x 160m was used, discretised into over 550,000 finite-elements. The simulations were able to reproduce three-dimensional highly anisotropic flow conditions shown in the experimental results. The post-placement operational stage was then simulated in three-dimensions using the same rock domain as for the pre-placement analyses, including the buffer material, and discretised into over 920,000 elements. A number of key features, including the anisotropic hydraulic behaviour, were captured. It was concluded that the geological conditions, backfill re-saturation and buffer re-saturation, including the micro-structural effects of the bentonite, are all important to the simulation of a high-level waste repository. Long term simulation results were also presented. A number of aspects were explored using two-dimensional analyses, including the macro/micro- structural interactions of the bentonite buffer. A time-dependant form of the hydraulic conductivity relationship was developed and yielded significantly improved results in long-term analyses. The behaviour of a fracture intersecting a deposition-hole was also investigated highlighting the importance of discrete fractures on hydration behaviour.
A novel approach to the stability analysis of boost power-factor-correction circuits

We investigate the stability of a boost PFC circuit, in the saturated and unsaturated regions of operation, for two separate cases: one for which the switching frequency is approaching infinity and the other for which it is finite but large. For case one, we show that global existence of a smooth hypersurface for the boost PFC circuit is not possible. Subsequently, we develop the condition for local existence. For case two, we find that within the boundary layer, the dynamics of the nonlinear system evolve on a torus. Using bifurcation theory, we show the mechanism of the torus breakdown.
The two moment performance analysis of cellular mobile networks with and without channel reservation

We propose the two moment performance analysis of cellular mobile networks with and without channel reservation. We show how one may determine customer-orientated grade-of-service parameters such as new call blocking, hand-off call blocking and forced termination probability under a two moment representation of traffic offered to each cell. We present extensive results comparing the proposed two moment analysis with classical single moment analysis and simulation results. For variety, we have employed four different mobility models in our simulator. We show that our proposed model outperforms the existing analytical method when compared to simulation results employing all four mobility models.
Formal and Informal Systems of VET: Implications for Employee Involvement

Initiatives of employer involvement remain futile; this is because of the existence of formal and informal systems of VET in Britain. Reporting on an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded project into skills capacity issues across construction, manufacturing, logistics and creative sectors in the Tyne and Wear region, they noted that the formal VET system in Britain driven by government funding requirements and target culture results in the dominance of quantitative assessment of skills and qualifications that increasingly alienates employers who demand skilled employees who can ‘[get] the job done’ and possess the ‘ability to work harmoniously’ with coworkers. Such alienation emanates from a shift towards a depoliticised and bureaucratised formal VET system, which moves away from actual provision of skills development to an enabling and facilitation function that often relies on delivery of skills development through private training providers. As a result, employers who cannot afford the time to engage with the formal VET system either do not participate in training or seek solutions elsewhere (e.g.through poaching or paying for training courses overseas); those who do engage could also end up misplacing their efforts on meeting the requirements of funding agencies instead of focussing on developing skills that matter.
A COMPARISON OF THE AEROBIC ENERGY DEMANDS OF TWO COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE CYCLE ERGOMETERS IN TRAINED CYCLISTS

The purpose of this study was to compare the energy demands of two cycling ergometers, (Velotron Dynafit Pro and Monark 834E) commonly used in the physiological monitoring of elite athletes. Eight trained male cyclists with a minimum 2 years training and racing experience participated in the study. Each subject completed an exercise trial involving a maximal incremental test. Testing was performed in a random order on either the Velotron or Monark cycle ergometer at the same time of day with no more than 14 days between each testing session. Subjects were requested to maintain their normal training and nutritional practices during the course of the study but to refrain from any intensive training 48 hours prior to each testing session. During the incremental testing significant differences for power output (PO), heart rate (HR), and oxygen uptake (VO2) were found at both at fixed blood lactate (BL) reference points of; 2.5mmol l-1 (REF2.5mM) and at 4mmol.l-1 (REF4mM). Overall the Velotron appeared to provide a more specific measure of cycling performance with significantly lower energy demands at fixed submaximal exercise intensities being observed as well as a significantly greater peak power output and time to exhaustion being attained, which may reflect the specific cycling position adopted. Further research is required to compare the findings of this study with actual cycling performance.
Analysis of ship propulsion system behaviour and the impact on fuel consumption

From fuel to ship moving, the overall energy conversion efficiency consists of three parts: the engine efficiency, the transmission efficiency and the propulsive efficiency. In off-design conditions, there are three factors, namely the engine speed, the propeller pitch ratio and the rudder activity, and an additional disturbance, ship loading factor that can impact the behaviour of ship propulsion system and influence the overall energy conversion efficiency. In this study, by means of computer simulation, four elementary types of off-design conditions, each of which is relevant to one of the impact factors, and entire voyage simulations which combines the off-design and design operation conditions, are investigated to reveal the behaviour of the ship propulsion system. The results demonstrate that, in terms of fuel consumption, the power specific fuel consumption is mainly determined by engine efficiency while ship speed plays the most important role in calculation of ton-mile specific fuel consumption. On the voyage basis, high percentage of manoeuvering stage and intensive rudder activity result in large ton-mile specific fuel consumption, while low cruising speed could improve the fuel economy on ton-mile basis.
Smart Attendance System

This project is about Hokuden (M) Sdn. Bhd. Smart Attendance System that take attendance of the employee's using thumbprint and RFID device. Then salary will be calculating based on the attendance of the employees. The purpose of this system was developed to help the administrator to manage attendance and calculate the employee's salary. These systems will easiest the administrator to manage information about the employee's beside it can update the employee's information. Beside that with this system the administrator can view all employee information and can easiest search the information. This system is cover with employee information, attendance information, salary information, Voucher Information and produce report for employees with known as salary slip. This system is developing with use Microsoft Visual Basic.net 2005 and Oracle as the database. This system is developing with use System Rapid Application Development (RAD). Overall, this system can easiest the administrator to manage all employee information includes attendance, salary and Voucher Information. This system will give benefit to the Hokuden (M) Sdn. Bhd. Management.
Big data, small data och etik i internetforskningen: utmaningar för samhällsvetenskapen

I denna text vill jag gora tre poanger: 1) internet ar idag och kommer over overskadlig tid att vara ett oerhort viktigt falt for forskning och datainsamling inom samhallsvetenskapen; 2) det finns en rad olika problem – metodmassiga, ekonomiska och etiska – med datainhamtning i stor skala; 3) det etiska regelverket for denna typ av forskning ar i Sverige outvecklat och maste ses over.
Temperature effects on electrical performance of carbon‐based nano‐interconnects at chip and package level

This paper investigates the electrical performance of innovative carbon‐based nano‐interconnects made by carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons. The electronic transport in the carbon materials is modeled in the frame of the Transmission Line theory, where the classical per‐unit‐length circuital parameters are corrected by new terms arising from the quantistic nature of the transport. These parameters are related to the number of the conducting channels and the mean free path, which in turn, are expressed as functions of temperature and size. By coupling this model to the heat equation, a simple electro‐thermal model is derived. Case‐studies are carried out with reference to 22‐nm technology node applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Continuous sliding mode impedance control for robots

In the paper a continuous sliding mode impedance robot task space controller is presented. Continuous sliding mode was introduced into the robot task space impedance control in order to assure robustness of the control approach to robot dynamic parameters changes and in order to achieve simple implementation of the control algorithm. The analysis of the robot dynamic model is represented from which robot singularity points are determined and the range for the estimated value of robot inertia is obtained. The control algorithm is designed and the simulation and experimental results are represented.
Quality assessment of environmental simulation scenariosscientific, expertise, interpretive and participatory methods based on mathematical, epistemological and socio-anthropological approaches

Simulation scenarios, defined as parameters with a physical meaning used with scientific models, are often used to supplement the limits and avoid the costs of experimental approaches, and to forecast the environmental consequences of regulatory decisions. Their quality assessment is important to support decisions in the public domain and avoid choiceswith unwanted effects. Building onmathematical, socio-anthropological, philosophical, and scientific developments, this study defines a generic framework for scenarios quality assessment, develops specific methods and adequacy criteria for regulatory scenarios and tests their applicability, limits and interest. Quality is defined as the adequacy for a given use. Representativeness, theoretical consistency, logical consistency, juridical conformity and political criteria are defined. Two routes for quality assessment are defined: an expertise route making interpretation choices transparent, and a participatory route opening interpretation choices to citizens. Those routes are tested, respectively, with case studies of diffuse pollution simulation scenarios for groundwater and bees exposure to pesticides. The framework allows to assessmultiple quality components, taking into account the links between them(including the juridical, scientific and political components) while preserving their specificity. It highlights the limits of the scientific knowledge in a regulatory context, makes transparent the choices and uncertainties, and allows to assess the social acceptability of such uncertainties and of the use of the scenarios. Due to the lack of a binding political mandate in our case studies, the possibility of the incorporation of the framework in formal democratic processes is still to be demonstrated.