Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost Overruns and Failure in Project Management: Understanding the Roles of Key Stakeholders in Construction Projects

The subject of poor cost performance has been widely published in the mainstream project and construction management literature. Nevertheless, the underlying responsibilities of the key stakeholders (clients, consultants, and contractors) in managing this chronic problem in the Australian construction industry remain unclear. By performing an in-depth analysis of the roles and responsibilities of these key stakeholders, this research is intended to unfold the industrywide perception of cost performance being heavily reliant on the contractor's performance alone. Based on a thorough literature review and relevant industry inputs, 73 attributes associated with cost performance were identified for investigation. Based on the relative importance weighing technique on 48 selected attributes, planning and scheduling deficiencies have the highest impact on cost performance from clients, consultants, and contractors' perspectives. Confirmatory factor analy- sis on the combined responses across all three groups suggests that robust control procedures and adequate programming, along with efficient design and effective site management, are the most critical factors. These factors are primarily associated with the responsibilities of contractors and consultants for managing cost overruns in projects. However, the client's responsibility in facilitating effective management of these factors within the project environment is crucial. Multivariate regression analysis performed on eight factors' scores highlighted the influence offive significant factors (p < 5%) on managing cost overruns. The findings are expected to abridge a significant knowledge gap by shifting the priorities in cost estimation and management practices across all industry sectors. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862 . 0000621. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
On the stability of interpolative sigma delta modulators

A framework is suggested for stability analysis of Sigma - Delta modulators. The authors argue that limit cycles are natural quantities to investigate in this context. They present a number of analytical and approximate techniques to aid the stability analysis of the class of interpolative modulators, and use these to propose a way of improved design which explicitly takes stability into account. <<ETX>>
High quality optical microring resonators in Si3N 4/SiO2

We have experimentally demonstrated high Q-factors strip waveguide resonators using the Si3N4/SiO2 material platform at the wavelength of 1. 31μm. The analyzed filters demonstrate high quality factors reaching 133,000. The dependence on resonator radii and coupling gap is also discussed.
Compact and high-selectivity microstrip bandpass filter using two-stage twist-modified asymmetric split-ring resonators

A compact and high frequency selectivity two-stage microstrip bandpass filter is designed and experimentally demonstrated. Such a kind of filter is composed of two pairs of twist-modified asymmetric split-ring resonators (SRRs) to achieve three transmission poles within the passband and four transmission zeros at low and high rejection bands. Sharply out-of-band reductions contributing to the high frequency selectivity are obtained by properly detuning the gaps among the SRRs. The measured results show that the proposed filter with dimensions of 0.088 × 0.088λ 2 has a 3 dB passband of 15.2% centred at 1.98 GHz. This filter can be flexibly integrated in miniaturised radio-frequency/microwave circuits.
Specification and measurement of the frequency versus temperature characteristics of crystal oscillators

Several factors are reviewed for specifying and measuring the frequency vs. temperature (f-T) characteristics of precision quartz crystal oscillators. Topics include static vs. dynamic measurement, thermal time constant, activity dips, condensables, hysteresis, and trim effect. This work reviews some f-T considerations that are not discussed in detail in MIL-0-55310. <<ETX>>
Greenhouse gas emission from construction stage of wooden buildings

This study reports on a detailed investigation into the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction process of multistory wooden buildings relative to the other life cycle stages: the material production and operation stages. The results showed that the construction stage accounts for 20–30% of the initial embodied emissions and 6–10% of the total emission of the included life cycle stages. Especially the transport process of building components seems to have higher potential to mitigate the emissions than the actual construction work. In addition, the emissions from different construction systems were studied based on the reference buildings. Although definitive conclusion would be difficult to be drawn from this study alone due to the small sample size and the assumptions made, prefabrication work seems to be a more efficient construction method compared to on-site work for wooden buildings.
Producción ajustada y recursos humanos: resultados sobre la efectividad empresarial

This paper indicates the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices associated with the introduction of Lean Production (LP) and the organizational results obtained. Companies that make the most of LP practices are also those that take care to train workers in using these practices as well as improving their internal promotion. However, the same is not true for the pay for performance system. The combination of LP with some HRM practices reduce lead time, inventory and economic order quantity, and boosts productivity separately and jointly with quality. We extend the work of other researchers by focusing on a sector that has been very little studied to date. The sam- ple consists of a set of plants that are fairly homogeneous, which facilitates the analysis of the relationships between the selected variables while keeping other variables controlled. These results can thus be used to help human re- source and production departments in improving organizational performance.
Comparison of causes of maternal near miss and maternal mortality in Mahatma Gandhi institute of medical sciences which is Tertiary care rural hospital (Januray 2016 to September 2017)

: A mother is the foundation of a family and also the very root and foundation of a Nation. Maternal health is a matter of great importance all over the world as it defines the social status of women in a country as well as the quality of health services provided by a Nation to its people. The study was performed in a rural tertiary care institute located in central India. After clearance from the ethical committee of the institute and approval from university for thesis synopsis was received, study was initiated on patients meeting the study requirements from a period of January 2016 to September 2017. In this study, amongst all cases of Maternal near Miss 36% were due to haemorrhage, 22.4% due to medical disorders, 21.6% due to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, 15.2% due to infection, and 4.8% were due to labour related disorders. Investigating MNM cases will help to improve the maternal health system more as women has survived catastrophe. Positive feedback to health worker will do miracles.
The spatially distributed nature of subglacial sediment dynamics: using a numerical model to quantify sediment transport and bedrock erosion across a glacier bed in response to glacier behavior and hydrology

Abstract. In addition to ice and water, glaciers expel sediment. As a result, changing glacier dynamics and melt will result in changes to glacier erosion and sediment discharge, which can impact the landscape surrounding retreating glaciers, as well as communities and ecosystems downstream. To date, the available models of subglacial sediment transport on the sub-hourly to decadal-scale exist in one dimension, usually along a glacier's flow line. Such models have proven useful in describing the formation of landforms, the impact of sediment transport on glacier dynamics, the interactions between climate, glacier dynamics, and erosion. However, because of the large role of sediment connectivity in determining sediment discharge, the geoscience community needs modeling frameworks that describe subglacial sediment discharge in two spatial dimensions over time. Here, we present SUGSET_2D, a numerical model that evolves a two-dimensional subglacial till layer in response to the erosion of bedrock and changing sediment transport conditions below the glacier. Experiments employed on test cases of synthetic ice sheets and alpine glaciers demonstrate the heterogeneity in sediment transport across a glacier's bed. Furthermore, the experiments show the non-linear increase in sediment discharge following increased glacier melt. Lastly, we apply the model to Griesgletscher in the Swiss Alps where we use a parameter search to test model outputs against annual observations of sediment discharge measured from the glacier. The model captures the glacier's inter-annual variability and quantities of sediment discharge. Furthermore, the model's capacity to represent the data depends greatly on the grain size of sediment. Smaller sediment sizes allow sediment transport to occur in regions of the bed with reduced water flow and channel size, effectively increasing sediment connectivity into the main channels. Model outputs from the three test-cases together show the importance of considering heterogeneities in water discharge and sediment availability in two dimensions.
Hybrid LSFEM and transfinite element method for microwave circuits

A hybrid procedure is presented that combines the least-squares finite element method (LSFEM) and the transfinite element method for analysing microwave circuits. The benefits of the LSFEM for modelling the interior region of the circuit are combined with those of the transfinite element method to effectively couple the fields to semi-infinite port regions where the scattering parameters of the circuit are to be determined. The validity and efficiency of this new technique are demonstrated.
A comparative study for simulating heat transport in large district heating networks

Received: 4 May 2017 Accepted: 26 January 2018 District heating networks are a convenient, economic and environmental-friendly way to supply heat to buildings connected to a central heating plant. However, the control of such a system becomes challenging if the total length of the network reaches several kilometers because the travel time of the information into the system is over hours. One solution consists in instrumenting all the parts of the network and performing a closed loop control to optimize the temperature and the mass flow rate supplied to every single consumption point. However this solution is generally expensive and difficult to implement in existing networks. What is proposed in this paper is to dynamically model the heat waves in the network to determine the temperatures and mass flow rates at key locations considering the ambient losses and the pipe thermal inertia. A study is performed to check the possibility to use the one-dimensional finite volume method to simulate heat waves propagation. First, an adiabatic pipe is considered as a reference test case to determine the limitations of this method. The results are compared to a 2D computational fluid dynamic simulation and numerical diffusion is exhibited for low spatial discretization. Therefore, an improved alternative model is developed to overcome this problem.
Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers with asymmetric membranes for microfluidic applications

A 2D finite element model for capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (cMUT) arrays is developed. The model is verified by comparing the results to experimental data obtained on 1D cMUT arrays. The model accurately predicts the phenomenon involved in crosstalk in cMUT arrays, namely Lamb and Stoneley waves. Using normal mode theory in conjunction with finite element analysis, the acoustic power coupled to the Stoneley waves is found to be significant and its use for fluidic sensing and actuation is proposed. The effect of cMUT geometry on the efficiency and mode selectivity of Stoneley wave generation is also studied and the results are presented.
Fault characterisation of complementary pass-transistor logic circuits

Complementary pass-transistor logic (CPL) circuits result in speed improvement and power reduction compared to conventional static CMOS logic. However, the behaviour of this logic family under fault has not yet been studied. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the behaviour of CPL circuits under various single faults. It is shown that all single transistor stuck-on faults are only detectable by I/sub DDQ/ testing, while all single stuck-open faults are only detectable by logic monitoring. The majority of the single bridging faults between the gate and source/drain terminals of the MOS transistors can be detected by current monitoring while a few are undetectable.
Human Element and Accidents in Greek Shipping

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the significance of the human element in accidents involving Greek-flagged ships, during 1993-2006, worldwide. In this context, the human element as a general factor of accident initiation and most importantly its constituent components, in the form of specific onboard duties (functions) and/or off-board (mainly ashore) entities, were presented and analysed. It was found that 57-1% of all accidents were attributed to the human element, whereas 75.8% of the latter were detected onboard and 80-4% of the onboard human-induced accidents were linked to errors and violations of the ship's master. Furthermore, since the timeframe examined covers the implementation of the ISM Code, the current analysis was aimed at producing valuable information with regard to its effectiveness upon Greek shipping. In this respect, a 12-2% reduction of human-caused accidents has been found during the post-ISM period. Finally, the association between specific accident types and human element components was examined utilising the technique of correspondence analysis and it was found that groundings and collisions were closely related to the ship's Master, whereas mechanical failures and fires were associated with the engine officers, and cargo shifts and flooding with bridge officers.
AIBO – the No. 1 selling service robot

Sony’s AIBO entertainment robot has broken all records for the number of robots sold in the shortest time period. The AIBO is an autonomous home entertainment robot with artificial intelligence. Its behavior simulates a dog’s in its ability to walk and play, with built‐in functions for emotions, instincts, learning and growth. Yet AIBO was not intended by Sony to be a dog substitute, but to further the man‐robot interaction. It has received an overwhelming response worldwide and it appears as if AIBO may be just the beginning of Sony’s home entertainment robots.
Family based dispatching in manufacturing networks

Intrinsic to family based dispatching is the grouping of similar types of jobs in front of a machine for joint processing. Machine flow times may be improved in this way, as less time is spent on set-ups. Our observations in practice, however, suggest that family based dispatching may result in a bulky arrival pattern for successor manufacturing stages, thereby causing additional delay. So far, literature seems to neglect this effect. To explore this issue we develop queuing theoretical approximations of flow times for a simple two-stage shop. It appears that the optimal batch size for the shop is typically smaller than the optimal batch size for the batch machine. Furthermore, we propose extensions to existing dispatching rules by using information on successor stages. Existing and new extended rules are tested by an extensive simulation study. In line with the queuing theoretical analysis the outcomes indicate that exhaustive rules – assuming batch size to be equal to family queue length – are clearly outperformed by non-exhaustive rules – allowing for smaller batches. Moreover, results show that the inclusion of local information on successor stages in rule decision making improves shop flow times.
An error model for sensor simulation GPS and differential GPS

This paper describes a software package that models various Global Positioning System (GPS) and differential GPS receiver configurations. The model produces position errors in a locally-level coordinate system. The errors are statistically based on the errors associated with pseudorange measurements. An orbital model of the GPS satellites simulates the effects of satellite geometry on the position errors. The error model is used in the Real-Time Simulator at the NASA-Langley Research Center. <<ETX>>
An Improved Mean Shift Segmentation Method of High-Resolution Remote Sensing Image Based on LBP and Canny Features

Mean shift algorithm is a robust approach toward feature space analysis, which has been wildly used for natural scene image and medical image segmentation. Due to fuzzy boundary and low accuracy of Mean shift segmentation method, this paper puts forward to an improved Mean shift segmentation method of high-resolution remote sensing image based on LBP and Canny features. The results show that this improved Mean shift segmentation access can enhance segmentation accuracy compared to the traditional Mean shift.
Advance of microfluidic constriction channel system of measuring single‐cell cortical tension/specific capacitance of membrane and conductivity of cytoplasm

This paper reported a microfluidic platform which realized the characterization of inherent single‐cell biomechanical and bioelectrical parameters simultaneously. Individual cells traveled through a constriction channel with deformation images and impedance variations captured and processed into cortical tension Tc, specific membrane capacitance Csm, and cytoplasmic conductivity σcy based on an equivalent biophysical model. These properties of thousands of individual cells of K562, Jurkat, HL‐60, HL‐60 treated with paraformaldehyde (PA)/cytochalasin D (CD)/concanavalin A (ConA), granulocytes of Donor 1, Donor 2, and Donor 3 were quantified for the first time. Leveraging Tc, Csm, and σcy, (1) high accuracies of classifying wild‐type and processed HL‐60 cells (e.g., 93.5% of PA treated vs. CD treated HL‐60 cells) were realized, revealing the effectiveness of using these three biophysical parameters in cell‐type classification; (2) low accuracies of classifying normal granulocytes from three donors (e.g., 56.4% of Donor 1 vs. 2), indicating comparable parameters for normal granulocytes. In conclusion, this platform can characterize single‐cell Tc, Csm, and σcy concurrently and quantify multiple parameters in single‐cell analysis.
Design and performances of a low cost filtered COFDM system using π-constellations and real channel estimator

In order to de ne a multicarriers modem for High Frequency high rate radio communications we analyze new digital techniques. The system originality comes from the using of constellations with a low cost soft decision detector applied to fractionnally spaced multicarrier modulation [1]. We also demonstrate that even if the detector is more complex than a classical one it keeps the advantage to easily provide a soft bit information to a soft decoder.
Performance of non‐invasive myocardial work to predict the first hospitalization for de novo heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

Non‐invasive myocardial work (MW) is a validated index of left ventricular (LV) systolic performance, incorporating afterload and myocardial metabolism. The role of MW in predicting the first hospitalization for de novo heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is still unknown. We aim to investigate the diagnostic performance of MW to predict the first de novo HFpEF hospitalization in ambulatory individuals with preserved LV ejection fraction.
Er-doped superfluorescent fibre source with enhanced mean-wavelength stability using chirped fibre grating

An Er-doped superfluorescent fibre source with enhanced mean-wavelength stability 2 ppm over the 0degC to 70degC range using chirped fibre grating is demonstrated. The effects of the temperature of the fibre, the pump power, the pump wavelength, the pump state of polarisation, and the feedback power have been considered and minimised with corresponding techniques.
Steady-state and large-signal design of current-programmed DC-DC converters

A new method for steady-state design of current-programmed-mode (CPM) DC-DC converters is presented. The method uses a set of equations derived based on the relationships between line voltage, load current, control current, and the stabilizing artificial ramp. The set of normalized equations are verified by a fast large-signal simulation and experimental measurement. These equations are plotted on the converter DC output plane (a graph of output current versus output voltage) in which characteristic curves related to different artificial ramps and boundaries of different operating modes are indicated. A general design procedure is presented for a CPM converter with both input voltage and output resistive load varied. By this means, the design time can be significantly reduced, and systematic design trade-offs can be made to ensure correct converter operation over the desired range of line and load variation.
Subject‐specific biomechanical analysis to estimate locations susceptible to osteoarthritis—Finite element modeling and MRI follow‐up of ACL reconstructed patients

The aims of this case‐control study were to: (1) Identify cartilage locations and volumes at risk of osteoarthritis (OA) using subject‐specific finite element (FE) models; (2) Quantify the relationships between the simulated biomechanical parameters and T2 and T1ρ relaxation times of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We created subject‐specific FE models for seven patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction and six controls based on a previous proof‐of‐concept study. We identified locations and cartilage volumes susceptible to OA, based on maximum principal stresses and absolute maximum shear strains in cartilage exceeding thresholds of 7 MPa and 32%, respectively. The locations and volumes susceptible to OA were compared qualitatively and quantitatively against 2‐year longitudinal changes in T2 and T1ρ relaxation times. The degeneration volumes predicted by the FE models, based on excessive maximum principal stresses, were significantly correlated (r = 0.711, p < 0.001) with the degeneration volumes determined from T2 relaxation times. There was also a significant correlation between the predicted stress values and changes in T2 relaxation time (r = 0.649, p < 0.001). Absolute maximum shear strains and changes in T1ρ relaxation time were not significantly correlated. Five out of seven patients with ACL reconstruction showed excessive maximum principal stresses in either one or both tibial cartilage compartments, in agreement with follow‐up information from MRI. Expectedly, for controls, the FE models and follow‐up information showed no degenerative signs. Our results suggest that the presented modelling methodology could be applied to prospectively identify ACL reconstructed patients at risk of biomechanically driven OA, particularly by the analysis of maximum principal stresses of cartilage.