Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of copper and zinc source on pre-weaning performance of cows, health and performance of suckling calves, and post-weaning feedlot performance, carcass composition, and meat quality of calves

THE EFFECT OF COPPER AND ZINC SOURCE ON PRE-WEANING PERFORMANCE OF COWS, HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE OF SUCKLING CALVES, AND POSTWEANING FEEDLOT PERFORMANCE, CARCASS COMPOSITION, AND MEAT QUALITY OF CALVES. JESSE FULTON 2016 During gestation an elevated level of nutrient intake is required by the cow in order to meet the requirements of the maturing fetus and if these requirements are not met, changes in fetal development can occur. However, little is understood about the effects of gestational manipulation of specific nutrients, such as minerals, on progeny growth, performance and carcass traits. Previous research supports the hypothesis that minerals provided in an organic form should be more soluble and readily available to the body for absorption. Therefore the objectives of this study were to determine if source of gestational and post-natal Cu and Zn affects cow reproductive performance, calf health, feedlot performance, carcass traits, and overall meat quality. Commercial cows primarily of Angus genetics (n=287) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatment groups: 1) Maternal/pre-weaning – Inorganic (MPW-INORG): cows were supplemented with 15 mg/kg DM Cu and Zn in the form of CuSO4 and ZnSO4, 2) Maternal/pre-weaning Organic (MPW-ORG): cows were supplemented with 15 mg /kg DM Cu and Zn in a proteinated form. Cows began to receive their assigned mineral supplement 30 d prior to timed artificial insemination (AI) in the spring of 2012. Cows were maintained in separate pastures by treatment group and received their treatments via free choice loose mineral. Cows and calves remained on treatment supplementation until
A Comparison of Silicone and Fabric Inflatable Actuators for Soft Hand Exoskeletons

When designing soft hand exoskeletons, a variety of materials can be used, though silicone remains the preferred option among roboticists. Employing fabrics and other non-stretchable sheets in this context has generally been neglected. We hypothesize that there are many advantages to constructing soft exoskeletons from fabric sheets - one of them being that fabric-based structures are more flexible when evaluated against their silicone counterparts and, thus, are capable of conducting input pressure as higher forces onto the environment. To compare the performance of different materials used in hand exoskeletons, we created four soft, inflatable actuators made from silicone and fabric, and assessed the different designs in regard to their weight, force capability, grip strength and flexion angle. Results show that using 1-way stretch woven structures along with elastic bands are most promising for the construction of soft exoskeletons for applications in rehabilitation and haptic feedback. Pleated fabrics are also favorable for gripper applications thanks to their high grip strength.
Aptamer-Targeted Drug Delivery for Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm

Treatment of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm infections using conventional antibiotic therapy is challenging as only doses that are sublethal to the biofilm can be administered safely to patients. A potential solution to this challenge is targeted drug delivery. In this study, we tailored an aptamer-targeted liposomal drug delivery system for accumulation and delivery of antibiotics locally in S. aureus biofilm. In our search for a suitable targeting ligand, we identified six DNA aptamers that bound to S. aureus cells in biofilms, and we demonstrated that one of these aptamers could facilitate accumulation of liposomes around S. aureus cells inside the biofilm. Aptamer-targeted liposomes encapsulating a combination of vancomycin and rifampicin were able to eradicate S. aureus biofilm upon 24 h of treatment in vitro. Our results point to that aptamer-targeted drug delivery of antibiotics is a potential new strategy for treatment of S. aureus biofilm infections.
Zebrafish as a Model to Unveil the Pro-Osteogenic Effects of Boron-Vitamin D3 Synergism

The micronutrient boron (B) plays a key role during the ossification process as suggested by various in vitro and in vivo studies. To deepen our understanding of the molecular mechanism involved in the osteogenicity of B and its possible interaction with vitamin D3 (VD), wild-type AB zebrafish (Danio rerio) were used for morphometric analysis and transcriptomic analysis in addition to taking advantage of the availability of specific zebrafish osteoblast reporter lines. First, osteoactive concentrations of B, VD, and their combinations were established by morphometric analysis of the opercular bone in alizarin red-stained zebrafish larvae exposed to two selected concentrations of B (10 and 100 ng/ml), one concentration of VD (10 pg/ml), and their respective combinations. Bone formation, as measured by opercular bone growth, was significantly increased in the two combination treatments than VD alone. Subsequently, a transcriptomic approach was adopted to unveil the molecular key regulators involved in the synergy. Clustering of differentially expressed genes revealed enrichment toward bone and skeletal functions in the groups co-treated with B and VD. Downstream analysis confirmed mitogen-activated protein kinase as the most regulated pathway by the synergy groups in addition to transforming growth factor-β signaling, focal adhesion, and calcium signaling. The best-performing synergistic treatment, B at 10 ng/ml and VD at 10 pg/ml, was applied to two zebrafish transgenic lines, Tg(sp7:mCherry) and Tg(bglap:EGFP), at multiple time points to further explore the results of the transcriptomic analysis. The synergistic treatment with B and VD induced enrichment of intermediate (sp7+) osteoblast at 6 and 9 days post fertilization (dpf) and of mature (bglap+) osteoblasts at 15 dpf. The results obtained validate the role of B in VD-dependent control over bone mineralization and can help to widen the spectrum of therapeutic approaches to alleviate pathological conditions caused by VD deficiency by using low concentrations of B as a nutritional additive.
RF Energy Harvesting Circuit for Vital Sensing Platform

This paper presents the design and fabrication of the RF energy harvesting circuit which obtain more than 2 V DC output from the RF power injected from the 900 MHz band RF ID tag transmitter. Our proposed RF energy harvester is composed of a planar antenna, impedance matching circuit and stacked rectifiers. By using this output power, the data of the surface temperature and humidity on the human body are transmitted to the smart phone or laptop PC through the BLE (Bluetooth low energy) module without any batteries.
Dual Band Radiation Pattern Reconfigurable Antenna for Two-Port 5G Mobile Terminals

In this paper, a dual band radiation pattern reconfigurable antenna for 5G mobile terminals is presented. Two identical PIFA elements are connected to a PIN diode and feeding port to enable reconfiguration. Copper strips are used as RF switches in this antenna design to represent the actual PIN diodes. The switching of the two PIFA elements in sequence enabled the radiation pattern reconfiguration in two frequency bands, with 6dB impedance bandwidth ranging from 3.8 to 18 GHz. Besides that, this antenna features high isolation and low envelope correlation coefficient due to the low mutual coupling between the two ports. These advantages makes the antenna promising for application in future 5G mobile terminals.
A Desktop-sized Platform for Real-time Control Applications of Pneumatic Soft Robots

In recent years, there have been many modeling and control advances in the field of soft robotics, which resulted in a growing interest in practical, real-time applications. To further enable these developments, we present a desktop-sized testing and development platform intended for fast, precise, and reliable (closed-loop) control of pneumatic soft robots. The Soft Robotics Control-unit (SRC) is fully compatible with Matlab, Simulink, and Unity, allowing for real-time control tasks of various complexity. The system's performance is tested in three use-cases: model-based controller design, soft haptic feedback in virtual-reality, and tele-operation of a soft gripper. To promote the use of the SRC in the soft robotics community, all presented material is fully open-sourced such that it is easily reproducible by students or researchers from any technical background.
An Electro-pneumatic Shape Morphing Rolling Robot with Variable Locomotion Modes

Mobile robots with accurate and fast rolling loco-motion capabilities would greatly enhance their adaptability in dynamic environments. Inspired by organisms capable of rolling locomotion, this paper presents a lightweight shape morphable rolling robot which integrates an origami skeleton with muscle-like pneumatic pouches as drivers and electroadhesion (EA) pads as anchors. The origami skeleton of the robot is a hexag-onal loop structure composed of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) panels with flexural hinges between them. Pneumatic pouch actuators are embedded between the panels to change the configuration of the skeleton. The flat panels of the origami skeleton house electroadhesion actuators which can adhere to different surfaces with different slopes and materials. Two sequential control schemes are proposed that enable the robot to move forward and backward accurately by controlling the air pressure in the pouches and voltage supplied to the EA pads. Using combined actuation of pneumatic pouches and EA pads, the robot is able to roll on both horizontal and inclined surfaces as well as transit from horizontal to fully vertical surfaces. The robot shows less than 1% error in positioning after one complete forward and backward rolling cycle. Owing to its use of thin sheet materials for skeleton and pouch actuators and EA pads, the robot is lightweight weighing only 25 g. These unique properties of the robot will enable the deployment of such versatile mobile robots to conduct tasks remotely in challenging environments.
A plant-hybrid system for wind monitoring connected with social media

Soft technologies and soft robotics provide solutions for devices that interact with living organisms without harming them. This also includes the development of Soft systems that can directly interact with plants, with no damage for their tissues, e.g, to detect environmental parameters. Here, we propose a biohybrid wind monitoring system in which the plant itself, together with custom-made soft artificial leaves, establish a self-powered environmental sensor for wind. Based on the system's contact/triboelectrification when vibrating in the wind, electrical signals are generated that correlate with the wind speed and plant motion. The self-powered sensor readout is analyzed and processed to send a Twitter notification on a dedicated account (@SensorPlant) when the wind conditions change. This proof-of-concept study aims as a platform to realize plant-hybrid devices for wind sensing. It is furthermore an example for a soft biohybrid system that records and communicates real-life data autonomously from the plant-level. The system can be customized to many necessities, e.g., it can send a notification when wind increases to the level that could damage the plants in that area. This could have future implications as sustainable, straightforward sensors for agriculture and climate monitoring.
Anisotropic Forces for a Worm-Inspired Digging Robot

Digging through granular media is a challenging problem largely because researchers have limited understanding about how granular intruders interact with granular material. In this work, we designed a bioinspired soft digging robot inspired by polychaete worms (or bristle worms) that used reciprocal elongation and contraction to dig through granular material. Our study investigated the use of asymmetric features for producing anisotropic friction to achieve directed motion. Setae-inspired flexible structures and “terra”foils (i.e. surfaces for robot locomotion in sand) were attached to the robot to produce forward movement and to keep the robot submerged under the granular media, respectively. The robot was actuated by four air-powered longitudinal muscles enabling the robot to extend 24% of its body length when actuated at 138 kPa (20 psi). Our bioinspired robot dug forward under 4 cm of particles and turned on the top surface 24° relative to the longitudinal axis of the robot after 60 seconds. This work represents a step towards worm-inspired subterranean robots that can effectively navigate through granular media.
Adaptive Two-stage Kalman Filter for SINS/Odometer Integrated Navigation Systems

In Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS)/Odometer (OD) integrated navigation systems, OD scale factor errors change with roadways and vehicle loads. In addition, the random noises of gyros and accelerometers tend to vary with time. These factors may cause the Kalman filter to be degraded or even diverge. To address this problem and reduce the computation load, an Adaptive Two-stage Kalman Filter (ATKF) for SINS/OD integrated navigation systems is proposed. In the Two-stage Kalman Filter (TKF), only the innovation in the bias estimator is a white noise sequence with zero-mean while the innovation in the bias-free estimator is not zero-mean. Based on this fact, a novel algorithm for computing adaptive factors is presented. The proposed ATKF is evaluated in a SINS/OD integrated navigation system, and the simulation results show that it is effective in estimating the change of the OD scale factor error and robust to the varying process noises. A real experiment is carried out to further validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Optimal Pricing for Service Caching and Task Offloading in Edge Computing

Motivated by the emergence of function-as-a-service (FaaS) as a programming abstraction for edge computing, we consider the problem of caching and pricing applications for edge computation offloading. We model the problem as a multiple-follower Stackelberg game, where the operator is the leader and decides what applications to cache and how much to charge for their use, while the wireless devices (WDs) are the followers and decide whether or not to offload their computations. We show that the WDs’ interaction can be modeled as a player-specific congestion game and show the existence and computability of equilibria. We then show that the equilibrium price of the operator can be computed in polynomial time for any cache placement, and propose a greedy algorithm for computing the applications to be cached. We use extensive simulations to show that the proposed heuristic performs close to optimal at negligible computational overhead.
Simulating Electrohydraulic Soft Actuator Assemblies Via Reduced Order Modeling

Soft robots compliment traditional rigid robots by expanding their capabilities to interact with the physical world. A robot made with compliant, soft materials can benefit from their inherent continuum mechanics to achieve interactions with the environment that a rigid robot may find difficult. This can include grasping delicate objects, navigating through variable terrain, or working alongside humans in a safer manner. The flexible, adaptable nature of soft robots provide these benefits, but they also make predicting their actuated response a difficult, computationally-intensive task. Here we provide a non-linear, reduced order model informed by collected data on hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuators (HASELs). With this reduced order model, we simulate robots comprised of multiple actuators in an effort to rapidly evaluate potential design candidates without the need for time-consuming manufacturing. The simulation leverages a reduced-order model of HASELs based on a parallel mass spring damper (MSD) representation, made of two non-linear springs, and a damper; this data-driven parameter identification aids model fidelity. We construct a robotic manipulator actuated via six HASELs and show that the simulations driven by the non-linear MSD models accurately predict the robot's physical behavior on a macro scale. While this work focuses on a specific actuator type, the approach shown here could be extended to other linearly expanding soft actuators. Using this method, soft robotic assemblies actuated via HASELs can be rapidly evaluated in simulation before a laborious manufacturing process, which in turn will allow for faster design iterations to create more effective robots.
Quantitative discrimination of the influences of climate change and human activity on rocky desertification based on a novel feature space model

Abstract Under the stress of the global change, rocky desertification has become a serious environmental problem in the Karst Mountain area. At present, few remote sensing monitoring research works on rocky desertification based on feature space model have been conducted and reported. In this study, the Albedo-LST feature space remote sensing monitoring index based on point-point model has been proposed, and subsequently the spatio–temporal evolution pattern and driving mechanism of rocky desertification in Dafang district from 1986 to 2019 were analyzed. The results show that: (1) The point-point Albedo-LST feature space model of rocky desertification has good applicability with the overall accuracy of 90.79%; (2) From 1986 to 2019, the rocky desertification in Dafang district first showed an increasing trend (1986–2005) and then a decreasing trend (2005–2019); (3) The comprehensive evolution frequency of rocky desertification during 2001–2005 was the largest with 7.51% a−1, which was related to the implementation of the Grain for Green Project; (4) The single factor with the largest contribution rates to rocky desertification are land use type, landform, and temperature. The interactive factors with the largest explanatory power are temperature ∩ land use type and landform ∩ land use type. The research results can provide decision support for the prevention and control of rocky desertification in Southwest China.
Combatting Energy Issues for Mobile Applications

Energy efficiency is an important criterion to judge the quality of mobile apps, but one third of our arbitrarily sampled apps suffer from energy issues that can quickly drain battery power. To understand these issues, we conduct an empirical study on 36 well-maintained apps such as Chrome and Firefox, whose issue tracking systems are publicly accessible. Our study involves issue causes, manifestation, fixing efforts, detection techniques, reasons of no-fixes, and debugging techniques. Inspired by the empirical study, we propose a novel testing framework for detecting energy issues in real-world mobile apps. Our framework examines apps with well-designed input sequences and runtime context. We develop leading edge technologies, e.g., pre-designing input sequences with potential energy overuse and tuning tests on-the-fly, to achieve high efficacy in detecting energy issues. A large-scale evaluation shows that 90.4% of the detected issues in our experiments were previously unknown to developers. On average, these issues can double the energy consumption of the test cases where the issues were detected. And our test achieves a low number of false positives. Finally, we show how our test reports can help developers fix the issues.
Low Complexity Scalable Perceptual Audio Coder using an Optimum Wavelet Packet basis Representation and Vector Quantization

In this paper, we describe a high quality low complexity scalable audio coding scheme, using an optimum wavelet packet (WP) basis signal representation based on the time varying characteristics of the audio signal. In ISO/MPEG audio coding standards [1–3], resolution of decomposition filterbank (uniform) does not match with the resolution of psychoacoustic model (which requires more resolution and needs to be matched with the critical bands (non uniform) of cochlea). Hence MPEG coder uses a separate high resolution decomposition filterbank for psychoacoustic model implementation, which increases the computational load of the coder. Here, we use a wavelet packet decomposition structure closely matching to the critical bands [4,5] of human auditory system, to transform the data into wavelet domain and then these wavelet packet coefficients are used to drive the psychoacoustic model directly. Hence, psychoacoustic model design is integrated with the design of decomposition filterbank. Other features of the proposed coder are scalability (can support three standard industrial sampling frequencies 11.025 kHz, 22.050 kHz and 44.1 kHz) and optimum wavelet basis selection from a predefined library of wavelet bases, by extracting seven statistical features of the audio signal to be encoded. A new Vector Quantization (VQ) scheme is also proposed here, in which the length of the code book can be varied in accordance with the psychoacoustic model requirement. Experimental results show that the proposed coder yields almost transparent quality with compression ratios in the range of e to 10.
User profile integration in knowledge management systems

This paper describes an approach for automated user profile generation within the framework of knowledge management systems. Based on the recognition of the importance of knowledge management, especially within R&D driven companies, the goals of the research project McKnow at the KULeuven are discussed. One aspect of this project, namely automatic user profile generation, is focussed on. In this paper, an appropriate structure for user profiles is proposed, as well as methods to construct such user profiles, and necessary tools for this purpose. The results of a series of validation tests are discussed. Finally, possible applications for these user profiles and future research within this project are discussed and conclusions are drawn.
Utilization of SiC MOSFETs in Voltage Source Inverter of Inductive Power Transfer Systems for Enduring Capacitive Loads

In this work, the use of SiC MOSFETs is proposed for the implementation of the H-bridge Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) of Inductive Power Transfer Systems (IPTSs) in order to successfully support potential capacitive loading. Conventional power semiconductor devices are prevented from feeding capacitive loads because of the occurrence of current overshoots and voltage spikes due to the reverse recovery phenomenon of the antiparallel diodes. Operation of the VSI under capacitive load can be caused in IPTSs during resonant frequency tracking or misalignment between the coupled coils, due to the existence of resonant circuits. Experiments conducted with both Si and SiC MOSFETs show the superiority of the latter in terms of system stability, endurance in high power and avoidance of catastrophic failure.