Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
VLSI-suited solution of linear systems

One- and two-dimensional processor arrays for the orthogonal solution of systems of linear equations are presented. The arrays execute the orthogonal Faddeeva algorithm, and each processor cell is able to carry out a square-root and division-free Givens rotation (GR). Contrary to all previous approaches for orthogonal linear system solvers, the processor arrays have the following advantages: only four multipliers and two adders in each processor cell; almost full utilization of these hardware components (asymptotically 100%); and reduction of latency time from O(b) to O(log b) for one GR, where b is the number of bits. <<ETX>>
FACTORS INFLUENCING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE BY EAST AFRICAN BREWERIES LTD WITHIN BEER MANUFACTURING SECTOR IN KENYA

v ABBREVIATIONS . viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background of the study . 1 1.1.1 Concept of competitive advantage . 2 1.1.2 Beer manufacturing sector in Kenya . 3 1.1.3 East African Breweries Limited (EABL) . 5 1.2 Research problem . 6 1.3 Research objective . 8 1.4 Value of the study . 8 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 10 2.
Application of BP Neural Network in Robot Soccer Competition System

Strategy system of small-size RoboCup robot is a Multi-Agent System of coordination and control . In order to solve the delay problem of small-size RoboCup competition system, this paper applies BP Neural Network to the situation prediction of strategy system. A linear prediction model based on BP Neural Network is established and Neural Network topology is ascertained. Then trained network is applied to the existing competition system and the efficiency in position, coordination and cooperation capability are greatly improved. The experiments show that the method can predict position and direction of robot correctly, thus proving the feasibility and superiority of prediction algorithm in the system.
Conductive, dielectric and amalgamated obstacles coupled waveguide based highly selective multiband bandpass resonators

This paper demonstrates transverse nonplanar resonators consisting of symmetrically placed obstacles (posts which made up of same or different type of materials) coupled into rectangular waveguide. Introducing posts inside a waveguide in proposed structure creates discontinuity and become a cavity resonator. Resonance is created at X band, Ku band and Ka band frequencies are reported. Simulation results demonstrates that resonators's results are matched to free-space as well as having a superior insertion loss and better return loss of conductive posts compare to dielectric posts. Moreover, obstructing the E-field (using conductive posts) compare to the H-field (using dielectric posts) are given better insertion loss and impedance match- ing characteristics. However, insertion of amalgamated obstacles into rectangular waveguide generates good transmission and reflection zeros compared to other two topologies at resonant frequencies which are described here. Posts coupled waveguide resonators having high power handling capacity so it can be utilized for Base transceiver station, Satellite Communication, Space applications, sensors as well as the fusion plasma diagnostics system. All the proposed structures are simulated with Ansoft's finite-element High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) tool to demonstrate the characteristics of the resonators using a rectangular waveguide with center frequency of 11.2 GHz for X-band. In addition, the equivalent model of resonator is simulated in ADS (Advance designing system). It is observed that offered topologies are very sensitive to the parameters devia- tion (Post coupled waveguide resonator performance depends on diameter of conductive post, elevation of post and detachment between posts).
Power flow control by use of controllable series components

Power flow control in electric power systems by use of controllable series power capacitors and phase shifters is discussed. Models suitable for incorporation in power flow programs are developed and analyzed. The power flow control problem is defined in a stringent way, and a method for solving the power flow control problem is proposed based on decomposition. This method is applied on test systems and the convergence rate of the algorithm is discussed. Simplified models of the components are also derived. These simplified models are shown to be quite accurate in most situations, and are used to construct regions of feasible power flows of the controlled lines. >
Predatory Capacity and Behavior of Picromerus lewisi Scott against Spodoptera frugiperda Higher Instar Larve

In order to investigate the predatory potential of the 5 instar nymphs of Picromerus lewisi against the 6 instar larvae of Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith), the functional response and predation behavior of P. lewisi was studied in laboratory. The results showed that the predator exhibited Holling II functional response, with the maximum daily predation number, sequence of attacking efficiency, and handling time of 4.7, 1.512 and 0.215 d, respectively. P. lewisi preferred live prey and showed high predatory capacity. When S. frugiperda was at high density, P. lewisi just killed a prey by piercing and quickly turned to attack other preys. This predatory behavior can maximize the predator’s potential for controlling population of S. frugiperda.
Multiple Sessions of Entorhinal Cortex Deep Brain Stimulation in C57BL/6J Mice Increases Exploratory Behavior and Hippocampal Neurogenesis*

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been a medical intervention for a variety of nervous system diseases and mental diseases. The input of DBS in the entorhinal cortex (EC) regulates the neurophysiological activities in its downstream regions, such as the dentate gyrus (DG) area. EC DBS may play a role in the treatment of diseases through hippocampal neurogenesis. This study we examined the effect of multiple sessions of EC DBS on the regulation of hippocampal neurogenesis. 4-month-old male C57BL/6J mice received bilateral multiple sessions of EC DBS (130 Hz, 90 μs, 100 μA, 1 h/d, 21 days), and the DBS parameters used are close to the high-frequency DBS parameters in clinical studies. The open field test (OFT) was used to test the exploratory behavior of mice, and hippocampal neurogenesis was detected by immunofluorescence staining with anti-doublecortin (DCX). We found that multiple sessions of EC DBS were tolerated in C57BL/6J mice, significantly increased exploratory behavior and the number of DCX-positive neurons in the DG area.Clinical Relevance— Hippocampal neurogenesis may be part of the reason for DBS to improve memory, and the results of this study show that multiple sessions of EC DBS increases exploratory behavior and hippocampal neurogenesis, which is conducive to the application of DBS in nervous system diseases and mental diseases related to memory impairment.
A mechanism for layer formation in stratified geophysical flows

We discuss the possibility that steplike structures are formed in subcritical regions of vertically stratified shear flow. The mechanism we propose essentially consists of localized intense mixing in highly stratified and sheared flows, probably following frontogenesis. Its main assumption is that the vertical density flux increases monotonically with decreasing gradient Richardson numbers, which corresponds to enhanced stratification and/or diapycnal shear. This differs from Phillips' [1972] mechanism, which we argue may not apply to vertically stratified shear flow. An essential condition for the formation of constant density steps is the incorporation of a Langevin type equation which takes into account that turbulence must last for some finite characteristic time. We present numerical computations for the case of approximately constant diapycnal shear which lead to the formation of a staircase depth-density structure. 1. The Phillips Mechanism Phillips [1972] suggested that small perturbations in an initially well stratified density profile will grow with time if a local increase in the vertical density gradient is accompanied by an even larger decrease of the (turbulent) vertical density diffusivity K. In this case, the vertical density flux will become smaller (larger) with increasing (decreasing) stratification, leading to vertical density divergence (convergence) where the density perturbation is negative (positive). The density perturbations will turn into progressively better defined steps, until the turbulent density flux becomes equal in the well-stratified and well-mixed portions of the staircase. He further parameterized K in terms of some local Richardson number, to show that the density layers will form when the turbulent density diffusivity is a large enough inverse function of this local Richardson
Narrowing the Search Space of Applications Mapping on Hierarchical Topologies

Processor architectures at exascale and beyond are expected to continue to suffer from nonuniform access issues to in-die and node-wide shared resources. Mapping applications onto these resource hierarchies is an on-going performance concern, requiring specific care for increasing locality and resource sharing but also for ensuing contention. Application-agnostic approaches to search efficient mappings are based on heuristics. Indeed, the size of the search space makes it impractical to find optimal solutions nowadays and will only worsen as the complexity of computing systems increases over time. In this paper we leverage the hierarchical structure of modern compute nodes to reduce the size of this search space. As a result, we facilitate the search for optimal mappings and improve the ability to evaluate existing heuristics. Using widely known benchmarks, we show that permuting thread and process placement per node of a hierarchical topology leads to similar performances. As a result, the mapping search space can be narrowed down by several orders of magnitude when performing exhaustive search. This reduced search space will enable the design of new approaches, including exhaustive search or automatic exploration. Moreover, it provides new insights into heuristic-based approaches, including better upper bounds and smaller solution space.
Modeling a Contractor’s Markup Estimation

The estimation of markup is a difficult process for contractors in a changeable and uncertain construction environment. In this study, a fuzzy logic-based artificial neural network (ANN) model, called the fuzzy neural network (FNN) model, is constructed to assist contractors in making markup decisions. With the fuzzy logic inference system integrated inside, the FNN model provides users with a clear explanation to justify the rationality of the estimated markup output. Meanwhile, with the self-learning ability of ANN, the accuracy of the estimation results is improved. From a survey and interview with local contractors, the factors that affect markup estimation and the rules applied in the markup decision are identified. Based on the finding, both ANN and FNN models were constructed and trained in different project scenarios. The comparison of the two models shows that FNN will assist contractors with markup estimation with more accurate results and convincing user-defined linguistic rules inside.
On the determination of noise parameters of low‐noise transistor devices

In this paper, we discuss the experimental determination of noise parameters for high‐electron‐mobility transistor (HEMT) devices and analyze the problems encountered with conventional extraction techniques. HEMT devices are distinguished by a very small minimum noise figure of only a fraction of a dB, and this minimum noise is accomplished with a source reflection coefficient very close to the edge of the Smith chart. These properties impede a direct experimental determination of the optimum noise impedance by means of a tuner, and it has to be extrapolated from measurements of a large number of tuner states. Common linear regression techniques are found to yield erroneous results and even may fail completely to determine the noise parameters. We develop criteria to check the uncertainty of the result from the linear regression and show that, in general, the result needs to be examined for consistency. The occasional failure of extraction is traced back to a consistency violation in the conditions the elements of the correlation matrix need to satisfy. A new iterative technique is suggested for the extraction of noise parameters that warrants consistency. Moreover, a correction of the receiver gain is found to be necessary to obtain a good reproduction of the measured power patterns by the extracted noise parameters. This fact was attributed to thermal drift of the receiver. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of Different Extraction Solvents on the Extractive Removal and Properties of Oil Palm Empty-Fruit Bunch Cellulosic Nanofibers

In this study, the effect of different extraction solvents on the isolation and properties of cellulosic nanofibers (CNFs) were investigated. The unextracted and different solvent-extracted CNFs formed horn-like features and irregularly aggregated nanofibers after oven drying. Scanning electron microscopy at 10000× magnification revealed the smooth external surfaces of all extracted CNFs; this finding is attributed to the limited deposition of amorphous lignocellulosic components on the fibers. All resultant CNF solutions revealed aggregation, with a particle size distribution and zeta average of 21.39–513.00 nm and 162.26–342.13 nm, respectively. Extraction with different solvents and chemical treatment yielded CNF solutions with good transparency. Increases in crystallinity indices were generated by extractive removal and enhanced the delignification and bleaching processes. The atomic crystal size of untreated and different solvent-treated CNFs varied with the type of native cellulose. A dramatic decrease in organic (i.e., C, N, and O) and inorganic (i.e., Na, K, and Si) elements was observed following extractive removal and cellulose purification.
Exploring hierarchy, adaptability and 3D in NoCs for the next generation of MPSoCs

The demand for systems with high performance has brought the need to increase the number of cores, emerging the called Multi-Processors System-on-Chip (MPSoCs). Also, with the shrinking feature size in deep-submicron era, allowing the integration of several devices, chips have become even more complex. However, with the increase in these elements, interconnections are seen as the main bottleneck in many core systemson-chip. With this, a concern about how these devices communicate and are interconnected has been raised, since these features are crucial for the performance, energy and power consumption aspects, mainly in embedded systems. This need allows the advent of the Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) and countless studies had already been done to analyze such interconnection devices. However, due to the current technological accelerating that brings the need for even more complex systems, consuming lower energy and providing constant application updates without losing performance features, traditional interconnect architectures will not be sufficient to satisfy such challenges. Other interconnecting alternatives for MPSoCs need to be investigated and in this work, novel architectures for NoCs meeting such requirements are presented. The proposed solutions explore hierarchy, adaptability and three dimensional interconnections. This work approaches the requirements in the use of different strategies for NoCs in order to reach the performance requisites and low power consumption of the current and future MPSoCs. Hence, in this approach, several interconnection architectures for heterogeneous systems, their scalability and the main features and advantages of the proposed strategies in comparison with others will be verified.
Generation of Overview-Oriented Search Results Using Ordered Structure of Word Occurrences in Technical Blogs

—For a given search topic, a user without prior knowledge may have difﬁculty fully understanding the topic in the search results. In addition, when a user wants to gain a deeper knowledge of the topic, the user can not create appropriate search queries with the existing search engines because the user does not know the surrounding topics. To solve this problem, we propose a method for presenting search results to help users grasp the full scope of a topic. Speciﬁcally, we present the user with search results, based on the tree structure and using words with prerequisite knowledge relations from the set of search results. By presenting search results using prerequisite knowledge relationships the user can traverse the tree structure when they want to know more about the topic. Thus, the user can grasp the full topic. This paper proposes a method of presentation that searches for results to help provide the full scope of a topic to the user. Proposed method is that obtaining a set of articles from search results and create a tree structure of words from the set of articles and generating overview oriented search results on the basis of a tree structure. As a result of the evaluation experiment, the precision of the detailed relation, meaning the depth direction of the tree was 70.5% and the Spearman’s rank correlation coefﬁcient of the order of appearance, meaning the width direction of the tree, was 0.41. This result indicates that it may help the user fully understanding, but there is a problem with the extraction of the title sentence.
The use of sel-ligating appliance can reduce inflammatory response to orthodontic force and keep periodontal health in orthodontic treatment

Objective: Orthodontics, as a common way of orthodontic treatment, is usually to maintain oral health and protect periodontal tissue. The self-ligating appliance technique, since its advent in the 1930s, have been rather popular ammong the majority of orthodontists. This study was to determine that self-ligating appliance can reduce inflammation in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) of patients receiving orthodontic treatment and keep periodontal health. Methods: The clinical data of 97 orthodontic patients admitted to the Department of Stomatology of Fujian Provincial Hospital, Fujian Provincial Clinical College of Fujian Medical University from March 2019 to March 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. Among them, 42 patients receiving orthodontic treatment with traditional MBT straight-wire appliance (SWA) were included in the control group (CG) and 55 patients treated with self-ligating appliance were collected as the observation group (OG). The two cohorts were compared with respect to the following aspects: curative effect, pain degree on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th day after wearing the appliance, oral related quality of life (QoL) before and after orthodontic treatment, satisfaction with the orthodontic treatment, periodontal condition, and GCF and inflammatory factor contents before, 3 months and 6 months after orthodontic treatment. Results: OG had significantly higher therapeutic efficacy of orthodontic treatment than CG (P<0.05). At the initial stage of treatment, the pain degree in OG was obviously lower than that in CG (P<0.05). Compared with CG, the plaque index (PLI), sulcus bleeding index (SBI), gingival recession (GR), periodontal probing depth (PPD) and clinical attachment loss (CAL) were better in OG after orthodontic treatment, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). The contents of GCF, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin1β (IL-1β) in OG were lower than those in CG after orthodontic treatment, with significant differences between the two groups (P<0.05). Oral related QoL and orthodontic satisfaction were higher in OG, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusions: Compared with traditional SWA, the self-ligating appliance in orthodontic treatment contributes to higher efficacy and satisfaction, less local inflammatory reaction, and significantly improved periodontal condition and oral health of patients.
A novel coupled fed small antenna

The characteristics of a single shorting plane with a shorting post L-shaped probe fed antenna and a single shorting plane with a capacitive shorted post L-shaped probe fed antenna are investigated. The patches are designed at a height of about 8.4% of the wavelength The single shorting plane with a shorting post L-shaped probe fed antenna is able to achieve a bandwidth of about 44% and a gain of about 7 dBi. The single shorting plane with a shorting post L-shaped probe fed antenna is able to obtain dual band characteristics.
Intermittent Release of Smoke from Chimneys

Dimensional arguments and the results of recent laboratory experiments are used to show that a considerable increase in the height attained in a calm stable atmosphere could be expected if the effluent were forced out of chimneys at high velocity in discrete puffs, rather than continuously. Numerical values are given for the final height, the size of the chimney and the optimum storage and release times under various conditions. An important application is likely to be to noxious gases which could be removed to a safe height with very little mixing into the atmosphere at lower levels.
First and second order equations for piezoelectric crystals expressed in tensor form

Aeolotropic substances have been used for a wide variety of elastic piezoelectric, dielectric, pyroelectric, temperature expansive, piezo-optic and electro-optic effects. While most of these effects may be found treated in various publications1 there does not appear to be any integrated treatment of them by the tensor method which greatly simplifies the method of writing and manipulating the relations between fundamental quantities, Other short hand methods such as the matrix method2 can also be used for all the linear effects, but for second order effects involving tensors higher than rank four, tensor methods are essential. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this paper to present such a derivation. The notation used is that agreed upon by a committee of piezoelectric experts under the auspices of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
Bi-Directional Multi-Level Converter for an Energy Storage System

This paper proposes a 3 kW single-phase bi-directional multi-level converter for energy storage applications. The proposed topology is based on the H-bridge structure with four switches connected to the DC-link. A simple phase opposition disposition PWM method that requires only one carrier signal is also suggested. The switching sequence to balance the capacitor voltage is considered. The topology can be extended to a nine-level converter or a three-phase system. The operating principle of the proposed converter is verified through a simulation and an experiment.
Dual-Polarized Duplex Base-Station Antenna With a Duplexer-Integrated Balun

This letter investigates a highly integrated dual-polarized duplex antenna for modern base-station systems. The antenna comprises a pair of orthogonally placed dipole radiators, duplexer-integrated baluns (DIBs), and a reflector. The duplex function is achieved by integrating the dipole radiators with the highly isolated DIBs, using λ/4 parallel-coupled resonators and a U-shaped resonator. For each polarization, the antenna has two isolated ports for the low band and high band operations, enabling duplex operation. The antenna has a compact size of 0.35 λL0 × 0.35 λL0 × 0.17 λL0, where λL0 denotes the free-space wavelength at the center frequency of the low band. Both simulation and measurement results demonstrate that each polarization of the antenna can simultaneously support two operation bands, respectively from 3.42 to 3.60 GHz and from 4.80 to 5.10 GHz. The interband isolation and polarization isolation are higher than 20 and 30 dB, respectively. The proposed antenna represents an appealing candidate for 5G sub-6 GHz base-station applications.