Conduction block in vasculitic neuropathy

Vasculitis involving peripheral nerves usually presents as an acute asymmetrical axonal neuropathy. We report a 67-year-old man with a symmetrical subacute neuropathy in which nerve conduction studies showed prominent conduction block, a finding indicative of demyelination. Sural nerve biopsy showed a vasculitic neuropathy with invasion of blood vessel walls by inflammatory cells and a mixture of nerve fiber loss and demyelination. The demyelination in this case was presumably a consequence of subinfarctive nerve ischemia.     

Shortcoming, problems and analytical comparison for flooding-based search techniques in unstructured P2P networks

Peer-to-Peer networks attracted a significant amount of interest because of their capacity for resource sharing and content distribution. Content distribution applications allow personal computers to function in a coordinated manner as a distributed storage medium by contributing, searching, and obtaining digital content. Searching in unstructured P2P networks is an important problem, which has received considerable research attention. Acceptable searching techniques must provide large coverage rate, low traffic load, and optimum latency. This paper reviews flooding-based search techniques in unstructured P2P networks. It then analytically compares their coverage rate, and traffic overloads. Our simulation experiments have validated analytical results.     

An improved volleyball premier league algorithm based on sine cosine algorithm for global optimization problem

Volleyball premier league (VPL) simulating some phenomena of volleyball game has been presented recently. This powerful algorithm uses such racing and interplays between teams within a season. Furthermore, the algorithm imitates the coaching procedure within a game. Therefore, some volleyball metaphors, including substitution, coaching, and learning, are used to find a better solution prepared by the VPL algorithm. However, the learning phase has the largest effect on the performance of the VPL algorithm, in which this phase can lead to making the VPL stuck in optimal local solution. Therefore, this paper proposed a modified VPL using sine cosine algorithm (SCA). In which the SCA operators have been applied in the learning phase to obtain a more accurate solution. So, we have used SCA operators in VPL to grasp their advantages resulting in a more efficient approach for finding the optimal solution of the optimization problem and avoid the limitations of the traditional VPL algorithm. The propounded VPLSCA algorithm is tested on the 25 functions. The results captured by the VPLSCA have been compared with other metaheuristic algorithms such as cuckoo search, social-spider optimization algorithm, ant lion optimizer, grey wolf optimizer, salp swarm algorithm, whale optimization algorithm, moth flame optimization, artificial bee colony, SCA, and VPL. Furthermore, the three typical optimization problems in the field of designing engineering have been solved using the VPLSCA. According to the obtained results, the proposed algorithm shows very reasonable and promising results compared to others.

     

Multi-objective mixture design and optimisation of steel fiber reinforced UHPC using machine learning algorithms and metaheuristics

Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) is a recent class of concrete with improved durability, rheological and mechanical and durability properties compared to traditional concrete. The production cost of UHPC is considerably high due to a large amount of cement used, and also the high price of other required constituents such as quartz powder, silica fume, fibres and superplasticisers. To achieve specific requirements such as desired production cost, strength and flowability, the proportions of UHPC’s constituents must be well adjusted. The traditional mixture design of concrete requires cumbersome, costly and extensive experimental program. Therefore, mathematical optimisation, design of experiments (DOE) and statistical mixture design (SMD) methods have been used in recent years, particularly for meeting multiple objectives. In traditional methods, simple regression models such as multiple linear regression models are used as objective functions according to the requirements. Once the model is constructed, mathematical programming and simplex algorithms are usually used to find optimal solutions. However, a more flexible procedure enabling the use of high accuracy nonlinear models and defining different scenarios for multi-objective mixture design is required, particularly when it comes to data which are not well structured to fit simple regression models such as multiple linear regression. This paper aims to demonstrate a procedure integrating machine learning (ML) algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) to develop high-accuracy models, and a metaheuristic optimisation algorithm called Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) algorithm for multi-objective mixture design and optimisation of UHPC reinforced with steel fibers. A reliable experimental dataset is used to develop the models and to justify the final results. The comparison of the obtained results with the experimental results validates the capability of the proposed procedure for multi-objective mixture design and optimisation of steel fiber reinforced UHPC. The proposed procedure not only reduces the efforts in the experimental design of UHPC but also leads to the optimal mixtures when the designer faces strength-flowability-cost paradoxes.

     

An evolutionary lion optimization algorithm‐based image compression technique for biomedical applications

Recently, medical image compression becomes essential to effectively handle large amounts of medical data for storage and communication purposes. Vector quantization (VQ) is a popular image compression technique, and the commonly used VQ model is Linde–Buzo–Gray (LBG) that constructs a local optimal codebook to compress images. The codebook construction was considered as an optimization problem, and a bioinspired algorithm was employed to solve it. This article proposed a VQ codebook construction approach called the L2‐LBG method utilizing the Lion optimization algorithm (LOA) and Lempel Ziv Markov chain Algorithm (LZMA). Once LOA constructed the codebook, LZMA was applied to compress the index table and further increase the compression performance of the LOA. A set of experimentation has been carried out using the benchmark medical images, and a comparative analysis was conducted with Cuckoo Search‐based LBG (CS‐LBG), Firefly‐based LBG (FF‐LBG) and JPEG2000. The compression efficiency of the presented model was validated in terms of compression ratio (CR), compression factor (CF), bit rate, and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). The proposed L2‐LBG method obtained a higher CR of 0.3425375 and PSNR value of 52.62459 compared to CS‐LBG, FA‐LBG, and JPEG2000 methods. The experimental values revealed that the L2‐LBG process yielded effective compression performance with a better‐quality reconstructed image.     

A novel energy-efficient encryption algorithm for secure data in WSNs

The Journal of Supercomputing - Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are typically deployed environments, often very hostile and without assistance. A certain level of security must be provided....     

Improving security of the Internet of Things via RF fingerprinting based device identification system

Neural Computing and Applications - Security is one of the primary concerns when designing wireless networks. Along detecting user identity, it is also important to detect the devices at the...     

Adaptive fuzzy fault-tolerant control using Nussbaum-type function with state-dependent actuator failures

Neural Computing and Applications - This paper presents an adaptive fuzzy fault-tolerant tracking control for a class of unknown multi-variable nonlinear systems, with external disturbances,...     

Energy inefficiency diagnosis in industrial process through one-class machine learning techniques

In the era of Industry 4.0, the ease of access to precise measurements in real-time and the existence of machine-learning (ML) techniques will play a vital role in building practical tools to isolate inefficiencies in energy-intensive processes. This paper aims at developing an abnormal event diagnosis (AED) tool based on ML techniques for monitoring the operation of industrial processes. This tool makes it easier for operators to accomplish their tasks and to make quick and accurate decisions to ensure highly efficient processes. One of the most popular ML techniques for AED is the multivariate statistical control (MSC) method; it only requires the dataset of the normal operating conditions (NOC) to detect and identify the variables that contribute to abnormal events (AEs). Despite the popularity of MSC, it is challenging to select the appropriate method for detecting and isolating all possible abnormalities a complex industrial process can experience. To address this limitation and improve efficiency, we have developed a generic methodology that integrates different ML techniques into a unified multiagent based approach, the selected ML techniques are supposed to be built using only the normal operating condition. For the sake of demonstration, we chose a combination of two ML methods: principal component analysis and k-nearest neighbors (k-NN). The k-NN was integrated into the proposed multiagent to take into account the nonlinearity and multimodality that frequently occur in industrial processes. In addition, we modified a k-NN method proposed in the literature to reduce computation time during real-time detection and isolation. Finally, the proposed methodology was successfully validated to monitor the energy efficiency of a reboiler located in a thermomechanical pulp mill.

     

Intrinsic nonlinear multiscale image decomposition: A 2D empirical mode decomposition-like tool

Many works have been achieved for analyzing images with a multiscale approach. In this paper, an intrinsic and nonlinear multiscale image decomposition is proposed, based on partial differential equations (PDEs) and the image frequency contents. Our model is inspired from the 2D empirical mode decomposition (EMD) for which a theoretical study is quite nonexistent, mainly because the algorithm is based on heuristic and ad hoc elements making its mathematical study hard. This work has three main advantages. Firstly, we prove that the 2D sifting process iterations are consistent with the resolution of a nonlinear PDE, by considering continuous morphological operators to build local upper and lower envelopes of the image extrema. In addition to the fact that now differential calculus can be performed on envelopes, the introduction of such morphological filters eliminates the interpolation dependency that also terribly suffers the method. Also, contrary to former 2D empirical modes, precise mathematical definition for a class of functions are now introduced thanks to the nonlinear PDE derived from the consistency result, and their characterization on the basis of Meyer spaces. Secondly, an intrinsic multiscale image decomposition is introduced based on the image frequency contents; the proposed approach almost captures the essence and philosophy of the 2D EMD and is linked to the well known Absolutely Minimizing Lipschitz Extension model. Lastly, the proposed multiscale decomposition allows a reconstruction of images. The filterbank capability of the new multiscale decomposition algorithm is shown both on synthetic and real images, and results show that our proposed approach improves a lot on the 2D EMD. Moreover, the complexity of the proposed multiscale decomposition is very reduced compared to the 2D EMD by avoiding the surface interpolation approach, which is the core of all 2D EMD algorithms and is very time consuming. For that purpose also, our work will then be a great benefit; especially, in higher dimension spaces.