Normalised availability importance measures for complex systems

Once the performance characteristics of a system have been determined, engineers are often faced with the task of identifying the critical components. The objective of this identification is to prioritise improvements in the systems and the efforts to bring these about in the areas that will have the most effect on the system’s performance. Availability is an important metric, used to assess the performance of complex systems. Having the availability importance measure (AIM), which determines the importance of items regarding the availability of the system, can help designers and managers to improve performance and minimise the life cost of the system. This paper has developed an AIM for complex systems. Thereafter, the application of the developed importance measure is illustrated by a case study.     

HSDN‐GRA: A hybrid software‐defined networking‐based geographic routing protocol with multi‐agent approach

We propose in this paper a Hybrid Software‐Defined Networking‐based Geographical Routing Protocol (HSDN‐GRA) with a clustering approach. It takes into account three different criteria to select the best relay to send data: (1) the contact duration between vehicles, (2) the available load of each vehicle, (3) and the log of encountered communication errors embedded in each cluster head. The multi‐criteria strategy allows the selection of the most reliable vehicles by avoiding communication problems and ensuring connection availability. Once the hybrid control plane has found out the next eligible neighbor, the data plane will be in charge of dividing and sending data. To validate our approach, HSDN‐GRA has been modeled and implemented in JADE, a multi‐agent platform, to be compared to other multi‐agent based protocols. Simulation results show that HSDN‐GRA achieves good performance with respect to the average routing overhead, the packet drop rate, and the throughput.     

A method of assessing essential amino acid availability from microbial and ruminally undegraded protein in lactating dairy cows

The objective of this study was to extend a stable isotope-based assessment of AA absorption from rumen-degradable protein (RDP) sources to include determination of essential AA (EAA) availability from microbial protein (MCP). To demonstrate the technique, a study using a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments applied in a repeated 4 × 4 Latin square design was undertaken. Factors were high and low rumen-degradable protein and high and low starch. Twelve lactating cows were blocked into 3 groups according to days in milk and randomly assigned to the 4 treatment sequences. Each period was 14 d in length with 10 d of adaption followed by 4 d of ruminal infusions of ¹⁵N-labeled ammonium sulfate. On the last day of each period, a ¹³C-labeled AA mixture was infused into the jugular vein over a 6-h period to assess total AA entry. Rumen, blood, urine, and milk samples were collected during the infusions. Ruminal bacteria and blood samples were assessed for AA enrichment. Total plasma AA absorption rates were derived for 6 EAA from plasma ¹³C AA enrichment. Absorption of 6 EAA from MCP was calculated from total AA absorption based on ¹⁵N enrichment in blood and rumen bacteria. Essential AA absorption rates from total protein, MCP, and rumen-undegradable protein were derived with standard errors of the mean of 6, 14, and 14%, respectively. An average of 45% of absorbed EAA were from MCP, which varied among 6 EAA and was interactively affected by starch and RDP in diets. Microbial AA availability measured by isotope dilution method increased with the high RDP diets and was unaffected by starch level, except for Met, which decreased with high starch. Microbial protein outflow, estimated from urinary purine derivatives, increased with RDP and was not significantly affected by starch. This was consistent with measurements from the isotope dilution method. Total AA absorption rates measured from isotope dilution were similar to estimates from CNCPS (v. 6.55), but a lower proportion of absorbed AA was derived from MCP for the former method. Compared with the isotope and CNCPS estimates, the Fleming model underestimated microbial EAA and total EAA availability. An average of 58% of the absorbed EAA was converted into milk, which varied among individual AA and was interactively affected by starch and RDP in diets. The isotope dilution approach is advantageous because it provides estimates of EAA availability for individual EAA from rumen-undegradable protein and MCP directly with fewer errors of measurement than can be achieved with intestinal disappearance methods.     

某铅锌矿的三维地质模型及储量估算

针对矿山现有的地质信息数据等，建立了以利用Surpac软件的三维地表模型、矿体模型及地质数据库，对矿山资源储量进行计算。基于地质统计学的理论，建立某铅锌矿地表模型、钻孔数据库、矿体模型、块体模型，对矿体内样品进行组合分析统计，采用幂次距离反比法对块体品位进行估值，最后根据国内对地质矿产资源的分类方法，按照不同边界品位、工业品位等分类依据，得出资源储量核实报告，为铅锌矿的后续生产，提供了可靠保证。结果表明：通过构建该矿地质数据库，建立的三维模型，可对地质工程、采矿工程、储量估算、矿石品位动态管理等提供技术支持。     

GIS method for characterizing fire flow capacity

There are numerous methods currently used to calculate required water flow rates for sprinklered and non-sprinklered buildings. The aim of this study is provide a flexible automated procedure for indentifying locations lacking adequate fire flow. To accomplish this objective, this research uses a GIS procedure to determine the spatial relationships between fire hydrants and historical fire incidences, and integrates the recommended hydrant spacing and building type specifications from the International Fire Code. This method was tested in two communities in eastcentral Michigan, USA. The results indicate an ability to define clusters of fires, determine the availability of hydrants, and assess the suitability of the available fire flow, including areas of potential extra capacity. Using these same data, additional GIS analyses can optimize hydrant location, ascertain the frequencies of different categories of fires, and identify the patterns of building types prone to fires.     

聚乙烯醇对过氧化银电极分解和电性能的影响

采用不同浓度的聚乙烯醇(PVA)溶液对过氧化银(Ag O)电极进行浸渍处理。采用示差扫描量热法(DSC)、扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、化学分析和单片放电对电极进行表征和电性能测试。结果表明,经浓度为1.0%的PVA溶液处理后,电极性能远远优于未处理的过氧化银电极,表现在过氧化银分解表观活化能为143.91 k J/mol,70 o C高温贮存后Ag O分解率仅为0.9%,放电容量衰减仅为18.4%。     

Multi-period wind integrated optimal dispatch using series PSO-DE with time-varying Gaussian membership function based fuzzy selection

Wind power has emerged as the most promising option for providing sustainable eco-friendly power supply to the modern world. Due to its unpredictable nature, integration of wind power into the conventional power grid is a very challenging task having dynamic characteristics. Due to the inherent uncertainty associated with wind availability, additional spinning reserve needs to be scheduled in order to maintain security and supply reliability. Multi-period multi-objective optimal dispatch (MPMOOD) is presented for wind integrated power system with reserve constraints. The complex relationship between wind power availability, spinning reserve allocation and their impact on economic/environmental cost are analysed using an elaborate model.A new multi-objective Series PSO-DE (SPSO-DE) hybrid algorithm is proposed where the two paradigms, differential evolution (DE) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) share domain information and maintain a synergistic cooperation to overcome their individual weaknesses. For multi-objective (MO) problems, the selection operation in SPSO-DE is replaced by a 5-class time-varying fuzzy selection mechanism (TVFSM) to avoid saturation and to increase Pareto diversity. To promote convergence towards the central part of the Pareto front and to quickly isolate the boundary solutions, Guassian membership function is employed. Elitism is applied to preserve good solutions and momentum operation is used to stop premature convergence. The proposed method expedites the search for the best solution, i.e. the solution which satisfies all the objectives of the MO problems. To test the performance and computational efficiency, the proposed method is applied on two standard test power systems.