An effective hybrid approach of desirability,fuzzy logic,ANFIS and LAPO algorithm for optimizing compliant mechanism

This paper proposes an efficient hybrid approach for solving multi-objective optimization design of a compliant mechanism. The approach is developed by integrating desirability function approach, fuzzy logic system, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, and Lightning attachment procedure optimization. Box–Behnken design is used to form a numerically experimental matrix. First, a refinement of design variables is conducted through analysis of variance and Taguchi approach in terms of considerably eliminating space of design variables and computation efforts. Next, desirability of two objective functions is computed and transferred into the fuzzy logic system. The output of fuzzy logic system is regarded as single combined objective function. Subsequently, a modeling for fuzzy output is developed via adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system. Then, LAPO algorithm is adopted for solving the optimization problem. By investigating three different numerical examples, performance of the proposed approach is validated. Numerical results revealed that the proposed approach has a computational accuracy better than that of Taguchi-based fuzzy logic reasoning. Finally, case study 1 is chosen as an optimal solution for the mechanism. Furthermore, the effectiveness of proposed approach is greater than that of the Jaya algorithm and TLBO algorithm through Wilcoxon signed rank test and Friedman test. The proposed approach can be used for related engineering fields.

     

Scheduling Optimization Modelling: A Case Study of a Woven Label Manufacturing Company

Production scheduling involves all activities of building production schedules, including coordinating and assigning activities to each person, group of people, or machine and arranging work orders in each workplace. Production scheduling must solve all problems such as minimizing customer wait time, storage costs, and production time; and effectively using the enterprise’s human resources. This paper studies the application of flexible job shop modelling on scheduling a woven labelling process. The labelling process includes several steps which are handled in different work-stations. Each workstation is also comprised of several identical parallel machines. In this study, job splitting is allowed so that the power of work stations can be utilized better. The final objective is to minimize the total completion time of all jobs. The results show a significant improvement since the new planning may save more than 60% of lead time compared to the current schedule. The contribution of this research is to propose a flexible job shop model for scheduling a woven labelling process. The proposed approach can also be applied to support complex production scheduling processes under fuzzy environments in different industries. A practical case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model.     

Noise-adaptive synthetic oversampling technique

Applied Intelligence - In the field of supervised learning, the problem of class imbalance is one of the most difficult problems, and has attracted a great deal of research attention in recent...     

CLARO: modeling and processing uncertain data streams

Uncertain data streams, where data are incomplete and imprecise, have been observed in many environments. Feeding such data streams to existing stream systems produces results of unknown quality, which is of paramount concern to monitoring applications. In this paper, we present the claro system that supports stream processing for uncertain data naturally captured using continuous random variables. claro employs a unique data model that is flexible and allows efficient computation. Built on this model, we develop evaluation techniques for relational operators by exploring statistical theory and approximation. We also consider query planning for complex queries given an accuracy requirement. Evaluation results show that our techniques can achieve high performance while satisfying accuracy requirements and outperform state-of-the-art sampling methods.     

A self-learning particle swarm optimizer for global optimization problems

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been shown as an effective tool for solving global optimization problems. So far, most PSO algorithms use a single learning pattern for all particles, which means that all particles in a swarm use the same strategy. This monotonic learning pattern may cause the lack of intelligence for a particular particle, which makes it unable to deal with different complex situations. This paper presents a novel algorithm, called self-learning particle swarm optimizer (SLPSO), for global optimization problems. In SLPSO, each particle has a set of four strategies to cope with different situations in the search space. The cooperation of the four strategies is implemented by an adaptive learning framework at the individual level, which can enable a particle to choose the optimal strategy according to its own local fitness landscape. The experimental study on a set of 45 test functions and two real-world problems show that SLPSO has a superior performance in comparison with several other peer algorithms.     

Na+ and/or Cl− Toxicities Determine Salt Sensitivity in Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek), Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.), and Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Grain legumes are important crops, but they are salt sensitive. This research dissected the responses of four (sub)tropical grain legumes to ionic components (Na⁺ and/or Cl⁻) of salt stress. Soybean, mungbean, cowpea, and common bean were subjected to NaCl, Na⁺ salts (without Cl⁻), Cl⁻ salts (without Na⁺), and a “high cation” negative control for 57 days. Growth, leaf gas exchange, and tissue ion concentrations were assessed at different growing stages. For soybean, NaCl and Na⁺ salts impaired seed dry mass (30% of control), more so than Cl⁻ salts (60% of control). All treatments impaired mungbean growth, with NaCl and Cl⁻ salt treatments affecting seed dry mass the most (2% of control). For cowpea, NaCl had the greatest adverse impact on seed dry mass (20% of control), while Na⁺ salts and Cl⁻ salts had similar intermediate effects (~45% of control). For common bean, NaCl had the greatest adverse effect on seed dry mass (4% of control), while Na⁺ salts and Cl⁻ salts impaired seed dry mass to a lesser extent (~45% of control). NaCl and Na⁺ salts (without Cl⁻) affected the photosynthesis (P_n) of soybean more than Cl⁻ salts (without Na⁺) (50% of control), while the reverse was true for mungbean. Na⁺ salts (without Cl⁻), Cl⁻ salts (without Na⁺), and NaCl had similar adverse effects on P_n of cowpea and common bean (~70% of control). In conclusion, salt sensitivity is predominantly determined by Na⁺ toxicity in soybean, Cl⁻ toxicity in mungbean, and both Na⁺ and Cl⁻ toxicity in cowpea and common bean.     

Simulated Microgravity Inhibits the Proliferation of Chang Liver Cells by Attenuation of the Major Cell Cycle Regulators and Cytoskeletal Proteins

Simulated microgravity (SMG) induced the changes in cell proliferation and cytoskeleton organization, which plays an important factor in various cellular processes. The inhibition in cell cycle progression has been considered to be one of the main causes of proliferation inhibition in cells under SMG, but their mechanisms are still not fully understood. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of SMG on the proliferative ability and cytoskeleton changes of Chang Liver Cells (CCL-13). CCL-13 cells were induced SMG by 3D clinostat for 72 h, while the control group were treated in normal gravity at the same time. The results showed that SMG reduced CCL-13 cell proliferation by an increase in the number of CCL-13 cells in G0/G1 phase. This cell cycle phase arrest of CCL-13 cells was due to a downregulation of cell cycle-related proteins, such as cyclin A1 and A2, cyclin D1, and cyclin-dependent kinase 6 (Cdk6). SMG-exposed CCL-13 cells also exhibited a downregulation of α-tubulin 3 and β-actin which induced the cytoskeleton reorganization. These results suggested that the inhibited proliferation of SMG-exposed CCL-13 cells could be associate with the attenuation of major cell cycle regulators and main cytoskeletal proteins.     

Small amphiphilic organics, coordination extended solids, and constant curvature structures

In this Account, we explore the role constant curvature structures play in amphiphilic small molecule crystals and extended coordination solids. A constant curvature structure is one in which there is a surface or interface that has the same curvature throughout its surface. Simple examples of such structures contain spheres (micelles), columns, or layers. Yet another family are cubic as is found in the gyroid topology. For amphiphilic systems, there are two domains, one generally hydrophobic and the other hydrophilic. We find that the interfaces between these two domains in small molecule structures resemble those in larger scale systems and adopt topologies related to constant curvature structures. The hydrophobic-to-total volume ratio, a molecular parameter, can be used to predict which type of constant curvature structure is adopted. In the case of three coordinate extended solids, constant curvature plays a role both in the extended net topology and in the hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic interface.     

Utilizing similarity relationships among existing data for high accuracy processing of content-based image retrieval

Retrieving similar images based on its visual content is an important yet difficult problem. We propose in this paper a new method to improve the accuracy of content-based image retrieval systems. Typically, given a query image, existing retrieval methods return a ranked list based on the similarity scores between the query and individual images in the database. Our method goes further by relying on an analysis of the underlying connections among individual images in the database to improve this list. Initially, we consider each image in the database as a query and use an existing baseline method to search for its likely similar images. Then, the database is modeled as a graph where images are nodes and connections among possibly similar images are edges. Next, we introduce an algorithm to split this graph into stronger subgraphs, based on our notion of graph’s strength, so that images in each subgraph are expected to be truly similar to each other. We create for each subgraph a structure called integrated image which contains the visual features of all images in the subgraph. At query time, we compute the similarity scores not only between the query and individual database images but also between the query and the integrated images. The final similarity score of a database image is computed based on both its individual score and the score of the integrated image that it belongs to. This leads effectively to a re-ranking of the retrieved images. We evaluate our method on a common image retrieval benchmark and demonstrate a significant improvement over the traditional bag-of-words retrieval model.     

Enhanced Dynamic Authentication Scheme (EDAS)

With non-stop growth in network environments, communication security is necessary. A strong protocol guarantees that users and service providers are secure against many kinds of attacks, such as impersonation and replay attack. Sood et al. proposed an authentication scheme based on dynamic identity to prevent transactions from being intercepted by malicious users. Although they claimed that their scheme has advantages over previous schemes with the same approach, we prove that their scheme is vulnerable to impersonation attack and stolen verification attack, and can be affected by clock synchronization. Therefore we propose a novel authentication scheme to enhance security and overcome limitations existing in Sood’s scheme. Our security analysis shows that our proposed method can efficiently resist known types of attacks. Experimental results also show that the method can be implemented and processed in real-time thus applicable for not only regular computers but also mobile devices.