LEARNING TO IMPROVE PLAN QUALITY

Adaptive automated planning systems that can, over time, improve the quality of plans they produce are a promising prospect. The first part of the article discusses the issues involved in designing quality improving learning for planning systems and reviews recent work on learning to improve plan quality. The second part describes our work on the Performance Improving Planning (PIP) System. The heart of PIP is an analytic technique that compares two planning episodes for solving a planning problem that led to two different quality solutions—a higher-quality solution and a lower quality solution—and identifies the critical differences that were responsible for the resulting differences in the quality of the completed plans. We compare the effectiveness of two different ways of storing and applying the knowledge learned from this analysis—as search-control rules and as rewrite rules. The results show that the search-control rules are more effective in improving plan quality. Further analysis of PIP-search-control—the version of PIP that stores the learned knowledge as search-control rules—shows that it is an effective technique for improving plan quality in a variety of situations.     

Kinetic modeling of pyrolysis of three Iranian waste oils in a micro-fluidized bed

Different approaches have been used to convert the waste materials into a clean syngas or other chemicals such as methanol. Among them, pyrolysis is a good candidate to produce the synthesis gas and volatile matters for industrial and refinery applications. In this work, we studied the kinetic and chemical behavior of three Iranian waste oils through a kinetic model and an experimental study. The experiments carried out in a micro-FB reactor, which is a good option for low emissions. Results showed that the reaction temperature and reaction rate are two of the most important factors for maximum conversion level of fuel. Results also showed an optimum value for reaction rate. The modeling results validated against the experimental measurements and found to be in good agreements.     

In Vitro Antiamoebic Activity Evaluation and Docking Studies of Metronidazole–Triazole Hybrids

An in‐house database of 520 compounds was docked against Entamoeba histolytica thioredoxin reductase (EhTrR), a promising target for the treatment of amoebiasis. Amongst these, some metronidazole (MTZ)–triazole hybrids were ranked high, with docking scores from ?10.23 to ?7.56. Studies of the binding orientations and conformations show that the head groups of MTZ–triazole hybrids interact with the arginine residues within the binding pocket of EhTrR, making it clear that such is the optimal and most reliable orientation for this class of compounds. The top‐ten MTZ–triazole hybrids were then selected for evaluation of their activity against the HM1:IMSS strain of amoeba. The most active compound, 2‐pyridyl‐(1,2,3‐triazolyl)metronidazole 10 , with an IC₅₀ value of 8.4 nM , was significantly more active than the standard drug MTZ alone. Docking studies revealed that compound 10 may act as an EhTrR inhibitor with activity in the nanomolar range and satisfactory ADME properties; it is a suitable candidate to be carried forward as a potential lead in the discovery of drugs to combat amoebiasis.     

Optimising the production of energy from coblended food waste and biosolids using batch reactor studies

Energy production from a coblended mixture of biosolids and food waste was optimised for hydrogen and methane production. Four different blends were prepared by varying the carbohydrate : protein (carb : pro) ratios. The biosolids contained a low carbohydrate fraction and so was not suitable for hydrogen production when used alone. However coblending this waste with a carbohydrate‐enriched food waste produced a greater hydrogen yield, making this option viable. Batch studies showed that the optimised mix had a biosolids concentration of 25.7% (w/w). The largest hydrogen yield of 198.5 mL/gVS_removed was observed when the carb : pro was 2.78, and this was threefold higher than the other carb : pro ratios evaluated in this study. The digestate recovered after hydrogen recovery had a C : N of 17.5, which is in the ideal range for methane production. The biochemical methane potential test showed a methane yield of 239 mL/gVS_removed, and the total volatile solids destruction following two‐phase hydrogen and methane production was 93%.     

Design considerations for an automotive magnetorheological brake

In this paper, design considerations for building an automotive magnetorheological (MR) brake are discussed. The proposed brake consists of multiple rotating disks immersed in a MR fluid and an enclosed electromagnet. When current is applied to the electromagnet, the MR fluid solidifies as its yield stress varies as a function of the magnetic field applied. This controllable yield stress produces shear friction on the rotating disks, generating the braking torque. In this work, practical design criteria such as material selection, sealing, working surface area, viscous torque generation, applied current density, and MR fluid selection are considered to select a basic automotive MR brake configuration. Then, a finite element analysis is performed to analyze the resulting magnetic circuit and heat distribution within the MR brake configuration. This is followed by a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) procedure to obtain optimal design parameters that can generate the maximum braking torque in the brake. A prototype MR brake is then built and tested and the experimental results show a good correlation with the finite element simulation predictions. However, the braking torque generated is still far less than that of a conventional hydraulic brake, which indicates that a radical change in the basic brake configuration is required to build a feasible automotive MR brake.     

Lactate cannot substitute for alanine in d4T-based anti-HIV nucleotide prodrugs--despite efficient esterase-mediated hydrolysis

As part of our on-going effort to deliver masked phosphates of antiviral nucleosides inside living cells we have previously discovered that amino acid-derived phosphoramidates are particularly effective. Here we report that lactate analogues, with a simple change of bridging nitrogen for oxygen, are virtually inactive as antiviral agents and apparently do not achieve intracellular nucleoside phosphate delivery.     

Effect of enhancing the Raman gain factor on the linearity of Raman fibre amplifiers

The effect of enhancing the Raman gain factor on the linearity characteristics of Raman fibre amplifiers is analysed. In addition to providing higher Raman gain per unit pump power, a higher value for the Raman gain factor also results in a lower value for the maximum gain, and therefore the maximum output power, available from the amplifier if it is to operate in the linear regime. This has important implications for optimising the design of Raman fibre amplifiers.<>