Adaptive control of time-varying plants: Simple examples

The design and properties of an adaptive model reference scheme and an adaptive pole placement control scheme for linear time-varying plants are demonstrated via two simple examples. The two new schemes combine new control laws that are appropriate for time-varying plants with estimators that can utilize any available a prior; information on the structure of the parameter variations and are applicable to plants which are not necessarily slowly time-varying. As illustrated by simulations, the new adaptive controllers exhibit good performance even in cases of fast plant parameter variations.     

Design and implementation of a hybrid manufacturing facility

A method for the design of hybrid, cellular/functional, facilities is presented in this paper. This method targets the minimization of inter-cell material handling and the maximization of intra-cell directional material flow. Furthermore it develops a shop redesign plan that maximizes the net benefit obtained from the facility rearrangement.     

An adaptive memory programming framework for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem

The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) is one of the most intractable combinatorial optimisation problems that combines a set of constraints and objectives met in a vast variety of applications and industries. Its solution raises major theoretical challenges due to its complexity, yet presenting numerous practical dimensions. Adaptive memory programming (AMP) is one of the most successful frameworks for solving hard combinatorial optimisation problems (e.g. vehicle routing and scheduling). Its success stems from the use of learning mechanisms that capture favourable solution elements found in high-quality solutions. This paper challenges the efficiency of AMP for solving the RCPSP, to our knowledge, for the first time in the literature. Computational experiments on well-known benchmark RCPSP instances show that the proposed AMP consistently produces high-quality solutions in reasonable computational times.     

Streamflow and Hydrological Drought Trend Analysis and Forecasting in Cyprus

The persistent water shortage in Cyprus has been alleviated by importing freshwater from neighbouring countries, and severe droughts have been met with financial reimbursement from the EU at least twice. The goal of this research is to investigate and perform short-term forecasting of both streamflow and hydrological drought trends over the island. Eleven hydrometric stations with a 34-year common record length of the mean daily discharge from 10/1979 to 09/2013 are used for this purpose, with the relevant upstream catchments considered to represent pristine conditions. The Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) successfully captures the hydrological drought conditions over the island, and the performance of the index is validated based on both the historic drought archives and results from other drought indices for the island. The Mann–Kendall (M-K) test reveals that the annual and seasonal time series of the discharge volumes always illustrate a decreasing but insignificant trend at a significance level of a?=?0.05; additionally, the decrease per decade in the average annual streamflow volume based on Sen’s slope statistic is approximately ?9.4%. The M-K test on the SDI reveals that drought conditions intensified with time. Ten autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models are built and used to forecast the mean monthly streamflow values with moderate accuracy; the best ARIMA forecast model in each catchment is derived by comparing two model-performance statistical measures for the different (p,d,q) model parameters. The predicted discharge values are processed by the SDI-3 index, revealing that non-drought conditions are expected in most catchments in the upcoming three months, although mild-drought conditions are anticipated for catchments 7, 8 and 9.     

From risk factors to detection and intervention: a practical proposal for future work on cyberbullying

While there is an increasing flow of media stories reporting cases of cyberbullying, particularly within online social media, research efforts in the academic community are scattered over different topics across the social science and computer science academic disciplines. In this work, we explored research pertaining to cyberbullying, conducted across disciplines. We mainly sought to understand scholarly activity on intelligence techniques for the detection of cyberbullying when it occurs. Our findings suggest that the vast majority of academic contributions on cyberbullying focus on understanding the phenomenon, risk factors, and threats, with the prospect of suggesting possible protection strategies. There is less work on intelligence techniques for the detection of cyberbullying when it occurs, while currently deployed algorithms seem to detect the problem only up to some degree of success. The article summarises the current trends aiming to encourage discussion and research with a new scope; we call for more research tackling the problem by leveraging statistical models and computational mechanisms geared to detect, intervene, and prevent cyberbullying. Coupling intelligence techniques with specific web technology problems can help combat this social menace. We argue that a multidisciplinary approach is needed, with expertise from human–computer interaction, psychology, computer science, and sociology, for current challenges to be addressed and significant progress to be made.     

Constrained crystal growth during solidification of particles and splats in uniform droplet sprays

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology - Uniform droplet spraying (UDS) is a novel process used to produce ideally narrow (mono-size) distributions of molten metal droplets...     

Review of the effects of food processing and formulation on flavonol and anthocyanin behaviour

In spite of the growing interest over the last few years in flavonoids and their antioxidant capacity, little work has been devoted to investigate the effect of the processes on the structure and the activities of these molecules during processing and storage steps. Most of the studies concern the characterization and analyses of these compounds in raw materials before their processing. Flavonoids are sensitive to heat and to the physico-chemical environment; thus the steps of processing (heating, mechanical and domestic processes), of formulation (food matrix) and the storage period and conditions may lead to a degradation of the flavonoids and an alteration of their antioxidant properties. In this paper, we review the main studies describing the effects of processing, formulation and storage on flavonol and anthocyan content and we also report the models describing the degradation kinetics under a wide range of temperature and operating conditions.     

Retention and distribution of natural antioxidants (α-tocopherol, polyphenols and terpenic acids) after shallow frying of vegetables in virgin olive oil

Potatoes, green peppers, zucchinis and eggplants were shallow fried in virgin olive oil (VOO) according to the Mediterranean traditional culinary practice. Zucchinis and eggplants were also blanketed with wheat flour or batter prior to frying. Polyphenols and hydroxy pentacyclic triterpene acids (HPTAs) were determined by GC/MS, while α-tocopherol was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Among 12 polyphenols determined, tyrosol predominated in frying oils and zucchini samples, while chlorogenic acid was the major phenolic species in the other vegetable samples. The triterpene acids maslinic, oleanolic and ursolic were determined in frying oils and fried vegetables, while α-tocopherol was present in all samples. Besides water loss and oil absorption, shallow frying resulted in partial loss of all the antioxidants studied in frying oils and enrichment of fried vegetables with olive oil antioxidants, which was in some extent affected by the type of vegetable fried and the culinary practice followed. The overall retention of the antioxidants in oil and food ranged from 32% to 64% for α-tocopherol, 25% to 70% for polyphenols and 35% to 83% for HPTA. It appears that vegetables fried in VOO provide an additional intake of α-tocopherol, terpenic acids and polyphenols as tyrosol and chlorogenic acid.