Neural networks in process life cycle profit modelling

Changes in operational environment of the process industry such as decreasing selling prices, increased competition between companies and new legislation, set requirements for performance and effectiveness of the industrial production lines and processes. For the basis of this study, a life cycle profit (LCP) model of a pulp process was constructed using different kind of process information including chemical consumptions and production levels of material and energy flows in unit processes. However, all the information needed in the creation of relevant LCP model was not directly provided by information systems of the plant. In this study, neural networks was used to model pulp bleaching process and fill out missing information and furthermore to create estimators for the alkaline chemical consumption. A data-based modelling approach was applied using an example, where factors affecting the sodium hydroxide consumption in the bleaching stage were solved. The results showed that raw process data can be refined into new valuable information using computational methods and moreover to improve the accuracy of life cycle profit models.     

Halo arcs from airborne, pyramidal ice crystals falling with their C axes in vertical orientation

Many halo arcs are caused by pyramidal crystals that have {1 0 -1 1} crystal faces. We treat halo arcs arising from pyramidal crystals that fall in the air with their c axes vertically oriented. To our knowledge only 6 of the 12 possible halo phenomena that belong to this category have been dealt with in the literature. Surprisingly the yet undiscussed halos are predicted to be of comparable intensity with those already treated. They are produced by reflections from pyramidal crystal basal faces. A theoretical summary and computer simulations are presented of the mentioned 12 halo phenomena and of the individual arcs into which they break in the sky. We give an overview to the current level of documentation of these phenomena by listing the first published photographs of each phenomenon known to the authors.     

Mobile crowdsensing with mobile agents

We introduce mobile agents for mobile crowdsensing. Crowdsensing campaigns are designed through different roles that are implemented as mobile agents. The role-based tasks of mobile agents include collecting data, analyzing data and sharing data in the campaign. Mobile agents execute and control the campaign autonomously as a multi-agent system and migrate in the opportunistic network of participants’ devices. Mobile agents take into account the available resources in the devices and match participants’ privacy requirements to the campaign requirements. Sharing of task results in real-time facilitates cooperation towards the campaign goal while maintaining a selected global measure, such as energy efficiency. We discuss current challenges in crowdsensing and propose mobile agent based solutions for campaign execution and monitoring, addressing data collection and participant-related issues. We present a software framework for mobile agents-based crowdsensing that is seamlessly integrated into the Web. A set of simulations are conducted to compare mobile agent-based campaigns with existing crowdsensing approaches. We implemented and evaluated a small-scale real-world mobile agent based campaign for pedestrian flock detection. The simulation and evaluation results show that mobile agent based campaigns produce comparable results with less energy consumption when the number of agents is relatively small and enables in-network data processing with sharing of data and task results with insignificant overhead.     

Surrogate-based optimization of a periodic rescheduling algorithm

Periodic rescheduling is an iterative method for real-time decision-making on industrial process operations. The design of such methods involves high-level when-to-schedule and how-to-schedule decisions, the optimal choices of which depend on the operating environment. The evaluation of the choices typically requires computationally costly simulation of the process, which—if not sufficiently efficient—may result in a failure to deploy the system in practice. We propose the continuous control parameter choices, such as the re-optimization frequency and horizon length, to be determined using surrogate-based optimization. We demonstrate the method on real-time rebalancing of a bike sharing system. Our results on three test cases indicate that the method is useful in reducing the computational cost of optimizing an online algorithm in comparison to the full factorial sampling.     

Toward Xeno-Free Differentiation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Small Intestinal Epithelial Cells

The small intestinal epithelium has an important role in nutrition, but also in drug absorption and metabolism. There are a few two-dimensional (2D) patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based intestinal models enabling easy evaluation of transcellular transport. It is known that animal-derived components induce variation in the experimental outcomes. Therefore, we aimed to refine the differentiation protocol by using animal-free components. More specifically, we compared maturation of 2D-cultured iPCSs toward small intestinal epithelial cells when cultured either with or without serum, and either on Geltrex or on animal-free, recombinant laminin-based substrata. Differentiation status was characterized by qPCR, immunofluorescence imaging, and functionality assays. Our data suggest that differentiation toward definitive endoderm is more efficient without serum. Both collagen- and recombinant laminin-based coating supported differentiation of definitive endoderm, posterior definitive endoderm, and small intestinal epithelial cells from iPS-cells equally well. Small intestinal epithelial cells differentiated on recombinant laminin exhibited slightly more enterocyte specific cellular functionality than cells differentiated on Geltrex. Our data suggest that functional small intestinal epithelial cells can be generated from iPSCs in serum-free method on xeno-free substrata. This method is easily converted to an entirely xeno-free method.     

益生菌对特应性湿疹的抑制作用

背景:近20年来,工业国家的过敏性疾病发病率显著增加,因此迫切需要研制开发新的治疗方法.目的:经随机双盲安慰剂对照试验证实,益生素在早期炎症反应有潜在的控制作用.方法:27名平均年龄4.6个月的婴儿(母乳喂养,未曾接触过其他婴儿或其他配方奶粉)确诊患有特应性湿疹.患儿停止母乳喂养后分组,分别服用含益生菌双歧杆菌(Bb-12)或乳酸杆菌LGG(ATCC 53103)或不含益生菌的完全水解乳清配方奶粉.本实验分别检测了炎症范围和程度,婴儿生长和营养情况,循环细胞因子/趋化因子浓度,血清中可溶性细胞表面粘附分子,甲基组胺和尿嗜酸粒细胞蛋白-X.结果:特应性皮炎评分标准(SCORAD评分)可显示特应性湿疹的范围和严重程度,母乳喂养期,SCORAD指数为16(7-15),中位数(四分位差).同服用未添加益生菌配方奶的患儿相比,两个月后,服用添加益生菌配方奶的患儿有明显好转;X<'2>=12.27.P=0.002.添加双歧杆菌Bb-12组的患儿SCORAD评分降至0(0～3.8),乳酸杆菌组的SCORAD降至1(0.1～8.7),与未添加组评分形成对比--13.4(4.5～18.2),中位数(四分位差).同时检测发现可溶性CD4的血清浓度和尿嗜酸性粒细胞蛋白X均降低.结论:本实验首次证明特异益生菌种对过敏炎症反应的帮助.数据进一步说明益生菌可能抵抗炎症反应的肠道环境.当宿主体内新产生的抗体敏感性不强时,这些益生菌株联合作用,可帮助婴儿度过断奶期.因此益生菌为过敏治疗和预防提供了食物治疗的新方向.     

Personal hypothesis testing: The role of consistency and self-schema.

We report the results of two experiments that examined the way individuals test hypotheses about themselves. Both experiments were based on the work of Snyder (e.g., Snyder, 1981; Snyder & Skrypnek, 1981), which suggests that individuals have a confirmatory bias when testing hypotheses about others and about themselves. In Experiment 1, we examined the extent to which this bias toward confirmation persists when a negative (e.g., depression) or nonconsistent (not consistent with the individual's evaluation of him- or herself) personal hypothesis is tested. Results suggest that the negative or positive nature of a personal hypothesis does not directly influence the way individuals test their hypothesis. However, the way individuals tested personal hypotheses was influenced by hypothesis consistency. In Experiment 2, we examined the relation of a cognitive schematic variable (i.e., vulnerability for depression) and hypothesis testing. Results suggest that vulnerability is related to the way individuals test a personal hypothesis about depression. Vulnerable, low-depression participants were confirmatory when testing a depression hypothesis, whereas nonvulnerable, low-depression participants were disconfirmatory. We discuss implications for counseling and future directions for research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An efficient variable neighborhood search heuristic for very large scale vehicle routing problems

In this paper, we present an efficient variable neighborhood search heuristic for the capacitated vehicle routing problem. The objective is to design least cost routes for a fleet of identically capacitated vehicles to service geographically scattered customers with known demands. The variable neighborhood search procedure is used to guide a set of standard improvement heuristics. In addition, a strategy reminiscent of the guided local search metaheuristic is used to help escape local minima. The developed solution method is specifically aimed at solving very large scale real-life vehicle routing problems. To speed up the method and cut down memory usage, new implementation concepts are used. Computational experiments on 32 existing large scale benchmarks, as well as on 20 new very large scale problem instances, demonstrate that the proposed method is fast, competitive and able to find high-quality solutions for problem instances with up to 20,000 customers within reasonable CPU times.