A document by Qihua Zhang. Click on the document to view its contents.

A document by Brian Hanley. Click on the document to view its contents.

Multivariate statistical techniques have been widely applied in industrial processes to detect abnormal behaviors, while their performance could be unsatisfactory due to insufficient extraction of complex data characteristics. A method named Orthogonal transformed statistics Mahalanobis distance (OTSMD) is developed to handle this issue. As a feature-based method, OTSMD simultaneously considers various data characteristics through monitoring statistical features of process variables. Orthogonal transformed components (OTCs) are first calculated to capture variable correlation, and a set of statistical features is determined to extract other crucial characteristics, especially for the process nonstationarity. Statistical features of OTCs, which reveals implied process information, are continuously obtained using a sliding window, and a Mahalanobis distance index is utilized for fault detection. Compared with existing methods, OTSMD extracts data characteristics more comprehensively with a lower dimension, making it more effective in monitoring various faults. The results are illustrated through a numerical example, and two chemical industrial processes.

To design D-amino acid dehydrogenase (DAADH) for enhanced stability, the interactions of the subunit interfaces of DAADH were analyzed. Interaction network analysis of DAADH indicated that there are only weak interactions between the A and B subunits. Several co-evolved residue pairs were selected for mutation to enhance interfacial interactions of subunits, and 11 designed MDHs were obtained. DA06 and DA11 were selected for experimental verification for their salt bridges are 1.4 and 1.2-fold of that of DAwild, respectively. DA11 can maintain 93% activity in 80℃, while it was only 40% for DAwild. Thermostabiliy study indicated the half-life of DA11 was 2-fold of DAwild. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed that the extraordinary stability of the DA11 was due to the formation of extra interfacial salt bridges. The paper provided a strategy of mutations outside the active site of enzyme by co-evolutionary analysis which can reduce the effect of the activity-thermostability trade-off.

It has been argued that when a single-line-to-ground fault is applied at the inverter on the alternating current side, the voltage will drop. Likewise, when a fault is applied on a LLG fault at the inverter, the currents of the alter-nating current system of the rectifier will experience various disturbances. In this study, we focus on a converter station on the rectifier side of a HVDC system. Three fault cases, namely, D4D5 open-circuit fault, D1D2 open-circuit fault, and D3D4D6D2 open-circuit fault and their behavior on the alternating cur-rent system of the rectifier, AC system of the inverter as well as the direct current link with detailed simu-lations were carried out. An HVDC mono-polar system was modeled using the MATLAB/Simulink software environment. It was discovered that the D4D5 and D1D2 open-circuit faults and the AC system of the rectifier side would both have the same increase in AC voltages, whereas the behavior of the AC currents of both faults would remain normal with no effect. It was also shown that during the D3D4D6D2 open-circuit fault, the alternating current volt-ages and currents at the inverter side would experience zeros in a short time and then rise with a false sinusoidal waveform

The concept of a smart city is intertwined with a kind of great data management, and through which, reaching optimal management. The data transaction and the issue of communication between different equipment are all defined on the IoT platform. The concept of IoT is a general keyword referring to the widespread communication between equipment. Nevertheless, the idea that metropolitan management can be implemented with the targeted data processing faces challenges. On the other hand, multicarrier energy management, in which various types of energy generating structures like microgrids, smart grid, energy hub systems, transportation sector, etc. converge together in an optimal energy management program, is of great difficulty. Considering these challenges, the processes of encryption, dispatching data, decryption with the algorithm of the energy management plan should be intertwined and all solved together as a general problem. The current paper has presented a modified IoT architecture along with a multi-carrier energy management application through integrating two distributed and integrated management approaches. In the presented model, each energy-generating agent in the first layer initially controls its own internal supply and demand rate implementing distributed management, and then in the second layer, each agent participates in a macro-competitive market to achieve the optimal work point. Thus, in the presented model, the data blockchain building protocol based on The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in IOT platform is synchronized with the cloud-computing center and an integrated energy and data security management program is run, having the nature of the competitive market according to the block building time by each agent. According to the results, in this approach, while achieving the desired answer, the volume of data transaction and consequently, the time to gain the final consensus may be considerably reduced.

Background: Diabetes is one of the major health issues globally. T1DM develops due to the destruction of pancreatic beta cells. Mesenchymal stem cells having remarkable self-renewal and differentiation potential, can regenerate beta cells. MSCs preconditioned with bioactive small molecules possess enhanced biological features and therapeutic potential under in vivo environment. Interestingly, compounds of naphthoquinone class possess anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory properties, and can be explored as potential candidates for preconditioning MSCs. Aim: This study analyzed the effect of lawsone preconditioned human umbilical cord MSCs (hUMSCs) on the regeneration of β-cells in the STZ-induced type 1 diabetic rats. Methods: hUMSCs were isolated and characterized for the presence of surface markers. MSCs were preconditioned with optimized concentration of lawsone. T1D rat model was established by injecting 50 mg/kg of streptozotocin intraperitoneally. Untreated and lawsone preconditioned MSCs were transplanted into the diabetic rats via tail vein. Fasting blood sugar and body weight were monitored regularly for 4 weeks. Pancreas was harvested and beta cell regeneration was evaluated by H&E staining and gene expression analysis. Immunohistochemistry was also done to assess the insulin protein expression. Results: Lawsone preconditioned MSCs showed better anti-hyperglycemic effect, compared to untreated MSCs. Histological analysis presented the regeneration of islets of Langerhans with higher expression of β-cell genes and reduced expression of inflammatory markers. Immunohistochemistry revealed intense insulin expression in the preconditioned compared to the untreated MSCs. Conclusion: It is concluded from the present study that lawsone preconditioned MSCs were able to exhibit pronounced anti-hyperglycemic effect in vivo compared to MSCs alone.

The inhibition or integration of primary reflexes is fundamental in the child’s development. If this does not occur in an adequate manner, reflexes may remain active and children may develop poor motor competence. Therefore, the aims of the study were to analyze the relationships among the persistence of reflexes, motor competence and crawling pattern in children and to assess gender differences. The Primitive Reflex Assessment protocol, the Movement Assessment Battery for Children and an ad-hoc questionnaire for parents were used. The sample consisted of 233 children from childhood education, and two extreme groups were made (low motor competence and typical development or high motor competence). The results indicated that participants with lower reflex inhibition showed lower motor competence, most of them had not crawled, and boys showed a higher presence of non-inhibited reflexes. It can be concluded that both early detection and motor interventions that favour reflex inhibition are necessary.

Practical lab skills are rarely directly assessed. To improve constructive alignment between described learning outcomes of practical skills and assessment, we developed and tested a certification procedure for microscopy skills. The procedure was embedded into the ordinary learning activity, so no additional time was needed. Three slightly different protocols were developed within the framework of sociocultural learning theory and built like a skill ladder including direct peer assessment and elements of gamified learning. The protocols varied slightly in the way students were prepared for the certification, the number of steps/levels of achievement, and the consequences of failing. We tested the protocols at three different academic institutions and within 11 courses of varying sizes and academic levels in biology or geology. Feedback were collected through online surveys (n = 207) or orally after sessions. One protocol provided instruction videos as preparation material. Instruction videos provided increased understanding of the task, but tactile training was most important for learning. Regardless of institution, type of preparation, and level of former experience, the certification procedure made students clearly more engaged in the exercise. The majority reported that the certification procedure increased their motivation to learn, increased their learning outcome, and was appropriate for assessing practical skills. Students with no or little experience in microscopy before the exercise were more positive about the certification procedure compared to skilled students, and the level of engagement and preparation was higher when there were some consequences of failing. Most students felt comfortable being certified by peers, but some students expressed concern about peers making mistakes. The presented certification procedure can easily be adapted to assess other practical skills, and with some adjustments be an efficient method for assessment-as-learning, merging formative- and summative assessment.

Invasive alien species are generally highly fertile and adaptable and can pose a severe threat to the ecological security of invaded localities. Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is a rapidly evolving cryptic complex. Among them, Mediterranean (MED) and Middle East–Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) is the most invasive and widely distributed. To clarify the invasion source, population structure, and genetic differentiation drivers of whitefly populations in Xinjiang, China, we collected B. tabaci from 14 host crops in Xinjiang, China. A total of 453 sequenced cytochrome c oxidase subunit I(COI) fragments were analysed. We used common methods and parameters of genetic analysis, such as phylogenetic analysis, haplotype diversity, and nucleotide diversity, neutrality testing, and mismatch distribution chart analysis to determine the genetic structure and genetic differentiation and explore the origin of the invasion of B. tabaci populations in Xinjiang. The results have shown that global MED and MEAM1 populations are genetically differentiated, and MED has a significant geographical lineage structure at the Xinjiang and global spatial scales. This was the same for the MEAM1 population at the Xinjiang spatial scale. There have been multiple local expansions and founder effects in the MED populations. The MEAM1 population has retained a stable population size with a bottleneck effect. Based on the phylogenetic tree for MED and MEAM1, it has been demonstrated that there have been multiple points and pathways of invasion of B. tabaci and the sources in Xinjiang, China were complex. The sources of MED invasion of MED are likely to be Zhejiang, Hebei, or Shanxi. The source for MEAM1 is complex, and Zhejiang is one of the main invasion sources. This study has shown that host plant differences in open habitats, geographic isolation, and habitat differences were the driving factors for genetic differentiation of B. tabaci populations in Xinjiang, China

Recently, there have been a number of reports on the fabrication of Alumina-Zirconia (Al2O3-ZrO2 (AZ))-based eutectic ceramics using laser additive manufacturing (AM) techniques owing to the exceptional creep and oxidation resistance coupled with excellent microstructural stability in these materials. Moreover, a number of interesting microstructural features (in these materials) have been reported to be formed by the variation of process parameters (especially, laser scanning speed) associated with the aforementioned AM techniques. The present review provides an overview of the present state of research in the area of laser AM AZ-based eutectic ceramics and highlights the challenges and future outlooks in this avenue of research. In addition, the requirement of employing correlative microstructural characterisation in these materials has been highlighted in the outlooks section.

A document by Joseph G Meert. Click on the document to view its contents.

The Siamese tracker consists of two components: a classification and a regression networks. Despite their different roles, most Siamese trackers have similar feature fusion modules in the two networks, leading to the neglect of their unique characteristics. In this work, we experimentally discover that the two networks place different levels of emphasis on different types of information. Specifically, regression tends to rely on semantic information, while classification places more emphasis on global information. Therefore, we propose a new tracking structure named SGTrack, which includes a semantic augmentation fusion (SAF) for regression and a global relevance fusion (GRF) for classification. It allows us to unlock the full potential of both networks. The experimental results of our method on five benchmarks provide evidence of a notable improvement in tracking performance, while preserving real-time speed.

In this paper, 3D reconstruction of the leading edge of wind turbine blades from images, also known as photogrammetry, is investigated. The technique was applied to a decommissioned blade with an eroded leading edge, with images captured by a smartphone. The reconstructed 3D surface was accurate, when compared to the captured images, despite the small number of images used. A solid model was then created and imported into a finite element modelling software for rain-droplet impact simulations. Photogrammetry is relatively cheap, when compared to other surface scanning techniques, and provides means of monitoring erosion damage when combined with drone imaging. Further investigations of the parameters which control the accuracy of the reconstructed surface must be performed, to fully explore the potential of photogrammetry for 3D reconstruction of leading edge erosion damage.

Tick vectors and tick-borne disease are increasingly impacting human populations globally. An important challenge is to understand tick movement patterns, as this information can be used to improve management and predictive modeling of tick population dynamics. Evolutionary analysis of genetic divergence, gene flow, and local adaptation provides insight on movement patterns at large spatiotemporal scales. We develop low coverage, whole genome resequencing data for 92 samples representing range-wide variation in blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, across the U.S. Through analysis of population genomic data, we find that tick populations are structured geographically, with gradual isolation by distance separating three population clusters in the northern U.S., southeastern U.S., and a unique cluster represented by a sample from Tennessee. Populations in the northern U.S. underwent population contractions during the last glacial period and diverged from southern populations at least 50 thousand years ago. Genome scans of selection provide strong evidence of local adaptation at genes responding to host defenses, blood-feeding, and environmental variation. In addition, we explore the potential of low coverage genome sequencing of whole-tick samples for documenting the diversity of microbial pathogens. Metagenomic analyses recover important tick-borne pathogens and their geographical variation, including the higher prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi in northern populations, geographic strain variation in Rickettsia species, and the rare occurrence of B. miyamotoi and Anaplasma phagocytophilum. The combination of restricted pathogen distribution, isolation by distance, and local adaptation in blacklegged ticks demonstrates that gene flow, including recent expansion, is limited to geographical scales of a few hundred kilometers.

Land fragmentation is one of the main hurdles that restricts farmers from technology use for enhancing agricultural production especially in developing countries. The farmers are even now at threat of further fragmentation of their lands in the future due to sharing system of lands among the heirs. This research, attempted to find out determinants of small holding farmers’ willingness for land consolidation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Pakistan. The primary data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire from randomly selected 200 farmers from Charsadda, Sawabi and Nowshera districts of (KPK) Province . Chi-square test and Binary logistic regression model were used to identify determinants of farmers’ willingness for land consolidation. Farmers’ reported main reasons in favor of willingness were benefit of compact land than scattered parcels, increased production, better management of land and ease of transporting inputs. Conversely, reasons against willingness for mutual swapping included farmers’ sentimental attachments to their lands, lack of proper compensation mechanism, differences in value of land and renting-out land parcels. Among determinants of willingness included distance of land parcel, land holding size, number of land parcels, irrigated land area and participation in agriculture related trainings. The study suggests arrangement of seminars and workshops for farmers in their own rural settings for awareness regarding land consolidation, a better compensation mechanism to come up on mutual exchange of land parcels with uneven prices and land parcels of different irrigation methods.

IntroductionOral symptoms are often the first manifestation of leukemia in children, and there are many reports of tooth extraction for abnormalities such as tooth movement. Leukemia accounts for 38% of all childhood cancers in Japan, followed by brain tumors (16%), lymphomas (9%), and neuroblastomas (AML) (8%), and the remaining 5% are unknown. Among the types of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) accounts for 80–85% and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) about 10–15%.1Marukawa et al. reported that approximately 20–35% of leukemia patients have initial symptoms in the oral cavity, and it is not uncommon for oral symptoms to appear early in the course of leukemia. The most common oral symptoms in leukemia patients are gingival hemorrhage and gingival swelling, followed by jawbone abnormalities such as miconus hypersensitivity, alveolar bone resorption, and tooth movement, and many cases of leukemia have been detected in the oral cavity.2-8Curtis et al. reported a correlation between leukemia and mild or worsening jaw bone symptoms in pediatric patients with ALL, based on radiographic studies of jaw bone changes. However, there are no reports of cases of jaw bone resorption in patients with ALL in Japan, although there are a few reports of cases in which jaw bone resorption was observed due to leukemia cell infiltration following the onset of leukemia. No cases have been reported in which the jawbone was severely resorbed.9, 10In this study, we report a case of a pediatric patient with ALL who developed leukemia and had significant jaw bone resorption due to infiltration of leukemia cells, resulting in severe tooth movement and the inability to properly occlude the jaw.

Touch is a crucial sense for perceiving the spatial characteristics of objects. The JVP dome was developed to evaluate tactile spatial acuity using a grating orientation task. The application of the traditional JVP dome to assess tactile function was limited by the ceiling effect, excessive transition gap between grating widths causing inaccurate tactile discrimination threshold measurement, and predictive bias due to the common execution protocol using grating widths in sequence. In this study, we included additional grating domes and proposed a modified examining protocol for estimating tactile discrimination thresholds to improve the accuracy of tactile function assessment. Twelve healthy participants were enrolled in this experiment. Extended JVP domes with 11 different groove widths were designed. Tactile discrimination thresholds were estimated using a modified two-down-one-up staircase method. The experiment comprised practice, training, and testing sessions, conducted by trained examiners who performed grating stimulation on participants index fingerpads. All participants passed the required accuracy in the practice and training sessions. Eight transition points were obtained in the testing session for each participant, and tactile discrimination thresholds were all within the width range of the extended JVP domes. The mean tactile discrimination threshold was 2.09 ± 0.84 mm. The results demonstrated that the proposed modified JVP dome set and protocol were successfully applied to assess tactile discrimination thresholds. The modified protocol with extended JVP domes provided an effective assessment of tactile function and improved the precision of threshold measurements, avoided the ceiling effect found in traditional JVP dome, and eliminated predictive bias.

Injury to the proximal part of the equine suspensory ligament (SL), called proximal suspensory desmitis (PSD), commonly causes lameness in horses. PSD is extremely difficult to manage and treat, with present methods often unable to achieve full recovery, especially in chronic cases. The present study was the first to use gene therapy to restore moderate and severe injuries of the proximal suspensory ligament in horses. Plasmid DNA encoding species specific bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF164) was injected into the site of proximal suspensory ligament injury, followed by box rest and a controlled exercise program. Clinical observations and ultrasound imaging was used to evaluate effectiveness over a period of 12 months. No negative side effects were observed. Clinical improvements were observed, especially in the forelimb affected horses, by day 30. In horses with chronic hindlimb PSD few clinical improvements were reported. Echogenicity and the fiber alignment scoring improved but no concomitant changes to cross section area, dorsopalmar thickness or lateromedial width of the proximal suspensory ligament were observed. The transfer of BMP2 and VEGF164 genes into the equine PSL exhibited beneficial effects in horses with acute or subacute forms of lesions, primarily in the forelimb.

This paper presents the hardware and delay efficient design of a radix-4 pipelined hyperbolic Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer (CORDIC) architecture. The proposed design uses pre-computation based micro-rotation sequence generation to reduce the cycle time and number of iterations. It also eliminates the need for residue angle computation in every iteration that helps to enhance the operating speed. The methodology finds a linear relation between rotation angle input and micro-rotation sequence by selectively choosing elementary angles from the set of valid angles. Therefore, it requires six clock cycles to compute the hyperbolic functions (cosh/sinh). Further, the region of convergence (ROC) of the proposed design is extended to cover the entire coordinate space. Based on the proposed hyperbolic CORDIC design, a hyperbolic (Direct Digital Synthesis) DDS is implemented using XC7VX330T (Vertex-7 family) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) in Xilinx ISE 14.4 platform. The proposed design achieves 47% and 37% savings in basic logic elements and number of slices respectively than recent designs. The design also achieves an improved slice delay product of 5.28 anda maximum frequency of operation of 500.75MHz.

In this article, we propose a fast 3D-IC floorplanning method for hard macro-blocks that includes a thermal management scheme. It applies a genetic algorithm constituted by an optimal combination of crossover and mutation operations to identify the optimal solution for design variables, namely, total wire length, number of through-silicon vias (TSVs), and maximum average layer power density. The proposed method additionally makes use of a unique TSV placement scheme that arranges TSVs next to their respective functional blocks. To enable efficient heat transmission to the ambient environment, layers with higher power densities are placed closer to the heat sink. The proposed 3D-IC floorplanning approach provides the fewest TSVs, the lowest peak temperature, and promising values of wire length within the least amount of computation time. Compared to the recent fast thermal analysis for fixed-outline 3D-floorplanning, it generates 13.14% shorter wire length, 39.27% lower peak temperature, and 34.35% lesser number of TSVs on average with significant improvement in computation time, while analyzing GSRC thermal benchmark circuits.

It is well-known that DC-DC boost converters are cascaded with DC-AC inverters for grid connection of the photovoltaic (PV) systems. In the traditional control approaches, the mentioned DC-DC and DC-AC converters are controlled separately to facilitate the controller design problem. However, from the controller design viewpoint, the overall structure of the grid connected PV generator is a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system. The duty-cycle of the DC-DC converter and Inverter modulation index are the control inputs and on the other hand, generated photovoltaic DC power, and exported power to the grid are control outputs. Moreover, the inverter DC link voltage should be stabilized by the closed-loop controller as well as an internal control output. If controllers are designed separately, it means that the interaction between DC-DC and DC-AC controllers isn’t considered accurately and since the isolated models of DC-DC converter and DC-AC inverter are extracted based on some approximated assumptions, separate controller design cannot guarantee stability and robustness of the whole system in a wide range of operation. To cope with these problems, in this paper, a novel MIMO sliding mode controller (SMC) is developed for comprehensive closed-loop control of the DC-DC boost converter cascaded with a single-phase DC-AC grid connected photovoltaic inverter. In the proposed approach, the dynamic model of whole system is developed comprehensively at first and then a unique MIMO controller is designed to control both DC-to-AC and DC-to-DC converters together. To cope with the nonlinear characteristic of the system and uncertainty of model parameters in a wide range, a fixed-frequency SMC is developed using the comprehensive state space model of the closed loop system. In the proposed MIMO-SMC controller, the AC power (which is exported to the grid) and operating point of the PV source are controlled via inverter modulation index and duty cycle of the DC-DC boost converter respectively. Another major advantage of the proposed system is mitigating the non-minimum phase characteristic of the boost converter through the indirect control of inverter DC link capacitor. To evaluate the performance of the designed control system, simulation results are compared with a standard linear PI controller. It is shown that the developed system has zero steady-state error and enjoys faster dynamic response during the start-up and step changes of AC and DC current references. Moreover, it can maintain the stability of closed-loop systems in a wide range of operations.

Earthquakes, fire, and floods often cause structural collapses of buildings. The inspection of damaged buildings poses a high risk for emergency forces or is even impossible, though. We present three recent selected missions of the Robotics Task Force of the German Rescue Robotics Center, where both ground and aerial robots were used to explore destroyed buildings. We describe and reflect the missions as well as the lessons learned that have resulted from them. In order to make robots from research laboratories fit for real operations, realistic test environments were set up for outdoor and indoor use and tested in regular exercises by researchers and emergency forces. Based on this experience, the robots and their control software were significantly improved. Furthermore, top teams of researchers and first responders were formed, each with realistic assessments of the operational and practical suitability of robotic systems.

INTRODUCTIONParathyroid carcinoma (PC) is a rare endocrine cancer [1,3] and the most uncommon cause of primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT). It usually induces elevated serum calcium and parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels and the clinical presentation is often characterized by severe symptoms of hypercalcaemia. The diagnosis is not always immediate, especially if there is no evidence of a neck mass which may suggest this kind of disease.The aim of this work is to describe the peculiar clinical presentation of a case of PC and to highlight the importance of suspecting a malignant parathyroid disease in the presence of a pHPT associated with peculiar biochemical and clinical features. The suspicion is essential to perform an adequate intervention at first surgical approach, as which affects the subsequent prognosis.