This research pertains to the design of a Machine Learning based PID control is an optimal control strategy for high-temperature-short-time (HTST) pasteurization process. Its performance is evaluated against the classical Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller. Manual tuning of the PID controller is a tedious task. To cut back the aforesaid problem, Machine Learning based PIDs were simulated for controlling the temperature in the HTST process. A novel hybrid Combined Feedforward-Feedback control Data Driven control based PID control in introducing to improve the process performance. (FF-FB-DDCPID)

This paper provides a method to design a robust observer for matrix-Lipchitz nonlinear systems with measurement delay. The design procedure will produce a stable observer when only the measurement delay is present. The design procedure achieves a L 2 performance in the presence of model uncertainties, unknown disturbance input, and measurement noise. The conditions for the existence of the said observers are formulated as Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) that can be solved offline using commercial solvers. Compared to previous literature, the proposed conditions are both necessary and sufficient. The observer design procedure is demonstrated through two illustrative examples.

Purpose To validate Covid-19 information records in The Pharmacoepidemiological Research Database for Public Health System (BIFAP), commonly used for pharmacoepidemiological research in Spain. Methods The recorded Covid-19 cases in primary care (PC) or positive test registries (gold-standard) were identified among vaccinated patients against SARS-CoV-2 infection of any age. They were matched with unvaccinated controls by birth year, vaccination date, region, and sex, between December 2020-October 2021. The sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), positive (PPV), negative (NPV) predictive values, and date accurateness were estimated for PC by vaccination status and age brands. Results Among 21,702 patients with positive tests and 20,866 with recorded Covid-19 diagnoses, the SE, SP, PPV, and NPV were, respectively, 79.98%, 99.95%, 80.24% and 99.94% among vaccinated, and 78.67%, 99.96%, 84.51% and 99.94% among controls. For those aged ≥70 years old, SE (71.15-72.85%) was lower while PPV (84.68-88.04%) was higher compared to <70 years old participants. 94.12% of the total true positive cases (N=17,191) were recorded within ±5 days from the date of the test result. Conclusions PC Covid-19 diagnosis recorded in BIFAP showed high validation parameters. SE was similar and PPV was slightly lower among vaccinated than unvaccinated controls. Correction of vaccines effectiveness estimates by such misclassification is recommended. Data shows the influence of age. Among the elderly, Covid-19 diagnosis was less recorded but when recorded is more accurate than among younger patients. These findings permit the design of informed algorithms for performing Covid-19-related research.

This report encompasses the use of GADGET-2, a computer program for N-body simulation and smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH), to analyze the collision of the Milky Way and a smaller disk galaxy 10 billion years ago. The product of this collision is present-day dwarf galaxies. The simulation is based on a mass ratio of 4 to 1 for the colliding galaxies, with one million particles in each one, and an impact parameter of 6 kpc, for a parabolic orbit. The results demonstrate the effect of tidal forces between the galaxies as the smaller galaxy is destroyed by the impact. The debris of the destruction precedes to orbit the parent galaxy in a perpendicular plane similar to the spatial distribution shown by the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.

Due to the superradiance phenomenon, energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole (RBH) by an incident wave with certain initial conditions. The aim is to observe this process by numerical simulation.

In this pre-registered study, we assessed the value of event-related potentials (ERPs) as an implicit measure of individual differences in supernatural beliefs and attitudes. Across two experiments (A and B), two groups of participants (believers vs. non-believers) were presented with attitude and belief statements about religious, spiritual and control phenomena. The ERP analysis focused on the N400-effect, which is often used as a proxy for the effortful semantic processing of information that conflicts with one’s worldview (e.g., when believers read atheist statements, and vice versa). At the explicit behavioral level (i.e., button-press to agree/disagree with a statement), the two groups of participants responded in accordance with their self-reported beliefs. We failed, however, to find any of the hypothesized differences on the N400-effect. Whether the absence of the expected N400-effect may be attributed to (1) heterogeneity in believers and non-believers, (2) design and stimulus material, and (3) choices made in the analysis, is discussed, and improvements are suggested for future research using ERPs as an implicit marker of supernatural belief and unbelief.

A document by Emma M. Tinney. Click on the document to view its contents.

Arterial hypertrophy and remodeling are adaptive responses present in SAH that can result in silent ischemia and neurodegeneration, compromising brain connections and cognitive abilities. However, antihypertensives can minimize these histological changes. We try to assess whether cerebrovascular hemodynamic parameters, representative of these histological adaptations, can identify cognitive impairment in a preclinical stage in chronic hypertensive on drug treatment. Three groups of patients without cognitive complaints were prospectively compared: hypertensive under treatment with systolic blood pressure (SBP) < 140 and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) < 90 mmHg (n=54), hypertensive under treatment with SBP > 140 or DBP >90 mmHg (n=31) and volunteers normotensive (n=30). Simultaneous measurements of systemic BP and middle cerebral artery (MCA) blood flow velocity were obtained from digital plethysmography and Transcranial Doppler. For the cognitive assessment, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and a broad neuropsychological battery were applied. In relation to normotensive, uncontrolled hypertensive were older (51 ± 12 years), had greater resistance-area product (RAP 1.7 [±0.7] vs. 1.2 [±0.2], p< 0.001), but did not differ in relation to the pulsatility indices (p=0.361). There was a negative correlation between RAP, episodic memory (r = -0.277, p=0.004) and cognitive processing speed (r = -0.319, p=0.001). In chronic hypertensive using antihypertensive, the RAP is a reliable marker of preclinical cognitive decline in specific domains, as it is less influenced by the direct action of these drugs, and should be further explored as an alternative tool for screening for cognitive impairment in these individuals.

Optimising short-term load forecasting performance is a challenge due to the randomness of nonlinear power load and variability of system operation mode. The existing methods generally ignore how to reasonably and effectively combine the complementary advantages among them and fail to capture enough internal information from load sequence, resulting in accuracy reduction. To achieve accurate and efficient short-term load forecasting, an integral implementation framework is proposed based on convolutional neural network (CNN), gated recurrent unit (GRU) and channel attention mechanism. CNN and GRU are first combined to fully extract the complicated dynamic features and learn the time compliance relationship of load sequence. Based on CNN-GRU network, the channel attention mechanism is introduced to further reduce the loss of historical information and enhance the impact of important features. Then, the overall framework of short-term load forecasting based on CNN-GRU-Attention network is proposed, and the coupling relationship between each designed stage is revealed. Finally, the developed framework is implemented on one realistic load dataset of distribution networks, and the experimental results verify the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art models in common metrics.

A document by Guillaume Hopsort. Click on the document to view its contents.

A document by Bartosz Skonieczny. Click on the document to view its contents.

The aim of this paper is to review the mathematical models proposed in the literature that evaluate angular losses by means of the incidence angle modifier in photovoltaic modules. The aim of this work is to highlight the importance of considering not only the reflective losses governed by the air-first interface of the photovoltaic module, but also the losses governed by the effect of the accumulation of dust particles on the surface of the modules under real operating conditions, known as soiling. The Martin-Ruiz Model which derives from the mathematical handling of the Fresnel equations and includes analytical solutions for diffuse and reflected irradiance components, is presented as a robust, accurate and reliable analytical model that contemplates these two factors. With the implementation of the Martin-Ruiz Model in SISIFO, a PV simulation software developed by the IES-UPM, optical losses at a 100 MW one-axis tracked PV plant in the Kalahari Desert were simulated. Four different soiling scenarios were considered. The results suggest that the incident angle modifier losses are between 44 to 64% larger than those predicted when considering only the effect of refractive index change. Simulation software integrating models that consider all of these optical losses will improve the energy yield prediction of any photovoltaic plant with more reliable estimations.

Pakistan struggles to eliminate poliomyelitis. There are some principal tasks to deal with, including ending transmission in central reservoirs, enduring pressure to exploit the quality of Supplemental Immunization Activity [SIA], handling in critical Community Based Vaccination [CBV] and mobile team areas, and covering high-risk mobile residents to avoid additional spread. Due to the discovery and availability of vaccinations, polio is currently considered almost eliminated. Positive effects include continual reviews of communication, observation, and control mechanisms, enhanced coordination between the Polio Eradication Initiative [PEI] and the Expanded Program on Immunization [EPI], and a stronger emphasis on strengthening relationships with other service workers in high-risk regions. To eradicate polio, politicians, community mobilizers, government, public health specialists, and education departments must collaborate to better grasp the issue and operate more effectively. The high-level political leadership and promise detailing Pakistan’s response to COVID-19 is the best practical strategy to achieve PEI’s fundamental goals.

ETI treatment reduces inflammatory markers and positive bacterial cultures on BAL in PwCF. These findings suggest that ETI has a greater impact on chronic infection and inflammation than ivacaftor alone. However, airway inflammation persists in a fraction of treated individuals, indicating an ongoing need to optimize other treatments in a subset of patients.

Seminal vesicle-rectal fistula is a very rare condition that corresponds to a communication between the seminal vesicles and either superior, middle or lower rectum. It is a very rare condition that can be seen as a complication of anterior resection for rectal cancer.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched campaigns to boost immunization rates to 70 percent globally by the middle of 2022. However, despite the global success of about 64% COVID-19 vaccination coverage, there is a big gap in Nigeria. To date, only 13.8% of the population has received the recommended dose. This demonstrates a significant disparity between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Amidst the wide gap in vaccination, COVID-19 vaccine wastage still occurs in Nigeria. At the end of 2021, it was estimated that over a million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been wasted. It is anticipated that there will be more COVID-19 vaccine wastage in Nigeria, because of the combined factors that threaten vaccination uptake including vaccine hesitancy, lack of appropriate storage facilities, poor electricity supply, insecurity challenges, and inadequate health promotion. This results in concomitant financial and opportunity losses. In this paper, we discuss COVID-19 vaccine wastage in Nigeria including causes, and solutions that can be applied to mitigate this wastage.

Analyzing trends in flood magnitude changes and their underlying causes under climate change is a key challenge for the effective management of water resources in arid and semi-arid regions, particularly for inland rivers originating in the Qilian Mountains (QMs). Sen’s slope estimator and Mann-Kendall test were used to investigate spatial and temporal trends in flood magnitude based on the annual maximum peak discharge (AMPD) and Peaks-Over-Threshold (POT3M) flood series of twelve typical rivers from 1970 to 2021. The results showed that in the AMPD series, 42% of the rivers had significantly decreasing trends, while 8% had significantly increasing trends; in the POT3M series, 25% of the rivers had significantly decreasing trends, while 8% had significantly increasing trends. The regional differences in the QMs from east to west were that rivers in the eastern region (e.g., Gulang, Zamu, and Xiying rivers) showed significantly decreasing trends in the AMPD and POT3M series; most rivers in the central region had non-significant trends, while the Shule river in the western region showed a significantly increasing trend. Temperatures and precipitation showed a fluctuating increasing trend after 1987, which were the main factor contributing to the change in flood magnitude trends of the AMPD and POT3M flood series in the QMs. Regional differences in precipitation, precipitation intensity, and the ratio of glacial meltwater in the eastern, central and western regions resulted in the differences in flood magnitude trends between the east and west.

Triaxiality alone is not sufficient to account for the role of stress state on ductility in materials that exhibit shear effects on fracture strain. For these materials, it has been proposed that ductility also depends on the third invariant of the stress deviator. Recently, Bonora and Testa [N. Bonora, G. Testa, Plasticity damage self-consistent model incorporating stress triaxiality and shear-controlled fracture mechanisms – model formulation, Eng. Frac. Mech. 271, 108634 (2022).] derived a plasticity damage self-consistent (PDSC) model considering damage contributions due to intervoid necking, shearing, and sheeting for an arbitrary stress state. In this work, the PDSC model has been applied to Al2024-T351 considering the experimental results reported in the literature obtained on several different sample geometries and material batches. The ability of the model to predict the transition from cup-cone to slant fracture for different stress states is shown. In addition, the possibility to predict ductile fracture in the negative stress triaxiality range has been also demonstrated showing that it can occur for stress triaxiality even much less than -0.5 as long as there is a dominant shear deformation state.

Changing drought regimes is a rising threat to biodiversity, but reported drought impacts on species varied greatly. Acknowledging the factors associating with these impacts will bring novel understandings to species vulnerability to the changes of extreme climatic events, and facilitate effective mitigation of climate change risks. Based on the peer-reviewed studies of a well-monitored taxonomic group – birds, we examined the effects of droughts on population persistence with a focus on two aspects: population abundance and reproductive success. Responses of relevant indicators of 172 bird species were extracted across eight terrestrial biomes, and the droughts triggering these responses were measured with a climate-comparable and multi-scalar index of drought severity. A meta-analysis was then conducted for the drought effect on relative abundance and reproductive success separately, which included the temporal scale and severity of droughts, as well as biological and life-history traits of species to explain the effect. We found that droughts had an overall negative effect on bird abundance and reproductive success. Apparent abundance generally declined for severe droughts lasting over a year, while the examined responses varied greatly due to the disparities of sensitivity and plasticity among species under droughts occurring at 3-month scale. Drought-induced declines in abundance were identified for species feeding on invertebrates, fruits or nectar, and species of a smaller range showed lower reproductive success during or after droughts. A small clutch size additionally contributed to the reductions in relative abundance or reproductive success under severe droughts. Our findings indicate that bird species with above drought-susceptible traits would confront greater challenges to population persistence in the regions where the duration of severe droughts extends. The study also highlights the necessity of exploring the unknowns that lie in the links between population persistence and drought responses of bird behaviors, distribution, morphology and physiology.

The role of seamount gross geomorphology (shape) as an abiotic control governing the abundance and diversity of deep-sea corals has not been previously considered, but has the potential to provide easily-accessible and transformative insight into deep water coral community dynamics. This study aims to investigate the influence of geological shape (e.g. atolls, islands, banks, guyots, conical, ridges) on deep-sea coral genera and habitats in the Pacific Ocean to determine whether seamount shape is an important predictor of deep water biological communities. Multivariate analyses were used to test whether the gross geomorphology (shape) of seamounts influences the abundance and diversity of deep water coral genera. Seamounts across the entire Pacific basin were categorized using a standard classification scheme to determine their shape category. Across the 50 most abundant deep water coral genera in the data set, all 50 showed a statically significant preference for at least one geomorphology. Additionally, the abundance of the different seamount shapes was not evenly distributed across the Pacific basin. Gross geomorphology influences the abundance and diversity of deep-sea corals across the central Pacific, which provides insight into deep water coral community structure and resulting conservation implications.

Uros Jeremic 11 University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Serbiauros.jeremic@boanito.comAbstract: E-commerce, new retail, and other changes have highlighted the requirement of high efficiency and accuracy in the logistics service. As an important section in logistics and supply chain management, warehouses need to respond positively to the increasing requirement. The “smart warehouse” system, which is equipped with emerging warehousing technologies, is increasingly attracting the attention of industry and technology giants as an efficient solution for the future of warehouse development. This study provides a holistic view of operations management problems within the context of smart warehouses. We provide a framework to review smart warehouse operations management based on the characteristics of smart warehouses, including the perspectives of information interconnection, equipment automation, process integration, and environmental sustainability. A comprehensive review of relevant literature is then carried out based on the framework with four perspectives. This study could provide future research directions on smart warehouses for academia and industry practitioners.Keywords : smart warehouse, operations management, automation, sustainability

Groundwater is an important global resource, providing water for irrigation, industry, geothermal uses, and potable water all over the world. Moreover, groundwater contains the world’s largest terrestrial freshwater biome. Groundwater faunal communities undertake important ecosystem services including the provision of clean water. Despite this, investigations on the spatial and temporal variations and the influence of environmental parameters on these organisms, are still rare. The aim of this study is to provide a global overview on groundwater fauna (stygofauna) research, including the historical evolution of research topics and development of sampling methods. To achieve this, an extensive review of accessible groundwater fauna data was conducted. Over time, there has been an exponential increase in the number of studies together with changing paradigms in the research focus, particularly as sampling methods have developed and molecular analyses become common. Studies on groundwater fauna are spatially uneven and are dominated by studies in Europe and Australia, with few studies in Africa, Asia and the Americas. This has resulted in a potential geographic and climatically biased global view of stygofauna and groundwater ecology. In the future, a more evenly distributed sampling effort in underrepresented areas is necessary to enable global studies, thus allowing a more comprehensive perspective on stygofauna biodiversity, roles, and functional significances. This is increasingly important with the accumulating knowledge of the sensitivities of these ecosystems to anthropogenic activities, including climate change, and is fundamental to effective management of these ecosystems.

Insect decline is a major threat for ecosystems around the world as they provide many important functions, such as pollination or pest control. Pollution is one of the main reasons for the decline, besides changes in land use, global warming, and invasive species. While negative impacts of pesticides are well studied, there is still a lack of knowledge about the effects of other anthropogenic pollutants, such as airborne particulate matter, on insects. To address this, we exposed workers of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris to sublethal doses of diesel exhaust particles (DEPs) and brake dust, orally or via air. After seven days, we looked at the composition of the gut microbiome and tracked changes in gene expression. While there were no changes in the other treatments, oral DEP exposure significantly altered the structure of the gut microbiome. In particular, the core bacterium Snodgrassella had a decreased abundance in the DEP treatment. Similarly, transcriptome analysis revealed changes in gene expression after oral DEP exposure, but not in the other treatments. The changes are related to metabolism and signal transduction which indicates a general stress response. Taken together, our results suggest potential health effects of DEP exposure on insects, here shown in bumblebees, as gut dysbiosis may increase the susceptibility of bumblebees to pathogens, while a general stress response may lower available energy resources. However, experiments with multiple stressors and on colony level are needed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of DEPs on insects.

In the upcoming epochs, conventional energy may deplete soon. Thus, the use of conventional energy in the power industries need to be supplemented by non-conventional energy resources. This would result in loss of synchronisms in the power grids owing to the fact that solar and wind alternate their attributes expeditiously with change in atmospheric phenomenon. To ameliorate frequency deviation within a specific range automatic generation control (AGC) implements forced allowance on system operation. A three area thermal with photovoltaic (PV), electric vehicle (EV), wind system is considered under deregulated environment to develop and to judge the efficacy of newly developed cascade fractional order hybrid controller combination of (FOTID & 3DOF-PID). Comparing the aforementioned controller to other controllers such as the three degree of freedom proportional-integral-derivative (3DOF-PID), the fractional order tilt-integral-derivative (FOTID), and the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) justifies the system’s effectiveness. This assessment has been accomplished by a trendy optimization technique such as hybrid whale optimization algorithm (HWOT). However, the main intent of this write-up is to fabricate a cascade fractional order (CC-FO) hybrid controller that would act as the new control mechanism for the proposed system under deregulated scenario. It has been found that the suggested CC-FO hybrid controller stabilises the system ( i.e., Under step load disruptions, frequency deviation and tie-line power become zero) in the shortest amount of time possible. Additionally, it is seen that the recommended controller can control a wide range of nominal loading circumstances and system characteristics, demonstrating its robustness.