Expert systems in the process industries

This paper gives an overview of industrial applications of real-time knowledge based expert systems (KBES's) in the process industries. After a brief overview of the features of a KBES useful in process applications, the general roles of KBES's are covered. A particular focus is diagnostic applications, one of the major applications areas. Many applications are seen as an expansion of supervisory control. The lessons learned from numerous online applications are summarized

Back to Parmenides

After a brief introduction to issues that plague the realization of a theory of quantum gravity, I suggest that the main one concerns a quantization of the principle of relative simultaneity. This leads me to a distinction between time and space, to a further degree than that present in the canonical approach to general relativity. With this distinction, one can make sense of superpositions as interference between alternative paths in the relational configuration space of the entire Universe. But the full use of relationalism brings us to a timeless picture of Nature, as it does in the canonical approach (which culminates in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation). After a discussion of Parmenides and the Eleatics' rejection of time, I show that there is middle ground between their view of absolute timelessness and a view of physics taking place in timeless configuration space. In this middle ground, even though change does not fundamentally exist, the illusion of change can be recovered in a way not permitted by Parmenides. It is recovered through a particular density distribution over configuration space which gives rise to 'records'. Incidentally, this distribution seems to have the potential to dissolve further aspects of the measurement problem that can still be argued to haunt the application of decoherence to Many-Worlds quantum mechanics. I end with a discussion indicating that the conflict between the conclusions of this paper and our view of the continuity of the self may still intuitively bother us. Nonetheless, those conclusions should be no more challenging to our intuition than Derek Parfit's thought experiments on the subject.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure. Winner of the essay contest: "Space-time after quantum gravity" (University of Illinois and Universit\'e de Geneve). To be published in special editio

Fine-grained Language Composition: A Case Study

Although run-time language composition is common, it normally takes the form of a crude Foreign Function Interface (FFI). While useful, such compositions tend to be coarse-grained and slow. In this paper we introduce a novel fine-grained syntactic composition of PHP and Python which allows users to embed each language inside the other, including referencing variables across languages. This composition raises novel design and implementation challenges. We show that good solutions can be found to the design challenges; and that the resulting implementation imposes an acceptable performance overhead of, at most, 2.6x.Comment: 27 pages, 4 tables, 5 figure

Investigation Of Ultrasound Targeted Microbubbles As A Therapeutic Gene Delivery System For Prostate Cancer

A major challenge for effective gene therapy is systemic delivery of viruses carrying therapeutic genes into affected tissue. The immunogenic nature of human adenoviruses (Ads) limits their use for intratumoral (IT) injection in gene therapy. Ads transfection is further hampered by the fluctuating presence of Coxsackie and Adenovirus Receptor (CAR) and integrins on the cells’ surface. To circumvent these limitations we developed a novel approach wherein Ads are encapsulated inside the shell of lyophilized, lipid-encapsulated, perfluorocarbon microbubbles (MBs)/ultrasound (US) contrast agents, which act as delivery vehicles for a sitespecific gene transfer system. We performed infection studies with Ad.GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein), Ad.mda-7 (melanoma differentiation associated gene 7) and CTV.mda-7 on human DU145 and mouse prostate cancer cells as well as observed enhanced GFP expression when Ad.GFP was delivered by MBs and US. Our results show that US breaks open the MB/Ads complexes by undergoing cavitation at the sonoporated site, which allows Ads to transfer their transgene only to the sonoporated region. Cavitation collapse of the MBs creates small shockwaves that increase cell permeability by forming temporary micropores on the cell surface bypassing the receptormediated dependence of Ads for transfection. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) containing complement did not allow the unprotected Ads to infect the cells; however, MBs complexed with Ad.GFP did infect DU145 and TRAMP-C2 cells in a FBS rich media. We studied MB assisted gene delivery of reporter (GFP) and therapeutic genes (p53, Rb, Rb2 (p130) and Mda-7/IL-24) into prostate cancer (PC) xenografted in immune-compromised athymic mice. The results demonstrated that MBs protect the host from unspecific viral immune response thus protecting the viral payload and allowing for intravenous (IV) injection rather than IT injection. Additionally, Ad gene transfer was enhanced at the targeted/sonoporated mice tumor xenografts. This research demonstrated mda-7’s efficacy in reducing primary (treated) and untreated tumors that simulated the presence of metastasis in athymic mice xenograft models bearing human PC cells. Bystander anti-tumor activity of mda-7, a secreted cytokine was noted for non-targeted tumors. Earlier in vitro studies on the combination of radiation and gene therapy (Ad.p53, Ad.Rb, and Ad.p130) demonstrated an increase in the percentage of cell death for DU145 cells. We also studied UTMD (ultrasound targeted microbubble destruction) gene therapy in combination with external beam radiation for radiation resistant PC. The results demonstrated an enhanced therapeutic benefit of tumor suppressor genes in radiation resistant PC. We also demonstrated an increase in the expression of tumor suppressor genes at the tumor site due to MBs and US. These findings highlight the potential therapeutic benefit of this novel image guided gene transfer technology alone or in combination with external beam radiation for prostate cancer patients with therapy resistant disease