1,847 research outputs found
Low cost filter for trickle irrigation
CLEAR water is essential for a successful trickle irrigation scheme. Most water sources are not sufficiently clean and some form of filtration is necessary
Ant colony optimisation and local search for bin-packing and cutting stock problems
The Bin Packing Problem and the Cutting Stock Problem are two related classes of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Exact solution methods can only be used for very small instances, so for real-world problems, we have to rely on heuristic methods. In recent years, researchers have started to apply evolutionary approaches to these problems, including Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Programming. In the work presented here, we used an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach to solve both Bin Packing and Cutting Stock Problems. We present a pure ACO approach, as well as an ACO approach augmented with a simple but very effective local search algorithm. It is shown that the pure ACO approach can compete with existing evolutionary methods, whereas the hybrid approach can outperform the best-known hybrid evolutionary solution methods for certain problem classes. The hybrid ACO approach is also shown to require different parameter values from the pure ACO approach and to give a more robust performance across different problems with a single set of parameter values. The local search algorithm is also run with random restarts and shown to perform significantly worse than when combined with ACO
Rural household energy consumption of farmers and herders in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Rural energy consumption not only significantly affects the national economy but also affects the living conditions of rural residents. A comprehensive survey of households in the agropastoral area of Qinghai Province was conducted from 2017-2018 to identify its energy consumption characteristics. In this paper, a typical household energy flow model was established. The results show that 1) the proportion of noncommercial energy in the agropastoral area of Qinghai Province is 52.89%, and it is affected by the ‘returning farmland to forest’ (RFF) policy and the ‘returning grazing land to grassland project’ (RGLGP). Furthermore, the household energy consumption structure has shifted from traditional biomass to coal and a combination of other energy sources. 2) Households of different cultural backgrounds have different energy consumption patterns. 3) High-income households consume more energy and have more frequent energy flows compared with low-income households. The results of this survey will help policymakers and scholars to formulate strategies for energy conservation and more effectively assess energy policies
Electromagnetic form factors in the J/\psi mass region: The case in favor of additional resonances
Using the results of our recent analysis of e^+e^- annihilation, we plot the
curves for the diagonal and transition form factors of light hadrons in the
time-like region up to the production threshold of an open charm quantum
number. The comparison with existing data on the decays of J/\psi into such
hadrons shows that some new resonance structures may be present in the mass
range between 2 GeVand the J/\psi mass. Searching them may help in a better
understanding of the mass spectrum in both the simple and a more sophisticated
quark models, and in revealing the details of the three-gluon mechanism of the
OZI rule breaking in K\bar K channel.Comment: Formulas are added, typo is corrected, the text is rearranged.
Replaced to match the version accepted in Phys Rev
Interleukin 4 causes isotype switching to IgE in T cell-stimulated clonal B cell cultures.
Asymptotic Expansions for the Conditional Sojourn Time Distribution in the -PS Queue
We consider the queue with processor sharing. We study the
conditional sojourn time distribution, conditioned on the customer's service
requirement, in various asymptotic limits. These include large time and/or
large service request, and heavy traffic, where the arrival rate is only
slightly less than the service rate. The asymptotic formulas relate to, and
extend, some results of Morrison \cite{MO} and Flatto \cite{FL}.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures and 1 tabl
Satellite-based assessment of the August 2018 flood in parts of Kerala, India
From 1 June to 29 August 2018, Kerala, a state in southwestern India, recorded 36% excess rainfall than normal levels, leading to widespread floods and landslides events and resulting in 445 deaths. In this study, satellite-based data were used to map the flood inundation in the districts of Thrissur, Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Idukki and Kottayam. Specifically, flood delineation was enabled with Sentinel-1A radar data of 21 August 2018 and was compared with an average pre-flood, water-cover map based on Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) that was developed using a January and February 2018 Sentinel-2A dataset. A 90% increase in water cover was observed during the August 2018 flood event. Low lying areas in the coastal plains of Kuttanad and the Kole lands of Thrissur, had marked a rise of up to 5 and 10 m of water, respectively, during this deluge. These estimates are conservative as that the flood waters had started receding prior to the August 21 Sentinel-1A imagery
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