Autonomous Architectural Assembly And Adaptation

An increasingly common solution for systems which are deployed in unpredictable or dangerous environments is to provide the system with an autonomous or selfmanaging capability. This capability permits the software of the system to adapt to the environmental conditions encountered at runtime by deciding what changes need to be made to the system’s behaviour in order to continue meeting the requirements imposed by the designer. The chief advantage of this approach comes from a reduced reliance on the brittle assumptions made at design time. In this work, we describe mechanisms for adapting the software architecture of a system using a declarative expression of the functional requirements (derived from goals), structural constraints and preferences over the space of non-functional properties possessed by the components of the system. The declarative approach places this work in contrast to existing schemes which require more fine-grained, often procedural, specifications of how to perform adaptations. Our algorithm for assembling and re-assembling configurations chooses between solutions that meet both the functional requirements and the structural constraints by comparing the non-functional properties of the selected components against the designer’s preferences between, for example, a high-performance or a highly reliable solution. In addition to the centralised algorithm, we show how the approach can be applied to a distributed system with no central or master node that is aware of the full space of solutions. We use a gossip protocol as a mechanism by which peer nodes can propose what they think the component configuration is (or should be). Gossip ensures that the nodes will reach agreement on a solution, and will do so in a logarithmic number of steps. This latter property ensures the approach can scale to very large systems. Finally, the work is validated on a number of case studies

\u27Queertility\u27

Daniel Sykes, an Anthropology student at Utah State University used his Honors Capstone opportunity to understand the evolution of reproduction over the course of two semesters. During Fall of 2019, he focused on overviewing what Biological Archaeologists, Biologists, and Chemists understand of the evolution of various forms of reproduction from the distant past. During the Spring, he focused on the cutting edge allopathic research in fertility treatments and some of the social implications. Sykes posits that human society has the opportunity to treat infertility in the queer (lgbtqia+) community, given these up-and-coming treatments, even those forms of infertility that arise from queernesss, per se. Queertility is a valid form of fertility that can be expanded as research continues

Myotonometric Measurements of Muscle during Changes in Gravitational Forces

Goal: Assess operational characteristics and reliability of the Myotonometer, a portable medical device that quantifies muscle tone and strength, while gravitational forces are changing

Control of zootechnology leads to improved Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis, L.) reproduction performance up to pre-industrial levels

Cephalopods are gaining momentum as an alternate group for aquaculture species diversification, not only because they are a good food source (highly appreciated in some worldwide markets) but they also have the potential to quickly reach a market size. However, there are some bottlenecks impeding the transition of culture technology from the laboratory to industry. One is related to control over reproduction in captivity. The objective of the present experiment was to verify the effects of tanks with different bottom areas/volumes on the reproduction performance of S. officinalis breeding stocks, when sex ratios were controlled a priori; and the food cost associated with such performance when individuals are fed a natural frozen diet. One hundred and ninety two juvenile cuttlefish were used to compare three different round-shaped tanks: one type with 3000L volume and two types with 9000L volume (with differences in bottom areas and water column). Individuals had their sex and maturity stage determined to establish a sexual ratio of 2 female:1 male per tank and assure that cuttlefish were still immature. Biological data was collected during both growth and reproduction stages and until the death of all females in each tank. The experiment lasted nearly 300 days. Temperature differences between tank types were registered during both stages. The optimizing of rearing conditions has allowed for higher growth and a higher amount of cuttlefish available for breeding purposes. A total of 123,751 eggs (in 85 batches) was obtained during this experiment, which is a number that may meet a small scale cuttlefish commercial hatchery facility requirements. The present conditions contributed to a better and predictable reproduction performance in specific 9000L tanks, with values reaching pre-industrial numbers (approximate to 24,000 eggs/tank). Moreover, both the amount of eggs per batch and the overall quality of eggs has increased. Three of these 9000L tanks have an overall consumption of approximate to 38.64 Kg tank(-1), which translates in an investment in feed of approximate to 193 (sic) tank(-1), 8.40 (sic) per cuttlefish and an overall daily tank expense of 1.76 (sic) d(-1).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Candidates for asteroid dust trails

The contribution of different sources to the circumsolar dust cloud (known as the zodiacal cloud) can be deduced from diagnostic observations. We used the Spitzer Space Telescope to observe the diffuse thermal emission of the zodiacal cloud near the ecliptic. Several structures were identified in these observations, including previously known asteroid dust bands, which are thought to have been produced by recent asteroid collisions, and cometary trails. Interestingly, two of the detected dust trails, denoted t1 and t2 here, cannot be linked to any known comet. Trails t1 and t2 represent a much larger integrated brightness than all known cometary trails combined and may therefore be major contributors to the circumsolar dust cloud. We used our Spitzer observations to determine the orbits of these trails and were able to link them to two ("orphan" or type II) trails that were discovered by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in 1983. The orbits of trails t1 and t2 that we determined by combining the Spitzer and IRAS data have semimajor axes, eccentricities, and inclinations like those of the main-belt asteroids. We therefore propose that trails t1 and t2 were produced by very recent (<~100 kyr old) collisional breakups of small, <~10 km diameter main-belt asteroids

Inferring affordances using learning techniques

Interoperability among heterogeneous systems is a key challenge in today’s networked environment, which is characterised by continual change in aspects such as mobility and availability. Automated solutions appear then to be the only way to achieve interoperability with the needed level of flexibility and scalability. While necessary, the techniques used to achieve interaction, working from the highest application level to the lowest protocol level, come at a substantial computational cost, especially when checks are performed indiscriminately between systems in unrelated domains. To overcome this, we propose to use machine learning to extract the high-level functionality of a system and thus restrict the scope of detailed analysis to systems likely to be able to interoperate

Experimental investigation of the effect of multiple synthetic jets on heat transfer and pressure loss in minichannels

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.Synthetic jets can enhance minichannel thermal performance by adding net momentum flux into a fluid stream without adding mass flux. When incorporated into minichannels, these jets can impinge on the far wall, disrupt boundary layers, and enhance mixing within the channel, leading to high heat transfer coefficients. Many researchers have examined the effects of synthetic jets in microchannels and minichannels with single- and multi-phase flows using various fluids. This study aims to characterize the use of synthetic jets in minichannels that utilize an aqueous-glycol mixture with multiple jets along the length of a channel. Previous research has shown the use of synthetic jets can augment local heat transfer coefficients by two to three times the value of steady flow conditions using refrigerant as the working fluid. In this investigation, average heat transfer coefficients and pressure loss were measured experimentally for a range of synthetic jet operating conditions. Experiments were conducted with a minichannel array containing embedded thermocouples in order to directly measure local wall temperatures. Wall temperature measurements taken at various locations along the channel indicated that when synthetic jets were used the average heat transfer coefficient along the channel increased up to 81%. The effects of momentum ratio, frequency, and bulk Graetz number on heat transfer and pressure loss is presented. This research shows that by using a synthetic jet array the pressure loss (i.e., pumping power) can be reduced by 78% while maintaining the heat transfer coefficient. Finally, an empirical correlation is presented that predicts the heat transfer enhancement due to synthetic jets over the range tested that has a mean absolute error (MAE) of only 5.5%

Pleiotropic and Epistatic Network-Based Discovery: Integrated Networks for Target Gene Discovery

Biological organisms are complex systems that are composed of functional networks of interacting molecules and macro-molecules. Complex phenotypes are the result of orchestrated, hierarchical, heterogeneous collections of expressed genomic variants. However, the effects of these variants are the result of historic selective pressure and current environmental and epigenetic signals, and, as such, their co-occurrence can be seen as genome-wide correlations in a number of different manners. Biomass recalcitrance (i.e., the resistance of plants to degradation or deconstruction, which ultimately enables access to a plant’s sugars) is a complex polygenic phenotype of high importance to biofuels initiatives. This study makes use of data derived from the re-sequenced genomes from over 800 different Populus trichocarpa genotypes in combination with metabolomic and pyMBMS data across this population, as well as co-expression and co-methylation networks in order to better understand the molecular interactions involved in recalcitrance, and identify target genes involved in lignin biosynthesis/degradation. A Lines Of Evidence (LOE) scoring system is developed to integrate the information in the different layers and quantify the number of lines of evidence linking genes to target functions. This new scoring system was applied to quantify the lines of evidence linking genes to lignin-related genes and phenotypes across the network layers, and allowed for the generation of new hypotheses surrounding potential new candidate genes involved in lignin biosynthesis in P. trichocarpa, including various AGAMOUS-LIKE genes. The resulting Genome Wide Association Study networks, integrated with Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) correlation, co-methylation, and co-expression networks through the LOE scores are proving to be a powerful approach to determine the pleiotropic and epistatic relationships underlying cellular functions and, as such, the molecular basis for complex phenotypes, such as recalcitrance

Using remote substituents to control solution structure and anion binding in lanthanide complexes.

A study of the anion-binding properties of three structurally related lanthanide complexes, which all contain chemically identical anion-binding motifs, has revealed dramatic differences in their anion affinity. These arise as a consequence of changes in the substitution pattern on the periphery of the molecule, at a substantial distance from the binding pocket. Herein, we explore these remote substituent effects and explain the observed behaviour through discussion of the way in which remote substituents can influence and control the global structure of a molecule through their demands upon conformational space. Peripheral modifications to a binuclear lanthanide motif derived from α,α′-bis(DO3 Ayl)-m-xylene are shown to result in dramatic changes to the binding constant for isophthalate. In this system, the parent compound displays considerable conformational flexibility, yet can be assumed to bind to isophthalate through a well-defined conformer. Addition of steric bulk remote from the binding site restricts conformational mobility, giving rise to an increase in binding constant on entropic grounds as long as the ideal binding conformation is not excluded from the available range of conformers