Genetic algorithms with self-organizing behaviour in dynamic environments

Copyright @ 2007 Springer-VerlagIn recent years, researchers from the genetic algorithm (GA) community have developed several approaches to enhance the performance of traditional GAs for dynamic optimization problems (DOPs). Among these approaches, one technique is to maintain the diversity of the population by inserting random immigrants into the population. This chapter investigates a self-organizing random immigrants scheme for GAs to address DOPs, where the worst individual and its next neighbours are replaced by random immigrants. In order to protect the newly introduced immigrants from being replaced by fitter individuals, they are placed in a subpopulation. In this way, individuals start to interact between themselves and, when the fitness of the individuals are close, one single replacement of an individual can affect a large number of individuals of the population in a chain reaction. The individuals in a subpopulation are not allowed to be replaced by individuals of the main population during the current chain reaction. The number of individuals in the subpopulation is given by the number of individuals created in the current chain reaction. It is important to observe that this simple approach can take the system to a self-organization behaviour, which can be useful for GAs in dynamic environments.Financial support was obtained from FAPESP (Proc. 04/04289-6)

Observation of Coalescence Process of Silver Nanospheres During Shape Transformation to Nanoprisms

In this report, we observed the growth mechanism and the shape transformation from spherical nanoparticles (diameter ~6 nm) to triangular nanoprisms (bisector length ~100 nm). We used a simple direct chemical reduction method and provided evidences for the growth of silver nanoprisms via a coalescence process. Unlike previous reports, our method does not rely upon light, heat, or strong oxidant for the shape transformation. This transformation could be launched by fine-tuning the pH value of the silver colloidal solution. Based on our extensive examination using transmission electron microscopy, we propose a non-point initiated growth mechanism, which is a combination of coalescence and dissolution–recrystallization process during the growth of silver nanoprisms

Savannahs of Asia: Antiquity, biogeography, and an uncertain future

The savannahs of Asia remain locally unrecognized as distinctive ecosystems, and continue to be viewed as degraded forests or seasonally dry tropical forests. These colonial-era legacies are problematic, because they fail to recognize the unique diversity of Asian savannahs and the critical roles of fire and herbivory in maintaining ecosystem health and diversity. In this review, we show that: the palaeo-historical evidence suggests that the savannahs of Asia have existed for at least 1 million years, long before widespread landscape modification by humans; savannah regions across Asia have levels of C4 grass endemism and diversity that are consistent with area-based expectations for non-Asian savannahs; there are at least three distinct Asian savannah communities, namely deciduous broadleaf savannahs, deciduous fine-leafed and spiny savannahs and evergreen pine savannahs, with distinct functional ecologies consistent with fire- and herbivory-driven community assembly. Via an analysis of savannah climate domains on other continents, we map the potential extent of savannahs across Asia. We find that the climates of African savannahs provide the closest analogues for those of Asian deciduous savannahs, but that Asian pine savannahs occur in climates different to any of the savannahs in the southern continents. Finally, we review major threats to the persistence of savannahs in Asia, including the mismanagement of fire and herbivory, alien woody encroachment, afforestation policies and future climate uncertainty associated with the changing Asian monsoon. Research agendas that target these issues are urgently needed to manage and conserve these ecosystems. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’

A novel PKC activating molecule promotes neuroblast differentiation and delivery of newborn neurons in brain injuries

Neural stem cells are activated within neurogenic niches in response to brain injuries. This results in the production of neuroblasts, which unsuccessfully attempt to migrate toward the damaged tissue. Injuries constitute a gliogenic/non-neurogenic niche generated by the presence of anti-neurogenic signals, which impair neuronal differentiation and migration. Kinases of the protein kinase C (PKC) family mediate the release of growth factors that participate in different steps of the neurogenic process, particularly, novel PKC isozymes facilitate the release of the neurogenic growth factor neuregulin. We have demonstrated herein that a plant derived diterpene, (EOF2; CAS number 2230806-06-9), with the capacity to activate PKC facilitates the release of neuregulin 1, and promotes neuroblasts differentiation and survival in cultures of subventricular zone (SVZ) isolated cells in a novel PKC dependent manner. Local infusion of this compound in mechanical cortical injuries induces neuroblast enrichment within the perilesional area, and noninvasive intranasal administration of EOF2 promotes migration of neuroblasts from the SVZ towards the injury, allowing their survival and differentiation into mature neurons, being some of them cholinergic and GABAergic. Our results elucidate the mechanism of EOF2 promoting neurogenesis in injuries and highlight the role of novel PKC isozymes as targets in brain injury regeneration

sParEGO – A hybrid optimization algorithm for expensive uncertain multi-objective optimization problems

Evaluations of candidate solutions to real-world problems are often expensive to compute, are characterised by uncertainties arising from multiple sources, and involve simultaneous consideration of multiple conflicting objectives. Here, the task of an optimizer is to find a set of solutions that offer alternative robust trade-offs between objectives, where robustness comprises some user-defined measure of the ability of a solution to retain high performance in the presence of uncertainties. Typically, understanding the robustness of a solution requires multiple evaluations of performance under different uncertain conditions – but such an approach is infeasible for expensive problems with a limited evaluation budget. To overcome this issue, a new hybrid optimization algorithm for expensive uncertain multi-objective optimization problems is proposed. The algorithm – sParEGO – uses a novel uncertainty quantification approach to assess the robustness of a candidate design without having to rely on expensive sampling techniques. Hypotheses on the relative performance of the algorithm compared to an existing method for deterministic problems are tested using two benchmark problems, and provide preliminary indication that sParEGO is an effective technique for identifying robust trade-off surfaces

Detection of hepatitis B virus markers using a biosensor based on imaging ellipsometry

A biosensor based on imaging ellipsometry (BIE) has been developed and validated in 169 patients for detecting five markers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The methodology has been established to pave the way for clinical diagnosis, including ligand screening, determination of the sensitivity, set-up of cut-off values (CoVs) and comparison with other clinical methods. A matrix assay method was established for ligand screening. The CoVs of HBV markers were derived with the help of receiver operating characteristic curves. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was the reference method. Ligands with high bioactivity were selected and sensitivities of 1 ng/mL and 1 IU/mL for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and surface antibody (anti-HBs) were obtained respectively. The CoVs of HBsAg, anti-HBs, hepatitis B e antigen, hepatitis B e antibody and core antibody were as follows: 15%, 18%, 15%, 20% and 15%, respectively, which were the percentages over the values of corresponding ligand controls. BIE can simultaneously detect up to five markers within 1 h with results in acceptable agreement with ELISA, and thus shows a potential for diagnosing hepatitis B with high throughput

Hybrid crystalline-ITO/metal nanowire mesh transparent electrodes and their application for highly flexible perovskite solar cells

Here, we propose crystalline indium tin oxide/metal nanowire composite electrode (c-ITO/metal NW-GFRHybrimer) films as a robust platform for flexible optoelectronic devices. A very thin c-ITO overcoating layer was introduced to the surface-embedded metal nanowire (NW) network. The c-ITO/metal NW-GFRHybrimer films exhibited outstanding mechanical flexibility, excellent optoelectrical properties and thermal/chemical robustness. Highly flexible and efficient metal halide perovskite solar cells were fabricated on the films. The devices on the c-ITO/AgNW- and c-ITO/CuNW-GFRHybrimer films exhibited power conversion efficiency values of 14.15% and 12.95%, respectively. A synergetic combination of the thin c-ITO layer and the metal NW mesh transparent conducting electrode will be beneficial for use in flexible optoelectronic applications

No Evolutionary Shift in the Mating System of North American Ambrosia artemisiifolia (Asteraceae) Following Its Introduction to China

The mating system plays a key role during the process of plant invasion. Contemporary evolution of uniparental reproduction (selfing or asexuality) can relieve the challenges of mate limitation in colonizing populations by providing reproductive assurance. Here we examined aspects of the genetics of colonization in Ambrosia artemisiifolia, a North American native that is invasive in China. This species has been found to possess a strong self-incompatibility system and have high outcrossing rates in North America and we examined whether there has been an evolutionary shift towards the dependence on selfing in the introduced range. Specifically, we estimated outcrossing rates in one native and five invasive populations and compared levels of genetic diversity between North America and China. Based on six microsatellite loci we found that, like the native North American population, all five Chinese populations possessed a completely outcrossing mating system. The estimates of paternity correlations were low, ranging from 0.028–0.122, which suggests that populations possessed ∼8–36 pollen donor parents contributing to each maternal plant in the invasive populations. High levels of genetic diversity for both native and invasive populations were found with the unbiased estimate of gene diversity ranging from 0.262–0.289 for both geographic ranges based on AFLP markers. Our results demonstrate that there has been no evolutionary shift from outcrossing to selfing during A. artemisiifolia's invasion of China. Furthermore, high levels of genetic variation in North America and China indicate that there has been no erosion of genetic variance due to a bottleneck during the introduction process. We suggest that the successful invasion of A. artemisiifolia into Asia was facilitated by repeated introductions from multiple source populations in the native range creating a diverse gene pool within Chinese populations