Industrial Multi-Energy and Production Management Scheme in Cyber-Physical Environments: A Case Study in a Battery Manufacturing Plant

Among the various electricity consumer sectors, the consumption level of the industrial sector is often considered as the largest portion of electricity consumption, highlighting the urgent need to implement demand response (DR) energy management. However, implementation of DR for the industrial sector requires a more sophisticated and different scheme compared to the residential and commercial sector. This study explores all the elastic segments of plant multi-energy production, conversion, and consumption. We then construct a real-time industrial facilities management problem as an optimal dispatch model to enclose these elastic segments and production constraints in cyber-physical environments. Moreover, a model predictive-based centralised dispatch scheme is proposed to address the uncertainties of real-time price and renewable energy forecasting while considering the sequence of the production process. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can enhance energy efficiency and economics of lithium battery manufacturing plant through responding to the real-time price whilst ensuring the completion of production tasks

L’image de l’« entreprise exemplaire » en Chine

Dans un pays en transition économique comme la Chine, les actions communicationnelles des entreprises sont autant tournées vers le gouvernement que vers les clients ou autres parties prenantes et acteurs sociaux. La présence de l’Etat dans la vie socio-économique conduit à une certaine uniformité informationnelle et discursive. Dans un tel contexte, l’image des entreprises peut se concevoir comme une forme de représentation sociale résultant d’une construction communicationnelle collective à un niveau inter-organisationnel. L’article étudie la complexité de cette construction en observant comment est construite la notion d’exemplarité des entreprises dans la communication institutionnelle, comment cette notion est réinvestie par les entreprises dans leurs offres d’emploi, et comment leur cible perçoit et construit cette notion.In China’s transitional economy, companies publicize themselves according to their relationships with the government as well as with their clients and other stakeholders or social actors. State’s involvement in the socio-economic life produces a form of informational and discursive uniformity. In such a context, companies’ image is considered as the result of a collective construction at the interorganizational level. This article aims to study the complexity of such a social construction by examining how the concept of companies’ “exemplarity” is constructed by institutions, how companies use the concept in their online job postings, and how their target perceives and constructs the concept

Reinforcement Learning for Robot Navigation with Adaptive Forward Simulation Time (AFST) in a Semi-Markov Model

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms have proven effective in robot navigation, especially in unknown environments, by directly mapping perception inputs into robot control commands. However, most existing methods ignore the local minimum problem in navigation and thereby cannot handle complex unknown environments. In this paper, we propose the first DRL-based navigation method modeled by a semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) with continuous action space, named Adaptive Forward Simulation Time (AFST), to overcome this problem. Specifically, we reduce the dimensions of the action space and improve the distributed proximal policy optimization (DPPO) algorithm for the specified SMDP problem by modifying its GAE to better estimate the policy gradient in SMDPs. Experiments in various unknown environments demonstrate the effectiveness of AFST

Biological Computation Indexes of Brain Oscillations in Unattended Facial Expression Processing Based on Event-Related Synchronization/Desynchronization

Estimation of human emotions from Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals plays a vital role in affective Brain Computer Interface (BCI). The present study investigated the different event-related synchronization (ERS) and event-related desynchronization (ERD) of typical brain oscillations in processing Facial Expressions under nonattentional condition. The results show that the lowerfrequency bands are mainly used to update Facial Expressions and distinguish the deviant stimuli from the standard ones, whereas the higher-frequency bands are relevant to automatically processing different Facial Expressions. Accordingly, we set up the relations between each brain oscillation and processing unattended Facial Expressions by the measures of ERD and ERS. This research first reveals the contributions of each frequency band for comprehension of Facial Expressions in preattentive stage. It also evidences that participants have emotional experience under nonattentional condition. Therefore, the user's emotional state under nonattentional condition can be recognized in real time by the ERD/ERS computation indexes of different frequency bands of brain oscillations, which can be used in affective BCI to provide the user with more natural and friendly ways

Analysis of Phenolic Substances in Citrus microcarpa with Nature Fermentation and Evaluation of Its Inhibitory Activites on Digestion-related Enzymes

To understand the effects of natural fermentation on the changes of phenolic substances in Citrus microcarpa and the inhibition of digestive enzymes, the changes of soluble total phenol, total flavone, α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and pancreatic lipase inhibition rates before and after fermentation were measured. The types of phenolic substances before and after fermentation were identified by UPLC-Q Exactive Orbitrap-MS, and the differential metabolites and their enrichment pathways were screened. Finally, the correlation relationships between the different phenolic metabolites and the inhibitory activities of the above digestion-related enzymes were analyzed based on the correlation coefficient. The results showed that natural fermentation could increase the contents of soluble total phenol and total flavone by 9.20% and 23.68%, respectively, and increase the inhibition rates of α-amylase, α-glucosidase and pancreatic lipase from 11.90% to 28.50%. A total of 52 phenolic substances were detected in Citrus microcarpa. Fermentation did not change the types of phenolic substances, but it significantly increased nine phenolic substances such as nobiletin, caffeic acid, and vitexin, and significantly decreased methoxsarin (P<0.01). The four kinds of pathways significantly affected the change of the above phenolic metabolites, including the biosynthetic pathway of phenylpropane compounds, flavone and flavonol biosynthesis, flavonoid biosynthesis, biosynthesis Ⅰ pathway of various plant secondary metabolites. There was a significant positive correlation between the inhibitory activities of three digestive enzymes and the four different phenolic metabolites, which were nobiletin, apigenin, caffeic acid, and kaempferol (P<0.05). Therefore, natural fermentation can promote the release of soluble total phenol and total flavone in Citrus microcarpa and improve the inhibition rate of digestion-related enzymes, which can be used to effectively process Citrus microcarpa

Energy-Efficient Opportunistic Transmission Scheduling for Sparse Sensor Networks with Mobile Relays

Wireless sensing devices have been widely used in civilian and military applications over the past decade. In some application scenarios, the sensors are sparsely deployed in the field and are costly or infeasible to have stable communication links for delivering the collected data to the destined server. A possible solution is to utilize the motion of entities that are already present in the environment to provide opportunistic relaying services for sensory data. In this paper, we design and propose a new scheduling scheme that opportunistically schedules data transmissions based on the optimal stopping theory, with a view of minimizing the energy consumption on network probes for data delivery. In fact, by exploiting the stochastic characteristics of the relay motion, we can postpone the communication up to an acceptable time deadline until the best relay is found. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the derived optimal strategy

Cine magnetic resonance urography as a new approach for postoperative evaluation of the reconstructed upper urinary tract: a multicenter study

PURPOSETo evaluate the feasibility and usefulness of cine magnetic resonance urography (cine MRU) as a novel postoperative examination after upper urinary tract reconstruction surgery.METHODSNinety-six patients underwent cine MRU for postoperative evaluation between August 2015 and August 2020. The morphological observations included regular peristalsis, anastomosis, urine flow signals, and reflux. The quantitative evaluations included luminal diameter, peristaltic amplitude, contraction ratio, peristaltic waves, and ureteric jets. The surgical outcomes were classified as success, gray area, or failure by combining the results of cine MRU, symptoms, and the degree of hydronephrosis.RESULTSThere was no obvious stenosis of the anastomosis in 83 patients (86.46%). Regular peristalsis of the ureter and signals of urination was observed in 85 (88.54%) and 84 patients (87.50%), respectively. In addition, three patients (3.13%) showed urine reflux. The patients in both the success group and the gray area group showed significantly different creatinine levels (success 86.2 ± 22.3 μmol/L vs. failure 110.7 ± 8.2 μmol/L, P = 0.016; gray area 81.0 ± 20.0 μmol/L vs. failure 110.7 ± 8.2 μmol/L, P = 0.009) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (success: 88.5 ± 23.1 mL/min·1.73 m2, failure: 61.6 ± 14.1 mL/min·1.73 m2, P = 0.014; gray area: 94.7 ± 24.6 mL/min·1.73 m2, failure: 61.6 ± 14.1 mL/min·1.73 m2, P = 0.007) compared to those in the failure group. The ipsilateral split renal function was 33.6 ± 15.0, 24.5 ± 13.4, and 20.1 ± 0.4 mL/min in the success, gray area, and failure groups, respectively (P = 0.354).CONCLUSIONCine MRU demonstrates the morphology and function of the reconstructed upper urinary tract. The results of cine MRU can be used to evaluate the surgical effect, providing guidance for further treatment

Potential biomarkers for the early detection of bone metastases

The clinical manifestations of bone metastases are diversified while many sites remain asymptomatic at early stage. As the early diagnosis method is not perfect and the early symptoms of tumor bone metastasis are not typical, bone metastasis is not easy to be detected. Therefore, the search for bone metastasis-related markers is effective for timely detection of tumor bone metastases and the development of drugs to inhibit bone metastases. As a result, bone metastases can only be diagnosed when symptoms are found, increasing the risk of developing skeletal-related event (SREs), which significantly impairs the patient’s quality of life. Therefore, the early diagnosis of bone metastases is of great importance for the treatment and prognosis of cancer patients. Changes of bone metabolism indexes appear earlier in bone metastases, but the traditional biochemical indexes of bone metabolism lack of specificity and could be interfered by many factors, which limits their application in the study of bone metastases. Some new biomarkers of bone metastases have good diagnostic value, such as proteins, ncRNAs, circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Therefore, this study mainly reviewed the initial diagnostic biomarkers of bone metastases which were expected to provide references for the early detection of bone metastases

Furan-containing double tetraoxa[7]helicene and its radical cation

An unprecedented furan-based double oxa[7]helicene 1 was achieved, featuring a stable twisted conformation with π-overlap at both helical ends. The excellent conformational stability allowed for optical resolution of 1, which provided a pair of enantiomers exhibiting pronounced mirror-imaged circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence activity. The radical cation of 1 was obtained by chemical oxidation as evidenced by UV-Vis-NIR absorption, electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and in situ spectroelectrochemistry. The present work is the starting point for the investigation of open-shell oxahelicenes