Particle Swarm and Bacterial Foraging Inspired Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Numerical Function Optimization

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has good performance in discovering the optimal solutions to difficult optimization problems, but it has weak local search ability and easily plunges into local optimum. In this paper, we introduce the chemotactic behavior of Bacterial Foraging Optimization into employed bees and adopt the principle of moving the particles toward the best solutions in the particle swarm optimization to improve the global search ability of onlooker bees and gain a hybrid artificial bee colony (HABC) algorithm. To obtain a global optimal solution efficiently, we make HABC algorithm converge rapidly in the early stages of the search process, and the search range contracts dynamically during the late stages. Our experimental results on 16 benchmark functions of CEC 2014 show that HABC achieves significant improvement at accuracy and convergence rate, compared with the standard ABC, best-so-far ABC, directed ABC, Gaussian ABC, improved ABC, and memetic ABC algorithms

Quantification of substance P mRNA expression in the midbrain of ovariectomized migraine rats with SYBR green I real-time polymerase chain reaction

This study was designed to develop a SYBR green I-based real-time polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) for quantitative detection of substance P (SP) mRNA in the midbrain of ovariectomized migraine rats and to evaluate the effects of estradiol on the mRNA expression of SP in order to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of migraine and estrogen-conferred protection against migraine. 24 female rats were randomly assigned to the following groups: A: non-migraine controls; B: migraines; C, migraine rats receiving low estradiol; D, migraine rats receiving high estradiol. One week following ovariectomy, migraine was induced in groups B, C and D by nitroglycerin (i.p.). Behavior changes before and after migraine was examined. A SYBR green I-based RT-PCR assay was established to measure the absolute levels of SP mRNA in the midbrain. Behavioral changes in group D were significantly mitigated when compared with those in group B, whereas no marked behavioral changes were noted in groups C and B. In addition, mRNA copies of SP in group B were remarkably lower than group A, while the level of SP mRNA in both groups C and D was higher than group B, although no significance was reached (P > 0.05). SP mRNA expression decreased in the midbrain of migraine rats when compared with the non-migraine controls. High doses of estrogen partially restored SP expression in migraine rats and reduce migraine attack. Our study validated the SYBR green I-based RT-PCR technique for quantitative detection of SP mRNA.Keywords: Substance P, migraine, estrogen, midbrain, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, ratsAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(34), pp. 5481-5487, 23 August, 201

Moby: Empowering 2D Models for Efficient Point Cloud Analytics on the Edge

3D object detection plays a pivotal role in many applications, most notably autonomous driving and robotics. These applications are commonly deployed on edge devices to promptly interact with the environment, and often require near real-time response. With limited computation power, it is challenging to execute 3D detection on the edge using highly complex neural networks. Common approaches such as offloading to the cloud induce significant latency overheads due to the large amount of point cloud data during transmission. To resolve the tension between wimpy edge devices and compute-intensive inference workloads, we explore the possibility of empowering fast 2D detection to extrapolate 3D bounding boxes. To this end, we present Moby, a novel system that demonstrates the feasibility and potential of our approach. We design a transformation pipeline for Moby that generates 3D bounding boxes efficiently and accurately based on 2D detection results without running 3D detectors. Further, we devise a frame offloading scheduler that decides when to launch the 3D detector judiciously in the cloud to avoid the errors from accumulating. Extensive evaluations on NVIDIA Jetson TX2 with real-world autonomous driving datasets demonstrate that Moby offers up to 91.9% latency improvement with modest accuracy loss over state of the art.Comment: Accepted to ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM) 202

Advances in Unified Strength Theory and its Generalization

AbstractIt has been two decades since the first presentation of “A new model and theory on yield and failure of materials under complex stress state” at ICM-6 held at Kyoto, Japan in 1991. The twin-shear element model and a new strength theory were proposed at ICM-6. However, only the two equations were introduced, the characteristics and its applications of this strength theory have not been studied in details. A great deal of researches on this new strength theory and its applications are developed since then by Yu and other scholars at other Universities and Institutes in some countries. Some behaviour of the unified strength theory are described here. The advances in the unified strength theory and its applications are summarized briefly in the framework of continuum mechanics and engineering application

Phase transition and hysteresis in scale-free network traffic

We model information traffic on scale-free networks by introducing the node queue length L proportional to the node degree and its delivering ability C proportional to L. The simulation gives the overall capacity of the traffic system, which is quantified by a phase transition from free flow to congestion. It is found that the maximal capacity of the system results from the case of the local routing coefficient \phi slightly larger than zero, and we provide an analysis for the optimal value of \phi. In addition, we report for the first time the fundamental diagram of flow against density, in which hysteresis is found, and thus we can classify the traffic flow with four states: free flow, saturated flow, bistable, and jammed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Effects of different starch sources on Bacillus spp. in intestinal tract and expression of intestinal development related genes of weanling piglets

The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different starch sources on Bacillus spp. in intestinal tract and expression of intestinal development related genes of weanling piglets. Twenty-eight PIC male piglets were divided into four homogeneous groups according to initial body weight (similar birth and parity, weaned at 21 ± 1.5 days). Diets for the four treatments consisted of corn starch, wheat starch, tapioca starch and pea starch with the determined ratio for amylose to amylopectin of 0.21, 0.24, 0.12 and 0.52 respectively. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction was applied to: (1) detect genomic DNA of Bacillus and to quantify the number of Bacillus in the intestinal tract chyme of piglets with the primers and probe which designed based on the 16S rRNA sequences of maximum species of Bacillus on GenBank; (2) measure the mRNA level of glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2), insulin-like growth factors 1 (IGF-1) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) in duodenum, jejunum and ileum. Results showed that the number of Baciilus and the percentage based on all bacteria in the whole intestinal content of piglets fed pea starch was highest in all groups (P < 0.05). There was no significant differance on copy numbers for all bacteria and Bacillus in the whole intestinal tract of piglets between the corn starch group and wheat starch group (P > 0.05). In addition, the expression level of GLP-2, IGF-1 mRNA in jejunum and ileum of pea starch treatment (the high amylose/amylopectin ratio) were increased while the tapioca starch decreased their mRNA level significantly compared to other three treatments (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference for the mRNA level of EGF in each group. The present study revealed that high amylose/amylopectin ratio of starches significantly enhanced the numbers of Bacillus in all segments of intestine and the mRNA level of intestinal development related genes

Rapid Remission in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma of the Nasal Type by the Bortezomib plus CHOP Therapy

Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is rare and difficult to treat for its high relapse rate. The authors report a case of PTCL of the skin, regarding which clinical and pathological features, treatment, and prognosis were discussed. A 66-year-old woman was admitted with complaints of enlarging erythematous noduloplaques on the right anterior tibial skin for one year and similar lesions on the left for 6 months. Surgical resection of right leg lesion and biopsy of enlarged inguinal lymph nodes histologically indicated a PTCL of the nasal type. The patient was treated by CHOP plus bortezomib, reached complete remission just after two courses of chemotherapy and then received another two as consolidation. The patient remained in remission for 11 months until local relapse. As for cutaneous lesions, detailed lymph node examination and prompt tissue biopsy are judicious choices prior to any medical management. The chemotherapy consisting of bortezomib and CHOP is safe and efficient in PTCL of the skin