Immune-system inspired approach for decentralized multi-agent control

This paper contains the first steps towards the development of a fully decentralized system framework. The novel approach that has been taken is derived from the inherent properties of the immune system. An assessment of the proposed control architecture has been performed by comparison with a more typical approach under a search and suppress kind of mission for an unmanned fleet

Quizbowl: Success In and Out of the Classroom, a Five Year Study

Scores of US and Canadian universities' undergraduate students participate in the SS-AAEA Quiz-bowl competition annually. Surveys of the 2001 through 2005 competition participants suggest how beneficial competition preparation and participation are in completing related university work and indicate factors which enhance chances of success in the competition.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Testing the equation of state for viscous dark energy

Some cosmological scenarios with bulk viscosity for the dark energy fluid are considered. Based on some considerations related to hydrodynamics, two different equations of state for dark energy are assumed, leading to power-law and logarithmic effective corrections to the pressure. The models are tested with the latest astronomical data from type Ia supernovae (Pantheon sample), measurements of the Hubble parameter HðzÞ, baryon acoustic oscillations and cosmic microwave background radiation. In comparison with the ΛCDM model, some different results are obtained and their viability is discussed. The power-law model shows some modest results, achieved under negative values of bulk viscosity, while the logarithmic scenario provide good fits in comparison to the ΛCDM model.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (project FIS2016-76363-P)Agencia de Gestión de Ayudas Universitarias y de Investigación (project 2017 SGR 247)CANTATA COST action (grant CA15117

Is exponential gravity a viable description for the whole cosmological history?

Here we analysed a particular type of $F(R)$ gravity, the so-called exponential gravity which includes an exponential function of the Ricci scalar in the action. Such term represents a correction to the usual Hilbert-Einstein action. By using Supernovae Ia, Barionic Acoustic Oscillations, Cosmic Microwave Background and $H(z)$ data, the free parameters of the model are well constrained. The results show that such corrections to General Relativity become important at cosmological scales and at late-times, providing an alternative to the dark energy problem. In addition, the fits do not determine any significant difference statistically with respect to the $\Lambda$CDM model. Finally, such model is extended to include the inflationary epoch in the same gravitational Lagrangian. As shown in the paper, the additional terms can reproduce the inflationary epoch and satisfy the constraints from Planck data.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, analysis extended, version published in EPJ

Integrated design optimization research and development in an industrial environment

An overview is given of a design optimization project that is in progress at the GE Research and Development Center for the past few years. The objective of this project is to develop a methodology and a software system for design automation and optimization of structural/mechanical components and systems. The effort focuses on research and development issues and also on optimization applications that can be related to real-life industrial design problems. The overall technical approach is based on integration of numerical optimization techniques, finite element methods, CAE and software engineering, and artificial intelligence/expert systems (AI/ES) concepts. The role of each of these engineering technologies in the development of a unified design methodology is illustrated. A software system DESIGN-OPT has been developed for both size and shape optimization of structural components subjected to static as well as dynamic loadings. By integrating this software with an automatic mesh generator, a geometric modeler and an attribute specification computer code, a software module SHAPE-OPT has been developed for shape optimization. Details of these software packages together with their applications to some 2- and 3-dimensional design problems are described

A SEARCHING ALGORITHM FOR TEXT WITH MISTAKES

The paper contains a new text searching method representing modification of the Boyer-Moore algorithm and enabling a user to find the places in the text where the given substring occurs maybe with possible errors, that is the string in text and a query may not coincide but nevertheless are identical. The idea consists in division of the searching process in two phases: at the first phase a fuzzy variant of the Boyer–Moore algorithm is performed; at the second phase the Dice metrics is used. The advantage of suggested technique in comparison with the known methods using the fixed value of the mistakes number is that it 1) does not perform precomputation of the auxiliary table of the sizes comparable to the original text sizes and 2) it more flexibly catches the semantics of the erroneous text substrings even for a big number of mistakes. This circumstance extends possibilities of the Boyer–Moore method by addmitting a bigger amount of possible mistakes in text and preserving text semantics. The suggested method provides also more accurate regulation of the upper boundary for the text mistakes which differs it from the known methods with fixed value of the maximum number of mistakes not depending on the text sizes. Moreover, this upper boundary is defined as Levenshtein distance not suitable for evaluating a relevance of the founded text and a query, while the Dice metrics provides such a relevance. In fact, if maximum Levenshtein distanse is 3 then how one can judge if this value is big or small to provide relevance of the search results. Consequently, the suggested method is more flexible, enables one to find relevant answers even in case of a big number of mistakes in text. The efficiency of the suggested method in the worst case is O(nc) with constant c defining the biggest allowable number of mistakes.The paper contains a new text searching method representing modification of the Boyer-Moore algorithm and enabling a user to find the places in the text where the given substring occurs maybe with possible errors, that is the string in text and a query may not coincide but nevertheless are identical. The idea consists in division of the searching process in two phases: at the first phase a fuzzy variant of the Boyer–Moore algorithm is performed; at the second phase the Dice metrics is used. The advantage of suggested technique in comparison with the known methods using the fixed value of the mistakes number is that it 1) does not perform precomputation of the auxiliary table of the sizes comparable to the original text sizes and 2) it more flexibly catches the semantics of the erroneous text substrings even for a big number of mistakes. This circumstance extends possibilities of the Boyer–Moore method by addmitting a bigger amount of possible mistakes in text and preserving text semantics. The suggested method provides also more accurate regulation of the upper boundary for the text mistakes which differs it from the known methods with fixed value of the maximum number of mistakes not depending on the text sizes. Moreover, this upper boundary is defined as Levenshtein distance not suitable for evaluating a relevance of the founded text and a query, while the Dice metrics provides such a relevance. In fact, if maximum Levenshtein distanse is 3 then how one can judge if this value is big or small to provide relevance of the search results. Consequently, the suggested method is more flexible, enables one to find relevant answers even in case of a big number of mistakes in text. The efficiency of the suggested method in the worst case is O(nc) with constant c defining the biggest allowable number of mistakes

Dried Whey, Fish Solubles in Growing-Finishing Swine Rations and Effects of Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles on Ration Digestibility

Many workers have suggested the possibility of an unidentified growth factor (s) in certain feed ingredients. Feeding trials conducted to determine the effect of unidentified growth factor sources on growth rates have produced inconsistent results. One of the biggest problems has been the isolation and identification of the compound responsible for the growth stimulus often obtained when unidentified growth factor sources are fed. Empirical fractionations have been done with some unidentified growth factor sources. Growth stimulation has been reported with various fractions extracted with different organic solvents, with a water extract as well as the ash of growth factor sources. The most common sources of unidentified growth factors are the b-product feeds, although claims have been made that these factors are also present in grass juices and dehydrated alfalfa meal. The byproduct feeds are mainly from three industries - the beverage distillers, the cheese manufacturers and the fish processors. Their by-products are distillers dried solubles, distillers dried grains with solubles, dried whey and condensed fish solubles. These byproducts are rich sources of many of the B-complex vitamins; often they contain more of these vitamins than the primary product. At one time these by-products were used as vitamin supplements in livestock feeds. If these by-product do contain an unknown, required nutrient, the use of various sources of the unidentified growth factors might result in more efficient conversion of feed to pork. However, the method by which the unidentified growth factor supplements produce a growth stimulus is not yet known. It is possible that they contain an unknown vitamin or a mineral not yet recognized as essential. Some workers have suggested that these feeds supplement a ration to provide a more optimum balance of known nutrients. Perhaps they affect ration digestibility so that animals can more efficiently use the nutrients in the ration. The reasons for undertaking this study were: (1) To determine the effect of distillers dried grains with solubles, dried whey and condensed fish solubles on the average daily gains and feed efficiency of growing-finishing swine. (2) To determine the effect of distillers dried grains with solubles on ration digestibility when fed at levels of 5, 10 and 20 percent of the ration

Towards the Design of Heuristics by Means of Self-Assembly

The current investigations on hyper-heuristics design have sprung up in two different flavours: heuristics that choose heuristics and heuristics that generate heuristics. In the latter, the goal is to develop a problem-domain independent strategy to automatically generate a good performing heuristic for the problem at hand. This can be done, for example, by automatically selecting and combining different low-level heuristics into a problem specific and effective strategy. Hyper-heuristics raise the level of generality on automated problem solving by attempting to select and/or generate tailored heuristics for the problem at hand. Some approaches like genetic programming have been proposed for this. In this paper, we explore an elegant nature-inspired alternative based on self-assembly construction processes, in which structures emerge out of local interactions between autonomous components. This idea arises from previous works in which computational models of self-assembly were subject to evolutionary design in order to perform the automatic construction of user-defined structures. Then, the aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology for the automated design of heuristics by means of self-assembly

How Attitudes of Important Stakeholder Groups Can Influence Effective Water Quality Management

Preliminary results of a survey of Lincoln Lake agricultural and non-agricultural watershed residents as well as water quality regulators/specialists suggests discrepancies exists in different groups perceptions of water quality, the sources of water pollution, and the roles of local, county, state and federal officials in meeting water quality objectives.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q25, Q53, Q59,