Compacting solid waste materials generated in Missouri to form new products: final technical report

Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference of Missouri Waste ControlThe unique high-pressure compaction technology developed at Capsule Pipeline Research Center (CPRC) of University of Missouri-Columbia was used to study the compaction of combustible components of municipal solid waste and flyash generated from coal-fired power plants. By compaction, the combustible wastes can be turned into uniform, densified solids for use as fuel; the flyash can be turned into high-valued building elements such as bricks and blocks.This research project was sponsored by the Solid Waste Management Program, Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) for the period from January 1, 2001 to December 29, 2001. (MDNR Award Project no. 00038-1

Stochastic Coded Federated Learning: Theoretical Analysis and Incentive Mechanism Design

Federated learning (FL) has achieved great success as a privacy-preserving distributed training paradigm, where many edge devices collaboratively train a machine learning model by sharing the model updates instead of the raw data with a server. However, the heterogeneous computational and communication resources of edge devices give rise to stragglers that significantly decelerate the training process. To mitigate this issue, we propose a novel FL framework named stochastic coded federated learning (SCFL) that leverages coded computing techniques. In SCFL, before the training process starts, each edge device uploads a privacy-preserving coded dataset to the server, which is generated by adding Gaussian noise to the projected local dataset. During training, the server computes gradients on the global coded dataset to compensate for the missing model updates of the straggling devices. We design a gradient aggregation scheme to ensure that the aggregated model update is an unbiased estimate of the desired global update. Moreover, this aggregation scheme enables periodical model averaging to improve the training efficiency. We characterize the tradeoff between the convergence performance and privacy guarantee of SCFL. In particular, a more noisy coded dataset provides stronger privacy protection for edge devices but results in learning performance degradation. We further develop a contract-based incentive mechanism to coordinate such a conflict. The simulation results show that SCFL learns a better model within the given time and achieves a better privacy-performance tradeoff than the baseline methods. In addition, the proposed incentive mechanism grants better training performance than the conventional Stackelberg game approach

Research of the motion balance of spherical mobile robot based on fuzzy control

In the background of polar research robot equipment, this paper presents a kind of control system of large-size spherical robot, and resolves the problems of balance and motion control of spherical robot by fuzzy control algorithm. Through comparison among different control methods, we took one practical and feasible way. On the basis of balance problem, we proposed a relative control strategy. Especially on the problem of the deflection of minor axis, we analyzed it and further designed a specialized fuzzy controller to control the deflection of this robot, this helped to solve the uncontrollable problem of the robot. The algorithm easily suffers from environmental influence, for this reason, we proposed a kind of optimization algorithm based on reference model by correcting coefficient. It can make the algorithm adapt environment automatically when the landform remain unchanged and implement control of the robot by amending the parameter of fuzzy algorithm’s output. Finally, we implemented a motion control experiment for our self-design robot. The experimental data showed the validity and practicability

A Study of Shen-ce Forces in mid-Tang Dynasty

The Shen-ce army （神策軍） was founded in 754 with border guards originally set up against the Tubo （吐蕃） border, on the western border of Lintao （臨洮）. However, with the An-Shi Rebellion （安史の乱） as a turning point, the Shen-ce army was sent to the mainland and later replaced the Guards of Beiya （北衙禁軍） to defend the emperor. In 765, the Shen-ce army become the imperial guards. In 786, the Shen-ce army was adapted for the left and right Shen-ce army （左・右神策軍） with the establishment of the left and right Shen-ce Lieutenant （左・右神策中尉） and command of the Shen-ce army was handed over to the court eunuchs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the constitution of the left and right Shen-ce army personnel and their relationship with the eunuch and be a catalyst for change between the argument about the left and right Shen-ce army