Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Simultaneous Delivery and Pick-Up Service Based on MCPSO

This paper considers two additional factors of the widely researched vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). The two factors, which are very common characteristics in realworld, are uncertain number of vehicles and simultaneous delivery and pick-up service. Using minimization of the total transport costs as the objective of the extension VRPTW, a mathematic model is constructed. To solve the problem, an efficient multiswarm cooperative particle swarm optimization (MCPSO) algorithm is applied. And a new encoding method is proposed for the extension VRPTW. Finally, comparing with genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, the MCPSO algorithm performs best for solving this problem

Downstream Placement of FANS to Determine Fan Performance in Situ

Accurate ventilation rate data are essential to maximizing the quality of aerial emission measurements. The fan assessment numeration system (FANS) devices have been widely used by U.S. researchers in measuring aerial emissions from mechanically ventilated livestock and poultry confinement. It is used to conduct in-situ calibration of building ventilation fans and thus development of the fan performance curve under the field operation conditions. The FANS device was originally intended to be placed in the upstream of the fan under in-situ calibration. However, certain field situations make it impractical to apply the FANS device as such. This study assessed the possible use of the FANS in the downstream of a ventilation fan, with the gaps between the FANS device and the discharge cone of the exhaust fan sealed by non-permeable fabric. Nine exhaust fans (1.22 - 1.32 m diameter) in laying-hen and turkey houses were tested with the FANS placed in upstream or downstream for a building static pressure range of 10 to 40 Pa. The results revealed that downstream placement of FANS device yielded 0.44 to 3.1% higher ventilation rate when compared to its upstream placement. This discrepancy is considered acceptable for in-situ fan calibration

Particulate Matter Emissions from a High-rise Layer House in Iowa

Particulate matter (PM) in animal feeding operations is a concern for the occupants and the surrounding community. Baseline measurements of the concentration and emission rate of PM are the first step toward assessing the environmental impact of animal feeding operation and evaluating the effectiveness of dust control strategies. This study presents the results of the PM measurement at a high-rise layer house in central Iowa. The average PM10 emission rate over the 9- month measurement period was 21.6 (±10 S.D.) mg/bird/day. Comparing with the emission rates reported literature, the mean and range of PM10 emission from high-rise layer hen barns using cage systems were 33.5 and 19-48 mg/bird/day. The average PM2.5 emission rate over the measurement period was 2 (± 1.5 S.D.) mg/bird/day, which is less than literature values of 3.52-14.2 mg/bird/day

Technical Note: Upstream vs. Downstream Placement of FANS Device to Determine Ventilation Fan Performance in Situ

Accurate ventilation rate (VR) data are essential to maximizing the quality of aerial emission measurements. The Fan Assessment Numeration System (FANS) has been widely used by U.S. researchers in measuring aerial emissions from mechanically ventilated livestock and poultry facilities. The FANS device is used to measure airflow rates of ventilation fans in situ, thereby developing fan performance curves under field conditions. The FANS device was originally intended to be placed upstream of the fan to be calibrated. However, certain field situations make it impractical to apply the FANS device as such. This study was conducted to assess use of the FANS device downstream of a ventilation fan, with the gaps between the FANS device and the discharge cone of the exhaust fan sealed using a non-permeable fabric. Nine exhaust fans (1.22 or 1.32 m diameter) in laying hen and turkey houses were tested with the FANS device placed upstream and downstream for a building static pressure range of 10 to 40 Pa. The results revealed that downstream placement of the FANS device yielded 0.6% ±0.4% to 4.0% ±0.9 % (mean ±SE) higher but not significantly different (P \u3e 0.28) VR values as compared to upstream placement for the exhaust fans tested. This magnitude of discrepancy is considered acceptable for in situ measurement of fan performance

Internal Wasserstein Distance for Adversarial Attack and Defense

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to adversarial examples that can trigger misclassification of DNNs but may be imperceptible to human perception. Adversarial attack has been an important way to evaluate the robustness of DNNs. Existing attack methods on the construction of adversarial examples use such $\ell_p$ distance as a similarity metric to perturb samples. However, this kind of metric is incompatible with the underlying real-world image formation and human visual perception. In this paper, we first propose an internal Wasserstein distance (IWD) to measure image similarity between a sample and its adversarial example. We apply IWD to perform adversarial attack and defense. Specifically, we develop a novel attack method by capturing the distribution of patches in original samples. In this case, our approach is able to generate semantically similar but diverse adversarial examples that are more difficult to defend by existing defense methods. Relying on IWD, we also build a new defense method that seeks to learn robust models to defend against unseen adversarial examples. We provide both thorough theoretical and empirical evidence to support our methods

Experimental study on mechanical and acoustic emission characteristics of sedimentary sandstone under different loading rates

In the field of rock engineering, complexity of stress environment is an important factor affecting its stability. Thus, in view of fracture mechanism of rock under different loading rates within the scope of quasi-static strain rate, four groups of uniaxial compression tests with different strain rates were carried out on sandstone specimens, and strength, deformation, failure modes and acoustic emission characteristics of specimens were compared and analyzed. Furthermore, the fracture mechanism was discussed from the perspective of fracture characteristics based on fractal dimension, crack propagation law inverted through acoustic emission b-value, and micro fracture morphology. The results showed that as the strain rate increased from 10 to 5 s−1 to 10−2 s−1, the fractal dimension of rock fragments increased, and the fractal dimension of rock fragments increased by 9.66%, 7.32%, and 3.77% successively for every 10 times increase in strain rate, which means that the equivalent size of fragments was getting smaller, and the fragmentation feature was becoming increasingly prominent. The crack propagation process based on acoustic emission b-value showed that with the increase of loading rate, the specimen entered the rapid crack propagation stage earlier, in order of 68%, 66%, 29%, and 22% of peak stress. Moreover, the microscopic fracture morphology showed that with the increase of loading rate, transgranular phenomenon was clear, and the fracture morphology changed from smooth to rough. That meant that the fracture of sandstone rock at high loading rates was mainly caused by the propagation of large cracks, which was different from the slow process of initiation, convergence and re-propagation of small cracks at low strain rates

Establishment of time-resolved fluorescence immunochromatographic method for Toxoplasma gondii detection

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a parasitic zoonosis that causes abortion or congenital diseases. The purpose of this study is to establish a immunochromatographic assay (ICA) method using time-resolved fluorescence microspheres (TRFM) for T. gondii quantitative detection in serum. Firstly, we activated the TRFM and then coupled with anti-T. gondii antibodies (mAb1) and anti-BSA-DNP antibodies to prepare the TRFM-mAb1 probes and TRFM-BSA-DNP probes. Then, we optimized the coupling pH, T line antibody concentration, probes usage and detection time. Finally, we established the T. gondii-TRFMICA method and assemble the T. gondii-TRFMICA kit, the standard curve, sensitivity, precision, specificity, clinical sensitivity and specificity were evaluated. Under the optimized conditions, the T. gondii-TRFMICA test was achieved within 20 min with the sensitivity 0.1 ng/mL. The recoveries were ranging from 100–110% with the intra-assay and inter-assay CV lower than 10%. The kits have detection specificity for positive serum of several common infectious diseases and some common serum components, and have high detection sensitivity and specificity in human and cat clinical samples. A TRFMICA kit for T. gondii quantitative detection was successfully prepared with high sensitivity, specificity, precision and clinical sensitivity and specificity. We recommend TRFMICA as a promising technique in the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of toxoplasmosis in human and animals

Development of a porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus colloidal gold detection strip

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is one of the most important causative agents to the worldwide swine industry, caused significant economic losses annually. Here, we aims to prepare a colloidal gold cards for PRRSV early screening. A double-antibody sandwich colloidal gold cards were optimized and prepared using recombinant PRRSV antigen and its paired monoclonal antibody. The test performance of the colloidal gold cards were evaluated using positive and negative samples. We successfully prepared the colloidal gold cards for fast screening of PRRSV. The colloidal gold cards has no cross reaction with various serum samples, showed high specificity. The detection sensitivity reached 1:800. The colloidal gold cards can be stably stored at 37°C for 7 days without any decrease in sensitivity. At 1:800 dilution, the repeatability was still good. The prepared colloidal gold cards has high specificity, sensitivity, stability and repeatability, it provided an effective monitoring of PRRSV infection