An Array-Type System Applied to Complex Surfaces in Nuclear Pollution Detection

[EN] Radioactive pollution detection plays a key role in nuclear technology application. In this paper, an array-type of nuclear pollution detection system is designed for the detection scenario of complex surfaces. Firstly, to get the three-dimensional point cloud of the surface, a complex surface was modeled based on the geometric ranging model of a two-dimensional laser profilometer and the motion model of a two-degree-of-freedom displacement platform. Secondly, an 'S' type scanning scheme of profilometer was developed to overcome the problem of limited scanning area of the profilometer. Thirdly, Euclidean distance weighted median filtering was used to solve the impulsive noise that may occur during the point cloud acquisition process. Finally, the 3D point cloud information of the complex surface was used for controlling the movement of the 6 x 6 array channel pollution detector to complete the alpha and beta particle measurement tasks. A mechanical platform was constructed for experiments, the results are as follows. The working range of this system is from -5 cm to 5 cm in elevation difference of surfaces, and the accuracy is 12 mu m in surface height measuring. It takes 26.13 s to perform a detection task including surface scanning and the detector moving, and scanning accuracy is 0.35 x 0.35 mm(2). The maximum control error of the surface contamination detector is 0.4 mm. Specifically, the detection area of the system reaches 240 x 240 mm(2). The results show that the system acquires three-dimensional terrain information, and realizes control over the movement of the pollution detector accurately and then completes the detection of alpha and beta particles effectively.This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) of China under Grant No.61601382, Sichuan Provincial Science and Technology Support Project No.2019YJ0325, the Doctoral Fund of Southwest University of Science and Technology No.16zx7148, No.19zx7123, Longshan academic talent research supporting program of SWUST No.18LZX632 and the Fund of Robot Technology Used for Special Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province No.13zxtk08.Chu, H.; Chang, Z.; Shao, Y.; Zhang, X.; Lloret, J. (2020). An Array-Type System Applied to Complex Surfaces in Nuclear Pollution Detection. Electronics. 9(11):1-21. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9111870S12191

Atrasentan and renal events in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease (SONAR): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Short-term treatment for people with type 2 diabetes using a low dose of the selective endothelin A receptor antagonist atrasentan reduces albuminuria without causing significant sodium retention. We report the long-term effects of treatment with atrasentan on major renal outcomes. Methods: We did this double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial at 689 sites in 41 countries. We enrolled adults aged 18–85 years with type 2 diabetes, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)25–75 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 of body surface area, and a urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR)of 300–5000 mg/g who had received maximum labelled or tolerated renin–angiotensin system inhibition for at least 4 weeks. Participants were given atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily during an enrichment period before random group assignment. Those with a UACR decrease of at least 30% with no substantial fluid retention during the enrichment period (responders)were included in the double-blind treatment period. Responders were randomly assigned to receive either atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily or placebo. All patients and investigators were masked to treatment assignment. The primary endpoint was a composite of doubling of serum creatinine (sustained for ≥30 days)or end-stage kidney disease (eGFR <15 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 sustained for ≥90 days, chronic dialysis for ≥90 days, kidney transplantation, or death from kidney failure)in the intention-to-treat population of all responders. Safety was assessed in all patients who received at least one dose of their assigned study treatment. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01858532. Findings: Between May 17, 2013, and July 13, 2017, 11 087 patients were screened; 5117 entered the enrichment period, and 4711 completed the enrichment period. Of these, 2648 patients were responders and were randomly assigned to the atrasentan group (n=1325)or placebo group (n=1323). Median follow-up was 2·2 years (IQR 1·4–2·9). 79 (6·0%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 105 (7·9%)of 1323 in the placebo group had a primary composite renal endpoint event (hazard ratio [HR]0·65 [95% CI 0·49–0·88]; p=0·0047). Fluid retention and anaemia adverse events, which have been previously attributed to endothelin receptor antagonists, were more frequent in the atrasentan group than in the placebo group. Hospital admission for heart failure occurred in 47 (3·5%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 34 (2·6%)of 1323 patients in the placebo group (HR 1·33 [95% CI 0·85–2·07]; p=0·208). 58 (4·4%)patients in the atrasentan group and 52 (3·9%)in the placebo group died (HR 1·09 [95% CI 0·75–1·59]; p=0·65). Interpretation: Atrasentan reduced the risk of renal events in patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease who were selected to optimise efficacy and safety. These data support a potential role for selective endothelin receptor antagonists in protecting renal function in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of developing end-stage kidney disease. Funding: AbbVie

An Incentive Mechanism for Private Parking-Sharing Programs in an Imperfect Information Setting

International audienceThis paper proposes a matching-and-pricing mechanism for a drivers’ demand-reporting problem in parking-sharing programs in which owners share their private parking slots with drivers. We generate a driver-slot matching solution by a centralized assignment procedure according to the demand and supply information reported by drivers and owners, respectively, and determine truth-telling pricing by the Vickrey-Clark-Grove mechanism. We show that under the assumption that drivers do not know with certainty whether other drivers will show up to compete for the parking slots, the mechanism proposed in this paper induces drivers to truthfully report their private information of the travel plans and guarantees three other desirable properties: participation of drivers and slot owners, optimal system efficiency, and balance of the system’s budget. We further extend these results to two dynamic situations. Finally, the results of the numerical experiments based on real-world data demonstrate the performance of the mechanism

Discussions about Management of Scientific Research Projects in Agricultural Research Institutes: A Case Study of EPPI of CATAS

Taking Environment and Plant Protection Institute in Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences as an example, it summarized major experience and practice in management of scientific research projects from strengthening project database, enhancing project planning, reinforcing scientific research management team construction, bringing into play functions of academies and institutes, and improving management system. It analyzed existing problems and came up with recommendations from strengthening project process management, improving management team quality, and improving incentive mechanism, in the hope of providing reference for scientific research project management in agricultural scientific research institutes

Two-stage matching-and-scheduling algorithm for real-time private parking-sharing programs

International audienceThis paper studies a real-time parking-sharing program with which owners of private parking spaces can lend out their parking spaces to other drivers to park when these are not in use. Compared with curbside and garage parking problems, the information of supplies and demands is randomly announced by drivers and owners respectively via a parking-sharing APP installed on their smartphones. Besides, the parking spaces made available by independent owners are usually heterogeneous in terms of their locations and available time intervals. Thus, two critical issues need to be resolved: (a) appropriately matching demands and supplies under an uncertain setting; and (b) efficiently scheduling the demands matched to avoid potential parking conflicts. We propose a novel real-time reservation approach based on a rolling-horizon framework, which can assign multiple drivers to a single parking space in order to better utilize scarce parking resources. For each period, an integrated optimal matching-and-scheduling problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model and proved to be strongly NP-hard. To fast generate a near-optimal solution to the problem, a two-stage heuristics derived from the minimum-cost flow problem is developed. The computational results validate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Some operational insights are also presented and discussed

Opening and Sharing of Large-scale Instruments and Equipment in Agricultural Research Institutes: A Case Study of Environment and Plant Protection Institute of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences

The article introduces the main practices and achievements of the Environment and Plant Protection Institute of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences in promoting the sharing of large-scale instruments and equipment in recent years, analyzes the existing problems in the management system, management team, assessment incentives and maintenance guarantee, and proposes improvement measures and suggestions from aspects of improving the sharing management system, strengthening management team building, strengthening sharing assessment and incentives, improving maintenance capabilities and expanding external publicity, to further improve the sharing management of large-scale instruments and equipment

On Agricultural Scientific Research Institutions Supporting and Serving Technological Innovation Entities

This paper firstly analyzed current situation of agricultural technological innovation system in China and obstacles restricting agricultural enterprises to become technological innovation entities. It discussed exploration and practice of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences in supporting and serving technological innovation entities. Finally, it came up with ideas and approaches for supporting and serving technological innovation entities