Two Innovative Coalition Formation Models for Dynamic Task Allocation in Disaster Rescues

This paper addresses the problem of multi-objective coalition formation for task allocation. In disaster rescue, due to the dynamics of environments, heterogeneity and complexity of tasks as well as limited available agents, it is hard for the single-objective and single (task)-to-single (agent) task allocation approaches to handle task allocation in such circumstances. To this end, two multi-objective coalition formation for task allocation models are proposed for disaster rescues in this paper. First, through coalition formation, the proposed models enable agents to cooperatively perform complex tasks that cannot be completed by single agent. In addition, through adjusting the weights of multiple task allocation objectives, the proposed models can employ the linear programming to generate more adaptive task allocation plans, which can satisfy different task allocation requirements in disaster rescue. Finally, through employing the multi-stage task allocation mechanism of the dynamic programming, the proposed models can handle the dynamics of tasks and agents in disaster environments. Experimental results indicate that the proposed models have good performance on coalition formation for task allocation in disaster environments, which can generate suitable task allocation plans according to various objectives of task allocation.     

Systemic Thinking and Practice Toward Facilitating Inclusive Education: Reflections on a Case of Co-Generated Knowledge and Action in South Africa

This article offers our reflections around a case of facilitating systemic thinking and practice in which the first author of the article (Tlale) interacted with research participants/participant researchers with the intention of strengthening systemic thought and action toward fostering inclusive education in the setting (a rural school in the Eastern Cape in South Africa). We reflect upon the process and also how our engagement was perceived by participants, as expressed in feedback received from them. We point to how Tlale introduced the idea of systemic thinking (to teachers, school management team, school governing body, and a district officer for the district) as tied to the possibility of acting to generate transformation toward a more inclusive educational context for the benefit of the learners at the school in question, thus acting as a systemic mediator on their behalf.     

Sentiment Analysis of Code-Mixed Bambara-French Social Media Text Using Deep Learning Techniques

The global growth of the Internet and the rapid expansion of social networks such as Facebook make multilingual sentiment analysis of social media content very necessary. This paper performs the first sentiment analysis on code-mixed Bambara-French Facebook comments. We develop four Long Short-term Memory (LSTM)-based models and two Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based models, and use these six models, Naïve Bayes, and Support Vector Machines (SVM) to conduct experiments on a constituted dataset. Social media text written in Bambara is scarce. To mitigate this weakness, this paper uses dictionaries of character and word indexes to produce character and word embedding in place of pre-trained word vectors. We investigate the effect of comment length on the models and perform a comparison among them. The best performing model is a one-layer CNN deep learning model with an accuracy of 83.23 %.     

Effect of MWCNT reinforcement on the precipitation-hardening behavior of AA2219

Aluminum alloy matrix composites have found a predominant place in research, and their applications are explored in almost all industries. The aerospace industry has been using precipitation-hardenable alloys in structural applications. However, insufficient literature is available on the influence of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on precipitation-hardenable alloy composite materials; thus, this work was designed to elucidate the effect on MWCNT reinforcement on AA2219 with and without precipitation hardening. Reinforcement with MWCNTs has been reported to accelerate precipitation and to achieve greater hardness within a much shorter time. The addition of 0.75wt% MWCNTs resulted in maximal hardness at 90 min, which is approximately 27% of improvement over the maximum hardness achieved by the corresponding monolithic alloy after 10 h of aging. The sample reinforced with 0.75wt% MWCNTs showed an improvement of 82% in hardness by solutionizing and aging compared to that achieved by sintering.     

Intrinsically disordered proteins in crowded milieu: when chaos prevails within the cellular gumbo

Effects of macromolecular crowding on structural and functional properties of ordered proteins, their folding, interactability, and aggregation are well documented. Much less is known about how macromolecular crowding might affect structural and functional behaviour of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) or intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDPRs). To fill this gap, this review represents a systematic analysis of the available literature data on the behaviour of IDPs/IDPRs in crowded environment. Although it was hypothesized that, due to the excluded-volume effects present in crowded environments, IDPs/IDPRs would invariantly fold in the presence of high concentrations of crowding agents or in the crowded cellular environment, accumulated data indicate that, based on their response to the presence of crowders, IDPs/IDPRs can be grouped into three major categories, foldable, non-foldable, and unfoldable. This is because natural cellular environment is not simply characterized by the presence of high concentration of “inert” macromolecules, but represents an active milieu, components of which are engaged in direct physical interactions and soft interactions with target proteins. Some of these interactions with cellular components can cause (local) unfolding of query proteins. In other words, since crowding can cause both folding and unfolding of an IDP or its regions, the outputs of the placing of a query protein to the crowded environment would depend on the balance between these two processes. As a result, and because of the spatio-temporal heterogeneity in structural organization of IDPs, macromolecular crowding can differently affect structures of different IDPs. Recent studies indicate that some IDPs are able to undergo liquid–liquid-phase transitions leading to the formation of various proteinaceous membrane-less organelles (PMLOs). Although interiors of such PMLOs are self-crowded, being characterized by locally increased concentrations of phase-separating IDPs, these IDPs are minimally foldable or even non-foldable at all (at least within the physiologically safe time-frame of normal PMLO existence).     

高等学校IT技术专业复合型人才培养创新研究

在社会高速发展的今天,IT领域专业技术人员的逐渐饱和使得对IT技术专业复合型人才的需求增加,复合型人才的巨大缺口制约了IT行业的更高速发展,这也逐渐引起了高校教育的重视,并致力于培养IT技术专业复合型人才。多元化的人才需求同时也是社会进步的具体体现。笔者通过对专才教育模式及复合型人才培养模式优劣势分析旨在借鉴国外研究经验并探究我国高校教育IT技术专业复合型人才培养创新模式。     

独立学院电气工程及其自动化实践教学探索

实践教学是培养学生实践能力、创新能力和综合能力的关键环节,对于增强学生的综合能力以及社会适应力都有重要作用。独立学院作为应用型人才的培养基地,发挥实践教学的作用显得尤为重要。该文总结广州大学松田学院现行实践教学中存在的主要问题,逐步分析问题形成的原因,在此基础上结合电气工程及其自动化专业本身特点,在实验教学、毕业论文等多个方面提出新的改革方式,进而开展多层次、多渠道的实践教学改革,对促进独立学院教学工作具有重要意义。     

Triple Medium Physical Model of Post Fracturing High-Rank Coal Reservoir in Southern Qinshui Basin

In this paper, influences on the reservoir permeability, the reservoir architecture and the fluid flow pattern caused by hydraulic fracturing are analyzed. Based on the structure and production fluid f...     

循环流化床锅炉返料器改造分析

本文介绍了循环流化床锅炉以及返料器存在的由于返料阀为高流率、低压头、小风量自平衡回灰阀,返料阀松动风采用一次冷风,使用过程中返料装置的配风管容易出现弯曲变形,返料不均匀造成堵塞的缺陷,返料装置的缺陷影响了锅炉的安全稳定运行,造成了一定的经济损失,为彻底解决此问题,通过对现有返料装置进行了改造,解决返料器堵塞的问题,为锅炉安全、稳定、长周期运行提供了基础保障。