The performance of industrial robotic work cells depends on optimizing various hyperparameters referring to the cell layout, such as robot base placement, tool placement, and kinematic design. Achieving this requires a bilevel optimization approach, where the high-level optimization adjusts these hyperparameters, and the low-level optimization computes robot motions. However, computing the optimal robot motion is computationally infeasible, introducing trade-offs in motion planning to make the problem tractable. These trade-offs significantly impact the overall performance of the bilevel optimization, but their effects still need to be systematically evaluated. In this paper, we introduce metrics to assess these trade-offs regarding optimality, time gain, robustness, and consistency. Through extensive simulation studies, we investigate how simplifications in motion-level optimization affect the high-level optimization outcomes, balancing computational complexity with solution quality. The proposed algorithms are applied to find the time-optimal kinematic design for a modular robot in two palletization scenarios.
In direct response to requests for a logico-mathematical test of the conjecture, we formally disprove a recently conjectured artificial intelligence trade-off between epistemic certainty and scope in its published universal hyperbolic product form, as introduced in Philosophy and Technology. Certainty is defined as the worst-case correctness probability over the input space, and scope as the sum of the Kolmogorov complexities of the input and output sets. Using standard facts from coding theory and algorithmic information theory, we show, first, that when the conjecture is instantiated with prefix (self-delimiting, prefix-free) Kolmogorov complexity, it leads to an internal inconsistency, and second, that when it is instantiated with plain Kolmogorov complexity, it is refuted by a constructive counterexample. These results establish a main theorem: contrary to the conjecture's claim, no universal "certainty-scope" hyperbola holds as a general bound under the published definitions. We further show that a subsequent "entropy-based" revision, replacing the Kolmogorov scope with Shannon joint entropy and redefining the epistemic certainty level accordingly, cannot restore universality either.
This study extensively investigated the investor delusion in the Indian securities market over ten years (2013-2023), focusing on the grey swan period of 2020-23 using Nifty50 index data. The study fully addresses overconfidence bias at many levels. It initially checks for market-level overconfidence bias and then confirms it across NIFTY50 Index sectors. The study analyses industry overconfidence levels to reveal behavioural bias variances across Indian economic sectors. The study sheds light on overconfidence bias in three phases: pre-COVID (2013-19), Grey swan phase of COVID-19 (2020-23), and 2020 alone when India suffered unprecedented pandemic instability. By studying each era separately, the research illuminates the complicated dynamics of overconfidence bias during different market conditions and pandemic upheavals. Over the period, industries such as services, metals and minerals, and FMCG exhibited overconfident behaviour. Examining the impact of the grey swan phase of COVID-19 revealed an overconfidence bias in the Indian stock market, while the challenging period of 2020 demonstrated a loss aversion bias. We also detected a tendency in trading behaviour to overreact to private information signals, regarded as a component of overconfidence bias. This research shows how psychological prejudices impair market effectiveness and have implications for investors, regulators, and lawmakers. Investors can make better judgments and avoid behavioral biases by understanding overconfidence bias and its effects. Lawmakers and regulators can utilize these findings to create investor protection and market efficiency measures.
Ronaldo Irzon, Heri Hermiyanto, Ollybinar Rizkika
et al.
Nikel adalah salah satu sumber daya mineral unggulan Indonesia dan merupakan logam yang berperan strategis dalam industri global. Studi ini bertujuan untuk membahas sejarah, kondisi terkini, serta proyeksi masa depan industri nikel di Indonesia. Terdapat dua tipe endapan nikel, yaitu sulfida dan laterit. Nikel di Indonesia didominasi oleh tipe laterit yang tersebar luas di Sulawesi, Halmahera, dan Papua. Eksplorasi nikel di bumi Nusantara telah dimulai sejak tahun 1901. Oost Borneo Maatschappij dan Bone Tole Maatschappij adalah perusahaan yang melakukan eksplorasi nikel ketika masa kolonial. Pasca kemerdekaan, PT INCO dan PT Aneka Tambang berperan penting dalam eksploitasi logam tersebut. Kebutuhan global untuk industri baja tahan karat dan baterai kendaraan listrik mendorong peningkatan produksi nikel Indonesia sejak tahun 2017. Pemerintah telah menerapkan kebijakan hilirisasi dan larangan ekspor bahan mentah untuk meningkatkan nilai tambah industri nikel domestik. Dengan cadangan nikel terbesar secara global, Indonesia berpeluang untuk menjadi pemain kunci industri nikel pada masa mendatang. Indonesia perlu mengoptimalkan pemanfaatan metal companions sambil terus mengontrol kemungkinan pencemaran lingkungan akibat industri pertambangan dan pengolahan nikel. Sinergi antara pemerintah, pelaku industri, dan masyarakat menjadi kunci keberhasilan pemanfaatan nikel Indonesia. Kata Kunci: Nikel, Indonesia, laterit, metal companions, hilirisasi Abstact Nickel is one of Indonesia’s leading mineral resources and plays a strategic role in the global industry. This study aims to discuss the history, current conditions, and future projections of the nickel industry in Indonesia. There are two types of nickel deposits: sulfide and laterite. Indonesia’s nickel is predominantly of the laterite type, which is widely distributed in Sulawesi, Halmahera, and Papua. Nickel exploration in the archipelago began in 1901. Oost Borneo Maatschappij and Bone Tole Maatschappij were companies conducting nickel exploration during the colonial era. After independence, PT INCO and PT Aneka Tambang played significant roles in the exploitation of the metal. The global demand for the stainless steel and electric vehicle battery industries has driven Indonesia’s nickel production growth since 2017. The government has implemented downstream processing policies and export bans on raw materials to increase the added value of the domestic nickel industry. With the world’s largest nickel reserves, Indonesia has the potential to become a key player in the nickel industry in the future. Indonesia needs to optimize the utilization of metal companions while continuously controlling the potential environmental pollution caused by nickel mining and processing industries. Synergy between the government, industry players, and the public is essential for the successful utilization of Indonesia’s nickel. Keywords: Nickel, Indonesia, laterite, metal companions, downstream
The article provides a detailed analysis of current issues related to ensuring food safety and monitoring the content of toxic elements—cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb)—in leguminous crops, particularly in beans, which are among the most important sources of plant-based protein and mineral nutrients. Special attention is given to assessing the influence of various technological processing stages—boiling, germination, drying, and subsequent concentration—on changes in the levels of heavy metals in the final product. The aim of the study is to determine the extent to which the content of hazardous elements decreases as a result of these technological processes and to identify the most effective processing methods that improve the quality and safety of bean-based products. The research utilized bean samples from the 2021 and 2022 harvests grown under the conditions of the Sughd Region, as well as concentrates obtained from these beans. Laboratory analyses were carried out at the Laboratory of Food and Agricultural Products of the Sughd Center for Standardization, Metrology, Certification, and Trade Inspection using a modern voltammetric method characterized by high precision and sensitivity in detecting trace metal concentrations. The results showed that the levels of cadmium and lead in the raw materials did not exceed the permissible limits established by Technical Regulation TR CU 021/2011 “On Food Safety.” Furthermore, it was found that technological processing leads to a significant reduction in the concentration of toxic elements. In particular, the amount of cadmium decreased by more than 200–330 times, while the content of lead was reduced by 400–540 times compared to the raw samples. These findings indicate the high efficiency of the selected processing methods. Thus, the proposed technological approach to bean processing makes it possible to significantly enhance the safety, environmental purity, and nutritional value of the final product. This has great importance for the development of domestic production of functional and dietary food products, as well as for expanding the range of high-quality legume-based ingredients used in the food industry and in healthy nutrition.
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) encompasses informal or formal operational mining activities that primarily use traditional tools and simple methods and techniques for resources of earth extraction, transportation and processing. ASM generally, requires minimal operational capital investment and is typically characterized by low capital, intensive labor worker and comprises an individual’s working as private or in family groups, as well as in partnerships, or as members of cooperatives in legal associations and enterprises. Ethiopia is one of a developing country, endowed with different mineral resources, where ASM was the most common practice among the people who live in rural parts of the country next to agriculture. Despite the ASM methods being traditional, mining activity practices were wasteful nature and abounding with so many obstacles and miners were making effort to continue their work of extract minerals primarily focuses on mining precious metals like gold, platinum, tantalum, lithium, copper, gemstones and semiprecious gemstones like opal, emerald, sapphire, aquamarine, amazonite, and other semiprecious type of gemstone, industrial minerals like clay, crushed stone, diatomite, gypsum, salt, sand, silica sand. A huge number of ASM’s in Ethiopia still face significant obstacles/challenges including a lack of the best mining and processing practices, low degree of capitalization and mechanization, limited financial access, lack of training on capacity building to increase production and productivity, inadequate environmental impact reduction measures, and limited access to marketing opportunities. Ethiopia is now implementing several initiatives/ measures which support the growth of ASM industry sector to revitalize the ASM with its main goal. To fully benefit from ASM, the government must work on ASM formalization through the novel idea of cluster and manage. To gradually transform/turn ASM into ASSM support them by suiting conditions on how to get equipments through rent approach, link with technology manufacturing industry and additionally provide training on sustainable mining and processing technology in the process of ASM transformation.
One of the key areas of ensuring financial security is the effective management of national natural resources, in particular the mineral and raw material complex and rare earth metals. Research into the issues of marketing management of financial security through the prism of the use of natural resources and cooperation with foreign corporations will allow determining the optimal approaches to attracting investment, ensuring sustainable economic development and increasing the level of financial independence of the state. The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of popular trading strategies, such as long-term investments, medium-term trading and day trading, in order to determine their effectiveness for investors with different levels of risk. The hypothesis is put forward that success in the stock market depends not only on the choice of strategy, but also on the individual characteristics of the investor, such as patience, risk appetite and the availability of the necessary knowledge. The object of the study is the financial security management system in the conditions of using the mineral and raw material complex and rare earth metals of Ukraine. The methodological basis of the study was scientific publications, monographs, articles in specialized publications, as well as data from real markets. Methods of technical and fundamental analysis were used, as well as a comparative analysis of various trading strategies. The main hypothesis of the study is that effective marketing management of the mineral and raw materials complex, based on a combination of state control, strategic planning and innovative mechanisms of cooperation with foreign investors, will contribute to strengthening the financial security of Ukraine, reducing the risks of dependence on global markets and ensuring stable economic development. Presentation of the main material. The study analyzed marketing approaches to managing the country's mineral and raw materials potential. It is emphasized that the use of marketing strategies in the mineral and raw materials complex allows not only to increase revenues to the state budget, but also to create competitive advantages for the national economy. The strategic positioning of Ukraine as a supply center for critical minerals is analyzed. It is proposed to carry out branding of national resources by creating certification standards of quality and environmental safety, as well as to activate investment marketing to attract international partners in the development and processing of resources. The originality and practical significance of the study lies in a comprehensive approach to considering issues of financial security through the prism of marketing mechanisms for managing the country's mineral and raw material potential. The study combines the analysis of economic policy, strategic marketing and natural resource management, which makes it possible to propose new solutions for the effective use of national assets. The uniqueness of the work also lies in taking into account international experience and adapting the best practices of developed countries to the conditions of the Ukrainian economy. Conclusions and prospects for further research. The analysis showed that the implementation of marketing strategies in the natural resource management system will contribute to the optimization of financial flows and increase the investment attractiveness of the industry. The mineral and raw materials complex of Ukraine has significant potential for ensuring financial stability and economic growth, however, its effective use requires strategic management and stimulating the development of the domestic processing industry.
The recent banking crisis has again emphasized the importance of understanding and mitigating systemic risk in financial networks. In this paper, we study a market-driven approach to rescue a bank in distress based on the idea of claims trading, a notion defined in Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. We formalize the idea in the context of financial networks by Eisenberg and Noe. For two given banks v and w, we consider the operation that w takes over some claims of v and in return gives liquidity to v to ultimately rescue v. We study the structural properties and computational complexity of decision and optimization problems for several variants of claims trading. When trading incoming edges of v, we show that there is no trade in which both banks v and w strictly improve their assets. We therefore consider creditor-positive trades, in which v profits strictly and w remains indifferent. For a given set C of incoming edges of v, we provide an efficient algorithm to compute payments by w that result in maximal assets of v. When the set C must also be chosen, the problem becomes weakly NP-hard. Our main result here is a bicriteria FPTAS to compute an approximate trade. The approximate trade results in nearly the optimal amount of assets of v in any exact trade. Our results extend to the case in which banks use general monotone payment functions and the emerging clearing state can be computed efficiently. In contrast, for trading outgoing edges of v, the goal is to maximize the increase in assets for the creditors of v. Notably, for these results the characteristics of the payment functions of the banks are essential. For payments ranking creditors one by one, we show NP-hardness of approximation within a factor polynomial in the network size, when the set of claims C is part of the input or not. Instead, for proportional payments, our results indicate more favorable conditions.
David Wichner, Jeffrey Wishart, Jason Sergent
et al.
Safety Management Systems (SMSs) have been used in many safety-critical industries and are now being developed and deployed in the automated driving system (ADS)-equipped vehicle (AV) sector. Industries with decades of SMS deployment have established frameworks tailored to their specific context. Several frameworks for an AV industry SMS have been proposed or are currently under development. These frameworks borrow heavily from the aviation industry although the AV and aviation industries differ in many significant ways. In this context, there is a need to review the approach to develop an SMS that is tailored to the AV industry, building on generalized lessons learned from other safety-sensitive industries. A harmonized AV-industry SMS framework would establish a single set of SMS practices to address management of broad safety risks in an integrated manner and advance the establishment of a more mature regulatory framework. This paper outlines a proposed SMS framework for the AV industry based on robust taxonomy development and validation criteria and provides rationale for such an approach. Keywords: Safety Management System (SMS), Automated Driving System (ADS), ADS-Equipped Vehicle, Autonomous Vehicles (AV)
Environmental-economic analysis is an evolving field that seeks to situate the human economy within environmental systems through its consumption of environmental resources and cycling of resources and waste products back into the environment. Environmental accounting has seen increased focus in recent years as national and regional governments look to better track environmental flows to aid in policy development and evaluation. This study outlines a conceptual environmental-economic framework founded on network science principles. An empirical study operationalizes portions of the framework and highlights the need for further research in this area to develop new data sources and analytic methods. We demonstrate a spatial mismatch between the location of water-intensive industries and the natural location of water resources (i.e., lakes, rivers, and precipitation), which climate change is likely to exacerbate. We use eigenvector centrality to measure differences in the US economy according to economic trade flow and five associated environmental flow accounts (land use, water consumption, energy use, mineral metal use, and greenhouse gas production). Population normalization helps to identify low-population counties that play a central role in the environmental-economic system as a function of their natural resources.
Recently, various issues have been raised in the automobile battery market, and the starting point is the issue of core minerals through the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the use of recycled raw materials and materials through Europe's CRMA. At the same time, battery technology is diversifying, with batteries using various materials such as iron phosphate as well as existing ternary batteries being installed in automobiles, and the development and application of sodium batteries have been reported, and research is actively underway. Additionally, research is being actively conducted on lithium metal batteries, all-solid-state batteries, and lithium sulfur batteries as future technologies that can significantly increase energy density. We would like to discuss the current issues in batteries, the direction of technological development, and areas to focus on as anticipated by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, as well as response strategies and business directions.
Micronutrients such as Zn, Cu, Fe, and Mn are required metals for plant crops to increase their yield and quality. Metals are included in numerous biochemical reactions as enzymes, co-enzymes, and co-factors. Copper, zinc, and manganese are essential for the development and growth of animal as pigs and broiler chicks. Amino acids are of significant importance and are used in many applications, fields, and industries such as food, animal feed, supplement, pharmaceutical production, and as biofertilizers. Fertilizers of inorganic mineral structure are hardly diffused from the leaf surface into the plant, while chelated minerals with amino acids provide a great advantage in increasing the absorption efficiency and translocation of minerals within the plant. Also, it was known that derivatives of free or chelated amino acids have marked antioxidant activity and are able to inhibit the development of tumor tissues and leading to increase immune protective abilities of the organisms. Nanotechnology increased the application efficiency of metal-amino acid complexes. Using nano fertilizers to plants is one of critical importance due to their unique properties in size and increased surface areas. It released the nutrients on demand and regulates plant growth (such as wheat, rice, barley, and rapeseed plants). Metal chelating complexes have found extensive applications in various fields of human interest. Chelators are used in medical applications; water softeners are included as ingredients in many commercial products such as shampoos and food preservatives and control heavy metal pollution in aquacultures. Amino acids may be used separately in chelation process as free amino acids or can be separated from plant or animal wastes. It can be separated by hydrolysis of plant or agricultural crop wastes as thrones of tomato and sugar beet plants. Also, it can be separated from animal origin as leather wastes and chicken feather waste or from whey of cow milk after mozzarella cheese formation. So, amino acid production from wastes decreases the cost of metal-chelated complex formation.
We study the role of filler concentration and microphysics on the rheology of polydisperse flake-graphite particles suspended in Newtonian mineral oil. Under steady shear, our samples exhibit shear thinning and yielding behaviour is observed for volume fractions $φ> 0.18$. Time-temperature superposition was observed using an Arrhenius-type horizontal shift factor, giving a flow activation energy that is dependent on the graphite volume fraction, suggesting concentration-dependent contributions to relaxation processes in the suspensions. The flow curves are fitted by a constraint-based model, indicating that the flow behaviour is controlled by frictional and adhesive contacts, with the model suggesting that the adhesive stress is temperature dependent.
The time proximity of high-frequency trades can contain a salient signal. In this paper, we propose a method to classify every trade, based on its proximity with other trades in the market within a short period of time, into five types. By means of a suitably defined normalized order imbalance associated to each type of trade, which we denote as conditional order imbalance (COI), we investigate the price impact of the decomposed trade flows. Our empirical findings indicate strong positive correlations between contemporaneous returns and COIs. In terms of predictability, we document that associations with future returns are positive for COIs of trades which are isolated from trades of stocks other than themselves, and negative otherwise. Furthermore, trading strategies which we develop using COIs achieve conspicuous returns and Sharpe ratios, in an extensive experimental setup on a universe of 457 stocks using daily data for a period of four years.
Discovering frequent trends in time series is a critical task in data mining. Recently, order-preserving matching was proposed to find all occurrences of a pattern in a time series, where the pattern is a relative order (regarded as a trend) and an occurrence is a sub-time series whose relative order coincides with the pattern. Inspired by the order-preserving matching, the existing order-preserving pattern (OPP) mining algorithm employs order-preserving matching to calculate the support, which leads to low efficiency. To address this deficiency, this paper proposes an algorithm called efficient frequent OPP miner (EFO-Miner) to find all frequent OPPs. EFO-Miner is composed of four parts: a pattern fusion strategy to generate candidate patterns, a matching process for the results of sub-patterns to calculate the support of super-patterns, a screening strategy to dynamically reduce the size of prefix and suffix arrays, and a pruning strategy to further dynamically prune candidate patterns. Moreover, this paper explores the order-preserving rule (OPR) mining and proposes an algorithm called OPR-Miner to discover strong rules from all frequent OPPs using EFO-Miner. Experimental results verify that OPR-Miner gives better performance than other competitive algorithms. More importantly, clustering and classification experiments further validate that OPR-Miner achieves good performance.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are currently a hot topic of global concern. It is of great significance for reducing CO2 emissions to fully understand the transfer pattern of CO2 emissions among industries and the key factors affecting CO2 emissions. This paper uses the structural path analysis model to explore deeply the main paths of inter-industry transfer of CO2 emissions in China from 2002 to 2017 and applies the structural path decomposition model to analyze the main factors affecting CO2 emissions in specific paths from the perspectives of CO2 emission intensity, intermediate product input structure, final demand structure, per capita final demand, and population size. The results show that: (1) China's CO2 emissions increased from 3500.41 million tons (Mt) in 2002 to 9475.66Mt in 2017, with an average annual growth rate of 6.86%. The growth rate of China's CO2 emissions slowed down after 2012. (2) Non-metallic mineral industry\electricity industry\metal products industry→(intermediate sector)→investment demand and electricity industry→(intermediate sector)→consumption demand are two types of key paths that affect China's CO2 emissions, and these paths remain basically unchanged during the study period. (3) The CO2 emission intensity effect is the main factor in restraining the growth of emissions, and the per capita final demand effect and intermediate product structure effect are the main promoting factors. The effect of driving factors on different industrial paths is different, and the offsetting effect of the driving factor in different paths may lead to the insignificant effect of this factor in the overall decomposition. To effectively reduce CO2 emissions, China should focus on specific industrial paths and implement upstream and downstream comprehensive governance to achieve a low-carbon industrial chain throughout the whole process.
The three-dimensional (3D) geological models are the typical and key data source in the 3D mineral prospecitivity modeling. Identifying prospectivity-informative predictor variables from the 3D geological models is a challenging and tedious task. Motivated by the ability of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn the intrinsic features, in this paper, we present a novel method that leverages CNNs to learn 3D mineral prospectivity from the 3D geological models. By exploiting the learning ability of CNNs, the presented method allows for disentangling complex correlation to the mineralization and thus opens a door to circumvent the tedious work for designing the predictor variables. Specifically, to explore the unstructured 3D geological models with the CNNs whose input should be structured, we develop a 2D CNN framework in which the geometry of geological boundary is compiled and reorganized into multi-channel images and fed into the CNN. This ensures an effective and efficient training of CNNs while allowing the prospective model to approximate the ore-forming process. The presented method is applied to a typical structure-controlled hydrothermal deposit, the Dayingezhuang gold deposit, eastern China, in which the presented method was compared with the prospectivity modeling methods using hand-designed predictor variables. The results demonstrate the presented method capacitates a performance boost of the 3D prospectivity modeling and empowers us to decrease work-load and prospecting risk in prediction of deep-seated orebodies.
We analysed the characteristics of foreign trade for the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor’ regions. We also examined the commodity and geographic structure of exports and imports of the Economic Corridor regions: the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Mongolia, and the Baikal region of Russia. A large share of Russian and Mongolian exports is made up of raw materials, such as minerals, metals and their low value-added products. Products of the chemical industry, ferrous metals and their products prevail in the commodity structure of the export of Inner Mongolia. The priority in cooperation of these regions is to upgrade transport and cross-border infrastructure to increase transit potential in freight transportation along the planned China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor. Through the Economic Corridor project, these regions can significantly strengthen foreign economic cooperation.
Martina Lattemann, Ruiwen Xie, Raquel Lizárraga
et al.
For many decades, the magnetic saturation of, e.g. hard metals (HM) such as WC-Co-based cemented carbides, has been used as process and quality control in industry to ensure consistency of product properties. In an urge of replacing cobalt as a binder phase, a demand on understanding the magnetic response as a function of composition on the atomic scale is growing. In this paper, a theoretical description of the measured weight specific magnetic saturation of hard metals as a function of the tungsten weight fraction present in the cobalt binder phase, based on first-principle calculations, has been established for standard WC-Co. The predicted magnetic saturation agrees well with the experimental one. Furthermore, it is proposed that the theoretical description can be extended to alternative and more complex binder phases which allows to transfer the production control to those hard metals.