In modern industrial production, the selection and evaluation of technological processes is a factor in achieving high quality, efficiency, and sustainability. Due to the existence of numerous and often contradictory criteria, the decision-making process requires the application of reliable multi-criteria methods. This article demonstrates the application of MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision-Making) methods, the FUCOM (Full Consistency Method), for evaluating and selecting a rational technological process under real production conditions. The research results presented in the article demonstrate that the FUCOM method ensures a high degree of consistency, transparency, and efficiency in the evaluation of technological processes. It allows, among a variety of alternative technological process for manufacturing a given product, for the clear identification of the most rational one according to specified requirements. The data obtained in a real production environment confirm the applicability of the method in the field of production engineering and provide a basis for future research and optimization of technological processes.
The purpose of the study is to reveal the existing trends, contradictions, and patterns in functioning and development of interregional and inter-municipal cooperation institutions. Contradictions in the encountered institutions functioning have been highlighted in their powers and performance. Among the trends in the institutions development the following have been noted: management decentralization, strengthening of the regional and municipal authorities role in planning and implementation of spatial development projects, vector for strengthening sustainability, sustainable development principles integration in strategies and projects that allows to consider not only economic and environmental aspects in planning, but also social ones, strengthening of innovativeness and financing of interregional and inter-municipal cooperation institutions, spatial development management digitalization, public participation in solving problems of improving interregional and inter-municipal cooperation, and strengthening of international cooperation in relevant projects implementation. Among the patterns in the institutions development it is necessary to define their focus on functioning in the context of horizontal links globalization, growth of development sustainability and population mobility, digitalization and innovativeness, ensuring security on the basis of risk management, which implies legal integration and standards harmonization, intensive exchange of the best projects, activation of local authorities and population in projects implementation. The author’s proposals for improving institutions in modern conditions include transition to the project approach, reorientation of the policy in this area to ensure mutual benefit, and priority in supporting projects of inter-territorial importance, capable of ensuring territorial connectivity and unity of economic space.
In response to the surge of urbanization in the modern era, many organisms have undergone various changes, such as the shift of their morphological traits to face the challenges brought by this drastic environmental transformation. Rapid adaptive evolution in the morphology of urban-dwelling organisms has been documented in a broad array of taxa, such as lizards and birds, by comparing urban populations with their nonurban counterparts. However, relevant studies concerning more elusive and secretive organisms that also occur in both natural and urbanized habitats (e.g., snakes), are still lacking. Snakes lack appendages, which are often the trait of interest in other morphological studies, but factors such as head shape play a critical role in snakes, as it determines the prey size of these gape-limited predators. In this study, we apply both linear and geometric morphometric analyses to examine interpopulation morphological differences and sexual dimorphism in a small, semi-fossorial snake, Dekay’s brownsnake (Storeria dekayi). We focus on head shape in six different populations across the rural-urban gradient in New Jersey and New York, USA. We find evidence of increased morphological divergence and decreased sexual dimorphism in populations inhabiting more urbanized areas. Our study suggests the occurrence of an adaptive morphological shift in this common species in the urban environments, and lays the path for further investigation of urban adaptation in snakes and similar secretive species.
Abstract In the field of expensive optimization, numerous papers have proposed surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithms (SAEAs) for a few thousand or even hundreds of function evaluations. However, in reality, low-cost simulations suffice for a lot of real-world problems, in which the number of function evaluations is moderately restricted, e.g., to several thousands. In such moderately restricted scenario, SAEAs become unnecessarily time-consuming and tend to struggle with premature convergence. In addition, tuning the SAEA parameters becomes impractical under the restricted budgets of function evaluations—in some cases, inadequate configuration may degrade performance instead. In this context, this paper presents a fast and auto-tunable evolutionary algorithm for solving moderately restricted expensive optimization problems. The presented algorithm is a variant of adaptive differential evolution (DE) algorithms, and is called emulation-based adaptive DE or EBADE. The primary aim of EBADE is to emulate the principle of sample-efficient optimization, such as that in SAEAs, by adaptively tuning the DE parameter configurations. Specifically, similar to Expected Improvement-based sampling, EBADE identifies parameter configurations that may produce expected-to-improve solutions, without using function evaluations. Further, EBADE incepts a multi-population mechanism and assigns a parameter configuration to each subpopulation to estimate the effectiveness of parameter configurations with multiple samples carefully. This subpopulation-based adaptation can help improve the selection accuracy of promising parameter configurations, even when using an expected-to-improve indicator with high uncertainty, by validating with respect to multiple samples. The experimental results demonstrate that EBADE outperforms modern adaptive DEs and is highly competitive compared to SAEAs with a much shorter runtime.
Electronic computers. Computer science, Information technology
Modern electrical power grids are characterized by a significant increase in renewable energy generation, often complemented by energy storage systems. Integrating these storage devices helps to offset the challenges posed by the decreased system inertia resulting from high levels of renewable energy penetration. However, the limited capacity of these storage units, attributed to their high costs, necessitates incorporating controlled loads such as high voltage air conditioning (HVAC), compressors, chillers, or pumps to enhance frequency stability through demand response (DR). This paper proposes a novel control scheme containing a dual-hybrid fractional controller for load frequency control (LFC) and DR. The structure of this control scheme comprises two components, each utilizing fractional order tilt-integral-derivative alongside a fractional filter termed D-Hyd controller. One component handles the LFC through the area control error (ACE) signal, and the other handles the DR through the area frequency deviation. Moreover, a new application of the exponential distribution optimization (EDO) algorithm is developed to determine the parameters of the proposed controllers concurrently. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated through case studies involving two interconnected areas with photovoltaic and wind energy sources. Various test scenarios and comparisons with existing methods in the literature are presented to assess the performance of the proposed controller and optimization algorithm. Moreover, practical uncertainties are considered in the test scenarios to evaluate the stability and robustness of the proposed schemes. Compared to recent control methods in the literature, the proposed control scheme offers more flexibility and resiliency in preserving system stability.
The article is devoted to analyzing aspects of biosecurity and biosecurity in the conditions of poultry farms under different poultry-keeping schemes. Production of poultry meat in the EU countries by species is broiler meat – 84.4 %, turkeys – 12.7 %, ducklings – 2.6 %, and other types of slaughtered poultry meat – 0.3 %. Ukraine is one of the five countries in the world that are the largest exporters of poultry meat to the EU, and the volume of poultry meat exported to EU member states in 2023 amounted to 97.469 tons. Compliance with basic biological safety measures is the best way to reduce the risk of spreading infectious diseases, produce safe products, and ensure veterinary food safety. Biosecurity in poultry farming involves some fundamental methods and strategies. Biosecurity is based on two fundamental principles: preventing pathogens from entering the territory of poultry farming (external biosecurity) and their further distribution (internal biosecurity). Factors of external biosecurity are the control of the penetration of biological vectors of the causative agents of poultry infectious diseases (restriction of the entry of vehicles into the farm territory, entry of outsiders, wild animals, rodents, synanthropic birds, and insects). Control of biological vectors of introducing pathogens into the farm is carried out through physical protection barriers (arrangement of fences, fences, installation of protective nets and screens on windows, doors, and ventilation shafts). The factors of internal biosecurity of poultry farms include the system of keeping poultry, proper practice of waste management (timely removal of poultry carcasses, litter, manure, method of waste management), use of hygienic means of bioprotection by employees, hygienic processing between «clean» and "dirty" areas of maintenance facilities, control and management of feed and water, cleaning and disinfection of production facilities. The level of biosecurity depends on the epizootic situation and the industry's provision of modern means of diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. In the conditions of martial law in our country, the principal risks of biological decline are the destruction of homesteads of the population and industrial-type poultry farms; the difficulty of disposing of poultry carcasses, waste from the poultry industry, and household waste following current requirements, as well as changes in the migration routes of synanthropic birds.
After Covid 19, hazards appeared for the development of the hotel and restaurant business. Some of the skilled personnel left this business and headed for more sustainable industries or abroad. Therefore, the aim of the work is to study the main factors affecting the survival and prospects for the development of the restaurant business in the hotel-restaurant complexes in Bulgaria. The main motivations of consumers for the future development of modern restaurants in the country aimed at increasing customer satisfaction have been studied. The research was conducted through qualitative and quantitative marketing research and SWOT analysis of available high-end hotels and dining and entertainment establishments in Bulgaria. Mathematical and statistical models were used to process the data of the respondents for each of the questions. The results are presented graphically. A comparative characterization of six hotel-restaurant chains in Bulgaria was made in terms of categorization, comfort, amenities and quality of service, and way of eating in the restaurants. The positive sides and their shortcomings and prospects for development in the current economic situation are reflected, and the consequences of the Covid 19 crisis are also taken into account.
Clinical imaging modalities are a mainstay of modern disease management, but the full utilization of imaging-based data remains elusive. Aortic disease is defined by anatomic scalars quantifying aortic size, even though aortic disease progression initiates complex shape changes. We present an imaging-based geometric descriptor, inspired by fundamental ideas from topology and soft-matter physics that captures dynamic shape evolution. The aorta is reduced to a two-dimensional mathematical surface in space whose geometry is fully characterized by the local principal curvatures. Disease causes deviation from the smooth bent cylindrical shape of normal aortas, leading to a family of highly heterogeneous surfaces of varying shapes and sizes. To deconvolute changes in shape from size, the shape is characterized using integrated Gaussian curvature or total curvature. The fluctuation in total curvature (δK) across aortic surfaces captures heterogeneous morphologic evolution by characterizing local shape changes. We discover that aortic morphology evolves with a power-law defined behavior with rapidly increasing δK forming the hallmark of aortic disease. Divergent δK is seen for highly diseased aortas indicative of impending topologic catastrophe or aortic rupture. We also show that aortic size (surface area or enclosed aortic volume) scales as a generalized cylinder for all shapes. Classification accuracy for predicting aortic disease state (normal, diseased with successful surgery, and diseased with failed surgical outcomes) is 92.8±1.7%. The analysis of δK can be applied on any three-dimensional geometric structure and thus may be extended to other clinical problems of characterizing disease through captured anatomic changes.
Extrachromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA) is a double-stranded DNA molecule found in various organisms, including humans. In the past few decades, the research on eccDNA has mainly focused on cancers and their associated diseases. Advancements in modern omics technologies have reinvigorated research on eccDNA and shed light on the role of these molecules in a range of diseases and normal cell phenotypes. In this review, we first summarize the formation of eccDNA and its modes of action in eukaryotic cells. We then outline eccDNA as a disease biomarker and reveal its regulatory mechanism. We finally discuss the future prospects of eccDNA, including basic research and clinical application. Thus, with the deepening of understanding and exploration of eccDNAs, they hold great promise in future biomedical research and clinical translational application.
Tujuan penulisan artikel ini adalah untuk mengetahui latar belakang pelaksanaan pendidikan Indonesia pada masa tanam paksa sampai politik liberal di Indonesia dan memahami berbagai macam perkembangan dan pelaksanaan pendidikan Indonesia di pada masa itu. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode sejarah melalui tahapan heuristik, kritik, interpretasi, dan historiografi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa munculnya pembelajaran dengan pendidikan modern yang menumbuhkan sikap nasionalisme serta menghasilkan kebutuhan tenaga terampil di Indonesia. Dengan demikian, perkembangan dan pelaksanaan pendidikan Indonesia pada masa tanam paksa dan politik liberal Belanda di Indonesia mendorong munculnya beberapa tokoh kebangkitan nasional yang memiliki pemikiran luas dan mau membela rakyat Indonesia untuk merdeka. Hal ini menjadi titik awal perjuangan bangsa Indonesia menuju kemerdekaan
New challenges of urban transport are connected to sustainability, the growing urban population globally, life quality and quality of urban environment, reduction of pollution and energy consumption. Sustainable urban mobility is no more dependent only on passenger transport efficiency, but also on transport accessibility of commuting services, acceptable level of comfort, safety and security of urban public transport and many more. Although a huge amount of data are available from modern communication services, the question of how to use those big data efficiently to improve urban mobility is unknown. Positive changes of mobility attitudes and travel behavior of citizens are going slowly, which means that personal motivation do not follow big data availability. This motivation is dependent on quality of public transport offer and services, among which information services are suspected to play a crucial role. Modern ICT methods of transport information delivery are based on Internet and social media, which through commonly used mobile devices are available at every stage of journey. In this article authors try, based on the pilot survey, to check how young Krakow citizens use social media in every day travels and commuting. The overall goal of the author’s study is to answer the question: how to use big data coming from ICT in order to upgrade urban transport sustainability.
Ahmad Muthi Abdillah, Ahmad Sulaeman, Tiurma Sinaga
Cholesterol-lowering herbal treatment made from natural ingredients are believed to be able to replace modern medicine even though it has not been scientifi cally proven. Purpose of this study was to test perceptions of customers and eff ects of mixed herbal drink on lipid profi le of consumers with hypercholesterolemia. Study was conducted using cross sectional study design consisted of three stages, that is survey, questionnaire data collection, and medical record data collection. The research subjects were selected by stratifi ed random sampling, which subjects were consumers of mixed herbal drink in total of 55 people, both men and women. Data was collected through interviews of questionnaires covering subject characteristics, subject perceptions of mixed herbal drink, and their medical record data before and after consumption of mixed herbal drinks. Paired T-test were used to observe the diff erences in subject lipid profi le before and after consumption of mixed herbal drink. Consumer perceptions toward health aspects showed that 83.7% of subjects experienced a decrease in cholesterol after consuming mixed herbal drink. Consumer emotional perception showed that 90.9% of subjects feel healthier and fi lter after consuming mixed herbal drink. Results of subject medical records on lipid profi le showed a decrease in total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides (p<0.05). Based on perceptions and medical records, it is known that mixed herbal drink can be used as an alternative to traditional cholesterol-lowering medicines.
Nutrition. Foods and food supply, Food processing and manufacture