Cold and wet: Diatoms dominate the phytoplankton community during a year of anomalous weather in a Great Lakes estuary

As sentinels of climate change and other anthropogenic forces, freshwater lakes are experiencing ecosystem disruptions at every level of the food web, beginning with the phytoplankton, a highly responsive group of organisms. Most studies regarding the effects of climate change on phytoplankton focus on a potential scenario in which temperatures continuously increase and droughts intersperse heavy precipitation events. Like much of the conterminous United States in 2019, the Muskegon River watershed (Michigan, USA) experienced record-breaking rainfall accompanied by unusually cool temperatures, affording an opportunity to explore how an alternate potential climate scenario may affect phytoplankton. We conducted biweekly sampling of environmental variables and phytoplankton in Muskegon Lake, a Great Lakes Area of Concern that connects to Lake Michigan. We compared environmental variables in 2019 to the previous eight years using long-term data from the Muskegon Lake Observatory buoy, and annual monitoring excursions provided historical phytoplankton data. Under cold and wet conditions, diatoms were the single dominant division throughout the entire growth season – an unprecedented scenario in Muskegon Lake. In 10 of the 13 biweekly sampling days in 2019, diatoms comprised over 75% of the phytoplankton community in the lake by count, indicating that the spring diatom bloom persisted through the fall. Additionally, phytoplankton seasonal succession and abundance patterns typically seen in this lake were absent. In a world experiencing reduced predictability, increased variability, and regional climate anomalies, studying periods of extreme weather events may offer insight into how natural systems will be affected and respond under future climate scenarios.     

极限工况下的管网“互联互通”改进方案

在全国天然气管道“主干互联、区域成网”(以下简称“互联互通”)基础格局逐渐形成的背景下,天然气管网规模日益扩大、管道分支和气源增加,并且分布不集中、输送方向可变,使得输气方案更加灵活,可以更好地解决某些地域的供气紧张问题;但受现有站场和设备的限制,暂不能满足某些多线组合极限工况,使得“互联互通”的初衷难以全部实现。为了使得现有的各输气干线在实现“互联互通”之后可以满足更多的多线组合工况,在分析“互联互通”背景下M管网工况变化的基础上,研发了可以进行水力仿真和压气站方案制订的计算软件,并对3种极限工况下的不同输气量情况进行了可行性试算,进而基于试算结果提出了相应的管网改进建议。研究结果表明:(1)经验证,软件计算误差满足要求;(2)在M管道某处增设压气站或在某些输气站场配置压缩机组;(3) M管网改进调整后,可以完成大部分的多线组合极限工况,真正实现“互联互通”的输气方案。结论认为,该研究成果有助于推进全国天然气管网早日实现“互联互通”。     

Retinal Vessel Extraction Framework Using Modified Adaboost Extreme Learning Machine

An explicit extraction of the retinal vessel is a standout amongst the most significant errands in the field of medical imaging to analyze both the ophthalmological infections, for example, Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) as well as non retinal sickness such as stroke, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. The state of the retinal vasculature is a significant indicative element in the field of ophthalmology. Retinal vessel extraction in fundus imaging is a difficult task because of varying size vessels, moderately low distinction, and presence of pathologies such as hemorrhages, microaneurysms etc. Manual vessel extraction is a challenging task due to the complicated nature of the retinal vessel structure, which also needs strong skill set and training. In this paper, a supervised technique for blood vessel extraction in retinal images using Modified Adaboost Extreme Learning Machine (MAD-ELM) is proposed. Firstly, the fundus image preprocessing is done for contrast enhancement and in-homogeneity correction. Then, a set of core features is extracted, and the best features are selected using “minimal Redundancy-maximum Relevance (mRmR).” Later, using MAD-ELM method vessels and non vessels are classified. DRIVE and DR-HAGIS datasets are used for the evaluation of the proposed method. The algorithm’s performance is assessed based on accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The proposed technique attains accuracy of 0.9619 on the DRIVE database and 0.9519 on DR-HAGIS database, which contains pathological images. Our results show that, in addition to healthy retinal images, the proposed method performs well in extracting blood vessels from pathological images and is therefore comparable with state of the art methods.     

Models for solar radiation prediction based on different measurement sites

The modeling of solar radiation for forecasting its availability is a key tool for managing photovoltaic (PV) plants and, hence, is of primary importance for energy production in a smart grid scenario. However, the variability of the weather phenomena is an unavoidable obstacle in the prediction of the energy produced by the solar radiation conversion. The use of the data collected in the past can be useful to capture the daily and seasonal variability, while measurement of the recent past can be exploited to provide a short term prediction. It is well known that a good measurement of the solar radiation requires not only a high class radiometer, but also a correct management of the instrument. In order to reduce the cost related to the management of the monitoring apparatus, a solution could be to evaluate the PV plant performance using data collected by public weather station installed near the plant. In this paper, two experiments are conducted. In the first, the plausibility of the short term prediction of the solar radiation, based on data collected in the near past on the same site is investigated. In the second experiment, the same prediction is operated using data collected by a public weather station located at ten kilometers from the solar plant. Several prediction techniques belonging from both computational intelligence and statistical fields have been challenged in this task. In particular, Support Vector Machine for Regression, Extreme Learning Machine and Autoregressive models have been used and compared with the persistence and the k-NN predictors. The prediction accuracy achieved in the two experimental conditions are then compared and the results are discussed.     

Runout analysis in fatigue investigation

Those individual tests in a series of experiments that are not completed or must be suspended are known as “censored points,” or “runouts”. Inclusion of runouts in data analysis can be problematic, and such ad hoc approaches as ignoring the runout observation or treating it as a failure can significantly affect estimation. The methodology offered here alleviates the handling of runouts and censored data by using the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method to incorporate the censored data properly. The methodology is illustrated with an example problem using actual data and the affects of ad hoc approaches are illustrated.     

基于改进LMD方法的风电机组齿轮箱故障诊断研究

局部均值函数的求取是局部均值分解(LMD)的关键环节。针对局部均值函数求取存在偏差进而造成模态混叠的问题,提出了一种基于局部积分均值的LMD风电机组齿轮箱故障诊断方法。该方法改变了对相邻两极值点求平均值的思路,采用求取相邻两极值点的局部积分均值,再通过滑动平均法进行平滑处理,最终得到局部均值函数。为实现风电机组齿轮箱故障诊断,首先采用改进LMD方法对信号进行降噪处理,然后采用多尺度熵提取降噪处理后信号的特征向量,最后采用极限学习机进行故障诊断。通过仿真分析,证明了该方法能有效解决模态混叠现象,提高了LMD的分解精度。试验验证分析表明,该方法的故障诊断准确率为100%,通过对比分析表明,该方法优于其他故障诊断方法,具有工程应用价值。     

Sensitivity analysis for simulation-based decision making: Application to a hospital emergency service design

An increasing concern of decision makers when dealing with system design is preparation for a wide range of potentially uncertain operating conditions. This paper provides a novel multiobjective approach for simulation-driven decision making that accounts for not only the conventional average system performance indices, but also (i) upper-tail, or extreme, values of these indices, and (ii) measures of their sensitivity to uncertainty in model parameters. The proposed approach is applied to a hospital emergency department service design case study wherein different design alternatives are compared using total time-in-system performance metric under multiple uncertain operating conditions.     

基于加权极限学习机的异常轨迹检测算法

针对现有异常轨迹检测中分类不平衡造成难以确定最优分类面的问题,提出一种基于加权极限学习机（ELM,Extreme Learning Machine）的异常轨迹检测算法。该算法采用加权ELM克服轨迹数据不平衡造成的分类面偏移,通过对正、负两类样本合理分配权重,并构造最优分类面获得较好的异常检测效果。仿真实验表明,加权ELM算法在训练速度,准确率,整体性能等方面均优干传统SVM和BP网络分类方法。     

极限训练机在矿山开采最大下沉值估算中的应用

矿山开采过程中采空区地表往往会发生形变,研究其最大下沉值对安全生产具有重要意义,现有的开采最大下沉估算方法还有提升的空间。基于岩移数据决策与极限训练机(Extreme learning machine,ELM)算法,提出了一种估计最大下沉的新方法。该方法将采厚、倾角、平均采深、走向长度、倾向长度和覆岩岩性确定为最大下沉值影响因素;应用以Sigmoid方程为核函数、隐含层神经元个数为114的ELM模型对最大下沉值进行了估算。通过案例分析,ELM模型得到了优于传统算法如CHAID、Boosted Tree、ANN、BPNN和SVM的RMSE、MAE、MAPE、最大残差及秩相关系数,故认为该模型是一种有效的矿山开采最大下沉估算方法。     

稀土化合物用作润滑油极压抗磨剂研究进展

综述了稀土化合物作为润滑油极压抗磨剂应用的研究进展。根据已发表的研究结果，包括含磷和无磷稀土有机化合物以及纳米稀土无机化合物的许多稀土化合物能非常有效地改进润滑油的极压抗磨性能，其中不少品种甚至具有比传统高效极压抗磨剂二烷基二硫代磷酸锌（ZDDP）更高的性能，因此，有希望发展成为一类可克服ZDDP局限性的新型低磷、无磷高效润滑油极压抗磨剂。