Farmers' preferences for adopting on-farm concentration of raw milk: Results from a discrete choice experiment in Germany

Milk concentrates are used in the manufacturing of dairy products such as yogurt and cheese or are processed into milk powder. Processes for the nonthermal separation of water and valuable milk ingredients are becoming increasingly widespread at farm level. The technical barriers to using farm-manufactured milk concentrate in dairies are minimal, hence the suspicion that the practice of on-farm raw milk concentration is still fairly uncommon for economic reasons. This study, therefore, set out to investigate farmers' potential willingness to adopt a raw milk concentration plant. The empirical analysis was based on discrete choice experiments with 75 German dairy farmers to identify preferences and the possible adoption of on-farm raw milk concentration. The results showed that, in particular, farmers who deemed the current milk price to be insufficient viewed on-farm concentration using membrane technology as an option for diversifying their milk sales. We found no indication that adoption would be impeded by a lack of trustworthy information on milk processing technologies or capital.     

Probabilistic learning on manifolds (PLoM) with partition

The probabilistic learning on manifolds (PLoM) introduced in 2016 has solved difficult supervised problems for the “small data” limit where the number N of points in the training set is small. Many extensions have since been proposed, making it possible to deal with increasingly complex cases. However, the performance limit has been observed and explained for applications for which N is very small and for which the dimension of the diffusion-map basis is close to N. For these cases, we propose a novel extension based on the introduction of a partition in independent random vectors. We take advantage of this development to present improvements of the PLoM such as a simplified algorithm for constructing the diffusion-map basis and a new mathematical result for quantifying the concentration of the probability measure in terms of a probability upper bound. The analysis of the efficiency of this extension is presented through two applications.     

电商平台产品共同购买网络的影响因素研究

共同购买网络的推荐系统应用越加广泛，仅基于网络内生结构变量研究其共同购买链接的经济意义已有局限，故加入网络口碑这一外生变量，进行更全面的分析。采用了社会网络方法中指数随机图模型进行建模，主要围绕产品销售量、产品入度、差评率和评论数4个方面因素，探究其对共同购买网络中共同购买链接形成的影响。结果显示，销售量、产品入度和评论数对共同购买链接形成的影响呈正比关系，而差评率则会显著地降低产品共同购买的几率。该指数随机图构建出的共同购买网络为在线电商平台管理网络口碑和推荐系统优化设计提供有益参考。     

Coverage optimization algorithm based on VF-CS in mobile sensor network

A random placement of large-scale sensor network in the outdoor environment often causes low coverage.An area coverage optimization algorithm of mobile sensor network (MSN) based on virtual force perturbation and Cuckoo search (VF-CS) was proposed.Firstly,the virtual force of the sensor nodes within the Thiessen polygon was analyzed based on the partitioning of Voronoi diagram of the monitoring area.Secondly,the force of polygon vertices and neighbor nodes was taken as the perturbation factor for updating the node’s location of the Cuckoo search (CS).Finally,the VF-CS guided the node to move so as to achieve the optimal coverage.The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has higher coverage and shorter average moving distance of nodes than the Voronoi diagram based algorithms in literatures.     

Relevance- and interface-driven clustering for visual information retrieval

Search results of spatio-temporal data are often displayed on a map, but when the number of matching search results is large, it can be time-consuming to individually examine all results, even when using methods such as filtered search to narrow the content focus. This suggests the need to aggregate results via a clustering method. However, standard unsupervised clustering algorithms like $K$-means (i) ignore relevance scores that can help with the extraction of highly relevant clusters, and (ii) do not necessarily optimize search results for purposes of visual presentation. In this article, we address both deficiencies by framing the clustering problem for search-driven user interfaces in a novel optimization framework that (i) aims to maximize the relevance of aggregated content according to cluster-based extensions of standard information retrieval metrics and (ii) defines clusters via constraints that naturally reflect interface-driven desiderata of spatial, temporal, and keyword coherence that do not require complex ad-hoc distance metric specifications as in $K$-means. After comparatively benchmarking algorithmic variants of our proposed approach – RadiCAL – in offline experiments, we undertake a user study with 24 subjects to evaluate whether RadiCAL improves human performance on visual search tasks in comparison to $K$-means clustering and a filtered search baseline. Our results show that (a) our binary partitioning search (BPS) variant of RadiCAL is fast, near-optimal, and extracts higher-relevance clusters than $K$-means, and (b) clusters optimized via RadiCAL result in faster search task completion with higher accuracy while requiring a minimum workload leading to high effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction among alternatives.     

超精密气体静压系统节流器法向随机微振动研究

以无气腔平面节流器为研究对象,对节流器流固耦合法向随机微振动进行了理论仿真和实验研究。受限于节流器厚度与气膜厚度尺寸的差异和输入初始边界条件,建立了节流器的COMSOL仿真简化模型,对节流器-气膜微流场进行双向流固耦合数值模拟。仿真结果表明,节流器的法向随机微振动幅值关于节流器中心对称,且由中心向边缘逐渐增大;微振动幅值随气体入口流速的增大而增大。实验采用纳米级激光测振仪,依次测量供气压力为0.1,0.2,…,0.5 MPa时尺寸为75 mm×50 mm×14 mm的HEXAGON双环联结型节流器多个不同位置的法向振动,实验结果表明,法向随机微振动幅值分布特性与仿真结果一致,关于节流器中心对称,且由中心向边缘逐渐增大,验证了节流器法向微振动的"跷跷板"振动形式;在0.5 MPa供气压力下,边缘振动幅值超过1 nm。对实验数据进行功率谱密度分析,结果表明不同供气压力下法向随机微振动均在9.4 kHz和10.6 kHz处产生较大功率,可认为与节流器-气膜流固耦合系统的固有频率有关。研究结果有效地揭示了节流器法向随机微振动的特性,为气体静压系统避开随机共振区、优化气体静压系统的设计提供了理论指导。     

“电网一张图”时空信息管理系统

文章首先总结了电力企业信息管理系统的现状,提出了多源信息管理系统融合集成的邦联、子集和完全融合3种方式,分析了3种方式的优缺点,以建设企业"互联网搜索"型数字引擎为目标,提出了融合基于本体的图数据库建模,多维关联与路径因果分析,和人机共生互动可视化决策于一体的企业信息管理系统技术发展趋势;在系统分析目前正在快速发展的图数据库技术与传统关系数据库之间的本质区别基础上,总结原创的电力图计算平台技术的特点;在此基础上讨论"电网一张图"在建设能源互联网时空信息管理平台数据关联索引图中的核心作用,提出了支持能源互联网建设的"电网一张图"时空信息管理系统的技术架构与特点,最后总结"电网一张图"时空信息管理系统在提高电网安全运行水平、提升客户服务水平、增强清洁能源消纳水平、改善经营绩效水平、以及为综合能源服务和建设能源生态等提供数据服务方面的广阔应用场景。     

Stochastic collocation-based nonlinear analysis of concrete bridges with uncertain parameters

This paper focuses on the stochastic response of concrete bridges considering uncertainty in bearing and abutment stiffness. A multi-span simply supported bridge with concrete girders is selected. A 3D-dimensional model is prepared, and nonlinear response history analyses are performed. For the numerical dynamic simulation, the non-sampling stochastic method based on generalized polynomial chaos (gPC) expansion is utilised. The uncertain parameters include the vertical and shear stiffness of bearings and the lateral stiffness of abutments are presented by the truncated gPC expansions. Furthermore, the system response such as base shear, acceleration, velocity and displacement in different columns is presented by gPC expansion with unknown deterministic coefficients. The stochastic Galerkin projection is employed to calculate a set of deterministic equations. A non-intrusive solution, as a set of collocation points, determines the unknown gPC coefficients of the system response and the results are compared with Monte Carlo simulations. The key advantage of spectral discretization is the combination of the mentioned method with the spatial discretization, e.g. finite element model. This study also emphasises the accuracy in results and time efficiency of the proposed non-sampling method for uncertainty quantification of stochastic systems comparing to sampling procedure (e.g. Monte Carlo simulation).     

Hybrid self-inertia weight adaptive particle swarm optimisation with local search using C4.5 decision tree classifier for feature selection problems

ABSTRACT

Feature selection is an important task to improve the classifier’s accuracy and to decrease the problem size. A number of methodologies have been presented for feature selection problems using metaheuristic algorithms. In this paper, an improved self-adaptive inertia weight particle swarm optimisation with local search and combined with C4.5 classifiers for feature selection algorithm is proposed. In this proposed algorithm, the gradient base local search with its capacity of helping to explore the feature space and an improved self-adaptive inertia weight particle swarm optimisation with its ability to converge a best global solution in the search space. Experimental results have verified that the SIW-APSO-LS performed well compared with other state of art feature selection techniques on a suit of 16 standard data sets.