Some Molecular and Cellular Stress Mechanisms Associated with Neurodegenerative Diseases and Atherosclerosis

Chronic stress is a combination of nonspecific adaptive reactions of the body to the influence of various adverse stress factors which disrupt its homeostasis, and it is also a corresponding state of the organism’s nervous system (or the body in general). We hypothesized that chronic stress may be one of the causes occurence of several molecular and cellular types of stress. We analyzed literary sources and considered most of these types of stress in our review article. We examined genes and mutations of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes and also molecular variants which lead to various types of stress. The end result of chronic stress can be metabolic disturbance in humans and animals, leading to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), oxidative stress, energy deficiency in cells (due to a decrease in ATP synthesis) and mitochondrial dysfunction. These changes can last for the lifetime and lead to severe pathologies, including neurodegenerative diseases and atherosclerosis. The analysis of literature allowed us to conclude that under the influence of chronic stress, metabolism in the human body can be disrupted, mutations of the mitochondrial and nuclear genome and dysfunction of cells and their compartments can occur. As a result of these processes, oxidative, genotoxic, and cellular stress can occur. Therefore, chronic stress can be one of the causes forthe occurrence and development of neurodegenerative diseases and atherosclerosis. In particular, chronic stress can play a large role in the occurrence and development of oxidative, genotoxic, and cellular types of stress.     

An integrated dimensionality reduction and surrogate optimization approach for plant-wide chemical process operation

With liquefied natural gas becoming increasingly prevalent as a flexible source of energy, the design and optimization of industrial refrigeration cycles becomes even more important. In this article, we propose an integrated surrogate modeling and optimization framework to model and optimize the complex CryoMan Cascade refrigeration cycle. Dimensionality reduction techniques are used to reduce the large number of process decision variables which are subsequently supplied to an array of Gaussian processes, modeling both the process objective as well as feasibility constraints. Through iterative resampling of the rigorous model, this data-driven surrogate is continually refined and subsequently optimized. This approach was not only able to improve on the results of directly optimizing the process flow sheet but also located the set of optimal operating conditions in only 2 h as opposed to the original 3 weeks, facilitating its use in the operational optimization and enhanced process design of large-scale industrial chemical systems.     

Prediction of Flooding in Packed Liquid-Liquid and High-Pressure Extraction Columns Using a Gaussian Process

Reliable prediction of flooding conditions is needed for sizing and operating packed extraction columns. Due to the complex interplay of physicochemical properties, operational parameters and the packing-specific properties, it is challenging to develop accurate semi-empirical or rigorous models with a high validity range. State of the art models may therefore fail to predict flooding accurately. To overcome this problem, a data-driven model based on Gaussian processes is developed to predict flooding for packed liquid-liquid and high-pressure extraction columns. The optimized Gaussian process for the liquid-liquid extraction column results in an average absolute relative error (AARE) of 15.23 %, whereas the algorithm for the high-pressure extraction column results in an AARE of 13.68 %. Both algorithms can predict flooding curves for different packing geometries and chemical systems precisely.     

Influencer-defaulter mutation-based optimization algorithms for predicting electricity prices

Efficient electricity price forecasting plays a significant role in our society. In this paper, a novel influencer-defaulter mutation (IDM) mutation operator has been proposed. The IDM operator has been combined with six well-known optimization algorithms to create mutated optimization algorithms whose performance has been tested on twenty-four standard benchmark functions. Further, the artificial neural network is integrated with mutated optimization algorithms to solve the electricity price prediction problem. The policymakers can identify appropriate variables based on the predicted prices to help future market planning. The statistical results prove the efficacy of the IDM operator on the recent optimization algorithms.     

基于光谱尺度空间与管道滤波的红外目标检测

为了准确地从复杂干扰背景下检测出真实弱小目标，本文引入视觉显著性，设计了基于快速光谱尺度空间与动态管道滤波的红外目标检测算法。基于真实目标与背景内容之间的整体差异，引入快速光谱尺度空间与阈值分割技术，设计视觉显著性机制，对红外图像完成处理，输出全局显著性映射，以高效过滤干扰背景内容。考虑目标与背景的局部特征差异，构建自适应局部对比度增强机制，对粗检测结果实施处理，获取对应的局部显著性映射，改善视觉显著性区域内目标的对比度。引入高斯差分理论，通过估算每一帧红外图像中的目标像素直径，形成动态管道滤波，充分消除虚警，准确识别出弱小目标。多组实验数据显示：较已有的红外目标检测技术而言，在各种不同的复杂背景干扰下，所提算法呈现出更好的检测能力，拥有更理想的接收机工作特性ROC曲线。     

New Insights into the Pathogenesis of Systemic Mastocytosis

Mastocytosis is a type of myeloid neoplasm characterized by the clonal, neoplastic proliferation of morphologically and immunophenotypically abnormal mast cells that infiltrate one or more organ systems. Systemic mastocytosis (SM) is a more aggressive variant of mastocytosis with extracutaneous involvement, which might be associated with multi-organ dysfunction or failure and shortened survival. Over 80% of patients with SM carry the KIT D816V mutation. However, the KIT D816V mutation serves as a weak oncogene and appears to be a late event in the pathogenesis of mastocytosis. The management of SM is highly individualized and was largely palliative for patients without a targeted form of therapy in past decades. Targeted therapy with midostaurin, a multiple kinase inhibitor that inhibits KIT, has demonstrated efficacy in patients with advanced SM. This led to the recent approval of midostaurin by the United States Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. However, the overall survival of patients treated with midostaurin remains unsatisfactory. The identification of genetic and epigenetic alterations and understanding their interactions and the molecular mechanisms involved in mastocytosis is necessary to develop rationally targeted therapeutic strategies. This review briefly summarizes recent developments in the understanding of SM pathogenesis and potential treatment strategies for patients with SM.     

A three-dimensional surface measurement system implemented with Gaussian process based adaptive sampling

Self-adaptive surface measurements that can reduce data redundancy and improve time efficiency are in high demand in many fields of science and technology. For this purpose, a system implemented with Gaussian process (GP) adaptive sampling is developed. The non-parametric GP model is applied to reconstruct the topography and guide the subsequent sampling position, which is determined from the inference uncertainty estimation. A criterion is proposed to terminate the GP adaptive measurement automatically without any prior model or data of the topography. Experiments on typical surfaces validate the intelligence, adaptability, and high accuracy of the GP method along with the stabilization of the automatic iteration termination. Compared with traditional raster sampling, data redundancy is reduced and the time efficiency is improved without sacrificing the surface reconstruction accuracy. The proposed method can be implemented in other systems with similar measurement principles, thus benefitting surface characterizations.     

Elliptical distribution-based weight-determining method for ordered weighted averaging operators

The ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators play a crucial role in aggregating multiple criteria evaluations into an overall assessment supporting the decision makers’ choice. One key point steps is to determine the associated weights. In this paper, we first briefly review some main methods for determining the weights by using distribution functions. Then we propose a new approach for determining OWA weights by using the regular increasing monotone quantifier. Motivated by the idea of normal distribution-based method to determine the OWA weights, we develop a method based on elliptical distributions for determining the OWA weights, and some of its desirable properties have been investigated.     

Weighted preliminary-summation-based principal component analysis for non-Gaussian processes

For industrial chemical process, preliminary-summation-based principal component analysis (PS-PCA), an amended PCA method was recently provided for coping with both Gaussian and non-Gaussian characteristics. By summing the training and monitoring data respectively, PS-PCA is capable of resolving the issue of non-Gaussian processes and achieves higher fault detection rate than the traditional PCA. However, in the PS-PCA summation operation, all data samples are regarded as the same weight, which results in the fault information of newly-samples may be diluted, leading to significant detection delays. To address this challenge, in this paper, we propose a novel weighted PS-PCA (WPS-PCA) method that employs an exponential weighting scheme to put more emphasis on recent information. Subsequently, a mathematical argument demonstrates that when the number of variables is enough plentiful, the obtained summation combined with the generalized central limit theorem conforms to approximately a Gaussian distribution. The kurtosis relationships indicate this conversion will bring out well-pleasing feasibility for conventional PCA. Ultimately, the proposed technique verifies detection performance using the Tennessee Eastman process, which is compared with the existing PCA and PS-PCA schemes, in terms of the fault detection time and fault detection rate. The simulation studies reveal that the proposed method is efficient and superior.     

融合环境因素的有限空间毒气扩散危害程度分析

为探究环境因素对毒气扩散危害程度的影响,通过对比有限空间内外环境差异,了解气体在有限空间内受力情况,并以传统高斯烟羽模型为基础,考虑扩散气体与有限空间边界碰撞产生的反射作用,建立了适用于有限空间气体扩散的改进高斯烟羽模型。深度剖析有限空间气体扩散环境,挖掘气体扩散主要关联因子,构建风速、地表粗糙度对有限空间气体扩散的影响函数;参照有限空间环境特征,分别设置3种不同风速与2种不同地表粗糙度,推求6种不同环境条件下气体扩散面积,阐明风速与地表粗糙度对有限空间气体扩散的影响程度。结果表明:在单一风速条件下,风速越高,地表粗糙度越低,洞室内H2S气体滞留时间越短,洞室内气体的扩散面积越小;风速越低,地表粗糙度越高,洞室内气体的扩散面积越大。