A Novel Approach for Optimal Design of a Rover Mechanism

This article presents an overview of the mechanical design and fabrication of a Rescue Robot (CEDRA) for operation in unstructured environments. In order to obtain an appropriate mechanism for climbing the stairs, a novel method has been developed. In this kinematics-based approach we don't need to perform any dynamic analysis which is highly complicated and time consuming for most rovers. According to the essential characteristics needed for rovers, two objective functions were defined. We have shown that the new mechanism performs better on rough terrains than the previous well-known mechanism widely used in the Mars rovers. Moreover the design parameters are optimized by means of Genetic Algorithm. The efficacy of this method is demonstrated for the optimized robot with respect to our first prototype. Optimum parameters are then utilized in fabrication. Upon fabrication, this unit has been tested in a clean laboratory environment, as well as, real life-conditioned arenas similar to earthquake zones. The results are satisfactory in all aspects, and improvements are currently underway to enhance capabilities of the rescue robots for various applications.     

高通量小间距细胞电穿孔装置设计及实验测试

细胞电穿孔技术是指通过施加一定的电场强度可逆地击穿细胞膜,在细胞膜上形成小孔或通路,从而使遗传物质引入细胞内.传统的细胞电穿孔装置往往需要几百伏到几千伏的电压,操作十分危险.该研究采用电绝缘的聚氯乙烯(PVC)薄膜,制作了一种电极间距为80μm的小间距电穿孔装置,并且可以进行高通量操作.经测试,所提出的小间距电穿孔装置...     

A web-based application for beekeepers to visualise patterns of growth in floral resources using MODIS data

The honey bee industry is of immense importance to global agriculture. In many countries beekeepers are migratory and move their hives between flowering events. Predicting such flowering events is particularly difficult in Australia due to the irregular flowering of eucalypts. We have developed a web-based application for Victorian beekeepers to visualise patterns of growth in floral resources using MODIS and other data, and thus make remote predictions about whether flowering will occur at their apiary sites. We demonstrate the use of this application through comparing ironbark (Eucalyptus tricarpa) growth patterns with flowering and honey production records. While the scientific community as a whole has embraced the use of satellite imagery as a tool for phenological studies, our prototype represents the first attempt to make this same information available to a more general audience.     

A genetic algorithm for minimizing total tardiness/earliness of weighted jobs in a batched delivery system

This paper endeavors to solve a novel complex single-machine scheduling problem using two different approaches. One approach exploits mathematical modeling, and the other is based upon genetic algorithms. The problem involves earliness, tardiness, and inventory costs and considers a batched delivery system. The same conditions might apply to some real supply chains, in which delivery of products is conducted in a batched form and with some costs. In such delivery systems, the act of buffering the products can have both positive effects (i.e., decreasing the delivery costs and early jobs) and negative ones (i.e., increasing the number of tardy and holding costs). Accordingly, the proposed solution takes into account both effects and tries to find a trade-off between them to hold the total costs low. The suggestions are compared to existing solutions for older non-batched systems and have illustrated outperformance.     

A four-band semi-analytical model for estimating chlorophyll a in highly turbid lakes: The case of Taihu Lake, China

Accurate estimation of phytoplankton chlorophyll a (Chla) concentration from remotely sensed data is particularly challenging in turbid, productive waters. The objectives of this study are to validate the applicability of a semi-analytical three-band algorithm in estimating Chla concentration in the highly turbid, widely variable waters of Taihu Lake, China, and to improve the algorithm using a proposed four-band algorithm. The improved algorithm is expressed as [Rrs(λ₁)^− 1 − Rrs(λ₂)^− 1][Rrs(λ₄)^− 1 − Rrs(λ₃)^− 1]^− 1. The two semi-analytical algorithms are calibrated and evaluated against two independent datasets collected from 2007 and 2005 in Taihu Lake. Strong linear relationships were established between measured Chla concentration and that derived from the three-band algorithm of [Rrs^− 1(660) − Rrs^− 1(692)]Rrs(740) and the four-band algorithm of [Rrs^− 1(662) − Rrs^− 1(693)][Rrs^− 1(740) − Rrs^− 1(705)]^− 1. The first algorithm accounts for 87% and 80% variation in Chla concentration in the 2007 and 2005 datasets, respectively. The second algorithm accounts for 97% of variability in Chla concentration for the 2007 dataset and 87% of variation in the 2005 dataset. The three-band algorithm has a mean relative error (MRE) of 43.9% and 34.7% for the 2007 and 2005 datasets. The corresponding figures for the four-band algorithm are 26.7% and 28.4%. This study demonstrates the potential of the four-band model in estimating Chla even in highly turbid case 2 waters.     

Application of a neuro-fuzzy model to landslide-susceptibility mapping for shallow landslides in a tropical hilly area

This paper presents landslide-susceptibility mapping using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) using a geographic information system (GIS) environment. In the first stage, landslide locations from the study area were identified by interpreting aerial photographs and supported by an extensive field survey. In the second stage, landslide-related conditioning factors such as altitude, slope angle, plan curvature, distance to drainage, distance to road, soil texture and stream power index (SPI) were extracted from the topographic and soil maps. Then, landslide-susceptible areas were analyzed by the ANFIS approach and mapped using landslide-conditioning factors. In particular, various membership functions (MFs) were applied for the landslide-susceptibility mapping and their results were compared with the field-verified landslide locations. Additionally, the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve for all landslide susceptibility maps were drawn and the areas under curve values were calculated. The ROC curve technique is based on the plotting of model sensitivity — true positive fraction values calculated for different threshold values, versus model specificity — true negative fraction values, on a graph. Landslide test locations that were not used during the ANFIS modeling purpose were used to validate the landslide susceptibility maps. The validation results revealed that the susceptibility maps constructed by the ANFIS predictive models using triangular, trapezoidal, generalized bell and polynomial MFs produced reasonable results (84.39%), which can be used for preliminary land-use planning. Finally, the authors concluded that ANFIS is a very useful and an effective tool in regional landslide susceptibility assessment.     

A Novel Approach for Delaunay 3D Reconstruction with a Comparative Analysis in the Light of Applications

This paper presents a novel algorithm for volumetric reconstruction of objects from planar sections using Delaunay triangulation, which solves the main problems posed to models defined by reconstruction, particularly from the viewpoint of producing meshes that are suitable for interaction and simulation tasks. The requirements for these applications are discussed here and the results of the method are presented. Additionally, it is compared to another commonly used reconstruction algorithm based on Delaunay triangulation, showing the advantages of the reconstructions obtained by our technique.     

网格环境下的航空发动机集成设计与分布仿真研究

建立了一个开发航空发动机分布仿真的系统环境．该环境中子模型具有自治性,子模型的设计者可以根据自己的需要选择所使用的工具,定义变量以及他们与其他设计者之间的关系．应用新兴的网格技术建立了一个集成设计和分布仿真的环境框架,它可以灵活地建立和修改基于部件对象模型建立起来的航空发动机模型,并尝试解决仿真中存在的多学科耦合以及大计算量的问题．该框架具有图形化界面,可以方便地更改发动机的参数和结构,其所具有网格技术的易扩展性也为今后建立更复杂的发动机模型提供了良好的平台．研究人员可以应用该系统提供的可扩展设计和仿真环境,灵活地组建新的航空发动机模型并进行仿真．     

基于周期控制的有限集输入通道任意增益/相角裕度调节方法

针对有限多输入多输出(MIMO)线性时不变(LTI)对象集,提出了一种调节输入通道增益/相角裕度的方法,采用离散线性二次调节器(LQR)理论和周期控制方法设计一个针对有限对象集的线性周期控制器.该控制器可使有限对象集的所有反馈控制回路在输入通道同时实现任意大的增益裕度和直到90°的相角裕度.仿真结果表明了该方法的有效性.