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This document is a special issue of the journal Algorithms, featuring selected papers from the journal's editorial board members from 2022 and 2023. The issue includes 16 research papers covering a range of topics such as game theory, fault detection in cellular networks, optimization algorithms, machine learning, cryptocurrency trading, and more. Each paper presents its own unique research findings and methodologies. The issue aims to showcase the diverse research interests and expertise of the journal's editorial board members. [Extracted from the article]

In 3D building models, a large number of texture maps with different sizes increase the number of model data loading and drawing batches, which greatly reduces the drawing efficiency of the model. Therefore, this paper proposes a texture set mapping method based on vertex importance. Firstly, based on the 2D space boxing algorithm, the texture maps are merged and a series of Mipmap texture maps are generated, and then the vertex curvature, texture variability and location information of each vertex are calculated, normalized, and weighted to get the importance of each vertex, and then finally, different Mipmap-level textures are remapped according to the importance of the vertices. The experiment proves that the algorithm in this paper can reduce the amount of texture data on the one hand, and avoid the rendering pressure brought by the still large amount of data after merging on the other hand, so as to improve the rendering efficiency of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and techniques is ubiquitous and transversal. Fields that take advantage of AI advances include sound and music processing. The advances in interdisciplinary research potentially yield new insights that may further advance the AI methods in this field. This special issue aims to report recent progress and spur new research lines in AI-driven sound and music processing, especially within interdisciplinary research scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millimeter-wave radar-based identification technology has a wide range of applications in persistent identity verification, covering areas such as security production, healthcare, and personalized smart consumption systems. It has received extensive attention from the academic community due to its advantages of being non-invasive, environmentally insensitive and privacy-preserving. Existing identification algorithms mainly rely on a single signal, such as breathing or heartbeat. The reliability and accuracy of these algorithms are limited due to the high similarity of breathing patterns and the low signal-to-noise ratio of heartbeat signals. To address the above issues, this paper proposes an algorithm for multimodal fusion for identity recognition. This algorithm extracts and fuses features derived from phase signals, respiratory signals, and heartbeat signals for identity recognition purposes. The spatial features of signals with different modes are first extracted by the residual network (ResNet), after which these features are fused with a spatial-channel attention fusion module. On this basis, the temporal features are further extracted with a time series-based self-attention mechanism. Finally, the feature vectors of the user's vital sign modality are obtained to perform identity recognition. This method makes full use of the correlation and complementarity between different modal signals to improve the accuracy and reliability of identification. Simulation experiments show that the algorithm identity recognition proposed in this paper achieves an accuracy of 94.26% on a 20-subject self-test dataset, which is much higher than that of the traditional algorithm, which is about 85%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic signs detection is an important and challenging task in intelligent driving perception system. This paper proposes an improved lightweight traffic signs detection framework based on YOLOv5. Firstly, the YOLOv5's backbone is replaced with ShuffleNet v2, which simplifies the calculation complexity and reduces the parameters of backbone network. Secondly, aiming at the problem of inconspicuous traffic sign characteristics in complex road environment, we use the CA attention mechanism in this paper to improve the saliency of the object. Finally, aiming at the large-scale difference between the traffic signs and the high proportion of small objects, we design the BCS-FPN to fuse multi-scale features and improve the representation ability of the small-scale objects. The TT-100K dataset is also analyzed and the dataset is collated. We test on the collated TT-100K dataset for the improved YOLOv5 in this paper. And the results show that compared with YOLOv5s, the mAP of our algorithm is equivalent to that of YOLOv5s, and the speed is improved by 20.8%. This paper also has carried on the experiment on embedded devices, experimental results show that our framework in computing power less embedded devices has a better effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of the existing student classroom behavior detection model is affected by various aspects such as dataset, algorithm and height as well as the differences between different classrooms, and there are problems such as a single dataset, low accuracy and low efficiency. In order to improve the accuracy of student classroom behavior detection algorithm, this paper proposes a student classroom behavior detection method based on improved convolutional neural network algorithm. Firstly, the student behavior detection dataset is constructed, and the student classroom behavior detection technology scheme is designed; secondly, in order to improve the detection accuracy, the features are extracted by using the new jumping bi-directional paths, and the attention mechanism module is added at different positions to improve the path aggregation network; weekly, the embedding positions of the attention mechanism strategy are determined by analyzing multiple sets of experiments, and the proposed student classroom behavior detection algorithm's effectiveness and superiority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data anomaly detection in small hydropower stations is an important research area because it positively affects the reliability of optimal scheduling and subsequent analytical studies of small hydropower station clusters. Although many anomaly detection algorithms have been introduced in the data preprocessing stage in various research areas, there is still little research on effective and highly reliable anomaly detection systems for practical applications in small hydropower stations. Therefore, this paper proposes a real‐time data anomaly detection system for small hydropower clusters (RDADS‐SHC) considering multiple time series. It addresses the difficulties of timely detection, alerting, and management of real‐time data anomalies (errors, omissions, and so on) in existing small hydropower stations. It proposes a real‐time data anomaly detection algorithm for small hydropower stations integrated with the Z‐score and dynamic time warping, which can detect and process abnormal information more accurately and efficiently, thereby improving the stability and reliability of data sampling. The paper proposes a Keepalived‐based hot‐standby RDADS‐SHC deployment model with m (m ≥ 2) units. It can automatically remove and restart faulty services and switch to their standbys, which significantly improve the reliability of the proposed system, ensuring the safe and stable operation of related functional services. This paper can detect anomalous data more accurately, and the system is more stable and reliable in a cluster detection environment. The actual operation has shown that compared with existing anomaly detection systems, the architecture and algorithms proposed in this paper can detect anomalous data more accurately, and the system is more stable and reliable in the small hydropower cluster detection environment. It solves abnormal data management in small hydropower stations and provides reliable support for subsequent analysis and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an indispensable part of the vehicle environment perception task, road traffic marking detection plays a vital role in correctly understanding the current traffic situation. However, the existing traffic marking detection algorithms still have some limitations. Taking lane detection as an example, the current detection methods mainly focus on the location information detection of lane lines, and they only judge the overall attribute of each detected lane line instance, thus lacking more fine-grained dynamic detection of lane line attributes. In order to meet the needs of intelligent vehicles for the dynamic attribute detection of lane lines and more perfect road environment information in urban road environment, this paper constructs a fine-grained attribute detection method for lane lines, which uses pixel-level attribute sequence points to describe the complete attribute distribution of lane lines and then matches the detection results of the lane lines. Realizing the attribute judgment of different segment positions of lane instances is called the fine-grained attribute detection of lane lines (Lane-FGA). In addition, in view of the lack of annotation information in the current open-source lane data set, this paper constructs a lane data set with both lane instance information and fine-grained attribute information by combining manual annotation and intelligent annotation. At the same time, a cyclic iterative attribute inference algorithm is designed to solve the difficult problem of lane attribute labeling in areas without visual cues such as occlusion and damage. In the end, the average accuracy of the proposed algorithm reaches 97% on various types of lane attribute detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient maritime search and rescue (SAR) is crucial for responding to maritime emergencies. In traditional SAR, fixed search path planning is inefficient and cannot prioritize high-probability regions, which has significant limitations. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) path planning for maritime SAR based on POS-DQN so that USVs can perform SAR tasks reasonably and efficiently. Firstly, the search region is allocated as a whole using an improved task allocation algorithm so that the task region of each USV has priority and no duplication. Secondly, this paper considers the probability of success (POS) of the search environment and proposes a POS-DQN algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning. This algorithm can adapt to the complex and changing environment of SAR. It designs a probability weight reward function and trains USV agents to obtain the optimal search path. Finally, based on the simulation results, by considering the complete coverage of obstacle avoidance and collision avoidance, the search path using this algorithm can prioritize high-probability regions and improve the efficiency of SAR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient and accurate identification of traffic signs is crucial to the safety and reliability of active driving assistance and driverless vehicles. However, the accurate detection of traffic signs under extreme cases remains challenging. Aiming at the problems of missing detection and false detection in traffic sign recognition in fog traffic scenes, this paper proposes a recognition algorithm for traffic signs based on pix2pixHD+YOLOv5-T. Firstly, the defogging model is generated by training the pix2pixHD network to meet the advanced visual task. Secondly, in order to better match the defogging algorithm with the target detection algorithm, the algorithm YOLOv5-Transformer is proposed by introducing a transformer module into the backbone of YOLOv5. Finally, the defogging algorithm pix2pixHD is combined with the improved YOLOv5 detection algorithm to complete the recognition of traffic signs in foggy environments. Comparative experiments proved that the traffic sign recognition algorithm proposed in this paper can effectively reduce the impact of a foggy environment on traffic sign recognition. Compared with the YOLOv5-T and YOLOv5 algorithms in moderate fog environments, the overall improvement of this algorithm is achieved. The precision of traffic sign recognition of the algorithm in the fog traffic scene reached 78.5%, the recall rate was 72.2%, and mAP@0.5 was 82.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly thirty years ago, it was shown that \(\Omega (\sqrt {n})\) read/write registers are needed to solve randomized wait-free consensus among n processes. This lower bound was improved to n registers in 2018, which exactly matches known algorithms. The \(\Omega (\sqrt {n})\) space complexity lower bound actually applies to a class of objects called historyless objects, which includes registers, test-and-set objects, and readable swap objects. However, every known n-process obstruction-free consensus algorithm from historyless objects uses Ω (n) objects. In this paper, we give the first Ω (n) space complexity lower bounds on consensus algorithms for two kinds of historyless objects. First, we show that any obstruction-free consensus algorithm from swap objects uses at least n-1 objects. More generally, we prove that any obstruction-free k-set agreement algorithm from swap objects uses at least \(\lceil \frac{n}{k}\rceil - 1\) objects. The k-set agreement problem is a generalization of consensus in which processes agree on no more than k different output values. This is the first non-constant lower bound on the space complexity of solving k-set agreement with swap objects when k > 1. We also present an obstruction-free k-set agreement algorithm from n-k swap objects, which exactly matches our lower bound when k=1. Second, we show that any obstruction-free binary consensus algorithm from readable swap objects with domain size b uses at least \(\frac{n-2}{3b+1}\) objects. When b is a constant, this asymptotically matches the best known obstruction-free consensus algorithms from readable swap objects with unbounded domains. Since any historyless object can be simulated by a readable swap object with the same domain, our results imply that any obstruction-free consensus algorithm from historyless objects with domain size b uses at least \(\frac{n-2}{3b+1}\) objects. For b = 2, we show a slightly better lower bound of n-2. There is an obstruction-free binary consensus algorithm using 2n-1 readable swap objects with domain size 2, asymptotically matching our lower bound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to the conventional boost power factor correction (PFC) converter, a totem-pole bridgeless PFC has high efficiency because it does not have an input diode rectifier stage, but a current spike may occur when the polarity of the grid voltage changes. This paper proposes a digital control algorithm for bridgeless totem-pole PFC with a simple control structure based on the phase angle of grid voltage. The proposed algorithm has a PI-based double-loop control structure and performs DC-link voltage and input inductor current control. Rectifying switches operate based on the proposed rectification algorithm using phase angle information calculated through a single-phase phase-locked loop (PLL) to prevent current spikes. The feed-forward duty ratio value is calculated according to the polarity of the grid voltage and added to the double-loop controller to perform appropriate power factor control. The performance and feasibility of the proposed control algorithm are verified through a 3 kW hardware prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate and timely forecasting of critical components is pivotal in intelligent transportation systems and traffic management, crucially mitigating congestion and enhancing safety. This paper aims to comprehensively review deep learning algorithms and classical models employed in traffic forecasting. Spanning diverse traffic datasets, the study encompasses various scenarios, offering a nuanced understanding of traffic forecasting methods. Reviewing 111 seminal research works since the 1980s, encompassing both deep learning and classical models, the paper begins by detailing the data sources utilized in transportation systems. Subsequently, it delves into the theoretical underpinnings of prevalent deep learning algorithms and classical models prevalent in traffic forecasting. Furthermore, it investigates the application of these algorithms and models in forecasting key traffic characteristics, informed by their utility in transport and traffic analyses. Finally, the study elucidates the merits and drawbacks of proposed models through applied research in traffic forecasting. Findings indicate that while deep learning algorithms and classic models serve as valuable tools, their suitability varies across contexts, necessitating careful consideration in future studies. The study underscores research opportunities in road traffic forecasting, providing a comprehensive guide for future endeavors in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on optimizing the radiation pattern of sparse array antennas using reinforcement learning, with many algorithms. The paper aims to leverage Proximal Policy Optimization’s (PPO’s) advantages in optimization and its effectiveness in handling stochastic transitions and rewards to achieve a reduced number of elements while maintaining desired signal performance and minimizing unnecessary side lobe signals. By removing a few of the antennas using reinforcement learning and PPO optimization, the same results as a complete array have been obtained. The anticipated outcomes of this research hold the promise of significantly enhancing the effectiveness and utility of sparse array antennas in communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a predictive power control strategy for the three‐phase, six‐switch Vienna rectifier without grid voltage sensors to reduce the hardware cost and complexity of a high‐power PWM rectifier system. Firstly, an algorithm for calculating the AC‐side voltage in the αβ coordinate system is derived according to the operating principle of the Vienna rectifier, and a voltage observer is constructed by combining a second‐order low‐pass filter to estimate the grid voltage. Secondly, a soft start method is designed to solve the problem that the rectifier is prone to inrush current when it is started. Furthermore, the control method of grid voltage sensorless is combined with predictive power control with good dynamic characteristics and simple parameter settings to form the control strategy proposed in this paper. Finally, simulation analysis and experimental verification are carried out on the proposed control strategy. Simulation and experimental results show that the grid voltage estimation has high accuracy, a good surge current suppression effect, unit power factor operation, low input current harmonic content, and good dynamic and steady‐state performance. Therefore, the correctness and effectiveness of the strategy proposed in this paper are verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms based on sparse representation primarily focus on amplitude information, often overlooking the structural composition of images. However, structural composition is closely linked to perceived image quality, a connection that existing methods do not adequately address. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a novel distorted-image quality assessment algorithm based on a sparse structure and subjective perception (IQA-SSSP). This algorithm evaluates the quality of distorted images by measuring the sparse structure similarity between a reference and distorted images. The proposed method has several advantages. First, the sparse structure algorithm operates with reduced computational complexity, leading to faster processing speeds, which makes it suitable for practical applications. Additionally, it efficiently handles large-scale data, further enhancing the assessment process. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of the algorithm, showing that it achieves a high correlation with human visual perception, as reflected in both objective and subjective evaluations. Specifically, the algorithm yielded a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.929 and a mean squared error of 8.003, demonstrating its robustness and efficiency. By addressing the limitations of existing IQA methods and introducing a more holistic approach, this paper offers new perspectives on IQA. The proposed algorithm not only provides reliable quality assessment results but also closely aligns with human visual experience, thereby enhancing both the objectivity and accuracy of image quality evaluations. This research offers significant theoretical support for the advancement of sparse representation in IQA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fast focusing inversion algorithm of magnetic data based on the conjugate gradient method, which can be used to describe the underground target geologic body efficiently and clearly. The proposed method realizes an effect similar to matrix compression by changing the computation order, calculating the inner product of vectors and equivalent expansion of expressions. Model tests show that this strategy successfully reduces the computation time of a single iteration of the conjugate gradient method, so the three-dimensional magnetic data inversion is realized under a certain number of iterations. In this paper, the detailed calculation steps of the proposed inversion method are given, and the effectiveness and high efficiency of the proposed fast focusing inversion method are verified by three theoretical model tests and a set of measured data. Finally, the fast focus inversion algorithm is applied to the magnetic data of Gonghe Basin, Qinghai Province, to describe the spatial distribution range of deep hot dry rock, which provides a direction for the continuous exploration of geothermal resources in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process discovery aims to discover process models from event logs to describe actual business processes. The quality of event logs has an impact on the quality of process models, so preprocessing methods can be used to improve the quality of event logs. Chaotic activities may exist in real business scenarios, and the occurrence of chaotic activities is independent of other activities in the process and can occur at any location in the event log at any frequency. Therefore, chaotic activities seriously affect the model quality of process discovery. Filtering chaotic activities in event logs can effectively improve the quality of event logs and thus improve the quality of process models. The traditional chaotic activity filtering algorithm makes it difficult to balance accuracy and time performance. Therefore, a direct method for filtering chaotic activities is proposed in this paper. By analyzing the relationship between activities, chaotic activities are identified in the log according to the characteristics of chaotic activities and the direct following relationship of activities as the judgment condition, and the filtering of chaotic activities in the event log is realized. In addition, this paper proposes an indirect chaotic activity filtering method, which identifies and filters chaotic activities in the log by analyzing the influence of the existence of different activities on the overall chaos degree of the log. The proposed method is compared with the traditional chaotic activity filtering method on several simulation/real data sets, and the accuracy and running time between the multi-group event logs and the process models generated before and after chaotic activity filtering are analyzed, further verifying the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method. By summarizing the experimental results, it is found that the accuracy of the proposed chaotic activity filtering methods is greater than that of the frequency-based filtering method and is close to that of the entropy-based chaotic activity filtering methods. Moreover, compared with other filtering methods used in the experiment, the chaotic activity filtering method proposed in this paper can improve the efficiency by 23.4% on average for simulation logs, and by 84.25% on average for real event logs. It is concluded that compared with other filtering methods, the proposed chaotic activity filtering methods have higher accuracy and can effectively improve the time performance of chaotic activity filtering. Therefore, the chaotic activity filtering method proposed in this paper can balance the accuracy and time performance, and can ensure the integrity of the filtered event log to a certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a UWB-based human-following system for polar-exploration robots, integrating obstacle and crevasse avoidance functions to enhance the safety and efficiency of explorers in extreme environments. The proposed system determines the relative position of the explorer using UWB anchors and tags. It also utilizes real-time local obstacle mapping and path-planning algorithms to find safe paths that avoid collisions with obstacles. Simulation and real-world experiments confirm that the proposed system operates effectively in polar environments, reducing the operational burden on explorers and increasing mission success rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the reading efficiency of pointer meter, this paper proposes a reading method based on LinkNet. Firstly, the meter dial area is detected using YOLOv8. Subsequently, the detected images are fed into the improved LinkNet segmentation network. In this network, we replace traditional convolution with partial convolution, which reduces the number of model parameters while ensuring accuracy is not affected. Remove one pair of encoding and decoding modules to further compress the model size. In the feature fusion part of the model, the CBAM (Convolutional Block Attention Module) attention module is added and the direct summing operation is replaced by the AFF (Attention Feature Fusion) module, which enhances the feature extraction capability of the model for the segmented target. In the subsequent rotation correction section, this paper effectively addresses the issue of inaccurate prediction by CNN networks for axisymmetric images within the 0–360° range, by dividing the rotation angle prediction into classification and regression steps. It ensures that the final reading part receives the correct angle of image input, thereby improving the accuracy of the overall reading algorithm. The final experimental results indicate that our proposed reading method has a mean absolute error of 0.20 and a frame rate of 15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human pose estimation is an important task in computer vision, which can provide key point detection of human body and obtain bone information. At present, human pose estimation is mainly utilized for detection of large targets, and there is no solution for detection of small targets. This paper proposes a multi-channel spatial information feature based human pose (MCSF-Pose) estimation algorithm to address the issue of medium and small targets inaccurate detection of human key points in scenarios involving occlusion and multiple poses. The MCSF-Pose network is a bottom-up regression network. Firstly, an UP-Focus module is designed to expand the feature information while reducing parameter computation during the up-sampling process. Then, the channel segmentation strategy is adopted to cut the features, and the feature information of multiple dimensions is retained through different convolutional groups, which reduces the parameter lightweight network model and makes up for the loss of the feature information associated with the depth of the network. Finally, the three-layer PANet structure is designed to reduce the complexity of the model. With the aid of the structure, it also to improve the detection accuracy and anti-interference ability of human key points. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms YOLO-Pose and other human pose estimation algorithms on COCO2017 and MPII human pose datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective path planning is crucial for autonomous mobile robots navigating complex environments. The "global–local" coupled path planning algorithm exhibits superior global planning capabilities and local adaptability. However, these algorithms often fail to fully realize their potential due to low efficiency and excessive constraints. To address these issues, this study introduces a simpler and more effective integration strategy. Specifically, this paper proposes using a bi-layer map and a feasible domain strategy to organically combine the D*Lite algorithm with the Dynamic Window Approach (DWA). The bi-layer map effectively reduces the number of nodes in global planning, enhancing the efficiency of the D*Lite algorithm. The feasible domain strategy decreases constraints, allowing the local algorithm DWA to utilize its local planning capabilities fully. Moreover, the cost functions of both the D*Lite algorithm and DWA have been refined, enabling the fused algorithm to cope with more complex environments. This paper conducts simulation experiments across various settings and compares our method with A_DWA, another "global–local" coupled approach, which combines A* and DWA. D_DWA significantly outperforms A_DWA in complex environments, despite a 7.43% increase in path length. It reduces the traversal of risk areas by 71.95%, accumulative risk by 80.34%, global planning time by 26.98%, and time cost by 35.61%. Additionally, D_DWA outperforms the A_Q algorithm, a coupled approach validated in real-world environments, which combines A* and Q-learning, achieving reductions of 1.34% in path length, 67.14% in traversal risk area, 78.70% in cumulative risk, 34.85% in global planning time, and 37.63% in total time cost. The results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed algorithm in complex scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud model similarity algorithm is an important part of cloud modelling theory. Most of the existing cloud model similarity algorithms suffer from poor discriminability, poor classification, unstable results, and low time efficiency. In this paper, a new similarity algorithm is proposed that considers the triangular cloud model distance and shape. First, according to the D T distance formula, a new exponential closeness measure is defined, with which the distance similarity of cloud models is characterized. Then, the shape similarity is calculated according to the variance of the cloud model cloud drops. Finally, the two similarities are synthesized to define a similarity algorithm for determining the distance from the D T distance formula and shape based on the triangular cloud model (DDTSTCM). In this paper, discriminability, stability, efficiency and theoretical interpretability are taken as the evaluation indices. Equipment security system capability evaluation experiment, cloud model differentiation simulation experiment and time series classification accuracy experiment are set up to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm in terms of the four above aspects. The experimental results show that DDTSTCM has good differentiation and excellent classification effects. In the classification experiment for the time series, the average classification accuracy of DDTSTCM reaches 91.78%, which is at least 2.78% higher than those of the other seven commonly used algorithms. The CPU running efficiency of DDTSTCM is also extremely high, and the average CPU running time of group training is always on the order of milliseconds, which effectively reduces the time cost. Finally, a case study is conducted to analyse a risk assessment problem for China's island microgrid industry, and the evaluation results based on DDTSTCM are in line with human cognition and have good value for engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clouds are crucial in regulating the Earth's energy budget. Global cloud top heights have been easily retrieved from satellite measurements, but there are few methods for determining cloud base height (CBH) from satellite measurements. The Cloud Base Altitude Spatial Extrapolator (CBASE) algorithm was proposed to derive the height of the lower-troposphere liquid cloud base by using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal polarization cloud aerosol LiDAR (CALIOP) profiles and weather observations at airports from aviation routine and special weather report (METARs and SPECIs, called METAR) observation data in the United States. A modification to the CBASE algorithm over China (CNMETAR-CBASE) is presented in this paper. In this paper, the ability of the CBASE algorithm to calculate CBH in China is evaluated, and METAR observations over China (CNMETAR) were then used to modify the CBASE algorithm. The results including CNMETAR observation data in China can better retrieve CBH over China compared with the results using the original CBASE algorithm, and the accuracy of the global CBH results has been improved. Overestimations of CBH with the original algorithm range from 500 to 800 m in China, which have been reduced to about 300 m with an improved algorithm. The deviations calculated by the algorithm also have a significant reduction, from 480 m (CBASE) to 420 m (CNMETAR-CBASE). In conclusion, the modified CBASE algorithm not only calculates the CBH more accurately in China but also improves the results of the global CBH retrieved from satellites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of blockchain platforms to bolster the security of Internet of Things (IoT) systems has attracted significant attention in recent years. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive and systematic survey papers in the literature addressing these platforms. This paper discusses six of the most popular emerging blockchain platforms adopted by IoT systems and analyses their usage in state-of-the-art works to solve security problems. The platform was compared in terms of security features and other requirements. Findings from the study reveal that most blockchain components contribute directly or indirectly to IoT security. Blockchain platform components such as cryptography, consensus mechanism, and hashing are common ways that security is achieved in all blockchain platform for IoT. Technologies like Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) can further enhance data and communication security when used alongside blockchain. To enhance the applicability of blockchain in resource-constrained IoT environments, future research should focus on refining cryptographic algorithms and consensus mechanisms to optimise performance and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to make informed decisions in complex scenarios is crucial for intelligent automotive systems. Traditional expert rules and other methods often fall short in complex contexts. Recently, reinforcement learning has garnered significant attention due to its superior decision-making capabilities. However, there exists the phenomenon of inaccurate target network estimation, which limits its decision-making ability in complex scenarios. This paper mainly focuses on the study of the underestimation phenomenon, and proposes an end-to-end autonomous driving decision-making method based on an improved TD3 algorithm. This method employs a forward camera to capture data. By introducing a new critic network to form a triple-critic structure and combining it with the target maximization operation, the underestimation problem in the TD3 algorithm is solved. Subsequently, the multi-timestep averaging method is used to address the policy instability caused by the new single critic. In addition, this paper uses Carla platform to construct multi-vehicle unprotected left turn and congested lane-center driving scenarios and verifies the algorithm. The results demonstrate that our method surpasses baseline DDPG and TD3 algorithms in aspects such as convergence speed, estimation accuracy, and policy stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper improves the timeliness of satellite mission planning to cope with the rapid response to changes. In this paper, satellite mission planning is investigated. Firstly, the satellite dynamics model and mission planning model are established, and an improved Monte Carlo tree (Improved-MCTS) algorithm is proposed, which utilizes the Monte Carlo tree search in combination with the state uncertainty network (State-UN) to reduce the time of exploring the nodes (At the MCTS selection stage, the exploration of nodes specifically refers to the algorithm needing to decide whether to choose nodes that have already been visited (exploitation) or nodes that have not been visited yet (exploration)). The results show that this algorithm performs better in terms of profit (in this paper, the observation task is given a weight of 0–1, and each planned task will receive a profit; that is, a profit will be assigned at the initial moment) and convergence speed compared to the ant colony algorithm (ACO) and the asynchronous advantage actor critic (A3C). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem that the SSD algorithm does not fully extract the feature information contained in each feature layer, as well as the feature information is easily lost during the sampling process, which makes the feature expression ineffective and leads to insufficient performance in small target detection. In this paper, AMT-SSD is proposed, a small target detection algorithm that incorporates the multi-branch stacking and new sampling transition module of the attention mechanism. In this algorithm, the composite attention mechanism is utilized to improve the correlation of features of the samples to be detected in terms of spatial and channels, and the efficiency of the algorithm; secondly, multi-branch stacking module is used to extract multi-size features for each feature layer, and different sizes of convolution kernels are utilized in parallel to fully extract their features and improve the expression of features; meanwhile, during the sampling process, the problem of missing features is solved by applying inverse subpixel convolution in the new sampling transition module. Experimentally, the AMT-SSD algorithm achieves 84.6% and 53.4% mAP metrics on the PASCAL VOC dataset and MS COCO dataset, respectively. This indicates that the AMT-SSD algorithm can effectively extract feature information that is beneficial to detection samples, and also performs well in reducing feature loss, which is effective for the algorithm to improve the algorithm on small targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The method of partial differential equations for image inpainting achieves better repair results and is economically feasible with fast repair time. Addresses the inability of Curvature-Driven Diffusion (CDD) models to repair complex textures or edges when the input image is affected by severe noise or distortion, resulting in discontinuous repair features, blurred detail textures, and an inability to deal with the consistency of global image content, In this paper, we have the CDD model of P-Laplace operator term to image inpainting. In this method, the P-Laplace operator is firstly introduced into the diffusion term of CDD model to regulate the diffusion speed; then the improved CDD model is discretized, and the known information around the broken region is divided into two weighted average iterations to get the inpainting image; finally, the final inpainting image is obtained by weighted averaging the two image inpainting images according to the distancing. Experiments show that the model restoration results in this paper are more rational in terms of texture structure and outperform other models in terms of visualization and objective data. Comparing the inpainting images with 150, 1000 and 100 iterations respectively, Total Variation(TV) model and the CDD model inpainting algorithm always has inpainting traces in details, and TV model can't meet the visual connectivity, but the algorithm in this paper can remove the inpainting traces well, TV model and the CDD model inpainting algorithm always have inpainting traces in details, and TV model can't meet the visual connectivity, but the algorithm in this paper can remove the inpainting traces well. Of the images used for testing, the highest PSNR reached 38.7982, SSIM reached 0.9407, and FSIM reached 0.9781, the algorithm not only inpainting the effect and, but also has fewer iterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In autonomous driving, the fusion of multiple sensors is considered essential to improve the accuracy and safety of 3D object detection. Currently, a fusion scheme combining low-cost cameras with highly robust radars can counteract the performance degradation caused by harsh environments. In this paper, we propose the IRBEVF-Q model, which mainly consists of BEV (Bird's Eye View) fusion coding module and an object decoder module.The BEV fusion coding module solves the problem of unified representation of different modal information by fusing the image and radar features through 3D spatial reference points as a medium. The query in the object decoder, as a core component, plays an important role in detection. In this paper, Heat Map-Guided Query Initialization (HGQI) and Dynamic Position Encoding (DPE) are proposed in query construction to increase the a priori information of the query. The Auxiliary Noise Query (ANQ) then helps to stabilize the matching. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed fusion model IRBEVF-Q achieves an NDS of 0.575 and a mAP of 0.476 on the nuScenes test set. Compared to recent state-of-the-art methods, our model shows significant advantages, thus indicating that our approach contributes to improving detection accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publicly available ionograms are often in the form of pictures. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for extracting and repairing the F layer traces from pictorial ionograms. Extensive efforts have been invested in ionogram autoscaling and critical parameter identification to improve the efficiency of scaling algorithms. To obtain the parameters of the F layer automatically, it is necessary to accurately extract the F layer trace. However, research on F layer trace extraction with repair is relatively limited. The method employed in this study makes full use of the characteristics of different types of echoes on the ionograms, and the procedure includes noise preprocessing, coupling noise processing, and trace repair. To enhance the applicability of the repair, two different automatic filling algorithms are adopted to repair the F layer trace. The aim of this paper is to present an adaptive algorithm to automatically extract and repair F layer traces from different pictorial ionograms. The results of Hainan Fuke ionograms illustrate the reliability of the F layer trace extraction and trace repair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lane detection is an essential task for autonomous vehicles. Deep learning-based lane detection methods are leading development in this sector. This paper proposes an algorithm named Deep Learning-based Lane Detection (DLbLD), a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based lane detection algorithm. The presented paradigm deploys CNN to detect line features in the image block, predict a point on the lane line part, and project all the detected points for each frame into one-dimensional form before applying K-mean clustering to assign points to related lane lines. Extensive tests on different benchmarks were done to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results demonstrate that the introduced DLbLD scheme achieves state-of-the-art performance, where F1 scores of 97.19 and 79.02 have been recorded for TuSimple and CU-Lane benchmarks, respectively. Nevertheless, results indicate the high accuracy of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem that the traditional rapidly exploring random tree (RRT) algorithm only considers the global path of unmanned vehicles in a static environment, which has the limitation of not being able to avoid unknown dynamic obstacles in real time, and that the traditional dynamic window approach (DWA) algorithm is prone to fall into a local optimum during local path planning, this paper proposes a path planning method for unmanned vehicles that integrates improved RRT and DWA algorithms. The RRT algorithm is improved by introducing strategies such as target-biased random sampling, adaptive step size, and adaptive radius node screening, which enhance the efficiency and safety of path planning. The global path key points generated by the improved RRT algorithm are used as the subtarget points of the DWA algorithm, and the DWA algorithm is optimized through the design of an adaptive evaluation function weighting method based on real-time obstacle distances to achieve more reasonable local path planning. Through simulation experiments, the fusion algorithm shows promising results in a variety of typical static and dynamic mixed driving scenarios, can effectively plan a path that meets the driving requirements of an unmanned vehicle, avoids unknown dynamic obstacles, and shows higher path optimization efficiency and driving stability in complex environments, which provides strong support for an unmanned vehicle's path planning in complex environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a valley path planning algorithm based on the Hybrid A* algorithm. This algorithm is aimed at finding the valley path for aircraft considering dynamics constraints and terrain limitations. The preliminaries involve the establishment of a 3D workspace based on digital elevation map (DEM) data and addressing methods of valley detection. Following this comprehensive groundwork, the Hybrid A*-based algorithm, employed to determine the valley path within the 3D workspace while accommodating dynamic constraints and terrain limitations, is then introduced. In the experimental test, to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm proposed in this paper, we tested the performance of the proposed algorithm and other three baseline algorithms based on four optimization objectives in three workspaces. The simulated results indicate that the algorithm proposed in this paper can effectively find the valley path while considering dynamic constraints and terrain limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of machine learning (ML) techniques into marketing strategies has become increasingly relevant in modern business. Utilizing scientific manuscripts indexed in the Scopus database, this article explores how this integration is being carried out. Initially, a focused search is undertaken for academic articles containing both the terms "machine learning" and "marketing" in their titles, which yields a pool of papers. These papers have been processed using the Supabase platform. The process has included steps like text refinement and feature extraction. In addition, our study uses two key ML methodologies: topic modeling through NMF and a comparative analysis utilizing the k-means clustering algorithm. Through this analysis, three distinct clusters emerged, thus clarifying how ML techniques are influencing marketing strategies, from enhancing customer segmentation practices to optimizing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oblique photography is a regional digital surface model generation technique that can be widely used for building 3D model construction. However, due to the lack of geometric and semantic information about the building, these models make it difficult to differentiate more detailed components in the building, such as roofs and balconies. This paper proposes a deep learning-based method (U-NET) for constructing 3D models of low-rise buildings that address the issues. The method ensures complete geometric and semantic information and conforms to the LOD2 level. First, digital orthophotos are used to perform building extraction based on U-NET, and then a contour optimization method based on the main direction of the building and the center of gravity of the contour is used to obtain the regular building contour. Second, the pure building point cloud model representing a single building is extracted from the whole point cloud scene based on the acquired building contour. Finally, the multi-decision RANSAC algorithm is used to segment the building detail point cloud and construct a triangular mesh of building components, followed by a triangular mesh fusion and splicing method to achieve monolithic building components. The paper presents experimental evidence that the building contour extraction algorithm can achieve a 90.3% success rate and that the resulting single building 3D model contains LOD2 building components, which contain detailed geometric and semantic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents a comprehensive study of the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm for robot localization and navigation in unknown environments. The SLAM algorithm is a widely used approach for building a map of an environment and estimating the robot's position within it, which is especially useful in dynamic and unstructured environments. The paper discusses various SLAM techniques, including the Kalman filter (KF) and GraphSLAM algorithms, and their use in probabilistic estimation of the robot's position and orientation. The paper also explores different path-planning techniques that can be used with the map created by the SLAM algorithm to generate collision-free paths for the robot to navigate toward its goal. The paper also discusses recent advances in deep learning-based SLAM algorithms and their applications in indoor navigation with ORB and RGB-D cameras. The research concludes that SLAM-based robot localization and navigation algorithms are a promising approach for robots navigating in unstructured environments and present various opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of risk assessment, the traditional econometric models are generally used to assess credit risk. And with the introduction of the "dual-carbon" goals to promote the development of a low-carbon economy, the scale of green credit in China has rapidly expanded. But with the advent of the big data era, due to the poor interpretability of a traditional single machine learning model, it is difficult to capture nonlinear relationships, and there are shortcomings in prediction accuracy and robustness. This paper selects the adjusted ensemble learning model based on the homogeneous and heterogeneous factors for user default prediction, which can efficiently process large quantities of high-dimensional data. This article adjusts each model to adapt to the task and innovatively compares various models. In this paper, the missing value filling method, feature selection, and ensemble model are studied and discussed, and the optimal ensemble model is obtained. When comparing the predictions of single models and ensemble models, the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, F1-Score, Kappa, and MCC of Categorical Features Gradient Boosting (CatBoost) and Random undersampling Boosting (RUSBoost) all reach 100%. The experimental results prove that the algorithm based on adjusted homogeneous and heterogeneous ensemble learning can predict the user default efficiently and accurately. This paper also provides some references for establishing a risk assessment index system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient multiprocessor scheduling is pivotal in optimizing the performance of parallel computing systems. This paper leverages the power of Petri nets and the tool GPenSIM to model and simulate a variety of multiprocessor scheduling algorithms (the basic algorithms such as first come first serve, shortest job first, and round robin, and more sophisticated schedulers like multi-level feedback queue and Linux's completely fair scheduler). This paper presents the evaluation of three crucial performance metrics in multiprocessor scheduling (such as turnaround time, response time, and throughput) under various scheduling algorithms. However, the primary focus of the paper is to develop a robust simulation platform consisting of Petri Modules to facilitate the dynamic representation of concurrent processes, enabling us to explore the real-time interactions and dependencies in a multiprocessor environment; more advanced and newer schedulers can be tested with the simulation platform presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on additive manufacturing (AM) path planning mainly focuses on the traditional three-axis AM path planning and five-degree-of-freedom (DOF) AM path planning, while there is less research on six-DOF AM path planning. In the traditional AM path planning algorithm, the filling path is discontinuous and there is long straight-line printing in a certain direction, which can easily lead to warpage deformation. Therefore, in this work, the six-DOF manipulator is taken as the main object to build an AM platform, and the mechanism of AM path planning of the manipulator is studied. The path planning algorithm combining the contour offset filling method and Hilbert curve filling is optimized by using a cubic uniform B-spline curve, and an AM path planning algorithm suitable for a six-DOF manipulator is obtained. A continuous printing path can be generated by this algorithm. It reduces the existence of long straight-line printing in a certain direction, thereby reducing the warpage deformation of the model and improving the molding quality of the model. The traditional three-axis AM device and the six-DOF AM platform were used to print two kinds of models. By comparing the printing time, the six-DOF AM platform was 43.70% and 37.94% shorter than the traditional three-axis AM device. The same model was printed on a six-DOF AM platform by using the parallel scanning filling method, the path planning algorithm combining contour offset and Hilbert curve, and the method proposed in this paper. Through experimental verification, the average warpage deformation of the model printed by the method proposed in this paper was reduced by 37.81% and 13.79%, respectively, compared with the other two methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based object detection methods are widely used in traffic detection due to their high flexibility and extensive coverage. In recent years, with the increasing complexity of the urban road environment, UAV object detection algorithms based on deep learning have gradually become a research hotspot. However, how to further improve algorithmic efficiency in response to the numerous and rapidly changing road elements, and thus achieve high-speed and accurate road object detection, remains a challenging issue. Given this context, this paper proposes the high-efficiency multi-object detection algorithm for UAVs (HeMoDU). HeMoDU reconstructs a state-of-the-art, deep-learning-based object detection model and optimizes several aspects to improve computational efficiency and detection accuracy. To validate the performance of HeMoDU in urban road environments, this paper uses the public urban road datasets VisDrone2019 and UA-DETRAC for evaluation. The experimental results show that the HeMoDU model effectively improves the speed and accuracy of UAV object detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial for a special issue of the journal AIMS Mathematics on the topic of discrete optimization. The issue includes 21 papers covering a range of subjects, including molecular trees, network systems, variational inequality problems, scheduling, image restoration, spectral clustering, integral equations, convex functions, graph products, optimization algorithms, air quality prediction, humanitarian planning, inertial methods, neural networks, transportation problems, emotion identification, fixed-point problems, structural engineering design, single machine scheduling, and ensemble learning. The papers present new theoretical results, algorithms, and applications in these areas. The guest editor expresses gratitude to the journal staff and reviewers and hopes that readers will find inspiration for their own research. [Extracted from the article]

There is increasing focus on applying deep learning methods to electrocardiograms (ECGs), with recent studies showing that neural networks (NNs) can predict future heart failure or atrial fibrillation from the ECG alone. However, large numbers of ECGs are needed to train NNs, and many ECGs are currently only in paper format, which are not suitable for NN training. We developed a fully-automated online ECG digitisation tool to convert scanned paper ECGs into digital signals. Using automated horizontal and vertical anchor point detection, the algorithm automatically segments the ECG image into separate images for the 12 leads and a dynamical morphological algorithm is then applied to extract the signal of interest. We then validated the performance of the algorithm on 515 digital ECGs, of which 45 were printed, scanned and redigitised. The automated digitisation tool achieved 99.0% correlation between the digitised signals and the ground truth ECG (n = 515 standard 3-by-4 ECGs) after excluding ECGs with overlap of lead signals. Without exclusion, the performance of average correlation was from 90 to 97% across the leads on all 3-by-4 ECGs. There was a 97% correlation for 12-by-1 and 3-by-1 ECG formats after excluding ECGs with overlap of lead signals. Without exclusion, the average correlation of some leads in 12-by-1 ECGs was 60–70% and the average correlation of 3-by-1 ECGs achieved 80–90%. ECGs that were printed, scanned, and redigitised, our tool achieved 96% correlation with the original signals. We have developed and validated a fully-automated, user-friendly, online ECG digitisation tool. Unlike other available tools, this does not require any manual segmentation of ECG signals. Our tool can facilitate the rapid and automated digitisation of large repositories of paper ECGs to allow them to be used for deep learning projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the problem of information source identification in online social networks (OSNs). By analyzing the research situation of source identification problems and challenges (such as the randomness of the information dissemination process and complexity of the underlying network topology), this paper studies the problem of multiple source diffusion and proposes a source identification algorithm based on multi-attribute topological clustering (MaTC). The basic idea of the algorithm is to decompose the multi-source problems into a series of single-source problems by using clustering partitioning to improve accuracy and efficiency. Firstly, it estimates the number of source nodes, which is also the number of network partitions, then characterizes the combination of multiple attribute structures as an attribute index of topological clustering, performs an analysis of the distribution of real source nodes in each partition to evaluate the accuracy of the clustering partition, and finally uses Jordan centrality within each partition for single-source identification. Through comparative experiments, it is verified that the proposed MaTC algorithm is superior to the comparison algorithms in evaluating indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the challenges posed by small objects in remote sensing images, such as low resolution, complex backgrounds, and severe occlusions, this paper proposes a lightweight improved model based on YOLOv8n. During the detection of small objects, the feature fusion part of the YOLOv8n algorithm retrieves relatively fewer features of small objects from the backbone network compared to large objects, resulting in low detection accuracy for small objects. To address this issue, firstly, this paper adds a dedicated small object detection layer in the feature fusion network to better integrate the features of small objects into the feature fusion part of the model. Secondly, the SSFF module is introduced to facilitate multi-scale feature fusion, enabling the model to capture more gradient paths and further improve accuracy while reducing model parameters. Finally, the HPANet structure is proposed, replacing the Path Aggregation Network with HPANet. Compared to the original YOLOv8n algorithm, the recognition accuracy of mAP@0.5 on the VisDrone data set and the AI-TOD data set has increased by 14.3% and 17.9%, respectively, while the recognition accuracy of mAP@0.5:0.95 has increased by 17.1% and 19.8%, respectively. The proposed method reduces the parameter count by 33% and the model size by 31.7% compared to the original model. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can quickly and accurately identify small objects in complex backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimization of the cutting path of the sample can effectively reduce the cutting time, thereby improving the production efficiency of numerical control processing. This paper comprehensively considers the impact of the cutting order and the position of the knife entry point on the cutting path, converts the cutting path problem into a type of traveling salesman problem (TSP), and proposes an improved genetic-particle swarm optimization algorithm. The selection mechanism of the algorithm combines the elitist retention strategy and roulette wheel selection method to accelerate the search for the optimal solution; the mutation strategy designs a linear decreasing mutation rate, which enhances the global search ability; at the same time, introduces the ant colony optimization algorithm to process the fitness function, adjusts the population evolution difference, and speeds up the optimization process. Through this hybrid algorithm, the cutting order of the sample can be quickly optimized, and the nearest neighbor algorithm is used to determine the position of the knife entry point. Tests are conducted on clothing patterning charts and standard examples. Compared with several commonly used algorithms, experimental results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of this algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, regardless of the algorithm used, motion planners for dealing with dynamic obstructions need to rely on high‐precision sensors and high performance processors. The requirements for hardware increase as the density of dynamic obstructions in an area becomes higher. Additionally, motion planners are more prone to errors in complex environments. The Rapidly‐exploring Random Tree (RRT ∗) algorithm only considers static obstructions and cannot effectively avoid densely populated regions of dynamic obstructions. This paper develops an improved RRT ∗ algorithm that is capable of avoiding densely populated regions of dynamic obstructions. In this algorithm, the cost function of the traditional RRT ∗ algorithm is modified based on the density of dynamic obstructions, allowing the planned path to bypass densely populated regions. The algorithm also introduces reasonable penalty terms to penalize segments that pass through densely populated regions, while maintaining asymptotic optimality of the traditional RRT ∗ algorithm. Numerical experiments reveal that the improved RRT ∗ algorithm is able to successfully avoid densely populated regions of dynamic obstructions with minimal time cost and exhibits better robustness during the path search process in comparison to the traditional RRT ∗ algorithm. Thus, the improved RRT ∗ algorithm possesses the ability to adapt to more complex areas for path planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some special manufacturing fields such as aerospace may encounter mixed production of multiple research and development projects and multiple batch production projects. Under these special production conditions resource conflicts are more severe, resulting in uncertain operating times that are difficult to predict. In addition, a single project may have tens of thousands of supporting products, making it difficult to effectively control the total construction process. To address these challenges this paper proposes new methods. A model, EMA-DCPM (dynamic critical path method) incorporating attention mechanisms in Enterprise Resource Planning and Mechanical Engineering Society) has been proposed. This model predicts product job time through machine learning methods and discovers the predictive advantage of the attention mechanism through data comparison. The CPM control algorithm was improved to enhance its robustness and an efficient modeling method, "5+X" was proposed. This new method is suitable for mixed line planning management in sophisticated manufacturing projects and has value for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]