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Abstract: The automatic control of grammage (basis weight) in paper and board production is based upon on-line grammage measurement. Furthermore, the automatic control of other quality variables such as moisture, ash content and coat weight, may rely on the grammage measurement. The integrity of Kr-85 based on-line grammage measurement systems was studied, by performing basic calibrations with traceably calibrated plastic reference standards. The calibrations were performed according to the EN ISO/IEC 17025 standard, which is a requirement for calibration laboratories. The observed relative measurement errors were 3.3% in the first time calibrations at the 95% confidence level. With the traceable basic calibration method, however, these errors can be reduced to under 0.5%, thus improving the integrity of on-line grammage measurements. Also a standardised algorithm, based on the experience from the performed calibrations, is proposed to ease the adjustment of the different grammage measurement systems. The calibration technique can basically be applied to all -radiation based grammage measurements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the use of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for cluster analysis. In clustering, primitive exploration with minimum prior knowledge consists of research across a wide variety of communities. The diversity in the field of PSO-based clustering equips us with many tools. This paper provides an integrated framework of the diversified PSO-based clustering. In addition, a novel Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm using the concept of aging of particles like bird within a flock is provided. The effectiveness of this concept is demonstrated by cluster analysis. Results show that the model provides enhanced performance and maintains more diversity in the swarm and thereby allows the particles to be robust to trace the changing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of a supporting tool in Double-Sided Incremental Forming (DSIF) imposes a stabilizing compressive stress through the sheet’s thickness, increasing, thereby, the material’s formability and fatigue life. However, these favorable effects strongly depend on a steady tool-metal contact condition. This work presents a general DSIF control scheme, which augments the conventional position servo-loop with explicit force feedback control. The algorithm is examined for its robustness and effectiveness using complex geometries with varying curvatures and wall angles. The resulting parts have demonstrated enhanced material formability and geometric accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary algorithms rely on the population initialization strategy to determine a set of candidate solutions, which provide the preliminary knowledge of the problem landscape for the subsequent evolutionary process. However, the distribution of the initial population is rarely concerned in the multimodal evolutionary community. Moreover, a large initial population has not been attractive enough for evolutionary multimodal optimization, because it is difficult and challenging to achieve a balance between diversity and convergence within limited computing resources. As an extended version of our previous conference paper, this paper focuses on the construction of a large initial population that is beneficial for evolutionary multimodal optimization. First, we propose an improved density-based population initialization strategy to generate a uniform initial population with a certain degree of randomness. Then, after acquiring the raw fitness landscape of the problem, a fitness-weighted density-based population initialization strategy is proposed to explore potential global peaks. Finally, we design a multi-species cooperative coevolution algorithm for multimodal optimization, which balances the exploration and exploitation of such a population in the evolutionary process. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is better than the mainstream algorithms on the CEC2013 multimodal optimization benchmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To find the area of an irregular shape, we break the shape into common shapes. Then we find the area of each shape and add them, but this approach does not always work. In this paper we investigate Gauss’s area formula (for irregular shapes), also known as the shoelace formula or the shoelace algorithm. This theorem is outside the scope of school program. Nevertheless, we provide several applications that emphasize the importance and usefulness of this theorem. Most of the applications provided in this paper are created by the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a crucial development direction for the sixth generation of mobile communication networks (6G), Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks exhibit characteristics such as low latency, seamless coverage, and high bandwidth. However, the frequent changes in the topology of LEO satellite networks complicate communication between satellites, and satellite power resources are limited. To fully utilize resources on satellites, it is essential to determine the association between satellites before power allocation. To effectively address the satellite association problem in LEO satellite networks, this paper proposes a satellite associationbased resource allocation algorithm. The algorithm comprehensively considers the throughput of the satellite network and the fairness associated with satellite correlation. It formulates an objective function with logarithmic utility by taking the logarithm and summing the satellite channel capacities. This aims to maximize the sum of logarithmic utility while promoting the selection of fewer associated satellites for forwarding satellites, thereby enhancing the fairness of satellite association. The problems of satellite association and power allocation are solved under constraints on resources and transmission rates, maximizing the logarithmic utility function. The paper employs an improved Kuhn-Munkres (KM) algorithm to solve the satellite association problem and determine the correlation between satellites. Based on the satellite association results, the paper uses the Lagrangian dual method to solve the power allocation problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm enhances the fairness of satellite association, optimizes resource utilization, and effectively improves the throughput of LEO satellite networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, distributed optimization problem have a wide range of applications in various fields. This paper considers the prescribed-time distributed optimization problem with/without constraints. Firstly, we assume the state of each agent is constrained, and the prescribed-time distributed optimization algorithm with constraints is designed on the basis of gradient projection algorithm and consensus algorithm. Secondly, the constrained distributed optimization problem is transformed into the unconstrained distributed optimization problem, and according to the gradient descent algorithm and consensus algorithm, we also propose the prescribed-time distributed optimization algorithm without constraints. By designing the appropriate objective functions, we prove the multi-agent system can converge to the optimal solution within any prescribed-time, and the convergence time is fully independent of the initial conditions and system parameters. Finally, three simulation examples are provided to verify the validity of the designed algorithms. • For distributed optimization problem with convex constraints, we design an effective prescribed-time distributed algorithm which can guarantee the multi-agent system converge to the optimal solution. • The designed algorithm in this paper can achieve convergence within any prescribed-time, and the convergence time is fully independent of the initial conditions and system parameters. • In this paper, we not only consider the condition that the agents' states are constrained, but also ensure that the multi-agent system can reach the optimal solution within any prescribed-time, which is more practical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple criteria evolutionary algorithms, being essentially parallel in their character, are a natural instrument of finding a representation of entire Pareto set (set of solutions and outcomes non-dominated in criteria space) for vector optimisation problems. However, it is well known that Pareto sets for problems with more than two criteria might become complicated and their representation very time-consuming. Thus, the application of such algorithms is essentially limited to bi-criteria problems or to vector optimisation problems with more criteria but of simple structure. Even in such cases, there are problems related to various important aspects of vector optimisation, such as the uniformity of representation of Pareto set, stopping tests or the accuracy of representing Pareto set, that are not fully covered by the broad literature on evolutionary algorithms in vector optimisation. These problems and related computational tests and experience are discussed in the paper. In order to apply evolutionary algorithms for decision support, it would be helpful to use them in an interactive mode. However, evolutionary algorithms are in their essence global and of batch type. Nevertheless, it is possible to introduce interactive aspects to evolutionary algorithms by focusing them on a part of Pareto set. The results of experimental tests of such modifications of evolutionary algorithms for vector optimisation are presented in the paper. Another issue related to vector optimisation problems with more than two criteria is the computational difficulty of estimating nadir points of Pareto set. The paper describes the use of diverse variants of evolutionary algorithms to the estimation of nadir points, together with experimental evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of agent technology, the need for security of applications becomes a concern that is beyond classical data security capability and considerations. Without proper security protection especially against a malicious host attack, the widespread use of agent technology can be severely impeded. The Random Sequence 3-level obfuscated algorithm has been proposed by the authors to improve agent security: in this paper, an enhancement to the protection level of this algorithm is proposed. The effectiveness of the obfuscation algorithm is enhanced by addition of noise, which surrounds the true value carried by the agent with false values. A malicious host can thus at best guess the true value carried by the agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-organizing maps (SOM) have been successfully applied in many fields of research. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of SOM-based method for the analysis of Expandable PolyStyrene (EPS) batch process. To this end, a data set of EPS-batch process was used for training a SOM. Reference vectors of the SOM were then classified by K-means algorithm into six clusters, which represent product types of the process. This SOM could also be used for estimating the optimal amounts of the stabilisation agent. The results of a validation data set showed a good agreement between the actual and estimated amounts of the stabilisation agent. Based on this model a Web application was made for test use at the plant. The results indicate that the SOM method can also be efficiently applied to the analysis of the batch process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steganography is used to hide the occurrence of communication. Discovering and rendering useless such covert message is an art of steganalysis. The importance of techniques that can reliably detect the presence of secret messages in images is increasing as images can hide a large amount of malicious code that could be activated by a small Trojan horse type of virus and also for tracking criminal activities over Internet. This paper presents an improved blind steganalysis technique. The proposed algorithm reduces the initial-bias, and estimates the LSB embedding message ratios by constructing equations with the statistics of difference image histogram. Experimental results show that this algorithm is more accurate and reliable than the conventional difference image histogram method. It outperforms other powerful steganalysis approaches for embedded ratio greater than 40% and comparable with RS steganalysis technique for shorter hidden message length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewers play a significant role in academic peer review activities, including conference paper assignment and funding selection, because their evaluation of proposals impacts the final decision. Several studies have proposed reviewer selection strategies or reviewer evaluation methods for solving the problem of selecting appropriate reviewers. Identifying reviewers who are familiar with the proposals to be reviewed is the objective of the reviewer assignment problem. However, the majority of the existing studies ignore quantitative constraints with respect to the articles assigned to the reviewers during the review process. In this study, we propose a novel optimization model with several review condition constraints to address the reviewer assignment problem. In the proposed model, the expertise and research areas of the candidate reviewers and proposals are identified using semantic topic models, which are demonstrated to be effective when measuring the relevance of the reviewers with respect to the proposals to be reviewed; further, the computational efficiency is improved owing to the reduced representation dimensionality. Herein, an improved heuristic algorithm is proposed to match reviewers and papers based on specific topic areas, and candidate reviewers are assigned to each proposal under the global optimum condition based on their overall performance values. Subsequently, an empirical test is conducted using a conference reviewer dataset. The obtained results show that the proposed model can help the managers to efficiently and effectively select reviewers in terms of the convergence rate and convergence level when compared with several classic benchmarks. • A novel optimization model is proposed to address the reviewer assignment problem. • The expertise and profiles are identified with the semantic topic models. • An improved heuristic algorithm is proposed to assign reviewer with global optimum. • The effectiveness and robustness is validated in three stages of experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical aspect of software engineering is Software fault prediction which aims to identify and prevent errors in software systems before their release which can cause failures or issues for its users. Various techniques and tools have been developed to detect software faults, including static code analysis, dynamic testing, and machine learning-based approaches. In past few years, the world has seen a growing interest in the use of ML models for predicting software faults, as they can effectively analyse high dimensional datasets and detect complex patterns which are difficult for human experts to detect. However, developing accurate and reliable software fault detection models requires careful selection of data, feature engineering, and model evaluation. This purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis of potential applications and future research directions in the field of software fault detection. The study emphasizes the importance of identifying and addressing software faults to ensure the reliability and efficiency of software systems. Additionally, the paper outlines various approaches and techniques that can be employed for effective software fault detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]