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In an era overwhelmed by academic big data, students grapple with identifying academic papers that resonate with their learning objectives and research interests, due to the sheer volume and complexity of available information. This study addresses the challenge by proposing a novel academic paper recommendation system designed to enhance personalized learning through the nuanced understanding of academic social networks. Utilizing the theory of social homogeneity, the research first constructs a sophisticated academic social network, capturing high-order social relationships, such as co-authorship and advisor–advisee connections, through hypergraph modeling and advanced network representation learning techniques. The methodology encompasses the development and integration of a hypergraph convolutional neural network and a contrastive learning framework to accurately model and recommend academic papers, focusing on aligning with students’ unique preferences and reducing reliance on sparse interaction data. The findings, validated across multiple real-world datasets, demonstrate a significant improvement in recommendation accuracy, particularly in addressing the cold-start problem and effectively mapping advisor–advisee relationships. The study concludes that leveraging complex academic social networks can substantially enhance the personalization and precision of academic paper recommendations, offering a promising avenue for addressing the challenges of academic information overload and fostering more effective personalized learning environments.

Investigating the research trends within a scientific domain by analyzing semantic information extracted from scientific journals has been a topic of interest in the natural language processing (NLP) field. A research trend evaluation is generally based on the time evolution of the term occurrence or the term topic, but it neglects an important aspect—research publication latency. The average time lag between the research and its publication may vary from one month to more than one year, and it is a characteristic that may have significant impact when assessing research trends, mainly for rapidly evolving scientific areas. To cope with this problem, the present paper is the first work that explicitly considers research publication latency as a parameter in the trend evaluation process. Consequently, we provide a new trend detection methodology that mixes auto-ARIMA prediction with Mann–Kendall trend evaluations. The experimental results in an electronic design automation case study prove the viability of our approach.

Paper waste in the mockups design with regular, irregular, and amorphous patterns is a critical problem in digital printing presses. Paper waste reduction directly impacts production costs, generating business and environmental benefits. This problem can be mapped to the two-dimensional irregular bin-packing problem. In this paper, an iterated local search algorithm using a novel neighborhood structure to detect overlaps between amorphous shapes is introduced. This algorithm is used to solve the paper waste problem, modeled as one 2D irregular bin-packing problem. The experimental results show that this approach works efficiently and effectively to detect and correct the overlaps between regular, irregular, and amorphous figures.

The administration of A/B exams usually involves the use of items. Issues arise when the pre-establishment of a question bank is necessary and the inconsistency in the knowledge points to be tested (in the two exams) reduces the exams ‘fairness’. These are critical for a large multi-teacher course wherein the teachers are changed such that the course and examination content are altered every few years. However, a fair test with randomly participating students should still be a guaranteed subject with no item pool. Through data-driven decision-making, this study collected data related to a term test for a compulsory general course for empirical assessments, pre-processed the data and used item response theory to statistically estimate the difficulty, discrimination and lower asymptotic for each item in the two exam papers. Binary goal programing was finally used to analyze and balance the fairness of A/B exams without an item pool. As a result, pairs of associated questions in the two exam papers were optimized in terms of their overall balance in three dimensions (as the goals) through the paired exchanges of items. These exam papers guarantee their consistency (in the tested knowledge points) and also ensure the fairness of the term test (a key psychological factor that motivates continued studies). Such an application is novel as the teacher(s) did not have a pre-set question bank and could formulate the fairest strategy for the A/B exam papers. The model can be employed to address similar teaching practice issues.

This paper examines the added value of a digital tool that constitutes a new model to introduce students to multiplication. Drawing on the theory of semiotic mediation, the semiotic potential of this new model is analysed with respect to the same task that can be solved in two different settings (the digital tool and pencil and paper). The analysis shows that the task solutions undergo significant changes depending on to the technological settings. Even though the end product of the model–task dyads might look the same in both settings, the product emerges from the different processes that would mediate quite different meanings for multiplication. This suggests that while designing tasks that involve mathematical models, rather than focusing only on the end product, considering the whole process would reveal the extensive potential meanings the model–task dyad can mediate.

This work presents an optimization proposal to better the computational convergence time in convection-diffusion and driven-cavity problems by applying a simulated annealing (SA) metaheuristic, obtaining optimal values in relaxation factors (RF) that optimize the problem convergence during its numerical execution. These relaxation factors are tested in numerical models to accelerate their computational convergence in a shorter time. The experimental results show that the relaxation factors obtained by the SA algorithm improve the computational time of the problem convergence regardless of user experience in the initial low-quality RF proposal.

This paper performs a detailed analysis and explores optimal control strategies for a fractional-order SIV epidemic model, incorporating a nonmonotonic incidence rate. In this paper, the population of vaccinated individuals is included in the disease dynamics model. After proving the non-negative boundedness of the fractional-order SIV model, we focus on analyzing the equilibrium point characteristics of the model, delving into its existence, uniqueness, and stability analysis. In addition, our research includes formulating optimal control strategies specifically aimed at minimizing the number of infections while keeping costs as low as possible. To validate the theoretical findings and uncover the practical efficacy and prospects of control measures in mitigating epidemic spread, numerical simulations are performed.

In this paper, we propose a representation of the visual information about Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) video games using an adapted unsupervised deep learning architecture called Convolutional Accordion Auto-Encoder (Conv_A2E). Our study includes a presentation of current representations of MOBA video game information and why our proposal offers a novel and useful solution to this task. This approach aims to achieve dimensional reduction and refined feature extraction of the visual data. To enhance the model’s performance, we tested several attention mechanisms for computer vision, evaluating algorithms from the channel attention and spatial attention families, and their combination. Through experimentation, we found that the best reconstruction of the visual information with the Conv_A2E was achieved when using a spatial attention mechanism, deformable convolution, as its mean squared error (MSE) during testing was the lowest, reaching a value of 0.003893, which means that its dimensional reduction is the most generalist and representative for this case study. This paper presents one of the first approaches to applying attention mechanisms to the case study of MOBA video games, representing a new horizon of possibilities for research.

This paper presents a multiple step-stress accelerated life test using type II censoring. Assuming that the lifetimes of the test item follow the gamma distribution, the maximum likelihood estimation and Bayesian approaches are used to estimate the distribution parameters. In the Bayesian approach, new parametrizations can lead to new prior distributions and can be a useful technique to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Bayesian modeling, particularly when dealing with complex or high-dimensional models. Therefore, in this paper, we present two sets of prior distributions for the parameters of the accelerated test where one of them is based on the reparametrization of the other. The performance of the proposed prior distributions and maximum likelihood approach are investigated and compared by examining the summaries and frequentist coverage probabilities of intervals. We introduce the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to generate samples from the posterior distributions in order to evaluate the estimators and intervals. Numerical simulations are conducted to examine the approach’s performance and one-sample lifetime data are presented to illustrate the proposed methodology.

Moran’s I is a spatial autocorrelation measure of univariate spatial data. Therefore, even if p spatial data exist, we can only obtain p values for Moran’s I. In other words, Moran’s I cannot measure the degree of spatial autocorrelation of multivariate spatial data as a single value. This paper addresses this issue. That is, we extend Moran’s I so that it can measure the degree of spatial autocorrelation of multivariate spatial data as a single value. In addition, since the local version of Moran’s I has the same problem, we extend it as well. Then, we establish their properties, which are fundamental for applied work. Numerical illustrations of the theoretical results obtained in the paper are also provided.

This paper explores secure communication systems with a chaotic carrier. The use of chaotic oscillations instead of regular van der Pol oscillators as a signal carrier is a promising and active research area, providing not only communication systems with new protection principles and organization but also high steganographic efficiency when transmitting short messages. The problem is to select methods and techniques for mixing a useful signal into a chaotic one and its recovery on the receiver side, featuring a set of properties acceptable for implementation and real-world application. We demonstrate application of synergetic control theory (SCT), which provides advanced observer-basing methods for nonlinear dynamic systems as well as explore example of data transmission system consisting of a Genesio–Tesi chaotic oscillator, data signal transmission with a method of nonlinear modulation, and recovering with a single-channel synergetic observer at the receiver side. The paper presents a nonlinear state observer modeling procedure followed by building a MATLAB/Simulink simulation model of the data transmission system for the PC-platform along with software implementation for the Raspberry Pi platform, with simulation and experimental run results showing data transmission rates seem to be acceptable for the considered practical applications. Practical applications and limitations issues are discussed. Future research will be universal modeling procedures for different classes of chaotic generators and whole system experimental hardware implementation. The obtained results can be primarily used in short messages and/or encryption keys secure transmission systems, cyber-physical system component command communications, as well as chaotic carrier system R&D competitive studies and other applications.

This paper presents the topological derivative of the first eigenvalue for the free vibration model of plane structures. We conduct a topological asymptotic analysis to account for perturbations in the domain caused by inserting a small inclusion. The paper includes a rigorous derivation of the topological derivative for the eigenvalue problem along with a proof of its existence. Additionally, we provide numerical examples that illustrate the application of the proposed methodology for maximizing the first eigenvalue in plane structures. The results demonstrate that multiple eigenvalues were not encountered.

With the advent of big data, the swift advancement of diverse algorithmic technologies has enhanced the transaction efficiency of the e-commerce business. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that e-commerce platforms might employ algorithmic technology to enforce differential pricing for various consumers with the aim of maximizing profits, thus infringing upon the lawful rights and interests of consumers. This paper focuses on the algorithmic price discrimination commonly observed on e-commerce platforms. To effectively regulate this behavior, the paper utilizes evolutionary game theory (EGT) to analyze the strategies employed by e-commerce platforms, consumers, and market regulators to achieve stability. This research employs a real-life situation and utilizes parametric simulation to visualize and analyze the process and outcomes of the three-party evolutionary game. The results demonstrate the credibility and feasibility of the article’s findings. Based on our research, we have reached the following findings: During the process of evolution, the strategic decisions made by the game participants from the three parties will mutually impact each other, and various elements exert varying degrees of influence on the strategic choices made by the game participants from each party. Collaborative governance can enable consumers and market regulators to regulate the discriminatory pricing behavior of e-commerce platforms effectively. This article offers valuable insights into the governance of violations in the e-commerce sector based on robust data and model research.

The notion of Roman {2}-domination was introduced in 2016 as a variant of Roman domination, a concept inspired by a defending strategy used by the emperor Constantine (272–337 AD) to protect the Roman Empire. Since then, a considerable number of papers on Roman {2}-domination and its variants have been published. In this paper, we survey published results on Roman {2}-domination as well as the main findings on Roman {2}-domination variants found in the literature. A list of open problems related to this notion and its variants are also given.

Traditional machine learning-based entity extraction methods rely heavily on feature engineering by experts, and the generalization ability of the model is poor. Prototype networks, on the other hand, can effectively use a small amount of labeled data to train models while using category prototypes to enhance the generalization ability of the models. Therefore, this paper proposes a prototype network-based named entity recognition (NER) method, namely the FSPN-NER model, to solve the problem of difficult recognition of sensitive data in data-sparse text. The model utilizes the positional coding model (PCM) to pre-train the data and perform feature extraction, then computes the prototype vectors to achieve entity matching, and finally introduces a boundary detection module to enhance the performance of the prototype network in the named entity recognition task. The model in this paper is compared with LSTM, BiLSTM, CRF, Transformer and their combination models, and the experimental results on the test dataset show that the model outperforms the comparative models with an accuracy of 84.8%, a recall of 85.8% and an F1 value of 0.853.

This is the third installment in a series of papers on a one-parameter extension of the Rogers–Ramanujan identities (this extension was discovered independently by Rogers and Ramanujan). In this paper, we report a new proof of this identity. Our key ingredient is the Bridge Lemma, an identity that connects the both sides of the one-parameter refinement, which differ significantly in terms of their complexity.

This paper introduces the improvements in natural-frequency-based SHM by applying bio-inspired optimization methods and a vision-based monitoring system for effective damage detection. This paper proposes a natural frequency extraction method using a motion magnification-based vision monitoring system with bio-inspired optimization techniques to estimate the damage location and depth in a cantilever beam. The proposed optimization techniques are inspired by natural processes and biological evolution including genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, sea lion optimization, and coral reefs optimization. To verify the performance of each bio-inspired optimization method, the eigenvalues of a two-bay truss structure are used for estimating the damaged elements. Then, using the proposed video motion magnification method, the natural frequency for each undamaged and damaged cantilever beam is extracted and compared with the LDV sensor to verify the proposed vision-based monitoring system. The performance of each bio-inspired optimizer in damage detection is compared. As a result, coral reefs optimization shows the lowest average error, around 1%, in damage detection using the natural frequency.

The 1st-level General Fractional Derivatives (GFDs) combine in one definition the GFDs of the Riemann–Liouville type and the regularized GFDs (or the GFDs of the Caputo type) that have been recently introduced and actively studied in the fractional calculus literature. In this paper, we first construct an operational calculus of the Mikusiński type for the 1st-level GFDs. In particular, it includes the operational calculi for the GFDs of the Riemann–Liouville type and for the regularized GFDs as its particular cases. In the second part of the paper, this calculus is applied for the derivation of the closed-form solution formulas to the initial-value problems for the linear fractional differential equations with the 1st-level GFDs.

In this paper we consider a system of linear bars, spherically jointed at their ends. For each bar one end is linked to the origin. We discuss the equations from which one obtains the deviation of the origin, and some possible optimizations concerning the minimum displacement of the origin and the minimum force in one bar, which are the main goals of the paper. The optimization is performed considering that for two bars one end is unknown; that is, the angles between the bars and the axes are unknown. It is proved that it is difficult to obtain an analytical solution in the general case, and the problem can be discussed only by numerical methods. A numerical case is also studied and some comments concerning the results are given.

Time-of-use pricing of electric energy, as an important part of the national policy of energy conservation and emission reduction, requires accurate electric energy data as support. However, due to various reasons, the electric energy data are often missing. To address this thorny problem, this paper constructs a CNN and GRU-based recovery model (RCNN-BiGRU) for electric energy data by taking the missing data as the output and the historical data of the neighboring moments as the input. Firstly, a convolutional network with a residual structure is used to capture the local dependence and periodic patterns of the input data, and then a bidirectional GRU network utilizes the extracted potential features to model the temporal relationships of the data. Aiming at the difficult selection of network structure parameters and training process parameters, an accelerated adaptive differential evolution (AADE) algorithm is proposed to optimize the electrical energy data recovery model. The algorithm designs an accelerated mutation operator and at the same time adopts an adaptive strategy to set the two key parameters. A large amount of real grid data are selected as samples to train the network, and the comparison results verify that the proposed combined model outperforms the related CNN and GRU networks. The comparison experimental results with other optimization algorithms also show that the AADE algorithm proposed in this paper has better data recovery performance on the training set and significantly better performance on the test set.

This paper proposes a decentralized adaptive event-triggered fault-tolerant cooperative control (ET-FTCC) scheme for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) with actuator faults and external disturbances under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. The multiple UAVs and UGVs have a larger search radius, which is important in both the civilian and military domains. The different dynamics between UAVs and UGVs result in unbalanced interactions in the communication topologies, which increases the complexity of cooperative control. DoS attacks are conducted in both sensor and control channels. The dynamic models of UAVs and UGVs are introduced firstly, and the unified heterogeneous multiagent system model with actuator faults is established. The composite observer is designed to obtain the information of state and lumped disturbance, which is used to design the controller. In order to save the limited communication network resources, the event-triggered mechanism is introduced. The transformed error is presented by using the prescribed performance function (PPF). Then, the sliding-mode manifold is presented by combining the event-triggered control scheme to achieve the tracking purpose with actuator faults, external disturbances, and DoS attacks. Based on the Lyapunov function approach, the tracking errors are bounded within the prescribed boundary. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis of the simulation results. This study can enhance the security and reliability of heterogeneous multiagent systems, providing technical support for the safe operation of unmanned systems. This paper mainly solves the FTCC problem of second-order nonlinear heterogeneous multiagent systems, and further research is needed for the FTCC problem of higher-order nonlinear heterogeneous multi-agent systems. In addition, the system may encounter multiple cyber attacks. As one of the future research works, we can extend the results of this paper to high-order nonlinear systems under multiple cyber attacks, which contain DoS attacks and deception attacks, and achieve fault-tolerant cooperative control of heterogeneous multiagent systems.

This paper addresses the problem of making inferences about a common mean vector from several independent multivariate normal populations with unknown and unequal dispersion matrices. We propose an unbiased estimator of the common mean vector, along with its asymptotic estimated variance, which can be used to test hypotheses and construct confidence ellipsoids, both of which are valid for large samples. Additionally, we discuss an approximate method based on generalized p-values. The paper also presents exact test procedures and methods for constructing exact confidence sets for the common mean vector, with a comparison of the local power of these exact tests. The performance of the proposed methods is demonstrated through a simulation study and an application to data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement 2021 conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In order to address the challenge of the small-scale, small-target, and complex scenes often encountered in offshore remote sensing image datasets, this paper employs an interpolation method to achieve super-resolution-assisted target detection. This approach aligns with the logic of popular GANs and generative diffusion networks in terms of super-resolution but is more lightweight. Additionally, the image count is expanded fivefold by supplementing the dataset with DOTA and data augmentation techniques. Framework-wise, based on the Faster R-CNN model, the combination of a residual backbone network and pyramid balancing structure enables our model to adapt to the characteristics of small-target scenarios. Moreover, the attention mechanism, random anchor re-selection strategy, and the strategy of replacing quantization operations with bilinear interpolation further enhance the model’s detection capability at a low cost. Ablation experiments and comparative experiments show that, with a simple backbone, the algorithm in this paper achieves a mAP of 71.2% on the dataset, an improvement in accuracy of about 10% compared to the Faster R-CNN algorithm.

In this paper, we define the fuzzy set-valued homomorphisms of the canonical hypergroups as a generalization of fuzzy congruences and investigate some of their features. This structure is an extension of the definition of set-valued homomorphism defined for groups to hypergroups. With this extension, it has become possible to study generalized fuzzy rough approximations in hyperalgebraic structures such as semihypergroups, polygroups, hyperrings, hypermodules, etc. This paper presents the generalized fuzzy rough approximations based on two-universe (I,T)-fuzzy model on canonical hypergroups.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G paradigm brings infinite possibilities for data annotation for new applications in the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). However, the problem of data annotation consistency under distributed architectures and growing concerns about issues such as data privacy and cybersecurity are major obstacles to improving the quality of distributed data annotation. In this paper, we propose a reputation-based asynchronous federated learning approach for digital twins. First, this paper integrates digital twins into an asynchronous federated learning framework, and utilizes a smart contract-based reputation mechanism to enhance the interconnection and internal interaction of asynchronous mobile terminals. In addition, in order to enhance security and privacy protection in the distributed smart annotation system, this paper introduces blockchain technology to optimize the data exchange, storage, and sharing process to improve system security and reliability. The data results show that the consistency of our proposed FedDTrep distributed intelligent labeling system reaches 99%.

In Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS), sensing tasks have different impacts and contributions to the whole system or specific targets, so the importance of the tasks is different. Since resources for performing tasks are usually limited, prioritizing the allocation of resources to more important tasks can ensure that key data or information can be collected promptly and accurately, thus improving overall efficiency and performance. Therefore, it is very important to consider the importance of tasks in the task selection and allocation of MCS. In this paper, a task queue is established, the importance of tasks, the ability of participants to perform tasks, and the stability of the task queue are considered, and a novel task selection and allocation scheme (TSAS) in the MCS system is designed. This scheme introduces the Lyapunov optimization method, which can be used to dynamically keep the task queue stable, balance the execution ability of participants and the system load, and perform more important tasks in different system states, even when the participants are limited. In addition, the Double Deep Q-Network (DDQN) method is introduced to improve on the traditional solution of the Lyapunov optimization problem, so this scheme has a certain predictive ability and foresight on the impact of future system states. This paper also proposes action-masking and iterative training methods for the MCS system, which can accelerate the training process of the neural network in the DDQN and improve the training effect. Experiments show that the TSAS based on the Lyapunov optimization method and DDQN performs better than other algorithms, considering the long-term stability of the queue, the number and importance of tasks to be executed, and the congestion degree of tasks.

With the emergence and development of application requirements such as data analysis and publishing, it is particularly important to use differential privacy protection technology to provide more reliable, secure, and compliant datasets for research in the field of children’s health. This paper focuses on the differential privacy protection of the ultrasound examination health dataset of adolescents in southern Texas from three aspects: differential privacy protection with output perturbation on basic statistics, publication of differential privacy marginal histogram and synthesized data, and a machine learning differential privacy learning algorithm. Firstly, differential privacy protection results with output perturbation show that Laplace and Gaussian mechanisms for numerical data, as well as the exponential mechanism for non-numerical data, can achieve the goal of protecting privacy. The exponential mechanism provides higher privacy protection. Secondly, a differential privacy marginal histogram with four attributes can be obtained with an appropriate privacy budget that approximates the marginal histogram of the original data. In order to publish synthetic data, we construct a synthetic query to obtain the corresponding differential privacy histogram for two attributes. Further, a synthetic dataset can be constructed by following the data distribution of the original dataset and the quality of the synthetic data publication can also be evaluated by the mean square error and error rate. Finally, consider a differential privacy logistic regression model under machine learning to predict whether children have fatty liver in binary classification tasks. The experimental results show that the model combined with quadratic perturbation has better accuracy and privacy protection. This paper can provide differential privacy protection models under different demands, which provides important data release and analysis options for data managers and research organizations, in addition to enriching the research on child health data releasing and mining.

In knowledge structure theory (KST), an individual’s knowledge state represents the items that the individual can completely solve. Based on the differences in individuals’ latent cognitive competence, polytomous knowledge states can be used to partially represent individuals to solve items. This paper explores the construction of polytomous knowledge states and polytomous knowledge structures on a polytomous knowledge domain Q×L. A quasi-ordinal polytomous knowledge space and a polytomous knowledge space can be induced by two different entail relations, respectively. When the polytomous knowledge structure (Q,L,K) on Q×L is determined, accurately evaluating an individual’s polytomous knowledge state is the key to providing learning guidance and taking teaching remedial measures for the individual. Therefore, we study the basic assessment procedure for a given polytomous knowledge structure, and a concrete example is designed to illustrate the method presented in this paper.

A System-of-Systems (SoS) is characterized both by independence and by inter-dependency. This inter-dependency, while allowing an SoS to achieve its objectives, also means that failures can cascade throughout the SoS. An SoS needs to be resilient to deal with the impact of complex internal and external environments. In this paper, we propose a resilience analysis method of an SoS based on a hierarchy structure. Firstly, we establish a hierarchy structure, which is ranked from high to low as capability level, activity level and system level. Then, Bayesian Networks (BNs) and Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) are used to analyze the resilience of the SoS. A resilience-based system importance metric is introduced, which is used in the budget allocation optimization problem during the development domain of an SoS. This paper proposes a mathematical programming model aimed at optimizing SoS resilience by optimally using budget to the subsystem. The application of the proposed approach is demonstrated using a case study: a Next Generation Air Transportation setting. The study results provide evidence that the proposed inter-dependency analysis based on Bayesian theory and the SoS resilience design approach can assist SoS system engineers in increasing expected SoS resilience during the development domain.

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.

This paper employs an integral reinforcement learning (IRL) method to investigate the optimal tracking control problem (OTCP) for nonlinear nonzero-sum (NZS) differential game systems with unknown drift dynamics. Unlike existing methods, which can only bound the tracking error, the proposed approach ensures that the tracking error asymptotically converges to zero. This study begins by constructing an augmented system using the tracking error and reference signal, transforming the original OTCP into solving the coupled Hamilton–Jacobi (HJ) equation of the augmented system. Because the HJ equation contains unknown drift dynamics and cannot be directly solved, the IRL method is utilized to convert the HJ equation into an equivalent equation without unknown drift dynamics. To solve this equation, a critic neural network (NN) is employed to approximate the complex value function based on the tracking error and reference information data. For the unknown NN weights, the least squares (LS) method is used to design an estimation law, and the convergence of the weight estimation error is subsequently proven. The approximate solution of optimal control converges to the Nash equilibrium, and the tracking error asymptotically converges to zero in the closed system. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in this paper based on MATLAB using the ode45 method and least squares method to execute Algorithm 2.

Recently, liquidity issues in financial markets and portfolio asset management have attracted much attention among investors and scholars, fuelling a stream of research devoted to exploring the role of liquidity in investment decisions. In this paper, we aim to investigate the effects of introducing liquidity in portfolio optimization problems. For this purpose, first we consider three volume-based liquidity measures proposed in the literature and we build a new one particularly suited to portfolio optimization. Secondly, we formulate an extended version of the Markowitz portfolio selection problem, named mean–variance–liquidity, wherein the goal is to minimize the portfolio variance subject to the usual constraint on the expected portfolio return and an additional constraint on the portfolio liquidity. Thirdly, we consider a sensitivity analysis, with the aim to assess the trade-offs between liquidity and return, on the one hand, and between liquidity and risk, on the other hand. In the second part of the paper, the portfolio optimization framework is applied to a dataset of US ETFs comprising both standard and alternative, often illiquid, investments. The analysis is carried out with all the liquidity measures considered, allowing us to shed light on the relationships among risk, return and liquidity. Finally, we study the effects of the introduction of a Bitcoin ETF, as an asset with an extremely high expected return and risk.

In this paper, we propose a discrete Hamilton–Jacobi theory for (discrete) Hamiltonian dynamics defined on a (discrete) contact manifold. To this end, we first provide a novel geometric Hamilton–Jacobi theory for continuous contact Hamiltonian dynamics. Then, rooting on the discrete contact Lagrangian formulation, we obtain the discrete equations for Hamiltonian dynamics by the discrete Legendre transformation. Based on the discrete contact Hamilton equation, we construct a discrete Hamilton–Jacobi equation for contact Hamiltonian dynamics. We show how the discrete Hamilton–Jacobi equation is related to the continuous Hamilton–Jacobi theory presented in this work. Then, we propose geometric foundations of the discrete Hamilton–Jacobi equations on contact manifolds in terms of discrete contact flows. At the end of the paper, we provide a numerical example to test the theory.

This paper establishes new results related to geometric function theory by presenting a new subclass of harmonic functions with complex values within the open unit disk, characterized by a second-order differential inequality. The investigation explores the bounds on the coefficients and estimates of the function growth. This paper also demonstrates that this subclass remains stable under the convolution operation applied to its members. In addition, in the last section, images of the unit disk under some functions of this class are given.

The quality of images captured digitally or transmitted over networks is distorted by noise during the process. The current methods of image restoration can be ineffective in dealing with intricate noise patterns or may be slow or imprecise. This paper fills this gap by presenting a new second-order continuous-time dynamical system for denoising of images in image restoration. The approach used in this work poses the problem as a convex quadratic program that can, thus, be solved for optimality. The existence and uniqueness of a global solution are theoretically demonstrated, and the condition for the global strong convergence of the system’s trajectory is provided. The method presented in this paper is shown to be useful in a number of experiments on image restoration. As for the performance, it is higher than that of other known algorithms, with an average SNR equal to 34.78 and a Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) of 0.959 for the reconstructed images. Such improvements demonstrate the effectiveness of the second-order dynamical system approach in actual image restoration applications.

This paper is concerned with the mathematical modeling of complex living systems whose element microscopic state contains variables which can attain discrete values. Specifically, the main mathematical frameworks of the discrete thermostatted kinetic theory for active particles are reviewed and generalized. In the generalized thermostatted frameworks, which are based on nonlinear ordinary or partial differential equations, the elements of the system are viewed as active particles that are able to perform certain strategies modeled by introducing a functional-state variable called activity. Interactions, which are responsible of the evolution of the system, are modeled using the fundamentals of stochastic game theory and may be influenced by the action of an external force field coupled to a Gaussian-type thermostat. In particular, the interaction domain is modeled by introducing a weighted function and different non-homogeneous discrete frameworks are proposed and coupled with a specific thermostat. Two recent models derived within this approach are reviewed and refer to vehicular and pedestrian dynamics. Future research perspectives are discussed in the whole paper from theoretical and modeling viewpoints.

Tautenhahn (2002) studied the Lavrentiev regularization method (LRM) to approximate a stable solution for the ill-posed nonlinear equation κ(u)=v, where κ:D(κ)⊆X⟶X is a nonlinear monotone operator and X is a Hilbert space. The operator in the example used in Tautenhahn’s paper was not a monotone operator. So, the following question arises. Can we use LRM for ill-posed nonlinear equations when the involved operator is not monotone? This paper provides a sufficient condition to employ the Lavrentiev regularization technique to such equations whenever the operator involved is non-monotone. Under certain assumptions, the error analysis and adaptive parameter choice strategy for the method are discussed. Moreover, the developed theory is applied to two well-known ill-posed problems—inverse gravimetry and growth law problems.

Accurately predicting the trajectory of carbon emissions is vital for achieving a sustainable shift toward a green and low-carbon future. Hence, this paper created a novel model to examine the driver analysis and integrated prediction for Chinese carbon emission, a large carbon-emitting country. The logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) approach initially served to decompose the drivers of carbon emissions, analyzing the annual and staged contributions of these factors. Given the non-stationarity and non-linear characteristics in the data sequence of carbon emissions, a decomposition–integration prediction model was proposed. The model employed the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) model to decompose each set of data into a series of components. The various carbon emission components were anticipated using the long short-term memory (LSTM) model based on the deconstructed impacting factors. The aggregate of these predicted components constituted the overall forecast for carbon emissions. The result indicates that the EMD-LSTM model greatly decreased prediction errors over the other comparable models. This paper makes up for the gap in existing research by providing further analysis based on the LMDI method. Additionally, it innovatively incorporates the EMD method into the carbon emission study, and the proposed EMD-LSTM prediction model effectively addresses the volatility characteristics of carbon emissions and demonstrates excellent predictive performance in carbon emission prediction.

Addressing the issues of the sand cat swarm optimization algorithm (SCSO), such as its weak global search ability and tendency to fall into local optima, this paper proposes an improved strategy called the multi-strategy integrated sand cat swarm optimization algorithm (MSCSO). The MSCSO algorithm improves upon the SCSO in several ways. Firstly, it employs the good point set strategy instead of a random strategy for population initialization, effectively enhancing the uniformity and diversity of the population distribution. Secondly, a nonlinear adjustment strategy is introduced to dynamically adjust the search range of the sand cats during the exploration and exploitation phases, significantly increasing the likelihood of finding more high-quality solutions. Lastly, the algorithm integrates the early warning mechanism of the sparrow search algorithm, enabling the sand cats to escape from their original positions and rapidly move towards the optimal solution, thus avoiding local optima. Using 29 benchmark functions of 30, 50, and 100 dimensions from CEC 2017 as experimental subjects, this paper further evaluates the MSCSO algorithm through Wilcoxon rank-sum tests and Friedman’s test, verifying its global solid search ability and convergence performance. In practical engineering problems such as reducer and welded beam design, MSCSO also demonstrates superior performance compared to five other intelligent algorithms, showing a remarkable ability to approach the optimal solutions for these engineering problems.

The history of variational calculus dates back to the late 17th century when Johann Bernoulli presented his famous problem concerning the brachistochrone curve. Since then, variational calculus has developed intensively as many problems in physics and engineering are described by equations from this branch of mathematical analysis. This paper presents two non-classical, distinct methods for solving such problems. The first method is based on the differential transform method (DTM), which seeks an analytical solution in the form of a certain functional series. The second method, on the other hand, is based on the physics-informed neural network (PINN), where artificial intelligence in the form of a neural network is used to solve the differential equation. In addition to describing both methods, this paper also presents numerical examples along with a comparison of the obtained results.Comparingthe two methods, DTM produced marginally more accurate results than PINNs. While PINNs exhibited slightly higher errors, their performance remained commendable. The key strengths of neural networks are their adaptability and ease of implementation. Both approaches discussed in the article are effective for addressing the examined problems.

This book collects under one cover twelve original research papers and one review paper submitted to the Special Issue “State-of-the-Art Mathematical Applications in Europe” and published in the MDPI journal Mathematics from December 2021 to January 2023 [...]