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The pulp and paper industry’s multi-tonnage liquid waste is spent cooking liquor containing lignosulfonates, which disposal and processing remains one of the most complex environmental and technological problems, which should be solved. Lignosulfonates have unique colloidal-chemical properties, which determines their high resource potential. However, lignosulfonates’ composition instability often does not provide the properties and indicators set by the consumer. Changing market conditions require constant waste monitoring and modification, that prevents the widespread lignosulfonates use in industrial practice. In this paper, the causes for the formation of lignin-containing waste and its impact on the environment are considered. A strategy for lignosulfonates utilization has been developed, as well as promising methods for these wastes processing and disposal, which will expand the use of lignosulfonates and reduce the pulp and paper industry negative impact on the environment.

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 &lsquo, fairness&rsquo, 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.

Rewinding machines are used in the paper converting industrial sector to unroll paper veils from large source reels and wind them around smaller rolls, for the production of paper logs to be used in household activities. Many different types of rewinding machine exist, and they are mostly based on stapling devices which automatically unroll a large coil of paper, roll it up around a new log, stop the veil allowing it to be torn off, unload the completed paper log, and reload a new paper core to be rolled up. Winding units generally include a primary and a secondary roller, supplying the desired rotational speed for winding, and a pressure unit consisting of a pressure roller in contact with the paper log being rolled up, which assures adequate containment and avoids the paper log to escape. All known systems have some mechanical limitations, mainly due to the contact of the pressure roller with the paper log, causing instabilities and vibrations, particularly when working with soft paper veils. This limits the maximum possible winding speed. The aim of this paper is it to present a detailed kinematic analysis of a novel pressure unit which overcomes the aforementioned limitation.

Very recently Bordelles, Dai, Heyman, Pan and Shparlinski studied asymptotic behaviour of the quantity $$\begin{aligned} S_f(x) := \sum _{n\leqslant x} f\left( \left[ \frac{x}{n}\right] \right) , \end{aligned}$$and established some asymptotic formulas for $$S_f(x)$$ under three different types of assumptions on f. In this short note we improve some of their results.

Looking at the past, among the main modalities of transmission of knowledge (alongside with manuscripts and printed treatises and with respect to the various ‘precepts’) we would have found also various professional figures. This is even truer with regard to the training and dissemination of knowledge among military engineers, who used to be real ‘living vehicles’ in national and international cultural systems. This is also true for what concern that circumscribed set of knowledge of geometrical-mathematical theories, including their application to the codes of architectural Representation and Design. This research aims to investigate the example of the military engineer Gaspare Beretta (Milan 1620–1703), whose theoretical production both on architectural graphic and on various applications of Geometry is still unpublished. With the aim of developing the relationship between geometry, architecture and the transmission of knowledge, we will go through his practices of the regular fortress tracing on ‘paper and ground’, in order to verify the resulting connections between geometric reconstruction and Author’s intentions.

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich., This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively., The paper ‘Zur Dynamik elastisch gekoppelter Punktsysteme’ by Schrödinger (1914) does not seem to have attracted the attention that it deserves. We translate it into English here and we discuss its results in detail, with a view to its possible influence in the modern theories of generalised continua. The clever solution found, in terms of Bessel functions, by Schrödinger of the problem of the vibrations of a linear infinite chain of molecules gives some important methodological hints for contemporary research.

Miura-ori is well-known for its capability of flatly folding a sheet of paper through a tessellated crease pattern made of repeating parallelograms. Many potential applications have been based on the Miura-ori and its primary variations. Here we are considering how to generalize the Miura-ori: what is the collection of rigid-foldable creased papers with a similar quadrilateral crease pattern as the Miura-ori? This paper reports some progress. We find some new variations of Miura-ori with less symmetry than the known rigid-foldable quadrilateral meshes. They are not necessarily developable or flat-foldable, and still only have single degree of freedom in their rigid folding motion. This article presents a classification of the new variations we discovered and explains the methods in detail., Comment: Main text 24 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, Supplementary Material 13 pages, 2 figures; submitted to the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, in minor revision

We introduce our efforts within the project ‘The science of deep specification’ to work out the key formal underpinnings of industrial-scale formal specifications of software and hardware components, anticipating a world where large verified systems are routinely built out of smaller verified components that are also used by many other projects. We identify an important class of specification that has already been used in a few experiments that connect strong component-correctness theorems across the work of different teams. To help popularize the unique advantages of that style, we dub itdeep specification, and we say that it encompasses specifications that arerich,two-sided,formalandlive(terms that we define in the article). Our core team is developing a proof-of-concept system (based on the Coq proof assistant) whose specification and verification work is divided across largely decoupled subteams at our four institutions, encompassing hardware microarchitecture, compilers, operating systems and applications, along with cross-cutting principles and tools for effective specification. We also aim to catalyse interest in the approach, not just by basic researchers but also by users in industry.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Verified trustworthy software systems’.

The problem of capillary transport in fibrous porous materials at low levels of liquid saturation has been addressed. It has been demonstrated that the process of liquid spreading in this type of porous material at low saturation can be described macroscopically by a similar super-fast, nonlinear diffusion model to that which had been previously identified in experiments and simulations in particulate porous media. The macroscopic diffusion model has been underpinned by simulations using a microscopic network model. The theoretical results have been qualitatively compared with available experimental observations within the witness card technique using persistent liquids. The long-term evolution of the wetting spots was found to be truly universal and fully in line with the mathematical model developed. The result has important repercussions for the witness card technique used in field measurements of the dissemination of various low-volatility agents in imposing severe restrictions on collection and measurement times.

We congratulate the authors Bertsimas, Pauphilet and van Parys (hereafter BPvP) and Hastie, Tibshirani and Tibshirani (hereafter HTT) for providing fresh and insightful views on the problem of variable selection and prediction in linear models. Their contributions at the fundamental level provide guidance for more complex models and procedures.

With the increasing fascination of sport in society and the increasing availability of sport-related data, there are great opportunities to carry out sports analytics research. In this article, we ...

Malaysia is now moving towards becoming a developed nation, targeting on the high-income nation by 2020. In order to execute this intention, Malaysia needs to develop and strengthen the economic growth. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are acknowledged have a significant role in Malaysian economic growth and expected to contribute 41% of GDP by 2020. However, there are a few factors hinder SMEs to maximize their growth and it has been reported that SMEs contributions to the country’s economy are still comparatively low compared with the contributions of SMEs in many developed and developing countries. Innovation is one of the important factors to remaining competitive in this globalization world. Therefore, SMEs need to focus on innovation activities to increase contribution and remain competitive. Knowledge management is one of the most effective strategies that may help to stimulate innovations and enable innovation activities into the business. Hence, the main aim of this study is to investigate the role of innovation in the relationship between knowledge management practices and SMEs Performance. This study proposed to investigate innovation activities at SMEs manufacturing sector focusing in food and beverages industry. Specifically, innovation types that will be focused in this study are product, process and management innovation. The result hopefully will become an empirical evidence that confirmed innovation is crucial to increase SMEs competitive ability and increase organizational performance. In addition, the result also expectantly prove knowledge management practices have an impact on innovation. Lastly, this study will help Malaysian Government to strategies the policy to overcome difficulties and more importantly in ensuring the sustainability and competitiveness of Malaysian SMEs.

Objective WeChat is a promising tool for capturing electronic data; however, no research has examined its use. This study evaluates the reliability and feasibility of WeChat for administering the Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire Short Form 7 questionnaire to women with pelvic floor disorders. Methods Sixty-eight pelvic floor rehabilitation women were recruited between June and December 2015 and crossover randomized to two groups. All participants completed two questionnaire formats. One group completed the paper version followed by the WeChat version; the other group completed the questionnaires in reverse order. Two weeks later, each group completed the two versions in reverse order. The WeChat version's reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients and test-retest reliability. Results Forty-two women (61.8%) preferred the WeChat to the paper format, eight (11.8%) preferred the paper format, and 18 (26.5%) had no preference. The younger women preferred WeChat. Completion time was 116.5 (61.3) seconds for the WeChat version and 133.4 (107.0) seconds for the paper version, with no significant difference (P = 0.145). Age and education did not impact completion time (P > 0.05). Consistency between the WeChat and paper versions was excellent. The intraclass correlation coefficients of the Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire Short Form 7 and the three subscales ranged from 0.915 to 0.980. The Bland-Altman analysis and linear regression results also showed high consistency. The test-retest study had a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.908, demonstrating a strong correlation. Conclusions WeChat-based questionnaires were well accepted by women with pelvic floor disorders and had good data quality and reliability.

This paper presents a new method for calculating the insulation health index (HI) of oil-paper transformers rated under 110 kV to provide a snapshot of health condition using binary logistic regression. Oil breakdown voltage (BDV), total acidity of oil, 2-Furfuraldehyde content, and dissolved gas analysis (DGA) are singled out in this method as the input data for determining HI. A sample of transformers is used to test the proposed method. The results are compared with the results calculated for the same set of transformers using fuzzy logic. The comparison results show that the proposed method is reliable and effective in evaluating transformer health condition.

Let a(n) be the Fourier coefficient of a holomorphic cusp form on some discrete subgroup of \(SL_2({\mathbb R})\). This note is to refine a recent result of Hofmann and Kohnen on the non-positive (resp. non-negative) product of \(a(n)a(n+r)\) for a fixed positive integer r.

We develop a theoretical framework for rigid origami, and show how this framework can be used to connect rigid origami and results from cognate areas, such as the rigidity theory, graph theory, linkage folding and computer science. First, we give definitions on important concepts in rigid origami, then focus on how to describe the configuration space of a creased paper. The shape and 0-connectedness of the configuration space are analyzed using algebraic, geometric and numeric methods, where the key results from each method are gathered and reviewed., Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, submitted to the Proceedings of the Royal Society A

Tourism is one of the National Key Economic Area (NKEAs) as initiatives to ensure sustainability of growth in Malaysia. One option to increase the national income is through promoting event tourism. Organizing events are highly resource intensive, and can have negative environmental consequences such as waste of water, energy and materials. Therefore, greening of events is critically important to ensure sustainability development in event management by making responsible decisions during planning, organization and implementation of an event. Sustainable event management is the process used to produce events with particular concern for environmental, economic and social issues. Identification of factors that increase the demand for sustainable events would greatly contribute to the country’s NKEAs to improve business services and generate the economy with event tourism. Thus, creating a competitive domestic economy as stated in the country’s Strategic Reform Initiatives (SRIs), by creating more green events using sustainability issues as the main attraction to increase the rate of attendance. The objective of this study is to identify the demand for green events to promote sustainable tourism.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the main result in the paper by D.Y. Gao and X. Lu [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in 1D, Z. Angew. Math. Phys. (2016) 67:62]. More precisely we provide a detailed study of the problem considered in that paper, pointing out the importance of the norm on the space $C^{1}[a,b]$; because no norm (topology) is mentioned on $C^{1}[a,b]$ we look at it as being a subspace of $W^{1,p}(a,b)$ for $p\in [1,\infty]$ endowed with its usual norm. We show that the objective function has not local extrema with the mentioned constraints for $p\in [1,4)$, and has (up to an additive constant) only a local maximizer for $p=\infty$, unlike the conclusion of the main result of the discussed paper where it is mentioned that there are (up to additive constants) two local minimizers and a local maximizer. We also show that the same conclusions are valid for the similar problem treated in the preprint by X. Lu and D.Y. Gao [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in higher dimensions, arXiv:1607.03995]., 12 pages; in this version we added the forgotten condition $F(x) \ne 0$ for $x\in (a,b)$ on page 3

(1998). Separating Hyperplanes and the Authorship of the Disputed Federalist Papers. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 105, No. 7, pp. 601-608.

This paper analyzed the drying process of the household gas clothes dryer (GCD) based on the principle of heat and mass transfer. The drying models in three scenarios were established: natural gas burned in combustion chamber, ambient air mixed with exhausted gas in hot gas duct, and clothes were dried in the drying drum. The simulation of the drying process was performed on MATLAB software. And the effectiveness of the drying model was verified by comparison with experiment results. The effects of gas flow rate, dry mass of clothes, ambient temperature, ambient humidity, textile type, and moisture extraction rate (MER) on the performance of dryers were studied. This paper provided a theoretical basis for the design and optimization of GCDs. It was found that the drying time of the gas clothes dryer was mostly affected by the gas flow and dry mass of clothes, and the specific moisture extraction rate (SMER) was mostly affected by the ambient temperature and relative humidity. The nylon clothes have the fastest MER and the smallest SMER. Moreover, reducing operating time in falling-rate drying period can improve energy efficiency.

Cooperative games form an important class of problems in game theory, where a key goal is to distribute a value among a set of players who are allowed to cooperate by forming coalitions. An outcome of the game is given by an allocation vector that assigns a value share to each player. A crucial aspect of such games is submodularity (or convexity). Indeed, convex instances of cooperative games exhibit several nice properties, e.g. regarding the existence and computation of allocations realizing some of the most important solution concepts proposed in the literature. For this reason, a relevant question is whether one can give a polynomial-time characterization of submodular instances, for prominent cooperative games that are in general non-convex. In this paper, we focus on a fundamental and widely studied cooperative game, namely the spanning tree game. An efficient recognition of submodular instances of this game was not known so far, and explicitly mentioned as an open question in the literature. We here settle this open problem by giving a polynomial-time characterization of submodular spanning tree games.

Biosorption is an efficient and environmental-friendly technology for the decontamination of dyes from industrial wastewater. These properties bio absorbent usage instead of commercial chemicals supports not only the “economic” dimension, but also “environment” and “social” dimensions of sustainability. As a novel bioadsorbent, methylene blue-resistant fungal strain Ulocladium consortiale was isolated from the Lake Tuz (Turkey). The effect of four independent variables pH (7–11), initial dye concentration (10–50 mg/L), biomass dosage (0.1–0.5 g/mL), and contact time (2.5–12.5 min) was studied on methylene biosorption by employing U. consortiale using batch mode. Optimum conditions were selected for maximum biosorption. Central Composite Design (CCD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) an ideal solution for fitting a second-order response surface model was performed to determine the optimum levels of parameters and to spot the correlation between the various parameters. The highest removal efficiency (R, %) of methylene blue was achieved with 92.69 % and U. consortiale showed the highest biosorption capacity (q, mg/g) 181.28 mg/g. This efficiency was obtained at 10 pH, 46 mg/L initial dye concentration, 0.2 g/mL biomass dosage, and 2.5 min contact time. The results of CCD of RSM show that Ulocladium consortiale is a suitable and sustainable novel biosorbent can be used in for methylene blue removal under optimal conditions.

In this paper we develop new tensor methods for unconstrained convex optimization, which solve at each iteration an auxiliary problem of minimizing convex multivariate polynomial. We analyze the simplest scheme, based on minimization of a regularized local model of the objective function, and its accelerated version obtained in the framework of estimating sequences. Their rates of convergence are compared with the worst-case lower complexity bounds for corresponding problem classes. Finally, for the third-order methods, we suggest an efficient technique for solving the auxiliary problem, which is based on the recently developed relative smoothness condition (Bauschke et al. in Math Oper Res 42:330–348, 2017; Lu et al. in SIOPT 28(1):333–354, 2018). With this elaboration, the third-order methods become implementable and very fast. The rate of convergence in terms of the function value for the accelerated third-order scheme reaches the level $$O\left( {1 \over k^4}\right) $$ O 1 k 4 , where k is the number of iterations. This is very close to the lower bound of the order $$O\left( {1 \over k^5}\right) $$ O 1 k 5 , which is also justified in this paper. At the same time, in many important cases the computational cost of one iteration of this method remains on the level typical for the second-order methods.

This paper introduced the use of two new adsorbents, Akrosorb soda-lime and Bentonite clay, for refinery flare flue gas capture and storage. This study also developed a novel pilot plant model with 409.7149 kg/h capacity refinery flare emission capture with a novel adsorption column configuration using Akrosorb soda-lime and Bentonite clay adsorbents. The flare flue gas adsorption unit was designed, fabricated, test run, and commissioned. The adsorption column temperature is 28 ± 10 °C and has a pressure of 131.7 kPa. The novel plant RSM optimization result shows that 93.24% of CO2 and 62.18% of CO were absorbed, while 86.14% of NOx and 55.87% of HC were absorbed. The established optimum conditions of CO2, NOx, HC, and CO removal efficiency are 22 °C, 2 atm, and 60 min. The variation in flare gas emission could impact the removal efficiency of the plant. The results show the maximum adsorption ability or capacity of 314.30 mg/g, and 68.90 mg/g was reached at 60 min for Akrosorb soda-lime and molded Bentonite adsorbents. Therefore, the developed novel technology for CO2 and other GHG capture is technically feasible and friendly. The combined usage of both adsorbents will enhance the capture of GHG at a low cost compared to using Akrosorb alone as an adsorbent.

Manufacturing processes in the electroplating industry employ hazardous chemicals and generate hazardous waste, including hexavalent chromium compounds and heavy metal cyanides. We designed a reagent-based treatment technology that can remove these contaminants and is relatively simple to implement and maintain. The technology features low reagent consumption but high treatment efficiency and simplifies separating precipitates from the treated effluent. The paper presents a detailed description of how to neutralise electroplating shop wastewater. We propose a system of organizational and technological measures to improve chemical safety.

© 2019, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. It is well known that the classical and Sobolev wave fronts were extended to nonequivalent global versions by the use of the short-time Fourier transform. In this very short paper, we give complete characterizations of the former wave front sets in terms of the short-time Fourier transform.

Discharge of wastewaters without treatment into aquatic and land habitats represents a global environmental problem. This study investigates the ability of cell immobilization technique in the treatment of different industrial wastewater, which characterized with high organic load (pickles wastewater), oil and grease (oil and soap company), nitrogen and phosphate (The Financial and Industrial Egyptian Company) and dyes (textile and dyeing wastewater). Chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total soluble salts (TSS), total solids (TS), ammonia (NH3-N), total nitrogen (TN), oil and grease (O&G) and phosphate (PO4-P) were analyzed following standard procedures. De-colorization assay and acute toxicity tests were done using Artemia salina larvae. The results indicated that the treated industrial wastewaters were safe and revealed the absence of toxic metabolites as the survival rate of A. salina in these waters was ranging from 80 to 100% as compared to untreated industrial wastewaters. The significant treatment efficiency of microbial cell immobilization technique after 12 h increased the quality of treated industrial wastewater and reduced or eliminated the presence of toxic metabolites. The immobilization technique decreased the concentrations of the organic matter from industrial wastewater by 47% of EC, 45% of TDS, 73% of TS, 95% of TSS, 95% of COD, 94% of BOD, 89% of O&G, 98% of PO4, 97% of NH3 and 90% of TN, respectively. The obtained results recommended using of microbial cell immobilization technique to overcoming water pollution problems.

Kitchen wastewater that is discharged to the environment is one of the contributing factors to water pollution in developing countries. Adsorption is one of the emerging technology of biological treatments that is an environmentally friendly for the removal of pollutants. Banana trunk fiber with chitosan as an adsorbent was investigated for minimizing COD and ammonia from the kitchen wastewater. The raw kitchen wastewater sample used in the study was collected from the Arked food court located in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia in Johor (Malaysia). The optimum of ratio, pH, shaking speed and contact time for COD and ammonia removal were determined. The result indicated the optimum mix ratio of fiber with chitosan, pH, shaking speed and contact time respectively was 50:50, pH 7, 125 rpm and 120 minutes based on the adsorption of COD (87%) and ammonia (90%) by banana trunk fiber with chitosan. Kinetic study of the results gave a pseudo-second order the R2 was closed to unity which was 0.998. It will significantly be considered for efficient removal of organic and nutrient pollutants present in kitchen wastewater treatment.

Funder: Prince of Wales Global Sustainability Fellowship Programme, Woody biomass could potentially become a viable raw material for the future sustainable chemical industry. For this, a suitable regulatory framework must exist, that would create favourable economic conditions for wood biorefineries. Such policies must be developed on the basis of scientific evidence—in this case, data supporting the environmental advantages of the bio-based feedstocks to the chemical industry. The most suitable methodology for comprehensive evaluation of environmental performance of technologies is life cycle assessment (LCA). In this review, the available LCA studies of woody biomass fractionation and conversion to bulk chemical feedstocks are critically evaluated. It has been revealed that the majority of the openly available studies do not contain transparent inventory data and, therefore, cannot be verified or re-used; studies containing inventory data are reported in this review. The lack of inventory data also prevents comparison between studies of the same processes performed with different evaluation methods or using different system boundaries. Recommendations are proposed on how to overcome issues of commercial data sensitivity by using black-box modelling when reporting environmental information. From several comparable LCA studies, it has been concluded that today the most environmentally favourable technology for wood biomass fractionation is organosolv. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bio-derived and bioinspired sustainable advanced materials for emerging technologies (part 1)’.

Recently, various types of single valued neutrosophic (SVN) rough set models were presented based on the same inclusion relation. However, there is another SVN inclusion relation in SVN sets. In this paper, we propose a new type of SVN covering rough set model based on the new inclusion relation. Furthermore, the graph and matrix representations of the new SVN covering approximation operators are presented. Firstly, the notion of SVN β 2 -covering approximation space is proposed, which is decided by the new inclusion relation. Then, a type of SVN covering rough set model under the SVN β 2 -covering approximation space is presented. Moreover, there is a corresponding SVN relation rough set model based on a SVN relation induced by the SVN β 2 -covering, and two conditions under which the SVN β 2 -covering can induce a symmetric SVN relation are presented. Thirdly, the graph and matrix representations of the new SVN covering rough set model are investigated. Finally, we propose a novel method for decision making (DM) problems in paper defect diagnosis under the new SVN covering rough set model.

We consider the problem of maximizing a homogeneous polynomial on the unit sphere and its hierarchy of sum-of-squares relaxations. Exploiting the polynomial kernel technique, we obtain a quadratic improvement of the known convergence rate by Reznick and Doherty and Wehner. Specifically, we show that the rate of convergence is no worse than $$O(d^2/\ell ^2)$$ O ( d 2 / ℓ 2 ) in the regime $$\ell = \Omega (d)$$ ℓ = Ω ( d ) where $$\ell $$ ℓ is the level of the hierarchy and d the dimension, solving a problem left open in the recent paper by de Klerk and Laurent (arXiv:1904.08828 ). Importantly, our analysis also works for matrix-valued polynomials on the sphere which has applications in quantum information for the Best Separable State problem. By exploiting the duality relation between sums of squares and the Doherty–Parrilo–Spedalieri hierarchy in quantum information theory, we show that our result generalizes to nonquadratic polynomials the convergence rates of Navascués, Owari and Plenio.

Pulp washing process has the features of multivariate, time delay, nonlinearity. Considering the difficulties of modeling and optimal control in pulp washing process, a data-driven operational-pattern optimization method is proposed to model and optimize the pulp washing process in this paper. The most important quality indexes of pulp washing performance are residual soda in the washed pulp and Baume degree of extracted black liquor. Considering the difficulties of modeling, online measurement of these indexes, two-step neural networks, and multivariate logistic regression are used to establish the prediction models of residual soda and Baume degree. The mathematical model of the washing process can be identified, and the indexes can meet the production requirements. In the target of better product quality, low cost, and low energy consumption, a multiobjective problems is solved by ant colony optimization algorithm based on the optimized operational-pattern database. It shows that the theoretical analyses are correct and the practical applications are feasible, optimization control system has been designed for the pulp washing process, and the practical results show that pulp production increased by 20% and water consumption decreased by nearly 30%. This method is effective in the pulp washing process.

The possibilities of exploiting the special structure of d.c. programs, which consist of optimizing the difference of convex functions, are currently more or less limited to variants of the DCA proposed by Pham Dinh Tao and Le Thi Hoai An in 1997. These assume that either the convex or the concave part, or both, are evaluated by one of their subgradients. In this paper we propose an algorithm which allows the evaluation of both the concave and the convex part by their proximal points. Additionally, we allow a smooth part, which is evaluated via its gradient. In the spirit of primal-dual splitting algorithms, the concave part might be the composition of a concave function with a linear operator, which are, however, evaluated separately. For this algorithm we show that every cluster point is a solution of the optimization problem. Furthermore, we show the connection to the Toland dual problem and prove a descent property for the objective function values of a primal-dual formulation of the problem. Convergence of the iterates is shown if this objective function satisfies the Kurdyka--\L ojasiewicz property. In the last part, we apply the algorithm to an image processing model.

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.

In this short paper, we will show that the space of real valued uniformly continuous functions defined on a metric space (X,d) is a ring if and only if every subset A ? X has one of the following properties: ? A is Bourbaki-bounded, i.e., every uniformly continuous function on X is bounded on A. ? A contains an infinite uniformly isolated subset, i.e., there exist ? > 0 and an infinite subset F ? A such that d(a,x) ? ? for every a ? F, x ? X n \{a}.

The rationalization of logistics activities and processes is very important in the business and efficiency of every company. In this respect, transportation as a subsystem of logistics, whether internal or external, is potentially a huge area for achieving significant savings. In this paper, the emphasis is placed upon the internal transport logistics of a paper manufacturing company. It is necessary to rationalize the movement of vehicles in the company’s internal transport, that is, for the majority of the transport to be transferred to rail transport, because the company already has an industrial track installed in its premises. To do this, it is necessary to purchase at least two used wagons. The problem is formulated as a multi-criteria decision model with eight criteria and eight alternatives. The paper presents a new approach based on a combination of the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method and rough numbers, which is used for ranking the potential solutions and selecting the most suitable one. The rough Best–Worst Method (BWM) was used to determine the weight values of the criteria. The results obtained using a combination of these two methods in their rough form were verified by means of a sensitivity analysis consisting of a change in the weight criteria and comparison with the following methods in their conventional and rough forms: the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Technique for Ordering Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and MultiAttributive Border Approximation area Comparison (MABAC). The results show very high stability of the model and ranks that are the same or similar in different scenarios.

When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in ‘batch sizes of one’), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one production, ‘topology generation’, ‘realisability’, and ‘control’ algorithms have been developed as part of the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) project. The topology generation algorithm computes all the possible sequences of parallel activities that assembly resources can perform on parts and is run offline whenever the layout of the production facility changes, whereas realisability checking and controller generation are performed at run-time to check whether a production facility with a given set of assembly resources can assemble a desired product, and how the product should be assembled, e.g., which resources to use, and when. Generated controllers are output in Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML). Taken together, the algorithms thus represent a step toward a complete path from the formal specification of an assembly system and the products to be assembled, to the automated synthesis of executable process plans. This paper presents each algorithm in sufficient detail to allow their reimplementation by other researchers. Topology generation is the most expensive step in the approach. A preliminary experimental evaluation of the scalability of topology generation is presented, which suggests that, for small to medium sized production facilities, the time required for recomputing the topology is sufficiently small not to preclude frequent factory transformations, e.g., the addition of new resources.

In order to solve the Sylvester equations more efficiently, a new four parameters positive and skew-Hermitian splitting (FPPSS) iterative method is proposed in this paper based on the previous research of the positive and skew-Hermitian splitting (PSS) iterative method. We prove that when coefficient matrix A and B satisfy certain conditions, the FPPSS iterative method is convergent in the parameter&rsquo, s value region. The numerical experiment results show that compared with previous iterative method, the FPPSS iterative method is more effective in terms of iteration number IT and runtime.

The "exact subgraph" approach was recently introduced as a hierarchical scheme to get increasingly tight semidefinite programming relaxations of several NP-hard graph optimization problems. Solving these relaxations is a computational challenge because of the potentially large number of violated subgraph constraints. We introduce a computational framework for these relaxations designed to cope with these difficulties. We suggest a partial Lagrangian dual, and exploit the fact that its evaluation decomposes into several independent subproblems. This opens the way to use the bundle method from non-smooth optimization to minimize the dual function. Finally computational experiments on the Max-Cut, stable set and coloring problem show the excellent quality of the bounds obtained with this approach., arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1902.05345

We investigate the asymptotic properties of the trajectories generated by a second-order dynamical system with Hessian driven damping and a Tikhonov regularization term in connection with the minimization of a smooth convex function in Hilbert spaces. We obtain fast convergence results for the function values along the trajectories. The Tikhonov regularization term enables the derivation of strong convergence results of the trajectory to the minimizer of the objective function of minimum norm.

The research is supported by Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain) who finances the research project PGC2018-095765-B-I00 (PROFESTEM)., To the University of Granada for the funding of the bridging grant-contract awarded to David Aguilera to complete his post-doctoral training. Further, to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for funding project PGC2018-095765-B-I00 (PROFESTEM) and to the Scientific Unit for Excellence in Teacher Training and Professional Development., The emergence of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in research and the practice of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education is today an unquestionable fact at international level. Despite the importance attached to STEM education, there is a lack of synthesized approaches to teaching the interdisciplinarity of STEM. This lack of synthesis can hinder a strong theoretical foundation for STEM education and possible new contributions. The purpose of this position paper is to contribute a theoretical framework for STEM education that enables the unification of criteria regarding disciplinary integration and associated teaching methods. The authors discuss disciplinary integration in STEM activities, the implication of STEM literacy, educational stage, and teaching method, and provide suggestions for future research., Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain) PGC2018-095765-B-I00

The potential of activated carbon from palm kernel shell (PKS-AC) to improve the quality of surface water and greywater based on the measurements of the parameters pH, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved oxygen (TDS) and total suspended solids (TSS) was investigated in the present study. The PKS was acid treated with aqueous H3PO4 (1 N) for overnight at room temperature and then subjected to heat treatment at 550 °C for 2 h. The efficiency of the PSK-AC samples of 30 and 40 mm thicknesses was examined for reduction of the above parameters in surface water and greywater samples for 5, 15, 30 and 60 min of the filtration process. The efficiency of COD reduction by 50 and 56.44%, that of TDS by 57.81% and 22%, and that of TSS by 83.11 and 42.11% were detected using the PSK-AC samples above, respectively. The OH group contributed most to the removal of pollutants among the OH, N–H, C=O, C=C, C–O–C, C–O–H main functional groups pointed out via Fourier Transform Infra-red (FTIR) analysis on the surface. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that the surface of the raw PSK-AC appeared smooth with holes on the external surface, while the grains were filled in the PSK-AC after the adsorption process.

This work was aimed at providing a comprehensive physicochemical characterization of the Malaysian oil palm leaves (OPL) that may be useful for industrial applications as well as providing new insights on minimizing the environmental impact of oil palm biomass wastes. The leaves of discarded oil palm fronds were collected, dried and ground. The leaves powder was subjected to acid and thermal treatments prior to physicochemical analyses. Physicochemical characterization included analyses of thermal gravimetry, ultimate analysis, Fourier-Transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction and nitrogen sorption. Ultimate analysis revealed that the untreated OPL contained carbon (46.98 %), hydrogen (6.500 %), nitrogen (1.810 %) and sulfur (0.150 %) with a moderately high calorific value of 19.21 MJ/kg. Thermal gravimetric and derivative thermal gravimetric analyses indicated that OPL is a lignocellulosic material with little moisture and ash contents. X-ray Florescence revealed Ca (39.20 %), K (22.10 %) and Si (19.20 %) as the three major elements in the ash of the untreated sample with Si (95.20%) being predominant for the treated ones. The ash of the acid treated sample was majorly amorphous silica which was slightly mesoporous with surface area of 160.59 m2g-1 as shown by X-ray diffraction and nitrogen sorption analyses respectively. These findings confirmed that the Malaysian OPL is a lignocellulosic biomass as well as a good source of amorphous silica, hence may prove useful as a potential renewable source of bioenergy and an alternative silica source for industrial applications.

We propose a complete-search algorithm for solving a class of non-convex, possibly infinite-dimensional, optimization problems to global optimality. We assume that the optimization variables are in a bounded subset of a Hilbert space, and we determine worst-case run-time bounds for the algorithm under certain regularity conditions of the cost functional and the constraint set. Because these run-time bounds are independent of the number of optimization variables and, in particular, are valid for optimization problems with infinitely many optimization variables, we prove that the algorithm converges to an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon $$\end{document}ε-suboptimal global solution within finite run-time for any given termination tolerance \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon > 0$$\end{document}ε>0. Finally, we illustrate these results for a problem of calculus of variations.

We conducted a study dealing with the economical application of sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) for the treatment of sulphate-rich wastewater. In this study, four types of frequently available fruit wastes were employed as carbon sources for economical cultivation of the SRB and consequent reduction of sulphate from artificially prepared sulphate-rich wastewater. The bacterial species employed in this study were isolated from a leading wastewater channel in Pakistan and characterized phenotypically as well as genotypically. The bacterial identities were proved after BLAST analysis and construction of phylogenetic tree. Among all of the SRB species employed for sulphate reduction, Desulfovibrio fructosovorans-HAQ2 was found as the leading sulphate reducer and reduced sulphate maximally to 29% (0.51 ± 0.02 g L−1), 76% (1.51 ± 0.07 g L−1), 41% (0.83 ± 0.02 g L−1), and 63% (1.25 ± 0.02 g L−1) using apple peelings, apple pomace, mango peelings, and watermelon rind, respectively, in a 60-day trial of anaerobic incubation. In the present study, apple pomace appeared as the most suitable carbon source only for Desulfovibrio fructosovorans-HAQ2, while any of the other three bacterial species could not reduce sulphate more than 34% using this substrate. However, on average, watermelon rind was found as the most appropriate carbon source for the cultivation of SRB and all the SRB species reduced sulphate efficiently in the range of 40–63% using this carbon source. Our findings of the present study prove the productive utility of fruit wastes for developing cost-effective and environmental-friendly remedial strategies.

Mesoporous silica, MCM-41, functionalized with diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) and 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane as an interface ligand, was investigated as a potential drug delivery system for radionuclides. The outstanding properties of Gallium-67 complexes, such as noninvasively detection of tumors, inflammation, and both acute and chronic infection, proposed that these compounds might potentially be good candidates as test drugs for drug delivery systems. In this work, [67Ga] radionuclide was grafted on DTPA-functionalized MCM-41 with the direct method of modification, and the compounds were characterized by paper chromatography, FT-IR spectroscopy, low angle X-ray diffraction, and CHN and TGA/DTA analyses. The specific activity of the final compound was found to be 3 Ci/g, and the biological evaluations of the grafted complex, [67Ga]-DTPA-NH-Propyl@MCM-41, were done in fibrosarcoma tumor-bearing Sprague–Dawley rats. DTPA-functionalized MCM-41 was found to be a good host for diagnostic radionuclides with the ability to form complex with DTPA. Considering the accumulation of the tracer in tumor, fast wash-out from normal tissues, appropriate half-life 67Ga and less imposed radiation doses to patients (compare to non-targeted radiopharmaceutical), [67Ga]-DTPA-NH-Propyl@MCM-41 can be a suitable radiopharmaceutical for imaging purposes.

The threat of oil pollution increases with the development of large-scale off-shore petroleum industrial activities. Recently, reducing waste materials through reuse has contributed to sustainable manufacturing in many industries. With development of large-scale poultry farming industries, the disposal of large amounts of waste chicken feathers has become a huge problem. Thus, sustainable methods for valorisation of this waste are needed. This paper examines beneficiation of waste chicken feathers via conversion into sorbents for clean-up of oil spills in water bodies to replace conventionally used synthetic adsorbents that are costly. Chicken feathers have a very high capacity for adsorption of liquid oils (up to 16.21 g of oil/g of chicken feather) at fast uptake time (10 min). The removal efficiency of oils in spills increases with increment in contact time with the sorbent. Untreated waste chicken feathers exhibited slow sorption rate for oil due to the presence of grease and other impurities on the surface of feathers. More than 85% of the oil adsorbed by chicken feathers can be recovered. Thus, waste chicken feathers show very attractive and promising adsorption/absorption properties for oil spill clean-up applications to replace polymer-based adsorbents due to their high oil absorption capacities. Both untreated and treated chicken feathers show promising potential for use as oil absorbents.