Search

Advanced digital technologies and social media have greatly improved both the learning experience and the assessment convenience, while inadvertently facilitated potential plagiarism and collaborative cheating at the same time. In this article, we will focus on the strategies and their technological implementations to run exams, or in-class tests similar to the nature of an exam. Our aim is to defeat potential student plagiarism or collusion as much as possible, while not consuming more than a tolerable amount of time and efforts on the teaching team as a whole. For the most vulnerable online, open-book, and nonproctored exams, we thus propose to limit the reading and answering of each main or section question to a strictly allocated amount of time questionwise, and we forbid returning to any previous questions that are already completed, or expired, to greatly reduce the time window for potential plagiarism and collusion. An equally important design goal here is that the relevant implementation, maintenance, deployment, exam management, answer retrieval, and marking should in principle be made sufficiently efficient to be handled completely just by the relevant subject instructor(s), at least after the initial development.

The Tree-Seed Algorithm (TSA) has been effective in addressing a multitude of optimization issues. However, it has faced challenges with early convergence and difficulties in managing high-dimensional, intricate optimization problems. To tackle these shortcomings, this paper introduces a TSA variant (DTSA). DTSA incorporates a suite of methodological enhancements that significantly bolster TSA's capabilities. It introduces the PSO-inspired seed generation mechanism, which draws inspiration from Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to integrate velocity vectors, thereby enhancing the algorithm's ability to explore and exploit solution spaces. Moreover, DTSA's adaptive velocity adaptation mechanism based on count parameters employs a counter to dynamically adjust these velocity vectors, effectively curbing the risk of premature convergence and strategically reversing vectors to evade local optima. DTSA also integrates the trees population integrated evolutionary strategy, which leverages arithmetic crossover and natural selection to bolster population diversity, accelerate convergence, and improve solution accuracy. Through experimental validation on the IEEE CEC 2014 benchmark functions, DTSA has demonstrated its enhanced performance, outperforming recent TSA variants like STSA, EST-TSA, fb-TSA, and MTSA, as well as established benchmark algorithms such as GWO, PSO, BOA, GA, and RSA. In addition, the study analyzed the best value, mean, and standard deviation to demonstrate the algorithm's efficiency and stability in handling complex optimization issues, and DTSA's robustness and efficiency are proven through its successful application in five complex, constrained engineering scenarios, demonstrating its superiority over the traditional TSA by dynamically optimizing solutions and overcoming inherent limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) belonging to the Phenuiviridae family is responsible for a zoonotic disease called Rift Valley fever (RVF). Currently, RVFV has spread from Africa to Asia, and due to its ability to cause high mortality rates, it has significantly impacted human health and economic development in many societies. Highly specific and sensitive systems for sero-diagnosis of RVFV infection are needed for clinical use. Method: BALB/c mice were immunized with recombinant RVFV nucleocapsid (rRVFV-N) protein and the spleen cells fused with SP2/0 myeloma cells to create hybridoma cell lines. The secreted monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) were purified and characterized. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) systems for the detection of IgG and IgM using the new MAbs were established and evaluated. Serum samples from 96 volunteers and 93 patients of suspected RVF from Kenya were tested compared with the ELISA systems based on inactivated viruses and the rabbit polyclonal antibody. Result: Three monoclonal antibodies against rRVFV-N protein were established. The performance of the MAb-based sandwich IgG ELISA and the IgM capture ELISA perfectly matched the ELISA systems using the inactivated virus or the polyclonal antibody. Conclusions: Recombinant RVFV-N protein-specific MAbs were developed and they offer useful tools for RVFV studies. The MAb-based ELISA systems for detecting IgG and IgM offer safe and useful options for diagnosing RVFV infections in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneous partial nitrification, anammox and denitrification (SNAD) is a sustainable and cost-effective technology for nitrogen removal from low-strength wastewater. However, knowledge of the biofilm microenvironment of the SNAD system is currently unsatisfactory. The purpose of this study was to evaluate organic carbon effects on the microenvironment and microbial growth in the SNAD biofilm system. Microelectrodes were used to investigate microbial activity in-depth within biofilms. ORP distribution of the SNAD system was positively related to anammox activity(R2 = 0.9), and had some influence on microbial community structure. The synergistic effect of anammox bacteria and denitrifiers could be achieved when the abundance ratio of anammox bacteria to denitrifying bacteria is greater than 1.2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) process is known as a low-energy and environmentally friendly process for treating nitrogen-rich wastewater. Anammox bacteria are the key microorganisms to achieve this biological process. However, the efficient enrichment of anammox bacteria has been a bottleneck for its practical application because of their slow growth and high sensitivity, and no pure culture has been found. Therefore, the development of efficient anammox bacterial enrichment techniques is of great theoretical and application value. Solving the problem of anammox bacterial activity and improving the process denitrification performance is one of the current research hotspots. In this paper, three aspects of anammox bacteria are described in terms of their physiological properties, environmental influencing factors, and short-term starvation tolerance; a systematic review of the latest research progress in accelerating the activity of anammox bacteria using enrichment strategies for process regulation, the construction of granulation models, suspended sludge biomass management, and strain preservation. Finally, the future frontier development of anammox bacteria was discussed and foreseen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]