Self-organizing Ability Research Articles

An agent-based framework for simulating interactions between reservoir operators and farmers for reservoir management with dynamic demands

Agricultural water demand may dynamically vary as socioeconomic characteristics of farmers evolve. Reservoir operation under dynamic demand has a quite new origin. This paper employs an Agent-Based Model (ABM) in combination with the standard reservoir operating policy (SOP). Proposed framework (ABM-SOP) simulates a dynamic long-term reservoir operation considering the variations of agricultural water demand as socioeconomic behaviors of farmers evolves. In the proposed ABM, farmers are assumed to have memory and individual characteristics that make exclusive decisions based on their knowledge about the prevailing conditions. Farmers' water demand varies dynamically with their main socioeconomic characteristics addressed by their age, education, risk-taking ability, and dependency on agricultural income. Farmers respond to amount of available water by changing the cropping pattern and irrigation technology without any obligation from policymakers. Results of this study indicate that first, through the dynamic interaction between farmers and reservoir operators, water stress experienced by farmers is reduced by about 50%; they gain 20% more profit by making adapted decisions under different circumstances. Second, the most critical factor influencing the farmers' responses is risk-taking rate that might be managed to increase flexibility of farmers in their decisions. Third, a bottom-up approach applied in this research shows that selfish farmers could be smart enough to make proper decisions in response to fluctuation in available water as a result of self-organizing ability (i.e. ability of individual agents to organize their collective behaviors through interacting with each other rather than external intervention or education) of complex human-natural systems. Farmers would balance their risk-taking status based on their education, and as they receive information on reservoir storage and water availability for allocation. So, policymakers can improve the efficiency of their decisions by promoting the information exchange with all stakeholders and parties involved in the system operation.

Influence of Psychological And Pedagogical Features оf Students оn Their Activity in Self-Education

Theoretical and empirical research which was provided a study of influence of psychological and pedagogical characteristics of students as a separate socio-age group on their activity in self-education. Theoretical analysis of potential opportunities for activating students self-education due to age and social aspects of their lives are carried out. Empirical study of goals and motives, life plans, awareness of personal and professional „self-concept“ of humanities students showed high interest in self-education in the vast majority of students against the background of partial formation of motivation for personal and professional self-development and generally low awareness of their own characteristics. The positive influences on the self-education of students of humanities faculties of the following psychological and pedagogical factors are revealed: conscious life creation; activity in self-development; ability of self-actualization, self-organization and self-regulation of own development; formation of a humanistic worldview. Тo enhance the self-education of students with purposeful use of this factors can affect the overall quality of future professional trainings.

Research on Scientific Communication Mechanism of Public Emergencies Based on Information Aging Characteristics

The openness of public emergency information shows that any individual may become the object of the evolution system of false information, and its complexity shows the diversity of information dissemination methods, the variability of individual emotions, and the randomness of public participation and retreat. Firstly, this paper analyzes the characteristics of information aging in the network age, and establishes the theoretical models of acceleration, speed and diffusion intensity of public emergency network diffusion according to the characteristics of public emergency network communication. According to the problems analyzed above, some suggestions are given to improve the scientific communication mechanism of public emergencies in China. With the help of melt media, the mechanism of scientific communication can be innovated, the integration among media can be promoted, the self-organization ability of the system can be enhanced, the “checking” of information can be strengthened, and the feedback adjustment mechanism can be improved, thus providing endogenous power for enhancing the effectiveness of scientific communication.

Профилактическая программа психолого-педагогического сопровождения обучающихся на этапе подготовки к итоговой аттестации «STOP-стресс»

The preventive program of psychological and pedagogical support of students at the stage of preparation for the final certification “STOP-stress” helps to create a positive emotional background, the development of positive thinking and stress resistance, which increases the chances of graduating school students to successfully pass the final certification in the form of the Main State Exam / Unified State Exam and further professional self-realization students. The program presents a model of psychological and pedagogical support of students aged 14 to 17 years at the stage of graduation from secondary (9th grades) and senior (11th grades) schools. The program of training sessions “STOP-stress” was developed with the aim of solving a problematic situation that arises among graduate students during the period of self-preparation for the final exams. This situation is associated with an annual increase in the level of anxiety and emotional and mental stress in the process of intense mental stress (personality component), low ability for self-organization and mobilization of cognitive processes in a stressful situation (cognitive component), lack of skills in constructive re-sponse to stress and with a low level of self-control their emotions and regulation of their state as a whole (procedural component). This, in the end, affects the general psychological readiness to pass the final certification. The developed program for the prevention of exam stress according to the principle of operation of the “STOP tool” contributes to an increase in the level of mobilization and the development of psychological stability of graduate students. The program includes a set of exercises and problem situations aimed at: developing psychologically stable qualities and constructive behavior models, generally contributing to a decrease in the level of anxiety (personal component), as well as increasing the skills of self-control and self-regulation (procedural component) and the ability to self-organize and activation of cognitive processes (cognitive component). The developed program can be useful to a number of different specialists: educational psychologists, social educa-tors, methodologists working in the field of education at the stage of teaching children in a general educational institution during their preparation for passing the final exams in the form of the Main State Exam / Unified State Exam.

Virus-Like Particles Produced Using the Brome Mosaic Virus Recombinant Capsid Protein Expressed in a Bacterial System.

Virus-like particles (VLPs), due to their nanoscale dimensions, presence of interior cavities, self-organization abilities and responsiveness to environmental changes, are of interest in the field of nanotechnology. Nevertheless, comprehensive knowledge of VLP self-assembly principles is incomplete. VLP formation is governed by two types of interactions: protein–cargo and protein–protein. These interactions can be modulated by the physicochemical properties of the surroundings. Here, we used brome mosaic virus (BMV) capsid protein produced in an E. coli expression system to study the impact of ionic strength, pH and encapsulated cargo on the assembly of VLPs and their features. We showed that empty VLP assembly strongly depends on pH whereas ionic strength of the buffer plays secondary but significant role. Comparison of VLPs containing tRNA and polystyrene sulfonic acid (PSS) revealed that the structured tRNA profoundly increases VLPs stability. We also designed and produced mutated BMV capsid proteins that formed VLPs showing altered diameters and stability compared to VLPs composed of unmodified proteins. We also observed that VLPs containing unstructured polyelectrolyte (PSS) adopt compact but not necessarily more stable structures. Thus, our methodology of VLP production allows for obtaining different VLP variants and their adjustment to the incorporated cargo.

Fine-Tuning Protein Self-Organization by Orthogonal Chemo-Optogenetic Tools.

A universal gain‐of‐function approach for the spatiotemporal control of protein activity is highly desirable when reconstituting biological modules in vitro. Here we used orthogonal translation with a photocaged amino acid to map and elucidate molecular mechanisms in the self‐organization of the prokaryotic filamentous cell‐division protein (FtsZ) that is highly relevant for the assembly of the division ring in bacteria. We masked a tyrosine residue of FtsZ by site‐specific incorporation of a photocaged tyrosine analogue. While the mutant still shows self‐assembly into filaments, dynamic self‐organization into ring patterns can no longer be observed. UV‐mediated uncaging revealed that tyrosine 222 is essential for the regulation of the protein's GTPase activity, self‐organization, and treadmilling dynamics. Thus, the light‐mediated assembly of functional protein modules appears to be a promising minimal‐regulation strategy for building up molecular complexity towards a minimal cell.

Формы функционирования местного сообщества в рамках территориального общественного самоуправления на территории муниципальных образований Российской Федерации

This article focuses on the study of territorial self-government as one of the most relevant forms of the local community functioning. A special scientific interest in it is due to its exceptional ability for self-organization, which makes it possible to realize the potential of citizens in solving local issues. The authors present an analysis of two main trends in the formation of the TSG system and structure - administrative and initiative - and their organizational potential. The study of the organizational structure of territorial self-government and the forms of its implementation reveals a number of specific features of TSG. Particular attention in the article is paid to the analysis of the TSG of the Far Eastern Federal District, the problems of the functioning of this form of self-organization and the prospects for development

Future Development of Natural Villages in Rural China Based on the Analysis of Dissipative Structure Theory

Recently, urbanization, economic development, and industrial structure adjustment are decreasing the number of permanent residents in rural areas in China on a yearly basis; the rural population is aging and the natural villages are gradually declining or even dying out. Considering the overall situation of rural natural villages in China, we selected a typical village in Shandong province as the object for field research. This study analyzes the idle situation of rural houses and the population distribution in the rural areas and summarizes the specific characteristics that indicate the decline of natural villages. Subsequently, it also analyzes the underlying reasons for the decline using the dissipative structure theory, and proposes that a new dissipative structure should be established by opening and activating conventional villages, protecting featured villages, and integrating declined villages. Furthermore, the internal management of the updated villages should be improved to increase the cohesion and self-organizing ability of the new system.

ПОНЯТТЯ САМООРГАНІЗАЦІЇ НАВЧАННЯ У КОНТЕКСТІ ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ ПІДГОТОВКИ МАЙБУТНІХ ВИКЛАДАЧІВ ХОРЕОГРАФІЧНИХ ДИСЦИПЛІН

The article deals with the general scientific content of the concept of the self-organization of the individual and highlights its particular characteristics in the context of complex professional training of Bachelors in choreography at teacher’s training higher educational establishments. The universality and procedural nature of the phenomenon are reflected by intrinsic features of self-organization. The article traces the interaction of processes of self-organization which results in qualitative changes and transformations, appearance of new properties and features.These phenomena reflect the role of the individual as a participant or an organizer of certain processes that take place, in particular, in the learning environment. These phenomena are studied in the field of social sciences, pedagogy and psychology. The teacher’s training field dwells on the importance of the qualities necessary for a future teacher such as the ability of self-development and self-organization, search creativity and self-improvement. The self-organization in the individual’s education in the process of special training can be the basis of an individually directed program of formation and development of students by forming an individual educational space. Self-organization of student’s educational work is considered to be a complex, motivated and independent activity, aimed at maximizing the effective assimilation and creative application of relevant professional knowledge, skills and competence.The educational process of future teachers of choreographic courses requires mastering the content of the core subjects, the subjects included in the curriculum of art training of the specialists as well as the subjects of the elective part in the system of educational and vocational training. In addition, the training given in the article, involves the constant and purposeful development and improvement of the professionally necessary physical features of the young dancers acquired through regular trainings and rehearsals included in the artistic part of the curriculum.The successful training of the students in choreography in the teacher’s training higher educational establishments based on self-organization is determined by the ability to provide personal self-regulation, sustainable and purposeful learning performance, physical and mental activities. The skills of self-organization in the educational activity allow students of choreography to organize and carry out planning, draw up the curriculum, monitor and control of the educational activity on their own, as well as to determine the prospects of further development in professional and personal ways. The educational self-organization in the context of professional training of the teachers of choreography has got important functions, namely didactic, educational and managerial functions.

Long-term changes in ecological functioning of temperate shelf sea benthic communities

The functioning of ecosystems is decisively dependent on the composition and distribution of the functional traits of the constituent species. We used trait analysis to represent aspects of marine benthic functioning, using a 20-year time-series (1992–2011) on macrozoobenthos collected annually at four monitoring sites in the southern North Sea. Temporal patterns of trait composition and taxonomic composition were compared to test whether they exhibited similar or contrasting responses to environmental change. Temporal changes in trait composition were more similar among monitoring sites than the changes in the taxonomic composition suggesting that trait compositions converge towards a common structure sculpted by common environmental drivers. The relationship between species richness and functional diversity displayed a power-shaped curve with a shallow slope, implying considerable functional redundancy among species. The temporal trends in functional diversity were relatively stable as compared to taxonomic diversity, with only two irregularities coinciding with exceptionally cold winter events in the North Sea in 1995 and 2009. Following the temporary changes in ecological functioning, the functional diversity returned to previous levels within one year. The rapid functional recovery of the benthic infauna confirms the self-organizing ability of the ecosystem in response to stressors and may be attributed to the high functional redundancy in the temperate shelf sea system of the North Sea.

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)/galactomannan from Delonix regia seed thermal responsive graft copolymer via Schiff base reaction

Aminated poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm-NH2) was grafted onto oxidized galactomannan polysaccharide extracted from Delonix regia (OXGM) via Schiff base reaction by a simple, rapid synthetic route, deprived of the use of organic solvents. Grafting was confirmed by FTIR and 1H NMR and the self-organizing ability of the obtained nanoparticle copolymers was investigated by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The minimum concentration required for self-organization (CAC) at 25 °C was higher than at 50 °C. Lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was in the range 34–40 °C, depending on both inserted PNIPAm-NH2 molar mass and on the presence of reduced imine bond. Synthesized copolymers are promising candidates for drug delivery as they show good cell viability, particle size around 250 nm and transition temperature closer to that of human body. Reaction success points out to the possibility of use free aldehyde groups of oxidized polysaccharide, not used in the copolymerization, to form a pro-drug with substances that possess NH2 groups in their structure, such as doxorubicin.

EDUCATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL ENVIRONMENT AS A FACTOR OF SKILLS FORMATION OF SELF-ORGANIZATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS’ EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

Modernization of educational activities determines the necessity for the formation of educational and developmental environment. Today, the development of students' self-organization in an educational and developmental environment is one of the main demands that modern society puts forward to the system of primary education. The purpose is to study the features of the educational and developmental environment, its classification; development of didactic games at the lessons of Writing and Mathematics that promote the development of pupils’ self-organization in an educational and developmental environment. Research methods: a logical method; methods of system analysis; comparative analysis has made it possible to compare phenomena in order to establish similarities or differences between them. The academic paper has highlighted the essence of the concepts “educational and developmental environment”, “self-organization of educational activities”. The components of the educational and developmental environment of primary school and its classification have been formed. The basic types of primary pupils’ self-organization under the influence of the educational and developmental environment have been considered. The stages of the ability of self-organization of primary schoolchildren’s educational activity within the conditions of educational and developmental environment have been determined. Examples of Writing lessons in grades 1 and 4 have been given at the above stages, which contribute to the formation of skills of self-organization of pupils’ learning activities. Thus, types of didactic games at the lessons of Writing and Mathematics have been offered, which make it possible to provide material in accessible, interesting form, form skills of self-organization of schoolchildren in educational environment.

Adaptive Clustering through Multi-Agent Technology: Development and Perspectives

The paper is devoted to an overview of multi-agent principles, methods, and technologies intended to adaptive real-time data clustering. The proposed methods provide new principles of self-organization of records and clusters, represented by software agents, making it possible to increase the adaptability of different clustering processes significantly. The paper also presents a comparative review of the methods and results recently developed in this area and their industrial applications. An ability of self-organization of items and clusters suggests a new perspective to form groups in a bottom-up online fashion together with continuous adaption previously obtained decisions. Multi-agent technology allows implementing this methodology in a parallel and asynchronous multi-thread manner, providing highly flexible, scalable, and reliable solutions. Industrial applications of the intended for solving too complex engineering problems are discussed together with several practical examples of data clustering in manufacturing applications, such as the pre-analysis of customer datasets in the sales process, pattern discovery, and ongoing forecasting and consolidation of orders and resources in logistics, clustering semantic networks in insurance document processing. Future research is outlined in the areas such as capturing the semantics of problem domains and guided self-organization on the virtual market.

Interdisciplinary foreign language teaching as means of self-organization ability building by new generation specialists

Interdisciplinary foreign language teaching as means of self-organization ability building by new generation specialists

Effects of Different Biomaterials and Cellular Status on Testicular Cell Self-Organization.

A multicellular organism's development is coupled with cellular self-organization, which is regulated by cell-cell interactions and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) crosstalk. Testicular cells from different species such as mouse, rat, and porcine can self-organize into seminiferous tubules both in vitro and in vivo, but the understanding of the functional role of the ECM during this process is limited. Here, it is shown that mouse testicular cells encapsulated with the biomaterial Matrigel can self-organize into seminiferous tubules with blood-testis barrier (BTB) formation and Leydig cell differentiation. By varying the encapsulation method, a combination of sodium alginate and collagen is used to promote reorganization of seminiferous tubules, which resemble those in vivo. In addition, the self-organization ability of testicular cells declines with advanced cell age, and those germ cells play a pivotal role in this process. These findings will be helpful to understand the self-organization process of testicular cells and provide insights for the reconstruction of testes.

From elite folk science to the policy legend of the circular economy

This paper explores the implications of the widespread success of the term circular economy in the institutional and public debate. The concept of circular economy in itself implies a logical contradiction: on the one hand, the concept acknowledges the dependence of the economy on biophysical flows; on the other hand, the proposed solution—a business model guaranteeing a full decoupling of the economy from natural resources—seemingly ignores that biophysical processes are subject to thermodynamic constraints. A biophysical view of the sustainability predicament—the flows exchanged between the technosphere and the biosphere — is depicted to show that the idea of a full decoupling is simply due to ignorance of the knowledge generated in (inter)disciplinary scientific fields other than the dominant economic one. The success of economics as an ‘elite folk science’ is explained by the need of the establishment to ignore uncomfortable knowledge that would destabilize existing institutions. The success of the term circular economy can be seen as an example of socially constructed ignorance in which folk tales are used to depoliticize the sustainability debate and to colonize the future through the endorsement of implausible socio-technical imaginaries. A strategy that can lead to an irresponsible management of expectation: implausible master narratives are impossible to govern. Rather than continuing to impose technocratic plans, as if we knew the optimal thing to do, Post-Normal Science suggests that it is much more effective and responsible to adopt a flexible management approach, exploring the ability of self-organization of social-ecological systems.

“Tissues in a Dish”: A Review of Organoids in Plastic Surgery

Summary:Organoids are in vitro miniaturized organ models—or, colloquially, “organs in a dish.” These 3-dimensional, multicellular structures are classically derived from pluripotent or multipotent stem cells. When guided by tissue-specific molecular factors, these cells exhibit self-organizing abilities that allow them to accurately recapitulate the architecture and function of the organ of interest. Organoid technology is a rapidly expanding field that endows researchers with an unprecedented ability to recreate, study, and manipulate complex biologic processes in vitro. When compared with standard 2- and 3-dimensional culture systems, which rely on co-culturing pre-established cell types, organoids provide a more biomimetic model with which to study the intercellular interactions necessary for in vivo organ function and architecture. Organoids have the potential to impact all avenues of medicine, including those fields most relevant to plastic and reconstructive surgery such as wound healing, oncology, craniofacial reconstruction, and burn care. In addition to their ability to serve as a novel tool for studying human-specific disease, organoids may be used for tissue engineering with the goal of developing biomimetic soft-tissue substitutes, which would be especially valuable to the plastic surgeon. Although organoids hold great promise for the field of plastic surgery, technical challenges in creating vascularized, multilineage organoids must be overcome to allow for the integration of this technology in clinical practice. This review provides a brief history of the organoid, highlights its potential clinical applications, discusses certain limitations, and examines the impact that this technology may have on the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery.

PSO–SOM Neural Network Algorithm for Series Arc Fault Detection

Self-organizing feature map (SOM) neural network is a kind of competitive neural network with unsupervised learning. It has the strong abilities of self-organization and self-learning. However, the classification accuracy of SOM neural network may decrease when the features of tested object are not obvious. In this paper, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to optimize the weight values of SOM network. Three indexes, i.e., intra-class density, standard deviation and sample difference, are used to judge the weight value, which can improve the classification accuracy of the SOM network. PSO–SOM network is applied to the detection of series arc fault in electrical circuits and compared with conventional SOM network and learning vector quantization (LVQ) network. The detection accuracy of the PSO–SOM network is 95%, which is higher than conventional SOM network and LVQ network.

Assembly of FN-silk with laminin-521 to integrate hPSCs into a three-dimensional culture for neural differentiation.

Three-dimensional (3D) neural tissue cultures recapitulate the basic concepts during development and disease better than what can be obtained using conventional two-dimensional cultures. Here, we use a recombinant spider silk protein functionalized with a cell binding motif from fibronectin (FN-silk) in combination with a human recombinant laminin 521 (LN-521) to create a fully defined stem cell niche in 3D. A novel method to assemble silk blended with LN-521 together with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) is used to create centimeter-sized foams, which upon cultivation develop into 3D cell constructs supported by a microfibrillar network. After initial cell expansion, neural differentiation was induced to form a homogenous layer of continuous neuroectodermal tissue that allows further differentiation into neuronal subtypes. The silk-supported 3D cell constructs could then be detached from the bottom of the well and cultured as floating entities, where cells appeared in distinctive radial organization resembling early neural tube. This shows that the neural progenitors retain their cellular self-organization ability in the FN-silk/LN-521-supported 3D culture. Calcium imaging demonstrated spontaneous activity, which is important for the formation of neuronal networks. Together, the results show that hPSCs integrated into FN-silk/LN-521 foam develop into neural progenitors and that these stay viable during long-term differentiations. FN-silk/LN-521 also supports morphogenesis mimicking the human brain development and can serve as base for engineering of hPSC-derived neural tissue.

Recreating Tumour Complexity in a Dish: Organoid Models to Study Liver Cancer Cells and their Extracellular Environment.

Primary liver cancer, consisting predominantly of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), remains one of the most lethal malignancies worldwide. This high malignancy is related to the complex and dynamic interactions between tumour cells, stromal cells and the extracellular environment. Novel in vitro models that can recapitulate the tumour are essential in increasing our understanding of liver cancer. Herein, primary liver cancer-derived organoids have opened up new avenues due to their patient-specificity, self-organizing ability and potential recapitulation of many of the tumour properties. Organoids are solely of epithelial origin, but incorporation into co-culture models can enable the investigation of the cellular component of the tumour microenvironment. However, the extracellular component also plays a vital role in cancer progression and representation is lacking within current in vitro models. In this review, organoid technology is discussed in the context of liver cancer models through comparisons to other cell culture systems. In addition, the role of the tumour extracellular environment in primary liver cancer will be highlighted with an emphasis on its importance in in vitro modelling. Converging novel organoid-based models with models incorporating the native tumour microenvironment could lead to experimental models that can better recapitulate liver tumours in vivo.