Basic Process Model Research Articles

Recent Translational Research Models of Intracranial Atherosclerotic Disease.

Intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD) is a leading cause of ischemic stroke worldwide. However, research on the pathophysiology of ICAD is scarce due to the relative inaccessibility of histology samples and the lack of comprehensive experimental models. As a result, much of the current understanding of ICAD relies on research on extracranial atherosclerosis. This approach is problematic as intracranial and extracranial arteries are anatomically, structurally, physiologically, and metabolically distinct, indicating that intracranial and extracranial atherosclerosis likely develop through different biologic pathways. The current standard of care for ICAD treatment relies predominantly on therapeutics developed to treat extracranial atherosclerosis and is insufficient given the alarmingly high risk of stroke. To provide a definitive treatment for the disease, a deeper understanding of the pathophysiology underlying ICAD is specifically required. True mechanistic understanding of disease pathogenesis is only possible using robust experimental models. In this review, we aim to identify the advantages and limitations of the existing in vivo and in vitro models of ICAD and basic atherosclerotic processes, which may be used to inform better models of ICAD in the future and drive new therapeutic strategies to reduce stroke risk.

Can a case be made for “unlearning” in the study of religions?

The concept of “unlearning” has been positively endorsed in both self-help literature and organizational research, but has yet to be discussed in the study of religions. Is there room for it in the conceptual space of religious socialization, pedagogy and spiritual seeking? Where does it occur in the spiritual journey, and what is its purpose? From the perspective of social learning, and drawing on a definition and model from organizational studies, the case for “unlearning” is considered with reference to those leaving religion. Addressing research gaps identified by organizational-studies scholars, I consider how leavers experience the process of freeing themselves from previously held beliefs, practices and commitments. What is revealed is an iterative and emotionally fraught process in which even voluntary religious leavers struggle to move on, often feeling powerless, even coerced by others. Whilst there is a broad fit between the basic process model of unlearning and what leavers experience, that is not the full story. Furthermore, questions remain about whether “unlearning” is a necessary or suitable concept, not least because it is rarely used by scholars of religion or practitioners themselves, all of whom prefer other terms.

Enabling Fast and Memory-Efficient Acceleration for Pattern Matching Workloads: The Lightweight Automata Processing Engine

Growing pattern matching applications are employing finite automata as their basic processing model. These applications match tens to thousands of patterns on a large amount of data, which brings a great challenge to conventional processors. Therefore hardware-based solutions have emerged frequently and achieved high throuphput automata processing. However, existing methods are generally difficult to achieve both processing speed and storage efficiency, and are often too heavy to be integrated into a small chip and have to rely on off-chip DRAMs or other high capacity memories even on some simple data sets, leading to the potential area and power consumption issues. In this paper, we focus on building a more lightweight automata processing engine, hoping to store the whole automata model into on-chip memory and run effectively and independently. We propose LAP, a lightweight automata processing engine. Powered with a novel automata model (A-DFA) and efficient packing algorithms, extremely high storage efficiency compared with traditional DFA is achieved in LAP. Meanwhile, we identify the key parallelization factors in the A-DFA model and then propose a specialized microarchitecture with novel instructions to further accelerate the state transition process. As a result, LAP can obtain more effective trade-off between processing speed and storage efficiency. Evaluation results show that LAP achieves extremely high storage efficiency on simple data sets, exceeding IBM's RegX by 8×, and achieves significant improvements in processing speed ranging from 1.32× to 1.91× compared with previous lightweight hardware implementations. Moreover, LAP has good scalability in hardware architecture. It is easy to build an acceleration system with higher throughput by increasing the number of cores. We prototype a 16-core system into Xilinx ZC702 FPGA and a 64-core system into Xilinx ZCU102 FPGA respectively. The prototype system on ZC702 on average achieves 3.5 GB/s throughput on simple data sets, and the prototype system on ZCU102 can obtain higher throughput and compute density values on part of large datasets in ANMLZoo compared with modern in-memory NFA-based solutions.

Bayesian analysis for the transformed exponential dispersion process with random effects

The basic exponential-dispersion (ED) process can be used to describe many degradation phenomena, but its degradation increments are only age-dependent, which limits its application especially for the phenomena with state-dependent degradation increments. This paper proposes a transformed ED (TED) process degradation model with both age- and state-dependent increments, which is an extended model including the basic ED process model as a special case. The mean and variance functions of the TED process are derived, and the variance-to-mean ratio of the TED process is no longer a constant. Besides, the random effect is introduced into the TED degradation process model to describe the heterogeneity among different units. For the TED process with and without random effects, the Bayesian MCMC algorithm is applied to estimate the model parameters. Further, an approximation method based on moment generating function is used to evaluate the lifetime and remaining useful life (RUL) distribution of products based on the fixed effect and random effect TED process models. Finally, a numerical example of GaAs laser is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed models and methods. The results show that the proposed TED process has better performance for this degradation data set compared with existing process models.

Extension of Open EM Modeling Platform Towards Electrochemistry and Energy Materials

The paper reports recent developments of Open Innovation Environments in a focus of the European Union research projects. It presents a new extension of the open access computational electromagnetics platform to the modeling of coupled electrochemical phenomena occurring at electrolyte/electrode interfaces. The problems are solved using coupled Laplace / Poisson and drift-diffusion equations, which create a basic model of ion transport process in the electrolyte, as in e.g. in popular Li-ion batteries. The developed coupled FDTD solver is validated against analytical solutions for the electrostatics and independent FEM solutions for the electrochemistry. It is prepared to be openly used for the modeling of industrially representative test-fixtures for battery materials, such as those defined in the H2020 NanoBat project.

Digital Twin in biomanufacturing: challenges and opportunities towards its implementation

The domain of industrial biomanufacturing is enthusiastically embracing the concept of Digital Twin, owing to its promises of increased process efficiency and resource utilisation. However, Digital Twin in biomanufacturing is not yet clearly defined and this sector of the industry is falling behind the others in terms of its implementation. On the other hand, some of the benefits of Digital Twin seem to overlap with the more established practices of process control and optimization, and the term is vaguely used in different scenarios. In an attempt to clarify this issue, we investigate this overlap for the specific case of fermentation operation, a central step in many biomanufacturing processes. Based on this investigation, a framework built upon a five-step pathway starting from a basic steady-state process model is proposed to develop a fully-fledged Digital Twin. For demonstration purposes, the framework is applied to a bench-scale second-generation ethanol fermentation process as a case study. It is proposed that the success or failure of a fully-fledged Digital Twin implementation is determined by key factors that comprise the role of modelling, human operator actions, and other propositions of economic value.

Mathematical Modeling of Heat Transfer Processes in a Solid With Spherical Layer-type Inclusion to Absorb Penetrating Radiation

The paper deals with determining a temperature field of an isotropic solid with inclusion represented as a spherical layer that absorbing penetrating radiation. A hierarchy of simplified analogues of the basic model of the heat transfer process in the system under study was developed, including a “refined model of concentrated capacity”, a “concentrated capacity” model, and a “truncated model of concentrated capacity”. Each of the mathematical models of the hierarchy is a mixed problem for a second-order partial differential equation of the parabolic type with a specific boundary condition that actually takes into account the spherical layer available in the system under study.The use of the Laplace integral transform and the well-known theorems of operational calculus in analytically closed form enabled us to find solutions to the corresponding problems of unsteady heat conduction. The “concentrated capacitance” model was in detail analysed with the object under study subjected to the radiation flux of constant density. This model is associated with a thermally thin absorbing inclusion in the form of a spherical layer. It is shown that it allows us to submit the problem solution of unsteady heat conduction in the analytical form, which is the most convenient in terms of both its practical implementation and a theoretical assessment of the influence, the spherical layer width has on the temperature field of the object under study.Sufficient conditions are determined under which the temperature field of the analysed system can be identified with a given accuracy through the simplified analogues of the basic mathematical model. For simplified analogues of the basic model, the paper presents theoretical estimates of the maximum possible error when determining the radiated temperature field.

Basic model of heat transfer process in a solid with spherical inclusion absorbing penetrating radiation

Basic model of heat transfer process in a solid with spherical inclusion absorbing penetrating radiation

A system approach to the modeling of fungal infections of the wheat leaf

Currently, studies on the mechanisms of the pathogenesis of plant diseases and their distribution in crops are intensively conducted in Russia and the world. First of all, this interest is associated with a significant effect of pathogens on the harvest. In Western Siberia, brown rust and powdery mildew are almost annually recorded in the crops of spring and winter wheat, reaching in some years up to the epiphytotic level. In this regard, methods for monitoring the condition of crops in order to predict their dynamics and plan agrotechnological events to control the state of plants in crops, including the development of fungal infection are developing. Models of fungal infections development on the wheat leaf (for example, brown rust) are used to monitor, predict and control the state of crops in order to optimize the growing process. Mathematical models allow computational experiments to make predictions about the risk dynamics of infections in different scenarios of global weather changes. Such designation of models assumes their hierarchical structure characteristic of multilevel modeling systems. This review presents models for the development of foliar fungal infections in crops, and formulates the methodological aspects of system modeling that can be used for adapting existing models and their units, and developing new models based on them. The article presents the structure of the hierarchical system for modeling the development of leafy infection, provides an overview of the units constituting the system, and discusses the issues of parametric adaptation of submodels. We demonstrated that, to date, plant growth and development models have been developed with varying degrees of detail. Currently, to develop a system for modeling the development of an infection in a crop, it is necessary to determine a large body of available experimental data and, by taking into account this data, we can put together a model as a system consisting of model modules, for which the models of basic processes have already been developed and described.

Функціональна модель основнихбізнес-процесів системи «ранок»

Функціональна модель основнихбізнес-процесів системи «ранок»

A heuristic computational model of basic cellular processes and oxygenation during spheroid-dependent biofabrication

An emerging approach in biofabrication is the creation of 3D tissue constructs through scaffold-free, cell spheroid-only methods. The basic mechanism in this technology is spheroid fusion, which is driven by the minimization of energy, the same biophysical mechanism that governs spheroid formation. However, other factors such as oxygen and metabolite accessibility within spheroids impact on spheroid properties and their ability to form larger-scale structures. The goal of our work is to develop a simulation platform eventually capable of predicting the conditions that minimize metabolism-related cell loss within spheroids. To describe the behavior and dynamic properties of the cells in response to their neighbors and to transient nutrient concentration fields, we developed a hybrid discrete-continuous heuristic model, combining a cellular Potts-type approach with field equations applied to a randomly populated spheroid cross-section of prescribed cell-type constituency. This model allows for the description of: (i) cellular adhesiveness and motility; (ii) interactions with concentration fields, including diffusivity and oxygen consumption; and (iii) concentration-dependent, stochastic cell dynamics, driven by metabolite-dependent cell death. Our model readily captured the basic steps of spheroid-based biofabrication (as specifically dedicated to scaffold-free bioprinting), including intra-spheroid cell sorting (both in 2D and 3D implementations), spheroid defect closure, and inter-spheroid fusion. Moreover, we found that when hypoxia occurring at the core of the spheroid was set to trigger cell death, this was amplified upon spheroid fusion, but could be mitigated by external oxygen supplementation. In conclusion, optimization and further development of scaffold-free bioprinting techniques could benefit from our computational model which is able to simultaneously account for both cellular dynamics and metabolism in constructs obtained by scaffold-free biofabrication.

DEVS 형식론을 이용한 멘토링 기본 프로세스 모델 제안: 학부수업 멘토링 활동을 중심으로

Modern industry requires people with the ability to create and improve their knowledge. Most educational institutions have used mentoring activities which can train those people. Then each of the institutions has different directions because they work in their own fields. For that reason, many people which want to make new mentoring program have no choice but to go through many trials and errors. This paper deals with the design method of basic process model for mentoring based on DEVS in order that people plan a new mentoring business or make a new mentoring group easily. Our proposed model is expected to be used as a guide to establish procedures for mentoring systems.

Использование базовой модели процесса сверления для нормирования режимов резания

Использование базовой модели процесса сверления для нормирования режимов резания

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas of Human Resource Management In The Academe: A Decision-Making Process Model

The study explored on the ethical dilemmas of human resource managers and uncovered the process by which the managers resolve the dilemmas. This study used a grounded theory approach to formulate a basic social process model (theoretical model) of resolving those moral conflicts. All informants are human resource managers from private higher education institutions. The study followed the Glasserian grounded theory analysis to formulate a resolution process theory using the data gathered from the beginning. With the use of grounded theory analysis, it was found out that the six main processes used by the informants were (1) Consistency with policies; (2) Character check; (3) Considering consequences; (4) Communication; (5) Cultural sensitivity; and (6) Counteractive mechanism.

A Process Perspective on the Timber Transport Vehicle Routing Problem

The aim of this study was to map how the timber transport vehicle routing problem was solved in practice and which consequences different ways of solving the problem had for service and efficiency. A process perspective was employed for the mapping and the ways of solving the routing problem were expressed in terms of a series of planning and control activities. Fifteen haulage contractors from the Sodra Skogagarna forest owners association were selected for the mapping. The mapping resulted in a basic process model and 2 main variants. Key performance indicators for both service and economic efficiency were collected for a one-year period. The contractors’ service levels to suppliers were measured by the proportion of transport orders completed within a specified period. The contractors’ economic efficiency was measured by their net operating margin. The results show that contractor net operating margins decreased (from 15% to 1%) with increasing levels of supplier service (from 89.5 to 97% of orders completed within 5 weeks). Within this gradient, those using the complete process model had an average net operating margin of 4.1%. Those using a simplified model (with fewer service restrictions) had an average margin of 9.2%.

Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative: a case study in multiscale modeling and new challenges.

Advanced multiscale modeling and simulation have the potential to dramatically reduce the time and cost to develop new carbon capture technologies. The Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative is a partnership among national laboratories, industry, and universities that is developing, demonstrating, and deploying a suite of such tools, including basic data submodels, steady-state and dynamic process models, process optimization and uncertainty quantification tools, an advanced dynamic process control framework, high-resolution filtered computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) submodels, validated high-fidelity device-scale CFD models with quantified uncertainty, and a risk-analysis framework. These tools and models enable basic data submodels, including thermodynamics and kinetics, to be used within detailed process models to synthesize and optimize a process. The resulting process informs the development of process control systems and more detailed simulations of potential equipment to improve the design and reduce scale-up risk. Quantification and propagation of uncertainty across scales is an essential part of these tools and models.

Mathematical Model of a Flash Drying Process

The paper presents a basic model of the flash drying process, as it is applied in a number of industrial applications, and illustrates this by means of a particular application: the drying of subbituminous coal. Besides its economic importance, that application is representative of those where the product is combustible, so that the drying needs to be conducted in an inert atmosphere, which is achieved by recycling some of the drying gas. A novel feature of the model is that it takes explicit account of the transport of heat and moisture within the coal particles. The model provides the basis for the development of a tool to support the design of a flash drying plant.

Pointing the way to new constraints on the dynamical claims of computational models.

The reach-to-touch paradigm has become an increasingly popular tool in the study of human cognition. It is widely held that reaching responses are able to reveal the moment-by-moment unfolding of decision processes by virtue of an assumed continuity between reaching trajectories and the underlying "cognitive trajectory." Yet the standard analysis of reaching trajectories aggregates the trajectories across stimulus viewing times, which yields ambiguous results. Here we introduce a new version of the reach-to-touch paradigm that incorporates the response-signal procedure to elicit reaching movements across a wide range of stimulus viewing times. We then analyze the direction of the initial movement by stimulus viewing time, which produces a sigmoidal growth pattern. Of note, we show how this sigmoidal relationship between stimulus viewing time and initial direction can be used to test and constrain the dynamical claims of computational models of basic cognitive processes. We introduce our new version of the reach-to-touch paradigm and analyses in the context of a lexical decision task and we compare our results with the dynamical claims of the dual-route cascaded model of reading.

Game Strategies of Ship in the Collision Situations

The paper introduced the basic model of process of safe ship control in a collision situation using a game model with j objects, which includes non-linear state equations and non-linear, time varying constraints of the state variables as well as the quality game control index in the forms of the game integral payment and the final payment. Approximated model of the process control as the model of multi-step matrix game in the form of dual linear programming problem has been adopted here. The Game Ship Control GSC computer program has been designed in the Matlab/Simulink software in order to determine the own ship’s safe trajectory. These considerations have been illustrated with examples of a computer simulation using an GSC program for determining the safe ship's trajectory in real navigational situation. Simulation research were passed for five sets of strategies of the own ship and met ships.

Investigating the ventral-lexical, dorsal-sublexical model of basic reading processes using diffusion tensor imaging

Recent results from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies provide evidence of a ventral-lexical stream and a dorsal-sublexical stream associated with reading processing. We investigated the relationship between behavioural reading speed for stimuli thought to rely on either the ventral-lexical, dorsal-sublexical, or both streams and white matter via fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) using DTI tractography. Participants (N = 32) overtly named exception words (e.g., 'one', ventral-lexical), regular words (e.g., 'won', both streams), nonwords ('wum', dorsal-sublexical) and pseudohomophones ('wun', dorsal-sublexical) in a behavioural lab. Each participant then underwent a brain scan that included a 30-directional DTI sequence. Tractography was used to extract FA and MD values from four tracts of interest: inferior longitudinal fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, arcuate fasciculus, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Median reaction times (RTs) for reading exception words and regular words both showed a significant correlation with the FA of the uncinate fasciculus thought to underlie the ventral processing stream, such that response time decreased as FA increased. In addition, RT for exception and regular words showed a relationship with MD of the uncinate fasciculus, such that response time increased as MD increased. Multiple regression analyses revealed that exception word RT accounted for unique variability in FA of the uncinate over and above regular words. There were no robust relationships found between pseudohomophones, or nonwords, and tracts thought to underlie the dorsal processing stream. These results support the notion that word recognition, in general, and exception word reading in particular, rely on ventral-lexical brain regions.