Cooperative Method Research Articles

Performance implications of channel aware cooperative probing-GBN ARQ in the context of wireless body area networks

The advent of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) in patient care has revolutionized the healthcare sector as patients can now be monitored continuously in real-time and as well remotely. Despite its significant advantages, WBAN encounters a notable challenge in the fading aspect, which undermines its effectiveness. Improving WBAN efficiency involves tackling signal fading, which is crucial. Cooperative communication offers a promising solution by introducing spatial diversity to counteract fading effects. We propose a scheme that uses cooperative communication and the Probing-Go Back N Automatic Repeat Request (P-GBN ARQ) technique to reduce the fading effect. The proposed method uses feedback to predict the channel's current state, and the probing interval is determined by the received signal's Average Fading Duration (AFD). The proposed scheme's performance is also assessed extensively through simulations employing various metrics. The results demonstrate a considerable improvement in throughput performance with the inclusion of knowledge about channel fading. The Bit Error Rate (BER) execution is compared with Selection Combiner (SC) and conventional Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC). At 10−3, the cooperative method achieves it at 13 dB SNR, whereas the direct approach reaches it at 24 dB SNR, requiring an additional 11 dB. The proposed approach minimizes BER, enhancing throughput and reliability in WBAN.

NFS-16. NOVEL AUSTRIAN CARE AND PREVENTION GUIDE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH NF1

Abstract BACKGROUND Unified strategies for the care of children and adolescents affected by Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) are lacking in Europe. While ERN GENTURIS developed guidelines for the tumour surveillance and management in NF1, these recommendations do not cover all other aspects of the disease. This holds not only true on an international level, but also on the national level in Austria. Despite being a small country with a uniform health and social security system, approaches to patient care may be comparable but not identical. AIM In order to standardise and improve patient care for children with NF1 in Austria, a care and prevention sheet was developed. METHODS In close cooperation with the Austrian patient organisation NF Kinder the Austrian NF network was established. This network is composed of dedicated health-care providers (medical as well as psychosocial) involved in the care of patients with NF1 in ten Austrian centres as well as patient representatives, some of whom were also involved in drafting the novel ERN GENTURIS recommendations. This network undertook the task of reviewing existing guidelines and incorporate the national healthcare structure and best practice guidelines into a consensus document. RESULTS The recommendations were condensed into a single sheet that is divided in four sections: clinical examination, lab investigations, imaging, additional consultations. For each parameter, the document advises on the age specific intervals for screening. Furthermore, it indicates the appropriate time points during follow-up (e.g. at initial presentation, at transition, if clinically indicated, …). The recommendations thereby focus not only on the inherent tumour risk but address the broad spectrum of possible symptoms (such as orthopaedic or surgical), specifically emphasising also psychosocial and neurocognitive issues. CONCLUSION The novel Austrian care and prevention guide for children and adolescents with NF1 will facilitate uniform best practice care for affected kids on a national level

Peningkatan Hasil Belajar Siswa Menggunakan Model Pembelajaran STAD pada Materi Bangun Datar Kelas III SDN Babatan IV Surabaya

The purpose of this research is to improve students mathematics learning outcomes through the STAD type cooperative method. This research was conducted in class III at SDN Babatan IV Surabaya on two-dimentional figure as material. This research is a type of classroom action research. The research approach used in this research is a quantitative and qualitative approach. This classroom action research uses the Kemmis & Mc Taggart model. The samples taken were 35 students. The results of the research show that there is a significant influence between STAD (Student Team Achievement Division) on the learning outcomes of class III students at SDN Babatan IV Surabaya.

Artificial Intelligence as Promoting Effect on International Economic Relations

Artificial intelligence is one of the most cutting-edge fields in today's era, which is triggering a systematic transformation in human production and life worldwide, and has a great impact on international economic relations. In the short term, this disruptive technology will lead to changes and upgrades in industrial structure, a decrease in production costs, changes in international cooperation methods, resource allocation, and a redistribution of economic relations. In the long run, this metaphysical phenomenon based on human will challenge human self-awareness and identity. Different countries and social groups' predictions of the disruptive progress of artificial intelligence will lead to fierce competition and will reconstruct the international economic landscape on this basis.

MENINGKATKAN KEAKTIFAN SISWA KELAS V DALAM PEMBELAJARAN PAI DENGAN METODE NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER DI SD NEGERI SUKA RUKUN 01

In this study, it aimed at grade V students of SD Suka Rukun 01 Bekasi Regency, the purpose of this study was to increase student activeness in class. In Islamic religious education learning, this research is a Classroom Action Research that collaborates with teachers as implementers of learning and observation as observers This Class Action Research is conducted in two cycles or two meetings. Seeing the problem in grade V SD Negeri Suka Rukun 01 is the lack of student activity in learning PAI. The activeness of the students referred to here is to have high enthusiasm and confidence in learning so that students are able to understand the material presented well. Data collection methods through observation and interviews. The data is tabulated after descriptive analysis in tabular form. Based on the results of the study, there was an increase in student activity in cycles 1 and 2 with an increase of 77.30% and 86.00% respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the type numbered heads together cooperative method can increase the activeness of grade V students in PAI learning at SD Negeri Suka Rukun 01.

Cooperative learning techniques for improving English of future security sector officers

The article is devoted to one of the urgent problems of teaching security sector cadets to speak English. Objective. In order to improve the level of formation of skills and abilities in speaking, we offer the use of cooperative techniques and methods of teaching speaking, precisely: Quick, quick trade, World Café Method, Timed Pair Share, and others. Results. We have justified, developed and used these techniques in the context of training sessions to teach lexical items and the competence in speaking for security sector cadets according to STANAG – Standardized Levels of English Proficiency. The purpose of cooperative learning is to perform tasks for teaching speaking in groups, pairs, quarters. Cooperative learning contributes to better assimilation of speech material. In addition, the teacher’s teaching activity is transferred into the cadet’s educational activity. Through cooperative learning cadets learn to work in a team, support each other, correct and monitor each other when needed. The teacher takes the role of the observer. Thus, cadets acquire skills, abilities and competences in speaking and the ability to cooperate, interact face-to-face, and think critically. Conclusions. Using cooperative methods of teaching speaking, cadets become more motivated to speak in English, everyone is a full participant in a monologue or polylogue, taking into account inclusiveness. Various methods of cooperative learning can be used at different stages for different purposes. In particular, the World Café method can be used at the final stage of learning a topic, when all cadets know the vocabulary of the topic and grammatical forms. The Quiz, quiz trade method is used at the stage of language material activation, to learn grammatical forms, vocabulary and the definitions of the words.

Continuous and Scalable Synthesis of Prussian Blue Analogues with Tunable Structure and Composition in Surfactant-Free Microreactor for Stable Zinc-Ion Storage.

We represent a segmented flow surfactant-free microfluidic strategy for continuous synthesis of Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) with high dispersity and high crystallization. Representative zinc hexacyanoferrate (ZnHCF) nanocubes were successfully synthesized in a microfluidic reactor within a few minutes via the cooperation method and possessed lower contents of crystal water and Fe(CN)6 3- vacancies than that of synthesis in bulk solution. The nucleation and particle growth process can be precisely controlled by the exploration of different flow rates and reaction temperatures during the formation of ZnHCF nanocubes in segmented flow microfluidic reactors. High crystallinity, low crystal water and vacancies in the ZnHCF structure were presented at relatively high temperatures for the crystal growth process. High-quality ZnHCF with a low content of crystal water showed excellent electrochemical activity and stability towards zinc-ion storage. The continuous and scalable synthesis approach can be extended to the fabrication of other PBAs such as NiHCF, CoHCF, MnHCF, and CuHCF with high dispersity without using any surfactants. The controllable construction of PBAs with tunable properties in microfluidic reactors provides a promising direction to minimize the gap between commercial reality and laboratory research.

Development of an Attention Mechanism for Task-Adaptive Heterogeneous Robot Teaming

The allure of team scale and functional diversity has led to the promising adoption of heterogeneous multi-robot systems (HMRS) in complex, large-scale operations such as disaster search and rescue, site surveillance, and social security. These systems, which coordinate multiple robots of varying functions and quantities, face the significant challenge of accurately assembling robot teams that meet the dynamic needs of tasks with respect to size and functionality, all while maintaining minimal resource expenditure. This paper introduces a pioneering adaptive cooperation method named inner attention (innerATT), crafted to dynamically configure teams of heterogeneous robots in response to evolving task types and environmental conditions. The innerATT method is articulated through the integration of an innovative attention mechanism within a multi-agent actor–critic reinforcement learning framework, enabling the strategic analysis of robot capabilities to efficiently form teams that fulfill specific task demands. To demonstrate the efficacy of innerATT in facilitating cooperation, experimental scenarios encompassing variations in task type (“Single Task”, “Double Task”, and “Mixed Task”) and robot availability are constructed under the themes of “task variety” and “robot availability variety.” The findings affirm that innerATT significantly enhances flexible cooperation, diminishes resource usage, and bolsters robustness in task fulfillment.

Methods of Judicial Cooperation and the Procedure for Enforcement Under International Law; Identifying the Nexus between Theory and Practice

The idea of judicial cooperation in criminal cases and enforcement under international law is undoubtedly based on the broad tenet that it is in the interests of civilised nations for crimes to be prosecuted and that it is customary for states to cooperate with one another in order to provide every support necessary to bring criminals or persons guilty of certain crimes involving international matters to justice. The world legal system has indeed reached a global operations clime, with undoubted interconnection between international courts and tribunals with and amongst states directly affected. The aim is to create a formidable mechanism for legal certainty and stability at a global scale and crystallize a reality where criminal offenders who attempt to escape criminal punishment in a state where an offence is committed are made to face the full force of the law by not only presenting them for criminal trials but making evidence available against them leading to justice being done in the circumstance. This formidable mechanism consists of elements such as mutual legal assistance, extradition, reparation etc. Consequently, this work examines critically the methods of judicial cooperation and enforcement procedure laying much emphasis on mutual legal assistance and extradition viz a viz the need to reconcile theory and practice noting that the ultimate objective of judicial cooperation is the creation of a world where there is no safe haven for criminals. Keywords: International law, States, Judicial cooperation, Enforcement mechanisms, Criminal cases.

Conservation techniques for promising bacteria in the oil industry to preserve biological properties

Background: The conservation of valuable bacterial strains is crucial for various scientific, industrial, and environmental applications. Microorganisms with oil-emulsifying and oil-displacing properties are potentially significant for biotechnologies applied in the oil industry, particularly in such areas as bioremediation and tertiary enhanced oil recovery. To supply enterprises with pure cultures of microorganisms, they should be constantly maintained in the collection conditions in an active state while monitoring the preservation of their biotechnological properties. Therefore, keeping microorganism strains in working conditions and preserving their valuable properties are important for almost any work with microorganisms, ranging from primary research to their use in the production of various biopreparations.
 Aim: The article focuses on studying a method for preserving bacteria that are useful in the oil industry. This method involves modifying the technique of microencapsulating microorganism cells in alginate gel by adding glycerin, which is used as an agent with biostatic action.
 Materials and methods: The subject of research are eight hydrocarbon-oxidizing cultures of microorganisms that were sourced from the Department of Biotechnology of the al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Of these, four cultures were spore-bearing, while the other four were non-spore-bearing. The research employed microbiological methods of cultivation and storage of microorganisms in both solid and liquid media under aerobic conditions. In addition, Cooper's method was used to determine oil emulsification index and statistical methods for data analysis.
 Results: It has been found that adding glycerin (15% vol.) as a biostatic to the gel-forming matrix of sodium alginate can ensure long-term (up to 6 months) cell viability for the studied bacteria in the range of 88-96% while maintaining functionality of immobilized cells. The values of the bacteria’s oil emulsification remained at the pre-conservation levels, whereas traditional storage methods result in a lower number of viable cells after six months. It should be noted that after six months of being stored in encapsulated form with glycerin, the viability of non-sporе-forming Pseudomonas cultures is lower (88-91%) than spore-forming Bacillus (95-98%). This correlation is also is observed for traditional methods.
 Conclusion: The modern method of preserving bacteria allows for their long-term storage while maintaining functionality and viability.

О совершенствовании взаимодействия локомотивных бригад пригородных поездов с ремонтными подразделениями

Objective: to consider the need to make adjustments to the “Methodology for interaction between locomotive crews of commuter trains and repair departments”. To consider the introduction of a new operational center for interaction between the repair department and locomotive crews through a mobile application developed on the basis of the existing ACS-PRIG system. Develop the personnel management structure of the new center. To present a block diagram of interaction, as well as to describe new positions required for effective interaction of structures. Methods: identification of shortcomings in the interaction of locomotive crews of suburban trains with repair units at present, analysis of cooperation between the two units and their adjustment; development of a mobile application based on the existing ASU-PRIG system; development of a logical scheme of interaction. Results: the necessity of adjusting the interaction of locomotive crews of suburban trains with repair units is indicated. It is established that it is necessary to introduce a new position and a new apparatus of interaction, named in the project “CDC”, as well as to develop a list of job duties for responsible persons. The need to introduce a mobile application for information support of locomotive crews in the performance of their trip-related duties by providing the MVPS crew with access to electronic documentation, automating communication with the repair personnel of the CDC has been identified. To increase the efficiency of interaction the mobile application should be simple, convenient and have a clear interface. Practical importance: the necessity of introducing a new operational center of interaction between the repair department and locomotive crews through a mobile application recommended for use in the operating depot PM-20 and repair depot PM-15 is shown. This innovation will increase the efficiency of interaction between the two units, which in turn will improve the quality of repairs. This method of cooperation will reduce the number of failures and breakdowns of rolling stock. The proposed changes in cooperation can be recommended for practical use.

Fostering Innovative Learning and Satisfaction in Virtual Teamwork: Shedding Light on Apprentices

Purpose: The digital transformation and the increased use of technologies have changed the world of work severely. With it, collaboration and cooperation methods among employees. Therefore, new ways of working together must be applied to work in an international and digital working environment. For Vocational Education and Training (VET), developing new (transversal) competencies to engage in virtual teamwork is necessary to adequately prepare young professionals for the present and future labor market. However, there is little research on the current situation in VET regarding virtual teamwork. Approach: We deployed a cross-sectional design and collected data from N = 181 commercial apprentices in Germany regarding virtual teamwork. We analyze our data using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the interrelationships between input, process, and outcome variables to foster satisfaction and innovative learning in virtual teams as desired targets of VET. To assess these results regarding virtuality, the complexity of tasks, gender of the apprentices, and the size of the training firms, we derived a multigroup analysis (MGA) of our model. Findings: The results indicate that organizational factors have the most significant influence concerning the relationship between input and process factors. Surprisingly, the technical affinity of individuals has only a minor effect. Regarding the relationship between process and outcome factors, motivation and responsibility have the highest impact on innovative learning, whilst communication culture severely affects the perceived satisfaction in virtual teamwork. Conclusion: The findings lead to valuable insights on factors influencing virtual teamwork in VET and can help to design learning programs to prepare young professionals to smoothly transition to and successfully master their future working environments by using new ways of collaboration and cooperation. This is particularly relevant for VET, as prior research has focused primarily on primary and secondary education. Lastly, we identify potential scales and items that help capture some of the inherent constructs of virtual teamwork.

Comparative Study of Group Collaboration in Higher Education in China and the United States

With the progress of the society, education has received more and more attention. From compulsory education to higher education, educators have been continually exploring more suitable and better pedagogy. In this situation, the application of group collaboration in teaching and learning has been emphasized. In this article, the author mainly compares the current situation of group collaboration in two educational backgrounds: China and the United States. The advantages and disadvantages are analyzed and suggestions for improvement are given. According to the comparison, it can be clearly seen that in the U.S., the educational method of group cooperation is relatively more sophisticated, more commonly used, and more favorably received. In China, the success of group work has been impeded by cultural backgrounds, social environments, teachers and students. These factors have resulted in negative attitudes towards the learning method of group collaboration. Nevertheless, Chinese students remain optimistic about the future of this method. In order to expose students to a wider variety of learning styles, and in order to maximize the value of group work, Chinese educators need to devote more time and energy to changing the status of education and improving the quality of teachers.

Cooperation of the Commune and Parish in Poland in XXI Century as the Implementation of Community Activities

The commune and the parish are units of two divisions: government and church administration. Both were created for the better functioning of structures and the implementation of central activities: government and the mission of the Church. Their functioning is based on meeting the needs of the local community. In turn, their goals, although seemingly divergent, often overlap, because the main mission of both types of units is the good of community members. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to address in this article the issue of methods of cooperation at the lowest level between local government authorities and parish priests operating in the commune. This article presents a theoretical introduction, analyzing the ways in which both spheres operate, with an emphasis on places of cooperation in order to create a unified community, which is defined as both a commune and a parish. The aim of this article is to outline a framework for future empirical research that could clearly indicate the factors shaping the methods and forms of cooperation between these two entities.

Learning to Learn Better Visual Prompts

Prompt tuning provides a low-cost way of adapting vision-language models (VLMs) for various downstream vision tasks without requiring updating the huge pre-trained parameters. Dispensing with the conventional manual crafting of prompts, the recent prompt tuning method of Context Optimization (CoOp) introduces adaptable vectors as text prompts. Nevertheless, several previous works point out that the CoOp-based approaches are easy to overfit to the base classes and hard to generalize to novel classes. In this paper, we reckon that the prompt tuning works well only in the base classes because of the limited capacity of the adaptable vectors. The scale of the pre-trained model is hundreds times the scale of the adaptable vector, thus the learned vector has a very limited ability to absorb the knowledge of novel classes. To minimize this excessive overfitting of textual knowledge on the base class, we view prompt tuning as learning to learn (LoL) and learn the prompt in the way of meta-learning, the training manner of dividing the base classes into many different subclasses could fully exert the limited capacity of prompt tuning and thus transfer it power to recognize the novel classes. To be specific, we initially perform fine-tuning on the base class based on the CoOp method for pre-trained CLIP. Subsequently, predicated on the fine-tuned CLIP model, we carry out further fine-tuning in an N-way K-shot manner from the perspective of meta-learning on the base classes. We finally apply the learned textual vector and VLM for unseen classes.Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets validate the efficacy of our meta-learning-informed prompt tuning, affirming its role as a robust optimization strategy for VLMs.

Satellite License Plate: passive and compact optical spectrally-based identification method for satellites

Satellite identification and tracking is fundamental for decision making in space traffic management. Cooperative optical identification methods enlarge the toolbox of identification techniques which currently count on radar and passive optical observations. Here we present a cooperative method to identify satellites from the ground by means of laser techniques: the Satellite License Plate (SLP). SLP employs unique spectrally-encoded retroreflecting tags mounted on the satellite. The interrogation of the tags could be performed with laser enabled optical ground stations. The benefit of the concept is that the tag concept is fully passive, minimally invasive, and scalable from tens to hundreds of unique combinations, allowing to map a large number of satellites on a single orbit. The SLP method is here described by means of end-to-end theoretical analyses on the final performance of identification and experimental results gathered during km-range ground-to-ground free space tests.

A Large-Scale Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning Method for Cooperative Output Voltage Control of PEMFCs

To increase the output voltage stability and improve the operating efficiency of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), a data-driven cooperative method for controlling the PEMFC output voltage is proposed in this paper. The proposed method adapts centralized learning and decentralized implementation, which can nonlinearly and adaptively realize optimal coordinated control over the hydrogen valve and the DC/DC converter. Additionally, a champion multiagent double delay deep deterministic policy gradient (CMA-4DPG) algorithm is proposed in this method, the design of which incorporates the policies of the champion selection mechanism, cooperative exploration, imitation learning guidance and curriculum guidance to improve the robustness of the cooperative method. The method cooperates with multiple controller to prevent output voltage fluctuation. The experimental results show that by simultaneously regulating the hydrogen flow through the hydrogen valve and the duty ratio of the DC/DC converter, the proposed method achieves better robustness and can improve the tracking performance of the PEMFC output voltage.

Erratum for “Multiple Emergency Vehicle Priority in a Connected Vehicle Environment: A Cooperative Method”

Erratum for “Multiple Emergency Vehicle Priority in a Connected Vehicle Environment: A Cooperative Method”

Cooperative control of dynamic CAV dedicated lanes and vehicle active lane changing in expressway bottleneck areas

Bottleneck areas on expressways plague the operational efficiency of entire road systems. In mixed traffic flow environments consisting of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and connected human-driven vehicles (CHVs), it is believed that road capacity can be improved to relieve traffic congestion in bottleneck areas by setting CAV dedicated lanes (CDLs) on expressways. Existing static CDL setup methods provide fixed exclusive right-of-way for CAVs but cannot accommodate dynamic changes in traffic demand. To address this issue, utilizing lane control signals and CAV active lane-changing technology, a cooperative method involving dynamic CAV dedicated lane control (CDLC) and active lane-changing control (LCC) in the bottleneck areas of expressways is proposed in this paper. First, a fundamental diagram of traffic flow with CDLs is established based on the microscopic car-following model of mixed traffic flow, which can be used to determine the conditional thresholds for setting the CDLs of multilane expressways. Second, an expressway traffic model with CDLs is established by improving the lane-level cell transmission model. Finally, cooperative control of dynamic CAV dedicated lanes and active lane changing (CDLLC) is proposed based on the model predictive control (MPC) framework for solving the congestion problem at expressway bottlenecks in a mixed driving environment. The simulation results show that the proposed CDLLC strategy can effectively reduce the total vehicle travel time and decrease the risk of congestion propagation at expressway bottlenecks when compared to the LCC-only strategy.

A Three-Stage Psychosocial Engineering-Based Method to Support Controversy and Promote Mutual Understanding between Stakeholders: The Case of CO2 Geological Storage

Subsurface engineering projects with high socio-environmental impacts raise strong controversies among stakeholders, which often affects the projects’ implementation. These controversies originate from a loss of public confidence in the decision-making process, lack of information about new technologies, and the desire of some promoters to avoid conflict. The lack of methodologies to structure each stage of the debate can, in this context, lead to the crystallization of the stakeholders’ positions and to the failure of the project. To promote mutual understanding and constructive exchanges, this article presents a combination of methods based on psychosocial engineering principles to support debate and encourage stakeholders to participate with an openness posture. The method is based on a set of studies conducted as part of the “Social Governance for Subsurface Engineering” project and includes three stages: (1) develop stakeholders’ knowledge so that they are able to participate in the debate with an informed viewpoint; (2) commit stakeholders to participate in the debate by adopting a posture conducive to constructive exchanges; and (3) structure exchanges between stakeholders through the use of cooperative methods facilitating the adoption of an openness posture.