Efficient Coordination Research Articles

MRI-LINAC: A transformative technology in radiation oncology.

Advances in radiotherapy technologies have enabled more precise target guidance, improved treatment verification, and greater control and versatility in radiation delivery. Amongst the recent novel technologies, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) may hold the greatest potential to improve the therapeutic gains of image-guided delivery of radiation dose. The ability of the MRI linear accelerator (LINAC) to image tumors and organs with on-table MRI, to manage organ motion and dose delivery in real-time, and to adapt the radiotherapy plan on the day of treatment while the patient is on the table are major advances relative to current conventional radiation treatments. These advanced techniques demand efficient coordination and communication between members of the treatment team. MRgRT could fundamentally transform the radiotherapy delivery process within radiation oncology centers through the reorganization of the patient and treatment team workflow process. However, the MRgRT technology currently is limited by accessibility due to the cost of capital investment and the time and personnel allocation needed for each fractional treatment and the unclear clinical benefit compared to conventional radiotherapy platforms. As the technology evolves and becomes more widely available, we present the case that MRgRT has the potential to become a widely utilized treatment platform and transform the radiation oncology treatment process just as earlier disruptive radiation therapy technologies have done.

Phosphineoxide-Chelated Europium(III) Nanoparticles for Ceftriaxone Detection.

The present work demonstrates the optimization of the ligand structure in the series of bis(phosphine oxide) and β-ketophosphine oxide representatives for efficient coordination of Tb3+ and Eu3+ ions with the formation of the complexes exhibiting high Tb3+- and Eu3+-centered luminescence. The analysis of the stoichiometry and structure of the lanthanide complexes obtained using the XRD method reveals the great impact of the bridging group nature between two phosphine oxide moieties on the coordination mode of the ligands with Tb3+ and Eu3+ ions. The bridging imido-group facilitates the deprotonation of the imido- bis(phosphine oxide) ligand followed by the formation of tris-complexes. The spectral and PXRD analysis of the separated colloids indicates that the high stability of the tris-complexes provides their safe conversion into polystyrenesulfonate-stabilized colloids using the solvent exchange method. The red Eu3+-centered luminescence of the tris-complex exhibits the same specificity in the solutions and the colloids. The pronounced luminescent response on the antibiotic ceftriaxone allows for sensing the latter in aqueous solutions with an LOD value equal to 0.974 μM.

Determining urban‒rural coordinated development in major grain-producing areas based on urbanization and cultivated land use efficiency coordination level: A case study in Hunan Province, China

Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination is the key to urban‒rural coordinated development, especially in the major grain-producing areas in China, but it is rarely examined. A coordination framework of urbanization and cultivated land use efficiency systematically clarified how to achieve Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination. Taking Hunan Province as an example, this study explored the spatiotemporal evolution of the level of Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination from 2000 to 2018 at the county level, identified current types of Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination and discussed the key optimization measures for different types. The results showed that 1) urban‒rural coordinated development, abstractly represented by the Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination in major grain-producing areas, depends on the intensity of interactions and the level of integration of urbanization and cultivated land use systems. 2) From 2000 to 2018, the level of Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination in Hunan changed from serious maladjustment to great maladjustment to coordination. 3) The current Urbanization and cultivated land use coordination pattern in Hunan Province has a strong spatial differentiation, which can be divided into eight subregions. The key to the coordinated development of each type is to accelerate the flow of elements through deepening reform and innovation mechanisms to complement the shortcomings of development. This study will provide a scientific reference for the effective implementation of regional coordinated development strategies in major food-producing regions.

The Coupling and Coordination of Agricultural Carbon Emissions Efficiency and Economic Growth in the Yellow River Basin, China

The balanced ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin (YRB) has become a major national strategy in China in which low-carbon agricultural development in the region is crucial. In this context, studying the coupling and coordination between agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB is of great significance to promote low-carbon, green, and sustainable agricultural development. Therefore, based on the data of 30 cities in the YRB from 2010 to 2020, the super-efficient slacks-based measure (SBM) model with non-expected output was employed to effectively measure the agricultural carbon emissions efficiency in the YRB. Subsequently, the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB was further calculated. Finally, the Dagum Gini coefficient and kernel density estimation methods were adopted in order to comprehensively examine the spatial differences, as well as the dynamic evolution pattern of the coupled coordination in the YRB. The results demonstrate that there is a significant spatial non-equilibrium in the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emission efficiency and economic growth in the YRB, in addition to the decreasing trend of coupling coordination during the sample observation period. As such, there is still considerable room for improvement of the efficiency of agricultural carbon emissions and the degree of coupling and coordination in the YRB. This study may serve as a reference for improving the low-carbon development of agriculture and economy in the YRB, providing theoretical guidance for solving the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in this region.

Targeted intervention using network characteristics: An experiment

In this paper, we experimentally study targeted intervention in a coordination game played in a network. We study two types of bonuses that encourage efficient coordination: a bonus for everyone, and a targeted bonus for less connected nodes only. The bonus for everyone successfully moves the system to the efficient outcome. The targeted bonus performs well initially, but the effect does not persist.

Ergonomic human-robot collaboration in industry: A review.

In the current industrial context, the importance of assessing and improving workers' health conditions is widely recognised. Both physical and psycho-social factors contribute to jeopardising the underlying comfort and well-being, boosting the occurrence of diseases and injuries, and affecting their quality of life. Human-robot interaction and collaboration frameworks stand out among the possible solutions to prevent and mitigate workplace risk factors. The increasingly advanced control strategies and planning schemes featured by collaborative robots have the potential to foster fruitful and efficient coordination during the execution of hybrid tasks, by meeting their human counterparts' needs and limits. To this end, a thorough and comprehensive evaluation of an individual's ergonomics, i.e. direct effect of workload on the human psycho-physical state, must be taken into account. In this review article, we provide an overview of the existing ergonomics assessment tools as well as the available monitoring technologies to drive and adapt a collaborative robot's behaviour. Preliminary attempts of ergonomic human-robot collaboration frameworks are presented next, discussing state-of-the-art limitations and challenges. Future trends and promising themes are finally highlighted, aiming to promote safety, health, and equality in worldwide workplaces.

Логістика в туризмі: виклики та перспективи розвитку в сучасному світі

Logistics in tourism is one of the most important components of the tourism industry, ensuring the efficient organization and coordination of tourism services. Recently, with the development of technology and changes in demand, the importance of improving logistics processes in tourism has been growing. The purpose of the study is to identify the challenges and prospects for the development of logistics in tourism in the modern world. The methodological basis of the study was the analysis of scientific literature, statistical data and own experience in the field of tourism and logistics. To achieve the goal of the study, the challenges and prospects for the development of logistics in tourism were analyzed based on the study of literature and statistics for recent years. The results of the study showed that tourism logistics faces significant challenges in the modern world. One of the most important is the rapid change in the needs and requirements of tourists, which requires equally rapid adaptation and improvement of logistics processes. Another important challenge is the growing competition and the increasing number of players in the tourism market, which requires reducing logistics costs and increasing the efficiency of logistics processes. This is one of the prospects for further development of the industry – with the development of technology and the use of innovative solutions, it is possible to reduce the cost of logistics services and improve their quality. In addition, with the proliferation of electronic platforms and the growing number of tourists using online services to book and purchase services, there is a need to develop electronic logistics in tourism. This involves the automation of business processes, which reduces the risk of human error and increases the efficiency of interaction between participants in the supply chain. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the work is devoted to a topical issue that is rather poorly studied in Ukrainian science. The author analyzes the current state of logistics in tourism and describes the challenges facing this industry due to the growth of tourist traffic and the development of technology. It is justified that logistics is extremely important for the development of tourism, as it ensures the efficient organization and coordination of tourism services. However, at the same time, there is a growing number of challenges associated with the growth of tourism intensity and the increase in tourist flows, the development of technology and the competitive environment.

CoordiNet: Constrained Dynamics Learning for State Coordination Over Graph

A neural architecture to efficiently coordinate the transitions of state variables (states) over a graph is proposed. We consider the coordination of the time evolution of the state variables associated with the nodes on a graph. The states are associated with physical attributes of agents, e.g., the speed and/or location of vehicles. Efficient coordination then corresponds to the optimization of dynamics (how fast do vehicles travel) that may be subject to constraints (travel must be collision-free). The aim of this paper is (i) the formulation of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">learnable constrained dynamics</i> which governs the transition of states under constraints over a graph and (ii) to show its industrial application. Firstly, we formulate continuous ordinary differential equations (ODEs), namely forward propagation of state transitions over a graph and backward propagation to optimize model parameters for the learnable constrained dynamics. Discretization of these continuous ODEs results in the neural architecture <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">CoordiNet</i> . Secondly, as an application of CoordiNet, we address a traffic coordination problem by learning constrained dynamics such that vehicles can travel as fast as possible without collisions. Simulation experiments of traffic coordination confirm that our method maximizes the vehicles' speed states while avoiding collisions.

Safe Intersection Coordination with Mixed Traffic: From Estimation to Control

In this paper, we propose an integrated framework for safe intersection coordination of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in mixed traffic. An intelligent intersection is introduced as a central node to orchestrate state data sharing among connected agents and enable CAV to acknowledge the presence of human-driven vehicles (HDVs) beyond the line of sight of onboard sensors. Since state data shared between agents might be uncertain or delayed, we design the intelligent intersection to safely compensate for these uncertainties and delays using robust set estimation and forward reachability analysis. When the intersection receives state data from an agent, it first generates a zonotope to capture the possible measurement noise in the state estimate. Then, to compensate for communication and processing delays, it uses forward reachability analysis to enlarge the set to capture all the possible states the agent could have occupied throughout the delays. Finally, using the resulting set as the initial condition, a distributed model predictive control onboard the CAV will plan an invariant safe motion by considering the worst-case behavior of human drivers. As a result, the vehicle is guaranteed to be safe while driving through the intersection. A prototype of our proposed framework is implemented using the Small-Vehicles-for-Autonomy (SVEA) platform. The effectiveness of our framework is evaluated in experiments based on a challenging scenario where the collision would have occurred without efficient coordination.

Optimal Deep Learning Enabled Communication System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones are widely employed for several application areas such as surveillance, disaster management, etc. Since UAVs are limited to energy, efficient coordination between them becomes essential to optimally utilize the resources and effective communication among them and base station (BS). Therefore, clustering can be employed as an effective way of accomplishing smart communication systems among multiple UAVs. In this aspect, this paper presents a group teaching optimization algorithm with deep learning enabled smart communication system (GTOADL-SCS) technique for UAV networks. The proposed GTOADL-SCS model encompasses a two stage process namely clustering and classification. At the initial stage, the GTOADL-SCS model includes a GTOA based clustering scheme to elect cluster heads (CHs) and organize clusters. Besides, the GTOADL-SCS model develops a fitness function containing three input parameters as residual energy of UAVs, average neighoring distance, and UAV degree. For classification process, the GTOADL-SCS model applies pre-trained densely connected network (DenseNet201) feature extractor with gated recurrent unit (GRU) classifier. For ensuring the enhanced performance of the GTOADL-SCS model, a widespread simulation analysis is performed and the comparative study reported the significant outcomes over the existing approaches with maximum packet delivery ratio (PDR) of 92.60%.

NEW HORIZONS OF OPPORTUNITIES AND PROBLEMS OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT BASED ON MODERN TECHNOLOGIES OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The article specifies the attributes of digital transformation, defines the role of modern technologies for post-war reproduction, outlines the specifics, characteristic features, key tasks and trends of managing domestic enterprises based on modern technologies of digital transformation, reveals new horizons of opportunities and problems of managing enterprises based on modern technologies of digital transformation, which will allow enterprises to optimize their business processes and harmonize business combinations, effectively manage data and ensure the effectiveness of communications and interactions between employees, which in the strategic future will be able to radically increase their competitiveness and justified measures for the introduction of modern technologies in enterprise management. In particular, it was emphasized that when implementing modern technologies of digital transformation, it is important to take into account the resource and time needs and capabilities of the enterprise, to ensure the stability, reliability, and safety of their use, to increase the digital competence of the staff and to analyze the benefits and losses from the implementation of modern technologies of digital transformation and to determine their optimal spectrum taking into account resource and time constraints. In general, for the period of recovery and post-war economic development, the introduction of modern technologies of digital transformations in the management of enterprises is an important component of the success of modern business, since their development will help enterprises to store, process and share important data in a safe and effective way, helps enterprises to understand their activities on at a deeper level, which helps to make informed decisions and predict future trends, allows enterprises to collect and analyze data from various sources, providing increased efficiency and optimization of business processes, helps enterprises to perform routine tasks automatically, reducing costs and increasing productivity, serves as tools for improvement training, process visualization and increased user engagement. Thanks to the use of modern technologies of digital transformations, enterprises can improve the efficiency of management, coordination of interactions, efficiency and competitiveness of the enterprise.

Factors influencing Ho Chi Minh City based dry ports’ competitive advantage

The container revolution has highlighted the role of dry ports in efficient shipping coordination. The operation of dry ports needs to be improved to keep up with the dynamics of maritime trade, to meet the needs of the parties in the transport supply chain and to maintain the sustainable competitive advantage of seaports. The objective of this article is to improve the position of the dry port in Ho Chi Minh City by identifying factors that enhance competitive advantage in the direction of integrating the transport supply chain in order to improve capacity, reliability not only for the dry port but also for the supply chain to which it belongs. The article uses a quantitative method to test four independent variables. The survey sample was collected from 213 enterprises using dry ports in this area. The data is processed by SPSS 20 and AMOS 24 softwares. Thus, it is concluded that there are four factors, including: capacity to connect transport infrastructure, capacity to operate container goods, capacity to cooperate with stakeholders in the transport supply chain and the ability to improve other factors, affecting the dry ports’ competitive advantages. On that basis, the article offers some governance implications for the dry ports in Ho Chi Minh City.

Inverse Saxophone-A Device to Study the Role of Individual Finger Perturbations on Grasp Stability.

The efficient coordination of fingertip forces to maintain static equilibrium while grasping an object continues to intrigue scientists. While many studies have explored this coordination, most of these studies assumed that interactions of hands primarily occur with rigid inanimate objects. Instead, our daily interactions with living and nonliving entities involve many dynamic, compliant, or fragile bodies. This paper investigates the fingertip force coordination on a manipulandum that changes its shape while grasping it. We designed a five-finger perturbation system with linear actuators at positions corresponding to each finger that would protrude outward from the center of the handle or retract toward the center of the handle as programmed. The behavior of the perturbed fingers and the other fingers while grasping this device was studied. Based on previous experiments on expanding and contracting handles, we hypothesized that each finger would exhibit a comparable response to similar horizontal perturbations. However, the response of the little finger was significantly different from the other fingers. We speculate that the central nervous system demonstrates preferential recruitment of some fingers over others while performing a task.

Hybrid warfare management of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom achieves national security by acting in accordance with the Fusion Doctrine, as a new approach to national security that should ensure the integration of all resources of national power. The Fusion Doctrine was officially accepted in 2021 within the new national security strategy. The new strategy integrated defence, security and foreign policies into a single act which reflects the Fusion Doctrine in the best manner. The new approach to security led to organizational changes of the entire state administration system, as well as within individual departments. Special emphasis was placed on the efficient coordination of the complex state apparatus.

Surface Coordination of Pd/ZnIn2S4 toward Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity for Pyridine Denitrification

New surface coordination photocatalytic systems that are inspired by natural photosynthesis have significant potential to boost fuel denitrification. Despite this, the direct synthesis of efficient surface coordination photocatalysts remains a major challenge. Herein, it is verified that a coordination photocatalyst can be constructed by coupling Pd and CTAB-modified ZnIn2S4 semiconductors. The optimized Pd/ZnIn2S4 showed a superior degradation rate of 81% for fuel denitrification within 240 min, which was 2.25 times higher than that of ZnIn2S4. From the in situ FTIR and XPS spectra of 1% Pd/ZnIn2S4 before and after pyridine adsorption, we find that pyridine can be selectively adsorbed and form Zn⋅⋅⋅C-N or In⋅⋅⋅C-N on the surface of Pd/ZnIn2S4. Meanwhile, the superior electrical conductivity of Pd can be combined with ZnIn2S4 to promote photocatalytic denitrification. This work also explains the surface/interface coordination effect of metal/nanosheets at the molecular level, playing an important role in photocatalytic fuel denitrification.

Coordinated parallel resource allocation for integrated access and backhaul networks

The architecture of integrated access and backhaul (IAB) endows 5G and beyond networks with the capabilities of both centralized and distributed resource management: a centralized node, IAB-donor, can efficiently coordinate resources with a network-wide view, and other distributed nodes, IAB-nodes, can quickly react to local traffic bursts multiple hops away from the IAB-donor. However, existing efforts on IAB networking mostly focus on either the centralized or distributed capability of IAB networks and lack the studies on handling bursty traffic. In this paper, a Coordinated Parallel Resource allocation scheme (CPReal) is developed to handle both bursty and non-bursty traffic. Its key feature is that it consists of both a centralized scheme at the IAB-donor for efficient coordination of resource allocation and a distributed scheme at each IAB-node for quick response to short-term bursty traffic. CPReal is standard-compliant and considers the strict parent-to-child relation between IAB-nodes specified in 5G standards. In CPReal, with the assistance from their parent nodes, IAB-nodes can quickly reach an agreement on resource allocation in a distributed and conflict-free way for traffic bursts. Extensive simulations show that CPReal outperforms existing schemes in throughput by 67.3% under bursty traffic and in end-to-end delay by up to 34.4% under various scenarios.

A study on spatio-temporal coordination and driving forces of urban land and water resources utilization efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract Using panel data from 11 provinces from 2003 to 2017 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the study explores the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics and driving forces of coupling coordination of urban land and water resource utilization efficiency by constructing the coupling coordination model and the spatial econometric model. The results show that (1) in terms of time, the situation of inefficient utilization of urban land and water resources was severe. Spatially, the distribution of utilization efficiency of two resources was consistent with the pattern of regional economic development; (2) the coupling coordination degree of urban land and water resources utilization efficiency was mainly of mild disorder type and transitional type, and was in a gradient decreasing spatial distribution from downstream to midstream to the upstream region; (3) the coupling coordination degree of urban land and water resources utilization efficiency presented significantly positive spatial auto-correlation, but the agglomeration trend was weakening; (4) per capita GDP, employment labor force and fixed assets investment were important driving forces for the coordination development of urban land and water resources, while the role of government and the total population had a negative impact on it, and the driving role of the industrial structure had not yet been played.

Survey of computing power network

In September 2021, ITU-T released the first international recommendation for computing power networks (CPNs), ITU-T Y.2501 jointly led by China Telecom, China Unicom and Huawei, and started the Y.2500-Y.2599 series of recommendations for computing power networks. The computing power network is a new type of network that integrates multilevel computing resources, realizes the efficient coordination of the cloud, edge and network, improves the utilization efficiency of computing resources and provides users with the optimal computing and network resource services. Since the first proposal of the computing power network in 2019, it has made breakthroughs in its research and standardization work. As a new field of international standards, also a new field of the communication industry, this paper gives a comprehensive analysis of its definition, framework, service model, key technologies and current progress and challenges, summarizing the research direction of future computing power networks which will have strong implications for the research and implementation of the computing power network.

Programmed cyclodextrin-based core–shell nanoparticles for cooperative TGF-β blockade to reverse immunosuppression post photodynamic therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), as a clinical method of tumor treatment, has an advantage of immune activation, making it become an ideal adjuvant strategy for tumor immunotherapy. However, research data showed that the anti-tumor immune response of PDT was not lasting though existing, and would induce immunosuppression at the late stage. Our back-to-back previous research has just confirmed that TGF-β1 upregulation accounts for tumor immunosuppression aggravating post PDT and TGF-β blockade is a potential strategy to reverse this effect. How to realize the efficient coordination between PDT and TGF-β blockade becomes a burning question. Nanomedicine fully utilizing PDT principles could be a promising solution. In this study, a cyclodextrin-based core–shell nanoparticles (LC@HCDFC NPs) were designed to co-deliver LY2109761 (LY, a TGF-β1 inhibitor) and chlorin e6 for enhanced PDT combined with TGF-β blockade immunotherapy. Through utilizing PDT induced upregulation of CD44 and ROS, the inclusion complex shells of hyaluronic acid (HA) modified β-CD and ferrocene could realize incremental HA-CD44 mediated tumor targeting and ROS responsive drug release, and the cores of benzyl-modified poly (γ-glutamic acid) (BzPGA) improved the encapsulation efficiency of LY. Ultimately, through programmed delivery of TGF-β1 inhibitors, LC@HCDFC NPs not only enhanced the antitumor effect in situ, but reversed tumor immunosuppression and metastasis under the reshaped tumor microenvironment. This study provided enlightenment for programmed PDT in coordinate with TGF-β blockade immunotherapy and shed light on the efficient encapsulation and controlled release of TGF-β1 inhibitors.

Data-driven sustainable distributed energy resources’ control based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning

With the ongoing energy transition, electric power and energy systems are becoming increasingly multi-dimensional and complex with higher levels of uncertainty. Obtaining an accurate system model or multiple predictions in such environments is becoming increasingly problematic. Such features are challenging aspects to the classical power system control approaches which are essentially model-based and rely on accurate predictions. Reinforcement learning is promising a data-driven alternative that can efficiently tackle the raising complexity of controlling such systems with no prior system dynamics modeling or predictions. This work proposes a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning-based control framework for optimally solving multi-dimensional power dispatch problems in systems featuring multiple uncertainties. Learned control strategies are based on centralized training decentralized execution to promote an efficient and robust coordination among different dispatchable assets with no communication burden. Experimental results of various typical power dispatch scenarios with significant integration of low-carbon generation demonstrate the effectiveness of such control strategies.