Global Coordination Research Articles

Optimization of orderly charging strategy of electric vehicle based on improved alternating direction method of multipliers

When it comes to solving the optimization problem of wind power and large-scale electric vehicle (EV) synergistic access to the power grid, issues like the difficulty of accurately predicting wind power, the massive amount of information communication, the difficulty of handling EV constraints, and the privacy leakage of EV owners are critical. A distributed framework based on power grids, EV load aggregates, and single EV is established in this paper. Based on this framework, an EV rolling real-time optimization model considering wind power forecast errors and EV forecast information has been established. An improved alternating direction multiplier approach is utilized to solve the model, and a small amount of information is transmitted between the two agents in each iteration to achieve the parallel solution of each agent's optimization goals. Without requiring global coordination, the proposed architecture can achieve the goal of synchronous iteration. Finally, an example of a regional power grid is used, with EVs divided into three regions. The improved ADMM algorithm now has seven multipliers, and the problem is solved, with the load variation, wind power consumption, and EV before and after optimization compared. To evaluate the effectiveness and convergence of the improved ADMM algorithm, as well as the impact of prediction information, electricity power sales price, and vehicle owner preference coefficient on dispatching outcomes, the operator's operational cost and the EV owner's charging satisfaction are examined. The example's simulation results show that the developed model achieves the goal of cutting peaks and filling valleys to absorb wind power, reducing operating costs and improving EV owner satisfaction.

The Role of Clean Hydrogen Value Chain in a Successful Energy Transition of Japan

The clean hydrogen in the prioritized value chain platform could provide energy incentives and reduce environmental impacts. In the current study, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis has been successfully applied to the clean hydrogen value chain in different sectors to determine Japan’s clean hydrogen value chain’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as a case study. Japan was chosen as a case study since we believe that it is the only pioneer country in that chain with a national strategy, investments, and current projects, which make it unique in this way. The analyses include evaluations of clean energy development, power supply chains, regional energy planning, and renewable energy development, including the internal and external elements that may influence the growth of the hydrogen economy in Japan. The ability of Japan to produce and use large quantities of clean hydrogen at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels is critical to the country’s future success. The implementation of an efficient carbon tax and carbon pricing is also necessary for cost parity. There will be an increasing demand for global policy coordination and inter-industry cooperation. The results obtained from this research will be a suitable model for other countries to be aware of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in this field in order to make proper decisions according to their infrastructures, potentials, economies, and socio-political states in that field.

Decentralized proximal splitting algorithms for composite constrained convex optimization

This paper concentrates on a class of decentralized convex optimization problems subject to local feasible sets, equality and inequality constraints, where the global objective function consists of a sum of locally smooth convex functions and non-smooth regularization terms. To address this problem, a synchronous full-decentralized primal-dual proximal splitting algorithm (Syn-FdPdPs) is presented, which avoids the unapproximable property of the proximal operator with respect to inequality constraints via logarithmic barrier functions. Following the proposed decentralized protocol, each agent carries out local information exchange without any global coordination and weight balancing strategies introduced in most consensus algorithms. In addition, a randomized version of the proposed algorithm (Rand-FdPdPs) is conducted through subsets of activated agents, which further removes the global clock coordinator. Theoretically, with the help of asymmetric forward-backward-adjoint (AFBA) splitting technique, the convergence results of the proposed algorithms are provided under the same local step-size conditions. Finally, the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed algorithms are demonstrated by numerical simulations on the least-square and least absolute deviation problems.

Strengthening Health Systems for Climate Adaptation and Health Security: Key Considerations for Policy and Programming.

Strengthening Health Systems for Climate Adaptation and Health Security: Key Considerations for Policy and Programming.

Recommendations for Plankton Measurements on OceanSITES Moorings With Relevance to Other Observing Sites

Measuring plankton and associated variables as part of ocean time-series stations has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of ocean biology and ecology and their ties to ocean biogeochemistry. It will open temporal scales (e.g., resolving diel cycles) not typically sampled as a function of depth. In this review we motivate the addition of biological measurements to time-series sites by detailing science questions they could help address, reviewing existing technology that could be deployed, and providing examples of time-series sites already deploying some of those technologies. We consider here the opportunities that exist through global coordination within the OceanSITES network for long-term (climate) time series station in the open ocean. Especially with respect to data management, global solutions are needed as these are critical to maximize the utility of such data. We conclude by providing recommendations for an implementation plan.

Locating Smartphone Indoors by Using Tightly Coupling Bluetooth Ranging and Accelerometer Measurements

High-precision, low-cost, and wide coverage indoor positioning technology is the key to indoor and outdoor integrated location-based services, and it has broad market prospects and social value. However, achieving sub-meter level positioning accuracy in indoor environments remains a real challenge due to the blockage of indoor Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, the complexity of indoor environments, and the unpredictability of user behavior. In this paper, we introduce a multi-module BLE broadcaster (MMBB)-based indoor positioning solution in which a tightly coupled fusion architecture is implemented on a smartphone. The solution integrates ranging measurements from multiple MMBB and the measurements of the accelerometer built into a smartphone. It becomes an instant positioning solution without any training phase by adopting a calibrated linearly segmented path loss model for ranging. We apply the pedestrian walking speed derived by the smartphone accelerometer to constrain an unscented Kalman filter method that is used to estimate the location and speed. The accuracy of the proposed method is 50% at 0.79 m and 95% at 1.6 m at in terms of horizontal error distance. Position update frequency is 10 Hz and the time to first fix is 0.1 s. The system can easily adapt a global coordinator system so that it can seamlessly work together with the GNSS to form an indoor/outdoor positioning solution.

A blueprint for the worldwide research response to dementia

An estimated 55 million people are currently living with dementia, and nearly 60% live in low-income or middle-income countries (LMICs). Societies and health systems are likely to have to cope with a staggering increase in the number of people with dementia, which is set to reach 78 million by the end of this decade. Such a huge challenge requires that research and innovation are an integral part of the response; strategies are needed to better understand, prevent, and treat the underlying diseases and, at the same time, provide care and support for people with dementia and their carers. However, dementia research remains highly fragmented globally, with broad variability in investment and quality of research efforts. Despite growing international attention on healthy ageing and increasing investments in neurological disorders, research funding is still not proportional to the impact and societal cost of neurological diseases, especially those that cause dementia. Research needs to be at the core of the public health response to dementia and needs to be within an enabling environment, where collaborations are fostered and where appropriate, equitable, and sustained investment is realised. Towards these objectives, WHO is developing the Dementia Research Blueprint, a global research prioritisation, stewardship, and coordination mechanism that is designed to identify knowledge gaps, define actions and milestones, build consensus, and provide guidance to the research community.

Landscape of coronavirus disease 2019 clinical trials: New frontiers and challenges.

The number of coronavirus disease 2019 deaths and cases continues to increase globally. Novel therapies are urgently needed to treat patients with coronavirus disease 2019. We sought to provide a critical review of trials designed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Our primary goal was to provide a critical review of the landscape of clinical trials designed to address the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Specifically, we were interested in assessing the design of phase II/III and phase III interventional trials. We utilized the ClinicalTrials.gov database to include trials registered between 1 December 2019 and 11 April 2021 to survey the current landscape of clinical trials for coronavirus disease 2019. Variables extracted included: National Clinical Trial number, title, location, sponsor, study type, start date, completion date, gender group, age group, primary outcome, secondary outcome, overall status, and associated references. About 57% of studies were interventional, 14.5% were phase III trials, and the majority of the therapeutic trials included hospitalized patients. There were 52 primary composite outcomes and 285 unique interventions spanning 10 drug classes. The outcomes, disease severity, and comparators varied substantially across trials, and the trials were often too small to be definitive. These findings are relevant as we strongly advocate for global coordination of efforts through the use of common platforms that enable harmonizing of endpoints, collection of common key variables and clear definition of disease severity to have clinically meaningful results from clinical trials.

Variable Observability Constrained Visual-Inertial-GNSS EKF-Based Navigation

Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) is an approach to give high-accuracy pose estimation in GNSS(Global Navigation Satellite System)-denied environments. However, visual-inertial navigation slowly drifts on its four unobservable directions, namely the translations and yaw in the world frame. The visual and inertial sensors are unable to provide information about how the world frame is aligned with global geographic coordinates. In this letter, g-MSCKF, a Multi-State Constraint Kalman Filter based approach, is developed to combine visual, inertial and GNSS raw measurements. With GNSS raw measurements, g-MSCKF has the ability to use GNSS information even when the number of satellites is below 4. An alignment filter between the local world frame and the global geographic frame is proposed and serves as the initializer for g-MSCKF. Furthermore, unobservable directions may exist and vary when the number of satellites, the satellite-receiver spatial geometry and the receiver motion follow specific patterns. Inconsistency of the estimator may happen under those variable-unobservable circumstances and a variable observability constrained method is provided to avoid inconsistency. Our algorithm is evaluated on real-world open datasets where the sensors traverse indoors and outdoors. The results show that our solution gives globally smooth trajectories in GNSS-intermittent situations with full exploitation of sensor potentials.

Discrete-Time Optimal Control of Miniature Helical Swimmers in Horizontal Plane

Microswimmer and miniswimmer toward precision-targeted medicine have attracted extensive attention recently. We have developed an autonomous manipulation approach for magnetic-driven helical miniswimmer at low Reynolds number in the horizontal plane (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-plane). Different from our previous work which just makes the barycenter of miniswimmer on the reference path as well as takes the swimming direction not into consideration in planar path following, our control policy in this article can make the miniswimmer to follow the reference path and, at the same time, its swimming direction is also along the reference path. A robust tracking method is employed to locate the helical miniswimmer in real time. Due to different external disturbances, an angle compensating model in the global coordinate frame is developed by radial basis function (RBF) networks trained by backpropagation algorithms, which is used to express the swimming model of the helical miniswimmer facing the gravity and lateral disturbances. A discrete-time optimal controller is formulated based on the linear-quadratic feedback control. Simulations and experiments are conducted to quantitatively validate the autonomous manipulation, and the results show the control performance with submillimeter accuracy in the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-plane. <i>Note to Practitioners:</i> This article is motivated by the potential application of precision-targeted medicine using magnetic-driven microswimmer/miniswimmer. The formulated controller employs the error model in the horizontal plane to design the control law. Simulations and experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed discrete-time optimal control scheme using magnetic-driven miniswimmers.

Dimers and circle patterns

We establish a correspondence between the dimer model on a bipartite graph and a circle pattern with the combinatorics of that graph, which holds for graphs that are either planar or embedded on the torus. The set of positive face weights on the graph gives a set of global coordinates on the space of circle patterns with embedded dual. Under this correspondence, which extends the previously known isoradial case, the urban renewal (local move for dimer models) is equivalent to the Miquel move (local move for circle patterns). As a consequence the Miquel dynamics on circle patterns is governed by the octahedron recurrence. As special cases of these circle pattern embeddings, we recover harmonic embeddings for resistor networks and s-embeddings for the Ising model.

Gender-based violence (GBV) coordination in humanitarian and public health emergencies: a scoping review

BackgroundGender-based violence (GBV) is a global health, human rights, and protection issue, which can increase during emergencies. GBV coordination is an essential component of every humanitarian response, ensuring that, from the earliest phases of a crisis, accessible and safe services are available and prevention and mitigation mechanisms are implemented to reduce GBV. We sought to address the limited evidence on GBV coordination, by reviewing literature on GBV coordination in emergencies, identifying facilitators and barriers influencing effectiveness.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review on GBV coordination in emergencies from 1990 to 2020. Studies explicitly discussing GBV coordination in humanitarian, natural disaster and public health emergencies, in low or middle-income countries, were included. Using thematic analysis, we developed a six-topic framework to synthesise evidence on effective GBV coordination and present recommendations for strengthening GBV coordination in emergencies.FindingsWe included 28 of 964 sources identified, covering 30 different emergency settings across 22 countries. Sources spanned emergency settings, with minimal evidence in public health emergencies and none focussed solely on GBV coordination. Several sources suggested that timely establishment of GBV coordination mechanisms, led by dedicated, experienced coordinators, increased funding and strengthened service provision. GBV risk mitigation was compromised by weak commitment across sectors, poor accountability systems, and limited engagement of affected women. Inclusive GBV coordination, involving national and local actors is vital but engagement efforts have been inadequate and localisation funding targets not yet achieved. Implementation of the GBV Information Management System has reinforced coordination, funding allocation and service provision. While specialist GBV services remain insufficient, emergencies can present opportunities for expansion. Sustainability and long-term impact are compromised by over-reliance on international leadership and funding, weak commitment by governments, and limited attention to GBV prevention.ConclusionDespite enhanced global commitments to addressing GBV in recent years, it remains consistently under-prioritised and under-resourced. Recommendations to strengthen GBV coordination in emergencies include: funding dedicated GBV coordination positions across all types of emergencies, building the global GBV coordination workforce, expanding inclusion of national actors and investing in GBV risk mitigation and prevention through multiyear funding. The evidence-based framework for effective GBV coordination presented here, can guide further research in diverse emergencies.

Nanoscale architecture and coordination of actin cores within the sealing zone of human osteoclasts.

Osteoclasts are unique in their capacity to degrade bone tissue. To achieve this process, osteoclasts form a specific structure called the sealing zone, which creates a close contact with bone and confines the release of protons and hydrolases for bone degradation. The sealing zone is composed of actin structures called podosomes nested in a dense actin network. The organization of these actin structures inside the sealing zone at the nano scale is still unknown. Here, we combine cutting-edge microscopy methods to reveal the nanoscale architecture and dynamics of the sealing zone formed by human osteoclasts on bone surface. Random illumination microscopy allowed the identification and live imaging of densely packed actin cores within the sealing zone. A cross-correlation analysis of the fluctuations of actin content at these cores indicates that they are locally synchronized. Further examination shows that the sealing zone is composed of groups of synchronized cores linked by α-actinin1 positive filaments, and encircled by adhesion complexes. Thus, we propose that the confinement of bone degradation mediators is achieved through the coordination of islets of actin cores and not by the global coordination of all podosomal subunits forming the sealing zone.

Isogeometric technique for dynamic instability analysis of nanocomposite folded plates based on higher-order shear deformation theory

This paper proposes a dynamic instability isogeometric analysis (IGA) of functionally graded (FG) folded plates strengthened by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) under a uniform in-plane loading. The folded plates are modeled by two patches to overcome the existing discontinuity in the geometry. A recently developed logarithmic higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) is used to describe the kinematic relations of each patch. Then, IGA in conjunction with Hamilton’s principle is used to discretize the governing equations of the patch. Afterwards, an appropriate coordinate transformation is applied to transfer the patch stiffness, mass and geometric stiffness matrices to the global coordinates. Moreover, the continuity conditions along the joined line are enforced by means of the bending strip method (BSM). The final form of the governing equations, describing the dynamic instability behavior of folded plates, is solved by Bolotin’s method in order to estimate the boundaries of the principal instability regions with the first and second-order approximations. Various types of numerical examples are investigated to verify the precision and reliability of the present solution method. These comparative studies confirm that the proposed logarithmic HSDT-based isogeometric formulation can precisely predict natural frequencies, critical buckling loads and principal instability regions of FG carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) folded plates. The effects of first and second-order approximations, various configurations of CNTRCs, in-plane loading behavior and geometrical parameters on the aforementioned mechanical analyses of the plate are investigated.

Introduction to a Two‐Way Beam Wave Method and Its Applications in Seismic Imaging

AbstractRay theory gives a high‐frequency asymptotic solution of the wave equation, which has been widely used in the seismic study because of its high computational efficiency and good physical insights for elementary waves. However, the fundamental high‐frequency assumption makes it difficult to accurately simulate the finite‐frequency effect of wave propagations. On the other hand, the Gaussian beam, as one of the advanced ray‐based methods, overcomes the amplitude singularity problem near the caustics by introducing a complex‐valued paraxial approximation. But Gaussian beams only use the velocity and up to second‐order velocity derivative of central rays and thus does not accurately simulate the response of heterogeneity away from the rays. To bridge the gap between the ray theory and wave‐equation methods, we present a two‐way beam wave method and apply it to seismic imaging. A fan of central rays are first shot to extract local ray‐centered model parameters in the global Cartesian coordinates. Then, a finite‐difference method is used to solve the acoustic wave equation in the ray‐centered coordinates to simulate wave propagations near the central rays. The beam wave method can accurately simulate the response of the velocity heterogeneities in the ray tubes and therefore produces more accurate wavefields. In addition, we discretize the ray‐centered wave equation onto a non‐orthogonal grid, which considerably reduces the computational cost. We apply the two‐way beam wave method in seismic imaging and develop a beam wave reverse‐time migration. It inherits the advantages of both ray‐based and wave equation migrations, and produces clear images for complicated structures with fewer artifacts than traditional imaging methods.

Toward an observatory of the evolution of clinical trials through phylomemy reconstruction: the COVID-19 vaccines example

ObjectivesTo visualize the evolution of all registered COVID-19 vaccine trials. Study Design and SettingAs part of the living mapping of the COVID-NMA initiative, we identify biweekly all COVID-19 vaccine trials and automatically extract data from the EU clinical trials registry, ClinicalTrials.gov, IRCT and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Data are curated and enriched by epidemiologists. We have used the phylomemy reconstruction process to visualize the temporal evolution of COVID-19 vaccines trials descriptions. We have analyzed the textual contents of 1,794 trials descriptions (last search in October 2021) and explored their collective structure along with their semantic dynamics. ResultsThe structures highlighted by the phylomemy reconstruction processes synthesize the complexity of the knowledge produced by the research community. The reconstructed phylomemy clearly retrieves the five major COVID-19 vaccine platforms in the form of complete branches. The branches interactions reflect the exploration of a new approach to vaccine implementation moving from homologous prime vaccination to heterologous prime vaccination. Phylomemies also clearly identifies shifts in research questions, from vaccine efficacy to booster efficacy. ConclusionThis new method provides important insights for the global coordination between research teams especially in crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Culex coronator: A New Species Record For Monroe County, Florida.

Reported here are the first documented records of Culex coronator in Monroe County, FL. Adult female specimens were collected over several weeks on multiple islands, indicating that this species is established in all counties of the state of Florida. Global Positioning System coordinates and habitat descriptions are provided.

A two-stage approach with softmax scoring mechanism for a multi-project scheduling problem sharing multi-skilled staff

This paper studies a multi-project scheduling problem sharing multi-skilled staff (MSMPSP). In a distributed decision-making environment, each project is independently scheduled by its project managers, while multiple projects compete for limited staff with multiple skills. A two-stage decomposition model, including an initial local scheduling stage and a global coordination stage, is established to describe this problem. Then, a two-stage approach with softmax scoring mechanism (TSA-SSM) is proposed to solve the local schedule of minimizing the single-project makespan and the global coordination decision of minimizing the total tardiness cost (TTC). According to the local scheduling plan obtained by the forward–backward scheduling genetic algorithm (FBSGA), the softmax scoring mechanism uses a greedy assignment strategy to solve the resource conflicts in the global decision stage, which is combined with the characteristics of multi-skilled staff. Based on the collection of multi-project instances, some numerical experiments are carried out. The results show that our TSA-SSM gets better solutions to large-size and strong conflict instances than some distributed and centralized methods, which proves that our method can effectively coordinate the allocation of multi-skilled staff among multiple projects. In addition, further experiments show that our method is also suitable for solving de-coupled problems, and satisfactory results are obtained.

Global coordination level in single-cell transcriptomic data

Genes are linked by underlying regulatory mechanisms and by jointly implementing biological functions, working in coordination to apply different tasks in the cells. Assessing the coordination level between genes from single-cell transcriptomic data, without a priori knowledge of the map of gene regulatory interactions, is a challenge. A ‘top-down’ approach has recently been developed to analyze single-cell transcriptomic data by evaluating the global coordination level between genes (called GCL). Here, we systematically analyze the performance of the GCL in typical scenarios of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. We show that an individual anomalous cell can have a disproportionate effect on the GCL calculated over a cohort of cells. In addition, we demonstrate how the GCL is affected by the presence of clusters, which are very common in scRNA-seq data. Finally, we analyze the effect of the sampling size of the Jackknife procedure on the GCL statistics. The manuscript is accompanied by a description of a custom-built Python package for calculating the GCL. These results provide practical guidelines for properly pre-processing and applying the GCL measure in transcriptional data.

A Wake-Up Call Theory of Contagion

Abstract We offer a theory of financial contagion based on the information choice of investors after observing a financial crisis elsewhere. We study global coordination games of regime change in two regions linked by an initially unobserved macro shock. A crisis in region 1 is a wake-up call to investors in region 2. It induces them to reassess the regional fundamental and acquire information about the macro shock. Contagion can occur even after investors learn that region 2 has no ex post exposure to region 1. We explore normative and testable implications of the model. In particular, our results rationalize evidence about contagious currency crises and bank runs after wake-up calls and provide some guidance for future empirical work.