Independent Parts Research Articles

Optimal (T,N,n) preventive replacement first policy for a parallel system

A ( T , N , n ) preventive replacement first (PRF) policy is proposed in this article to investigate a parallel system with two independent parts where the secondary part is in a cold-standby state initially. Before the system fails completely, a preventive replacement is carried out at the planned time T, the time when the system successively completes N jobs or the time when the system suffers the n-th type-I failure, whichever occurs first. The system deteriorates stochastically, and it may experience two types of failures: type-I (repairable or minor) failure and type-II (non repairable or catastrophic) failure. When the system suffers a type-II failure, it’s correctively replaced. This model is widely applied in real-life scenarios, especially in the aviation industry. Under the single-parameter optimization scenario, both cost-minimal N and n exhibit favorable convexity characteristics. This indicates that we can uniquely determine the optimal N and n under the principle of minimizing the mean cost rate. Furthermore, we find that the mean cost rate cannot be minimized as T is less than a certain threshold, which implies that the planned time of the preventive replacement should not be implemented too early. In addition, the optimal multi-dimensional replacement policy that minimizes the mean cost rate can be uniquely obtained by theoretical or numerical analysis. Our proposed model provides a versatile formulation for analyzing a large variety of replacement policies. Compared with previous literature, the PRF policy adopted in this article integrates T-, N- and n- control policies, making it more comprehensive. It’s of practical significance for relevant enterprises to make decisions, assisting them in minimizing the mean cost rate while enhancing system reliability.

An extension of the approximate component mode synthesis method to the heterogeneous Helmholtz equation

Abstract In this work, we propose and analyze an extension of the approximate component mode synthesis (ACMS) method to the two-dimensional heterogeneous Helmholtz equation. The ACMS method has originally been introduced by Hetmaniuk and Lehoucq as a multiscale method to solve elliptic partial differential equations. The ACMS method uses a domain decomposition to separate the numerical approximation by splitting the variational problem into two independent parts: local Helmholtz problems and a global interface problem. While the former are naturally local and decoupled such that they can be easily solved in parallel, the latter requires the construction of suitable local basis functions relying on local eigenmodes and suitable extensions. We carry out a full error analysis of this approach focusing on the case where the domain decomposition is kept fixed, but the number of eigenfunctions is increased. The theoretical results in this work are supported by numerical experiments verifying algebraic convergence for the method. In certain, practically relevant cases, even super-algebraic convergence for the local Helmholtz problems can be achieved without oversampling.

Advancements and Applications of Anti-Fraud Graphical Passwords

Visual cryptography represents a sophisticated and innovative approach to secure information sharing, gaining traction within the field of information security. This technology adeptly transforms sensitive data into visually interpretable graphics or images. These images are then segmented into multiple independent parts, each distributed among different stakeholders. This strategy ensures that no single party can access the complete data without collaboration, thereby enhancing security. This dissertation delves into several anti-fraud visual password schemes designed to mitigate risks associated with deceptive behaviors by participants and distributors alike. By addressing these vulnerabilities, the proposed schemes enhance the integrity and reliability of the data sharing process. The application of visual passwords in real-life scenarios not only bolsters data security but also shields private information from potential leaks. By reducing the complexity and cost associated with traditional decryption methods, visual cryptography offers substantial support for a wide array of application scenarios. This dissertation presents a comprehensive exploration of visual cryptography's potential to revolutionize data protection strategies, illustrating its importance and utility in contemporary digital environments.

The application effect of the segmented teaching method in training medical students on clinical practice skills

BackgroundThe surgical clinical practice skill training is an important part of medical undergraduate education. Surgical skills are complex and difficult to master. However, the traditional teaching method has some disadvantages, for example, low student participation, weak learning atmosphere, inadequate mastery of the subject matter. We innovatively put forward the segmented teaching method in the field of clinical practice skills training. The segmented teaching method refers to dividing a specific teaching content into several relatively independent parts and providing segmented practice for each part. This approach enhances students’ learning outcomes.The aim of this controlled study is to investigate the effects of the segmented teaching methods on clinical practice skills training in medical students.Methods31 medical students participating in clinical practice skill training at The First Affiliated Hospital of University of South China from March to April 2024 were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 16) receiving segmented teaching method or the control group (n = 15) receiving traditional teaching method. After completion of practical exercises, both groups underwent operational assessments, theoretical assessments, Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX), and Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) for teaching quality evaluation. A comparative analysis of the results between the two groups was conducted.ResultsAfter implementing the program, there were no statistically significant differences (P > 0.05) between the experimental and control groups in theoretical assessment scores, Mini-CEX clinical judgment scores, and SEEQ teaching quality evaluation scores. However, compared to the control group, the experimental group demonstrated better operational assessment scores, higher Mini-CEX scores in history taking, physical examination, professionalism, doctor-patient communication, organizational efficiency, and comprehensive abilities, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.05).ConclusionThe application of segmented teaching method in clinical practice skill training for medical students yields favorable training outcomes.

Prediction of preterm birth in multiparous women using logistic regression and machine learning approaches

To predict preterm birth (PTB) in multiparous women, comparing machine learning approaches with traditional logistic regression. A population-based cohort study was conducted using data from the Ontario Better Outcomes Registry and Network (BORN). The cohort included all multiparous women who delivered a singleton birth at 20–42 weeks’ gestation in an Ontario hospital between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2014. The primary outcome was PTB < 37 weeks, with spontaneous PTB analyzed as a secondary outcome. Stepwise logistic regression and the Boruta machine learning were used to select the important variables during the first and second trimester. For building prediction models, the whole data set were divided for the two independent parts: two-third for training the classifiers (Logistic regression, random forests, decision trees, and artificial neural networks) and one-third for model validation. Then, the training data set were balanced by random over sampling technique. The best hyper parameters were obtained by the tenfold cross validation. The performance of all models was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and the area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUC). The cohort included 145,846 births, of which 8125 (5.57%) were preterm. In first-trimester models, the strongest predictors of PTB were previous PTB, preexisting diabetes, and abnormal pregnancy‐associated plasma protein-A. In the testing data set, the highest predictive ability was seen for artificial neural networks, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 68.8% (95% CI 67.6–70.1%). In second-trimester models, addition of infant sex, attendance at first-trimester appointment, medication exposure, and abnormal alpha-fetoprotein concentrations increased the AUC to 72.1% (95% CI 71.1–73.1%) with logistic regression. With the inclusion of the variable complications during pregnancy, the AUC increased to 80.5% (95% CI 79.6–81.5%) using logistic regression. For both overall and spontaneous PTB, during both the first and second trimesters, models yielded negative predictive values of 97%. Overall, machine learning and logistic regression produced similar performance for prediction of PTB. For overall and spontaneous PTB, both first- and second-trimester models provided negative predictive values of ~ 97%, higher than that of fetal fibronectin.

Judicial Resistance: missing part of Judicial independence? The case of Poland and beyond

This article critically examines the concept of "judicial resistance" in Poland between 2015-2023, drawing insights from both Polish and international legal frameworks, jurisprudence, empirical research and literature. The study aims to define and differentiate judicial resistance from other judicial attitudes, interrogate its legal character, and explore whether there exists judges’ right or duty towards such resistance. The article posits a definition for judicial resistance, emphasizing actions—both collective and individual, in-court and out-of-court—taken by judges to counter political endeavors that infringe upon judicial independence and violate the law. A pivotal criterion proposed is that the breach of judicial independence must be illegitimate as per national standards and validated as such. To support this, the article references formal assessments from both national and international bodies. The findings indicate a potential necessity for a broader conceptualization of judicial resistance, suggesting it as a possible safeguard against future erosions of the rule of law.

Определение в абазинском языке: средства выражения и грамматическая связь с членами предложения

The aim of the research is to determine the primary means by which the least studied member of the sentence, the attribute, is expressed in the modern Abaza language and to identify its syntactic position both within the sentence structure and in the attributive complex. The article analyzes all parts of speech in the Abaza language, as well as a large corpus of phrases and various syntactic constructions extracted from samples of Abaza aphoristic poetry, oral folk art, fiction, and field materials collected by the authors in order to determine the frequency of the attribute in the syntactic position. The research is novel in that it is the first one to determine the following: a) the group of means of attribute expression that have the highest frequency (noun, participle, infinite constructions); b) the adjective, which, as an independent part of speech, is not used in the syntactic position of the attribute, despite the attributive nature of its semantics; c) the order of words expressing the attribute and the attribute head, and their syntactic connection.

Chronoamperometric flow-cell designed to be unaffected by air bubbles

In this paper, we present a new design for a chronoamperometric flow cell in which air bubbles do not interfere with the control of potential between the working and reference electrodes. The flow-through dual-detection cell consists of two independent parts: an upper compartment containing a quiescent supporting electrolyte solution and a channel that operates under hydrodynamically controlled conditions. In this system, the working and counter electrodes can be placed directly in contact with both compartments, whereas the reference electrode can be assembled to be either isolated or in contact with the flowing stream channel. The design ensures that the potential applied to the working electrode (controlled in the upper compartment) is similar to the potential applied in the flowing channel. The performance of the proposed flow cell in generating accurate results, even in the presence of air bubbles, was evaluated through successive air-analyte-air injections. In both series where the analyte was introduced, suitable reproducibility was achieved. The robustness of the design was definitively proven by performing a series of measurements in analytical applications for the determination of hydrogen peroxide in antiseptic samples, yielding very satisfactory results.

Hortus medicus wrocławskiego lekarza, humanisty oraz kolekcjonera Laurentiusa Scholza (1552–1598) i jego padewskie parantele

The most famous garden in Wrocław, belonging to the doctor, humanist and collector Laurentius Scholz, has so far been described as divided functionally and formally into two, almost independent parts: a recreational and representative part (also serving as a place to pursue collecting passions and at the same time decorative) and a utilitarian part. – medicinal. The vast majority of flowering plants, especially rare ones at that time, were attributed to the former, while about 100 belonging to the group of herbs were attributed to the latter. Recent analyzes led to the conclusion that almost all (except seven of the total group of 240 species cultivated in Scholz’s garden) had medicinal properties. Therefore, the entire garden, also in its part perceived as flowery, served as hortus medicus. The research also confirmed numerous connections between the Wrocław site and one of the oldest botanical gardens in Europe – Hortus medicus Pataviani (i.e. the Botanical Garden in Padua).

A novel kinetic model to demonstrate the independent effects of ATP and ADP/Pi concentrations on sarcomere function.

Understanding muscle contraction mechanisms is a standing challenge, and one of the approaches has been to create models of the sarcomere-the basic contractile unit of striated muscle. While these models have been successful in elucidating many aspects of muscle contraction, they fall short in explaining the energetics of functional phenomena, such as rigor, and in particular, their dependence on the concentrations of the biomolecules involved in the cross-bridge cycle. Our hypothesis posits that the stochastic time delay between ATP adsorption and ADP/Pi release in the cross-bridge cycle necessitates a modeling approach where the rates of these two reaction steps are controlled by two independent parts of the total free energy change of the hydrolysis reaction. To test this hypothesis, we built a two-filament, stochastic-mechanical half-sarcomere model that separates the energetic roles of ATP and ADP/Pi in the cross-bridge cycle's free energy landscape. Our results clearly demonstrate that there is a nontrivial dependence of the cross-bridge cycle's kinetics on the independent concentrations of ATP, ADP, and Pi. The simplicity of the proposed model allows for analytical solutions of the more basic systems, which provide novel insight into the dominant mechanisms driving some of the experimentally observed contractile phenomena.

Plasma FGF21 Concentration in Kidney Transplant Patients-Results from Prospective and Cross-Sectional Studies.

Background/Objectives: Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a protein hormone involved in physiological conditions in the regulation of energy expenditure and several metabolic processes. The aim of this present study was to analyze the effect of successful kidney transplantations on the plasma FGF21 concentration and to study the factors which may influence plasma FGF21 concentration in patients in long time after kidney transplantation. Methods: This study consisted of two independent parts. The first part was a prospective observation of CKD patients in stage 5 before and then on the 14th and 30th day and 6 months after kidney transplantation. The second part of this study was the cross-sectional study completed in patients at least one year after kidney transplantation and the control group. In CKD patients directly before and during the early period after KTx, plasma FGF21 concentrations were measured four times (immediately before and 14 and 30 days and 6 months after KTx). In patients long time after kidney transplantation and in healthy subjects, plasma FGF21 concentration was measured once. Results: Forty patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) who were either directly before or within the early period after kidney transplantation (KTx), 184 patients longtime after KTx and 50 healthy subjects were enrolled into this study. In CKD patients at the stage directly before receiving a KTx, the mean plasma FGF21 concentration was significantly higher than in the healthy subjects [1013.0 pg/mL versus 239.5 pg/mL, p < 0.001]. At 14, 30 days, and 6 months after the KTx, a significant decrease of plasma FGF21 was observed, with values of 322.5 pg/mL; 355.0 pg/mL; and 344.0 pg/mL (p < 0.001), respectively]. In patients long time after KTx, a negative correlation was found between the plasma FGF21 concentration and the estimated glomerular filtration rate and a positive correlation was found between the plasma FGF21 concentration and the BMI, the serum concentration of triglycerides, insulin, interleukin-6, CRP, and cystatin C. Conclusions: The plasma FGF21 concentration in patients with end-stage renal disease is higher than in healthy subjects and significantly decreases after a successful KTx. The plasma FGF21 concentration measured by ELISA in patients long time after kidney transplantation seems to be related to the degree of kidney function impairment and their metabolic status. The kidneys appear to be one of the main organs involved in the biodegradation and/or elimination of FGF21.

Poliovirus capsid protein VP3 can penetrate vascular endothelial cells.

The poliovirus (PV) enters the central nervous system (CNS) via the bloodstream, suggesting the existence of a mechanism to cross the blood-brain barrier. Here, we report that PV capsid proteins (VP1 and VP3) can penetrate cells, with VP3 being more invasive. Two independent parts of VP3 are responsible for this function. Both peptides can penetrate human umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells, and one peptide of VP3 could also penetrate peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In an in vitro blood-brain barrier model using rat-derived astrocytes, pericytes, and endothelial cells, both peptides were observed to traverse from the blood side to the brain side at 6 h after administration. These results provide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying PV invasion into the CNS.

"The Seal of King Solomon": astrological bookishness of the Old Believers-Popovites of the XIX century.

The subject of this article is the Old Believer astrological literature, which had previously been practically not studied. For the first time, the article analyzes the previously unexplored book monument "Seal of King Solomon". The author aims to analyze the structure of this book. To achieve this goal, the author solves a number of tasks. First, the author establishes the chronological framework in which the text could have been created, establishes the religious beliefs of the author of the "Seal ...", the reasons for its printing. Secondly, the attitude towards astrology in the Orthodox environment is analyzed. Thirdly, the author identifies the structural components of the text, the parts of which it consists. Fourth, the author of the article seeks to identify texts that were fully or partially included in the "Print ...". To achieve this goal, the author used both general scientific and private scientific methods, including: genetic, hermeneutical, content analysis. Mathematical methods were also used. In the course of studying this text, the author comes to the conclusion that the "Seal ..." was drawn up no earlier than 1862 by an Old Believer. During the analysis, it was concluded that the book consists mainly of a compilation of various sources, including Byzantine and Ancient Russian origin. The uniqueness of this monument lies in the fact that, from the point of view of the development of fortune-telling literature, this work was not relevant at the time of compilation. The Old Believer origin of this monument also makes it unique, since it was not previously known about the astrology of the Old Believers. It was concluded that the "Seal ..." consists of six independent parts. The first part literally borrows the text of "The Legend of King Solomon, what is the great seal and where and how it came to him." The second is represented by a separate part of the "Gromnik". The third focused on a single source, including the writings of Kirik Novgorodsky, Palea Tolstoy, seven thousand books and a certain moral text. The fourth part is the result of a creative attempt to combine events of various meanings under a single denominator "all creatures of renewal". The fifth part includes the "Moonlight". The sixth or final part is textually closest to the first.

Big Mart Sales Data Visualization and Correlation

The amount of unprocessed data available every day is growing. This massive amount of data needs to be effectively assessed to give results that are extremely useful. In the present day, it is crucial for inventory management and demand forecasting to collect sales data for commodities or things, together with all their numerous dependent or independent parts. In a Big Mart Company, the use of sales forecasting is to estimate numerous goods that are readily available and supplied at multiple retailers in different towns. As the number of products and outlets increased drastically, it became increasingly difficult to forecast them manually. As a result, it is necessary to see to what extent the relationship between several variables, including price, popularity, time of day, outlet type, outlet location, etc., affects the appeal of a product. In this research, a data cleaning process was carried out, and data visualization using scatter plots, as well as finding Pearson correlations. The raw processing the data with study of a case big mart sales data is taken from the Kaggle website [https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/sandeepgauti/bigmart-sales]. The Pearson correlation test determines a lack of connection between the two Item_Weight and Item_Outlet_Sales variables. There is a strong but negative correlation where if Item_Visibility decreases, Item_Outlet_Sales also decreases. Positive relationships exist between the two Item_MRP and Item_Outlet_Sales variables. In addition to the correlation test, descriptive statistical analysis is also performed here. With this simple data processing, the raw data will be better organized and easier to analyze, read, and use.

Республика былого и грядущего?

The review provides a thematic reading of the collective monography, which deals with intellectual history of Russian republicanism. The author of the review underlines that the book, although it is composed of ten separated and conceptually independent parts, could have a general reading in the optics of modern political philosophy’s problematics. This intention derives from the explicitly shown authors’ interest in actual republicanism theory, that started at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries regarding Ph. Pettit’s arguments. Then it is shown that research on the development of the idea of Russian republicanism has a normative model, which can be described as an interpretation of the methodology of Cambridge School of intellectual history. For Russian intellectual space the work with republicanism on the material of social-political thought investigation becomes a reference point, that allows to synchronize methods and subjects of actual philosophy with the global context. A common point for the collective monography is highlighting the inconsistency of the phenomenon of “republic” in Russian political language: being an important idea, although imported from other political tradition, the attempts to define its content and its importance were not always successful and influential enough. An important contribution of the work in the elaboration of political philosophy is clarification of many historical aspects, which results in the narrowing the space for mythologization of Russian political thought.

The Search for the Golden Ticket: A Value Chain and VRIO Experiential Exercise

While the benefits of experiential learning are well established throughout management and business courses, they are used less often when teaching strategic management. Yet, many concepts in strategy, such as the value chain, are difficult for students to understand. The abstract nature of these topics, coupled with the limited real-life exposure to strategy, make these topics difficult for students to understand and apply. The Golden Ticket exercise is designed to help students correctly apply the VRIO framework and conduct a value chain analysis. This exercise uses redirection as a learning tool, incorporating several independent myopic parts to create ambiguity, where students are initially unable to see how the exercise connects to the “big picture.” It is not until the end of the exercise that students can see how these parts connect (creating the big picture perspective), as they are able to identify the firm’s value creating activities, core competencies, and create the value chain for the firm. This exercise can be used in undergraduate and graduate-level strategy, marketing, and management classes, and can be taught face-to-face or online. Student feedback suggests that this exercise is engaging, practical, and an enlightening way to learn about value chain analysis and core competencies.

Jurisprudence for the Development of Science: Ideas that Should Not Be Forgotten (To the 100th Anniversary of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the RF)

The article examines topical issues in regulation and organization of academic activities, which are related to the more than 100-year history of functioning of one of the oldest research institutions in the country – the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation. In the course of the study of archival materials and available publications by the Institute’s employees, some original and currently relevant proposals and hypotheses were identified. They are concerning the organization of research, the direct implementation of academic activities, as well as relations in the field of science subject to legal regulation (in particular, those related to: the distinction of legislation on the scientific and technical process as an independent part in the system of national law in the 1960s; the impossibility of scheduling scientific discoveries; the need to involve researchers (the object of control) in the management process; the “probabilistic” nature of research and the infeasibility of standardization in research work as is the case with setting norms in industrial production; the incorrectness of identification of administrative management in science with academic advising as a specific phenomenon, etc.). These remain relevant to this day. An attempt has been made to correlate the developments of the team of the particular academic organization with the sociopolitical situation in the corresponding historical period and the dominant scientific positions.

FocalDreamer: Text-Driven 3D Editing via Focal-Fusion Assembly

While text-3D editing has made significant strides in leveraging score distillation sampling, emerging approaches still fall short in delivering separable, precise and consistent outcomes that are vital to content creation. In response, we introduce FocalDreamer, a framework that merges base shape with editable parts according to text prompts for fine-grained editing within desired regions. Specifically, equipped with geometry union and dual-path rendering, FocalDreamer assembles independent 3D parts into a complete object, tailored for convenient instance reuse and part-wise control. We propose geometric focal loss and style consistency regularization, which encourage focal fusion and congruent overall appearance. Furthermore, FocalDreamer generates high-fidelity geometry and PBR textures which are compatible with widely-used graphics engines. Extensive experiments have highlighted the superior editing capabilities of FocalDreamer in both quantitative and qualitative evaluations.

Adaptive Safe Reinforcement Learning With Full-State Constraints and Constrained Adaptation for Autonomous Vehicles.

High-performance learning-based control for the typical safety-critical autonomous vehicles invariably requires that the full-state variables are constrained within the safety region even during the learning process. To solve this technically critical and challenging problem, this work proposes an adaptive safe reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that invokes innovative safety-related RL methods with the consideration of constraining the full-state variables within the safety region with adaptation. These are developed toward assuring the attainment of the specified requirements on the full-state variables with two notable aspects. First, thus, an appropriately optimized backstepping technique and the asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) methodology are used to establish the safe learning framework to ensure system full-state constraints requirements. More specifically, each subsystem's control and partial derivative of the value function are decomposed with asymmetric BLF-related items and an independent learning part. Then, the independent learning part is updated to solve the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation through an adaptive learning implementation to attain the desired performance in system control. Second, with further Lyapunov-based analysis, it is demonstrated that safety performance is effectively doubly assured via a methodology of a constrained adaptation algorithm during optimization (which incorporates the projection operator and can deal with the conflict between safety and optimization). Therefore, this algorithm optimizes system control and ensures that the full set of state variables involved is always constrained within the safety region during the whole learning process. Comparison simulations and ablation studies are carried out on motion control problems for autonomous vehicles, which have verified superior performance with smaller variance and better convergence performance under uncertain circumstances. The effectiveness of the safe performance of overall system control with the proposed method accordingly has been verified.

Республика былого и грядущего?

The review provides a thematic reading of the collective monography, which deals with intellectual history of Russian republicanism. The author of the review underlines that the book, although it is composed of ten separated and conceptually independent parts, could have a general reading in the optics of modern political philosophy’s problematics. This intention derives from the explicitly shown authors’ interest in actual republicanism theory, that started at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries regarding Ph. Pettit’s arguments. Then it is shown that research on the development of the idea of Russian republicanism has a normative model, which can be described as an interpretation of the methodology of Cambridge School of intellectual history. For Russian intellectual space the work with republicanism on the material of social-political thought investigation becomes a reference point, that allows to synchronize methods and subjects of actual philosophy with the global context. A common point for the collective monography is highlighting the inconsistency of the phenomenon of “republic” in Russian political language: being an important idea, although imported from other political tradition, the attempts to define its content and its importance were not always successful and influential enough. An important contribution of the work in the elaboration of political philosophy is clarification of many historical aspects, which results in the narrowing the space for mythologization of Russian political thought.