Restrictive Conditions Research Articles

Tuna: Investigations of value addition and potential EU investments in tuna fisheries in Africa

This research studies investment opportunities within the tuna fish pole and line fishery by the coast of the African Atlantic Façade (mainly SW–Senegal), and the associated value chains. Also, a section is dedicated to investigating the specific case of investment of French capital in tuna fisheries in Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The investigation was conducted under the FarFish project, which overarching objective is to provide knowledge, tools and methods to support responsible, sustainable and profitable EU fisheries outside European waters, both within the jurisdiction (EEZ) of non-EU coastal states as well as in international waters/high seas. In order to achieve this, the aim of this research is to identify, study and potentially recommend investment opportunities for EU operators within some of the project’s case study countries. The investigations done into tuna fisheries were based on interviews with relevant stakeholders, including shipowners and key personnel from public bodies and institutions both in West Africa and Europe (see Appendix A for the list of stakeholders consulted). In addition, most of the data presented in this section was acquired from DG-Mare in a non-public dataset compiling every fishing lot from EU vessels operating within SFPAs in Senegal. A second case study in tuna fisheries in this case in the Indian Ocean, investigates the investment from the French company SAPMER to improve the land infrastructure in the Port of Victoria (Seychelles), as this would be the only notable investment by European interests in recent years for tuna fishing in Africa. These sections conclude that the fishing area where EU pole-and-line vessels are active is becoming less productive, decreasing the profitability of European flagged vessels, as well as of Senegalese flagged vessels that maintain close partnerships with Europe. As a response, they have attempted to extend their fishing grounds. Additional fishing opportunities are opening in The Gambia (whose EEZ is restricted) and other countries are expected to follow. Contrastingly, the EU sustainable partnership fisheries agreement with Senegal or Mauritania could include fewer fishing opportunities in terms of tonnage, as well as increasingly restrictive conditions for access and landings. European operators have reacted so far by considering the switch to private regime, instead of operating under SFPA, as a preferred strategy.

ESTIMATING PROBABILITIES,MARGINAL EFFECTS AND TREATMENT EFFECTS IN RECURSIVE BIVARIATE PROBIT MODELS

This article addresses the interpreting results of recursive system of binary equations estimation in the case when the system does not satisfy exclusion restriction conditions. It means that the equation defining the endogenous variable does not contain a unique covariate. This article extends the analysis of previous studies on the identifiability of parameters of recursive binary systems by analyzing the conditions for the identifiability of probabilities, marginal effects and treatment effects. We provide a reasonable consideration suggesting that even if parameters of the model are unidentifiable, it is still possible to estimate accurately the conditional probabilities and marginal effects, but not the treatment effects. The problem of identifiability discussed in the paper is also considered on real data. We estimate the probability of purchasing medicine depending on individuals’ characteristics and the fact of visiting a doctor. An important practical contribution of the work is the recommendation for researchers to interpret the result recursive binary system estimation via marginal effects in the case when it is not possible to include at least one unique variable in the equation for the binary covariate.

Role of buttering layer composition on microstructural heterogeneity and mechanical properties of Alloy 617 and P92 steel dissimilar welded joints for future Indian AUSC program

Restrictive operating conditions (even exceeding 700 °C) of materials in advanced ultra super critical (AUSC) power plants and the need to minimize manufacturing and maintenance costs require the production of dissimilar metal welded joints (DMW). Significant differences in the physical and chemical properties of welded materials lead to phenomena that reduce the weldability of the metals used and force the search for solutions that limit unfavorable phenomena, e.g., the use of buttering layers. The study presents a comparison of two types of joints with Alloy 617 (UNS N06617) and ferritic P92 (UNS K92460) steel made using Inconel 82 (ENiCrFe-3) and Inconel 617 (ERNiCrCoMo-1) alloys buttering layer and the corresponding chemical composition of filler metals. All areas of the joints made with the gas tungsten arc welding process were subjected to structural investigations (optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and mechanical tests (microhardness, room and high temperature tensile, and toughness testing). Despite the more complicated welding procedure, sound welded joints were obtained with favorable properties resulting, inter alia, from the reduced thickness of the martensite layer in HAZ of P92 steel and the limited diffusion of alloy components compared to welded joints without the buttering layer. This also resulted in a reduction of the maximum hardness (especially in the case of Inconel 82 buttering—by 15–30 HV0.5 in comparison with Inconel 617 buttering) and an increase in strength while limiting the decrease in plasticity (even 663 MPa tensile strength and 21% of elongation for Inconel 617 buttered joint). Moreover, improved high-temperature performance (approximately 70–100 MPa) of the welded joint following the application of the buttering layer was confirmed. The presented results allow for drawing general conclusions that both proposed welding procedures can be recommended for use in the working conditions occurring at AUSC.

On saturation of the discrepancy principle for nonlinear Tikhonov regularization in Hilbert spaces

In this paper we revisit the discrepancy principle for Tikhonov regularization of nonlinear ill-posed problems in Hilbert spaces and provide some new and improved saturation results under less restrictive conditions, comparing with the existing results in the literature.

COLD INHIBITION OF BIOACTIVITY OF PROBIOTIC MYCOBACTERIA AND AEROCOCCI IN THE MICROBIOME

The organism of farm animals is constantly under the influence of various factors of the external environment, and one of the negative factors of violation of the technology of keeping and creation of unsatisfactory conditions of existence with deterioration of well-being is cold injury. Mostly it manifests itself as a permanent effect of positive temperatures well below the physiological norm or periodic fluctuations of an uncomfortable temperature. Such a stress factor of low intensity, but permanent over a long period of time, causes negative pathophysiological changes in the macroorganism with the development of immune-depression, metabolic syndrome, perversions of the qualitative composition of the microbiome and, as a result, disruption of native physiological processes of stimulation of cellular mechanisms of nonspecific innate immunity, induced by immune-biological mechanisms of the functioning of neutrophil granulocytes. The negative effect of low-intensity permanent cold stress was studied on a model object - murchakаs, which were kept for two weeks at a temperature of 4-6 °C under conditions of light and movement restriction. Before the start of the experiment, initial microbiological studies of the microbiome of the large intestine were conducted using generally accepted methods. Resident indigenous probiotic prokaryotes - M. vaccae & A. viridans, which possessed typical species characteristics, were isolated. Pathogenic variants of enterobacteria were not isolated, isolated cultures of E. coli were apathogenic and belonged to the usual normal flora. A two-week cold injury resulted in the disappearance of the indigenous probiotic microbiota M. vaccae & A. viridans, which are indicator prokaryotes of the physiological well-being of the macroorganism, from the microbiome. At the same time, the number of potentially pathogenic enteral microorganisms, coccal and rod-shaped, increased. This was correlated with a decrease in the phagocytic activity of native neutrophil granulocytes and their preformed filamentous spatial nucleoprotective mesh structures, which inhibit the de-fragmentary function in relation to genetically non-syngenic objects.

Thermodynamics of Computations with Absolute Irreversibility, Unidirectional Transitions, and Stochastic Computation Times

Developing a thermodynamic theory of computation is a challenging task at the interface of nonequilibrium thermodynamics and computer science. In particular, this task requires dealing with difficulties such as stochastic halting times, unidirectional (possibly deterministic) transitions, and restricted initial conditions, features common in real-world computers. Here, we present a framework which tackles all such difficulties by extending the martingale theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to generic nonstationary Markovian processes, including those with broken detailed balance and/or absolute irreversibility. We derive several universal fluctuation relations and second-law-like inequalities that provide both lower and upper bounds on the intrinsic dissipation (mismatch cost) associated with any periodic process—in particular, the periodic processes underlying all current digital computation. Crucially, these bounds apply even if the process has stochastic stopping times, as it does in many computational machines. We illustrate our results with exhaustive numerical simulations of deterministic finite automata processing bit strings, one of the fundamental models of computation from theoretical computer science. We also provide universal equalities and inequalities for the acceptance probability of words of a given length by a deterministic finite automaton in terms of thermodynamic quantities, and outline connections between computer science and stochastic resetting. Our results, while motivated from the computational context, are applicable far more broadly. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Improved Analytic Learned Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm and Its Application to Tomographic Synthetic Aperture Radar Building Object Height Inversion

Tomographic Synthetic Aperture Radar (TomoSAR) building object height inversion is a sparse reconstruction problem that utilizes the data obtained from several spacecraft passes to invert the scatterer position in the height direction. In practical applications, the number of passes is often small, and the observation data are also small due to the objective conditions, so this study focuses on the inversion under the restricted observation data conditions. The Analytic Learned Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm (ALISTA) is a kind of deep unfolding network algorithm, which is a combination of the Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm (ISTA) and deep learning technology, and it has the advantages of both. The ALISTA is one of the representative algorithms for TomoSAR building object height inversion. However, the structure of the ALISTA algorithm is simple, which has neither the excellent connection structure of a deep learning network nor the acceleration format combined with the ISTA algorithm. Therefore, this study proposes two directions of improvement for the ALISTA algorithm: firstly, an improvement in the inter-layer connection of the network by introducing a connection similar to residual networks obtains the Extragradient Analytic Learned Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm (EALISTA) and further proves that the EALISTA achieves linear convergence; secondly, there is an improvement in the iterative format of the intra-layer iteration of the network by introducing the Nesterov momentum acceleration, which obtains the Fast Analytic Learned Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm (FALISTA). We first performed inversion experiments on simulated data, which verified the effectiveness of the two proposed algorithms. Then, we conducted TomoSAR building object height inversion experiments on limited measured data and used the deviation metric P to measure the robustness of the algorithms to invert under restricted observation data. The results show that both proposed algorithms have better robustness, which verifies the superior performance of the two algorithms. In addition, we further analyze how to choose the most suitable algorithms for inversion in engineering practice applications based on the results of the experiments on measured data.

Insights into the relationship between eye movements and personality traits in restricted visual fields

Previous studies have suggested behavioral patterns, such as visual attention and eye movements, relate to individual personality traits. However, these studies mainly focused on free visual tasks, and the impact of visual field restriction remains inadequately understood. The primary objective of this study is to elucidate the patterns of conscious eye movements induced by visual field restriction and to examine how these patterns relate to individual personality traits. Building on previous research, we aim to gain new insights through two behavioral experiments, unraveling the intricate relationship between visual behaviors and individual personality traits. As a result, both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 revealed differences in eye movements during free observation and visual field restriction. Particularly, simulation results based on the analyzed data showed clear distinctions in eye movements between free observation and visual field restriction conditions. This suggests that eye movements during free observation involve a mixture of conscious and unconscious eye movements. Furthermore, we observed significant correlations between conscious eye movements and personality traits, with more pronounced effects in the visual field restriction condition used in Experiment 2 compared to Experiment 1. These analytical findings provide a novel perspective on human cognitive processes through visual perception.

Sugar consumption induces the consummatory suppression of sugary ethanol: Differential effects of sugar restriction according to sex and age

Sweet foods activate the reward system that is essential in processing natural reinforcers. Maturation changes in this system during adolescence are linked to heightened impulsivity and risk-seeking behavior, including the use of drugs like ethanol. This usually starts with the consumption of sugary mixtures. However, the influence of sugar exposure on ethanol consumption remains inconclusive. The present research examines the effect of long-term sugar exposure on sugary ethanol (S-EtOH) preference and net intake, exploring the implications of sex, age, accessor restriction of sugar, and its effect during the transition into adulthood. Wistar rats of both sexes were given 24-hour access to a sugar solution for 21 days during adolescence or adulthood. Subsequently, four preference tests of S-EtOH vs. water were carried out every other day, with or without sugar access between each preference test. Our results demonstrate that continuous acute and long-term sugar access induces a consummatory suppression effect on S-EtOH intake, particularly in adult rats, irrespective of sex. This effect becomes more pronounced with more extended periods of exposure to sugar, leading to a higher prevalence of low consumers. Notably, when sugar access was restricted after high familiarization, the suppression effect in adolescent male rats was reduced. Under these conditions, the rats appeared to be more susceptible to developing a preference for S-EtOH consumption. Furthermore, our longitudinal observations reveal that sugar access or restriction conditions during the transition from adolescence to adulthood play a crucial role in shaping S-EtOH consumption patterns in adulthood.

H∞ fault detection and control of Takagi–Sugeno continuous-time conic-type nonlinear systems

In this study, control and fault detection are examined for Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy continuous-time systems with conic-type nonlinearity. In a conic-type dynamic system, Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy models are applied. A conic-type non-linearity must lie in an n-dimensional hyper-sphere with an uncertain centre to satisfy the restrictive condition. A combined error system of estimation and control error is obtained by combining the observations and the controller. Our main goal is to design an observer and controller for fault detection that minimizes the impact of unknown inputs and faults on the system in terms of the H ∞ performance. The Lyapunov function is used to construct the residual signal using an observer and a controller. Using Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs), we can express the performance conditions for H ∞ . The scheme's effectiveness is demonstrated with numerical examples.

Concurrent Learning Robust Adaptive Fault Tolerant Boundary Regulation of Hyperbolic Distributed Parameter Systems.

This article develops a robust adaptive boundary output regulation approach for a class of complex anticollocated hyperbolic partial differential equations subjected to multiplicative unknown faults in both the boundary sensor and actuator. The regulator design is based on the internal model principle, which amounts to stabilize a coupled cascade system, which consists of a finite-dimensional internal model driven by a hyperbolic distributed parameter system (DPS). To this end, a systematic sliding mode equipped with a backstepping approach is developed such that the robust state feedback control can be realized. Moreover, since the available information is a faulty boundary measurement at the right side point, state estimation is required. However, due to the presence of boundary unknown faults, we need to solve an issue of joint fault-state estimation. Restrictive persistent excitation conditions are usually required to guarantee the exact estimation of faults but are unrealistic in practice. To this end, a novel concurrent learning (CL) adaptive observer is proposed so that exponential convergence is obtained. It is the first time that the spirit of CL is introduced to the field of DPSs. Consequently, the observer-based adaptive boundary fault tolerant control scheme is developed, and rigorous theoretical analysis is given such that the exponential output regulation can be achieved. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated via comparative simulations.

Sex-specific effects of dietary restriction on physiological variables in Japanese quails.

Nutritional limitation is a common phenomenon in nature that leads to trade-offs among processes competing for limited resources. These trade-offs are mediated by changes in physiological traits such as growth factors and circulating lipids. However, studies addressing the sex-specific effect of nutritional deficiency on these physiological variables are limited in birds. We used dietary restriction to mimic the depletion of resources to various degrees and investigated sex-specific effects on circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and triglycerides in Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) subjected to adlibitum, 20%, 30% or 40% restriction of their daily requirement, for 2 weeks. We also explored the association of both physiological variables with body mass and egg production. While dietary restriction showed no effects on circulating IGF-1, this hormone exhibited a marked sexual difference, with females having 64.7% higher IGF-1 levels than males. Dietary restriction significantly reduced plasma triglyceride levels in both sexes. Females showed more than six-fold higher triglyceride levels than males. Triglyceride levels were positively associated with body mass in females while showed not association in males. Overall, our findings revealed sex-specific expression of physiological variables under dietary restriction conditions, which coincide with body size.

Restricting lumbar spine flexion redistributes and changes total mechanical energy expenditure during lifting

Minimizing lumbar spine flexion during lifting requires greater lower extremity joint motion. However, the effects of these kinematic changes on lumbar and lower extremity joint kinetics are unknown. Further, it is unclear whether the distribution of biomechanical demands throughout the lumbar spine and lower extremity during lumbar spine flexion restricted lifting are modulated by task factors like lift origin height and object mass. This study examined the influence of restricting lumbar spine flexion during lifting on the distribution of biomechanical demands, operationalized as mechanical energy expenditure (MEE), across the lumbar spine and lower extremity joints during lifting tasks. Twenty participants performed a series of lifting tasks that varied by lift origin height, object mass and presence or absence of lumbar spine motion restricting harness. MEE was quantified for the lumbar spine and lower extremity joints and summed across all joints to represent the total MEE. Distributions of MEE were compared across combinations of the three task factors. Total MEE was greater when lifting with restricted spine motion (p < 0.001). MEE was redistributed away from the lumbar spine and predominantly to the hips in the spine restricted conditions (p < 0.001). The nature and magnitude of this effect was modulated by lift origin height for the lumbar spine (p < 0.001) and hips (p < 0.001). Findings demonstrated that biomechanical demands can be shifted from the lumbar spine to the lower extremity when lifting with restricted spine flexion, which might help mitigate overuse injuries through coordinative variability.

A note on the Finite intersection property in “Existence of Nash equilibria for generalized multiobjective games through the vector extension of Weierstrass and Berge maximum theorems”

This note qualifies some results in Cotrina and Flores-Bazán (2024) on the ‘Finite intersection property’. We remind the essential role of this property for proving our results. In this note, we recall the statement of this property. We then specify the restrictive conditions that should be provided. An example proves the interest of this note revising some points in Cotrina and Flores-Bazán. Furthermore, it is showed that a class of generalized Nash equilibrium problems can be viewed as a particular case of a vector optimization problem, whose vector-valued function always possesses the Finite intersection property on its natural domain. Thus, the existence of a generalized Nash equilibrium will be a consequence of our Berge-type theorem and the Kakutani fixed point theorem, being it more general than those existing in recent literature, as shown by our examples.

An inexact variable metric variant of incremental aggregated Forward-Backward method for the large-scale composite optimization problem

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the large-scale composite optimization problem, which is the sum of a finite number of smooth (possibly nonconvex) functions and a convex (possibly nonsmooth) function. A common method to solve this problem is proximal incremental aggregated gradient (PIAG) method (N. D. Vanli, M. Gurbuzbalaban and A. Ozdaglar, SIAM Journal on Optimization, 2018, 28(2): 1282–1300), which exploits the gradient information from previous iterations to approximate the gradient at the current point. However, as many first-order algorithms, it may suffer from slow convergence. To address this issue, this paper proposes an inexact variable metric variant of incremental aggregated Forward-Backward (iVMFB-IAG) method. This methods incorporates a variable metric strategy to accelerate the PIAG method and introduces an inexact criterion to enhance its practicality. Under the Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz (KL) property and the uniformly bounded positive definiteness of the scaling matrix, the sequence generated by the iVMFB-IAG method converges globally to the critical point of the problem. Additionally, the convergence rate is established under the KL framework. Moreover, under certain restrictive conditions, the method exhibits local superlinear convergence. Through the numerical experiments on image reconstruction applications, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the iVMFB-IAG method by restoring two distinct images.

Variation in Sleep Traits in the Indian Population During Social Restriction

Aim: We conducted this study to investigate the impact of social restrictions on chronotype categories, social jetlag, and sleep parameters in the Indian population. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2021 with 139 participants. We used an online questionnaire (Google Form) enclosing respondents' sociodemographic information Social jetlag and sleep parameters were measured with the µ-MCTQ and chronotype was assessed by the r-MEQ. Chi-square, paired t-tests, and One-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Pearson correlation was used to determine the strength of the relationship between the variables. Results: Our results highlighted that a total of 23.8% of volunteers reported social jetlag before social restriction and it significantly reduced to 13.7% (P = .001) in the social restricted condition. There is no significant difference in sleep duration during the workday and free days of socially restriction (P = .11). We found a difference between midsleep free day (MSf) and midsleep free day corrected (MSfsc) (mean of 13 min before restrictions (P = .05) and 10 min during restrictions; P = .001). Conclusion: Our findings provide crucial insights into variations in sleep/wake schedule stability, as seen by changes in the decrease of social jetlag between restriction. It was established that the individuals had significantly equivalent total sleep at both time points, as well as a later sleep-wake time under the social restriction.

Rice mutants, selected under severe drought stress, show reduced stomatal density and improved water use efficiency under restricted water conditions.

Rice is among the least water-use-efficient crops, and rice plants utilise most of their water uptake for transpirational cooling via stomata. To improve water-use efficiency (WUE) in rice, reducing stomatal density and size could help optimise transpiration and photosynthesis. In this study, we compared two series of purple rice stomata mutants: the Stomatal Model Mutant (SMM) identified by microscopic observation of flag-leaf stomata, and the Drought-selected Model Mutant (DMM) generated through screening under severe water stress. After undergoing two rounds of severe water stress between -60 to -80 Ym, right before the R1-2 reproductive stage, three DMMs were selected based on their rapid recovery rate and % filled-grain percentage. The three DMMs displayed 618-697 stomatal units per mm2, similar to the SMMs low-density stomata mutant (JHN 8756 (LD)). Furthermore, the four SMMs, three DMMs and the Jao Hom Nin wild type (JHN WT) were treated with two restricted water condition schemes from seedlings to harvest. The total amount of irrigation and precipitation during the experiment was 78.1 L/plant (69.1 mm/plant) for the less restricted water condition (LR) and 47.5 L/plant (42 mm/plant) for the more restricted water condition (MR). Water condition treatments had no effects on stomatal density and stomatal index. In contrast, genotypes and restricted water condition schemes affected plant height, tillers/plant, % filled grains and shoot dry weight (SDW). The three DMMs and the JHN 8756 (LD), the SMM's low-density stomata mutant, displayed greater resilience towards more restricted water conditions than the SMMs and the JHN wild type. Particularly, DMMs were tolerant to more restricted water condition treatments, showing no SDW penalties. Together, the DMMs and the JHN 8756 (LD) displayed higher WUE under these conditions of more restricted water conditions. A rigorous screening process to distinguish tolerant mutants with a rapid drought recovery rate from severe water stress could pave the way to isolate more mutants with better stomatal functionality and resilience in preparation for imminent climate changes.

Iterative kernel regression with preconditioning

Kernel methods are popular in nonlinear and nonparametric regression due to their solid mathematical foundations and optimal statistical properties. However, scalability remains the primary bottleneck in applying kernel methods to large-scale data regression analysis. This paper aims to improve the scalability of kernel methods. We combine Nyström subsampling and the preconditioned conjugate gradient method to solve regularized kernel regression. Our theoretical analysis indicates that achieving optimal convergence rates requires only [Formula: see text] memory and [Formula: see text] time (up to logarithmic factors). Numerical experiments show that our algorithm outperforms existing methods in time efficiency and prediction accuracy on large-scale datasets. Notably, compared to the FALKON algorithm [A. Rudi, L. Carratino and L. Rosasco, Falkon: An optimal large scale kernel method, in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (Curran Associates, 2017), pp. 3891–3901], which is known as the optimal large-scale kernel method, our method is more flexible (applicable to non-positive definite kernel functions) and has a lower algorithmic complexity. Additionally, our established theoretical analysis further relaxes the restrictive conditions on hyperparameters previously imposed in convergence analyses.

Phule Satwik (NIAW 3170): A soft bread wheat variety for North Western Plains and Peninsular Zone of India

Wheat is an important crop that plays major role in a food grain production in the country.It is a lone source for industries involved in the manufacturing of bread, biscuits, flakes, cakes etc. These industries rely on quality parameters viz.,grain hardness index, biscuit spread factor, bread quality score, and bread loaf volume. Bread wheat variety Phule Satwik (NIAW 3170) is developed at Agricultural Research Station, Niphad has been released and notified by Central Sub Committee on Crop Standards, India for cultivation in North Western Plains Zone and Peninsular Zone under restricted irrigation conditions vide notification number S.O. 3482 (E) dated 7th October, 2020. The variety has high yield potential under restricted irrigation conditions along with disease resistance and superior grain quality parameters. It was the softest grain variety among all the genotypes having a biscuit spread factor of more than 10. With good nutritional and quality parameters, it will be a promising variety for bakery industries.

0142 Evaluating the Efficacy of Light and Odour for Mitigating Sleep Inertia Under Conditions of Sleep Restriction

0142 Evaluating the Efficacy of Light and Odour for Mitigating Sleep Inertia Under Conditions of Sleep Restriction