Special Scheme Research Articles

Uncertainty quantification of the convolutional neural networks on permeability estimation from micro-CT scanned sandstone and carbonate rock images

Rock permeability is one of the most crucial properties affecting subsurface fluid flow behaviors. To accurately and robustly estimate the permeability, Digital Rock Physics, including micro-CT scanning technology and direct flow simulations on scanned images, has prevailed in recent years. Besides, machine learning techniques such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been widely adopted and achieved success in permeability estimations directly from rock images. However, existing ML methods used for permeability estimation from rock images lack uncertainty quantification that causes unreliable predictions and overconfident estimations on out-of-distribution (OOD) samples. In this work, we propose a PI3NN-CNN framework to address this problem. PI3NN-CNN consists of a CNN model for absolute permeability estimation and a PI3NN method to quantify the estimation uncertainty. It is able to quantify the uncertainty for in-distribution (InD) data with a desired confidence level, and identify OOD samples to avoid overconfident predictions. We demonstrate the method using micro-CT scanned images from two sandstone and two carbonate rocks. We found that PI3NN-CNN generates accurate predictions for InD samples, while producing high-quality prediction uncertainties regardless of the prediction accuracy. Meanwhile, PI3NN-CNN identifies OOD samples using its special network initialization scheme. The unique feature of PI3NN-CNN makes it applicable to more complex real-world image-based data for robust learning and predictions without overconfident estimations when the ground-truth information is unavailable.

Favored Races in the Struggle for Life: Racism and the Speciation Concept.

Evolutionary speciation, whether it be cladistic or phyletic, has always been associated with race concepts. Biological races are conceived as definable stages of divergence from a common ancestor. However, the species concept in Western science began within a special creationist framework. The sixteenth century European voyages of discovery resulted in special creationist schemes explaining the origin of the new peoples encountered. These were designed to provide the moral justification for their colonization and enslavement. By the seventeenth century, European naturalists were beginning to seriously question the meaning of the variation within the animals and plants they observed within the context of God's role in creation. By the middle of the nineteenth century, "the species question" was the most important intellectual enterprise within biology. Here I discuss how notions of speciation influenced and were influenced by conceptions of race within Homo sapiens.

Applying a model-driven approach to the development of power plant SCADA/EMS software

In this paper, we propose and apply a model-driven approach to develop applications that compose a suite known as Energy Management System (EMS). EMS is an essential tool for the operation of electrical systems. Although models of cyber–physical phenomena are extensively used in planning, designing, and operating power systems, the development of EMS applications often uses such models only as support and documentation, while the main artifact throughout the software development process is source code. In other words, the models are used merely to document and communicate some aspects of a system. The evolution of such a system is expensive and error-prone, requiring specialized personnel, skilled in both software engineering and power systems. Some of the problems arising from this manual process include: (i) substantial implementation effort in interpreting models and manually translating them into programs; (ii) greater risk of introducing software defects; (iii) risk of leaving documentation outdated, or implementation inconsistent with the intended design. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to constructing computing systems in which models are used as primary engineering artifacts, while programs (and other products) are automatically generated from the models, thus addressing the above limitations. MDE approaches have been adopted in several industrial areas, including smart grid automation, in which specialized modeling languages and tools facilitate the production of executable software from high-level models. For SCADA/EMS software development, however, a dedicated approach is still absent. We address these issues by proposing D-SPADES: a Model-Driven Engineering approach tailored to the EMS domain. D-SPADES defines a domain-specific modeling language based on block diagram notation, called EMSML, specifically targeted to describe the behavior of EMS applications. It also defines the associated mapping strategies and harnesses a set of tools for automatically transforming models into source code of applications that can be integrated into existing SCADA platforms. We have applied D-SPADES to model and automatically generate source code for two different applications from the Itaipu power plant: a voltage and reactive power controller and a component for a system-wide special protection scheme. Both applications were validated using a power system simulator and performed satisfactorily. The special protection scheme was deployed to the production system. Hence we demonstrate that D-SPADES is a viable approach to developing mission-critical applications.

Conceptual design of special protection scheme for enhancing renewable energy integration

Conceptual design of special protection scheme for enhancing renewable energy integration

The treaty management organization established under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement: an international actor in its own right?

AbstractA peculiar treaty management organization operates under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement that does not fit established categories of international law and political science. Unlike traditional international organizations (IOs), it lacks the formal status of an IO, comprises only a limited secretariat with predominantly servicing functions, and is not even denominated as an organization. We argue that it has nevertheless become an international actor, mainly due to activities of its Conference of the Parties and several specialized organizational schemes. Theoretically, we develop an analytical framework that shows how even heavily member-dominated IOs can become international actors and what this means for global environmental governance. IOs gain the capability to influence international politics by their own action if authorized to make decisions with external effects. They gain autonomy if organizational rules and procedures shape organizational decision-making and create specific organizational rationales. Empirically, we demonstrate that the organizational component of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement has acquired both considerable action capability and autonomy. It is authorized to flesh out the skeletal provisions of the constituent treaties through far-reaching COP decisions and to decide continuously in several specialized organizational schemes, especially on climate funding, cooperation mechanisms, and compliance management. Organizational decisions are heavily influenced by autonomy-creating organizational factors, such as path dependence, fundamental organizational norms and dense sets of decision criteria. We conclude that this organization, and the organizational components of other multilateral environmental agreements, point at important organizational effects, which merit further attention.

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION OF CITIES IN UKRAINE IN AREAS OF THE BELLIGHERATIVE LANDSCAPES’ SPREAD

Problem statement. The war of Russia against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, brought the destruction of a large number of cities and villages in the regions that were in the zone of military operations. Many populated areas, regardless of their size and status in the country's settlement system, have been completely destroyed. In their place, only ruins remained, pits from houses burned down and broken to stone, countless craters from explosions and other types of disturbed territories. Unfortunately, as of April 2023, the war is still going on. On the territory of cities and villages, in fields and forests, on the banks of rivers, on the tops and slopes of hills and beams, along the roads connecting the settlements, as well as in other places located where battles were or continue to be fought, special types of landscapes have arisen, referred to in scientific publications as belligerative. They have special functioning mechanisms, special schemes for the destruction of the matrices of matter exchange, energy, information, momentum, and goal-setting, which exist both in zonal natural landscapes and in azonal anthropogenic landscapes. The area of belligerative landscapes is growing, and it is they who now dominate the ruined settlements and around them. The revival of cities after our victory is impossible without knowledge of the architectural and urban planning aspects of belligerative landscapes. The purpose of the article is to reveal the urban planning aspects of belligerent landscapes and the algorithm for their further accounting.

The electromagnetic scattering from multiple arbitrarily shaped cavities with inhomogeneous anisotropic media

We study the electromagnetic scattering problem from multiple arbitrarily shaped cavities filled with inhomogeneous anisotropic media. A local-refined Petrov-Galerkin finite element interface (PGFEI) method is developed for solving the scattering problem. By introducing the transparent boundary condition, the unbounded scattering problem can be reduced into bounded domain problem with coupled boundary conditions on the apertures of multiple cavities. The multiple cavity scattering in transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) polarizations are both investigated based on uniform non-body-fitted meshes. We adopt the level-set functions to capture the irregular cavity wall and the interfaces of inhomogeneous media. The special basis is constructed to satisfy the jump conditions across the interfaces of different materials further. The local-refined algorithm is proposed to enhance the accuracy of the solutions around the discontinuous interfaces. The generation of the grid points facilitates a special numbering scheme which enables a stepwise Schur complement decomposition of the discrete linear system derived by the PGFEI method. It could be an alternative method for solving the scattering problems which have similar structures. The proposed method can handle matrix coefficients caused by the permittivity and permeability tensor of anisotropic media. Numerical experiments illustrate the validity and efficiency of the method for solving the scattering from multiple arbitrarily shaped cavities with inhomogeneous anisotropic media in TM and TE polarization.

The impact of war in Ukraine on EU migration

When the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, one of the most immediate and dramatic reactions of the European Union (EU) was to open a special protection scheme for Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians who were resident in the country on the date of the invasion to enter the EU and remain with extensive rights (All EU states are part of the scheme with the exception of Denmark which because of particularities in its constitutional position in the EU opened a parallel national scheme rather than join the EU scheme). The legal basis of the scheme is a directive adopted in 2001, on Temporary Protection which had been slated for repeal but which had not yet occurred at the date of the invasion and is now on hold. Since then, according to UNHCR, 8,046,560 Ukrainians (or persons who were resident in Ukraine at the relevant date) have been recorded across Europe. In this article we examine the status and rights of TP beneficiaries in the EU and the challenges ahead for them and the EU as the war continues.

The ECCANDE Project: Design, Field Implementation, and Operation of a Special Protection Scheme Based on Synchronized Phasor Measurements

This paper presents the ECCANDE project, one of the first Special Protection Schemes (SPS) conceived to rely on the structure of a Wide-Area Monitoring, Protection, and Control System (WAMPACS) and currently operating in a real, large-sized power system. This project was developed and implemented to enable the interconnection between the Argentinean and Paraguayan bulk power transmission systems, which involves and directly affects two of the largest hydropower plants in the world (the Itaipu and Yacyreta power plants). Building this WAMPACS-based SPS took more than a decade of work performed by multiple teams, involving modeling, planning studies, design, manufacturing, real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation for equipment testing, implementation, commissioning, field tests and evaluation of daily operation. The paper describes how system stability problems (detected during the initial studies for the interconnection) made it clear that the ECCANDE SPS had to be a WAMPACS-based one, and how its architecture and logic functions were conceived to deal with these problems. The results of HIL real-time simulations and a main field test show that the ECCANDE SPS enabled the interconnection, successfully protecting against the loss of synchronism between the Itaipu and Yacyreta power plants before the system separation.

Analysis of Numerical Method for Diffusion Equation with Time-Fractional Caputo–Fabrizio Derivative

In this paper, we propose a high-precision discrete scheme for the time-fractional diffusion equation (TFDE) with Caputo-Fabrizio type. First, a special discrete scheme of C-F derivative is used in time direction and a compact difference operator is used in space direction. Second, we discuss the convergence of the proposed method in discrete L 1 -norm and L 2 -norm. The convergence order of our discrete scheme is O τ 2 + h 4 , where τ and h are the temporal and spatial step sizes, respectively. The aim of this paper is to show that fractional operator without singular term is very useful for improving the accuracy of discrete scheme.

Fixed/predefined-time synchronization on complex networks in the light of T-S fuzzy system

This research studies the realization of fixed-time synchronization and predefined-time synchronization over complex networks in the light of T-S fuzzy system by employing ameliorating control strategies. Firstly, different from the previous results, some novel results of considered system are acquired to ensure fixed-time synchronization and predefined-time synchronization. Secondly, some more relaxed conditions are acquired for fixed-time synchronization, besides, several exacter settling time estimates are obtained by using some specific functions. Thirdly, via special control schemes, the synchronization based on predefined-time method is studied, whose synchronization time can be set up in advance according to actual needs. It is worth noting that synchronization time is not only irrelevant to the system parameters but also independent of the initial states. Particularly, the necessary conditions of fixed-time and predefined-time synchronization on T-S fuzzy complex networks are obtained. Lastly, the improved fixed-time and predefined-time synchronization results are confirmed by a numerical simulation.

OBOWIĄZKI NABYWCY NIERUCHOMOŚCI ROLNEJ WYNIKAJĄCE Z USTAWY O KSZTAŁTOWANIU USTROJU ROLNEGO

The Act on the organization of agrarian system of 11 April 2003 introduced a special scheme for the purchase of agricultural land. The legislator’s initiative was designed to ensure that agricultural land would be extensively used for agriculture. The law has been amended several times since its entry into force. The most important changes were made in 2016, when the obligation of 10-year management and the prohibition on the sale and acquisition of agricultural property were introduced. Another amendment of 2019 shortened the above period to five years. The aim of this Act, containing some controversial provisions, is to lay down the basis of the agrarian system in Poland. In practice, it sets out a number of stringent requirements that the purchaser of agricultural property must comply with. As a result, trade in agricultural land is severely restricted.

Guest Editorial: Introduction to Special Issue on “Cloud-Edge-End Orchestrated Computing for Smart Grid”

The integration of distributed energy resources (DER) into the smart grid through digitalization has transformed the power grid into a more decentralized system, enhancing energy efficiency and resilience during significant catastrophes. However, the integration of a large number of DERs into the transmission and distribution networks poses reliability challenges due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources. To tackle this, smart grids have been using advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices for over two decades to improve grid observability and enable near-real-time forecasting of continent-wide anomalies. Cloud-edge-end orchestrated computing can achieve hierarchical management and innovative operational strategies, such as multi-level control and optimization of all-grid-level DERs, voltage and frequency regulation using phasor measurement units (PMU), and special protection schemes (SPS) to detect and prevent potential faults or large-scale cyber-attacks.

ПОРЯДОК ВЗАИМОДЕЙСТВИЯ ЦЕНТРА МЕДИЦИНЫ КАТАСТРОФ С МЕДИЦИНСКИМИ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯМИ В ЧРЕЗВЫЧАЙНЫХ СИТУАЦИЯХ

Introduction. Each emergency situation is characterized by significant health consequences. Solving the issue of saving lives, providing medical care and keeping the health of victims is one of the most important tasks. For the timely and successful supply of emergency medical care, there is a need to create special schemes for the cooperation of medical organizations. Aim. estimation of the system of interrelation of the Arkhangelsk Regional Disaster Medicine Center with medical organizations to provide emergency medical aid to victims in emergency situations. Material and methods. Normative legal documents regulating the work of the Arkhangelsk Disaster Medicine Center were used for the study. The source of the information was the official websites of the Ministry of Health of the Arkhangelsk region, the Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Ambulance Station. Results and discussion. In case of an emergency in the region, the main volume of medical evacuation measures and emergency medical care is organized by the Disaster Medicine system. Since 2019, this function has been performed by the Disaster Medicine Center of the Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Ambulance Station. Intradepartmental and interdepartmental cooperation is strictly regulated by the relevant normative documents. Information about the suffered is sent to the operational dispatch department of the Disaster Medicine Center. At the same time, all information is transferred to the Federal Disaster Medicine Center. A medical organization is required to report about suffered to the Disaster medicine center every day. Also, the functionality of the Disaster medicine center includes the need to create a "task plan" that accumulates information about the bed pool, formations and other forces and means located in the region. Conclusion. An analysis of recent work has shown that the integration of emergency medical care stations and disaster medicine centers into one juridical entity has had a positive effect as part of the improvement of emergency medical care. Thanks to this, the interaction schemes between the various units of the disaster medicine service have been improved. All transformations for the modernization of organizational processes conform to modern requirements and legislative needs.

Boolean finite cell method for multi-material problems including local enrichment of the Ansatz space

AbstractThe Finite Cell Method (FCM) allows for an efficient and accurate simulation of complex geometries by utilizing an unfitted discretization based on rectangular elements equipped with higher-order shape functions. Since the mesh is not aligned to the geometric features, cut elements arise that are intersected by domain boundaries or internal material interfaces. Hence, for an accurate simulation of multi-material problems, several challenges have to be solved to handle cut elements. On the one hand, special integration schemes have to be used for computing the discontinuous integrands and on the other hand, the weak discontinuity of the displacement field along the material interfaces has to be captured accurately. While for the first issue, a space-tree decomposition is often employed, the latter issue can be solved by utilizing a local enrichment approach, adopted from the extended finite element method. In our contribution, a novel integration scheme for multi-material problems is introduced that, based on the B-FCM formulation for porous media, originally proposed by Abedian and Düster (Comput Mech 59(5):877–886, 2017), extends the standard space-tree decomposition by Boolean operations yielding a significantly reduced computational effort. The proposed multi-material B-FCM approach is combined with the local enrichment technique and tested for several problems involving material interfaces in 2D and 3D. The results show that the number of integration points and the computational time can be reduced by a significant amount, while maintaining the same accuracy as the standard FCM.

Solution of heat equation by a novel implicit scheme using block hybrid preconditioning of the conjugate gradient method

The main goal of the study is the approximation of the solution to the Dirichlet boundary value problem (DBVP) of the heat equation on a rectangle by developing a new difference method on a grid system of hexagons. It is proved that the given special scheme is unconditionally stable and converges to the exact solution on the grids with fourth order accuracy in space variables and second order accuracy in time variable. Secondly, an incomplete block factorization is given for symmetric positive definite block tridiagonal (SPD-BT) matrices utilizing a conservative iterative method that approximates the inverse of the pivoting diagonal blocks by preserving the symmetric positive definite property. Subsequently, by using this factorization block hybrid preconditioning of the conjugate gradient (BHP-CG) method is applied to solve the obtained algebraic system of equations at each time level.

Concept of formation of combined transport and logistics infrastructure of Siberia, Far East and Arctic zone of Russia

This article discusses the problems and outlines a conceptual approach to the development of remote regions of Russia with large reserves of natural resources and complex geographical and climatic conditions that ensure the country's economic growth, through ensuring the transport accessibility of these regions and the growth of industry in them. The work made a conceptual justification of the need to develop cooperation of all types of transport using multimodal and intermodal transportation. Attention is drawn to the need to integrate land and water modes of transport, as well as the formation of a special combined transport scheme that combines latitudinal and meridional trunk transport directions.

Binding organophosphate pesticides to acetylcholinesterase: risk assessment using the Monte Carlo method

Binding to acetylcholinesterase (AChE k1) may cause toxic effects in humans. Organophosphates simultaneously are both dangerous and useful substances. Dangerous since they are employed in chemical warfare and useful when they are applied as pesticides. Here, we suggest the models for organophosphates binding to AChE k1 developed via representing the molecular structure by a simplified molecular input-line entry system using so-called optimal descriptors calculated with the Monte Carlo technique using the Correlation and Logic (CORAL) free software available on the Internet (http://www.insilico.eu/coral). Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) serve to develop predictive models for organophosphates. The predictive potential of these models is quite good: the determination coefficient for the validation set ranged from 0.87 to 0.90. These models were built up according to the principle ‘QSARs is a random event’, that is, predictive potential of an approach should be checked up with several splits of available data into the training and test sets. The special scheme of mechanistic interpretation definition is represented. The mechanistic interpretation is based on probabilities of molecular features to be in the sub-group of promoters of increase for endpoint or in sub-group of promoters of it is decrease.

Value added tax non‐compliance in the car market

AbstractWe examine value added tax (VAT) non‐compliance in the European Union (EU) car market. This issue is of paramount importance because of the loss of VAT revenue, the profound distortion of market mechanisms, and the dangerous variety of fraudulent schemes employed. In addition to the usual VAT fraudulent schemes on intra‐community trade, the special regimes, and the different regulations for the sale of motor vehicles in the EU member states per se, favour non‐compliance in the car market. Non‐compliance also takes advantage of the lack of adequate and prompt information exchange among the tax administrations of different countries and, within each country, between the tax administrations and their departments responsible for motor vehicles. We highlight the fact that the current measures are insufficient to fight VAT non‐compliance and that the new rules proposed in the ‘definitive VAT system’ are inadequate to control the proliferation of scams in the car market. Accordingly, we suggest more substantial measures: well‐targeted and prompt cross‐checks through archives and databases, and the monitoring of their effectiveness; electronic invoices; real‐time exchanges of information between the different tax and transport authorities; and increased harmonisation of the special VAT schemes that aim to eliminate one of the most exploited opportunities for illicit gain, to the detriment of the EU member states.

Argumentative Scheme for Abduction

Introduction. The paper scrutinizes abduction through the lens of the argumentation theory. Abduction is treated as an argument with a special argumentative scheme. Argumentation schemes are seen as stereotypical patterns of common types of arguments used in everyday discourse. The main issue of this publication is to specify the scheme of abductive argument and supply it with so-called critical questions. Such questions should identify, reconstruct and evaluate abduction in dialogs.Methodology and sources. At first, I analyze D. Walton and S. Yu & F. Zenker’s patterns of abductive argument, scrutiny their advantages and disadvantages. Then, based on the results of relatively new logical and philosophical investigations, I systemize the peculiarities of abduction. The role of D. Gabbay and J. Wood’s model is especially emphasized.Results and discussion. Both approaches (D. Walton and S. Yu & F. Zenker) are not free of problems. However, several recent logico-epistemological specifications of abduction can reduce them. I mean the position that abduction preserves ignorance and presumes J. Wood’s conclusionality relation. This reasoning is weak and cannot be distinguished from other arguments. These proposals and almost unknown (with interrogative conclusion) Ch. S. Peirce’s scheme of abduction produce a core of argumentative scheme.Conclusion. I provide a version of argumentative scheme of abduction with the set of critical questions. Its formal structure is defined as a move from the consequent to antecedent with the investigand mood conclusion while the material side is seen as reasoning from surprise to investigation. Modified D. Gabbay and J. Wood’s model clarifies the controversial aspects of this argumentative scheme. It also specifies critical questions functions since they lose their traditional role of evaluation.