Evaluation of rational use of antimicrobial agents in a Brazilian intensive care unit

The present study sought to assess the rational use of antimicrobial agents in a Brazilian intensive care unit (ICU) and its association with antimicrobial resistance in elderly patients admitted to the unit. Results: Choice of empiric and sensitivity-guided therapy was inadequate in > 80% and 59% of cases respectively. Inadequate antimicrobial therapy, whether empiric or sensitivity-guided, was positively correlated with bacterial resistance (r = 0.316;p = 0.001). Sensitivity testing revealed a 46.5% resistance rate to eight out of the ten most commonly used antibiotics. Multiple drug-resistant organisms were found in 40.8% of patients. A significant increase was observed in the number of multidrug-resistant samples between 2006/2007 and 2008 (r = 0.41, p = 0.006), (r = 0.598, p = 0.001), (r = 0.688, p = 0.00). Conclusion: We found a high rate of antibiotic misuse in the study sample. Inadequate therapy was correlated with resistance to antimicrobial agents.

Modeling of Agile Manufacturing Execution Systems with an Agent-based Approach

Agile manufacturing execution systems (AMES) are used to help manufacturers optimize shop floor production in an agile way. And the modeling of AMES is the key issue of realizing AMES. This paper presents an agent-based approach to AMES modeling. Firstly, the characteristics of AMES and its requirements on modeling are discussed. Secondly, a comparative analysis of modeling methods is carried out, and AMES modeling using an agent-based approach is put forward. Agent-based modeling method not only inherit the favorable features of traditional object-oriented modeling method such as data encapsulation, modularity and so on, but also has the ability to construct intelligent, rational and autonomous agent which can cooperate together to realize the goal of agile operation. A general agent architecture used in AMES modeling is described. Under this architecture, an agent can be divided into domain-independent components and domain-specific components which helps solve problems such as information overload, incomplete information handling and soft decision-making. Furthermore, an AMES model using four types of agents, i.e., interface agent, information agent, resource agent and management agent, is established. Thirdly, a snapshot of AMES model is provided in the case study. Especially, an agent-based cooperating process of task scheduling in AMES is illustrated in detail. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of this modeling approach are discussed as well.

An Agent-Based Distributed Manufacturing System

Agent theories have shown their promising capability in solving distributed complex system ever since its development. In this paper,one multi-agent based distributed product design and manufacturing planning system is presented. The objective of the research is to develop a distributed collaborative design environment for supporting cooperation among the existing engineering functions. In the system,the functional agents for design,manufacturability evaluation,process planning and scheduling are efficiently integrated with a facilitator agent. This paper firstly gives an introduction to the system structure,and the definitions for each executive agent are then described and a prototype of the proposed is also included at the end part.

基于Mobile Agent的网络化产品信息集成

Agent技术用于网络化制造系统 ,能够提高敏捷性和智能性 ,使制造企业对多变的市场快速响应 ,因而成为网络化制造的一门重要技术。针对网络化企业的特点 ,以 Mobile Agent与 Web技术为基础 ,提出一种开放的、支持多种平台的网络化信息集成模式 ,为企业间分布异构信息的集成提供了一种新的方案。它可以有效减少网络信息流量 ,提高网络信息处理的性能。

The influence of borehole arrangement of soundless cracking demolition agents(SCDAs)on weakening the hard rock

The hard roof difficult to collapse easily causes gas accumulation,which threatens the production safety of coal mine.Therefore,roof pre-cracking is required.Although blasting and hydraulic fracturing can also crack the roof,blasting can easily induce rock bursts,whereas hydraulic fracturing needs complex equipment.In contrast,soundless cracking demolition agents(SCDAs)with noise-free,dust-free,and safe characteristics have obvious advantages.The main component of SCDA is calcium oxide,which reacts with water to produce higher expansion pressure.In this paper,focused on the angles of the borehole,the effect of SCDA is analyzed by numerical simulation based on Pingdingshan coal mine.The research results showed that the azimuthal angle a(between borehole projection and the roadway direction)does not significantly affect the efficacy of SCDAs,whereas the influence of borehole elevation angle b is far more significant than that of the azimuthal angle.Therefore,the angle b is a dominant factor influencing the effect of SCDAs.Based on different effects of SCDAs at different angle of boreholes,the weakening unit was established,so the SCDAs could give full play to roof fracturing.Moreover,field tests validated the importance of borehole angle on weakening the hard roofs.

Bionic lightweight design of limb leg units for hydraulic quadruped robots by additive manufacturing and topology optimization

Galloping cheetahs,climbing mountain goats,and load hauling horses all show desirable locomotion capability,which motivates the development of quadruped robots.Among various quadruped robots,hydraulically driven quadruped robots show great potential in unstructured environments due to their discrete landing positions and large payloads.As the most critical movement unit of a quadruped robot,the limb leg unit(LLU)directly affects movement speed and reliability,and requires a compact and lightweight design.Inspired by the dexterous skeleton–muscle systems of cheetahs and humans,this paper proposes a highly integrated bionic actuator system for a better dynamic performance of an LLU.We propose that a cylinder barrel with multiple element interfaces and internal smooth channels is realized using metal additive manufacturing,and hybrid lattice structures are introduced into the lightweight design of the piston rod.In addition,additive manufacturing and topology optimization are incorporated to reduce the redundant material of the structural parts of the LLU.The mechanical properties of the actuator system are verified by numerical simulation and experiments,and the power density of the actuators is far greater than that of cheetah muscle.The mass of the optimized LLU is reduced by 24.5%,and the optimized LLU shows better response time performance when given a step signal,and presents a good trajectory tracking ability with the increase in motion frequency.

A HybridManufacturing ProcessMonitoringMethod Using Stacked Gated Recurrent Unit and Random Forest

This study proposed a new real-time manufacturing process monitoring method to monitor and detect process shifts in manufacturing operations.Since real-time production process monitoring is critical in today’s smart manufacturing.The more robust the monitoring model,the more reliable a process is to be under control.In the past,many researchers have developed real-time monitoring methods to detect process shifts early.However,thesemethods have limitations in detecting process shifts as quickly as possible and handling various data volumes and varieties.In this paper,a robust monitoring model combining Gated Recurrent Unit(GRU)and Random Forest(RF)with Real-Time Contrast(RTC)called GRU-RF-RTC was proposed to detect process shifts rapidly.The effectiveness of the proposed GRU-RF-RTC model is first evaluated using multivariate normal and nonnormal distribution datasets.Then,to prove the applicability of the proposed model in a realmanufacturing setting,the model was evaluated using real-world normal and non-normal problems.The results demonstrate that the proposed GRU-RF-RTC outperforms other methods in detecting process shifts quickly with the lowest average out-of-control run length(ARL1)in all synthesis and real-world problems under normal and non-normal cases.The experiment results on real-world problems highlight the significance of the proposed GRU-RF-RTC model in modern manufacturing process monitoring applications.The result reveals that the proposed method improves the shift detection capability by 42.14%in normal and 43.64%in gamma distribution problems.

Study on structural characteristics and adsorption performance of ultrasonic treated Mn-containing sulfur transfer agent

To prepare manganese-containing spinel sulfur transfer agent with acid peptization, ultrasonic wave is used for the first time to modify the structure of sulfur transfer agent in this work. Mini fixed bed reactor was used to investigate the effect of ultrasonic power, time and temperature on the structure and oxidation adsorption performance of sulfur transfer agent and the adsorption kinetics and mechanism of SO2 were analyzed. SEM, TEM, XRD and N2 adsorption-desorption techniques were employed to characterize and analyse the function of sulfur transfer agent. The results indicated that manganese-containing spinel is a kind of promising sulfur transfer agent and exhibits higher sulfur capacity and desulfurization degree under the selected conditions of the ultrasonic wave power of 60%, and with the treatment period for 3 h at a temperature of 60 ℃.

KQML Agent语言在坦克分队CGF通讯机制中的应用

坦克分队CGF中通讯机制的研究是CGF研究的主要课题,也是目前研究的难题。充分利用Agent建模与仿真技术的优势,首次提出了利用KQML(KnowledgeQueryandManipulationLanguage)智能体通信语言实现坦克分队CGF中各种实体之间的交互通信与信息传递,并就一种对话模式的坦克智能体之间的通讯机制进行了构建。最后通过一个例子对通信机制的合理性进行了验证,并得出合理的结论。这将为在坦克分队CGF仿真开发中通讯机制有效性、可靠性、透明性的提高提供有力的参考。

Multi Agent Knowledge Management Architecture

Nowadays, knowledge in Public Sector environment becomes very vast and increasing day by day at speedy pace. So, to handle and manage the knowledge becomes a tedious job, resulting into degrading the overall affectivity and productivity of the system. Hence, the need of effective architecture arises, which can increase the performance of disseminating knowledge in public sector. This results the implementation of knowledge management (KM) using Multi Agents (MA). Using Multi Agents reduces the time overhead for serving relevant knowledge to end users. The objective of this paper is to propose KM architecture using MA which will be helpful and effective in circulating knowledge to public sectors in a much better and easier manner, due to which it enhances the productivity and performance. The paper firstly, gives the understanding of literature on various knowledge management frameworks and tools for implementing Multi Agents. Then it proposes a MA enterprise knowledge management architecture (MAEKM), stating that how knowledge circulation will be done. At the end, using JADE framework, paper implements MAEKM architecture for public sector. The paper describes the necessity of implementing this architecture and its usefulness in disseminating knowledge in public sectors.

Optimizing Factory Performance for Unit Cost in Semiconductor Manufacturing

The integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process is capital intensive and complex. The production process of unit product (or die, as it is commonly referred to) takes several weeks. Semiconductor factories (fabs) continuously attempt to improve their productivity, as measured in output and cycle time (or mean flow time). The conflicting objective of producing maximum units at minimal production cycle time and at the highest quality, as measured by die yield, is discussed in this paper. The inter-related effects are characterized, and a model is proposed to address this multi-objective function. We then show that, with this model, die cost can be optimized for any given operating conditions of a fab. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the practicality of the model and the proposed optimization method.

MANUFACTURING SYSTEM SCHEDULING BASED ON MULTI-AGENT COOPERATION GAME

Aiming at the flexible manufacturing system with multi-machining and multi-assembly equipment, a new scheduling algorithm is proposed to decompose the assembly structure of the products, thus obtaining simple scheduling problems and forming the cOrrespOnding agents. Then, the importance and the restriction of each agent are cOnsidered, to obtain an order of simple scheduling problems based on the cooperation game theory. With this order, the scheduling of sub-questions is implemented in term of rules, and the almost optimal scheduling results for meeting the restriction can be obtained. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling algorithm.

Agent-based Modeling and Mapping of Manufacturing System

Considering the gent-based modeling and mapping in m anufacturing system, in this paper, some system models are described, which are including: Domain Based Hierarchical Structure (DBHS), Cascading Agent Struc ture (CAS), Proximity Relation structure (PRS), and Bus-based network structure (BNS). In DBHS, one sort of agent individually delegates Domain Agents, Res ources Agents, UserInterface Agents and Gateway Agents and the other one is a br oker of tasks and process flow. Static agents representing a subsystem may itsel f be an agent network and should learn as the mobile agents to deal with new sit uation. Mobile agents move around the network domains taking advantage of th e resources to fulfill their goals. In CAS, we use Unified Modelling Language (U ML) to build up the agent-based manufacturing system It is said Enterprise agen t (main agent) has factory agents together with some directly jurisdictional wor kshop agents, cell agents, and individual resource agents. Likewise, factory age nt has workshop agents together with some directly jurisdictional cell agents an d individual resource agents, and so on. In PRS, the resources agents are locate d together by it function and abilities. There is only one agent acts as the tas k-announcer. The communication just occurs among the Proximity Relational agent s. In BNS, It is very similar with the society of human being connected with a n etwork, some agents, such as ’cost calculating’, are just cope with the matter- of-fact job. And some agents run as the individual resources which can negotiat e with each other and advertise a necessary message within the whole domain or g iven group of agents. The administration just relies on the individual addre ss of agents and the group ID code of agents.

MULTI-AGENT APPROACH FOR DISTRIBUTED FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

This paper presents a multi agent model for the realization of the tasks dispatched in a distributed flexible manufacturing system.Agent behavior is described in terms of its capabilities and related environment.According to task execution forms,two kinds of task allocation methods are used and the proper communication mechanisms and negotiation mechanisms are involved to guarantee a high performance and high reliability for a DFMS.

EDM COLLABORATIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM BASED ON MULTI-AGENT TECHNIQUES

A framework for building EDM collaborative manufacturing system usingmulti-agent technology to support organizations characterized by physically distributed,enterprise-wide, heterogeneous intelligent manufacturing system over Internet is proposed. Expertsystem theory is introduced. Design, manufacturing and technological knowledge are shared usingartificial intelligence and web techniques by EDM-CADagent, EDM-CAMagent and EDM-CAPPagent. Systemstructure, design process, network conditions, realization methods and other key techniques arediscussed. Instances are also introduced to testify feasibility.

Multi-agent Based Modeling of Manufacturing Network

An intelligent manufacturing system is modeled currently from the viewpoint of manufacturing applications,and the network platform’s influence to manufacturing applications is not considered adequately. However any bottleneck in service oriented architecture (SOA) for the manufacturing network can affect the agility of the IT environment. In this paper,to achieve a trade-off between manufacturing resources and network resources,the manufacturing network is modeled with multi-agent,in which two kinds of basic elements,the manufacturing application unit and the network carrier of manufacturing information,are presented. And their main characters are described by colored petri net. The manufacturing application model drives the network platform that inversely provides this application model technology supports. The proposed multi-agent system is demonstrated through an example integration scenario involving production plan,resources management and execution subsystems. And the result suggests that analyzing and designing the system architecture of networked manufacturing should give due attention to the operation system as well as manufacturing applications.

Agent-Based Synthesis of Distributed Controllers for Discrete Manufacturing Systems

A method for designing real-time distributed controllers of discrete manufacturing systems is presented. The approach held is agent based;the controller strategy is distributed into several interacting agents that operate each one on a part of the manufacturing process;these agents may be distributed into several interconnected processors. The proposed method consists of a modelling methodology and software development framework that provides a generic agent architecture and communication facilities supporting the interaction among agents.

A Multi-Agent Resource Selection Model in Manufacturing Grid Environment

A group of agents are intimately cooperated to set the assessment indices, establish the weight of each index in overall result of evaluation, collect the experts＇ scores given to each available resource, and the manufacturing resource whose overall assessment value is highest is taken as the optimal choice. Architecture of the proposed system is outlined and an example is offered to show the process of accomplishing the assessment.

“人-机-环境”共融的工业数字孪生系统智能优化方法

工业数字孪生系统是智能制造应用实施的重要手段,但现有工业数字孪生系统主要面向机械系统探索研究理论和关键技术,缺乏从“人-机-环境”全局开展系统建模和优化。鉴于此,分析了“人-机-环境”系统建模和智能优化研究进展,总结了“人-机-环境”共融的工业数字孪生系统基本特征,建立了系统参考架构。然后,提出了“人-机-环境”共融的工业数字孪生系统智能优化方法与关键技术体系,主要包括数据驱动的快速动态建模与仿真方法、基于生成式人工智能(AI)的数字孪生快速建模方法、多模态感知与智能交互方法、虚实同步映射与模型校正方法、基于分布式计算的运行优化控制方法、“人-机-环境”安全监测与态势感知方法和基于AI agent的系统自学习与优化控制方法等。最后,通过典型案例展示了智能优化方法的应用效果。所提出的工业数字孪生系统智能优化方法为实现智能制造过程中的“人-机-环境”共融提供了重要支撑。