Improved STNModels and Heuristic Rules for Cooperative Scheduling in Automated Container Terminals

Improving the cooperative scheduling efficiency of equipment is the key for automated container terminals to copewith the development trend of large-scale ships. In order to improve the solution efficiency of the existing spacetimenetwork (STN) model for the cooperative scheduling problem of yard cranes (YCs) and automated guidedvehicles (AGVs) and extend its application scenarios, two improved STN models are proposed. The flow balanceconstraints in the original model are decomposed, and the trajectory constraints of YCs and AGVs are added toacquire the model STN_A. The coupling constraint in STN_A is updated, and buffer constraints are added toSTN_A so that themodel STN_B is built.As the size of the problem increases, the solution speed of CPLEX becomesthe bottleneck. So a heuristic method containing three groups of heuristic rules is designed to obtain a near-optimalsolution quickly. Experimental results showthat the computation time of STN_A is shortened by 49.47% on averageand the gap is reduced by 1.69% on average compared with the original model. The gap between the solution ofthe heuristic rules and the solution of CPLEX is less than 3.50%, and the solution time of the heuristic rules is onaverage 99.85% less than the solution time of CPLEX. Compared with STN_A, the computation time for solvingSTN_B increases by 58.93% on average.

Adaptive Event-Triggered Time-Varying Output Group Formation Containment Control of Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems

In this paper,a class of time-varying output group formation containment control problem of general linear hetero-geneous multiagent systems(MASs)is investigated under directed topology.The MAS is composed of a number of tracking leaders,formation leaders and followers,where two different types of leaders are used to provide reference trajectories for movement and to achieve certain formations,respectively.Firstly,compen-sators are designed whose states are estimations of tracking lead-ers,based on which,a controller is developed for each formation leader to accomplish the expected formation.Secondly,two event-triggered compensators are proposed for each follower to evalu-ate the state and formation information of the formation leaders in the same group,respectively.Subsequently,a control protocol is designed for each follower,utilizing the output information,to guide the output towards the convex hull generated by the forma-tion leaders within the group.Next,the triggering sequence in this paper is decomposed into two sequences,and the inter-event intervals of these two triggering conditions are provided to rule out the Zeno behavior.Finally,a numerical simulation is intro-duced to confirm the validity of the proposed results.

High patatin like phospholipase domain containing 8 expression as a biomarker for poor prognosis of colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND Patatin like phospholipase domain containing 8(PNPLA8)has been shown to play a significant role in various cancer entities.Previous studies have focused on its roles as an antioxidant and in lipid peroxidation.However,the role of PNPLA8 in colorectal cancer(CRC)progression is unclear.AIM To explore the prognostic effects of PNPLA8 expression in CRC.METHODS A retrospective cohort containing 751 consecutive CRC patients was enrolled.PNPLA8 expression in tumor samples was evaluated by immunohistochemistry staining and semi-quantitated with immunoreactive scores.CRC patients were divided into high and low PNPLA8 expression groups based on the cut-off va-lues,which were calculated by X-tile software.The prognostic value of PNPLA8 was identified using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis.The over-all survival(OS)rates of CRC patients in the study cohort were compared with Kaplan-Meier analysis and Log-rank test.RESULTS PNPLA8 expression was significantly associated with distant metastases in our cohort(P=0.048).CRC patients with high PNPLA8 expression indicated poor OS(median OS=35.3,P=0.005).CRC patients with a higher PNPLA8 expression at either stage I and II or stage III and IV had statistically significant shorter OS.For patients with left-sided colon and rectal cancer,the survival curves of two PN-PLA8-expression groups showed statistically significant differences.Multivariate analysis also confirmed that high PNPLA8 expression was an independent prog-nostic factor for overall survival(hazard ratio HR=1.328,95%CI:1.016-1.734,P=0.038).

GATA binding protein 2 mediated ankyrin repeat domain containing 26 high expression in myeloid-derived cell lines

BACKGROUND Thrombocytopenia 2,an autosomal dominant inherited disease characterized by moderate thrombocytopenia,predisposition to myeloid malignancies and normal platelet size and function,can be caused by 5’-untranslated region(UTR)point mutations in ankyrin repeat domain containing 26(ANKRD26).Runt related transcription factor 1(RUNX1)and friend leukemia integration 1(FLI1)have been identified as negative regulators of ANKRD26.However,the positive regulators of ANKRD26 are still unknown.AIM To prove the positive regulatory effect of GATA binding protein 2(GATA2)on ANKRD26 transcription.METHODS Human induced pluripotent stem cells derived from bone marrow(hiPSC-BM)INTRODUCTION Ankyrin repeat domain containing protein 26(ANKRD26)acts as a regulator of adipogenesis and is involved in the regulation of feeding behavior[1-3].The ANKRD26 gene is located on chromosome 10 and shares regions of homology with the primate-specific gene family POTE.According to the Human Protein Atlas database,the ANKRD26 protein is localized to the Golgi apparatus and vesicles,and its expression can be detected in nearly all human tissues[4].Moreover,UniProt annotation revealed that ANKRD26 is localized in the centrosome and contains coiled-coil domains formed by spectrin helices and ankyrin repeats[5,6].The most common disease related to ANKRD26 is thrombocytopenia 2(THC2),which is a rare autosomal dominant inherited disease characterized by lifelong mild-to-moderate thrombocytopenia and mild bleeding[7-9].Caused by the variants in the 5’-untranslated region(UTR)of ANKRD26,THC2 is defined by a decrease in the number of platelets in circulating blood and results in increased bleeding and decreased clotting ability[8,10].Due to the point mutations that occur in the 5’-UTR of ANKRD26,its negative transcription factors(TFs),Runt related transcription factor 1(RUNX1)and friend leukemia integration 1(FLI1),lose their repression effect[11].The persistent expression of ANKRD26 increases the activity of the mitogen activated protein kinase and extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 signaling pathways,which are potentially involved in the regulation of thrombopoietin-dependent signaling and further impair proplatelet formation by megakaryocytes(MKs)[11].However,the positive regulators of ANKRD26,which might be associated with THC2 pathology,are still unknown.

Container-Based Internet of Vehicles Edge Application Migration Mechanism

Internet of Vehicles(IoV)applications integrating with edge com-puting will significantly drive the growth of IoV.However,the contradiction between the high-speed mobility of vehicles,the delay sensitivity of corre-sponding IoV applications and the limited coverage and resource capacity of distributed edge servers will pose challenges to the service continuity and stability of IoV applications.IoV application migration is a promising solution that can be supported by application containerization,a technology for seamless cross-edge-server application migration without user perception.Therefore,this paper proposes the container-based IoV edge application migration mechanism,consisting of three parts.The first is the migration trigger determination algorithm for cross-border migration and service degra-dation migration,respectively,based on trajectory prediction and traffic awareness to improve the determination accuracy.The second is the migration target decision calculation model for minimizing the average migration time and maximizing the average service time to reduce migration times and improve the stability and adaptability of migration decisions.The third is the migration decision algorithm based on the improved artificial bee colony algorithm to avoid local optimal migration decisions.Simulation results show that the proposed migration mechanism can reduce migration times,reduce average migration time,improve average service time and enhance the stability and adaptability of IoV application services.

Nonlinear semi-analytical modeling of liquid sloshing in rectangular container with horizontal baffles

A nonlinear semi-analytical scheme is proposed for investigating the finiteamplitude nonlinear sloshing in a horizontally baffled rectangular liquid container under the seismic excitation.The sub-domain method is developed to analytically derive the modal behaviors of the baffled linear sloshing.The viscosity dissipation effects from the interior liquid and boundary layers are considered.With the introduction of the generalized time-dependent coordinates,the surface wave elevation and velocity potential are represented by a series of linear modal eigenfunctions.The infinite-dimensional modal system of the nonlinear sloshing is formulated based on the Bateman-Luke variational principle,which is further reduced to the finite-dimensional modal system by using the NarimanovMoiseev asymptotic ordering.The base force and overturning moment induced by the nonlinear sloshing are derived as the functions of the generalized time-dependent coordinates.The present results match well with the available analytical,numerical,and experimental results.The paper examines the surface wave elevation,base force,and overturning moment versus the baffle parameters and excitation amplitude in detail.

Vertical Pod Autoscaling in Kubernetes for Elastic Container Collaborative Framework

Kubernetes is an open-source container management tool which automates container deployment,container load balancing and container(de)scaling,including Horizontal Pod Autoscaler(HPA),Vertical Pod Autoscaler(VPA).HPA enables flawless operation,interactively scaling the number of resource units,or pods,without downtime.Default Resource Metrics,such as CPU and memory use of host machines and pods,are monitored by Kubernetes.Cloud Computing has emerged as a platform for individuals beside the corporate sector.It provides cost-effective infrastructure,platform and software services in a shared environment.On the other hand,the emergence of industry 4.0 brought new challenges for the adaptability and infusion of cloud computing.As the global work environment is adapting constituents of industry 4.0 in terms of robotics,artificial intelligence and IoT devices,it is becoming eminent that one emerging challenge is collaborative schematics.Provision of such autonomous mechanism that can develop,manage and operationalize digital resources like CoBots to perform tasks in a distributed and collaborative cloud environment for optimized utilization of resources,ensuring schedule completion.Collaborative schematics are also linked with Bigdata management produced by large scale industry 4.0 setups.Different use cases and simulation results showed a significant improvement in Pod CPU utilization,latency,and throughput over Kubernetes environment.

“Smart”micro/nano container-based self-healing coatings on magnesium alloys:A review

Coating technologies are a commonly used way to protect metals against corrosion.However,with more and more severe service environments of materials,many protective coating systems often are not environmentally friendly or toxic as in the case of chromates.Based on the world’s abundant ideal magnesium(Mg)and its alloy,the smart self-healing anticorrosive coating can autonomously restore the damaged part of the coating according to the environmental changes,strengthen the corrosion protection ability,and prolong its service life.This paper reviews the research progress of smart self-healing coatings on Mg alloys.These coatings mostly contain suitable corrosion inhibitors encapsulated into micro/nano containers.Moreover,the different self-healing mechanisms and functionalities of micro/nano containers are discussed.The micro/nano containers range from inorganic nanocontainers such as mesoporous nanoparticles(silica(SiO_(2)),titanium dioxide(TiO_(2)),etc.),over inorganic clays(halloysite,hydrotalcite-like,zeolite),to organic nanocontainers such as polymer microcapsules,nanofibers,chitosan(CS)and cyclodextrin(CD),as well as,carbon materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes and hybrids such as metal organic frameworks.The functioning of micro/nano containers can be divided in two principal groups:autonomous(based on defect filling and corrosion inhibition)and non-autonomous(based on dynamic bonds and shape memory polymers).Moreover,multi functionalities and composite applications of various micro/nano containers are summarized.At present,significant progress has been made in the preparation methods and technologies of micro/nano containers.Achieving long-term self-healing properties of coatings sensing of coating failure and early warning after self-healing function failure can be expected as the main development direction of self-healing corrosion protection coatings in the future.

Group-Consensus of Hierarchical Containment Control for Linear Multi-Agent Systems

The existing containment control has been widely developed for several years, but ignores the case for large-scale cooperation. The strong coupling of large-scale networks will increase the costs of system detection and maintenance. Therefore, this paper is concerned with an extensional containment control issue, hierarchical containment control. It aims to enable a multitude of followers achieving a novel cooperation in the convex hull shaped by multiple leaders. Firstly, by constructing the three-layer topology, large-scale networks are decoupled. Then,under the condition of directed spanning group-tree, a class of dynamic hierarchical containment control protocol is designed such that the novel group-consensus behavior in the convex hull can be realized. Moreover, the definitions of coupling strength coefficients and the group-consensus parameter in the proposed dynamic hierarchical control protocol enhance the adjustability of systems. Compared with the existing containment control strategy, the proposed hierarchical containment control strategy improves dynamic control performance. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical control protocol.

Review of the prevalence,diagnostics,and containment measures of the current mpox outbreak

Monkeypox(mpox),is a disease from the Poxviridae family that can cause several serious medical issues.This mini-review sought to analyze the existing literature regarding the current mpox outbreak with a focus on the prevalence,diagnostics,and containment measures.Mpox cases have been reported to World Health Organization(WHO)from 85 Member States in all six WHO regions during the period of January 1,2022,through August 3,2022.Standardized or optimized guidelines for the clinical care of patients with mpox are limited,particularly in low-resource settings.In an effort to achieve guidance and meet standards,special attention should be paid to this outbreak in order to eradicate such a rare infectious disease by analyzing prevention and control measures.Patient outcomes may also be poor,and their illnesses may last for a long time.The spectrum of clinical symptoms,including complications and sequelae,as well as aspects of the illness may be indicators of sickness severity and complications;therefore,its clinical presentation must be better understood to improve containment measures.In addition,it is important to create and evaluate a standard of care that takes a variety of parameters into account,including antiviral,immune therapies,and clinical metrics that are particular to mpox.The global emergence of mpox has presented new challenges for public health and has called for further investigation into its epidemiological profile across international contexts.

Team-based fixed-time containment control for multi-agent systems with disturbances

We investigate the fixed-time containment control(FCC)problem of multi-agent systems(MASs)under discontinuous communication.A saturation function is used in the controller to achieve the containment control in MASs.One difference from using a symbolic function is that it avoids the differential calculation process for discontinuous functions,which further ensures the continuity of the control input.Considering the discontinuous communication,a dynamic variable is constructed,which is always non-negative between any two communications of the agent.Based on the designed variable,the dynamic event-triggered algorithm is proposed to achieve FCC,which can effectively reduce controller updating.In addition,we further design a new event-triggered algorithm to achieve FCC,called the team-trigger mechanism,which combines the self-triggering technique with the proposed dynamic event trigger mechanism.It has faster convergence than the proposed dynamic event triggering technique and achieves the tradeoff between communication cost,convergence time and number of triggers in MASs.Finally,Zeno behavior is excluded and the validity of the proposed theory is confirmed by simulation.

Container Instrumentation and Enforcement System for Runtime Security of Kubernetes Platform with eBPF

Containerization is a fundamental component of modern cloud-native infrastructure,and Kubernetes is a prominent platform of container orchestration systems.However,containerization raises significant security concerns due to the nature of sharing a kernel among multiple containers,which can lead to container breakout or privilege escalation.Kubernetes cannot avoid it as well.While various tools,such as container image scanning and configuration checking,can mitigate container workload vulnerabilities,these are not foolproof and cannot guarantee perfect isolation or prevent every active threat in runtime.As such,a policy enforcement solution is required to tackle the problem,and existing solutions based on LSM(Linux Security Module)frameworks may not be adequate for some situations.To address this,we propose an enforcement system based on BPF-LSM,which leverages eBPF(extended Berkeley Packet Filter)technology to provide fine-grained control and dynamic adoption of security policies.In this paper,we compare different LSM implementations to highlight the challenges of current enforcement solutions before detailing the design of our eBPF-based Kubernetes Runtime Instrumentation and Enforcement System(KRSIE).Finally,we evaluate the effectiveness of our system using a real-world scenario,as measuring the performance of a policy enforcement system is a complex task.Our results show that KRSIE can successfully control containers’behaviors using LSM hooks at container runtime,offering improved container security for cloud-native infrastructure.

Lyapunov-Based Output Containment Control of Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems With Markovian Switching Topologies and Distributed Delays

This paper considers the mean square output containment control problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems(MASs)with randomly switching topologies and nonuniform distributed delays.By modeling the switching topologies as a continuous-time Markov process and taking the distributed delays into consideration,a novel distributed containment observer is proposed to estimate the convex hull spanned by the leaders'states.A novel distributed output feedback containment controller is then designed without using the prior knowledge of distributed delays.By constructing a novel switching Lyapunov functional,the output containment control problem is then solved in the sense of mean square under an easily-verifiable sufficient condition.Finally,two numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Container Based Nomadic Vehicular Cloud Using Cell Transmission Model

Nomadic Vehicular Cloud(NVC)is envisaged in this work.The predo-minant aspects of NVC is,it moves along with the vehicle that initiates it and functions only with the resources of moving vehicles on the heavy traffic road without relying on any of the static infrastructure and NVC decides the initiation time of container migration using cell transmission model(CTM).Containers are used in the place of Virtual Machines(VM),as containers’features are very apt to NVC’s dynamic environment.The specifications of 5G NR V2X PC5 interface are applied to NVC,for the feature of not relying on the network coverage.Nowa-days,the peak traffic on the road and the bottlenecks due to it are inevitable,which are seen here as the benefits for VC in terms of resource availability and residual in-network time.The speed range of high-end vehicles poses the issue of dis-connectivity among VC participants,that results the container migration failure.As the entire VC participants are on the move,to maintain proximity of the containers hosted by them,estimating their movements plays a vital role.To infer the vehicle movements on the road stretch and initiate the container migration prior enough to avoid the migration failure due to vehicles dynamicity,this paper proposes to apply the CTM to the container based and 5G NR V2X enabled NVC.The simulation results show that there is a significant increase in the success rate of vehicular cloud in terms of successful container migrations.

Scale Breeding and Reproduction Technique of Ficus tikoua Bur.Container Seedlings

Based on the principle of asexual reproduction,a kind of scale breeding and reproduction technique of Ficus tikoua Bur.container seedlings was explored by using the characteristics of strong adaptability to the environment and fast growth and reproduction.Using non-woven bag as a breeding container for seedlings,the scale breeding and reproduction technique of F.tikoua container seedlings was summarized through the important links of seedling bed construction,seedling collection,soil configuration,container selection,cutting cultivation,field management,and disease and pest control.This technique can achieve differential,massive and sustainable efficient breeding and reproduction of F.tikoua seedlings in a short time.

A Novel Adsorbent Prepared by Aluminum-Containing Waste Residue and Its Application for Congo Red Wastewater Decolorization

Modified aluminum slag (MAS) was applied as an adsorbent for Congo red (CR) prepared by the hydrothermal treatment of Ca(OH)2. At 25°C, with a MAS dosage of 0.3 g, initial CR concentration of 100 mg/L and initial pH = 5, and the adsorption time was 40 min, the CR removal efficiency was 98.41%. The adsorption trend of CR conformed to the second-order kinetics, and the adsorption isotherm follows the Freundlich isotherm model. Compared with RAS, MAS has a larger pore volume and specific surface area. The mechanism of action of MAS on CR was the interaction between membrane diffusion and internal diffusion, and the adsorption rate during the membrane diffusion was the fastest.

Simulation of hydrogen distribution and effect of Engineering Safety Features (ESFs) on its mitigation in a WWER-1000 containment

In this study, thermal–hydraulic parameters inside the containment of aWWER-1000/v446 nuclear power plant are simulated in a double-ended cold leg accident for short and long times (by using CONTAIN 2.0 and MELCOR 1.8.6 codes), and the effect of the spray system as an engineering safety feature on parameters mitigation is analyzed with the former code. Along with the development of the accident from design basis accident to beyond design basis accident, the Zircaloy–steam reaction becomes the source of in-vessel hydrogen generation. Hydrogen distribution inside the containment is simulated for a long time (using CONTAIN and MELCOR), and the effect of recombiners on its mitigation is analyzed (using MELCOR). Thermal–hydraulic parameters and hydrogen distribution profiles are presented as the outcome of the investigation. By activating the spray system, the peak points of pressure and temperature occur in the short time and remain belowthe maximumdesign values along the accident time. It is also shown that recombiners have a reliable effect on reducing the hydrogen concentration below flame propagation limit in the accident localization area. The parameters predicted by CONTAIN and MELCOR are in good agreement with the final safety analysis report. The noted discrepancies are discussed and explained.

Effects of Long-Term Application of Sulfur-Containing and Chloride-Containing Chemical Fertilizers on Rice Yield and Its Components

Impacts of 33-yr of application of S-containing and Cl-containing chemical fertilizers on rice （Oryza sativa L.） yield and its components were investigated in a red paddy field experiment,south China.The treatments included：1） adding 302 kg SO42--S ha-1 yr-1 with application of （NH4）2SO4-,K2SO4,and calcium superphosphate （SO42-）;2） adding 56 kg SO42--S and 176 kg Cl ha-1 yr-1 with application of urea,calcium superphosphate,and KCl （Cl-＋SO42-）;3） adding 516 kg Cl ha-1 yr-1 with application of NH4Cl,KCl,and KH2PO4 （Cl-）.Under each treatment,the applied N,P,and K nutrients were controlled at conventional rates of 150 kg N ha-1 yr-1,75 kg P2O5 ha-1 yr-1,225 kg K2O ha-1 yr-1,respectively.Under the S-containing fertilizer application,soil SO42--S content showed a first increasing then decreasing trend with years,and was significantly negatively correlated with annual rice yield.Average annual yield significantly declined in an order of Cl-,Cl-＋SO42-,and SO42-.Under the Cl-treatment,soil SO42--S content was maintained at about 26.5 mg kg-1,not showing deficiency.From 1990 to 2000,rice yield declined rapidly under the SO42- treatment,and was significantly lower than that under the Cltreatment.After then,there was no significant difference in yield among the treatments.Our results demonstrated that long-term application of S- containing fertilizer could result in excessive accumulation of SO42--S in the red paddy soils of south China,therefore producing a certain threat to rice growth.The Cl- containing fertilizer could be relatively safe.

Novel Bipolar Conjugated Polymer Containing Both Triphenylamine and Oxadizole Units

A novel bipolar conjugated polymer containing triphenylamine and 1, 3, 4-oxadiazole units was synthesized by Suzuki reaction. Its structure and properties were characterized by NMR, IR, UV-Vis, PL spectroscopy and electrochemical measurement. The photoluminescent spectroscopy and cyclic voltammograms measurement demonstrated that the resulting polymer shows blue emission (477 nm) and possesses both electron and hole-transporting property.

Container Introspection: Using External Management Containers to Monitor Containers in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing plays an important role in today’s Internet environment,which meets the requirements of scalability,security and reliability by using virtualization technologies.Container technology is one of the two mainstream virtualization solutions.Its lightweight,high deployment efficiency make container technology widely used in large-scale cloud computing.While container technology has created huge benefits for cloud service providers and tenants,it cannot meet the requirements of security monitoring and management from a tenant perspective.Currently,tenants can only run their security monitors in the target container,but it is not secure because the attacker is able to detect and compromise the security monitor.In this paper,a secure external monitoring approach is proposed to monitor target containers in another management container.The management container is transparent for target containers,but it can obtain the executing information of target containers,providing a secure monitoring environment.Security monitors running inside management containers are secure for the cloud host,since the management containers are not privileged.We implement the transparent external management containers by performing the one-way isolation of processes and files.For process one-way isolation,we leverage Linux namespace technology to let management container become the parent of target containers.By mounting the file system of target container to that of the management container,file system one-way isolation is achieved.Compared with the existing host-based monitoring approach,our approach is more secure and suitable in the cloud environment.