Student’s Learning Profile as a Tool of Personal Learning Logistics

Increase of complexity and uncertainty as well as demand for personalization (including in education) urges universities to pay attention to educational subjectivity and its development; to transfer towards individual / collective-individual educational navigation and flexible systems of educational programs management (including formation of temporary learning groups, supply of required educational resources in due time, protocols of appraisal and mutual offset of educational results), what determines the relevance of the research. Usage of logistic approach enables to distinguish the pedagogical and management objectives of educational activity organization as well as to facilitate personalization of education. The article considers an educational profile as an instrument of personal educational logistics in digital educational environment, presents the preliminary terms “digital track”, “portfolio”, “profile”. The authors also dwell on the requirements to educational profiles development and scenarios of handling them in digital educational environment taking into account domestic and global experience of educational profiles’ implementation.

Development of a Framework for Activation of Aggregator Led Flexibility

This paper presents a novel framework architecture for an online, real-time flexibility assessment and activation platform targeted at unlocking the flexibility potential of commercial buildings and smaller industrial sites, thereby enabling greater levels of renewable grid integration. Renewable integration targets in Europe of up to 40% of power generation from renewable sources by 2030 and over 90% by 2050 aim to decarbonize the electrical grid and increase electrification of transport, industry, and buildings. As renewable integration targets increase, participation in flexibility programs will be required from a much greater range of buildings and sites to balance grids hosting high levels of renewable generation. In this paper, an online implementation of a standardized flexibility assessment methodology, previously developed for offline contract negotiations between stakeholders, is modified to automate the assessment. The automated assessment is then linked to an aggregator-based multi-building or site optimization stage, enabling increased participation of multiple buildings and sites. To implement the assessment, models for individual flexible systems were reviewed, selected, and adapted, including physics-based, data-driven, and grey-box models. A review of optimization for flexibility found mixed-integer linear programming to be the optimal approach for the selection of flexible systems for demand response events.

Robotics and Automation

Cloud infrastructure and its extensive set of Internet-enabled resources have the potential to provide significant benefits to robots and flexible systems. We look for robots and data-switching programs or code from the network to support their performance, that is, when not all sense, calculation, and memory are integrated into the standalone system. This survey is designed for four possible Cloud benefits: 1) Big Data: access to photo libraries, maps, trajectories, and descriptive data; 2) Cloud Computing: access to the same grid computer with the demand for mathematical analysis, reading, and movement planning; 3) Integrated Robots Learning: robots that share tracking, control policies, and results; and 4) Census: use of crowdourcing to tap people's skills for image and video analysis, classification, reading, and error retrieval. The cloud can also improve robots and flexible systems by providing access to: a) data sets, publications, models, measurements, and simulation tools; b) open competitions for designs and programs; and c) open source software.

Optimization of magnetic bead-based nucleic acid extraction for SARS-CoV-2 testing using readily available reagents

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for generic reagents and flexible systems in diagnostic testing. Magnetic bead-based nucleic acid extraction protocols using 96-well plates on open liquid handlers are readily amenable to meet this need. Here, one such approach is rigorously optimized to minimize cross-well contamination while maintaining sensitivity.Article SummaryA scalable, non-proprietary, magnetic bead-based automated nucleic acid extraction protocol optimised for minimum cross-well contamination

Continuous Approximation Model for Hybrid Flexible Transit Systems with Low Demand Density

Flexible transit systems are a way to address challenges associated with conventional fixed route and fully demand responsive systems. Existing studies indicate that such systems are often planned and designed without established guidelines, and optimization techniques are rarely implemented on actual flexible systems. This study presents a hybrid transit system where the degree of flexibility can vary from a fixed route service (with no flexibility) to a fully flexible transit system. Such a system is expected to be beneficial in areas where the best transit solution lies between the fixed route and fully flexible systems. Continuous approximation techniques are implemented to model and optimize the stop spacing on a fixed route corridor, as well as the boundaries of the flexible region in a corridor. Both user and agency costs are considered in the optimization process. A numerical analysis compares various service areas and demand densities using input variables with magnitudes similar to those of real-world case studies. Sensitivity analysis is performed for service headway, percent of demand served curb-to-curb, and user and agency cost weights in the optimization process. The analytical models are evaluated through simulations. The hybrid system proposed here achieves estimated user benefits of up to 35% when compared with fixed route systems, under different case scenarios. Flexible systems are particularly beneficial for serving corridors with low or uncertain demand. This provides value for corridors with low demand density as well as communities in which transit ridership has dropped significantly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.