Innovative Perspectives on Biofilm Interactions in Poultry Drinking Water Systems and Veterinary Antibiotics Used Worldwide

Prudent use of antibiotics in livestock is widely considered to be important to prevent antibiotic resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the interactions between biofilms and veterinary antibiotics in therapeutic concentrations administrated via drinking water through a standardized experimental setup. In this context, two biofilms formed by pseudomonads (Pseudomonas (P.) aeruginosa or P. fluorescens) and a susceptible Escherichia (E.) coli strain were developed in a nutrient-poor medium on the inner surface of polyvinyl chloride pipe pieces. Subsequently, developing biofilms were exposed to sulfadiazine/trimethoprim (SDZ/TMP) or tylosin A (TYL A) in dosages recommended for application in drinking water for 5 or 7 days, respectively. Various interactions were detected between biofilms and antibiotics. Microbiological examinations revealed that only TYL A reduced the number of bacteria on the surface of the pipes. Additionally, susceptible E. coli survived both antibiotic treatments without observable changes in the minimum inhibitory concentration to 13 relevant antibiotics. Furthermore, as demonstrated by HPLC-UV, the dynamics of SDZ/TMP and TYL A in liquid media differed between the biofilms of both pseudomonads over the exposure period. We conclude that this approach represents an innovative step toward the effective evaluation of safe veterinary antibiotic use.

Advanced Reliability Analysis of Mechatronic Packagings coupling ANSYS© and R

The complexity challenges of mechatronic systems justify the need of numerical simulation to efficiently assess their reliability. In the case of solder joints in electronic packages, finite element methods (FEM) are commonly used to evaluate their fatigue response under thermal loading. Nevertheless, Experience shows that the prediction quality is always affected by the variability of the design variables. This paper aims to benefit from the statistical power of the R software and the efficiency of the finite element software ANSYS©, to develop a probabilistic approach to predicting the solder joint reliability in Mechatronic Packaging taking into account the uncertainties in material properties. The coupling of the two software proved an effective evaluation of the reliability of the T-CSP using the proposed method.

A Comprehensive Approach to Account for Weather Uncertainties in Ship Route Optimization

This work aims at defining in a probabilistic manner objectives and constraints typically considered in route optimization systems. Information about weather-related uncertainties is introduced by adopting ensemble forecast results. Classical reliability methods commonly used in structural analysis are adopted, allowing to achieve a simple yet effective evaluation of the probability of failure and the variability associated with the predicted fuel consumption and time of arrival. A quantitative example of application is provided, taking into consideration one of the main North Atlantic routes.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Talent Growth Factor Index System Based on Hesitant Fuzzy Language

An effective evaluation of the index system of talent growth factors can lay a solid foundation to build the talent pool, as well as select and establish talents. In this study, based on the theory of “Man-Machine-Environment” system engineering (MMESE), the MMESE talent growth factor index system is proposed and verified for its effectiveness by comparing it with the traditional system. Based on the text-free grammar and transformation function, expert judgments of talent growth factor indexes were transformed into hesitation fuzzy language terms, namely, pertinence, systematicness, practicability, foresight, and dynamics, which were then used to create a dataset to describe the comprehensive evaluation of the index system. The entropy of hesitation fuzzy language terms adopts the algorithm, which calculates the index weights according to the relative entropy values and adjusts the expert weights with the expert group consensus model. The expert evaluation information was weighed and transformed into the corresponding probability language combination which was calculated as the comprehensive evaluation result of the talent growth factor index system.

Difficulties and Breakthrough Strategies in the Team Construction of Part-time Teachers in Application-oriented Universities

Strengthening the team construction of part-time teachers is required by the transformation and development of the universities, the realization of their goals of being developed into an application-oriented universities and their talent cultivation and long-term development . The existing problem regarding the part-time teachers in current application-oriented universities are the low proportion of part-time teachers, a shortage of high level part-time teachers, the absence of relevant laws and regulations, a lack of systematic policies or financial support for part-time teachers as well as the unsound management mechanism with insufficient scientific and reasonable employment scheme for part-time teachers. To strengthen the team construction of the part-time teachers in application-oriented universities, firstly we should improve the existing laws, regulations and policies and broaden the financial support channels. Secondly, we should develop the recruitment channels for part-time teachers and pay attention to introducing high-tech and highly-skilled talents. Thirdly, we should improve the management over part-time teachers and promote their value. Fourthly, it should adopt a people-oriented management concept and establish an effective evaluation and incentive mechanism for part-time teachers.

User eXperience (UX) Evaluation for MR Cultural Applications: The CEMEC Holographic Showcases in European Museums

Within the EU CEMEC project framework, a novel approach for using holographic showcases in museums has been conceived and experimented upon in different venues in the context of an itinerant exhibition dealing with Early Medieval European collections. The purpose of this holographic showcase, the so-called “box of stories”, is to improve the link and interaction between real and virtual contents in the museum’s context, making the exhibited object “alive” in the visitors’ perception. An Avar sword and a Byzantine treasure have been used as the main case studies, and they have been experienced in the museums of several European regions by audiences with different cultural backgrounds. This has been a great opportunity to carry out user experience (UX) evaluations in order to collect feedback (from about 600 museum visitors) regarding the attractiveness of such a mixed reality (MR) system, its usability, the comprehension of the contents, the efficacy of the logistics and environmental conditions, as well as the educational impact. The results of such inquiries helped the CNR ISPC team to identify the most meaningful User eXperience Analytics (UXA) able to support the work of UX evaluators and UX designers to assess the efficacy of digital cultural products. Indeed, this manuscript presents UXA and tries to draft a concrete and effective evaluation model for future digital projects for museum contexts.

Evaluation Criteria for Quality Education of Physical Education Lessons Based on Logical Analysis

To cultivate high-quality talents, it is important to develop a set of scientific and complete evaluation criteria for comprehensive quality. The effective evaluation could promote and guide teaching and learning, and improve the overall quality of students. Considering the features of PE lessons, this paper resorts to multiple methods, e.g., questionnaire survey, Delphi’s method, mathematical statistics, and logical analysis, to establish a system of evaluation criteria for the quality education of PE lessons, the proposed system includes 4 primary indices, 10 secondary indices, and 24 tertiary indices. The weight of each index was determined through analytic hierarchy process (AHP), making the criteria more scientific. Taking the PE major of a college for example, the proposed criteria were investigated empirically. The results show that experts, teachers, and students made consistent evaluations. Thus, the proposed system and evaluation criteria are feasible, and capable of evaluating the overall quality of students objectively and fairly. The research results provide a tool and idea for improving the quality education of PE lessons in China, and promoting the evaluation of students’ overall quality.

Research on Curriculum Examination Mode of Cultivating Students’ Independent Learning Ability – Taking Hotel Management Major (Specialty Direction on Tobacco) as an Example

Scientific and reasonable examination mode can not only make effective evaluation and feedback, but also play an important role in cultivating students' good learning habits and shaping their social and vocational adaptability. Meanwhile, it is also an important method of cultivating students' innovative spirit and creative ability. Specialty direction on tobacco emphasizes cultivating senior disciplinary talents who will engage in tobacco promotion and rational use, tobacco marketing and tobacco enterprise management. So it is necessary to practice various and effective examination modes to make students master the knowledge they have learned well and truly achieve the aim of professional training. Thus the students may become qualified talents with professional quality of tobacco industry.

An Attention-Based Generative Adversarial Network for Producing Illustrative Sketches

An illustrative sketch style expresses important shapes and regions of objects and scenes with salient lines and dark tones, while abstracting less important shapes and regions as vacant spaces. We present a framework that produces illustrative sketch styles from various photographs. Our framework is designed using a generative adversarial network (GAN), which comprised four modules: a style extraction module, a generator module, a discriminator module and RCCL module. We devise two key ideas to effectively extract illustrative sketch styles from sample artworks and to apply them to input photographs. The first idea is using an attention map that extracts the required style features from important shapes and regions of sample illustrative sketch styles. This attention map is used in the generator module of our framework for the effective production of illustrative sketch styles. The second idea is using a relaxed cycle consistency loss that evaluates the quality of the produced illustrative sketch styles by comparing images that are reconstructed from the produced illustrative sketch styles and the input photographs. This relaxed cycle consistency loss focuses on the comparison of important shapes and regions for an effective evaluation of the quality of the produced illustrative sketch styles. Our GAN-based framework with an attention map and a relaxed cycle consistency loss effectively produces illustrative sketch styles on various target photographs, including portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework through a human study, ablation study, and Frechet Inception Distance evaluation.