Robust staged development of water supply systems

This paper presents a new methodology for optimal staged development of water supply systems that ensures robust and sustainable solutions. This problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimisation problem under uncertainty with objectives being the minimisation of average present value of intervention costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and the maximisation of supply robustness. The above methodology was validated and demonstrated on southern portion of the regional water supply system of Adelaide. The results obtained illustrate the importance of identifying optimal staged solutions to ensure robustness and sustainability of water supply into uncertain long-term future

Diagnosis and neurosurgical treatment of glossopharyngeal neuralgia: clinical findings and 3-D visualization of neurovascular compression in 19 consecutive patients

Glossopharyngeal neuralgia is a rare condition with neuralgic sharp pain in the pharyngeal and auricular region. Classical glossopharyngeal neuralgia is caused by neurovascular compression at the root entry zone of the nerve. Regarding the rare occurrence of glossopharyngeal neuralgia, we report clinical data and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in a case series of 19 patients, of whom 18 underwent surgery. Two patients additionally suffered from trigeminal neuralgia and three from additional symptomatic vagal nerve compression. In all patients, ipsilateral neurovascular compression syndrome of the IX cranial nerve could be shown by high-resolution MRI and image processing, which was confirmed intraoperatively. Additional neurovascular compression of the V cranial nerve was shown in patients suffering from trigeminal neuralgia. Vagal nerve neurovascular compression could be seen in all patients during surgery. Sixteen patients were completely pain free after surgery without need of anticonvulsant treatment. As a consequence of the operation, two patients suffered from transient cerebrospinal fluid hypersecretion as a reaction to Teflon implants. One patient suffered postoperatively from deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Six patients showed transient cranial nerve dysfunctions (difficulties in swallowing, vocal cord paresis), but all recovered within 1 week. One patient complained of a gnawing and burning pain in the cervical area. Microvascular decompression is a second-line treatment after failure of standard medical treatment with high success in glossopharyngeal neuralgia. High-resolution MRI and 3D visualization of the brainstem and accompanying vessels as well as the cranial nerves is helpful in identifying neurovascular compression before microvascular decompression procedure

Solving the multi-period water distribution network design problem with a hybrid simulated anealling

This work presents an optimization technique based on Simulated Annealing (SA) to solve the Water Distribution Network Design problem, considering multi-period restrictions with time varying demand patterns. The design optimization of this kind of networks is an important issue in modern cities, since a safe, adequate, and accessible supply of potable water is one of the basic necessities of any human being. Given the complexity of this problem, the SA is improved with a local search procedure, yielding a hybrid SA, in order to obtain good quality networks designs. Additionally, four variants of this algorithm based on different cooling schemes are introduced and analyzed. A broad experimentation using different benchmark networks is carried out to test our proposals. Moreover, a comparison with an approach from the literature reveals the goodness to solve this network design problem.Fil: Bermudez, Carlos Alberto. Universidad Nacional de la Pampa. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Salto, Carolina. Universidad Nacional de la Pampa. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Confluencia; ArgentinaFil: Minetti, Gabriela Fabiana. Universidad Nacional de la Pampa. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentin

Diffuse glioma growth: a guerilla war

In contrast to almost all other brain tumors, diffuse gliomas infiltrate extensively in the neuropil. This growth pattern is a major factor in therapeutic failure. Diffuse infiltrative glioma cells show some similarities with guerilla warriors. Histopathologically, the tumor cells tend to invade individually or in small groups in between the dense network of neuronal and glial cell processes. Meanwhile, in large areas of diffuse gliomas the tumor cells abuse pre-existent “supply lines” for oxygen and nutrients rather than constructing their own. Radiological visualization of the invasive front of diffuse gliomas is difficult. Although the knowledge about migration of (tumor)cells is rapidly increasing, the exact molecular mechanisms underlying infiltration of glioma cells in the neuropil have not yet been elucidated. As the efficacy of conventional methods to fight diffuse infiltrative glioma cells is limited, a more targeted (“search & destroy”) tactic may be needed for these tumors. Hopefully, the study of original human glioma tissue and of genotypically and phenotypically relevant glioma models will soon provide information about the Achilles heel of diffuse infiltrative glioma cells that can be used for more effective therapeutic strategies

Part of the solution? Stakeholder awareness, information and engagement in tree health issues

The dangers posed to wooded environments from tree pests introduced by the expansion of international trade in live plants and the continued use of wood packaging in transporting materials have been widely accepted. A lack of awareness of the issues amongst key stakeholders involved in the movement of these materials can hamper an effective response as their unaltered behaviours continue to have unintended consequences. Better communication and engagement is needed to enrol this wider range of actors, such as plant buyers, traders and woodland owners, in preventative action or mitigation of tree pest impacts. However, as this review paper shows, current published evidence on awareness levels and effective engagement methods is limited, and lessons must be sought from research into other closely related issues such as invasive plants. We provide a summary of this available evidence, related to key stakeholder groupings, their levels of awareness and current modes of information provision and reception. It show what can at best be described as mediocre levels of awareness, and highlights the role of traditional media, such as television and newspapers, as sources of information. It further notes the urgent need for research to more fully map the tree health stakeholder landscape and to further our understanding of how to increase awareness and effect changes in behaviour

Assessment of penalty-free multi-objective evolutionary optimization approach for the design and rehabilitation of water distribution systems

This paper describes a penalty-free multi-objective evolutionary optimization approach for the phased whole-life design and rehabilitation of water distribution systems. The optimization model considers the initial construction, rehabilitation and upgrading costs. Repairs and pipe failure costs are included. The model also takes into consideration the deterioration over time of both the structural integrity and hydraulic capacity of every pipe. The fitness of each solution is determined from the trade-off between its lifetime costs and its actual hydraulic properties. The hydraulic analysis approach used, known as pressure-dependent modelling, considers explicitly the pressure dependency of the water supply consumers receive. Results for two sample networks in the literature are included that show the algorithm is stable and finds optimal and near-optimal solutions reliably and efficiently. The results also suggest that the evolutionary sampling efficiency is very high. In other words, the number of solutions evolved and analysed on average before finding a near-optimal solution is small in comparison to the total number of feasible and infeasible solutions. We found better solutions than those reported previously in the literature for the two networks considered. For the Kadu network, for example, the new best solution costs Rs125,460,980 – a significant improvement. Additional statistics that are based on extensive testing are included

Robust optimization of water infrastructure planning under deep uncertainty using metamodels

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Water resources planning and design problems, such as the sequencing of water supply infrastructure, are often complicated by deep uncertainty, including changes in population dynamics and the impact of climate change. To handle such uncertainties, robustness can be used to assess system performance, but its calculation typically involves many scenarios and hence is computationally expensive. Consequently, robustness has usually not been included as a formal optimization objective, but is considered post-optimization. To address this shortcoming, an approach is developed that uses metamodels (surrogates of computationally expensive simulation models) to calculate robustness and other objectives. This enables robustness to be considered explicitly as an objective within a multi-objective optimization framework. The approach is demonstrated for a water-supply sources sequencing problem in Adelaide, South Australia. The results indicate the approach can identify optimal trade-offs between robustness, cost and environmental objectives, which would otherwise not have been possible using commonly available computational resources.The corresponding author Professor Feifei Zheng is funded by The National Key Research and Development Program of China (NO. 2016YFC0400600)