Advances in computing power and infrastructure, increases in the number and size of ecological and environmental datasets, and the number and type of data collection methods, are revolutionizing the field of Ecology. To integrate these advances, virtual laboratories offer a unique tool to facilitate, expedite, and accelerate research into the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. We introduce the uniquely cloud-based Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL), which provides access to numerous species distribution modelling tools; a large and growing collection of biological, climate, and other environmental datasets; and a variety of experiment types to conduct research into the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Users can upload and share datasets, potentially increasing collaboration, cross-fertilisation of ideas, and innovation among the user community. Feedback confirms that the BCCVL's goals of lowering the technical requirements for species distribution modelling, and reducing time spent on such research, are being met
The efficient design of meander line antennas for RFID devices is a significant real-world problem. Traditional manual tuning of antenna designs is becoming impractical for larger problems. Thus the use of automated techniques, in the form of combinatorial search algorithms, is a necessity. Ant colony system (ACS) is a very efficient meta-heuristic that is commonly used to solve path construction problems. Apart from its own native search capacity, ACS can be dramatically improved by combining it with local search strategies. As shown in this paper, applying local search as a form of structure refinement to RFID meander line antennas delivers effective antenna structures. In particular, we use the operator known as backbite, that has had previous application in the construction of self-avoiding walks and compact polymer chains. Moreover, we apply it in a novel, hierarchical manner that allows for good sampling of the local search space. Its use represents a significant improvement on results obtained previously.
Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology is increasingly being used to uniquely identify objects. An important component of RFID systems is the design of the antenna-which usually takes the form of a compacted meander line. This task becomes an optimisation problem as different designs will have different efficiencies and resonant frequencies. In this paper, we explore the use of a multi-objective version of ant colony system. This constructive meta-heuristic, as shown, is highly suitable for this problem.
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