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Engineering design problems are usually required to achieve many correlated objectives simultaneously and thus involve numerous trade-off decisions. Designers need a system that can help them to make decisions such as selecting the right parameters with the right value at the right time, as well as to support Knowledge Based Engineering and the reuse of design knowledge in the area of adaptive or variant design. Our proposed Intelligent Design Advisor is such a system. It processes design information to characterize design space by applying an incremental response method and examines parameters' relative effectiveness to guide the problem-solving course by introducing a priority index. The system can generate design solutions automatically, taking all design objectives into consideration, and can also facilitate the preservation and transfer of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead (Pb), a highly toxic metal ion, is detrimental to plants and humans. Existing botanical techniques for Pbcontaminated soil remediation are limited in their efficiency. Here, we investigated the use of the fungus Trichoderma asperellum Samuels, Lieckf&Nirenberg SD-5, which we identified previously as being Pb-resistant, for phytoremediation and for its effects on plant growth, Pb adsorption, and physiological responses in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L. 'Lark'). We set up four soil treatments: CK (uncontaminated by Pb), T1 (1000 mg kg-1 Pb), T2 (1:9 ratio of sawdust to T1), and T3 (T2 inoculated with T. asperellum SD-5). A pot experiment revealed that the addition of the Pb-resistant microorganism promoted growth and increased biomass in ryegrass under Pb stress, in addition to significantly enhancing photosynthesis by increasing the leaf chlorophyll content and improving the total protein content and expression of the pAPX, POD, SOD, and GPX genes, evidence of an improved antioxidant system and the alleviation of Pb stress. We demonstrated that Pb-resistant microorganisms can enhance Pb extraction from the soil, thus improving remediation. Mitigation mechanisms operating at the physiological and gene expression levels were also determined, providing a scientific basis for the role of combined plant-microorganism methods in remediating Pb-contaminated soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]