CO_2 conversion by thermal plasma with carbon as reducing agent: high CO yield and energy efficiency

A key problem in CO_2 conversion by thermal plasma is suppressing the inverse reactions,CO?+?O?→?CO_2 and CO?+?0.5O_2?→?CO_2, to simultaneously obtain high CO yield and energy efficiency. This can be done by quickly quenching the decomposed gas or rapidly taking away free oxygen from decomposed gas. In this paper, experiments of CO_2 conversion by thermal plasma with carbon as a reducing agent are presented. Carbon quickly devoured free oxygen in thermal plasma decomposed gas, and not only is the inverse reaction completely suppressed, but the discharge energy to form oxygen atoms, oxygen molecular, and thermal energy is also reused.A CO_2 conversion rate of 67%–94% and the corresponding electric energy efficiency of about 70% are achieved, both are much higher than that seen so far by other plasma implementations.     

多约束下距离加权最优滑模末制导律

为解决多约束下制导炮弹的精确制导问题,采用带有相对距离权函数的最优滑模末制导律,将权函数引入到最优制导律中,通过改变制导炮弹的运动轨迹、运动时间,进而增强制导精度。针对单权函数难以同时满足制导精度与导引头视线角、过载等约束的问题,采用不同权函数的分段加权方法解决加权最优末制导引起的制导问题。结合滑模变结构控制理论,设计分段加权最优滑模末制导律,增强制导系统的抗干扰能力。仿真验证结果表明,该末制导律既能解决过载、导引头视线角、落角等多约束情况下的精确制导问题,同时又具有一定的鲁棒性。     

A robust locating multi-optima approach for damage identification of plate-like structures

This paper proposes a robust optimization approach for multiple damage identification of plate-like structures. Different from traditional particle swarm optimizations (PSOs), a combined PSO and niche technique (NPSO) is proposed to solve multimodal optimization problems, with the full consideration of subswarm creation, merging and absorbing mechanism. As a hypersensitive parameter to damage, the curvature mode shape is adopted to construct the objective function. Case studies are conducted to investigate the effectiveness and robustness of the algorithm on multi-damage identification. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm exhibits robust search performance on identifying damage locations accurately with good convergence behavior. It is hoped that this study can provide guidance on robust damage detection, especially when the structure is subject to multiple damages and external disturbances.     

When is it reasonable to implement the discontinuous sliding‐mode controllers instead of the continuous ones? Frequency domain criteria

Professor Utkin proposed an example showing that the amplitude of chattering caused by the presence of parasitic dynamics (stable actuators) in some systems governed by the First‐Order Sliding‐Mode Controller is lower than that produced by the Super‐Twisting Algorithm. This example served to motivate this paper reconsidering the problem of comparison of chattering in systems with stable actuators, and driven by Discontinuous Sliding‐Mode Controllers (DSMCs) and Continuous Sliding‐Mode Controllers (CSMCs). Comparison of chattering produced by DSMC and CSMC taking into account their amplitudes, frequencies, and average power (AP) needed to maintain the system into real‐sliding modes, allowing to conclude the following: (i) for systems with slow actuators, the amplitude of oscillations and AP produced by DSMC be smaller than those caused by CSMC; (ii) for bounded disturbances with fixed Lipschitz constant, there exist sufficiently fast actuators for which the amplitude of oscillations and AP produced by CSMC be smaller than those caused by DSMC.     

Dependence of crystal structure on mechanical and thermophysical properties of magnetoplumbite-type LnMgAl11O19 ceramics with substitution of Ln3+ Ions

Lanthanum hexaaluminate is a promising candidate to establish yttria partially stabilized zirconia as a thermal barrier coating material for super alloy due to their remarkable stability and thermophysical performance. In order to understand the relationship between the structure and properties and gain new low thermal conducting materials, the LnMgAl₁₁O₁₉ (LnMA, Ln: La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd) materials were synthesized firstly and further used to produce the LnMA ceramics. With the increasing relative atomic mass of the replaced Ln³⁺ ions from La to Gd, the lattice parameters and grain sizes of the LnMA platelets decrease, while the mechanical properties increase, and the thermal physic properties decrease. The GdMgAl₁₁O₁₉ ceramics obtain the lowest thermal conductivity with the value of 1.91-1.78 W/m K in the range from room temperature to 800°C, which could be considered as a promising candidate for application in thermal barrier coating materials. These results could further provide reference for developing novel materials lower thermal conductivity.     

A globally exponentially stable speed observer for a class of mechanical systems: experimental and simulation comparison with high-gain and sliding mode designs

It is shown in the paper that the problem of speed observation for mechanical systems that are partially linearisable via coordinate changes admits a very simple and robust (exponentially stable) solution with a Luenberger-like observer. This result should be contrasted with the very complicated observers based on immersion and invariance reported in the literature. A second contribution of the paper is to compare, via realistic simulations and highly detailed experiments, the performance of the proposed observer with well-known high-gain and sliding mode observers. In particular, to show that – due to their high sensitivity to noise, that is unavoidable in mechanical systems applications – the performance of the two latter designs is well below par.     

Attitude control of spacecraft simulator without angular velocity measurement

In this paper the attitude control of a spacecraft simulator using Reaction Wheels (RW) as the actuators is investigated. The main goal of the current study is to bring the RWs to the rest at the end of the maneuver without angular velocity measurement. A modified feedback linearization controller is applied by considering the Euler angles of the simulator as the output and the RWs angular momentums as the internal state variables. The stability of the proposed controller and the internal dynamics is analyzed using Lyapunov theory. Two modified sliding mode observers are designed to estimate the angular velocities of the spacecraft attitude control subsystem simulator. The proposed observers do not use the control input and the detailed knowledge of the model and thus it can be implemented easily. The global stability of the system is proved. The proposed controller and observers are finally evaluated numerically and experimentally on an attitude spacecraft simulator.     

基于滑模的二阶多智能体快速抗扰一致性

针对带有外部未知扰动的二阶多智能体系统的领导—跟随有限时间一致性问题，本文设计出一种带有时变增益的有限时间干扰观测器，用以实现对每个跟随智能体中未知扰动的快速估计，在此基础上，本文结合超螺旋积分滑模控制方法并利用邻居智能体的位置和速度信息设计一种快速抗扰一致性协议，该协议能够保证存在非线性动态的多智能体系统有限时间一致性控制并能抑制抖振现象.同时，利用李亚普诺夫函数进行了稳定性的证明.最后，通过Matlab数值仿真进一步验证了所提出协议的可行性.     

Synthesis and Preliminary Evaluation of 11C-Labeled VU0467485/AZ13713945 and Its Analogues for Imaging Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor Subtype 4

Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs) have five distinct subunits (M₁–M₅) and are involved in the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the central and peripheral nervous system. Attributed to the promising clinical efficacy of xanomeline, an M₁/M₄-preferring agonist, in patients of schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, M₁- or M₄-selective mAChR modulators have been developed that target the topographically distinct allosteric sites. Herein we report the synthesis and preliminary evaluation of ¹¹C-labeled positron emission tomography (PET) ligands based on a validated M₄R positive allosteric modulator VU0467485 (AZ13713945) to facilitate drug discovery. [¹¹C]VU0467485 and two other ligands were prepared in high radiochemical yields (>30 %, decay-corrected) with high radiochemical purity (>99 %) and high molar activity (>74 GBq μmol⁻¹). In vitro autoradiography studies indicated that these three ligands possess moderate-to-high in vitro specific binding to M₄R. Nevertheless, further physiochemical property optimization is necessary to overcome the challenges associated with limited brain permeability.     

一种基于雷达图表示的数值型数据的CNN分类方法

卷积神经网络（convolutional neural networks， CNN）是一种广泛用于分析视觉图像的分类方法.由于数值数据存在着非线性、耦合性等复杂的空间关系，因此基于CNN的数值型数据的研究较少.本文的目的是找到一种可行的方法，将CNN的应用领域扩展到数值数据.于是提出了一种基于雷达图表示的数值型数据的CNN分类方法（Radar-CNN）.该算法首先将数值数据表示成雷达图形式，然后将其输入CNN中构建分类模型.为了进一步研究特征尺度和序列对性能的影响，提出了两种改进算法Rank Radar-CNN和SFS Radar-CNN.为了验证所提算法的有效性，引入TE化工过程数据集进行实验测试并比较，实验结果表明Radar-CNN及其改进算法具有优异的性能.