Biowaste-derived hydroxyapatite reinforced with polyvinyl pyrrolidone/aloevera composite for biomedical applications

The present investigation focuses on the synthesis of crabshell-derived hydroxyapatite (CS-HAP)/ water-soluble synthetic polymer—polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP)/aloevera(AV)—a natural biopolymer, as a composite for enhanced mechanical, antibacterial and biocompatible properties. The reinforcement of polymer has a significant function in increasing the mechanical property of the composite, whereas the incorporation of AV improves the antibacterial and biocompatibility. Phase composition, morphology, mechanical property, and hydrophilicity of CS-HAP/PVP/AV biocomposite with different concentrations of PVP and AV were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX), Vickers microhardness tests, contact angle, respectively. Furthermore, the antibacterial efficiency of the composite is assessed using Escherichia coli (E coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S aureus). The biocompatibility of HOS MG 63 cells on the CS-HAP/PVP/AV composite is evaluated by MTT assay test. The obtained results evidence that the as-synthesized composite have appropriate mechanical, antibacterial and biocompatible properties. Overall, the combination of mechanical property of PVP, antibacterial and biocompatible property of AV in CS-HAP/PVP/AV, makes the composite a potential therapeutic material for various biomedical applications.     

Stabilization of Discrete-time Fuzzy Systems Via Delta Operators and its Application to Truck–Trailer Model

This paper addresses the problem of robust \(L_2{-}L_\infty \) control in delta domain for a class of Takagi–Sugeno (TS) fuzzy systems with interval time-varying delays and disturbance input. In particular, the system under study involves state time delay, uncertainties and fast sampling period \(\mathcal {T}\). The main aim of this work was to design a \(L_2{-}L_\infty \) controller such that the proposed TS fuzzy system is robustly asymptotically stable with a \(L_2{-}L_\infty \) prescribed performance level \(\gamma >0\). Based on the proper Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF) involving lower and upper bound of time delay and free-weighting technique, a new set of delay-dependent sufficient conditions in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) are established for obtaining the required result. The result reveals that the asymptotic stability is achieved quickly when the sampling frequency is high. Finally, a numerical example based on the truck–trailer model is given to demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of the proposed design technique.     

A Cross Layer Design and Flower Pollination Optimization Algorithm for Secured Energy Efficient Framework in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Personal Communications - One of the fast-growing, tremendous and highly demanding networks from various emerging applications like military, healthcare industry, airport and forests is...     

Robust Reliable H∞ Control for Discrete‐Time Systems with Actuator Delays

This article focuses on the robust state feedback reliable H_∞ control problem for discrete‐time systems. Discrete‐time systems with time‐varying delayed control input are formulated. Based on the Lyapunov–Krasovskii method and linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach, delay‐dependent sufficient conditions are developed for synthesizing the state feedback controller for an uncertain discrete‐time system. The parameter uncertainty is assumed to be norm bounded. A design scheme for the state feedback reliable H_∞ controller is proposed in terms of LMIs, which can guarantee the global asymptotic stability and the minimum disturbance attenuation level. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and reduced conservatism of the proposed methods.     

Robust passivity based resilient control for networked control systems with random gain fluctuations

The problem of resilient controller design for a class of networked control system based on passivity theory is presented. By using the Lyapunov–Krasovskii stability theory and linear matrix inequality approach, a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of state feedback controllers is derived. The networked control system under consideration is modeled by taking the network‐induced imperfections like packet dropouts and transmission delays as a single time‐varying delay. The controller is considered with a stochastic fluctuations in its gain matrix by using the Bernoulli distributed white sequence with time‐varying probability measures. The probability‐dependent sufficient conditions are established to guarantee the resulting closed‐loop system to be stochastically stable with a prescribed mixed and passivity performance criterion. The results are expressed in the form of convex optimization problem subject to the set of LMIs, which can be easily solved by using some standard numerical packages. Finally, a numerical example by using the high‐incidence research model is presented to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust reliable sampled-data control for switched systems with application to flight control

This paper addresses the robust reliable stabilisation problem for a class of uncertain switched systems with random delays and norm bounded uncertainties. The main aim of this paper is to obtain the reliable robust sampled-data control design which involves random time delay with an appropriate gain control matrix for achieving the robust exponential stabilisation for uncertain switched system against actuator failures. In particular, the involved delays are assumed to be randomly time-varying which obeys certain mutually uncorrelated Bernoulli distributed white noise sequences. By constructing an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF) and employing an average-dwell time approach, a new set of criteria is derived for ensuring the robust exponential stability of the closed-loop switched system. More precisely, the Schur complement and Jensen's integral inequality are used in derivation of stabilisation criteria. By considering the relationship among the random time-varying delay and its lower and upper bounds, a new set of sufficient condition is established for the existence of reliable robust sampled-data control in terms of solution to linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, an illustrative example based on the F-18 aircraft model is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed design procedures.     

A queue with working breakdowns

In this paper, we consider a new class of queueing models with working breakdowns. The system may become defective at any point of time when it is in operation. However, when the system is defective, instead of stopping service completely, the service continues at a slower rate. Using the probability generating function, we give the joint distribution of the server state and the number of customers in the system in steady state. We also derive the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the steady state. We study the waiting time distribution of our model. Finally, some performance measures and numerical examples are presented.     

Reliable gain-scheduled control of discrete-time systems and its application to CSTR model

This paper is focused on reliable gain-scheduled controller design for a class of discrete-time systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities and actuator fault. Further, the nonlinearity in the system model is assumed to occur randomly according to a Bernoulli distribution with measurable time-varying probability in real time. The main purpose of this paper is to design a gain-scheduled controller by implementing a probability-dependent Lyapunov function and linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach such that the closed-loop discrete-time system is stochastically stable for all admissible randomly occurring nonlinearities. The existence conditions for the reliable controller is formulated in terms of LMI constraints. Finally, the proposed reliable gain-scheduled control scheme is applied on continuously stirred tank reactor model to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed design technique.     

Review on Hot Working Behavior and Strength of Calcium‐Containing Magnesium Alloys

In recent years, calcium has been a chosen alloying element as an alternative to rare‐earth elements for developing creep‐resistant magnesium alloys, which find promising applications for components in automobile and aerospace industries, and as bio‐implants. In this paper, the research covering the influence of Ca additions to several magnesium alloy systems on their strength, microstructure, and hot workability is reviewed. During mechanical processing, the formation of basal texture is considerably weakened by Ca addition. Ca‐containing alloys have limited workability and can be processed only by choosing the right combination of temperature and strain rate that corresponds to the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization (DRX). This can be done without trial‐and‐error through the use of processing maps. The processing maps for hot working of low‐Ca containing alloys typically exhibit three DRX domains while the maps for high‐Ca alloys typically exhibit only two DRX domains. In particular, the high‐Ca alloys have to be processed at lower strain rates and higher temperatures since the high volume content of intermetallic particles prevents DRX at high strain rates. Flow instabilities occur rampantly in Ca‐containing alloys, particularly in high‐Ca alloys, at lower temperatures and higher strain rates that have to be avoided during their thermo‐mechanical processing.