Dissipative based adaptive reliable sampled-data control of time-varying delay systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of dissipative based adaptive reliable controller for a class of time delay systems subject to actuator failures and time-varying sampling with a known upper bound on the sampling intervals. By constructing a proper Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional which fully uses the available information about the actual sampling pattern and time delays, a new set of sufficient conditions is derived to obtain the required result. Then, a dissipative based adaptive sampled-data controller is designed such that the resulting closed-loop system is reliable in the sense that it is asymptotically stable and has the prescribed dissipative performance under given constraints. The existence condition of the desired dissipative based adaptive reliable sampled-data controller is obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Further, the performance of the proposed controller is implemented on a liquid propellant rocket motor with a pressure feeding system model. The simulation results show the effectiveness and better performance of the proposed adaptive reliable sampled-data controller over conventional reliable controller.     

Biological fluid interaction with controlled surface properties of organic micro-fluidic devices

An organic micro-fluidic device (O-MFD) on silicon/glass substrate was fabricated using plasma polymerisation of acrylic acid (ppAc) with optical lithography including wet and dry etching techniques. The surface chemistry of O-MFD was controlled by depositing ppAc films on MFD. The results showed that these surfaces have more than 50% retention of original monomer functionalities (-COOX) with significant concentration of CO and C-OX at the surface. The water fluid velocity in 100 μm wide and 100 μm deep micro-channels of ppAc deposited O-MFD was increased by a factor of 10 relatively uncoated surfaces. The mixing of 10% of blood in the water has showed a decrease of about 100 μm/s in the fluid velocity relative to water and 10% red colour dye mixed water. The decrease in the fluid velocity of blood mixed water showed the possibility of blood cells interaction with the highly functional ppAc surfaces of micro-channel in O-MFD and that could have advantages in biological fluids (such as protein) separation.     

Heat Transfer Analysis of Sterilization of Canned Milk Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

A uniform and effective heat distribution inside the canned milk is very crucial for achieving effective sterilization. It is extremely difficult to establish the temperature profile inside the canned milk during continuous industrial scale operation. Computational fluid dynamics （CFD） simulation can be a useful tool to determine the temperature distribution of the fluid inside the can during the sterilization process. A CFD model was developed for the sterilization of canned milk at 121 ~C. The simulation results were validated with the experimental measurements of temperatures. The formation and movement of slowest heating zone （SHZ） during the sterilization process was tracked. Moreover, effect of can position （vertical and horizontal） during processing on milk temperature distribution inside the can was also investigated. Higher Grashof and Rayleigh numbers were obtained for vertical positioning of can compared to horizontal can processing. Further, effectiveness of the process was calculated based on F-value and these results reinforced the positive effect of horizontal position of can during the sterilization process.     

Computed tomography in Graves' ophthalmopathy

The CT scan with the 160 x 160 matrix demonstrated both the normal orbital anatomy and the abnormal orbital anatomy of Graves' ophthalmopathy in great detail. In Graves' ophthalmopathy, the cardinal pathologic feature of extraocular muscle enlargement was accurately reflected on the CT scan and was a distinctive, diagnostically reliable finding. Enlargement of the medial and lateral rectus muscles and of the apex of the muscle cone were the most consistent findings. The severity of the CT scan abnormalities correlated well with clinical severity. Because muscle cone abnormality was observed characteristically in those patients with sight loss, we suggest that pressure by the extraocular muscles on the optic nerve may contribute to visual acuity loss in this disease.     

Optical investigations on indium oxide nano-particles prepared through precipitation method

Visible light emitting indium oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by precipitation method. Sodium hydroxide dissolved in ethanol was used as a precipitating agent to obtain indium hydroxide precipitates. Precipitates, thus formed were calcined at 600 °C for 1 h to obtain indium oxide nanoparticles. The structure of the particles as determined from the X-Ray diffraction pattern was found to be body centered cubic. The phase transformation of the prepared nanoparticles was analyzed using thermogravimetry. Surface morphology of the prepared nanoparticles was analyzed using high resolution-scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The results of the analysis show cube-like aggregates of size around 50 nm. It was found that the nanoparticles have a strong emission at 427 nm and a weak emission at 530 nm. These emissions were due to the presence of singly ionized oxygen vacancies and the nature of the defect was confirmed through Electron paramagnetic resonance analysis.     

Finite‐time boundedness of large‐scale systems with actuator faults and gain fluctuations

This paper addresses the issue of finite‐time boundedness of large‐scale interconnected systems with the use of a distributed nonfragile fault‐tolerant controller. The objective of this paper is to design a state‐feedback controller consisting of a time‐varying delay such that the resulting closed‐loop system is finite‐time bounded under a prescribed extended passivity performance level even in the presence of all admissible uncertainties and possible actuator faults. More precisely, based on the Lyapunov‐Krasovskii stability theory, a new set of sufficient conditions is obtained in the framework of linear matrix inequality constraints that ensures finite‐time boundedness and satisfies the prescribed extended passivity performance index of the considered system. Finally, two numerical examples, including the interconnected inverted pendulum, are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller design technique.     

Energy efficient nonfragile control protocol for nonlinear large-scale systems with input quantization

The problem of robust stabilization for a class of nonlinear large-scale systems with the energy constraints and time-varying actuator faults is addressed in this article. In the considered system, the stabilization criteria is achieved via a sensor-network-based distributed fault-tolerant controller. Moreover to limit the consumption of energy by the sensors, the measurement size reduction technique and communication rate reduction approach are implemented such that the resulting closed-loop system is stable within a predefined extended passive performance index level. In particular, the sensor signal quantization technique is used to reduce the frequency and size of the transmitted data packet in the communication sequence. Based on the switched system theory and Lyapunov approach, a new set of sufficient conditions is obtained in the form of linear matrix inequality constraints to ensure the exponential stabilization of the considered system. The developed fault-tolerant resilient control gains are designed by resorting to the cone complementarity linearization algorithm. Moreover, a nonisothermal continuous stirred-tank reactor with interconnection is considered as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design technique.     

Leukemia cells interaction with plasma-polymerized acrylic acid coatings

The acrylic acid (ppAc) films were deposited on a glass substrate by plasma polymerization. The interaction of leukemia cells with the ppAc films was studied. It was found that the leukemia cells showed a higher growth on cell culture polystyrene and microscope cover glass substrates, whereas a low growth (about 60%) on the ppAc films. The presence of functional groups such as hydroxyl and carbonyl on the ppAc films can affect the cell culture.     

Robust reliable dissipative filtering for Markovian jump nonlinear systems with uncertainties

This paper investigates the problem of robust reliable dissipative filtering for a class of Markovian jump nonlinear systems with uncertainties and time‐varying transition probability matrix described by a polytope. Our main attention is focused on the design of a reliable dissipative filter performance for the filtering error system such that the resulting error system is stochastically stable and strictly dissipative. By introducing a novel augmented Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, a new set of sufficient conditions is obtained for the existence of reliable dissipative filter design in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). More precisely, a sufficient LMI condition is derived for reliable dissipative filtering that unifies the conditions for filtering with passivity and H_∞ performances. Moreover, the filter gains are characterized in terms of solution to a set of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of the proposed design technique. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.