Nonlinear Gains Recursive Sliding Mode Dynamic Surface Control with Integral Action

In this paper, by introducing a function with nonlinear gains and developing sliding surfaces with integral action in the dynamic surface control (DSC) recursive procedure, a novel DSC strategy is proposed. The drawbacks of conventional DSC methods, such as being sensitive to the design constant of the first order low‐pass filter and being unable to achieve zero steady‐state error for step reference signal, are overcome. Moreover, improvement of transient performance and reduction of control effort can be obtained. The stability analysis shows that the proposed new approach can guarantee semi‐global uniform ultimate boundedness (SGUUB) of all closed‐loop signals and that the ultimate tracking error bound in regulation can be made arbitrarily small.     

Heuristic Dynamic Programming Using Echo State Network For Multivariable Tracking Control Of Wastewater Treatment Process

This paper proposes a heuristic dynamic programming (HDP) scheme to simultaneously control the dissolved oxygen concentration and the nitrate level in wastewater treatment processes (WWTP). Unlike traditional HDP schemes, the optimal control values are calculated in an analytical way by the proposed HDP controller. It can reduce the learning burden of the HDP controller to a great extent. The system model and the evaluation index J are approximated by two echo state networks (ESNs). Gradient‐based learning algorithms are employed to train both ESNs online, and the convergence of the training algorithm is investigated based on Lyapunov theory. The performance of the proposed ESN‐based HDP (E‐HDP) controller is tested and evaluated on a WWTP benchmark. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can achieve effective performance.     

The contribution of proteomics towards deciphering the enigma of Coxiella burnetii

Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever, is an intracellular bacterium and a potential weapon for bioterrorism. The widespread throughout the world, zoonosis is manifested clinically as a self-limited febrile illness, as pneumonia (acute Q fever) or as a chronic illness with endocarditis being its major complication. The recent Netherlands Q fever outbreak has driven the bacterium from a relatively cryptic, underappreciated, “niche” microorganism on the sideline of bacteriology, to one of possibly great impact on public health. Advances in the study of this microorganism proceeded slowly, primarily due to the, until recently, obligatory intracellular nature of the pathogen that in its virulent phase I must be manipulated under biosafety level-3 conditions. Proteomic studies, in particular, have generated a vast amount of information concerning several aspects of the bacterium such as virulence factors, detection/diagnostic and immunogenic biomarkers, inter-/intraspecies variation, resistance to antibiotics, and secreted effector proteins with significant clinical impact. The phenomenon observed following the genomics era, that of generation and accumulation of huge amount of data that ultimately end up unexploited on several databases, begins to emerge in the proteomics field as well. This review will focus on the advances in the field of C. burnetii proteomics through MS, attempting in parallel to utilize some of the proteomics findings by suggesting future directions for the improvement of Q fever diagnosis and therapy.     

Note: flowing ion population from a resonance cavity source

The experimental low energy plasma for hemispherical analyzers nominal testing thermal plasma facility of Dartmouth College uses a microwave plasma source which generates an ionosphere-like plasma through a two-step process. The plasma is initially generated inside a cylindrical, insulated, resonance cavity. This initial plasma must pass through a sheath in order to enter the main experimental region. This process imparts a significant flow velocity to the ions which has been neglected in previous analysis of this plasma source. We predict the flow energy of the ions to be between 12-15 eV depending on conservation laws and show agreement with experimental results.     

Electrostatic force microscopy of self-assembled peptide structures

In this report electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) is used to study different peptide self-assembled structures such as tubes and particles. It is shown that not only geometrical information can be obtained using EFM, but also information about the composition of different structures. In particular we use EFM to investigate the structures of diphenylalanine peptide tubes, particles, and CSGAITIG peptide particles placed on pre-fabricated SiO(2) surfaces with a backgate. We show that the cavity in the peptide tubes could be due to the presence of water residues. Additionally we show that self-assembled amyloid peptides form spherical solid structures containing the same self-assembled peptide in its interior. In both cases transmission electron microscopy is used to verify these structures. Further, the limitations of the EFM technique are discussed, especially when the observed structures become small compared with the radius of the AFM tip used. Finally, an agreement between the detected signal and the structure of the hollow peptide tubes is demonstrated.     

A Comparative Study of Two Wayfinding Aids With Simulated Driving Tasks—GPS and a Dual-Scale Exploration Aid

Global Positioning System (GPS) is currently the most often used wayfinding aid for driving. Yet GPS is originally designed to provide a driving guide rather than to help users gain spatial knowledge. Accordingly, GPS might be less usable in situations where spatial knowledge is required. This study experimentally compared two wayfinding aids using simulated driving tasks in a virtual environment: a simulated GPS and a dual-scale exploration aid (DSEA). The DSEA, which provides two levels of details—both detailed and contextual information—was proposed to support participants in finding and selecting routes by themselves. The results show that although DSEA was less helpful in leading participants to their destination and corresponded to more turning errors in simulated driving, it was more useful for the corresponding participants to establish spatial awareness and a cognitive map. The influence of participants' spatial ability test score on wayfinding performance was measured and discussed. The proposed DSEA design and experimental results show some indications for designing new wayfinding aids aimed at reducing wayfinding errors and constructing cognitive maps while still providing easy navigation.     

Flocking under hierarchical leadership with a free‐will leader

Recently, a model for flocking was introduced by Cucker and Smale together with a proof of convergence. This proof established unconditional convergence to flocking (i.e., to a common velocity), provided the interaction between agents was strong enough and conditional convergence otherwise. The strength of the interaction is measured by a parameter β, and the critical value at which unconditional convergence stops holding is β = 1 ∕ 2. This model was extended by Shen to allow for a hierarchical leadership structure among the agents, and similar convergence results were proved. But, for discrete time, convergence result was only for the flock with an overall leader moving with a constant velocity. In this note, we establish convergence result for the flock with a free‐will leader. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement feedback control for a class of feedforward nonlinear systems

We propose a measurement feedback controller for a class of feedforward nonlinear systems under sensor noise. The sensor noise has unknown magnitude, frequency, and phase. Our proposed controller is coupled with a low‐pass filter in such a way that the sensor noise is attenuated. We show that the controlled system results in bounded states whose ultimate bounds are inversely proportional to the minimum frequency of the sensor noise. Our result is further generalized to work in a case where the sensor noise is only required to have a Fourier transform with finite energy. Moreover, if the sensor noise enters only at partial states, depending on the location of the sensor noise, the ultimate bounds of the particular states can be made arbitrarily small via the gain factor of the controller. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast response fringe‐field switching mode liquid crystal development for shutter glass 3D

A type of fast response time (RT) liquid crystal (LC) was developed to adopt in fringe‐field switching (FFS) mode for shutter glass 3D display device, the average gray to gray level (GTG) RT can reduce from 7.43 ms to 4.48 ms at a refreshing rate of 60 Hz, and the transmittance can increase by 15.4% compared with conventional LC based on the same cell gap. Meanwhile, the correlation among optical efficiency, correlative color temperature (CCT) of module and retardation of LC for FFS mode was studied. Transmittance is proportional to the retardation of LC; however, the CCT is inversely proportional to the retardation. The fast response LC can keep almost the original optical efficiency and CCT.