Task-space control of robots using an adaptive Taylor series uncertainty estimator

An uncertainty estimation and compensation can improve the performance of control systems due to structured and unstructured uncertainty. This paper presents a robust task-space control approach using an adaptive Taylor series uncertainty estimator for electrically driven robot manipulators. It is worth noting that not only the lumped uncertainty is estimated and employed in the indirect form of robust controller, but also the upper bound of approximation error is estimated to form a robustifying term and the asymptotic convergence of tracking error and its time derivative are proven based on stability analysis. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed controller is shown through simulation and comparison with two valuable control schemes applied on the Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) robot manipulator.     

Solution of diffusion equation in deformable spheroids

The time-dependent diffusion of neutrons in a spheroid as a function of the focal distance has been studied. The solution is based on an orthogonal basis and an extrapolation distanced related boundary condition for the spheroidal geometry. It has been shown that spheres and disks are two limiting cases for the spheroids, for which there is a smooth transition for the systems properties between these two limits. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a slight deformation from a sphere does not affect the fundamental mode properties, to the first order. The calculations for both multiplying and non-multiplying media have been undertaken, showing good agreement with direct Monte Carlo simulations.     

Aging fingerprint characterization of beer using electronic nose

In this work, attempts were made in order to characterize the change of aroma of alcoholic and non alcoholic beers during the aging process by use of a metal oxide semiconductor based electronic nose. The aged beer samples were statistically characterized in several classes. Linear techniques as principal component analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analaysis (LDA) were performed over the data that revealed non alcoholic beer classes are separated except a partial overlapping between zones corresponding to two specified classes of the aged beers. A clear discrimination was not found among the alcoholic beer classes showing the more stability of such type of beer compared with non alcoholic beer. In this research, to classify the classes, two types of artificial neural networks were used: Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNN) with Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and FeedForward Networks with Backpropagation (BP) learning method. The classification success was found to be 90% and 100% for alcoholic and non alcoholic beers, respectively. Application of PNN showed the classification accuracy of 83% and 100%, respectively for the aged alcoholic and non alcoholic beer classes as well. Finally, this study showed the capability of the electronic nose system for the evaluation of the aroma fingerprint changes in beer during the aging process.     

A new reactor concept for combining oxidative coupling and steam re‐forming of methane: modeling and analysis

A new and very promising application of auto‐thermal reactors is the coupling of endothermic and exothermic reactions where the product of the endothermic reaction is the desired one. Therefore, in this work, a reactor in which oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and steam re‐forming of methane (SRM) reactions take place simultaneously was modeled. The results were obtained in a wide range of different conditions such as inlet feed, inlet temperature, portions of OCM and SRM catalysts, and inlet velocity. In selection of the catalysts, more attention was drawn to prevent re‐forming of OCM products. The main parameters of each reaction under different conditions such as conversion of the feed components, products selectivity and yield, temperature in the length of reactor, and component's concentration in the reactor were considered in course of this study. The results revealed that simultaneous OCM and SRM reactions in one reactor will tend to be auto‐thermal, and the waste of energy will be reduced. The results also show that complete conversion of water and majority of methane and oxygen will decrease the amount of unwanted products at the reactor's discharge–a constraint that exists in single reactors of each reaction specially OCM. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Near Net-Shaped, Alkaline-Earth-Bearing Ceramics for Electronic and Refractory Applications Via the Oxidation of Solid, Metal-Bearing Precursors (the VIMOX Process)

In most of the published work on the high-temperature oxidation of bulk metals, the resulting oxides are treated as undesired corrosion products. The opposite paradigm is discussed in this paper: bulk precursors containing alkaline earth metals (AE = Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba) are completely oxidized to produce electrical or refractory ceramics. Relatively dense AE-metal-bearing green bodies can be fabricated by either solid-state deformation processing or liquid metal infiltration processing. Rapid oxidation of the solid AE metals and reaction with other oxides in the green bodies can yield desired compounds. Unlike other oxides, AE oxides possess smaller molar volumes than the corresponding metals. Hence, by adjusting the amounts of AE and non-AE components in a precursor, an all-ceramic body with a shape and volume identical to the precursor can be produced (Volume Identical Metal Oxidation or VIMOX). The syntheses of shaped electronic titanates and cerates, and refractory aluminates and aluminosilicates, are discussed.     

A study on the efficiency of hardware Trojan detection based on path-delay fingerprinting

Hardware Trojan horses (HTHs) are among the most challenging treats to the security of integrated circuits. Path-delay fingerprinting has shown to be a promising HTH detection approach. However, previous work in this area incurs a large hardware cost or requires expensive testing techniques. Moreover, the relation between technology mapping and the efficiency of delay-based HTH detection have not yet been studied. In this paper, we present a HTH detection method which uses an effective test-vector selection scheme and a path-delay measurement structure. Furthermore, we demonstrate the large impact of technology mapping on the effectiveness of delay-based HTH detection. We also show that delay-based detection methods are highly scalable. In case of choosing an area-driven design strategy, the average HTH detection probability of our approach is about 63%, 78% and 90% if false alarm rate is 0%, 2% and 16%, respectively. However, with modifications in the technology mapping, the results show improvements to 85%, 94% and 99%, at the cost of about 20% area overhead. In addition, the efficiency of our method would not decrease for large benchmarks with thousands of gates.     

An improved topology of electronic ballast with wide dimming range,PFC and low switching losses using PWM-controlled soft-switching inverter

This paper presents a novel improved topology of voltage-fed soft-switching LC_rC_dc series–parallel quasi-resonant inverter with a constant-frequency for electronic ballast applications. This new topology introduces a low-cost solution to reduce switching losses to achieve high-efficiency ballast. A symmetrical pulse wide modulation (PWM) control scheme is implemented to regulate a wide range of output power. Switching losses effect on ballast efficiency is discussed through experimental point of view. In this discussion, an improved topology in which accomplishes soft-switching operation over a wide power regulation range is proposed. Energy consumption of this new circuit is decreased by using reverse recovery attribute. Additionally, a power-factor correction (PFC) circuit is employed to make the line current follow naturally the sinusoidal line voltage waveform.     

N ‐acetylcysteine–PLGA nano‐conjugate: effects on cellular toxicity and uptake of gadopentate dimeglumine

Gadolinium as a contrast agent in MRI technique combined with DTPA causes contrast induced nephropathy (CIN) and nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) which can reduce by usage of antioxidants such as N‐acetyl cysteine by increasing the membrane''s permeability leads to lower cytotoxicity. In this study, N ‐acetyl cysteine‐PLGA Nano‐conjugate was synthesized according to stoichiometric rules of molar ratios andafter assessment by FTIR, NMR spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) imaging was combined with Magnevist® (gadopentetate dimeglumine) and its effects on the renal cells were evaluated. MTT [3‐(4,5‐Dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl)‐2,5‐Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide] and cellular uptake assays have indicated relatively significant toxicity of magnevist (P  < 0.05) on three cell lines including HEK293, MCF7 and L929 compared to other synthesized ligands that shown no toxicity. Moreover, systemic evaluation has shown no notable changes of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine in kidney of mice. In consequence, antioxidant effect was increased as well as the renal toxicity of the contrast agent reduced at the cell level. As a result, PLGA‐NAC nano‐conjugate can be a promising choice for decreasing the magnevist toxicity for treatment and prevention of CIN and will be able to open a new horizon to research on reduction of toxicity of contrast agents by using nanoparticles.Inspec keywords: blood, toxicology, nanofabrication, cellular biophysics, biomedical materials, nanoparticles, chromatography, cancer, biodegradable materials, biomedical MRI, kidney, pH, nanomedicine, patient treatment, diseases, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectraOther keywords: cellular toxicity, gadopentate dimeglumine, contrast agent, magnetic resonance imaging technique, diethylenetriamine pentaacetate, contrast‐induced nephropathy, nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, stoichiometric rules, molar ratios, dimethyl sulphoxide solution, chromatography techniques, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy imaging, Magnevist®, gadopentetate dimeglumine, renal cells, MTT cytotoxicity, human embryonic kidney‐293, L929 cell lines, in vitro conditions, cellular uptake assays, Magnevist uptake, antioxidant effect, renal toxicity, cell level, PLGA nanocarrier, acetylcysteine nanoconjugate, Magnevist toxicity, N‐acetylcysteine–PLGA nano‐conjugate, N‐acetyl cysteine‐poly‐lactic‐co‐glycolic acid nanoconjugate     

A Model to Predict Recrystallization Kinetics in Hot Strip Rolling Using Combined Artificial Neural Network and Finite Elements

A thermo-mechanical model has been developed to establish a coupled heat conduction and plastic flow analysis in hot-rolling process. This model is capable of predicting temperature, strain, and strain rate distributions during hot rolling as well as the subsequent static recrystallization fraction and grain size changes after hot deformation. Finite element and neural network models are coupled to assess recrystallization kinetics after hot rolling. A new algorithm has been suggested to create differential data sets to train the neural network. The model is then used to predict histories of various deformation variables and recrystallization kinetics in hot rolling of AA5083. Comparison between the theoretical and the experimental data shows the validity of the model.