Disturbance decoupled fault reconstruction using sliding mode observers

This paper investigates and presents conditions that guarantee disturbance decoupled fault reconstruction using sliding mode observers, which are less stringent than those of previous work, and show that disturbance reconstruction is not necessary. An aircraft model validates the ideas proposed in this paper. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Intelligent robust control design of a precise positioning system

This paper addresses an intelligent uncertainty function to improve the robust stability and performance of H _∞ controlled system in terms of reduced conservatism. The system is identified, output performance and control signal requirements are controlled by proper selection of performance and control weighting functions. Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) learns the uncertainty bounds of model uncertainty that results from unmodeled dynamics and parameter variations, then the developed uncertainty weighting function will be included in the synthesis of the H _∞ controller. ν-gap measure is utilized to validate the intelligent identified uncertainty bounds and measure the stability of the designed H _∞ controlled system as well. Experimental results on a servo motion system reveal the advantages of combining intelligent uncertainty identification and robust control. Improved performance is achieved. The proposed approach also allows for iterative experiment design.     

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

Management problems in the development of software have been addressed over the last years by a strong focus on the improvement of the development processes. Software process improvement (SPI) activities are characterized by an internal focus on a software development department and its procedures. However, the quality of the product is hardly addressed in software process improvement programs. This paper presents the application of a model for product focused SPI (P-SPI) and describes experiences with this model in practice. The main conclusions are that P-SPI puts products to be developed in a central position in improvement programs, results in fulfilling specific quality goals of a company and project, and industrial experiments show interesting benefits. Applying the approach in industrial projects showed that P-SPI is relatively cheap and gives fast results and high benefits.     

The Effects of Hippocampal Lesions on Response, Direction, and Place Learning in Rats.

Rats with hippocampal or sham lesions were trained to find food on a T maze located at 2 positions. Response rats were required to make a right or left turn. Direction rats were required to go in a consistent direction (east or west). Place rats were required to go to a consistent location, relative to room cues. One place group had distinguishable start points at the 2 maze positions, whereas another place group had start points facing the same side of the room. Controls took longer to solve a place problem than the response and direction problems when the start points were not distinguishable. Rats with hippocampal lesions were not different than controls on the response problem but were impaired on the direction and place problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mouse Models of Sjögren’s Syndrome with Ocular Surface Disease

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a systemic rheumatic disease that predominantly affects salivary and lacrimal glands resulting in oral and ocular dryness, respectively, referred to as sicca symptoms. The clinical presentation of ocular dryness includes keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS), resulting from the inflammatory damage to the ocular surface tissues of cornea and conjunctiva. The diagnostic evaluation of KCS is a critical component of the classification criteria used by clinicians worldwide to confirm SS diagnosis. Therapeutic management of SS requires both topical and systemic treatments. Several mouse models of SS have contributed to our current understanding of immunopathologic mechanisms underlying the disease. This information also helps develop novel therapeutic interventions. Although these models address glandular aspects of SS pathology, their impact on ocular surface tissues is addressed only in a few models such as thrombospondin (TSP)-1 deficient, C57BL/6.NOD.Aec1Aec2, NOD.H2^b, NOD.Aire KO, and IL-2Rα (CD25) KO mice. While corneal and/or conjunctival damage is reported in most of these models, the characteristic SS specific autoantibodies are only reported in the TSP-1 deficient mouse model, which is also validated as a preclinical model. This review summarizes valuable insights provided by investigations on the ocular spectrum of the SS pathology in these models.     

Resolvin D2 and Resolvin D1 Differentially Activate Protein Kinases to Counter-Regulate Histamine-Induced [Ca2+]i Increase and Mucin Secretion in Conjunctival Goblet Cells

Resolvin (Rv) D2 and RvD1 are biosynthesized from docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and promote resolution of inflammation in multiple organs and tissues, including the conjunctiva. Histamine is a mediator produced by mast cells in the conjunctiva during the allergic response. We determined the interaction of RvD2 with histamine and its receptor subtypes in cultured conjunctival goblet cells and compared them with RvD1 by measuring intracellular [Ca²⁺] and mucous secretion. Treatment with RvD2 significantly blocked the histamine-induced [Ca²⁺]_i increase as well as secretion. RvD2 and RvD1 counter-regulate different histamine receptor subtypes. RvD2 inhibited the increase in [Ca²⁺]_i induced by the activation of H1, H3, or H4 receptors, whereas RvD1 inhibited H1 and H3 receptors. RvD2 and RvD1 also activate distinct receptor-specific protein kinases to counter-regulate the histamine receptors, probably by phosphorylation. Thus, our data suggest that the counter-regulation of H receptor subtypes by RvD2 and RvD1 to inhibit mucin secretion are separately regulated.     

Adult age differences in learning from positive and negative probabilistic feedback.

Objective: Past research has investigated age differences in frontal-based decision making, but few studies have focused on the behavioral effects of striatal-based changes in healthy aging. Feedback learning has been found to vary with dopamine levels; increases in dopamine facilitate learning from positive feedback, whereas decreases facilitate learning from negative feedback. Given previous evidence of striatal dopamine depletion in healthy aging, we investigated behavioral differences between college-aged and healthy older adults using a feedback learning task that is sensitive to both frontal and striatal processes. Method: Seventeen college-aged (M = 18.9 years) and 24 healthy, older adults (M = 70.3 years) completed the Probabilistic Selection task, in which participants are trained on probabilistic stimulus-outcome information and then tested to determine whether they learned more from positive or negative feedback. Results: As a group, the older adults learned equally well from positive and negative feedback, whereas the college-aged group learned more from positive than negative feedback, F(1, 39) = 4.10, p effect = .3. However, these group differences were not due to older individuals being more balanced learners. Most individuals of both ages were balanced learners, but while all of the remaining young learners had a positive bias, the remaining older learners were split between those with positive and negative learning biases (χ2(2) = 6.12, p     

Recent Lessons Learned in Structural Fire Engineering for Composite Steel Structures

The knowledge in the field of structural fire engineering has been greatly advanced through assessment of a number of real fires (WTC, Torre Windsor, Broadgate, etc.) and, especially, by the Cardington series of full scale structural fire tests. This knowledge has been used to validate and verify the use of computational finite element models that have expanded the range of structures that can be investigated under severe fire exposure. This paper presents a selection of key lessons learned by the authors through the assessment of structures in fire for real commercial building projects. The key areas of sensitivity that have been encountered are described and a discussion of each point presented. The paper is aimed at describing potential weaknesses that have been observed in the commercial work of the authors, often driven by the requirements for efficient ambient structural design. The paper concludes with some suggested advice for structural engineers aimed at increasing the general robustness of building structures. This is based on designing out as far as possible in the ambient design of a structure the potential weaknesses identified in past project work.     

Specific Heat of LaMnO3 + δ at 50 K ≤ T ≤ 160 K

We have developed a shell model, which includes the long-range coulomb, van der Waals interaction, and the short-range Hafemeister–Flygare repulsive interaction operative up to second neighbor atom to study the cohesive and thermal properties of LaMnO_{3 +} . The results on cohesive energy obtained by us are in good agreement with that of calculated value by DeSouza et. al. (R. A. DeSouza, M. S. Islam, and E. I. Tiffee, J. Mater. Chem. 9, 1621 (1999)). In addition, we have also calculated molecular force constant (f), compressibility (), restrahlen frequency (_o), Debye temperature (_D), and the low temperature specific heat at 50 K T 160 K. Our results on Debye temperature and specific heat for the temperature range 50 K T 160 K are closer to the recently measured data with an automated quasi-adiabatic pulse technique.     

Life span changes in visual enumeration: The number discrimination task.

Participants from 5 groups with mean ages of 6, 8, 10, 22, and 72 yrs were tested on a series of speeded number discriminations: 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 6 vs 7, and 8 vs 9. The primary measure of interest (response time slope as a function of number size) decreased with age for numbers in the 1–4 range. However, a U-shaped age function emerged in the 6–9 range, with larger slopes for children and senior adults, and the smallest slopes for young adults. These data suggest that different processes are involved in enumerating small and large numbers of items. It is argued that subitizing, the process for small numbers, makes only minimal demands on spatial attention and thus shows developmental improvements without any decline in old age. In contrast, counting, the process for large numbers, requires sophisticated coordination of spatial attention, which has previously been shown first to improve and then decline over the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)