The aim of this work is the development and implementation of a control structure for the double rotary inverted pendulum, suitable to be used in a Networked Control System environment. Delays are ...quite common in this kind of systems and, when controlling multivariable plants, it is possible that different delays are applied to the multiple inputs and outputs of them. A control structure that allows compensating individually each one of the multiple loop delays would be useful when one of these delays changes. Inverted pendulums are quite sensitive to delays and for this reason are appropriated plants to be used in these conditions. The control structure is developed modifying the control in no-delay conditions with a generalized predictor able to deal with unstable and non-minimum plants as the chosen one is. The proposed structure has been simulated and implemented to control a real double rotary inverted pendulum.
This paper proposes and examines the performance of an algorithm used to locate a finite time-duration acoustic source that may have a small time-bandwidth product. The localization algorithm ...hypothesizes a source location and aligns the sensor signals by removing the propagation delay for that hypothesized location. The energy of the sum of the aligned signals is calculated and the hypothesized source location with the maximum energy is the estimate of the source position. The primary contribution of this paper is the development of the expression for the variance of localization error in any specified direction. The variance expression is validated through a comparison with Monte Carlo simulations
Background
: Interesterification is an industrial processing technique used widely where hard fats are essential for functionality and consumer acceptability,
e.g.
margarines and lower fat spreads.
...Objective
: The aim of this study was to compare acute cardiovascular effects of functionally equivalent spreads (similar solid fat content) made with interesterified (IE) or non-IE palm-based fats, or spreadable butter.
Methods
: A randomised, controlled, 4-armed crossover, double-blind study (25 men, 25 women; 35-75 years; healthy; mean BMI 24.5, SD 3.8), compared effects of mixed nutrient meals containing 50 g fat from functionally equivalent products IE spread, non-IE spread and spreadable butter (SB), with rapeseed oil (RO) as a reference treatment: with 16.7%, 27.9%, 19.3% and 4% palmitic acid, respectively on 8 h postprandial changes in plasma triacylglycerol (TAG) and endothelial dysfunction (flow-mediated dilatation; FMD). Circulating reactive oxygen species (estimated using a neutrophil oxidative burst assay), glucose, insulin, NEFA, lipoprotein particle profiles, inflammatory markers (glycoprotein acetylation (Glyc-A) and IL-6), and biomarkers of endotoxemia were measured.
Results
: Postprandial plasma TAG concentrations after test meals were similar. However following RO
versus
the 3 spreads, there were significantly higher postprandial apolipoprotein B concentrations, and small HDL and LDL particle concentrations, and lower postprandial extra-large, large, and medium HDL particle concentrations, as well as smaller average HDL and LDL particle sizes. There were no differences following IE compared to the other spreads. Postprandial FMD% did not decrease after high-fat test meals, and there were no differences between treatments. Postprandial serum IL-6 increased similarly after test meals, but RO provoked a greater increase in postprandial concentrations of glycoprotein acetyls (GlycA), as well as 8 h sCD14, an endotoxemia marker. All other postprandial outcomes were not different between treatments.
Conclusions
: In healthy adults, a commercially-available IE-based spread did not evoke a different postprandial triacylglycerol, lipoprotein subclass, oxidative stress, inflammatory or endotoxemic response to functionally-equivalent, but compositionally-distinct alternative spreads. Clinical trial registry number: NCT03438084 (
https://ClinicalTrials.gov
).
Background
: Interesterification is an industrial processing technique used to create hard fats where this is essential for functionality and consumer acceptability,
e.g.
margarines and lower fat spreads.
This study improves the fading channel estimation in bit-interleaved coded modulation systems with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) and signal space diversity (SSD) by embedding a training sequence. ...Existing training schemes work well at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or slowly time-varying channels, whereas the applications of BICM-ID are beneficial at low SNR and fast time-varying fading channels. Motivated by the power/bandwidth efficiency of the SSD technique and the fact that superimposed training outperforms pilot symbol-assisted modulation (PSAM) training over relatively fast time-varying channels, a new superimposed training sequence is explored. The proposed training sequence inserts pilot bits into the coded bits prior constellation mapping and signal rotation. This becomes a superimposed training sequence in the rotated symbols and helps the estimator to track fast variation of the channel gains. A soft iterative channel estimator is developed to work with the superimposed training sequence. The performance of the proposed scheme, namely SSD-pilot, is shown to be superior to PSAM scheme.
Aims
A 6‐week interval is currently recommended during the primary course of the equine influenza (EI) vaccines Equip® FT or Equip® F. This study aimed to evaluate immunogenicity and safety of a ...3‐week accelerated interval in order to improve flexibility and to reduce the period of susceptibility to EI virus (EIV) infection.
Methods
Three groups of 10 ponies were respectively vaccinated with the vaccine Equip® FT according to the recommended 6‐week V1–V2 interval (T02), Equip® F or Equip® FT according to an experimental accelerated 3‐week interval (T03 and T04, respectively). These groups were boosted (V3) with Equip® F 5 months after V2. Ten ponies in a control group were injected with saline (T01). The antibody response to the vaccine antigens (tetanus toxoid and EIV) were measured 2 weeks after V2 and V3 with the toxin binding inhibition test (ToBI) and single radial haemolysis (SRH), respectively. All animal work received ethical approval.
Results
The accelerated schedule of immunisation was well tolerated. At both time points, in all vaccinated groups, SRH least squares means for A/eq/Borlange/91 and A/eq/Kentucky/98 antigens were well above 85 mm2, a level described previously to provide clinical protection against homologous EIV strains. Non inferiority of SRH least square means were demonstrated at 2 weeks post V2 for both antigens for T03 and T04, and for A/eq/Kentucky/98 antigen in group T04 after V3. For tetanus,ToBI least squares means were 86.3 iu/mI for T02 and 45.9 iu/ml for T04 after V2 and 2.6 iu/ml for T02 and 2.2 iu/ml for T04 after V3. A level of 0.02 iu/ml has been described as being protective in various publications.
Conclusion and practical relevance
A 3‐week accelerated primary course interval was well tolerated and serology results suggested good immunogenicity.
Ethical animal research
The study was conducted under the Animal Health Trust Home Office Project License and with approval of the Zaventem Ethics Review Assessment team (Zoetis). Sources of funding: The study was sponsored by Pfizer/Zoetis Animal Health. Competing interests: Equip® FT is owned by Zoetis, who sponsored this study. Romain Paillot reports no conflict of interest. All other authors are employed by the study sponsor.
Aims
The concurrent administration of EHV1,4 and EIV vaccines is not currently recommended. This study aimed to evaluate safety and immunogenicity of concurrent administration of Equip® FT and Equip® ...EHV1,4 (treatment group T04) as compared with vaccination with Equip® FT (treatment group T02) or Equip® EHV1,4 (treatment group T03) alone.
Methods
Each treatment group included 10 ponies vaccinated on study Days 0 and 42. Immune responses to vaccine antigens were measured on Day 56. Tetanus antibody titres were determined with the toxin binding inhibition test (ToBI). Immunity to equine influenza virus (EIV) induced by vaccination was measured by single radial haemolysis (SRH; antibody response) and IFN gamma assay (a marker of cell‐mediated immunity; CMI). Immune responses to Herpesvirus 1,4 were measured by complement fixation (CF) and IFN gamma assay.
Results
Concurrent administration of EIV and EHV1,4 vaccines was well tolerated. Concurrent administration was proven to be efficacious against tetanus with similar serological immune response of treatment group T04 as compared with T02. Mean SRH results for ponies that received both vaccines were above 85 mm2 for A/eq/Borlange/91 and A/eq/Kentucky/98 antigens, a threshold associated with clinical protection against closely related EIV strains. The highest levels of IFN gamma response were measured in group T02. Although concurrent vaccination seemed to have an effect on both equine herpesvirus (EHV) serology and EHV CMI, EHV results obtained during this study were not conclusive and may have been influenced by a natural EHV‐4 infection occurring prior to study start.
Conclusion and practical relevance
Concurrent administration of Equip® FT and Equip® EHV1,4 was well tolerated and induced mean serum antibody levels consistent with clinical protection for tetanus and EIV. However, it was not possible to gather relevant information about the EHV immune response under the conditions of this study.
Ethical animal research
The study was conducted under the Animal Health Trust Home Office Project License and with approval of the Zaventem Ethics Review Assessment team (Zoetis). Sources of funding: The study was sponsored by Pfizer/Zoetis Animal Health. Competing interests: Equip® FT and Equip® EHV1,4 are owned by Zoetis, who sponsored this study. Romain Paillot reports no conflict of interest. All other authors are employed by the study sponsor.
Spanish ATLAS Tier-2: facing up to LHC Run 2 González de la Hoz, S; Peso, J Del; Fassi, F ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
12/2015, Letnik:
664, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The goal of this work is to describe the way of addressing the main challenges of Run 2 by the Spanish ATLAS Tier-2. The considerable increase of energy and luminosity for the upcoming Run 2 with ...respect to Run 1 has led to a revision of the ATLAS computing model as well as some of the main ATLAS computing tools. In this paper, the adaptation to these changes will be described. The Spanish ATLAS Tier-2 is a R&D project which consists of a distributed infrastructure composed of three sites and its members are involved in ATLAS computing progress, namely the work in different tasks and the development of new tools (e.g. Event Index).
► A theorem for the design of a non-uniform multi-rate controller which includes an RST control stage is introduced. ► Another theorem presents the so-called non-uniform operator to face non-uniform ...frames at the model stage. ► The control system is designed to deal with a sequence of different non-uniform sampling frames. ► Both robustness and control performance benefits are derived. ► Stability is assured by means of LMIs. Sensitivity to modeling errors is studied.
In this work, a non-uniform multi-rate controller which includes an RST control stage is introduced. Due to several issues, in some systems the use of non-uniform (irregular) multi-rate sampling becomes inevitable. When using a uniform (regular) multi-rate controller in this kind of situations, control performance is usually degraded (if it is compared to that obtained in the nominal, uniform sampling context). Thus, the design of a non-uniform controller proper for this sampling scheme is needed to keep the performance. A sequence of different non-uniform sampling frames can be considered, and different controllers must be designed for each frame using appropriate methods. When switching among these controllers, stability problems can appear. So, the control system stability will be assured in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). To achieve some advantages at the design step, the discrete-time input–output representation will be used. But, since the classical, uniform z−i delay operator could not be able to represent non-uniform sampling situations, the so-called non-uniform operator will be required. Simulation results illustrate that this control proposal is able to keep control system performance and preserve stability.
Background: Previous research suggests that the phenotype associated with Asperger's syndrome (AS) includes difficulties in understanding the mental states of others, leading to difficulties in ...social communication and social relationships. It has also been suggested that the first‐degree relatives of those with AS can demonstrate similar difficulties, albeit to a lesser extent. This study examined ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) abilities in the siblings of children with AS relative to a matched control group.
Method: 27 children who had a sibling with AS were administered the children's version of the ‘Eyes Test’ (Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Stone, & Rutherford, 1999). The control group consisted of 27 children matched for age, sex, and a measure of verbal comprehension, and who did not have a family history of AS/autism.
Results: A significant difference was found between the groups on the Eyes Test, the ‘siblings’ group showing a poorer performance on this measure of social cognition. The difference was more pronounced among female siblings.
Discussion: These results are discussed in terms of the familial distribution of a neuro‐cognitive profile associated with AS, which confers varying degrees of social handicap amongst first‐degree relatives. The implication of this finding with regard to the autism/AS phenotype is explored, with some discussion of why this neuro‐cognitive profile (in combination with corresponding strengths) may have an evolutionary imperative.
The efficacy of a quadrivalent vaccine against viral bovine respiratory diseases (BRD) was assessed in four experimental studies. Calves between 2 and 9 months of age were allocated to one of two ...treatment groups (n=9–15) and then received either the vaccine or sterile saline in two doses approximately 3 weeks apart. Three to 5 weeks after the second injection, animals were challenged experimentally with one of the viruses, bovine herpes-virus-1 (BHV-1), parainfluenza type-3 virus (PI3V), bovine viral-diarrhoea virus type 1 (BVDV), or bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) and were then monitored for at least 2 weeks. The administration of the vaccine was associated with enhanced antibody response to all four viruses post-challenge, with the reduction of the amount or duration (or both) of virus shedding in the BHV-1, PI3V, BVDV and BRSV studies and with an improvement of some clinical signs in the BHV-1 (nasal discharge, and rectal temperature) and the PI3V studies (abnormal respiration, and depression).
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