A novel therapeutic approach to refractory acute antibody‐mediated rejection (AMR) in kidney transplant recipients was applied in 23 patients based on administration of Bortezomib, intravenous ...corticosteroids, plasmapheresis and Rituximab. Application of Bortezomib regimen led to diminishing of donor‐specific antibodies (DSA) to HLA‐B (P = 0.004) and HLA‐DR (P = 0.0005), but not to HLA‐A (P = 0.106) and HLA‐DQ antigens (P = 0.18). Patients with good clinical response to treatment had significantly better allograft survival than recipients with continuing deterioration of graft function (P = 0.019). Graft survival after therapy of refractory AMR was significantly worse than survival after first transplantation and was comparable with outcomes after retransplantation. In conclusion, therapy with Bortezomib was well tolerated and effective in decreasing the levels of HLA‐B and ‐DR antibodies, however, was not successful in depleting HLA‐A and ‐DQ DSA.
This paper presents an adaptive-predictive vibration control system using extended Kalman filtering for the joint estimation of system states and model parameters. A fixed-free cantilever beam ...equipped with piezoceramic actuators serves as a test platform to validate the proposed control strategy. Deflection readings taken at the end of the beam have been used to reconstruct the position and velocity information for a second-order state-space model. In addition to the states, the dynamic system has been augmented by the unknown model parameters: stiffness, damping constant, and a voltage/force conversion constant, characterizing the actuating effect of the piezoceramic transducers. The states and parameters of this augmented system have been estimated in real time, using the hybrid extended Kalman filter. The estimated model parameters have been applied to define the continuous state-space model of the vibrating system, which in turn is discretized for the predictive controller. The model predictive control algorithm generates state predictions and dual-mode quadratic cost prediction matrices based on the updated discrete state-space models. The resulting cost function is then minimized using quadratic programming to find the sequence of optimal but constrained control inputs. The proposed active vibration control system is implemented and evaluated experimentally to investigate the viability of the control method.
A systematic design method for mass flow estimation with correction for model bias is proposed. Based on an augmented observable Mean Value Engine Model (MVEM) of a turbocharged Diesel engine, the ...online estimation of states with additional biases is performed to compute the mass flows for different places. A correction method is applied, that utilizes estimated biases which are in a least-square sense redistributed between the correction terms to the uncertain mass flow maps and then added to the estimated mass flows. An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is tested off-line on production car engine data where the combination of an intake manifold pressure sensor, exhaust manifold pressure sensor and turbocharger speed sensor is compared and discussed in different sensor fusions. It is shown that the correction method improves the uncorrected estimated air mass flow which is validated against the airflow data measured in the intake duct.
In this work, the influence of material models used in the FE simulation on the springback prediction of various steels is investigated. The aim of this work is to extend the knowledge base regarding ...springback prediction of steels used in car production. The springback effect after V-bending operation was studied on TRIP, HSLA and EDDQ steels. The bending angle was set to 90°. In the numerical simulation, Hill48 and Barlat yield criteria were used in combination with Ludwik's and Swift's hardening models. Achieved data from the numerical simulations were compared and evaluated with experimental test results. The experimental results showed the relation between springback and mechanical properties, mainly the yield strength. Higher values of yield strength have negative impact on the final angle of the bent part, thus increasing springback of the part. The numerical results of the springback were not identical with the experimentally achieved springback values in most cases. Particularly, when Swift yield criterion was used in the simulation.
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