Vibrations and Intelligent Tracking Control of Single Link Flexible Manipulator

Residual vibrations and oscillations at the Endpoint due to flexible body motions are big challenges in control of single link flexible manipulators. This makes payloads positioning very difficult and hence less efficient and low productivity. In this paper, a hybrid intelligent control of single link flexible manipulator is proposed. Output-based filter (OBF) was designed using the signal output of the system to suppress the tip deflections and it was incorporated with both linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller and fuzzy logic controller for set point tracking control of the system. Based on the Simulation results, it was observed that, a good tracking and significant tip deflections reduction was achieved. This was measured using the time response analysis. OBF-LQR performed better and more compatible then OBF-fuzzy

Control of particulate matter (PM) emissions from industrial plant using ANFIS based controller

In recent times, the negative effect of air pollution such as particulate matter (PM) emitted from industrial plants has compelled researchers in finding efficient control system to control such pollutants in order to keep the environment safe. The aim of this study is to develop a reliable method of controlling the emissions of PM using wet scrubber system as a control device. The process of a wet scrubber is nonlinear in nature. Due to difficulty in selecting optimum scrubbing liquid droplet size in wet scrubbing process, the system becomes complex. Thus, Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) based control technique is employed in this paper to handle the nonlinearities. ANFIS control technique has the advantage to integrate fuzzy logic systems and learning ability of neural network, thus able to handle nonlinear systems better. The controller is developed using data of PM emission from cement kiln. The system is simulated using triangular and trapezoidal membership function (MF) with 2 and 3 input MF in each case. The performance of the controller is evaluated based on settling time. The results indicated that the developed controller was able to maintain the PM emission below a set point of 20µg/m3 which is the maximum allowable PM emission limit recommended by world health organization (WHO). The controller with 2 input triangular membership functions indicated a better performance with a settling time of 5.2 seconds

Understanding rural women's preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria: a discrete choice experiment

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of mobile phones to provide primary health care services and maintain continuity of care. This study aims to understand rural women’s preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria.Methods A discrete choice experiment was conducted alongside an action research project that empowered primary health care workers to develop and implement a telephone call intervention to assess and enhance experiences with facility childbirth care. Between January and March 2022, 30 providers from 10 primary health care facilities implemented the choice experiment among rural women who had institutional childbirth to elicit service user preferences for telephone call engagement. The women were asked to express their preferred scenario for telephone call engagement with their primary health care providers. Generalised linear mixed models were used to estimate women’s preferences.Results Data for 460 women were available for the discrete choice experiment. The study showed that rural women have preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers. Specifically, women preferred engaging with female to male callers (β=1.665 (95% CI 1.41, 1.93), SE=0.13, p<0.001), preferred call duration under 15 min (β=1.287 (95% CI 0.61, 1.96), SE=0.34, p<0.001) and preferred being notified before the telephone engagement (warm calling) (β=1.828 (95% CI 1.10, 2.56), SE=0.37, p<0.001). Phone credit incentive was also a statistically significant predictor of women’s preferences for engagement. However, neither the availability of scheduling options, the period of the day or the day of the week predicts women’s preferences.Conclusions The study highlights the importance of understanding rural women’s preferences for telephone call engagement with healthcare providers in low-income and middle-income countries. These findings can inform the development of mobile phone-based interventions and improve acceptability and broader adoption

The Response of Nigerian Government to COVID-19: Patient Management and Diagnosis – A Mini-Review

A series of pneumonia cases of unknown cause has emerged in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019 with clinical manifestation highly related to pneumonia. Analysis of the respiratory tract sample of the infected patients by deep sequencing revealed a coronavirus named 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which is relatively considered as a deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronaviruses are positive RNA viruses, non-segmented assigned to the family of Coronaviridae, and the order Nidovirales. They are widely distributed in humans and other mammals. Although coronavirus infection is mild, beta coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV-2, and SARS-CoV) epidemic and pandemic have claimed the lives of people all over the world in the past two decades and presently. There is a scarcity of information on COVID-19 in Nigeria, there are less published information on how physicians are managing COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis, and its success and challenge. This research reviewed the current COVID-19 diagnostic techniques used in Nigeria, drugs used in patient management, and general management adopted by physicians. RT-qPCR is the standard diagnostic technique recommended by NCDC, while patient management is basically using a drug such as Lopinavirritonavir and vitamins. However serological tests can be used for supportive information. Hence, PCR-based diagnostic technique is adopted in Nigeria to test for COVID-19, but information about the challenge and success of using PCR in COVID-19 diagnosis is not available which is a new area of research