Understanding and Design of an Arduino-based PID Controller

This thesis presents research and design of a Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controller that uses a microcontroller (Arduino) platform. The research part discusses the structure of a PID algorithm with some motivating work already performed with the Arduino-based PID controller from various fields. An inexpensive Arduino-based PID controller designed in the laboratory to control the temperature, consists of hardware parts: Arduino UNO, thermoelectric cooler, and electronic components while the software portion includes C/C++ programming. The PID parameters for a particular controller are found manually. The role of different PID parameters is discussed with the subsequent comparison between different modes of PID controllers. The designed system can effectively measure the temperature with an error of ± 0.6℃ while a stable temperature control with only slight deviation from the desired value (setpoint) is achieved. The designed system and concepts learned from the control system serve in pursuing inexpensive and precise ways to control physical parameters within a desired range in our laboratory

European Union

The European Community has had a decidedly significant impact upon the legal systems of the Member States. It was established in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome, the main objectives being to develop stability throughout Europe by means of encouraging a closer union between member states. It has evolved a long way since having developed its own institutions and an autonomous legal system, with laws that bind each member state ultimately enabling it to regulate the rights and obligations of its members. It achieves this primarily through Treaties, a primary form of EC legislation that forms the basis of all other European Law. However the effect of EC treaties is unlike that of any other international agreement as the latter bind only states at an intergovernmental level and do not of themselves give rise to rights or interests which the citizens of the states can have enforced before their own national courts even if they are designed for the protection of individuals. Although the text of EC treaties does not indicate that their provisions will be any different, the ECJ has taken its own view as to the nature and effect of treaties known as the doctrine of ‘direct effect.’ This jurisprudential concept means that individuals are able to derive rights directly from community law, which can be enforced in their own national courts. It is a private species of enforcement, placing control in the hands of ordinary individuals as distinct from the public enforcement mechanism of community law as contained in Article 226 of the Treaty of Rome which enabled the Commission to bring proceedings against member states for breaches. This system was deficient in many ways as, not only was it unable to cope with the increasing work load and had insufficient remedies, it was political in nature. Direct effect, on the other hand, has allowed individuals to play a role and has potentially brought the community into the lives of every citizen. However despite its significance, it is important to put it into context of the many types of community law, not all of which entail direct effect or which can only be directly effective in certain circumstances, such as directives

A critical review of fundamental principles of Ayurveda

The fundamental principle holds a strong ground in Ayurveda. Every medical stream has its own science in which its matter is developed, evolved and explained. From creation of living to issues of health, disease and its treatment these fundamental principles are the root. These can be enumerated as Tridosha, Panchamahabhuta, Prakriti, Ojas, Dhatu, Mala, Agni, Manas, Atma etc. They are most unique and original approach to the material creation and it has all scope to incorporate the modern development in the elemental physics. The aim of Ayurveda is to maintain the proper equilibrium of dosa, dhatus, and mala constituent in order to preserve health in a healthy person and cure a disease in a diseased person.The presence of cognition as well as the absence of cognition is an indication of the mind. In the presence of senses with senses object and soul the man does not perceive a thing in the absence of mind that is to say that senses are unable to grasp the object in the absence of Manas. The term Ojas has been used in Ayurveda for the factor which prevents decay and degeneratioif the body and provides strength and support against a disease. Concept of Agni which incorporates all activities and factors responsible for digestion and metabolism in the living organism as known today, knowledge to these fundamental principles is a key to health and diseases .Maintenances of health depend on good and sound knowledge of these. Detail will be given in full paper. Keywords: Ayurveda, health, dosa, Agni, min

Ultrastructural characterization (morphological and topochemical) of wood pulp fibres

Different electron microscopy techniques including SEM (scanning electron microscopy), FE-SEM (field emission-scanning electron microscopy), TEM (transmission electron microscopy) and Immuno-gold TEM (immuno-gold transmission electron microscopy) were applied in order to gain a better understanding of the influence of the native softwood fibre cell wall ultrastructure including morphology and topochemistry (i.e. lignin and glucomannan distribution) during mechanical pulping. In thermomechanical pulp (TMP) processing, wood fibres undergo structural changes (cell wall delamination and fibrillation) that are regulated by the native fibre micro- and ultrastructure. In addition, novel information was obtained on the fibre cell wall architecture. In contrast, the stoneground wood (SGW) process inflicted severe damage to the fibre structure resulting in transverse and longitudinal fibre breakage. However, juvenile wood SGW fibres showed improved properties (strength and light scattering) compared to mature wood. Ultrastructural aspects of fibre processing and development explained the differences in physical properties observed. During the SGW process, the native morphological fibre cell wall ultrastructure and microfibrillar organization governed the manner of juvenile wood fibre development similar to TMP fibres. Ultrastructural studies on Norway spruce and Scots pine TMPs revealed fundamental features that governed the different behaviour exhibited by the two wood species. Specific ultrastructural characteristics of pine TMP fibre cell walls were explored in relation to both morphology and topochemistry and that regulating the different pine fibre development mechanisms compared to spruce. The negative behaviour shown by Scots pine during TMP processing was most likely attributable to the observed fibre development mechanism. Histochemical techniques were applied to study wood resin associated problems during mechanical and kraft pulping. Studies provided information on the spatial micro-morphological distribution/redistribution of lipophilic extractives that were visualized on single fibre and cell wall fractions. Results from histochemical staining and chemical analysis performed on Norway spruce and Scots pine TMPs showed that there were morphological and chemical differences in the redistribution of extractives between the two species. This may further contribute to the effects of extractives on pulp- and paper properties and processing. Localization of lipophilic birch wood extractives involved in pitch problems was performed using histochemical techniques. Correlated information from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and specific staining methods gave details on how extractives are removed during processing as well as information on the mechanisms of removal

Risk management and extreme scenario development using multiple regime switching approaches : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Finance at Massey University

Over the last twenty-five years, there have been an increasingly large number of extreme events in the financial markets. This includes market crashes and natural disasters that have led to extremely large losses and claims. Extreme event risk affects all aspects of risk assessment modeling and management. Traditional risk measurement methods focus on probability of laws governing average of sums, and do not focus on the tails of distribution. The investigation concerns the characterization and development of extreme markets scenarios for use in risk measurement and capital adequacy determination frameworks. The first part of the investigation concerns the development of event timelines that can be used for characterizing whether a period of time should be considered normal or extreme market conditions or regimes. The time lines have allowed the identification of the different times when the markets were calm and when the markets were turbulent. They assist in building scenarios, and also to identify the scenarios for decomposition of data to model the different regions, either the tail or the center of the distribution using the mentioned regime switching models. The information from the event time line can be used to define scenarios in a stress testing context. In this investigation, extreme value analysis, which is an extension of the standard VaR techniques, useful in measuring extreme events has been used, which fits density functions by placing more weights in the tails than the normal Gaussian distribution and model the upper and lower tail of an underlying distribution. Extreme value distribution functions including "fat tailed" will be fitted to the tails of critical market factors to model the extreme market events that are not given appropriate probability of occurrence under normal conditions. The Hill estimator, which is recognized as the consistent estimator for empirical analysis is used for calculating the tail index parameter for EVT modeling, However, it has to be noted that the Hill estimator is efficient when the underlying distribution is fat-tailed as compared to the gaussian, where the tail index estimates tend to go to infinity. The performance of Extreme value theory estimation technique with multiple regimes on real and simulated financial time series for efficient results, compared to the standard VaR techniques has been studied. In this investigation, multiple regime switching approach has been used to identify regimes and measure risk accordingly. It is assumed that the center of the returns distribution is normally distributed with 90 percent of the data in the in the center region and each tail contains 5 percent of the data. Three regime switching models have been used in this analysis which includes, the Unconditional LT-C-RT (Left tail - Center - Right Tail) transfers, the 3 State Regime Markov Transition Model and the Geometric Time in Trail Model. The regime switching models are modeled using the following procedures: 1) The Unconditional LT-C-RT (Left Tail - Center - Right Tail) model is an IID model (Independent and Identically Distributed) model and has a simple Bernoulli approach where the market is in a normal state with probability P or an abnormal state with probability 1 - p . The transition between states is independent of the last state. 2) A Markov chain approach where the next state of the market is a function of the current state. That there are the following transitions possible: 2.1) Normal to normal 2.2) Normal to abnormal 2.3) Abnormal to abnormal 2.4) Abnormal to normal 3). The Geometric Time in Tail model is a hybrid Bernoulli approach where the markets stays in a given state based on a duration model and when the duration in a given states has expired, the sampling of the next state using a independent Bernoulli approach similar to approach one. This implies that the after the market has stayed in a given regime for the sample duration time, it can stay in the current regime with probability p or leave the regime with probability 1 - p. The sample duration can be based on the exponential distribution for continuous time and the geometric distribution for discrete time such as daily movements. Tail index estimation results using EVT indicate the presence of fat tails in equity data and the results of Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) are considerably similar for the three regime switching models. The comparison of results from the multiple regime switching models to the one region distribution results, which serve as the base case prove the efficiency of using this approach for a better risk measure