Spectrum of topics for world congresses and other activities of the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM) : a first proposal

Background: One of the objectives of the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine is to improve the continuity of World Congresses. This requires the development of an abstract topic list for use in congress announcements and abstract submissions. Methods: An abstract topic list was developed on the basis of the definitions of human functioning and rehabilitation research, which define 5 main areas of research (biosciences in rehabilitation, biomedical rehabilitation sciences and engineering, clinical Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) sciences, integrative rehabilitation sciences, and human functioning sciences). For the abstract topic list, these research areas were grouped according to the proposals of congress streams. In a second step, the first version of the list was systematically compared with the topics of the 2003 ISPRM World Congress. Results: The resulting comprehensive abstract topic list contains 5 chapters according to the definition of human functioning and rehabilitation research. Due to the high significance of clinical research, clinical PRM sciences were placed at the top of the list, comprising all relevant health conditions treated in PRM services. For congress announcements a short topic list was derived. Discussion: The ISPRM topic list is sustainable and covers a full range of topics. It may be useful for congresses and elsewhere in structuring research in PRM

A new approach to applying discrete sliding mode control to 2D systems

Sliding mode control has been applied previously to a specific form of 2D systems (Roesser model). In this paper a new approach (ID vectorial form) is introduced for this problem. Using ID form to represent 2D systems can be used as an alternative strategy to reduce the inherent complexity of 2D systems and their applications. Unlike Wave Advanced Model (WAM) form (proposed by Porter and Aravena), the suggested ID vectorial form, in this paper, has invariable dimension and consequently can be converted to regular form for sliding mode control (SMC). In this paper, the first Fornasini and Marchesini (FM) model of 2D systems which is a second order recursive form is considered. Meantime, the suggested method can be simply deployed to other first or second order 2D models. ©2013 IEEE

Sliding mode stabilisation of networked systems with consecutive data packet dropouts using only accessible information

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper develops a novel stabilising sliding mode for systems involving uncertainties as well as measurement data packet dropouts. In contrast to the existing literature that designs the switching function by using unavailable system states, a novel linear sliding function is constructed by employing only the available communicated system states for the systems involving measurement packet losses. This also equips us with the possibility to build a novel switching component for discrete-time sliding mode control (DSMC) by using only available system states. Finally, using a numerical example, we evaluate the performance of the designed DSMC for networked systems

Workers' compensation for non-fatal accidents: review of Hong Kong court cases

Hong Kong is notorious for her high construction accidents rates. Although the accidents rate has dropped from 350 per 1000 workers in mid 1980 to 60 per 1000 workers in 2007, it still accounted for nearly one-fifth of all the industrial accidents in Hong Kong. Contractors were economically pressed and battered by exorbitant compensation over the years. This paper presents a comprehensive study of non-fatal accidents compensation court cases from 2004 to 2008. Although approximately one-third of the cases with injured persons aged between 47 and 56, the percentage of court cases over construction employees by age group was highest in age group 17-26. In terms of trade of workers, General laborers/causal workers stood the highest, then came electrical technicians and painters/decorators/plasterers. The highest rates of injury were falling from height and hitting by falling objects. Increasing from HK$10,997,637 in 2004, the total compensation reached the peak of HK$39,643,353 in 2006. The heaviest compensation was HK$13,800,000 among 101 cases. Most of the victims were compensated under loss of earnings and Pain Suffering and Loss of Amenities. While general labourers marked the highest number of cases, less than one-fourth of them were awarded compensation which exceeded HK$1,500,000. Four out of seven steel benders who filed court cases, however, received compensation greater than HK$1.5 million for each case. Those who were struck by objects had relatively the highest chance to be compensated with a huge sum of money.published_or_final_versio

A room temperature indirect formic acid fuel cell

Session B-1.2: Vehicle, Gas Processing/Storage, Direct-Fuel FCspublished_or_final_versionThe 218th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society (ECS Meeting 2010), Las Vegas, NV., 10-15 October 2010. In Electrochemical Society Meeting Abstracts, 2010, abstract 67

Performance of turbo codes with fading compensation in multipath channels

This paper studies the performance of turbo-coded system in the frequency non-selective correlated Rayleigh fading channels. The turbo-coded system employs a pilot-symbol-aided (PSA) technique for fading compensation and interleaving for spreading the error bursts to reduce the error rate. The PSA technique is also used to provide the decoder with channel side information (CSI) for better performance in fading channel. Two PSA techniques, three normalized Doppler spreads and different interleaving sizes have been investigated. Results of computer simulations have shown that, an improved first-order fading prediction technique can improve the BER performance by a factor of about 62, relative to those obtained using the pilot symbols only. Results have also shown that an interleaving depth equal to one-quarter the reciprocal of normalized Doppler spread can achieve a good BER performance.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE 49th Vehicular Technology Conference (IEEE-VTS 1999), Houston, TX., 16-20 May 1999. In IEEE-VTS Vehicular Technology Conference Proceedings, 1999, v. 3, p. 2413-241

A new LMI-based robust Sliding Mode Control for the uncertain discrete-time systems

© 2014 IEEE. In this paper, a new approach for designing a robust Discrete-time Sliding Mode Control (DSMC) is proposed for the uncertain discrete-time systems. To this end, an LMI approach is used to develop a new framework to design the linear sliding functions which are linear to the state. The LMI approach proposed in this paper is designed to deal with uncertain systems (matched and unmatched). It is wellknown that the finite sampling rate for the discrete-time systems leads to this fact that state move within a bound around the predetermined sliding surface referred to as quasi-sliding mode band. In this paper, this matter will be discussed in a new point of view and an innovative method will be used to obtain the ultimate bound on the system state

Inhibition of the unique repolarisation K+ channel current IKur by verapamil in human atrial myocytes

Abstract no. CVS-03published_or_final_versio

Water extract of Rheum officinale Baill. induces apoptosis in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 and human breast cancer MCF-7 cell lines

Author name used in this publication: De-Jian GuoAuthor name used in this publication: Peter Hoi-Fu Yu2009-2010 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Nanofibers Fabricated Using Triaxial Electrospinning as Zero Order Drug Delivery Systems

A new strategy for creating functional trilayer nanofibers through triaxial electrospinning is demonstrated. Ethyl cellulose (EC) was used as the filament-forming matrix in the outer, middle, and inner working solutions and was combined with varied contents of the model active ingredient ketoprofen (KET) in the three fluids. Triaxial electrospinning was successfully carried out to generate medicated nanofibers. The resultant nanofibers had diameters of 0.74 ± 0.06 μm, linear morphologies, smooth surfaces, and clear trilayer nanostructures. The KET concentration in each layer gradually increased from the outer to the inner layer. In vitro dissolution tests demonstrated that the nanofibers could provide linear release of KET over 20 h. The protocol reported in this study thus provides a facile approach to creating functional nanofibers with sophisticated structural features