Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of Wave Energy Converter

In this report model predictive control (MPC) is applied to a simulated, spherical, point absorber wave energy converter to maximize energy extraction. Constraints are applied to the buoy\u27s displacement and the power take-off (PTO) generator force. The WEC\u27s truth” model uses nonlinear Froude-Krylov (FK) hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces. This is in contrast with previous studies where linear approximations are used in the form of a hydrostatic stiffness force and a wave excitation force. The nonlinear forces become significant when the vertical displacement of the buoy exceeds about 40% of the buoy\u27s radius. Two versions of MPC are compared where optimal PTO forces are calculated based on (1) a linear model, called LMPC, and (2) the nonlinear model, called NLMPC. For the cases considered, the energy absorbed using NLMPC is greater than for LMPC. Furthermore, the linear MPC solution, when applied to the truth model

Analysis and Performance Evaluation of IEEE 802.11 WLAN

With fast deployment of wireless local area networks VoIP over IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) is growing very fast and is providing a cost effective alternative for voice communications. WLANs were initially set up to handle bursty nonreal time type of data traffic. Therefore, the wireless access protocols initially defined are not suitable for voice traffic. Subsequently, updates in the standard have been made to provision for QoS requirements of data, especially the real time traffic of the type voice and video. Despite these updates, however, transmitting voice traffic over WLAN does not utilize the available bandwidth (BW) efficiently, and the number of simultaneous calls supported in practice is significantly lower than what the BW figures would suggest. Several modifications have been proposed to improve the call capacity, and recently isochronous coordination function (ICF) was introduced to mitigate the problem of low call capacity. The proposed modified ICF which further improves the performance in terms of the call capacity. The proposed scheme uses multiplexing and multicasting in the downlink to substantially increase the call capacity

Effects of chest physiotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in preventing post-operative complications in a patient who has undergone double barrel ileostomy: a case study

Bowel obstruction is a common complication in advanced ovarian cancer with a reported obstruction rate between 5–42%, which is treated with resection and anastomosis. Post-operative complications (PPCs) generally occur due to immobility, decreased chest expansion, reduced thoracic mobility, weakness of respiratory muscles, severe pain at the suture site, and bandaging, making it difficult for the patient to cough. Thick and sticky mucus and depressed mucociliary clearance as an effect of anesthesia, cause accumulation of secretions in the lungs and can lead to PPCs. All this leads to prolonged hospital stays for the patient and delays recovery. Hence, our study aims to study the effects of chest physiotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in preventing post-operative complications in a patient who has undergone double barrel ileostomy. A 47-year-old female presented with the chief complaint of pain in the abdomen, for 2 months, which was dull aching and did not relieve with medication. She underwent double barrel ileostomy surgery. Following surgery, a 1- week exercise program was designed for the patient, which included the combination of chest PT and cognitive behavioral therapy with pre- and post-assessment of 3 scales, HAM-A, MGS-2, and POP DST, which showed remarkable differences in the pre and post values of the patient. Our present study concluded that post-operative physiotherapy intervention of chest PT and cognitive behavioral therapy was effective in preventing post-operative complications in the patient and promoted her early discharge from the hospital.

A Review: Implementation of Advance Adaptive Traffic Light Control System Using DIP and Embedded

As we know the population of city and number of cars is increasing day by day. With increasing urban population and hence the number of cars, need of controlling streets, highways and roads is vital. In this paper, a system that estimates the size of traffic in highways by using image processing has been proposed and as a result a message is shown to inform the number of cars in highway. This project has been implemented by using the Matlab software and it aims to prevent heavy traffic in highways. Moreover, for implementing this project following steps must be considered: 1) image acquisition 2) RGB to grayscale transformation 3) image enhancement and 4) morphological operations. At first, film of highway is captured by a camera has been installed in highway. Then, the film comes in the form of consecutive frames and each frame is compared with the first frame. After that, the number of cars in highways is specified. At the end, if the number of cars is more than a threshold, a message is shown to inform the traffic status. By this message we can predict the need to reduce the size of traffic carried. Experiments show that the algorithm will work properly

Demo Alleviate: Demonstrating Artificial Intelligence Enabled Virtual Assistance for Telehealth: The Mental Health Case

After the pandemic, artificial intelligence (AI) powered support for mental health care has become increasingly important. The breadth and complexity of significant challenges required to provide adequate care involve: (a) Personalized patient understanding, (b) Safety-constrained and medically validated chatbot patient interactions, and (c) Support for continued feedback-based refinements in design using chatbot-patient interactions. We propose Alleviate, a chatbot designed to assist patients suffering from mental health challenges with personalized care and assist clinicians with understanding their patients better. Alleviate draws from an array of publicly available clinically valid mental-health texts and databases, allowing Alleviate to make medically sound and informed decisions. In addition, Alleviate\u27s modular design and explainable decision-making lends itself to robust and continued feedback-based refinements to its design. In this paper, we explain the different modules of Alleviate and submit a short video demonstrating Alleviate\u27s capabilities to help patients and clinicians understand each other better to facilitate optimal care strategies

Scale Invariant Feature Transform Based Fingerprint Corepoint Detection

The detection of singular points (core and delta) accurately and reliably is very important for classification and matching of fingerprints. This paper presents a new approach for core point detection based on scale invariant feature transform (SIFT). Firstly, SIFT points are extracted ,then reliability and ridge frequency criteria are applied to reduce the candidate points required to make a decision on the core point. Finally a suitable mask is applied to detect an accurate core point. Experiments on FVC2002 and FVC2004 databases show that our approach locates a unique reference point with high accuracy. Results of our approach are compared with those of the existing methods in terms of accuracy of core point detection.Defence Science Journal, 2013, 63(4), pp.402-407, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.63.270

A RANDOMISED SINGLE BLIND ACTIVE CONTROLLED, PARALLEL GROUP STUDY COMPARING THE EFFICACY & SAFETY OF THE KARNIM PLUS® CAPSULES IN PATIENTS WITH MILD OR MODERATE DIABETES MELLITUS TYPE. II

Diabetes is the most prevalent disease in the world affecting middle and old aged persons of the world directly impacting their life style and other metabolic hazards. Karnim plus is a remedy of Unijules Life Sciences ltd. And current multicentric, randomized, single blind, active controlled and parallel group with metformin capsule clinical study is conducted in two centres of Dr. D.Y. Patil College and Ashwin Ayurved college respectively. Total 121 patients were treated according to the previously approved protocol from institutional ethics committee for the treatment period of 24 weeks in a dose of 2 capsules BID before meal and primary efficacy parameters set to HbA1c, fasting and post meal blood sugar. From the study it was concluded that Karnim plus capsule and Metformin capsule are equally effective in controlling hyperglycemia with slightly more time to achieve significance result in Karnim plus. In case of HbA1c highly significant results were observed in Karnim plus capsule and also highly significance is observed in symptom score of clinical parameters. Cholesterol levels are significantly decreased in Karnim plus group than metformin group. This indicated that Karnim plus is effective remedy in controlling diabetes type II with no any adverse effects and controlling metabolism in a effective way than other OHA

Antibiotic resistance and phylogenetic profiling of Escherichia coli from dairy farm soils; organic versus conventional systems

The prevalence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a result of the persistent use and/or abuse of antimicrobials is a key health problem for health authorities and governments worldwide. A study of contrasting farming systems such as organic versus conventional dairy farming may help to authenticate some factors that may contribute to the prevalence and spread of AMR in their soils. A case study was conducted in organic and conventional dairy farms in the South Canterbury region of New Zealand. A total of 814 dairy farm soil E. coli (DfSEC) isolates recovered over two years were studied. Isolates were recovered from each of two farms practicing organic, and another two practicing conventional husbandries. The E. coli isolates were examined for their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) against cefoxitin, cefpodoxime, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, meropenem, nalidixic acid, and tetracycline. Phylogenetic relationships were assessed using an established multiplex PCR method. The AMR results indicated 3.7% of the DfSEC isolates were resistant to at least one of the eight selected antimicrobials. Of the resistant isolates, DfSEC from the organic dairy farms showed a lower prevalence of resistance to the antimicrobials tested, compared to their counterparts from the conventional farms. Phylogenetic analysis placed the majority (73.7%) of isolates recovered in group B1, itself dominated by isolates of bovine origin. The tendency for higher rates of resistance among strains from conventional farming may be important for future decision-making around farming practices Current husbandry practices may contribute to the prevalence and spread of AMR in the industry

Design, Synthesis, Antiviral Activity, and Pre-Formulation Development of Poly-L-Arginine-Fatty Acyl Derivatives of Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors

The objective of this work was to design conjugates of anti-HIV nucleosides conjugated with fatty acids and cell-penetrating poly-L-arginine (polyArg) peptides. Three conjugates of polyArg cell-penetrating peptides with fatty acyl derivatives of alovudine (FLT), lamivudine (3TC), and emtricitabine (FTC) were synthesized. In general, the compounds exhibited anti-HIV activity against X4 and R5 cell-free virus with EC50 values of 1.5–16.6 μM. FLT-CO-(CH2)12-CO-(Arg)7 exhibited EC50 values of 2.9 μM and 3.1 μM against X4 and R5 cell-free virus, respectively. The FLT conjugate was selected for further preformulation studies by determination of solution state degradation and lipid solubility. The compound was found to be stable in neutral and oxidative conditions and moderately stable in heated conditions. [Refer to PDF for graph