Pressure-based Impedance Control of A Pneumatic Actuator

In this thesis, three control methods are developed for the impedance control of a linear pneumatic actuator for contact tasks using discrete valves. Linear pneumatic actuators, particularly with discrete valves, utilize compressed air to produce linear motion. It is a low cost and clean system with straightforward implementation compared to other actuators. Impedance control is applied to the pneumatic actuator to regulate not only force and position, but also the relationship between them. Specifically, the impedance control yields a desired air pressure based on the actual and desired positions, velocity, and force of a pneumatic cylinder to drive the dynamics of the actuator system. Three controllers including Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC), Sliding Mode Control (SMC), and Extended State Observer (ESO) based SMC are implemented to control the pressure output of the actuator system. The control goal is to drive the actual pressure output to the desired pressure from the impedance control module despite the presence of parameter variations and external disturbances. The performances of these controllers are compared based on their abilities of regulating position, force, and pressure in contact and non-contact situations, as well as the amount of control efforts that excite the valve to achieve these goals. Simulation results demonstrate that ADRC provides the best solution to accomplish the control goals in terms of accurate tracking of position, effectively regulating impedance in the presence of an object, and requiring the least amount of control effort necessary to excite valves

Network and Traffic Design Aspects in Network-Coding-Enabled Wireless Networks

Practical experience of using opportunistic network coding has already been gained in several real network deployments, indicating the influence of some of the fundamental characteristics of the network and the traffic load. However, these aspects have not been systematically investigated in the scope of the construction of efficient and robust large-scale network-coding-enabled wireless mesh networks. In this paper we focus on these aspects using an example of two opportunistic networkcoding procedures: the well-known COPE and the Bearing Opportunistic Network coding (BON). In addition, the design aspects for network-coding-enabled wireless mesh networks and applications are discussed. We have shown that opportunistic network coding can improve the performance of different networks and supported applications in terms of throughput, delay and jitter, although the benefits are not significant in all the cases. Thus, the use of opportunistic network coding should be considered upfront during the wireless network design phase in order to obtain the greatest benefits

Human Nail Plate Modifications Induced by Onychomycosis : Implications for Topical Therapy

Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are creditedConclusions: Onchomycotic nails presented a thicker but more porous barrier, and its eroded intracellular matrix rendered the tissue more permeable to topically applied chemicals when an aqueous vehicle was used.Purpose: Through the characterisation of the human onchomycotic nail plate this study aimed to inform the design of new topical ungual formulations.Methods: The mechanical properties of the human nail were characterised using a Lloyd tensile strength tester. The nail’s density was determined via pycnometry and the nail’s ultrastructure by electron microscopy. Raman spectroscopy analysed the keratin disulphide bonds within the nail and its permeability properties were assessed by quantifying water and rhodamine uptake.Results: Chronic in vivo nail plate infection increased human nailplate thickness (healthy 0.49 ± 0.15 mm; diseased 1.20 ± 0.67 mm), but reduced its tensile strength (healthy 63.7 ± 13.4 MPa; diseased 41.7 ± 5.0 MPa) and density (healthy 1.34 ± 0.01 g/cm3; diseased 1.29 ± 0.00 g/cm3). Onchomycosis caused cell-cell separation, without disrupting the nail disulfide bonds or desmosomes. The diseased and healthy nails showed equivalent water uptake profiles, but the rhodamine penetration was 4-fold higher in the diseased nails using a PBS vehicle and 3 -fold higher in an ethanol/PBS vehicle.Peer reviewe

A randomized open-label phase III trial evaluating the addition of denosumab to standard first-line treatment in advanced NSCLC : the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP) and European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) SPLENDOUR trial

Introduction Receptor activator of NF-kB ligand stimulates NF-kB–dependent cell signaling and acts as the primary signal for bone resorption. Retrospective analysis of a large trial comparing denosumab versus zoledronic acid in bone metastatic solid tumors suggested significant overall survival (OS) advantage for patients with lung cancer with denosumab (p = 0.01). The randomized open-label phase III SPLENDOUR trial was designed to evaluate whether the addition of denosumab to standard first-line platinum-based doublet chemotherapy improved OS in advanced NSCLC. Methods Patients with stage IV NSCLC were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either chemotherapy with or without denosumab (120 mg every 3–4 wks), stratified by the presence of bone metastases (at diagnosis), Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, histology, and region. To detect an OS increase from 9 to 11.25 months (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.80), 847 OS events were required. The trial closed prematurely owing to decreasing accrual rate. Results A total of 514 patients were randomized, with 509 receiving one or more doses of the assigned treatment (chemotherapy: 252, chemotherapy-denosumab: 257). The median age was 66.1 years, 71% were men, and 59% were former smokers. Bone metastases were identified in 275 patients (53%). Median OS (95% confidence interval [CI]) was 8.7 (7.6–11.0) months in the control arm versus 8.2 (7.5–10.4) months in the chemotherapy-denosumab arm (HR = 0.96; 95% CI: 0.78–1.19; one-sided p = 0.36). For patients with bone metastasis, HR was 1.02 (95% CI: 0.77–1.35), whereas for those without, HR was 0.90 (95% CI: 0.66–1.23). Adverse events grade 3 or greater were observed in 40.9%, 5.2%, 8.7% versus 45.5%, 10.9%, 10.5% of patients. Conditional power for OS benefit was less than or equal to 10%. Conclusions Denosumab was well-tolerated without unexpected safety concerns. There was no OS improvement for denosumab when added to chemotherapy in the intention-to-treat population and the subgroups with and without bone metastases. Our data do not provide evidence of a clinical benefit for denosumab in patients with NSCLC without bone metastases

Reaganomics: Issue Ownership and Retrospective Voting

With hard economic times, presidential administrations lose public support; with good economic times, presidential administrations gain support. My study analyzes whether voters care about the economy based on three economic factors: inflation, unemployment, and disposable income. I hypothesis that voters will use a retrospective voting method over 48 months based on party issue ownership to evaluate the economy. I will measure the impact of economic evaluation on the Democratic Percent of Vote Share. Previous studies on economic factors have analyzed retrospective voting only during the year of the election rather than over the long haul of an entire presidential term. I hypothesize that voters will retrospectively evaluate candidates over the previous four years of the previous president. I conclude that only inflation is a significant factor in determining how voters will allocate their economic vote

Mohorcic M. Dynamic composition of services for end-toend information transport[J

Abstract Increasing number of communication technologies in access and core segments of the network belonging to different providers and subject to different network design criteria are making networks complex and difficult to manage. In such networks it is also more difficult to guarantee requested level of Quality of Service (QoS). Service oriented design can be the answer to problems facing the providers of services for information transport. In this article, we propose an end-to-end service composition for information transport based on principles from Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), i.e. dynamically composing transport services with characteristics matching the requirements of a given application. SOA principles are similar to those behind the division of labor, therefore should incentivize providers to adopt them to make better use of resources and increase the revenue. As we show, some SOA concepts are similar to concepts in Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model, with the key advantages of dynamism and flexibility. We discuss Service Oriented Networks (SON) based on transport service composition across access and core segments and describe an access network selection for online gaming. In particular, we show how semantic technologies can be used for layer 2 queries and discuss the advantages of using knowledge bases versus traditional approaches