Maximum Hands-Off Control: A Paradigm of Control Effort Minimization

In this paper, we propose a new paradigm of control, called a maximum hands-off control. A hands-off control is defined as a control that has a short support per unit time. The maximum hands-off control is the minimum support (or sparsest) per unit time among all controls that achieve control objectives. For finite horizon control, we show the equivalence between the maximum hands-off control and L1-optimal control under a uniqueness assumption called normality. This result rationalizes the use of L1 optimality in computing a maximum hands-off control. We also propose an L1/L2-optimal control to obtain a smooth hands-off control. Furthermore, we give a self-triggered feedback control algorithm for linear time-invariant systems, which achieves a given sparsity rate and practical stability in the case of plant disturbances. An example is included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2015 (to appear

Endothelium-dependent relaxation of rat aorta to a histamine H3 agonist is reduced by inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase, guanylate cyclase and Na+,K+-ATPase

The possible involvement of different effector systems (nitric oxide synthase, guanylate cyclase, β-adrenergic and muscarinic cholinergic receptors, cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase, and Na+,K+-ATPase) was evaluated in a histamine H3 receptor agonist-induced ((R)α-methylhistamine, (R)α-MeHA) endothelium-dependent rat aorta relaxation assay. (R)α-MeHA (0.1 nM – 0.01 mM) relaxed endothelium-dependent rat aorta, with a pD2 value of 8.22 ± 0.06, compared with a pD2 value of 7.98 ± 0.02 caused by histamine (50% and 70% relaxation, respectively). The effect of (R)α-MeHA (0.1 nM – 0.01 mM) was competitively antagonized by thioperamide (1, 10 and 30 nM) (pA2 = 9.21 ± 0.40; slope = 1.03 ± 0.35) but it was unaffected by pyrilamine (100 nM), cimetidine (1 μM), atropine (10 μM), propranolol (1 μM), indomethacin (10 μM) or nordthydroguaiaretic acid (0.1 mM). Inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase, L-NG-monomethylarginine (L-NMMA, 10 μM) and NG-nitro-L-arginine methylester (L-NOARG, 10 μM) inhibited the relaxation effect of (R)α-MeHA, by approximately 52% and 70%, respectively). This inhibitory effect of L-NMMA was partially reversed by L-arginine (10 μM). Methylene blue (10 μM) and ouabain (10 μM) inhibited relaxation (R)α-MeHA-induced by approximately 50% and 90%, respectively. The products of cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase are not involved in (R)α-MeHA-induced endothelium-dependent rat aorta relaxation nor are the muscarinic cholinergic and β-adrenergic receptors. The results also suggest the involvement of NO synthase, guanylate cyclase and Na+,K+-ATPase in (R)α-MeHA-induced endothelium-dependent rat aorta relaxation

Influence of Phytoestrogens on Skeletal Muscle Structure

Constant increase of meat quantity along with ensuring its high quality are nowadays being the priority requirements of the market towards modern meat production. With selection and animal nutrition as the basic mechanisms regulating the quantity and quality of meat, in recent years more attention has been devoted to investigations of the effects of different chemical compounds on muscle tissue, while monitoring their potential negative effects on both animals and humans as the end consumers. A group of compounds that is being increasingly studied in the last years are phytoestrogens – substances of plant origin with chemical structure very similar to estrogen, capable of causing either estrogenic or anti-estrogenic reactions in the organism. The most studied phytoestrogens are daidzein and genistein, and due to their ability to mimic estrogen in the body, they are thought to be able of influencing growth and carcass composition in farm animals. This paper gives an overview of the newer results on the effects of phytoestrogens genistein and daidzein on skeletal muscle tissue in farm animals

Band-stop filter with suppression of requested number of spurious stopbands

Design method for band-stop filters (BSFs) that suppress a requested number of spurious bandstops and reduce ripples in the passbands below similar to 1 dB is proposed. BSF is designed in a form of a cascade of cells, each consisting of steps of equal electrical length, where the number of steps is used to control the number of suppressed spurious bandstops. Analytical formulas are developed that enable initial design of BSF for a given central frequency, depth, and bandwidth of the stopband. Varying the minimum characteristic impedances of initial cells, through an optimization using circuit simulation, the ripples in passbands are reduced below similar to 1 dB. Using the proposed theory, three filters in microstrip technology, with suppression of 3, 5, and 7 spurious stopbands respectively, were designed, fabricated, and measured. Good agreement between simulated and measured results has been observed. The proposed design can be recommended for filters having broad stop bandwidths, between 40 and 100%

The galvanostatic reduction on modified platinum electrode and determination of trinitrotoluene in neutral solution

The study of the electrochemical reduction on acetonitrile modified platinum electrode and determination of trinitrotoluene (TNT) in neutral solution by simple galvanostatic technique is presented here. The obtained potential-time responses on the applied constant cathodic current pulses showed two potential transitions before achieving the steady-states, referring to the multi-step reduction process of nitro groups in TNT molecule. The calibration curves of the dependence of the square root of the first transition time (τ 0.5) on the TNT concentration were linear in the ranges 4.4 – 303.8 μM and 0.09 – 4.40 μM for applied constant current of 0.1 mA. The detection limit was 0.09 μM. The method was tested in the river water. The results indicated the sensitivity of the galvanostatic method for TNT determination in the environmental samples. From the first transition on the E-t curves the characteristics important for the understanding the mechanism of the reduction process were obtained. It was found that four electrons are involved in the reduction process of the first nitro group, indicating that the reduction product in a neutral electrolyte is hydroxylamine.\ud Keywords

Machine Learning-based Framework for Optimally Solving the Analytical Inverse Kinematics for Redundant Manipulators

Solving the analytical inverse kinematics (IK) of redundant manipulators in real time is a difficult problem in robotics since its solution for a given target pose is not unique. Moreover, choosing the optimal IK solution with respect to application-specific demands helps to improve the robustness and to increase the success rate when driving the manipulator from its current configuration towards a desired pose. This is necessary, especially in high-dynamic tasks like catching objects in mid-flights. To compute a suitable target configuration in the joint space for a given target pose in the trajectory planning context, various factors such as travel time or manipulability must be considered. However, these factors increase the complexity of the overall problem which impedes real-time implementation. In this paper, a real-time framework to compute the analytical inverse kinematics of a redundant robot is presented. To this end, the analytical IK of the redundant manipulator is parameterized by so-called redundancy parameters, which are combined with a target pose to yield a unique IK solution. Most existing works in the literature either try to approximate the direct mapping from the desired pose of the manipulator to the solution of the IK or cluster the entire workspace to find IK solutions. In contrast, the proposed framework directly learns these redundancy parameters by using a neural network (NN) that provides the optimal IK solution with respect to the manipulability and the closeness to the current robot configuration. Monte Carlo simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed approach which is accurate and real-time capable ($\approx$ \SI{32}{\micro\second}) on the KUKA LBR iiwa 14 R820

Retrospective-Cost Adaptive Control of Uncertain Hammerstein-Wiener Systems with Memoryless and Hysteretic Nonlinearities

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97108/1/AIAA2012-4449.pd

Time-dependent reduction of structural complexity of the buccal epithelial cell nuclei after treatment with silver nanoparticles

Recent studies have suggested that silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) may affect cell DNA structure in in vitro conditions. In this paper, we present the results indicating that AgNPs change nuclear complexity properties in isolated human epithelial buccal cells in a time-dependent manner. Epithelial buccal cells were plated in special tissue culture chamber / slides and were kept at 37°C in an RPMI 1640 cell culture medium supplemented with L-glutamine. The cells were treated with colloidal silver nanoparticles suspended in RPMI 1640 medium at the concentration 15 mg L−1. Digital micrographs of the cell nuclei in a sample of 30 cells were created at five different time steps: before the treatment (controls), immediately after the treatment, as well as 15 , 30 and 60 min after the treatment with AgNPs. For each nuclear structure, values of fractal dimension, lacunarity, circularity, as well as parameters of grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) texture, were determined. The results indicate time-dependent reduction of structural complexity in the cell nuclei after the contact with AgNPs. These findings further suggest that AgNPs, at concentrations present in today's over-the-counter drug products, might have significant effects on the cell genetic material