An Extension of Estimation of Domain of Attraction for Fractional Order Linear System Subject to Saturation Control

This paper employs the Lyapunov direct method for the stability analysis of fractional order linear systems subject to input saturation. A new stability condition based on saturation function is adopted for estimating the domain of attraction via ellipsoid approach. To further improve this estimation, the auxiliary feedback is also supported by the concept of stability region. The advantages of the proposed method are twofold: (1) it is straightforward to handle the problem both in analysis and design because of using Lyapunov method, (2) the estimation leads to less conservative results. A numerical example illustrates the feasibility of the proposed method

Wisdom of the Crowd within Enterprises: Practices and Challenges

The Wisdom of the Crowd advocates that decisions collectively made by a diverse crowd could be better than those made by an elite group of experts. The Wisdom of the Crowd puts preconditions on this to work correctly. This concerns the di- versity of the crowd, their independence from each other, their decentralisation, and the methods of aggregating their distributed knowledge and forming collec- tive decisions. Although the concept is inspiring, its interpretation and conduct differ significantly amongst enterprises, especially with regard to the culture and style of management. In addition, we still lack reflections on how the Wisdom of the Crowd worked in the practice of modern enterprises. To address this lack of knowledge, this paper conducts an empirical study following a mixed method approach involving 35 senior managers coming from 33 different industries in the UK. In the first phase we interview eight managers and, in the second, we con- firm and enhance the results by a survey consisting of open-ended questions and involving 27 other managers. The results shed light on the current practice of the Wisdom of the Crowd in several UK enterprises, which can inform the analysis and design of future software tools meant to aid this emerging decision-making mechanism

A study on a sulfur spring (Ain Al Kibrit) ecosystem along Tigris River Mosul, Iraq

Ain Al Kibrit sulfur spring along Tigris River in contrast with two other stations, before and after the input to the Tigris River were studied. Some chemical, physical parameters (water temperature, pH, EC, alkalinity, total hardness, and sulfate) and total number of phytoplankton were studied during 2003-2004. Samples were taken from the spring, inlet, and outlet along the Tigris River. The results show 5-20 fold differences between stations in almost all parameters, whereas, thermostatic conditions were confirmed in Ain Al Kibrit (24±1). In contrast, the total number of phytoplankton when observed to be fifty folds less in Ain Al Kibrit. This study may be regarded as a first attempt to deal with such factors in this area

U–Pb zircon geochronology, petrochemical and Sr–Nd isotopic characteristic of Late Neoproterozoic granitoids of the Bornaward complex (Bardaskan-NE Iran)

The Bornaward granitoids in the Taknar zone are located in the northeast of the central Iranian block in northeast Iran (Khorasan Razavi province), about 280 km southwest of Mashhad city and 28 km northwest of Bardaskan city. Taknar zone is an exotic block, bordered by two major faults, the Great Kavir fault in the south and Rivash fault in the north. Intrusive rocks of the study area, called the Bornaward granitoid complex (BGC), include of granite, alkali granite, syenogranite, leucogranite, granophyre, monzogranite, granodiorite, tonalite, diorite and gabbro intruded into the center of Taknar zone. These intrusive rocks affected low grade metamorphism. The results of U-Pb zircon dating on two granite samples, one belonging to the Taknar mine west of the study area and the other the Bornaward granitoids in the eastern part of study area, and also one granodiorite the Taknar mine area and one diorite the Bornaward area, yield ages of the granites as 540.5±2.9 Ma (Taknar mine area) and 550.41 3.21,-4.54 Ma (Bornaward area), the granodiorite as 550±6.9 Ma and diorite as 551.96±4.32 Ma, all Late Neoproterozoic. The Bornaward intrusive bodies are classified as belonging to the ilmenite-series of reduced granitoids. Some small high magnetite-granite and tonalite outcrops in the study area are classified as belonging to the magnetite-series of oxidized granitoids. Chemically, most granitoids of the study area are S-type middle-high metaluminous to slightlymiddle peraluminous and belong to tholeiite, calc-alkaline to high-K calc-alkaline rock series with enrichments in LIL (Cs, Rb and Ba, U, K, Zr, Y, Th) elements and depletion in HIL (Sr and Nb, Ta, Ti) elements. Chondrite-normalized Rare Earth Elements (REEs) plots indicate minor enrichments of LREEs in comparison with HREEs, with (La/Yb)N between 1.04 -7.90 and total of REEs of the samples between 44.8 ppm (minimum) and 293.5 ppm (maximum) with strong negative anomaly of Eu compared to other Rare Earth elements. The Bornaward granitoid have an initial 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd ranging 0.703514 to 0.716888 and 0.511585 to 0.512061, respectively, when recalculated to an age of 550 to 538 Ma, consistent with the new radiometric age results. Initial εNd isotope values for granite, granodiorite and diorite range -6.73 to 2.52. TDM age of the BGC is 1.08-1.70 Ga. This indicates that the Bornaward granitoid complex (BGC) derived partial melting of distinct basement source regions with very high initial 87Sr/86Sr and underwent extensive crustal contamination

Conceptualising Gamification Risks to Teamwork within Enterprise

Gamification in businesses refers to the use of technology-assisted solutions to boost or change staff attitude, perception and behaviour, in relation to certain business goals and tasks, individually or collectively. Previous research indicated that gamification techniques can introduce risks to the business environment, and not only fail to make a positive change, but also raise concerns in relation to ethics, quality of work, and well-being at a workplace. Although the problem is already recognised in principle, there is still a need to clarify and concretise those risks, their factors and their relation to the gamification dynamics and mechanics. To address this, we conducted multi-staged empirical research, including two months’ observation and interview study, in two large-scale businesses using gamification in their workplace. In this paper, we focus on gamification risks related to teamwork within the enterprise. We outline various risk mitigation strategies and map them to primary types of gamification risks. By accomplishing such conceptualisation, we pave the way towards methods to model, detect and predict gamification risks on teamwork and recommend and design practices and strategies to tackle them

Engineering Digital Motivation in Businesses: A Modelling and Analysis Framework

Digital Motivation refers to the use of software-based solutions to change, enhance, or maintain people’s attitude and behaviour towards specific tasks, policies, and regulations. Gamification, persuasive technology and entertainment computing are example strands of such a paradigm. Digital Motivation has unique properties which necessitate careful consideration of its analysis design methods. This stems from the strong human factor involvement, and if it is not implemented effectively, it can result in Digital Motivation being perceived negatively or leading to reduced motivation. The emerging literature on the topic includes approaches for creating Digital Motivation solutions. However, their primary focus is on specifying its operation, for example, the design of feedback, rewards and levels. In this paper, we propose a novel modelling language which enables capturing Digital Motivation as an integral part of the organisational and social structure of a business, captured via Goal Models. We also demonstrate how modelling of motivational techniques at this level, the goal level, enables a more powerful analysis that informs the introduction, design and management of Digital Motivation. Finally, we evaluate the language and its analysis using different perspectives and quality measures and report the results

A new approach to calculate the gluon polarization

We derive the Leading-Order master equation to extract the polarized gluon distribution G(x;Q^2) = x \deltag(x;Q^2) from polarized proton structure function, g1p(x;Q^2). By using a Laplace-transform technique, we solve the master equation and derive the polarized gluon distribution inside the proton. The test of accuracy which are based on our calculations with two different methods confirms that we achieve to the correct solution for the polarized gluon distribution. We show that accurate experimental knowledge of g1p(x;Q^2) in a region of Bjorken x and Q^2, is all that is needed to determine the polarized gluon distribution in that region. Therefore, to determine the gluon polarization \deltag /g,we only need to have accurate experimental data on un-polarized and polarized structure functions (F2p (x;Q^2) and g1p(x;Q^2)).Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome: Chest X-ray or lung ultrasound? A systematic review

Background and aim: Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS) is a leading cause of morbidity in preterm new-born babies (< 37 weeks gestation age [GA]). The current diagnostic reference standard includes clinical testing and chest radiography (CXR) with associated exposure to ionising radiation. The aim of this review was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of lung ultrasound (LUS) against the reference standard in symptomatic neonates of ≤ 42 weeks GA. Methods: A systematic search of literature published between 1990 and 2016 identified 803 potentially relevant studies. Six studies met the review inclusion criteria and were retrieved for analysis. Quality assessment was performed before data extraction and meta-analysis. Results: Four prospective cohort studies and two case control studies included 480 neonates. All studies were of moderate methodological quality although heterogeneity was evident across the studies. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of LUS were 97% (95% confidence interval [CI] 94%-99%) and 91% (CI: 86%-95%) respectively. False positive diagnoses were made in sixteen cases due to pneumonia (n=8), transient tachypnoea (n=3), pneumothorax (n=1) and meconium aspiration syndrome (n=1); the diagnoses of the remaining three false positive results were not specified. False negatives diagnoses occurred in nine cases, only two were specified as air-leak syndromes. Conclusions: LUS was highly sensitive for the detection of NRDS although there is potential to miss co-morbid air-leak syndromes (ALS). Further research into LUS diagnostic accuracy for neonatal ALS and economic modelling for service integration is required before LUS can replace CXR as the imaging component of the reference standard

Stringency of COVID-19 containment response policies and air quality changes: a global analysis across 1851 cities

The COVID-19 containment response policies (CRPs) had a major impact on air quality (AQ). These CRPs have been time-varying and location-specific. So far, despite having numerous studies on the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on AQ, a knowledge gap remains on the association between stringency of CRPs and AQ changes across the world, regions, nations, and cities. Here, we show that globally across 1851 cities (each more than 300000 people) in 149 countries, after controlling for the impacts of relevant covariates (e.g., meteorology), Sentinel-5P satellite-observed nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels decreased by 4.9% (95% CI: 2.2, 7.6%) during lockdowns following stringent CRPs compared to pre-CRPs. The NO2 levels did not change significantly during moderate CRPs and even increased during mild CRPs by 2.3% (95% CI: 0.7, 4.0%), which was 6.8% (95% CI: 2.0, 12.0%) across Europe and Central Asia, possibly due to population avoidance of public transportation in favor of private transportation. Among 1768 cities implementing stringent CRPs, we observed the most NO2 reduction in more populated and polluted cities. Our results demonstrate that AQ improved when and where stringent COVID-19 CRPs were implemented, changed less under moderate CRPs, and even deteriorated under mild CRPs. These changes were location-, region-, and CRP-specific