Event-triggered communication and H∞ control co-design for networked control systems

This paper studies an event-triggered communication scheme and an H1 control co-design method for networked control systems (NCSs) with communication delay and packet loss. First, an event-triggered communication scheme and a sampledstate-error dependent model for NCSs are presented. In this scheme and model, (a) the sensor takes samples in a periodic manner; (b) a triggering condition is applied to sampled signal to determine whether a signal is transmitted to the controller or not; and (c) the closed-loop system with a networked state feedback controller is modeled as a time-delay system. Secondly, by constructing a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, three theorems for the system asymptotical stability subject to imperfect communications are derived. Thirdly, a new algorithm is developed for the triggering condition and the controller feedback gain to meet the specified performance. This design algorithm is base on the two permissible limits on the signal transfer. These limits are: the maximum allowable communication delay bound and the maximum allowable number of successive packet losses, respectively. Finally, the proposed co-design method is demonstrated by two numerical examples

Recrystallized parylene as a mask for silicon chemical etching

This paper presents the first use of recrystallized parylene as masking material for silicon chemical etch. Recrystallized parylene was obtained by melting parylene C at 350°C for 2 hours. The masking ability of recrystallized parylene was tested in HNA (hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid and acetic acid) solution of various ratios, KOH (potassium hydroxide) solution and TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide) at different temperatures and concentrations. It is found that interface between parylene and the substrate can be attacked, which results in undercuts. Otherwise, recrystallized parylene exhibited good adhesion to silicon, complete protection of unexposed silicon and silicon etching rates comparable to literature data

Generalization Error Analysis of Neural networks with Gradient Based Regularization

We study gradient-based regularization methods for neural networks. We mainly focus on two regularization methods: the total variation and the Tikhonov regularization. Applying these methods is equivalent to using neural networks to solve some partial differential equations, mostly in high dimensions in practical applications. In this work, we introduce a general framework to analyze the generalization error of regularized networks. The error estimate relies on two assumptions on the approximation error and the quadrature error. Moreover, we conduct some experiments on the image classification tasks to show that gradient-based methods can significantly improve the generalization ability and adversarial robustness of neural networks. A graphical extension of the gradient-based methods are also considered in the experiments

Q-enhanced fold-and-bond MEMS inductors

This work presents a novel coil fabrication technology to enhance quality factor (Q factor) of microfabricated inductors for implanted medical wireless sensing and data/power transfer applications. Using parylene as a flexible thin-film device substrate, a post-microfabrication substrate folding-and-bonding method is developed to effectively increase the metal thickness of the surface-micromachined inductors, resulting in their lower self-resistance so their higher quality factor. One-fold-and-bond coils are successfully demonstrated as an example to verify the feasibility of the fabrication technology with measurement results in good agreements with device simulation. Depending on target specifications, multiple substrate folding-and-bonding can be extensively implemented to facilitate further improved electrical characteristics of the coils from single fabrication batch. Such Q-enhanced inductors can be broadly utilized with great potentials in flexible integrated wireless devices/systems for intraocular prostheses and other biomedical implants

Nondestructive Measurement Material Characterization of Thermal Sprayed Nickel Aluminum Coatings by using Laser Ultrasound Technique

AbstractThis research focused on characterization of mechanical properties in Nickel-Aluminum coating with different thermal technique and processing parameters at high temperature environment up to 295°C. With the laser ultrasound technique (LUT), guided acoustic waves are generated to propagate on the Ni-Al sprayed coatings. By measuring dispersive phase velocity followed by SCE-UA inversion algorithm. The Young's modulus of coatings which fabricated by HVOF technique is higher than APS technique. This technique is potentially useful to probe the material characterization at high temperature environment in a remote and non-destructive way

Biomolecular Events in Cancer Revealed by Attractor Metagenes

Mining gene expression profiles has proven valuable for identifying signatures serving as surrogates of cancer phenotypes. However, the similarities of such signatures across different cancer types have not been strong enough to conclude that they represent a universal biological mechanism shared among multiple cancer types. Here we present a computational method for generating signatures using an iterative process that converges to one of several precise attractors defining signatures representing biomolecular events, such as cell transdifferentiation or the presence of an amplicon. By analyzing rich gene expression datasets from different cancer types, we identified several such biomolecular events, some of which are universally present in all tested cancer types in nearly identical form. Although the method is unsupervised, we show that it often leads to attractors with strong phenotypic associations. We present several such multi-cancer attractors, focusing on three that are prominent and sharply defined in all cases: a mesenchymal transition attractor strongly associated with tumor stage, a mitotic chromosomal instability attractor strongly associated with tumor grade, and a lymphocyte-specific attractor