EC Maritime Transport Policy and Regulation

When designing robust controllers, H-infinity synthesis is a common tool touse. The controllers that result from these algorithms are typically of very high order, which complicates implementation. However, if a constraint on the maximum order of the controller is set, that is lower than the order of the (augmented) system, the problem becomes nonconvex and it is relatively hard to solve. These problems become very complex, even when the order of the system is low. The approach used in this work is based on formulating the constraint onthe maximum order of the controller as a polynomial (or rational) equation.This equality constraint is added to the optimization problem of minimizingan upper bound on the H-innity norm of the closed loop system subjectto linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints. The problem is then solvedby reformulating it as a partially augmented Lagrangian problem where theequality constraint is put into the objective function, but where the LMIsare kept as constraints. The proposed method is evaluated together with two well-known methodsfrom the literature. The results indicate that the proposed method hascomparable performance in most cases, especially if the synthesized con-troller has many parameters, which is the case if the system to be controlledhas many input and output signals

Sometimes the Silence Can Be like the Thunder: Access to Pharmaceutical Data at the FDA

Those committed to the free exchange of scientific information have long complained about various restrictions on access to the FDA\u27s pharmaceutical data and the resultant restrictions on open discourse. A review of open-government procedures and litigation at the FDA demonstrates that the need for transparency at the agency extend well beyond the reach of any clinical trial registry

The Unintended Consequences of Enhancing Gun Penalties: Shooting Down the Commerce Clause and Arming Federal Prosecutors

The objective of this work is to derive an MIQP solver tailored for MPC. The MIQP solver is built on the branch and bound method, where QP relaxations of the original problem are solved in the nodes of a binary search tree. The difference between the subproblems is often small and therefore it is interesting to be able to use a previous solution as a starting point in a new subproblem. This is referred to as a warm start of the solver. Because of its good warm start properties, a dual active set QP method was chosen. The method is tailored for MPC by solving a part of the KKT system using a Riccati recursion, which makes the computational complexity of the QP iterations grow linearly with the prediction horizon. Simulation results are presented both for the QP solver itself and when it is incorporated as a part of the MIQP solver. In both cases the computational complexity is significantly reduced compared to if a primal active set solver not utilizing structure is used

Microsoft and the European Union Face Off Over Internet Privacy Concerns

Amidst what appears to be a multi-faceted attack by the European Union on Microsoft, the newest angle is the European Commission\u27s announcement last month that it was considering a formal investigation of Microsoft\u27s .Net Passport data processing system for possible violations of the European Union Data Privacy Directive. This iBrief explores the European Data Privacy Directive and seeks to explain why the European Commission believes .Net Passport may be in violation of its privacy policies and a case for further investigation

Eigenvalue estimates for the Aharonov-Bohm operator in a domain

We prove semi-classical estimates on moments of eigenvalues of the Aharonov-Bohm operator in bounded two-dimensional domains. Moreover, we present a counterexample to the generalized diamagnetic inequality which was proposed by Erdos, Loss and Vougalter. Numerical studies complement these results.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure

The Securities and Exchange Commission: Its Organization and Functions Under the Securities Act of 1933

As the semidefinite programs that result from integral quadratic contstraints are usually large it is important to implement efficient algorithms. The interior-point algorithms in this paper are primal-dual potential reduction methods and handle multiple constraints. Two approaches are made. For the first approach the computational cost is dominated by a least-squares problem that has to be solved in each iteration. The least squares problem is solved using an iterative method, namely the conjugate gradient method. The computational effort for the second approach is dominated by forming a linear system of equations. This systems of equations is used to compute the search direction in each iteration. If the number of variables are reduced by solving a smaller subproblem the resulting system has a very nice structure and can be solved efficiently. The first approach is more efficient for larger problems but is not as numerically stable

Distributed Robustness Analysis of Interconnected Uncertain Systems Using Chordal Decomposition

Large-scale interconnected uncertain systems commonly have large state and uncertainty dimensions. Aside from the heavy computational cost of solving centralized robust stability analysis techniques, privacy requirements in the network can also introduce further issues. In this paper, we utilize IQC analysis for analyzing large-scale interconnected uncertain systems and we evade these issues by describing a decomposition scheme that is based on the interconnection structure of the system. This scheme is based on the so-called chordal decomposition and does not add any conservativeness to the analysis approach. The decomposed problem can be solved using distributed computational algorithms without the need for a centralized computational unit. We further discuss the merits of the proposed analysis approach using a numerical experiment.Comment: 3 figures. Submitted to the 19th IFAC world congres

Subspace System Identification via Weighted Nuclear Norm Optimization

We present a subspace system identification method based on weighted nuclear norm approximation. The weight matrices used in the nuclear norm minimization are the same weights as used in standard subspace identification methods. We show that the inclusion of the weights improves the performance in terms of fit on validation data. As a second benefit, the weights reduce the size of the optimization problems that need to be solved. Experimental results from randomly generated examples as well as from the Daisy benchmark collection are reported. The key to an efficient implementation is the use of the alternating direction method of multipliers to solve the optimization problem.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Contro