Stabilizing Stochastic Predictive Control under Bernoulli Dropouts

This article presents tractable and recursively feasible optimization-based controllers for stochastic linear systems with bounded controls. The stochastic noise in the plant is assumed to be additive, zero mean and fourth moment bounded, and the control values transmitted over an erasure channel. Three different transmission protocols are proposed having different requirements on the storage and computational facilities available at the actuator. We optimize a suitable stochastic cost function accounting for the effects of both the stochastic noise and the packet dropouts over affine saturated disturbance feedback policies. The proposed controllers ensure mean square boundedness of the states in closed-loop for all positive values of control bounds and any non-zero probability of successful transmission over a noisy control channel

DESIGN, SYNTHESIS AND ANTIFUNGAL EVALUATION OF NOVEL SUBSTITUTED 1, 3, 4-OXADIAZOLES, AND 1, 3, 4-THIADIAZOLES

Objective: The purpose of this research is to evaluate the antifungal activity of synthesized conjugates of thiophene with 1, 3, 4-oxadiazoles and 1, 3, 4-thiadiazoles using in vitro methods.Methods: The series of (IVa-e) and (Va-e) compounds were synthesized from thiosemicarbazide (IIIa-e) series by treating with iodine-sodium hydroxide mixture and by phosphoric acid cyclization respectively. Thiosemicarbazides (IIIa-e) were prepared by the reaction of 2–amino-4, 5, 6, 7-tetrahydro-benzo[b]thiophene-3-carbohydrazide (II) with substituted isothiocyanates. Carbohydrazide (II) was synthesized by the reaction of hydrazine hydrate with ethyl 2–amino-4, 5, 6, 7-tetrahydrobenzeno[b]thiophene-3-carboxylate (I), which was prepared by one pot synthesis method. Finally, the synthesized compound series was characterized by physicochemical and spectral data (IR, NMR and Mass) and evaluated for in vitro antifungal activity against Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger using disc diffusion method. The percentage inhibition was calculated with reference to the standard drug.Results: The structures of the synthesized conjugates of thiophene with 1, 3, 4-oxadiazoles and 1, 3, 4–thiadiazoles were confirmed by IR, NMR, and Mass spectroscopic techniques. The results of bioassay were indicated that some synthesized compounds IVd, IVe, Vd, and Ve exhibited moderate antifungal activities against Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger; whereas compounds IVb, IVc, Vb, and Vc showed prominent antifungal activities when compared to standard drug, Fluconazole. Conclusion: Present study demonstrates the synthesis of conjugates of thiophene with 1, 3, 4-oxadiazoles and 1, 3, 4–thiadiazoles. These compounds were evaluated for in vitro antifungal activity against Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger using disc diffusion method. The compounds IVd, IVe, Vd, and Ve exhibited moderate antifungal activities, whereas compounds IVb, IVc, Vb, and Vc showed prominent antifungal activities. Â

Reference tracking stochastic model predictive control over unreliable channels and bounded control actions

A stochastic model predictive control framework over unreliable Bernoulli communication channels, in the presence of unbounded process noise and under bounded control inputs, is presented for tracking a reference signal. The data losses in the control channel are compensated by a carefully designed transmission protocol, and that of the sensor channel by a dropout compensator. A class of saturated, disturbance feedback policies is proposed for control in the presence of noisy dropout compensation. A reference governor is employed to generate trackable reference trajectories and stability constraints are employed to ensure mean-square boundedness of the reference tracking error. The overall approach yields a computationally tractable quadratic program, which can be iteratively solved online

An Energy Efficient Smart Metering System using Edge Computing in LoRa Network

An important research issue in smart metering is to correctly transfer the smart meter readings from consumers to the operator within the given time period by consuming minimum energy. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient smart metering system using Edge computing in Long Range (LoRa). We assume that all appliances in a house are connected to a smart meter that is affixed with Edge device and LoRa node for processing and transferring the processed smart meter readings, respectively. The energy consumption of the appliances can be represented as an energy multivariate time series. The system first proposes a deep learning-based compression-decompression model for reducing the size of the energy time series at the Edge devices. Next, it formulates an optimization problem for finding the suitable compressed energy time series to reduce the energy consumption and delay of the system. Finally, the system presents an algorithm for selecting the suitable spreading factors to transfer the compressed time series to the operator in the given time. Our simulation and prototype results demonstrate the impact of the parameters of the compression model, network, and the number of smart meters and appliances on delay, energy consumption, and accuracy of the system

Effect of hydroxychloroquine in viral clearance in nCOV-19 infected patient admitted in tertiary care centre, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

Background: In view of recent publications of conflicting evidence on the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as prophylaxis and as a treatment for COVID-19 patients, we need to assess the effect of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients of authors own local population.Methods: In this retrospective chart review study, categorization of confirmed COVID-19 cases nasopharyngeal swab of RT-PCR was done into a group of patients who received hydroxychloroquine standard dose and another control group who did not receive hydroxychloroquine. The main comparing parameter was to see virus clearance days across both groups.Results: A total of 112 patients were included for the study, and grouped of 72 patient who received HCQS and remaining 40 patients as control. The virus clearance time in days was found to be 9.01±3.08 for HCQS group and for control group it was 8.64±2.34 days (Man Whitney U test value = 2.13, p=0.756).Conclusions: There is no significant difference found in attaining virus negative status with use of HCQS administration in this study

Sparse and Constrained Stochastic Predictive Control for Networked Systems

This article presents a novel class of control policies for networked control of Lyapunov-stable linear systems with bounded inputs. The control channel is assumed to have i.i.d. Bernoulli packet dropouts and the system is assumed to be affected by additive stochastic noise. Our proposed class of policies is affine in the past dropouts and saturated values of the past disturbances. We further consider a regularization term in a quadratic performance index to promote sparsity in control. We demonstrate how to augment the underlying optimization problem with a constant negative drift constraint to ensure mean-square boundedness of the closed-loop states, yielding a convex quadratic program to be solved periodically online. The states of the closed-loop plant under the receding horizon implementation of the proposed class of policies are mean square bounded for any positive bound on the control and any non-zero probability of successful transmission

Dynamics of Hot QCD Matter -- Current Status and Developments

The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The experimentalists around the world not only collect an unprecedented amount of data in heavy-ion collisions, at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland but also analyze these data to unravel the mystery of this new phase of matter that filled a few microseconds old universe, just after the Big Bang. In the meantime, advancements in theoretical works and computing capability extend our wisdom about the hot-dense QCD matter and its dynamics through mathematical equations. The exchange of ideas between experimentalists and theoreticians is crucial for the progress of our knowledge. The motivation of this first conference named "HOT QCD Matter 2022" is to bring the community together to have a discourse on this topic. In this article, there are 36 sections discussing various topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and related phenomena that cover a snapshot of the current experimental observations and theoretical progress. This article begins with the theoretical overview of relativistic spin-hydrodynamics in the presence of the external magnetic field, followed by the Lattice QCD results on heavy quarks in QGP, and finally, it ends with an overview of experiment results.Comment: Compilation of the contributions (148 pages) as presented in the `Hot QCD Matter 2022 conference', held from May 12 to 14, 2022, jointly organized by IIT Goa & Goa University, Goa, Indi