Nonlinear Attitude and Pose Filters with Superior Convergence Properties

In this thesis, several deterministic and stochastic attitude filtering solutions on the special orthogonal group SO(3) are proposed. Firstly, the attitude estimation problem is approached on the basis of nonlinear deterministic filters on SO(3) with guaranteed transient and steady-state measures. The second solution to the attitude estimation problem considers nonlinear stochastic filters on SO(3) with superior convergence properties with two filters being developed in the sense of Ito, and one in the sense of Stratonovich. This thesis also presents several deterministic and stochastic pose filtering solutions developed on the special Euclidean group SE(3). The first solution includes two nonlinear deterministic pose filters on SE(3) with predefined transient as well as steady-state performance, while the second one involves a nonlinear stochastic filter on SE(3) in the sense of Stratonovich. The proposed nonlinear deterministic filters on SO(3) and SE(3) guarantee that attitude and pose error are trapped to initially start within a known large set and converge systematically and asymptotically to the equilibrium point from almost any initial condition, respectively. The proposed stochastic filters ensure that errors of the estimates and attitude or errors of the estimates and pose are semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded in mean square, and they converge to a small neighborhood of the origin from almost any initial condition. The output performance of the proposed filters is examined and simulated considering high level of uncertainties in the measurements and large error in initialization. The above-mentioned consideration makes the proposed filters a good fit for measurements obtained from low-cost inertial measurement units or low-cost inertial vision systems

Impact of the follicular fluid Coenzyme Q10 level in women undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) on the pregnancy rate

Background: The most crucial problem with in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles is still oocyte quality. The women age and the condition of their ovarian reserve are the primary determinants of oocyte quality. Objectives: to assess the effects of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) on the result of pregnancies and the coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) value in follicular fluid (FF) in the women who had the procedure. Patients and methods: this cohort investigation was conducted on 81 infertile patients (age between 20-42 years, both normal or poor responders’ patients and patients with unexplained infertility) who underwent ICSI cycles. Results: patients were divided into two groups: the pregnant group (n= 32) and the non-pregnant group (n= 49).There was a statistically insignificant difference in antral follicle count (AFC), number of retrieved oocytes, number of embryos, number of metaphase II (MII) oocytes, and maturation index between pregnant and non-pregnant females. CoQ10 level in FF was substantially greater in pregnant than non-pregnant females. Conclusion: FF CoQ10 levels were positively correlated with eventual embryo quality and rates of conception. Our findings might be in favour of CoQ10 supplementation in women undergoing IVF for enhancement of the ovum and embryo quality