The Effectiveness of a Multi-disciplinary Fitness and Wellness Program for Increasing Readiness and Resiliency in Army Soldiers

INTRODUCTION: Structured exercise intervention has been shown to improve overall fitness performance and decrease injury rates in military soldiers. A recent operation order tasked the Holistic Health and Fitness Initiative committee at Fort Riley, Kansas to decrease the number of Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), Body Composition Test failures, and reduce the number of Musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries. To address these concerns a multi-phase, multidisciplinary fitness program [Fit Nation (FN)]was developed. Phase 1 (P1) of FN focused on introduction to exercise and incorporated high-intensity, low-impact aerobic and anaerobic training. Phase 2 (P2) of FN focused on functional resistive strength development. With a current interest in FN’s influence on strength performance, P2 will be reported. METHODS: Following the completion of P1, soldiers were invited to participate in P2. The P2participants consisted of 16 soldiers (14 males, mean±SD: age=23.2±3.2 years; 2 females, 26.5±7.8 years). Originally 19 participants volunteered in P2, however 3 participants were removed due to incomplete data collection. Participants performed a resistance training protocol developed by a certified strength and condition professional for 12 weeks (5 days/week). Pre- and post-test evaluations were performed prior to and after the 12 week protocol. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Pre- and post- measures of sumo deadlift (SUMODL) to evaluate total body strength, back squat (SQ) to determine lower-body strength, and weighted push-ups (PUPW) to examine upper-body strength were performed. Repeated measures ANOVAs were applied to analyze SUMODL, SQ, and PUPWwith an alpha level of p≤0.05 to determine statistical significance. RESULTS:A significant difference in SUMODL, SQ, andPUPWperformance was demonstrated (post-mean±SD:=117.5±28.9kg,115.1±30.6kg,47.0 ±16kg;p≤0.001; p\u3c0.001; p≤0.001) respectively. CONCLUSION: The exercise intervention of P2 of FN has shown beneficial for strength developments of the entire body.This data could provide support for FN as a large-scale operation to improve strength beyond APFTand Body Composition Test failures. However, in its infancy, the long-term influence of FN still requires investigation. The greatest determent of this study was, and continues to be attendance and attrition since active duty soldiers have military assignments and responsibilities such as in-field training and deployment

O futuro das tecnologias aditivas na medicina para o horizonte de 2030

A Fabricação Aditiva (FA) é, cada vez mais, um domínio recorrente nos dias de hoje, pelos efeitos que causa e poderá acarretar no futuro, não só a nível económico e social, mas também de estratégias políticas que possam daí advir. Com este estudo, pretende-se, desta forma, desenvolver cenários futuros fiáveis para esta tecnologia, nomeadamente num setor muito específico e importante, que é o da medicina, considerando, neste caso em particular, a escassez de estudos académicos dedicados ao tema. Neste contexto, foi aplicado o método de Delphi junto de especialistas mundiais da área da FA aplicada à medicina, no sentido de os mesmos projetarem reflexões relativas a esta tecnologia para o horizonte de 2030, assente em quatro dimensões diferentes: política, económica, social e tecnológica. Os resultados permitem obter projeções para a próxima década, revelando níveis satisfatórios de concordância entre os especialistas nas quatro dimensões que estão inseridas nesta análise, sendo que os valores mais elevados respeitam à dimensão tecnológica

Computer-based detection and classification of flaws in citrus fruits

[EN] In this paper, a system for quality control in citrus fruits is presented. In current citrus manufacturing industries, calliper and color are successfully used for the automatic classification of fruits using vision systems. However, the detection of flaws in the citrus surface is carried out by means of human inspection. In this work, a computer vision system capable of detecting defects in the citrus peel and also classifying the type of flaw is presented. First, a review of citrus illnesses has been carried out in order to build a database of digitalized oranges classified by the kind of fault, which is used as a training set. The segmentation of faulty zones is performed by applying the Sobel gradient to the image. Afterwards, color and texture features of the flaw are extracted considering different color spaces, some of them related to high order statistics. Several techniques have been employed for classification purposes: Euler distance to a prototype, to the nearest neighbor and k-nearest neighbors. Additionally, a three layer neural network has been tested and compared, obtaining promising results.López Monfort, JJ.; Cobos Serrano, M.; Aguilera Martí, E. (2011). Computer-based detection and classification of flaws in citrus fruits. Neural Computing and Applications. 20(7):975-981. doi:10.1007/s00521-010-0396-2S975981207Blasco J, Aleixos J, Molto E (2007) Computer vision detection of peel defects in citrus by means of a region oriented segmentation. J Food Eng 81:535–543Blasco J, Aleixos N, Gomez J, Molto E (2007) Citrus sorting by identification of the most common defects using multispectral computer vision. J Food Eng 83:384–391Bryson AE, Ho YC (1969) Applied optimal control: optimization, estimation, and control. Xerox College Publishing, Lexington, MAConners RWea (1983) Identifying and locating surface defects in wood. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 5:573–583Diaz R, Gil L, Serrano C, Blasco M, Molto E, Blasco J (2004) Comparison of three algorithms in the classification of table olives by means of computer vision. J Food Eng 61:101–107Douglas DH, Peucker TK (1973) Algorithm for the reduction of the number of points required to represent a line or its caricature. The Can Cartogr 10(2):112–122Du CJ, Sun DW (2005) Comparison of three methods for classification of pizza topping using different colour space transformations. J Food Eng 68:277–287Kolesnikov A (2003) Efficient algorithms for vectorization and polygonal approximation. Ph.D. thesis, University of Joensuu, FinlandMolto E (1997) A computer vision system for inspecting citrus, peaches and apples. In: Proceedings of VII national symposium on pattern recognition and image analysis. Sabadell, Spain, pp 121–126Muir AY, Porteus RL, Wastie RL (1982) Experiments in the detection of incipient diseases in potato tubers by optical methods. J Agric Eng Res 27:131–138Q Li (2002) Computer vision based system for apple surface defect detection. computer and electronics in agriculture. Comput Electron Agric 36:215–223Ruiz LA, Molto E, Juste F, Pla F, Valiente R (1996) Location and characterization of the stem–calyx area on oranges by computer vision. J Agric Eng Res 64:165–172Tan TSC, Kittler J (1994) Colour texture analysis using colour histogram. IEEE Proc Vis Image Signal Process 141:403–412Wen Z, Tao Y (1999) Building a rule-based machine-vision system for defect inspection on apple sorting and packing lines. Expert Syst Appl 16:307–31

Tracking Control Design in Nonlinear Multivariable Systems: Robotic Applications

In this work, a controller design technique called linear algebra based controller (LABC) is presented. The controller is obtained following a systematic procedure that is summarized in this work. In addition, the influence of additive uncertainty on the tracking error is analyzed, and a solution using integrators is proposed. A mobile robot is used as a benchmark to test the performance of the proposed algorithms. In addition, implementation to other systems such as marine vessel is referenced. In this work, the design of controllers in continuous and discrete time is included and experimental and simulation results are shown in a Pioneer 3AT mobile robot. Comparisons are also shown with other controllers proposed in the literature.Fil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Rosales, Andrés. Escuela Politécnica Nacional; EcuadorFil: Albertos, Pedro. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; Españ

Neural Dynamics Variations Observer Designed for Robot Manipulator Control Using a Novel Saturated Control Technique

(is work presents a novel controller for the dynamics of robots using a dynamic variations observer. (e proposed controller uses a saturated control law based on sin(tg− 1(.)) function instead of tanh(.). Besides, this function is an alternative to the use of tanh(.) in saturation control, since it reaches its maximum value more gradually than the hyperbolic tangent function. Using this characteristic, the transition between states is smoother, with similar accuracy to tanh(.). (e controller is designed using a saturated SMC (sliding mode controller) and a dynamic variations observer based on GRNN (general regression neural network). (e originality of this work is the use of a combination of adaptive GRNN with a sliding mode controller (SMC) including a new saturation function. Finally, experiments based on trajectory tracking demonstrate the robustness and simplicity of this method.Fil: Rossomando, Francisco Guido. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Soria, Carlos Miguel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentin

Speaker Localization and Detection in Videoconferencing Environments Using a Modified SRP-PHAT Algorithm

[EN] The Steered Response Power - Phase Transform (SRP-PHAT) algorithm has been shown to be one of the most robust sound source localization approaches operating in noisy and reverberant environments. However, its practical implementation is usually based on a costly fine grid-search procedure, making the computational cost of the method a real issue. In this paper, we introduce an effective strategy which performs a full exploration of the sampled space rather than computing the SRP at discrete spatial positions, increasing its robustness and allowing for a coarser spatial grid that reduces the computational cost required in a practical implementation. The modified SRP-PHAT functional has been successfully implemented in a real time speaker localization system for multiparticipant videoconferencing environments. Moreover, a localization-based speech-non speech frame discriminator is presented.This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science under the project TEC2009-14414-C03-01.Martí Guerola, A.; Cobos Serrano, M.; Aguilera Martí, E.; López Monfort, JJ. (2011). Speaker Localization and Detection in Videoconferencing Environments Using a Modified SRP-PHAT Algorithm. Waves. 3:40-47. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/57648S4047

Multivariable Tracking Control of a Bioethanol Process under Uncertainties

Bioethanol is one of the most studied alternative fuels nowadays. Due to its production process complexity and the low quality of the mathematical models that describe it, a reliable controller is needed to maximize the fuel production and minimize its environmental impact, even in the presence of uncertainty. Here, a controller for tracking optimal profiles considering model errors and external perturbations is proposed. This work is an improvement of a previously presented technique. To reduce the earlier mentioned uncertainties' effect during the fermentation, some tracking error integrators are added in the control action calculation. This simple modification ensures the tracking error convergence to zero, even in the presence of uncertainties (demonstration available). Different tests are carried out and a performance comparison with the original controller is shown to highlight improvements in the tracking error of up to 98% when integrators are incorporated. Furthermore, a classical PI controller is contrasted with the proposed techniques.Fil: Fernández Puchol, María Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Pantano, Maria Nadia. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentin

Linear algebra and optimization based controller design for trajectory tracking of typical chemical process

This paper presents a new controller design to tracking trajectory of a typical chemical process. The plant model is represented by numerical methods and, from this approach, the control actions for an optimal operation of the system are obtained. Its main advantage is that the condition for the tracking error tends to zero and the calculation of control actions, are obtained solving a system of linear equations. The proofs of convergence to zero of the tracking error are presented. Simulation results show the good performance of the proposed control system.Fil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Aballay, P.. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Ortiz, O. A.. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Mut, Vicente Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico San Juan. Instituto de Automática; Argentin

Improvement of linear algebra controllers using sliding surface concepts: Applications to chemical processes

This work presents a novel control technique that combines concepts of Sliding Surface with a Linear Algebra methodology for controller design. The result is a controller with an improved robustness, while the chattering effect attributed to great uncertainties is avoided. A First Order Plus Dead Time (FOPDT) model of the process is used to develop a controller based on Linear Algebra and the concept of sliding surface is used to improve its performance under uncertainties. An interesting feature of this new controller is its ability to follow variable references without overshoot, a highly desirable characteristic for most process systems, and avoids the chattering problem. Results of the control of a CSTR and a laboratory batch reactor using this novel technique are presented. Simulated and experimental results demonstrate the outstanding performance of this new control algorithm.Fil: Sardella, Maria Fabiana. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Camacho Quintero, Oscar Eduardo. Escuela Politécnica Nacional. Departamento de Automatización y Control Industrial; EcuadorFil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentin

Control Based on Linear Algebra for Trajectory Tracking and Positioning of Second-Order Chained Form System

The development of controllers for underactuated systems with nonholonomic constraints has been a topic of significant interest for many researchers in recent years. These systems are hard to control because their linearization transform them into uncontrollable systems. The proposed approaches involve the use of a permanent excitation in the reference trajectory; coordinate transformation; discontinuities; or complex calculations. This paper proposes the design of the controller of the second-order chained form system for trajectory tracking by using a simpler approach based on linear algebra. Up to the present time, no controllers based on this approach have been designed for that system. The control problem is solved by setting two of the three systems variables as a reference, while the remaining variable is calculated imposing the condition that the equations system has an exact solution to ensure that tracking errors go to zero. The stability of the proposed controller is theoretically demonstrated, and simulations results show a suitable control system performance. Also, no coordinate transformation is necessary.Fil: Rodriguez Aguilar, Leandro Pedro Faustino. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Mario Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Sanchez, Mabel Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Scaglia, Gustavo Juan Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Química; Argentin