Additional Control Methods Research Articles

Aspects of economic security of electronic commerce

The paper is devoted to the study of the problem of economic security of e-commerce in Ukraine. The tools of economic security implementation that influence the formation of the economic strategy of Ukrainian enterprises, the main activity of which is e-commerce, are considered and analyzed. Measures for effective implementation of tools for determining the degree of security of e-commerce information system are proposed. Identifying new methods of economic security research will help increase economic stability and reduce the vulnerability of Ukrainian enterprises. The purpose of the paper is to determine the process of calculating the security of the e-commerce information system, and to determine the vulnerability of the system. The purpose of the security system as a whole is to identify and prevent dangers and threats, to ensure the security of e-commerce enterprises and to achieve business goals. Determining the degree of security of the e-commerce information system is conducted in two directions: analysis of existing types of technical means of storing and protecting information; and expert assessment of losses from threats. To effectively achieve the economic security of e-commerce, it is necessary to use a variety of techniques and the latest technologies to identify and prevent various sources of threats. This will make it possible to build a system of protection against the violation of the integrity of the economic system. Provide tools to reduce risks and external pressures on the business environment. It will allow to build an effective control system and attract additional control methods. The dynamics of e-commerce development and the degree of its integration into the economy encourage additional research in the direction of reducing risks and achieving economic security.

Optimal holding time calculation algorithm to improve the reliability of high frequency bus route considering the bus capacity constraint

The self-equalizing bus headway control method, as a type of headway-based control method, has been proved to resist bus bunching effectively. This control method is suitable for use in real-time transit operations owing to its simplicity in the formulation and solution. However, previous studies paid more attention on the demonstration that the bus headways can converge under variable conditions, without considering the bus capacity constraint. In addition, when the bus capacity constraint is considered, the optimal holding time calculation becomes a nonlinear problem instead of a simple linear problem. Therefore, in this study, a more precise and comprehensive model is proposed to describe the bus operation process. An optimal holding time calculation algorithm is proposed to solve the nonlinear optimization problem by transforming it into an one-dimensional line search problem. The proposed model was validated through numerical tests. In the traditional analyses, bus bunching will worsen if no additional control method is applied to the bus system. However, the present study indicates that bus bunching will be mitigated to some extent by the public transit system itself without external control at relatively high traffic demand level.

Control of Fungal Diseases in Mushroom Crops while Dealing with Fungicide Resistance: A Review.

Mycoparasites cause heavy losses in commercial mushroom farms worldwide. The negative impact of fungal diseases such as dry bubble (Lecanicillium fungicola), cobweb (Cladobotryum spp.), wet bubble (Mycogone perniciosa), and green mold (Trichoderma spp.) constrains yield and harvest quality while reducing the cropping surface or damaging basidiomes. Currently, in order to fight fungal diseases, preventive measurements consist of applying intensive cleaning during cropping and by the end of the crop cycle, together with the application of selective active substances with proved fungicidal action. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the redundant application of the same fungicides has been conducted to the occurrence of resistant strains, hence, reviewing reported evidence of resistance occurrence and introducing unconventional treatments is worthy to pave the way towards the design of integrated disease management (IDM) programs. This work reviews aspects concerning chemical control, reduced sensitivity to fungicides, and additional control methods, including genomic resources for data mining, to cope with mycoparasites in the mushroom industry.

Future efficacy of pre-emergence herbicides in corn (Zea mays) is threatened by more variable weather.

BACKGROUNDBy 2050, weather is expected to become more variable with a shift towards higher temperatures and more erratic rainfall throughout the U.S. Corn Belt. The effects of this predicted weather change on pre‐emergence (PRE) herbicide efficacy have been inadequately explored. Using an extensive database, spanning 252 unique weather environments, the efficacy of atrazine, acetochlor, S‐metolachlor, and mesotrione, applied PRE alone and in combinations, was modeled on common weed species in corn (Zea mays L.).RESULTSAdequate rainfall to dissolve the herbicide into soil water solution so that it could be absorbed by developing weed seedlings within the first 15 days after PRE application was essential for effective weed control. Across three annual weed species, the probability of effective control increased as rainfall increased and was maximized when rainfall was 10 cm or more. When rainfall was less than 10 cm, increasing soil temperatures had either a positive or negative effect on the probability of effective control, depending on the herbicide(s) and weed species. Herbicide combinations required less rainfall to maximize the probability of effective control and had higher odds of successfully controlling weeds compared with the herbicides applied individually.CONCLUSIONSResults of this study highlight the importance of rainfall following PRE herbicide application. As rainfall becomes more variable in future, the efficacy of common PRE herbicides will likely decline. However, utilizing combinations of PRE herbicides along with additional cultural, mechanical, biological, and chemical weed control methods will create a more sustainable integrated weed management system and help U.S. corn production adapt to more extreme weather.© 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Risk factors associated with higher pain levels among pediatric burn patients: a retrospective cohort study

IntroductionThere is an absence of evidence regarding predictors of moderate to severe pain in children undergoing acute burn treatment. This investigation aimed to determine if relationships existed between patient and...

Light-Load Efficiency Optimization for an LCC-Parallel Compensated Inductive Power Transfer Battery Charger

Wireless power transfer (WPT) techniques have gained wide acceptance across a range of battery charging applications such as cell phones, cardiac pacemakers, and electric vehicles. In a wireless battery charging system, a constant current/constant voltage (CC/CV) charging strategy, regardless of the variation of the battery load which may roughly range from a few ohms to several hundred ohms, is typically adopted to ensure the safety, durability, and performance of the battery. However, system efficiency drops significantly as the load increases in CV mode, especially at very light-load conditions. This paper proposes an efficiency optimization method for an LCC-parallel compensated inductive power transfer (IPT) battery charging system without the help of any additional power converter and control method. The equivalent circuit and resonant conditions of the LCC-parallel compensation topology are firstly analyzed to achieve the load-independent CV output at a zero phase angle (ZPA) operating frequency. Over the full range of CV charging mode, the efficiency of the LCC-parallel resonant tank circuit is analyzed and optimized. An IPT battery charger prototype with 48 V charging voltage and 1 A charging current is implemented. A measured DC–DC transfer efficiency of greater than 90.48% is achieved during the whole CV charging profile.

Glass structural elements and load-bearing glass structures

This article provides an overview of scientific and technical literature on the design and calculation of load-bearing structures made of laminated glass. Since glass is one of the most fragile materials, additional control methods are required for the production, installation and operation of glass structures, because one small defect can reduce the strength of the entire structure several times. The analysis of multilayer glass, its calculation and design for use in construction is presented. The thickness, the number of layers, the presence and type of the intermediate layer, all this affects the strength characteristics of the entire glass structure. The problem of the lack of a Russian regulatory and technical base that would regulate the design of load-bearing glass elements, such as columns, beams, shells, etc.

Effect of Collection Month, Visible Light, and Air Movement on the Attraction of Male Agriotes obscurus L. (Coleoptera: Elateridae) Click Beetles to Female Sex Pheromone.

Simple SummaryWireworms are larvae of adult click beetles and can be major pests of many crops. The larvae live for several years in the soil and are difficult to manage, so additional control methods are being investigated, including the targeting of their adult stage, click beetles. For example, sex pheromones of female beetles can be used to attract males to a substrate treated with an insecticide. We examined whether the response of male click beetles to female sex pheromone is affected by environmental and seasonal factors i.e., beetles collected from the field in different months. Using small-scale lab experiments, we found that the beetles’ response to pheromone was not affected by light, but that air movement made them move faster. Exposure to pheromone made the beetles move more, but this did not vary with collection month, although beetles collected in May moved more slowly than those collected in March and April. In the field, male beetles were attracted up to 14 m from a pheromone source, the furthest distance tested. Understanding how beetle response to pheromone varies with these factors is important for the refinement of programs aimed at their management.Elaterid female sex pheromone, while currently used for monitoring the adult life stage (click beetle), has only recently been explored as a potential management tool. Consequently, there is little understanding of how abiotic and biotic conditions influence the response of click beetles to the pheromone. We examined whether the response of male Agriotes obscurus L. (Coleoptera: Elateridae) beetles to a cellulose-based formulation of female sex pheromone (‘pheromone granules’) is influenced by air movement, presence of visible light, and month of beetle collection. In addition, we investigated the distance from which beetles were attracted to the pheromone granules. Click beetle response was determined by measuring movement parameters in free-walking arena experiments. The response to pheromone was not affected by the presence or absence of visible light. We found that beetles collected earlier in the season had increased activity and interaction with pheromone under moving air conditions, compared to beetles collected later. When controlling for storage time, we confirmed that individuals collected in May were less active than beetles collected in March and April. In the field, beetles were recaptured from up to 14 m away from a pheromone granule source, with over 50% being recovered within 4.4 h from a distance of 7 m or less. Understanding how abiotic and biotic factors affect pest response to pheromone can lead to more effective and novel uses of pheromone-based management strategies.

High sensitivity of one-step real-time reverse transcription quantitative PCR to detect low virus titers in large mosquito pools

BackgroundMosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world. Their ability to carry and spread diseases to humans causes millions of deaths every year. Due to the lack of efficient vaccines, the control of mosquito-borne diseases primarily relies on the management of the vector. Traditional control methods are insufficient to control mosquito populations. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an additional control method that can be combined with other control tactics to suppress specific mosquito populations. The SIT requires the mass-rearing and release of sterile males with the aim to induce sterility in the wild female population. Samples collected from the environment for laboratory colonization, as well as the released males, should be free from mosquito-borne viruses (MBV). Therefore, efficient detection methods with defined detection limits for MBV are required. Although a one-step reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) method was developed to detect arboviruses in human and mosquito samples, its detection limit in mosquito samples has yet to be defined.MethodsWe evaluated the detection sensitivity of one step RT-qPCR for targeted arboviruses in large mosquito pools, using pools of non-infected mosquitoes of various sizes (165, 320 and 1600 mosquitoes) containing one infected mosquito body with defined virus titers of chikungunya virus (CHIKV), usutu virus (USUV), West Nile virus (WNV) and Zika virus (ZIKV).ResultsCHIK, USUV, ZIKV, and WNV virus were detected in all tested pools using the RT-qPCR assay. Moreover, in the largest mosquito pools (1600 mosquitoes), RT-qPCR was able to detect the targeted viruses using different total RNA quantities (10, 1 and 0.1 ng per reaction) as a template. Correlating the virus titer with the total RNA quantity allowed the prediction of the maximum number of mosquitoes per pool in which the RT-qPCR can theoretically detect the virus infection.ConclusionsMosquito-borne viruses can be reliably detected by RT-qPCR assay in pools of mosquitoes exceeding 1000 specimens. This will represent an important step to expand pathogen-free colonies for mass-rearing sterile males for programmes that have a SIT component by reducing the time and the manpower needed to conduct this quality control process.

Breakthrough Screening of Porous Materials: A Simple and Effective Tool for Database Generation

AbstractThe release of toxic and noxious gases in the atmosphere has become a big concern, due to its adverse effect on the health and life quality in general. The development of efficient filter materials can help to tackle this issue, considering that the production of such gases in various processes cannot be prevented. Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a promising class of material to adsorb several toxic industrial chemicals (TICs). Nevertheless, identifying the suitable MOF material to adsorb a specific gas is a challenging task due to the lack of fast characterization methods. Using a mass spectrometer‐detector, a simple setup has been developed and applied to register breakthrough curves and evaluate the retention capacity of selected MOFs against NH3 and H2S. The experimental results obtained using this in‐house assembled device are in agreement with several literature reports, resulting in a fast tool for the development of a gas adsorption database for porous materials. Additionally, for the specific case of Ni‐MOF‐74, the breakthrough measurements correlate well with the surface areas of the material, providing an additional and fast quality control method to evaluate the material synthesis.

Development of Flight Control Law for Improvement of Uncommanded Lateral Motion of the Fighter Aircraft

The Abrupt Wing Stall (AWS) at moderate Angle-of-Attacks (AoA) and transonic flight conditions can result in uncommanded lateral motions such as heavy wing, wing drop and wing rock that degrade handling qualities, mission performance and safety of flight for the aircraft. This phenomenon caused by asymmetric wing flows makes it difficult to perform precision tracking or maneuvering in the transonic flight envelope. According to the previous research results, this substantial phenomenon has occurred in a large number of the fighter aircraft programs, typically at the early flight test development stage, and a lot of budgets and efforts are required through the development period of the aircraft. To compensate for this drawback, Free-To-Roll (FTR) wind tunnel test is adopted as a method to identify the uncommanded lateral motions of the aircraft and improve the flight characteristics at the configuration design stage. However, using only the existing control methods such as the feed-forward control methods as well as the configuration design can reduce limitedly the uncommanded lateral motion. Besides, the feedback control methods using optimal control, adaptive and neural network control which do not provide a deterministic solution are limited to obtain the airworthiness certification. This paper presents a new design approach in which uncommanded lateral motions of the aircraft can be reduced even more than the existing methods. That is the additional augmentation control method, using angular acceleration measurement, that improves the flight characteristics using a feedback control technique based on the Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI). To evaluate the performances of the proposed control method, we perform the frequency-domain linear analysis and time-domain numerical simulations based on the mathematical model of advanced trainer aircraft. The evaluation result reveals that the proposed control method reduces effectively uncommanded lateral motions and improves the handling qualities of the aircraft.

POSSIBILITIES OF THERMAL IMAGING STUDIES OF THE HEAD, NECK AND DENTOGINGIVAL AREA

The article presents the results of the research of the use of thermal imaging for diagnostic and treatment control purposes in patients with maxillofacial diseases, such as stenosis or occlusion of the internal and external carotid arteries, and occlusion deformity due to tooth impaction. The changes in infrared radiation in patients with impacted teeth in the process of bite correction were traced. Patients with pathology of the carotid arteries were examined before the surgical treatment and in the early and late postoperative period. Examination of dentogingival segment was carried out in 21 patients; the average age was 17.3±4.3 years; the group comprised 14 females and 7 males. Thermography was performed before the removal of an impacted tooth, after the completion of the complex treatment and when checking the long-term results in those patients who had an impacted tooth on one side and a homonymous tooth in the dental arch on the other side. We observed the weakening of infrared radiation in the head on the affected side in patients with pathology of the carotid arteries with further hyperthermia and the alignment of thermal asymmetry in the early and late postoperative period. In patients with examination of the gingival area, hyperthermia was initially detected, and then, in the process of teething, normalization of the thermal image was observed. Thermal imaging is an additional and unique diagnostic and control method that can be used to confirm the effectiveness of the treatment.

Machine learning for the prediction of pseudorealistic pediatric abdominal phantoms for radiation dose reconstruction.

Purpose: Current phantoms used for the dose reconstruction of long-term childhood cancer survivors lack individualization. We design a method to predict highly individualized abdominal three-dimensional (3-D) phantoms automatically. Approach: We train machine learning (ML) models to map (2-D) patient features to 3-D organ-at-risk (OAR) metrics upon a database of 60 pediatric abdominal computed tomographies with liver and spleen segmentations. Next, we use the models in an automatic pipeline that outputs a personalized phantom given the patient's features, by assembling 3-D imaging from the database. A step to improve phantom realism (i.e., avoid OAR overlap) is included. We compare five ML algorithms, in terms of predicting OAR left-right (LR), anterior-posterior (AP), inferior-superior (IS) positions, and surface Dice-Sørensen coefficient (sDSC). Furthermore, two existing human-designed phantom construction criteria and two additional control methods are investigated for comparison. Results: Different ML algorithms result in similar test mean absolute errors: for liver LR, IS, and spleen AP, IS; for liver AP and spleen LR; for abdomen sDSC; and to 65% for liver and spleen sDSC. One ML algorithm (GP-GOMEA) significantly performs the best for 6/9 metrics. The control methods and the human-designed criteria in particular perform generally worse, sometimes substantially ( error for spleen IS, sDSC for liver). The automatic step to improve realism generally results in limited metric accuracy loss, but fails in one case (out of 60). Conclusion: Our ML-based pipeline leads to phantoms that are significantly and substantially more individualized than currently used human-designed criteria.

Climate Change May Restrict the Predation Efficiency of Mesocyclops aspericornis (Copepoda: Cyclopidae) on Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) Larvae.

(1) Dengue is the most spread mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, and vector control is the only available means to suppress its prevalence, since no effective treatment or vaccine has been developed. A biological control program using copepods that feed on mosquito larvae has been practiced in Vietnam and some other countries, but the application of copepods was not always successful. (2) To understand why the utility of copepods varies, we evaluated the predation efficiency of a copepod species (Mesocyclops aspericornis) on a vector species (Aedes aegypti) by laboratory experiments under different temperatures, nutrition and prey-density conditions. (3) We found that copepod predation reduced intraspecific competition among Aedes larvae and then shortened the survivor’s aquatic life and increased their pupal weight. In addition, the predatory efficiency of copepods was reduced at high temperatures. Furthermore, performance of copepod offspring fell when the density of mosquito larvae was high, probably because mosquito larvae had adverse effects on copepod growth through competition for food resources. (4) These results suggest that the increase in mosquitoes will not be suppressed solely by the application of copepods if the density of mosquito larvae is high or ambient temperature is high. We need to consider additional control methods in order to maintain the efficiency of copepods to suppress mosquito increase.

Implementation of Dynamic Virtual Inertia Control of Supercapacitors for Multi-Area PV-Based Microgrid Clusters

In order to improve the dynamic stability of multi-area microgrid (MG) clusters in the autonomous mode, this study proposes a novel fuzzy-based dynamic inertia control strategy for supercapacitors in multi-area autonomous MG clusters. By virtue of the integral manifold theory, the interactive influence of inertia on dynamic stability for multi-area MG clusters is explored in detail. The energy function of multi-area MG clusters is constructed to further analyze the inertia constant. Based on the analysis of the mechanism, a control strategy for the fuzzy-based dynamic inertia control of supercapacitors for multi-area MG clusters is further proposed. For each sub-microgrid (sub-MG), the gain of the fuzzy-based dynamic inertia control is self-tuned dynamically, with system events being triggered, so as to flexibly and robustly enhance the dynamic performance of the multi-area MG clusters in the autonomous mode. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme, a three-area photovoltaic (PV)-based MG cluster is designed and simulated on the MATLAB/Simulink platform. Moreover, a comparison between the dynamic fuzzy-based inertial control method and an additional droop control method is finally presented to validate the advantages of the fuzzy-based dynamic inertial control approach.

Research on Additional Control Technology Based on Energy Storage System for Improving Power Transfer Capacity of Multi-Terminal AC/DC System with Low Cost

The multi-terminal AC/DC system will become one of the important forms of the future power grid. The negative impedance characteristic caused by the constant power load in the DC network will reduce the power transfer capacity between the terminals, especially when a grid fault occurs in AC system at any terminal. Energy storage has played an important role in improving the stability of AC and DC systems. This paper proposes an additional control method based on an energy storage system to improve system power transfer capacity with low cost. The state space model of two-terminal AC/DC system is established, and the feedback laws for additional control are further designed by Lyapunov theory. Furthermore, the additional control strategies based on the energy storage system is built, without changing the existing control system of each control object. Finally, the corresponding system simulation model is established by Matlab/Simulink for analysis and verification. The research results show that the proposed additional control method is effective. The power transfer limitation can be overcome by only adding small damping energy with the stable DC voltages under large disturbances, and the power transfer capacity between the terminals can be significantly improved with low control cost.

Nematode damage and management in banana in Turkey

Banana is grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, and they are also cultivated in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean Region in Turkey. The present study aimed to determine the losses induced by the plant-parasitic nematodes in Anamur and Erdemli districts of Mersin Province, Turkey. Spiral nematode, Helicotylenchus multicinctus Cobb, 1893 (Tylenchida: Hoplolaimidae); root-knot nematodes, Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White, 1919) and Meloidogyne javanica (Treub, 1885) (Tylenchida: Meloidogynidae) were detected in the study greenhouses. Three nematicides, oxamyl, fenamiphos and ethoprophos, were used with two or four application against these nematodes. The experiments were conducted in three replicates in four greenhouses each with nematicide --treated and untreated plots. In the study, yield for each treatment was calculated for 15 plants (5 plants/replicate). Nematodes were isolated from soil and root samples with a modified Baermann funnel method and nematode counting was performed under a microscope. In banana plantations with nematode management, the yield was between 28.6 and 53.1 kg/plant and the yield increase ranged between 34 and 117%. The results suggested that use of a single control method would not be effective against these nematodes and additional control methods in integrated management should be used to control nematodes in banana plantations.

Dynamic and tunable metabolite control for robust minimal-equipment assessment of serum zinc

Bacterial biosensors can enable programmable, selective chemical production, but difficulties incorporating metabolic pathways into complex sensor circuits have limited their development and applications. Here we overcome these challenges and present the development of fast-responding, tunable sensor cells that produce different pigmented metabolites based on extracellular concentrations of zinc (a critical micronutrient). We create a library of dual-input synthetic promoters that decouple cell growth from zinc-specific metabolite production, enabling visible cell coloration within 4 h. Using additional transcriptional and metabolic control methods, we shift the response thresholds by an order of magnitude to measure clinically relevant zinc concentrations. The resulting sensor cells report zinc concentrations in individual donor serum samples; we demonstrate that they can provide results in a minimal-equipment fashion, serving as the basis for a field-deployable assay for zinc deficiency. The presented advances are likely generalizable to the creation of other types of sensors and diagnostics.

Research on stability margin enhancement for low‐voltage multi‐terminal DC system based on additional damping control

The low-voltage multi-terminal DC system is becoming an important form of the distribution network in the future. However, the system stability margin will be weakened by the negative impedance characteristics of the DC network. The additional control method by using Lyapunov theory has become a feasible solution to improve system stability. However, the traditional way of using empirical values to design parameters of the weighted matrix cannot ensure that the solved feedback law is optimal, resulting in the limitation of control performance. In order to solve this problem, the dominant mode which determines the system stability margin is studied. Then an additional damping control method is further proposed, and its feedback law is designed and further improved by optimising the parameters of weighted matrix Q, based on the improved particle swarm optimisation algorithm, meanwhile, the optimal configuration of the dominant mode is used as the target for the parameter design. Finally, the proposed method is tested and verified, and the results show that the proposed method can significantly improve the system stability margin and dynamic performance with small control costs, and ensure the constant voltage of the DC network and safe system operation under disturbances.

Stability-improvement method of cascaded DC-DC converters with additional voltage-error mutual feedback control

The interaction between the source and load converters in cascaded DC-DC converters may cause instability. Thus, improving the stability of cascaded DC-DC converters is important. To solve the above-mentioned problem, a flowchart to improve the control method is established by calculating the eigenvalue sensitivity of a time-domain model of cascaded DC-DC converters. Further, an additional voltage-error mutual feedback control method is firstly proposed based on the flowchart provided in this study to improve the stability of cascaded DC-DC converters. Subsequently, the influence of the proposed mutual feedback control on the stability of cascaded DC-DC converters is analyzed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by simulation and experiment.