Objective Of Consensus Research Articles

Cluster consensus for nonlinear multi‐agent systems restricted with input saturation by event triggered control

AbstractThis article studies the cluster consensus problem for the nonlinear multi‐agent systems subject to input saturation under the context of event triggered control. Taking ordinary consensus object as a special case, this article considers the problem of cluster consensus. The event triggered mechanism is designed and the Zeno phenomenon is ruled out. The sufficient conditions of control protocol and range estimation of domain of attraction are formulated by the linear matrix inequalities for the constraints of input saturation and nonlinear terms existed in the system dynamics. Finally, the proposed results are validated by one example in the background of spring damping system.

Multi-group consensus of multi-agent systems subject to semi-Markov jump topologies against hybrid cyber-attacks

Multi-agent systems are widely used in practice. The existing results on the consensus of multi-agent systems mainly focus on the complete consensus, which can not deal with the situation of the system in the face of multiple tasks. In this paper, the multi-group consensus problem of multi-agent systems with semi-Markov jump topologies against hybrid cyber-attacks is studied. The purpose is to ensure that the multi-agent systems can achieve different consensus goals when they encounter hybrid cyber-attacks, and to solve the problem of time-varying communication topology between agents modeled by the semi-Markov process. Additionally, two types of cyber-attacks are taken into account in a single framework through two independent sets of Bernoulli sequences. Subsequently, a necessary condition is established to guide the system toward achieving the multi-group consensus objective. Lastly, a series of illustrative examples are presented to underscore the validity of the designed controller.

Chinese Expert Consensus on Day Surgery Management of Lung Cancer (2024 Edition)

To alleviate the medical burden of lung cancer surgery and facilitate the implementation of the national hierarchical diagnosis and treatment policy, it is imperative to establish a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system for day surgery of lung cancer. Identifying key quality control checkpoints in day surgery of lung cancer is essential to enhance medical quality, ensure safety, and improve the efficiency of medical services. These efforts aim to uphold a safe and well-structured progression of day surgery practices in China. The Chinese Expert Consensus Group on Day Surgery Management of Lung Cancer has convened national experts in relevant fields and integrated the latest research findings from both domestic and international sources to craft the Chinese Expert Consensus on Day Surgery Management of Lung Cancer (2024 Edition). This consensus is founded on the principles of holistic management of lung cancer surgery and comprehensive patient care throughout their medical journey. It encompasses preoperative assessments, anesthesia protocols, surgical procedures, postoperative care, hospital-community collaboration initiatives, and emergency response strategies. The primary objective of this expert consensus is to furnish research assistance and clinical recommendations to advance the practice of day surgery for lung cancer patients in China. .

50 Years of Research on the Psychology of Sport Injury: A Consensus Statement

Factors influencing sport injury risk, rehabilitation outcomes, and return to sport processes have been the focus in various research disciplines (sports medicine, psychology and sociology). One discipline, with over 50 years of scholarship, is the psychology of sport injury. Despite the research in this field, there is no evidence-based consensus to inform professional practice. The aim of this original and timely consensus statement is to summarise psychological sport injury research and provide consensus recommendations for sport practitioners seeking to implement psychological principles into clinical practice. A total of seven experts with extensive experience outlined the consensus objectives and identified three psychology of sport injury sub-domains: risk, rehabilitation and return to sport. The researchers, grouped in pairs, prepared initial drafts of assigned sub-domains. The group met in Stockholm, and the three texts were merged into a draft and revised in an iterative process. Stress responses are the strongest psychological risk factor for acute injuries. Intra- and interpersonal factors, as well as sociocultural factors, are demonstrated psychosocial risk factors for overuse injuries. Stress management and mindfulness interventions to prevent injuries have been successfully implemented. The rehabilitation process may influence athlete’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses. Social support, mindfulness, acceptance-based practices, and cognitive-behavioural based intervention programs reduce negative reactions. Return to sport includes various stages and different trajectories. Returning athletes typically experience concerns regarding competence, autonomy, and relatedness. It is recommended that athletes focus on the physical, technical, and psychological demands of their sport as they progress to increasingly intense activities. Interdisciplinary collaboration (e.g., sports medicine and psychology) would be beneficial in enhancing clinical practice and improving athlete outcomes.

Looking for ALPS: The value of a combined assessment of biochemical markers.

Autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS) is a rare primary immune disorder caused by defect of the extrinsic apoptotic pathway. The current diagnostic criteria combine clinical features and typical biomarkers but have not been the object of clear international consensus. We conducted a retrospective study on pediatric patients who were investigated for autoimmune cytopenia and/or lymphoproliferation at the CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital over 10 years. Patients were screened using the combination of TCRαβ+ CD4- CD8- "double negative" (DN) T cells and soluble plasmatic FAS ligand (sFASL). Among the 398 tested patients, the median sFASL and DN T cells were 200 ng/mL and 1.8% of TCRαβ+ T cells, respectively. sFASL was highly correlated with vitamin B12 levels. We identified five patients diagnosed with ALPS for whose sFASL and vitamin B12 levels were the more discriminating biomarkers. While ALPS diagnostic criteria had high sensibility, their predictive value remained low. sFASL level can efficiently discriminate patients with ALPS when using the appropriate thresholds. Our study highlights the need for an international consensus to redefine the place and threshold of biological biomarkers for ALPS diagnosis.

Boosted unsupervised feature selection for tumor gene expression profiles

AbstractIn an unsupervised scenario, it is challenging but essential to eliminate noise and redundant features for tumour gene expression profiles. However, the current unsupervised feature selection methods treat all samples equally, which tend to learn discriminative features from simple samples. Besides, it is difficult for these methods to guide the feature selection process by multiple feature subspaces comprehensively. In order to address these problems, a boosted unsupervised feature selection method (BoostUFS) is proposed for tumour gene expression profiles. Specifically, the authors design a boosting scheme to sequentially learn multiple compressed feature subspaces by focusing on ambiguous samples. The uncertainty of samples and the confidence of feature subspaces can be evaluated adaptively by minimising the overall loss of feature subspaces learning. Furthermore, we provide a consensus objective function with L2,1‐norm regularisation to combine these weighted feature subspaces and select discriminative features. Extensive experiments on several real‐world datasets of tumour gene expression profiles are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The midwife's support during transition to motherhood: A modified Delphi study among care providers and childbearing women.

To reach consensus between care providers and childbearing women about the midwife's relevant and appropriate domains and elements to support transition to motherhood. A modified web-based Delphi study was conducted in Flanders (Belgium). After performing a systematic literature review, searching the grey literature and an online poll, a set of 79 items was generated. In two rounds, the items were presented to an expert panel of (1) care providers from various disciplines providing services to childbearing women and (2) to pregnant women and postpartum women up to 1-year postpartum. Consensus was defined when 70% or more of the experts scored ≥6, 5% or less scored ≤3, and a standard deviation of ≤1.1. In the first Delphi round, 91 experts reached consensus on 24 items. Seventeen round one items that met one or two consensus objectives were included in round two and were scored by 64 panel experts, reaching consensus on three additional items. The final 27 items covered seven domains: attributes, liaison, management of care from a woman-centred perspective, management of care from the midwife's focus, informational support, relational support, and the midwife's competencies. The shared understanding between childbearing women and care providers shows that the midwife's transitional support is multifaceted. Our findings offer midwives a standard of care, criteria, guidance, and advice on how they can support childbearing women during transition to motherhood, beyond the existing recommendations and current provision of transitional care.

Performance-oriented design and analysis for direct data-driven control of multi-agent systems

There exists a relationship between the consensus performance and the control protocol in the coordination of multiple agents. This article proposes a novel direct data-driven control (DirDDC) using such a relationship directly by establishing a performance-oriented design and analysis framework without relying on any model information. A consensus error is defined by considering the topology information among the agents to match the consensus objective. Then, a nonlinear data relationship between the consensus-error and control input (NDR-CE&I) is established such that the current consensus error is related to the previous consensus errors and the agent inputs over a moving time window. Next, a linear data relationship of NDR-CE&I, termed as LDR-CE&I, is established by introducing a dynamic linearization method. Subsequently, the novel DirDDC is proposed directly using the LDR-CE&I regardless whether the multi-agent systems (MASs) are nonlinear or linear, affine or non-affine, homogeneous or heterogeneous. The convergence analysis is directly conducted based on the performance function, i.e., the NDR-CE&I, instead of the original MASs, so that the model requirement of the MASs can be completely bypassed. The proposed DirDDC can be applied to the MASs with either fixed or switching communication topologies. The simulation study verifies the results.

Leader–follower consensus of multiagent systems via reset observer-based control approach

This paper considers leader–follower consensus of linear multiagent systems with unknown inputs. The proposed technical framework consists of two processes, that is, estimation and control. For the estimation process, we design a complementary sector region based on a novel reset variable. In this region, a class of distributed extended state observers that depends on the above variables is constructed, which completes the estimation of system states and unknown inputs, simultaneously. This reset strategy also guarantees that the system states are quickly estimated. For the control process, the distributed output feedback controller associated with the reset strategy is designed. The unknown input is also compensated under the reset strategy, which achieves the objective of consensus. Finally, effectiveness of the presented method is validated by an example.

Distributed Model Predictive Consensus Control for Stable Operation of Integrated Energy System

The stable operation of the integrated energy system (IES) is affected by the fluctuation of heat or electricity loads, energy or communication problems, and the interaction of different energy networks. To overcome above challenges, firstly, the integrated dynamic models with three-time scales are established for control design, fully considering dynamic behaviors, energy coupling, and constraints of power flow including electrical, heat and gas on network stability. Then, a novel distributed model predictive control (DMPC) consensus algorithm with process control and trajectory control is proposed to achieve stable operation for IES based on second-order cone programming (SOCP). A unified distributed cooperative control mode is formed in IES by implementing the proposed stability control method, which is suitable for different forms of energy. The control design takes into account the different dynamic characteristics of energy equipment and the energy coupling feature, which realizes the multi-scale time cooperation and dynamic process control for IES by tuning the control parameters. The optimal solution is obtained by rolling optimization for achieving frequency/voltage/temperature/pressure/flow regulation and consensus objectives. Finally, the proposed model and method are validated in various simulation scenarios, such as load variation, energy flow variation, nodes removed, and topology change.

Infant gastroesophageal reflux disease management consensus.

Infant gastroesophageal reflux is mostly benign; however, when associated with complications like failure to thrive, it may be indicative of gastroesophageal reflux disease. There are currently several unmet needs pertaining to the management of infant gastroesophageal reflux (disease). Reflux in infants is mostly composed of breast milk or formula, so this population is significantly different to older children and adults. The objective of this Delphi consensus was to establish recommendations based on published literature and the experience of clinical experts in paediatric gastroenterology in the context of infant gastroesophageal reflux (disease). The Delphi methodology was used to obtain a consensus on 18 statements relating to clinical aspects of infant gastroesophageal reflux (disease). The expert panel comprising paediatric gastroenterology clinical specialists reached a consensus for all statements by means of an online, anonymised voting system. It was highlighted that there is generally low awareness of or adherence to guidelines in clinical practice and that acid suppression therapy should not be indicated for non-acid reflux, which constitutes a significant proportion of total gastroesophageal reflux episodes among infants. Furthermore, it was emphasised that there is an unmet medical need for therapy for some symptomatic infants with non-acid reflux disease.

Dynamic event-triggered boundary control for exponential consensus of multi-agent systems of impulsive PDEs with switching topology

This paper is concerned with the exponential consensus issue for multi-agent systems (MASs) of impulsive partial differential equations (PDEs) with switching topology. A new observer-based dynamic event-triggered boundary control (DETBC) protocol is designed to realize the exponential consensus objective. By Lyapunov functional method, impulse control theory and inequality analysis technique, some conditions are addressed to ensure that the considered MASs achieve the exponential consensus in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). In addition, the theoretical analysis with respect to the exclusion of Zeno behaviors is given for the designed DETBC mechanism. Finally, two examples are established to indicate the validity of the obtained results.

How to further develop quality competition in the German healthcare system? Results of a Delphi expert study

Introduction: Many international healthcare systems use quality competition to improve the quality of care. The corresponding instruments include quality measurement, public reporting, selective contracting, and pay for performance. The German healthcare system clearly shows that the possibilities are often limited in the status quo. Therefore, a need for practicable and evidence-based proposals are necessary to further the development of quality competition.Methods: We conducted a national analysis and an international comparison (Switzerland, Netherlands and USA) as a pre-study to derive recommendations. On this basis, we designed a Delphi study with a consensus objective. Experts from relevant stakeholder groups in the German healthcare system were selected using purposive sampling for this study.Results: The experts saw potential for quality improvement in the further development of quality competition. Quality measurement and public reporting were rated as empowering tools. There was mostly disagreement on whether quality competition should be further developed in a more regulatory or entrepreneur-based manner. However, there was a clear consensus that further development must be coordinated between the stakeholders, step-by-step and scientifically supported. In addition, the impulse should be supported by a legislatively introduced reform.Conclusions: Finally, these empirically based recommendations highlight the need for a coordinated coexistence of a top-down and a bottom-up approach. The developed blueprint proposal serves as an impetus for practical considerations of implementation.

1st EFORT European Consensus "Medical & Scientific Research Requirements for the Clinical Introduction of Artificial Joint Arthroplasty Devices": Background, Delphi Methodology & Consensus process.

The objectives of the 1st EFORT European Consensus on 'Medical and Scientific Research Requirements for the Clinical Introduction of Artificial Joint Arthroplasty Devices' were foremost to focus on patient safety by establishing performance requirements for medical devices. The 1st EFORT European Consensus applied an a priori-defined, modified Delphi methodology to produce unbiased, high-quality recommendation statements, confirmed by consensus voting of a European expert panel. Intended key outcomes are practical guidelines justified by the current stage of knowledge and based on a broad European Expert Consensus, to maintain innovation and optimisation of orthopaedic devices within the boundaries of MDR 2017/745. Twenty-one main research areas of relevance were defined relying on input from the EFORT IPSI WG1 'Introduction of Innovation' recommendations and a related survey. A modified Delphi approach with a preparatory literature review and work in small groups were used to prepare answers to the research questions in the form of 32 draft Consensus statements. A Consensus Conference in a hybrid format, on-site in the Carl Gustav Carus University of Dresden was organised to further refine the draft statements and define consensus within the complete group of participants by final voting, intended to further quantify expert opinion knowledge. The modified Delphi approach provides practical guidelines for hands-on orientation for orthopaedic surgeons, research institutes and laboratories, orthopaedic device manufacturers, patient representatives, Notified Bodies, National Institutes and authorities. For the first time, initiated by the EFORT IPSI (WG1 'Introduction of Innovation'), knowledge of all related stakeholders was combined in the 1st EFORT European Consensus to develop guidelines and result in a comprehensive set of recommendations.

Matrix-scaled resilient consensus of discrete-time and continuous-time networks

This paper studies the matrix-scaled resilient consensus problems over multi-agent networks as occurring in computer science and distributed control. Unlike existing works on consensus problems, where the states of agents converge to a common value or reach some prescribed proportions, we take a more general matrix-scaled approach to accommodate the interdependence of multi-dimensional states. We develop a unified analytical framework to deal with matrix-scaled resilient consensus of discrete-time and continuous-time dynamical agents, where the underlying communication network is modeled as a generic directed time-dependent random graph. We propose new distributed protocols to guarantee the matrix-scaled consensus of cooperative agents in the network in the presence of Byzantine agents, who have full knowledge of the system and pose a severe security threat to the collective consensus objective. The cooperative agents feature multiple input and multiple output, and the number and identities of Byzantine agents are not available to the cooperative ones. Our mathematical approach capitalizes on matrix analysis, control theory, graph theory, and martingale convergence. Some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.

Distributed Interval Consensus of Multiagent Systems With a Pulse Width Modulation Protocol

Rather than the conventional pure consensus, this article proposes a pulsewidth modulation (PWM) protocol for an improved interval consensus of multiagent systems from the distributed perspective. In particular, the consensus of all the agents is achieved within a prescribed interval, which is merely available to partial agents, though. The PWM protocol effectively relieves the running burden of the agents without the additional analogue-to-digital conversion. The modulation periods of different agents are allowed to be heterogeneous. By nominating the agents that have access to the given interval as leaders and others as followers, the proposed distributed PWM protocol introduces a projection operator for the leaders in order for the collective aggregation. In terms of the graph connectivity condition of containing a spanning tree, it is shown that the concerned interval consensus objective is realized by the proposed distributed PWM protocol. Simulations are eventually performed to validate the established theoretical results.

Event-Triggered Asymmetric Bipartite Consensus Tracking for Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems Based on Model-Free Adaptive Control

In this paper, an asymmetric bipartite consensus problem for the nonlinear multi-agent systems with cooperative and antagonistic interactions is studied under the event-triggered mechanism. For the agents described by a structurally balanced signed digraph, the asymmetric bipartite consensus objective is firstly defined, assigning the agents' output to different signs and module values. Considering with the completely unknown dynamics of the agents, a novel event-triggered model-free adaptive bipartite control protocol is designed based on the agents' triggered outputs and an equivalent compact form data model. By utilizing the Lyapunov analysis method, the threshold of the triggering condition is obtained. Subsequently, the asymptotic convergence of the tracking error is deduced and a sufficient condition is obtained based on the contraction mapping principle. Finally, the simulation example further demonstrates the effectiveness of the protocol.

Richardson on moral innovation

Richardson on moral innovation

Rethinking International Order in Early Modern Europe: Evidence from Courtly Ceremonial

AbstractOnce the object of consensus, every aspect of the traditional account of early modern Europe as an anarchic system of sovereign states is now debated—from the existence of sovereign states to the notion of anarchy, and even the European limits of that system. In the context of these disagreements, I develop a new account of international order in early modern Europe grounded in the perceptions of historical actors. I first argue that this can be achieved by studying the tools that practitioners relied on to describe and organize political authority in the world. I subsequently delve into a common, though seldom-studied, tool developed by a group of practitioners known as masters of ceremonies: courtly ceremonial (or ius praecedentiae). I make three substantive claims. First, the political authorities identified in manuals on courtly ceremonial were primarily crowns and republics, but in the later eighteenth century, all eventually came to be described as “states.” Second, all political authorities stood in a hierarchy determined by a specific set of criteria I identify, but new criteria—power and sovereignty—emerged over the course of the eighteenth century. Third, the scope of international order was not self-evident, and it certainly did not have clear “European” limits in the eyes of masters of ceremonies; non-European political authorities could easily be integrated into their orders of precedence. Ultimately, I suggest that IR scholars should reconsider why they study early modern Europe and how they study international orders.

Optimal Planning of Battery Energy Storage Systems by Considering Battery Degradation due to Ambient Temperature: A Review, Challenges, and New Perspective

In recent years, the goal of lowering emissions to minimize the harmful impacts of climate change has emerged as a consensus objective among members of the international community through the increase in renewable energy sources (RES), as a step toward net-zero emissions. The drawbacks of these energy sources are unpredictability and dependence on nature, leading to unstable load power supply risk. One way to overcome instability in the power supply is by using a battery energy storage system (BESS). Therefore, this study provides a detailed and critical review of sizing and siting optimization of BESS, their application challenges, and a new perspective on the consequence of degradation from the ambient temperature. It also reviews advanced battery optimization planning that considers battery degradation, technologies, degradation, objective function, and design constraints. Furthermore, it examines the challenges encountered in developing the BESS optimization model and evaluates the scope of the proposed future direction to improve the optimized BESS, especially its battery.