Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Non-contact control"

The paper deals with the detection of “idle milking” times for individual quarters of the udder in a group of dairy cows (randomly selected) in a parallel 2 × 12 milking parlour. A non-contact laser thermometer Raynger ST-6 was used to measure temperatures of the inner surfaces of liners instantly after milking. In a group of 12 dairy cows, the minimum liner temperature after milking was 15.3°C, the maximum temperature was 28.9°C. It follows from the regression correlation that an increase in the cooling time by 1 second decreases the temperature of the liner inner surface by 0.0324°C. On average, fore left quarters were milked idle 2.55 min, fore right 2.21 min, rear left 0.24 min, rear right 0.56 min. Differences in the temperatures of liner inner surfaces determined between fore and rear udder quarters were statistically significant; the negative statistically significant correlation coefficient was recorded between the total milking time and the temperature of liners in fore quarters (r = –0.7802⁺⁺, resp. r = –0.6058⁺).    

Orientation adjustment is an important issue in the micromanipulation of cells. A non-contact method based on a swirl for cell orientation control was introduced in this paper. The swirl is produced by a pair of opposite micro-fluids squirting from two parallel tubes. Cell orientation adjustment is realized by cells rotation due to swirl viscous drag, which drives cells to desired configurations. The appropriate distances between the end face of the two tubes and the distance between the axes of them are 1-3 times tube diameter for the cells rotating in the swirl central zone. Especially when the distances are kept double the cell diameter, cells rotate steadily round the swirl central point. By pulsating jetting, fluctuant micro-fluid are generated which make cell rotating a certain angle. Adjusting the pulse duration, pressure and jetting velocity, the cell rotation angle can be controlled which make orientation control more precisely. The method is valid for cells of different shapes and sizes. The effectiveness of the proposed non-contact method for cell configuration control was verified by experiments.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 365-372).
This thesis presents the design, analysis, and experimental testing of systems for noncontact suspension and control of flexible structures. Our particular focus is on the use of such suspensions in manufacturing processes which can be facilitated by the ability to control workpiece motion without contact. This can be of significant utility in processes such as coating, painting, heat treating, and web handling. We develop a novel approach for the control of such non-contact suspensions through what we term sensor averaging and actuator averaging. The difficult stability and robustness problems imposed by the flexible dynamics of the workpiece can be overcome by taking a properly-weighted average of the outputs of a distributed array of N motion sensors (sensor averaging), and/or by applying a properly-weighted distributed array of M forces (actuator averaging) to the workpiece. The theory for these dual techniques is developed in detail in the thesis. These approaches are shown to be independent of the specific boundary conditions or the longitudinal dimensions of the workpiece. These approaches are thus generally applicable to a wide range of structural control problems. We present both analytical and numerical analyses of the structural dynamics for typical flexible workpieces such as strings, beams, membranes, and plates. The analyses include axial translation of the workpiece. We have experimentally demonstrated the utility of our theory by application in the successful magnetic suspension of a 3 m long, 6.35 mm diameter, 0.89 mm wall thickness steel tube with varying boundary conditions. This is a very challenging problem due to the extremely light damping of the modes (< 0.001 with free ends). The experiment uses a set of 8 sensors and 8 actuators to measure and control the motion of the tube in the two lateral degrees of freedom. We present the details of the developed electromagnetic actuators, position sensors, modeling of the structural dynamics, the relevant vibration control techniques, and develop the associated theory for choosing sensor and actuator locations. Our results experimentally confirm the value of our averaging techniques, and suggest the wide future application of these ideas in industrial processes which require non-contact handling of workpieces.
by Ming-chih Weng.
Ph.D.

Dans la première partie de cette thèse, nous caractérisons complètement toutes les x-sorties plates et leurs lieux singuliers pour un système avec deux contrôles qui est équivalent au système chaîné. Nous appliquons aussi ce résultat au système de robot mobile avec des remorques pour calculer toutes ses x-sorties plates. Dans la deuxième partie, nous présentons un nouveau modèle pour le système à n-barres dans l'espace de dimension m+1. Nous montrons que ce système est localement équivalent au système m-chaîné et caractérisons aussi ses lieux singuliers. Ensuite, nous analysons sa propriété de platitude et donnons ses sorties plates minimales. Dans la troisième partie, nous donnons des conditions nécessaires et suffisantes pour qu'une distribution soit équivalente à la distribution de Cartan pour des surfaces. Finalement, dans la quatrième partie, nous donnons des conditions nécessaires et suffisantes vérifiables pour qu'un système multi-entrées soit linéarisable par bouclage orbital.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xxii, 271 p.; also includes graphics (some col.) Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-214).

Dans cette thèse nous présentons les résultats sur l'emploi des systèmes Hamiltoniens à port et des systèmes de contact commandés pour la modélisation et la commande de systèmes issus de la Thermodynamique Irréversible. Premièrement nous avons défini une classe de pseudo-systèmes Hamiltoniens à port, appelée systèmes Hamiltoniens à port irréversibles, qui permet de représenter simultanément le premier et le second principe de la Thermodynamique et inclut des modèles d'échangeurs thermiques ou de réacteurs chimiques. Ces systèmes ont été relevés sur l'espace des phases thermodynamiques muni d’une forme de contact, définissant ainsi une classe de systèmes de contact commandés, c'est-à-dire des systèmes commandés non-linéaires définis par des champs de contacts stricts. Deuxièmement, nous avons montré que seul un retour d'état constant préserve la forme de contact et avons alors résolu le problème d'assignation d'une forme de contact en boucle fermée. Ceci a mené à la définition de systèmes de contact entrée-sortie et l'analyse de leur équivalence par retour d'état. Troisièmement, nous avons montré que les champs de contact n'étaient en général pas stables en leur zéros et avons alors traité du problème de la stabilisation sur une sous-variété de Legendre en boucle fermée
This doctoral thesis presents results on the use of port Hamiltonian systems (PHS) and controlled contact systems for modeling and control of irreversible thermodynamic processes. Firstly, Irreversible PHS (IPHS) has been defined as a class of pseudo-port Hamiltonian system that expresses the first and second principle of Thermodynamics and encompasses models of heat exchangers and chemical reactors. These IPHS have been lifted to the complete Thermodynamic Phase Space endowed with a natural contact structure, thereby defining a class of controlled contact systems, i.e. nonlinear control systems defined by strict contact vector fields. Secondly, it has been shown that only a constant control preserves the canonical contact structure, hence a structure preserving feedback necessarily shapes the closed-loop contact form. The conditions for state feedbacks shaping the contact form have been characterized and have lead to the definition of input-output contact systems. Thirdly, it has been shown that strict contact vector fields are in general unstable at their zeros, hence the condition for the the stability in closed-loop has been characterized as stabilization on some closed-loop invariant Legendre submanifolds

Les interfaces à retour d'effort sont des systèmes robotisés permettant d'interagir gestuellement de façon naturelle avec des environnements virtuels ou distants. Ces dispositifs sont utilisés dans différents contextes tels que la téléopération (e.g. nucléaire, sous-marine, spatiale), le manufacturing, les jeux vidéo, l'éducation, la médecine ou la rééducation, pour ne citer que quelques exemples. Pour les applications en réalité virtuelle, les utilisateurs manipulent généralement ces interfaces à l'aide d'une poignée qui est reliée mécaniquement au robot. Ce lien a une influence importante puisqu'il conduit l'utilisateur à ressentir la présence du robot même en espace libre (frottements, vibrations, inertie de la structure mécanique du robot), ce qui réduit le réalisme de l'interaction. Les interfaces à contacts intermittents (CI) constituent une alternative prometteuse pour essayer de surmonter ces inconvénients. Elles proposent de suivre les mouvements de l'utilisateur à faible distance en espace libre et de ne venir à son contact que lorsque l'on veut appliquer un retour d'effort. Elles visent de cette façon à améliorer le réalisme des interactions. Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'étude et à l'amélioration des performances d'une telle interface CI
Force feedback interfaces are robotic systems allowing natural motion interactions with virtual or remote environments. They are employed in several domains such as remote handling (e.g. nuclear, subsea, space), manufacturing, entertainment, education, medicine and rehabilitation, just to mention the most popular. In virtual reality (VR) applications, the user typically holds a handle that is mechanically linked to the end-effector of the robot. This link has a non-negligible influence since the presence of the robot can be felt (friction, inertia and vibrations of the mechanical structure) even in free space, decreasing the realism of the interaction. Intermittent-contact haptic interfaces (IC-HIs) represent a promising approach to cope with this issue. These interfaces track and closely follow (without contact) the user movements in free space and come to his/her contact only when force feedback is required. This way IC interfaces aim to improve the realism of the interactions. The thesis presented concerns the study and improvement of such IC-His

The effects of repeated mild concussive head injury on professional rugby players were examined. Data were collected for rugby players (n=26) and cricket player controls (n=21) using a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery comprising five modalities (Verbal Memory, Visual Memory, Verbal Fluency, Visuoperccptual Tracking and Hand Motor Dexterity) and a self-report Postconcussive Symptomology Questionnaire. Group statistical comparisons of the percentage of individuals with deficit were carried out for (i) rugby versus cricket; (ii) rugby forwards versus rugby backs; and (iii) rugby forwards versus cricket. Rugby players performed significantly poorer than controls on SA W AIS Digit Symbol Substitution subtest and on the Trail Making Test. On Digits Forward and Digit Symbol Incidental Recall, the results approached significance with the rugby players showing a tendency toward impairment on these tests. Rugby players exhibited impairment in areas of visuoperceptual tracking, speed of information processing and attention, and there are tendencies of impairment in verbal and/or visual memory. Results obtained on the self-report questionnaire strongly reinforced cognitive test results and a significant proportion of rugby players reported difficulties with sustained attention, memory and lowered frustration tolerance as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression. It was consistently noted that players in the more full contact positions (rugby forwards) were most susceptible to impairment, confirming that these players, who are exposed to repeated mild head injuries, are at greater risk of exhibiting postconcussive sequelae
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The genus Corynebacterium contains the species Corynebacterium diphtheriae and the non-diphtherial corynebacteria. C. diphtheriae is the major human pathogen in this genus, but several species of nondiphtheria corynebacteria appear to be emerging as important pathogens.Zoonotic corynebacteria rarely cause disease in humans, but recent reports have indicated that the frequency and severity of infection associated with Corynebacterium ulcerans has increased in many countries. In the past most human C.ulcerans infections have occurred through close contact with farm animals or by consumption of unpasteurised dairy products. However, recently, there have been cases of human infection following close contact with household pets. Rhodococcus equi appears to be emerging as an important pathogen in immunocompromised patients, especially those with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Human infections caused by Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is still a very rare occurrence.Antibiotics in combination with surgery and vaccination are the treatment of choice for human infection. Control of human infection is best achieved by raising awareness in those at risk (e.g. domestic pet owners, sheep shearers, the immunocompromised), clinicians involved in treating these groups and by vaccination. Reducing prevalence in the animal population could be achieved by improving hygiene in farms and husbandry practices, reducing minor injuries (e.g. cuts and abrasions) during routine procedures, and by vaccination.

Glanders is a serious zoonotic disease that primarily affects equids (horses, mules and donkeys). A disease eradication programme based on case detection and destruction of infected domestic animals has been highly successful and the number of reported glanders cases in animals worldwide is now very low. Human glanders is extremely rare and associated with occupations associated with extensive contact with equids. Glanders is caused by Burkholderia mallei, a Gram-negative, non-motile, facultative intracellular organism that is an obligate parasite of equids with no other known natural reservoir. B. mallei is transmitted by direct contact with infected animals, or indirectly via communal food and water sources that have become contaminated by an infected animal. The clinical presentation in equids can be acute or chronic and has been categorized into nasal, pulmonary and cutaneous forms. Diagnosis is based on culturing B. mallei from lesions or exudates and skin or serological testing. Infected animals are usually euthanized. Optimal antimicrobial therapy for human glanders is unknown, and current advice is to adopt antimicrobial treatment guidelines for human melioidosis. There is no vaccine available for either humans or other animals. B. mallei is considered a potential biological weapon and is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention category B select agent.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

AbstractThe planning and integration of production systems with a direct human-robot collaboration (HRC) is still associated with various technical challenges. This applies especially to the realization of the operation methods speed and separation monitoring (SSM) as well as power and force limiting (PFL). Due to the limited consideration of the human motion behaviour, the required dynamic separation distance in SSM is frequently oversized in practice. The main consequences are wasted space as well as cycle time and performance losses within the corresponding HRC application. In PFL a physical contact between the operator and robot is permissible, taking into account specified biomechanical thresholds. However, there is still a lack of suitable use-cases since the maximum permissible speeds are on a very low level. Moreover some thresholds regarding the transient contact case are still non-applicable for critical body areas (e.g. temple, middle of forehead). The study of this paper is related to a kinematic state determination of the human operator within a new hybrid collaborative operation. In this method the SSM type is extended regarding the description of the operator and coupled with the two-body contact model of the PFL. Using a planning and simulation tool for HRC, the kinematic states of different body regions are derived from an integrated and parameterized digital human model. Afterwards, these body regions are mapped to the characteristic body areas of the ISO/TS 15066, whereby the resulting information will be applied in an adaptive robot speed control. The performance of the presented concept will be evaluated using an exemplary simulated HRC scenario.

A direct-contact heat and mass exchanger (DCHME) has many advantages over a traditional surface-type heat exchanger, including a high heat transfer coefficient, simplicity of design, and low OPEX and CAPEX. DCHME has a capability to exchange of both heat and mass between the two fluids in the same process. Hence, DCHMEs are widely used in numerous applications in various industries, including the air conditioning industry for cooling and dehumidification and heating and humidification. Based on their structure, DCHME can be categorized into two groups; two fluids direct contact (TFDC) exchanger and two direct contacts with one non-contact fluid (TDCONF) exchanger. This study developed a mathematical model for these two types of exchangers by using a discretized volume with distributed lumped-parameters method instead of using the conventional log mean enthalpy difference (LMHD) and NTU-effectiveness method. Thus, this model can reflect both heat and mass transfer behavior in every spatially distributed physical system. The objective of this study is to develop a mathematical model to be used as a tool for designing DCHME and to be applied as a sub-function of the model predictive control system to predict the effectiveness and dependent parameters of DCHME under the different load conditions and its various input parameters.

Clinical assessment of patients and therapeutic interaction relies on the clinician’s interpersonal skills. The psychiatric interview serves the purposes to understand signs and symptoms in terms of their (maladaptive) meaning, to ascertain a (preliminary) diagnosis, and to initiate therapy. The clinician’s task, therefore, is to simultaneously listen to the patient’s subjective report, observe the patient’s non-verbal and paraverbal behaviour, and be attentive to his or her own emotional reactions (self-reflection). Specifically, sometimes the non-verbal expressions of behaviour tell more about a patient’s inner state than his or her verbal report, simply because the former is less under conscious control. The traditional psychiatric terminology distinguished between cognitive, emotional, and behavioural manifestations of psychopathology. An ethology-based description of non-verbal behaviours according to the meaning of the behavioural unit (eye contact, affiliation, assertiveness, flight, ambivalence, relaxation) is suitable to complement the traditional examination.

Background Transplanting vegetable seedlings to final spacing in the greenhouse is common practice. At the time of transplanting, the transpiring leaf area is a small fraction of the ground area and its cooling effect is rather limited. A preliminary modeling study suggested that if water supply from root to canopy is not limiting, a sparse crop could maintain about the same canopy temperature as a mature crop, at the expense of a considerably higher transpiration flux per leaf (and root) area. The objectives of this project were (1) to test the predictions of the model, (2) to select suitable cooling methods, and (3) to compare the drought resistance of differently prepared seedlings. Procedure Plants were grown in several configurations in high heat load environments, which were moderated by various environmental control methods. The difference between the three experimental locations was mainly in terms of scale, age of plants, and environmental control. Young potted plants were tested for a few days in small growth chambers at Technion and Newe Ya'ar. At NCSU, tomato plants of different ages and planting densities were compared over a whole growing season under conditions similar to commercial greenhouses. Results Effect of spacing: Densely spaced plants transpired less per plant and more per unit ground area than sparsely spaced plants. The canopy temperature of the densely spaced plants was lower. Air temperature was lower and humidity higher in the compartments with the densely spaced plants. The difference between species is mainly in the canopy-to-air Bowen ratio, which is positive for pepper and negative for tomato. Effect of cooling methods: Ventilation and evaporative pad cooling were found to be effective and synergitic. Air mixing turned out to be very ineffective, indicating that the canopy-to-air transfer coefficient is not the limiting factor in the ventilation process. Shading and misting, both affecting the leaf temperature directly, proved to be very effective canopy cooling methods. However, in view of their side effects, they should only be considered as emergency measures. On-line measures of stress: Chlorophyll fluorescence was shown to accurately predict photosynthesis. This is potentially useful as a rapid, non-contact way of assessing canopy heat stress. Normalized canopy temperature and transpiration rate were shown to correlate with water stress. Drought resistance of seedlings: Comparison between normal seedlings and partially defoliated ones, all subjected to prolonged drought, indicated that removing about half of the lowermost leaves prior to transplanting, may facilitate adjustment to the more stressful conditions in the greenhouse. Implications The results of this experimental study may lead to: (1) An improved model for a sparse canopy in a greenhouse. (2) A better ventilation design procedure utilizing improved estimates of the evaporation coefficient for different species and plant configurations. (3) A test for the stress resistance of transplants.

The objectives of this project were to develop nondestructive methods for detection of internal properties and firmness of fruits and vegetables. One method was based on a soft piezoelectric film transducer developed in the Technion, for analysis of fruit response to low-energy excitation. The second method was a dot-matrix piezoelectric transducer of North Carolina State University, developed for contact-pressure analysis of fruit during impact. Two research teams, one in Israel and the other in North Carolina, coordinated their research effort according to the specific objectives of the project, to develop and apply the two complementary methods for quality control of agricultural commodities. In Israel: An improved firmness testing system was developed and tested with tropical fruits. The new system included an instrumented fruit-bed of three flexible piezoelectric sensors and miniature electromagnetic hammers, which served as fruit support and low-energy excitation device, respectively. Resonant frequencies were detected for determination of firmness index. Two new acoustic parameters were developed for evaluation of fruit firmness and maturity: a dumping-ratio and a centeroid of the frequency response. Experiments were performed with avocado and mango fruits. The internal damping ratio, which may indicate fruit ripeness, increased monotonically with time, while resonant frequencies and firmness indices decreased with time. Fruit samples were tested daily by destructive penetration test. A fairy high correlation was found in tropical fruits between the penetration force and the new acoustic parameters; a lower correlation was found between this parameter and the conventional firmness index. Improved table-top firmness testing units, Firmalon, with data-logging system and on-line data analysis capacity have been built. The new device was used for the full-scale experiments in the next two years, ahead of the original program and BARD timetable. Close cooperation was initiated with local industry for development of both off-line and on-line sorting and quality control of more agricultural commodities. Firmalon units were produced and operated in major packaging houses in Israel, Belgium and Washington State, on mango and avocado, apples, pears, tomatoes, melons and some other fruits, to gain field experience with the new method. The accumulated experimental data from all these activities is still analyzed, to improve firmness sorting criteria and shelf-life predicting curves for the different fruits. The test program in commercial CA storage facilities in Washington State included seven apple varieties: Fuji, Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and D'Anjou pear variety. FI master-curves could be developed for the Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith and Jonagold apples. These fruits showed a steady ripening process during the test period. Yet, more work should be conducted to reduce scattering of the data and to determine the confidence limits of the method. Nearly constant FI in Red Delicious and the fluctuations of FI in the Fuji apples should be re-examined. Three sets of experiment were performed with Flandria tomatoes. Despite the complex structure of the tomatoes, the acoustic method could be used for firmness evaluation and to follow the ripening evolution with time. Close agreement was achieved between the auction expert evaluation and that of the nondestructive acoustic test, where firmness index of 4.0 and more indicated grade-A tomatoes. More work is performed to refine the sorting algorithm and to develop a general ripening scale for automatic grading of tomatoes for the fresh fruit market. Galia melons were tested in Israel, in simulated export conditions. It was concluded that the Firmalon is capable of detecting the ripening of melons nondestructively, and sorted out the defective fruits from the export shipment. The cooperation with local industry resulted in development of automatic on-line prototype of the acoustic sensor, that may be incorporated with the export quality control system for melons. More interesting is the development of the remote firmness sensing method for sealed CA cool-rooms, where most of the full-year fruit yield in stored for off-season consumption. Hundreds of ripening monitor systems have been installed in major fruit storage facilities, and being evaluated now by the consumers. If successful, the new method may cause a major change in long-term fruit storage technology. More uses of the acoustic test method have been considered, for monitoring fruit maturity and harvest time, testing fruit samples or each individual fruit when entering the storage facilities, packaging house and auction, and in the supermarket. This approach may result in a full line of equipment for nondestructive quality control of fruits and vegetables, from the orchard or the greenhouse, through the entire sorting, grading and storage process, up to the consumer table. The developed technology offers a tool to determine the maturity of the fruits nondestructively by monitoring their acoustic response to mechanical impulse on the tree. A special device was built and preliminary tested in mango fruit. More development is needed to develop a portable, hand operated sensing method for this purpose. In North Carolina: Analysis method based on an Auto-Regressive (AR) model was developed for detecting the first resonance of fruit from their response to mechanical impulse. The algorithm included a routine that detects the first resonant frequency from as many sensors as possible. Experiments on Red Delicious apples were performed and their firmness was determined. The AR method allowed the detection of the first resonance. The method could be fast enough to be utilized in a real time sorting machine. Yet, further study is needed to look for improvement of the search algorithm of the methods. An impact contact-pressure measurement system and Neural Network (NN) identification method were developed to investigate the relationships between surface pressure distributions on selected fruits and their respective internal textural qualities. A piezoelectric dot-matrix pressure transducer was developed for the purpose of acquiring time-sampled pressure profiles during impact. The acquired data was transferred into a personal computer and accurate visualization of animated data were presented. Preliminary test with 10 apples has been performed. Measurement were made by the contact-pressure transducer in two different positions. Complementary measurements were made on the same apples by using the Firmalon and Magness Taylor (MT) testers. Three-layer neural network was designed. 2/3 of the contact-pressure data were used as training input data and corresponding MT data as training target data. The remaining data were used as NN checking data. Six samples randomly chosen from the ten measured samples and their corresponding Firmalon values were used as the NN training and target data, respectively. The remaining four samples' data were input to the NN. The NN results consistent with the Firmness Tester values. So, if more training data would be obtained, the output should be more accurate. In addition, the Firmness Tester values do not consistent with MT firmness tester values. The NN method developed in this study appears to be a useful tool to emulate the MT Firmness test results without destroying the apple samples. To get more accurate estimation of MT firmness a much larger training data set is required. When the larger sensitive area of the pressure sensor being developed in this project becomes available, the entire contact 'shape' will provide additional information and the neural network results would be more accurate. It has been shown that the impact information can be utilized in the determination of internal quality factors of fruit. Until now,

Commercial agriculture has come under increasing pressure to reduce nitrogen fertilizer inputs in order to minimize potential nonpoint source pollution of ground and surface waters. This has resulted in increased interest in site specific fertilizer management. One way to solve pollution problems would be to determine crop nutrient needs in real time, using remote detection, and regulating fertilizer dispensed by an applicator. By detecting actual plant needs, only the additional nitrogen necessary to optimize production would be supplied. This research aimed to develop techniques for real time assessment of nitrogen status of corn using a mobile sensor with the potential to regulate nitrogen application based on data from that sensor. Specifically, the research first attempted to determine the system parameters necessary to optimize reflectance spectra of corn plants as a function of growth stage, chlorophyll and nitrogen status. In addition to that, an adaptable, multispectral sensor and the signal processing algorithm to provide real time, in-field assessment of corn nitrogen status was developed. Spectral characteristics of corn leaves reflectance were investigated in order to estimate the nitrogen status of the plants, using a commercial laboratory spectrometer. Statistical models relating leaf N and reflectance spectra were developed for both greenhouse and field plots. A basis was established for assessing nitrogen status using spectral reflectance from plant canopies. The combined effect of variety and N treatment was studied by measuring the reflectance of three varieties of different leaf characteristic color and five different N treatments. The variety effect on the reflectance at 552 nm was not significant (a = 0.01), while canonical discriminant analysis showed promising results for distinguishing different variety and N treatment, using spectral reflectance. Ambient illumination was found inappropriate for reliable, one-beam spectral reflectance measurement of the plants canopy due to the strong spectral lines of sunlight. Therefore, artificial light was consequently used. For in-field N status measurement, a dark chamber was constructed, to include the sensor, along with artificial illumination. Two different approaches were tested (i) use of spatially scattered artificial light, and (ii) use of collimated artificial light beam. It was found that the collimated beam along with a proper design of the sensor-beam geometry yielded the best results in terms of reducing the noise due to variable background, and maintaining the same distance from the sensor to the sample point of the canopy. A multispectral sensor assembly, based on a linear variable filter was designed, constructed and tested. The sensor assembly combined two sensors to cover the range of 400 to 1100 nm, a mounting frame, and a field data acquisition system. Using the mobile dark chamber and the developed sensor, as well as an off-the-shelf sensor, in- field nitrogen status of the plants canopy was measured. Statistical analysis of the acquired in-field data showed that the nitrogen status of the com leaves can be predicted with a SEP (Standard Error of Prediction) of 0.27%. The stage of maturity of the crop affected the relationship between the reflectance spectrum and the nitrogen status of the leaves. Specifically, the best prediction results were obtained when a separate model was used for each maturity stage. In-field assessment of the nitrogen status of corn leaves was successfully carried out by non contact measurement of the reflectance spectrum. This technology is now mature to be incorporated in field implements for on-line control of fertilizer application.