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Robots in Space (Fountas & Pinnell LLI Purple #Level U)
by Kathleen Krull Paul BrewerA Solution in Space. Space travel is exciting--seeing what other planets look like, finding out about the origins of the universe, and creating brand-new technologies. But sending a manned mission out into deep space presents huge risks and obstacles. A solution is here: robots. They can take our place in space, and in fact, we've already sent robots to explore the planet Mars. Robots are probably the only way that earthlings will ever get to see what is out there--way, way out there!
Robots In Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (New Series in NASA History)
by Roger D. Launius Howard E. McCurdyA look into the history of space exploration and its possible future, and just where exactly robotics fit into it all.Given the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take?In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and science fantasy to expound upon the possibilities and improbabilities involved in trekking across the Milky Way and beyond. They survey the literature—fictional as well as academic studies—and outline the progress of space programs in the United States and other nations. They also assess the current state of affairs to offer a conclusion startling only to those who haven’t spent time with Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke: to traverse the cosmos, humans must embrace and entwine themselves with advanced robotic technologies . . .2008 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice MagazinePraise for Robots in Space“This short volume manages to capture the history of U.S. space flight, to explain the underpinnings of U.S. space policy and to plot out the possibilities for our future in space in a style that most anyone can enjoy.” —Andrew McMichael, Park City Daily News
Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (New Series in NASA History)
by Roger D. Launius Howard E. McCurdy2008 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice MagazineGiven the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take?In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these seemingly fanciful questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and science fantasy to expound upon the possibilities and improbabilities involved in trekking across the Milky Way and beyond. They survey the literature—fictional as well as academic studies; outline the progress of space programs in the United States and other nations; and assess the current state of affairs to offer a conclusion startling only to those who haven't spent time with Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke: to traverse the cosmos, humans must embrace and entwine themselves with advanced robotic technologies.Their discussion is as entertaining as it is edifying and their assertions are as sound as they are fantastical. Rather than asking us to suspend disbelief, Robots in Space demands that we accept facts as they evolve.
Robust Adaptive Dynamic Programming
by Yu Jiang Zhong-Ping JiangA comprehensive look at state-of-the-art ADP theory and real-world applications This book fills a gap in the literature by providing a theoretical framework for integrating techniques from adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) and modern nonlinear control to address data-driven optimal control design challenges arising from both parametric and dynamic uncertainties. Traditional model-based approaches leave much to be desired when addressing the challenges posed by the ever-increasing complexity of real-world engineering systems. An alternative which has received much interest in recent years are biologically-inspired approaches, primarily RADP. Despite their growing popularity worldwide, until now books on ADP have focused nearly exclusively on analysis and design, with scant consideration given to how it can be applied to address robustness issues, a new challenge arising from dynamic uncertainties encountered in common engineering problems. Robust Adaptive Dynamic Programming zeros in on the practical concerns of engineers. The authors develop RADP theory from linear systems to partially-linear, large-scale, and completely nonlinear systems. They provide in-depth coverage of state-of-the-art applications in power systems, supplemented with numerous real-world examples implemented in MATLAB. They also explore fascinating reverse engineering topics, such how ADP theory can be applied to the study of the human brain and cognition. In addition, the book: Covers the latest developments in RADP theory and applications for solving a range of systems’ complexity problems Explores multiple real-world implementations in power systems with illustrative examples backed up by reusable MATLAB code and Simulink block sets Provides an overview of nonlinear control, machine learning, and dynamic control Features discussions of novel applications for RADP theory, including an entire chapter on how it can be used as a computational mechanism of human movement control Robust Adaptive Dynamic Programming is both a valuable working resource and an intriguing exploration of contemporary ADP theory and applications for practicing engineers and advanced students in systems theory, control engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics.
Robust and Adaptive Control
by Eugene Lavretsky Kevin WiseRobust and Adaptive Control shows the reader how to produce consistent and accurate controllers that operate in the presence of uncertainties and unforeseen events. Driven by aerospace applications the focus of the book is primarily on continuous-dynamical systems. The text is a three-part treatment, beginning with robust and optimal linear control methods and moving on to a self-contained presentation of the design and analysis of model reference adaptive control (MRAC) for nonlinear uncertain dynamical systems. Recent extensions and modifications to MRAC design are included, as are guidelines for combining robust optimal and MRAC controllers. Features of the text include: · case studies that demonstrate the benefits of robust and adaptive control for piloted, autonomous and experimental aerial platforms; · detailed background material for each chapter to motivate theoretical developments; · realistic examples and simulation data illustrating key features of the methods described; and · problem solutions for instructors and MATLAB® code provided electronically. The theoretical content and practical applications reported address real-life aerospace problems, being based on numerous transitions of control-theoretic results into operational systems and airborne vehicles that are drawn from the authors' extensive professional experience with The Boeing Company. The systems covered are challenging, often open-loop unstable, with uncertainties in their dynamics, and thus requiring both persistently reliable control and the ability to track commands either from a pilot or a guidance computer. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of root locus, Bode diagrams, and Nyquist plots, as well as linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and the use of state-space methods in analysis and modeling of dynamical systems. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value.assumed to have a basic understanding of root locus, Bode diagrams, and Nyquist plots, as well as linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and the use of state-space methods in analysis and modeling of dynamical systems. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of root locus, Bode diagrams, and Nyquist plots, as well as linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and the use of state-space methods in analysis and modeling of dynamical systems. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value. Robust and Adaptive Control is intended to methodically teach senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial application...
Robust and Adaptive Control: With Aerospace Applications (Advanced Textbooks in Control and Signal Processing)
by Eugene Lavretsky Kevin A. WiseRobust and Adaptive Control (second edition) shows readers how to produce consistent and accurate controllers that operate in the presence of uncertainties and unforeseen events. Driven by aerospace applications, the focus of the book is primarily on continuous-time dynamical systems.The two-part text begins with robust and optimal linear control methods and moves on to a self-contained presentation of the design and analysis of model reference adaptive control for nonlinear uncertain dynamical systems. Features of the second edition include:sufficient conditions for closed-loop stability under output feedback observer-based loop-transfer recovery (OBLTR) with adaptive augmentation;OBLTR applications to aerospace systems;case studies that demonstrate the benefits of robust and adaptive control for piloted, autonomous and experimental aerial platforms;realistic examples and simulation data illustrating key features of the methods described; andproblem solutions for instructors and MATLAB® code provided electronically.The theory and practical applications address real-life aerospace problems, being based on numerous transitions of control-theoretic results into operational systems and airborne vehicles drawn from the authors’ extensive professional experience with The Boeing Company. The systems covered are challenging—often open-loop unstable with uncertainties in their dynamics—and thus require both persistently reliable control and the ability to track commands either from a pilot or a guidance computer.Readers should have a basic understanding of root locus, Bode diagrams, and Nyquist plots, as well as linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and the use of state-space methods in analysis and modeling of dynamical systems. The second edition contains a background summary of linear systems and control systems and an introduction to state observers and output feedback control, helping to make it self-contained.Robust and Adaptive Control teaches senior undergraduate and graduate students how to construct stable and predictable control algorithms for realistic industrial applications. Practicing engineers and academic researchers will also find the book of great instructional value.
Robust and Optimal Control
by Mi-Ching Tsai Da-Wei GuA Two-port Framework for Robust and Optimal Control introduces an alternative approach to robust and optimal controller synthesis procedures for linear, time-invariant systems, based on the two-port system widespread in electrical engineering. The novel use of the two-port system in this context allows straightforward engineering-oriented solution-finding procedures to be developed, requiring no mathematics beyond linear algebra. A chain-scattering description provides a unified framework for constructing the stabilizing controller set and for synthesizing H2 optimal and H8 sub-optimal controllers. Simple yet illustrative examples explain each step. A Two-port Framework for Robust and Optimal Controla features: Aaaaaaaaa a hands-on, tutorial-style presentation giving the reader the opportunity to repeat the designs presented and easily to modify them for their own programs;Aaaaaaaaa an abundance of examples illustrating the most important steps in robust and optimal design; andAaaaaaaaa end-of-chapter exercises. To further demonstrate the proposed approaches, in the last chapter an application case study is presented which demonstrates the use of the framework in a real-world control system design and helps the reader quickly move on with their own challenges. MATLAB- codes used in examples throughout the book and solutions to selected exercise questions are available for download. The text will have particular resonance for researchers in control with an electrical engineering background, who wish to avoid spending excessive time in learning complex mathematical, theoretical developments but need to know how to deal with robust and optimal control synthesis problems. Please see http: //km. emotors. ncku. edu. tw/class/hw1. html] for solutions to the exercises provided in this book. "
Robust Control: Theory and Applications
by Kang-Zhi Liu Yu YaoComprehensive and up to date coverage of robust control theory and its application• Presented in a well-planned and logical way• Written by a respected leading author, with extensive experience in robust control• Accompanying website provides solutions manual and other supplementary material
Robust Control Algorithms for Flexible Manipulators
by Kshetrimayum Lochan Binoy Krishna Roy Bidyadhar Subudhi Santhakumar MohanVarious modelling and control of two-link flexible manipulators are presented in this book. The lumped parameter modelling method and the assumed modes method modelling are comprehensively reviewed. The book also reviews the trajectory tracking problem and tip trajectory tracking problem along with the suppression of tip deflection of the links. An exponential time varying signal and a chaotic signal are considered as the desired trajectories. The identical/ non-identical slave manipulator is synchronised with the controlled master manipulator so that the slave manipulator indirectly follows the desired manipulator.
Robust Control Design with MATLAB®
by Da-Wei Gu Mihail M Konstantinov Petko H. PetkovRobust Control Design with MATLAB® (second edition) helps the student to learn how to use well-developed advanced robust control design methods in practical cases. To this end, several realistic control design examples from teaching-laboratory experiments, such as a two-wheeled, self-balancing robot, to complex systems like a flexible-link manipulator are given detailed presentation. All of these exercises are conducted using MATLAB® Robust Control Toolbox 3, Control System Toolbox and Simulink®. By sharing their experiences in industrial cases with minimum recourse to complicated theories and formulae, the authors convey essential ideas and useful insights into robust industrial control systems design using major H-infinity optimization and related methods allowing readers quickly to move on with their own challenges. The hands-on tutorial style of this text rests on an abundance of examples and features for the second edition: * rewritten and simplified presentation of theoretical and methodological material including original coverage of linear matrix inequalities; * new Part II forming a tutorial on Robust Control Toolbox 3; * fresh design problems including the control of a two-rotor dynamic system; and * end-of-chapter exercises. Electronic supplements to the written text that can be downloaded from extras.springer.com/isbn include: * M-files developed with MATLAB® help in understanding the essence of robust control system design portrayed in text-based examples; * MDL-files for simulation of open- and closed-loop systems in Simulink®; and * a solutions manual available free of charge to those adopting Robust Control Design with MATLAB® as a textbook for courses. Robust Control Design with MATLAB® is for graduate students and practising engineers who want to learn how to deal with robust control design problems without spending a lot of time in researching complex theoretical developments.
Robust Control Engineering: Practical QFT Solutions
by Mario Garcia-SanzThis book thoroughly covers the fundamentals of the QFT robust control, as well as practical control solutions, for unstable, time-delay, non-minimum phase or distributed parameter systems, plants with large model uncertainty, high-performance specifications, nonlinear components, multi-input multi-output characteristics or asymmetric topologies. The reader will discover practical applications through a collection of fifty successful, real world case studies and projects, in which the author has been involved during the last twenty-five years, including commercial wind turbines, wastewater treatment plants, power systems, satellites with flexible appendages, spacecraft, large radio telescopes, and industrial manufacturing systems. Furthermore, the book presents problems and projects with the popular QFT Control Toolbox (QFTCT) for MATLAB, which was developed by the author.
Robust Control for Discrete-Time Markovian Jump Systems in the Finite-Time Domain (Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences #492)
by Xiaoli Luan Shuping He Fei LiuThis book provides robust analysis and synthesis tools for Markovian jump systems in the finite-time domain with specified performances. It explores how these tools can make the systems more applicable to fields such as economic systems, ecological systems and solar thermal central receivers, by limiting system trajectories in the desired bound in a given time interval.Robust Control for Discrete-Time Markovian Jump Systems in the Finite-Time Domain focuses on multiple aspects of finite-time stability and control, including: finite-time H-infinity control;finite-time sliding mode control;finite-time multi-frequency control;finite-time model predictive control; andhigh-order moment finite-time control for multi-mode systems and also provides many methods and algorithms to solve problems related to Markovian jump systems with simulation examples that illustrate the design procedure and confirm the results of the methods proposed.The thorough discussion of these topics makes the book a useful guide for researchers, industrial engineers and graduate students alike, enabling them systematically to establish the modeling, analysis and synthesis for Markovian jump systems in the finite-time domain.
Robust Control for Grid Voltage Stability: High Penetration of Renewable Energy
by Jahangir Hossain Hemanshu Roy PotaThis book makes the area of integration of renewable energy into the existing electricity grid accessible to engineers and researchers. This is a self-contained text which has models of power system devices and control theory necessary to understand and tune controllers in use currently. The new research in renewable energy integration is put into perspective by comparing the change in the system dynamics as compared to the traditional electricity grid. The emergence of the voltage stability problem is motivated by extensive examples. Various methods to mitigate this problem are discussed bringing out their merits clearly. As a solution to the voltage stability problem, the book covers the use of FACTS devices and basic control methods. An important contribution of this book is to introduce advanced control methods for voltage stability. It covers the application of output feedback methods with a special emphasis on how to bound modelling uncertainties and the use of robust control theory to design controllers for practical power systems. Special emphasis is given to designing controllers for FACTS devices to improve low-voltage ride-through capability of induction generators. As generally PV is connected in low voltage distribution area, this book also provides a systematic control design for the PV unit in distribution systems. The theory is amply illustrated with large IEEE Test systems with multiple generators and dynamic load. Controllers are designed using Matlab and tested using full system models in PSSE.
Robust Control of Uncertain Dynamic Systems
by Rama K. YedavalliThis textbook aims to provide a clear understanding of the various tools of analysis and design for robust stability and performance of uncertain dynamic systems. In model-based control design and analysis, mathematical models can never completely represent the "real world" system that is being modeled, and thus it is imperative to incorporate and accommodate a level of uncertainty into the models. This book directly addresses these issues from a deterministic uncertainty viewpoint and focuses on the interval parameter characterization of uncertain systems. Various tools of analysis and design are presented in a consolidated manner. This volume fills a current gap in published works by explicitly addressing the subject of control of dynamic systems from linear state space framework, namely using a time-domain, matrix-theory based approach. This book also: Presents and formulates the robustness problem in a linear state space model framework. Illustrates various systems level methodologies with examples and applications drawn from aerospace, electrical and mechanical engineering. Provides connections between lyapunov-based matrix approach and the transfer function based polynomial approaches. Robust Control of Uncertain Dynamic Systems: A Linear State Space Approach is an ideal book for first year graduate students taking a course in robust control in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering.
Robust Discrete-Time Flight Control of UAV with External Disturbances (Studies in Systems, Decision and Control #317)
by Shuyi Shao Mou Chen Peng ShiThis book studies selected discrete-time flight control schemes for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems in the presence of system uncertainties, external disturbances and input saturation. The main contributions of this book for UAV systems are as follows: (i) the proposed integer-order discrete-time control schemes are based on the designed discrete-time disturbance observers (DTDOs) and the neural network (NN); and (ii) the fractional-order discrete-time control schemes are developed by using the fractional-order calculus theory, the NN and the DTDOs. The book offers readers a good understanding of how to establish discrete-time tracking control schemes for fixed-wing UAV systems subject to system uncertainties, external wind disturbances and input saturation. It represents a valuable reference guide for academic research on uncertain UAV systems, and can also support advanced / Ph.D. studies on control theory and engineering.
Robust Energy Procurement of Large Electricity Consumers
by Sayyad Nojavan Mahdi Shafieezadeh Noradin GhadimiThis book identifies the challenges faced by large electricity consumers when they use several sources to procure their energy. The huge penetration of distributed energy resources and the intermittent nature of renewables can put the operations of the large electricity consumer at risk. The book discusses the different types of energy sources including the pool market, bilateral contracts, electrical vehicles, energy storage systems, and demand response programs in detail and presents solutions for robust and risk based scheduling. The author provides models for determining and considering uncertainties and optimal bidding strategies. The book is useful to engineers and students involved in the integration of various energy types as well as those working in state and federal governmental organizations who regulate different aspects of electricity market operation and planning.Presents solutions for robust and risk based scheduling;Discusses the operation and planning of energy storage systems;Presents the most-up-to-date technological approaches to energy integration.
Robust Integration of Model-Based Fault Estimation and Fault-Tolerant Control (Advances in Industrial Control)
by Jianglin Lan Ronald J. PattonRobust Integration of Model-Based Fault Estimation and Fault-Tolerant Control is a systematic examination of methods used to overcome the inevitable system uncertainties arising when a fault estimation (FE) function and a fault-tolerant controller interact as they are employed together to compensate for system faults and maintain robustly acceptable system performance. It covers the important subject of robust integration of FE and FTC with the aim of guaranteeing closed-loop stability. The reader’s understanding of the theory is supported by the extensive use of tutorial examples, including some MATLAB®-based material available from the Springer website and by industrial-applications-based material. The text is structured into three parts:Part I examines the basic concepts of FE and FTC, providing extensive insight into the importance of and challenges involved in their integration;Part II describes five effective strategies for the integration of FE and FTC: sequential, iterative, simultaneous, adaptive-decoupling, and robust decoupling; andPart III begins to extend the proposed strategies to nonlinear and large-scale systems and covers their application in the fields of renewable energy, robotics and networked systems. The strategies presented are applicable to a broad range of control problems, because in the absence of faults the FE-based FTC naturally reverts to conventional observer-based control. The book is a useful resource for researchers and engineers working in the area of fault-tolerant control systems, and supplementary material for a graduate- or postgraduate-level course on fault diagnosis and FTC.Advances in Industrial Control reports and encourages the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.
Robust Manufacturing Control
by Katja WindtThis contributed volume collects research papers, presented at the CIRP Sponsored Conference Robust Manufacturing Control: Innovative and Interdisciplinary Approaches for Global Networks (RoMaC 2012, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany, June 18th-20th 2012). These research papers present the latest developments and new ideas focusing on robust manufacturing control for global networks. Today, Global Production Networks (i.e. the nexus of interconnected material and information flows through which products and services are manufactured, assembled and distributed) are confronted with and expected to adapt to: sudden and unpredictable large-scale changes of important parameters which are occurring more and more frequently,event propagation in networks with high degree of interconnectivity which leads to unforeseen fluctuations, andnon-equilibrium states which increasingly characterize daily business. These multi-scale changes deeply influence logistic target achievement and call for robust planning and control strategies. Therefore, understanding the cause and effects of multi-scale changes in production networks is of major interest. New methodological approaches from different science disciplines are promising to contribute to a new level comprehension of network processes. Unconventional methods from biology, perturbation ecology or auditory display are gaining increasing importance as they are confronted with similar challenges. Advancements from the classical disciplines such as mathematics, physics and engineering are also becoming of continuing importance.
The Robust Maximum Principle: Foundations And Applications: Robust Maximum Principle: Theory And Applications (Systems And Control: Foundations And Applications Ser.)
by Vladimir G. Boltyanski Alexander S. PoznyakCovering some of the key areas of optimal control theory (OCT), a rapidly expanding field, the authors use new methods to set out a version of OCT's more refined 'maximum principle.' The results obtained have applications in production planning, reinsurance-dividend management, multi-model sliding mode control, and multi-model differential games. This book explores material that will be of great interest to post-graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in applied mathematics and engineering, particularly in the area of systems and control.
Robust Multimodal Cognitive Load Measurement
by Fang Chen Jianlong Zhou Yang Wang Kun Yu Syed Z. Arshad Ahmad Khawaji Dan ConwayThis book explores robust multimodal cognitiveload measurement with physiological and behavioural modalities, which involve theeye, Galvanic Skin Response, speech, language, pen input, mouse movement andmultimodality fusions. Factors including stress, trust, and environmentalfactors such as illumination are discussed regarding their implications forcognitive load measurement. Furthermore, dynamic workload adjustment andreal-time cognitive load measurement with data streaming are presented in orderto make cognitive load measurement accessible by more widespread applicationsand users. Finally, application examples are reviewed demonstrating thefeasibility of multimodal cognitive load measurement in practical applications. This is thefirst book of its kind to systematically introduce various computationalmethods for automatic and real-time cognitive load measurement and by doing somoves the practical application of cognitive load measurement from the domainof the computer scientist and psychologist to more general end-users, ready forwidespread implementation. Robust Multimodal CognitiveLoad Measurement is intended for researchers and practitioners involved with cognitiveload studies and communities within the computer, cognitive, and socialsciences. The book will especially benefit researchers in areas like behaviouranalysis, social analytics, human-computer interaction (HCI), intelligentinformation processing, and decision support systems.
Robust Observer-Based Fault Diagnosis for Nonlinear Systems Using MATLAB®
by Jian Zhang Akshya Kumar Kumar Swain Sing Kiong Kiong NguangThis book introduces several observer-based methods, including: the sliding-mode observer; the adaptive observer; the unknown-input observer; and the descriptor observer for the problem of fault detection, isolation and estimation. The reader can compare and contrast these different approaches to this problem. The authors present basic material on Lyapunov stability theory, H¥ control theory, sliding-mode control theory and linear matrix inequality problems in a self-contained and step-by-step manner. Detailed and rigorous mathematical proofs are provided for all the results developed in the text so that readers can understand the material quickly and thoroughly. MATLAB® and Simulink® codes for all the examples, which can be downloaded from http://extras. springer. com, enable students to follow the methods and illustrative examples easily. The systems used in examples give the book a real connection to problems of industrial control engineering and include a seventh-order aircraft model, a single-link flexible joint robot arm and a satellite controller. To help readers to get what they need from the book without having to ingest more material than necessary and to improve readability the individual chapters are written to be semi-independent of each other. Robust Oberserver-Based Fault Diagnosis for Nonlinear Systems Using MATLAB® will be of interest to process, aerospace, robotics and control engineers, engineering students and researchers with a control engineering background.
Robustness, Plasticity, and Evolvability in Mammals
by Clara B. JonesAmong the unresolved topics in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology are the origins, mechanisms, evolution, and consequences of developmental and phenotypic diversity. In an attempt to address these challenges, plasticity has been investigated empirically and theoretically at all levels of biological organization--from biochemical to whole organism and beyond to the population, community, and ecosystem levels. Less commonly explored are constraints (e.g., ecological), costs (e.g., increased response error), perturbations (e.g., alterations in selection intensity), and stressors (e.g., resource limitation) influencing not only selective values of heritable phenotypic components but, also, decisions and choices (not necessarily conscious ones) available to individuals in populations. Treating extant mammals, the primary purpose of the proposed work is to provide new perspectives on common themes in the literature on robustness ("functional diversity"; differential resistance to "deconstraint" of conserved elements) and weak robustness (the potential to restrict plasticity and evolvability), plasticity (variation expressed throughout the lifetimes of individuals in a population setting "evolvability potential"), and evolvability (non-lethal phenotypic novelties induced by endogenous and/or exogenous stimuli). The proposed project will place particular emphasis upon the adaptive complex in relation to endogenous (e.g., genomes, neurophysiology) and exogenous (abiotic and biotic, including social environments) organismal features discussed as regulatory and environmental perturbations with the potential to induce, and, often, constrain variability and novelty of form and function
Rock and Pop Venues: Acoustic and Architectural Design
by Niels Werner Adelman-LarsenThis new edition of this standard work adds several new information the book, so that sound engineering and architects can better assess the acoustic value of a Rock and Pop Venue. In particular, new insights to the influence of sound absorbers in reflected and important ISO standards are included into the new edition. Based on the first ever scientific investigations on recommendable acoustics for amplified music conducted by the author, this book sets forward precise guidelines for acoustical engineers to optimize the acoustics in existing or future halls for amplified music. It Gives precise guidelines on how to design the acoustics in venues that present amplified music Debates essential construction details, including placement of sound system and use of possible building materials, in the architectural design of new venues or the renovation of old ones Portrays 75 well-known European Rock & Pop venues, their architecture and acoustic properties. 20 venues were rated for their acoustics by music professionals leading to an easy-to-use assessment methodology
Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering
by Per-Anders Persson Roger Holmberg Jaimin LeeRock Blasting and Explosives Engineering covers the practical engineering aspects of many different kinds of rock blasting. It includes a thorough analysis of the cost of the entire process of tunneling by drilling and blasting in comparison with full-face boring. Also covered are the fundamental sciences of rock mass and material strength, the thermal decomposition, burning, shock initiation, and detonation behavior of commercial and military explosives, and systems for charging explosives into drillholes. Functional descriptions of all current detonators and initiation systems are provided. The book includes chapters on flyrock, toxic fumes, the safety of explosives, and even explosives applied in metal working as a fine art. Fundamental in its approach, the text is based on the practical industrial experience of its authors. It is supported by an abundance of tables, diagrams, and figures. This combined textbook and handbook provides students, practitioners, and researchers in mining, mechanical, building construction, geological, and petroleum engineering with a source from which to gain a thorough understanding of the constructive use of explosives.
Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)
by Adrian CurrieAn argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of strategies and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress.Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation.