Trajectory tracking and vibration suppression are essential objectives in a flexible joint manipulator control. The flexible joint manipulator is an under-actuated system, in which the number of control actions is less than the degree of freedom to be controlled. It is very challenging to control the underactuated nonlinear system with two degree of freedom. This paper presents a hierarchical sliding mode control (HSMC) for a rotary flexible joint manipulator (RFJM). Firstly, the rotary flexible joint manipulator is modeled by two subsystems. Secondly, the sliding surfaces for both subsystems are constructed. Finally, the control action is designed based on the Lyapunov function. Computer simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of

In this work, a joint quadrature for numerical solution of the double integral is presented. This method is based on combining two rules of the same precision level to form a higher level of precision. Numerical results of the present method with a lower level of precision are presented and compared with those performed by the existing high-precision Gauss-Legendre five-point rule in two variables, which has the same functional evaluation. The efficiency of the proposed method is justified with numerical examples. From an application point of view, the determination of the center of gravity is a special consideration for the present scheme. Convergence analysis is demonstrated to validate the current method.

This article presents a new cascaded extended state observer (CESO)-based sliding-mode control (SMC) for an underactuated flexible joint robot (FJR). The control of the FJR has many challenges, including coupling, underactuation, nonlinearity, uncertainties and external disturbances, and the noise amplification especially in the high-order systems. The proposed control integrates the CESO and SMC, in which the CESO estimates the states and disturbances, and the SMC provides the system robustness to the uncertainty and disturbance estimation errors. First, a dynamic model of the FJR is derived and converted from an underactuated form to a canonical form via the Olfati transformation and a flatness approach, which reduces the complexity of th

The flexible joint robot manipulators provide various benefits, but also present many control challenges such as nonlinearities, strong coupling, vibration, etc. This paper proposes optimal second order integral sliding mode control (OSOISMC) for a single link flexible joint manipulator to achieve robust and smooth performance. Firstly, the integral sliding mode control is designed, which consists of a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) as a nominal control, and switching control. This control guarantees the system robustness for the entire process. Then, a nonsingularterminal sliding surface is added to give a second order integral sliding mode control (SOISMC), which reduces chartering effect and gives the finite time convergence as well. S

Type 2 daibetes mellitus (T2DM) is a global concern boosted by both population growth and ageing, the majority of affected people are aged between (40- 59 year). The objective of this research was to estimate the impact of age and gender on glycaemic control parameters: Fasting blood glucose (FBC), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C), insulin, insulin resistance (IR) and insulin sensitivity (IS), renal function parameters: urea, creatinine and oxidative stress parameters: total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Eighty-one random samples of T2DM patients (35 men and 46 women) were included in this study, their average age was 52.75±9.63 year. Current study found that FBG, HbA1C and IR were highly significant (P<0.01) inc

The combustion and pyrolysis processes of sewage sludge were studied in the current report. Two kinds of sewage sludge(SS) were used, SS the sewage sludge was not treated, while SS-U90KHz the ultrasonic bath pre-treated sewage sludge with a frequency of 90KHz was not treated. Wastewater treatment plants are the origins of waste sludge. Analyses were performed roughly and finally. Thermogravimetric research analyzed the thermal behaviour of the analysed sewage bucket (TGA). The samples were heated at a constant rate of 25 to 800 Celsius by air (combustion) and nitrogen flow (pyrolysis). For sludges which have been investigated. In the TG/DTG curves, comparable thermal profiles were available. All of the TG/curves DTG’s were divided into th

Scleral acrylic resin is widely used to synthesize ocular prosthesis. However, the properties of this material change over time, thus requiring the prosthesis to be refabricated. Many studies were conducted to improve these properties by reinforcing this material with nanoparticles. This study aims to evaluate the effect of silver nanoparticle powder on the mechanical properties (transverse flexural strength, impact strength, shear bond strength, surface microhardness, and surface roughness) of scleral acrylic resin used for ocular prostheses. Two concentrations were selected from the pilot study and evaluated for their effects on scleral acrylic resin properties. According to the pilot study, 0.01 and 0.02wt% AgNPs powder improved

Indium Antimonide (InSb) thin films were grown onto well cleaned glass substrates at substrate temperatures (473 K) by flash evaporation. X-ray diffraction studies confirm the polycrystalline of the films and the films show preferential orientation along the (111) plane .The particle size increases with the increase of annealing time .The transmission spectra of prepared samples were found to be in the range (400-5000 cm-1 ) from FTIR study . This indicates that the crystallinity is improved in the films deposited at higher annealing time.

Self- curing is the potential of lightweight aggregate to absorption great amount of water thru mixing which prominently can moves to the paste during hydration process. Self- curing empowers a water to be distributes more evenly act out the cross section. Whereas, the external curing water is only able to penetrate several millimetres into concrete with low water cement ratio. Brick dust accumulates in the demolish site creates serious environmental contamination. This study investigates the effect of brick dust recovered from construction site on the Properties of mortar cured in three curing conditions. Mortar in this study produced using BD as cement additive with (2, 4, 6, and 8) % by weight of cement. BD was used a

For over a decade, educational technology has been used sparingly in our schools and universities. Online training courses have been used since 2003 to fill the gaps in our learning system and to add extra program besides classroom learning. This paper aims to investigate the Iraqi EFL instructors’ participating in online training courses and its influence on the process of teaching and learning.

       The sample of present study consists of 30 instructors from University of Baghdad. The questionnaire of sixteen items was constructed. After ensuring validity and reliability of questionnaire, it was applied on March 2013 and the result shows that most of instructors improve their teaching methods b