Special Issue on New Trends in Theory and Applications of Complex Control Systems

Complexity is one of the leading features of modem control systems. It is caused by the complex properties of controlled plants and the varied requirements in controller designs. In dealing with the control problems with complexity, in the past two decades, a lot of papers have been published that reported fruitful results on different theoretical backgrounds and with different methodologies, such as differential geometry-based design methods, hybrid system theory, switching control, neural network-based intelligent control, etc.

COMPLEX VARIABLE-VARIATIONALMETHOD OF SOLUTION FOR BI-METALLAMINATES WITH INTERFACE CRACKSAND ITS APPLICATION IN GLUED JOINTS

In this paper, the eigen function expansions of displacements and stresses of bi-metal laminates with interface cracks are obtained. Furthermore, the stress intensity factors are determined by the variational method to satisfy the boundary conditions and there are only line integrals in the variational equations due to the previous satisfaction of all basic equations. The computations show that this method of solution has the advantages of rapid convergency and time-saving. The results obtained by this method for homogeneous material agree with the known ones very well.

Blockchain-as-a-Utility for Next-Generation Healthcare Internet of Things

The scope of the Internet of Things(IoT)applications varies from strategic applications,such as smart grids,smart transportation,smart security,and smart healthcare,to industrial applications such as smart manufacturing,smart logistics,smart banking,and smart insurance.In the advancement of the IoT,connected devices become smart and intelligent with the help of sensors and actuators.However,issues and challenges need to be addressed regarding the data reliability and protection for signicant nextgeneration IoT applications like smart healthcare.For these next-generation applications,there is a requirement for far-reaching privacy and security in the IoT.Recently,blockchain systems have emerged as a key technology that changes the way we exchange data.This emerging technology has revealed encouraging implementation scenarios,such as secured digital currencies.As a technical advancement,the blockchain network has the high possibility of transforming various industries,and the next-generation healthcare IoT(HIoT)can be one of those applications.There have been several studies on the integration of blockchain networks and IoT.However,blockchain-as-autility(BaaU)for privacy and security in HIoT systems requires a systematic framework.This paper reviews blockchain networks and proposes BaaU as one of the enablers.The proposed BaaU-based framework for trustworthiness in the next-generation HIoT systems is divided into two scenarios.The rst scenario suggests that a healthcare service provider integrates IoT sensors such as body sensors to receive and transmit information to a blockchain network on the IoT devices.The second proposed scenario recommends implementing smart contracts,such as Ethereum,to automate and control the trusted devices’subscription in the HIoT services.

A survey of cloud resource management for complex engineering applications

Traditionally, complex engineering applications （CEAs）, which consist of numerous components （software） and require a large amount of computing resources, usu- ally run in dedicated clusters or high performance computing （HPC） centers. Nowadays, Cloud computing system with the ability of providing massive computing resources and cus- tomizable execution environment is becoming an attractive option for CEAs. As a new type on Cloud applications, CEA also brings the challenges of dealing with Cloud resources. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of Cloud resource management research for CEAs. The survey puts forward two important questions： 1） what are the main chal- lenges for CEAs to run in Clouds？ and 2） what are the prior research topics addressing these challenges？ We summarize and highlight the main challenges and prior research topics. Our work can be probably helpful to those scientists and en- gineers who are interested in running CEAs in Cloud envi- ronment.

Information for Authors

The Journal of Control Theory and Applications （JCTA） publishes high-quality papers on the theory,design,and applications in the systems and control field.This journal is published quarterly.Three types of contribution s are regularly considered：

Challenging the limitation:Synthesis and application of complexes with the highest carbon coordination number in plane

Subject Code:B02With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Basic Research Program of China,the research team led by Prof.Xia Haiping(夏海平)of Xiamen University described the first example of CCCCC pentadentate chelate with all binding atoms being carbon atoms.This result represents a new record of planar carbon coordination number for a transition metal,which was

Application of Conglutinin-ELISA for the detection of Circulating Immune Complexes in Sera of Patients with Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever.

Conglutinin was extracted and purified from bovine’s sera and was used in ELISA for the detection of circulating immune complexes in the sera of patients suffering from epidemic hemorrhagic fever (EHF). The detected rates of circu-