Cautionary Remarks When Testing Agreement between Two Raters for Continuous Scale Measurements: A Tutorial in Clinical Epidemiology with Implementation Using R

Background: When continuous scale measurements are available, agreements between two measuring devices are assessed both graphically and analytically. In clinical investigations, Bland and Altman proposed plotting subject-wise differences between raters against subject-wise averages. In order to scientifically assess agreement, Bartko recommended combining the graphical approach with the statistical analytic procedure suggested by Bradley and Blackwood. The advantage of using this approach is that it enables significance testing and sample size estimation. We noted that the direct use of the results of the regression is misleading and we provide a correction in this regard. Methods: Graphical and linear models are used to assess agreements for continuous scale measurements. We demonstrate that software linear regression results should not be readily used and we provided correct analytic procedures. The degrees of freedom of the F-statistics are incorrectly reported, and we propose methods to overcome this problem by introducing the correct analytic form of the F statistic. Methods for sample size estimation using R-functions are also given. Results: We believe that the tutorial and the R-codes are useful tools for testing and estimating agreement between two rating protocols for continuous scale measurements. The interested reader may use the codes and apply them to their available data when the issue of agreement between two raters is the subject of interest.

In situ Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Diagnostic for Characterization and Performance Test of Catalysts

The present work establishes a systematic approach based on the application of in-situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FTIR） for the investigation of the crystal structure, thermal stability, redox behavior （temperature-programmed reduction/temperatureprogrammed re-oxidation） as well as the catalytic properties of Co3O4 thin films. The syntheses of Co3O4 were achieved by chemical vapor deposition in the temperature range of 400-500℃. The structure analysis of the as-prepared material revealed the presence of two prominent IR bands peaking at 544 cm-1 （υ1） and 650 cm-1 （υ2） respectively, which originate from the stretching vibrations of the Co-O bond, characteristic of the Co3O4 spinel. The lattice stability limit of Co3O4 was estimated to be above 650℃. The redox properties of the spinel structure were determined by integrating the area under the emission bands υ1 and υ2 as a function of the temperature. Moreover, Co3O4 has been successfully tested as a catalyst towards complete oxidation of dimethyl ether below 340 ℃. The exhaust gas analysis during the catalytic process by in situ absorption FTIR revealed that only CO2 and H2O were detected as the final products in the catalytic reaction. The redox behavior suggests that the oxidation of dimethyl ether over Co3O4 follows a Mars-van Krevelen type mechanism. The comprehensive application of in situ FTIR provides a novel diagnostic tool in characterization and performance test of catalysts.

NEW DELAY-DEPENDENT STABILITY CRITERIA AND ROBUST CONTROL OF NONLINEAR TIME-DELAY SYSTEMS

This paper investigates the stability analysis and H_∞ control for a class of nonlinear timedelay systems,and proposes a number of new results.Firstly,an equivalent form is given for this class of systems by means of coordinate transformation and orthogonal decomposition of vector fields.Then,based on the equivalent form,some delay-dependent results are derived for the stability analysis of the systems by constructing a novel Lyapunov functional.Thirdly,the authors use the equivalent form and the obtained stability results to investigate the H_∞ control problem for a class of nonhnear time-delay control systems,and present a control design procedure.Finally,an illustrative example is given to show the effectiveness of the results obtained in this paper.It is shown that the main results of this paper are easier to check than some existing ones,and have less conservatism.

Finite-time Stabilization of a General Class of Nonholonomic Dynamic Systems via Terminal Sliding Mode

This paper presents control strategies for finite-time stabilization of a class of nonholonomic dynamic systems with unknown virtual control coefficients and system parameters. The minimal dilation degree technique and the terminal sliding mode control scheme with finite-time convergence are used to design the controllers. The systematic control strategy development involves the introduction of state transformations and the application of recursive terminal sliding mode structure. Depending on whether the system in question can be converted into a time-invariant linear system or not, two control schemes are proposed respectively guaranteeing that system states converge to zero in finite time. The effectiveness and the robust feature of the developed control approaches are testified by two practical examples： the simplified underactuated hovercraft system and the parking problem for a mobile robot of the unicycle type.