Effects of positive psychological control intervention on sleep and psychology of officers and soldiers working at sea

BACKGROUND The working environment of submarine crews is also very special.They are in a closed,high-temperature,high-noise,high-vibration and narrow working and living space for a long time,and they suffer from physical discomfort caused by seasickness,which will affect the mental health of officers and soldiers.American psychologists have achieved positive results in psychological resilience training for officers and soldiers from the perspective of positive psychology.At present,there are few reports on the correlation between psychological resilience in the field of domestic research on submarine crew psychology,and it is necessary to conduct further research.METHODS A total of 121 soldiers working in a confined space of a large ship were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group.The 50 soldiers in the experimental group were given a training course intervention,while the 71 soldiers in the control group did not receive any intervention measures.The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index,Psychological Resilience Scale,military Psycho-logical Stress Self-Assessment Questionnaire,and General Self-Efficacy Scale scores were compared before and 6 months after the intervention.RESULTS Under the positive psychological control intervention,except for sleep efficiency(P=0.05),the difference between the remaining dimensions of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores and the total scores of the experimental group compared with the control group was statistically significant(P<0.05);the assessment of the psychological condition showed that,in addition to the Psychological Stress Self-assessment Questionnaire for Military Personnel scores(P=0.05),the scores of the Mental Toughness Scale(Dispositional Resilience Scale Resilience II)in the experimental group,General Self-Efficacy Scale scores were statistically significant(P<0.05)compared to pre-intervention.CONCLUSION Positive psychological intervention and control can improve the sleep state and psychological state of officers and soldiers working in confined space at sea.

Advanced Functional Electromagnetic Shielding Materials:A Review Based on Micro‑Nano Structure Interface Control of Biomass Cell Walls

Research efforts on electromagnetic interference(EMI)shielding materials have begun to converge on green and sustainable biomass materials.These materials offer numerous advantages such as being lightweight,porous,and hierarchical.Due to their porous nature,interfacial compatibility,and electrical conductivity,biomass materials hold significant potential as EMI shielding materials.Despite concerted efforts on the EMI shielding of biomass materials have been reported,this research area is still relatively new compared to traditional EMI shielding materials.In particular,a more comprehensive study and summary of the factors influencing biomass EMI shielding materials including the pore structure adjustment,preparation process,and micro-control would be valuable.The preparation methods and characteristics of wood,bamboo,cellulose and lignin in EMI shielding field are critically discussed in this paper,and similar biomass EMI materials are summarized and analyzed.The composite methods and fillers of various biomass materials were reviewed.this paper also highlights the mechanism of EMI shielding as well as existing prospects and challenges for development trends in this field.

Passive activity enhances residual control ability in patients with complete spinal cord injury

Patients with complete spinal cord injury retain the potential for volitional muscle activity in muscles located below the spinal injury level.However,because of prolonged inactivity,initial attempts to activate these muscles may not effectively engage any of the remaining neurons in the descending pathway.A previous study unexpectedly found that a brief clinical round of passive activity significantly increased volitional muscle activation,as measured by surface electromyography.In this study,we further explored the effect of passive activity on surface electromyographic signals during volitional control tasks among individuals with complete spinal cord injury.Eleven patients with chronic complete thoracic spinal cord injury were recruited.Surface electromyography data from eight major leg muscles were acquired and compared before and after the passive activity protocol.The results indicated that the passive activity led to an increased number of activated volitional muscles and an increased frequency of activation.Although the cumulative root mean square of surface electromyography amplitude for volitional control of movement showed a slight increase after passive activity,the difference was not statistically significant.These findings suggest that brief passive activity may enhance the ability to initiate volitional muscle activity during surface electromyography tasks and underscore the potential of passive activity for improving residual motor control among patients with motor complete spinal cord injury.

A matrix metalloproteinase-responsive hydrogel system controls angiogenic peptide release for repair of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury

Vascular endothelial growth factor and its mimic peptide KLTWQELYQLKYKGI(QK)are widely used as the most potent angiogenic factors for the treatment of multiple ischemic diseases.However,conventional topical drug delivery often results in a burst release of the drug,leading to transient retention(inefficacy)and undesirable diffusion(toxicity)in vivo.Therefore,a drug delivery system that responds to changes in the microenvironment of tissue regeneration and controls vascular endothelial growth factor release is crucial to improve the treatment of ischemic stroke.Matrix metalloproteinase-2(MMP-2)is gradually upregulated after cerebral ischemia.Herein,vascular endothelial growth factor mimic peptide QK was self-assembled with MMP-2-cleaved peptide PLGLAG(TIMP)and customizable peptide amphiphilic(PA)molecules to construct nanofiber hydrogel PA-TIMP-QK.PA-TIMP-QK was found to control the delivery of QK by MMP-2 upregulation after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion and had a similar biological activity with vascular endothelial growth factor in vitro.The results indicated that PA-TIMP-QK promoted neuronal survival,restored local blood circulation,reduced blood-brain barrier permeability,and restored motor function.These findings suggest that the self-assembling nanofiber hydrogel PA-TIMP-QK may provide an intelligent drug delivery system that responds to the microenvironment and promotes regeneration and repair after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury.

Effect of motivational interviewing on postoperative weight control in patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome

BACKGROUND Obesity is an important factor to cause the obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome(OSAHS).Higher body mass index(BMI)often results in more severe OSAHS.Currently,the common measures for controlling the weight mainly include diet control,increase exercise and so on.Motivational interviewing(MI)could explore the patient’s internal state and make the patient realize his/her ambivalence,resulting in the change in his/her behavior.This process emphasizes respecting the patient’s autonomy.AIM To evaluate the effect of MI on the weight control of patients with OSAHS.METHODS A randomized controlled study was conducted in 100 obese OSAHS patients undergoing surgical treatment at Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University.The patients were divided into an intervention group and a control group,with 50 cases each.The control group was given routine health education after the operation;in addition to the regular health education,the intervention group was given MI according to a predetermined plan.Obesity-related indicators,postoperative complications,and the sleep status of both groups were evaluated before and 6 mo after the intervention.RESULTS Patients in the intervention group had significantly improved body weight,BMI,and waist and neck circumferences compared with patients in the control group(P<0.05).Regarding complications at 6 mo after operation,the incidence of cough and reflux in patients in the intervention group was significantly lower than that in the control group(P<0.05).In addition,the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Self-Rating Scale of Sleep scores of patients in the intervention group were significantly lower than those in the control group,and the sleep status of patients in the intervention group was improved(P<0.05).CONCLUSION MI intervention has a significant advantage over postoperative routine health education.It can greatly change the lifestyle,further control the postoperative weight,reduce the occurrence of complications,improve the quality of sleep,and improve long-term postoperative efficacy in OSAHS patients.

Recent Progress in Reinforcement Learning and Adaptive Dynamic Programming for Advanced Control Applications

Reinforcement learning(RL) has roots in dynamic programming and it is called adaptive/approximate dynamic programming(ADP) within the control community. This paper reviews recent developments in ADP along with RL and its applications to various advanced control fields. First, the background of the development of ADP is described, emphasizing the significance of regulation and tracking control problems. Some effective offline and online algorithms for ADP/adaptive critic control are displayed, where the main results towards discrete-time systems and continuous-time systems are surveyed, respectively.Then, the research progress on adaptive critic control based on the event-triggered framework and under uncertain environment is discussed, respectively, where event-based design, robust stabilization, and game design are reviewed. Moreover, the extensions of ADP for addressing control problems under complex environment attract enormous attention. The ADP architecture is revisited under the perspective of data-driven and RL frameworks,showing how they promote ADP formulation significantly.Finally, several typical control applications with respect to RL and ADP are summarized, particularly in the fields of wastewater treatment processes and power systems, followed by some general prospects for future research. Overall, the comprehensive survey on ADP and RL for advanced control applications has d emonstrated its remarkable potential within the artificial intelligence era. In addition, it also plays a vital role in promoting environmental protection and industrial intelligence.

Effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy for sleep disturbance and glycemic control in persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus:A community-based randomized controlled trial in China

BACKGROUND Poor sleep quality is a common clinical feature in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM),and often negatively related with glycemic control.Cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT)may improve sleep quality and reduce blood sugar levels in patients with T2DM.However,it is not entirely clear whether CBT delivered by general practitioners is effective for poor sleep quality in T2DM patients in community settings.AIM To test the effect of CBT delivered by general practitioners in improving sleep quality and reducing glycemic levels in patients with T2DM in community.METHODS A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted from September 2018 to October 2019 in communities of China.Overall 1033 persons with T2DM and poor sleep quality received CBT plus usual care or usual care.Glycosylated hemoglobin A1c(HbAlc)and sleep quality[Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI)]were assessed.Repeated measures analysis of variance and generalized linear mixed effects models were used to estimate the intervention effects on hemoglobin A1c and sleep quality.RESULTS The CBT group had 0.64,0.50,and 0.9 lower PSQI scores than the control group at 2 mo,6 mo,and 12 mo,respectively.The CBT group showed 0.17 and 0.43 lower HbAlc values than the control group at 6 mo and 12 mo.The intervention on meanΔHbAlc values was significant at 12 mo(t=3.68,P<0.01)and that meanΔPSQI scores were closely related toΔHbAlc values(t=7.02,P<0.01).Intentionto-treat analysis for primary and secondary outcomes showed identical results with completed samples.No adverse events were reported.CONCLUSION CBT delivered by general practitioners,as an effective and practical method,could reduce glycemic levels and improve sleep quality for patients with T2DM in community.

Finite-time Prescribed Performance Time-Varying Formation Control for Second-Order Multi-Agent Systems With Non-Strict Feedback Based on a Neural Network Observer

This paper studies the problem of time-varying formation control with finite-time prescribed performance for nonstrict feedback second-order multi-agent systems with unmeasured states and unknown nonlinearities.To eliminate nonlinearities,neural networks are applied to approximate the inherent dynamics of the system.In addition,due to the limitations of the actual working conditions,each follower agent can only obtain the locally measurable partial state information of the leader agent.To address this problem,a neural network state observer based on the leader state information is designed.Then,a finite-time prescribed performance adaptive output feedback control strategy is proposed by restricting the sliding mode surface to a prescribed region,which ensures that the closed-loop system has practical finite-time stability and that formation errors of the multi-agent systems converge to the prescribed performance bound in finite time.Finally,a numerical simulation is provided to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of the developed algorithm.

Vibration Control of A Flexible Marine Riser System Subject to Input Dead Zone and Extraneous Disturbances

An observer-based adaptive backstepping boundary control is proposed for vibration control of flexible offshore riser systems with unknown nonlinear input dead zone and uncertain environmental disturbances.The control algorithm can update the control law online through real-time data to make the controller adapt to the environment and improve the control precision.Specifically,based on the adaptive backstepping framework,virtual control laws and Lyapunov functions are designed for each subsystem.Three direction interference observers are designed to track the timevarying boundary disturbance.On this basis,the inverse of the dead zone and linear state transformation are used to compensate for the original system and eliminate the adverse effects of the dead zone.In addition,the stability of the closed-loop system is proven by Lyapunov stability theory.All the system states are bounded,and the vibration offset of the riser converges to a small area of the initial position.Finally,four examples of flexible marine risers are simulated in MATLAB to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Control of highly pathogenic avian influenza through vaccination

The stamping-out strategy has been used to control highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in many countries,driven by the belief that vaccination would not be successful against such viruses and fears that avian influenza virus in vaccinated birds would evolve more rapidly and pose a greater risk to humans.In this review,we summarize the successes in controlling highly pathogenic avian influenza in China and make suggestions regarding the requirements for vaccine selection and effectiveness.In addition,we present evidence that vaccination of poultry not only eliminates human infection with avian influenza virus,but also significantly reduces and abolishes some harmful characteristics of avian influenza virus.

An Integrated Control Framework for Torque Vectoring and Active Suspension System

Four-wheel independently driven electric vehicles(FWID-EV)endow a flexible and scalable control framework to improve vehicle performance.This paper integrates the torque vectoring and active suspension system(ASS)to enhance the vehicle’s longitudinal and vertical motion control performance.While the nonlinear characteristic of the tire model leads to a relatively heavier computational burden.To facilitate the controller design and ease the load,a half-vehicle dynamics system is built and simplified to the linear-time-varying(LTV)model.Then a model predictive controller is developed by formulating the objective function by comprehensively considering the safety,energy-saving and comfort requirements.The in-wheel motor efficiency and the power loss of tire slip are treated as optimization indices in this work to reduce energy consumption.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified through the rapid-control-prototype(RCP)test.The results demonstrate the enhancement of the energy-saving as well as comfort on the basis of vehicle stability.

Mitochondrial dysfunction and quality control lie at the heart of subarachnoid hemorrhage

The dramatic increase in intracranial pressure after subarachnoid hemorrhage leads to a decrease in cerebral perfusion pressure and a reduction in cerebral blood flow.Mitochondria are directly affected by direct factors such as ischemia,hypoxia,excitotoxicity,and toxicity of free hemoglobin and its degradation products,which trigger mitochondrial dysfunction.Dysfunctional mitochondria release large amounts of reactive oxygen species,inflammatory mediators,and apoptotic proteins that activate apoptotic pathways,further damaging cells.In response to this array of damage,cells have adopted multiple mitochondrial quality control mechanisms through evolution,including mitochondrial protein quality control,mitochondrial dynamics,mitophagy,mitochondrial biogenesis,and intercellular mitochondrial transfer,to maintain mitochondrial homeostasis under pathological conditions.Specific interventions targeting mitochondrial quality control mechanisms have emerged as promising therapeutic strategies for subarachnoid hemorrhage.This review provides an overview of recent research advances in mitochondrial pathophysiological processes after subarachnoid hemorrhage,particularly mitochondrial quality control mechanisms.It also presents potential therapeutic strategies to target mitochondrial quality control in subarachnoid hemorrhage.

A Blockchain-Based Access Control Scheme for Reputation Value Attributes of the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things(IoT)access controlmechanism may encounter security issues such as single point of failure and data tampering.To address these issues,a blockchain-based IoT reputation value attribute access control scheme is proposed.Firstly,writing the reputation value as an attribute into the access control policy,and then deploying the access control policy in the smart contract of the blockchain system can enable the system to provide more fine-grained access control;Secondly,storing a large amount of resources fromthe Internet of Things in Inter Planetary File System(IPFS)to improve system throughput;Finally,map resource access operations to qualification tokens to improve the performance of the access control system.Complete simulation experiments based on the Hyperledger Fabric platform.Fromthe simulation experimental results,it can be seen that the access control system can achieve more fine-grained and dynamic access control while maintaining high throughput and low time delay,providing sufficient reliability and security for access control of IoT devices.

A Review on Vibration Control of Multiple Cylinders Subjected to FlowInduced Vibrations

The fatigue damage caused by flow-induced vibration(FIV)is one of the major concerns for multiple cylindrical structures in many engineering applications.The FIV suppression is of great importance for the security of many cylindrical structures.Many active and passive control methods have been employed for the vibration suppression of an isolated cylinder undergoing vortex-induced vibrations(VIV).The FIV suppression methods are mainly extended to the multiple cylinders from the vibration control of the isolated cylinder.Due to the mutual interference between the multiple cylinders,the FIV mechanism is more complex than the VIV mechanism,which makes a great challenge for the FIV suppression.Some efforts have been devoted to vibration suppression of multiple cylinder systems undergoing FIV over the past two decades.The control methods,such as helical strakes,splitter plates,control rods and flexible sheets,are not always effective,depending on many influence factors,such as the spacing ratio,the arrangement geometrical shape,the flow velocity and the parameters of the vibration control devices.The FIV response,hydrodynamic features and wake patterns of the multiple cylinders equipped with vibration control devices are reviewed and summarized.The FIV suppression efficiency of the vibration control methods are analyzed and compared considering different influence factors.Further research on the FIV suppression of multiple cylinders is suggested to provide insight for the development of FIV control methods and promote engineering applications of FIV control methods.

Communication Resource-Efficient Vehicle Platooning Control With Various Spacing Policies

Platooning represents one of the key features that connected automated vehicles may possess as it allows multiple automated vehicles to be maneuvered cooperatively with small headways on roads. However, a critical challenge in accomplishing automated vehicle platoons is to deal with the effects of intermittent and sporadic vehicle-to-vehicle data transmissions caused by limited wireless communication resources. This paper addresses the co-design problem of dynamic event-triggered communication scheduling and cooperative adaptive cruise control for a convoy of automated vehicles with diverse spacing policies. The central aim is to achieve automated vehicle platooning under various gap references with desired platoon stability and spacing performance requirements, while simultaneously improving communication efficiency. Toward this aim, a dynamic event-triggered scheduling mechanism is developed such that the intervehicle data transmissions are scheduled dynamically and efficiently over time. Then, a tractable co-design criterion on the existence of both the admissible event-driven cooperative adaptive cruise control law and the desired scheduling mechanism is derived. Finally, comparative simulation results are presented to substantiate the effectiveness and merits of the obtained results.

A 16-bit 18-MSPS flash-assisted SAR ADC with hybrid synchronous and asynchronous control logic

This paper presents a 16-bit,18-MSPS(million samples per second)flash-assisted successive-approximation-register(SAR)analog-to-digital converter(ADC)utilizing hybrid synchronous and asynchronous(HYSAS)timing control logic based on an on-chip delay-locked loop(DLL).The HYSAS scheme can provide a longer settling time for the capacitive digital-to-analog converter(CDAC)than the synchronous and asynchronous SAR ADC.Therefore,the issue of incomplete settling or ringing in the DAC voltage for cases of either on-chip or off-chip reference voltage can be solved to a large extent.In addition,the fore-ground calibration of the CDAC’s mismatch is performed with a finite-impulse-response bandpass filter(FIR-BPF)based least-mean-square(LMS)algorithm in an off-chip FPGA(field programmable gate array).Fabricated in 40-nm CMOS process,the proto-type ADC achieves 94.02-dB spurious-free dynamic range(SFDR),and 75.98-dB signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio(SNDR)for a 2.88-MHz input under 18-MSPS sampling rate.

Distributed Platooning Control of Automated Vehicles Subject to Replay Attacks Based on Proportional Integral Observers

Secure platooning control plays an important role in enhancing the cooperative driving safety of automated vehicles subject to various security vulnerabilities.This paper focuses on the distributed secure control issue of automated vehicles affected by replay attacks.A proportional-integral-observer(PIO)with predetermined forgetting parameters is first constructed to acquire the dynamical information of vehicles.Then,a time-varying parameter and two positive scalars are employed to describe the temporal behavior of replay attacks.In light of such a scheme and the common properties of Laplace matrices,the closed-loop system with PIO-based controllers is transformed into a switched and time-delayed one.Furthermore,some sufficient conditions are derived to achieve the desired platooning performance by the view of the Lyapunov stability theory.The controller gains are analytically determined by resorting to the solution of certain matrix inequalities only dependent on maximum and minimum eigenvalues of communication topologies.Finally,a simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

Preoperative controlling nutritional status as an optimal prognostic nutritional index to predict the outcome for colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND The controlling nutritional status(CONUT)score effectively reflects a patient’s nutritional status,which is closely related to cancer prognosis.This study invest-igated the relationship between the CONUT score and prognosis after radical surgery for colorectal cancer,and compared the predictive ability of the CONUT score with other indexes.AIM To analyze the predictive performance of the CONUT score for the survival rate of colorectal cancer patients who underwent potentially curative resection.METHODS This retrospective analysis included 217 patients with newly diagnosed colorectal.The CONUT score was calculated based on the serum albumin level,total lymphocyte count,and total cholesterol level.The cutoff value of the CONUT score for predicting prognosis was 4 according to the Youden Index by the receiver operating characteristic curve.The associations between the CONUT score and the prognosis were performed using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression analysis.RESULTS Using the cutoff value of the CONUT score,patients were stratified into CONUT low(n=189)and CONUT high groups(n=28).The CONUT high group had worse overall survival(OS)(P=0.013)and relapse-free survival(RFS)(P=0.015).The predictive performance of CONUT was superior to the modified Glasgow prognostic score,the prognostic nutritional index,and the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio.Meanwhile,the predictive performances of CONUT+tumor node metastasis(TNM)stage for 3-year OS[area under the receiver operating characteristics curve(AUC)=0.803]and 3-year RFS(AUC=0.752)were no less than skeletal muscle mass index(SMI)+TNM stage.The CONUT score was negatively correlated with SMI(P<0.01).CONCLUSION As a nutritional indicator,the CONUT score could predict long-term outcomes after radical surgery for colorectal cancer,and its predictive ability was superior to other indexes.The correlation between the CONUT score and skeletal muscle may be one of the factors that play a predictive role.

Path Planning and Tracking Control for Parking via Soft Actor-Critic Under Non-Ideal Scenarios

Parking in a small parking lot within limited space poses a difficult task. It often leads to deviations between the final parking posture and the target posture. These deviations can lead to partial occupancy of adjacent parking lots, which poses a safety threat to vehicles parked in these parking lots. However, previous studies have not addressed this issue. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the impact of parking deviation of existing vehicles next to the target parking lot(PDEVNTPL) on the automatic ego vehicle(AEV) parking, in terms of safety, comfort, accuracy, and efficiency of parking. A segmented parking training framework(SPTF) based on soft actor-critic(SAC) is proposed to improve parking performance. In the proposed method, the SAC algorithm incorporates strategy entropy into the objective function, to enable the AEV to learn parking strategies based on a more comprehensive understanding of the environment. Additionally, the SPTF simplifies complex parking tasks to maintain the high performance of deep reinforcement learning(DRL). The experimental results reveal that the PDEVNTPL has a detrimental influence on the AEV parking in terms of safety, accuracy, and comfort, leading to reductions of more than 27%, 54%, and 26%respectively. However, the SAC-based SPTF effectively mitigates this impact, resulting in a considerable increase in the parking success rate from 71% to 93%. Furthermore, the heading angle deviation is significantly reduced from 2.25 degrees to 0.43degrees.

Adaptive Robust Servo Control for Vertical Electric Stabilization System of Tank and Experimental Validation

A tracking stability control problem for the vertical electric stabilization system of moving tank based on adaptive robust servo control is addressed.This paper mainly focuses on two types of possibly fast timevarying but bounded uncertainty within the vertical electric stabilization system:model parameter uncertainty and uncertain nonlinearity.First,the vertical electric stabilization system is constructed as an uncertain nonlinear dynamic system that can reflect the practical mechanics transfer process of the system.Second,the dynamical equation in the form of state space is established by designing the angular tracking error.Third,the comprehensive parameter of system uncertainty is designed to estimate the most conservative effects of uncertainty.Finally,an adaptive robust servo control which can effectively handle the combined effects of complex nonlinearity and uncertainty is proposed.The feasibility of the proposed control strategy under the practical physical condition is validated through the tests on the experimental platform.This paper pioneers the introduction of the internal nonlinearity and uncertainty of the vertical electric stabilization system into the settlement of the tracking stability control problem,and validates the advanced servo control strategy through experiment for the first time.