Adaptation planning for coastal inundation and erosion at the local level : a knowledge systems perspective

Scientific projections for climate change induced sea level rise highlight the potential for serious consequences in low lying coastal areas, through impacts upon: built infrastructure; beneficial uses; and ecological values. An area of particular concern relates to the ways in which issues associated with land may be subject to future inundation and, or, erosion. Responding to such issues is complex and challenging, requiring consideration of multiple sources of evidence (with varying levels of certainty), diverse organisational settings and priorities, and multiple perspectives on what the evidence means. Further, limited attention has been directed towards exploring the knowledge dynamics associated with coastal adaption planning. In this paper we explore the knowledge dynamics associated with coastal adaption planning, in order to highlight the inter-organisational and inter-personal challenges involved. We do so by drawing on the views expressed in semi structured interviews by stakeholders with an interest in coastal climate change. The particular focus is on exploring how different actors perceive coastal adaption planning process, and the tensions, challenges, and implications associated with, and arising from, the way in which coastal adaptation knowledge is exchanged.

Terminal sliding mode control strategy design for second-order nonlinear system

This study mainly focuses on the terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) strategy design, including an adaptive terminal sliding mode control (ATSMC) and an exact-estimator-based terminal sliding mode control (ETSMC) for second-order nonlinear dynamical systems. In the ATSMC system, an adaptive bound estimation for the lump uncertainty is proposed to ensure the system stability. On the other hand, an exact estimator is designed for exact estimating system uncertainties to solve the trouble of chattering phenomena caused by a sign function in ATSMC law in despite of the utilization of a fixed value or an adaptive tuning algorithm for the lumped uncertainty bound. The effectiveness of the proposed control schemes can be verified in numerical simulations.

Malware detection and prevention in RFID systems

The threat that malware poses to RFID systems was identified only recently. Fortunately, all currently known RFID malware is based on SQLIA. Therefore, in this chapter we propose a dual pronged, tag based SQLIA detection and prevention method optimized for RFID systems. The first technique is a SQL query matching approach that uses simple string comparisons and provides strong security against a majority of the SQLIA types possible on RFID systems. To provide security against second order SQLIA, which is a major gap in the current literature, we also propose a tag data validation and sanitization technique. The preliminary evaluation of our query matching technique is very promising, showing 100% detection rates and 0% false positives for all attacks other than second order injection.

Quasi-decentralized functional observers for the LFC of interconnected power systems

This letter presents a novel approach to the load-frequency control (LFC) of interconnected power systems. Based on functional observers theory, quasi-decentralized functional observers (QDFOs) are designed to implement any given global PI state feedback controller. The designed functional observers are decoupled from each other and also of low-order; thus, they are cost effective and easy to implement. Although the proposed approach is applicable to N- area power systems, an example of a two-area interconnected power system with reheat thermal turbines is considered for simplicity.

Design of distributed functional observers for interconnected time-delay systems

This paper considers the design of reduced-order distributed functional observers for interconnected linear systems with the presence of time delays in the interconnections. Unlike observers which consider only the ideal non-delayed output information transfer, the proposed observer is capable of dealing with delayed output information from geographically separated subsystems. It is shown that by accepting measurement data from other subsystems, the conditions under which an observer exists can be made less conservative. Existence conditions, systematic and a straightforward procedure for the synthesis of the observers are given along with numerical examples illustrating the effectiveness and simplicity of the design algorithm.

Force measurement capability for robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery systems

An automated laparoscopic instrument capable of non-invasive measurement of tip/tissue interaction forces for direct application in robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery systems_ is introduced in this paper. It has the capability to measure normal grasping forces as well as lateral interaction forces without any sensor mounted on the tip jaws. Further to non-invasive actuation of the tip, the proposed instrument is also able to change the grasping direction during surgical operation. Modular design of the instrument allows conversion between surgical modalities (e.g., grasping, cutting, and dissecting). The main focus of this paper is on evaluation of the grasping force capability of the proposed instrument. The mathematical formulation of fenestrated insert is presented and its non-linear behaviour is studied. In order to measure the stiffness of soft tissues, a device was developed that is also described in this paper. Tissue characterisation experiments were conducted and results are presented and analysed here. The experimental results verify the capability of the proposed instrument in accurately measuring grasping forces and in characterising artificial tissue samples of varying stiffness.

Building environmentally sustainable food systems on informed citizen choices: evidence from Australia

To address imminent concerns of global food security and agricultural sustainability, international research activities are increasingly focusing on ways of improving the food system’s efficiency and effectiveness at providing nutritious food for all in an environmentally sustainable manner. A significant component of this will involve understanding and ultimately influencing people’s dietary choices. However, for people-oriented intervention strategies to be effective, the gaps between existing behaviour and what is required for environmentally sustainable and healthy food choices must be specified. This paper identifies priority areas for behavioural change in relation to the types of food purchased, how they have been produced and the individual’s food provisioning behaviour. In order to determine the most effective ways to influence people’s consumption behaviour in light of these priority areas, the authors conducted a pilot study on a group of 163 Australians who would be expected to be ‘early adopters’ of a sustainable diet. Results show that only around 1 in 10 are presently actively engaged in reducing the environmental impact of their diets in these priority areas. Hence, there is a significant need to engage many more people in sustainable dietary behaviours. Furthermore, it was found that areas where interventions are most likely to have the largest impact, based on high cost to the environment and likelihood of citizens changing their behaviour, are reducing the amount of food waste generated in the household and lowering the amount of junk food eaten.

ε-bounded state estimation for time-delay systems with bounded disturbances

A new problem on ε-bounded functional state estimation for time-delay systems with unknown bounded disturbances is studied in this paper. In the presence of unknown bounded disturbances, the common assumption regarding the observers matching condition is no longer required. In this regard, instead of achieving asymptotic convergence for the observer error, the error is now required to converge exponentially within a ball with a small radius ε > 0. This means that the estimate converges exponentially within an ε-bound of the true value. A general observer that utilises multiple-delayed output and input information is proposed. Sufficient conditions for the existence of the proposed observer are first given. We then employ an extended Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional which combines the delay-decomposition technique with a triple-integral term to study the ε-convergence problem of the observer error system. Moreover, the obtained results are shown to be more effective than the existing results for the cases with no disturbances and/or no time delay. Three numerical examples are given to illustrate the obtained results.

Approach to fault detection of time-delay systems using functional observers

A new methodology is reported for designing functional observers to detect actuator faults of a class of time-delay systems where the matrix pair (A, C) is not observable. First, a generalised state transformation is used to transform the system into new coordinates where the delay term associated with the state vector is injected into the system's output and input. Then, a minimum-order functional observer is designed to construct a residual function that can trigger system faults. The finding is significant as it is now possible to detect faults of time-delay systems where the pair (A, C) is not required to be observable. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design approach. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014.

Partial state estimation for linear systems with output and input time delays.

This paper deals with the problem of partial state observer design for linear systems that are subject to time delays in the measured output as well as the control input. By choosing a set of appropriate augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals with a triple-integral term and using the information of both the delayed output and input, a novel approach to design a minimal-order observer is proposed to guarantee that the observer error is ε-convergent with an exponential rate. Existence conditions of such an observer are derived in terms of matrix inequalities for the cases with time delays in both the output and input and with output delay only. Constructive design algorithms are introduced. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the design procedure, practicality and effectiveness of the proposed observer.