Incorporating HACCP into national food control systems - Analyzing progress in the United Arab Emirates

Today governments and other parties involved in food control are under constant pressure to find more efficient and effective mechanisms to carry out their mandates for food control. This has led to international recognition of the importance of the HACCP system as a food control tool and guidance on the role of government agencies in the application of such a system has been developed. Based on this international guidance, four main elements identified as key activities have been used in this study to evaluate the progress of HACCP implementation in the UAE. The internal Strengths and Weaknesses, as well as the external Opportunities and Threats that the government is facing towards the implementation of a HACCP-based food control system have been identified. The analysis shows that the government’s dedicated role has been an essential driving force to encourage the implementation of a HACCP-based food control system. Some areas of difficulty, including the dependence on high levels of food imports, are highlighted.

Modal coupling in linear control systems using robust eigenstructure assignment

Eigenvalue assignment methods are used widely in the design of control and state-estimation systems. The corresponding eigenvectors can be selected to ensure robustness. For specific applications, eigenstructure assignment can also be applied to achieve more general performance criteria. In this paper a new output feedback design approach using robust eigenstructure assignment to achieve prescribed mode input and output coupling is described. A minimisation technique is developed to improve both the mode coupling and the robustness of the system, whilst allowing the precision of the eigenvalue placement to be relaxed. An application to the design of an automatic flight control system is demonstrated.

Securing critical infrastructures and critical control systems: approaches for threat protection

The increased use of technology is necessary in order for industrial control systems to maintain and monitor industrial, infrastructural, or environmental processes. The need to secure and identify threats to the system is equally critical. Securing Critical Infrastructures and Critical Control Systems: Approaches for Threat Protection provides a full and detailed understanding of the vulnerabilities and security threats that exist within an industrial control system. This collection of research defines and analyzes the technical, procedural, and managerial responses to securing these systems.

Assessment of the food control systems in the Sultanate of Oman

National food control systems are vital tools in governing the safety and quality of food intended for human consumption. This study of the Omani system was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the current food controls in place for protecting, in particular, the public health from emerging biological and chemical hazards. In response to this situation, a survey was undertaken within the different food safety authorities in Oman to examine the different elements of the national food control systems in terms of their existing food control management, food legislation, food inspection, food analysis laboratories and information, education and communications. Officials from the different authorities were interviewed and results were captured in prepared questionnaires. Overall examinations of the challenges, strength and weakness of the existing system have been highlighted. The findings of the study indicate significant progress is being made and the creation by the government of a national Centre for Food Safety and Quality is a significant positive step.

UNIVERSAL COVERING OF DRIFTLESS CONTROL SYSTEMS

Let M be a finite-dimensional manifold and Sigma be a driftless control system on M of full rank. We prove that for a given initial state x epsilon M, the covering space Gamma(Sigma, x) for a monotonic homotopy of trajectories of Sigma which is recently constructed in [1] coincides with the simply connected universal covering manifold of M and that the terminal projection epsilon(x) : Gamma(Sigma, x) -> M given by epsilon(x) ([alpha]) = alpha(1) is a covering mapping.

Dynamic Morse decompositions for semigroups of homeomorphisms and control systems

In this paper, we introduce the concept of dynamic Morse decomposition for an action of a semigroup of homeomorphisms. Conley has shown in [5, Sec. 7] that the concepts of Morse decomposition and dynamic Morse decompositions are equivalent for flows in metric spaces. Here, we show that a Morse decomposition for an action of a semigroup of homeomorphisms of a compact topological space is a dynamic Morse decomposition. We also define Morse decompositions and dynamic Morse decompositions for control systems on manifolds. Under certain condition, we show that the concept of dynamic Morse decomposition for control system is equivalent to the concept of Morse decomposition.

Stability for impulsive control systems

In this paper we extend the notion of the control Lyapounov pair of functions and derive a stability theory for impulsive control systems. The control system is a measure driven differential inclusion that is partly absolutely continuous and partly singular. Some examples illustrating the features of Lyapounov stability are provided.

Closed loop stability of measure-driven impulsive control systems

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Sufficients conditions for analysis of extrema in the step-response of the linear control systems

This note deals whith the problem of extrema which may occur in the step-response of a stable linear system with real zeros and poles. Some simple sufficients conditions and necessary conditions are presented for analyses when zeros located between the dominant and fastest pole does not cause extrema in the step-response. These conditions require knowledge of the pole-zero configuration of the corresponding transfer-function.

Invariance for Impulsive Control Systems

In this article, we provide invariance conditions for control systems whose dynamics are given by measure driven differential inclusions. The solution concept plays a critical role in the extension of the conventional conditions for the impulsive control context. A couple of examples illustrating the specific features of impulsive control systems are included.

Identification of structural damage in flexible structures using system norm and neural networks

Nowadays there is great interest in damage identification using non destructive tests. Predictive maintenance is one of the most important techniques that are based on analysis of vibrations and it consists basically of monitoring the condition of structures or machines. A complete procedure should be able to detect the damage, to foresee the probable time of occurrence and to diagnosis the type of fault in order to plan the maintenance operation in a convenient form and occasion. In practical problems, it is frequent the necessity of getting the solution of non linear equations. These processes have been studied for a long time due to its great utility. Among the methods, there are different approaches, as for instance numerical methods (classic), intelligent methods (artificial neural networks), evolutions methods (genetic algorithms), and others. The characterization of damages, for better agreement, can be classified by levels. A new one uses seven levels of classification: detect the existence of the damage; detect and locate the damage; detect, locate and quantify the damages; predict the equipment's working life; auto-diagnoses; control for auto structural repair; and system of simultaneous control and monitoring. The neural networks are computational models or systems for information processing that, in a general way, can be thought as a device black box that accepts an input and produces an output. Artificial neural nets (ANN) are based on the biological neural nets and possess habilities for identification of functions and classification of standards. In this paper a methodology for structural damages location is presented. This procedure can be divided on two phases. The first one uses norms of systems to localize the damage positions. The second one uses ANN to quantify the severity of the damage. The paper concludes with a numerical application in a beam like structure with five cases of structural damages with different levels of severities. The results show the applicability of the presented methodology. A great advantage is the possibility of to apply this approach for identification of simultaneous damages.

Oropharyngeal dysphagia identification using wavelets and optimum path forest

The swallowing disturbers are defined as oropharyngeal dysphagia when present specifies signals and symptoms that are characterized for alterations in any phases of swallowing. Early diagnosis is crucial for the prognosis of patients with dysphagia and the potential to diagnose dysphagia in a noninvasive manner by assessing the sounds of swallowing is a highly attractive option for the dysphagia clinician. This study proposes a new framework for oropharyngeal dysphagia identification, having two main contributions: a new set of features extract from swallowing signal by discrete wavelet transform and the dysphagia classification by a novel pattern classifier called OPF. We also employed the well known SVM algorithm in the dysphagia identification task, for comparison purposes. We performed the experiments in two sub-signals: the first was the moment of the maximal peak (MP) of the signal and the second is the swallowing apnea period (SAP). The OPF final accuracy obtained were 85.2% and 80.2% for the analyzed signals MP and SAP, respectively, outperforming the SVM results. ©2008 IEEE.