In order to keep a plant running until the next scheduled maintenance, a Prognosis and Health Monitoring (PHM) system may provide valuable information that can be used to distribute the control effort among the redundant actuators to avoid breakdown due to degradation. This paper proposes a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach capable of distributing the control effort among actuators on the basis of PHM information, exploiting relations between control effort and actuator degradation. Constraints are then imposed to ensure that the accumulated actuator degradation will not reach a unsafe level at the end of MH . A simulated tank level control system is used as a case study to illustrate the details of the proposed approach. The results show that the predictive controller distributes the control effort in a suitable manner to relieve the actuator with larger accumulated damage.

A method is developed to compute the zeros of a quaternion polynomial with all terms of the form ok Xk. This method is based essentially in Niven's algorithm (11, which consists of dividing the polynomial by a characteristic polynomial associated to a zero. The information about the trace and the norm of the zero is obtained by an original idea which requires the companion matrix associated to the polynomial. The companion matrix is represented by a matrix with complex entries. Three numerical examples using Mathematics 2.2 version are given.

h i g h l i g h t sThe efficiency of FRCM overlays was assessed as part of a masonry strengthening system. The strength increment of masonry walls was quantified by diagonal tensile tests. Monotonic and cyclic in-plane loading was applied to evaluate the behaviour of the walls.The key failure modes obtained experimentally and the basic mechanisms were examined. Experimental results were discussed and compared to the analytical model predictions. a b s t r a c tThe development of novel strengthening techniques to address the seismic vulnerability of masonry elements is gradually leading to simpler, faster and more effective strengthening strategies. In particular, the use of fabric reinforced cementitious matrix systems is considered of great potential, given the increase of ductility achieved with simple and economic strengthening procedures. To assess the effectiveness of these strengthening systems, and considering that the seismic action is involved, one important component of the structural behaviour is the in-plane cyclic response. In this work is discussed the applicability of the diagonal tensile test for the assessment of the cyclic response of strengthened masonry. The results obtained allowed to assess the contribution of the strengthening system to the increase of the load carrying capacity of masonry elements, as well as to evaluate the damage evolution and the stiffness degradation mechanisms developing under cyclic loading.

Abstract:In recent years, a wide range of Business Intelligence (BI) technologies have been applied to different areas in order to support the decision-making process. BI enables the extraction of knowledge from the data stored. The healthcare industry is no exception, and so BI applications have been under investigation across multiple units of different institutions. Thus, in this article, we intend to analyze some open-source/free BI tools on the market and their applicability in the clinical sphere, taking into consideration the general characteristics of the clinical environment. For this purpose, six BI tools were selected, analyzed, and tested in a practical environment. Then, a comparison metric and a ranking were defined for the tested applications in order to choose the one that best applies to the extraction of useful knowledge and clinical data in a healthcare environment. Finally, a pervasive BI platform was developed using a real case in order to prove the tool viability.

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