This article examines mixed ℋ -infinity and passivity synchronization of Markovian jumping neutral-type complex dynamical network models with randomly occurring coupling delays and actuator faults. The randomly occurring coupling delays are considered to design the complex dynamical networks in practice. These delays complied with certain Bernoulli distributed white noise sequences. The relevant data including limits of actuator faults, bounds of the nonlinear terms, and external disturbances are available for designing the controller structure. Novel Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional is constructed to verify the (...) stability of the error model and performance level. Jensen’s inequality and a new integral inequality are applied to derive the outcomes. Sufficient conditions for the synchronization error system are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities, which can be analyzed easily by utilizing general numerical programming. Numerical illustrations are given to exhibit the usefulness of the obtained results. (shrink)

Three standard psychometric tests were administered to parents who volunteered their children for a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a new asthma drug and to a control group of parents whose children were eligible for the trial but had declined the invitation. The trial took place at a children's hospital in Australia. The subjects comprised 68 parents who had volunteered their children and 42 who had not, a participation rate of 94 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively. The responses (...) of these parents to the Gordon Survey of Interpersonal Values Questionnaire, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire were analysed by computer. There was a marked difference between the psychological profiles of the two groups of parents. Volunteering parents put more value on benevolence while non-volunteering parents were more concerned with power and prestige. The self-esteem of volunteering parents was much lower than that of non-volunteering parents. Finally, volunteering parents were more introverted, exhibited greater anxiety and low supergo, while non-volunteering parents appeared to have greater social confidence and emotional stability. Since an individual's values, self-esteem and personality may be important antecedents of behaviour, these findings suggest that parents who volunteer their children for clinical research are not only socially disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable, but may also be psychologically predisposed to volunteering. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a psychosocial 'filter' effect of the informed consent procedure, which may be discouraging the better educated, more privileged and psychologically resilient members of society from participation as research subjects. (shrink)

This target article draws together two groups of experimental studies on the control of human movement through peripheral feedback and centrally generated signals of motor commands. First, during natural movement, feedback from muscle, joint, and cutaneous afferents changes; in human subjects these changes have reflex and kinesthetic consequences. Recent psychophysical and microneurographic evidence suggests that joint and even cutaneous afferents may have a proprioceptive role. Second, the role of centrally generated motor commands in the control of normal movements and movements (...) following acute and chronic deafferentation is reviewed. There is increasing evidence that subjects can perceive their motor commands under various conditions, but that this is inadequate for normal movement; deficits in motor performance arise when the reliance on proprioceptive feedback is abolished either experimentally or because of pathology. During natural movement, the CNS appears to have access to functionally useful input from a range of peripheral receptors as well as from internally generated command signals. The unanswered questions that remain suggest a number of avenues for further research. (shrink)

The book analyzes how one might philosophize about some of the most difficult and controversial issues in ethics and politics without abandoning either the demands of rigor or the joys of clear vistas.