Process control, automatic definition

The Leeds Northrup Co. has developed a two-couple continuous curve recorder for automatically heating furnaces to definite temperatures. As applied in carburizing and tempering of steel one thermocouple is placed in the furnace chamber and the other in contact with the steel piece. The controller automatically maintains the furnace for instance at 1,000°C. until the steel has reached 900°C. and then it drops the furnace to 900 C. Such an arrangement for control can be applied to a great many processes. 

Interfacing between application fields and embedded solutions includes input and output data which must be precisely defined. The input data acquisition includes two processes measurement (sensors) and acquisition (could be distributed what requires an acquisition network). The output data control can be used either for moifitoring of processes/functionalities (displays) or as a feedback in an automatic process control (actors). Beside technical aspects the definition of this interfacing is a critical understanding challenge between experts in an application field and embedded engineers. 

To understand the goals of the particular contributions and to compare the different approaches of diagnosis, the IFAC (i.e., International Federation on Automatic Control) Technical Committee SAFEPROCESS (Fault Detection, Supervision and Safety for Technical Processes) has defined a common terminology. These definitions, detailed in [13] will be adopted throughout the present chapter. 

At first sight, then, complex mechanical setups as we propose for semicon-tinuous or continuous freeze-drying seem susceptible to serious hazards in the sterility control of the operation. However, this is not as dramatic as it looks since the essential part of the process—if not the entire process—is carried out automatically and can be done entirely within a sterile environment by remote control. Indeed, today highly sophisticated automation can be achieved if we resort to the advanced technologies developed for the nuclear industry and profit by the experience of their operators. However, this sophistication will definitely bear on the cost and this can be a serious drawback for conventional low-priced products. 

So here is an attempt at a definition. Clinical decision intelligence is the application of IT to help gather, understand, and act on all available data in clinical practice, healthcare management and administration, and medical research, and where appropriate the automatic utilization of data to control certain clinical and research processes. Its aims are to encourage best practices to improve the quality of patient care by enhancing speed and efficiency to reduce safety risks and needless costs in clinical treatment, diagnosis, management, and administration to monitor and log interactions for accountability, culpability, liability and repudiation and to facilitate biomedical research and pharmaceutical development where based on inclusion of clinical and related data. 

This idea was embodied in the IUPAC definition of automatic systems "The use of combinations of mechanical and instrumental devices to replace, refine, extend, or supplement human effort and faculties in the performance of a given process, in which at least one major operation is controlled, without human intervention, by a feedback system"[367]. The key point for an automatic system is therefore the incorporation of a feedback system, i.e. the "combination of a sensing and a commanding device that can modify the performance of a given act" [367[. In other words, the response of a sensing device is used for the real-time modification of system operation. These definitions also hold for flow analysis automatic analysers are expert flow systems (Fig. 8.26), often referred to as smart or intelligent flow systems. 

When appropriately processed geometry is available and the selection of element type and mesh density is ready, mesh generation can be done automatically, adaptively, manually, or by mixed application of these methods. Automatic local density definition is based on the curvature and proximity of geometric features. The engineer controls this process by specified values on points, curves or surfaces. 

Computers have been defined as systems of machines that process information in the form of letters, numbers, and other symbols, and that are self directing within predetermined limits . Webster s New International Dictionary defines a computer as a mechanical or electronic apparatus capable of carrying out repetitious and highly complex mathematical operations at high speeds . Computers are used in business for the maintenance of inventories, the calculation and preparation of payrolls, etc. in industry for the automatic operation of machinery, the control of refinery operations, etc. and in research for the determination of flight characteristics of missiles and spacecraft, the prediction of the behaviour of substances acted upon by a number of variables, etc. These definitions were cited by the Canadian Supreme Court in R. v. McLaughlin [1980] 2 SCR 331 at 339. 

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