Quasi-Autonomous Systems

The technology described so far has been either under the direct control of the person benefiting (patient), under the direct control of a healthcare professional or involves collaborative action by the patient and professional. However, use of increasingly sophisticated technology can result in highly automated systems or even systems which appear autonomous. 

Simple systems such as pendant alarms are under the control of the user. However, it is possible to monitor a person s activities in a home by a great variety of means. For example, sensors can detect the use of doors, chairs or beds and can even distinguish different types of motion around a room. Video and sound monitoring may supplement such sensors. All of this data can be stored or sent directly for assessment at another location. If a person leaves their home, inexpensive global positioning systems (GPS) can monitor their movements and allow their tracking on a personal computer. Such lifestyle and location monitoring may be used in the care of vulnerable persons, such as those with dementia. 

The engineered devices described so far in this subsection have been concerned with alleviating the effects of physical or cognitive impairment. However, the so-called socially assistive robots are proposed as a means of meeting needs for companionship and emotional support [8, 9]. They have been developed, particularly in Japan, for use in the care of elderly persons who are socially isolated. They often have the form of toy animals and have been suggested as sources of pet-like companionship without the requirement for pet-like physical care. Sophisticated robotics allows them to appear to respond to verbal commands and physical interaction in ways that suggest autonomy. 

At the forefront of engineering innovation in healthcare are ways of interfacing devices such as prosthetic limbs to the peripheral nervous systems and brain [10], These can, for example, aim to allow movement of a prosthetic limb with subconscious control of a type similar to that of natural limbs. Such developments raise issues regarding the nature and status of the delegated action, which is partly controlled by a microprocessor. Provision of non-invasive brain-computer interfaces to aid patients with degenerative conditions such as amyotrophic lateral syndrome (Tocked-in syndrome ) may require very detailed knowledge of how the brain processes information and how this is affected by the condition. 

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Quasi-autonomous systems It is with these systems that all of the ethical issues so far considered converge. Resolving the issues that arise can be complex, especially as such systems may be proposed for the care of the most vulnerable persons. 

Asymptotic integration of quasi-linear autonomous systems with lag. Uktrain. Mat. Zhum., 18(3), (1966), 117-119. 

In many cases ordinary differential equations (ODEs) provide adequate models of chemical reactors. When partial differential equations become necessary, their discretization will again lead to large systems of ODEs. Numerical methods for the location, continuation and stability analysis of periodic and quasi-periodic trajectories of systems of coupled nonlinear ODEs (both autonomous and nonautonomous) are extensively used in this work. We are not concerned with the numerical description of deterministic chaotic trajectories where they occur, we have merely inferred them from bifurcation sequences known to lead to deterministic chaos. Extensive literature, as well as a wide choice of algorithms, is available for the numerical analysis of periodic trajectories (Keller, 1976,1977 Curry, 1979 Doedel, 1981 Seydel, 1981 Schwartz, 1983 Kubicek and Hlavacek, 1983 Aluko and Chang, 1984). 

A quasi-periodic solution to a system of ODEs is characterized by at least two frequencies that are incommensurate (their ratio is an irrational number) (Bohr, 1947 Besicovitch, 1954). Several such frequencies may be present on high-order tori, but for the two-dimensional forced systems we examine, we may have no more than two distinct frequencies (a two-torus, T2). A quasi-periodic solution is typically bora when a pair of complex conjugate FMs of a periodic trajectory leave the unit circle at some angle , where /2ir is irrational. Such a solution is also expected when we periodically perturb an autonomously oscillating system with a frequency incommensurate to its natural frequency. 

The effects of forced oscillations in the partial pressure of a reactant is studied in a simple isothermal, bimolecular surface reaction model in which two vacant sites are required for reaction. The forced oscillations are conducted in a region of parameter space where an autonomous limit cycle is observed, and the response of the system is characterized with the aid of the stroboscopic map where a two-parameter bifurcation diagram for the map is constructed by using the amplitude and frequency of the forcing as bifurcation parameters. The various responses include subharmonic, quasi-peri-odic, and chaotic solutions. In addition, bistability between one or more of these responses has been observed. Bifurcation features of the stroboscopic map for this system include folds in the sides of some resonance horns, period doubling, Hopf bifurcations including hard resonances, homoclinic tangles, and several different codimension-two bifurcations. 

To the theory of periodic oscillations of quasi-linear non-autonomous periodic systems with periodic lags. - In Proceedings of V Intemat. Conf. on Nonlinear Oscillations, vol. 1, 617-622, Inst. Matematiki Akad. Nauk Ukrain. SSR, Kiev, 1970. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission is an independent and autonomous quasi-judicial board charged with hearing cases on appeal from OSHA. The president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints its three members. It meets periodically to review cases on appeal. Once the commission hears a case, if either party is dissatisfied, it may appeal through the federal appeals court system. 

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