Maṇḍalas

Chapter 8 continues the translation of Netra Tantra Chapter 6 as the topic shifts from oblation to maṇḍala. The theoretical basis for this analysis relies on understanding the nature of mantras from Chapters 1 and 2 and the initiation rites of Chapter 5. Because the Netra Tantra itself offers only practical information about maṇḍala use in ritual, the analysis turns to two other texts, the Mālinīvijayottaratantra and Cakrasamvara Tantra, to examine the written form of the mantra and colors of the maṇḍala. The chapter shows how the embodied mantra is placed onto the maṇḍala, thus activating it. Again, proper performance is necessary for the correct outcome. The colors of the ritual objects and maṇḍalas point to their efficacy.

Substitution of Parties in the Obligation and Suretyship: Contradictions in the Construction of a Solidary Plurality of Persons (Part 1)

Introduction: the authors conducted a study of the differentiation of the norms on surety and substitution of parties in the obligation due to the lack of their clear regulation by the legislator. The paper discusses the concepts of co-suretyship and individual suretyship, reveals their similarities and differences. The authors highlighted the problems of applying the rules on the substitution of parties in the obligation and the responsibility of the surety and also suggested the ways to resolve them. The purpose of the study is to develop some proposals for improving the institution of suretyship and bringing it into line with the norms on the substitution of parties in an obligation. Methods: the study used historical, comparative law, logical research methods, as well as the method of the literal and broad interpretation of normative legal acts and court decisions. Results: the civil law doctrine of the institute of suretyship and co-suretyship was supplemented, the legal position of suretyship in the proper performance of its obligations for the debtor was determined from the standpoint of the science of civil law. Conclusions: according to the results of the study, it is proposed to amend the current legislation and completely exclude from it the provisions on the independent regulation of “joint suretyship”, i.e. to recognize Part 3 of Article 363 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as invalid. The provisions developed by the authors will simplify and streamline the law enforcement practice in the issues under consideration.

An Adaptive Operational Modal Analysis Method Using Encoder LSTM with Random Decrement Technique

A new parameter identification method under non-white noise excitation using transformer encoder and long short-term memory networks (LSTMs) is proposed in the paper. In this work, the random decrement technique (RDT) processing of the data is equivalent to eliminating the noise of the raw data. In general, the addition of the gate in LSTM allows the network to selectively store data, which avoids gradient disappearance and gradient explosion to a certain extent. It is worthwhile mentioning that the encoder can learn the essence of data, which reduces the burden for the LSTM. More specifically, establish as simple LSTM structure as possible to learn the data of this essence to achieve the best training effect. Finally, the proposed method is used for simulation and experimental verification, and the results show that the method has the advantages of high recognition accuracy, strong anti-noise ability, and fast convergence rate. Specially, the results indicated appropriate accuracy proposed by deep learning combined with traditional method for parameter identification as well as proper performance of the proposed method.

Moisture Risk Analysis for Three Construction Variants of a Wooden Inverted Flat Roof

The paper presents an analysis of the hygrothermal performance of an inverted flat roof with a CLT (cross-laminated timber) structure in a building that meets the requirements of Passive House Standard (PHS) with regards to the potential risk of moisture. The calculations were made in the WUFI®Plus and WUFI®Bio software. The following variants were taken into account: three structure configurations, three different external climates and different scenarios of microclimate control and air change rate. The results of the calculations show that, especially in cooler climates, there is an actual moisture risk in the structure despite the excellent thermal insulation. The structure of the inverted flat roof, due to the use of a tight membrane on the outer side, allows for the partition to discharge the excess moisture only to the inside of the building. Ensuring the comfort of users may require periodic humidification of internal air, which translates directly into an increase in moisture content of the structure. The performed analysis clearly showed that there are no universal solutions. It is important to point out that for the proper performance of inverted wooden roofs, it is crucial to analyse moisture, not only thermal and energy parameters.

Realisation of Public Procurement during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article deals with the analysis of major changes introduced to the Polish Public Procurement Law for the reason of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, the regulation in this area concerns the exclusion of the Public Procurement Law application in respect of necessary procurements. In addition, the legislator has introduced a mutual obligation to communicate about the impact of circumstances relating to the occurrence of COVID-19 on the proper performance of the contract and, as a consequence, the possibility of amending the public procurement contract. The last regulation has introduced solutions to reduce the costs of participation in tender proceedings and to encourage contractors to participate in public tenders.

Effect of Modified Carbon Nanotubes Epoxy on the Mechanical Properties of Concrete Reinforced with FRP Sheets

Today, using Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) sheets is one of the conventional methods in retrofitting concrete structures. Some factors affecting FRP sheets proper performance include mechanical properties, surface specifications, connector’s material and connecting approach in concrete elements. Previous studies showed that FRP epoxy resin and its basic surface have a significant impact on the ultimate bearing capacity. In line with the development of nanotechnology in recent years, this paper presents an experimental study to show the effects of adding the best percentage of nano-carbons to adhesive resin and evaluate the ultimate axial, shear and bending strengths in concrete samples. The results show that using FRP with carbon nanotube reinforced resins will significantly increase stiffness and ductility by 100%; moreover, it shows an effective increase of almost 13% in axial and flexural strengths of specimens.

Robotic Intracorporeal Anastomosis

Robotic intracorporeal anastomosis is currently increasingly used for the performance of colorectal anastomosis. We describe the technical details for the proper performance of an iso- and anti-peristaltic anastomosis including the set up of the robotic platform and the performance of the anastomosis.

Trajectory Tracking of A Mobile Robot Using Adaptive Sliding Mode Control

In this paper, a control system for a mobile four-wheeled robot is designed, whose task is to create stability and achieve proper performance in the execution of commands. Due to the nonlinear and time-varying dynamics, structural and parametric uncertainties of this robot, various control approaches are used in order to achieve stability, proper performance and minimize the effect of uncertainties and modeling errors, etc. The purpose of the control here is to follow a predetermined trajectory by adjusting linear and angular velocities in the presence of external disturbances and parametric uncertainty.In previous articles, the upper band of uncertainties has been assumed known. In this paper, and given that in practice, in many cases it is not possible to know the extent of uncertainties and disturbances in robotic systems, we have assumed that this upper band is unknown. Therefore, the sliding mode control law designed in the paper has been generalized and proved its stability so that by adding an adaptive part to the controller and converting it into a robust-adaptive sliding mode control, the upper band uncertainties are estimated online using these adaptive laws. The results of this typology are expressed in a separate theorem and proved to be stable. The results of simulation with MATLAB software show that the proposed controller ensures optimal performance under external disturbances and parametric uncertainty with less fluctuations.

The estimate of amplitude and phase of harmonics in power system using the extended kalman filter

Nowadays, the amplitude of the harmonics in the power grid has increased unwittingly due to the increasing use of the nonlinear elements and power electronics. It has led to a significant reduction in power quality indicators. As a first step, the estimate of the amplitude, and the phase of the harmonics in the power grid are essential to resolve this problem. We use the Kalman filter to estimate the phase, and we use the minimal squared linear estimator to assess the amplitude. To test the aforementioned method, we use terminal test signals of the industrial charge consisting of the power converters and ignition coils. The results show that this algorithm has a high accuracy and estimation speed, and they confirm the proper performance in instantaneous tracking of the parameters.

Avaliação de uma técnica de compactação do gesso odontológico como alternativa para a correta relação água/pó

The water-powder relationship is essential to achieve a proper performance of gypsum for prosthetic purposes. The ideal measure can be obtained with a balance, but this is clinically unavailable, once it is timeconsuming. A powder-compacting technique using a volume measurement is suggested in order to substitute the balance. The technique consists of using a gypsum meter within the gypsum bag. While the operator holds the gypsum meter with one hand, the palm of the other hand is pressed over the surface of the meter, supported by the ventral aspect of the fingers of the hand that is pressing. This procedure is based upon three compactation movements for each operator, then counting the average of compacting sample. Each of the ten operators repeated six times the procedure, and the final average was defined. The resulting samples for each procedure, of each operator, were weighted, and the statistical analysis showed significant differences (p = 0,006) among the operators.