Development of the transport infrastructure in Poland has contributed to the implementation of various technologies of construction of bridges and their components. Use of reinforced soil for construction of embankments, retaining structures (RSS walls) and abutments is one of the solutions which has been frequently used for the past twenty years. Shortly after its development, the technology proposed by Henri Vidal in 1966 also gained appreciation in Poland [4]. Reinforced soil bridge abutments started to be widely used in Poland at the turn of the 20th century. The bridge facilities at the junction of Trasa Siekierkowska route and Wał Miedzeszyński Street in Warsaw, which were built in the years 2000÷2002, are an example of structures from that period. The authors of this paper have been particularly interested in the outermost supports of the reinforced concrete flyovers which were constructed in the form of intermediate reinforced soil abutments. Offsets – the vertical displacements, in the range of 15÷25mm, emerging between the level of the road surface and the steel elements of the expansion joints which separate the flyover’s structure from the embankment – were observed in 2015, in the course of regular inspections. While accounting for the observations which have been made, the surveying measurements and the ground investigation, the paper diagnoses and describes the mechanism which led to the emergence of the offsets. Potential patterns of the occurrence of additional settlements, as the reason for emergence of the offsets, were identified and analyzed. The settlement of the outermost support (abutment), as a result of increase of relative density of alluvial sands due to the dynamic interaction of the roadways of Wał Miedzeszyński Street, was analyzed. Analytical and numeric approaches were used in the course of analysis while relying on PLAXIS and MIDAS software.

In model predictive control (MPC), methods of linear offset free MPC are well established such as the disturbance model, the observer method and the state disturbance observer method. However, the observer gain in those methods is difficult to define. Based on the drawbacks observed in those methods, a novel algorithm is proposed to guarantee offset-free MPC under model-plant mismatches and disturbances by combining the two proposed methods which are the proposed Recursive Kalman estimated state method and the proposed Disturbance-Kalman state method. A comparison is made from existing methods to assess the ability of providing offset-free MPC onWood-Berry distillation column. Results shows that the proposed offset free MPC algorithm has better disturbance rejection performance than the existing algorithms.

The unbalance of the neutral point voltage is an inherent problem of three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter, the effect of neutral point voltage balancing which is caused by voltage vector is analyzed, and the relationship of the voltage offset and neutral point voltage is studied in this paper. This paper proposes a novel neutral point balance strategy for three-level NPC inverter based on space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM). A voltage offset is added to the modulation wave, and a closed-loop neutral point voltage balance control system is designed. In the control system, the dwelling time of synthesis voltage vectors for SVPWM is varied to solve the problem of the unbalance of the neutral point voltage, the sequence of the voltage vectors maintains unchanging. Simulation and experimental results show the neutral point voltage balancing control strategy based on SVPWM is effective.

In this paper a sample rate conversion algorithm which allows for continuously changing resampling ratio has been presented. The proposed implementation is based on a variable fractional delay filter which is implemented by means of a Farrow structure. Coefficients of this structure are computed on the basis of fractional delay filters which are designed using the offset window method. The proposed approach allows us to freely change the instantaneous resampling ratio during processing. Using such an algorithm we can simulate recording of audio on magnetic tape with nonuniform velocity as well as remove such distortions. We have demonstrated capabilities of the proposed approach based on the example of speech signal processing with a resampling ratio which was computed on the basis of estimated fundamental frequency of voiced speech segments.

The Histogram Test method is a popular technique in analog-to-digital converter (ADC) testing. The presence of additive noise in the test setup or in the ADC itself can potentially affect the accuracy of the test results. In this study, we demonstrate that additive noise causes a bias in the terminal based estimation of the gain but not in the estimation of the offset. The estimation error is determined analytically as a function of the sinusoidal stimulus signal amplitude and the noise standard deviation. We derive an exact but computationally difficult expression as well as a simpler closed form approximation that provides an upper bound of the bias of the terminal based gain. The estimators are validated numerically using a Monte Carlo procedure with simulated and experimental data.

LTCC-based pressure sensors are promising candidates for wet-wet applications in which the effect of the surrounding media on the sensor's characteristics is of key importance. The effect of humidity on the sensor's stability can be a problem, particularly in the case of capacitive sensors. A differential mode of operation can be a good solution, but manufacturing the appropriate sensing capacitors remains a major challenge. In the case of piezoresistive sensors the influence of humidity is less critical, but it still should be considered as an important parameter when designing sensors for low-pressure ranges. In this paper we discuss the stability of the sensors' offset characteristics, which was inspected closely using experimental and numerical analyses.