This book presents the main results of the 19th Latin American Congress of Automatic Control held in November 2022 in Havana, Cuba. The Congress showed several main research results obtained by researchers from diverse countries in the last four years. Of the papers sent to Congress, 28 were finally accepted for presentation after a rigorous analysis of scientific novelty and quality. For their presentation in this book, the papers were divided into 5 major sections that appear in the following order: Part 1. Robust and Nonlinear Control The main research topics addressed in this part are related to fault-tolerant control loops, control by sliding modes, and robust tuning of PID controllers. Examples of electrical motors and chemical processes are used to demonstrate the feasibility of using the proposed techniques. Part 2. Fault Diagnosis in Industrial Systems Fault diagnosis in industrial plants is a very important topic in the Industry 4.0 paradigm. In this part, new techniques of fault diagnosis in mechanical systems using Poincaré features; a real case study for predicting the time of the remaining job cycle at a water treatment plant; and a predictive fault diagnosis for isolated photovoltaic systems are presented. A novel methodology for detecting and locating cyber-attacks in water distribution networks using computational intelligence tools is also presented. Part 3. Robotic and Autonomous Systems New control strategies for path following for autonomous tractors and unmanned aquatic vehicles are analyzed in this part. Moreover, the important topic related to the battery health-aware model predictive control planning for autonomous racing vehicles and the use of robots for monitoring and remediation applications are examined. Part 4. Modeling, Identification, and Delayed Systems A model-based methodology for the efficient selection of centrifugal pumps; the use of probabilistic Boolean networks in smart grid models; the utilization of PSO metaheuristic algorithm in the selection of a model structure; and two schemes to control high-order delayed systems are among the main topics examined in this part. Part 5. Low-Cost Systems and Biomedical Applications In this part, some applications of low-cost monitoring and control systems and two automatic systems used for the characterization of creatinine in wastes samples during hemodialysis process and differential acquisition of blood pressure are shown.

A powerful story of war in our time, of love of country, the experience of tragedy, and a platoon at the center of it all. This is a story that starts off close and goes very big. The initial part of the story might sound familiar at first: it is about a platoon of mostly nineteen-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an experience that ends abruptly in catastrophe. Their part of the story folds into the next: inexorably linked to those soldiers and never comprehensively reported before is the U.S. Department of Defense’s quest to build the world’s most powerful biometrics database, with the ability to identify, monitor, catalog, and police people all over the world. First Platoon is an American saga that illuminates a transformation of society made possible by this new technology. Part war story, part legal drama, it is about identity in the age of identification. About humanity—physical bravery, trauma, PTSD, a yearning to do right and good—in the age of biometrics, which reduce people to iris scans, fingerprint scans, voice patterning, detection by odor, gait, and more. And about the power of point of view in a burgeoning surveillance state. Based on hundreds of formerly classified documents, FOIA requests, and exclusive interviews, First Platoon is an investigative exposé by a master chronicler of government secrets. First Platoon reveals a post–9/11 Pentagon whose identification machines have grown more capable than the humans who must make sense of them. A Pentagon so powerful it can cover up its own internal mistakes in pursuit of endless wars. And a people at its mercy, in its last moments before a fundamental change so complete it might be impossible to take back.

In this searing exposéformer Wall Street insider Nomi Prins shows how the 2007-2008 financial crisis turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Central banks and international institutions like the IMF have overstepped their traditional mandates by directing the flow of epic sums of fabricated money without any checks or balances. Meanwhile, the open door between private and central banking has ensured endless opportunities for market manipulation and asset bubbles -- with government support. Through on-the-ground reporting, Prins reveals how five regions and their central banks reshaped economics and geopolitics. She discloses how Mexico navigated its relationship with the US while striving for independence and how Brazil led the BRICS countries to challenge the US dollar's hegemony. She explains how China's retaliation against the Fed's supremacy is aiding its ongoing ascent as a global superpower and how Japan is negotiating the power shift from the West to the East. And she illustrates how the European response to the financial crisis fueled instability that manifests itself in everything from rising populism to the shocking Brexit vote. Packed with tantalizing details about the elite players orchestrating the world economy -- from Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi to Ben Bernanke and Christine Lagarde -- Collusion takes the reader inside the most discreet conversations at exclusive retreats like Jackson Hole and Davos. A work of meticulous reporting and bracing analysis, Collusion will change the way we understand the new world of international finance.

Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the book on DARPA -- a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

This volume examines drug policies and the role of cooperation in the Americas. Many current and former politicians have discussed the failures of the war on drugs and the need for alternative approaches. Uruguay as well as Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana. The Organization of American states produced a report in 2013 which discussed alternative policy options to the drug war. This work examines the nature of cooperation and drug policies in the twenty-first century in the Americas, highlighting the major challenges and obstacles. The argument is that one country cannot solve drug trafficking as it is a transnational problem. Therefore, the producing, consuming, and transit countries must work together and cooperate.