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This paper aims to deal with the design of new hybrid approach for the assistance of the flexion extension movement of the knee joint.

The control approach combines the use of a knee joint orthosis along with functional electrical stimulation (FES) within an assist-as-needed paradigm. An active impedance controller is used to assist the generation of muscular stimulation patterns during the extension sub-phase of the knee joint movement. The generated FES patterns are appropriately tailored to achieve flexion/extension movement of the knee joint, which allows providing the required assistance by the subject through muscular stimulation. The generated torque through stimulation is tracked by a non-linear disturbance observer and fed to the impedance controller to generate the desired trajectory that will be tracked using a standard proportional derivative controller.

The approach was tested in experiments with two healthy subjects. Results show satisfactory performances in terms of estimating the knee joint torque, as well as in terms of cooperation between the FES and the orthosis actuator during the execution of the knee joint flexion/extension movements.

The authors designed a new hybrid approach for the assistance of the flexion extension movement of the knee joint, which has not been studied yet. The control approach combines the use of a knee joint orthosis along with FES within an assist-as-needed paradigm.

The purpose of this paper is the control of lower limb orthosis acting at the knee joint level for a passive rehabilitation purpose.

A control law, based on a saturated proportional derivative controller, is proposed in order to drive the shank-foot-orthosis system along a desired trajectory.

The proposed control law is tested in real time using the orthosis EICOSI of the LISSI-Laboratory. The experiments show that the proposed control law is capable of providing satisfactory trajectory tracking performance given only the knee joint angle measurement. Moreover, the control law is robust with respect to external disturbances.

Robust control of an actuated lower limb orthosis.

This paper aims to investigate the present status of the implementation levels of total quality management (TQM), just‐in‐time (JIT) and manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) within the iron and steel industry in Libya and the management implications for this industry.

A survey methodology was applied in this investigation using an extensive questionnaire and one‐to‐one interviews within the correspondent Libyan iron and steel industry.

Based on the analysis of the questionnaire survey and the one‐to‐one interview responses, the results show that the strategies applied by the executive management body towards most of the areas that are considered as being crucial in any successful implementation of the investigated quality and manufacturing management techniques and philosophies are not well planned. The actual implementation levels of the TQM, JIT and MRPII practices were found to be in the modest levels within the surveyed industry. The paper has identified limitations within the iron and steel industry in terms of the investigated quality and manufacturing techniques and philosophies, and has pointed to areas where the senior managers need to take action in order to achieve an effective and successful implementation of these techniques and philosophies within their business areas. This is an important finding for the future success of the surveyed industry within Libya.

Future research could be applied to cover other industries within Libya in order to investigate how widely these quality and manufacturing management techniques and philosophies from this research are reflected in other Libyan industries.

This paper investigates the present implementation status of TQM, JIT, and MRPII within the Libyan iron and steel industry, not covered in previous research. It makes a contribution by providing an insight into what extent the TQM, JIT and MRPII are understood and implemented within the Libyan iron and steel industry.

There is almost a consensus amongst Muslim scholars that the most crucial problem faced by the Muslim world is in the prevailing ideas (including sanctification, archaism, the common paradigm, the absence of the role of the intellectual, etc.) which formulate people’s thoughts and determine their options. There will not be a genuine renaissance of Islam without updating these ideas and emerging from the cocoon of the past. This can be done through a modern approach which would respond to the changes by looking towards the future rather than towards the past. This study aims to identify the intellectual aspects of this crisis and how this crisis has formed and influenced Islamic banking.

To analyse this crisis, the methodology called causal layered analysis (CLA) is used, which is drawn from the field of strategic foresight and designed by Inayatullah (2002). CLA is designed on the basis that the way to understand the nature of the problem will determine the proposed solutions, by diving through the surface phenomena of the problem to the depth of the “motors” of the crisis.

The author finds that Islamic banking is the offspring of its incubator ideas and reform, and the change and progress of Islamic banking can only deal with a critical approach of these ideas; Islamic banking promotes itself as an alternative to conventional banking, but this has not been achieved except on the level of form rather than substance; Islamic banking is a movement within a variable reality, and inertia in specific form and context will keep it in a state of crisis and may lead to its demise.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study showing the roots of the ideas making up the fabric of banking in the Muslim world and the repercussions of intellectual crisis on Islamic banking.