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In conventional laboratories, engineering students must attend in person to conduct experiments with real equipment in a physical place, where their work is mainly assessed through self-reports and attendance records. By comparison, online labs can record and analyze students' activities and behaviors automatically. Thus, this article proposes a novel method for assessing students' online laboratory work. The assessment method has two key components. The first component considers the scores provided by a task learning system, with progressive task lists set to guide students to finish the experiments. After each subtask, the completeness and quality are verified, and the system automatically records the corresponding score according to checking rules executed through JavaScript codes. The second part analyzes the behavior data, and student performance during the online experiments is analyzed using a fuzzy inference method. This work also presents a case study based on practical teaching at Wuhan University, where students in the courses Classical Control Theory and System Identification use the networked control system laboratory for their laboratory courses. The results show that the proposed assessment method can be applied to effectively and automatically evaluate students' laboratory work.

Contribution: This article introduces the teaching and learning with remote laboratories and MATLAB for an undergraduate system identification (SI) course, which can be employed for students at the advanced level with a control background. Background: SI has been widely used in all engineering fields; thus, the SI course that includes complex theories, concepts, and formulas is crucial for engineering education. Constraints, such as time, space, cost, and maintenance work, pose limitations for conventional laboratories, and current remote laboratories may not offer experiences to enhance control-oriented practical skills. Intended Outcomes: The proposed teaching and learning using remote laboratories is intended to facilitate the understanding of theories and concepts, and enhance the ability of design and implementation of control algorithms, the conducting of experiments, data collecting, data analysis, and the conducting of SI with MATLAB. Application Design: In the classroom teaching, theoretical lectures regarding SI are delivered to students by the teacher, along with the classroom demonstration with the networked control system laboratory for online experimentation. Then, the laboratory work is required to be completed by the students using the remote laboratory. A tailored laboratory report is supposed to be handed in by each student after the experimentation. Findings: The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated through the analysis of student performance and student responses to surveys. The student performance analysis indicates that the application of the remote laboratories is effective, and the feedback from students shows that they can benefit from the application of remote laboratories, and they would like the remote laboratories to be expanded to other courses.

Background: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors (PCSK9i) have been shown to improve cardiovascular outcomes by reducing low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C). However, sex differences in the efficacy of evolocumab remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate sex differences in the efficacy of evolocumab using real‐world data. Method: Data were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University. A total of 416 eligible patients were selected from 1463 patients treated with evolocumab for secondary prevention. Clinical data, including individual characteristics and lipids profiles, were recorded. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to control for potential confounders, with covariates including age, body mass index, smoking status, and diabetes. All eligible participants were propensity‐matched 1:1 for female versus male with a match tolerance of 0.02. The efficacy of evolocumab in females and males was compared by PSM‐adjusted analysis. Results: In the PSM analysis, a significant difference was found in the relative percentage reduction of LDL‐C between females and males (−42.7% vs. −54.4%, p < 0.001). In addition, the absolute LDL‐C reduction was lower in females compared to males (interquartile range: −1.5 [−2.2, −0.8] mmol/L vs. −1.9 [−2.5, −1.0] mmol/L, p = 0.018). The rate of target LDL‐C attainment was lower in females than in males after treatment with evolocumab (21.6% vs. 39.8%, p = 0.009). Conclusion: These results suggest that males have a better response to evolocumab in term of LDL‐C reduction compared to females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the framework of high-order fully actuated (HOFA) system theory, this study investigates a spacecraft flying-around problem in a sight coordinate system. In this sight coordinate system, a nonlinear HOFA system model is applied to establish the relative dynamics of spacecraft flying-around, such that the presented flying-around mission can be transformed into a tracking control problem of nonlinear HOFA systems. A HOFA predictive control approach is correspondingly proposed to deal with this problem. Concretely, the nonlinearities can be eliminated to construct a linear HOFA system by utilising full actuation characteristic, and then a linear incremental HOFA (LIHOFA) prediction model is constructed by applying a Diophantine equation to replace a reduced-order prediction model. Based on this LIHOFA prediction model, multi-step ahead predictions are developed to optimise the tracking control performance, so that the realisation of the presented flying-around mission can be guaranteed. A sufficient and necessary condition is derived in the in-depth discussion to maintain the stability and tracking control performance of closed-loop systems. Furthermore, numerical simulation and comparison about spacecraft flying-around in circular and elliptical orbits are provided to verify the feasibility of the HOFA predictive control approach. To highlight its practicability, an experimental verification via air-bearing spacecraft (ABS) simulator is shown for the implementation of flying-around mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]