Discrete control for a computer hard disk by using a

fractional order hold device

R.Barcena, M. de la Sen, ISagastabeitia and J.M.Collantes

Abstract: It is well known that the type of hold circuit used in a digital control scheme critically
influences the position of the discrete-time zeros. Most digital control systems use a zero-order
hold (ZOH). Nevertheless, there are more convenient alternatives to the use of a ZOH signal
reconstruction device in certain digital control problems. A fractional order hold (FROH) circuit is
proposed in this paper in order to manage a computer hard disk read-write head described as a
second order system. Significant improvements in the transient performance of the closed-loop
system are obtained with respect to the use of a ZOH when using a properly adjusted FROH device.

1 Introduction been extended to sufficiently small finite sampling periods

Unstable zeros limit the performance that can be achieved
when controlling a system, [I]. Moreover, several techni-
ques for control system design are based on the cancella-
tion of process zeros. However, such methods cannot be
applied when the process has unstable zeros [2-51. Conse-
quently, special attention is being paid to the study of the
zeros of sampled-systems in recent years. This subject was
studied by Astrom et al. [6] (whose work has been recently
extended by Blachuta [7] for the case of zero-order hold
(ZOH)). Hagiwara et al. [8] carried out a very motivating
comparative study demonstrating that a First order hold
(FOH) provides no advantage over a ZOH as far as the
stability of the zeros of the resulting sampled-data systems
is concerned. Passino et al. [9] proposed the fractional
order hold (FROH) as an alternative to the ZOH.
Ishitobi [ 101 analysed the stability properties of the limit-
ing FROH zeros-for sufficiently small or large sampling
period. In that paper, it has been proved that the FROH-
type reconstruction leads to inverse stable discrete plants
for a wider range of second-order continuous systems if the
hold adjustable parameter is allowed to be negative. In
spite of the fact that a nonlimiting sampling period is used
in the present paper, the obtained results coincide qualita-
tively with those obtained in [IO]. In [ l l ] , theoretical
analysis of the stability of the FROH limiting zeros as
the sampling period tends to zero for continuous-time
plants of arbitrary pole-zero excess has been developed.
In addition, the results for limiting zeros when T+ 0 have
0 IEE, 2001
IEE Proceedings online no. 20010196
DOI; 10.1049/ip-cta:20010196
Paper first received 10th February and in revised form 12th December
2000
R. Barcena is with the Departamento de Electronica Telecomunicaciones,
Universidad del Pais Vasco, E.U. Ingenieria Tca. Industrial. Plaza de La
Casilla, 3. Aptdo. 48012, Bilbao, Spain
E-mail: jtpbarur@lg.ehu.es
M. de la Sen is with the Instituto de Investigacion y Desarrollo de
Procesos, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Facultad de Ciencias, Leioa
(Bizkaia), Aptdo. 644 de Bilbao, Spain
I. Sagastabeitia and J.M. Collantes are with the Departamento de
Electricidad y Electrbnica, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Facultad de
Ciencias, Leioa (Bizkaia), Aptdo. 644 de Bilbao, Spain
IEE Proc.-Control Theory Appl., Vol. 148, No. 2, March 2001
for zero-free continuous-time plants.
In the present paper, a study of the stability properties of
the discrete-time zeros of a computer hard disk read-write
head model using a FROH signal reconstruction device is
presented. In addition, two different approaches will be
developed here in order to improve the stability degree of
the discrete zeros. The magnitude of the zeros obtained
with such techniques is down to 50% smaller than the
corresponding ZOH ones. Finally, a classical pole-zero
placement digital control scheme is applied to the system
under study in order to confirm and quantify the reached
improvement on the controlled system performances. Such
improvement can be obtained in two different ways. On the
one hand, the referred FROH zeros may be cancelled more
efficiently by the controller if required by the design
specifications. On the other hand, in some cases the
cancellation of the zeros is unsuitable and the transmission
to the reference model becomes necessary. In such cases,
the zeros of the reference model may be selected freely
within some range. In that way, the synthesised closed-loop
system satisfies more tightly a set of given transient
specifications (e. g. percentage overshoot or settling time)
since response performances highly depend on the relative
positions of the closed-loop poles and zeros [12, 131.
2 General background theory
Suppose that the state space equation of a nth order time-
invariant single-input single-output controllable and obser-
vable system is expressed as:
where u(t) andy(t) are the input and the output scalars, and
x ( t ) is the state vector. To design a digital control scheme,
we are interested in the discrete-time system composed of a
hold device, the linear continuous-time system and a
sampler in series. When the FROH signal reconstruction
device is used, the input is described by:
KT 5 t < ( K + 1)T (2)
1I7
where K is a non-negative integer, Tis the sampling period respectively. In doing so,
and b is the adjustable gain of the device. Then, the
sampled system is [9, IO]: (7)
b
x(KT+ T ) 0
I[xl(KT+T)l=[O
y- x(KT)
O][x,(KT)l+[)' rP
N,,(z) = (z - 1)det + z det

(8)
(3)
where NTO(Z)and NT1(z)are the numerators of the sampled
where transfer funclions with ZOH and FOH, respectively. In
addition, notice that, according to eqn. 5, the location of
the discrete-time poles does not depend on fl.
Fig. 1 shows a very simple and intuitive design of an
and 0 is an nth row vector with all zero elements. The FROH device that implements the u(t) function given by
sampled transfer function is: eqn. 2. The circuit coasists of two resistor ladder networks,
a modified integral operator, an adder and several electro-
nic switches. The ,switches are controlled by the digital
inputs and would be implemented using, for example, field
effect transistors. The digital inputs are the binary numbers
(4) A and B (only 4-bits for the simplicity of the figure) and
the pulse function S. A represents u(K) and the integrator
or, equivalently,
input resistance is controlled by B, adjusting the integrator
gain in such ;I way that:

b(z - 1)det
0
+ z det
--
'Ref
RI"tl"C1
p[- u(KT) - u((K - 1)T)
T 1
Both A and B are calculated by the digital controller. S has
z det[zI - @] (5) a period T an11 manages the discharges of the C , capacitor
(R,C, 5 duty cycle << r). Fig. 2 illustrates an example of
Thus, the zeros of the discrete-time system are the roots of: the FROH circuit operation for various values of the
parameter /?,assuming that the reconstructed signal is a
No(z) = b(z - 1) det digitally generated sinusoidal function with f = 1 kHz.

+zdet[ ZI -@ i'] In [I41 an approximate method is proposed as an

In the following, the ZOH and the FOH will be considered
as particular cases of the FROH when /3 = 0 and p = 1 ,
alternative to the electronic implementation of the FROH
device. Such a method utilises a ZOH device with a
sampling period T I smaller than the sampling period T
used by the control scheme in order to generate the FROH-
like analogue signal. It has been proved [14] that the

"out

- -
Fig. 1 Fractional order hold (FROH) circuit
118 ILE Pro.-Control Theory Appl., Vol. 148, No. 2, March 2##I
 a

I I
.a

v
-1.0 Fig. 4 Magnitude of most unstable FROH discrete zero of GB(z) for
I ( ~ [ - l , I ] a n dTe[O.O.Is]
0 0.5 1.o 1.5
time,ms
d
0.05Nm/A, the system is described by a second order
Fig. 2 Signal reconstruction with ZOH (i.e. fi = 0), FOH (i.e. fi = I), zero-free transfer function:
FROH (I( = 0.5 and fi = -0.5) and sampling period 0.1 ms of the digitallj~
5
generated junction g(t) = sin(2nP) V with f = I kHz G(s) = = B(s) = Kl -
+ Cs + K - (s + 0 . 2 ) ~+ 3 1.62
~ ~

a ZOH ([I = 0) i(s) ~ ( s ) 1s2

h FOH (b= 1)
c FROH (b= 0.5)
d FROH (fi = -0.5)
obtained results are as advantageous as those obtained by
the accurate electronic circuit when the sampling period T
tends to zero and T , << 7:
3 Zeros of sampled system
The advantages of the FROH signal reconstruction device
are verified through the design of a computer hard disk
read-write head position digital controller. A simplified but
appropriate model for the read-write head (see Fig. 3) is
described by the following differential equation [ 121:
I8 + Cb + KO = Kii
(9)
where I is the inertia of the head assembly, C the viscous
damping coefficient of the bearings, K is the return spring
constant, ,K,is the motor torque constant and i is the input
current. 0, 0, R are the angular acceleration, angular
velocity and the position of the head respectively. Taking
the Laplace transform with zero initial conditions and
using the usual numerical values I = 0.01 Kg m2,
C = 0.004 N m s/rad, K = 10 N m/rad and Ki =
(1 0 )
when H(s) and i(s) are the respective Laplace transforms of
H ( t ) and i(t). This transfer function may be discretised
under the use of a sampling and hold device. The zeros
of a discrete-time system can be classified into two cate-
gories: those which correspond to the zeros of the contin-
uous-time system, and those introduced by the
discretisation method which do no have any continuous-
time counterparts [8, 101. The zeros of the later category
are called discretisation zeros and are the kind of zeros that
will appear when discretising this zero-free system.
The subsequent task is to design a digital controller that
can be used to provide accurate positioning of the read-
write head. Therefore, the first step consists of discretising
the continuous plant. The system will be discretised by
using a FROH device with B E [-I, I ] and a sampling
period T E [0, 0.1 SI. In doing so, the discretisation zeros
can be determined by eqn. 6. The magnitude of the most
unstable zero is presented in Fig. 4. To study the stability
of this zero, a contour plot composed of lines of constant
magnitude values obtained from the previous surface can
be built (Fig. 5). The stability region-where the discrete
zeros are suitable to be cancelled by the digital controller-
is commonly defined as I zI 5 0.9 in order to enhance the
0.09

n disk pioten z-
0
._
o
L

0
5a
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.01
5
VI
0.03
0.02
0.01

-1.0 -0.8 0 0.2 0.1 0.6 0.8 1.0

-0.6 -0.1 -0.2
FROH porometer ,p
solenoid Fig. 5 Contour plot of constant magnitude values of most unstable
Fig. 3 Computer hard disk drive FROH zero

IEE Proc.-Control Theory Appl., Vol. 148, No. 2, March 2001 I19
robustness of the design by avoiding the cancellations of
stable, but poorly damped, plant zeros. The improvement
that can be reached by means of a suitable choice of the
parameter p is shown. Both the ZOH ( p = O ) and FOH
( p = 1) are not able to provide discrete-time zeros into the
stability region. However, by adjusting p to a suitable value
in the FROH, an inverse stable discrete plant can be
obtained.
Besides, the following properties can be derived from
the previous observations:
(i) For any given sampling period 7: it is always possible to
obtain FROH discretisation zeros that are more stable than
the ZOH and FOH ones by means of a right choice of
negative values of the parameter fl. This fact agrees with
the theoretical properties of limiting FROH zeros-for
sufficiently small (T-+ 0) limiting sampling periods-
given by [ lo].
(ii) The contour lines limiting each region are very abrupt
when negative values of p are used (i.e., the magnitude
changes very quickly as fl varies). Therefore, the optimum
value of p, that is, the value that provides the FROH zeros
being as stable as possible for a particular continuous-time
plant and sampling period, must be calculated as exactly as
possible in the case when using algorithm implementations
of the FROH device by using the approximate method
proposed in [14]. If the implementation is made with
electronic circuitry, then /3 has to be fixed as close as
possible to its optimum value according to the achievable
technical performances of the components.
4 Improving the stability properties of the zeros
Two techniques are now presented in order to determine
the optimum value of p as far as the stability degree of the
zeros of resulting sampled systems is concerned, namely:
(a) The most general approach consists of obtaining the
roots of eqn. 6 as a function of parameter p. Then, the value
of is adjusted in order to minimise the largest root
magnitude by using approximated numerical recipes.
(b) The second method consists of applying the classical
root locus method with fi being the generalised gain.
Now, the two above approaches are applied to the case of
the computer hard disk read-write head for a given value of
the sampling period T, = 0.005 s, that is well suited for our
digital control system. The magnitude of the most unstable
zero as a function of p i s obtained from eqn. 6 and plotted
in Fig. 6. Then, the optimum value of p can be easily
1.Lr
1.2
-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.1 -0.2 0 0.2 0.1 0.6 0.8 1.0
FROH porameter, p
Fig. 6 Mugnittide of most unstable FROH zero for snmpling period of
digital control system tinder study T, = 0.005s
I20
obtained by searching the minimum of that function
(flop,=-0.3332 in our case). Once the p gain of the
FROH reconstruction circuit is tuned to the value of bopt
the most stable zeros are obtained for this plant and this
sampling period. Notice that the most unstable zero
magnitude provided by the FROH (Izoptl= 0.5 142) is
48.54% smaller than the magnitude corresponding to the
ZOH (p = 0)l discretisation ( lzZOHI = 0.9993). Besides,
these FROH zeros are located inside the stability region.
Finally, thi: second approach is described here. The
generalised root locus method will be used to study the
location of the discretization FROH zeros in the complex
plane as a function of /3. Substituting eqns. 7 and 8 into
eqn. 6, the zeros of Nlc(z)can be calculated as p varies as a
generalised root locus with the parameter fl as its general-
ised gain:
In eqn. 11, Ihe terminating points of the root locus of
N,,(z) = 0 as /? + fCO are the roots of
and the starting points of N,&) = 0 as p+- 0 are the roots
Of:
Applying eqns. 11, 12 and 13 to the system described by
eqn. 10, one 82btains:
' "[
+
(Z - I)(z
Z(Z
1-
+ 1.9960)
+ 0.9993)
=0
(14)
First let us study the direct generalised root locus (GRL).
The classical root locus procedure ensures that the root
locus on the real axis always lies in a section of the real
axis to the lelt of an odd number of starting and terminat-
ing points. Th'is implies that the FROH discretisation zeros
with p ranging from 0 to plus infinity evolve leftwards-
always moving away from the origin- on the negative real
axis as 13 increases, due to the relative positions of the
starting and tlxminating points on the real axis. Note that
the starting p'oints, except the fixed one at z=O, are also
the ZOH zeros. Therefore, the FROH discretisation zeros
with j > 0 are always real and of less convergence abscissa
than the ZOH ones.
However, in the case of complementary generalised root
locus (CRL), where fl E ( - CO, 01, the starting and termi-
nating points remains identical, while the departure and
arrival angles are opposite. Thus, there exists a range of
negative values of p for which the FROH zeros are located
closer to the origin than the ZOH and FOH ones. This
negative rangc: goes from 0 to a value pmin= - lamin
1 where
Bmin depends on the continuous-time plant parameters and
the current sampling period Tc;.The CRL is depicted in
Fig. 7 Two brcakaway points are located on the real axis at
z , = -0.4999 and z2= - 1.1976 x lo3. The corresponding
values of p are f l , =-0.3334 and &=-2.9970. In
this case, as Fig. 7 shows, the optimum value of the
parameter p corresponds to the breakaway point located
at zI =-0.4999 and marked as zOpt. Therefore,
popt= P I = -0.3334. Note that this FROH provides a
discretisation zero magnitude ( lzoptl= 0.4999) that is
49.97% smaller than the magnitude corresponding to the
ZOH discretisation (IzZOHI = 0.9993). Besides, the FROH
IE'E Proc.-Control Theory App/., Vol. 148, No. 2,March 2003
 step reponse
0.0101 1

2.0.9

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

time, samples
Fig. 8 Unit-step response of open-loop continuous plant

parameter p to popt= -0.3332, the discrete open-loop

transfer function is then:
zeros are inside the stability region, inverse stable plant, so
that they can be cancelled by means of a digital controller. +
BFROHOL(Z) - 5.5394 . 10p5(z 0.4999)2
In this way, the performance of the controlled system could
be significantly improved [ 1, 151.
GFROHOL(z) =
AFROHOL(Z) - Z(Z~ +
1.9732 0.9979)+
(16)
Rernark I : The small discrepancies found with respect to
the results obtained using the first approach are due to the where, theoretically, the discrete zeros are stable enough to
finite accuracy of the numerical recipes used to find the allow the free selection of the complete reference model
minimum of the function depicted in Fig. 6. (by the cancellation of such zeros). The design objective is
to achieve that the controlled system meet certain perfor-
Rernark 2: The second approach is, fairly, the most advan-
mance specifications. The classical model reference control
tageous since the associated procedure can be strongly
scheme of pole-zero placement proposed by [2, 161 (see
supported by the use of classical graphic techniques.
Fig. 9) is used here.
Nevertheless, this method could be difficult to apply in
The desired closed loop performance specifications are
other cases where the generalised CRL is very complex. described by the roots of the characteristic polynomial
Remark 3: As mentioned in the introductory section, it may A,,,(z) of the reference model, whose zeros are still unspe-
be pointed out that the previous study in the evolution in cified:
the complex plane of the FROH zeros with /3 may also be
used to choose appropriately the position of the zeros of A M ( z )= z2 + 0.22 + 0.05 (17)
the reference model from a transmission of those of the
plant, improving, in this way, the transient performances of Thus, when the control objective is reached, the equivalent
the controlled system. The second part of the next Section damping coefficient of the closed-loop system is about 0.6
is devoted to such a design philosophy. and the transient response is quite fast.

5 Computer hard disk read/write head digital
control design. An illustrative example
In this section, a well-known digital control scheme is used
for accurate positioning of the readlwrite head described in
Section 3. The ZOH signal reconstruction device and,
alternatively, the proposed FROH circuit are used here to
reconstruct the control signal. Then, the performances of
the controlled system in both cases are compared.
The open-loop discrete transfer function when a ZOH
device is used ( D = O ) is:
BZOHOJZ) - 6.2328 . 10-5(z 0.9993)+
GZOHOL =
+ +
AZOH,L(z) - (z* 1 . 9 7 3 ~ 0.9979)
5.1 Cancellations of the discrete plant zeros
Assume that a ZOH is used (i.e. p = 0 ) and the model
reference control scheme of Fig. 9 is applied. All the poles
and zeros of the Gz,Ho, (z) plant are cancelled by the
digital controller. The closed-loop step response is very
oscillatory (see Fig. lo]) since the controller possesses a
poorly damped (almost critically stable) pole (which corre-
reference model
-
precompensotor

On the one hand the poles (z = 0.987 f0.155j) have very

signal rec
-
y(t)

light equivalent damping (equiv. damping = 0.00632) and circuit continuous

plont
are near the unit circle. Therefore, the system has a very
oscillatory step response (Fig. 8). On the other hand, the
discrete zero is located almost on the unit circle (i.e. it is
close to be critically stable).
Now, the open-loop system performance is studied when feedbock
the FROH is used. By using the optimum adjustment of the Fig. 9 Pole-zero placement digital control scheme
IEE Proc.-Control Theov Appl., Vol. 148. No. 2,March 2001 121
 2.01
OV
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.01 0.05
time,s
Fig. 10 Unit-step response of compensated system by using ZOH
device, when plant zero is cancelled by digital controller
sponds with the cancelled plant zero located in
z = -0.9993).
Now, the FROH with the optimal parameter
/jopt= -0.3332 is used. The obtained response of the
closed-loop system is much better since now the cancelled
zero is much more stable (see Fig. 11).
It turns out that a zero cancellation with the ZOH device
is highly unsuitable. However, the cancellation of the
FROH zero is not a good choice either, since important
oscillatory effects appear in the system output between the
sampling instants. Such well known effects are due to the
cancellation of the process zeros [2, 131.
5.2 Transmission of the reference model zeros
Evidently, no attempt must be made to cancel the zero of
G,OHOL(z). In such a case,
is the closed-loop discrete transfer function when the ZOH
circuit is used.
Fig. 12 describes the unit-step responses of the
controlled continuous-time system and the closed-loop
discrete transfer function GZoHcL(2). The maximum over-
shoot of the transient response is approximately 14% and
settles in about 0.03 s (six sample times).
*T
1.8
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.01 0.05
time,s
Fig. 11 Unit-step response of closed-loop system 6.v using FROH device
with /j = bop,= -0,3332, when plant zero is cancelled by digital controller
122
1.2 c
I
0.06 0 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.040
time,s
Fig. 12 Unit-step response of compensated system by using ZOH
device, when discrete plant zero is transmitted to reference model
Now, an alternative solution is proposed consisting in
synthesising an appropriate pole-zero relative positions in
the reference model by selecting a pertinent FROH hold
device pararneter j. First, the FROH zeros are placed
properly by using p, considering the position of the roots
of the characteristic polynomial AM(z) given by eqn. 17,
and then these zeros are transmitted to the reference model.
The basic criterion observed in this particular case in order
to place the FROH zeros with respect to the poles of A M ( z )
was the obtaining of a fast response with a small percen-
tage overshoot for the controlled system, see, e.g. [13].
After exhaustive simulation, it was found that the best
closed-loop response again corresponds to identical p,
popt= -0.3332. Thus, the resulting closed-loop discrete
transfer function is then:
The step responses of the previous system are presented on
Fig. 13. The maximum overshoot is around 3% and the
output settles in 0.025 s (five sample times). Comparing
Fig. 12 with Fig. 13 (see also Table l), the improvement on
the controllced system performance when a properly
adjusted FROH device is used can be shown.
The control signals referred to the system step responses
displayed in Figs. 12 and 13 are presented in Figs. 14 and
15 for the ZOH and FROH case, respectively. Observe that
1.2 -
1.0 -
0.8-
(
I I I
0 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.010
0.06 time,s
Fig. 13 Unit.step response of compensated system by using FROH
device with := pop,= -0.3332. when discrete zero is transmitted to
reference model
,EE Proc.-Control Theory Appl., Vol. 148,No. 2, MarcJi 2001
Table 1. Improvement of FROH (p=&,t) compared to
ZOH
ZOH ( p = O ) FROH Improvement,
%
Max. mag. zeros 1z/=0.9993 (21= 0.4999 49.97
Max. overshoot 14% 3% 78.5
Settle time 0.03 s 0.025 s 16.6
the maximum amplitude of the FROH analogue signal is
not increased with respect to that associated with the ZOH
device. Moreover, the ZOH control signal turns out to be
more exigent for the electronic circuitry since the power
dissipation in the ZOH case is higher than that related to
the FROH reconstruction (compare Figs. 14 and 15). Thus,
no apparent significant price has been paid for the output
signal improvement with respect to the ZOH case.
Evidently, the size of the driving current depends on the
magnitude of the required angular displacement of the
read/write head, that is, the size of the function v(t) of
the control scheme in Fig. 9. Hence, the designer must
consider the maximum displacement of the head in order to
choose appropriately the electronic components in the
design of Fig. 2. In that way, the control signal demands
will be accomplished with, avoiding related saturations.
Finally, observe that, although the read/write head
model used in eqn. 9 is very simple, it is highly assumed
--1.01
OI-
0
U
0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.0LO
time,s
Fig. 14 Plant input referred to Fig. 12
0 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.040
time,s
Fig. 15 Plant input rejerred to Fig. 13
IEE Proc.-Conlrol Theory Appl., Vol. 148, No. 2, March 2001
in the literature [12, 171 like a correct device description.
Therefore, it is unexpected for the above numerical results
to be highly different from those to be obtained in a
experiment.
6 Conclusions
The stability properties of the zeros introduced. by the
FROH signal reconstruction device has been studied for
the case of a digitally controlled hard disk readjwrite head.
AS a result of this study, it has been shown that the sampled
system zeros can be located inside the stability region
when the ZOH (/3 = 0) and FOH (fl= 1) fails to do so, by
using suitable negative values of the FROH parameter p.
Furthermore, for a given sampling period T,, these exists a
range of negative values of /3 for which the discretisation
FROH zeros are up to 50% more stable than the ZOH and
FOH ones. Finally, two approaches have been used. in order
to obtain the optimum value of the parameter p, that is, the
value of the FROH gain that provides the most stable zeros
for a given continuous-time plant and a given sampling
period T,. In the case of the hard disk read-write head, the
magnitude of the zeros obtained with, such techniques is up
to a 50% smaller than the corresponding ZOHones. In this
way, a discrete inverse stable trapsfer function (Le. a
transfer function with stable numerator polynomial) has
been obtained while unstable zeros were generated by the
regular ZOH. In addition, the discussion has been extended
to the design of improved reference models by the trans-
mission of the handled zeros of the resulting discrete plant.
Therefore, the FROH device allows the .application of a
wider range of digital control schemes and enhances
notably the performance of the closed-loop controlled
system, when suitably adjusted.
7 Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees
for their useful comments concerning improvements of the
original version of the manuscript. This work has been
partially supported by the University of the Basque Coun-
try (UPV/EHU) through Project 106.106-EB8235/2000
and DGES (Project DPI2000-0244).
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