Laboratory demonstration of aircraft estimation using low-cost sensors

Four nonlinear state estimators were devised which provide techniques for obtaining the angular orientation (attitude) of the aircraft. An extensive FORTRAN computer program was developed to demonstrate and evaluate the estimators by using recorded flight test data. This program simulates the estimator operation, and it compares the state estimates with actual state measurements. The program was used to evaluate the state estimators with data recorded on the NASA Ames CV-990 and CESSNA 402B aircraft. A preliminary assessment was made of the memory, word length, and timing requirements for implementing the selected state estimator on a typical microcomputer

Microreactors and other technologies for direct fluorination

Quinoline/ 2H-chromen-2-one and derivatives thereof, have been found to undergo electrophilic substitution by elemental fluorine in concentrated sulfuric acid as reaction medium. This work has enabled a series of fluorinated derivatives to be prepared. Furthermore, several direct fluorination microreactors have been designed and subsequently evaluated regarding scale-out, and thus the fluorination of a number of organic compounds was achieved using microreactor technology

An investigation into the pretend play shown by children with autism.

This research investigated whether the absence of pretend play typically shown by children with autism is the result of a global inability to pretend, or reflects a failure to utilise intact pretend play abilities. A first experiment found that children with autism were impaired in their ability to produce spontaneous pretend play, relative to a matched group of children with moderate learning difficulties. They were also impaired in their production of pretence in elicited play conditions, in which direct encouragement to play was provided by the experimenter. However. a second experiment revealed that these children were not impaired in their ability to carry out pretend instructions. Further, a third experiment showed that they were unimpaired in their ability to comprehend pretend acts which the experimenter demonstrated before them. These findings suggest that pretend play is something that children with autism can engage in, at a basic level at least. Consequently, two final experiments aimed to determine why children with autism do not utilise this capacity spontaneously. The firs~ of these tested an 'executive deficit' hypothesis, which suggests that a failure to pretend is caused by a failure to disengage from the functional salience of objects. The results of the experiment disconfumed this prediction. The second test examined whether children with autism have problems in generating pretend acts, and found that this was the case. It is therefore hypothesised that children with autism suffer from some form of generativity impairment, which impinges on their apparently intact ability for pretence. This suggestion fits in with the pattern of results obtained from all the studies, as children were only impaired when the idea for pretence was not provided. Possible cause of such an impairment are discussed. as are the implications of these findings for our understanding of the psychology of pretend play