Auto-sapiens autonomous driving vehicle

This paper presents the Auto-Sapiens project, an autonomous driving car developed by the Mechatronics and Vehicle Dynamics Lab, at Sapienza University of Rome. Auto-Sapiens is a technological platform to test and improve innovative control algorithms. The car platform is a standard car (Smart ForTwo) equipped with throttle, brake, steering actuators and different sensors for attitude identification and environment reconstruction. The first experiments of the Auto-Sapiens car test a new obstacle avoidance. The vehicle, controlled by an optimal variational feedback control, recently developed by the authors, includes the nonlinearities inherent in the car dynamics for better performances. Results show the effectiveness of the system in terms of safety and robustness of the avoidance maneuvers

Solar particle effects on minor components of the Polar atmosphere

Abstract. Solar activity can influence the Earth's environment, and in particular the ozone layer, by direct modulation of the e.m. radiation or through variability of the incoming cosmic ray flux (solar and galactic particles). In particular, solar energetic particles (SEPs) provide additional external energy to the terrestrial environment; they are able to interact with the minor constituents of the atmospheric layer and produce ionizations, dissociations, dissociative ionizations and excitations. This paper highlights the SEP effects on the chemistry of the upper atmosphere by analysing some SEP events recorded during 2005 in the descending phase of the current solar cycle. It is shown that these events can lead to short- (hours) and medium- (days) term ozone variations through catalytic cycles (e.g. HOx and NOx increases). We focus attention on the relationship between ozone and OH data (retrieved from MLS EOS AURA) for four SEP events: 17 and 20 January, 15 May and 8 September. We confirm that SEP effects are different on the night and day hemispheres at high latitudes.</p

Valorization of cigarette butts for synthesis of levulinic acid as top value-added chemicals

Unprecedented in the literature, levulinic acid (LA), one of the top value-added intermediates of chemical industry, is obtained from cigarette butts as cellulose feedstock by means of a one-pot hydrothermal process carried out at 200&nbsp;°C for 2&nbsp;h and catalysed by phosphoric acid. The protocol avoids the use of more aggressive and toxic H2SO4 and HCl, that are generally employed on several cellulose sources (e.g. sludge paper), thus minimizing corrosion phenomena of plants. Neither chemical pre-treatment of butts nor specific purification procedure of LA are required. Notably, by simply modifying acid catalyst (e.g. using CH3COOH), another top value-added fine chemical such as 5-hydroxymethylfuraldehyde (HMF) is obtained, thus widening the scope of the method. Being cigarette filters a waste available in quantities of megatonnes per year, they represent an unlimited at no cost source of cellulose, thus enabling the up-scale to an industrial level of LA production

A retrospective, multicentre study of perampanel given as monotherapy in routine clinical care in people with epilepsy

PURPOSE: Perampanel is approved for adjunctive treatment of focal seizures, with or without secondarily generalised seizures, and for primary generalised tonic-clonic seizures in people with epilepsy aged ≥12 years. Perampanel was recently approved for monotherapy use for partial seizures in the United States. This study provides insight into the feasibility of perampanel monotherapy in real-world settings. METHODS: This retrospective, non-interventional, multicentre study (NCT02736162) was conducted between January 2013 and March 2016 in specialist epilepsy centres in Europe and Russia. Eligible individuals had a diagnosis of epilepsy and received perampanel primary or secondary monotherapy as routine clinical care. The primary endpoint was proportion of individuals remaining on perampanel monotherapy, after conversion from perampanel adjunctive treatment, at 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months (retention rate). RESULTS: Sixty individuals were in the safety set (female, 63%; white, 97%; aged 18 to <65 years, 73%). Most (85%) received secondary monotherapy with perampanel. At study cut-off, 68% of individuals were continuing on perampanel monotherapy (secondary monotherapy: 55%). The median duration of retention was not calculable due to the high number of individuals ongoing on monotherapy. Twelve individuals had treatment-emergent adverse events that started during perampanel monotherapy, the most frequent was dizziness (5%). One serious treatment-emergent adverse event was reported (pneumonia during adjunctive perampanel treatment). CONCLUSIONS: In this small retrospective study of individuals who received perampanel monotherapy, the majority maintained monotherapy. Perampanel monotherapy may be an achievable option in some people with epilepsy

QUASI-BIENNIAL MODULATION OF SOLAR NEUTRINO FLUX AND SOLAR AND GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS BY SOLAR CYCLIC ACTIVITY

Using some solar activity indicators such as sunspot areas and green-line coronal emission during the period 1974-2001, we find that the quasi-biennial periodicity is a fundamental mode of solar variability. We provide evidence for the quasi-biennial modulation of the solar neutrino flux, thus supporting the hypothesis of a connection between solar neutrinos and solar magnetic fields, probably through direct interaction with the neutrino magnetic moment. The same periodic modulation has been detected when fluxes of solar energetic protons and galactic cosmic rays are investigated. These modulation results significantly correlate to that of the neutrino flux. Finally, the superposition of the quasi-biennial cycle to the eleven-year cycle can explain the Gnevyshev Gap phenomenon

QUASI-BIENNIAL MODULATION OF GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS

The time variability of the cosmic-ray (CR) intensity at three different rigidities has been analyzed through the empirical mode decomposition technique for the period 1964-2004. Apart from the {approx}11 yr cycle, quasi-biennial oscillations (QBOs) have been detected as a prominent scale of variability in CR data, as well as in the heliomagnetic field magnitude at 1 AU and in the sunspot area. The superposition of the {approx}11 yr and QBO contributions reproduces the general features of the CR modulation, such as most of the step-like decreases and the Gnevyshev Gap phenomenon. A significant correlation has also been found between QBOs of the heliospheric magnetic field and the CR intensity during even solar activity cycles, suggesting that the former are responsible for step-like decreases in CR modulation, probably dominated by the particle diffusion/convection in such periods. In contrast, during odd-numbered cycles, no significant correlation is found. This could be explained with an enhanced drift effect also during the solar maximum or a greater influence of merged interaction regions at great heliocentric distances during odd cycles. Moreover, the QBOs of CR data are delayed with respect to sunspot activity, the lag being shorter for A > 0 periods of even cycles ({approx}1-4more » months) than for A < 0 periods of odd cycles ({approx}7-9 months); we suggest that solar QBOs also affect the recovery of the CR intensity after the solar activity maximum.« les

A technique for short‐term warning of solar energetic particle events based on flare location, flare size, and evidence of particle escape

We have developed a technique to provide short‐term warnings of solar energetic proton (SEP) events that meet or exceed the Space Weather Prediction Center threshold of J (>10 MeV) = 10 pr cm−2 s−1 sr−1. The method is based on flare location, flare size, and evidence of particle acceleration/escape as parameterized by flare longitude, time‐integrated soft X‐ray intensity, and time‐integrated intensity of type III radio emission at ∼1 MHz, respectively. In this technique, warnings are issued 10 min after the maximum of ≥M2 soft X‐ray flares. For the solar cycle 23 (1995–2005) data on which it was developed, the method has a probability of detection of 63% (47/75), a false alarm rate of 42% (34/81), and a median warning time of ∼55 min for the 19 events successfully predicted by our technique for which SEP event onset times were provided by Posner (2007). These measures meet or exceed verification results for competing automated SEP warning techniques but, at the present stage of space weather forecasting, fall well short of those achieved with a human (aided by techniques such as ours) making the ultimate yes/no SEP event prediction. We give some suggestions as to how our method could be improved and provide our flare and SEP event database in the auxiliary material to facilitate quantitative comparisons with techniques developed in the future

the weibull functional form for the energetic particle spectrum at interplanetary shock waves

Transient interplanetary shock waves are often associated with high energy particle enhancements, which are called energetic storm particle (ESP) events. Here we present a case study of an ESP event, recorded by the SEPT, LET and HET instruments onboard the STEREO B spacecraft, on 3 October 2011, in a wide energy range from 0.1 MeV to ~ 30 MeV. The obtained particle spectrum is found to be reproduced by a Weibull like shape. Moreover, we show that the Weibull spectrum can be theoretically derived as the asymptotic steady state solution of the diffusion loss equation by assuming anomalous diffusion for particle velocity. The evaluation of Weibull's parameters obtained from particle observations and the power spectral density of the turbulent fluctations in the shock region, support this scenario and suggest that stochastic acceleration can contribute significantly to the acceleration of high energetic particles at collisioness shock waves

THE GROUND-LEVEL ENHANCEMENT OF 2012 MAY 17: DERIVATION OF SOLAR PROTON EVENT PROPERTIES THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF THE NMBANGLE PPOLA MODEL

In this work, we apply an updated version of the Neutron Monitor (NM) Based Anisotropic GLE Pure Power Law (NMBANGLE PPOLA) model, in order to derive the characteristics of the ground-level enhancement (GLE) on 2012 May 17 (GLE71), the spectral properties of the related solar energetic particle (SEP) event, the spatial distributions of the high-energy solar cosmic ray fluxes at the top of the atmosphere, and the time evolution of the locationoftheGLEsource.Ourmodeling,baseduniquelyontheuseofground-levelNMdata,leadstothefollowing mainresults.TheSEPspectrumrelatedtoGLE71wasrathersoftduringthewholedurationoftheevent,manifesting some weak acceleration episodes only during the initial phase (at " 01:55‐02:00UT) and at " 02:30‐02:35UT and " 02:55‐03:00UT. The spectral index of the modeled SEP spectrum supports the coronal mass ejection‐shock driven particle acceleration scenario, in agreement with past results based on the analysis of satellite measurements. During the initial phase of GLE71, the solar proton source at the top of the atmosphere was located above the northernhemisphere,implyingthattheasymptoticdirectionsofviewingofthenorthernhemisphereNMsweremore favorably located for registering the event than the southern ones. The spatial distribution of the solar proton fluxes at the top of the atmosphere during the main phase manifested a large variation along longitude and latitude. At the rigidity of 1GV, the maximum primary solar protonflux resulted on the order of" 3# 10 4 part. m $2 s$ 1 sr $1 GV$ 1