Yaw Rate Control and Actuator Fault Detection and Isolation for a Four Wheel Independent Drive Electric Vehicle

In this paper, a new actuator fault detection and isolation method for a four wheel independent drive electric vehicle is proposed. Also, a controller based on sliding mode control method is proposed for lateral stability of the vehicle. The proposed control method is designed in three high, medium and low levels. At the high-level, the vehicle desired dynamics such as longitudinal speed reference and yaw rate reference are determined. The medium-level is designed to achieve desired traction force and yaw moment based on the sliding mode control. At the low-level, by defining and optimally minimizing a cost function, proper force or torque signals are determined to apply to the wheels. Moreover, this paper also presents a new method for actuator fault detection and isolation in electric vehicles. The proposed fault detection method uses comparison of sliding ratio of different wheels. Using the proposed method, value of the actuator fault and its position are accurately estimated and diagnosed. Then, the proposed controller is modified and adapted to new conditions using the fault identification results. Finally, the validity of proposed controller is confirmed by the conducted simulations in MATLAB and CARSIM environments

Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns and Molecular Epidemiology of Metallo-β-Lactamase Producing Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Strains Isolated From Burn Patients.

BACKGROUND: Failure in the treatment of burn patients infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa could happen as a result of the acquisition of antibiotic resistance, including carbapenems. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to investigate the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains, isolated from burn patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: During a 12 month period, in this cross-sectional study, two hundred seventy strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from the burn patients in Ghotbeddin Burn Hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Screening for the carbapenem resistance in the isolates was carried out by the E test method. Sensitivity patterns of metallo-β-lactamase (MβLs) producing strains of pseudomonas to eleven antibiotics were determined by the mentioned method. The epidemiological associations of these strains were determined by Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). RESULTS: Of the 270 strains, 60 (22.2%) were resistant to imipenem and meropenem, classified as MβLs producing. MβLs producing strains of pseudomonas were completely resistant to five tested antibiotics while their sensitivities to the three most effective antibiotics including ceftazidime, amikacin and ciprofloxacin were 23.4%, 6.7 % and 1.7%, respectively. In PFGE, 37 patterns from the genome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were observed. Majority of the strains (43; 71.6%) exhibited more than 80% similarity, based on the drawn dendrogram. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results, none of the tested antibiotics is safe to prescribe. As PFGE revealed, a limited number of Pseudomonas aeruginosa types are predominant in the hospitals which infect the burn patients

Burn Patients Infected With Metallo-Beta-Lactamase-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Multidrug-Resistant Strains

Background: Metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL) producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the burn patients is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and remains a serious health concern among the clinicians. Objectives: The aim of this study was to detect MBL-producing P. aeruginosa in burn patients and determine multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains, and respective resistance patterns. Patients and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 270 strains of P. aeruginosa were isolated from the burn patients referred to Ghotbeddin Burn Hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Among them, 55 MBL-producing P. aeruginosa strains were isolated from 55 patients hospitalized in burn unit. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and MBLs were determined by the E-test method. Results: Of the 55 burn cases, 29 (53%) were females and 26 (47%) males. Injured burn patients’ ages ranged from 16 to 87 years, with maximum number of cases in the age group of 16 to 36 years (n, 40; 72.7%). Overall, 32 cases were accidental (60%), and 22 were suicidal burns (40%). Of the 55 burn patients, 17 cases were expired (30%). All deaths were due to chemical exposures. In antibiotic susceptibility testing by E-test method, ceftazidime was the most effective one and 35 isolates (63.5%) were resistant to all the 11 tested antibiotics. Conclusions: Routine microbiological surveillance and careful in vitro testing of antibiotics prior to prescription and strict adherence to hospital antibiotic policy may help to prevent, treat, and control MDR and pandrug-resistant (PDR) P. aeruginosa strains in burn units

Performance evaluation of thin active-edge planar sensors for the CLIC vertex detector

Thin planar silicon sensors with a pitch of 55μm, active edge and various guard-ring layouts are investigated,using two-dimensional finite-element T-CAD simulations. The simulation results have been compared toexperimental data, and an overall good agreement is observed. It is demonstrated that the 50μm thick active-edge planar silicon sensors with floating guard-ring or without guard-ring can be operated fully efficiently upto the physical edge of the sensor. The simulation findings are used to identify suitable sensor designs forapplication in the high-precision vertex detector of the future CLIC linear e$^{+}$e$^{-}$ collider

Exact symmetry breaking ground states for quantum spin chains

We introduce a family of spin-1/2 quantum chains, and show that their exact ground states break the rotational and translational symmetries of the original Hamiltonian. We also show how one can use projection to construct a spin-3/2 quantum chain with nearest neighbor interaction, whose exact ground states break the rotational symmetry of the Hamiltonian. Correlation functions of both models are determined in closed form. Although we confine ourselves to examples, the method can easily be adapted to encompass more general models.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex. 4 figures, minor changes, new reference

Time resolution studies of Timepix3 assemblies with thin silicon pixel sensors

Timepix3 is a multi-purpose readout ASIC for hybrid pixel detectors. It can measure time and amplitude simultaneously by employing time-of-arrival (ToA) and time-over-threshold (ToT) techniques. Both methods are systematically affected by timewalk. In this paper, a method for pixel-by-pixel calibration of the time response is presented. Assemblies of Timepix3 ASICs bump-bonded to thin planar silicon pixel sensors with thicknesses of 50 μ m, 100 μ m and 150 μ m are calibrated and characterised in particle beams. For minimum ionising particles, time resolutions down to 0.72 ± 0.04 ns are achieved

Observational constraints on Chaplygin cosmology in a braneworld scenario with induced gravity and curvature effect

We study cosmological dynamics and late-time evolution of an extended induced gravity braneworld scenario. In this scenario, curvature effects are taken into account via the Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk action and there is also a Chaplygin gas component on the brane. We show that this model mimics an effective phantom behavior in a relatively wider range of redshifts than previously formulated models. It also provides a natural framework for smooth crossing of the phantom-divide line due to presence of the Chaplygin gas component on the brane. We confront the model with observational data from type Ia Supernovae, Cosmic Microwave Background and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations to constraint the model parameters space.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Abdominal volume index: A predictive measure in relationship between depression/anxiety and obesity

Background: Obesity is a risk factor for mood disorder (such as depression and anxiety). We aimed to assess application of A Body Shape Index (ABSI) and abdominal volume index (AVI), as new indices of obesity to evaluate the relationship between obesity and depression/anxiety. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 307 overweight and obese women (249 females, 58 males) 20-60 years in Iran in 2017-2018. The anthropometric measures including weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, body fat and derived values of body mass index, waist�hip ratio, AVI and ABSI were evaluated. HADS questionnaire for depression and anxiety completed. Results: Prevalence of depression was 36.1 in women; men 24.1; overweight 28.1; obese 36.5 and central obesity 33.7. Anxiety was apparent in 27.1 of overweight 30.3 obese and 29.6 central obesity. People with depression and anxiety had higher WC, BF and AVI. ABSI had no significant correlation with depression/anxiety. The odds of depression (1.06; 95 CI, 1.02-1.12) and anxiety (1.06; 95 CI, 1.01-1.11) were elevated with increase AVI. Conclusion: Our results suggested that AVI as an indirect measure of abdominal obesity along with WC and BF could be useful in predicting the relationship between obesity and depression/anxiety. © 2020 Hadi S et al. Licensee African Health Sciences

Permanent matching of coupled optical bottle resonators with better than 0.16 GHz precision

The fabrication precision is one of the most critical challenges to the creation of practical photonic circuits composed of coupled high Q-factor microresonators. While very accurate transient tuning of microresonators based on local heating has been reported, the record precision of permanent resonance positioning achieved by post-processing is still within 1 and 5 GHz. Here we demonstrate two coupled bottle microresonators fabricated at the fiber surface with resonances that are matched with a better than 0.16 GHz precision. This corresponds to a better than 0.17 Å precision in the effective fiber radius variation. The achieved fabrication precision is only limited by the resolution of our optical spectrum analyzer and can be potentially improved by an order of magnitude