A Multi-Motor Architecture for Electric Vehicles

This paper proposes an architecture for EVs with three or more electric motors and highlights when adding more motors does not impact the battery state of charge (SOC). The proposed control algorithm optimizes the use of the motors onboard to keep them running in their most efficient regions. Simulation results along with a comparison with other current motors used in EVs is presented in this paper, and further discussion on the results is presented. With this architecture, the powertrain would see a combined efficiency map that incorporates the best operating points of the motors. Therefore, the proposed architecture will allow the EV to operate with a higher range for a given battery capacity

VIDEO FRAME REDUCTION IN AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Camera sensors are emerging in many applications such as Smart Buildings and autonomous driving. The Data generated by multiple cameras in a smart building and autonomous driving applications is usually transmitted through an edge box to a cloud terminal. This transmitted information requires a considerable channel bandwidth, which is not available through current communication standards. The report proposes a Camera Sensor Frame Reduction method to decrease the required channel bandwidth for applications such as autonomous driving. Here, we propose a method that incorporates cross frame similarity measurement method to reduce the redundant frames and decrease the data rate of each camera. This approach adds processing to the camera sensor, which maps each camera to a smart one. In order to calculate cross frame correlation, each smart camera converts frames into blocks of sub-images. Next, we incorporate consecutive blocks to compute the overall cross frame correlation. The report studies block size selection and its impact on processing complexity and performance. We used real vehicle videos in different driving speed and scenarios to study the complexity and performance of the proposed method. We have investigated frame reduction rate as a function of vehicle traffic and driving environment

Evaluation of recently developed methods for the forensic detection of menstrual blood

Body fluid identification is an important aspect of forensic work, as it can help identify a suspect and provide information about the kind of criminal activity that took place. Blood is one of the most commonly found body fluids at a crime scene. While visually it is easily distinguishable from other fluids, an accurate method is needed to differentiate between peripheral blood and menstrual blood. This differentiation could provide critical evidence regarding consent in an alleged sexual assault. The presence of peripheral blood indicates a traumatic cause, whereas menstrual blood points towards a natural bleeding cause. Accurate detection of menstrual blood can also help with the reconstruction or corroboration of events. Menstruation is the shedding of the internal lining of the uterus that occurs on a monthly basis in women of a reproductive age group. Menstrual blood is different in composition from the peripheral blood flowing through arteries and veins. It consists of a mixture of vaginal and cervical secretions, epithelial cells, debris from the endometrial lining, blood and fibrinolytic products. The fibrinolytic products are associated with the prevention of blood clot formation. Several methods have been researched and used for the detection of menstrual blood. These include microscopy, identification of the lactate dehydrogenase isoenzyme, detection of fibrinolytic products, and profiling of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and micro RNA (miRNA). Even though menstrual blood is encountered at crime scenes, a reliable routine procedure for its identification has not yet been incorporated in forensic laboratories. In this study, four methods of detection of menstrual blood were evaluated and compared with each other regarding efficacy. These methods are the LGC ParaDNA® Body Fluid ID Test, SERATEC® PMB Test, DIMERTEST® Latex Assay and Microscopic methods using Lugol’s Iodine and Dane’s staining method. The LGC ParaDNA® Body Fluid ID Test identifies menstrual blood by detecting the mRNA marker MMP10. The SERATEC® PMB Test and DIMERTEST® Latex Assay both detect D-dimers present in menstrual blood. In addition, the SERATEC® PMB Test can detect the presence of peripheral blood. Microscopic identification is performed by identifying vaginal epithelial cells present in the menstrual blood. Menstrual blood samples were self-collected from six anonymous donors on three consecutive days of menses on either a cotton swatch or a cotton swab. Samples from the earliest day were tested in triplicate using the first three methods. For the fourth method, Lugol’s Iodine and Dane’s stain were applied to various cell types to test the utility of the stains. The ParaDNA® Body Fluid ID Test, SERATEC® PMB test and the DIMERTEST® Latex Assay all show promise for the detection of menstrual blood in forensic samples. None of the tests showed a cross reactivity to the other body fluids tested, but some ParaDNA® and DIMERTEST® samples yielded a false negative result for menstrual blood or peripheral blood. The SERATEC® PMB Test outperformed the other methods, both in sensitivity and accuracy. It was accurate for all samples, with a short run time and minimal training required. Microscopic detection of menstrual blood via detection of vaginal epithelial cells could not be accurately investigated as Dane’s staining method could not be reproduced and the presence of blood obscured the results for the Lugol’s method

Development of a centrifugal microfluidic device for separation and sorting in biological fluids

A wide interest in employing micron-scale, integrated biochemical analysis systems for economical and rapid diagnosis has been the principal motivation behind this project. Low operating costs, portability and fast diagnosis times make centrifugal microfluidic devices an attractive option in patient-side diagnostics. Some essential tasks to be performed in microfluidic devices are sample-reagent transport, mixing, separation and detection. All these tasks require precise control of the RPM and spinning time. Centrifugal micro-fluidic platforms have been successfully implemented for detection of hepatitis A, tetanus, as well as for measurement of haemoglobin and hematocrit, for DNA analysis, and for assessment of cardiac disease etc. by assaying biological fluids like blood, saliva, and urine. This thesis presents the construction, including the micro-machining and testing of a multi-channel centrifugal microfluidic device for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics. A low cost device capable of delivering controlled revolutions per minute was made by modifying a CD-ROM drive and a polymer disk was used to handle the fluids. A network of microfluidic channels and reservoirs was fabricated on the CD by using a rapid prototyping method. The reservoirs hold the biofluid sample, meter the volume of fluid accurately and also serve as a component of capillary burst valves to gate the flow of fluid. Micromachining techniques like photolithography, wet-etching have been discussed for mass production of the prototype used for this research. Theoretical analysis of the burst frequency for passive capillary valves is reported and compared with practical results. The goal of this thesis was to develop a low cost device and demonstrate its use in the separation, and metering of plasma from blood using centrifugal microfluidics. One challenge when using blood for diagnosis is to separate the blood plasma from the rest of the blood cells. Concepts of blood centrifugation and particle displacement on a spinning disk have been employed to calculate the required RPM. Experiments were carried out on various geometries in order to achieve the maximum level of separation. The results of these experiments have been reported. It has been established that centrifugal microfluidics can be used to accurately control the flow of fluids in microchannels and this can be used for reliable low cost point-of-care diagnostics

A two-coil mutual inductance technique to study matching effect in disordered NbN thin films

Although matching effects in superconducting anti-dot arrays have been studied extensively through magneto-resistance oscillations, these investigations have been restricted to a very narrow temperature window close to the superconducting transition. Here we report a "two coil" mutual inductance technique, which allows the study of this phenomenon deep in the superconducting state, through a direct measurement of the magnetic field variation of the shielding response. We demonstrate how this technique can be used to resolve outstanding issues on the origin of matching effects in superconducting thin films with periodic array of holes grown on anodized alumina membranes

Occupational exposure to unburnt bidi tobacco elevates mutagenic burden among tobacco processors

The nature of mutagenic burden due to occupational exposure to tobacco flakes and dust was determined among 20 female tobacco processors (TP) and 20 matched controls (C) by testing urinary mutagenicity in the Ames assay. In addition, urinary cotinine mutagenicity in the Ames assay. In addition, urinary continine was estimated as a marker of tobacco absorption. Workers and controls were sub-divided into those with no tobacco habit (NH) and those habituated to use of masheri (a pyrolysed form of tobacco) as a dentifrice (MH). Cotinine was not detected in samples from C-NH while the mean urinary cotinine levels in TP-NH and TP-MH were significantly higer than that in C-MH (3.46 ± 0.95 and 3.57 ± 0.46 versus 1.80 ± 0.58 mM/M creatinine; P < 0.02). The majority of the urine samples from C-NH were non-mutagenic in the presence or absence of rat liver S9 while those from C-MH were mutagenic to TA98,TA100 and TA102 strains upon metabolic activation. On the other hand, direct mutagenicity to TA98, TA100 and TA102 strains respectively was noted in 6/10, 5/10 and 8/10 samples from TP-NH and 7/10, 4/10, and 3/10 samples from TP-MH. Generally, ß-glucuronidase treatment reduced or abolished the mutagenic potential of workers' urine samples indicating that glucuronide conjugates may have partially contributed to direct mutagenicity. Experiments using scavengers of reactive oxygen species revealed mainly via hydroxyl radicals. The results clearly demonstrate that tobacco processors are exposed to a wide spectrum of mutagens that cause frame-shift, base pair substitution and oxidative damage

Origin of Matching Effect in Anti-dot Array of Superconducting NbN Thin Films

We investigate the origin of matching effect observed in disordered superconducting NbN thin films with periodic array of holes. In addition to the periodic variation in the electrical resistance just above the superconducting transition temperature, Tc0, we find pronounced periodic variations with magnetic field in all dynamical quantities which can be influenced by flux-line motion under an external drive such as the magnetic shielding response and the critical current which survive in some samples down to temperatures as low as 0.09Tc0. In contrast, the superconducting energy gap, D which is a true thermodynamic quantity does not show any periodic variation with magnetic fields for the same films. Our results show that commensurate pinning of the flux line lattice driven by vortex-vortex interaction is the dominant mechanism for the observed matching effects in these superconducting anti-dot films rather than Little-Parks like quantum interference effect.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Web Service Based News Portal

Providing web services for smart phones is the currently recent booming topic, this happened because the smart phones are used in almost every area, where today’s user uses it for mobile banking, emailing, searching location and data. Smart phones are advanced in terms of processing power, memory, an embedded camera, sensors and same time parallel advancement in wireless network and software web technologies. This project will direct our work in the current generation platform technologies and standards such as Android OS and REST for News Portal. It is a complete news portal showing all the news around the nation in an interactive fashion at one place. It aims in bringing more simplicity for obtaining news about any issue round the nation. Every newspaper and news channel publishes the news on their website. So a person has to visit various websites if the user needs information about any current news in which ever language the user wants. So this portal aims to bring all the news of all different languages grouped together under one banner by provisioning web services. All sorts of news ranging from breaking news to cricket news are covered over here. Information regarding daily horoscope as well as latest stock prices are also obtained in this single portal. Mobile devices (Smart phones, PDA, Tablets), Mobile web services and wireless communications, by the year 2020 will be expected to play a central role in all aspects of our lives. The Mobile web service provisioning is substantially expanding on the concept of ‘Anywhere, Anytime and on Any Device’ to a new paradigm ubiquitous mobile computing. It is used to improve access to meaningful, quickly and required information and content through mobile web services. Many of the problems of mobile web services can be solved by targeting the distributed nature and isolated deployment of mobile applications. One of the most promising way to create viable web services for mobile devices is to add extra intelligence to the web services, both on the web service provider and the web service consumer

Frequency dependent superfluid stiffness in the pseudogap regime in strongly disordered NbN thin films

We measure the frequency dependence of the complex ac conductivity of NbN films with different levels of disorder in frequency range 0.4-20 GHz. Films with low disorder exhibit a narrow dynamic fluctuation regime above T_c as expected for a conventional superconductor. However, for strongly disordered samples, the fluctuation regime extends well above T_c, with a strongly frequency-dependent superfluid stiffness which disappears only at a temperature T* close to the pseudogap temperature obtained from scanning tunneling measurements. Such a finite-frequency response is associated to a marked slowing down of the superconducting fluctuations already below T*. The corresponding large length-scale fluctuations suggest a scenario of thermal phase fluctuations between superconducting domains in a strongly disordered s-wave superconductor.Comment: pdf file: 18 pages including figure