Time-Varying Sliding Mode Control for ABS Control of an Electric Car

Controller design for the Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS) of a wheeled vehicle is a challenging task because of the complex and nonlinear nature of the tyre-road interaction. An efficient ABS controller should be capable of maintaining the wheel slip at an optimal value, which is suitable for the particular road conditions experienced at a given instant in time, preventing the wheel from locking while braking. Many controller designs in the literature track either an optimal slip which is assumed constant or are not supported by experimental validation or simulation testing with higher order models. This paper first presents an ABS system based on a conventional Sliding Mode Control (SMC). The performance of this controller is tested on an experimental vehicle. The results are compared with simulation results obtained with both a quarter car model and a full-car model built in the Matlab/Simulink environment. The performance of this controller is improved by effective state estimation using a Sliding Mode Differentiator (SMD) where the results are benchmarked with an implementation using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The paper then presents a controller based on Time-Varying Sliding Mode Control (TV-SMC) which tracks an optimal slip trajectory

Measured Sensitivity of the First Mark II Phased Array Feed on an ASKAP Antenna

This paper presents the measured sensitivity of CSIRO's first Mk. II phased array feed (PAF) on an ASKAP antenna. The Mk. II achieves a minimum system-temperature-over-efficiency $T_\mathrm{sys}/\eta$ of 78 K at 1.23 GHz and is 95 K or better from 835 MHz to 1.8 GHz. This PAF was designed for the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope to demonstrate fast astronomical surveys with a wide field of view for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Electromagnetics in Advanced applications (ICEAA), 2015 International Conference o

Tactile imaging : the requirements to transition from screening to diagnosis of breast cancer - a concise review of current capabilities and strategic direction

This paper presents a review of Tactile Imaging, a developing technology for breast cancer screening finding traction in the marketplace. The paper identifies the necessary steps required to develop the technology from a screening method to the point where stand-alone diagnosis of suspected breast lesions can be performed without the need for a secondary care referral for a mammogram or biopsy. The relevant literature on Tactile Imaging is reviewed and current capabilities in academia are compared with those implemented in industry before being cross referenced with the metrics for breast cancer diagnosis. Tactile Imaging in academia has been shown to be capable of binary lesion classification and has seen extensive development, to where benign biopsy rates could be reduced by 23%. This has not been mirrored in the marketplace however, where market inertia relegates such systems to early warning screening only as an adjunct to mammography. Additionally, for detailed subclass diagnosis of breast conditions, more metrics are required than is currently available from Tactile Imaging at present. A detailed scheme of work is provided to achieve this. The additional metrics required for stand-alone diagnostics using Tactile Imaging are: background breast elasticity, lesion position on the breast, and lesion depth. These can estimate the lesion constituents and thus the histological diagnosis

Virulence mismatches in index hosts shape the outcomes of cross-species transmission

Whether a pathogen entering a new host species results in a single infection or in onward transmission, and potentially an outbreak, depends upon the progression of infection in the index case. Although index infections are rarely observable in nature, experimental inoculations of pathogens into novel host species provide a rich and largely unexploited data source for meta-analyses to identify the host and pathogen determinants of variability in infection outcomes. We analyzed the progressions of 514 experimental cross-species inoculations of rabies virus, a widespread zoonosis which in nature exhibits both dead-end infections and varying levels of sustained transmission in novel hosts. Inoculations originating from bats rather than carnivores, and from warmer- to cooler-bodied species caused infections with shorter incubation periods that were associated with diminished virus excretion. Inoculations between distantly related hosts tended to result in shorter clinical disease periods, which are also expected to impede onward transmission. All effects were modulated by infection dose. Taken together, these results suggest that as host species become more dissimilar, increased virulence might act as a limiting factor preventing onward transmission. These results can explain observed constraints on rabies virus host shifts, describe a previously unrecognized role of host body temperature, and provide a potential explanation for host shifts being less likely between genetically distant species. More generally, our study highlights meta-analyses of experimental infections as a tractable approach to quantify the complex interactions between virus, reservoir, and novel host that shape the outcome of cross-species transmission

Applications of tactile imaging in calibration-less and cuff-less blood pressure monitoring for home care

This paper presents a concise review of current Tactile Imaging research, and industrial innovations, applied to blood pressure (BP) measurements in home and ambulatory care. This paper also presents a review of current accepted methods in measuring blood pressure, with appropriate standards required for new and innovative measurement technologies. The application of Tactile Imaging in BP monitoring has led to several advances in industry and in literature, culminating in solutions implemented on widely available smartphones. Naturally such solutions have great appeal in home care markets, especially amongst the ‘worried well’ and fitness communities. However such systems do not see widespread uptake in clinical practice, with clinicians favoring more traditional measurement technologies despite continuous pressure from the public and clinicians for more accurate and comfortable systems. Though the reasoning for this is largely down to the strict standards for medical devices, and not a small amount of clinical inertia, it must be acknowledged that the mechanics and theory of operation of many incumbent noninvasive BP measurement systems are not well understood. This paper highlights the important findings and recent developments in calibration-less and cuff-less BP monitoring, based on Tactile Imaging, to aid others in advancing this rapidly developing field

The West Falmouth oil spill : persistence of the pollution eight months after the accident

A spill of 650,000-700,000 liters of #2 fuel oil has contaminated the coastal areas of Buzzards Bay, Mass. The present report summarizes the results of our continuing chemical and biological study which were available at the end of May 1970, more than eight months after the accident. The effects of environmental exposure on the composition of the oil are discussed; many analytical parameters are sufficiently stable to permit continued correlation of the oil remaining in sediments and organisms with the fuel oil involved in the spill. Oil from the spill is still present in the sediments, inshore and offshore and in the shellfish. A further spread of the pollution to more distant offshore regions has occurred during midwinter; as a result, the pollution now covers a much larger area than immediately after the accident. The first stages of biological (presumably bacterial) degradation of the oil are now evident especially in the least polluted regions; however, it has depleted predominantely the straight and branched chain alkanes. The more toxic aromatic hydrocarbons are resistant; as a result, the toxicity of the oil has not been diminished. Where oil can be detected in the sediments there has been a kill of animals; in the most polluted areas the kill has been almost total. Shellfish that survived the accident have taken up the fuel oil. The 1970 crop of shellfish is as heavily polluted as was last year’s crop. Oysters transplanted to unpolluted water for as long as 6 months retained the oil without change in composition or concentration.Submitted to the Office of Naval Research under Contract ONR N00014-66-C0241; NR 083-0043 and partially supported by the Federal Water Quality Act Grant 18050-EBN3 and with the National Science Foundation Grant GA-1625

A Single-Arm, Proof-Of-Concept Trial of Lopimune (Lopinavir/Ritonavir) as a Treatment for HPV-Related Pre-Invasive Cervical Disease

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is the most common female malignancy in the developing nations and the third most common cancer in women globally. An effective, inexpensive and self-applied topical treatment would be an ideal solution for treatment of screen-detected, pre-invasive cervical disease in low resource settings. METHODS: Between 01/03/2013 and 01/08/2013, women attending Kenyatta National Hospital's Family Planning and Gynaecology Outpatients clinics were tested for HIV, HPV (Cervista®) and liquid based cervical cytology (LBC -ThinPrep®). HIV negative women diagnosed as high-risk HPV positive with high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) were examined by colposcopy and given a 2 week course of 1 capsule of Lopimune (CIPLA) twice daily, to be self-applied as a vaginal pessary. Colposcopy, HPV testing and LBC were repeated at 4 and 12 weeks post-start of treatment with a final punch biopsy at 3 months for histology. Primary outcome measures were acceptability of treatment with efficacy as a secondary consideration. RESULTS: A total of 23 women with HSIL were treated with Lopimune during which time no adverse reactions were reported. A maximum concentration of 10 ng/ml of lopinavir was detected in patient plasma 1 week after starting treatment. HPV was no longer detected in 12/23 (52.2%, 95%CI: 30.6-73.2%). Post-treatment cytology at 12 weeks on women with HSIL, showed 14/22 (63.6%, 95%CI: 40.6-82.8%) had no dysplasia and 4/22 (18.2%, 95%CI: 9.9-65.1%) were now low grade demonstrating a combined positive response in 81.8% of women of which 77.8% was confirmed by histology. These data are supported by colposcopic images, which show regression of cervical lesions. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate the potential of Lopimune as a self-applied therapy for HPV infection and related cervical lesions. Since there were no serious adverse events or detectable post-treatment morbidity, this study indicates that further trials are clearly justified to define optimal regimes and the overall benefit of this therapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN Registry 48776874