Vibrotactile pedals : provision of haptic feedback to support economical driving

The use of haptic feedback is currently an underused modality in the driving environment, especially with respect to vehicle manufacturers. This exploratory study evaluates the effects of a vibrotactile (or haptic) accelerator pedal on car driving performance and perceived workload using a driving simulator. A stimulus was triggered when the driver exceeded a 50% throttle threshold, past which is deemed excessive for economical driving. Results showed significant decreases in mean acceleration values, and maximum and excess throttle use when the haptic pedal was active as compared to a baseline condition. As well as the positive changes to driver behaviour, subjective workload decreased when driving with the haptic pedal as compared to when drivers were simply asked to drive economically. The literature suggests that the haptic processing channel offers a largely untapped resource in the driving environment, and could provide information without overloading the other attentional resource pools used in driving

Tubulocystic renal cell carcinoma, a rare tumor entity: Review of literature and report of a case

Tubulocystic renal carcinoma is a recently described neoplasm of low grade malignancy which was not included in the last WHO 2004 classification. The tumor is extremely rare with less than one hundred cases reported to date. In this article, the literature about that rare renal neoplasm is reviewed and an additional case is reported

Electrical and Thermal Conductivities of Some Sulphate Compounds

The electrical conductivity σ and the thermal conductivity λ were investigated at varying temperature (40 < T < 120°C) for two sulphate compounds, anhydrous mercury(II) sulphate HgSO$\text{}_{4}$ and cerous(III) sulphate Ce$\text{}_{2}$(SO$\text{}_{4}$)$\text{}_{3}$·H$\text{}_{2}$O. It seems likely that each of the two sulphate salts undergoes structural phase transition around 90°C. The differential thermal analysis thermogram was carried out as an aid for confirming of the observed phase transitions. The mechanism of the heat transfer is mainly due to phonons. Interpretation of the obtained data was given on the basis of the reorientational motion of the SO$\text{}_{4}$‾ ‾ ions