Electronic Throttle Control

Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) is becoming an important part of automotive industry today. Also known as the Drive-By-Wire technology, applied to our daily life, it can result in an efficient throttle body controlling improving fuel efficiency, handling and ride comfort in an automobile. The objective of the project is to understand where the future of electronic control in the automotive industry is going due to advances in technology. The main focus of the project is focused on controlling the position of the throttle opening also known as the "butterfly". For this purpose, a remote controlled (RC) servomotor was used for positioning, the "butterfly" opening. The RC servomotor will be controlled by a PIC microcontroller with the fastest response it can achieve. For error detection purpose, a feedback signal will be sent back to the microcontroller via a throttle positioning sensor (TPS) to be analyzed. With existing feedback data, the microcontroller would be able to correct the error significantly

Development of Sustainable High-Strength Self-Consolidating Concrete Utilising Fly Ash, Shale Ash and Microsilica

With high flowability and passing ability, self-consolidating concrete (SCC) does not require compaction during casting and can improve constructability. The favourable properties of SCC have enabled its widespread adoption in many parts of the world. However, there are two major issues associated with the SCC mixes commonly used in practice. First, the cement content is usually at the high side. Since the production of cement involves calcination at high temperature and is an energy-intensive process, the high cement content imparts high embodied energy and carbon footprint to the SCC mixes. Besides, the exothermic reaction of cement hydration would cause high heat generation and early thermal cracking problem that would impair structural integrity and necessitate repair. Second, the strength is usually limited to around grade 60, which is considered as medium strength in nowadays achievable norm. With a view to develop sustainable high-strength self-consolidating concrete (HS-SCC), experimental research utilising fly ash (FA), shale ash (SA), and microsilica (MS) in the production of SCC has been conducted, as reported herein

Electronic Throttle Control

Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) is becoming an important part of automotive industry today. Also known as the Drive-By-Wire technology, applied to our daily life, it can result in an efficient throttle body controlling improving fuel efficiency, handling and ride comfort in an automobile. The objective of the project is to understand where the future of electronic control in the automotive industry is going due to advances in technology. The main focus of the project is focused on controlling the position of the throttle opening also known as the "butterfly". For this purpose, a remote controlled (RC) servomotor was used for positioning, the "butterfly" opening. The RC servomotor will be controlled by a PIC microcontroller with the fastest response it can achieve. For error detection purpose, a feedback signal will be sent back to the microcontroller via a throttle positioning sensor (TPS) to be analyzed. With existing feedback data, the microcontroller would be able to correct the error significantly

Dekomposisi dan Rekombinasi Pengacakan Citra Digital dengan Logistic Mapping

Beberapa citra digital membutuhkan privasi dan kerahasiaan, seperti citra medis, citra diagnosa medis jarak jauh, citra rahasia melalui komunikasi internet, atau citra rahasia kemiliteran. Salah satu cara untuk mengamankan informasi di dalam citra digital adalah dengan melakukan pengacakan (scrambling). Penelitian ini mengacak nilai piksel citra digital dengan mengubah nilai piksel dari sistem bilangan desimal menjadi bilangan basis empat (kuartener), kemudian mengurai (dekomposisi) keempat bit kuartener dan melakukan pengacakan terhadap keempat posisi bit berdasarkan pada bilangan acak yang dihasilkan oleh algoritma logistic mapping, kemudian bit hasil pengacakan digabungkan kembali (rekombinasi) untuk menghasilkan nilai piksel baru. Logistic mapping merupakan penghasil bilangan acak yang mampu menghasilkan deretan bilangan yang acak berdasarkan nilai kunci µ (3.569945 < µ < 4) dan nilai awal x0 (0 < x0 < 1). Hasil penelitian ini dapat melakukan pengacakan terhadap citra digital dengan dekomposisi dan rekombinasi nilai piksel berdasarkan pada nilai acak yang dihasilkan oleh algoritma logistic mapping. Hasil pengujian menunjukkan bahwa pasangan kunci-1 (µ1, x1) memiliki sensitivitas paling tinggi dalam mengacak citra, kemudian diikuti oleh pasangan kunci-2 (µ2, x2), pasangan kunci-3 (µ3, x3) dan pasangan kunci-4 (µ4, x4)

UV irradiation induces homologous recombination genes in the model archaeon, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1

BACKGROUND: A variety of strategies for survival of UV irradiation are used by cells, ranging from repair of UV-damaged DNA, cell cycle arrest, tolerance of unrepaired UV photoproducts, and shielding from UV light. Some of these responses involve UV-inducible genes, including the SOS response in bacteria and an array of genes in eukaryotes. To address the mechanisms used in the third branch of life, we have studied the model archaeon, Halobacterium sp. strain NRC-1, which tolerates high levels of solar radiation in its natural hypersaline environment. RESULTS: Cells were irradiated with 30–70 J/m(2 )UV-C and an immunoassay showed that the resulting DNA damage was largely repaired within 3 hours in the dark. Under such conditions, transcriptional profiling showed the most strongly up-regulated gene was radA1, the archaeal homolog of rad51/recA, which was induced 7-fold. Additional genes involved in homologous recombination, such as arj1 (recJ-like exonuclease), dbp (eukaryote-like DNA binding protein of the superfamily I DNA and RNA helicases), and rfa3 (replication protein A complex), as well as nrdJ, encoding for cobalamin-dependent ribonucleotide reductase involved in DNA metabolism, were also significantly induced in one or more of our experimental conditions. Neither prokaryotic nor eukaryotic excision repair gene homologs were induced and there was no evidence of an SOS-like response. CONCLUSION: These results show that homologous recombination plays an important role in the cellular response of Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 to UV damage. Homologous recombination may permit rescue of stalled replication forks, and/or facilitate recombinational repair. In either case, this provides a mechanism for the observed high-frequency recombination among natural populations of halophilic archaea

Transcriptional Responses to Biologically Relevant Doses of UV-B Radiation in the Model Archaeon, \u3cem\u3eHalobacterium\u3c/em\u3e sp. NRC-1

Background Most studies of the transcriptional response to UV radiation in living cells have used UV doses that are much higher than those encountered in the natural environment, and most focus on short-wave UV (UV-C) at 254 nm, a wavelength that never reaches the Earth\u27s surface. We have studied the transcriptional response of the sunlight-tolerant model archaeon, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1, to low doses of mid-wave UV (UV-B) to assess its response to UV radiation that is likely to be more biologically relevant. Results Halobacterium NRC-1 cells were irradiated with UV-B at doses equivalent to 30 J/m2 and 5 J/m2 of UV-C. Transcriptional profiling showed that only 11 genes were up-regulated 1.5-fold or more by both UV-B doses. The most strongly up-regulated gene was radA1 (vng2473), the archaeal homologue of RAD51/recA recombinase. The others included arj1 (vng779) (recJ-like exonuclease), top6A (vng884) and top6B (vng885) (coding for Topoisomerase VI subunits), and nrdJ (vng1644) (which encodes a subunit of ribonucleotide reductase). We have found that four of the consistently UV-B up-regulated genes, radA1 (vng2473), vng17, top6B (vng885) and vng280, share a common 11-base pair motif in their promoter region, TTTCACTTTCA. Similar sequences were found in radA promoters in other halophilic archaea, as well as in the radA promoter of Methanospirillum hungatei. We analysed the transcriptional response of a repair-deficient ΔuvrA (vng2636) ΔuvrC (vng2381) double-deletion mutant and found common themes between it and the response in repair proficient cells. Conclusion Our results show a core set of genes is consistently up-regulated after exposure to UV-B light at low, biologically relevant doses. Eleven genes were up-regulated, in wild-type cells, after two UV-B doses (comparable to UV-C doses of 30 J/m2 and 5 J/m2), and only four genes were up-regulated by all doses of UV-B and UV-C that we have used in this work and previously. These results suggest that high doses of UV-C radiation do not necessarily provide a good model for the natural response to environmental UV. We have found an 11-base pair motif upstream of the TATA box in four of the UV-B up-regulated genes and suggest that this motif is the binding site for a transcriptional regulator involved in their response to UV damage in this model archaeon

Transcriptional responses to biologically relevant doses of UV-B radiation in the model archaeon, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1

Most studies of the transcriptional response to UV radiation in living cells have used UV doses that are much higher than those encountered in the natural environment, and most focus on short-wave UV (UV-C) at 254 nm, a wavelength that never reaches the Earth's surface. We have studied the transcriptional response of the sunlight-tolerant model archaeon, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1, to low doses of mid-wave UV (UV-B) to assess its response to UV radiation that is likely to be more biologically relevant. Halobacterium NRC-1 cells were irradiated with UV-B at doses equivalent to 30 J/m2 and 5 J/m2 of UV-C. Transcriptional profiling showed that only 11 genes were up-regulated 1.5-fold or more by both UV-B doses. The most strongly up-regulated gene was radA1 (vng2473), the archaeal homologue of RAD51/recA recombinase. The others included arj1 (vng779) (recJ-like exonuclease), top6A (vng884) and top6B (vng885) (coding for Topoisomerase VI subunits), and nrdJ (vng1644) (which encodes a subunit of ribonucleotide reductase). We have found that four of the consistently UV-B up-regulated genes, radA1 (vng2473), vng17, top6B (vng885) and vng280, share a common 11-base pair motif in their promoter region, TTTCACTTTCA. Similar sequences were found in radA promoters in other halophilic archaea, as well as in the radA promoter of Methanospirillum hungatei. We analysed the transcriptional response of a repair-deficient ΔuvrA (vng2636) ΔuvrC (vng2381) double-deletion mutant and found common themes between it and the response in repair proficient cells. Our results show a core set of genes is consistently up-regulated after exposure to UV-B light at low, biologically relevant doses. Eleven genes were up-regulated, in wild-type cells, after two UV-B doses (comparable to UV-C doses of 30 J/m2 and 5 J/m2), and only four genes were up-regulated by all doses of UV-B and UV-C that we have used in this work and previously. These results suggest that high doses of UV-C radiation do not necessarily provide a good model for the natural response to environmental UV. We have found an 11-base pair motif upstream of the TATA box in four of the UV-B up-regulated genes and suggest that this motif is the binding site for a transcriptional regulator involved in their response to UV damage in this model archaeon.https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-1448-4-1

K-meson neutrinoless double muon decay as a probe of neutrino masses and mixings

Recently an upper bound on the rate of the lepton number violating decay $K^+\to \mu^+\mu^+\pi^-$ has been significantly reduced by the E865 experiment at BNL and further improvement is expected in the near future. We study this process as a possible source of information on neutrino masses and mixings. We find that it is insensitive to the light(eV domain) and heavy(GeV domain) neutrinos. However due to the effect of a resonant enhancement this decay is very sensitive to neutrinos $\nu_j$ in the mass region $245{MeV}\leq m_{\nu_j}\leq 389$ MeV. At present experimental sensitivity we deduce new stringent limits on the neutrino mixing matrix element $U_{\mu j}$ for neutrino masses in this region.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, Late

Access to mortgage credit and housing price dynamics

In real estate studies, arguably the most important topic revolves around what actually affect the price of properties. In addition to various macroeconomic factors, the mortgage industry is also believed to play a major role. Nonetheless, despite its profound implications on the banking sector, the property market, and the economy as a whole, there is no consensus as to the relationship between property price and bank mortgage lending. In light of this, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between property price and mortgage lending, along with other macroeconomic variables, in two housing sub-markets of Hong Kong (i.e. the mass housing market and the luxury housing market). The findings illustrate that one-way directional relationships are discovered 1) from mass housing price to mortgage lending; 2) from luxury housing price to mortgage lending; and 3) from mass housing price to luxury housing price. Macroeconomic factors such as GDP, inflation rate, and interest rate are also found to play a major role in influencing the prices of both property markets and the amount of outstanding mortgage loans. Implications based upon these findings are also discussed