Car collision avoidance with velocity obstacle approach

The obstacle avoidance maneuver is required for an autonomous vehicle. It is essential to define the system's performance by evaluating the minimum reaction times of the vehicle and analyzing the probability of success of the avoiding operation. This paper presents a collision avoidance algorithm based on the velocity bstacle approach that guarantees collision-free maneuvers. The vehicle is controlled by an optimal feedback control named FLOP, designed to produce the best performance in terms of safety and minimum kinetic collision energy. Dimensionless accident evaluation parameters are proposed to compare different crash scenarios

Evaluation of perampanel as monotherapy for focal seizures: Experience from open-label extension studies

Perampanel, a selective, non-competitive α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor antagonist, is approved for adjunctive treatment of focal seizures, with or without secondarily generalized seizures, and for primary generalized tonic–clonic seizures in patients with epilepsy aged ≥ 12 years. Perampanel was recently approved for monotherapy use for focal seizures in the U.S.A. Anti-seizure drug monotherapy may be preferable to polytherapy, which is generally associated with increased toxicity, non-compliance, and cost. Here, we report cases where patients had converted to perampanel monotherapy during open-label extension (OLEx) portions of 9 Phase II and III studies. Of 2245 patients who enrolled in the OLEx studies, we identified 7 patients with drug-resistant focal seizures who discontinued all non-perampanel anti-seizure drugs and were maintained on perampanel monotherapy for ≥ 91 days until the end of data cut-off. Patients received perampanel monotherapy for up to 1099 days (157 weeks), most at a modal dose of 12 mg. Seizure data were available for 6 patients, of whom 5 had a ≥ 90% reduction in overall seizure frequency between baseline and their last 13-week period of monotherapy (3 were seizure-free). Perampanel monotherapy was generally well tolerated and the safety profile during perampanel monotherapy was consistent with clinical and post-marketing experience in the adjunctive setting. This analysis included a small proportion of patients with highly drug-resistant focal seizures who converted to monotherapy during OLEx studies. While these limited data are encouraging in suggesting that perampanel might be useful as a monotherapy, further studies are required to explore outcomes in a less drug-resistant population, where a larger proportion of patients might benefit from monotherapy. © 2017 The Author

A stimulating effect of guanyl nucleotides on the rat-liver soluble cyclic GMP high-affinity phosphodiesterase activity

AbstractThe high affinity (low Km) cyclic GMP phosphodiesterase (PDE) is activated by GTP, while the cyclic AMP PDE is not. GTP and its hydrolysis-resistant analogue, guanylylimidodiphosphate (GppNHp), display a half-maximal stimulating effect at almost the same concentration (5 × 10−6M). The GTP stimulating effect is not observed when the socalled cyclic GMP low affinity (high Km) PDE is operative. GTP cooperates with the increase of the substrate concentration on removing the IBMX inhibitory effect. The isolation through a classical chromatographic procedure on a DEAE-cellulose column, of a PDE fraction specific for cyclic GMP, results in the loss of the GTP stimulating effect

Efficacy and safety of perampanel in patients with drug-resistant partial seizures after conversion from double-blind placebo to open-label perampanel

SummaryObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy and safety of perampanel in patients with drug-resistant partial seizures after the conversion from double-blind placebo in three phase III studies to open-label perampanel, and to assess the impact of perampanel titration rates through a comparison of weekly vs biweekly dose increases.MethodsPatients who completed the three multinational, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III core studies (studies 304, 305, or 306) were eligible to enroll in the extension study (study 307). Patients completing the double-blind treatment (6-week titration, 13-week maintenance) with placebo (DB-PBO) or perampanel (DB-PER) began the extension study with a 16-week blinded conversion period, during which DB-PBO patients were switched to perampanel. Doses were titrated in 2-mg increments (biweekly) to an individualized maximum tolerated dose of perampanel (up to 12mg/day). Patients then entered a planned, open-label treatment period.ResultsPerampanel treatment during the extension study reduced total seizure frequency/28 days relative to the double-blind prerandomization baseline regardless of prior perampanel or placebo treatment in the core studies. In the DB-PBO patients, median percent reductions in seizure frequency at the end of the double-blind period, at the end of the conversion period, and at Weeks 40–52 in the open-label maintenance period were 18.6%, 44.3%, and 55.0%, respectively. Seizure control was also improved in the DB-PER patients during the extension period compared to the end of the double-blind period. Responder rates were similar between the 2 patient groups at the end of the conversion period. Perampanel was well tolerated, with the most common treatment-emergent adverse events being dizziness, somnolence, weight increase, irritability, fatigue, and headache. For those patients randomized to the 12mg group (DB-PER 12mg), 78.4% reached the daily dose of 10 or 12mg by the end of the 6-week titration period of the double-blind phase. By the end of the 16-week conversion period of the extension study, 64.0% of DB-PBO patients reached the daily dose of 10 or 12mg. Seizure frequency reduction was greater after the first 13-week maintenance period of the extension study in the DB-PBO group compared to patients assigned to DB-PER 12mg during the 13-week maintenance period of the double-blind study.ConclusionPatients who received placebo in the phase III core DB studies and transitioned to perampanel in the open-label extension study (DB-PBO) achieved seizure control at the end of the conversion period similar to that of patients who had been previously exposed to perampanel (DB-PER) as well as comparable safety outcomes. Patients who received perampanel during the core studies and continued with treatment during the extension study (DB-PER) also showed sustained improvements in seizure control with long-term exposure to perampanel

Surface unmanned multipurpose research marine vehicle: SUNMARE Project

This paper presents the preliminary activities undertaken for the research project SUNMARE (Surface UNmanned multipurpose research MARine vEhicle), which aims at the development of an innovative autonomous platform for marine, oceanographic, lacustrine, and submerged/semi-submerged cultural heritage monitoring/measurements. SUNMARE is a modular ship comprising of a mother unmanned ship and a smaller autonomous vehicle. Through an innovative fully autonomous launch and recovery system (LARS), the Unmanned surface vehicle (USV) can detach and reconnect to the mother ship. The architecture of the LARS and the on-purposely designed control algorithms are here presented together with statistical recovery success analysis concerning the autonomous dynamic connection of the vehicles, so to assess the reliability of the system

final safety tolerability and seizure outcomes in patients with focal epilepsy treated with adjunctive perampanel for up to 4 years in an open label extension of phase iii randomized trials study 307

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Real-life experience with ceftobiprole in a tertiary-care hospital

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Auto-sapiens, an experimental autonomous driving system

This paper presents self-driving control experiments applied to a standard vehicle equipped with an autonomous driving kit. The Auto Sapiens project is an experimental platform to test different control strategies and develop new obstacle avoidance algorithms. The Smart Fortwo vehicle is equipped with steering, thrust and brake actuators, and proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensors to identify both real-time vehicle attitude and obstacles on the track. The vehicle is controlled by a hardware in the loop system, in which innovative nonlinear control logics, called Feedback Local Optimality Principle FLOP, are implemented to achieve high performance in maintaining the stability of the vehicle during avoidance abrupt maneuvers. Tests were carried out through an adhoc vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication system to share location, speed, heading and size information between the obstacle and the controlled vehicle. Eventually, a performance analysis of the system is made in terms of crash probability

Gait optimization method for quadruped locomotion

The scope of the paper is to develop a methodology for finding optimal gaits of a quadruped robot using genetic algorithm, comparing the results to the ones resulting from natural evolution. The optimization is performed over pre-imposed contact forces to find the best shapes that guarantees the minimum en-ergy consumption during a single stride cycle. The dynamic formulation of the four-dimensional model is developed without involving any specific kinematic mechanism for the legs, considering the entire gait spectrum a quadruped can exhibit. The optimization model consists of a set of constraints that ensure the feasibility and stability of the gaits. Results are presented for an optimization re-quiring a constant speed of 1.35 /. The optimal gait was found to be consistent to nature, suggesting that energy consumption is one of the key factors contrib-uting to the evolution of gaiting patterns in quadrupeds. Eventually, a comparison between different existing gait patterns is carried out in terms of foot contact time and energy consumption

Graves, distribution and social memory: towards a new definition of funerary landscapein Oman

From 2014 Italian team, directed by Sabatino Laurenza, worked in the Sultanate of Oman for rescue archaeological excavations for roads construction. The excavations on the Batinah Expressway alignment in Sohar area touched three graveyards with different typologies of graves and with materials of different periods (from Bronze age to Sasanian and early Islamic). The results pushed us to apply a new approach to the “funerary landscape” study of the region. In this paper we present the “funerary landscape” as a specific type of archaeological landscape, focusing on a “mapscape” of the funerary sites and a detailed account of graves typologies and funerary finds (burialscape) and the relations between burials, disposal of the graves in the environment (funeraryscape) and the social memory of the group participating in the remembrance of the burial, through a series of standardized uses (i.e. graves organized in large groups over wide area, the repeated disposal of the dead in the same place, etc.). Those and other aspects let the area to become a place of remembrance of persons in a community’s social memory, reflecting the subscription of several communities to a similar set of guiding principles for creating and maintaining social memory