Supermileage Vehicle Drivetrain Design

The current Cal Poly Supermileage team has faced issues regarding the efficiency and durability of their SMV vehicle’s drivetrain. After conducting research to solve their current issues, we developed a final drivetrain configuration that will improve the performance and life of the vehicle. This report outlines some of the completed research including: a table of designs used by other teams, a table of patents that can be applied to our design, and a list of technical literature we can use to better our design. It also summarizes our goals and objectives, including a table of the engineering specifications of the drivetrain along with their target requirements and how we plan to achieve these targets. Also included, is the process we took to choose our final design starting with multiple different concepts and how we picked them, narrowing down the concepts to the best one by means of research and a decision matrix, choosing our final design, and analysis and risk factors. Based on this, we have chosen a single reduction chain driven drivetrain, very similar to the previous design, as our final design because it can result in the best efficiency while still being compatible with the other components of the drivetrain. We have decided to focus design on the rear hub and sprocket since they were the major factors in low efficiency and damage for the previous vehicle. We reverse engineered a hub as a base for our purpose-built hub, and we designed a new sprocket and axle. In this report, we cover how we produced the final design, manufactured the components, and tested design specifications to prove the viability of the design. Finally, future improvements and recommendations to improve the design for future iterations

Effective Loss of Multiplexed ATM Cell Streams

Cell loss is an inherent problem of ATM networks. The magnitude of the service degeneration caused by cell loss depends on the application and loss distribution. This paper introduces a new performance criterion, called effective loss, which can quantitatively measure this degradation. Effective loss is particularly suitable for block-oriented transmissions, such as file transfer applications, but can also be applied to a broad range of other applications. In this paper the effective loss measure is applied to the study of the effectiveness of bandwidth reservation mechanisms in an ATM multiplexer. Numerical results demonstrate circumstances under which bandwidth reservation improves performance as well as circumstances in which it degrades performance

A Novel Dual-Membranes WGS Reactor with Palladium Alloy and Polyvinyl Alcohol Membranes for Enhanced Hydrogen Recovery

A novel membrane reactor concept including palladium alloy membrane (selective to H2) and polyvinyl alcohol membrane (selective to CO2) is proposed for water gas shift reaction. The mathematical model of the reactor is developed for two reactor schemes, namely plug dual-membrane reactor (PDMR) and CSTR dual-membrane reactor (CDMR) with uni-dimensional and non-isothermal conditions. A comparison between PDMR and palladium alloy membrane reactor (PAMR) showed that PDMR volume becomes 30 % less than PAMR with 20 bar increase in feed pressure. Then the effect of Damkholer number, feed composition, and feed pressure on hydrogen recovery and CO conversion for PDMR and CDMR has been studied. Under the same operating conditions, CO conversion in PDMR is 10 % more than CDMR while its temperature decreases. The new proposed reactor configuration could pave the way for simultaneous production of hydrogen, increased CO conversion, and CO2 separation on an industrial scale

Caspase-dependent signaling underlies glioblastoma cell death in response to the fungal metabolite, fusarochromanone

Fungal metabolites continue to show promise as a viable class of anticancer agents. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy of the fungal metabolite, fusarochromanone (FC101), for its antitumor activities in glioblastomas, which have a median survival of less than two years and a poor clinical response to surgical resection, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Using clinically applicable doses, we demonstrated that FC101 induced glioblastoma apoptotic cell death via caspase dependent signaling, as indicated by the cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase, glioblastoma (PARP). FC101 also induced differential reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in glioblastoma cells, contrasting a defined role of oxidative stress in apoptotic cell death observed with other fungal metabolites. Furthermore, the antitumorigenic effects of FC101 on tumor cell migration were assessed. Cell migration assays revealed that FC101 significantly reduced the migratory capacity of glioblastomas, which are incredibly invasive tumors. Taken together, the present study establishes FC101 as a candidate anticancer agent for the cooperative treatment of glioblastomas

Synthesis and Characterization of Core-shell ZrO2/PAAEM/PS Nanoparticles

This work demonstrates the synthesis of core-shell ZrO2/PAAEM/PS nanoparticles through a combination of sol–gel method and emulsifier-free emulsion polymerizaiton. By this method, the modified nanometer ZrO2cores were prepared by chemical modification at a molecular level of zirconium propoxide with monomer of acetoacetoxyethylmethacrylate (AAEM), and then copolymerized with vinyl monomer to form uniform-size hybrid nanoparticles with diameter of around 250 nm. The morphology, composition, and thermal stability of the core-shell particles were characterized by various techniques including transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and thermal-gravimetry analyzer (TGA). The results indicate that the inorganic–organic nanocomposites exhibit good thermal stability with the maximum decomposition temperature of ~447 °C. This approach would be useful for the synthesis of other inorganic–organic nanocomposites with desired functionalities

On asymptotically AdS-like solutions of three dimensional massive gravity

In this paper we have added Maxwell, Maxwell-Chern-Simons and gravitational Chern-Simons terms to Born-Infeld extended new massive gravity and we have found different types of (non)extremal charged black holes. For each black hole we find mass, angular momentum, entropy and temperature. Since our solutions are asymptotically AdS or warped-AdS, we infer central charges of dual CFTs by using Cardy's formula. Computing conserved charges associated to asymptotic symmetry transformations confirms calculation of central charges. For CFTs dual to asymptotically AdS solutions we find left central charges from Cardy's formula, while conserved charge approach gives both left and right central charges. For CFTs dual to asymptotically warped-AdS solutions, left and right central charges are equal when we have Maxwell-Chern-Simons term but they have different values when gravitational Chern-Simons term is included.Comment: 30 pages, 11 tables. Improved version (two new sections added for asymptotic conserved charges). Accepted in JHE

Diagnostic accuracy of a clinical diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: An international case-cohort study

We conducted an international study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) diagnosis among a large group of physicians and compared their diagnostic performance to a panel of IPF experts. A total of 1141 respiratory physicians and 34 IPF experts participated. Participants evaluated 60 cases of interstitial lung disease (ILD) without interdisciplinary consultation. Diagnostic agreement was measured using the weighted kappa coefficient (\u3baw). Prognostic discrimination between IPF and other ILDs was used to validate diagnostic accuracy for first-choice diagnoses of IPF and were compared using the Cindex. A total of 404 physicians completed the study. Agreement for IPF diagnosis was higher among expert physicians (\u3baw=0.65, IQR 0.53-0.72, p20 years of experience (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.0-0.73, p=0.229) and non-university hospital physicians with more than 20 years of experience, attending weekly MDT meetings (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.70-0.72, p=0.052), did not differ significantly (p=0.229 and p=0.052 respectively) from the expert panel (C-index=0.74 IQR 0.72-0.75). Experienced respiratory physicians at university-based institutions diagnose IPF with similar prognostic accuracy to IPF experts. Regular MDT meeting attendance improves the prognostic accuracy of experienced non-university practitioners to levels achieved by IPF experts