The Road Trackers

An automotive sensor system is being designed to increase driver awareness in adverse weather conditions. The system can be divided into two sections: detection in the blind spots, and front-rear long range detection. The former will provide the driver with a visual indication whether or not someone is in the blind spot. The latter will tell the driver the distance to an obstacle in front (or behind) up to a distance of 1600 feet. Critical minimum and maximum distances were calculated, and appropriate sensors were selected. Ultrasonic sensors were selected for the blind spot region because of their low cost, acceptable attenuation, and small size. The preliminary selection for long-range detection is millimeter wave sensors because of their low attenuation (even in adverse weather conditions) and small angular resolution. Their cost, while high, should still be within budget

Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs): Serving and Advocating for the Educational Needs of Southeast Asian American Students

The purpose of this article is to highlight how AANAPISI programs can intentionally design their programming to support Southeast Asian American (SEAA) students, and their responsibility in effectively advocating for them at the policy level. In this effort, this article will first provide a background and an overview of the AANAPISI landscape over the past decade. Then it will focus on one exemplary AANAPISI, providing examples of programmatic mechanisms and efforts used to serve SEAA students. This article concludes by providing recommendations and discussing the implications regarding the role of AANAPISIs in effectively serving and advocating for their SEAA students at the policy level

Iterated local search for the workload balancing problem in service enterprises

In this paper, we consider a major telecommunication service company facing seasonal demand and time-varying capacity. A uniform lead-time, which is the maximum time span a customer has to wait before receiving the required service, is quoted to all customers. We present quadratic integer programming model for the problem of scheduling jobs to meet the promised lead-time with objective of workload balancing across time. Since in practice, solving such a problem to optimality can be very dicult, two variants of a variable neighborhood search heuristic are proposed. Extensive computational tests show that our approaches are able to provide high quality solutions efficiently

The Effect of N-Terminal Cyclization on the Function of the HIV Entry Inhibitor 5P12-RANTES.

Despite effective treatment for those living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), there are still two million new infections each year. Protein-based HIV entry inhibitors, being highly effective and specific, could be used to protect people from initial infection. One of the most promising of these for clinical use is 5P12-RANTES, a variant of the chemokine RANTES/CCL5. The N-terminal amino acid of 5P12-RANTES is glutamine (Gln; called Q0), a residue that is prone to spontaneous cyclization when at the N-terminus of a protein. It is not known how this cyclization affects the potency of the inhibitor or whether cyclization is necessary for the function of the protein, although the N-terminal region of RANTES has been shown to be critical for receptor interactions, with even small changes having a large effect. We have studied the kinetics of cyclization of 5P12-RANTES as well as N-terminal variations of the protein that either produce an identical cyclized terminus (Glu0) or that cannot similarly cyclize (Asn0, Phe0, Ile0, and Leu0). We find that the half life for N-terminal cyclization of Gln is roughly 20 h at pH 7.3 at 37 °C. However, our results show that cyclization is not necessary for the potency of this protein and that several replacement terminal amino acids produce nearly-equally potent HIV inhibitors while remaining CC chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) antagonists. This work has ramifications for the production of active 5P12-RANTES for use in the clinic, while also opening the possibility of developing other inhibitors by varying the N-terminus of the protein

Analysis of glycolipids in vegetable lecithin with HPLC-ELSD

Vegetable lecithins play an important role in the microstructural and macroscopic properties of food and cosmetic products. They are widely used as a natural emulsifier. As lecithin is a by-product of the vegetable oil refining industry, its composition is quite variable and rather complex. Therefore, a more complete view on the chemical composition of lecithin would assist in elucidating its functionality. This study focused on the separation and quantification of several glycolipid classes in lecithin, namely (1) digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG) and monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG), (2) steryl glucosides, (3) esterified steryl glucosides and (4) cerebrosides, using HPLC-ELSD. MGDG was not detected in soy lecithin

Zero-Propellant Maneuver[TM] Flight Results for 180 deg ISS Rotation

This paper presents results for the Zero Propellant Maneuver (ZPM) TradeMark attitude control concept flight demonstration. On March 3, 2007, a ZPM was used to reorient the International Space Station 180 degrees without using any propellant. The identical reorientation performed with thrusters would have burned 110lbs of propellant. The ZPM was a pre-planned trajectory used to command the CMG attitude hold controller to perform the maneuver between specified initial and final states while maintaining the CMGs within their operational limits. The trajectory was obtained from a PseudoSpectral solution to a new optimal attitude control problem. The flight test established the breakthrough capability to simultaneously perform a large angle attitude maneuver and momentum desaturation without the need to use thrusters. The flight implementation did not require any modifications to flight software. This approach is applicable to any spacecraft that are controlled by momentum storage devices

A lunar space station

A concept for a space station to be placed in low lunar orbit in support of the eventual establishment of a permanent moon base is proposed. This space station would have several functions: (1) a complete support facility for the maintenance of the permanent moon base and its population; (2) an orbital docking area to facilitate the ferrying of materials and personnel to and from Earth; (3) a zero gravity factory using lunar raw materials to grow superior GaAs crystals for use in semiconductors and mass produce inexpensive fiber glass; and (4) a space garden for the benefit of the air food cycles. The mission scenario, design requirements, and technology needs and developments are included as part of the proposal