Aerospace Avionics and Allied Technologies

Avionics is a very crucial and important technology, not only for civil/military aircraft but also for missiles, spacecraft, micro air vehicles (MAVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Even for ground-based vehicles and underwater vehicles (UWVs), avionics is a very important segment of their successful operation and mission accomplishment. The advances in many related and supporting technologies, especially digital electronics, embedded systems, embedded algorithms/software, mobile technology, sensors and instrumentation, computer (network)-communication, and realtime operations and simulation, have given a great impetus to the field of avionics. Here, for the sake of encompassing many other applications as mentioned above, the term is used in an expanded sense: Aerospace Avionics (AA), although it is popularly known as Aviation Electronics (or Avionics). However, use of this technology is not limited to aircraft, and hence, we  can incorporate all the three types-ground, land, and underwater vehicles-under the term avionics.Defence Science Journal, 2011, 61(4), pp.287-288, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.61.112

Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems

Mobile intelligent autonomous systems (MIAS) is a fast emerging research area. Although it can be regarded as a general R&D area, it is mainly directed towards robotics. Several important subtopics within MIAS research are:(i) perception and reasoning, (ii) mobility and navigation,(iii) haptics and teleoperation, (iv) image fusion/computervision, (v) modelling of manipulators, (vi) hardware/software architectures for planning and behaviour learning leadingto robotic architecture, (vii) vehicle-robot path and motionplanning/control, (viii) human-machine interfaces for interaction between humans and robots, and (ix) application of artificial neural networks (ANNs), fuzzy logic/systems (FLS),probabilistic/approximate reasoning (PAR), Bayesian networks(BN) and genetic algorithms (GA) to the above-mentioned problems. Also, multi-sensor data fusion (MSDF) playsvery crucial role at many levels of the data fusion process:(i) kinematic fusion (position/bearing tracking), (ii) imagefusion (for scene recognition), (iii) information fusion (forbuilding world models), and (iv) decision fusion (for tracking,control actions). The MIAS as a technology is useful for automation of complex tasks, surveillance in a hazardousand hostile environment, human-assistance in very difficultmanual works, medical robotics, hospital systems, autodiagnosticsystems, and many other related civil and military systems. Also, other important research areas for MIAScomprise sensor/actuator modelling, failure management/reconfiguration, scene understanding, knowledge representation, learning and decision-making. Examples ofdynamic systems considered within the MIAS would be:autonomous systems (unmanned ground vehicles, unmannedaerial vehicles, micro/mini air vehicles, and autonomousunder water vehicles), mobile/fixed robotic systems, dexterousmanipulator robots, mining robots, surveillance systems,and networked/multi-robot systems, to name a few.Defence Science Journal, 2010, 60(1), pp.3-4, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.60.9

Meeting the Needs of Students with Learning Disabilities in Inclusive Mathematics Classrooms: The Role of Schema-Based Instruction on Mathematical Problem-Solving

In this article, we discuss schema-based instruction (SBI) as an alternative to traditional instruction for enhancing the mathematical problem solving performance of students with learning disabilities (LD). In our most recent research and developmental efforts, we designed SBI to meet the needs of middle school students with LD in inclusive mathematics classrooms by addressing the research literatures in special education, cognitive psychology, and mathematics education. This innovative instructional approach encourages students to look beyond surface features of word problems to grasp the underlying mathematical structure of ratio and proportion problems. In addition, SBI introduces students to multiple strategies for solving ratio and proportion problems and encourages the selection of appropriate strategies

An exploratory study contrasting high- and low-ability students' word problem solving: The role of schema-based instruction.

This study evaluated whether schema-based instruction (SBI), a promising method for teaching students to represent and solve mathematical word problems, impacted the learning of percent word problems. Of particular interest was the extent that SBI improved high- and low-achieving students' learning and to a lesser degree on the indirect effect of SBI on transfer to novel problems, as compared to a business as usual control condition. Seventy 7th grade students in four classrooms (one high- and one low-achieving class in both the SBI and control conditions) participated in the study. Results indicate a significant treatment by achievement level interaction, such that SBI had a greater impact on high-achieving students' problem solving scores. However, findings did not support transfer effects of SBI for high-achieving students. Implications for improving the problem-solving performance of low achievers are discussed

Evaluation of arthroscopic Bankart repair in recurrent shoulder dislocation

Background: Our aim was to study the surgical and functional outcome and postoperative shoulder motion following, arthroscopic repair of the Bankart lesion of the shoulder with suture anchors.Methods: This was a study of arthroscopic Bankart repair in recurrent anterior shoulder dislocation with suture anchors in 20 patients. Most of patients had symptoms for a period ranging from 1 to 2 years and 1- 4 recurrent dislocation episodes preoperatively. Necessary radiological and haematological investigations were done. The post-operative x-rays were evaluated and the post-operative rehabilitation evaluation done at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months and 1 year, for any recurrence of symptoms.Results: In our study of 20 patients, with the mean follow up period of 12 months, the mean Rowe score post-operatively improved to 94 from a pre-operative mean score of 56.25. Out of 20 patients none had episodes of recurrent dislocation. In 15 patients 3 suture anchors were used and in 5 patients 2 suture anchors used intra operatively. The range of movement – external rotation in 90º of abduction improved in 17 patients (85%).Conclusions: We concluded that arthroscopic Bankart repair in recurrent anterior shoulder dislocation with suture anchors is effective in providing better shoulder function with range of movement and lower rate of recurrence

Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography for Blood Glucose Monitoring in Human Subjects

A device based on Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography is developed to monitor blood glucose levels in human subjects. The device was initially tested with tissue phantom. The measurements with human subjects for various glucose concentration levels are found to be linearly dependent on the degree of circular polarization obtainable from the PS-OCT.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

New fractional integral inequalities associated with pathway operator

This paper deals with the derivation of certain integral inequalities involving fractional integral operators of Chebyshev type by an application of the pathway fractional integral operator. The results obtained are of general character and provide extension of results given by Belarbi and Dahmani