Development of prototype smart helmet and blind spot detection for motorcyclist safety features

Motorcycle safety concerns many aspects of vehicle and equipment design as well as operator skill and training that are unique to motorcycle riding. This project focus on the development of prototype smart helmet and blind spot detection features for motorcyclist safety system. The main objective of this work is to reduce the blind spot area for motorcyclists. The developed system are capable of measure appropriate distances (~ 10 cm to 50 cm) of insecurity among motorcyclists and vehicle behind by means of ultrasonic sensors and vibrator motor. The ultrasonic sensor play a role to detect any vehicle from behind the motorcyclist and system will alert the rider through the vibrator motor, LEDs and buzzer that install at the helmet as a warning to the rider about the range of insecurity. The system employed Arduino UNO as the main processing unit to control all the connectivity components. OLED display are also connected to the Arduino UNO mounted in front of the rider for displaying the distance detected by the ultrasonic sensor. Wireless transceiver module is use to serve as a data transmitter and receiver in which transmitted data collected by ultrasonic sensor will wirelessly transmit to the helmet node which is the receiver unit. In conclusion, this developed prototype project work are able to provide better solution for motorcyclist safety features in order to reduce the probability of accidental rate

Development of cut to length machine using programmable logic controller with human machine interface

Industrial automation helps to eliminate the possibility of human error, reducing costs, saves time-consuming, and achieves higher productivity with better quality with the helps of the control system and technologies that enable industrial processes and machinery to operate automatically. For paper cutting applications, an automated cutter that able to cut the paper at specific lengths and operate according to the parameter setting by the user could help to save cost and time. Therefore, this work is to develop a cut to length machine using the Unitronic Jazz Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) with the combination of Human Machine Interface (HMI) features. This work aims to design and fabricate a small scale cutting machine controlled via a PLC software. To enhance the security system, one-stop center control panel is developed. The iron framework is chosen as a basement of the conveyor and cutter, with the fabrication process consists of five stages. The relationship between the measured speeds of the Alternating Current (AC) induction motor over the frequency range is discussed. From the experiment, the result shows that the machine able to cut the paper with a good precision and accuracy at the length of 1, 5, 6 and 7 inch for the paper type of 50, 70 and 80 gram per square meter (gsm) with the constant pneumatic pressure of 7.5MPa and constant motor speed at 60rpm (2Hz)

Interleukin-18 Gene 105A/C Genetic Polymorphism is Associated With the Susceptibility of Kawasaki Disease

[[abstract]]Interleukin-18 (IL-18)-656T/G, -607A/C, and -137C/G promoter polymorphisms had been reported associated with Kawasaki disease (KD). An IL-18 genetic A/C polymorphism at coding position 105 (rs549908) has been linked with asthma, rheumatoid, and systemic lupus erythematosus. We tested a hypothesis that the IL-18 105A/C genetic polymorphism confers KD susceptibility. Study participants were Taiwanese KD patients and a healthy control group. Our data indicated that the frequency of C allele was significantly higher in the patient group (13.9%) than in the control group (2.7%; P<0.0001, odds ratio [OR] = 5.93; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.57-13.73). Therefore, persons with the C allele may have higher risk of deve loping KD. In addition, compared with the haplotype frequencies between case and control groups, the KD patients with TACC haplotype appeared to be a significant "at-risk" haplotype compared with other haplotypes (OR: 4.62, 95% CI: 1.71-12.43; P = 0.001). KD patient with the TAGA haplotype appeared to be a significant "protective" haplotype compared with other haplotypes (OR: 0.51, 95% CI:0.29-0.89; P = 0.017). Our results suggest that 105A/C polymorphism and the haplotypes in IL-18 gene are associated with the risk of KD in Taiwanese population. Clin. Lab. Anal. 23:71-76, 2009. (C) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Tunneling magnetoresistance sensors with different coupled free layers

Large differences of magnetic coercivity (HC), exchange coupling field (HE), and tun- neling magnetoresistance ratio (TMR) in magnetic tunnel junctions with different coupled free layers are discussed. We demonstrate that the magnetization behavior of the free layer is not only dominated by the interfacial barrier layer but also affected largely by the magnetic or non-magnetic coupled free layers. All these parameters are sensitively controlled by the magnetic nanostructure, which can be tuned also by the magnetic annealing process. The optimized sensors exhibit a large field sensitivity of up to 261%/mT in the region of the reversal synthetic ferri- magnet at the pinned layers

IoT based smart irrigation control and monitoring system

The "Internet of things" (IoT) has been rapidly developed and applied to the various sector including automotive, manufacture, industrial, and many more. IoT also refers to connecting to another device through a network without any interactions from the human. In this project, the idea is to design and develop an irrigation system that can be control and monitor by using a mobile phone. The purpose of this work is to help agriculture sector in maintaining the moisture of their plantation automatically. The design system should be able to monitor and controller the watering system automatically by detecting the level of moisture in the soil. At the end of the project, smart irrigation system, with an IoT functionality, is successfully designed and tested. Earlier testing provides some promising result, with system can be either automatically controlled or manually control, remotely using smartphone

The existence of global weak solutions for a weakly dissipative Camassa-Holm equation in H1(R)

The existence of global weak solutions to the Cauchy problem for a weakly dissipative Camassa-Holm equation is established in the space C([0,∞)×R)nL∞([0,∞);H1(R)) under the assumption that the initial value u 0 (x) only belongs to the space H 1 (R) . The limit of viscous approximations, a one-sided super bound estimate and a space-time higher-norm estimate for the equation are established to prove the existence of the global weak solution

The patatin-containing phospholipase A pPLAIIα modulates oxylipin formation and water loss in Arabidopsis thaliana

The patatin-related phospholipase A (pPLA) hydrolyzes membrane glycerolipids to produce monoacyl compounds and free fatty acids. Phospholipids are cleaved by pPLAIIα at the sn-1 and sn-2 positions, and galactolipids, including those containing oxophytodienoic acids, can also serve as substrates. Ablation of pPLAIIα decreased lysophosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidylethanolamine levels, but increased free linolenic acid. pPLAIIα-deficient plants displayed a higher level of jasmonic acid and methyl jasmonate, as well as the oxylipin-biosynthetic intermediates 13-hydroperoxylinolenic acid and 12-oxophytodienoic acid than wild-type plants. The expression of genes involved in oxylipin production was also higher in the pPLAIIα-deficient mutant than in wild-type plants. The mutant plants lost water faster than wild type plants did. The stomata of wild type and mutant plants responded similarly to abscisic acid. In response to desiccation, the mutant and wild type leaves produced abscisic acid at the same rate, but after 4 h of desiccation, the jasmonic acid level was much higher in mutant than wild-type leaves. These results indicate that pPLAIIα negatively regulates oxylipin production and suggest a role in the removal of oxidatively modified fatty acids from membranes

Adjusting magnetic nanostructures for high-performance magnetic sensors

The magnetic properties of the soft ferromagnetic layer in magnetic tunnel junctions are one of key factors to determine the performance of magnetoresistance sensors. We use a three-step orthogonal annealing procedure to modify the nanostructures of the free layer in the magnetic tunnel junction to control features such as magnetization reversal, coercivity, exchange field, and tunnel magnetoresistance ratio. We present a sensor with an improved sensitivity as high as 3944%/mT. This magnetic sensor only dissipates 200 lW of power while operating under an applied voltage of 1V

Large T1 contrast enhancement using superparamagnetic nanoparticles in ultra-low field MRI

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are widely investigated and utilized as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast and therapy agents due to their large magnetic moments. Local field inhomogeneities caused by these high magnetic moments are used to generate T2 contrast in clinical high-field MRI, resulting in signal loss (darker contrast). Here we present strong T1 contrast enhancement (brighter contrast) from SPIONs (diameters from 11 nm to 22 nm) as observed in the ultra-low field (ULF) MRI at 0.13 mT. We have achieved a high longitudinal relaxivity for 18 nm SPION solutions, r1 = 615 s−1 mM−1, which is two orders of magnitude larger than typical commercial Gd-based T1 contrast agents operating at high fields (1.5 T and 3 T). The significantly enhanced r1 value at ultralow fields is attributed to the coupling of proton spins with SPION magnetic fluctuations (Brownian and Néel) associated with a low frequency peak in the imaginary part of AC susceptibility (χ”). SPION-based T1-weighted ULF MRI has the advantages of enhanced signal, shorter imaging times, and iron-oxidebased nontoxic biocompatible agents. This approach shows promise to become a functional imaging technique, similar to PET, where low spatial resolution is compensated for by important functional information

Removal of single point diamond-turning marks by abrasive jet polishing

Author name used in this publication: C. F. Cheung2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe