Development of an Active Flight Envelope Warning Method for General Aviation Aircraft

Engineering: 4th Place, Honorable Mention (The Ohio State University Denman Undergraduate Research Forum)Loss of control incidents in flight are the primary cause of fatal general aviation accidents. By definition, a loss of control event is a preventable occurrence where a pilot should have maintained or regained control of their aircraft. Giving a pilot sufficient warning to correct dangerous situations is crucial in preventing loss of control. Existing warning methods are based on physical margins of aircraft limitations and do not directly consider how much time is left to act before loss of control. This research focuses on the development of a method that uses real-time inertial and aerodynamic data to calculate and improve warnings of flight envelope limitations. X-Plane 10, a realistic flight simulator, has been used to simulate the flight of a Cessna 172, a common general aviation aircraft. The flight model of X-Plane has been compared to empirical data with favorable results thus far, indicating X-Plane is a reasonable platform on which to investigate an active warning system. Development of a software plugin for the warning system is underway. The plugin uses live flight model and aircraft data from X-Plane to consider proximity to a potential loss of control event before issuing a warning. Preliminary results suggest significant (>1 second) improvement over traditional stall warnings. With careful consideration of the physical state of the aircraft, the system is meant to always give the pilot at least 2 or 3 seconds to correctly react to a dangerous situation. This type of "constant time" warning is a novel approach to preventing loss of control and offers distinct advantages over more traditional methods, which can leave pilots with very little time to react. A proof-of-concept for this warning technique opens possibilities of more capable yet less costly loss of control mitigation systems that can greatly reduce general aviation fatalities.Undergraduate Honors Committee in the College of Engineering (Scholarship)Academic Major: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineerin

Nodes, paranodes and neuropathies

This review summarises recent evidence supporting the involvement of the specialised nodal and perinodal domains (the paranode and juxtaparanode) of myelinated axons in the pathology of acquired, inflammatory, peripheral neuropathies.The identification of new target antigens in the inflammatory neuropathies heralds a revolution in diagnosis, and has already begun to inform increasingly targeted and individualised therapies. Rapid progress in our basic understanding of the highly specialised nodal regions of peripheral nerves serves to strengthen the links between their unique microstructural identities, functions and pathologies. In this context, the detection of autoantibodies directed against nodal and perinodal targets is likely to be of increasing clinical importance. Antiganglioside antibodies have long been used in clinical practice as diagnostic serum biomarkers, and associate with specific clinical variants but not to the common forms of either acute or chronic demyelinating autoimmune neuropathy. It is now apparent that antibodies directed against several region-specific cell adhesion molecules, including neurofascin, contactin and contactin-associated protein, can be linked to phenotypically distinct peripheral neuropathies. Importantly, the immunological characteristics of these antibodies facilitate the prediction of treatment responsiveness

Myelination: some receptors required

Feltri et al. (2001)(this issue) succeed in disrupting β1 integrin specifically in Schwann cells, and in so doing, demonstrate that it is required for normal myelination. Their results reveal that signaling by an extracellular matrix receptor plays a key role in the differentiation of myelinating Schwann cells

Agent Satisfaction with Extension Publications: An Exploratory Study

In this age of high speed, electronic communication technologies, Extension bulletins and fact sheets are often regarded as less important or desirable than the new high-tech delivery systems. Yet studies of audiences, ranging from groups like farmers to the general public, find that publications are generally the most frequently mentioned source of Extension information. In fact, some studies report that publications are the preferred source of educational information from Cooperative Extension (Yarbrough. 1987)

Underpinning and Leveling Settled Pipes and Channel

Settlement of a new reinforced concrete channel and related pipes was creatively underpinned and raised utilizing steel mini piles and compaction grout pile elements. The conditions that may have caused the settlement are systematically reviewed and details of construction are presented

Cryogenic Behavior of the High Temperature Crystal Oscillator PX-570

Microprocessors, data-acquisition systems, and electronic controllers usually require timing signals for proper and accurate operation. These signals are, in most cases, provided by circuits that utilize crystal oscillators due to availability, cost, ease of operation, and accuracy. Stability of these oscillators, i.e. crystal characteristics, is usually governed, amongst other things, by the ambient temperature. Operation of these devices under extreme temperatures requires, therefore, the implementation of some temperature-compensation mechanism either through the manufacturing process of the oscillator part or in the design of the circuit to maintain stability as well as accuracy. NASA future missions into deep space and planetary exploration necessitate operation of electronic instruments and systems in environments where extreme temperatures along with wide-range thermal swings are countered. Most of the commercial devices are very limited in terms of their specified operational temperature while very few custom-made and military-grade parts have the ability to operate in a slightly wider range of temperature. Thus, it is becomes mandatory to design and develop circuits that are capable of operation efficiently and reliably under the space harsh conditions. This report presents the results obtained on the evaluation of a new (COTS) commercial-off-the-shelf crystal oscillator under extreme temperatures. The device selected for evaluation comprised of a 10 MHz, PX-570-series crystal oscillator. This type of device was recently introduced by Vectron International and is designed as high temperature oscillator [1]. These parts are fabricated using proprietary manufacturing processes designed specifically for high temperature and harsh environment applications [1]. The oscillators have a wide continuous operating temperature range; making them ideal for use in military and aerospace industry, industrial process control, geophysical fields, avionics, and engine control. They exhibit low jitter and phase noise, consume little power, and are suited for high shock and vibration applications. The unique package design of these crystal oscillators offers a small ceramic package footprint, as well as providing both through-hole mounting and surface mount options

Development of an Active Flight Envelope Warning Method for General Aviation Aircraft

Honorable Mention - Denman Undergraduate Research Forum 2015The term "general aviation" accounts for all civilian flights that are not scheduled (or chartered) passenger airlines. Loss of control incidents in flight are the primary cause of fatal general aviation accidents. By definition, a loss of control event is a preventable occurrence where a pilot should have maintained or regained control of their aircraft. Giving a pilot sufficient warning to correct dangerous situations is crucial in preventing loss of control. Existing warning methods are based on physical margins of aircraft limitations and do not directly consider how much time is left to act before loss of control. This research focuses on the development of a method that uses real-time inertial and aerodynamic data to calculate and improve warnings of flight envelope limitations. X-Plane 10, a realistic flight simulator, was used to simulate the flight of a Cessna 172, a common general aviation aircraft. The flight model of X-Plane has been compared to empirical data with favorable results, indicating X-Plane is a reasonable platform on which to investigate an active warning system. The development of an X-Plane software plugin for a constant-time warning system method is discussed in detail. The plugin utilizes aircraft and flight model data from X-Plane to consider proximity to a potential loss of control event before issuing a warning. When configured to warn the pilot 2.2 seconds before loss of control, coefficient of lift based methods showed up to an additional 1.1 seconds of margin when compared to traditional stall warning methods and an overall stall warning margin of approximately 2 seconds. With careful consideration of the physical state of the aircraft, the system is meant to give the pilot at least 2 or 3 seconds to correctly react to a dangerous situation. This type of "constant-time" warning is a novel approach to preventing loss of control and offers distinct advantages over more traditional methods, which can leave pilots with very little time to react. The method demonstrated can use visual and aural warnings and can be modified to adjust its time warning margin based on the potential for fatal loss of control. Such a system could be integrated into current general aviation aircraft using digital cockpit hardware or a standalone electronic box. The proof-of-concept created for this warning technique opens possibilities of more capable yet less costly loss of control mitigation systems that have the potential to greatly reduce general aviation fatalities.Undergraduate Honors Committee in the College of Engineering (Scholarship)No embargoAcademic Major: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineerin

An interview with Roger Nelsen

Roger Nelsen is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, USA. He studied mathematics at DePauw University (BA, 1964) and Duke University (PhD, 1969). Roger joined the faculty at Lewis & Clark in the fall of 1969, and retired in 2009. Prior to Lewis & Clark, Roger spent a year with the Biostatistics Unit of the Centre International de Recherche sur le Cancer in Lyon, France. He has had visiting appointments at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In addition to his monograph "An Introduction to Copulas", Roger has authored or co-authored eleven books published by the Mathematical Association of America. He has served on the editorial boards of two MAA journals and several of their book series. The fifth interview of this series features a conversation with Roger Nelsen. His Springer book An Introduction to Copulas is eponymous for a mathematical precise and well written entrance into the fascinating field of copulas. Moreover, it serves as a classical reference book, a large number of citations bear witness to this. He collaborated with seminal researchers in our field, and kindly shares his view and memories with us. Roger's second strand of research – a combination of mathematical puzzles, art, and visualization – are "Proofs Without Words." He published several books, containing elegant visual justifications of mathematical statements. In the following, our questions to Roger Nelsen are typeset in bold-face

Connexin32 and X-Linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease

This paper deals with the genetic defect responsible for the X-linked form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.Mutations in the gap junction geneconnexin32(Cx32) cause the X-linked form of Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, an inherited demyelinating neuropathy