Adaptive neuro-fuzzy modeling of battery residual capacity for electric vehicles

This paper proposes and implements a new method for the estimation of the battery residual capacity (BRC) for electric vehicles (EVs). The key of the proposed method is to model the EV battery by using the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system. Different operating profiles of the EV battery are investigated, including the constant current discharge and the random current discharge as well as the standard EV driving cycles in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. The estimated BRCs are directly compared with the actual BRCs, verifying the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed modeling method. Moreover, this method can be easily implemented by a low-cost microcontroller and can readily be extended to the estimation of the BRC for other types of EV batteries.published_or_final_versio

Socioeconomic position and subjective oral health: findings for the adult population in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The objective of this study was to assess socioeconomic inequalities in subjective measures of oral health in a national sample of adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Universal scaling relation in high-temperature superconductors

Scaling laws express a systematic and universal simplicity among complex systems in nature. For example, such laws are of enormous significance in biology. Scaling relations are also important in the physical sciences. The seminal 1986 discovery of high transition-temperature (high-T_c) superconductivity in cuprate materials has sparked an intensive investigation of these and related complex oxides, yet the mechanism for superconductivity is still not agreed upon. In addition, no universal scaling law involving such fundamental properties as T_c and the superfluid density \rho_s, a quantity indicative of the number of charge carriers in the superconducting state, has been discovered. Here we demonstrate that the scaling relation \rho_s \propto \sigma_{dc} T_c, where the conductivity \sigma_{dc} characterizes the unidirectional, constant flow of electric charge carriers just above T_c, universally holds for a wide variety of materials and doping levels. This surprising unifying observation is likely to have important consequences for theories of high-T_c superconductivity.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Dental attendance and behavioural pathways to adult oral health inequalities.

BACKGROUND: While inequalities in oral health are documented, little is known about the extent to which they are attributable to potentially modifiable factors. We examined the role of behavioural and dental attendance pathways in explaining oral health inequalities among adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. METHODS: Using nationally representative data, we analysed inequalities in self-rated oral health and number of natural teeth. Highest educational attainment, equivalised household income and occupational social class were used to derive a latent socioeconomic position (SEP) variable. Pathways were dental attendance and behaviours (smoking and oral hygiene). We used structural equation modelling to test the hypothesis that SEP influences oral health directly and also indirectly via dental attendance and behavioural pathways. RESULTS: Lower SEP was directly associated with fewer natural teeth and worse self-rated oral health (standardised path coefficients, -0.21 (SE=0.01) and -0.10 (SE=0.01), respectively). We also found significant indirect effects via behavioural factors for both outcomes and via dental attendance primarily for self-rated oral health. While the standardised parameters of total effects were similar between the two outcomes, for number of teeth, the estimated effect of SEP was mostly direct while for self-rated oral health, it was almost equally split between direct and indirect effects. CONCLUSION: Reducing inequalities in dental attendance and health behaviours is necessary but not sufficient to tackle socioeconomic inequalities in oral health

Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number Is Associated with Breast Cancer Risk

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number in peripheral blood is associated with increased risk of several cancers. However, data from prospective studies on mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk are lacking. We evaluated the association between mtDNA copy number in peripheral blood and breast cancer risk in a nested case-control study of 183 breast cancer cases with pre-diagnostic blood samples and 529 individually matched controls among participants of the Singapore Chinese Health Study. The mtDNA copy number was measured using real time PCR. Conditional logistic regression analyses showed that there was an overall positive association between mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk (Ptrend = 0.01). The elevated risk for higher mtDNA copy numbers was primarily seen for women with <3 years between blood draw and cancer diagnosis; ORs (95% CIs) for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th quintile of mtDNA copy number were 1.52 (0.61, 3.82), 2.52 (1.03, 6.12), 3.12 (1.31, 7.43), and 3.06 (1.25, 7.47), respectively, compared with the 1st quintile (Ptrend = 0.004). There was no association between mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk among women who donated a blood sample ≥3 years before breast cancer diagnosis (Ptrend = 0.41). This study supports a prospective association between increased mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk that is dependent on the time interval between blood collection and breast cancer diagnosis. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings and to elucidate the biological role of mtDNA copy number in breast cancer risk. © 2013 Thyagarajan et al

Adaptive Evolution of the Myo6 Gene in Old World Fruit Bats (Family: Pteropodidae)

PMCID: PMC3631194This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Four small puzzles that Rosetta doesn't solve

A complete macromolecule modeling package must be able to solve the simplest structure prediction problems. Despite recent successes in high resolution structure modeling and design, the Rosetta software suite fares poorly on deceptively small protein and RNA puzzles, some as small as four residues. To illustrate these problems, this manuscript presents extensive Rosetta results for four well-defined test cases: the 20-residue mini-protein Trp cage, an even smaller disulfide-stabilized conotoxin, the reactive loop of a serine protease inhibitor, and a UUCG RNA tetraloop. In contrast to previous Rosetta studies, several lines of evidence indicate that conformational sampling is not the major bottleneck in modeling these small systems. Instead, approximations and omissions in the Rosetta all-atom energy function currently preclude discriminating experimentally observed conformations from de novo models at atomic resolution. These molecular "puzzles" should serve as useful model systems for developers wishing to make foundational improvements to this powerful modeling suite.Comment: Published in PLoS One as a manuscript for the RosettaCon 2010 Special Collectio