Modeling and Testing of a Series Elastic Actuator with Controllable Damping

Compliant Actuators are much safer than traditional stiff joint actuators, but at the cost of high overshoot, positional accuracy, and speed. A damper that varies its damping torque during motion is introduced to alleviate these downsides. The equations of motion for the system are derived and simulated. The simulations demonstrated a decrease in the overshoot and ringing time. A physical proof of concept was manufactured and tested. The results from the physical model were inconclusive due to a fault in the physical model. A more accurate physical test model is proposed, and is simulated

On the Technology of Heterogenization of Transition Metal Catalysts towards the Synthetic Applications in Ionic Liquid Matrix

With the invention of ionic liquids, synthetic chemistry reached a new arena towards the transition metal catalyzed reactions in the syntheses of fine, specialty, agricultural, commodity, fragrant chemicals and building blocks. Inside the ionic liquid matrix, the transition metal catalysts, when immobilized, offer a valuable solution in terms of heterogenization. This technology offers high level of recyclability without loss of activity and improves the turnover number with high selectivity. Synthetic chemists, chemical engineers and technologists continue their efforts to recover and recycle the transition metal catalysts through various methodologies to convert the processes cost effective. The processes that are reported in the literature reveals that the ionic liquids by virtue of their inertness coupled with ability to retain the catalytic materials provide an excellent solution in terms of high levels of recovery and recyclability. This chapter presents a short account on the recent development in the transition metal catalyzed reactions in ionic liquid systems where both the solvent and the catalyst were recycled and reused without any emission of volatile materials

Visible-Light Photocatalysis of Aldehyde and Carbonyl Functionalities, an Innovative Domain

The chemistry of aldehydes and resembling chromophores portraits a natural tendency to undergo chemical reactions through nucleophilic reagents, owing to the polarization arising from the electronegativity of oxygen atom, and they also can enolize as a result of the acidic nature of the α-hydrogen of the carbonyl functional group; thereby the C▬C bond forming reactions can be attained either intra- or intermolecularly. Carbonyl addition reactions, enolate chemistry coupled with their capability to undergo [2+2] cycloaddition reactions, and the chemistry of carbonyl compounds are being mind-numbingly exploited in the design and process development of industrially, commercially, pharmacologically, and biologically value-added compounds. Ultimately abundant name reactions were registered, and many novel reactions endlessly appear; of late, prodigious development has been reported under the heading of visible-light photocatalysis (VLPC). Fascinatingly, VLPC has opened a new domain in the synthetic organic chemistry, and this domain paves the way to access broad spectrum of organic compounds with the ease of operations. In this chapter the chemistry of carbonyls by VPLC is briefly presented, which is comprising of not only functional group transformations but also asymmetric syntheses of complex organic compounds

Advanced Low-Floor Vehicle (ALFV) Specification Research

This report details the results of research on market comparison, operational cost efficiencies, and prototype tests conducted on a novel design for an Advanced Low Floor Vehicle (ALFV), flex-route transit bus. Section I describes how the need for such a bus arises from a combination of diminishing transit funding from the federal government and demographic and transportation factors. Section II describes the unique features of this bus design that render it suitable for rural and urban operation, including improved transit passenger and wheelchair accessibility, reduced maintenance, structural design features, safety provisions, and the technical specifications of this design. Section III details the potential differences in capital and operational costs of procuring and operating this bus in a fleet. Potential cost reductions due to the long-life vehicle concept, maneuverability, operational savings (from APTA Bus Roadeo tests), and reserve fleet savings are explored. Section IV refers to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) new model bus tests (“Altoona Testing”). However, at the this time, the Altoona Bus Test Report for these tests is not yet released by the bus manufacturer, Ride Solution, Inc., as is its right under the Bus Testing Regulation. The report must be released to the public before this bus can be purchased by a transit agency using FTA funds. In addition to the standard Altoona Bus Test, additional research was conducted to determine the turning ability, suspension travel, ramp travel index, field of view for the driver, compliance to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, and timed assessment of wheelchair securement. Section IV also presents the results of these tests. Section V presents results from a market comparison that included the buses in this mid-size category that were tested at Altoona and are expected to be available for FTA grantees to purchase. The specifications and performance of the ALFV bus are compared with these buses. Section VI presents a flex-route utilization plan, and Section VII provides the results from a survey of transit professionals about their interest in the features of this bus design. Section VIII gives Ride Solution’s experience in developing the concept for ALFV. Conclusions of this report are presented in Section IX, followed by the references and appendices

The Therapeutic Potential of Nelumbo nucifera: A Comprehensive Review of Its Phytochemistry and Medicinal Properties

Nelumbo nucifera generally known as ‘sacred lotus’ is a plant with high medicinal value in traditional medicine system especially in Chinese medicine system which is having a wide distribution worldwide in Asian, Western European, American and Australian continent. All the parts of the plant have different medicinal value, as their extract contains various valuable chemical constituents which yield desired remedial effects against many diseases. The plant is used traditionally more compared to its commercial usage. It has also been used for dental and skin care products in many herbal formulations. In this review, data about its general description, its distribution, chemical constituents and therapeutic effects has been provided. The plant has various uses against many diseases and the review focus on anti-epileptic, antiviral, anticancer, antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, anti-hyperlipidemic, anthelmintic, anxiolytic & antidepressant, anti-cariogenic, analgesic, hepatoprotective, vasorelaxant, anticoagulant, anti-obesity, anti-neurodegenerative, anti-aging, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory properties of the plant

Synthesis of novel monomers containing the trifluorovinylidene group and the cyanato group and polymers thereof

Novel hybrid monomers containing both the aryltrifluorovyinyloxyether-group (TFVE-group) and the cyanato-group, their synthesis, and the synthesis of polymers made from these new hybrid monomers are disclosed

CodePlan: Repository-level Coding using LLMs and Planning

Software engineering activities such as package migration, fixing errors reports from static analysis or testing, and adding type annotations or other specifications to a codebase, involve pervasively editing the entire repository of code. We formulate these activities as repository-level coding tasks. Recent tools like GitHub Copilot, which are powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), have succeeded in offering high-quality solutions to localized coding problems. Repository-level coding tasks are more involved and cannot be solved directly using LLMs, since code within a repository is inter-dependent and the entire repository may be too large to fit into the prompt. We frame repository-level coding as a planning problem and present a task-agnostic framework, called CodePlan to solve it. CodePlan synthesizes a multi-step chain of edits (plan), where each step results in a call to an LLM on a code location with context derived from the entire repository, previous code changes and task-specific instructions. CodePlan is based on a novel combination of an incremental dependency analysis, a change may-impact analysis and an adaptive planning algorithm. We evaluate the effectiveness of CodePlan on two repository-level tasks: package migration (C#) and temporal code edits (Python). Each task is evaluated on multiple code repositories, each of which requires inter-dependent changes to many files (between 2-97 files). Coding tasks of this level of complexity have not been automated using LLMs before. Our results show that CodePlan has better match with the ground truth compared to baselines. CodePlan is able to get 5/6 repositories to pass the validity checks (e.g., to build without errors and make correct code edits) whereas the baselines (without planning but with the same type of contextual information as CodePlan) cannot get any of the repositories to pass them

Resistance/response molecular signature for oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma

Worldwide, the incidence of oral tongue cancer is on the rise, adding to the existing burden due to prevailing low survival and high recurrence rates. This study uses high-throughput expression profiling to identify candidate markers of resistance/response in patients with oral tongue cancer. Analysis of primary and post-treatment samples (12 tumor and 8 normal) by the Affymetrix platform (HG U133 plus 2) identified 119 genes as differentially regulated in recurrent tumors. The study groups had distinct profiles, with induction of immune response and apoptotic pathways in the non-recurrent and metastatic/invasiveness pathways in the recurrent group. Validation was carried out in tissues by Quantitative Real-Time PCR (QPCR) (n = 30) and Immunohistochemistry (IHC) (n = 35) and in saliva by QPCR (n = 37). The markers, COL5A1, HBB, IGLA and CTSC individually and COL5A1 and HBB in combination had the best predictive power for treatment response in the patients. A subset of markers identified (COL5A1, ABCG1, MMP1, IL8, FN1) could be detected in the saliva of patients with oral cancers with their combined sensitivity and specificity being 0.65 and 0.87 respectively. The study thus emphasizes the extreme prognostic value of exploring markers of treatment resistance that are expressed in both tissue and saliva

Opioids exacerbate inflammation in people with well-controlled HIV

IntroductionPeople with HIV (PWH) are known to have underlying inflammation and immune activation despite virologic control. Substance use including opioid dependence is common in this population and is associated with increased morbidity and reduced lifespan. The primary objective of the present study termed opioid immunity study (OPIS), was to investigate the impact of chronic opioids in PWH.MethodsThe study recruited people with and without HIV who had opioid use disorder (OUD). Study participants (n=221) were categorized into four groups: HIV+OP+, n=34; HIV-OP+, n=66; HIV+OP-, n=55 and HIV-OP-, n=62 as controls. PWH were virally suppressed on ART and those with OUD were followed in a syringe exchange program with confirmation of OP use by urine drug screening. A composite cytokine score was developed for 20 plasma cytokines that are linked to inflammation. Cellular markers of immune activation (IA), exhaustion, and senescence were determined in CD4 and CD8 T cells. Regression models were constructed to examine the relationships of HIV status and opioid use, controlling for other confounding factors.ResultsHIV+OP+ participants exhibited highest inflammatory cytokines and cellular IA, followed by HIV-OP+ for inflammation and HIV+OP- for IA. Inflammation was found to be driven more by opioid use than HIV positivity while IA was driven more by HIV than opioid use. In people with OUD, expression of CD38 on CD28-CD57+ senescent-like T cells was elevated and correlated positively with inflammation.DiscussionGiven the association of inflammation with a multitude of adverse health outcomes, our findings merit further investigations to understand the mechanistic pathways involved

Arpc1b, a centrosomal protein, is both an activator and substrate of Aurora A

In addition to its function as an Arp2/3 complex subunit, Arp1cb interacts with and stimulates Aurora A at centrosomes, functioning in cell cycle progression